#pg did

[granulesofsand]

Are we all aware that science doesn’t fall from trees? Science is humans striving towards understanding, typically with agreed upon rules of publish and ethics. People have to do science. We have to come up with the questions and find safe ways to answer the questions as best we can. Science is everchanging, because science is a work in progress. Not having scientific backing is not the same as science not backing a subject. It just means we haven’t asked those questions yet (or haven’t answered them safely or gone through the publishing stage yet). Ask the questions, or find someone to ask them for you. Science ✨

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ mentions of RAMCOA

When our programming matches up with another system: Clearly we got it from them, maybe it’s so common we picked up the lie [however long ago we first recorded it], if we take any validation from this it proves we’re faking

Vs

When our programming is unspoken of: We made it all up, this was a glaring case of mistaking imagination for memory, it’s too [obvious/obsolete/common/particular] to be real

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA

Organic alter: well, I have a stabbing pain in my abdomen, I’ve been sleeping all day until this specific time, and it’s a holiday. It must be programming. (Actually a coincidence.)

Programmed alter: well, I have a stabbing pain in my abdomen, eating makes my organs revolt, I’ve hard reset back to noctural, there’s either a demon in the room or I’m hallucinating again, the flashbacks have been awful lately, I haven’t been front since we left, and I’m overcome with bloodlust. It must be a coincidence. (Actually programming.)

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ mentions of RAMCOA, invalidation

I gotta wonder, whenever I see people talking about how brains are too unpredictable for programming to work: how are y’all coping with literally any medical field? Obviously psychiatry but anything where biology is at play. Must be mind blowing.

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ mentions of RAMCOA

I want to clarify what mixed origins means to us, the different pieces of our histories that lead us to this place.

We are a CDD system. We prefer CDS system, Complex Dissociative Structure, but we understand that our healing goal will still be considered disordered by medicine. (Our healing goal is to be free from programming, to rebuild our systems and collective in our favor, and to keep our discrete memories and traits while increasing our communication for those who might use it.)

The programming. Our abusers did not call it that, but it is what our community knows it as. We were forced, by torture and training, to grow into the system our perps wanted. We respond to cues and fit roles designed by people who genuinely believed it was the best choice. It was not our choice. We have never been a singlet, our trauma did not have a start date. It is our life.

The programming itself is where we get into endo territory. Odd, isn’t it? The poster child of DID, and it’s part of our endo-ness. Always been a system; we are protogenic. Programmed for ideology; we are a spiritual system. Coerced into existence by outsiders; we are a created system.

That’s not where it ends. We are structured with gateways, with headmates we do not consider alters because they are spiritual or otherwise metaphysical. We have dreamways, where the headmates are half-para, half-autonomous.

We have headmates we have willed into existence, have received as gifts from deities, have assembled from fragments (on purpose).

Even just in what we form new headmates for, we get people to exist near the lake, or to get a job, or to comfort existing insiders. Sometimes our NPCs become self-aware and have introspection and identity now. We snowball split, where headmates (usually alters) shatter into fragments that either stick to each other and other fragments or elaborate on their own. A lot of those happened during periods that were calmer than any, and should not have caused the distress to need that. We count that pretty normal for CDDs, but that’s not a unanimous consensus.

We don’t all agree on our origins. In fact, hardly any of us do. But we are a coerced system, and we have always been multiple — that much is non-negotiable without some heavy denial. We are mixed origins, even from a purely psychological perspective. And we’re not giving that up.

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA, programming, child death

We told the story of the two girls, minus most of the details, to our counselor. We had some residual effects, some of the pains we felt during the time of the events, but I don’t think any of them were punishments from inside people. That was huge.

This was a trauma that included a place, and describing the place is required to understand most of the content. We didn’t talk about the perpetrators, but we spoke about where it happened. We got to tell the story of the girls, not just how they died, but how they lived. Why they stuck in our collective memory instead of just the flashbacks of a few.

My bet is that it went so well because we’ve told part of it here. The typing out our memories for others to see, more than journaling, has been critical to our don’t-tell programming. We started this blog because it was the only form of communication that bypassed that training. And it turns out it weakens the whole of it.

It’s bittersweet — while this is a victory, it is still a recollection of something none of us should have gone through. We shouldn’t have to remember, because they should have lived. Should have had a life that never touched this mess.

But we celebrate! Progress is progress, no matter how grim.

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ cross discussion of RAMCOA and syscourse

I dislike that many RAMCOA/programmed systems seek out fellow survivors and then turn away endo systems. We are mixed origins because we are survivors.

