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@too-many-mes
Yeah, I think I'm gonna delete this blog eventually, once I archive some posts, delete any I don't want up anymore, etc. (This process is going to take ages, btw, so don't think it's going to be deleted anytime soon in the next couple of days or weeks. In the meantime, you can still send me asks, I encourage it. Maybe you've always wanted to send me an ask, but felt too shy or something, now's your chance lol).
Remember you can still follow my main @me-and-my-mes-and-my-mes-and-my
I'm really, really glad I've made such an impact on so many people. I'm glad I got to share the things I've shared here.
There are some posts of mine I really like actually & want to still have available & want to be able to have on my main blog, & I actually think I'll re-make some of them on my main blog with some changes (there are some posts that I'd love to re-post with some changes to them, such as my Huuuuge post about "what you're all getting wrong about DID")
you were one of the only people with DID that I felt I could truly relate to and understand, who would voice many things that I also felt myself. now that you are moving on, I feel very alone again, but i am so happy for your recovery progress and I wish you a very happy and peaceful life. thank you for all your posts and insights, they have made me feel much less alone in the world.
š„ŗš„ŗš„ŗ This is so sweet, I appreciate this so much, this made me so so happy.
For the most part, I think I just plan on moving onto a different account at some point. Since I got this anon, I do want to give a life update though :')
The main reason I haven't really been using this account is because I simply didn't really have anything to post. I kind of felt like progress with regards to figuring out my alters, my switches, and so on has been halted for pretty much all of 2025, however this isn't true, it's just not the way it used to be.
I've made a LOT of progress.
I can catch when I switch much, much, MUCH more often in therapy, I can accept them as switches as they are instead of how I used to be where I would constantly go "I don't know, IF this is another alter/IF this is a switch, I don't know though, I'm just assuming, I could probably be wrong!!" etc. I still don't really notice them at home, but in therapy? I notice them very frequently.
Just yesterday I simply looked away from my therapist for a moment and pretty much nothing gave me the impression that I switched other than a vague feeling of feeling like I had just "come to" (holy shit typing that out actually only JUST now made me realize that that's what that means... It doesn't mean literally as if I just woke up like I always thought that meant lmao) and just a feeling of "did I switch?" And I wasn't sure at first, but I looked back at my therapist and asked her if she felt like I switched and she said yes NFNDSKA
Yesterday I actually caught some of the most switches I've been able to notice. I even noticed parts around too??? Who weren't necessarily fronting, just around.
I've been eating a lot better too. I don't know if anyone remembers, but I was struggling horrifically to eat, I suspected I had/have ARFID or something, along with my other problems that make eating hard like my IBS.
When I was watching a YouTube video ages ago about EDs, she explained basically that eating small snacks throughout the day is actually really helpful and good for you and how it provides necessary fuel even if it's small. For some reason that made so many things click for me.
A big reason why I wouldn't want to eat something was because "it's not really a full meal, I'm just going to be hungry again in 5 minutes :/" like it didn't feel worth it to eat a sandwich or a few grapes or so on.
After I watched that video, I decided to try and stop doing that. And I think that that helped me a LOT??
I still have my bad days, and of course part of it too was just having to find food I do actively like and can eat, which I have! I started to notice other things too, like, I used to think I didn't really like yogurt, but I realized that I actually love yogurt, just. With sliced fruit in it and granola. I've been eating strawberry yogurt with strawberry slices and french vanilla granola pieces nearly every day and it's delicious. It made me realize that it's just the added texture is hat makes me like it, rather than just plain yogurt on its own. I've also been eating this beef stew with carrots, potatoes, celery and green onions nearly every day. These two things are my current safe foods lol
I'm gonna try a new recipe today too, hopefully I like it.
Hmm, other than that, I'm gonna marry my gf! We will be married on Halloween :) It's not anything big, no big party or something, it's literally just getting it legally done is all. It's mainly so I can get on her insurance instead of shitty fucking medicaid. The Planned Parenthood I go to for testosterone is no longer taking my insurance so :') And also getting married so that I can have protections against my parents in case anything were to happen in the future (like I've heard stories about how they can just take all your stuff after you die or prevent others from visiting you in the hospital etc.).
