#manybutone

[many-but-one]

Had a friend wondering this and this is a question we’ve answered before but I figured making a post for the masses would be useful.

Question:

“How much of childhood is normal for someone to forget?”

Upon asking a plethora of non-traumatized people, this is what we’ve gathered as a “normal” capability of remembering in terms of childhood. Remember…NON-TRAUMATIZED people are who we are talking about, or at least non-CPTSD people, because trauma is inherently a part of life.

-Most people in their teens can remember most of their childhood, both good and bad parts of the childhood. They can typically remember as early as age 5, and usually remember good things or extremely bad one-off events with more clarity.

-people in their 20s can typically remember about the same as teens can, though it may get fuzzier as they get older, and those “core memories” are the ones they can recall the best, though if someone reminds them of a moment in their childhood they wouldn’t normally be able to recall off the bat, they can then remember that with pretty full clarity. (“Remember that one time you ate all that candy at the holiday dinner! Haha! You got so sick!” “Oh right!!! Yeah, that was AWFUL!!”) Typically they can still remember as early as age 5-7, and can remember after age ten extremely well, and can definitely remember their teen years.

-people in their thirties and forties usually remember core memories, typically moments of extreme happiness or extreme sadness. They usually remember their lives in milestones rather than ages. (“The year I got my first bike” or “the year I got that one tattoo”) Again, if they are reminded of something they can typically remember it with pretty decent clarity. Their memories of very early childhood are pretty degraded unless reminded, but recall is usually as far back as age 7-10.

-people older than 50 can usually remember major life events in their childhood, and often remember their teen years pretty well. Like the 30-40s people, they usually remember their lives in milestones rather than ages. Marriage, people they dated, new jobs, etc. Recall deteriorates as they get older and older, so they will usually only be able to easily recall moments in their teen years at this age, and major life events in their childhood may not have as much clarity, but they still can remember, especially when reminded. Once old age related memory loss sets in, this becomes more difficult and recall memory deteriorates a LOT as they grow older, but being reminded of things can usually jog their memory.

How our old host remembered our childhood on a day to day basis before system discovery:

-Pre age 10 was sporadic, and only positive memories. Most things were only remembered because people told them stories about the memories, but not because they actually remembered living it.

-huge memory gaps in various years after age 10, but that was covered up pretty easily with a few sporadic positive memories sprinkled in there, making them believe that their life had been peaches and cream for most of their life. They split up as our host when we were 17 years old and that’s when their own working memory really starts, so they could remember both good and bad after age 17, which made them believe that only bad things happened after that age because they couldn’t remember anything bad before that unless they were told something bad happened.

This is coming from an HC-DID system who used to have extremely high amnesia barriers between trauma holding parts and non-trauma holding parts, though. These days there is a lot more memory sharing, but we are also 25 and not in trauma time anymore so that is possible.

#did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #did #manybutone #trauma #did system #hc did #hc did system #amnesia #dissociative amnesia #actually did #cptsd

[systemic-chaos]

system support servers are really hit or miss sometimes, but once you find a good one it’s GREAT

#im in manybutone's system support server #its so good #i finally feel safe being honest about myself and my experiences #im so glad im a part of it

[many-but-one]

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I’ve forgotten if we’ve shared this poem before. We have so many and I know I haven’t shared many of my own. I feel like a lot of folks (especially hosts) with CDDs will relate to this one.

⚠️TW: repeating phrases, violence, SA (using the actual r-word), mild religious content, gore⚠️

walking freak show.

#my poetry #dori’s poetry #dori🌹 #did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #personal post #manybutone #did system #poetry

[many-but-one]

The did-is-not-real account following all of the DID accounts on tumblr just to try to bully or belittle them is so fucking funny to me😂 fan behavior tbh. You must have a lot of hate in your heart to really spend so much time doing that instead of minding your business. Claims they are worried about malingerers as if that’s actually their problem to deal with and not someone’s personal therapy team. Yikes!

#did osdd #did alters #personal post #manybutone #dissociative identity disorder #did #did system #malingering #fakeclaiming #did is not real #osdd system

[many-but-one]

EYEWITNESS

⚠️TW: religious trauma, CSA, RAMCOA, descriptions of child death⚠️

Author’s note: This is an intense poem, but is extremely important for me to share as an eyewitness to these atrocities. As the highest level gatekeeper in our system, I witnessed Everything, and was forced to cut my emotions about it away so I could do my job. Yesterday, a mutual on TikTok (The Brigadoon System) posted a video in response to a hate comment on one of our videos, in which they described the emotions about what it’s like to witness child death, and it struck such a chord in me that I actually was able to feel some of these feelings again for the first time in many, many years. It was difficult. Devastating. But also cathartic in a way. It reminded me that I’m not the cold monster I used to believe I was, and that allowing yourself to feel grief can be healing, too.

Please only read if you feel you are able to do so, please heed the trigger warnings above.

This poem DOES end on a good note, but it starts a bit heavy. Please read with caution.

EYEWITNESS

You know what they say about eyewitness reports. How they are often unreliable, how people often focus too much on a certain thing or they are too caught up in the emotions of it all that they mistake brunette hair for black, or black skin for white. Or whatever story serves the highest bidder, whatever story the pigs can scrape out of them to put someone they already hate behind bars.

You’ve all heard that, right?

And maybe it’s true that eyewitness accounts aren’t always accurate, but I’ve always felt like I would be a fantastic eyewitness, so good, in fact, the cops would hate me for how I refuse to stare at the lineup of pictures of black men with dreads or Latino men with tattoos that scare the perfect bottle blonde PTO moms lined up in front of me. They’d hate me for how I’d describe the perpetrator as a white man in a black business suit, I’d note the exact turn the curls in his hair made. I’d let the police know he wore blue eye contacts. I’d tell them not to forget the freckle underneath his right eye, I surely won’t. I could tell them that his dick was 6.75 inches too and that he never shaved, and when they ask me why I know that, I’ll tell them that I could feel him hitting my cervix when I was six years old, and he couldn’t push all the way in. I’ll tell them I used to get his hair stuck under my tongue when he used my mouth like a cunt. I’d let them know he kept his nails clean and trimmed short so that when he gripped at me he wouldn’t leave scratches that would be noticed later.

See, the thing about eyewitness accounts is that emotions are always running high when someone holds a gun to you from the other side of a convenience counter, but luckily for me I cut those away when I was seven, my job description required it, especially after that one cold December night. You know, the really important one everyone talks about all the time. It’s a night that I lament as the one I became god, and so too like god I created the separation between the sky and the land—the inner world one, I mean. Don’t think I’ve gotten cocky, I’m not that much of a sadist.

