#but at the same time we'd kind of accepted that some alters might fuse but we'd never knowingly experienced it | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

system-of-a-feather · 3 months

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Are you still accepting asks about late stage DID recovery? I (host of a DID system in more early to mid stage recovery) have some questions about it, if you're comfortable answering (some of them might be too personal and I understand that).

What is communication like when you're Fei? Like, can you still feel and talk to yourselves as distinct? For example say one of you gets anxious about something, can you pinpoint "this is who is feeling anxious" and talk to them to reassure them, or does it feel like ALL of you are anxious and it's just everybody's feeling all at once, and talking to them feels like self-talk?

Do any of you (especially those who have tended to be more different from the rest of the system) feel like you've lost any of yourself and the things that make you you, when you're fused?

Especially regarding #1, do you know how your experience compares to people who say they've reached final fusion? Like other than it being temporary, is there anything that makes it distinct? And same question for functional multiplicity I guess.

Do you/any of you ever get scared/worried about the possibility of someday not being able to separate or even not being able to identify yourselves as separate consciousnesses? And if no, is that because you don't see that as possible for you, because even if it did happen it wouldn't scare you, or both?

There are a couple of vloggers with DID whose content we've been watching since pretty early into our diagnosis because it was comforting to us to see systems who could put words to things we had experienced and show us that things might not always be as hard as they were in those early days of system awareness. But one of them has just unexpectedly had her whole entire system fuse together in the span of like 2 months, despite that she wasn't aiming for final fusion (she didn't have a specific goal picked out as far as that)... and the other is coming back from hiatus and shared that they had a fusion that none of the system, including BOTH the alters who fused together, had wanted. And hearing those things freaked us out.

We're just now at a point of feeling like most of us know who we are, most of us can trust that the rest of the system has each other's backs, that kind of thing. For many of us, we can love ourselves as a whole (the way we exist right now though, a fragmented whole) and as individual consciousnesses, and we love each other like family.

But every single aspect of who we are as "people," how we function in the world together as a "whole person," how we communicate and relate to one another... every single thing about it would change if we fused, you know? I know people say that you don't lose anything or anyone when a fusion happens, but the fact is, no one involved in the fusion exists in the same way they used to anymore after it happens. (Or so my understanding of it is.) And that's a very scary and painful thing to think about for us right now.

I feel like 90% of the time, our communication and teamwork goes so smoothly. I wouldn't say we're close to functional multiplicity, because there are still a number of us who have little to no communication with each other (and I know I'm still not even aware of everyone in the system), but we're finally at a point of feeling stronger together, caring about each other, most of us trusting each other to have our backs, and that kind of thing. And hearing other systems talk about unexpected -- and especially unwanted -- fusions, well... yeah. That scares me.

If we ever reach a point where fusion feels natural and like something we want, we're trying to stay open to the idea of that and we think we'd accept it at that point. But we absolutely would want it to be something that we got to choose, and that happened because we wanted it to happen. You know? The idea that if we process through our trauma and keep working together well, that one day we might just... fuse without wanting to or deciding to... it freaks me out.

Thank you for bearing with this long message lol.

Ayeee Im gonna reply as I read this (I skimmed the first half and decided Id just write as I read); so keep that in context when reading my reply.

What is communication like when you're Fei?

So we actually went on a small tangent below the cut in this post about it cause we were thinking about it as Fei and found it interesting when we paid more attention to how we communicate. But generally when we are Fei we just kinda don't *need* to explicitly communicate or rather, in other terms, focus on paying attention to the communication we are having internally. A lot of it happens smoothly and fast to where a lot of the time it just kinda floats in our head quietly and passes through while we are acting and thus we don't always fully actively attend to the back and forth. As a result, if we aren't meaning to pay attention to it, it often gets kind of "brushed over" in how we internally interpret the communication to be kind of summarized in a more singular identity than specifically paying attention to which part is saying what.

