#I'm fine now I'm actually out of the “i can't feel or remember things” dissociative fugue state i was stuck in for like... 6 or like 8 hour

[habitual-creatures]

Uhhh Not sure if this is tmi. Sorry, but I apparently DID relapse, actually. Uh-

I'm just sorta talking about it for some reason below the cut because I can't explain this to my roommates or anyone tbh. Because I don't know how to explain my mental health. And like what- HOW THE FUCK DO I NOT REMEMBER.

Mmmmmmmmm- Okay. Yep.

Forgot that happened.

Was wondering why my arm felt so itchy...

My wrist/forearm looks like it got clawed to shit by a cat.

Soooo...

Well, fuck.

There goes that whatever-amount-of-time-without.

Guess I'm starting over again.

Even if I don't remember doing it, I still fucking did. So... oh fucking well...

These look like hell on my fucking arm. What the fuck did I even DO?

Uh... mod fails don't relapse challenge?

[funeral--pyre]

Gonna ramble here for a second. 'Bout being a fictive and I guess... Talking to people close to you about source without them knowing you're literally right there next to em.

So like. Our body's got a little sister. Well, two and a little brother actually but I'm only focusing on one of em for this post. This one's like... 10 or so, hard to remember through dissociation and shit. But.. She likes my source, likes drawing, and doesn't know we're a system, for context for this.

She sat down next to me the other day, and was complaining about how hard it is to draw hands. I feel like I'm one of the least sociable guys in this head but I don't actually mind our siblings in this family so I decide to chat. I agreed, they're tricky and annoying and weirdly shaped. She then handed me her sketchbook and asked me to show her how I draw hands. I was like... I'm a shit teacher but alright. I can do that. So I broke a hand down into basic shapes, then showed her the process of fleshing it out. She was confused but she seemed happy enough to have it as a reference to look at.

She got me to draw a few things after that. She wanted an eye, but the eye I drew was "too detailed" so she wanted me to draw another. So I did. She wanted an angry facial expression, she wanted a cat, she wanted me to show her how to draw a leg. Just random things, I guess. But eventually she takes the book back and starts drawing on her own.

Thinking she's done talking for now, I pull out my phone and open the art program because well now she's gotten me in the mood for drawing. She sees me click the program though and goes "let me see some of your art!!!". So I'm like yeah, it's been a while since she asked, she can look at some new stuff. Why not. It'll keep her happy.

We're going through things we've drawn, unknown to her that a good 90% of them are system members--and she stops me and goes "do you have any MHA art?". Random question but the kid has internet access, the ability to get into Netflix, and is clearly autistic about MHA in general. So maybe not so random. But we don't have non-system art of MHA, it's all fictives.

So I think for a second and I realise I don't really want to explain to her why Bakugo is holding hands with some random other guy not even from MHA, and also holding hands with Kirishima in like 90% of the images we have of them. 'Cause that's awkward and not my shit to explain or come up with something about. Those guys can handle that if they want.

I then realise, yeah, I've got art of me just kinda sitting next to Shigaraki. Nothing that could be taken as noncanon or weird to this kid. Just sitting there can't be weird. I could show her that. And potentially deal with some weird out-of-left-field comment from her about Dabi the same way she randomly said "Shigaraki is a gay bitch" while he was (unknowingly) sitting right next to her a month or so back. But that's fine, I decide I can handle a kid saying weird shit.

So I show her. She only says one thing.

"Why did you pick the white hair?"

Yeah I could ask myself the same question actually. Should've stayed with black or changed it up some other way again. But I tell her that it's just what we picked for the picture.

"He looks so stupid with white hair. It needs to be black. Like his soul! At least I think he has a soul..?"

Okay. Wow. God damn, kid. Giving me something to think about there. What lead you to even think that in the first place? But anyway I respond with some form of "yeah, sometimes shit just happens though and boom, your hair is white even if your soul isn't" which she thought was funny.

That's about it for the interaction but yeah. Silly. Funny. And god damn kids love to speak their mind. Not entirely sure what the point of posting this is anymore, but I wanted to anyway. Just a weird little anecdote. Piece of the life I'm somehow living now. It's weird in a way. The family life is still fucking shit, fucking yay, but the siblings are okay. I don't mind em.

[hollow-lime-green]

I was reading the last chapter of domains (again) and I think there’s a really interesting juxtaposition between Suguru realizing in the spur of the moment that he would let Satoru do anything to him and being completely genuine about it, vs Satoru (who obsesses over their relationship constantly) saying that Suguru could do anything to him, but stuttering while saying because it isn’t exactly 100% true (I think I remember you saying something about it but I can’t find the post anywhere)

yes! their certainties about boundaries/consent and the drivers behind that claimed blanket consent (emotional vs physical) foil each other!

suguru - genuinely certain, justified physically

satoru - falsely certain, justified emotionally

these always get so long since i yap, and i love talking about stuff like this. i want the writing to speak for itself and convey all this stuff in an organic way, but it is nice to open up the hood and talk about what i am intentionally trying to get at too. so here we go, under the cut:

Satoru

satoru's piece of this is from the girlification section of @detta-pica's ask on string theory.

satoru would let suguru do anything to him - definitely true, but also very ill-conceived, and on very shaky ground. the way they both interpret satoru's statement also differs:

satoru [stuttering, lie, psyching himself up]: yeah i'd let suguru do anything to me. yeah i'm totally game, i can take it. i could totally set a boundary, but like, i don't need to. (and oh my god what if that makes suguru sad what if it makes him leave what if-) i'm good. i'm so good. i'm so fucking good bro. satoru: [is not good] suguru [immediate, truth, divine revelation]: oh, satoru would let me do anything to him. he's not capable of setting boundaries. this is bad. (but shit it's kind of hot and turns me on but wait shit fuck am i a bad person am i literally unredeemable am i the actual incarnation of evil-

satoru's driving motivation is almost entirely emotional (he wants to fulfill this role), whereas his complications are all physical. he does like sex at a baseline, though. but that's not why he's doing this.

