#actuallypolyfragmented

the best examples i can think of displaying this are the numerous books i've read by therapists talking about their time treating patients with DID. something that many of these therapists have done is help their patient install a "therapist alter" to help them stick to their recovery goals when they're not in therapy. sometimes choosing a pre-existing alter to be the therapist's "buddy", or in other cases, this involves creating an alter from scratch--maybe not intentionally, but a need rises and a new alter is produced from it. the key point being that this new alter isn't necessarily produced from stress. i don't have screenshots on me right now but i believe i'm thinking of bennett braun and david yeung when i talk about these things. regardless, this isn't an unusual part of DID therapy.

this is further supported by the concept of epochal division. in the literature, epochal division is very similar to a "system reset", wherein there is a massive shift in the way a CDD system functions due to a major event or life change.

[ID: epochal divisions were common in most of this cohort as isolated phenomena, but played a major role in a substantial minority. with each major life change some or all of the alters were created anew, and their predecessors might either remain active or subside, and become covert or latent. the dynamics of such configuations usually reflect the wish to make a new start, rebirth fantasies, or anniversary phenomena. the [sic] often followed moving, changes in schools, changes in family constellations (such as the death of abusers or the birth of a child), marriage, or great pressure to take flight - the last word is cut off. end ID.]

you can describe the opening of a new chapter in your life as 'stressful', but major life changes such as marriage are multifaceted, and there's a big reason i underlined the phrase "the wish to" [make a new start, etc]. "great pressure" and "rebirth fantasies" are also very important, because things like the wish for change, the opportunity or even the fantasy of change can all lend themselves to dissociation in their own ways, even when nothing bad is necessarily happening in the moment, and especially when something really good (and big) is happening.

this is because even feeling the presence of a looming new chapter in your life can make you dissociate. feeling certain emotions can make you dissociate, such as anger or even happiness, it doesn't have to be negative emotions. things that have positive associations for you can cause you to dissociate for so many reasons.

this doesn't mean that you split based off of hyperfixations or whatever tiktok nonsense, but rather that dissociation is a complex and multifaceted process that produces results based on your extremely specific life experiences, tolerance levels, and neuropsychology.

basically, if you have a CDD and something makes you dissociate, there's a chance it can make you switch or even split with enough exposure no matter what it is. good stress, a major life change, your favorite show from your childhood, moving away from your family, nicotine withdrawal, getting a new job, graduating, getting a romantic partner, and many more things.

Hi anon! I have some advice based off of my own experience. I hope it will work for you (I'm sorry if it doesn't, though). First, I want to stress that it's okay if you can't create a perfect system map. I've never been able to make one that felt 100% correct, and I've tried many times!

Being dissociative can make it quite difficult to understand what's going on internally. You might have a hard time understanding yourself as an individual part, let alone understanding the other parts in your system. On top of that, your system might have some complex inner organization, like subsystems or parts-within-parts. Don't even get me started on how amnesia can make this all even more confusing, too!

So, remember to cut yourself some slack when it comes to system mapping. Your struggles with it are completely understandable!

Tips for System Mapping When Your System is Confusing as Hell

Make your own template.

A lot of pre-made system mapping templates contain things that don't apply to everyone, aren't important to everyone, or not everyone knows enough about their parts to answer. Some designs might not fit how your system functions. So, if pre-made templates don't work for you...don't use them! Try making your own!

When it comes to your own template, I think it's important to be mindful of your current stage of recovery. If you don't know a lot of things about your parts, that's okay -- that's where you're at in your recovery right now. In that case, you probably shouldn't create a template that requires you to write down a ton of information. Allow yourself to include your confusion and questions into your system map!

Think about what you want to keep track of when it comes to your parts. What would be the most useful things for you and your therapist to know? Yours will probably look different but here was the template that I settled on:

Does the part have a name?

Do they feel younger or older than the body?

What are they associated with?

Anything else?

And here's an example of how I would fill this out:

Does the part have a name? I don't think so

Do they feel younger or older than the body? Much younger

What are they associated with? The color yellow, puppies, childhood, abandonment, crying

Anything else? Likes puppies and drawing, sometimes buys candy without our knowing, unsure if this is one part or actually several

Get messy with it.

I understand the desire to have a neat system map. I've always wanted to have a perfect list of all my parts, all the important details about them, maybe organized into some sort of chart too. But these things doesn't always capture the complexities of being dissociative and having parts. Sometimes, you got to get messy.

I feel like the closest I ever came to a system map that felt the most "right" was in my therapist's sand tray. I picked out different figurines to represent my parts, placing some closer together than others. I would also move the sand, making big and low hills beneath and between parts, burying some things, cutting lines around other things. Something like this picture, but way more chaotic:

You can do this at home. You don't even need sand or figurines. You could grab some objects from around the house or outside, print or cut out pictures, grab some paints, scribble on paper, sculpt something out of clay, etc. Pick out something to represent certain parts or feelings or situations. Place them wherever, move them however, just let it kind of unfold naturally. Then take a picture of it and/or write about it (so you don't forget)!

Maybe put the trauma stuff somewhere else.

You'll probably feel tempted to record trauma memories and triggers associated with parts -- but it's probably best to write that stuff down somewhere else! You want your system map to be something that all parts can look at. Try not to jump-scare them with trauma that they may or may not know about yet.

This won't apply to everyone but, in my own experience, including stuff like this in our system map triggered our avoidance. Not only did it make creating the system map harder, it also resulted in some parts destroying/hiding what we wrote as a way to protect themselves and other vulnerable parts.

