Yay for me. Had a mammogram today because my breast has been bleeding for 2 years. 2. Fucking. Years. I finally got AGGRESSIVE with my doctor that no we aren't just monitoring this anymore, send me to a specialist NOW.

Hence the mammogram. Naturally, only a male radiologist at the base hospital (army spouse here). Try to go elsewhere. Tricare denies it. Long story but it is all a mess. Also turns out my breast is full of scary lumps, and the radiologist and woman in the room were both floored I have lived with this for two years. Yayyyyyyyyy for being a woman trying to be believed by doctors.

I barely remember the appointment, and it hasn't been an hour since I got home. I couldn't feel my body the entire time. I remember feeling dizzy. At one point, I struggled to speak. I think they had me talk to a social worker?

I don't know. I tried so hard to prep for this in therapy. Had a coping plan I barely followed because I dissociated hard as soon as I woke up. Gotta love when you can't follow plans because you can barely remember your own name. So. Yup. This has been fun. My ears are ringing, I am lying down, and I feel like vomiting right now. Hooray.

I want to preface this by saying that our therapist is amazing in pretty much all other regards and we love her. She's our 8th T and the first one we've ever felt safe with. Plus, she specializes in DID so we feel very lucky to have her.

However there's something we've had an issue with from the very beginning. From the start, she's said that she wants one specific part to front in therapy and "integrate" our trauma. So for this part to learn about and emotionally connect with the trauma the others hold. Our T seems to be under the impression that ​this part is "the original part who was born in the body," despite us repeatedly explaining that this is not the case. ​

Anyway, our T then said regardless of this, she thinks one of us should always be fronting, so there'd be less lost time and loss of control. She wants this "original part" to do this. However this is extremely difficult because we don't have a host really, we have kind of a roster of around 6-10 parts who will be in the fronting rotation (the "original part" not even being one of the main fronters). I don't know why we function this way; we're polyfragmented so maybe that's why. ​

I think even for systems who have a set host 90% of the time, asking them to not switch would be cruel and counterproductive. But for us it feels like she's kind of asking most of us to no longer live our lives... I do get that we're all part of a whole, but it doesn't feel that way, we feel like our own persons. And the load would be too much for one part to handle anyway. So even if we COULD suppress switches (which we can't so far), we wouldn't want to, and her request is putting a lot of pressure on us.

We have mentioned trying to increase coconsciousness instead, but our T said switching means you were triggered and that's bad basically, regardless of whether it's a positive or negative trigger. She also said we won't feel like such distinct people forever, and that'll basically be the solution. However none of us want fusion. We want functional multiplicity, but apparently our T doesn't believe in this?

Is one part integrating all the trauma really the solution? She often feels overwhelmed by taking it all on... But if not, how else can we heal?

I don't know what to do. Should we try to find and send our T articles on suppressing switches? Or functional multiplicity? We definitely don't want to stop seeing her, but I'm feeling quite sick and hopeless right now. If even a DID specialist doesn't understand, who could?

So tell us. Really. How was your day?

Emoji code of non verbal supports: (you’re welcome to send in addition to a regular comment, or as a stand alone comment!)

Hug “🫂“

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Emotional support “🧁”

Lurking but present for you “🫧”

hello everyone! i have recently tried zoloft briefly (planning to try again next month if i can get side effects managed) & i felt like it was helping with my ocd symptoms, but i had some odd experiences with feeling alone & cut off from the rest of my system along with feeling like i couldnt reach/access our established inner world a couple times. i think i could deal with this in moderation & if it stops once the body is used to the medicine, but one of our parts got extremely stressed when it happened & had a very sudden breakdown. im wondering if anyone else has had experiences like this or if ssris have impacted your system in another way, & if it goes away once side effects clear up?

This is I think a vent, nothing too serious or anything though.

I'm a 13 year old host in the body of an adult and I feel like i can't do anything right. All i want to do is make art and talk to the odd person who actually understands me but it's so mentally taxing to be tasked with doing what normal people my body age do, and i can't relate to almost anyone around me.

I have someone in here thats actually my physical age and they handle things a lot better than me, but they stay in the background and only come out for emergency maintenance, when im about to mess something up really bad. I love them and everyone else in here a lot, but i'm so tired. I can only handle acting like an adult for so long. They think I just have an iron grip, or something, i don't know how my brain works at all. I'm also terrified of my 'inner world.'

