#system mapping

[system-of-a-feather]

Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

#actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #resources #advice #internal communication #integration #feather's unsubstantiated theraputic tools #unsubstantiated advice #alter: fei #final fusion #functional multiplicity #wishiwashi recovery #system mapping #system map #mind mapping #mindmap #recovery #healing #alter: ray #<- heavily authored by that part of this brain #system dynamics

[thedesertedsystem]

Every time we try to system map it's like trying to find an eraser or pencil lead in a pencil pouch.

Amongst so many pens and pencils and markers you dig through to find the thing you need, you know it's gotta be in there somewhere.

But even after dumping it all out you can't see it.

But you know it's in there.

You're certain of it.

Where did it go?

And the longer you look at the pile and dig through it, the less it starts to look like anything.

And then like several days later you find out it wasn't in the pencil pouch, it was in a random corner of your desk collecting dust.

And you still forget to put it back in your pencil pouch.

#blurry 🫠 #might be a weird analogy but it makes sense to us #did #did system #osdd #actually did #osddid #traumagenic system #osdd did #osdd system #plural system #endos dni #system mapping #posts from the desert 🏜️

[hc-did-culture-is]

System Mapping Question

Hello everyone!

Someone got in contact with us a while back with a question, and asked that we put it to the internet at large.

He wanted to know how other HC-DID systems visually map their systems.

He also wondered how other systems map members, particularly members and programs that don't connect to front/the common fronters.

If you'd like to share how you map your system, send in an ask and we'll post it with the tag #highly complex mapping.

#hc did #system #ramcoa #tbmc #programmed system #system mapping #innerworld mapping #actually did #highly complex mapping

[korya-elana]

We've been getting some attention on our (very old and outdated) System map we did back when we only had ... nine alters lmao. It's something I want to update but I genuinely don't think I can at this point. We're currently at 21 with more alters coming weekly, mostly out of dormancy that we didn't know existed. Between the amount of members we're gaining and how little we know about so many of them, we'd need a 3D space to be able to map everything out at this point. The urge to try is overwhelming but actually thinking about how to design it is exhausting.

#did osdd #system #did system #plurality #alters #system things #dissociative amnesia #system mapping

[unwelcome-ozian]

we have been working on mapping tons of info on our system recently. but i am running into problems when trying to document anything regarding our miniscripts used. what information would be good to note down (ie. alter roles, programs, meanings behind the film used)?

I suggest noting things such as colours, objects, structures, doors, just about anything that provides an idea of the internal layout.

The things you mentioned as well also what parts know what parts, symbols, and phrases/quotes from the movie.

Oz

#answers to questions #system mapping #miniscripts

[system-comforts]

do you have any tips on mapping headspace? one esp for big big systems.

we've known we were huge for a while but never really thought about mapping until one sidesystem started engaging with the "main" (the system that fronts the most in the body) and it's kinda throwing everything off and the need to map has surfaced cause it'd help us understand each other better along with our plurality on a whole.

-Delphi

Hey there Delphi! We aren't exactly sure if you mean mapping the headspace and setting layout, or if you mean organizing and mapping headmates themselves. We'll try to answer for both!

Recently for mapping our headspace, we've used a website called Inkarnate. It let's you create a huge world map with mountains, forests, lakes, etc. The maps look a lot like fantasy world maps. This might be helpful for a larger headspace. Smaller ones might find it useful too. You could also draw out your basic headspace on paper, labeling important areas.

For mapping with a lot of headmates, there are many graphic organizer apps and websites. We've never tried it, but ones like canva, or even PowerPoint, might be helpful to try. It might as also be more helpful to write things out on a large paper, even a posterboard for large systems. You can group headmates based on age, their role, how long they've been around, by source, or by whatever characteristics are important to your system. Grouping them together by some theme may help you keep things organized. It can also help to draw lines of connection between headmates with relationships. If two hate each other, you might draw a black line, if they're in a relationship, you could draw a red line or add a heart.

We haven't done much system mapping ourselves, but I hope some of these ideas help!

-mod saturn

#mod saturn #system #system mapping #actually plural #actuallymultiple #ask #plurality

[our-inspire-verse]

Made a new system map! It may not fully make sense, plus it was kinda hard to format and make it look nice, but this is pretty close to accurate!

#innerworld visuals #system babbles #osdd #actually osdd #plural #system map #system stuff #system mapping #actually multiple #actually plural #plural positivity #plural posting #mind mapping #chart #graph #informative #system list #bro its literally a solar system with gravity everyone affects each other #science #psychology #update

[the-rest-is-silenc3]

Systems/Plurals

#system #plural #fizzy plural #fizzy polls #pluralgang #plural system #plurality #multiplicity #multiple system #median system #pluralkit #tupperbox #twinote #lighthouse #did osdd #osddid #system mapping #system map #system documentation #plural poll #plural polls #system poll #system polls

[amore-et-al]

If any systems have advice on how to find alters and system mapping I'd really appreciate it. We're going back to therapy asap and will obviously focus on DID recovery once we are, but we don't have the financial means rn and I'm so frustrated not understanding what's going on in my own head. It seems like so many systems are able to find and communicate with their parts so quickly, and I only know like three parts by name.

#zia #system mapping #did system #cdd #complex dissociative disorder #dissociative identity disorder #other specified dissociative disorder #did osdd #dissociative system #did #osdd #didosdd #system

[chemicalcarousel]

We are system mapping and damn it's not easy lol we have these two alters we know almost nothing about so it's just like:

Name: ???

Pronouns: she(?)

Age: maybe 20??? 15????

