#complex dissociative structure

[granulesofsand]

Asking myself “who am I?”

Overdone

Existential dread

Results in abstract changes to development and perception of self

Asking my headmates “who am I?”

Underutilized resource

Straight answer

Results in the information I wanted being made available

[one-systems-journey]

27.07.24

Today we realised the reason we never felt like grounding works, is our dissociative brain. We can function while being very detached, dissociated.. so we can answer the questions people use to ground us, but be completely disconnected from anything we’re experiencing. We’re not present. We’re not grounded. We’re just surviving, complying. We don’t often know what’s going on in our system. We don’t know the right words. If it’s a part of dissociation or a switch to someone who is just very detached but either way. It’s the same result.

For the longest time we felt like we were doing something wrong. We didn’t understand why grounding didn’t work. It just felt like a distraction at best. But we also didn’t have the space to be able to speak about it, so we didn’t even really think about it. Now we have a counsellor that we know will try to adapt anything that doesn’t work for us, so we were able to really figure out what was wrong. Hopefully we can find ways to make it work & practice not just going into this detached/dissociated state when we’re suppose to be grounding. Maybe it’ll help move forward in the trauma work to finally be able to ground. We’ll see.

[subsystems]

A podcast on understanding the Structural Dissociation Model with Kathy Steele, one of the experts behind the model itself. Very interesting information on structural dissociation, complex trauma, and complex dissociative disorders. Please give it a listen!

[rez-urrection]

looking at my own blog to see what a funny mf posts (I forgot what I posted)

[succulentcatsneeze]

Currently working on putting together a whole bunch of info regarding dissociation theory and phenomenology into a powerpoint because my family wants to learn about it, but I'm definitely gonna share it here once I've finished it!

[granulesofsand]

I (alter) am fundamentally against being anti an identity. This is about syscourse. Anti-endo. Endogenic systems are a kind of people, not an ideology causing harm. You are anti-plural, anti a culture (and plurality has cultural markers).

Insisting on scientific evidence to practice cultural humility is dangerous, and that goes both ways; no one should be forcing you to justify your existence, and you should not be forcing anyone to justify theirs. They are not hurting us by having an experience and talking about their experience.

Being anti-endo is as being anti-plural the same way that being anti-drag is being anti-queer. Our communities overlap and intertwine because we built our spaces together. It’s bad enough refusing to tolerate a whole people based on a lack of evidence, but you are forcing a view of a culture that requires we medicalize ourselves and strive to fit a norm we did not choose. None of that is okay.

Again, there is a difference between hesitance around a group whose members have cause harm (making sure you will be safe-enough) and lashing out in your own pain or misunderstanding (regaining power in unhealthy ways). Being anti-endo is the lashing out, the telling a people you hate them and want them gone because they are not like you/cannot prove they are enough like you/others sharing their identity hurt you.

It’s okay to prefer psych circles, it’s okay to distance yourself/selves from groups you aren’t safe to be around (because of them or because of you), there are means of staying away that are not hate. Hate towards those who did not hurt you hurts them — these are people who have been hurt by a psychology that forces normalcy, an underlying ideology of the medicine we need. We don’t need to be hurting each other. Neither group has to be always wrong to acknowledge that both have our dangerous members/concepts. This is growth, this is how communities coexist.

We do not get better by attempting to dispose of an entire group. Inanna — whatever force you(&) cuss to — we need to do better.

[spookietrex]

Rereading one of my favorite books on structural dissociation this morning: Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors by Janina Fisher. I had the privilege of taking a training from her and talking to her about my own structural dissociation and she recommended I read the book and she was so right. It's fantastic for people who struggle with trauma and trauma-related diagnoses or are struggling to make progress in therapy.

[one-systems-journey]

7.10.24

I’m not sure where to begin but I want to make a post about the little pieces of progress we’ve made. Hopefully help someone else out there who feels like things aren’t ever going to get anywhere. It’s just our experience. It’s not right or wrong. But if it can help one other system out there. If it can give someone hope. Or even help a professional get some ideas on how to help. It’s worth sharing.

Honestly, a real turning point in our counselling was the day we chose to sit on the floor. Sitting on the floor has always been something that helps us feel comfortable & like we can be more open. However, our counsellors have never chosen to sit on the floor with us. We had mostly stopped doing it because it felt weird to be the only one, & there wasn’t always enough room. Our counsellor now does sit on the floor with us. There’s something really supportive about that. I don’t know if it’s linked to co regulation or something, but that would be my guess. It also takes away a bit of the power imbalance & makes us feel safer with her.

