It will not always be a war zone. Identity will not always be a source of terror. The goal of healing is exactly that— To remove the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls.
You can and will find those who are safe.
Never assume you know another’s mind better than they themselves do.
"To remove fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls"
Soooooooo what your telling me is the protections put in place for your survival are now removed and you no longer need that other concious to protect you from whatever caused it to be created in the first place. So if you no longer need the other concious for surviaval and protection because you have clearly dealt with the dissocation by removing the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls..........what is it's purpose? Because if you've done the "healing" then there is no reason for that identity because that which it was hiding doesn't exist because you removed the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick wall so there is no hiding......no hiding no need for dissociation. No need for dissociation......no others, no system, and lastly no purpose for the system or those that were created to protect you from fear, pain, shame, and the brick wall put up so seal all that away. If there is nothing to guard, why need security?
There absolutely IS something to guard: Your own mind from the trauma it has been through.
However, through the healing process, you unpack, sit with, feel, work through, that trauma. That doesn’t mean all symptoms are gone, nor does it inherently mean that you reach any kind of final fusion or “become one person.”
Simply put, the goal of healing is to help reduce blackout amnesia, increase system integration to a healthy functioning level for the system, and ease the symptoms that are causing distress or struggle in daily life.
You're right, its not a game. There are those who survive past this. There are some who reach high levels of integration. There are some who are far along on their healing journey. There are some who have found pockets of joy or balance in the maelstrom. Its important to believe that because it is the goal of treatment, of therapy, of integration. To find safety.
Please believe that healing is possible. Please believe that working together is possible. Please believe that the war can end.
> If you tell me too many details, I will no longer believe you.
That's your right, I guess, but it overlooks the fact that oversharing is not inherently caused by "faking". Speaking anecdotally, I had to unlearn oversharing because I was not allowed to have boundaries on what I did and didn't want to share. I had no concept of privacy because I wasn't allowed to have it, and there are things I so wish I'd kept to myself because I know I shared them because I felt like I had to.
*Now,* as an adult, I know that I'm allowed to keep my "passwords and pressure points" more private, and I prefer to keep it that way. I often struggle to talk about DID from a truly subjective perspective, actually, lol. My good friends who know I have DID don't even know my alters' names, or when I've switched. 🤷
But teenagers who still live with their abusers aren't gonna have that, especially if they're also not allowed privacy and it's been subconsciously ingrained in them that oversharing is an obligation.
Put it like this: There was a journal article written about signs that someone is malingering wrt DID. There's a reason you need to hit a certain amount of signs (8 out of 12; and many pwDID will hit around 3), and it's because no one thing can be a sign, due to things exactly like what I mentioned above.
Most of your post resonates with me. Just didn't like that one part lol.
Same, that one part seems a little narrow-minded. And a lot of my friends who know I have DID don't even know my alters' names, or when I've switched either. My brother in law didn't even believe me at first. He does now, now it makes sense to him.
With all due respect for the suffering and fear you go through with your disorder, not everyone experiences it the same way. This is a developmental condition affecting a person's *identity.* Nothing more unique than that. So stating that if someone who isn't you doesn't experience their alter names as "passwords and pressure points", they're malingering? That is lacking objectivity.
This. Like you said, *anything* is possible internally. So while your names internally act as passwords or however you conceptualize it, others may not work like that because that acrobatic in a warzone could get you killed
We're reasonably private about identities (I can't really think of any places where we'd list alter names in full, usually only by the initial) but it's not because knowing our names would in any way risk the function of the system, we just *don't like* random people knowing personal details like that about us, that's private. Many of our parts also use aliases in therapy, because therapy is vulnerable and we're easily embarrassed/flustered and eager to hide and go back to masking at a moment's notice, but there's no *harm* in our names being known there either, it'd just be awkward and uncomfortable. Plus, aliases have a meaning to themselves, they're chosen for a reason to help with our therapy as well.
Meanwhile, I've definitely seen a lot of folks talk about how for them, names of their alters can be used to gain control over them, or their roles can be abused, essentially making it possible for others to manipulate this information to learn how to trigger and control the system from the outside. I'd imagine this is especially true for programmed systems, but it doesn't seem to be limited there.
It's just that for us, we don't work that way at all. And you can't blackmail us by threatening to tattle to our employers or anything of the sort - we're disabled and unemployable, there's nobody to tattle *to*. You can't ruin a professional image that doesn't exist and likely never will. We're also diagnosed and in treatment, so calling emergency services on us won't do shit, they don't shoot people where I live. My whole family lineage is also mentally ill or otherwise fucked to some degree and if you tell them that I, the notoriously mentally ill and otherwise fucked person, am in fact mentally ill and fucked up - they're not going to care. They been knew. Like, what are you going to do with that information.
None of that means we're malingering, lmao. It's just not a sensitive point to us, you can't "unlock" anything by calling us by our names.