Suguru

from ch 6 domains -

suguru would let satoru do anything to him - also true, also ill-conceived, but it's on solid ground, in a way.

suguru has a different understanding of boundaries and consent because he's already had his broken. he knows where his lines are, and he is 100% certain that satoru is not going to cross them. i think i may have mentioned this before, but the original way the sex scene in 2sorcs ch 14 played out in rough drafts was essentially:

satoru: "please fuck me" suguru: "uhhh what? i thought you were going to want to fuck me, since you're still pretending you're straight and all. and i was gonna be cool with that. but okay. shit, okay. i guess we're doing this now."

their interpretation of suguru's consent also differs because they're both insane.

satoru [insane]: he can't actually consent to this. oh my god i'm abusing him. i'm taking advantage of him because i'm a gojo (he doesn't care) and a special grade (he is too) and he's straight and doesn't realize i'm actually gay and into him (girl...) suguru [insane plus plus plus]: yeah, i mean, it's whatever. he's a cute, inexperienced little stick man with extreme anxiety. i'm fine letting him experiment. he's way too timid to actually push anything. and even if he did, i don't care, actually, if people do things to my body that i don't like. it's just a body, who cares. it won't hurt me. it's just a physical thing. no connection whatsoever to my mental health. (also no connection to my cursed technique) well, yes, satoru's physical comfort is extremely, viscerally important to me and i am hypervigilant about it. but that's different.

suguru's driving motivation is physical. he is willing to do this because he is so dissociated from his own body that he doesn't clock harm to it or feel ownership over it. which is bad, obviously, but he does have a genuine internal certainty about it. emotionally, it's complicated because he hasn't unpacked why he implicitly supertrusts satoru (and it takes him about 150k words to get there).

we will get more into this in fellas, actually. because in order to unpack suguru's relationship with his body, we kind of need to see the outside perspective (satoru's), since suguru is dead set on Not Thinking About It. and, in his spiral, we will be talking a lot about his CT and the importance of The Body (not the TLT one) in jujutsu.

also, one more thing - it makes me so happy when you/any commenters mention you are rereading FIYM. i reread comfort fics all the time and yet i'm still like "t-they liked it enough to reread?? 🥺🥺🥺"

💜

[ask-postcrash-curly]

Man, you have gotta stop being so relatable.

Yelling has always been overwhelming to me, always makes me shutdown. Wasn’t even necessary cuz of trauma—I remember my mom once saying I’ve always reacted badly whenever people raised their voice or yelled at me, even when I was like, a toddler or something. That’s why she always tried to never yell at me… not that it worked. Cuz she had a lotta unresolved issues, and when things built up and her emotions boiled over, well… yeah. She didn’t yell at me often, barely ever, but each time it happened, well. Very unpleasant experience, as you can imagine. Of course, this made my issues with it even worse, and well. Yeah.

But anyway. Recent events have made me realize just how bad the issue is. I thought it was just yelling and raised voices that got to me, and it wasn’t that big a deal because people almost never get mad at me since I’m a very agreeable person, but. Lately it’s been causing problems. Turns out even if someone is being calm and reasonable when they’re confronting me and just wanna work things out… if there’s any way the tone can be perceived as aggressive even if the tone isn’t actually aggressive…for some reason my brain interprets it like an attack and just… idk it’s frustrating. Because I want to be able to just work things out with people like good functional adults and whatever but instead every time I gotta talk things out it’s this whole… agh. And like, I don’t want people to feel like they can’t confront me about stuff, y’know? I don’t wanna be the person who turns into a mess even when reasonably confronted about reasonable stuff. Confrontation can be good and healthy when everyone is being respectful and it’s just part of life but…idk.

Anyway. Sorry to dump all that on you. Hopefully I’ll be able to find a therapist that can help me with that. Haven’t found a good fit yet but… just gotta keep trying, I guess.

And…

Something about the way you say “be better than me” kinda bothers me. You’re not just some cautionary tale or tragedy, y’know? It was one thing when we all thought you’d be stuck on that ship forever. But… things are different now. You’re going home. And it’s not easy, things are still really tough, and the road to recovery is gonna be really hard and difficult, but… you’ve got your whole life ahead of you now. (I don’t care that you’re in your late 30s, you’ve still got so much many years left to live.)

You’re not just… some example of what not to be like, y’know? Over the months I’ve watched you get better and standing up for yourself and reflecting a lot and… even if it hasn’t exactly been linear, sometimes there’s setbacks but… you’ve still gotten better and you’ve grown as a person and stuff. Despite everything, you’re still trying.

So… don’t put yourself down. You can get better, I can get better, and we can inspire each other, yeah?

-🌃🌠🌌

Sorry...?

Ah. Yep. That's how it is.

Hmm... Maybe you've got a dissociation problem too? Can't say for sure, but hey, it might be worth checking out. It's frustrating, I get it. Would be wonderful if I could have a disagreement with one of you without feeling like I've catastrophically ruined things. (Exaggerating for effect, I'm fine.) Yeah, I... I admit I'm worried about becoming that person too. Gets to a point where the smallest sign of anger feels like a threat. Thanks for that, Jim. And I think you'll agree: That attitude causes problems more than it solves them.

C'mon. Don't apologize. I really don't mind. Best of luck with therapy.

...Oh. Didn't... didn't think of it that way, if I'm being real. Thank you. (What do you mean late thirties? I've been thirty-five for half a year, for fuck's sake.)

Mm... Thank you, again. Means a lot that you'd say that. I'm not... I'd rather others learn from my mistakes than not, though, you know? If I can... Not a cautionary tale, as you said, but if I can use what I have learned to help other people avoid the same path, I want to. Least I can do.

Hah. Yeah. Cheers to getting better together.

[prettyhawkward]

TW --- surgery talk/medical trauma/descriptions.

