Well Apparently They Aren’t Primary Care Like It Said On Their Website. Apparently They’re Just Like

Ha ha. I’m out now because the host had a mental breakdown and now I’m super dysphoric cause I’m a male alter. Fml.

-Tyler

Day 6: Problematic Alter

So here’s the thing. I feel like calling an alter ‘problematic’ is not a great way to communicate with your system. Anything they are doing is almost certainly a coping mechanism brought on by trauma. Does that means it’s always healthy? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing it to harm the system, even if that’s what happens sometimes. Labeling an alter as ‘problematic’, to us at least, has the same kind of feel as labeling them as ‘the evil alter’ it’s not a great feeling. It often alienates them and a lot of times makes them feel unwanted, you are literally attaching the word ‘problem’ to their identity. How would that make you feel?

And this is not to say that alters don’t do things that can harm the system, or their relationships with others. It’s just to say that EVERYONE should have their own side heard before a conclusion is made. And understanding why an action was taken isn’t going to make the action okay. But it will help you empathize with the person who did it and give you insight on the help they need, as opposed to ridiculing them for what they have learned they need to do to survive.

Labeling an alter as ‘problematic’ is many times a fantastic way to distance them from the system and make them not want to talk to you. Honestly, would you want to sit down and have a conversation with your parents, for instance, if they told all their friends you were the ‘problematic child’? Probably not. That doesn’t mean you were never a pain, or that you never acted up, it’s just not healthy to attach that word to a persons identity.

All this to say, can we not label alters like this? They aren’t just characters for you to talk about and headcannon and label, and doing so isn’t really in the sake of progress. If you have an issue with something your alter is doing a good first step is to try to understand why they do it.

-Angelo/Apollo

Systober I guess?

Apparently there’s a systober thing going on??? I’m gonna use it as a prompt for text posts each day (might draw some stuff, who knows) and we’ll see how far we can get into it and how many days we just forget. I’ll post the photo of the prompt list below. Credit to @persmo for the list.

Yep. This. Literally this.

There are SO many things that I didn't realize I actually experienced because the descriptions of those symptoms sound like they're saying something else.

About 85-95% percent of our memories are in third person but I totally thought most people had that to a good extent until I talked to several people who not only thought it was super weird, but also didn't even know what I was saying because the very idea of it is so foreign.

This is why discussions of dissociation in CDD spaces REALLY should be only for 'traumagenic' systems. Whether you believe you can be a system without trauma, if you don't believe you have the trauma or the disorder caused by it, you shouldn't be in spaces for those trying to figure out how to manage disorder.

Also the mental health medical system sucks ass. We need more professionals who can actually bridge the gap between text book definitions and what it actually fucking looks like. We went to an evaluation and downplayed our symptoms so fucking much because we didn't think they fit the written descriptions (and growing up being gaslit into believing we're overreacting about everything). We got a very noncommittal place holder diagnosis from that appointment, that we waited six months and drove 2 hours for, probably because we told the doctor we didn't have amnesia because we had no fucking idea what emotional or grey out amnesia was, AND we didn't know that you can have black outs and not realize anything. is missing. We figured the lack of 'waking up' and not remembering how we got where we were, meant that we had zero amnesia. But holy shit is that wrong.

Anyways. All that to say, OP, you are not the only one who experiences this.

-Apollo (maybe?)

Sometimes I genuinely hate that I have a disorder where I take things literally.

Especially when that's intersectioned by CDD spaces where a lot of the descriptions of dissociation are hard to relate to, despite having several periods of time where strong dissociation is the only explanation.

And it's not even necessarily because I can't relate to them, it's just that my brain gets caught on the literal wording of that experience and immediately thinks that I can't experience that because I don't feel that specific way.

Does anyone else reading this feel the same?

Because I hear descriptions like feeling like you're outside of your body or over the shoulder, and I never feel like I experience that in real time. It only happens with memories, where a ton of those are in third person.

There are periods of time where I want a certain drink, but my brain fights to find the right word because several different parts of me want a different drink, even though I know that I want the specific drink that my brain suddenly can't recall the word for.

Honestly, I feel like 90% of my dissociation happens without me being able to cognitively recognize when it's actively happening, and I only realize after looking back that I remember maybe the bare fucking minimum.

And I dunno, maybe I've just been dissociated for so much of my life that it's so normal to me that I don't even know it's dissociation. It's really hard to parse what is and isn't normal when you 1) are neurodivergent and 2) see your normal as normal.

If any of you out there have any other descriptions of what dissociation can look like I would love to hear them, because that's the only way my brain will get over the mental block / confused phase of trying to understand.

That moment when you (a guy) realize your boyfriend is gay :O

-Apollo

I’ve been having a lot of doubts recently. A lot of wondering if I’m just making it up because I wanted to. I don’t know right now. Maybe I just wanted to be broken so that my pain was finally valid.

I don’t know.

Moral of the story. If I delete my blog or go quiet for a while, it’s cause I’m rethinking everything.

-Apollo

Random question, is it possible, or really does it happen to you guys, where you will split a new alter, and then a couple days later they will attach themselves to an identity and become a fictive? Because we might have a new fictive, from a source we didn’t know existed until today, but if we did split it’s from about 5 days ago cause something traumatic happened.

!Endos DNI please!

-Angelo

Okay so, I’ve been very aware that we do this thing, but only recently did I actually realize HOW OFTEN we do it.

So we do this thing where we think through conversations that MIGHT happen, and we typically either mouth along to the parts we would say or just say it out loud like we’re talking to them.

And I’ve known we do it for a while but I totally thought of it as like a once or twice a day thing. And then today driving home from work I started thinking about how often we do it. And while thinking about it I started running through a conversation where I explain it to a friend and ask their opinion. And then I caught myself like three lines in. And then I started thinking I should talk to my therapist about it, and started running through THAT conversation. I caught myself about half a sentence into that and was shocked at how quickly I fell into it. And then started thinking about how a conversation with a friend explaining THIS EXACT SITUATION AND THOUGHT PROCESS would go. And only got about two words out before I realized.

All of the sudden I am very aware of just how often I do this, which is apparently ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Does anyone have a word for this or like a name for it? Cause I have no clue what’s happening but I know I can’t be the only one who does it.

When you’re in a bad place mentally and start reaching out to people you barley talk to in an attempt to get some validation for your very existence….

Anyways, good night

-Varian

I love it when people tell me I have great fashion taste and dress well, then I get to respond with:

“Well duh, what do you think I did with all that time in the closet?”

That’s all, have a good day

-the alphabet mafia of the system

Power trip: push someone’s buttons.

Ultimate power trip: push your own buttons

-this has been a PSA from God knows who I am.