Not recovering, but surviving

I’d like to talk about the development of fictional introjects! Firstly, in short, a fictional introject is an alter that is modeled around an outside fictional character. This can be a character from a video game, movie, book, whatever! We personally have one fictional introject, based on Alphonse Elric. I’ll be using him as an example throughout this post.

Introjects are just like any other alter–they form for a reason. Your brain does not want to split new alters. In fact, it can be incredibly stressful and destabilizing. When you split a new introject, this is because a new role needs to be filled, and the character they’re based on fits this role best. Let’s take my introject for example.

Alphonse, in my system, is trans. He has the role of dealing with transphobia and misgendering, which causes extreme responses from the hosts (me and Frey). He’s meant to be more mellow about this. The reason he developed as an introject is because Alphonse Elric often described his experiences as “being in the wrong body” and “trying to get his real body.” Similarly, Alphonse Elric is kind, considerate, and caring. It makes a lot of sense that we developed and introject of him to deal with the role he was given. 

Introjects do not form because of love for a character or strong interest in that piece of media. If that were the case, people most likely wouldn’t end up with introjects of abusers or characters they are afraid of. Let’s take my experience for example again. Fullmetal Alchemist (Brotherhood and the manga) is a lifelong obsession of mine, and as a kid, was a special interest. However, Alphonse is not my favorite character, actually! My favorite characters are mainly Ling and Edward. However, I do not have them in my system, because there is no role that they would properly fill. Just because I love these characters does not mean I will split off alters of them for no reason.

I hope that clears some stuff up!

“i guess none of you like me” could be better phrased as “i feel unloved right now”

“but nobody cares anyway” could be better phrased as “i feel insignificant and i need reassurance”

When I see people who have ADHD:

When I see the wonderful online community that neurodivergent people have built together:

brain: wrong

me: what?

Fanfiction Writers:

My brain: It’s the autism

Me: I really don’t think it is