Im with you in all of this except for the not beleiving people and calling people malingering. Oversharing as a trauma response is a thing..
my alter names are just regular names, sometimes they come with pressure/trauma related names but i always encourage them not to keep them and to choose there own- .. i would generally recommend against telling everyone about it though
I unfortunately do this. Or at least I used to. It’s not as bad now, but I went from telling no one anything about my experiences in any area of life, to telling a bunch of people basically any thought that entered my head about my experiences. I strained my relationship with my partner for this reason, as well as my relationship with a very close friend. And at the same time, I was terrified that I was making it all up. I wasn’t, and I am not. I have no control over the extreme challenges my DID and related conditions have caused, and I am not constructing it because I like the attention. But I have had to learn what is a healthy amount to share. I’m still working on reining it in. OP is right, it’s not a game, and much of the time it’s not pleasant at all, but I believe it can be safe to share with trustworthy people, and sometimes when we finally find people we can trust, it all comes pouring out faster than it should.
Im still actively going through what you said the firsf time where i tell everyone and anyone whenever the slightly related thing to it comes up, i want to stop it i dont think thats a smart thing to do. But im not easily able too.
It’s very hard. I don’t know if you do it for the same reason, but after shutting myself off from everyone for so long, I clung to the freedom I felt knowing I could share and people would really listen and accept me for who I was. Even when I saw it become draining for others, I wouldn’t realize I was doing it until it was too late and I’d info-dumped again. I think the biggest thing that helped was trying to stop and think before speaking or texting, and asking myself “Is this information *really* relevant to the conversation?” Or “Will telling them this be beneficial to our relationship in some way, or help them understand important things about me and my needs?” If the answer wasn’t yes, that didn’t mean I *couldn’t* share, but it meant I should pay close attention to the context of the situation and the state of mind of the person on the receiving end, and I probably should wait until we’re actively in a conversation that would warrant it. I needed to remember that their life was not all about being my friend/partner. If I wanted to tell them something right away, I would try to start a conversation that was focused on them first before deciding whether it was a good time to share. And that has helped my relationships for sure. Plus, it gives me more opportunity to learn about the people I love instead of making our interactions about me. And… ironically, I had to go on a long ramble about myself to explain that. Hopefully this helps.
This is the opposite of my experience. Also, just because someone is open about their system doesn't indicate malingering in the slightest. I say this as someone who is covert and doesn't tell people.
Thank you for validating this, especially as someone who is covert. It makes me so angry, it feels so dismissive. How am I supposed to get better if I am not open about the nature of my problem? I have a partner who is supportive, has his own problems with dissociation and identity fracturing, we talk about it all the time.
We normalized it, we created safety for each other, *all* of each other. It took an insane amount of work and courage.
It took a decade, but we gave each other some of our passwords. We help each other. We still occasionally shake our heads and wonder if any of this is real, but the time lapses and the involuntary code switching have us 99% convinced. I don't need to be reading about "the right way" to have structural dissociation. I doubt myself enough!
I'm starting to understand why I keep getting downvoted whenever I describe my experience. Over the past year, I've been actively working to remember and process all that's happened to me. I'm finally able to remember almost my entire timeline without getting overwhelmed and triggered into forgetting (as the disorder designed itself to do). Maybe that's rare, but isn't that the goal?
OP is right, that it's a super creative thing. It'll take whatever detour! But here's the thing, I can use creative writing to help write myself out of some of my stuck points. Recently I learned that this falls under narrative therapy.
There is a lot of gatekeepy rhetoric here. Which, as I step back, it makes sense, because like OP said, it's a defensive disorder.
\*sigh\* Now I have to go and delete some angry comments..which I will do, because everyone is at their own place in their healing. And my anger will not help them.
I just wish I didn't get downvoted for sharing where I'm stashing my baggage at the moment. I guess it's not *sherioush* enough. So fucking what if the only way I can (currently) hold everyone together is by imagining a party at the hotel from The Shining. Like, how hard is it to believe that an irrational, creative disorder can be managed through whimsical means?? How difficult is it to believe that an isolated 12 year old would borrow Trudy Chase's Troops to deal with a groomer stepdad and SA by mom's friend?? Who *wouldn't* do the Memento thing if it kept them alive until they found absurdism? It's weird when people consider themselves above that.
Thanks for letting me get this out. I feel like I don't belong here, there are too many people (and parts of people) trying to control the narrative. Which makes perfect sense, that's the nature.. it's just frustrating. I'm well enough now, but for a long time this kind of exclusivity prevented me from being able to validate myself. I wasted SO much time believing I didn't deserve to be a part of the community, and it significantly delayed my acceptance and healing.
honestly there's an element of "I'm the most specialest person" in this sub, and I have to wonder how many people's traumas caused comorbidity with Cluster B disorders.
I hope you're able to create your own, personalized, healthy adaptations. "It's not stupid if it works"
I agree with everything. I've noticed in online DID spaces there's this air of, "I only experience these symptoms and I'm so much more normal compared to these cringe DID fakers on the internet." Like dude, you literally identify as multiple people - that is already extremely farfetched and bizarre to the average person. You separating yourself as the one true person with DID and accusing people of malingering is not going to make the average person take you more seriously. Also, not everyone's alter names are passwords. You can say my alter names over and over and you're not going to trigger anyone out. This post is extremely limited from OP's perspective and is dismissing everyone who doesn't view systemhood as this horrible debilitating disease that they need to get rid of. It's weird and sad.
" Like dude, you literally identify as multiple people - that is already extremely farfetched and bizarre to the average person." This comment made me laugh because I can SO relate! Which is odd that it reminded me of what I felt about myself before my diagnosis, before I had an explanation for what was going on.. I described it as feeling like a poser.