Similarly, our counsellor is really comfortable ‘going off script’. A lot of these trauma ‘protocols’ are very scripted. ‘This is what you do at every step’. ‘If *y* happens do *z*’, if that makes sense. But a lot of those things don’t work for us. Sometimes they’re too metaphorical for our neurodivergent brain. Sometimes they set off protector parts who shut down our ability to engage. We need to do things differently. Having the ability to say ‘this is making things worse’, ‘this sets off a protector part’ or ‘that doesn’t work for our brain’, has been really helpful. Having that listened to, respected & having more options presented, has been really helpful. It doesn’t matter how many times we say ‘no, that doesn’t work because…’, our counsellor somehow manages to find another way. We really appreciate that about her. She’s very experienced with neurodivergence, lived experience too, so I think that’s helps. She’s also been doing counselling a lot longer than anyone else we’ve worked with. She hasn’t necessarily been doing this intensive trauma work specifically but she has worked with a whole lot of complex people in some of the most difficult situations.

Another thing has been working with parts in a way that feels safe for us. We really struggle with ‘meeting place’/‘fraisers table’. So we’ve just tried to engage with parts who want to communicate. The littles want to communicate the most, but are also scared to meet people. So, we’ve had toys to play with to make it easier for them. Some we’ve brought in & some our counsellor has provided. I guess some people would call it a positive trigger but I think there’s some negative connotations with that. They’re not forced to come forward. It just a more enjoyable space if they do. It’s been really helpful to just let them play for a lot of our appointment. Let them build up the confidence to speak. I’m also confident in knowing that our protectors don’t really need to talk unless something is wrong. They’ll speak up if something is wrong, otherwise it’s been good to feel like they’re stepping back & letting others engage. We don’t have a huge amount of communication. But we are building enough communication that parts are learning that they’re safe in our appointments, they can ask for what they need & be more present in appointments. Hopefully it’ll help them be able to engage in EMDR processing later.

We’ve had to do some desensitisation to the tappers/buzzies. The EMDR bilateral stimulation things that you hold & they buzz/tap in your hands. We’ve become really scared of them after many attempts at EMDR left us worse off with our previous counsellor. It’s getting easier to use them. The desensitisation has just been holding the tappers on slow while we do whatever else. Like letting the littles play. Our counsellor has also given us the controls to the tappers, so if we want to turn them up to process something we can. It seems to help to do small bits of processing in a less formal way. Not doing the whole ‘set up’. I’m sure later on we’ll need to do all the ‘set up’ questions, but for now it’s easier just to turn the tappers up faster when we’re talking about something hard.

Recently we’ve been working on feeling safer in our body. This has been incredibly difficult. This kind of started when we realised we’ve never really been grounded, when we’ve been told to do grounding. We just switch to a more detached/dissociated part who can still function & answer the 5,4,3,2,1 questions or whatever else we’re suppose to be doing. Switching is not being grounded & it’s not helping the part that is needing the grounding. I think it’s why we leave appointments & feel so awful. We are also just so unable to identify what’s going on for us. Emotionally, where we feel emotions, etc. So this is supposed to help.

So far we’ve worked on hands & we have started doing forearms. Just doing movements. Getting use to doing some stimming stuff we suppress. Holding things of different textures & running them along our hands/arms. We coloured in my tattoo one day, our counsellor was colouring hers too. We are trying to make sure we stay present & don’t switch to someone who just does stuff while being detached. We also try to make sure we don’t get too overwhelmed. It’s somewhat surprising how hard it’s been. But it’s also been good. It actually feels like progress. More than anything else really. It feels real. Everything else feels so disconnected. Probably because it has been. We’ve never really felt safe enough to be truely present. There’s a lot we didn’t notice. I’m sure partly from dissociation, but also partly neurodivergence. It’s a complicated mix.

We’re also working on ways to feel less alone while doing EMDR. I think that’s not talked about. We feel completely disconnected & alone doing EMDR. Alone with the trauma & awful feelings. It feels like the person that you’ve built trust & safety with, isn’t there to help. They’re just doing the hand waving. We’ll get back to you on how we figure that one out. I think how we’ve been sitting on the floor will help. I think this progress with staying grounded & present in ourselves will help. We’re also going to try our counsellor tapping our arms instead of eye movements if we can tolerate that. But it’s still a work in progress.

