#dpdpost

Late in 2024, my system received a diagnosis of DPD from our therapist. We had actually been diagnosed with the disorder (in 2016, I believe), but in 2021, another therapist and a DP both told us we didn't have the disorder, and we believed them.

However, slightly earlier in 2024, our therapist diagnosed a different headmate in my system as having BPD, which got us to thinking about personality disorders in general again. This made us realize that DPD was the most likely explanation for some decisions we had made and some feelings we had had in the 2020s, and after talking to our therapist again, she agreed we have the disorder.

This contributed to a gender-related crisis one of our hosts at the time, Vyvian, was having. He had previously felt as though disability kept him from being masculine (as men are traditionally independent and he can only be so independent as a disabled person on government benefits), and the only things that made him feel masculine were his Dominant status towards our partner system and his interest in horror, which included relating more to the perspective of violent characters than their victims.

Then we moved to another part of the state, which ended up being a good decision for us, but also turned out to be very triggering and anxiety-inducing. We had lived with family before that, then a partner before that, and different family before that. So this is the first time we've lived in a situation where you couldn't say that someone was taking care of us. This is the most independent we had ever been, and the only way to go back to being taken care of would be to find an in-person partner to live with.

However, we cannot find an in-person partner. We have a queerplatonic partner system who has jealousy issues that keep them from being comfortable with us having romantic partners other than members of our own system. Furthermore, most people from in person are allosexual, and we absolutely could not date someone who expects sex from us. I know there are supposedly allosexuals who are okay with not having sex in relationships, but we got tricked by an allosexual who used "some asexuals have sex" to justify forcing a sex-repulsed asexual to have sex with him, so unless I was able to hear a track record of that person dating asexuals who were never forced into anything sexual, I don't think I could trust them. There are other reasons, too, including being a system. But I don't think it's realistic to think I'll get a partner from in-person. To the rest of the world, I will be going through my life taking care of myself, unconnected to anyone else.

Then a piece of media we enjoyed released a new character who was heavily implied to be an ex-Catholic and was canonically now working for a Satanic church. We are ex-Christian, and the reason we left the religion has to do with DPD and having a DP who was an atheist. Vyvian, desperate to project onto any male character he could and lacking characters who are easy to headcanon as a gay man with DPD, headcanoned that I had the disorder and that I left Catholicism for a Satanist DP.

A series of splits and changes occurred, such that Vyvian still exists in the system but is no longer the main host. I am probably the main host now, and I have most of Vyvian's issues surrounding masculinity and the validity of his self-identification as a man in light of having DPD.