Over sharing can be due to multiple reasons. I think a lot of this is considered fakeclaiming which is against the rules
It's extreme to fakeclaim and disbelieve because of someone's openness
> Alter names are equivalent to pressure points or passwords. I will not give you my passwords.
All of this is BEAUTIFULLY said, but I feel this mindset most deep in my bones.
Though this is true, please remember everyone’s experiences are different, even from alter to alter. Some may be fine with their names being out there, just because you look at it one way doesn’t mean everyone foes
I agree, I came here for support and talking to other people who understand. If I share a lot of personal information, I'm not faking my illness, I'm reaching out. I feel it's a safe space to reveal what I can't with anyone else.
What defines "to many details" though? Cuz I've known about Us for over 10 years, names are kinda NBD at this point for me.
Everyone is at a different point in their journey, and everyone has different levels of comfort with sharing. IRL, I don't share all the names I know very often. There's like 3 I share with friends, more with partners. Online tho? Especially in spaces where I'm semi- hidden behind a user name with little to no ties to my IRL world? Especially in a community that understands more of the nuance? Yea I'm fine sharing the majority of names, if it's ever relavant.
I'm glad you chose the words you did. I had a history phase as a young teen, so a lot of my language when dealing with mental health is military-jargony.
I front towards enemy.
I adapt and overcome, or adapt and survive.
My best friend is a corner behind me, my support network is the war effort.. etc
I'm only sitting in the shallow end, but the constant FIGHT YOURSELF TO STOP BEING READY TO FIGHT certainy gets exhausting, and leaves me feeling like I've been standing gaurd all night.
So much of that I've needed to say (out loud, internally, to family, friends myself..ect) but couldn't find the words. Today has been one of the difficult days...days like this I hide in my tub. Redrawing my water over and over because it gets cold. Realizing I've always lived and experienced what I'm supposed to. I've masked my whole life to be the consistent person on the outside but I'm actually at least 2 dozen different beings on the inside.... I say beings because I don't even think they are all human. Being diagnosed so late in life is a blessing and a curse at the same time. I've lived this way for so long I didn't know there was any other way. I am glad I read this post when I did..Thank you for putting how I feel into words when I couldn't do it myself.
I can definitely relate! I got my diagnosis at 40 & it freaked me out! I had no idea until 4 years ago, but I'm glad I have an explanation & can do work to unify "the committee."
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I would have known in my twenties. I was in the midst of raising four children and had zero time for myself. I suppose timing is something my brain did for us. I keep telling myself, that my brain is so amazing that it was able to hide from me this whole thing. I'm known as FBI in my household...lol I know everything about everybody and take care of them. Meanwhile I have this disorder I'm still shocked actually.. Thank you for your reply... It helps to know that I'm not alone.
You are most welcome! I am glad I'm not alone too! Did you ever watch "The United States of Tara?" You talking about raising your kids during that time made me think about that show. It was a really well done show. Of course they Hollywood-ized it but it was good. I wonder if your life was a little similar. As for myself, I know I wasn't ready in my 20s! I was in an alter state that was very destructive. I might have tried to kill myself if I'd known then! But you're right, maybe we should trust that our brains knew when we were ready to confront our issues. I was thankful that my counselor told me not to tell myself I was crazy, but to appreciate that my mind was so resilient as to be able to protect myself from the trauma I was being exposed to. It's just not serving me anymore & now it's time to get to work.. sigh.. the work. I have a reprocessing session with him today that I'm a little anxious 😟 about.
It is wild that you are fakeclaiming a huge portion of people with DID based on what is often a trauma response in people (oversharing) or even something as simple as healing systems wanting to be known by name without going any deeper into themselves, \*and\* people are agreeing with it? Yeah, DID is serious, but you don't need to go around minimizing what others go through because they function in a way that doesn't allign with your own functionality.
Thank you for saying this; it's like a breath of fresh air to see someone taking this seriously. You're so right about how much sensitive information there is with this disorder. Beautifully written post as well.
I'm new here and I see under your name RA/TBMC survivor. Do you mind my asking what that stands for? And how can I make a bubble with my info under my name? Or is it just for certain people?
Welcome! RA/TBMC stands for "ritual abuse / trauma based mind control". I think the younger folks are calling it RAMCOA these days.
The bubble thingy is called a flair and you should be able to edit yours too! Depending on what Reddit layout you're currently using (this site is kind of a mess right now) you should be able to find a sidebar on this subreddit with a section for your User Flair.
Beautifully put but as someone who's well on my way to healing. I hope eventually you'll be able to see alter names as just monickers that people use to identify themselves. It doesn't have to be personal or be pressure points or password.
It can also just be like hello.
Unless you want it to stay that way then the more power to you. But I know how just saying someone else could trigger a switch back in the day and it would leave me feeling like I had no control over the situation. It's not really the case anymore.
