penumbrial ecosystem

Bro wtf are you talking about lol. You know absolutely nothing about me and have read nothing of anything ive ever posted if you think tumblr is my primary source of info. Recurrent gaps in the recall of daily events, improtant information IS severe amnesia?? Literally i am always promoting CTAD clinic and reliable sources, bud. Youve clearly misunderstood whatever ive written to assume i use tumblr as a primary fucking source. Amnesia in DID isnt even relevant to alters. Its a misconception that the amnesia in DID is required to be around alters, so shared memory between alters has zero impact on the diagnosis of DID/OSDD. Its, as you said, "Recurrent gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events that are inconsistent with ordinary forgetting" NOT amnesia between alters

Fuckin rude ass comin into my inbox like im fuckin ignorant and havent lived with this shit, fuck out of here

Day Eight: How did you first discover you were plural? Was it before, after, or during diagnosis?

Before diagnosis, i feel like i already answered this? It was during university and a months long dissociative crisis and i was having overt symptoms, led me into therapy and eventually a diagnosis.

Day Nine: What level of co-consciousness do you have? How do you feel your communication skills are within the system? How do you want to grow in those skills?

Lots of coconsciousness. Our communication varies. Weve been using oceans symphony to build our communication ~

Day Ten: Have you ever done a system map? How extensively have you mapped your system?

Ive done several but theyre more artsy, its really hard to do an exhaustive map. I dont think ive ever been able to map put its full complexity.

Day Eleven: How much control do you have over switches? Do you know of any specific things which cause specific alters to front?

Day Seven: How many parts do you know of in the system? How many know about each other?

Day Two: Who knows about your system? Who do you want to know? What do you feel like it’s like coming out as multiple?

My partner, my mom (sorta, i told her about the osdd dx but not the DID dx...), i actually just told my coworker/friend - i was showing her my app bc i thought the quick support thing might be helpful for her. Thats it. In terms of ppl irl. Well actually. I guess people from my university picked up on it. I dont want to feel like i have to hide. But i dont want to face peoples pejudice either. Idrk what its like, coming out as multiple..... its weird i guess. Idk. :/

Day Three: What are your thoughts on integration? Do you wish to integrate?

Yes to integration, but no to final fusion. We want to integrate to be able to help traumatized parts orient to the present so they arent stuck in trauma, if fusions or splits happen along the way, they happen. The goal is to better my quality of life.

Day Four: Are you or any of the others in a relationship in or out of the system? How does dating work for you if you do it?

The body is in a monogomous relationship with our partner. Weve been together since well before our diagnosis. Hmm. I would say that theres no internal relationships like that.

Day Five: How often do you switch? How often do you lose time? Talk a little about what dissociation is like for you.

Switch all the friggin time x.x but its usually like rotations in which is part of the group up front. Idk. Ill answer this again and the next tomorrow. Maybe. Today was rough.

Day Six: How do you feel about talking about the trauma which created your condition? Do you like to write about it privately or publicly? Why?

I only started taking notes part way through - but one line that made me hmmmm. Put my guard up - they quoted studies claiming that DID was a controversial diagnosis.

Another red flag - the sample size was SIX people, 23-70 minute intervies.

"Based on our estimate, there are 200-300 individuals who participate in these forums and believe they are multiple..." idk that seems like a steep underestimate to me but what do i know

Another thing that killed my excitement was reading they only used he/she, not they nor asked their pronouns, "we relied on our best judgement to determine their sex based on voice or picture, which was often different from the gender with which they identified.

Of the six samples, one was diagnosed with DID, another dxed with DDNOS and suspects DID. The third, their therapist "had the suspicion they had did but rejected carrying out an assessment for differential diagnosis because he thought this was a good coping mechanism for them.... nowadays, they experience a great deal of stress as a result of living on benefits and hints that these difficulties.... are connected to difficulties within the system".