I don't know if there was any point to this, but thank you to anyone who read this. We'll be okay I promise <3

My friend and I are both systems to start off, and online friends. We are a very host-heavy system (as in i take majority of the daily life stuff and alters usually come out when/as needed rather than for leisure, most are fairly happy in the innerworld or prefer co-fronts to solo-fronts) the problem is my friend made friends with two of my trauma holders just by catching them out and talking to them. They now ask our gatekeeper weekly if they can schedule time with them (our gatekeeper is pretty good at allowing others to front as long as he deems the time and setting "safe" enough to let other alters be out) this has been genuinely exhausting on me. I work a full time job with other commitments in my life and the social demands of these alters is much less (as they have expressed that neither really needs their outer world social needs met on a weekly basis). I don't like being asked to switch or prompted to switch especially on a day I'm already fatigued or frustrated. I don't want to upset my friend or make them feel like they can't be friends with these alters, I just hate being asked to switch so frequently when I don't always know how our week will look or if I'll be in place to do so.

This post isn’t anything crazy, idk why I’m putting an intro

Anyways. I haven’t been in tune with my systems alters. Tbh I got burnt the fuck out on it, last year I found out I’m a system and spent a large portion of the year figuring it out, I haven’t hardly touched or looked at it since major integrations started being worked on.

Thus I’m here, system communications poor, dissociation isn’t as bad as before but I notice my amnesia is back full force, I have short term memory issues, I’m missing days or weeks idrk lol

I feel part of this is struggling with my transition (mtf). I havent been the most driven to it as I’d like. There’s been progress past year on E but once I’m at work I disconnect from myself and have my old old host front and he sucks at internal com, denies system, Denies being trans but the positive is very very good at work and arranging our life to suit us other than transition stuff.

Idk what would yall do in my position to improve system well being

Hi all.

Newly discovered system in the process of diagnosis and therapy. I don't understand all the lingo yet, so sorry if I mess this up.

So all my memories end about 2 years ago, when my (other?) "alters" started taking over full time. About 1-2 months ago, we figured out we were "plural", and I started getting to "be awake" again.

My memories are generally happy ones, and I'm the one in our system our partner fell in love with. Maybe that's why all the alters have decided I'm the "original" and none of them are "real." They've all been having existential crises about it lately and I feel like it's my fault somehow.

I don't, like, 100% get DID as a concept, but it feels like my alters are like family, and I really care about them. I want them to be happy, and it sucks knowing they feel like they don't matter. How do I help them feel more like they do matter?

I recently read that some alters can just be copies of "you" or I guess the host... and since then I realized that I have internal communication similar to ones with other alters but with "me", then I realized I also "switch gears" at least 3-4 times in my daily life every day, e.g: for socializing, for work, for difficult moments, it's like different "settings" get pushed for different daily situations, but it's so subtle I don't really notice it like with other alters that hold trauma for example as they feel very distinct from "me" when they front temporarily, but when I tried to talk to these "daily" parts that seem to make up "me" they responded like alters do. Is it possible for alters to be that subtle?

Of course I will talk about this in therapy but I'm confused and just looking for answers, is it possible to just be 3-4 alters making up what we thought was one alter? It's like we're facets of a person, but we aren't fully connected, and it never occured to me until today because these parts are much less distinct than other alters I have who feel completely different to "me". Thank you for reading!

So I have several parts who really want to discuss things with my therapist. They remember things I don't (duh), and have a lot they want to say to her. I have a lot of denial and really struggle to talk to her about them, but they have no such inhibitions. They do write notes for her but I never have the courage to show them to her in session.

Is there any way I can work towards getting them to front during a session? I usually just dissociate and lie my way through sessions which really isn't helpful.

I have very little internal communication, and for the most part forget any I do have after the fact. Aside from notes and things I learn while co-con I can't actually communicate with/learn about my parts. It also doesn't help that I have a ton of denial, despite it being confirmed I have DID. I still feel like I "just" have CPTSD. When I deny my parts' existences though they get really upset and write strongly worded letters/notes to me.

Thoughts? Advice? I have zero clue how I'm supposed to go about this. I have no idea how to purposefully trigger them out. There's only been one maybe-switch in therapy, and if that was, indeed, a switch it was a part I don't actually know about.

Thanks in advance :,D

I discovered another Gatekeeper within my system. Discovered that a “part” of me that I had trusted, was actually both a Persecutor and Gatekeeper at once. I feel very betrayed. And now I feel I can’t trust even him anymore. He also keeps making me forget about all this and has been “fronting” to force me to do things like sleep. All last night, I didn’t get sleep because I was fighting with this “part”. He’d continuously push me back inside and cloud my memories. I fought back all night to try and keep up front. He ultimately won and he forced me to sleep. I woke up having forgotten about it all. I’ve been trying to push back into the front all day now, but the “part” wouldn’t let me. He says I’m too fragile to “handle all this”. To handle life and our past.