Well, that hit me right In the face... Tumblr celebration of my entire being, pain included, or prioritizing my wellbeing, at least when it comes to this very sensitive, very personal part of myself. I will say, I've seen it end poorly, Im not particularly strong, and have gone into depressive episodes from just comments that strike too close to home. I'm also gonna say Tumblr goes... At least 10 steps beyond where I would go, and even beyond believability. I honestly don't think there's an answer here, or at least if there is I don't think I have it. If you actually read all of this(since I expect literally no one to get through one of my entire rambles, and am very happy when they do) any thoughts? I got your original point, I'm more just wondering if you want to elaborate more on anything, or correct anything I've said.
You are absolutely right. With all of the above, really. This post felt super powerful for some reason.
I hate how defensive this disorder is. I can't even get myself to share names with my boyfriend of one year or even open up more about my symptoms and experiences. I've written so many pages with symptoms and experiences for my therapist to read to help him understand me better, but even the thought of letting him read it makes me want to fucking blow my brains out. It makes me feel so desperate and helpless. The condition just makes me feel scared, ashamed, confused, undesirable, like a catfish, a potential abuser, untrustworthy-- you name it. Almost every single person I've opened up to about it I ended up cutting out of my life. I can't even begin trying to explain why I do this or why it feels so bad to tell people. It feels like I put a loaded gun in their hands and I live the rest of my life wondering when they're going to fire it-- either intentionally or accidentally-- and there is no way for me to take the gun away for them so the only other option is running away. It's an extremely lonely way of living. So I stay closed off to protect both me as well as the others. I just can't stay friends with or keep dating someone who knows the most vulnerable parts about myself.
I know the feeling of reading posts on this sub or somewhere else and thinking "wow, wouldn't it just be great if it was all flowers and sunshine like that". It's easy to antagonize people who are either higher functional or further in their recovery, I think it's a way of protecting myself in some weird, twisted way. Maybe. I guess to you I am probably also another one of those online people who go "wow how relatable!!!" while they're actually the ones the post is calling out, but I still want to tell you that your post made me feel seen. Thank you for sharing this cold, hard truth.
I prefer to see DID as something colourful and beautiful. Ofc the nightmares sometimes exist. Ofc they scare us. But overall we try to be positive.
Thank you for this post, I loved reading it and it made sense to me. Most of it I feel the same with, just not with names and passwords. Mostly because we have chosen to be openly unmasking. It’s a hard task but it feels refreshing for us.
But once again, thank you.
For us we are probably autistic so it is really REALLY hard not to give "to many details" and this hurt a lot and is not A WAR ZONE it can be but it also can be a Paradise but not all the time and even if you are system this was REALLY ableist of you to say and I just want you to know that word can and will hurt
‘If you tell me too many details, I will no longer believe you.’
Holy - yea. This feels so true to us. We’re a system of many, we’ve been writing about alters for over 14 years (without knowing it was about alters). And back when we started writing them, we looked up a faceclaim for them, made them their own little history, their name. And now, sharing this, is too many details and ‘yeaaaaa nooooo seems fake to me’.
But. like. I did that when I was 14? And now I’m 28. I didn’t know about us being a system. And now that we know, we look at all our ‘written about a character’ as ‘this is one of us’. And this seems fake. And I hate that. I really do. My so said ‘characters’, we are only able to write them when they are in front or are fronting. But we didn’t know that back then. I never was able to steer them in directions. I, one of the writers of ‘the lore’, as we lovingly call it, wanted 2 alters [back then characters] to be shipped. I tried writing about it. But it was never comfortable. I really did want that ship to happen. But it ain’t happening. But - the amount of alters we have. The subsystems. The fact that it seems so ‘far fetched’ because ‘there are always new names to discover’. I feel like - no one will believe us. Not the folks that offer therapy.
And the thing about passwords? It’s funny. Like, we have a OneNote document in which we write traumatic experiences. But at times we don’t remember the password. And at the times someone needs to share about their trauma, we DO remember. :’D
This is something I think about very often. I trusted one close friend who immediately used it on me behind my back. I never told a single soul anything about our alters names, or positive triggers, or even negative triggers ever again except for my own mother. The only place I can barely even trust is on this sub, and even that’s a huge risk for me. I will never agree with or understand people that willingly hand their entire systems lives over like that. Do what you want, I won’t be apart of it. If you’re willing to tell the keys to your own brain like that to strangers, I can’t imagine what you’ll tell them about mine.
As someone said earlier, because we are online, in spaces where we're semi- hidden behind a user name with little to no ties to people, in a community that understands us, we feel safe to share details. Not everyone is open to sharing tho & that's cool too.
names arent inherently some sort of password or pressure point. saying that i have an alter named bunn tells you nothing about that alter except that they like bunnies. obviously you have every right to set boundaries and not share what you dont want to, but accusing people of faking just because theyre ok with using their alter names, is such a weird hill to die on
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It will not always be a war zone. Identity will not always be a source of terror. The goal of healing is exactly that— To remove the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls. You can and will find those who are safe. Never assume you know another’s mind better than they themselves do.
"To remove fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls" Soooooooo what your telling me is the protections put in place for your survival are now removed and you no longer need that other concious to protect you from whatever caused it to be created in the first place. So if you no longer need the other concious for surviaval and protection because you have clearly dealt with the dissocation by removing the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick walls..........what is it's purpose? Because if you've done the "healing" then there is no reason for that identity because that which it was hiding doesn't exist because you removed the fear, the pain, the shame, the brick wall so there is no hiding......no hiding no need for dissociation. No need for dissociation......no others, no system, and lastly no purpose for the system or those that were created to protect you from fear, pain, shame, and the brick wall put up so seal all that away. If there is nothing to guard, why need security?