In all of the way we’ve made little pieces of progress. I also feel like our counsellor herself brings a lot to this. It’s less so things that we can share, that are necessarily helpful to others. But maybe they can be, if you’re looking for someone new. Like I said earlier. The flexibility, the experience outside of EMDR & parts work, the experience of neurodivergence, has been really helpful. When we first met her, we were worried that she wouldn’t be able to help because she wasn’t as experienced with DID or EMDR & stuff. But I think that’s been a good thing. She’s been motivated to learn quickly, & also her other experiences means she’s more confident to be flexible. Some ‘experts’ are way too ridged thinking they know best, & some people who are new to it are too ridged, concerned about doing the wrong thing. We lucky have found the middle ground.

I’d say someone who notices the things that helps you & sets things up to minimise triggers & bring in helpful things, really helps. Our counsellor always has all the resources like fidgets we like, out. She thinks ahead when she’s going to be away & reschedules us around that without us having to ask.

Our counsellor is a mum of two teenage boys. I think she brings her nurturing side to appointments in a really lovely way. I don’t think all mums would necessarily be helpful. But I do think it helps with the co regulation side of things with her. It definitely gives our little parts these tiny experiences of what a good caretaker should look like. In the past we might have found it triggering to hear what a good mum & family was like, but now it’s nice to think about the good experiences other people have. Definitely a personal thing & I think depends on where you are in life.

As hard as it is. One of the biggest things I can say is go slow. If your parts are saying ‘no’, listen. If you ignore them & push past it, when you/they don’t feel safe, that’s when you can be retraumatised. That’s when you’re going to end up weeks, months, or even years back in the work. Going slow is fast. Even if your funding is limited, & you want to get through as much as you can. I’d say the little tiny bit of progress we’ve seen doing this, is more than we’ve achieved in 7 years of pushing every direction we could. Years of rushing into EMDR when we couldn’t find a way to lay the groundwork in a meaningful way. If we had run out of funding when we were just steamrolling through EMDR, trying desperately to make it work & just getting worse. That would have been horrific. But progressing at a safe rate. Progressing in a way that pushes the edge of what is tolerable & comes back to base line, will keep you safe & make a difference no matter how much or little time you have for this work.

I know this isn’t groundbreaking. But it’s real. This is the journey. This has taken months. After working with this counsellor for a year & a half. It took all that time to feel comfortable & find the right way forward. But we seem to have found a way. We’re bound to have more bumps in the road, but we’re at a place where we can work through that. I so desperately hope that you find your right person & path. Even if you’ve met 50 people & tried 100 different techniques. We’ve worked with 11 other people & met several others. The right person to help you might come from the most unexpected places. For us the stars aligned & we found this counsellor when our old one quit on us & she was just starting at this clinic, so we got in with her. Otherwise she would have been completely booked up & we wouldn’t have waited because at the time she didn’t stand out as someone worth going on a wait list for. We have hope for you.

[succulentcatsneeze]

Randomly generated text-based member IDs on pluralkit are so funny because the member could be "Adri'asti, genderless ancient eldritch introject from the cosmos" and the ID will be [babey]

[granulesofsand]

I’m excited about a plural future. I believe that plurality is a more diverse experience than the CDD community sees, and there are many versions of plurality that are not traumagenic multiplicity. I want there to be space for plurals who are traumagenic CDD systems, and acknowledging that others are plural in other ways is key to making acceptance of all of us mainstream. We’re feeling safe enough to be more openly multiple again, and I want outsiders to see us and understand that we are also here and that our existence is neutral.

[mystii-gur0]

So when are we as Ninjago fans finally going to talk about the fact that Zane canonically has the robot equivalent to a CDD (complex dissociative disorder, stuff like DID and OSDD).

Like the way the Ninjigma functions is INCREDIBLY similar to structural dissociation. Layers upon layers of encryption to stop you from remembering something horrible that happened to you? Then when you go poking around in that like memory vault, your own mind shuts you down or in some cases forces you to harm yourself? Yeah. That's structural dissociation.

And his struggles with his identity is very very typical of CDDs. Like that whole thing in season four (yk directly after one of the most traumatic moments of his life, FUCKING DYING) where he didn't feel like "Zane" anymore and felt like he couldn't call himself the white ninja because he wasn't the white ninja, he's just a copy of a dead man. Like that's VERY host change coded to me at least.

And like the way he tends to like freeze up when triggered (cause keep in mind, CDDs don't exist independently, they always come with PTSD/C-PTSD) especially when they're talking about going into battle or like talking about literally anything to do with the Overlord ever. He starts playing with his hands and biting his lip like he's trying to calm himself down, until they actually go into battle and he's fine again (alter switch).

Don't even get me started on the Ice Emperor. Like the fact he only turns back into him as he's dying in Crystalized (an incredibly triggering situation for him.)...

