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This post is about final fusion & integration. Don't read it if that's triggering to you (duh).

I'm someone with DID who has achieved final fusion. What that means is that my entire system came together to always be present, aware, and connected. We no longer experience the dissociation that made us into separated alters and became interconnected. It's like making a connection of lines between stars; a constellation. No one in my system disappeared or died...although some people like to spread myths like that.

It hurts when people say that my system achieving final fusion is like suicide when it's obviously not. What hurts more, however, is when people say that final fusion doesn't work. "You might split again," they say. "Most people fall apart after they achieve final fusion. It isn't worth it."

Telling someone that their choice in recovery is never worth it because "they might relapse someday" is never okay. Why do people condone it when it comes to fusion? What happened to statements like "recovery isn't linear?" What happened to that?

It's normal to fall apart after final fusion because it takes time to get used to an existence that's not split up and dissociated. Final fusion is a process not a one-and-done kind of deal. You have a mind that is primed for dissociation, which has always relied on dissociation in the past, and for the first time ever you are telling it no! It's okay for all parts of you to be present and aware!

That takes time and practice. No one should be shamed for falling apart after fusion. It's still possible to achieve final fusion again after falling apart and most of us consider this part of the process. This goes for any form of recovery. To quote Rachel Dowing, "I had many experiences of integration followed by disintegration. With the help of my therapist, I learned to view this as a natural process, not a series of failures. I needed practice at being integrated and learning to use new defenses."

If you want it, final fusion is worth it. If you don't want it, it's worth it for the people who do. Support them.

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to all the people, kids adults and alike, trying to survive under abusive conditions; relationships, family, caretakers, you name it; having to stash resources or simply the things you enjoy away, having complex and elaborate ways of going online, who feel guilty, who have specific schedules for doing anything as small as eating, who try to stretch night as impossibly thin as they can just to have time for themselves, or those who dread it and just pray for morning to come already, who struggle to tell what and if they were actually abused, who dont know what to tell their friends, cant begin to elaborate on their situation to anyone because its too complicated, who went back because they had no other choice, who went back because they thought things could get better, or that they needed them or wouldnt survive on their own, who are addicts, who have to hide breakdowns in public, those who have to put on a pretty face for the rest of the world, who are dreading escaping simply because its going to be complicated and hard and you’re scared;

who have stories and experiences like nobody else;

i know you. i see you and you’re not alone because i know every single one of these things. millions of people know this. i dont expect you to change your outlook on life in a split second or overnight, because i know you’re just trying to keep your head above water. but the simple truth is you will never be alone, no matter how trapped you feel or if you never hear your situation being talked about in these circles. but we’re everywhere. survivors are right under your nose. 

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In terms of advice for newly discovered systems that I don't see often, especially ones who might not have access to professional support, is that you're going to get things wrong about your own system and that's ok. Even if it seems like it would have been obvious in hindsight. Even if it makes you feel stupid or embarrassed. Even if it just happens to occur to you otherwise one day. Don't be scared to make mistakes

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System Internet Safety (Resource Post)

System Internet Safety

System Internet Safety

A Quick & Dissociated Guide To: System Internet Safety

Be Careful What You Share About Your System

How To Keep Yourself Safe From Fear Mongering & Misinformation

How Social Media Can Distort & Misinform when Communicating Science

Understanding & Avoiding Armchair Psychology

Understanding & Protecting Yourself From Syscourse

System Responsibility

Tips From a Tumblr Vet (10+ Years on this Hellsite)

Tips for Kids Online

Social Media Tips for Teens

Online Abuse Resources

The Online Harassment Manual

Speak up & Stay Safe®: A Guide to Protecting Yourself From Online Harassment

How Doxers Find Your Info & How To Protect Yourself

How To Stay Safe From Doxxing With A VPN

Tip Sheet: Keeping Adults & Kids Safe on the Internet (TW: csa)

Behaviors To Watch Out For When An Adult Is With A Child (TW: csa)

How To Asses How Toxic A Group is

Warning Signs That a System is Toxic

System-related Abuse

Reporting Online Abuse

Reporting Cyberbullying

Reporting Online Child Exploitation

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because i've seen a handful of misconceptions lately:

not every alter needs to split from trauma. after the initial split from anywhere ages 0-9* from overwhelming, ongoing trauma(s) to a child, they can split for whatever the brain feels is necessary, and with a highly traumatized brain, it's definition of "necessary" might not always make sense! this can be anywhere from a trauma holder for a specific event, to an alter that's just there to play video games.

i know everyone says it but i still see it around: you do not need to remember your trauma to be a system. that is why your brain split in the first place; so you can carry on with day to day life without processing what you went through every second of the day. "but what if i dont remember anything?" this is exactly what im referring to, that means the disorder is doing what its technically supposed to. (i say technically because of course, amnesia is never as clear cut as its made out to be.)

on that topic, dissociative amnesia can look like, literally, a million different things and you don't need to have full blackouts in order to have "enough" amnesia. certain alters might remember certain things better, or forget things easier. you might not realize you even forgot something in the first place until you try to remember it. you might seemingly have very little amnesia at first until you try to remember the plot of the show you watched the other day, what you seemingly wanted to work on a few hours ago or why you even wanted to do that thing in the first place, or how close you are with someone. *"hold on, 0-9? every resource says ages 6-9!" it is theorized that the brain finishes integration of the self from ages 6-9. this means that if you experience any sort of long term trauma before age 9, your brain might not have finished integrating, or integrated partially.

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i love you if you're mentally ill and/or neurodivergent and can't hide your symptoms. i love you if you tic, if you space out for long periods of time and lose track of conversations, if you react to hallucinations, if you laugh and talk out loud to yourself or to your system members, if you get scared and panic and have to react, if you run from perceived threats, if you get angry and irrational when something triggers your paranoia or trauma, if you can't help getting scared and dependent, if you have a low stress tolerance, if you have disorganized speech and word salad, if you stutter, if you can't control the volume of your voice. you are loved.