There are certain patterns and events that we see in our life (mainly in system spaces) that get under our skin as a polyfrag system that smaller systems don't seem to be able to relate to. In an attempt to spread information on what it's like to be a polyfrag system – because goodness knows it's hard to find that – we've created this list of those annoyances, along with examples and explanations of why we find them annoying. Although, this turned into a vent post by the end, so... you have been warned!

Disclaimer: this post mainly applies to our personal experiences. We're sure that other polyfrag systems (and probably other large systems) may be able to relate to some of the things here, but you don't have to relate to any or all of them to be a real polyfrag system.

Polyfragmented Annoyances:

Most system tips do not work with our system because they're based in having a small member count. Anything that starts with "Have every system member..." is a no-go, because it is impossible for us to include every system member in system activities. There's a bunch of people in dormancy, whole sidesystems that we've barely explored, and even counting only the members we know could potentially participate, that's still hundreds of people to go through. It's not gonna work out. "Every system member" is not an achievable goal.

Blurring and other identity confusion happens a lot more often than you'd think, since a lot of us are fragments or otherwise not "full" headmates. When you don't check all the boxes to be a fully independent system member and constantly need at least one other member around to get even basic stuff done, it can be easy to lose track of where the line between you and another system member is.

On that note, co-fronting is a necessity and people outside the system (whether system or singlet) don't seem to understand that very often. We need to have multiple people in front – our system is not designed to have only one person alone controlling the body and aware of what's going on. Whereas most other systems experience negative side effects if they have too many headmates fronting, we more often experience negative side effects if not enough headmates front, and that can create a lot of estrangement when the former is usually the only example of fronting arrangement issues you can find. In addition, people outside the system (mostly singlets, but some systems too) don't seem to understand the implications of "We usually/almost always have a crowded front." Any interactions you have with one of us are going to be overseen, filtered through, and influenced by everyone else in front; if you're building a relationship* with one of us, you're probably building a relationship with several others, too.

Having to do so much more work to keep track of everyone. Organizing headmates by sidesystem, subsystem, etc can be a hassle, and system mapping becomes a lot more difficult when you've got a lot of people to include in your map. You not only have to frequently register new members in things such as Pluralkit and SimplyPlural, but you have to update that data as they learn more about themselves and the system develops, so we end up taking hours to just sit down and go through as many headmates as we can. Simply put, keeping any records of our system is so much more complicated because we're polyfragmented, even if it's just something basic like writing down everyone's names.

Introjects often face a name struggle that they wouldn't if we were a smaller system. Because of how often we get multiple introjects of the same character or person, every introject is expected to take up some kind of nickname so they can be more easily identified and identity issues aren't too frequent, which is its own troublesome process. Especially when we see small systems who don't need to do this... it can make us a bit jealous at times.

It's difficult to find anything about systems of our size. Most systems on platforms like TikTok and YouTube are small, so it's hard to find videos about larger systems. Most systems in fiction, whether they're positive representation or the usual stock-horror serial killer stereotype, have a small number of members so audiences don't get lost or confused. Even within the system community in settings like on Tumblr, it can be hard to find other large systems talking about their own experiences and how they differ from smaller systems – in fact, the experiences of small systems are seen as the "right" experiences in some cases, so if a large system goes outside of that, they are seen as "faking," "promoting unhealthy behavior," etc. We just want to find posts about us that go beyond one-sentence shout-outs, c'mon.

Related to that second-to-last bit, common polyfrag experiences are treated as automatic signs of "faking." Oh, you have a lot of headmates? Faker! You have more than one introject of or from the same source? Faker! You gain new members easily? Faker! Your headmates have highly specific roles? Faker! Some headmates don't have roles because others already handle those jobs? Faker! You often have multiple people in co-front or co-con? Faker! JFC, why is my existence automatically seen as a lie?! A lot of these fakeclaimers supposedly "support" polyfrag systems, too, but then the second a polyfrag system is, y'know, polyfrag, oooohhhh noooo, time to write a call-out about how they're "obviously faking it."

*"Relationship" is used as a general term here and does not refer solely to romantic relationships.

But with the long ones, there’s a whole range of things that you either don’t experience or speedrun through when they’re quick so the feeling doesn’t stay with you after the fact. Like, I can just be sitting there and just feel like I have someone else’s facial features. Not like the face attached to my body isn’t mine, but like the nose that is definitely mine and attached to my face is a completely different looking nose, or eyes or whatever.

Or, having fluctuating control of different body parts (which is odd enough with just other frontera because we don’t have full possessive switches all that often). This is still kind of happening. Right now I can move my right hand fine, but it feels kinda syrupy like it’s been asleep and it keeps defaulting to a position like I’m about to play piano. Last night I had almost no control over two fingers, and a little bit ago I just couldn’t do anything while it had what looked like a tic attack (that I know wasn’t one). I wrote half this post so far with just one hand, which is a pain and a half. (I took it off the phone for a second and it started again for a second). The whole process feels like it’s staring with the left now which is fun.

I’ve also spent most of today and the end of last night listening to the same album on loop. It’s something I’ve done completely by myself and it’s an album I would do that with, but it feels way different. I’ve switched to something else by a different artist to maybe help get someone else out so I at least don’t have to do this solo, and I’m actually having jitters (physically shaking) and I can only assume it’s because of that.

Honestly, I don’t even know how long this thing’s been going on. Because a while back, I remember getting a vague feeling of a half-formed someone new here (two someone’s, actually) and getting the kinda spacey feeling, and then they both went away and I haven’t seen them since. But now this is happening and I’m getting flashes of them again, so I get the feeling it turned into a three part split instead of two. Because that would help explain why this is hitting so hard.

My name’s Nikki, but you can call me whatever you want - I prefer Bastard

Obviously mentally ill

This one ain’t for the kids