My mood in general has been a million times more stable as well.
I visited my QPP recently (for the second time), for context we're mostly online friends but we met up in person back in.. April I think last year? I can't even remember lmfao but it was nice, but this time we met up weeks ago and stayed at a hotel and hung out and it was really great (I think you still follow this blog, you know who you are hehehe).
Maybe I can just revive this account, but I'm not sure what I'd post. If people have any further questions they wanna ask, doesn't even have to be about DID, you can even just ask me more questions about myself or what. Maybe give me ideas for posts :P Maybe this anon will inspire me to revive this account lol
If I were to make more big posts about DID and CDDs in general, trauma, etc., I'd be making them on my new main blog @miscellaneous-constellations !
What they don't tell you about DID #2 is that almost everyone you see online who appears super confident with their alters and system and everything? They, too, just like you, are also just doin' a lot of guesswork and assumptions.
"DID is most often hidden and unnoticeable" as in "MANY symptoms of DID, including the symptom of switching from one alter to another, are easily passed off as something else more 'normal' and not readily understood as switching from one alter to another" but you people seem to think that it means "alters don't really have differences actually and if you're allowing yourselves as different alters to know yourselves and express yourselves, you're lying/faking/wrongly self-diagnosed/glorifying DID/romanticizing DID-"
What part of dissociative IDENTITY disorder don't you understand?
You see someone with DID simply existing as themselves (alters existing as themselves) and see someone faking or roleplaying DID or wrongly self-diagnosing or "making DID their whole identity" when really it is literally no different from somebody expressing a side of themself to a friend that they otherwise feel scared to express. It is literally just self-expression.
Tea is an alter in my system who is extremely hyperactive, energetic, exciteable. She stands out. And one of the first times she was fronting in therapy, when I was noticing how different I was and how hyperactive I was, I felt embarrassed and switched immediately. And then many months later, the next time Tea was fronting, and me and our therapist realized it was her who was fronting, we didn't switch! We/she, felt safe and okay enough to behave the ways she does. I didn't switch in order to not behave in those "weird" ways, and I didn't try to suppress the ways I wanted to behave and just Be.
This is huge! It was a huge thing for us in that therapy session. And we've only been continuing our journey with finding ourselves, finding out who we are, and allowing myself to "be" "different."
Alters expressing themselves differently is merely allowing yourself the right to self-expression. It is allowing yourself to truly "be cringe." It is allowing yourself to know yourself. To know who you really are. It is an important and huge aspect of recovery with DID.
Alters are not Nothing, that is an entire aspect of this brain's identity that could not integrate into the rest of the brain's identity.
You people continue to see DID as "the actual person versus the alters that just influence that Real person" when it is more like "all of us are That Real Person. That Real Person is different alters sometimes" like people will say these things about DID being treated like an "identity quirk" just because you see an alter expressing themself when in reality what you are doing is not that different from someone making fun of some kid because they're pretending to be a cat.
You are seeing somebody with DID merely expressing an aspect of their identity, merely expressing themself, and that's bad to you because you continue to incorrectly view DID as "the actual, real person and their alters" when those alters ARE "the real person", just dissociated into its own box.
You continue to see "The actual person, the Host, who is actually a person, oh they can express themselves! :)" but it's suddenly bad when it's not what you think is "the host/the Real/Actual Person" because, again, you people are continuing to incorrectly view alters as these Side things that just pop up and they can't self-express or have their own names or have hobbies and interests or Tumblr side blogs and act like that's bad and it means someone is "roleplaying DID" or faking or "romanticizing" when it is LITERALLY, and I mean this SO literally. It is LITERALLY just expressing another side of yourself.
This is exactly it!
Alters learning to expressing themselves and Be Themselves and learning about yourselves is a huge and important part of therapy when you have DID.
