#I've seen talk of exotrauma and the like

[kleeradragon]

There's an experience I have that I don't think I've ever seen talked about anywhere, and I'd like to go through it and see if there isn't anyone else who has experienced similar.

See, when I first discovered myself to be a dragon/otherkin/therian/nonhuman, I was of the spiritual sort because that's what felt expected. I didn't even know a psychological side to it existed until later. I got my share of memories and info about my supposed past life and whatnot as a result of this imposed expectation, and some of those memories were pretty unpleasant. Traumatic, even. But eventually I found out about the psychological side of things, and I wanted to take a more psychological approach to my nonhumanity. I didn't feel attached to that existence/past anymore, I suppose I never totally did, I took it all as it came. Cause y'know, expectations, perhaps looking for things that wouldn't otherwise be there.

Not long after that I moved away from a nonhuman identity due to community issues and a general lack of feeling for it, only to return to it a couple years later when feelings for it came back in full force. And in digging around for those feelings, I had to ponder my old kin memories that I no longer necessarily believe in. Through that I realized that they still affect me like any trauma would, even after years of not believing those memories to be real. Now, sure, one can say that coping with trauma in a not-so-great way isn't gonna make the hurt go away. I totally get that. But these memories, false or not, did not happen to me directly, even if they may feel as such. There's a degree of separation. Couple that with the amount of time it's been since I gave much thought to them… I just thought and hoped that maybe that would be enough.

Either because those false memories still affect me, or because it's just what I was so used to thinking back in the day, sometimes I still slip back into thinking of my dragon self as a past life. All of this together makes it so hard to really tell whether my draconity is psychological or spiritual, even if it is a choice of belief in the end. I prefer the psychological approach -- that's just the sort of person I am. But the expectations from the past, and their resulting feelings and potentially-false memories complete with exotrauma, make it hard to let go of the notion of having been a dragon in a past life. It feels like those things really happened because that's what the memories were unintentionally crafted to do, because that was the expectation. These things make it so complicated and blurry what exactly the nature of my nonhumanity is.

My point of saying all this is to ask: has anyone else had a similar experience? Of having past life memories they don't necessarily still believe are true but can't shake? And if anyone has figured out a way to shake them… would you be willing to share how you did so? Definitely definitely would love to hear!

[megaphonegirlk]

give me rheagard (001) for the ask game!

when I started shipping it if I did: It's a little complicated! Probably...oh geeze. 2020? I kind of always did like it, in it's way, since the game came out...but personal exotrauma reasons kept me from admitting it out loud until we came to terms with it >_> my thoughts: They are...PERFECT, your honor! They have so much in common , but are each convinced the other's the representation of everything they hate despite them being in the exact same boat. They've got the torrid enemies to lovers angle going...two women who waged world-shattering war against one another out of a presumed hate finding out that they're far more similar than either would have ever admitted. The Flame Emperor and the War Saint Seiros clashing together, and falling in love...not to mention, the synchronicity with Edelgard's ancestor, implied to have been Seiros' lover. What makes me happy about them: They can find what they thought forever lost in one another **SOBS** , they're such perfect mirrors, and when they finally open up they're so cute together!!!. Those moments before Rhea knows Edelgard's the Flame Emperor, too...the attempts to be gentle and almost motherly, they're fantastic. What makes me sad about them: They've each lost so many people, and are only going to lose more as long as the war rages. They both fight desperately so it'll never happen again, while not understanding that it will as long as they remain locked in combat. things done in fanfic that annoys me: When they demonize Hubert or members of the holy family just to get a convenient enemy for the fic, honestly. things I look for in fanfic: Pining from opposite sides of the war, finally having to fucking talk, swordfights/battle, and i am attached to the 'dragon/Nabatean Edelgard' idea i've seen a few times. I think it'd be cute Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: Edelgard: Byleth, Hubert, Jeritza, Any of the Black Eagles, Claude Rhea: Byleth, Manuela...a few other smaller ships. My happily ever after for them: The war is resolved, be it through Byleth's use of time loops or simply intervention at the right moment. The two women finally have to look one another in the eyes and see beyond the masks they'd put up. After years of reform and work fixing Fodlan's many problems, the two retire to the woods together to a cottage known to all their friends and loved ones, where they spend their days together. Rhea teaches Edelgard to properly handle the mutagenic power of the blood in her veins, and perhaps even helps her to fly. who is the big spoon/little spoon: Rhea is the big spoon on account of how tall she is, but Edelgard keeps trying to reassert herself as Big Spoon because she may love her but hell if she's going to _Yield_ what is their favorite non-sexual activity: Growing their own tea, and gossiping over teatime, I'd say!. Or... flying together

