#aether amalgam

A) take medical terms for your non medical experiences and use them for yourself

B) spread hateful and violent ableist misinformation and propaganda that groom people into thinking that their trauma “wasn’t bad enough” to cause a CDD which means they must be endo

C) cause psychiatric professionals to doubt the validity of real systems’ experiences, which further the hate and prejudice against people with CDDs

I love you transfeminine systems

I love you transmasculine systems

I love you non-binary systems of any kind

I love you systems who use neopronouns

I love you systems who identify with xeno labels

I love you systems who have trans alters while the body isn’t trans

I love you systems who have alters who are trans in a different direction than the body/collective

I love you systems who experience dysphoria of any kind

I love you systems who DON’T experience dysphoria of any kind

In psychology and in really really advanced forms of PTSD, trauma responses go far beyond fight/flight/freeze. In more advanced forms of PTSD, there is also “submit” and “identify”. They are both ways to minimize trauma sustained from abusers. Submit is basically just doing as you’re told to avoid getting in more trouble/danger. Identify is when you begin to identify yourself with your abuser/s, telling yourself that they’re right, you ARE bad, you deserve it etc etc etc.

And that’s what persecutors (which is the term I’m gonna use in this post, but please know I mean abuser introjects/perpetrators as well when I say this) are there to do, a good deal of the time. They’re there to identify with the system’s abuser/s to keep the system from being abused further. If you obey, do as you’re told, believe the lies, then you’re more likely to be treated “better” in many abuse situations. (This is why submit and identify are present in more advanced cases of PTSD, as well as fight/flight/freeze).

So how does this information help us as systems?

Well, step one is to realize NO PART is there for NO REASON! Every part has a role and a part to play, even if they don’t “seem” to have one.

Step two is to realize that persecutor parts are using skills that USED TO keep you safe/safer in the past, but are damaging you now. A lot of the time, there is a scared, damaged, traumatized child underneath the big bad wolf.

Step three is to just talk to them. Why do you do this? How is this helping you/us? What purpose did these behaviors serve and what are they doing now? And then, bear with me here, tell them thank you. Compassion and kindness are KEY to healing any type of trauma, with or without a dissociative disorder. And that means compassion with EVERY PART OF SELF, including the “difficult” ones.

And then step four is to strive for safety. Safety isn’t always possible immediately or even in the near future, but you CANNOT heal if you remain in an abusive or unsafe environment. Sometimes you need to make very difficult or scary decisions to achieve safety, which is the only place parts/alters can heal.

If you’re safe, compassionate, and open with your parts, things WILL become better. I promise you that. I’ve only just started my healing journey and I’ve been in EMDR therapy for over a year now and it’s JUST BEGINNING! It takes a lot of time and healing isn’t a straight line either, so there will be relapses and downward slopes, but you can NEVER go back to square one because you’ve already left that station. You can have the worst episode of your life and you will STILL not be back to square one, because of the information and wisdom and tools you have gathered and learned from your healing journey. And every upswing will be faster and stronger than the last.

Anyway, I can already smell the people obsessed with abusing their persecutors/other peoples persecutors, so imma give you my source for this information.

Read the book Finding Solid Ground or get the Finding Solid Ground workbook, by Hugo J. Schielke, Bethany L. Brand, and Ruth A. Lanius. My therapy group is working through this book and so far it’s been extremely helpful and enlightening. My therapist likes to tell me “if it doesn’t serve you, leave it behind” and by that I mean: if something in the book is unhelpful to you or if you’re recommended a coping skill that you find unhelpful after trying it a couple times, then just leave it behind. If it doesn’t work for you, then it doesn’t work. And that’s ok!

This book isn’t necessarily just for people with dissociative disorders, it’s geared towards all people with trauma and ptsd, but any type of PTSD recovery is going to help people with dissociative disorders heal because that’s the basis for the disorder!

Anyway, long post over. This is just a bit that I’ve learned from my therapist and the group that I’ve been attending for over a year now. It’s amazing, but you do have to BUY the book, I don’t know if you can find it online… I had to buy it because it was for the group so. It’s a little steep, but if you can get your hands on it, I would recommend it immensely!

So

Shoutout to systems with so many fucking introjects. Like. So many. Holy shit. There are guys in there /pos

Shoutout to systems that have “themes” or are aesthetic with their profiles, blogs, simply plurals, or anything of that sort!

Shoutout to systems who are autistic/ADHD/other forms of neurodivergent! Man it’s rough out here /lh

Shoutout to systems who are queer! Whether it be your sexuality or gender identity, you’re rad as fuck and valid as fuck! (Special shoutout to systems who have trauma from growing up queer, I see you and love you /p)

Shoutout to systems, speaking of being queer, who use neopronouns or hoard MOGAI genders! Thats so cool, we have people like that too!

Shoutout to weird systems! Dont let people tell you what you can/can’t do, especially if they label it as “weird”! Fuck being “normal”! Be weird!

Adults: no no you need to follow the rules!

Me: ok *follows all the rules*