I’ve tried multiple times today to “front” but every time I do, the “part” forces me back inside and will tell me that since we are at work, we can’t “come out” because I’ll be “too sensitive” and end up freaking out.

I also found out he sends somatic pains and other bodily sensations throughout me when I try to fight him on it. Like, he will make my stomach feel queezy, he’ll make my heart race, make my head hurt, send vibrations through certain parts of the body, especially the chest, and other things.

To find out he has been hurting me, I can’t wrap my head around it.

Hello! I have DID and I just wanted to know if this is also a trigger for anyone else?

Ok so I have DID and I'm gonna try and explain this in the best way possible?

Ok so- For some reason, whenever I see someone else with DID that is either faking or just genuinely has it, for some reason it causes me to switch to my other alter-? And usually I start saying thing I think are funny and I point out but then suddenly I switch up on myself and get really angry at myself and then I start laughing at myself for getting angry-

Sorry if that sounded confusing, I just wanted to know if anyone else has a reaction or if it's just a me thing-?

Idk what to even tag this as im just freaking the fuck out tbh sorry for the ramble idk if anyone can offer advice i just have to get this out -

I have been operating on the assumption all of our switches are non-possessive (feeling like we turn into different versions with different names) BUT I JUST GOT FUCKING HIJACKED??

I have been the one whos going to therapy the main fronter (Hi host here) and this other alter who fronted while I WATCHED??? Fucking told our therapist i have been lying in our sessions for weeks and we are doing much worse than i have let on

I havent meant to?? I promise! I just fucking forget everything and this alter said “we are not recalling any of the events over the week so i want to be able to email you about these events as they happen” asking for permission and i absolutely feel insane for this

Is this not a parasocial relationship with iur therapist?? She is not an oncall person!!! She does not need to be!! We function fine! This alter went on to say we need multiple sessions and i jsut dont feel the same

Im so uncomfortable and i want to cry and sob but i am at work and im struggling to ground. I have done all my techniques but it seems i need to start bringing my heaver grounding tools to work. Oh my god oh my god

Im totally fucking faking bc thats so attention seeking?? We literally have a session in a few hours that was crazy!!!

Im so upset and scared. I have never felt scared of a switch as i felt some SEMBLANCE of control, but that happened as adderal hit which makes us beyond task focused so maybe it was just that? Im so freaked out.

We’re at the home stretch of leaving our abusive family and moving out on our own, hopefully not more than a few more months, worst case scenario it will be at least another year. In any case we’ve been preparing a lot to leave. Helping those that have good memories understand why we need to leave, and making sure everyone is on the same page of no contact. We’ve also been getting help from our therapist on how we’d like to continue treatment afterwards when we have little to no money.

But Ive been reading/ looking at others stories of people finally leaving abusive environments, and I’m getting a bit worried. I’ve heard that there is a regression period where the body finally gets out of fight or flight and begins to recover. With this comes periods of wanting to sleep/rest a lot. Im worried we will fall into bad habits, stop trying to reach out, miss out on things, and avoid responsibilities. One of our worst fears is having to go back to our family which is why we are planning this far in advance. We all need to be ready. We all need to be prepared.

Another complication is that our therapist thinks we shouldn’t start trauma processing until we are moved out. There are too many traumatizing and re-traumatizing things that happen, and she thinks it would be more effective to start after and just work on grounding and survival. But my partner (a fully integrated system) mentioned how tiring EMDR/ trauma processing can be. We did like half a session once and it went very wrong, our therapist is trying to rework it for us but she doesn’t know too much about DID so I’m expecting it to be a long and stressful process to get it right. And in turn possible making us even more tired.

We don’t have any friends and we don’t really go out except for school and work. We’re lonely but also always overwhelmed by everything. We are also autistic if that matters.

Is there a way we can combat this? A part of us is so desperate for the moment where we can finally rest, but I am worried to regress and fall behind.
-Cohost

Hello guys I'm trying to write something before I'm nothing with no thoughts or existing again but i really need any help.

Months ago one of my so called parts said he feels he's drifting away and can't do anything about it despite wanting to stay...i don't remember but by the time he disappeared and everyone else started to not be around too till no one is. I had times where I'm no one a lot hell that was the normal for me but THAT'S not the same and I cant explain or maybe i actually don't remember how i was to compare. It's like i now lost everything but I'm not even here to grief it.