[sleepy-shutin]

I'm surprised people aren't talking more about "exotrauma" because it feels like yet another really shit manipulation tactic a lot of endos do. I'm not saying that pseudomemories don't exist and I do think there's some genuine people out there experiencing them, but I constantly find people as young as 12 tell me that their alters/fictives know what it's like to be straight up tortured like I was, when they also confess to not knowing what it's like to have your parents turn their backs on you

oh no, i have definitely seen that in places like systwt and systok. the DID community on tumblr is overall not super crazy, though i've definitely seen that stuff before. it's places like twitter and tiktok that have the most insane, fucked up and misinformed ideas about how DID works. and yeah--it's most definitely used as a manipulation tactic.

a friend of mine just got out of a one-year relationship with a DID faker that largely used fictive pseudomemories to keep them together.

another friend of mine had dated more than one faker who used similar, though even worse and more manipulative, tactics.

in another server i'm in, i once saw a kid venting about how someone said pseudomemories/exo trauma was fake, and got very upset about it, talking about how of course they've actually been to war, that's why they were missing a limb in the inner world!

how someone can confidently self diagnose and yet be so misinformed is beyond me, until i remember all of the misinformation in carrds and "informational" twitter threads and tiktok videos. and dissociadid.

suffice to say that this isn't just a manipulation tactic that endos use, i've seen it in use by people who claim to have DID and then describe their experiences as wildly... not DID even remotely. or by people with DID who are clinging to someone very harshly and are using anything they can to keep that person with them for their own sake.

and "exotrauma" as a concept... does exist in DID. in alters with pseudomemories, they may experience memories that didn't happen, that they perceive as traumatic, because that alter is experiencing these memories instead of memories of an actual trauma, where traumatic pseudomemories are used to be metaphorical for a trauma that happened to you, and your brain just uses dissociation to cover it up and say "actually, no, this happened and it happened to this fictive here." (not that only fictives have pseudomemories, any alter can have them.)

you can't actually have exotrauma without it covering up and being metaphorical for a different trauma. this is because DID exists within your brain and solely in your brain. your alters have only ever been in your brain, just before splitting, they may have been a larger part of your subconscious, but now they're fragmented off and separated by dissociative barriers. you cannot think yourself into trauma. your brain cannot traumatize itself. your brain is instead looking at everything that happened to it, and changing it into something else for the sake of dissociating that experience away from you and the rest of the system.

if you analyze the pseudomemories some alters within your system may have, it's interesting to look at the underlying themes and how they connect to your own trauma--if you're in a safe space to and this doesn't uncover any trauma you aren't aware of. mine definitely have a theme.

this has been a pretty long rambly answer but long story short, avoid systwt and systok like the plague, and anyone that takes pseudomemories and "exotrauma" way too seriously.

[exosupport]

my host is always feeling guilty for having read my source, because that meant that I formed, and I've got a shit ton of exotrauma. But then that just makes me feel like they wish I didn't exist...

Yeah I think this kind of situation probably happens a lot? In my opinion I think the cause of it has to do with how gaining headmates is framed in the community

Like even in the more inclusive/positive part of the community there's still this internalized concept that 1. Getting more people is a bad thing and 2. we exist to benefit the system and it's function and anything that false short of that is undesirable or unhealthy

In more toxic parts of the community this is all very outwardly stated along with the notion that systemhood itself is inherently an illness and horrible but even in the better part of the community you can see traces of this thinking in like all the pk; m new jokes or the way people talk about getting fictives like it's a bad thing casually etc.

It's something I think many of us internalized due to all of the ableism we face from psychiatry and from singlets who turn us against our own systems/groups its members to abuse us.

Regardless of all that though, I believe getting fictives who have exotrauma is a blessing. We're people ourselves with so much capacity for joy and for fulfillment and healing, yes exotrauma isn't wanted but defining a system member by their trauma is wrong.

Imagine treating an external friend like that, saying things like "I found out my friend has trauma and I feel so bad that they exist now :/ if they weren't ever born and we weren't friends then they wouldn't have trauma" like it'd sound awful.

