Coming to terms with being a system might have been one of the hardest experiences of my life. I know people talk about this aspect of the disorder all the time but like… holy shit. I think the fact I am an OSDD-1A system adds to the fact it took SO long to figure it out and accept it. (I know thats not a clinical term, but its how I experience it, so I use it for myself)
I was 14 years old during 2020, AKA, when dissociative disorders got super “popularized”. I’m not fake-claiming anyone here of course nor am I vaguing anyone specific but thousands of people admitted to “faking” the disorder during this time. “Faking” is in quotations because I don’t think people did it out of malice, I think a lot of these people were having psychotic breaks due to the pandemic, quarantine, longterm screen use (my daily screen time was 16 hours during 2020 so. LMAO), and probably being unable to escape anything from their households. I don’t hold grudges towards these people we were all just sick kids going crazy but it still sucks how much damage it did to the concept of dissociative disorders (You can’t talk about DID/OSDD without a motherfucker going “Hai! I’m Bunny! >_<” like shut up.) and how much it affected ME coming to terms with being a system. I couldn’t come to terms with it because I was convinced I was faking. I was convinced I was tricking myself and being an attention seeker. I thought my trauma wasn’t bad enough, the symptoms weren’t how everyone else described it, etc etc.
Then I really started thinking about it this year. Like, it was always a thought in the back of my head, but I REALLY started thinking about it. I started seriously researching dissociative disorders, started talking to my therapist, things were clicking and falling into place and I realized: Fuck. I’m an OSDD-1A system
OSDD-1A isn’t talked about enough. At all. I understand why, there is a bigger focus on DID and OSDD-1B because they hold the “distinct personalities” and I feel thats what interests people so much about the disorders, but FUCK man. The lack of representation and talk about OSDD-1A is insane. It makes me incredibly sad. I feel so unseen by the only people that should be truly able to understand me. It sucks.
Anyways, my rant is done and I’m actually going to yap about my experiences now.
I only currently know of two other headmates, Devan and Cameron. Because I’m an OSDD-1A system they are me, but they are separate at the same time. Let me just… talk about it below.
Devan (he/him) is teenager me, specifically like ages 15/16. During this time of my life I identified as a trans guy and used this name hence the extreme difference, not a distinct alter like seen in DID/OSDD-1B. If I went by Koda and they/she during this time of my life I’m sure Dev would too, but I’ve had identity problems my whole life so it makes sense why not lmao. Wowwww I wonder why I have identity problems Dev is my headmate I know best. I’m not 100% sure when or why he split or how he came to be, all I know is he is an Eren Jaeger introject and definitely formed at least partially because of Eren. Dev is kind of a prick. He’s stubborn, he’s depressed, he’s mean, he’s emotionally charged and emotionally numb all at the same time. He properly fronted this week due to a very specific trigger and it was crazy it felt like a horrible headache and suddenly I felt 16 again. My girlfriend told me how much I was acting like my younger self when this happened. What really freaked me out the most was when I thought about my girlfriend, they looked like how they did at 16 and not how they look currently now as 20. It felt like my brain went back in time and my body was stuck in the present kind of. Not sure if that makes sense but yeaaah. It sucked for both Dev and I. He drives me crazy, I say I hate him too much. I don’t. I just have weird and complicated feelings towards him.
Cameron (Prefers to just use name for referral but can use they/them) is the 2nd headmate I’m 100% sure about. Cameron is ageless, genderless, had no solid look. Cameron is a protector and a trauma holder. Cameron split during the height of my abuse and Cameron’s whole thing was being the perfect punching bag, the perfect kid, the perfect fawning mess for my abusers. Whenever I was around my abusers, Cameron would front. Cameron took the brunt of everything. Cameron melded themself to be exactly how my abusers wanted us to be to mitigate the abuse. I feel so unbelievably awful for them. Just thinking and talking about it makes me want to cry. Cameron is the only reason I can somewhat behave functionally, and what hurts the most is I struggle to know anything about them. Cameron hasn’t been around for a long time, but I know Cameron is there. I hope they can come out soon. I hope they know they’re more than what they split for. I owe Cameron everything.
As I said, I don’t know who else there is. I think theres more but, just figuring out about these two was incredibly emotionally draining and hard. I love them both. I need to love them in order to love myself. They are the reason I am alive today.
Okay. I was gonna go more into detail about the dissociative part of my OSDD-1A since thats the MAIN kicker, but I’ve been writing this for too long already so. Another time I will talk about my extreme dissociation. Thanks to anyone who read this