The sky I created was like spilled ink swelling across a page of parchment, and it held no stars or moon. Instead the black, viscous sky held my grief, it held that singular emotion I could not take that night, the night I was killed three times and what arose from me were sacrificial lambs, a pack of snarling wolves, and a god whose blue eyes were as cold as the winter’s midnight wind. The grief nearly overtook me and so I had to cut him away from me, I placed him in the sky, the one thing that would remain not only above me, but all around me, a place I would swim in every so often and get trapped in like a raptor in a Jurassic tar pit.

The rest of my parts, the children and the tigers and the demons and angels would never know where my grief went, they’d call me cold and cruel, they’d call me a monster, and I’d let them, because I knew they were telling the version of the truth I believed myself. I was a monster for having the ability to cut my pain away from me while they all writhed in theirs like a fly caught in a spider’s web.

For every trauma we took, for every single event I witnessed, the sky would grow larger, darker, heavier. Nobody felt the weight of it except me, the god who resided in it, an Atlas of epic proportions—who experienced everything, witnessed everything, Knew Everything. Omnipresent, omniscient, but not omnipotent. Every December reminded me of that, when I’d find myself on that church floor in my white dress with my limbs bound in prayer. O Holy God, wherest art thou? I’m right here, I’ve Always been here. Shattered over and over like delicate china dolls, those fragment pieces still scream the words I could never say at the time and will never be able to receive an actual answer for.

WHY? WHY? WHY?

The answer that I know you hold in your blackened heart is that you’re a sick and twisted man with sick and twisted followers, who keep the red eyes trained on me for money. Do you really think I’m that fucking stupid, that I don’t know your little games weren’t for a religious cause? They were so you could line your pockets. But at least I’d get a good Christmas present and my dad would get his booze money.

I used to wish that you had killed me, my desire to give up and die was held in a creature called The Nothing, held back by the strongest of my wolf pack, a black hellhound named G’mork wreathed in the fires of Wrath and Vengeance, who holds Hope like a tool of demolition. He held back this immense creature almost as expansive as my grief overhead, and it kept us alive.

It wasn’t until later that I realized how important this would be to me. See, I hated that he existed to keep that desire at bay, sometimes I wish I could tell him to let it free, let it consume us, but our brain was stubborn in keeping us alive.

I now realize that if I hadn’t lived all these years later, I wouldn’t have been able to become the most important eyewitness I’d ever become. The most painful and devastating eyewitness I would ever bear, a witness to monstrosities that cannot ever be truly described, something I wish in my heart of heart and soul of souls that I could have stopped. I couldn’t then.

But maybe now, I can.

I have lived through so many types of torture, the sorts of things that make even my therapist with decades of experience wince and cringe. The sorts of things you can’t even conceive of if you hadn’t seen them yourself.

The first time I watched a child die, she looked like me. It was an accident, and I know this because the men in their black clothes and black masks with their blue eyes peering over and through were swearing and yelling at the one responsible for her death. I never knew her name, but her blonde hair was lighter than mine, and her eyes more of a grey than a blue. Her neck snapped like a gunshot and I froze when her body went limp. The girl next to me, perhaps barely five, screamed. The one on my other side, a girl no older than me, with hair longer than mine and a darker shade of gold than mine, stood stoic, her bright blue eyes barely welling with tears. When they punished the screaming girl mere seconds after the sound had been ripped from her lungs, I copied the older girl out of desperation. I had grown used to cutting out my emotions by now, what was a bit more going to do to me? My inner world sky now held a single star. I named that girl Star in my mind. Her hair was like a halo, fluffy like angels wings. It seemed fitting. I’ll never, ever forget her. I cannot unsee her. I have never been able to grieve her.

Many more stars were added over the course of months and years, a sky full of them, twinkling down upon my system, them none the wiser of who they represented. The girl with the doe-brown eyes, I called her Bambi. The girl who compulsively tore out her hair and was so very tall for being only nine, I called her Willow. They all had nicknames in my mind, all the ones I could see well enough and for long enough to name. For those that I couldn’t, their stars shined the brightest, my grief for them more intense than the heat of a supernova. Nameless stars for nameless girls.

Many of them were named various shades of colors, after what they were wearing, or the color of their skin or hair. Most often I used the colors of their eyes, something I almost always saw. Something I never looked away from, even in their final moments when I wanted to look away.

I made a promise to my first star, that I would never look away. Looking away meant punishment anyway, but even if it didn’t, I wouldn’t. I may never know their real name if they even had one, but I would know them by the color of their eyes.

Honey, Golden, Oak, Leaf, Moss, Ocean, Mist, Bluejay.

The eyes always told me what their screams could not. Their screams were pleas for help they knew wouldn’t come, but their eyes said WITNESS ME and I bore witness to them. NEVER FORGET ME and I never forgot them. LIVE FOR ME and I lived for them.

I taught myself more colors in art class at school so I could find more names to give. There would always be names to give. Perhaps this is why I became an artist. Every time I mix new colors on the palette, dip brush to oil and brush to paint and put paint to canvas, I remember the shades of eyes I saw, who begged me to be their eyewitness. Their eyes cover my canvases. Perhaps this is why I’ve always liked the colors blue, green, and brown in my artworks.

I see their eyes everywhere I go. In the moss clinging to tree bark during an afternoon walk, in the slicked brown leaves after an autumn thunderstorm, in the clear sky on a balmy summer’s day, in the honey I put in my tea when I have a cold, and in my morning coffee.

You’d think this would make me hate going outside, but nature is my favorite place to be. You’d think this would make me stop seeing color in everything I do, but I can’t help but gaze at the colorful world around me. After all, wouldn’t it make me sad to see the cinnamon on my toast and remember the exact way a girl was dismembered before me? Maybe for some this would be true, but not for me.

To me this is the best way I can bring these girls with me along in my life, in this way, it feels like they’re growing with me. In this way, it feels like they’re now an eyewitness to MY life, a life I promised I would live for them.

I always keep my promises.

#aridam🪢 #dissociative identity disorder #personal post #manybutone #did system #poetry #my poetry

[many-but-one]

Could we get some positivity for systems who don’t want fusion? Who are fighting to maintain systemhood for their own well-being? Sometimes the trauma is too much for just one person

Hi anon,

Sure, I can do that. With a small caveat.

First of all, fusion is a normal thing that can happen with trauma healing whether the system wants it or not. You very rarely choose to fuse. It’s the brain’s way of saying “we don’t need two or more guys for this anymore, let’s combine them to one.” It’s a normal and natural part of the healing process. Even if striving for functional multiplicity, there will be fusions along the way and you will rarely “end” with the same number you started with.

