You Don’t Truly Realize How Hard Pronouns Are When Referring To Yourself Until You Are Either

When you’re a fictive with a tragic hero to villain to hero arc and you have a ton of source trauma that you don’t feel is valid and now you’re just homesick and guilt ridden and you can’t sleep cause SOMEONE drank a monster at 7 PM….

Anyways have a nice night guys

-Varian

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.

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

Today is judgment day. My appointment is in like 40 minutes. Totally not freaking out.

I’m either going to cry, have an anxiety attack, or switch out. I hope I switch out but I really hope it happens DURING the appointment so the doctor can see it happen.

I have a psychological examination in a week. It’s four hours long and a two hour drive to get there. It’s been scheduled for months and I had been trying to get an appointment for literal years. I’m hoping that I’ll get diagnosed with DID among other things because of it (that’s the whole reason for the appointment) , but I am terrified of what the outcome will be.

Basically there are three ways this can go.

They tell me I don’t have it and I believe them. If this happens I will most likely cave to denial. Not forever but it’ll probably be at least a few months before I try to talk to my alters again. Might end up front stuck because I don’t believe they’re real. (All of that of course assuming I DO have it and the doctor gets it wrong) if they say I don’t have it I probably don’t and yes this means I can try to rehabilitate and live my life without alters, but I’m also going to feel like a shit human being for even INSINUATING that I have this disorder, let alone placating it.

They tell me I don’t have it and I don’t believe them. In the scenario, whether the explanation the doctor told me are bullshit or even if they say they ‘don’t believe in the disorder’, whatever the reason I have to go through this whole process again, anxiety and frustration and all. So let’s hope it’s not this.

They tell me I DO have it. This is genuinely probably the least messy outcome. I will most likely believe them just because they specialize in this area (assuming they believe in the disorder). The downside with this (aside from the obvious point of it all being real and incurable) is that the ONE other time I got validation from a mental heath professional (who was coincidentally the only mental health professional I talked to about this for more than five minutes and was also trauma informed) the ONLY time anyone said ‘yeah that very well may be what’s happening’ the system got so out of hand so fast. I could no longer push away my alters with the excuse of ‘they may not be real anyways’. And because I couldn’t use that reasoning to keep things in check everything went haywire for a few weeks until I could convince myself that we still don’t know if they’re real. So yeah. If it plays out like this things are going to be so hectic and stressful for a bit.

Either way, I’ll update you after the appointment and once I get the official diagnosis.

Anyone else have a host that loves their source and consumes startling amounts of media of it until they’re pulled to the front?

No one?

Cool.

-Varian

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.

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

-Apollo

Feel lucky, I can never get our voice to work right

-Hunter

Voice dysphoria is the literal worst. Like, it’s easy enough to avoid our reflection, but damn is it hard to avoid talking when most people don’t know American Sign Language.

Fuck this and me.

-Hunter

Not to mention that a huge part of DID and other dissociative disorders is the constant battle with denial. And that fake claiming someone feeds the imposter syndrome and can seriously set someone back on their fight against it. It can seriously harm the person who’s been trying to hard just to believe themselves.

Fake claiming doesn’t help anyone at all. If you manage to correctly call someone out who doesn’t actually have DID I can guarantee your words will do absolutely nothing to change them. And on the much greater chance that you fake claim someone who ISN’T faking, you are going to very likely do a lot of damage to someone who is already struggling.

If you claim to be ‘calling people out’ for the sake of the community, I promise you that you are doing absolutely nothing for them except attacking a lot of already vulnerable individuals.

So please stop.

"if you really had DID you wouldn't care if you got fakeclaimed"

I'm sorry but people are ALLOWED to feel emotions about being fakeclaimed

If someone who's disabled just so as BREATHES online you guys go "lol fake" no matter what

We are allowed to angry and upset over this

It's not a sign of faking to feel emotions

It's hurtful and sends people into denial spirals

What fakeclaimers do IS HURTING DISABLED PEOPLE and then y'all call us fake for being HURT by what you say??? Your a fucking bully.

If someone is bullying someone they have every fucking right to be upset.

So, the host’s boyfriend came and talked to us, made sure we were okay, that was cool. I ended up talking it out and feeling much better afterwards.

So that’s nice.

-renfield

I’m out and masking so hard, even though we’re among friends who are aware I’m just not super comfortable.

And let me tell you, masking a British accent in an American environment is so not the best.

Especially when everyone keeps asking you if you’re okay cause a second ago the host was out having a panic attack.

This is my life at the moment.

-renfield