We are also learning to know ourselves and be ourselves, be our full, authentic selves, as our own 'individuals', and it has come along with lessening dissociative barriers, and the more we break these barriers down, the more we will be capable of knowing ourselves and BEING ourselves.
im confused, mostly abt the second part of this. is this saying that being covert is like...bad? we went through therapy w a DID specialist, we recovered a lot, we function day to day, and were all very happy and content being covert. its uncomfortable that this is worded as if to say that we still need to recover just cuz were covert? i think some systems are Just Covert and it isnt that deep. obvs the way OP describes it, it was unhelpful for them, but its really presumptious to act like being covert=non functioning.
please let me know if im misinterpreting this. i try not to respond to things with any sort of "well i specifically am exempt from this statement because-" because most of the time i just assume whatever the statement is just isnt about me, but this one has me confused and a little concerned (that either we are doing something wrong or that this is phrased in a way that others could interpret similiarly and incorrectly believe they are doing something wrong.)
tldr: is this post saying being covert is always an unhealthy way to exist with DID?
I think itās more meant to say that becoming more overt can be a sign of comfort and healing, not necessarily that covertness is evidence of the absence of those things.
My apologies for being incapable of having short responses, ha.
For one, this post is mainly addressing a common sentiment I've been seeing throughout the years online with regards to DID about people seeming to think that seeing alters, say, have their own names and Tumblr side blogs and pronouns and profiles as a bad thing.
A lot of people see alters expressing themselves online and will fake-claim that system, will claim that this is "glorifying" DID or "romanticizing" it.
I see this CONSTANTLY! I see this on Tumblr, I see it on Reddit, I'm certain it's on plenty of other websites I don't use.
Because these types of people have a grave misunderstanding of what DID is, how it works, what and who alters even ARE. They see alters as the side thing that just happens to DID, when the person with DID is always an alter. These people will sit here and act like the mere act of, say, me expressing and introducing myself online as a specific alter and they'll look at that and fake-claim and act like it's romanticizing or glorifying DID and, pray tell, I just have to ask these people what part of me am I allowed to express? Do you see DID as "the host, and then the alters" and you think I'm a host right now, and it's acceptable to express myself because you think I'm a host, as if "host" is "the main/actual/real person" and not just another alter? What part of me is acceptable to express? What part of me is allowed to be expressed, online or not, and which parts of me aren't?
I never brought up anything about covert or overt, and that's actually for a very specific reason (the tags mentioned covert/overt, but that was that person specifically, not us). We haven't said a single thing about overt or covert in this entire post, and this is actually partially why - what I'm saying and what I'm talking about is being incorrectly conflated with meaning "Being Overt" or "being separate, distinct People" when that isn't what I was saying or implying. Being covert or overt has nothing to do with this.
I'm talking about alters expressing themselves, and I think this is incorrectly being conflated to meaning overt or meaning "distinct, separate people" when that's not what it means.
Let's take away the DID and alter stuff for a moment:
Humans express themselves through many ways - we express ourselves with our names and having our own hobbies and interests, yes, but we also express ourselves just in terms of, like. Talking to a friend about the stress we're going through.
When you, as a person with DID, are expressing yourself - by talking about your trauma to your therapist; by communicating with the different parts in your system; by allowing parts to simply BE who they are instead of suppressing them and trying to hide them - it is alters expressing themself.
That means nothing about whether or not those parts exist with a separate name, separate hobbies, or just generally are their own "distinct person."
Remember my example with my part 'Tea' - I came into therapy one day, very excitable, energetic. I felt embarrassed for Being The Way I Was in that moment and my brain switched to someone else almost immediately, because of that embarrassment.
Months later (or even a year later, I don't even know anymore lmfao), I came into therapy pretty energetic and excitable again. But this time, I felt safer and more comfortable. We didn't switch to another part out of embarrassment, I felt safe to be myself in that moment.
This is what I mean.
Overt/covert has nothing to do with it.
What self-expression means to me is going to be different from other people, and what self-expression means to them is going to be different from me. For us, it means allowing ourselves to exist as we are and not trying to force us into a closed-off box of "Being One Person." For you, maybe it means simply ripping up paper to express anger (i.e. a specific part in your system ripping up paper to express the anger they feel). And that's still self-expression, and that's GOOD!