The underlying conversation between parts is still there and if I reflect back and focus more into what was going on in my head, I can absolutely identify the individual parts and the interactions and even BE the individual parts, but usually - when I'm not intentionally looking closely at my thoughts - it's just "Oh I don't want to do that, but you know, I DO want to do that and I could do it better if I was in more of a [part] headspace so I'll let that part win over and so now I do want to do that" when underneath it there was a lot of banter between the "dominant" part at the time (in the post above, Riku) and the other part that would be better to have (in the post above, Chunn). It's only when I actively double took my own thoughts did I go "hey wait a minute that was a funny banter"

Like, can you still feel and talk to yourselves as distinct?

Yeah sometimes. A lot of the time unless something particularly comes up or sparks the interest of a specific part, usually we just kind of exist as a whole, but the second anything interesting comes up, parts tend to rear their head and blabber like they want. It doesn't usually feel as intensely like a whole separate part necessarily, but the distinction is pretty clear even then and its kinda funny as Fei sometimes cause I'm like "Lol [part brain] and [other part brain] are bantering". It's kinda like having mixed feelings I think but with a lot more respect to the complexities, identities, and histories that back the sources of those mixed feelings. I can hear and watch and feel and talk with the parts of myself that generate the mixed feelings and even see and visualize them without them Not Being Me. I am Chunn, I am Riku, I am XIV, I am Ray, I am all of them all at once but also at the same time, I could very easily just choose to be just one of them if I wanted because in the end, they're all me.

For example say one of you gets anxious about something, can you pinpoint "this is who is feeling anxious" and talk to them to reassure them, or does it feel like ALL of you are anxious and it's just everybody's feeling all at once, and talking to them feels like self-talk?

Yes to both. It's kind of hard to explain how it is Both, but firstly, absolutely we almost always can tell which part is feeling anxious as a whole and usually other parts do step in to help lessen their anxiety and help them soothe and talk through it 100%. If I didn't have that I would loose my mind and that is unironically coming from all of our parts. At this point basically everyone in our system is so deeply supportive and looking out for one another and it's really the only way a lot of us have been able to find any peace with how each individual part tends to be such a huge extreme and prone to bouts of really bad self care or maladaptive behavior when left on their own. So we really rely on each other to call each other out, support each other, step in when a part is struggling and cover for one another. Even as a unified whole, its very essential to be looking out for one another and being diligent over eachother's needs - it just kind of comes from a much "higher up" kind of eagle-view lens than a 'on the ground lens' for a lack of better words.

We keep an eye out for each other through a sort of collective lens rather than independently from disconnected views. And so we do notice when one part is agitated or on their shit and usually we can shift around parts to support and help regulate that part as they need. And we do still talk out loud, and it is both to ourselves and to the part at the same time and it feels both like self-soothing and like soothing another person and like being soothed by another person. The best thing is that you get both the joy and dopamine of being a supportive person for someone you care about AND the warmth and dopamine of being supported by someone you care about at the same time.

I never feel alone with myself.

Do any of you (especially those who have tended to be more different from the rest of the system) feel like you've lost any of yourself and the things that make you you, when you're fused?

Naaaah. We have the side system that is usually sleeping both when we are a whole and when we aren't that does sometimes - when fronting - feel out of place a bit because our life is not as centered around those parts being largely engaged parts of ourselves but even they wouldn't say they are "lost" at all

I mean to some degree, it might be somewhat because we are buddhist and don't really believe in the "concept of self / I / me" and don't really define ourselves in any way other than "whatever I am right now", but we just get to do and be everything all at once. Everyone is still here and everyone here can really just become the prominent part or even a completely dominant part and they will be 100% in their natural glory. Riku's disgusting optimism and stubbornness is still here. XIV's loud and obtuse opinionated ass is here. Chunn's "what do you mean you don't do weed you act stoned 24/7" headass is here. Lucille's lack of ability to respond to a tease in a way that doesn't make it funnier is still here. It's just kinda like we can just toggle whats expressed the most at any time.

From what I've heard its actually pretty similar? It's pretty hard to tell what with how complex internal experiences are and how you can only really communicate them through the limited confines of human speech and language, but from what I've read it seems to be pretty common with a lot of people who have reached final fusion.

