#coconsciousness

(we wrote this up, with the graphics, three years ago, and it is still accurate to our perceptions and memories) This is sort of a very rough illustration of the evolution of our self awareness.

It's a very visceral thing for us. We can look at this structure in our psyche and see and feel it as if it is our collective souls' body, so to speak.

That said, looking at the second model, when we switch from one inner eye to another inner eye, the strength of the "illusion" is so strong that it usually just feels like one inner eye has just moved positions. Except that once there we can look across our consciousness and literally see the previous inner eye that was active and fronting before, and we can feel it's autonomy.

We believe this illusion of singularity is caused by shared consciousness. That by partially merging, we perceive each other's awarenesses as if they are our own, up until the point they depart from the collective focus and act independently.

The "front" then must be a set of neurons that is used for giving the greatest conscious awareness to whomever is looking through them. And we say greatest, because we all exhibit conscious awareness when we're not fronting, and we even can access memories of it of times when we weren't fronting. But coming to the front overrides those memories, probably due to the overwhelming strength of the gestalt there.

But, despite all the evidence that we are continually perceiving and analyzing that says our model must be the second graphic, the illusion is so strong that it's super hard not to reflexively think of ourselves as like the first graphic.

[image descriptions: two images

first image: A diagram labeled, "At first, this is how we perceived our system." There is one point labeled "inner eye". From it extend 5 arrows, each labeled "headmate".

We danced, we vibed, we laughed, I cried, we loved; and I learned the magnitude of my worth.

We found a lovely fusion, we found a harmony;

I’d describe DID as a lifelong coping mechanism that starts in childhood (before the age of 9 or so), where the brain creates alternate identities to take the abuse rather than the host dealing with it all on their own

One myth that’s always ticked me off is that some doctors believe DID is an iatrogenic disorder. This means that the disorder is supposedly created by a doctor and projected onto a highly suggestible patient, which couldn’t be less true! When our symptoms started surfacing, we weren’t even in therapy

Another one is that people with DID can switch on demand. Like, some people are like “ooh, make (name) come out!! They’re so fun!”, but sometimes alters don’t want to front. It’s just like living with a bunch of people in your head, with their own opinions and willpower

And then there’s the one where people with DID have complete loss of memory when another alter is out. Granted, there are a lot of systems like this, but a lot of them also have worked towards coconsciousness, where more than one alter is in control, or they can see out. This requires a lot of work and communication, but it’s attainable!

And the last one that comes to mind is the old “you wouldn’t know if you had that!”. But like. How could you NOT know if you have voices in your head that take control of you, and if you feel constantly disconnected from your body, and if you have a ton of memory loss. We knew we had DID before we were diagnosed, and a lot of others are the same way.

You’re fine!