I will clarify, though, that my second addition/reblog was more talking about my personal thing about our own journey, just as an added ramble-conversation to do with what the tags said. It was not meant to be applied to other people - I did feel that that person's tags were important, but it's not meant to be a generalized Rule of "everybody with DID must be like this to heal." I did not feel the need to put disclaimers about "just to be clear, this isn't about covertness or overtness, and being covert or overt has nothing to do with this" because it didn't feel necessary, but to clarify:
Being "overt" does NOT mean "lower dissociative barriers"
Being "covert" does NOT mean "higher dissociative barriers"
Alters expressing themselves does NOT mean "overt"
Having lowered dissociative barriers simply means communication between parts has improved, amnesia has been lowered, etc.
Whether or not a system is "covert" or "overt" is less to do with dissociative barriers, although it CAN play a role, whether or not a system is "covert" or "overt" is actually more dependent on that specific person - their life, the trauma they went through, the environments they were raised in.
Nearly every single ""OVERT"" system I have known have had very specific life experiences that have lead them to develop this presentation. When you hear about these systems and they explain things about their life, how they were raised, their trauma, it becomes clear that the presentation their DID took the form of had way more to do with their personal, specific life experiences and less to do with anything about how high or low their dissociative barriers were. Although, yes, again, that CAN play a role, but not as big of a role as you might assume - MANY, MANY "overt" systems have very high dissociative barriers.
To be a bit more clearer: alters expressing themselves can give an idea of whether or not a system is "overt" or "covert" (I think this terms are shaky and muddy and blurry anyways and ultimately don't think they're very helpful, but that's a discussion for another day), but alters expressing themselves doesn't mean anything about being overt. It just means expressing themselves, and that can be in "big" ways (having your own name, pronouns, and personal hobbies and interests) or "small" ways (allowing yourself to express your anger in a healthy way; talking to your therapist about trauma and finally feeling safe enough to do so, etc.).
It took awhile to write this post, and I hope this helps.
"DID is most often hidden and unnoticeable" as in "MANY symptoms of DID, including the symptom of switching from one alter to another, are easily passed off as something else more 'normal' and not readily understood as switching from one alter to another" but you people seem to think that it means "alters don't really have differences actually and if you're allowing yourselves as different alters to know yourselves and express yourselves, you're lying/faking/wrongly self-diagnosed/glorifying DID/romanticizing DID-"
What part of dissociative IDENTITY disorder don't you understand?
You see someone with DID simply existing as themselves (alters existing as themselves) and see someone faking or roleplaying DID or wrongly self-diagnosing or "making DID their whole identity" when really it is literally no different from somebody expressing a side of themself to a friend that they otherwise feel scared to express. It is literally just self-expression.
Tea is an alter in my system who is extremely hyperactive, energetic, exciteable. She stands out. And one of the first times she was fronting in therapy, when I was noticing how different I was and how hyperactive I was, I felt embarrassed and switched immediately. And then many months later, the next time Tea was fronting, and me and our therapist realized it was her who was fronting, we didn't switch! We/she, felt safe and okay enough to behave the ways she does. I didn't switch in order to not behave in those "weird" ways, and I didn't try to suppress the ways I wanted to behave and just Be.
This is huge! It was a huge thing for us in that therapy session. And we've only been continuing our journey with finding ourselves, finding out who we are, and allowing myself to "be" "different."
Alters expressing themselves differently is merely allowing yourself the right to self-expression. It is allowing yourself to truly "be cringe." It is allowing yourself to know yourself. To know who you really are. It is an important and huge aspect of recovery with DID.
Alters are not Nothing, that is an entire aspect of this brain's identity that could not integrate into the rest of the brain's identity.
You people continue to see DID as "the actual person versus the alters that just influence that Real person" when it is more like "all of us are That Real Person. That Real Person is different alters sometimes" like people will say these things about DID being treated like an "identity quirk" just because you see an alter expressing themself when in reality what you are doing is not that different from someone making fun of some kid because they're pretending to be a cat.
You are seeing somebody with DID merely expressing an aspect of their identity, merely expressing themself, and that's bad to you because you continue to incorrectly view DID as "the actual, real person and their alters" when those alters ARE "the real person", just dissociated into its own box.