I do think our perspective on self and life has a large impact on how we like to perceive and operate ourself because - between being AAPI and a buddhist - we have a very very very low value and concern for the concept of identity and individuality and largely do embrace a very fluid, open and ever changing idea of self. As part of our own life perspective and self care and practice, we do actively put effort to removing the concept of "I" and individualism from our lives because we find it just tends to cause more stress than its worth (and also play into the hands of capitalism and just a lot of things we hate about Western American society but I am gonna SMOTHER the XIV brain that wants to go off on that because its NOT the point of this post) so in THAT sense

I do think there is an element of "uniqueness" to the way we operate due to our very core value for fluidity, removal of the concept of "I", and active intent to practice appreciating and enjoying the world as parts of a whole not only in terms of DID but as a part of the world. The way we interact with our DID is about the same way we like to interact with the world and try to interact with the people in our lives, so those sorts of things are non-negligible aspects of how final fusion and functional multiplicity work for us compared to others that might not have as much of an approach to life.

At the core I think it's basically the same, we just enjoy a different perspective in life that tends to also reflect a lot in how we experience ourselves and our symptoms.

Before? Absolutely. Especially when we were first figuring it out and trying to learn how to hold Fei longer AND willingly re-seperate if we wanted to. It was actually absolutely terrifying at first because we had spent our whole life being specific parts and a lot of us were kind of terrified on what it would be like if anything got botched or screwed up or if only some parts fused and others didn't and it ruined the stability and synergies we had built up and god, the anxiety and catastrophization of it all is endless.

It used to be TERRIFYING and there were times we struggled to re-seperate when we wanted to (ironically in periods of high stress a lot of the time) and it did cause us some distress, but over time we kind of learned to just... relax and stop worrying as much about it and just trust in ourselves - more specifically ourselves as Fei. Cause I think in some way or form, us being anxious about not being able to re-divide kind of made us panic throw up partial walls between each other which did seperate us SOME but more than anything just made it harder to fluidly flow between parts which then resulted in us just getting stuck with one-part-dominant Fei. Which is what sometimes caused what we would call "fused-stuck" which feels a lot like being front stuck, but as a fused whole when you can't really properly utelize the other parts you are fused with. It was HORRIBLE, I hated it, but kinda like being frontstuck it passes with time and we just kinda had to go "this too will pass and we will eventually be able to regain our fluidity" and lo and behold, eventually we did gain that fluidity back as well as the ability to just be one specific part should we really want to.

That said, these days? No not really. To some level, yeah it is because I don't think it would really scare us much these days. I don't really necessarily like the idea of being forever fused, but I wouldn't really say it 'scares' us to think about it. Eh maybe a bit from certain parts, cause like right now like maybe 80% of my brain is "ehhh itd suck but itd be fine" and like 20% goes "uhhhh actually" and like at least the Riku part in our brain is going "UHH" so... XD

But even then, that's just when we think about it too long cause certain parts are prone to catastrophizing and thinking about all the horrible ways that could go whereas us - as a whole - are a little better at acknowledging the unforseeable benefits that could also come from it.

For the most part though, the reason it's a "no" is just cause we really just... don't think about it. It's not really something on the forefront of our mind or even like, the middlefront of it. We have a lot of things going on in our life and a lot of things we enjoy and things we enjoy a lot less but are important and it just... doesn't occur to us 98% of the days anymore.

I know people say that you don't lose anything or anyone when a fusion happens, but the fact is, no one involved in the fusion exists in the same way they used to anymore after it happens. (Or so my understanding of it is.) And that's a very scary and painful thing to think about for us right now.

Eh, yes and no - at least in my experience. It's less about parts being the same way or not the same way as they were before in any real way of "morphing" or changing or anything like that and a lot more of just... existing in a wider lens. Kinda think of it like a really detailed painting of sorts. When you are individual parts dissociated from eachother, you can look really really closely at a specific aspect of the art. You can look at how the artist used brush strokes on the specific flower and the hues and you can really appreciate that very close and specific view. Sometimes you can look at another part really closely and remember what the other corner looked like and there is a lot of deep and intricate analysis and appreciation that can come from those close views. The issue is, with those really close up views, its hard to appreciate both simultaneously and even more harder to appreciate MULTIPLE pieces simultaneously let alone appreciate the art as a whole.

