🌱 - How did you discover you were plural?
Yay! Okay.
Uuuh, well each time this is asked we think about it more so there is more information.
For a very long time we've recognized our thoughts overlapped. As a kid it wasn't really more than noticing defying opinions and bickering and the front going "What? Weird" and moving on.
I remember at some point we watched a movie with our Mom and there was a scene where two women talked about one of their daughters having imaginary friends. In this scene they are talking about how the Mother is worried about her kid because having an imaginary friend at this age is concerning, the friend says that she'll grow out of it.
Now I don't think we ever declared having imaginary friends; we were raised by our brothers for the most part and you bet they would have made fun– at least I can only assume they would have.
But for some reason this scene made me panic. I was a year younger than the kid in the movie. I wanted to be normal. So I think at this point I really started suppressing anyone that was around.
Then we met another system in junior high. They didn't know they were a system mind you, they thought they were possessed by multiple demons that all cared for them, but also caused problems. Initially I just accepted that as their life and got to know them as they came out to talk, but when that friendship started to fail I looked online for help. Unsure I would find any, given the unique situation.
It didn't take many searches "my friend has demons in their head, how do I be a good friend?" to come across DID. I hadn't considered it being a mental illness.
At this point I'd already recognized I was being abused at home, although I was kind of (very) in denial about how bad. But as I read through the symptoms from one article to the next, I couldn't help but question myself.
Did I have this too? After hours of reading about it, I decided to just ask my friend. If anyone could help me understand, if would be them, right?
Wrong. The next day I brought it up sheepishly and they narrowed their eyes at me. They said I wasn't like them and implied I was trying to copy them. They were so angry about it I shyed away from it immediately. "Of course I don't have it, what a silly thing to think.. I'm nothing like you.."
Side note, this friend was awful to us. Even after we backed down, they ridiculed personality changes harshly when we didn't even notice. Nico – as we now know her as – acts very bubbly and is much more vibrant than a lot of us. This friend told her to "stop acting like an anime girl. I can see right through you and your act." Nico didn't front again for years.
I suppressed my headmates even more because of them.
Then came covid. I was living with our Dad, Step Mom, and (ex) boyfriend; which was awful. He broke up with me right before my birthday and moved out in the matter of days. I ended up in emergency to avoid hurting ourselves.
It was bad being there on our own. Covid didn't help with how isolated we were, and even after the restraints lifted we stayed inside and didn't socialize much online. But we had Tiktok, and as many know DID was a hot topic of this time. We honestly tried to avoid it. Would scroll as soon as there was an indicator of the topic. It kept popping up. We gave in to watching, and as we were worried about, related to it.
At first we convinced ourselves it was just to understand our ex friend, but it evolved past that. We started doing research on DID again, this time there was a lot more resources, a lot more studies to be found. We'd spend days at a time. I think to prove to myself that it wasn't what we had. In a backwards kind way? Obviously it didn't prove that.
A year after that I gave in. We had zero communication, just compressed vibes at best. I figured it was worth a try to uncover parts, if they existed.
And they did. And I've been repeatedly horrorifyed ever since/lh
Og post