Surgery tomorrow 😬

I'm relieved I have to be there so early in the morning (7.30) because that means I don't have to hang around waiting. Waiting to do something/for an appointment is the ND killer. You can't do anything else because your brain cannot be involved in any other process but you're understimulated, anxious and can't focus on anything so every single minute just draaaaags along and it's horrid. By the time the appointment happens you're almost relieved because at least you aren't in the Waiting State anymore.

Anyway I need to eat lots of good things before 6pm but I feel like my throat is a tube with a sock in it.

I think... this is actually the first time I've had a surgery that has been pre-planned and isn't a sudden rushing emergency?

My first surgery was in 2015 I think? Or was it end of 2014? Uncertain... either way. I had my appendix out. And then I had another surgery right before moving house. This one was meant to be a keyhole surgery but when I woke up after they had done a new incision because apparently I had a big cyst that they hadn't seen originally (????)(i was there for an ectopic pregnancy) So they opened me up and took that out and LEFT the damaged fallopian tube behind after apparently trying to 'repair' it which then led to me having a life threatening tubo ovarian abcess the size of a large mango that put me in hospital for 2 weeks much later.

Anyway... since that time when I woke up and the pain hit me all at once and like... you just sort of know? Your body hurts in this specific way and there was a nurse next to me and he was like... you really can't move yet and I was like bro I had keyhole surgery they said I would be fine?? And he gave me the yummy morphine button and I had fun clicking away at that until I maxed it out obviously and then I was still in pain and completely dissociated and the dr came and she takes the dressing off but I was lying flat and couldn't see properly and they spray this cold thing on and I'm like... it wasn't keyhole surgery and she was like oh did they not tell you we opened it up and I struggled to lift my head enough to see and started panicking a bit and she's like it's okay you had a cyst on your ovary that we had to remove and like jokingly makes the size of it with her fingers.

Later on following that surgery I was rushed back to the hospital after fainting because I was packing a house whilst taking care of my 9 month old baby. (Pulled 2 stitches) At that time they thought I had internal bleeding because I kept... um shitting blood? And my stomach was like purple and grey?? So they put me under again to do a colonoscopy to find the source of the bleed. Which apparently they never did find. 😖

Anyway I survived that too and we eventually did manage to move house and I healed but now I'm just shit scared of going under and I can try to tell myself it's going to be fine and I'm not overseas anymore and it's just a small surgery to fix - and thats when I remember I wouldn't need this fucking surgery in the first place if they hadn't been useless and negligent and damaged me and now I'm back to being terrified cause what's to stop someone making a mistake again and this time it's not in my stomach or whatever its my fucking head and that in itself is so scary like they're doing surgery in my face and my brain is there and my eyeballs and what if something goes wrong and I go blind or there's a bleed in my head or something.

Going to like grovel until Sebastian puts me in a box cause I'm not doing this.

Yes I have alters who take care of these things for me but I still remember it and I still have to live with the lead up and the anxiety of knowing something is going to happen to my body again and I have to recover again and I have to endure pain again.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hi there! I hope you guys are doing well.

I've been a questioning system on and off for the past long while, and was just wondering - is it normal to feel like it's difficult to think about? Not in an anxiety or "I don't want to think about it" way, but in a "I want to think about it and understand better but it feels like there is a physical barrier in my brain preventing me from thinking about it too hard or reaching out to any potential headmates?" It's starting to get really frustrating.

It takes a lot of concentration and effort to be able to reach out, and when I am able to, I rarely get responses, and they're normally just one-word replies where it's almost hard to tell if I got a reply at all or if I'm just psyching myself out.

I was just wondering if y'all had any advice or thoughts? Is this normal? Does this mean anything? I don't know what to do, or if I'm actually a system at all (I have all of the symptoms of PDID but can't tell if it's actually PDID or just a compound of a bunch if other symptoms from other stuff) and I'm really lost. Any advice that any of y'all have would be monumentally helpful.

Also, I just wanted to say thank you for the amount of resources y'all have on this blog. I've found so many of them so helpful, so, just, thank all of you so much. I hope y'all have a wonderful day :)

Hi! The short answer to your question is yes, this is very normal, especially for systems with dissociative disorders or those who have dissociative barriers between headmates.

Our host also seriously struggled to establish and build contact and communication between us at first - and that’s even just with our established core fronting group! It took a lot of effort, patience, and work in therapy for us to reach the level of communication we have today. Even now, there are quite a few alters in our system who many of us do not have access to. At this point, we’ve learned to take things slow and try not to rush to bring down those barriers. We’re focusing on moving forward a little bit at a time, and that’s honestly been quite effective for us!

We’d encourage you, if you haven’t already, to start journalling, and encourage other potential parts, alters, or headmates to write in the journal as well. Even if you can’t get in touch with them, reminding yourself that the journal is for everyone and leaving it in an easily accessible place might allow your headmates to start expressing themselves and attempt to get to know each other even if y���all aren’t able to contact each other well inside just yet.

We also have this post on establishing contact with headmates - maybe it’ll be helpful for y’all?

Please don’t stress too much if no one writes in the journal or you don’t hear back from any headmates straight away. Again, this process takes plenty of time and patience! Honestly we’d say give it a few months of attempts before you start to grow discouraged. Also, having access to a qualified therapist who you trust can be immensely beneficial for getting through to headmates, especially at first!

And if it turns out you’re not actually a system, remember that’s okay!! That is totally fine. You mentioned PDID, which means you might have PTSD or C-PTSD, both of which often come with dissociation as a symptom or trauma response. So as long as you’re prioritizing your health and getting the help you need, to us, that’s definitely most important!

We’re wishing you the best of luck with figuring this out. Feel welcome to reach out to us again if you need any more help in the future! We’re not experts or professionals, but we’re more than happy to help with advice and resources to the best of our ability.

🌸 Margo and 🖋 Cecil

[rin-and-jade]

Long explanation short; Was vulnerable online and mentioned due to my experiences with a dissociative disorder ((didn't say which one, but told people to go do their research for awareness)). I'm stepping back from social media for a while but will keep updates because I wanna make/sell things. I feel so exposed and mmm, disgusting?

