alters-journal

[alters-journal]

Sharing this here too

I do not usually make posts like this but recently I have seen a lot of content on Instagram, Twitter and I think tiktok too misunderstanding the meaning of intrusive thoughts, which may cause people experiencing them to be upset.

I have tried to shortly explain the difference of impulsive and intrusive and hope it will help people to understand and use the words correctly.

Reblogs are very much appreciated!

#shhh im not on tumblr shhhh shhh shhhh #im still on tumblr break u dont see me shhhh #important

[alters-journal]

Offline until May 1st for Mental Health.

Comic Updates will continue on @micamakescomics

#our main

[alters-journal]

apparently people are now purchasing thick water to make slimes with because of a trend on tiktok

thick water is for disabled people who can’t swallow properly. stores usually have extremely limited supplies of it.

please don’t buy thick water for fun or to make slime with. it’s literally the only way some disabled people can drink anything. It’s not a fucking toy

#reblogging again bc if its not yours dont touch it #food and drinking products ARE NOT MANUFACTURED LIKE MOBILITY AIDES #You cannot raise a demand for food and drinking products because they are made to be safe not made to be distributed in masses

[alters-journal]

in recognition of World Down Syndrome Day on March 21

[alters-journal]

You are not an imposter for using accommodations or aids you could “do without”. You are not an imposter for doing what you need to make things easier on yourself. Just because you technically could walk without a cane doesn’t mean you should have to endure the additional pain. Just because you are capable of grocery shopping during busy times doesn’t mean you should have to endure the anxiety.

If an accommodation, aid or something else helps improve your quality of life and/or even just makes things easier for you, you deserve to be able to use it without having to justify it to yourself.

[alters-journal]

hey osddid tumblr my feed is getting stale if ur a osddid system rb or like this so I can follow lol (esp if c-did/polyfrag 👍)

#cant remember if weve reblogged

[alters-journal]

Thick water is more like a medication than a manufactured item. Buying canes, weighted blankets, fidget/stim toys, etc. DOES help lower the cost because they are items. Physical things made in factories. Thick water is something to digest. A substance created to be consumed and is created in a certain way probably in labs and stuff. With things like that it usually does not help lower the price, it just helps deplete the resource.

apparently people are now purchasing thick water to make slimes with because of a trend on tiktok

thick water is for disabled people who can’t swallow properly. stores usually have extremely limited supplies of it.

please don’t buy thick water for fun or to make slime with. it’s literally the only way some disabled people can drink anything. It’s not a fucking toy

[alters-journal]

"don't make your illness your entire personality >:("

It's???? It's a personality disorder???? That's just what I am like????? What

[alters-journal]

myths on persecutors.

that they are all evil - this is untrue - they simply enact a trauma response. obviously, if they do something bad, that doesn't excuse it (also, see system accountability), but persecutors aren't inherently evil or bad people.

that they do bad things for the sake of it - again, it's a trauma response.

that they are always rude and non caring - persecutors are people, too. they have emotions and personality and while they often have difficulties expressing feelings, that doesn't mean they don't possess them.

#ngl sometimes i do shit for a reaction out of people and sometimes that looks like im just doin it to do it #but actually i just really like watching people react like how i wish i could

[alters-journal]

The persecutor urge to post slurs and gore on this blog to get us termed bc itd be funny vs. Knowing that I'm not actually a bad person I just struggle with impulse control and have a fucked up sense of humor and never know when the joke goes too far.

#did system #anti endo #endos dni #traumagenic system #did persecutors #system persecutor #persecutor

[alters-journal]

Remember: a disorder being rare ≠ nobody in the world has it and if you say you do, you’re clearly faking because there’s no way someone could actually have it! That disorder only exists to read about in psychology textbooks!!

[alters-journal]

Anyone else only in their 20s but feel like they are running out of time to get their life together??

[alters-journal]

All amazing points and so important to take in. I think I have done a couple of these, but not habitually or intensely. But it's good awareness for me.

#parents rackin up the points yall

[alters-journal]

sandwich post on the wrong blog. not deleting. enjoy the sandwich

[alters-journal]

Earth is so crazy we literally have the ingredients of sandwiches here..

[alters-journal]

I am very tired of seeing radqueer / transRAMCOA / transDID shit in the RAMCOA tags. It is frustrating and disappointing to see survivors being spoken over and their spaces being encroached on by people who never went through the horrors of RAMCOA and can only attempt to imitate it and make a mockery of it.

Just as misinformation on social media has real clinical implications for DID and OSDD in general, the misinformation about RAMCOA (and all of this "transRAMCOA" and related shit) will only make it more difficult for real survivors of organized and extreme abuse to come forward, be believed, and be treated.

The Satanic Panic had devastating effects on the credibility of survivors. Now it is happening all over again on social media.