And so for me, fusion is just kind of like stepping away and putting the microscope away and just taking in the complex art and painting as a whole. You can survey and focus - from a distance - at any specific part and you can quickly change between each aspect, compare and contrast them, analyze how the parts of the painting play into an overall narrative and how the styles and ways the art is drawn may reflect upon one another. Every individual part is still there and the comparisons and analysis can still be made from a distance. You just get to see more

And in my experience, sometimes I REALLY just wanna study that flower and how that flower was painted alone, because sometimes that very specific very close up very detailed understanding of a specific part of the art is better than just gazing at the whole thing. And that's the great thing. I can always just pull my microscope back out and hone back in.

Stepping away from the painting and getting a wider view doesn't mean that the flower that was otherwise zoomed in on is suddenly inaccessible.

And I guess the analogy doesn't work perfectly because in practice, sometimes interactions between parts may change other parts but 1) is that not just part of life and living in a social world? People come and go and everyone leaves a little part of themselves with everyone they interact with. Change is inevitable and a beautiful and important part of life and 2) even within the analogy, when you understand more of the full picture, sometimes your understanding of the flower alone will change, and that's okay because the flower is still them. Your understanding just became more complex

That said, I absolutely do still understand the fear and pain from the idea of it. Change is frightening, especially with a history of trauma and especially when you have found peace and safety within the parts in your system. I don't want to invalidate that at all cause yeah, absolutely been there and its horribly terrifying. I've just been doing this for a minute and over time I've just kind of learned to trust that no matter what form and opinions any of the parts have and no matter how they change, all these guys are never not going to be the people I need in my life and they are always going to be there for me, when I need them in the way I need them.

They're always going to be them and I'm gonna ride or die with these assholes so, fuck it man. If they turn into a 20ft tall tarantula tomorrow or a worm, I'd still love them and trust that even as a worm they'd still ride or die to support me.

Yeah thats a completely fair and valid place to be and honestly where we were for years of our healing journey. I think the most anyone can do with something that feels terrifying and is a bit unnatural / untrue to how they currently feel in life is to ask themselves to TRY to be open to an idea. There's nothing wrong with acknowledging that currently it scares you and that currently its not something you are ACTUALLY open to the thought of cause thats fine and fair. Being scared, being not ready, and being unable to genuinely consider it are all completely normal feelings and feelings can't really be forced to change or appear in a specific way. Recovery is a huge and long journey and as much as everyone would love for things to just "be right" and have the "healthy mindset", that stuff takes time to authentically and genuinely develop. As long as there is a slightly creaked open door to be willing to let new experiences naturally flow in, I'm sure you'll get to a place that is healthy, happy and comfortable for you.

Whether or not that is final fusion, functional multiplicity, wishiwashi, or something completely out there beyond my fathoming is far beyond anything I could say cause recovery can take you wild places with it's ways of getting you to a place that makes you happy, but whatever form it takes, you'll get there. It might suck and struggle and be scary at times, but you'll get there - just don't judge yourself for not being able to fit into a specific direction or specific way of thinking or fitting into some standards.

Follow your authentic self and expression and I'm sure you'll find what works for you and what is right for you, even among the chaos. ^^

Anywayyyys, that's another long post to reply to your long ask XD It was a nice chat and ramble so thanks for the ask. I kinda like talking about this stuff so its much appreciated

PS: I will almost* never complain about a long ask, anyone that following this blog knows I post replies that are like 10 pages long for a question like "do you like cheese" because I go on so many tangents and have a lot of thoughts on everything and just like Thinking About Things.

(* = I do not wish to underestimate the power of weird tumblr users /neutral)

#alter: fei #final fusion #functional multiplicity #wishiwashi recovery #ask #asks #did #actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #long post #i rarely tag that #but between the ask and my response #it is a LONG post

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