I want to pour my soul out in this post but we gotta get to the point lol.

Are there exercises that anyone of y'all know that can help a system reassure ourselves it's okay, we're safe, and at the end of the day people's opinions are their own and that's fine. We can still be who we are? Fragmented or not? I tend not to look back what was recorded or written due to resistance - Ooo that's a good question too;Any exercises to support the resistance from within?

*I apologize if this is messy. It's been re-wrote more than a few times haha

You can absolutely pour your whole heart here right after we finish this part, i will listen to you with no judgement and support you!

--

For your assurance:

Your life is your own, and you know how you want to live it, especially as a system. Deciding what is right or wrong is up to you, not others. No one has the right to dictate how you should live, act, or present yourself as a system. At the end of the day, you can choose which opinions you agree with and which you don't because they are not inherently facts, just personal opinions.

Stay true to yourself, that's how you win.

For the resistance:

Well, this one is rather vague so i can't pinpoint what solution fits best. Would you mind coming back the second time with more details if i didn't get this one right?

Take a moment to ponder. People tend to avoid negative or uncomfortable feelings/situations, so before you work on it, understand where this feeling reluctance is coming from, and why.

Practice to accept. Its difficult to swallow some facts here and there sometimes, one example, would be receiving a diagnosis on your condition. While denying or ignoring it would help you for the short term, it might not for the long term. So, instead of expecting things to be just fine, or instead of running away due to being uncomfy, take in whatever you have recorded bit by bit instead of all at once, and do so without judgment or criticism. Take note how you feel too, remember to not force yourself.

Challenge your fear. Some are done out of habit, some are from coping mechanisms, whichever you have remember that some might not serve or help you as it was intended. For example: isolation can give you time alone to ponder on things, but relying too much on it only hinders important discussions from being held, as you seek solace, yet not ready to move to the next phase. Understand that you must fight what you are used to doing, in order to progress,, in this example would be reaching out and speak out to the person that you have trouble expressing and take too much time in thinking and preparing. So while no actual progress has been made from the issue from the case example, fighting the natural urge to stay alone is a progress of its own, which will aid you in your current issues. Apply this narrative to whatever you are having trouble with.

It's been vague so far, but i use this moment to good use by creating a solution that is applicable in most situations, it means this advice is flexible.

Let me know how it goes so far after doing this, too! I would love to assist you further next time, if not, then i hope this helps you for the long run and have a good timezone wherever you are now.

- j

[key0-m0ve-al0ng]

Why does knowing I have DID because ✨DID Problems✨ make said problems both less and more Terrifying.

Like I know what it is and how to cope. I'm getting really good at it in fact.

But also these are like. Problem problems. I dunno if we can counsel ourselves outta this one gang..

Blogging time! Cuz like yeah it's objectively weird but just another Sunday for us lmao

Like tell me why, when we headed back to work shortly after hanging out with a friend, "we" briefly couldn't even remember who we hung out with. Except now that I know what's going on, I realize when I'm not fronting. This other alter fronted by surprise, probably because we were deciding where to work tonight.

Like cool I know why I was so out of it but still Doing Things but the WHY there makes things. So incredibly complicated for me. And bro felt baaaaad like shit he didn't remember jack. Because duh the Guy Who Was Not There fronted only after the other human is Gone. Some alters just can't help but mask and it's not good for us so they don't front with others around, you know the basics lol

And why do we feel like a bad friend even though we remember them perfectly clearly now. We remember them, but we had to consciously communicate it... To someone else in our own head... Like a thought-game of telephone? And like u know what it's like to think u can feel your brain working, and mine's like "compartmentalize or else." Whoops! Having fun? Many people wanna share front? Gonna slice up the memories! Oh you're conscious of this process? Amnesia. Get shadow realmed bitch you're not about to come into contact with something you shouldn't be reminded of. DAMN being wired for Living is so cool actually but also mom pick me up I'm scared (picks myself up). We always remember after a moment or two, which is why we never used to suspect amnesia to begin with. I will never understand why latching onto guilt for every little thing seems to be hardwired into our being.

It's up and down really, and makes socializing tough even though we love interacting with our friends so much. And Idk we always have really good communication when we're happy (and high ngl) but sometimes if we're alone we connect a lot of dots and don't know what to do with them. Silly funny interesting things and not something legit keeping me too dissociated to drive lmaoooo good thing we're freelance

BUT because we stopped, we saw a raccoon skitter across the ground. I love raccoons, they're cute. We were just thinking about them earlier. Makes up for the Horrors I think.

Tryna make some more money before bed but my phone is crying "no signal" despite working on certain apps. Guess I'm being forced to chill for a second. We're doing just fine and hopefully have a whole new job soon. We saw a magazine at the store that had part of the title obscured and all that remained visible was "your mind works." I think I'll take that as a good sign because uh it sure does! We deal we deal.

Being myself is the best advice I ever actually followed but damn this is difficult.

So yeah internal communication is a fuck. But less so than it used to be.

[iamtheoutsideworld]

I'm not sure if this is a thing but I did look up something similar(dissociative amnesia), so basically my memory sucks and I at times forget family members I hadn't seen in a while I'd forget ppls' names ages. At times I would give myself shit for it but it is what it is. I can't remember. And if ppl forget shit about me I don't take it to heart but yeah. And I looked up maybe it has something to do with derealization or dissociation or possibly all of them.

At times I constantly struggle with recognizing myself like I feel like myself but I'd catch myself laughing at something but question why it's funny (idk that probably sounds weird) or I don't really like to look in mirrors and look at myself but at times I force myself to look at myself. I don't feel like I belong I think that's mostly what it is. But as me I have to do certain things to live here. Idk I can't place it

It's the depression the autism the abuse the dissociation lol it's all of it. Where do I put it. Recently I've been trying to capture the "feeling" of dissociation. Or "unrecognized" vibes. Even with this lil vid. But yeah idk I'm still here still growing still trying to understand this place.