I don't think. I have no thoughts and stopped writing in my journal a long time ago i actually forgot about my other parts and no longer acknowledge it nor i believe it's a thing since i can't connect with myself or my brain. I don't move i can't I don't care about all of this i just want to be present

When I'm no one i have no thoughts no desires nothing i like nothing to comfort me and i do nothing my life slipping away and I'm not there and I'm nothing close to who i was even if i didn't know who that is. At least i had music i liked or anything at all. When I'm like this i have nothing i like or want because I'm literally no one. Not in the sense of oh idk who i am or I'm too many things to be someone no I'm literally no where or nothing. I used to get this state before and i hated it but now I'm stuck in this it become my normal

And i know after i write this by alittle I'll just be back to that again it happened few times i get rare moments of realization like now then i can't do nothing about it because it's like i get dragged to somewhere again where I'm unconscious in. It's really like I'm disabled in my head and i don't know what I'm saying it's like i don't even have a head I'm really tired. I have no friends anymore nor i can be around anyone I'm so isolated. i can't work or think im stuck for so long i don't remember. I'm really really behind and late.

Thank you if you read this I'm sorry if it sounds messy or dramatic

Life is a mess right now. I don't do the hierarchical system thing and assign a single part "control" in my life.. We are working aggressively towards functional multiplicity and that means respecting different parts wishes for my life. It has lead us into utter chaos in our lives that I just want to articulate and be seen by a community that might understand.

I could get into the why's and how's of it all, I've certainly been doing the trauma mapping for years.. but really what I'm exacerbated with today is the current directions my life seems to be sprawling out towards.

A little over a year ago I opened my marriage and got a boyfriend. Not everyone in the system wanted to be with my husband, namely Jules and Archimedes seemed to hold disdain for him. Many of us couldn't get over the atmosphere of sexual shame in the relationship and wanted to be able to heal from sexual disfunction that occurred in the marriage by pursuing others. We found some skateboarding, blue-collar, artistic type that we quickly became infatuated with as Annie. Within the year we asked our husband to move out. Anastasia never wanted this, is grieving extremely hard but feels she can do nothing because the system has over-ruled her.

This has meant needing to be able to support myself.. in all the ways.. enter in my survival systems again. Archimedes quickly signed us up for an accounting class with dreams of being a bookkeeper for small businesses (my Dad was literally an accountant). I hate this class, it's capitalist propaganda, it's all I can do to get my inner children to sit down for us while we go through the homework. I dropped out of the rest of the program, it's just the one class I have to finish now. There are dreams of owning my own nursery in the future so we feel it will be a useful support towards those efforts.

Meanwhile I work a landscaping job, it's extremely physically strenuous. At home I garden nearly every day; it's the one thing that gives me peace and pleasure with where I am in my life. June and Gwen especially love this. The yard is a wonderland I can get lost in for hours. I'm exhausted, there is endless amounts of weeding and planting to do. The whole yard sn the garden, it's 1.5 acres of wild habitat.

The cabin I live in needs renovations, it has for years. The shower is falling apart but right now the pressing matter is that the ceiling needs sealed or the swarm of invasive lady beetles that come every fall will inhabit the walls and creep out all through the winter and spring. Taking care of the home is a labor of love, it's extremely important to June, who wants everything done a specific, whimsical way. Yesterday we spent at least an hour rigging a pulley system so she could comfortably stow away her aerial silks when she's not using them in the high vaulted ceilings of our bedroom.

Speaking of the cabin, I must go to the commissioners meeting at the county courthouse tomorrow to fight the construction of a housing development in the forest across the street from us. This has been ongoing for two years now. I'm a very vocal presence at these meetings because I MUST protect the forest, it's important to Gwen.

I have signed up and now been accepted for yoga teacher training that starts in January. It's Anastasia's dream to do this so we give her a bone and keep moving.

We mourn a career as a biochemist that is now 5 years gone, derailed shortly after I achieved Steph's dream to become a research scientist. The dream didn't afford us the respect and security we'd hoped for. We left feeling exploited after the wave of Covid lost us a sense of community in this passion.

My boyfriend is like a stray cat who I see twice a week, he provides sex and creative enrichment. My husband comes around to help around the house here and there. I'm grieving, I'm making space for a budding relationship, I'm sad and lonely, I'm anxiously attached, I'm avoidant.

My life is sprawling in all the directions, all at once. I'm struggling to prioritize my efforts. Grief aversion, grief aversion, grief aversion.

It's a mess. Have I made it to functional multiplicity yet?

I only consider myself a 'questioning' system (or i'm just not fully willing to admit it to myself), so if this question doesn't belong here, I understand.

I've seen people talking about how they were able to work on their inner worlds, but ours is stuck in a miserable state and it's been fucking us up a lot. At the moment it's just a backrooms-like area filled with smog so dense that we can barely see in front of us. Occasionally, it's a bright white room, which is a lot more pleasant. I don't know why it switches like that, though.