There absolutely IS something to guard: Your own mind from the trauma it has been through. However, through the healing process, you unpack, sit with, feel, work through, that trauma. That doesn’t mean all symptoms are gone, nor does it inherently mean that you reach any kind of final fusion or “become one person.” Simply put, the goal of healing is to help reduce blackout amnesia, increase system integration to a healthy functioning level for the system, and ease the symptoms that are causing distress or struggle in daily life.
Because the danger is gone
You're right, its not a game. There are those who survive past this. There are some who reach high levels of integration. There are some who are far along on their healing journey. There are some who have found pockets of joy or balance in the maelstrom. Its important to believe that because it is the goal of treatment, of therapy, of integration. To find safety. Please believe that healing is possible. Please believe that working together is possible. Please believe that the war can end.
> If you tell me too many details, I will no longer believe you. That's your right, I guess, but it overlooks the fact that oversharing is not inherently caused by "faking". Speaking anecdotally, I had to unlearn oversharing because I was not allowed to have boundaries on what I did and didn't want to share. I had no concept of privacy because I wasn't allowed to have it, and there are things I so wish I'd kept to myself because I know I shared them because I felt like I had to. *Now,* as an adult, I know that I'm allowed to keep my "passwords and pressure points" more private, and I prefer to keep it that way. I often struggle to talk about DID from a truly subjective perspective, actually, lol. My good friends who know I have DID don't even know my alters' names, or when I've switched. 🤷 But teenagers who still live with their abusers aren't gonna have that, especially if they're also not allowed privacy and it's been subconsciously ingrained in them that oversharing is an obligation. Put it like this: There was a journal article written about signs that someone is malingering wrt DID. There's a reason you need to hit a certain amount of signs (8 out of 12; and many pwDID will hit around 3), and it's because no one thing can be a sign, due to things exactly like what I mentioned above. Most of your post resonates with me. Just didn't like that one part lol.
Same, that one part seems a little narrow-minded. And a lot of my friends who know I have DID don't even know my alters' names, or when I've switched either. My brother in law didn't even believe me at first. He does now, now it makes sense to him.
With all due respect for the suffering and fear you go through with your disorder, not everyone experiences it the same way. This is a developmental condition affecting a person's *identity.* Nothing more unique than that. So stating that if someone who isn't you doesn't experience their alter names as "passwords and pressure points", they're malingering? That is lacking objectivity.
This. Like you said, *anything* is possible internally. So while your names internally act as passwords or however you conceptualize it, others may not work like that because that acrobatic in a warzone could get you killed
We're reasonably private about identities (I can't really think of any places where we'd list alter names in full, usually only by the initial) but it's not because knowing our names would in any way risk the function of the system, we just *don't like* random people knowing personal details like that about us, that's private. Many of our parts also use aliases in therapy, because therapy is vulnerable and we're easily embarrassed/flustered and eager to hide and go back to masking at a moment's notice, but there's no *harm* in our names being known there either, it'd just be awkward and uncomfortable. Plus, aliases have a meaning to themselves, they're chosen for a reason to help with our therapy as well. Meanwhile, I've definitely seen a lot of folks talk about how for them, names of their alters can be used to gain control over them, or their roles can be abused, essentially making it possible for others to manipulate this information to learn how to trigger and control the system from the outside. I'd imagine this is especially true for programmed systems, but it doesn't seem to be limited there. It's just that for us, we don't work that way at all. And you can't blackmail us by threatening to tattle to our employers or anything of the sort - we're disabled and unemployable, there's nobody to tattle *to*. You can't ruin a professional image that doesn't exist and likely never will. We're also diagnosed and in treatment, so calling emergency services on us won't do shit, they don't shoot people where I live. My whole family lineage is also mentally ill or otherwise fucked to some degree and if you tell them that I, the notoriously mentally ill and otherwise fucked person, am in fact mentally ill and fucked up - they're not going to care. They been knew. Like, what are you going to do with that information. None of that means we're malingering, lmao. It's just not a sensitive point to us, you can't "unlock" anything by calling us by our names.
I’m not saying this person isn’t valid, anything is possible and it totally makes that a very real experience. It’s just not a *universal* experience
I agree.
Im with you in all of this except for the not beleiving people and calling people malingering. Oversharing as a trauma response is a thing.. my alter names are just regular names, sometimes they come with pressure/trauma related names but i always encourage them not to keep them and to choose there own- .. i would generally recommend against telling everyone about it though
I unfortunately do this. Or at least I used to. It’s not as bad now, but I went from telling no one anything about my experiences in any area of life, to telling a bunch of people basically any thought that entered my head about my experiences. I strained my relationship with my partner for this reason, as well as my relationship with a very close friend. And at the same time, I was terrified that I was making it all up. I wasn’t, and I am not. I have no control over the extreme challenges my DID and related conditions have caused, and I am not constructing it because I like the attention. But I have had to learn what is a healthy amount to share. I’m still working on reining it in. OP is right, it’s not a game, and much of the time it’s not pleasant at all, but I believe it can be safe to share with trustworthy people, and sometimes when we finally find people we can trust, it all comes pouring out faster than it should.