Fusion is a deeply personal process and not all systems like it or want to do it. Final fusion especially can be terrifying to consider when you have lived as many your whole life. But I do want to note that fusion does not have to be scary and it doesn’t mean you are losing anyone. In most people’s accounts of fusion that I have seen, the fused part still feels both/all parts within them. They often describe it as a wonderful feeling after the initial shock and confusion of the event, especially if sudden. My experience with fusion was wonderful and it massively benefited the system.

From the perspective you are sharing, that all of this trauma is too much for one person, it makes me believe that you are not in a healed enough state to consider it. Of course the trauma is too much for one person, that’s why you’re multiple! Healing that trauma and lowering amnesia barriers/dissociative barriers and integration of memories between alters is necessary for both final fusion AND functional multiplicity. You cannot be functionally multiple if you still experience major amnesia gaps between parts or are still having your everyday life ruled by trauma and triggers. Healing from your trauma is what pushes fusion to occur, because those memories are no longer too much for one person to handle. Once you process those trauma memories completely, they will not affect you like they did before. You will remember them, but not be distressed by them. You will not be triggered by the things within that memory anymore.

So positivity for systems who don’t want to pursue fusion, that’s perfectly fine! It’s a personal choice. But please do not let the fear of the memories being too much for one person to handle to stop you from making that choice. Because fusion won’t occur between parts if the memories aren’t processed anyway. Fusion is a natural part of healing in systemhood and is a good thing! If that’s not the direction you want to go and you want to strive for functional multiplicity, that’s amazing and you can do that! But functional multiplicity also requires a high level of integration of memories too. Which means all parts involved in the system will eventually know all the memories anyway. Wanting to keep memories separate is natural for a system because that’s how you survived, but to actually heal requires less barriers and more memory sharing so that you can live a functional life.

Hope this helps, anon. Please take care!

-Dorian🌹

#did osdd #did alters #personal post #dissociative identity disorder #did #manybutone #dorian🌹 #did system #anon ask #advice #final fusion #functional multiplicity

[many-but-one]

Dori here!

Gender and sexuality when fused with so many folks is so strange.

For context I’m fused with five different parts.

-Jules (they/them, femme leaning non-binary, bi demisexual leaning toward women)

-Foster (he/him, genderfluid amab man, pansexual leaning toward men, very hypersexual, DTF with anyone anytime)

-Rebecca (she/her, cis woman, femme lesbian)

-Rachel (she/her, female child alter)

-Maribelle (she/her, female child alter)

All of the above loved feminine self expression so that is pretty obvious on where I land now. Sometimes the masculine side of Foster comes out of nowhere and smacks me in the face though and that throws me for a loop.

Simultaneously extremely hypersexual like Foster was but also don’t want to be touched by anyone except those I trust wholeheartedly like Jules.

Currently dating a butch lesbian, a bisexual man, and a gay man. I am bisexual and that seems to remain constant which is nice. It’s nice to have something constant, here.

Still sort of consider myself a gay man like Foster but also not? I like the term “twink” or even “femboy” to describe myself even though I look female in the IW, use she/her pronouns, and don’t like to be referred to as or considered a man. Describing myself as a femme lesbian doesn’t feel right even though I kind of am one by definition.

When with my girlfriend I am fine being considered a lesbian. But when I’m with my bisexual male partner it feels like a straight relationship. But when I’m with my gay male partner I consider it a gay mlm relationship.

My name IS Dorian but being called Dorian instead of Dori feels Weird. But it also feels Totally Fine That’s Literally My Name.

My brain really said “you’re never going to be able to figure out your gender or sexuality ever again, have fun with that” 😭😭

Which is FINE, I’m the happiest I’ve been probably ever in my life and it doesn’t bring me THAT much uncomfortableness but it’s still a real whiplash to be like “I’m a lesbian girl but I’m also a gay twink” and I don’t even know what to do with this🤣

Any other DID folks who have multiple fused parts in yourself have this struggle??

#did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #personal post #manybutone #did system #dori🌹

[many-but-one]

Things I didn't realize would happen as I started trauma therapy

To preface, this is written by Vivian (he/him), the current "main" host of the Many but One system. I am a trauma holder for childhood and teen trauma, but I am also highly functional despite this due to the fact that most of my really severe trauma is even further compartmentalized--I am one of those "alter with alters" type of subsystems.

So, this post is going to explain some of the things I didn't realize would happen to me, Vivi, as I progressed in trauma therapy.

I had to re-learn how to say "no." This was very hard to do in the beginning. My entire "purpose" was very heavily focused on "just let it happen, just let it happen, it'll be over soon" regardless of what the actual circumstances were. Even in a non-SA environment, I found it difficult to say no to people or to remove myself from situations I felt were uncomfortable. When my therapist helped me realize that I had CHOICES and could make them freely (within reason) that was...seriously mind-blowing. Intrinsically, I know that I am allowed to say no. I know that I can make my own choices. However, when faced with the actual situation or if I think too deeply about the freedom I have I actually lose my fucking mind just a little bit. It's like my internal wiring is so deeply set to "NO! You sit there and you take it, it doesn't matter how uncomfortable you are, you just let it happen." Going against such deeply ingrained beliefs about myself has been a doozy, but it's been such a relief to finally have some freedom from those lines of thinking.

I am not as apathetic and hateful as I thought I was. Don't get me wrong, when I get into a "mood" I can definitely be this way, however, upon working on healing myself I realized I actually, genuinely, enjoy helping people or taking care of them. I was never like this before because I was so deeply focused on keeping MYSELF safe, that I didn't even have the capacity to think or care about others. I was incredibly self-centered, and not in a bad way, in a survival way.

I don't have to let myself suffer all the time. If my body hurts I can take care of it. If I am hungry, I am allowed to eat. If I am uncomfortable in any given scenario, I can leave. I don't have to "just suffer through it." Suffering is not a virtue, and it doesn't make me stronger. It only makes me weaker.

People aren't as bad as I thought they were. From my limited experiences in the external world as a child and teen, every single interaction I ever had with someone was typically highly traumatic. Such is the way of a trauma holder who kind of "specializes" in the SA side of things. So as you can imagine, becoming a host and having to interact with people on a daily basis made it very hard to trust anyone around me. However, the more I interact with genuinely good people, the more I realize that "Humanity is Okay, actually." Yeah there are some really fucked up people, like our abusers, but there is so much genuine GOOD out there, and having my walls up at every second made it literally impossible to even see it. Learning how to trust and be vulnerable is still something I am working on. But I am doing it, and it hasn't backfired yet. Knowing who to trust has been hard because I typically just go "NOBODY," or at least, I used to. So I am very careful about who I put my trust in, and it has paid off immensely.

