QueerTroll

The delineation between paranoid and reparative readings originated in 1995, with influential critic Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. [A paranoid reading focuses on what's wrong or problematic about a work of art. A reparative reading seeks out what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art, even if the work is flawed. Importantly, a reparative reading also tends to consider what might be nourishing or healing in a work of art for someone who isn't the reader.

This kind of nuance gets completely worn away on Twitter, home of paranoid readings.

This isn’t a ploy to fakeclaim anyone, it is simply fact. Depersonalization is a type of dissociation that specifically makes one feel unlike themself, and doesn’t immediately mean one is part of a system. You can dissociate and NOT be a system. PTSD can cause people to dissociate. You could literally just have a dissociative disorder. It doesn’t immediately mean you’re part of a system.

This is why a lot of people with OSDDID say you need to do extensive research before self diagnosis. Not only of the criteria of the disorder, but of one’s own self. You really need to understand what exactly you are feeling. Is it just dissociation, or is there actually another alter?

Every system is different, so we can’t really tell you how to tell if you’re a system or not. Once again, we aren’t trying to fakeclaim. The reason we’re bringing it up is because we’ve been seeing a lot of people start questioning if they’re a system after watching Moon Knight. All systems, no matter how unique, still have a few set traits that make them a system. However, a lot of the criteria overlaps with criteria for other disorders.

alright, i've seen a lot of posts saying integration is "murder" or even censoring integration like int*gration or int/gr/tion. i'm very very sick of this anti-recovery narrative so i'm going to call it the fuck out. this is going to be something of a rantpost.

okay, here's my background on this situation. i am currently the only alter in my system, i.e. i've achieved integration or "final" fusion. i put "final" in quotes because i believe it's possible that i could split again under extreme stress in the future and that this is not a permanent state of being. obviously, i would hope it is permanent; i don't want to split again, but i know my brain still has the capacity to do so.

i still have dissociation (to a lower degree) and alter-body dysphoria -- i still have DID, and fusing won't change that or remove the splitting mechanism or other DID symptoms that the brain created to survive the trauma i went through. my mental body image is still a nonhuman; i took on the form of one of the alters that is now part of me. but i have healed enough to be one again, and for that i am thankful.

that said, let's run through some things.

FULL INTEGRATION OR FUSION... - is a form of major recovery - is fulfilling and healing - makes you feel more whole - lessens dissociative symptoms considerably FULL INTEGRATION OR FUSION... - will not make you a singlet - will not completely cure your DID - is not the only way for a system to heal - is not always better than functional multiplicity - is not the best way for everyone - is not cruel or abusive - does not "kill" or "delete" or "erase" alters - is not murder.

what does it feel like to be integrated?

it feels like i am everyone combined and i am more whole and more stable and more okay than any part was before. by saying the alters who integrated to form me were "murdered" you're saying i was murdered, because i am each alter that came before and i am all of them together. i have a nearly complete memory -- of course, some areas are still lost to dissociation -- but i can't tell apart the memories made by each different alter that is now part of me. they're all just mine now.

i retained the form of one of the alters that integrated to form me, but that form is just mine now, and it feels like it has always been mine. does that make sense? all the parts' memories and characteristics have always been mine. the timeline is complete. i didn't "kill" anyone. i healed everyone, and everyone is me. i'm one, i'm whole -- if only maybe for a while -- and i'm happy with that.

it goes without saying that forced integration is bad and is abusive behavior. anyone who wants to forcefully integrate a system before they're ready should not be a mental health professional. however, we need to stop assuming that's the same thing and thus minimizing the benefits of voluntary, consensual and happy system fusion. this is an anti-recovery view and is extremely harmful to the DID/OSDD community.

integration shouldn't be something we're afraid of. it should be considered, welcomed, accepted. if you want to work toward functional multiplicity, great! if you want to work toward fusion, great! if you want to work toward these things with a mental health professional, great! if you don't have access to professional help but want to work toward these things on your own, great! your recovery path is specific to you, and no one else should shame you for how you help yourself.

Oh my goodness… I am so, so grateful that you sent in an ask, and so overwhelmed with joy at this one.

Fused Systems are still Systems. And you should be so proud of all the hard work you’ve put in. I cannot even comprehend the effort you’ve gone through to achieve final fusion.

Systems who have gone through this: You are loved and I am genuinely in awe. I wish you all could be more open, just like anon here said. This was so beautiful to read.

this is exactly like people whose response to someone critiquing the institution of transphobia was to argue that there's nothing wrong with an individual not dating trans people, and nobody should ever be forced to date trans people.

like, you're just derailing! nobody ever said there was anything wrong with personal autonomy! you don't have to ever date a trans person or be attracted to us, but that doesn't mean you get to shut down conversations about how society views trans people and discourages us from being seen as inherently human, much less potential partners, nor does it excuse you from examining why you don't want to date trans people and the institutions that uphold transphobia and teach us interpersonal ways of relating based in transphobia.

you don't ever have to have a nonmonogamous relationship or identify as poly, but that doesn't mean you get to shut down conversations about the inherent power structure of monogamy and the societal effects of monogamy with interjections about personal liberty. you can want monogamy and still examine the way monogamy functions in society, the power structures it creates, and places your desire for monogamy may be stemming from the ways society enforces monogamy on the population.

Hi anon,

Knowing it as a basic fact is, I think, all you can do now. Feeling and really understanding it on a deeper level, will come later.