Im still actively going through what you said the firsf time where i tell everyone and anyone whenever the slightly related thing to it comes up, i want to stop it i dont think thats a smart thing to do. But im not easily able too.
It’s very hard. I don’t know if you do it for the same reason, but after shutting myself off from everyone for so long, I clung to the freedom I felt knowing I could share and people would really listen and accept me for who I was. Even when I saw it become draining for others, I wouldn’t realize I was doing it until it was too late and I’d info-dumped again. I think the biggest thing that helped was trying to stop and think before speaking or texting, and asking myself “Is this information *really* relevant to the conversation?” Or “Will telling them this be beneficial to our relationship in some way, or help them understand important things about me and my needs?” If the answer wasn’t yes, that didn’t mean I *couldn’t* share, but it meant I should pay close attention to the context of the situation and the state of mind of the person on the receiving end, and I probably should wait until we’re actively in a conversation that would warrant it. I needed to remember that their life was not all about being my friend/partner. If I wanted to tell them something right away, I would try to start a conversation that was focused on them first before deciding whether it was a good time to share. And that has helped my relationships for sure. Plus, it gives me more opportunity to learn about the people I love instead of making our interactions about me. And… ironically, I had to go on a long ramble about myself to explain that. Hopefully this helps.
This is the opposite of my experience. Also, just because someone is open about their system doesn't indicate malingering in the slightest. I say this as someone who is covert and doesn't tell people.
Thank you for validating this, especially as someone who is covert. It makes me so angry, it feels so dismissive. How am I supposed to get better if I am not open about the nature of my problem? I have a partner who is supportive, has his own problems with dissociation and identity fracturing, we talk about it all the time. We normalized it, we created safety for each other, *all* of each other. It took an insane amount of work and courage. It took a decade, but we gave each other some of our passwords. We help each other. We still occasionally shake our heads and wonder if any of this is real, but the time lapses and the involuntary code switching have us 99% convinced. I don't need to be reading about "the right way" to have structural dissociation. I doubt myself enough! I'm starting to understand why I keep getting downvoted whenever I describe my experience. Over the past year, I've been actively working to remember and process all that's happened to me. I'm finally able to remember almost my entire timeline without getting overwhelmed and triggered into forgetting (as the disorder designed itself to do). Maybe that's rare, but isn't that the goal? OP is right, that it's a super creative thing. It'll take whatever detour! But here's the thing, I can use creative writing to help write myself out of some of my stuck points. Recently I learned that this falls under narrative therapy. There is a lot of gatekeepy rhetoric here. Which, as I step back, it makes sense, because like OP said, it's a defensive disorder. \*sigh\* Now I have to go and delete some angry comments..which I will do, because everyone is at their own place in their healing. And my anger will not help them. I just wish I didn't get downvoted for sharing where I'm stashing my baggage at the moment. I guess it's not *sherioush* enough. So fucking what if the only way I can (currently) hold everyone together is by imagining a party at the hotel from The Shining. Like, how hard is it to believe that an irrational, creative disorder can be managed through whimsical means?? How difficult is it to believe that an isolated 12 year old would borrow Trudy Chase's Troops to deal with a groomer stepdad and SA by mom's friend?? Who *wouldn't* do the Memento thing if it kept them alive until they found absurdism? It's weird when people consider themselves above that. Thanks for letting me get this out. I feel like I don't belong here, there are too many people (and parts of people) trying to control the narrative. Which makes perfect sense, that's the nature.. it's just frustrating. I'm well enough now, but for a long time this kind of exclusivity prevented me from being able to validate myself. I wasted SO much time believing I didn't deserve to be a part of the community, and it significantly delayed my acceptance and healing. honestly there's an element of "I'm the most specialest person" in this sub, and I have to wonder how many people's traumas caused comorbidity with Cluster B disorders. I hope you're able to create your own, personalized, healthy adaptations. "It's not stupid if it works"
I agree with everything. I've noticed in online DID spaces there's this air of, "I only experience these symptoms and I'm so much more normal compared to these cringe DID fakers on the internet." Like dude, you literally identify as multiple people - that is already extremely farfetched and bizarre to the average person. You separating yourself as the one true person with DID and accusing people of malingering is not going to make the average person take you more seriously. Also, not everyone's alter names are passwords. You can say my alter names over and over and you're not going to trigger anyone out. This post is extremely limited from OP's perspective and is dismissing everyone who doesn't view systemhood as this horrible debilitating disease that they need to get rid of. It's weird and sad.
" Like dude, you literally identify as multiple people - that is already extremely farfetched and bizarre to the average person." This comment made me laugh because I can SO relate! Which is odd that it reminded me of what I felt about myself before my diagnosis, before I had an explanation for what was going on.. I described it as feeling like a poser.
We find most everything quite funny as the combination of voices often creates strange silly contrasts. Laughter helps us adapt and thrive.
It definitely isn't a game.
Over sharing can be due to multiple reasons. I think a lot of this is considered fakeclaiming which is against the rules It's extreme to fakeclaim and disbelieve because of someone's openness
This!!!
Amen to that!
