Pieces Of Me

- It is not schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder.

- It is the result of severe childhood trauma.

- The identities of someone with DID are called different things. Alters, parts and others to name a few.

- There can be as few as 2 alters or into the hundreds with the average number being in the teens.

- Alters are not hallucinations or characters and ignoring them or telling the person to “snap out of it” will not make them go away.

- Although for some with DID the goal of treatment is to integrate alters into one whole identity many with DID feel this is not the right path for them and rather work on cooperation between alters to live as a team. Both of these are acceptable forms of recovery and it is up to the person with DID what path they want to take.

- DID is found in 1-3% of the population (possibly even more) making it more common than schizophrenia and not as extremely rare as many people believe.

- People with DID (or any mental illness) are statistically no more likely to commit any type of crime, violent or not. They are however more likely to be the victim of a crime.

- The “evil alter” trope seen in fiction is not accurate and alters that hold trauma or anger are much more likely to hurt themselves than anyone else.

because there is so little information on it

integration is worth the struggle, trust me.

take your time with integration and be patient. start with integrating just two (consenting) people. i tried to integrate everyone at once without their agreement and i learned the hard way that that’s not what integration is about. it’s about mutual healing and accepting. a decision fueled by love for yourself and for your alter(s).

start by saying “I” instead of speaking in the third person. i know it’s hard to admit that an alter you’re integrating with might, for example, have violent thoughts. but you must accept them as your thoughts if you are to truly integrate.

integration has made me more emotionally mature and more equipped to deal with stress and trauma, and it will help you with this, too. it may be rough at times, but you will reach a point where you feel freer than you ever imagined.

you will probably feel extreme emotions at first; either extreme joy and happiness turning into a loneliness and craving for dissociation, or vice versa. this is because, while integration is an amazing reclamation of one’s mind and identity, it’s also very overwhelming and unfamiliar. you’re used to the wall between you. these feelings will subside with time.

the important parts of who you and your system members are will not go away. that being said, you will have days when you act more like one person than another. don’t be afraid that you’re losing yourself; just try to remember who you are, you will be fine.

you have to work at integration, consciously work towards fully accepting every inch of each of your identities and histories as “me” and “mine.” otherwise you will split again. and that brings me to…

you will split again. it’s like any relapse. but you can reintegrate, too.

there’s a good chance that dormant and perhaps previously unknown alters will come out during the integration process. just a forewarning.

even if you aren’t planning on integrating, i’d really appreciate if you reblogged this. I hardly had any resources when i first started integrating and it was really hard on me.

Some explanations about integration and the language around it! All definitions taken (but paraphrased) from the ISSTD Journal of Trauma and Dissociation (2011).

The goddesses want YOU to take care of you.

The goddesses want you to go to therapy.

you are allowed to feel intensely

you are allowed to be emotional

you are allowed to be sad

you are allowed to be angry

you are allowed to be hurt

you are allowed to be frustrated

you are allowed to be happy

you are allowed to be excited

you are allowed to be enthusiastic

you are allowed to feel your feelings

your feelings are not bad or shameful

your feelings are not too much

Beginning last summer Twitter user @fuguhitman began illustrating his personal backlog of bird-bread puns. His first starchy birb was the Sparroll and he claims to have at least 20 to work through. With 9 completed thus far, we have one question for him: why did you wait so long to share these works of punny goodness with the world?

Follow @fuguhitman on Twitter to make sure you don’t miss out on the rest of the breadbird flock and little bonus birbs such as this chocolate chick cookie:

Its so pretty when you’re looking down on it

We try

To live

In peace