Also um I asked this streamer I've been watching recently(she actually followed me back we are kinda mutuals) and she's pretty known. But I asked her if she was doing something for "Mother's Day" and I actually didn't hear her response b/c my internet was cutting out but later on she made a post saying not to ask about her mom cuz she died years ago. And I felt bad but I didn't know I'm sorry but I didn't make myself feel bad for asking cuz I didn't know. And idk ppl die yeah it's sad but ppl die. I doubt I'd be nonchalant about my mom dying but that's life. And she constantly talked about her dad on her streams I'd get kinda jealous cuz my parents suck but now I'm thinking about it more she probably talks about her dad so much cus she's grateful she still has a parent. And possibly cause their relationship is healthier than it was in the past. Not like I'm not happy for her I just wish I could talk so positively about my dad but at times it feels like I don't even have one. But yeah

I guess I've been feeling jealous a lot more lately it's kinda annoying cause ig I'm the type that "lives in her own world" (ppl have described me as that again I think it's cause of the tism) but I hate how jealous I've been feeling. I just want and want but can't have it. I thought I was fine being like this but I crave love and I'm jealous of ppl who have it and I'm scared of it. The idea of loving a person the idea someone could love me. Idk

I feel like Ennis stupid ass when he's all old but missing his gay lover that was killed yeah that's how I feel. Idk life goes on with or without u

[inhumanliquid]

"It's not abuse if it doesn't break any bones" and other lies you can tell yourself

An incoherent(?) ramble(?) about the effects of certain "punishments" from the perspective of someone who realizes they didn't turn out fine

I was hit and yelled at from the age of about two to a time I have no memory of. I wasn't even a bad kid, I just didn't understand social rules (autistic) and got upset easily (little kid).

All I remember from when it would happen was the pain and fear. I don't know what I did to make them so mad. That's a problem.

Because they never bothered to explain what I did wrong, I didn't get that what I did was bad. I assumed that they didn't love me and that I was irredeemable.

Once, I was hit just because I was crying because I got yelled at for no reason. My mother likes to threaten punishments for showing emotions pretty damn often for someone who claims she's okay.

They used to lock me in my room. Now I do it myself so others can't do it for me. I'd love to feel safe going out without being scared of being forcefully isolated again.

I grew up with horrible self-esteem issues as a result. I hated myself and assumed everyone else hated me, too. I was suicidal from the age of around five (which I only know due to a diary my mom bought me and decided it was perfectly fine to snoop through). I got yelled at for that, too. It made it worse.

I still can't trust my parents because of what they did. Loud noises, especially literally anyone yelling, cause me to have panic attacks. I hate being touched unless I personally initiate it or the other person asks very specifically if the form of physical affection they're looking for is okay because it makes me anxious. I'm unable to communicate effectively with others and quick to resort to verbal or physical violence because, believe it or not, it's hard to get past things you internalize as a little kid.

Part of why I refuse to even adopt a kid is that I'm scared of being like my parents. I don't want to make another human being feel like they're just an object for people to take their anger out on or to teach them to view others in that way.

Because of how my parents treated me, I struggle to maintain stable relationships. I blow things out of proportion and make them the problem of people who were never involved to begin with. People are either totally evil (my parents) or completely perfect (the few people who actually stay around that aren't obligated to) with absolutely no in-between. I'm not a person, but a ceramic doll that's been completely shattered and then shoddily glued back together without all the pieces because some of them were either turned to dust or simply lost.

I dissociate a lot. Usually, it's derealization (disconnection from the world) or depersonalization (disconnection from the self), but it's also things like feeling like someone else got yelled at or hit or locked in that room for simply being alive.

Tangentially related to that point is that I just... don't have an actual identity. I can’t even answer basic questions like what my favorite color is.

My name is anything but my deadname, and my pronouns are any but the ones associated with my agab... which could easily be because of the association I have with that specific name and those specific pronouns, so I doubt myself on my own gender identity.

I could give you a list of things I do to waste time and call them hobbies, but hobbies are something you enjoy. I don't really enjoy anything at all anymore.

Online strangers, like MatPat and some of my Tumblr mutuals, and various fictional characters are more like family than my parents have ever been, or ever will be. Because they're actually nice to me.

So maybe think twice before treating a kid like they're subhuman just because they're young.

[therivergirl]

I experienced a rather nice, quiet, but meaningful moment of allyship yesterday

I work as a substitute GP/family medicine doctor in one office at the health centre. I'm substituting for a doctor currently taking her residency. Recently, another doctor from the same centre starter her residency and, as her substitute, they put a doctor I went to med school with. (Yes, you can work as a family medicine doctor in Croatia w/o finishing your residency).

Anyways, we're a pretty big collective for a health centre like this-five GPs, five nurses, two primary care OBYGYNs and two OBYGYN nurses and one paediatrician and her nurse. Whoever is on the same shift, takes lunch together, which is kinda nice, as long as topic stay as apolitical as possible, or simply focus on issues in healthcare system

It's less nice when you're the only queer person there and then the jokes start. It rarely goes beyond casual queerphobia, I don't feel threatened, but it's annoying and it gets uncomfortable. I'll be frank, I rarely say anything. Amost everyone there knows I'm not straight I'm casually out in a very unspecific "into both genders" way, and they know I'm involved in queer activism on some level but it never stopped anyone. The most I got is "oh we don't really mean all that" from one of the OBYGYN's and, to her credit, my nurse expressed genuine interest in the topic a few times. However, most of the time it's jokes. And if you're one of my Balkan followers, you especially probably know what I mean. I ignore it, kinda....willingly dissociate from the conversations when it gets bad. I only have so many spoons per day, and I gotta pick my battles, especially with the job that I do.

Cut to today, and my former classmate and I were pretty much last ones to leave work. Now, I knew that this girl was at least somewhat of an ally before. See, my roommate is a detransitioner, and, about a year and a half ago, back when she still went by he/him, she ended up in the ER. My former classmate had a job there back then, and she picked up on my roommate's GNC presentation and asked her for pronouns.