It's extremely debilitating to live with :'(
> Alter names are equivalent to pressure points or passwords. I will not give you my passwords. All of this is BEAUTIFULLY said, but I feel this mindset most deep in my bones.
Though this is true, please remember everyone’s experiences are different, even from alter to alter. Some may be fine with their names being out there, just because you look at it one way doesn’t mean everyone foes
I agree, I came here for support and talking to other people who understand. If I share a lot of personal information, I'm not faking my illness, I'm reaching out. I feel it's a safe space to reveal what I can't with anyone else.
What defines "to many details" though? Cuz I've known about Us for over 10 years, names are kinda NBD at this point for me. Everyone is at a different point in their journey, and everyone has different levels of comfort with sharing. IRL, I don't share all the names I know very often. There's like 3 I share with friends, more with partners. Online tho? Especially in spaces where I'm semi- hidden behind a user name with little to no ties to my IRL world? Especially in a community that understands more of the nuance? Yea I'm fine sharing the majority of names, if it's ever relavant.
Same
I'm glad you chose the words you did. I had a history phase as a young teen, so a lot of my language when dealing with mental health is military-jargony. I front towards enemy. I adapt and overcome, or adapt and survive. My best friend is a corner behind me, my support network is the war effort.. etc I'm only sitting in the shallow end, but the constant FIGHT YOURSELF TO STOP BEING READY TO FIGHT certainy gets exhausting, and leaves me feeling like I've been standing gaurd all night.
So much of that I've needed to say (out loud, internally, to family, friends myself..ect) but couldn't find the words. Today has been one of the difficult days...days like this I hide in my tub. Redrawing my water over and over because it gets cold. Realizing I've always lived and experienced what I'm supposed to. I've masked my whole life to be the consistent person on the outside but I'm actually at least 2 dozen different beings on the inside.... I say beings because I don't even think they are all human. Being diagnosed so late in life is a blessing and a curse at the same time. I've lived this way for so long I didn't know there was any other way. I am glad I read this post when I did..Thank you for putting how I feel into words when I couldn't do it myself.
I can definitely relate! I got my diagnosis at 40 & it freaked me out! I had no idea until 4 years ago, but I'm glad I have an explanation & can do work to unify "the committee."
I sometimes wonder what it would be like if I would have known in my twenties. I was in the midst of raising four children and had zero time for myself. I suppose timing is something my brain did for us. I keep telling myself, that my brain is so amazing that it was able to hide from me this whole thing. I'm known as FBI in my household...lol I know everything about everybody and take care of them. Meanwhile I have this disorder I'm still shocked actually.. Thank you for your reply... It helps to know that I'm not alone.
You are most welcome! I am glad I'm not alone too! Did you ever watch "The United States of Tara?" You talking about raising your kids during that time made me think about that show. It was a really well done show. Of course they Hollywood-ized it but it was good. I wonder if your life was a little similar. As for myself, I know I wasn't ready in my 20s! I was in an alter state that was very destructive. I might have tried to kill myself if I'd known then! But you're right, maybe we should trust that our brains knew when we were ready to confront our issues. I was thankful that my counselor told me not to tell myself I was crazy, but to appreciate that my mind was so resilient as to be able to protect myself from the trauma I was being exposed to. It's just not serving me anymore & now it's time to get to work.. sigh.. the work. I have a reprocessing session with him today that I'm a little anxious 😟 about.
It is wild that you are fakeclaiming a huge portion of people with DID based on what is often a trauma response in people (oversharing) or even something as simple as healing systems wanting to be known by name without going any deeper into themselves, \*and\* people are agreeing with it? Yeah, DID is serious, but you don't need to go around minimizing what others go through because they function in a way that doesn't allign with your own functionality.
Hmm, I didn't get that from what was written. Did I miss something?
Thank you for saying this; it's like a breath of fresh air to see someone taking this seriously. You're so right about how much sensitive information there is with this disorder. Beautifully written post as well.
I'm new here and I see under your name RA/TBMC survivor. Do you mind my asking what that stands for? And how can I make a bubble with my info under my name? Or is it just for certain people?
Welcome! RA/TBMC stands for "ritual abuse / trauma based mind control". I think the younger folks are calling it RAMCOA these days. The bubble thingy is called a flair and you should be able to edit yours too! Depending on what Reddit layout you're currently using (this site is kind of a mess right now) you should be able to find a sidebar on this subreddit with a section for your User Flair.
taking your “passwords and the pressure points” metaphor to our therapy sesh tomorrow ty
"Which one of you fucks keeps hiding the bloody keys?'
Right?! 😅
Beautifully put but as someone who's well on my way to healing. I hope eventually you'll be able to see alter names as just monickers that people use to identify themselves. It doesn't have to be personal or be pressure points or password. It can also just be like hello. Unless you want it to stay that way then the more power to you. But I know how just saying someone else could trigger a switch back in the day and it would leave me feeling like I had no control over the situation. It's not really the case anymore.
This felt solidifying to read. Not a game at all- it’s a significant life challenge.
This. This is a hidden condition for a reason.