You continue to see "The actual person, the Host, who is actually a person, oh they can express themselves! :)" but it's suddenly bad when it's not what you think is "the host/the Real/Actual Person" because, again, you people are continuing to incorrectly view alters as these Side things that just pop up and they can't self-express or have their own names or have hobbies and interests or Tumblr side blogs and act like that's bad and it means someone is "roleplaying DID" or faking or "romanticizing" when it is LITERALLY, and I mean this SO literally. It is LITERALLY just expressing another side of yourself.
What they don't tell you about DID is that almost everything is just vibes. Literally just vibes. System mapping, inner world, knowledge about alters in general - vibes.
I think more than anything else, being so traumatized is just really fucking exhausting and sad. Like it's sad and exhausting that I have a brain that is constantly on edge and on alert, I feel like life would be way more relaxing if that wasn't the case. It's exhausting and it's sad that the "smallest" things are so triggering sometimes. It's exhausting and it's sad that everything sets us off and you and your body and your brain can never calm down or relax. I feel like a constantly shaking chihuahua in a cartoon or something.
The whole "stop romanticizing DID!!1!!11!!!" is obviously just annoying and stupid for several reasons, but it's really baffling and weird to me specifically.
To the average, uneducated person (which is what everybody who says this is - uneducated), DID is:
The extremely rare trauma disorder that is so rare that basically no-one has it and it's only caused by the most extreme things and it's horrible, you never want DID!!1!11!!!
Totally separate people sharing one body, they all have different names, ages, genders, sexualities, clothing styles, body language, voices, etc. Also it's caused by severe trauma and it's a super horrible and debilitating condition that you could never, ever possibly want!
And the people who say shit like "ugh, people are ROMANTICIZING DID!!1!!" are people who seem to fall into like the complete opposite almost sometimes where they understand that most people with CDDs are not like that second bullet point, and CDDs are covert and hidden and largely unnoticeable, but these people act like NOBODY with a CDD exists like the second bullet point, and that anybody who DOES exist like that is faking/lying, roleplaying/pretending, confused/mistaken, and that they are romanticizing DID.
Disclaimers of "yes I know DID is all parts of a whole, yes I know trying to force separation is damaging, yadda yadda yadda yadda" aside, so nobody misconstrue me here.
Alters very much are and can be extremely complex and vast in a lot of the same ways any singlet person is (obviously there's a lot of limitations, I know that, again, please don't misconstrue me here), and although most people with CDDs do not exist like the second bullet point, many people with CDDs actually do exist that way in varying degrees and in different ways, in a sense that like.
By DID's very nature, alters DO have different... Body languages, opinions, likes, dislikes, interests... To varying degrees, and in different ways, but that is quite literally what DID is??? Like that's . That's literally what DID is. Like yes DID is covert/hidden, but that doesn't mean "people with DID do not experience having different voices, body languages, likes, dislikes, food preferences, etc.", DID is covert/hidden in a sense that, like, if somebody has DID, and you do not know about DID, you aren't educated, aren't a therapist, don't have it yourself, etc., you won't know it (even IF you DO know a lot about DID/have it/etc., you STILL might not even know).
We aren't saying that people with DID do not, and never can or will have drastic changes in body language, voice, opinions, interests, etc., we're saying that you won't know somebody has DID most of the time BECAUSE MANY OF THOSE VERY CHANGES CAN BE AND ARE EXPLAINED AWAY AND DISMISSED AS OTHER, MORE "NORMAL" THINGS, like being "moody", being forgetful, not having a stable sense of self, etc.
It isn't "romanticizing" DID or something for the alters in a system to express themselves through 'aesthetics' online or wearing different clothes or making sideblogs or just making silly TikTok videos or social media posts just fucking around and having fun.
Like that's literally just called self-expression and . like. Existing In The World.
Human beings exist in the world and engage with the world and with people and they express themselves and laugh and make friends. But suddenly because it's an alter, it's romanticizing DID.