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i wanted to take the time to explain what living with schizophrenia is like for me, and how people misinterpret my condition. the media and even most doctors have a very skewed and otherwise inaccurate interpretation of what schizophrenia is. most people believe that schizophrenia entails someone being entrenched in the depths of psychotic episodes 24/7, constantly hallucinating, and constantly experiencing delusions.

this is simply not the case for most! schizophrenics. that behavior is more akin to schizotypal personality disorder, or schizotypy. many schizophrenics have what are called "negative symptoms" most days. negative symptoms meaning that they "take away" from your cognitive ability and cause you to withdraw from life activities.

these include avolition, which is emotional withdrawal, apathy, poor grooming/hygiene, and less involvement with work, and school. blunted affect, which is diminished facial and vocal expressions, poor eye contact, and minimal use of gestures and body language. alogia, which is short or single word/syllable answers to questions, avoiding communication altogether. this can sometimes be called "poverty of speech" and it feels like a very accurate descriptor. anhedonia is difficulty in anticipating and feeling pleasure, and participating in fewer leisure activities. asociality is the is having few friends, poor relationships with friends and family, lack of motivation to be in relationships, and reduced social interaction.

none of these things involve hallucinating. schizophrenics tend to live in episodic periods, where you are experiencing more negative symptoms than positive, then sometimes more positive and less or no negative, though they can be experienced at the same time. sometimes symptoms or episodic periods simply go into remission for a while. i tend to experience negative symptoms most of the time, and have short but intense episodes of positive symptoms. it can be easy to miss the episodes of positive symptoms, which is why so many schizophrenics get overlooked and dismissed and don't receive a diagnosis, or have their diagnosis doubted when they are experiencing negative symptoms.

please understand that there is so much more to our lives than hallucinating and having "strange" beliefs. we deserve to have our entire condition recognized, not just the shocking and "scary" parts.

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Have you heard of partial did/ p-did?

yes i have! it's basically the ICD-11's version of OSDD-1

here's the definition:

"Partial dissociative identity disorder is characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more distinct personality states (dissociative identities) associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency. Each personality state includes its own pattern of experiencing, perceiving, conceiving, and relating to self, the body, and the environment. One personality state is dominant and normally functions in daily life, but is intruded upon by one or more non-dominant personality states (dissociative intrusions). These intrusions may be cognitive, affective, perceptual, motor, or behavioural. They are experienced as interfering with the functioning of the dominant personality state and are typically aversive. The non-dominant personality states do not recurrently take executive control of the individual’s consciousness and functioning, but there may be occasional, limited and transient episodes in which a distinct personality state assumes executive control to engage in circumscribed behaviours, such as in response to extreme emotional states or during episodes of self-harm or the reenactment of traumatic memories."

TL;DR: it's DID but alters don't normally front except for high stress situations (e.g. being triggered). Amnesia doesn't usually occur except for extremely stressful situations or self-harm.

Difference between P-DID & DID: no amnesia, no fronting except in stressful times, alters are experienced internally, alters are more limited (less elaborated & separate) and are more like fragments and/or Emotional Parts.

Difference between P-DID & OSDD-1: no amnesia (1a), less elaborated alters (1b), I suppose it's more like OSDD-1a without the amnesia (OSDD-1c?). here's a post critiquing P-DID as it relates to OSDD-1.

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avpd like

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saw some comment yesterday about how the point of therapy is to shame and humiliate the patient into changing their behavior (and that's a good thing)

and I can't stop thinking about it.

This when I also see so many young people saying we need to "bring back bullying" when they see someone do something they consider weird or cringe.

the old "I don't hate ND people, it's just funny to bully weirdos and freaks"

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People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

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it’s so stupid that you can’t think your way out of the mental health trenches. like you can know exactly what is wrong, why it’s upsetting you, and you can walk yourself through all of it logically and Understand it but your brain just responds like

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avpd culture is feeling like vomiting after sending a single discord message bc what if they take it wrong or secretly hate you or didnt want you specifically to respond to them or

.

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im not scared of my own desires. i sabotage myself to make sure i never get what i want for unrelated reasons.

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Saw a perfectly fine post about self care. Nothing wrong with it so I don't want to reblog it just to talk about this but there was one part that was like:

self care is not listening to music that will send you into a spiral but some cheerful shit your friend sent you

And it just reconfirms the neurodivergence and totally different way of experiencing the world of avpd, at least for me.

Like yeah on the surface this maybe seems like a small thing because it sounds like I'm just saying "I have different taste in music", but imo it's actually a different way of experiencing the world that I feel like is more akin to the way other neurodivergent people experience good and bad Textures.

Cheerful music, sunshine, upbeat stuff are generally speaking very depressing to me. I don't mean in a "I'm feeling down so other people's happiness makes me sad" kind of way, I mean I feel like those things make me experience what other people get from sad music and dark cloudy days.

I will listen to music on youtube that makes me feel euphoric and scroll down to the comments and see "depressing but beautiful" and stuff like that and feel like I'm experiencing a different version of reality. And it is the music that makes me feel better when I'm sad.

Gloomy games like Yume Nikki (very avpd vibes btw) are comforting for me. Short, dark, cloudy days make me energetic and happy.

But everyone around me seems to have the opposite experience and it's difficult to navigate.

I don't mean to harp on this, but it's never something I'll see in official literature on avpd or whatever and I worry it's just a me thing.

But idk if you also have avpd and feel like the things that lift other people's spirits seem to bring you down, leaning into a gloomy sombre vibe might just work for you.