We are protogenic because we have never existed as a cell in this world without extreme trauma. We were forced into developing alters since infancy, primed for dissociation before we were born. I can’t speak to the science of this, there should not be reputable studies showing causation, but the sentiment is fairly common in TBMC circles.

Our experience with RA was fundamental to the formation of our collective, and we’re not giving up the good pieces we dug out because our spirituality isn’t your (infinite) cup of tea. We’re not going to push our own views, we don’t agree amongst ourselves, but cultural humility is the bare basics we should be expecting of Western medicine (including psych fields) if we want safety in healing.

We use programmed functions to our advantage, including creating headmates. I know why this works for us (to an extent), and I could see how it would be possible with practice and without traumatic overwhelm. I want others to have access to this tool if they can make use of it!

Our story is already seven shades of unbelievable, most of which I can’t explain coherently. I will not be turning around and requiring formal evidence from anyone/many, not when I am constantly on the other side of the finger.

It’s okay to be at different milestones on different paths. It’s not okay to start throwing rocks at anyone/many who’s not walking with you(&). Nobody should be pressured into taking identity labels or fitting themselves into boxes they don’t find comfortable, and that applies to every side of this discussion.

[granulesofsand]

Hello there!

I had a question for you-- do you know much of anything about duality programming?

How to combat it? How it works? I know what it is, but knowing more would be a great help to my system.

Duality

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA/OEA (de)programming

We have a lot of duality programming. Do we know much of anything about it? Hard to say (only wrote a short essay on it).

The most active dual we deal with is good/evil. For us, this looks like angels and demons, white and red, mind and heart. These groups have the heaviest training to fight each other, though some of our duals maintain more of a distrusting truce.

Dealing with Duals

We started by keeping them away from each other. Both groups have their own extreme ideals, many of which are harmful to the body (white obeys unquestioningly, including orders to deprive the body of survival needs and cause harm to us or outsiders; red acts on emotion, including sexual and violent behaviors). The angels agree not to come around during mealtimes and to leave if we need sleep or the toilet, the demons practice impulse control, both go back inside if they have urges that would be dangerous to act on. They don’t front for urges, so they don’t fight over urges.

We taught them how they were lied to, which beliefs they held came from which shoddy staged events. We gave them choices, how far they wanted to move how fast. Let them stay within their belief system if they wanted to, and let them define the words they were fed for themselves. Taught them the different between natural consequences and punishments.

After a few months of preventative measures, we started to pick out which of each group was the most mild, who had similar external experiences, who was most willing to interact with other insiders without escalating. We tried to pair them up, getting them used to one another like introducing a new animal to a pet. Usually, the first reaction was disdain, which often led to escalation. Find them hobbies to bond over, media they can consume together, topics they both tolerate.

We have some pairs that are doing okay. ‘Good’ is a stretch, but okay.

Their groups’ higherups started to ostracize them. The few who were already working with us helped settle the defensiveness from the rest, and they’ve mostly given up trying to break the pairs.

Progress

The fighting is ongoing.

More and more of the ‘lesser’ angels and demons are coming forward looking for a partner — the ones who were mass-made, who have group loyalty but not as much ideology, or who have ideology but not so much group loyalty. These are the cannon-fodder who get recycled during the battles, and they don’t like that course so much.

We’re at a point where the violence is still going, but is more enjoyable for the participants? The higherups have some weird sexual tension happening that we’ve taken to therapy to see if it’s appropriate — it’s harm reduction, which is about as good as it gets.

How It Got Here

This dynamic was programmed in deep over the years, and it’s entangled in several of our integral structures with this dual alone. There are reflected layers for us, and they’re like pyramid schemes with each cluster under another person (in a cluster under another person). The higherups have mirrored roles based on the mythology we were raised with, and the top of each pyramid is another dual (yellow and black).

We were trained wearing clothes of the color, surrounded by people dressed like us and spewing similar beliefs. The second layer of each pyramid was trained for specific jobs, and they have symbols that code them. The bases are the mass-produced ones, and they were mostly trauma holders. The points are the most elaborate, magical-esque programmed systemmates, and they are… something else.

We had staged fights with color-coded teams, readings from cult texts and plays acted out for us. This was big for our group of origin, so we got the whole shebang. Growing up, we thought these sidesystems were external spirits from other planes.

So…

I don’t know how similar of an experience y’all had, but we’re open to talk more in DMs if that’d suit you. Only so much we can put out for the whole of the internet while staying safe ourselves.

I hope the process goes well for you, similar to ours or not.