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getallemeralds · 5 years

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So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird

#leo chirps #leos reply #system shit #i dont think i covered EVERYTHING #and im not sure how coherent this is #but i tried! :D #Anonymous #ask #pat.txt

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aimskyymama-blog · 7 years

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New York New York

There is so much I can say about New York, but I will try to stay focused on the task at hand! :) This was Micah’s first trip and we had a blast. If you stumbled on my blog out of curiosity, welcome. If its to read about our trip, my advice or just to see some photos then stay tuned.

Although we travel a lot I wont lie, my husband and I were nervous about traveling with a 4 month old. I was a little less nervous than him. Being a flight attendant for five years has helped me. I always marveled in awe when I would watch a mama wrangle a baby and/or a toddler all by herself flawlessly. So I always took mental notes for the future (thank you super mamas). We worked as a team and didn��t let any of the small stuff sweat us or slow us down. I honestly want to give him the dad of the year award for several reasons, but more on that later…

This was a very short trip. We left Florida around 6am on a Tuesday and came back at 7pm on Thursday. I will try to break this trip down by parts so I can stay organized haha.

Flights

We each had one carry on so a total of three. I packed my bag with half of Micah’s clothes and half of my own. I made sure to pack him 2-3 outfits for each day (whatever he was wearing and 2 extra in his diaper bag just in case so about 5-6 total for the whole trip). I packed him 2 footed pajamas (he wore one on the flight there), socks, diapers, wipes, his favorite teething toy, hand sanitizer/wipes, four spit up cloths (he didn’t use all four so I think 2-3 would’ve been fine for us), his muslin blanket (he used this a lot since its light enough for hot days but can be used to keep warm when folded), one thick blanket (also never used), soap and wash cloth, no need for formula since he is breastfed (which also made this easier), his LilleBaby carrier, and his Chicco bravo travel system (which I wish we didn’t take or found another option but ill explain why below). Micah’s carry on was his diaper bag and it had the things I normally pack for him.

My husband carried the bags and pushed the stroller while I wore Micah through the airport. This is why I wish we didn’t take his travel system. Getting through TSA, gate checking it, and most of all carrying it up and down the subway stairs (FYI, most subways in NY DONT HAVE ELEVATORS) was such a pain. This is why my hubby wins the prize, he did that heavy lifting. We thought about leaving it and buying a collapsible stroller that can fit in the over head but we knew we needed it for his naps and a car seat for any car rides. That’s where I learned the hard way that you can actually request a Lyft or Uber with a car seat. Whoops, lesson number one learned. So my advice, skip the bulky stroller and try to go for a small one that can fold up like the GB Pockit Stroller (if baby is 6 mos and up) or Doona (if you need the stroller to sit at an incline for naps) which is a car seat and stroller in one.

Once we got through TSA and to our gate I carried Micah onto the plane, we checked his car seat and stroller and then put his carrier either under the seat or in the overhead bin. Micah was awesome on the flight. We purposely did an early morning one because he normally sleeps until 8-9am so we knew he would sleep on the flight. I nursed him on both take off and landing to help clear his ears of the pressure. He didn’t ever seem phased.

Once we landed in LGA we hit the ground running! We dropped off our bags, freshened up and then headed to the subway to go to the American Museum of Natural History.

Coming from Queens, this felt like it took forever. Probably because we had to take Micah in and out of the stroller to go up and down subway stairs and we had to transfer trains. Again, hubby wins the prize because he did all of the navigating. Thankfully because of him, we never took the wrong train or got lost.

I was busy keeping Micah entertained and taking pictures (I’m always the photographer on our trips). Weather was cloudy and chilly (high 60’s is chilly to Floridians). But as the day progressed the sun came out and it was gorgeous. High 70’s low 80’s. I dressed myself and Micah in layers for that reason. As the temp went up I peeled off the layers.

Food

So as most of you know I am dairy, soy and egg free because of Micah’s intolerance’s to them. Total bummer because hello, PIZZA. :( But, NY is so accommodating when it comes to allergens. Almost every food spot had their ingredients listed and/or vegan meals on the menu. I was able to find a lot of options and if you know different foods, you know what you can eat. For example, I had a delicious Panang chicken Curry from a Thai joint. I knew it was usually made without soy sauce and is made with coconut milk and I simply confirmed with them before ordering. It was delicious. I also had an amazing dairy free sourdough flat bread with their house made vegan cheese in Grand Central Station. SO damn good. But my favorite was carne and pollo asada tacos from Los Tacos No.1 in Chelsea Market. Best tacos I have ever had. I cannot recommend going there enough! I ate like five of them and I had no shame haha! Being restricted from food has been tough so to find such delicious food that fit my diet made me feel so happy. We definitely will be going back as soon as I can have cheese so I can eat my heart out with pizza. If you also have a food intolerant little babe then you know how you always have a moment of fear when checking a diaper after eating something new. I cant tell you how many times I’ve been told in a restaurant "no egg" or “no dairy” and then Micah’s poo goes from normal not smelly yellow poop to nasty, green, messy and smelly poo but we had none of that. :)