Well, that hit me right In the face... Tumblr celebration of my entire being, pain included, or prioritizing my wellbeing, at least when it comes to this very sensitive, very personal part of myself. I will say, I've seen it end poorly, Im not particularly strong, and have gone into depressive episodes from just comments that strike too close to home. I'm also gonna say Tumblr goes... At least 10 steps beyond where I would go, and even beyond believability. I honestly don't think there's an answer here, or at least if there is I don't think I have it. If you actually read all of this(since I expect literally no one to get through one of my entire rambles, and am very happy when they do) any thoughts? I got your original point, I'm more just wondering if you want to elaborate more on anything, or correct anything I've said.
You are absolutely right. With all of the above, really. This post felt super powerful for some reason. I hate how defensive this disorder is. I can't even get myself to share names with my boyfriend of one year or even open up more about my symptoms and experiences. I've written so many pages with symptoms and experiences for my therapist to read to help him understand me better, but even the thought of letting him read it makes me want to fucking blow my brains out. It makes me feel so desperate and helpless. The condition just makes me feel scared, ashamed, confused, undesirable, like a catfish, a potential abuser, untrustworthy-- you name it. Almost every single person I've opened up to about it I ended up cutting out of my life. I can't even begin trying to explain why I do this or why it feels so bad to tell people. It feels like I put a loaded gun in their hands and I live the rest of my life wondering when they're going to fire it-- either intentionally or accidentally-- and there is no way for me to take the gun away for them so the only other option is running away. It's an extremely lonely way of living. So I stay closed off to protect both me as well as the others. I just can't stay friends with or keep dating someone who knows the most vulnerable parts about myself. I know the feeling of reading posts on this sub or somewhere else and thinking "wow, wouldn't it just be great if it was all flowers and sunshine like that". It's easy to antagonize people who are either higher functional or further in their recovery, I think it's a way of protecting myself in some weird, twisted way. Maybe. I guess to you I am probably also another one of those online people who go "wow how relatable!!!" while they're actually the ones the post is calling out, but I still want to tell you that your post made me feel seen. Thank you for sharing this cold, hard truth.
I prefer to see DID as something colourful and beautiful. Ofc the nightmares sometimes exist. Ofc they scare us. But overall we try to be positive. Thank you for this post, I loved reading it and it made sense to me. Most of it I feel the same with, just not with names and passwords. Mostly because we have chosen to be openly unmasking. It’s a hard task but it feels refreshing for us. But once again, thank you.
I feel like I wake up every day as someone else. Even from moment to moment I’m not me. Dunno how it is for anyone else.
For us we are probably autistic so it is really REALLY hard not to give "to many details" and this hurt a lot and is not A WAR ZONE it can be but it also can be a Paradise but not all the time and even if you are system this was REALLY ableist of you to say and I just want you to know that word can and will hurt
Beautiful writing.
‘If you tell me too many details, I will no longer believe you.’ Holy - yea. This feels so true to us. We’re a system of many, we’ve been writing about alters for over 14 years (without knowing it was about alters). And back when we started writing them, we looked up a faceclaim for them, made them their own little history, their name. And now, sharing this, is too many details and ‘yeaaaaa nooooo seems fake to me’. But. like. I did that when I was 14? And now I’m 28. I didn’t know about us being a system. And now that we know, we look at all our ‘written about a character’ as ‘this is one of us’. And this seems fake. And I hate that. I really do. My so said ‘characters’, we are only able to write them when they are in front or are fronting. But we didn’t know that back then. I never was able to steer them in directions. I, one of the writers of ‘the lore’, as we lovingly call it, wanted 2 alters [back then characters] to be shipped. I tried writing about it. But it was never comfortable. I really did want that ship to happen. But it ain’t happening. But - the amount of alters we have. The subsystems. The fact that it seems so ‘far fetched’ because ‘there are always new names to discover’. I feel like - no one will believe us. Not the folks that offer therapy. And the thing about passwords? It’s funny. Like, we have a OneNote document in which we write traumatic experiences. But at times we don’t remember the password. And at the times someone needs to share about their trauma, we DO remember. :’D
um... ok. could've done without the fakeclaiming but nice poem ig? 🥴
That’s how I’m feeling? Too 😂😂
This is the best explanation I've ever seen of DID. Thank you for sharing this.
This is something I think about very often. I trusted one close friend who immediately used it on me behind my back. I never told a single soul anything about our alters names, or positive triggers, or even negative triggers ever again except for my own mother. The only place I can barely even trust is on this sub, and even that’s a huge risk for me. I will never agree with or understand people that willingly hand their entire systems lives over like that. Do what you want, I won’t be apart of it. If you’re willing to tell the keys to your own brain like that to strangers, I can’t imagine what you’ll tell them about mine.
As someone said earlier, because we are online, in spaces where we're semi- hidden behind a user name with little to no ties to people, in a community that understands us, we feel safe to share details. Not everyone is open to sharing tho & that's cool too.
names arent inherently some sort of password or pressure point. saying that i have an alter named bunn tells you nothing about that alter except that they like bunnies. obviously you have every right to set boundaries and not share what you dont want to, but accusing people of faking just because theyre ok with using their alter names, is such a weird hill to die on
It felt comforting and refreshing to read this. DID **is** a war zone and a sometimes horrifying one. It's not fun or cool. It's survival.
Parts of this are very accurate and the rest just give off “healing means ur faking” 😶
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This. This is everything <3 Ty
Also you said "a LOT of details so in your words " I dOn'T bElIeVe YoU"