ENTER : PURGATORY

(Also by definition these disorders cause clinically significant impairment or distress TO THE PERSON THEMSELVES so fuck off with your ableism).

ASPD -

* Impulsivity, poor decision making, struggle to handle money responsibly etc.

* Difficulty planning ahead for the future.

* Irritability and unstable mood.

* Disregard for own safety leading to reckless behavior such as substance abuse, self harm. This makes them statistically more likely to die prematurely than other people.

* Diffuculty holding down jobs.

* Extreme boredom and restlessness, anhedonia (inability to feel enjoyment).

* Feeling disconnected and unable to relate to others leading to isolation and lack of meaningful relationships.

* Frequently traumagenic disorder meaning the person has a background of trauma.

* High comorbidity with anxiety disorders, depression, and suicidal ideation.

NPD -

* High level of insecurity and concern over self-image/ the way others perceive them.

* Need to obtain and higher and higher degree of success or power in life leading to unhappiness, inability to live in the moment.

* Extreme sensitivity to rejection.

* Severe, intense feelings of self-hatred over rejection or perceived rejection. Or not meeting own standards of success etc.

* Jealousy and comparing self to others.

* Feeling disconnected and unable to relate to others leading to isolation and lack of meaningful relationships.

* Frequently traumagenic disorder meaning the person has a background of trauma.

This has probably been said before, but you and the other alters in the system do not have to be extremely different from each other. You do not have to strive for differences between you to be considered a "real" system. In fact, most systems are not like that at all.

You do not need to have different eyeglasses prescriptions. You can all have to wear glasses. (Or not.) And no, you don't have to have glasses in the inner world because you need them in the outer world.

You don't need to have different allergies.

You do not need to have drastically different food tastes. Alters might have different favorite things, but especially if you have ADHD or are Autistic some foods have bad textures that one, many, or all of you can't handle. (Note: I am not Autistic, but my best friend is Autistic and has this experience with food.) For us this is onions. None of us can eat them. But for instance, someone likes Earl Grey tea and another prefers coffee.

They don't need to have their own brand or aesthetic. It's pretty normal for alters to want to have their own style, but many alters share styles and aesthetics.

Each alter does not need "their own talent" or "their own special interest." Sharing interests with alters is like sharing interests with friends. If you're around each other enough, some of you are bound to enjoy similar things.

You all don't need to have different accents or voice pitches. In fact, you can all sound pretty close to the same, especially when masking. Sometimes alters will have accents in your head that they don't have when speaking out loud. Or their voice in the inner world is deep but doesn't sound much different from anyone else's in the outside world.

Alters being similar is very common. Alters sharing interests or preferences is common. Being extremely separate is much more uncommon. (I think the statistic is that only 10% of systems are overt, but I might be wrong.)

In fact, encouraging separation is actually detrimental toward healing. This isn't me saying that fusion is the only way to heal, but integration (letting down dissociative barriers and having good communication) is essential to live as a healthy system, and trying to create differences and divisions can only serve to strengthen dissociative barriers. This is straight from my DID specialist's mouth. Letting yourselves communicate and enjoy some of the same things and not forcing stark differences can actually help you, especially when you start doing difficult trauma work. (If you have a therapist or are working on it yourself.)

And just because you are all similar does not make you any less "valid" as a system. Your experiences make you valid, and nobody can tell you otherwise. (Unless you are an endo/tulpa. Fuck off with that nonsense.)

there’s this weird air of “once a fictive, always a fictive” and it’s so fucking weird the way people behave around and treat fictives. we always say things like “fictives are people too” and “treat fictives like you would any other person” but even then it’s like… are you, as a system with fictives, treating your fictives normally? why have we created the need to highlight when an alter is a fictive or a factive to the point where we’ve created terms like fucktive/fuzztive where you can’t tell if they’re a fictive or factive? like, we have the word introject right there first of all, second of all, why are we trying to highlight that so much? that’s just a type of alter, and it’s a label for them to decide whether they want or not, not you or the host or someone outside the system or anything like that.