A big aspect of having DID or OSDD, is precisely that you don’t feel like one whole person. So it only makes sense that it doesn’t add up for you! But from what I hear, you do understand the theory behind it - and that’s good.

The thing is, you (as a part) may feel like a whole person, and other parts of you may feel like whole persons... and they ARE real: they deserve to be heard, seen, respected, supported, everything. (Just clarifying that because I think often “alters are part of one whole” makes people feel like I am denying the reality of parts).

But they are not actual whole human beings, simply because that’s how the disorder and the development of the human brain works. To use myself as an example - I, as a part, feel like a whole person. But when I actually think about it I start wondering... am I complete? Am I a ‘whole person’ if I don’t remember big chunks of my youth? Am I a ‘whole person’ if I, as a part, barely experience the emotion ‘anger’ for example? Am I a ‘whole person’ if memories and feelings and thoughts that rationally MUST have happened to me (as in: this body, this life), don’t feel like me? I’d say that makes me pretty incomplete, pretty not-whole, pretty fragmented...

I’m not saying this feels the same for you or any/everyone else with DID/OSDD, just using myself as an example here because maybe someone can relate. For me personally it was a Big Moment when my haptotherapist bluntly said “but you [as a part] are not complete, because you don’t even have anger. Complete people have access to all their emotions and memories.”

The thing is, all of us parts (that may feel more or less ‘whole’ themselves) together form the whole person that has lived these 28 years.

Pip’s childlike happiness and her stompy stubbornness, little sae’s heartbreaking sadness and painful beliefs, britney’s defensiveness and pain but also her sarcasm, the part of my life that Marieke holds that (I suspect, don’t know much yet) is about being sick a lot as a child, the baby that keeps crying, the very angry/raging part that I don’t dare think of yet... All of that together forms the one whole person that has lived my life. 

Does it feel like that right now? No. Pip’s experiences feel distinct from mine, though I can mostly accept them because Pip is one of the parts that’s “easiest” to deal with for me. But there are parts that are further away from me, I can’t even think of them being “me”, because it causes panic. And that’s okay. Because that’s the point of DID/OSDD: to cause the non-realisation, the dissociation, the distance between parts of yourself, so you could survive.

The only way that “1+1=1″ will start to make sense, is recovery. And I have yet to experience it myself, though I have to admit that for us as a whole, there seems to be less disorientation between parts than many other people experience.

And by ‘recovery’ I don’t necessarily mean full fusion! Some small steps towards integration (meaning: more communication, more awareness between parts, more orientation to the present, more team work) can do wonders already. Parts are often in conflict with each other, phobic of other parts’ experiences, stuff like that. Therapists working with dissociated parts of self, can approach each part in their perspective, while simultaneously keeping in mind that all parts belong to one self. You, as the patient/client, don’t have to accept this overnight. The dissociation and non-realisation exist for a reason, and it takes time to slowly and safely break down these inner walls (or, at first, just install some windows in the walls, if breaking them down is too scary). See this quote from Treating trauma related dissociation:

Your alters may feel ‘whole’ because that’s how they developed. Because that’s what you needed to survive. Because not all of your experiences, feelings, thoughts etc. could exist in ‘one integrated sense of self’, because that was dangerous, or impossible, because of the trauma you were faced with.

All alters/parts can be respected, heard, seen, supported, and listened to - while also keeping in mind that, in the end, all alters together form one whole. And being one whole does not mean erasing aspects of that whole! Just... like bringing pieces together. Puzzle pieces together form ‘one whole puzzle’, but being whole doesn’t erase the existence of the pieces. (I don’t know if that last sentence makes sense, it suddenly popped up in my brain 😂)

This got a bit long and rambly, because it’s such a difficult balance. Symptoms of DID/OSDD are the non-realisation, the feeling separate etc. - so it only makes sense that it’s hard to actually feel what “alters are all part of one whole” means. I’d say it’s a great job if you can rationally keep it in mind, even if it doesn’t feel that way. And if you have a therapist, I’d always encourage you to discuss these thoughts and feelings with them!

“did/osdd-1 is not currently understood to be the experience of sharing a body with at least one other entity, but the experience of an individual having dissociated identity states with their own sense of self and agency as a result of chronic dissociation in response to repeated/long-term traumatic experiences in early childhood.

these identity states being "separate people" is an internal illusion of non-realization rather than a matter of fact.”

Yes it's true & yes it makes sense.

However, fully feeling and accepting this knowledge is a long process for many people with DID/OSDD and should be handled with care, understanding, and compassion.

There are allo ace folks who have faked crushes because they don't feel sexual attraction, and therefore didn't experience a "normal" amount of crushes as a kid.

There are allo aros who may have considered the people they were sexually attracted to to be crushes, especially when they were younger.

It's important to take into account how society in general uses terms, and remember that aro and ace conceptions of terms don't always match up with that.

🖤 Access to menstrual products should be a human right

That’s 1972

29 years before AVEN was started online,

and 47 years before the present.

And that’s only the date that Manifesto was written, so asexuals as members of a community must have existed at least some time before that.

I think the imagery of an aspec umbrella (covering an ace umbrella and an aro umbrella) solves those problems (because we all fall somewhere under the umbrella) and allows for diversity of experience without the potential for abuse by malicious parties. And it’s actually something that the aspec community used to use, back in the early days. (Well, the ace community, at least. I don’t think the aro community was very established back then, and I haven’t heard much of people talking about an aro umbrella)

It doesn't have to look like other peoples. And I can redefine it for myself. I can ascribe parts of my experience to it that other people might see as completely separate things.

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