#cdd introject

[chemicalcarousel]

what it feels like to have DID sometimes

[iwillbreakyourfuckingskull]

When someone tells you (pwDID) that you used to be a little girl suffering through horrific abuse, but you are a 35 y/o man who's always been that age:

[just-another-alter-blog]

Age is very weird when you got a complex dissociative disorder

I am physically 28, but internally, I see myself as a man in my late 30s, but also I formed as an alter when we were 18 or so and then I went dormant for most of our 20s, so even though I identify as older than the rest, I almost feel like I'm the youngest. I feel awkward and insecure like I was when I stumbled through the last part of high school as a misdiagnosed neurodivergent person who was bullied and mocked for "being weird". I feel like a teenage girl even if I internally see myself as a man nearing 40. I was formed by the brain of a high schooler and since I went dormant for almost a decade, I kinda didn't mature in many ways. It's especially weird being an introject and feeling this special type of shame around not being as capable as your source. I am not some strong man, who can handle intense stress. I'm essentially a traumatised child playing pretend. I'm holding on to so much shame and guilt for being such a poor excuse of an adult person. I feel so anxious and wrong for just existing - just like I, or we, did back when I split off

I'm still trying to get used to our current life as a 28 year old living alone away from our abusers, and hopefully I will feel more mature as I process my trauma and forgive my past self. But as of now, I am basically a 38 year old man in a 28 year old body with the mind of an 18 year old neurodivergent girl from 2014

[reimeichan]

Think systems with a high number of fictional introjects are a new phenomena? Kluft's paper on polyfragmented/extremely complex DID from 1988 includes a patient with LOTR introjects, and another based off of Shakespear's Tempest. Fictional introjects have been a thing for a very long time!

[leviafin]

Exotrauma

Having exotrauma from a "cringe" or "silly" source sucks. It feels like you're taken infinitely less seriously than those who have trauma from grittier, adult-geared and/or "acceptable" sources. Which in and of itself just isolates you and makes it worse.

I'm not just a silly little thing from your silly little Roblox game that could never show signs of trauma because it's 'just a kids game'--and I'm not your blorbo either. It feels like there's 2 common options for how people treat fictionkind with exotrauma:

Oh my poor little scrunkly, my little cardboard box meow meow.... Going to hold you because I love babying you and treating you like you're not even a person because I see you only as my favourite character. (Mind you, this is distinctly SEPARATE from actual friendly support, you can tell the difference.)

You're not a fictional character, get over it lmao. Yeah I know you are them but like you didn't ACTUALLY live through that, stop claiming it, it's disrespectful. Why are you upset at my memes about your death lol. Get a life.

So like... Maybe fictionkind are people. Maybe I don't want to think about the worse parts of my source. Maybe I don't want my trauma shoved in my face as a little funny joke, even if the context is changed. Maybe, just maybe... Leave alterhumans with fictional sources alone. Even if their source is lighthearted, even if it's for kids, even if it's the most "cringe" media you can think of.

Sonic the Hedgehog might've seemed fine in-source but maybe he's fucked up from all that he's been through. That warrior cat alterhuman isn't just being edgy, maybe they're suffering from the memories of fighting to survive day in and day out. Bluey is allowed to be not okay, and their source shouldn't dictate their experiences. Do you ever think that some Pokemon or trainers don't have amazing, adventurous lives travelling around with their best friends? Mario might have nightmares and flashbacks from his source. Mickey Mouse is allowed to be hurt, and allowed to express that. That MLP alterhuman isn't always going to be just a happy colourful magic pony with no issues whatsoever.

We are PEOPLE, and our sources being "happy", "for kids", "light-hearted", "fun" or anything of the sort should NOT dictate how we are treated here, what our experiences are "allowed" to be, or how we are expected to act. Treat fictionkind--of all sorts--like PEOPLE.

[funeral--pyre]

Reminder that telling a headmate to change an aspect of their identity or self to be "less problematic" is dehumanising as fuck. You can't go around doing that shit. It's entirely a you issue if you can't handle a headmate having an identity, they're not responsible for your issues or required to morph themselves into something you can swallow. Fictives, factives, people with number names, nonhumans who are "scary", headmates who are queer while the body isn't, headmates who are queer in a different way to the body, disabled headmates, etc.