and like no matter how much we say “fictives aren’t toys” it never really seems to sink in for people who are systems and for people who aren’t alike. there’s always this weird aura of treating fictives weirdly, weirdly highlighting the fact that they’re fictives, fictives being overly attached to their sources even though they’re not literally physically that character, they’re a fragmented sense of self within a fractured state of mind. there’s always this pressure for a fictive to either be exactly like their source or very similar to it and to not really deviate from what other people view that fictive to be, whether it’s someone outside of that system or even someone within that fictive’s own system, because systems with fictives are weird to their own fictives, it’s not exclusive to singlets.

like the weird culture of “once a fictive, always a fictive” that we have here doesn’t let fictives grow past their sources. it doesn’t let fictives become their own people outside of that, to find likes and dislikes outside of their sources. it doesn’t let them behave “out of character”. it’s so fucking bizarre to me as an introject heavy system that this is how we treat fictives.

fictives are people, and they’re allowed to grow and change and behave in ways you wouldn’t normally believe them to behave. they’re allowed to separate from their sources, to change their names, to dress differently, to have different hobbies. they’re allowed to be people.

Hi,

I don't want to imply that there are no systems that are fictional introject heavy. However, I doubt that these systems look how social media typically portrays. For example, there have been case studies of individuals with DID who had alters that were organized around a theme such as Star Trek, but this is still very different from someone having a rotating cast of anime or cartoon characters in their head depending on their current interests. A high number of fictional introjects from recent media is a major red flag to me, especially if there's no reason for the individual to have needed so many new alters and these new alters don't serve any clear purpose. For example, if someone split a handful of new protectors that happen to be based around their current superhero show obsession, that's more believable to me than someone who claims to have a handful of new alters that seemingly only exist to talk about their source material. Similarly, the more that it becomes a pattern, the less believable it is. There are almost always exceptions to rules, but when an alleged DID/OSDD system is atypical in multiple domains, it's time to seriously question if they genuinely have DID/OSDD.

I hope that this helps,

Hi,

I'm sorry to hear that you're struggling with this. Other than therapy, my best advice is to gain temporary distance from potential sources of the contagion. That could mean avoiding online DID/OSDD communities, or it might mean being pickier about who you interact with. I've mentioned before that when I was first trying to make sense of my memories, I used a lot of ritual abuse-related terminology because I didn't know any other options, and it led to a lot of confusion for me and others. That situation was only resolved when I drastically limited my engagement with communities with a heavy focus on RA and instead engaged more with trusted friends and another trafficking survivor. Sometimes, it can be hard to know at first what the best community for you will look like, but I've found it helpful to quit all but the most trustworthy spaces and then add back as I feel comfortable. (This has also been good for my overall mental health, as it's drastically reduced my stress from exposure to community drama!)

Other than that, anything involving introspection might be helpful. Journal. Reconsider your system map. Track your emotions and symptoms on a daily basis using an app. Talk it out with close friends. There's no need to jump into all of this at once; try out what seems doable, and stick with what seems to be working. There's no pressure to figure everything out immediately.

Finally, do talk about this with your therapist! They might have a better idea about how your specific situation might be organic or socially influenced. If something is socially influenced, they're also in the best position to help you deal with any resulting shame, embarrassment, bitterness, or confusion about your other experiences. Please do keep in mind that symptoms that result from social contagion aren't necessarily fake. They can feel extremely real to the individual experiencing them, and for mental health symptoms, the subjective experience is all that matters for determining how genuine something is. The cause is different, but it's real to you regardless, just as someone with PNES isn't faking seizures or someone who confuses BPD identity confusion for DID identity alteration isn't lying about having alters. Genuine confusion, mislabeling, or sociocognitive symptoms are not your fault. I'm sorry that you have to deal with the potential emotional fallout of them.

Take care,