#and since then we've had an easier time ignoring that kind of stuff and coping with certain moral OCD triggers

[thethingything]

it's very weird trying to manage both depression and dissociation, where being really apathetic about stuff is generally a bad sign, and OCD, where feeling apathy towards the stuff your brain freaks out about is what you're aiming for.

sometimes it's like, a specific OCD trigger will bother us less and less, but it'll coincide with us our depression getting worse or us being really overwhelmed and then dissociating a lot, and we get stuck wondering how much of the apathy towards the OCD triggers is from us making progress and how much is just our brain going "I can't bring myself to give a shit anymore" because we're doing bad in other ways

[amysubmits]

hi amy, i’ve been reading your posts for a while and i’m sure you’ve answered a question like this before so feel free to just link a related post rather than answering it over again.

but basically, i’ve always had trouble with talking about my feelings and emotions. i have a bad problem with repressing and ignoring my feelings until it finally catches up with me. this is my first d/s dynamic and my dom has repeatedly reassured me that i can come to him whenever i need to talk. he wants to, and needs to be able to help me work out my emotions and he had the feeling that i’d be having a “meltdown” soon. well, said meltdown did happen and it was because i mistakenly triggered some bad memories for him. he told me he was okay and that it wasn’t my fault, he knew i had good intentions. it didn’t make me feel any better. i feel even worse now since i know he wanted to be there when i finally reached the tipping point. i don’t know how to approach this with him, i don’t want to burden him with all this but i also know its a big part of my submission and he’s told me that he wants it all and to be there for me. i feel like i’m making this about myself and throwing a bunch of baggage on him. any advice?

Hi Anon :)

This is kind of weird timing because CD and I talked about some of this stuff yesterday! I wish I had more 'actionable' advice, but I see this as something that will likely be a long-term issue for you to work on slowly over time.

As far as not recognizing your emotions until you meltdown, maybe it would be helpful to try to have regular times to 'check in' with yourself ad just ask yourself how you're really feeling, and really think about it? Or seems how your Dom seems to recognize it before you do, maybe if he's okay with pointing out to you that he sees this coming (as he did this time) you can use those moments as a time to pause and reflect on what is wrong, or what you may need to help yourself de-stress, or 'refill your bucket' or whatever it is that you need.

As far as worrying about burdening him...I think when we've lived our whole lives with a certain mindset like "I shouldn't bother others with my feelings/needs." that is a really challenging thing to re-wire...so you can't expect it to happen overnight...but you just try to be conscious of your default way of thinking, vs how you actually want to think, and try to change it. For example, when you catch yourself thinking that you don't want him to deal with your baggage, just try to remind yourself that he wants deep emotional intimacy with you, and 'dealing with your baggage on your own' doesn't really work. He 'feels' your baggage by seeing that you're stressed and headed for a meltdown...and that impacts him. You can't really be in a partnership and cope with your emotions entirely independently. When you're in a relationship with someone, your mood and mental health have an impact on them whether you share what's going on in your head or not.

CD has said before that much of D/s is basically just a form of emotional labor. I struggle with not wanting to burden him with my emotions sometimes, too. One thing that sometimes helps me is remembering that D/s is primarily about emotional labor. This reminds me that when I try to shield him from my emotions, what i'm really doing is blocking him out and disrupting our emotional intimacy. When I'm able to 'remember' that it's harmful to our intimacy to try to handle too much on my own, then it's easier to let myself 'burden him' with my emotions, as I remember it has the reward of emotional intimacy for us both.

That's not to say it's a quick fix. It's super hard to change your default thinking on stuff like this. I think all you can really do is try to be conscious of your default thinking vs how you really want to think, and just slowly but surely work towards your goal.

[ablednt]

ur blog is refreshing bc it doesnt ask of systems to perfectly classify everything about themselves. the specific number of alters, what role each alter plays, what diagnosis they would get. its good. it makes it easier to just think about whats going on w/out diagnosing shit u dont know bc ur all panicked to be a perfect system.

anyway, i think i am a co-host bc the other co-host we've identified has a much "nicer" personality, cares about school and uni and the future, has their own name and feelings and stuff. i dont care about much so we think that maybe ive been the one in charge over the last yr where we've been heavily dissociated, unmotivated, coping by ignoring everything. yeah im healthy like that /sarcastic. idk if thats valid or exactly correct, but ykw? idc if im exactly correct! i care that ive felt more grounded than i have in years, the possible other co host feels more positive and grounded, and we're doing okay. so this blog helps.

sorry for the lil rant im just tired and this blog feels safe to talk.

Super glad that we've made this blog a safe space for other systems since we desperately needed that safeplace when we were first figuring things out for ourselves but basically wound up isolated for a while and just had two plural friends who were just as new as us to everything (and that era was okay because we cherish our friends so much to this day/g but it was also a very uncertain time and I know it put a heavy strain on all of us because we were kind of feeling around in the dark and panicky about anyone else really knowing about us because of some trauma we went through together)

Anyway yeah if that's what you think is the case that's probably it! You know your system and your brain/body more than anyone else does, always remember to trust your intuition with this stuff. Sometimes you won't know everything, in fact, almost all of the time you won't know everything, but you will know the essentials. In general, the only thing you really need to be open to rather than these huge revelations is subtle shifts in perspective that suddenly change everything in a way. Like you may think one thing is the case, and then you come at it from a different perspective and then whilst it seems super different and you'd now use different terms to describe it, the base truth from your initial intuition is most likely the same.

There are other things that could have caused that (one coming to mind with what limited information I have is if your co-host went dormant for that time you were mostly or entirely in control, for a rough example) but ultimately, you're entirely correct in not caring about the exact details of your past. The answers that you need, that are important, will come to you over time and that's natural and okay. You're both here now (if I'm not misreading) and that's what matters most. You don't need to understand everything about yourself.

Hell, imagine going up to a singlet and asking them half of the things that people ask system members.

Like damn just goes up to some random person like, "hey what's your purpose? why did you brain create your ego specifically? Do you have trauma? How much does your trauma effect your personality??" that's exactly what a lot of the multiple/plural community is doing and it's so exhausting honestly.