I am a genuinely good person, even when I do "bad" things. When I say bad things, I don't mean abusing others or things of that nature. But moreso, things that myself, our system, our brain, has ingrained in us as "bad." Such as coping with negative coping mechanisms (alcohol, drugs, impulsive spending, self harm), engaging in trauma reenactment scenarios, or being overly reactive (or the opposite, apathetic) to others around me. Just because I relapse into bad behaviors doesn't automatically make me a bad person, that just makes me human. And thinking that I'm going to get through this hell called "Trauma Therapy" without relapses is just ridiculous. Being kinder to myself has been a good step.

I am allowed to make mistakes. Kind of with the above, mistakes don't automatically mean I need to punish myself for making the mistake. Making mistakes is part of life, no matter how big or small they are. Showing myself grace when I do these things has been life-altering.

I am a human being. This one is kind of sad. A lot of our trauma holders feel very detached from being a person, including myself. A saying we have to remind ourselves of constantly is "We Are Human." We are a person, not a thing, not a demon, not a monster, not a faerie, not a statue, not a robot, not a doll, not an angel, not a god. We are human, and we deserve to be treated with the kindness and grace of one. That is the LEAST we deserve, is to be treated like a human. Unfortunately that has not been the case for a lot of our lives. But things are different now. And we are finally starting to understand that.

I don't have to live with one foot in trauma time and one foot in the present. This might be a bit confusing, but something our therapist noticed with a lot of us is that we often have one foot in the present and one foot still in trauma time. We often feel like we have to hold on tight to those experiences. During trauma anniversaries, we HAVE to relive them, that's our job. This may just be a personal system experience, but we didn't get closure when the trauma ended, so we never knew when it would happen again. There are so many parts in our system that are so sure it's going to start again even though it ended 15 years ago. They are still certain that "this year is different, this year they will come for us" which leaves us panicked and paranoid. Something we did to cope was essentially relive the trauma or reenact the trauma internally during those trauma times because we were so used to being traumatized the same ways all the time at the same times of the year, that when we suddenly weren't, we panicked. However, in therapy we have slowly started learning that the cycle is OVER and we don't have to live like this anymore. It's so hard. But we are making it work.

I hope by sharing these few things it will instill maybe a little bit of hope for those of you who are working through trauma therapy. I truly never thought I would be where I am today. I was considered one of our most self destructive persecutors for a long time, I would burn every bridge I could to keep people away from me, I would self harm and drink alcohol excessively, I would be reckless and impulsive to the point where there were many times that our gatekeepers had to frantically yank me out of the front so that I wouldn't end our life. The levels of pain I felt (and still very often feel, I am not "healed" yet) were so fucking immense that I just didn't want to be here anymore. But seeing where I came from versus where I am now has given me a lot of hope for where I could be in the coming months and years. I don't think I've ever truly had hope for the future, but now I am at the very least curious what it will bring. I think even just a mere curiosity is enough. You don't have to be excited for what is to come. Simply being curious is good, too.

I hope you all have a blessed day,

🪷Vivi👑

Many but One

#vivian🪷 #did osdd #manybutone #trauma therapy #trauma treatment #trauma recovery #therapy #dissociative identity disorder #otherwise specified dissociative disorder #cdd #odd #did #actually did #actually traumatized #traumagenic #traumagenic system #dissociation

[many-but-one]

Wow everyone, I just realized we passed the 1k follower mark here on tumblr a while back! We don’t usually keep track of our follower count because follower count doesn’t really matter to us, but it’s still wild to consider that a whole 1k+ people here on tumblr follow us. Thanks for being here!

#1k followers #personal post #manybutone

[many-but-one]

i understand if you don’t answer questions like this and it won’t hurt my feelings if you need to delete this.

i feel like my smaller parts have been coming out a lot lately, but the problem is that they are so overwhelmed and so sad all the time, and so fearful of anyone and everyone close to us, that i feel like i’m drowning in an ocean of sadness and hurt and depression. everything is so hard and nothing brings me true joy and i feel like it will never get better. my partner gets overwhelmed when i get like this and tries to talk to me like i’m one singular person and he can’t spot my little ones unless i tell him they’re there. i know that that makes sense intellectually, but in the moment it feels like he doesn’t see me/us and i’m just reliving my childhood and teen experiences of not being okay and begging for help and never being believed.

i do have a therapist, and she helps some, but sometimes it just feels like all i get is “do yoga and meditation and that’ll help.” she’s been through a lot herself and i know intellectually it probably works and i really should do it, but i just can’t bring myself to, and i don’t feel like it’ll fix the hole in my heart. maybe nothing ever will, i don’t know.

if you have any advice i’d be happy to listen but i also understand if this is too heavy or sad to talk about. i know it’s probably just a matter of having to grit my teeth and try to take care of the kids and get over myself anyway.

Oh luv🥺 I am so sorry this is happening to you.

I can absolutely understand why the feeling of being ignored or unseen can make parts feel like they are reliving aspects of their childhood. Young parts often hold so much pain, it can be hard for lesser knowing parts to even fathom such deep depths of emotions like that until they’re right next to you and you’re feeling them.

My suggestion to you is twofold:

1) communicate with your partner and your therapist that while you know they’re trying to help, their help is just…not helpful. You are allowed to tell someone their help isn’t helping, especially a therapist that you pay to see. A question you will likely get from them is “How can I help you better, then?” And that’s something you’ll need to figure out. What would help you best in that moment? Comfort? Talking about the emotions? Expressing them in some way with your partner? (Such as making art or listening to a music playlist these parts make to help get these feelings out? Both can also double as a way for your partner to see the intensity of the pain externally in ways that perhaps words or explanation just can’t describe. Art is a powerful mode of communication, feel free to use it!)

2) Find out what YOU yourself can do to help these child alters feel better too. Unfortunately we cannot always rely on external people to be the miracle validators we need, we also have to rely on ourselves. Would your child alters want to be known by you or others externally better? Why are they scared of those around you? What can YOU do to help them feel comforted in this moment? Some other good skills to learn are grounding in the present (as these things you are feeling are likely emotional flashbacks—feelings your child self was feeling during times of trauma), something called “unblending” which is recognizing when emotions are not your own and working to unblend from that child self whose emotions are leaking into you, and widening your window of tolerance. These things can be hard! They are skills that requires practice, especially since folks with CDDs tend to be pretty “all or nothing” when it comes to emotions. Either you feel ALL OF IT or you dissociate it all away. Boon, Steele, and Van der Hart talk about this in the book “Coping with Trauma Related Dissociation” which is a fantastic resource available here.