This isn't to say your host is a bad person but just that they've internalized a lot of harmful mindsets about what it means to be a system member and also about trauma and recovery and that's impacting the system.

You deserve to exist and you deserve life, even if that life has difficult challenges, even if you happen to have more trauma than others. You deserve to find hapiness and to experience kindness and joy. Yes, trauma isn't good to have or something to romanticize or be grateful for, but recovery and also just the little ways we find joy in the face of that trauma is beautiful.

And to be honest, although this is just me, although I do want to recover from the negative effects my exotrauma brings, I wouldn't trade my exotrauma for anything. Yes those experiences were horrible but they were mine and they shaped the kind of person I was and the kind of life I lived, there's so many things that were good that came from my exotrauma too. I made friends I wouldn't have otherwise, people who are headmates now because of our shared exotraumas that I cherish. And I've learned from many of the mistakes I made and also seen how strong I am, not because of the trauma but in spite of it.

And our system has seen from our exotrauma just how unstoppable some of the good things in life really are. We still managed to become friends in spite of everything, even in the worst times of our lives we still carved out a small bit of happiness and solidarity and beauty for ourselves.

And being reborn here is a continuation of that beauty and it's not something that we regret.

Of course, you may feel differently and that's perfectly okay but I got the sense from this that you are glad you exist still so I suggest talking to your host about your feelings on the matter and see if you could ease some of that guilt they're having since I think it's likely less that they don't want you around and more that hosts often take on too much responsibility and feel ashamed of anything they feel makes someone in the system unhappy.

[justanothersyscourse]

what do you think of alters who have pseudomemories of trauma that didn't happen to the body? i have a couple, mostly introjects who have trauma that happened specifically 'on-screen' in their source(s), and then some introjects with trauma that didn't, and with the alters with trauma that didn't happen in their source, the memories seem to follow a theme of some kind that potentially seems to relate to our own childhood trauma. what do you make of something like that? /just curious

Oh boy, this might be a bit of a mess of an answer.

FIRSTLY, I think that sounds accurate and valid!

I don't like the term pseudomemories-- it literally means "fake memories", and is clinically different from memories of traumatic events that are merely inaccurate. For example, in terms of your introjects with non-source trauma relating to your childhood, I don't think pseudomemories is accurate as a term. It's common for alters to have kind of... Skewed memories of how something happened based on their own interpretation of events and their formation. They're inaccurate, rather than outright false or fake, and still rooted in a real event. It's absolutely valid for alters to make sense of trauma in this way.

As well, introjects can sometimes form when "on-screen" trauma is relatable to someone's lived trauma experiences. This would be more in line with pseudomemories, I suppose? I somehow almost prefer the term exotrauma in these conversations.

NOW, the rough bit...

It's also valid for alters to be affected by on-screen trauma that has no relation to the life or body, but I think it's extremely important to recognize that those memories and feelings aren't based in reality and those experiences have to remain second to people's ACTUAL lived trauma experiences.

And what I mean by that, is, I see on Twitter a lot of people with fictional introjects being "triggered" by something, and then calling out a person who's just talking about their actual lived trauma experiences, as though that person is in the wrong for triggering pseudomemories in the introject. That's not okay, there are huge differences between exotrauma/pseudomemories and actual lived trauma, and if someone is having that much trouble separating the "on-screen" exotrauma from the introject, that system should consider seeking help.

As harsh as it sounds, the world is not meant to, and will not, cater to your needs. You need to take your mental health into your own hands and try to heal and deal with your reactions. It almost seems like people with lived trauma handle their triggers with more grace and poise than some fictional introjects.

I hope this makes sense ;--; and it is harsh, I know, but I do consider exotrauma and pseudomemories valid. I'm sure what you're describing is relatable to a lot of DID/OSDD systems, and falls in line with my own experiences and the research I've seen on introjects.