[alters-journal]

thoughts on false-positive alter recording and alter fixation (or: i used to think a lot of symptoms were alters when they were not)

or: how the online DID community can exacerbate identity issues and further fragment a person's sense of self

warning: very long post. personal and subjective experiences ahead.

i'm going to start this by saying i have DID. i've been in treatment for three years and my trauma recovery journey is intrinsically linked to me acknowledging and integrating my other selves. part of this journey has been recording and identifying my selves when they emerge. this is easier said than done.

even earlier than professional treatment, i've been in online system spaces for five years. i discovered my parts about a year after a stress and trauma based breakdown in 2018. i didn't have access to therapy at the time, so i went online to get answers and for models of how i 'should' be approaching my revelation.

the first advice any questioning system gets is 'try to communicate with your alters'. i was advised to journal and talk to myself. i went and did that on my own, and made decent small progress seeing my different mes express their opposing views. alongside some unfortunate triggers that brought parts to the surface, i began to identify an angry part, a child part, a calm and reasonable part, amongst others. i became aware of how my identity was fragmented between my different self-states, which i could seem to switch between at the drop of a hat. my partner at the time helped me, by telling me about switches they witnessed, and noticing and talking to my child part when they emerged during a flashback.

after a while i really wanted to start understanding what was going on, so i started joining discords and communities. it was here i got a faceful of what alters 'should' look like. every alter had a name and age. every alter had a sexual orientation and internal appearance. every alter was distinct.

the way alters were identified was also different. it wasn't "someone shouted at me and i acted like a completely different person", or "i was told i had a flashback, but i don't feel connected to the memory". it was mostly about identity.

the signs you were (or had) a new alter included:

identifying as a fictional character

suddenly rejecting your 'real'/host life and identity

suddenly deciding on / showing signs of a wildly new identity

in my experience, this altered identity-first approach to identifying alters is misleading. it's led me to some embarrassing inflated alter counts. i want to talk about it in this post.

a core of DID and a large part of its sister disorders is dissociation, and dissociation is confusing, unclear, and sudden spikes are often temporary and brought on by stress.

unfortunately, in the very alter-centric DID communities online, it is easy to develop a bias towards (new) alters being the only explanation for dissociative experiences. this way one-off moments of identity confusion and choosing a new appearance for the evening can become written into your alter lists for a very long time. you might assume the experience was an alter fronting, and because they were an alter, they will come back some day, prolonging the impact of the episode on your sense of self.

when this bias (towards thinking every confusing dissociative experience is an alter) is paired with the rhetoric that alters are whole, defined "different people", with no room for overlap, inconsistency, or blurred lines, it can lead to very messy issues in self-perception.

over the past five years, i have:

clung to a fictional character i admired or saw my experiences in and announced them as my whole self. dozens of times. these periods can last hours to days.

spoken to loved ones without feeling much connection at all, bordering on feeling like i was talking to a total stranger.

hated myself so much i rejected every identity i had, and decided the only way i could go on is if i lived as a totally different person.

these experiences aren't exclusive to DID. they're the experiences of someone with a poor sense of self and a tendency to dissociate. i've met many people with personality disorders and/or long term trauma that i've connected with over sharing these symptoms.

however, it is easy to see how any of my experiences could be construed as a sign of an alter. doing so, though, leaves you with:

a further fragmented sense of identity by assuming you had 'split' a new alter state that you didn't.

normalising not connecting to your loved ones, because they are 'not your' loved ones, just the host's.

seeing parts that hate your life and identity as abusive or aggressive intruders, rather than understanding the root cause within you (internalised self hatred).

i've fallen into all of these traps before, and i don't think there's any shame in misunderstanding your experiences. i've recently done a sweep of every alter i've ever logged over the past five years, trying to honestly evaluate whether or not each one was a real alter, or just a one-off name and identity confusion i assumed was a part, but was not.

identity issues and fragmentation are very distressing symptoms. some of the worst times of my life were when i had no cohesion between my selves: i didn't 'know' myself, and it felt like my head was full of strangers. it was hard to love myself when i didn't know who 'i' was, in multiple or singular state.

i have been much happier in recent years, having gone into therapy, a vast amount of integration happening, and getting a generalised better self-awareness, making it easier to identify my different selves, and feeling more confident telling when i am only experiencing identity confusion, knowing that it will pass.

nowadays, my alters don't look like they did when i was trying to fit into the DID community template. my alters don't have unique sexual orientations, and not all of them have internal appearances when i visualise them. at their core, they are parts of me who hold conflicting reactions to trauma, and all want different things to get their peace.

i am confident that every alter i engage with nowadays is 'real', because i have known them all for many years, and i understand how they think and function. there is nobody on my documentation that might just be a one-off moment of identity confusion, because i know how to identify my episodes, and know not to write them down as alters.

but, most importantly, i'm confident the alters i know today are real because i've removed myself from spaces that changed how i saw myself. i am confident in myself now, but i was not so lucky earlier in my recovery, and i find it a bit embarrasing.

i tend to avoid DID communities online nowadays, because of my bad experiences with the common rhetoric and the templates systems are expected to fit into. i don't fit into their boxes, and their approach doesn't speak to me. and that's ok. i'll stick to me, my loved ones, and my therapist.

sorry for the super long blog post, i had thoughts to get out. feel free to strike up a conversation if you connect and want to talk. this was a hard topic to broach for my wounded pride😅. i'd be interested if anyone else shares my experience. thanks for reading.