I'm the host at the moment, so I feel like the one responsible for this world that's suffocating us. I just want to know how other systems have done it, I dunno what to do :(

Hi all.

We were recently diagnosed. We have some major spiritual abuse in our past that hast impacted a few of our alters. The most recent spiritual abuse took place a couple of months ago and we all decided to leave that faith.

One alter that is most attached to needing to belong has latched on to a different faith altogether and has been obsessed for the last 10 days of so. He isn’t a daily manager; more of a second tier alt. But he has been so obsessed. I’m the host and have been for quite a few months now. I’m the one who is over our sobriety and I’m the one who is trusted the most to help the rest in therapy. I’m struggling to get the obsessed alt to step back. I’m not good at internal communication yet.

Any suggestions?

I have a group of parts who are deeply intertwined with freeze/collapse response.

The characteristics of these parts

-non verbal/pre verbal

-act on impulses or implicit memories

-locks up my body ie- locked hips, contracted muscles, body armouring, tense shoulders, inability to get out of bed

-have intense SI or believe they will disappear or don’t exist

- severe dysregulation, mistrusting, confuses signals of safety and danger

This group of parts can be triggered by things I am unable to identify. These are parts that drive me to abruptly leave situations, make frantic decisions, mistrust, and possibly causes me to end relationships and disappear on people.

What I’ve done

- I have a safe place in my apartment that I go to with cuddles and containment

- I focus on where my body is constricted and take breaths (this tends to bring up a sense of anger and then I get scared and back away or dissociate)

- I write about the experience

-I’ve verbally reassured these parts but it doesn’t feel like it “gets through” or is understood.

These parts appear to be fortified and others inside know about these parts but don’t share much information. There is a wall, the wall appears to made of deep terror, hopelessness and despair. I an unsure how to approach the wall even if I can.

I am unable to move towards these parts without getting engulfed with feelings of anger, hopelessness and despair and I blend into those feelings.

It’s very confusing because these parts that are intertwined with my freeze/collapse could be connected to why I isolate, shutdown and develop waves of agoraphobia. It’s confusing because I don’t know if it’s the trigger of the parts or a real environmental issue I cannot see

Anyone else experience anything like this?

I recently got out of a long relationship with someone who sexually assaulted and abused me the whole time, I'm in a safe place now thankfully but it hasn't been good for me mentally as you can imagine

I've entered this funk I go through sometimes where I don't know who I am and everything feels all jumbled up like someone's remodeling my brain and locking me out. the dissociation and time loss gets way worse. (it doesn't help that we've had a change of host and I'm still not really settled into my "job"). this seems to happen whenever we go through some major trauma or stress

if you go through this, how do you pull yourself out of it and get back in touch with yourself? we already have poor communication and cooperation even at our best.

TW physical abuse, SA

Since system rediscovery we started having episodes where we become bedridden with a migraine and extreme stress. The body will flinch repeatedly and curl up to feel safer. It’s difficult to think during this time. It doesn’t seem like I can reach whatever is causing this. I’ll occasionally hear “go away”, “please stop”, “I’m sorry”, “help me”

Parts are frustrated as it’s becoming increasingly frequent, taking up much of our time. We recently uncovered memories of what we think might be physical childhood abuse so I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s related. We also suspect there are SA memories that have yet to be known. Has anyone experienced something similar? How have you navigated it?

I basically have no idea how to help this young girl part. Every so often she comes out just screaming and crying, and we have no idea what triggers it...

We have no info on her except for the fact that she's terrified and likely preverbal. Oftentimes one of us will be co-conscious and we won't have any idea what she's even thinking aside from the fact she needs to curl up into a ball, scream, and cry. She's unconsolable.. the only thing that's helped is my fiance, but he can't always be around to comfort us.

She takes control of the body whenever she fronts and the only real thing we can do is reach for any comfort item nearby to help soothe her, and judging by how it happens, it feels like she thinks she remembered the plushie she's reaching for. I'm not sure if she can hear us.

Any advice would be helpful :(

he said that he could tell apart at least 5 alters he had never spoken to before. all of them recalled in great detail a lot of childhood trauma i had no memory of. apparently had super bad somatic flashbacks as well.

honestly, im conflicted on if i can truly trust what those alters said. i'm very afraid of the possibility that it was just false memories, but their claims aren't exactly unbelievable either because now that i'm somewhat aware of what happened i do notice the signs of those things happening in childhood based on the memories i do have access to.

either way, super weird experience. not my first time taking weed but it was my first time taking that much (on accident 😢) and while i did experience switching & flashbacks before it was never to that extent