one of the most important things about dissociative identity disorder and generally being a system that i wish people would understand is that it truly isnāt as cut and dry as it may seem for member count.
youāll see people who say they have āsix altersā and then immediately assume itās six fully fleshed out equal individuals with no confusion or fuzziness regarding identity. thatās simply not true in a majority of cases, as i have seen.
most systems still VERY much deal with confusion regarding potential splits, go through dissociative episodes where theyāre unsure of who they are, sometimes feel no attachment towards any identities, feel like they might have split and then suddenly that person is gone, unsure if alters they havenāt heard from often have gone dormant, not sure how to react when alters do come out of dormancy, etc.
itās not a fun feeling and itās genuinely unfair in certain situations to force systems to list every single alter to you with full certainty, as if it will never change. because it will. for so many different reasons, systems will grow, they will shrink, they will fuse, they will develop. you canāt expect the person with the dissociative disorder and lack of core identity to be able to keep up a perfected list of forever, itās simply impossible. you may have alters who stick with you, but that doesnāt mean changes wonāt happen.
and systems who may be reading this ā please donāt feel bad. you are not a hassle, you are not a headache, and you are not an inconvenience for simply coping with something like this. itās out of your control and the only thing you can do is continue to cope to find ways to help yourself retrain from these reactions. please donāt allow yourself to be harmed by others who donāt understand what you are going through. there are people who will accept and love you for who you are, all of you.
y'know those pronoun bracelets that genderfluid people usually use, and they change which bracelet they wear based on their gender?
what if we had those for alters, each having one alters name? I feel like it would be easier to tell who is fronting based on which bracelet you feel most connected to at the time
we tried doing this with different color bracelets, here's our experience;
A) carrying them around everywhere and possibly losing them is more stressful than we anticipated
B) we had fights over which bracelet belongs to who (because a lot of us like similar colors, this can of course be prevented if you have personalized ones as suggested with the letter-beads from OP)
C) at one point it got too annoying and we just. Dropped it entirely. (Also due to a bracelet breaking and not knowing how to proceed after, + almost losing one, + we struggle with consistency a lot ā we haven't updated our Simply Plural in 2 weeks)
D) we're usually super blurry so it's hard to tell, and puts pressure on us to 'decide' who's fronting (esp when friends would ask because they noticed the lack of bracelet)
It **is** a good idea; we're considering making our own personalized bracelets and trying to get back into it. But then again, we feel like we aren't entitled to tell anyone who's fronting, we've made some experiences with favoritism and criticism of our introjects.
I think people really underestimate the amount of strangeness that the average person just ignores. When it comes to systems (specifically covert systems), the amount of signs of alters that people will just ignore, seems really weird. Until you think about the fact that when a singlet meets a system, they obviously assume youāre a singlet. They get used to different alters just being part of who you are.
For example, āoh, you act like a child sometimes? Thatās just who you are.ā āYour personality changes a lot? Thatās just how your personality is.ā They get to know āyouā as a sum of your alters. So theyāre so used to alters fronting, they may have a hard time realizing that they even are alters.
yāall is it normal to like. NEVER know whoās fronting š like obviously we can tell sometimes but most of the time itās just a ādonāt know, donāt care, fuck it we ballā situation š
plural fictive culture is getting absolutely embarrassed whenever you have to introduce yourself like noooooooo I can't just tell people I'm [popular fictional character] I'm gonna need to start using code names or something...
Plural culture is āHow do I introduce myself to people our main host is friends with?ā It always feels so awkward ⦠We usually have the problem of accidentally switching mid-conversation too, so that makes it even more annoying!
is the tgirl wearing a collar doing it because she has a fetish, or just because it's a cute accessory? is the gay man in leather and a pup mask actually being "indecent" or is he just dressed up like a dog because it's fun? are drag queens doing it because crossdressing is sexy or because drag is an expression of who they are as a person? does the furry walking around in full suit have a boner under their outfit or do they just like cosplaying as their cute cartoon squirrel oc?
you will never know. you can never tell. sometimes even the people doing these things won't have an answer. is it a sex thing? is it kink? who fucking knows! there is no line! public expressions of sexuality aren't immoral to begin with, but if you make any attempt to suppress them, you have to decide what is and isn't allowed, and you are going to get it wrong. there is no way to untangle kink from personality and hobbies and interests. kink does not even necessarily involve sex. sometimes it's just self-expression and vulnerability and sharing a particular dynamic with another person. sounds a lot like (checks notes) literally every other human experience that exists.
i'll say it again: the person wearing a leash in your vicinity is not sexually assaulting you. they're just wearing a leash.
for anyone concerned about children seeing these people in public and asking questions, here's a script to help:
~
kid: hey that man is walking another man on a leash what's up with that?
adult: i don't know, but some people like to play pretend. maybe they're pretending to be a dog and its person for fun.
kid: š cool, this was an entirely non-traumatic experience and i didn't even have to hear anything about sex
adult: š cool, i told the truth in an age appropriate way that doesn't result in any confrontation or distress to my family or to the strangers harmlessly going about their day
Plural culture is constantly fake-claiming yourself because your system is 75% introjects and you were a roleplayer before you discovered the rest of your system.
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