p-did systems are so beautiful

You are valid if you dont switch often.

You are valid if you switch extremely often.

You are valid if you are fictive heavy.

You are valid if you are introject heavy.

You are valid if you arent open about your system.

You are valid if you are very open about your system.

You are valid if your headmates date inside your system.

You are valid if your headmates date outside your system.

You are valid if you have no partner systems.

You are valid if you have a ton of partner systems.

You are valid if you are constantly blurry.

You are valid if you always know whom is fronting.

there is no line in the sand, no perfectly quantifiable amount of trauma you have to endure to be a system. the "requirement" for plurality is merely that viewing yourself thru a plural framework brings you greater acceptance & understanding of yourself. if you view your systemhood as the natural result of your adverse experiences, then those experiences were enough.

you are more than a list of symptoms, you are more than your trauma, you are more than a diagnosis or lack thereof, and you are greater than the sum of your parts.

p-did flag for anon!

I'm fairly certain I will never split any more parts. With how my system works, I simply don't need to. We formed as a way to survive our childhood home, but now that we're out, we don't need to split any further to protect ourselves. Of course plenty of traumagenic systems keep splitting well after their trauma, but for us, we just don't need to, and I can't see it happening.

Obviously it doesn't happen to every system, as some systems don't even have a host; but can we talk about the fear and anxiety about potentially never coming back to front if you fully let go, as a host? I dealt with it for a year and a half until I was able to actually start letting go and sitting off front for long periods of time. But there were times when 5 minutes off front fully caused me panic attacks.

This fear especially comes when you are a baby (newly discovered) system. This feeling that you built a life for yourself, and suddenly, you feel like you'll lose it to other people. And it's not that you want it all for yourself, but losing it entirely is what's scary. And there is usually a whole inner world behind you... who knows what happens inside of it, what it can do, who lives there? As well as, it's scary to let go of control of events IRL. Who knows how others would handle it, even if you know them well already?

And that's just our reasons.

Moral of the story: y'all are not alone, and it gets better.

What you feel, what you experience, it’s all worthy of respect and care

never sell yourself short because some rando “has it worse”

or even if that person you love dearly “has it worse”

every problem, every situation, every feeling deserves to be seen

You deserve to be seen.

do not reblog this with anti-endo/syscourse tags. you will be insta blocked

Very quickly suddenly being able to recognize system members and who’s fronting when you never did before. Of course you never did before. You wouldn’t have been able to say “oh, now my headmate X is fronting” if you didn’t know that was even something that happened to you. Knowing you are plural is like a light switch on to being able to notice when you’ve switched.

Alternatively frequent co-consciousness or noticing when you’re blurry/don’t know who you are versus being a specific member. Some headmates may be more defined in individuality than others and some may be “softer at the edges” and that’s okay. Also, if you are a system that’s frequently blurry or co-con, knowing you’re a system is what makes you able to call it those words, but it was probably happening a lot before then—you probably just thought of it as “I’m in such a weird mood and I don’t even know what I want to do/how I feel” or “I have a really active internal monologue”

System members starting to name & define themselves one after the other in quick succession. See above: you didn’t know they existed. They probably didn’t know they existed, they just thought they were you, or you were them. Now you all know that you’re different, you start to differentiate yourselves, and compartmentalize each other. Worrying this especially makes you fake is like worrying you’re faking being trans because you didn’t change your name until you knew it was an option.

Rapid switching. It may have even happened before, but you wouldn’t have noticed if you didn’t have the language to even internally explain why some of the things you’re saying/doing in the moment feel “out of character” and some feel like you.

Gaining a higher understanding of past trauma if your system is trauma-related in any way. Or gaining a higher understanding of how your dissociation works if your system is dissociative. Being able to look at a specific system member who acts a certain way and consider their behavior in a vacuum is a lot more effective at creating understanding than trying to wade through your own behavior as it’s happening. You’re also doing a lot of self-analysis right now in general. Example: having one member who fronts during chronic illness flare-ups and dehumanizes themself for other people’s sake, gets you thinking about what in your past would cause them to do that. Being that member in the moment and not knowing about the system is like standing too close to the mirror to see anything except your own nose.

shoutout to the alters who hold the desire to die and are still here.

shoutout to the alters who feel lost and take life one day at a time.

shoutout to the alters who have goals & dreams they can't pursue.

shoutout to every plural trauma survivor for doing what they have to do to stay alive, even if it's messy and unhealthy and others deem it unproductive.

idk if this is finished but I'm sick of working on it for now lol

Red

Navy

Imp