Here is an excerpt that talks a bit about emotional avoidance or lack of reflection on emotions and learning how to widen your window of tolerance that may be useful:

In addition to all the things suggested, if you have child alters who are flooding the front with so much emotion that it seems nigh uncontrollable, it’s probably best that they not be fronting at that time. Learning how to communicate with them and say things like “hey, I am at work right now, we cannot be having these sorts of emotions at this time. I am not ignoring you, we will address them later when we are in a safe place at home. Can you please go inside to a safe place until we can address these emotions safely?” To which you then must address those parts later on, or they will end up not trusting you when you communicate this and will be less likely to leave front when you ask. Directing them to a safe alter (like a caretaker, protector, or gatekeeper) or asking them to go to a safe inner place internally can provide a bit of relief. If you don’t have an inner safe place or don’t know if you do, here’s some ideas on inner safe places for parts:

To create an inner safe place, try this visualization. We did this with our therapist and we still have the store in our inner world. Granted, it’s much bigger and more complex now to fit all the needs of all parts, but it’s still there!

Also creating time in your day or week for younger parts to come out and be in a safe place and enjoy things they like can work wonders on them feeling more comfortable in the present. Maybe at first you do not involve your partner in this. You can color in a coloring book, read a children’s book to your parts, eat a tasty snack with them, or any number of other things. Helping young parts feel safe and adjusted in the present space is helpful. Something we often have to do with young parts is a “house tour” which is going around the house and pointing out all the things that are different than the old places. “See how the walls are [color] and not [color]? Look at this decoration, we didn’t have that back then. Look at our [pet if you have one] we didn’t have them back then. Look at this furniture and these clothes, we didn’t have these things back then, because it is [insert this year] and not back then, we are safe now in this space.” Eventually adding your partner in with these activities will also help them feel safer around your partner.

Additionally, encouraging parts to express themselves with words or pictures rather than emotions can be important. Putting emotions into something like words, drawings, a gallery of photos you find on the internet, etc, can be a good way to help de-escalate emotions and make them not so intense. I know saying “putting words to emotions makes the emotions not so intense” feels fake, but trust me, it works. Yes, it pisses us off every time we do what our therapist says will help and it actually helps. Yes, we still do it begrudgingly even though it helps. If parts are not allowed to talk about what happened to them (your gatekeeper or protector parts do not allow them to disclose trauma) then have them not write about the experience itself, but the emotions behind the experience. Encourage parts to use their words when communicating rather than emotions or flashbacks.

I hope some of these suggestions helped? Good luck and take care anon!

-Dori🌹 (she/he/they)

#dori🌹 #anon ask #answered asks #did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #manybutone #did system #child alters #advice

[many-but-one]

i dunno if you guys answer asks but what’s the best way to start… remembering? our social worker suggested hypnotherapy but i don’t know if that works well. we’re aware of the possibility of ramcoa trauma happening and have a few memories but we don’t know how to go about piecing things together

We do answer asks! We just forget we have an askbox sometimes. This one caught my attention in particular due to the mention of hypnotherapy and a possibility of RAMCOA trauma.

Obligatory “I’m not a therapist I’m just a random system on tumblr and you should make your own informed decisions on your own mental health.”

So if you suspect RAMCOA trauma in your history I would advise to be extremely careful and/or cautious about pursuing hypnotherapy. We have never done hypnotherapy and never will because hypnosis is a very common mode that programmers will use to create a dissociated state in a child. Hypnosis therefore is extremely triggering to us and if your system has parts who are programmed to run when hypnosis begins, it could cause a risk to your system’s stability.

As for tips on how to remember, all I will say is that you should probably consider the factors that make you unable to remember at this time.

Common reasons why amnesia can be strong/worsen for systems (side note: these are all personal experiences or experiences I’ve heard from other systems):

stress in daily life often causes amnesia barriers to strengthen or worsen

a lot of trauma has already recently come out. Especially in the case of HC-DID or C-DID where higher ups can often control amnesia levels to an extent, your gatekeepers will often increase amnesia levels if trauma has already recently slipped out to avoid even more slipping out

you are still having to consistently interact with someone who was involved in or complicit in your trauma. If you are living with your dad who you think is kind of a dick but not that bad and suddenly get memories that he tortured you, living with that person will become nearly impossible for your wellbeing. Gatekeepers will often keep stuff locked down when you are still having to be in contact with past abusers

you are not in a stable position to begin to receive trauma memories. People with CPTSD, a CDD, etc often report that they function fine enough when they are living in an abusive environment, but once they leave that environment and can truly relax, that’s when memories and flashbacks start hitting them and they become nearly nonfunctional despite being in a significantly calmer and safer environment. That’s your body and mind finally leaving fight or flight mode and when you truly get to relax for the first time it’s going to hit you like a truck.

Take it from a host that dug too much too soon and learned things way too fast: slow the fuck down. /meant gently. Your memories will surface in time. There is no rush to figure everything out. Trust me, the more you start learning the more you will probably be like “damn actually I don’t wanna know any more this is getting pretty bad” and by then your system will be like “WELL THAT’S TOO DAMN BAD.”

I had to get pulled from the host team for nearly a year because of how bad digging for memories fucked me up. Granted, I ended up taking up inner caretaking and inner deprogramming and now that our system is very nearly completely deprogrammed, my inner world job is less necessary so I can return to full time host business. There were several other factors that also led to me being unable to host again for so long, such as programmed parts constantly attacking and harming host team members (couldn’t handle that I am Fragile) and also having a harder time speaking in an American accent and masking my English one due to a series of splits that happened after we got divorced from our ex wife. I can mask my accent better now and my distress tolerance is much higher now due to having worked with programmed parts internally for so long, which makes me able to return to main host stuff and not get absolutely mentally destroyed anytime I experience a flashback or programmed response or an attack from a programmed part anymore.

If you have RAMCOA trauma, no matter if it was stuff from a single parent or a high control group, none of it will be fun to learn. It will be some of the most devastating, heart-wrenching, soul-crushing things you will ever experience, seeing flashbacks of your kid self being harmed in ways no human should be harmed, let alone an innocent kid. And I’m not saying you’re trying to learn for the fun of it, I’m assuming you want to learn for two reasons at least:

1) you’re in denial and need proof

2) you want to help your system heal

What I did to help myself through these two things were this:

When I experienced denial, such as when a part told me something or showed me something, I would just default to believing them no matter if I thought something like that could ever happen. My kid self deserves to have someone believe them. We were never believed as a kid, nobody paid attention, we were ignored. I’m never doing that to myself ever again. If the memory turns out to be a pseudomemory, or you realize maybe this didn’t really happen the way you thought, you’ll figure that out when you get there and that doesn’t mean you were faking it.

