#actually cdd

The cycle of forgetting and then re-remembering trauma memories

Constant depersonalization and derealization

Feeling as if you're stuck living someone else's life

Failure to plan for the future because nothing feels real + losing time

Thinking a flashback is over when you've actually just dissociated away from it, and having it resume as soon as you stop dissociating

Dissociative stupor/trance

Alexithymia

Identity issues outside of alters

Inability to connect with other people

Being unable to tell if you've healed from a past problem/trauma or if you've just dissociated away from it

Not learning from past mistakes because of amnesia and dissociation

Feeling nothing psychologically despite physical shaking, racing heart, nausea, crying, etc

The extreme disorientation + identity confusion that comes with co-consciousness and co-fronting

Somatic flashbacks

Except you do see us.

We're on the front page of your favorite porn site. We're the tweaking homeless person you pretend not to look at on the street. We're your favorite political talking point. We're the infant in the emergency room screaming from a pain they can't comprehend. We're the black lines in classified files you make jokes about. We're buried in the backyards of farmhouses that have long since returned to nature. We're the ones who sold you drugs in high school. We're the classmate you bullied for growling and barking like an animal. We're the product of a $200 billion industry. We're the blood on your favorite politician's hands. We're alive and dead and existing as fragmented states in between.

for the longest time, i felt completely alone in my experiences because i didn't match what they insisted was "normal." i didn't consistently have a headspace. my gatekeepers couldn't just summon alters to front at will the way theirs supposedly could. everyone around me seemed to experience things in the same neat & tidy way while i felt pressured into pretending that i was just like them to avoid scrutiny.

i had to redo my syscovery from scratch last year because so much of what they taught me (& what the community normalized in general) felt harmful and incorrect.

you know what happened once i did that? i could actually see experiences similar to mine reflected in medical texts, rather than feeling like i was forcing myself to fit some standard. funny, isn't it? somehow, i was more of a "faker" in their community than i ever was in ours.

If you look into it, the right definition would be "I'm took overwhelmed so I need someone to replace me" disorder

Also it can be:

A "This thing stresses me the hell out so I no longer will remember it even if I need to" disorder.

A "I don't know who I am most of the time" disorder

A "My trauma is a rotting wound that never heals" disorder

A "I never learned healthy ways to cope so I wake up with scars I don't remember having" disorder.

A "forget everything" disorder

A "Hightened risk of suicide/alcoholism/drug abuse" disorder

A "other parts of my self hate my guts and sabotage me (and themselves too in process)" disorder

A "I'm not sure whether those memories are real or a dream" disorder

A "I thought I was saying the truth but people say I'm lying" disorder

A "did I actually do it or just thought about it?" disorder

A "Being near some people or reading something even briefly mentioning/implying my trauma makes me spiral" disorder

A "I dissociate all the time" disorder

A "how the hell did I end up here?" disorder

A "the world around me doesn't feel real" disorder

A "I'm so depressed I can't get out of bed and haven't showered in weeks" disorder

And strangely enough, you can't have all that without repeated childhood trauma.