“Be Your True Self”

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

Had our first therapy session this morning with an actual trauma informed therapist/physiatrist. And she made a few very good points.

The main one being, it doesn’t matter what label your symptoms fall under. While yes getting a diagnosis can be very beneficial in helping you understand what steps can be taken, it is not required in order for you to be valid. If you are not CONSCIOUSLY putting on a show of having a disorder for attention then these symptoms are real to you. They affect you don’t they?

If you are in physical pain it doesn’t matter if there’s a physiological reason like a broken bone or if it’s a misfire in your brain. It’s still painful. And you would never tell someone in pain that it’s not real because you can’t see the problem. So why would you tell yourself that.

No one can take away your validity, you are in total control of whether you belive in yourself. Other people can do their best to invalidate you and influence your confidence, but it only if you let them will they have any success.

And I know it might sound a bit hypocritical because I didn’t feel valid until my therapist told me I was this morning. This is as much a lesson I need to learn as it is for you. I just hope as many people as possible can hear this and start to do something about it for themselves.

Other than that, have a goodnight.

-Apollo

This is very true, though I would like to add that you don’t have to have DID for your symptoms to be valid. You can still feel things and have symptoms even if they don’t fit the diagnostic criteria. Does that mean you have DID? No. But you are still entitled to your emotions and feelings, especially if those feelings are a result of trauma.

Does anyone realize that the "everyone is valid" thing has actual diagnostic implications?

Yes, every case of DID will have differences from another. But all DID cases must meet diagnostic criteria in order to actually be DID. You can't say "everyone is valid" and "DID can look like anything" because really, it can't. At the end of the day, there are still diagnostic criteria that must be met. If anything goes and anything is valid and anything can be DID, then DID is nothing and we might as well not even classify it as a disorder at all.

Same thing as people who say that "everyone has a little bit of DID" or "everyone has parts". Yes, you act differently at work than you do at home. This does not mean that you have dissociated parts of a fragmented self, and if it did, then DID would be a redundant diagnosis and there would be no need to have it in the ICD or DSM if "everyone" had it.

We let a little come out last night in front of our best friend and boyfriend, it was the first time we had a little in the front without a caretaker confronting and without them masking.

Let me just say. Both my friend and my boyfriend were amazing at taking care of her. They explained things and made her laugh. They were very patient even though none of us knew it was going to happen.

I wish everyone had as amazing and supportive people in their life as I do. People who won’t judge or belittle you when you start acting like an 8 year old, but instead will teach them how to cross their eyes and give them a taste of their soda and explain things like growing up to an alter that is scared to get older.

Thank you guys for everything. I hope I never lose you.

-Apollo

Imagine being able to make shit like this. Like. Just bring it into existence. Just through sheer dedication and time and magic probably. I don’t fucking know I don’t have skills.

Deinonychus Takedown for animation practice

Update: I should be getting my meds on Monday, my new psychiatrist/therapist refilled them for us so yay!

The body is going through some really severe medication withdrawal due to a mixup with our psychiatrist resulting in us not having a refill of our medication. It’s messing with our circulation, our head, and our mood.

And oh my gosh my mood is so fucked up rn.

If I’m alone I burst into tears over the smallest shit. To the point where I was crying cause I wasn’t falling asleep as fast as I wanted or started yelling at my car cause the door wouldn’t stay open when I was parked on a slope. I have to stay around someone who can distract me so I’m not crying. Which sucks cause I’m at work. And cant just leave to go hang out with friends.

I’m so tired. Really need to figure out this medication situation.

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.

As a male alter, I am much too comfortable in an afab body…

- Angelo

There’s nothing quite like watching your source and being traumatized by what your future would have held.

-Izuku

I can’t tell if I want to change my name because I hate my old one, if I’m questions my gender again, or if there’s a new alter who needs a name.

-Apollo (for now)