Can I interest you in a survey about language, for anyone of any gender who lives in an English-speaking country?

I am sure a large majority of the people that follow this blog and that this will reach probably should already know this and probably do already know this, but I’ve recently seen “Subliminals to Get Dissociative Identity Disorder” coming up and people claiming how they want it to “try a new coping mechanism” or “help them with their depression” and I really do understand the draw and the idea towards how DID / OSDD might seem easy or an enjoyable escape to serious mental health issues. 

I really do - prior to understanding my condition - I (or at least someone in the system since I know it from our old journal notes) said “Wow haha I wish I had someone who could take over my life and give me a new life” and “I wish I could just become someone else”

The idea of having “internal friends” and “internal parts” that can support you and regularly know what you need and can help you and be a great wonderful family and all that is relaxing and enjoyable. Having people that you know are “stuck with you” might help with social anxiety or depression or abandonment issues and having those parts to talk about interest with might sound great. Honestly, they are some of the highlights of having good communication with a part and similar. Those are the aspects a lot of systems like to show because a lot of systems don’t want to show the ugly ugly moments. 

It’s not easy, fun, comfortable, or safe to talk about all the dangerous and negative moments that come with it or the active struggle and stress that comes just casually and usually with this disorder.

Its not a fun hug box of family members and friends all the time and it sure as hell didn’t start that way. Our system talks and has a lot of aspects in order so from time to time if you read this blog, we might sound like a loving family that shitposts at one another and supports eachother through the worst time - and yeah we do because we spent years trying to understand one another and find a method that worked - but the conflicts that come with it, the loss of autonomy, the loss of individual self, the arguments about how 12+ “different people” (as that is what it feels like even thoguh it is parts) are supposed to share one single life where not every dream and goal can be met, the regular upheval of trauma and unplesant memories, the realization of just how much trauma is the basis for most of our very existence and consciousness, the general C-PTSD symptoms, the time loss, the lack of awareness of what had happened the day, so on and so forth.

Some alter’s don’t work well with the system. Some alters don’t establish boundaries with other alters. Some alters intentionally or otherwise take advantage of others. Some alters hurt the body. Some alters cause more trauma. Some alters just don’t function well. Some alters never “get to live” their life. 

I know it sounds helpful to have people living in your head and to be able to not exist when you are depressed, stressed, lonely, etc - but there is so much loss that comes with the disorder to get that break. It is a disorder brought upon by childhood trauma - a disorder where the prerequisite is practically having lost your childhood and the result is spending your adulthood trying to fix it.

It really isn’t fun and it isn’t easy and behind a lot of smiles, hugs, and mutual appreciation, there is a lot of struggle, difficultly, loss, debilitation, and pain that comes from it. I don’t hate having DID because I’ve adjusted to it and its the life that I am used to and the only life I know and I never had a choice to have it or not, but that doesn’t mean it is something you should want or desire. It isn’t a choice people have to make. 

You can’t choose to have DID and saying you got DID intentionally is just rude and insulting to those of us who had it forced upon us through repeated childhood trauma.

Please don’t say you want to have DID. Please don’t “intentionally become a system.”

If you want DID, I understand where you are coming from, but please know that it is romanticizing and idealizing a really really hard thing to deal with and please know there are a lot better ways to handle and cope than to try to dissociate from yourself. 

LARPing and acting has shown to help people with PTSD and depression to get a place where they don’t have to feel like themselves and where they can build connections with others. Pick up an art form, write a story to express yourself. I know it is probably hard, but please find something else to try to cope. Reach out to a friend if you can, talk to a professional if you can.