Also you need to understand that when you have a friend or know someone with DID, you.. You ARE speaking to an alter..? You're always speaking to an alter when you are speaking to somebody with DID. Do you think they shouldn't express themselves? Or do you only think they shouldn't express themselves so long as they aren't what you think is ""the real/actual/original person/the host""? š¤Ø
(Repost 'cause I messed up the OG post) I wanted to share some of the stuff I shared with my therapist that we've written.. (Don't reblog this post please, I just have it rebloggable for me lol)
Big trigger warning for sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, mention of being drugged, being forced into CSEM/CSAM. Fairly graphic.
(No content warning):
I'm always worried that my partner doesn't actually believe these things happened to me, not even because of anything she's said or done, just yeah. But I asked if she ended up reading this post, reading any of it, and she said "I had to stop reading because it was just too fucked up" and I'm not gonna live that down.
I constantly feel like anybody would read these things and feel that they're fake. I always feel like these things I've written about come across as Very Fake and Laughable like they are made up stories of someone's attempt at what they Think these things look like and feel like etc. when they have no idea what they're talking about. But uhm I guess they ! do not. come across that way.
(Repost 'cause I messed up the OG post) I wanted to share some of the stuff I shared with my therapist that we've written.. (Don't reblog this post please, I just have it rebloggable for me lol)
Big trigger warning for sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, mention of being drugged, being forced into CSEM/CSAM. Fairly graphic.
(Content warning: sexual abuse. This might be really uncomfortable to read, I'm unsure how to warn further).
Do you love me? I love this. It hurts. Keep going. Am I good? I hate this. Please kill me. More. MORE. STOP. STOP. PLEASE STOP. I love you. I want a mom. This feels really good. Am I doing a good job? I feel like I am going to die. Am I doing well? Do they feel good? Does he love me? Please stop. I hate you. I'm sorry. I hate myself. More. STOP. Am I going to die? I love this. Kill me. I feel like I am being ripped apart. I love you. Is there a God? Will he save me? I'm horrible. I hate you. I love feeling good. It hurts. Am I doing this right? Can I go home? I wish I had a mom. Will God save me? I hate you. I love him. Are we done yet? I never want this to end. I'm bad. I love you. This feels really good. Like this? I feel happy. Thank you.
Cont.
Reality is completely unhinged, completely unstable.
What do you mean we are real, living, breathing, thinking, feeling human beings?
What do you mean you believe me?
No you don't.
No you don't.
You can't, you can't, you can't.
I wish I never told you.
I wish I never told anyone.
I'm so glad I told you.
Thank you.
(Content warning: sexual abuse. This might be really uncomfortable to read, I'm unsure how to warn further).
Do you love me? I love this. It hurts. Keep going. Am I good? I hate this. Please kill me. More. MORE. STOP. STOP. PLEASE STOP. I love you. I want a mom. This feels really good. Am I doing a good job? I feel like I am going to die. Am I doing well? Do they feel good? Does he love me? Please stop. I hate you. I'm sorry. I hate myself. More. STOP. Am I going to die? I love this. Kill me. I feel like I am being ripped apart. I love you. Is there a God? Will he save me? I'm horrible. I hate you. I love feeling good. It hurts. Am I doing this right? Can I go home? I wish I had a mom. Will God save me? I hate you. I love him. Are we done yet? I never want this to end. I'm bad. I love you. This feels really good. Like this? I feel happy. Thank you.
I keep going from "thank you for believing me, thank you for not calling me a liar" and "surely this is some kind of prank or joke somehow. Surely she doesn't actually believe any of these things. Surely this is a joke. Is she just playing along just because? Is this some sick joke? I keep feeling like I have dreamt up or made up her believing me, like her believing all of this is something I made up.
.
Content warning: sexual abuse -- incest, grooming, child sexual exploitation material.
This is only a brief summary of only Some stuff I talked with her about.. I.. Really feel like sharing, but I'm scared to.