And like the way he just completely dissociates and disconnects himself after Nya disappears and seems to be doing something similar in Dragon's Rising because Pixal is missing (side note I hate Dragon's Rising. If you like Dragon's Rising I think you should have your Ninjago fan card revoked lowkey.... I couldn't even finish it).

Anyways Zane is severely traumatized and half the fans + the writers tend to forget that a log but it's my favorite thing to yap about.

No idea if this made any sense whatsoever.

He's so Language of the Lost and Am I Awake? coded...

[schizoidvision]

Splitting and the Schizoid Experience: A Personal Take

For those of us with schizoid dynamics, splitting doesn’t always show up the way it’s described in most clinical writing. We don’t tend to flip between loving and hating people, or shift from idealization to devaluation in a dramatic way. Instead, our internal compass often revolves around one primary distinction, whether something (or someone) feels safe or unsafe.

This binary creates an internal threshold. Once someone crosses it, it can feel like there’s no going back. Even if the shift looks subtle from the outside, something has been internally reclassified. And that reclassification tends to lead us straight into withdrawal...

1. Safety vs. Danger as a Relational Filter

I think most of us aren’t operating on a spectrum of how much we like someone. Instead, we’re trying to calculate whether it’s safe to keep them psychologically near. If someone feels safe, we might let them orbit us maybe even with a surprising level of internal fondness. But if they feel unsafe, that fondness often shuts down immediately.

It’s not always a conscious decision. There’s usually a felt shift (something in the body, or a sudden distancing in the mind) that signals it’s time to pull back. It can feel like that person no longer exists in the same way. Not because we hate them, but because our inner structure has flagged them as dangerous.

2. Emotional Distance Isn’t Indifference

I’ve noticed that emotional distancing after a breach of safety doesn’t mean we stop caring. It just becomes too dangerous to keep caring actively. It can be difficult to keep someone in view internally without reverting to extremes, either too close or completely severed. So we cut contact, emotionally or physically, not to punish, but to stabilize.

Many of us have trouble with "whole object constancy" holding someone as both good and bad at the same time. If someone lets us down in a way that hits the wrong nerve, it may feel safer to view them only through that new filter, even if part of us knows the full picture is more complex. That awareness doesn’t always override the internal demand for safety.

3. The Role of Dissociation and Detachment

In situations where we don’t or can’t physically withdraw, some of us dissociate instead. It’s like we retreat to another layer inside ourselves. We might still talk, still nod, still function... but we’re not really present. I think of it as shifting operations to a more internal control panel, where emotions are muted, and thoughts are screened.

This is especially likely to happen if a situation feels emotionally loaded, but we don’t have the tools or bandwidth to process it in real time. It’s less about being cold, and more about needing a buffer from what’s coming in.

4. Why We Might Not Return

One of the hard things about splitting in the schizoid experience is that once someone feels unsafe, there often isn’t a reset button. Even if they apologize or circumstances change, the shift in our perception tends to hold. I think this is because reestablishing trust would require lowering our defenses again, and for many of us, that feels more dangerous than staying detached.

This can create long-term isolation, even when we miss the connection. The protection instinct overrides the relational impulse.

5. What It Means to Understand the Pattern

Understanding that splitting can be based on perceived safety instead of moral judgments has helped me a lot. It reframes those internal cutoffs as self-preserving responses rather than cold dismissals. It also helps explain why others may not understand our sudden emotional retreat, because from the outside, nothing has visibly changed.

If we can start to track what makes someone feel safe or unsafe to us, it might be possible to hold more nuance over time... or at least to understand our responses with less internal confusion.

We may not always be able to change the pattern, but recognizing the structure behind it can give us some grounding. That grounding can help us make clearer decisions, and maybe even open a few internal doors that would otherwise stay shut.

Schizoid Education Videos

[subsystems]

There's been a lot of harmful invalidation and misinformation floating around trauma spaces lately about the cause of complex dissociative disorders like DID. Please, let's put to rest the trauma olympics and claiming that certain childhood traumas are more "valid" than others. The childhood trauma that causes someone's DID does not need to be sexual or physical abuse, or even abuse at all.