And I noticed her mild discomfort whenever the jokes start between the other doctors and nurses, occasionally even pushing on them a bit. I noticed she excludes herself from the conversation when it gets bad, too.

What I didn't expect is fro her to come up to me on the hallway and ask me if I'm doing ok in this collective., She didn't say anything explicit, one of the OBYGYN's (the one who tried to "reassure" me) and two nurses were still lingering around, but she was like "I see people can get...carried away", well, something close. It's hard to translate the sentence from Croatian. But the sentiment was "I see that these people are being weird, and I want to be sure you're ok." Which took me so off guard.

The thing is, this girl and I, we're not friends. We're acquaintances from med school, and we actually interacted very little between classes and stuff. Hell, up until today I didn't even know that she knows I'm queer!

When she asked me if I was fine, i thought she was asking me about my shift and my health because I realized I have a pretty nasty cold when I got to work and was chugging tea as if parched, but no, she was asking me if I was mentally doing ok considering my surrounding which... I honestly can't remember if this EVER happened to me if I wasn't in an explicitly queer environment already. Just...asking me if I was doing fine, addressing what most people choose to ignore, made my day.

So yeah, shoutout to my former classmate.

P.S. Before anyone says anything, yes, i know there are more than two genders, but i really, really, can't currently be bothered to explain this to these people just as I can't be bothered to eyplain "I'm pan and aroace.". And also, yes, I know that what my classmate did is probably bare minimum, but considering that this is the first time I experienced said bare minimum...yeah, I think it warrants mentioning.

[hospitalterrorizer]

diary532

3/15-16/25

saturday - sunday

home late now.

i will post photos i took tomorrow, today was too long, i did music stuff and texture stuff, i think i'm happy with the music stuff, but i'll see tomorrow also i suppose. my gf will be out tomorrow, who knows if i will record vocals or anything.

we went out today, which started fine but we went to this party where she got too drunk too quick and when we left our friend said some woman gave her evil eyes because she didn't go to her thesis defense, and i said, these parties are like (stupid) social tests and it's like either you go say hi to people or they know you well enough to say hi to you or you're like something fucked up to them, and i'm probably wrong but i remember my gf deciding to not go to the thesis defense because she wanted to do laundry (fine), but it's like if i specifically asked someone to come to something like that and then they said they couldn't day of or the night before (i can't recall actually), i'd be kind of upset, i don't think i'd be so upset that i'd like, avoid them at a party and expect them to come to me, but these poetry people are generally really stupid and want you to play their game. idk, i am probably over-tuned to these stupid niceties or the way these people seem to work or not work depending on how you look at it. i'll probably talk about this more tomorrow but she just felt upset by me, and drunkenly cried and was cold to me and said to our friend who we met up with downtown "hold my hand i need a woman's touch" which has obvious connotations and my gf just doesn't think when she's drunk but she tried to say something like "the only woman that would touch me," and idk, i'm not even a woman i'm just bothered to be excluded in that way. i guess it's just some personal failing that this isn't even the first time people have suggested things like that about me, that i'm like so mean i can't be feminine at all or something, or that my way of seeing things is inherently 'male' or something. i don't know. i know she didn't mean that she just maybe meant something adjacent but mostly was drunk. but ultimately i'm fucking tired of being around drunk people. i'm sure i'm going to have to do it again, on wednesday. i don't even know how bad i'm supposed to feel, i was ribbing too much i think, at the same time i just feel like, no one ever tells her, it's okay to not do something but you can't expect people to not get hurt feelings over stupid things, i have hurt feelings over stupid things, like me being a bad person and getting hurt and not feeling as bad as i should probably. but whatever, i'm being stupid i think. i feel bad. it's just multiple things, idk why it gets to me, when people are drunk. it's not all bad. she's really the least bad of anyone it's just sometimes. it makes me think about what people seem to stop thinking about when drunk, or what ends up occupying over other things, my gf seems to just go along with whatever flow is apparent, she's mostly happy unless she is strongly not happy, and then she is really upset. the last time that happened was when she saw that kanye west song with his kids in it and the ai music video. it made her think of her mom. idk what else to say, i'm probably just overly negative and a bad person, somehow though i'm not ashamed, i just think things like, i don't know how to be a person, i shouldn't be here mostly, but i'm not sad for her in any way i can sense, if i am, it's buried under dissociation or something. idk. most of the night i just absented myself from everything going on and stood around in a club and people walked into me and one guy touched me weird, each of his fingers kind of playing at my ribs, sort of beneath where breasts would be if i had any, i don't know why he was like that, was he trying to feel if i was soft or bony, and since i'm thin and breastless, he wasn't interested. i don't know. she was happier there though, and her mood improved. i just don't know what to say, i'm not upset with her, i just feel distant from everything, i'm not really saying anything. i'm sort of dreading going out wednesday when she'll be drunk again and i'll probably be irritable because i won't eat most of that day, and i didn't eat most of today either. i'm just an unpleasant person.

i guess i do feel really bad, i looked at her, and felt really bad. i apologized.

there were funny things tonight, but i really did spend most of the night just dissociating, or idk, feels like too strong a word for a lower grade of 'not being there' but really i'm 'present' in a different way, i look at people and listen and try to smile if people say things i want to smile at but generally just watch people and the surroundings and things, because opening my mouth is generally just a bad idea. i don't want people to think it's something they need to tend to. which i think i succeeded at i guess, no one was like, what's up, at least.

there's other stuff that happened today... well nothing happening... i wanted to be alone and watch aria today, but then my gf was like, there will be a weird party, and i was like, it's been forever since i've seen one of those, i should go. i've also gotten out so little it feels like recently. but maybe i just shouldn't go out, i'm like an invasive species or a loose pest, generally loathsome and ugly. but i felt like i wanted to. at least i didn't cost any money today, or none at all really. tomorrow i'm going to ask her to not bring any food home when she goes to see a movie with her brother. i don't really need it and she keeps saying she's short to a lot of people. i never get told what is going on with money. it makes me feel really awful and stupid. i guess that is what i am. so maybe it just reveals that.