As for wanting to help my system heal, I learned I actually didn’t need to know as much info as I thought I needed to know to help my system heal. The extent of what I know now is a few visuals, that’s it. I have seen maybe about a dozen visual memories (not even in their entirety, often just 1 or 2 seconds of something) and the rest is just “this is what happened” as told to me by my parts. It’s like reading a horrible story, I’m incredibly detached from it. But the things I have seen have helped me learn to take my parts seriously when they tell me what happened. I catalogue their triggers, I learn what to avoid, I learn how to positively trigger out other parts who can help, I work on inner communication, etc. I don’t need to know all the details yet, that will come later. For now, I can teach my parts who haven’t seen the light of day for 15 years how to ground in the present and show them healthy coping skills. I can give them the comfort and love they always deserved. I don’t need to know what happened to do that. I can know it’s bad because they got triggered out when I looked in the mirror and they saw my red lipstick and freaked. I can know it’s bad because they internally look like a doll with no limbs or a young girl with no eyes and only a mouth full of teeth. I don’t need to see what made them that way/remember what made them that way to help them.

I hope my answer helped anon! Good luck!

-Dori 🌹(she/he/they)

#dori🌹 #dorian🌹 #answered asks #anon ask #did alters #did osdd #dissociative identity disorder #manybutone #hcdid #ramcoa #tw ramcoa #tw torture #did denial #coping skills #did amnesia

[many-but-one]

Trying to settle a discussion😅

Please reblog to get a larger sample size!

#personal post #manybutone #puns #bad puns #stupid puns #i love puns #funny puns #polls #my polls

[many-but-one]

Not going to lie, I did not mean to make people panic about their lack of memories of childhood and teen years with my last post😅 but maybe it’s good for people to realize that their lack of memory isn’t normal? All of the bullet points are based on conversations I’ve had with people at those ages and so they’re not scientific fact, just so everyone knows. It’s based on observation of people who don’t have CPTSD from childhood trauma at various stages of life.

Perhaps if our system has time we will make a poll for systems and non systems to answer to get a wider grasp of how memory works for the varying groups of people at different ages.

But overall the post was meant to convey “no, it’s not normal in the slightest to barely remember your childhood at almost any age of life, and no, it’s not normal to forget entire years of your existence unless you’ve suffered a TBI or have some kind of amnesia causing disorder”

#did osdd #did alters #personal post #dissociative identity disorder #did #manybutone #did system

[many-but-one]

Hi,

Quick question* regarding polyfragmentation. What do you consider polyfrag? I know that 100+ alter count isn't what makes a system polyfragmented, but as a system with a load of fragments, do these fragments "count" when doing an alter count? We seem to have only around 10ish "main guys", (alters "distinct enough" (not sure on the vocab) to give me a name) but some pretty complex splitting patterns, i think, (a pair of twins, "just some guy tm" repeated, at least 2 "subsystems" (can you have a subsystem with only fragments? I think that's the situation, but I'm not sure) ) and as mentioned before a bunch of fragments (80+ according to a gatekeeper, separated into what I think are subsystems based on trauma "type"). One of those "subsystems" seem to work like a "build-a-bear/potato-head", where a bunch of different frags come together depending on the situation and then split back up again, which seems to be a polyfrag thing, from what I've read? But we usually feel a little stupid when we say "Oh we're polyfrag..ish...???", and then there's the, "well then, how many alters do you have?" "...10.."

Could you write a bit about polyfragmentation, and what the continuum between DID and Pf-DID/C-DID kinda looks like?

Thank you!

*that was not a "quick" question, sorry bout that, and the excessive parenthesis usage.

So, what I understand about polyfragmentation is that it's less about the alter count (100+ alters is just more common) and more about the structure of the system and how the system formed over time. You don't need to go through RAMCOA to be a polyfrag system, either. Here's what I've gathered is "required" for a polyfrag system:

large alter count (yes, fragments count into the alter count, but some systems choose not to consider them since they aren't "whole" however, they are still alters in their own right despite the fragmentation). However, what a system defines as a high alter count to "qualify" for polyfragmentation varies. I've met systems who would "count" as polyfrag who only have about 60 parts and fragments, but they meet a lot of the criteria for polyfrag so they use the label. I've also met polyfrag systems who are so fragmented they cannot even come up with a proper number to describe how fragmented they are, well into the thousands. Those higher number polyfrag systems (like us) also often have frequent fusions and splits that make it difficult to keep an accurate headcount, and most of our fragments have no name or appearance that can be understood. They still count into the headcount, but keeping track of them is nigh impossible. Which is why we just toss out "over 1k+" because that's about as good as it's gonna get for us. We likely have much more than even that but we have no true way of keeping an accurate count and our primary gatekeeper doesn't want us to anyway.

abuse typically starts before the age of five and is integrated into your daily life. More often, the earlier the abuse started and the more integrated into daily life it is, the more your brain has to rely on dissociation as a coping skill and the more often your brain will split alters for any type of situation or stressor. This is most obvious if the trauma began in your pre-verbal years, as you wouldn't have the words to describe what was happening to you or the understanding of what was happening to you, so your brain's FIRST line of defense is dissociation rather than trying to wrap your head around it or speak about it in some way. "Integrated into daily life" means trauma is happening every day or extremely often, and often in multiple aspects of your life. Such as being bullied at school, being abused at home, and having poor interpersonal relationships with people outside of both home and school. This leaves nowhere safe for the child to turn to but their own mind. So a child doesn't need to be tortured endlessly day in and day out to become polyfrag, it's just a more common way for polyfragmentation to occur due to the severity of the abuse and the manipulation that often comes with child torture.

presence of subsystems. Not all systems with subsystems are C-DID, but if they exhibit multiple other signs of polyfragmentation and also have subsystems, then it's likely they are polyfrag. Subsystems are much more commonly seen in C-DID systems. And yes, a subsystem can be primarily fragments and often are. Systems with alter counts that are quite high (60+) will not usually have 60+ alters that are whole and fully formed. More likely they'll have something like what you've got going on, 10-15 "fuller" parts and a whole slew of fragments. In our system (an HC-DID system) we actually don't have that many "full" parts, and all parts except for perhaps two or three who appear to be "full" are actually subsystems (alter in alter types), essentially a part full of fragments to create the illusion of a more full and well-rounded alter. Kind of like a bunch of little guys under a trenchcoat to create the illusion of one guy. I'm pretty sure Aridam (our highest level, primary gatekeeper), Dorian (our former host who is an ANP who holds no trauma), and maybe one of our early life caretakers are the only three that aren't alter-in-alter subsystems who seem to have a "fuller" or more well-rounded personality. Though I may eat my words later.

presence of ANEPs. These are "Apparently Normal Emotional Parts" and these are parts who are traumatized like an EP would be but are also functional in everyday life. Almost all of our host team alters are ANEPs, and from what I've gathered, they're very often "alter in alter" subsystems in both our system and other systems we've encountered. Because they are traumatized but often emotionally detached from the trauma, or have the ability to just not think about it too hard in order to function in everyday life. However, the emotions tied to the trauma have to go *somewhere* and that's usually either held in another alter in the system or held within a fragment in their alter-in-alter subsystem.