There was one who didnt report DID at all, their experience sounded more like IFS to me but idk i honestly cant remember it well. the last one was quite interesting and probably the most fascinating part of the whole study. They were a system who was diagnosed with narcolepsy as a kid bc brain waves were observed different between states when they were a kid - i didnt take notes on this part - but i believe their mother had DID, but their experience was the most worthwhile part of the study imo. They reported memories of mulitplicity since - i may be misquoting but i want to say even pre birth. I resonated with a lot of their experience honestly, altho i do have DID, but i resonated with it more from a spiritual standpoint (my spirituality is deeply intwined with my dissociative nature). I home this research opens the door for more exploration into experiences like theirs.

I wish the study also used like the DES or some tool to measure dissociation of their participants, since they even admit that dissociation was a prevalent feature.

Unfortunately, the people conducting the study decided to weaponize their results, claiming "thus multiplicity is a social construct" and "the idea of DID was only partially supported" and "multiplicity is a relatively new concept" -- all rhetoric that perpetuates the disbelief of DID. I have no idea how the results of the study lead to these conclusions and they didnt explain it. Paired with their earlier quote suggesting that DID was a controversial and possibly illegitimate condition - not well established - nearly all citations were from the 80s and i dont remember a single one more recent than 2014.

The original tumblr post that exposed me to the study seemed to read the artical title and assume it was evidence for non-traumagenic multiplicity - but the tiny sample size and the substantial presence of dissociation/PTSD/DID/trauma suggests otherwise to me. The final participant that was described was the most interesting tho, and certainly the whole subject warrants further research. I was honestly so excited to see that they were doing research into this, and so disappointed to read and see then perpetuate the myth that DID is not a well established, REAL condition. Instead, they took advantage of the brave participants experiences, concluding that multiplicity was a new phenomena caused by severe identity fragmentation, encouraged by social media spaces.

Day One: Describe your system. What kind of system, how big, anything you feel is a good introduction.

We have a DID system, we thought we were OSDD for a long long time but just this year our diagnosis was updated to DID. I think we are complex/polyfrag? Not ramcoa/oea tho, so it depends how you define those things. We have like 35 alters logged in our app but i think we have more. I dont keep track of fragments.

We havent experienced the type of fugue you go off somewhere but have had a few occaisons of like - black out and wake up in another context. But was within the same general location. Its not our norm.

Gah idk. We had our syscovery in 2022 while we were in university and had to drop out because we were so destabilized, had a huge surge in motor and vocal tics and didnt feel safe to drive. It was a wild time. I was quite open about everything i was experiencing with my classmates at the time because the syscovery was brought on by this feeling of safety and acceptance that was in part from my classmates. I didnt even really know what was happening at the time. It felt like a spiritual enlightenment. I still consider it to be, in part. I kept saying it felt like id unlocked areas of my brain. I cant get into it all now. But my classmates even literally ended up leaving me this note, it was like a numbered list of things, i cant remember all what was on it but a few of the things were "nobody can read your mind" "now that you can hear them, its not about getting the voices to stop, but aboit figuring out what theyre trying to say". I wish id taken a photo or taken the list or something, but it felt like if i did that i would like ruin the "purity" of the moment or taint it in some way.

Oops i guess thats more a response for the how did you discover your system question

For introduction - we are an artist, spiritual, 2E (AuDHD+gifted), hyperlexic synesthetic complex dissociative system with a vivid persistant/self sustsaining inner world. We operate primarily through cofronting and coconsciousness with lots of blending and fluid switches. We have several gatekeepers, several hosts, several layers and clusters/subsystems.

body is transsexual ftm but we are collectively nonbinary agender/genderfluid. Body is white mixed, metis heritage and 26 atm. We love animals and consider ourself theriean. Pronouns they/he but it varies by alter.

For healing, we are interested in functional multiplicity and see our multiplicity as a nerodevelopmental adaptational difference - we want to heal our cptsd and gain control of our chronic dissociation but our healing goals are for all within the system to feel safe and fulfilled with the capacity for creative self expression, to be able to connect with life, to whatever capacity they so desire, and if fusions or splits happen, they happen.