other things... i saw some leak of that new harmony korine film... no surprise it looks kind of stupid but it's a leak and it feels too harsh to say it's going to suck just from that, or my friends say so. but it definitely can't be his best... well, don't listen to me, about anything, probably. i wish i could not listen to myself sometimes. for some reason that really hurts to say.

so,

byebye!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[thefirstvessel]

yeah! :::) i don't know if you remember, but i have sent an ask before where i talked about it being comforting to see another vessel? i'm the same being as that ask, haha. just saying for the sake of if you think those were two separate beings, or you simply forget, like i mentioned.

our first sleep token song was 'take me back to eden.' which i think could be part of the reason why i feel an attachment to "mainframe" in the first place, now that i'm thinking about it. the wonders of self-discovery! i'm laughing to myself about the whole vore thing, i totally feel you. i should listen to that song after i send this and lose my mind about it. (you are very convincing in the sense of making me want to change our system name and add some new names for myself.)

i feel like my blog and existence has lost some of my anonymity because our host is very open about me, and i did post about my blog on our main one... ah, i guess i can't hide the fact i am fond of attention, hmm? i think being known in a more open context, unlike our source, is something i am trying to work on. so, opening up to show myself even in a digital sense helps me break those barriers. i'm trying to be better for our host, as cheesy as that could sound.

i may take up your offer, you know, to try to push myself in the ways i mentioned in the previous paragraph. i want to reach out and make connections, i feel like it would be healthy for me. maybe it could work as something similar for you as well. or, that could be wishful thinking, haha. but either way, no worries about forgetting. we would know things all about that because of dissociation (which, apologies if this ask is all over the place, we are experiencing some more heavy dissociation at the moment). and i have been having some one-on-one chats with our best friend, that's been lovely. i like them quite a lot. with someone new, it can be different though, but i am willing to try new things if you are willing, too. i don't want to cause any troubles for you in the very least, i would rather bury myself than to make you feel anything non-positive.

(sorry if this is long-winded, i have a tendency to ramble like the wind. i could make the most boring thing turn into a eulogy.)

-🪽⚫

Naw, you're fine! I really understand how being seen as your own thing outside of headspace is absolutely terrifying at first. Our host does actually talk about us openly on their blog sometimes too and we're not too secretive about the network of Tumblr blogs the system has, we just don't broadcast it much. (Our Papa Emeritus IV alter and I both blog pretty actively in addition to our host, actually.)

I'm always up for making a friend, even if I'm admittedly bad at remembering to be social! You've been nothing but nice and polite. Pushing yourself is scary, but sometimes it's worth it. (Also I'm not trying to be like TALK TO MEEEE FELLLOW VESSEL... even tho I kinda am 😅 I don't wanna be pushy.)

[stary-night]

ISAT starting Act 3 Theories/Reactions:

Spoilers for In Stars and Time Act 1 and 2 and the first 10-15 minutes of Act 3

- I was looking at the run time I had of like 9 hours when starting the King fight and people saying this game is 20 hours long and was like hm.... Either I'm missing half the content or something else is going on - anyway Siffron ����

-Also it makes more sense thematically; Siffron spends so much of the game being like "Weird things keep happening and I'm sad all of my friends are leaving but it's fine!!!! I'm fine and now I can save everyone and never tell anyone how I feel ever!" meanwhile all of the other characters are like "change and doing what is scary is part of life, you have to accept your emotions".

I'm also not sure how much the Handmaiden could really do considering she was frozen right after the Kings attack but like maybe you have to save her beforehand to stop the loop.

-The ending was so sweet tho! Seeing the final things each character would do was sweet.

-I read the content warnings before this game started and it's like "oh this is where the psychological horror starts"

-Siffron I am begging you to talk to your friends

- The picture of him in the combat screen is visibly more sad now. Poor guy.

-This game is that one text post that's like "concern through recognition of the other. He's doing bad, don't ask me why I know".

- I wonder why Loop went from "you could tell your friends" to "better start pretending nothing is wrong :)". What is your agenda, what are you doing?

-What was going on with the loops?!? Is Loop causing it - like is he a god of some sort or representative of the Universe? The king appears to be a metaphor for depression but he brings up that he wants to save stuff in their prime before the universe tears it apart. I'm wondering if the Universe is actually the heat death of the universe, and so like the inevitability of nothingness is fighting against entropy/the tendency of life to grow an evolve.

-Also wondering about; there's dialogue fairly early on that implies that the circles of Change only go out to the Earth. But themes of the boarder universe exist, as do stars. So my guess is that ISAT universe is geocentric confirmed.

-I think another metaphor could be on the repetitiveness of mental health. Like, you finally get out of a depressive/dissociative episode. But then it gets bad again due to the nature of mental health. And you kinda have to find a way to accept the good and the bad and acknowledge your emotions in order to truly have change. And also talk to people about it.

-The game also really does feel it's about trauma based on the way the memory issues are presented and how Siffrion reacts to touch, thinks about them self, and people pleases.

-Okay so there's like random stuff people aren't able to remember. The one person can't remember the name of a country, there's various parts of books people can't remember. It kinda reminds of the static in TAZ Balance, so I was wondering if stuff was purposely erased? The King doesn't seem to be in on it because he also wants to remember something. Also I think the door you can't open has something to do with that.

[pine-tree-system]

Gonna ramble but

When responding to a sense of danger, you initially freeze or get taken off guard and immediately forget everything and focus on the situation. Same difference actually.

Making a pattern out of freezing probably leads to a lot of anxiety. Then dissociation? Yes, but not yet.

If you can run away, you will then choose flight. If you have had to run away and hide a lot, you might experience a lot of anxiety and dissociation. But I don't know if we're to dissociation yet so let's keep moving.