complex splitting patterns. The user @multiple-myselves made a post a while back talking about how they and other polyfrag folks have labeled different splitting patterns. They also talk a lot about things that are often seen in polyfragmentation, so if you're needing more answers, I suggest heading over there. They have a lot of good information about the subject. To quote the part of the post that talks about complex splitting patterns (which we only have a screenshot of, unfortunately, as searching tags on tumblr is a pain and a half), some examples of splitting patterns include: "fractal splitting, (parts that split in two and those parts split into two and so on or in a similar pattern), iterative splits (part splits into a fragment that develops into a fuller part and then splits again), splitting multiple parts at once, etc." For us, splitting patterns also include: splitting multiple versions of the same guy (almost like having a "base" that a split starts from. We have so many guys with white hair and blue eyes it's ridiculous, and that's because the "white haired blue eyed boy" is a template that our brain keeps handy. Same with the "black haired blue eyed boy"), splitting a new fragment for a very particular purpose and when that purpose is over, that fragment re-fuses into the part it split from (depending on how long that purpose lasted, this part could have elaborated a bit, which will then make the fused part at the end fundamentally different than when before the split occurred), and for our system some parts are programmed to split a certain number of parts every single time they split, usually a number that's significant to that part's trauma so I won't share the number for our safety.

As for your last question, I'm going to be honest, I only know the experiences of a polyfrag system since I am a polyfrag system. However, from what I can gather, DID systems are not without fragments, but usually the number of fragments won't exceed the number of "fuller" parts, or won't reach an extremely high number. Polyfragmented systems also seem to have an easier time with co-consciousness or having more than just two parts fronting (oftentimes, we can have up to three to five parts fronting or in co-con with a primary fronter at the same time, but that's also because most of those extra folks are fragments. Our communication has gotten to such a point that we can kind of "build a fronter" for a given situation that is needed based on what fragments are able to handle that situation the best. i.e. Marrow is very chill and emotionally level, Gmork is very not chill or emotionally level but very motivated and has high energy levels, and Dire is very well-organized, so having the three of them as a fronting team to get daily life tasks completed like applying for jobs or cleaning an area or feeding the body is a very good fronting "team." In that same vein, Vivek and Vasile are a great fronting team when social situations arise because Vivek is highly social and good at making friends, but he tends to overspend on the body's energy levels, so having Vasile in co-front keeps Vivek's energy in check and also keeps us from being too impulsive. Vivek is very impulsive and while Vasile can be, he's much less so. Dire often helps in these situations as well.)

I hope that this helped to answer your question.

#did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #manybutone #did system #cdid #polyfrag #polyfragmentation #asks #answered asks #anon ask #anon #advice

[many-but-one]

Hello! I follow you on TT and here, you are amazing, and your stories helped us a lot to finally feel seen and not so alone. We are in therapy, we are trying to have a better life. We wanted to ask you about some coping skills that can help with repressed memories, flashbacks, so, we can try to work on them, maybe you have some that you can share (if that’s okay, and you are comfortable doing that)? Also, I wanted to know… how to help other parts to be more comfortable to interact with our therapist? For now there is one part that is working with them and processing some stuff. Abbé, we can help each other with this? Thank you. And I hope you are doing okay. Take care.

Phoenix system

Hey Phoenix System! Your most recent ask is actually what made us realize that we had a ton of asks built up that we hadn't answered, so thanks for that. I'll answer this one first.

Coping skills for dealing with repressed memories, flashbacks, etc:

Inner communication. Working on inner communication when you start feeling repressed memories, emotions, flashbacks, etc, coming on is necessary. Reminding parts that they do not need to keep reliving these things anymore (you already lived it once, you don't have to keep reliving it) and that it's 2023 and you are [insert age here] now can help keep parts grounded in the present. Will discuss grounding methods shortly. Also understanding why a flashback is occurring can be helpful in order to minimize them. Because remember, you don't *have* to keep living this stuff over and over, so working on figuring out why a part is reliving things is necessary to decrease the amount of things coming out. Are they flashbacking because of an external trigger? What is that trigger and how can we avoid it? Are they flashbacking because a part triggered them internally? Why did that part trigger that part internally? What is the motive behind that? Does the part believe that they have to keep reliving their trauma purposely? Why do they believe that? Is this part sending flashbacks to send a message? Are they angry? Do they feel ignored? This is a common thing for parts to do if they feel ignored. "You don't acknowledge my pain, so I'm going to show you my pain instead." (via flashbacks). Communicating with parts why a flashback is occurring and how we can minimize them in the future is imperative for eventual healing. Getting everyone on the same page that we are now in the present and not in the past will minimize flashbacks too. Easier said than done. We have been doing this part by part for nearly three years now and while we've made a lot of progress, we still have a long way to go. It takes time.

Grounding methods. Grounding in the present is very important to minimize how "deep" into flashbacks you go. These are usually engaging your senses in your current present day world to show that you are there in the present, in 2023 (or whatever year you are reading this). For us, holding bags of ice in our hands helps keep us from floating too far into dissociation land. Looking around the room (or outside space) and pointing out all of the red objects or green objects or whatever variety of object you feel like pointing out forces you to focus on the fact you are in THAT space, not the space that your mind is trying to take you to. Eating mints or cinnamon candies is also a very good grounding method for us, sour candy too. It's a harsh taste that's hard to ignore, and it's not something we were actively tasting during our traumatic experiences, so it can help remind us that we are currently in adult time eating sour candy/mints/cinnamon candy. If anyone else who reads this has grounding methods that work for them that they'd like to share, please feel free to add to this post.

Distractions. If all else fails, finding things to distract yourself when you start feeling the thought spirals come is important. These can be things like reading a book, watching a comfort show or youtuber, doing something hands-on like art, crocheting, or even lego building, etc, is a good way to stay distracted. While it's important to recognize or try to communicate with parts to try and keep yourself from going into trauma time, sometimes a system's communication is low, or it can be difficult to reach parts because your head is like a beehive of voices. Keeping yourself distracted with things that keep you grounded in the present time will be necessary until the moment passes. Because eventually it will pass, and then you'll be more clearheaded and able to address what happened later.

Journaling/video/audio recording things that you've seen in flashbacks. Writing poetry, journaling, speaking aloud, etc helps to put words to the experiences. Putting words to the experiences often helps lessen the emotional intensity of the experiences. This is why therapy is something that helps people. Putting words to experiences can help make the emotional impact of something easier to manage. For parts who struggle to use words or type or write, drawing pictures or finding pictures online to describe the experiences helps too. Something that we try to do with parts who are having flashbacks or who try to send flashbacks to explain how much pain they are in is encouraging them to put words or images to the experiences rather than sending flashbacks to fronters to explain how much pain they are in. It helps our parts immensely to have a place dedicated to only them to express their pain. This can be via tumblr blogs (public or private, however they prefer), google docs, a journal that is only for them, a discord channel in a private system server that is only theirs, etc.

