#cw integration

[gor3sigil]

[CW Talk about integration, major changes in a system, grief]

We're going through a tough time rn. We've been from being a traumagenic, heavily fragmented system to a median one. From what we've gathered in therapy and in private, most of the alters who were individuals integrated and what remains are parts of myself at different ages/emotional state.

And now, it feels like I'm struck by grief, like I lost my friends. More than a decade of being together. It feels so weird. I know that it means we healed, but a part of me struggles to get it, and another part is like, "What if we didn't actually integrate but just lost communication ?" and not knowing is hard.

Has anyone lived that kind of big change in their system ? How do you process all this ? I'm aware that you don't know much about us, and it's really specific, but any type of insight helps. Even resources. If you can. Thanks.

[pluralplur]

was poking around in a library today, found a book about multiplicity written by an integrated system. didn't know they were integrated until i read the foreword by their psych, and like... it's not a big deal, i know a lot of systems integrate and it's a valid path, but it was still sort of jarring. the beginning of the foreword was about how he didn't want to treat the sysmates as less important, how he treated them all like individuals and they were happy with that, but then it ended in (paraphrased) "as time went on, the barriers broke down and down until we were left with one whole person, [name]"

i guess it was the way the beginning let me think it was going to end in nondisordered multiplicity, combined with the way it seemed to present singlethood as the only valid way to be a complete person despite that, that just kind of hit me in the chest.

i know there's other books, but it just hurt a little bit personally. just a little bit.

[education-over-demonization]

Something we as a system hate, when we’re reading an article (we’ve been doing a lot of research so we can present accurate information here, as well as our own experiences) and it’s like oh alters are just parts of you and the goal is integration. Of course there are some systems who wish to achieve integration and that’s valid, but we don’t. So why is it that the “treatment” is something only a fraction of us want?

[selfconstructedself]

Alyria is the part that I’ve been aware of the longest. It’s been over 10 years. Before I knew what OSDD was, I thought that what I knew of Alyria was me - this confident, outgoing, strong-willed person. I didn’t understand why I was only sometimes like that, and why I felt so drastically different when I wasn’t. In retrospect, it felt more like something I was watching play out on a screen. I felt somewhat passive and amazed by it, like “Wow I didn’t know I could be this social and friendly, this is cool.” 

But nonetheless, Alyria is how I grew to see myself. But the person that I used to think I am is someone else, and now I sometimes feel more like myself when I am not really me. It’s unsettling. I know there is so much more to Alyria than the traits I identified with. I know that Alyria is a part of me, and I am a part of them, and we are a part of our broader system. I know that I also have the capacity to be confident, outgoing, strong-willed. But it’s a strange and unique kind of sadness to find out that you aren’t really who you thought you were. 

I’ve been thinking a lot about integration this past week, as I’m sure many of us in this community have. It’s such a complex, nuanced, unique experience. Everyone’s system is different. Everyone’s perspective of their alters/parts is different. Different reactions to integration are valid. When I think of integration, I think about how it felt to get a diagnosis and find out that I wasn’t integrated. I felt fear, confusion, sadness, relief. It answered a lot of questions for me, but I also grieved the loss of a part of myself. 

I don’t think of integration as becoming one, or fewer. I think of it as a process of working through trauma memories, learning to cooperate and communicate as a system, learning to recognize and process triggers. But this past week, I’ve been wondering what an integration of me and Alyria would be like. Would I feel like less of myself, or more? Would the person I thought I was all those years ago be a reality? I don’t see it happening anytime soon, and I don’t know if it will ever happen. I can’t even say for certain that it’s what I would want. But I wonder. 

-Lina-

[strangepathshikingclub]

CW FUSION (possibly of the final variety)

——————————————————————————

Okay things are weird rn. We may have fused? Or at the very least we’re combined in some long-term way. We tend to be a bit cyclical from what I can tell, separating when stressed and eventually returning back to a cohesive identity after a long enough period of time.

We have definitely been plural in some way for a while. Melody was our first host and she left after we got out of the traumatic situation we were in. We’ve had the typical disordered system things— persecutors, trauma holders, even some instances of memory fuckery of various kinds. Nix has clearly been around since middle school, Melody and I since elementary, etc. This isn’t a matter of “realized we were a singlet” because, and I cannot stress this enough, we weren’t.

We’ve recently picked a metaphor for our existence. When you wade at the beach, your footsteps kick clouds of sand into the water. We’re the individual grains of sand, floating separately as a result of disturbance. Eventually, we sink back down and return to a singular cohesive identity. We’ve had what, in hindsight, seem to be several instances of this, particularly in moving through the education system. It was going to uni that actually revealed this pattern of scattering and settling. Some of our chronologically older members (such as Melody) simply could not return to the “ground” because of the trauma. In these past few months, we’ve been working together and healing as a group, and I think that must have been what allowed us all to reach this sort-of-fused state now. I have a feeling that any other major stressor would set us back into separateness.

So, this blog will be a little quieter now. I plan on still using it— we were never out as a system anywhere but here and a few discord servers, and we need some outlet for the last five months.

Signed, Niamh, aka Garden

[mordcore]

Yo what the fuck are brains. Ours/mine is doing some rly weird stuff lately and like at this point I'm not entirely sure if I'm plural anymore?

Or more like. Ra.ido is still There apparently but it seems to be the only sysmember still in existance and the rest (me rn?) Is just....... Brain Soup. Then again i'm starting to be a consistent soup. It's less of a "idk who i am 24/7" and more of a "i Am the soup" thing ???? At least rn i sort of think i might be "the same" as yesterday evening.

We'd integrated before for a few months (and split again bc of stressors) and that was like the exact opposite experience because it was like a fusing of stable identities to create a new identity containing the old ones.

This? This is like all the old identities are fading away until theres nothing left and we are in a constant state of Identity Void. Until the void starts to become it's own thing, I guess.

My friend suggested it might be related to bpd identity confusion.

My therapist suggested allowing it to happen. I don't rly have a choice anyway so I'm trying to just,, observe. This has been going on for a few weeks or months now.

I think when I started writing this I was trying to figure out wether or not to drop the plural label from our bio but then I remembered that yesterday Rai.do was very clearly there and he still seems reacheable so I might as well let it take over for now and accept that this ramble has no point it's trying to make. Lol ok Mord out