Transportation

We only took a car ride to and from the airport. We used Lyft and it was very easy and not pricey. Besides that we either used the subways or the bus. We purposely chose NY as our first trip with Micah for this reason. We found it easier to go to a destination that we can walk around vs having to rent a car and drive. The subways were pretty easy to use. We filled up a metro card that we used for both the bus and subway rides. We didn’t spend very much at all. I loved taking the subway (minus the stairs part. I know I cant get over it lol). My husband used Google maps to figure out which ones to take and where we should transfer. For the most part it was not too busy and if the car was full we waited for the next one since we had the stroller.

People were awesome (except the ones that didn’t ask to give their seat) but that was expected haha. Almost everyone held a door open for us or asked if we needed any assistance when we were carrying the stroller. I really appreciated that. We walked. A whole lot. We walked half of Central park. We started at the museum. The museum is great but it was very busy when we went. Probably best for children a little older. The noise and stimulation was a little much for Micah so we didn’t do too many exhibits. After the museum we walked to the boating lake, Bethesda fountain and then through The Mall down to 57th.

There we walked around and then finally around 4pm we started to make our journey back to Queens so we could get some early rest for the next day. I think personally, Central Park was the highlight of the trip for me. There are so many artist and musicians. For some reason being surrounded by so much nature and natural beauty but having the city around was so cool to me. I absolutely loved it and would love to go back in the fall when all of the tree’s are changing colors or even in the winter to see The Mall covered in snow.

I highly recommend using a carrier. We used ours each day and it made getting around so much easier. Unless Micah was asleep in the stroller, we tried to consistently carry him so he wouldn't get sick of being in the stroller. The carrier we used is LilleBaby. This is really a great carrier with back support (super important especially for those heavier babies)

It was very comfortable to use and Micah loved it. We bought the Airflow model because its breathable and we knew we would be walking around outside with it. It also comes with a snap on hood.

On the second day we took it much easier. We got ready and headed out to midtown. We ate breakfast at Grand Central Station and then stayed around gawking at the beauty it is.

We decided to do a little shopping in H&M (that’s where I got my super cute jean overalls on sale. Yassss). I also had to nurse Micah in the fitting room because he is SO very easily distracted now when he nurses. After that we decided to keep walking and sight seeing. Finally we decided to hop on the train and head over to Chelsea Park for a bite to eat and to explore.

Micah took his naps like a champ. All on his own. He ate, babbled, laughed, played with strangers and then on his own in his stroller he would just knock out. Then repeat. Haha. We went to the Highline which I highly recommend. Id rate that 2nd for our trip. We started around 24th street where the elevator would have been but it was just our luck that it was broken. So we muscled up and carried everything up the stairs.

We walked down to 18th on the Highline to look at the water and then like real tourist, we walked back to 24th only to realize that the Highline connects to Chelsea Market. Whoops number 2! Micah slept through it all and I had to wake him up once we were done so I could nurse him plus I thought the park was a nice place to do it. At Chelsea Market we went into every food spot like the foodies we are. I cant wait to return when im not on any kind of restricted diet!

On our last day the early AM flight we wanted to get on was full so we decided to hang around for a bit longer. We took the train and got off on the stop that took us to Gantry Plaza state park.

Then we walked towards the park and took some more photos while sight seeing. We hopped back on the train to Queens and then made our way back to LGA.

I love this photo my husband took of me nursing Micah while waiting for the train in the subway. It was hot, Micah was fussy because he was hungry, and I finally had a moment to sit and nurse him. People think its so easy to just throw a blanket over your baby (which Micah HATES) or to wait until you are somewhere private. The truth is, a hungry baby waits for no one :)

Over all we loved New York and we highly recommend it to any family that is looking to Travel to a family friendly destination. We cannot wait to go back. I hope you guys enjoyed this blog post as much as I did writing it. Hopefully you enjoyed it enough for me to continue blogging. :)

Thanks for reading!

#newyork #motherhood #travel #momblogger

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