Now, for how to help parts feel more comfortable interacting with the therapist, this is twofold.

One, that part needs to be able to trust the therapist. If they don't trust the therapist, they aren't going to want to talk to them no matter how much you try to convince them. You and your therapist need to have good rapport and they need to basically be able to "prove" to that part that they are trustworthy to speak to.

Two, you then need to also convince that part that the therapist is trustworthy. Hence the need for the therapist to "prove" they are trustworthy. Remind parts that therapists have rules that they cannot tell people outside of the room you are in what you speak about. If this therapist has played by the rules of the system so far, like agreeing when to drop subjects when parts don't want to talk about something, or not pressuring parts to speak when they don't want to (a therapist should never force a part to speak to them or force parts to talk about things they aren't ready to talk about) point that out to those parts and remind them that this therapist has had good boundaries with the system in the past, so it's likely those boundaries will continue.

Lastly, it takes time for parts to feel comfortable talking to a therapist. Some parts will be okay talking but won't want to share their name or what they do in the system. If your therapist tries to pressure parts to tell them their name, their age, or what they do for the system, that's not going to create a safe environment for parts. Parts will open up only when they feel comfortable enough to, and that is something the therapist has to create.

I hope this post helped! If anyone has any further suggestions to add, feel free. :)

#did osdd #did alters #dissociative identity disorder #manybutone #did system #coping skills #coping strategies #trauma coping #trauma treatment #trauma therapy #trauma recovery #did therapy #osddid #cdd system #advice #asks #anon asks #answered asks

[many-but-one]

Hello there! We had a question for you. Is there a middle ground between RAMCOA and more standard forms of abuse? Not to give too much detail, but in reading at endritualabuse.org, I've learned that my experiences heavily line up with trauma/torture based mind control and simple to moderately complex programming, but there was no RA/OA. It was done sloppy, loose ends stuffed in wherever, you know? Not by someone who knows how to program, just someone who knows how to be cruel, and how to mentally force someone to do what they want.

What I'm asking for is, is there like, a place for me to learn about... Me? A botched polyfrag system loosely resembling a moderately complex programmed one? Or do I just have to dip a toe into each world? I'm trying to figure out what I need to learn to address this complexity appropriately with my therapist, who is great with DID but doesn't know a lot about programming.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give in leading my further research.

Hello system-splintered!! I hope my answer will be helpful to you, but know that I’m not professional. However! We did JUST finally get to a point in which we were able to successfully tell our therapist we have programs without a program running and offing us, so that’s pretty great🤩 We have had way too many close calls with that, and our higher ups were able to dismantle things just enough to be able to get it out without us being harmed in the process. Our specialist has been in the field with DID systems for a very long time, and she’s worked with a patient in the past with RA, but she has never worked with a system who has programs/MC like us.

So, I don’t know what kind of programs you have and I don’t suggest delving deep into finding them out, because that can cause a lot of issues and disruption in the flow of things. While some disruption can be good, other types of disruption can become fatal for the system, if they have programs for suicide or self harm (commonly called omega programs.)

However, we had to REALLY talk around it, (couldn’t even SAY words like “programming” or “conditioning” or anything along those lines without a silence or scramble program running, it was wild) and our highest level gatekeeper, Aridam, has been laying breadcrumbs in hopes she was collecting them for the last year or so, trying to hint at what is going on without being so overt to trigger the programs. It wasn’t until he met other programmed systems and got resources to learn more about his own situation (because let’s face it, gatekeepers can know everything about their system and how it functions, but that doesn’t mean they know jack shit about it in a clinical sense.) Our abusers didn’t sit down and say “okay, we are going to program you to be a sex slave now, here is step one…” no, it was layers upon layers of manipulation and torture, and they never really used words like program (except to teach the silence parts what words they had to make sure we couldn’t say) or even named the programs (alpha, beta, etc) or anything like that with us. We HAVE those, but we didn’t know that’s what they WERE.

Now, looking online for this information can be really dangerous because there is a lot of information that is 1) deeply antisemitic 2) geared toward practitioners and not toward victims 3) outright calling victims and their therapists crazy for believing programming can even exist.

All of the above can be very harmful for a system just learning and figuring out that they are programmed. A couple of books that we found are sensitive to people who have been through the abuse itself but also don’t mince words are “Becoming Yourself” by Alison Miller (we haven’t finished this one, but we have started it and like it a lot), and “Safe Passage to Healing” by Chrystine Oksana. I would still tread carefully if you are still newer to these things, but you know yourself best, so you can take my warnings with a grain of salt if you wish.

The best thing about “Becoming Yourself” by Alison Miller is that there is a companion book that was written for practitioners trying to work with their patients on deprogramming, called “Healing the Unimaginable” (by Alison Miller) This book is NOT recommended for patients or victims of this abuse, BUT, you can suggest this book to your therapist to help them learn how to treat you. From what we’ve read in Becoming Yourself, Alison Miller is talking about some very complex and high level abuse and torture, stuff even we haven’t been through. HOWEVER, these things can still be applied to some of the “lower” levels of manipulation and abuse, and overall it is a good learning tool to understand how to heal from this awful abuse.

These books are quite expensive, though. We got a copy in pdf form from a system who shared a google drive link with us, and if that system sees this reply they are more than welcome to reblog and share their link if they want to, or DM the asker if system-splintered is okay with it. I don’t want to go sharing links willy nilly if that is not something they are okay with.

I also want to add at the very end here, that just because your system isn’t “high level MK-ULTRA” type of programming (ours isn’t either) that doesn’t mean that your situation is not valid or not relevant and it didn’t massively affect you. Not all programmers are good at what they do. It typically takes massive amounts of organization and power and education to pull this shit off in extreme levels. Our abusers were like that, but we suspect we were a bit of an “earlier attempt” and were mainly used to perfect their methods for later victims. Our earlier life abuse was indicative of them testing the waters, so to speak, but we believe they may have gotten better sources and better connections later on and in later years of our abuse were able to do the really intense and very “well done” types of programming, which is why some of our progs that came later are so “airtight” so to speak. (By comparison to some of our earlier progs) We don’t speak much on what is here for our safety, but we are eventually wanting to be more open about our deprogramming journey, to help others who are in a similar position.

I hope this helped! Take care, and if you or anyone else has further questions, our ask box is open as is our DMs!

-Dorian🌹

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