Other: she looks like an alt tiktok egirl and has literally only been co-con like once where we noticed because she wanted to look at pinterest fashion boards with us

#system mapping #actuallydid #actuallycdd #actually did #actually cdd #did things #cdd things #did stuff #cdd stuff #ours #levi here #yo its sof

[system-of-a-feather]

Thank you for making that post on how you do system mapping. I've wanted to do it for a long time, but trying to sift through and identify things about specific alters, and even just trying to identify connections was really intimidating and perplexing. The way you do it seems really good, and extremely viable to try.

Yeah we've had a lot of struggle with it a lot in the past - especially when I (Riku) have done it cause trying to focus on what alters are subjectively "closer" and what their role in trauma is and their role in the system and their unique specific relationship with certain parts and and and and and and (etc) just is a lot of information to try to map and web at once.

These days I've largely given up and went "Ill trust the gatekeepers and parts who are paid a higher wage than me (/joking) to keep track of it" which like... when we were writing that we were in a fully fused state which like.... means I got to internally "see" what they see when they look at the system and I was just like HOLY SHIT THIS IS GOOD.

From what I can tell / assume from my little time seeing how Ray looks at the system I think there are different visualization types for the system that he kind of operates with depending on what aspect of system dynamics he's working with and that one is specifically made to focus on connectivity of parts and increasing communication / bridging parts to one another.

It's kinda funny cause in a way Ray like, doesn't really operate any of these in an actually psychologically informed way, cause he just kinda created these webs cause he's just stupid hyper organized like that and **really** likes system team management (like hes usually apathetic about most things, but he has a few things he very strongly yet quietly finds himself deeply engaged in- actually why am I explaining how Ray has a special interest and is autistic when we all are like this in our own way Ill just up now) so its just how he visualizes the system when making decisions and plans for parts. He doesn't really intentionally think about how psychology works or anything and he just organizes what he sees in ways like that

And so when were a fused whole, I'm like thinking about psychology and hypotheticals and theoreticals and a lot of stuff that takes theory and expands it and so I see that shit and I'm like "OHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH RAY YOU GENIUS THIS ACTUALLY ECHOS THIS AND THAT THEORY AND CONCEPT OF HOW MEMORY AND THIS AND THAT AND THIS AND THAT YOU ARE SO BIG BRAIN SLDFJLADF" and hes just like ".... why did we settle in a fused state and why did I let you see my HUD (/hj)"

..... unironically me being hype about this awareness lowkey I think made our fully fused state fall apart (partially also due to time cause its been a couple weeks) but XD Fair and WORTH.

(Ray rarely uses this blog unless he is actively peaked on a topic or In A Mood to Ramble, but he's.... for a lack of words to describe him and cause we've had it as an inside joke, Dr. Strange vibes and so its very fun and easy to mildly annoy him)

#alter: riku #alter: ray #alter: fei #gatekeeper stuff #gatekeeper #system mapping #system map #ask #asks #fusion fuckery #wishiwashi recovery

[chaosdisorganized]

I had a weird dream but at the end of it I was system mapping in our journal but in a completely different way than we have been doing it. Should I take this as a sign and try harder than a lame alter list for our system mapping? Either way somethings gotta be different because making an extensive list with no information besides a name might not be the most effective way to system map.

I'm just so not good at this stuff. I mean how do system even map? Maybe my therapist could help and offer some suggestions? Idk.

#not a vent #system mapping #how to do what to do #i do not success at map

[atlas-panthera]

Okay so far I know of

Myself

Atlas

A little

Unsure if another little or a middle/teen

And an unnamed recently split alter

Just keeping notes of who I'm relatively sure of for now.

#personal system log #alters #system mapping

[korya-elana]

A map of our System and daemon pairings. It was a fun exercise to work on!

#system #system things #traumagenic system #daemonism #daemons #system mapping

[theglassdragoncollective]

Us “So where is your subsystem innerworld?”

Adarra Village “Um, no idea.”

Us “Well contextually we can guess its probably here, here, or here, so ...”

Adarra Village “mmm, maybe we just exist in a void?”

Artemis *from atop a mountain* “Adarra Village? I know where that is. You want me to map it for you?”

Us “Yes???”

#adarra village #artemis #system mapping #artemis literally be the goat #artemis knowing more about adarra village than adarra village knows about adarra village is fitting #artemis is from undersea

[multiplydifficult]

We re-watched a system mapping video while poking around at trying to do more headmate-related mapping rather than 'physical' environment, which we've done a lot more of. (Tangent: We did most of the physical enviro mapping in Tiled Map Editor (FOSS; Windows, Mac, & Linux), found freely-available assets (one source, two source) made for a regular competition that keeps style relatively consistent in terms of 65 degree angle, light from the left, etc. so it's got that classic RPG-style look. It's also absolutely got the option to make one's own assets for it, if so desired. Gotta keep using the same asset size on one map, either 16x16 or 32x32).

Some kid got antsy about drawing a system map on paper, so we did that - put the main front-ish area (labelled "Main Area") on two A3 sheets taped together, then taped those to a window and taped another sheet over that to draw (in the correct place) the floor above that on the left, labelled "Main Area +1" and did the same to draw the floor below on the right (labelled "Main Area -1"). We quite like how we did that, how we could easily keep adding layers (+2, +3, etc) and be able to unpack and place them easily, we like how it's possible to see how one layer matches with the one above/below using the backlight of the window, that it's possible to compare / view layers as layers and not have to have them next to each other and placing them in location mentally.

Using the big sheets gave us more space, and sticking sheets together gives us the option to expand it outwards in any direction as well (as long as that expansion is attached to the existing map).

It was only done roughly though so lol stuff got a bit stretched out wide, a bit disproportionate, 'cause we straight started with the two big sheets taped together. But it worked for our / this kid's purposes.

#system mapping #plural #personal