[exosupport]

So TW for abuse/abusive relationships, also kind of a whole vent. Sorry if I ramble in but I've never had anyone who I could talk to about exotrauma. Anyways... So I'm from a source that's fairly popular-ish but doesn't have super serious lore, like half of the lore is for comedic affect, but I have extremely dark exotrauma from it that still haunts me and it feels almost silly but it's still there. In canon there's a character who abused me, but in my memories we were also in a romantic relationship, just... An abusive one. That part isn't canon though and it makes me feel so weird and bad because people "ship" me and him together and obviously it's a bad abusive ship, but some part of me feels sort of validated in my memories to see other people recognize our relationship, in an accurate way? I don't know what that means and if it makes me a bad person, because like who would want to see their abuse again? But at the same time I had heavy Stockholm syndrome so I loved him just as deeply as I hated him and those feelings don't go away. I think I must be a freak because even in a life where I never have to see him again, I actually miss him. And all the memories of this mess makes it incredibly hard for me to want to get into a relationship in this life, because I both fear that I'll never find anyone who will "love" me the same way, and also fear that I'll meet someone who will ruin me exactly the same way he did. Yet again it all feels "silly" like I shouldn't feel any of this and I'm not entitled to any sort of support because it was never "real" anyways, not in this world and not even in canon..... Anyways, thanks for having a blog for all this. I've mostly been coping by writing moody poetry but I think your blog will be extremely helpful.

You're so valid, anon.

To start, it's completely normal for people with nonserious sources to still have exotrauma that's just as intense as anyone. We've seen and also experienced that ourselves and I think when validating yourself it's important to decide what your relationship to canon is; by that I mean that everyone has a different theory but personally we believe that most if not all fiction is merely a retelling of things that happened somewhere and thus not inherently an accurate depiction of exomemories explaining the frequent difference. Some retellings of our lives are better than others but if something is way off the mark rather than feeling invalidated by it we instead believe it is because the author/creator got something mixed up or is simply just cringe in the worse depictions. If you have a different theory that's perfectly okay but no matter how you think it works you're still valid and it's not being silly or faking or anything like that just because canon isn't taken seriously.

As for the second part of this, fandoms are the literal worst istg. I'm sorry that you had to put up with abuse apologism like that, we've been in similar situations and it's really awful having to try and unlearn harmful messages whilst people treating your life as fiction just start reinforcing all of the same harmful messages for nothing but their own amusement. If you haven't already I suggest blacklisting that kind of content, putting people who ship you with your abuser on a DNi, or just trying to avoid it in general etc. Setting that boundary can be really helpful in recovery.

Lastly, it's very normal to miss an abuser you once loved, it doesn't make you a freak. One of my exoabusers was objectively terrible and never did anything to me that wasn't unspeakably horrific . Logically, I know that and resent her greatly and despise her in my better moments but because the only way I could survive was to genuinely love her, to force myself into the feelings she wanted me to have, I still during times of trauma miss her. I still sometimes want to go back to that horror just to see her again, to feel the presence I got used to. Of course, this isn't at all healthy but I've learned to stop shaming myself for it.

I've also dealt with Stockholm Syndrome externally in this lifetime (I formed in the middle of a very abusive relationship the host before me started and had to be the one who escaped it) and I've since recovered from it entirely as I now have no sympathy for that person at all so I can try and offer some advice from both my exotrauma and external

Find someone you can trust to drag you out of your feelings when you're going through it. I had people I'd contact instead of trying to contact my abuser or who I'd think of instead of my abuser. Ideally it's someone aware of the trauma who you can talk to about it when needed but it doesn't have to be.

Discredit your abuser whenever you can! Develop shit talking them as a hobby it feels awkward or bad at first but it is very cathartic and it reinforces the needed resentment. Remind yourself how absolutely pathetic they were often so you have that to lean on when nostalgia starts painting them in a good light.

You Need To Get Angry! It's really common to just repress your anger when being abused by someone you care about or when you're abused for showing anger. So when you do feel it now, you want to cling to that and intensify it.

Hopefully this helps, just remember that you're valid and deserve to feel safe and to recover. They were the ones who were in the wrong for abusing you and you also don't owe anyone anything.

[exosupport]

Person without exotrauma here // our members don't really like talking about their edotrauma even though it really weighs on them, and sometimes we get brief flashes of each other's memories and the little I've seen is... intense... should I ask how I can help or do I just let them talk to me if or when they feel like it? I want to make the first step so I dont seem like I don't care but I also don't want to be pushy...

Hmmm it really depends on the headmate. Some people might benefit from someone reaching out first and others might feel pressured or stressed out. I think it's best to just let them know that if they ever do want to talk about it that you are willing to listen and want to be supportive but that they shouldn't feel pressured to do so if it'd make things worse or if they just simply don't want to. Giving them that reassurance but also that choice is probably the best way to make them feel supported I think. -Verdict