From Understanding and Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Relational Approach, by Elizabeth Howell (pages xvii - xviii):

"DID is usually the outcome of chronic and severe childhood trauma, which can include physical and sexual abuse, extreme and recurrent terror, repeated medical trauma, and extreme neglect. Pathological dissociation generally results from being psychically overwhelmed by trauma. . . . However, the traumatic experiences that may result in dissociative disorders do not always stem from sexual, physical, or emotional abuse. Disorganized attachment which often underlies the dissociative structure of dissociative disorders . . . may result from overwhelming experiences in the infant's interpersonal environment that are not caused by parental maltreatment. Parental illness, depression, or problematic attachment styles may be psychically overwhelming and lead to disorganized attachment. In addition, medical trauma may be dissociogenic. For example, some dissociative patients have reported histories of chronic medical problems and hospitalizations that involved severe pain and unavoidable separations from well-meaning parents. Medical trauma may involve both the chronic and severe pain of certain diseases and conditions as well as painful procedures intended to remediate these medical conditions. Some dissociative adult patients have reported the trauma of being left alone to suffer their pain as children in the hospital. Such children may be additionally confused by the fact that their parents are either hurting them, as part of necessary medical interventions or allowing others to hurt them . . ."

You can find a free download of this book and others [here]. I highly recommend reading it, it's one of my favorite books on DID. If you're able to, please consider purchasing a copy of it to support the author too!

Anyways, if you're reading this and you've been harmed by the recent influx of trauma invalidation, please know that I'm here for you. I believe you. Your trauma is REAL and it was ENOUGH to cause your disorder. You were a child and no child deserves to go through trauma. No one.

[thaltro]

Consensus on DID is annoying because there really isn’t one

The more medical research I do, the more I realize DID even up in the medical community feels like twitter discourse.

That is it say- polarized and heated. I mean I understand it, as of now there’s two main models the Trauma Model and the Socio Cognitive/Fantasy

To summarize for those who aren’t annoying nerds:

Trauma model: Dissociation is from traumatic experiences and cases amnesia barriers around personalities and memories

Socio Cog/ Fantasy model: People are suggestible and fantasy prone, DID is just fantasy and doesn’t actually exist

Now my psychiatrist who diagnosed me followed the Socio Cog model (which wasn’t fun) and explained my parts were just me believing I had alters, therefore the cure was “ignore it”. In all fairness the socio cog model is more complex but the conclusion is it’s false. The trauma model has flaws too in its studies, the definition of what severe trauma isn’t determined well. But despite that i do believe it has more merit then Socio Cog. I mean Socio Cog is heavily reliant on False memory syndrome which comes from a foundational belief that “you can’t recover csa memories” which is just provably wrong.

Outside of the medical community you have movements like the inclusive plurality movement which I find much more enjoyable to research than Socio cog. I do think they have interesting points! How I’ve concluded on the endogenic movement is that it tends to be very spiritual and religious. I wouldn’t tell a Christian that they are stupid to think they are talking to angels because I’m an atheist, just as I wouldn’t go out of my way to call an endo stupid for believing they have many souls possessing them. I think they have merit with brining research interest to personality disorders having similar structures to a DID system. (That is somewhat true because bpd is on the same dissociative level as osdd-1b) but a lot of it just sounds like self talk, imaginary friends, and spirituality.. not really comparable to DID.

What’s my current belief?

I think DID is Mostly formed due to repeated trauma at a young age, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there were genetic dispositions. But my belief can change! I just wish more people gave a shit about the disorder to look into it. The false memory foundation and socio cognitive approach actively discourages research on the disorder. When I asked “why isn’t there clinics?” I was told “typically if you invalidate the belief in personalities the patient will stop reporting the issue” which made me feel shitty.

[granulesofsand]

I love harassing my headmates in front of outsiders. I love flirting with them, bickering with them, existing with them. I enjoy moving our body as I move in headspace, so they can see where the others are as if they were in the room. They are. I love making outsiders aware that there is more to us than meets the eye. It makes them uncomfortable. Good.

[valeisaslut]

i genuinely can’t believe that this happened in just three months.

i started collide thinking it’d be a little experiment, maybe a fun way to escape the world while i stumbled through writing again. i’m still so new to all of this — like, baby-writer-who-just-learned-to-walk level. i’m learning every day. learning how to structure a story, how to build arcs that don’t fall apart, how to take feedback, how to believe in what i create.

hell, i’m still figuring out how to use tumblr properly. i’ve uploaded two fics two years ago and then vanished like a ghost, only to reappear this year in january like a gremlin with a god complex and an ellie williams agenda.

and now… somehow, this little fever dream has turned into something real. a universe. a community. a story that people carry with them.

i'm literally dissociating mid-study session like wait… this happened? i wrote that? you read that? because none of it feels real. it’s surreal and magical and overwhelming in the best way. i’ve never created something so alive before — and to know that it lives in you, too, that’s the part that leaves me breathless.

i’m grateful beyond words. and still very much learning ♡