If you can't run away but you can defend yourself, then you choose fight. Especially if it works a lot. So you might feel numb to the pain until it reaches its boiling point, but you also are irritable and twitchy about certain things, needing life to just fucking move in the way it needs to. But maybe we're still not to dissociation yet so let's keep moving.

If you can't run nor defend yourself, perhaps you can reason with them instead. Maybe they'll understand. Maybe they didn't mean to hurt you. You did this a lot and grew up to be a bit of a know-it-all, didn't you? I know the feeling, but we still knew some things. But I don't know everything and I'm still figuring dissociation out. So I will deal with repeating myself and move on.

So reasoning didn't work. They didn't get it. Or maybe they did and didn't care. Maybe you actually did do something wrong. Maybe you did something part of you wrong. But you can make it right. And if you always can, or at least mostly can, then you probably fawn a lot. Worry about people but neglect yourself. You take care of yourself enough already, perhaps even too much, right? How much is too much? Are you even taking care of yourself right? Do you even know what right is? Just what exactly are you doing wrong here?

Lol messed it all up

Let's move on to dissociation.

You can't run away from them. You can't defend yourself. You can't reason with them. You can't make them happy and love you.

Why?

Because it doesn't always work.

Because it always hurts so fucking much.

Because you feel like a terrible person for doing it.

Because you should've really known better.

Because you should've kept your mouth shut.

You were only a child. Helpless at times. Still learning the world. Still small and eager and curious. You've had your moments sure, but you've had others too. And maybe you just don't remember them or maybe someone didn't like that or thought it was unreasonable and even silly.

Maybe you were even a very small child. Maybe even a toddler. Or an infant. And you don't know what's going on but there's a lot of chaos around you. A party? A game? A fight? Is everything okay? Are you okay? Is the child okay? They don't know. No one is saying everything's okay. If they are, then maybe they're lying. But what can you do? You're a small child. A toddler. A baby.

You can appease but nothing's working. Reason doesn't help. Nor games. Nor hugs. Heck, they seem mad at you. Why is the good, smart person mad at you?

Because you're a bad child.

Because you didn't know any better.

Grownups are smart lol

Who needs stupid kids lmao i hate everything about my kid self

I can't wait to be a grownup

Because you didn't know any better.

Because you were just a child.

You didn't like that child very much. Sure, they're fine every now and again, but you have work to do. You need to behave like a mature adult, not like a silly little kid. No, not like that. Not like that. No wait. Wait. There we go. Don't move from that spot.

I said don't move from that spot.

Very funny.

I bet you've already forgotten what lesson it was again.

What was it? Uhm...

Uh... H-Hold on. Lemme find it real quick.

Uh. You've always had a valid reason to dissociate. Please treat me better. I love you.

What? That doesn't make any sense.

[openly-journaling]

Smidge: 2/19/2024

So we got a counseling appointment Wednesday morning. I'd like to stop dissociating so much, it's not like our body says we're going to switch out any time soon by the feel of it. Still front stuck with Marshmallow. though I did feel Dizzy's presence a bit earlier and Andrew's. They were more co-conscious. The headache has disappeared at least, so there's that. Homework is due tomorrow and I.. still haven't started.

I'm in a FAR better mood than yesterday and the day before, so I SHOULD be able to get it done. I hope. Why am I so paralyzed by all of this. Marshmallow would step in but he can't seem to take over any control over the body right now. It's like he's just here to keep me company. I want to talk to my brother again and know how he's doing.

I want to see Sorrow and I hope he's doing well without me also. But I just feel so stuck here. It's so funny Marshmallow is a gatekeeper but sometimes it just doesn't fucking work for him either. His ability to control who fronts is limited to when and only when we aren't locked like this.

I don't feel miserable but I feel miserable. Not like "it's the end of the world, kill me, I need to quit school" miserable. But just.. "I wish I could just do it" miserable. I'm so tired. Mentally over this issue. Like everywhere else right now I'm fine for the most part. Minor anxieties. I think knowing we still have at least a 90% in both classes helps. So if we fall back a little bit it won't damage things too much. But that doesn't mean that just because we can, we should.

I don't remember if I talked about this in the last post. I don't recall doing it, but being late, behind all of that has brought back memories of high school. Knowing we'd never be good enough for anyone back then. That's why we dropped math class. It wasn't like the math was hard, we were just so behind at that point in just trying to reach the homework that it stressed us out too much.

Maybe as a solution we could have just gone to the school to log in and reach our stuff and then print it off in the library. We just didn't. We were still so far behind. I'm just so glad our math teacher was beyond understanding and even gave us another option. Though I don't think she fully realized the option she gave us (part of it being online and part of it being in person) is where the struggle is well.. the struggle. We dropped the class mostly because we couldn't keep up because we couldn't even access the homework. Ugh.

But that's okay. There's always another opportunity to do it but I think we should just do math by itself when the opportunity presents itself. After we finish all the other basics, like Biology, Psychology and Interpersonal Communications. I'm sure there may be a few other fields as well but I think those are the main four we need to do for general studies first?

Anyway. Since dropping math class the memories of high school haven't been as prominent. But now we're having this sudden executive dysfunction issue and now.. but I don't fully recall if the lack of doing our homework then was a result of that or a result of the stress of foster care. It could be both or either one. We just can't let this happen again. We cannot. Not for this. Back when we were a child/teenager what matter did it make to us.

There was no dopamine in any of it. ADHD doesn't care about grades and papers and homework. ADHD cares about fun. But now I can't even have fun, just stressed by this idea we'll fall behind again. Why am I front stuck? Why? Can the body just let me switch now? Why do I have to deal with all this life stuff, I'm just a silly woodland boy. I prefer relaxation and comfort with people I care about, not all this stressful stuff.

Marshmallow consistently whispering in my ear that it's okay, it'll be alright. No it won't. It never has been and it never will be. Saying everything will turn out right has actually made things worse before.