I don't know how to really write these things. I mean, we've used tumblr for forever but never were particularly social on it for a variety of reasons. I'm just gonna do my best.
The Tl;Dr is that this is a personal system blog for us to yap (or not) about our experiences, both relating to being a system and not. It's been very tumultuous and isolating time, and while we have a select few very supportive friends, it's unfair for them to be our only outlets other than the professionals who are paid to listen to us, haha. So we are here.
We're aware that tumblr has a large and vibrant system community, but that also means lots of tags and terms we're not familiar with. If we tag something incorrectly or inappropriately, please don't assume malice, we might just not know!
This is a sideblog, which means we cannot like posts or follow people without outing ourselves to people we know irl. Please don't take this personally! We'll try to be active in the other places we can be.
Onto general things:
Default to they/them unless otherwise specified.
We believe in privacy. Due to lots of amnesia, the sign offs are for our sake. They are to keep us accountable to each other. Some of us may post introductions if we feel like it, but please don't expect all of us to post our names or to talk about other specific identifying things.
We have a pretty typical DNI list:
No racists, no sexists, no homophobes, no transphobes, no ableists, no -ists, no -phobes, no nothing. Be a jerk or a bigot and get blocked basically. Please do not interact if you're a minor or bodily a minor; we wish you all the best, this is just a comfort thing as we are bodily an adult.
Now that the minutiae is out of the way, here's some general stuff about us!:
The vast majority of us are horror fans, games, movies, what have you.
We are currently working towards a master's degree in Psychology and we have a bachelor's degree in psychology. We love to talk psychology.
If we post any game content, it will likely be sims content. The sims 3 specifically
I'm sure there's more to add, I'm just not remembering.
Say you break your ankle. You could know everything there is to know intellectually about the injury. Even with this vast knowledge, you will still experience physical pain.
Now take this logic and apply it to things like ADHD, autism, clinical depression, and other less visible/divergent disabilities. You cannot think your way out of feeling.
That is to say: you are not a bad, lazy, or selfish person for struggling, even if you know why you are struggling.
Arlo: we could talk about the bad parts of being a system. We could talk about the constant dissociation, memory issues, and feeling disconnected from important people in our lives. We could talk about how we sometimes can't even speak properly because there are too many people close to front, and it's hard to get the words out. We could talk about all the shit we go through as someone with DID, but we have to deal with that all fucking day. When we come onto Tumblr we want to not deal with the shit we go through everyday. We get having a CDD isn't always fun and games. It's distressing, and complicated, and really heartbreaking at times. We know that if we focus on that 100% of the time we will be a fucking depressed mess! Just because you see people only talking about the good that comes from their system does not mean they don't suffer from having a system sometimes.
It can be easy to confuse the two, but you don't actually "wish you were more disabled", you wish your disability was taken seriously and was properly accommodated and that you had access to the support and resources you need - and that desire is so valid. You deserve more. But the sad truth is that no level of disability actually guarantees a sufficient level of support. So you have to work to separate your very understandable desire for more support from the incorrect assumption that other disabled people are consistently receiving what you aren't. All of us are getting fucked over in this society, and no group of disabled people actually has it easy.
Small reminder that DID is often a covert disorder and overt DID is actually pretty rare. A person could go their whole life without knowing they have DID because that's the point. You do not need to know who you are all the time or who's fronting or need to feel like you're a faker because you act the same pretty much all the time. You do not need to act drastically different between your headmates to be valid.
being unknowingly trans species/alterhuman as a kid is actually so funny because fuck you mean I've been yearning to be a droid since the ripe age of 9
Haha, relatable. When we were children, one of the younger ones here would wake up and be so so upset that the body didn't grow a tail overnight. Literally, they would wake up, check, and then just go ":( no taiiil". It got to the point where adults in our life would just tie a makeshift tail on us because the kiddo would be so upset.
Now looking at the way they are now it makes total sense.
actually i thought about this. this isn't a callout, this is a call-in. white systems, i am literally begging you to hold each other accountable. stop making it safe for other white systems to engage in racist bullshit.
stop letting alters that don't belong to an ethnic group claim it.
stop letting fetishization of "exotic" culture slide.
stop letting people google names in other languages and not show those languages the respect they deserve. like ffs, at least learn how to pronounce what you're part is calling themself. at least learn the context the word is used in.
stop being nonconfrontational about racism. yeah, you'll ruffle some feathers. maybe those feathers need to be ruffled.
i <3 everyone who uses disability aids. from glasses to wheelchairs, hearing aids to walkers, site canes to feeding tubes, colonscopy bags and emeto bags, oxygen tanks and aac boards, adaptive devices and glucose monitors, the gross, the mundane, the commonplace, the clunky, the barely-noticable, the normal objects you can't leave without, and all the damn meds. love you all. someday we will get to exist on this earth a little more free, without folks calling us freaks (or other slurs), or making up stereotypes to dehumanize us, without all the awfulness that comes from doctor's visits, without the fucking medical debt. someday it will cost those of us with conditions the same amount to exist as folks without out conditions: zero. nothing. someday others will stop trying to control our bodies and aids.
someday, we'll get to exist a little closer to how we wish.
and in the meantime: i love y'all. happy disability pride month <3 <3 <3
I am taking your hands (with consent) and holding them as I tell you& this:
It's okay if your system experiences don't match other people's. I can understand how isolating and sometimes invalidating it feels to not feel like you fit in in system spaces. It can make denial so much worse. It can make you feel like you have to present yourselves in a way that's more "acceptable" at the sake of authenticity. You& don't have to do this, in fact, please don't.
The wide variety of ways external and internal factors influence how a system presents means that there isn't a set default. There isn't a system Everyman (an Everymans? Is that funny?). There isn't a prescribed way that we have to look or perform. You are not "less of a system" than someone else you may come across in these spaces.
Forcing yourselves to conform to the standards set by sysblr or systok or systagram or whatever will do more damage than not. Being a system/in a system is already so hard without feeling like you need to fit unnecessary expectations.