What do u MEANNN she believes me?? She believes I went through horrific stuff? There are no words in the universe that I can think of to describe the dissonance between "my life was fairly average and fairly normal, nothing too bad happened, nothing bad really happened at all in general" and genuinely feeling and believing this to my core, but writing all this stuff in my notes app on my phone about horrible sexual abuse, programming, organized abuse and someone actually believes me and believes that they happened to me, that they're real. Like wait my therapist actually believes this? Believes these things, believe they happened? I can. Call myself a survivor of organized abuse? Programming? What? Actually I'm mostly just glad that I'm experiencing the joys of "oh someone believes I feel like I can finally breathe" and have yet to experience The Horrors from all of this.
Dissociative Amnesia in DID
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Dissociative amnesia is characterised by an inability to recall important autobiographical memories, typically of recent traumatic or stressful events, that is inconsistent with ordinary forgetting. āDissociative Amnesia, ICD-11
The key thing about dissociative amnesia is that you typically won't know about it because by amnesia's very nature and definition, you don't remember what you don't remember.
Most patients are partly or completely unaware that they have gaps in their memory. They become aware only when personal identity is lost or when circumstances make them awareāeg, when others tell them or ask them about events they cannot remember.
You frequently forget what you do/talk about in therapy sessions, or can only vaguely remember some stuff about your therapy sessions.
You don't remember most of your childhood, or life in general
Memory gaps for your adult life are particularly notable.
You've forgetten positive/good/happy memories as well as traumatic ones
People talk to you about things like what happened on vacation with you, funny times in school together, etc., and you don't remember much of it, and/or you might misremembered some of the details (which often furthers our distrust of ourselves and of our memories).
Some subtle signs:
You often find yourself 'guessing' your memories; "I think (xyz) happened, but I don't know/I can't really remember", "I think I vaguely remember (xyz), but I don't know", "it might be a memory, but it just feels like a dream, so I can't be sure that it's a real memory", etc.
Never trusting your memories in general, always second-guessing, triple-guessing... Never Being Sure, always questioning the legitimacy of how you remember things and what you remember
You frequently need to "jog" your memory, and it often takes a lot of work to do so
Never trusting your memory, and needing to check over and over, even if you're certain you're remember something right (for example, calling the doctor's office to remember what time an upcoming appointment is, even though you're sure you wrote down the correct time) - this could also be a possible symptom of OCD
You find yourself constantly looking at your calendar, "out of habit"; you find yourself relying on a calendar to remember everything, like upcoming appointments, special dates, what the day of the week is, what month it is, etc.
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Memories feel vague, fuzzy, cloudy, foggy...
A lot of your memories feel like dreams
You question if a lot of your memories are real or not
You sometimes feel like trying to remember something is really difficult, almost as if something or someone is 'blocking' you/when attempting to remember something, it feels like there's a "mental wall", "mental block", etc.
You might struggle with aphantasia, which can make it harder to "see"/remember your memories.
Your memories are in the third person
Your memories feel like somebody else's memories, like a totally different person, etc.
Every day "feels like a new day."
People close to you feel like strangers. They aren't LITERALLY strangers (although this can happen sometimes with some people with DID), but they FEEL like it, even though you know who they are.
Time is Distorted
The day goes by extremely fast
A week or month or year goes by extremely fast
Something that happened recently feels like it happened a very long time ago. On the other hand - something that happened a very long time ago feels recent.
Emotions are Absent
You remember things with little to no emotions attached, including positive/good/happy memories. Struggling to remember how you felt, what happened, how something happened, what happened before, or after, etc.
Alexithymia; you struggle to know how you feel, how you felt; you struggle to identify emotions, and express them
You may use describe your emotions in "odd" or "strange" ways
You may have to rely on an outside source to help you identify and figure out how you feel (such as looking at a wheel of emotions and looking at them until you feel like you found something that fits)
Relaying your memories in a very "factual" way; you may feel as if you're 'relaying' what you have been told, rather than talking about what you truly "remember"
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"I feel like my memories are like a giant puzzle with tons of missing pieces"
"I feel like my memories are like photographs with burnt edges"
You feel like you relate to a lot of the things in this post, but you can't be sure/you can't remember (is this calling you out lmfao?)
What You're All Getting Wrong About DID
a 'masterlist'
This post will be impossibly long. Seriously.
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