You can't tell a singlet to change their entire name because you think it's problematic. You can't tell a singlet to hide their gender or sexuality because it "doesn't match" their body. You can't tell a singlet to change or hide their entire damn identity because you don't like it. You can't tell a singlet to stop having days where they experience disordered symptoms.

If the headmate in question is acting respectful, treat them with some god damn respect. It doesn't MATTER if they "match" the body. They're just as much of a person as any singlet is. You cannot convert someone into being something they're not.

[plurapony]

all about introjects!

INTRODUCTION & DISCLAIMER: This post has been on the back burner for months, but was inspired by recent incorrect information spreading regarding introjects (i.e. 9/10 introjects are factives of abusers) This will be a long post so strap in! Each subtopic will be divided into sections for easy viewing.

Section 1: Clarification On What "Introjects" Are.

When I talk about introjects I am talking about 3 specific types of introjects:

Standard Introjects These are the most common type of introject. Most fictive/factives fit into this category as a Standard Introject simply introject few or many personality traits/quirks from something pre-existing.

Concept Introjects These are introjects that are founded on a concept. For us they usually happen when gaining an introject that we are unfamiliar of the source - so the traits that are introjected are assumptions we made.

Grounded Introjects These are introjects that aren't really introjects at all. They have their own unique personality traits and qualities but have their identity tied to a pre-existing character in order to be grounded to reality.

There are some gray areas and some parts that will not fit into these categories, and that's okay. There are some parts who will present as a Standard Introject but refuse to identify with the label of "Introjects". It's important to remember that if a part wants to identify as an introject that decision is ultimately up to them and them only.

Section 2: Introject Rarity/Prevalence Outside DID

Introjects aren't rare. Many people like to act like introjects are a super rare phenomenon and therefore all introject heavy systems must be lying or faking - but that's not the case. Simply put? Introjects are drawing their identity from a pre-existing source.

It's not limited to DID either! Sometimes people want to base their identity off a character they like (have you ever seen the people who spend thousands on surgeries to look like a celebrity?) and there's nothing wrong with that. Other disorders that present with identity issues also have introjection such as autism and BPD. It's just not that much of a big deal! It can happen and there's nothing wrong with it when it happens.

If you're interested in learning more: here's a Wikipedia article about (non DID specific) introjection!

Section 3: Types of Introject Sources

When looking at the discussion of introjects online there are two types of statements I see often - "Most introjects are of abusers" & "Most introjects should be from childhood/of childhood media"

I've extensively looked online and I cannot find any verifiable statistics regarding the prevalence of the types of introject sources, so I'm going to go off a purely anecdotal and logical lens.

For us personally? Of all our introjects approximately 5% are of past abusers. It's important to note that even if you know a system you will not know whether they have introjects of abusers! Most of our parts who are introjects from abusers feel incredibly ashamed by it and have distanced themselves from their source. It's very difficult for them to have their identity tied to such horrible people and it's a secret they prefer to keep. I don't really understand that view that the most common introject are of abusers, there may be a need to introject for protection/dealing with trauma but abusers are not going to have "admirable traits" and at a certain point there isn't going to be a need for the brain to introject more of them.

Childhood introjects! Now this is something I like to talk about! Oddly enough, many of our introjects from childhood have showed up later in our recovery process as they held trauma we were not able to handle at the start of our recovery. It makes sense logically that if you are heavily prone to introjection in adulthood, you probably were heavily prone to introjection in childhood and visa versa! And that's the part that most people don't understand, they will argue that most introjects should be from childhood and neglect the fact that it makes sense logically that someone who had many introjects as a child will also have many introjects as an adult.

Section 4: Hyperfixations & Introjects

This is one of the possibly most misunderstood part of introjects. You cannot have introjects from a hyperfixation ALONE - due to the fact that all splits are going to be negatively induced. But if you are experiencing stress and trauma while you have a hyperfixation? Of course it's possible.

Let me break it down for you and explain how a hyperfixation takes over your brain. You find this new thing (show, game, etc) and it's something you really enjoy. So for the next two weeks every waking moment you spend interacting with the hyperfixation. You go to sleep thinking about your hyperfixation, you wake up excited to interact with your hyperfixation. You disengage completely with the outside world and escape into this hyperfixation. It controls every aspect of your life and you just have to comply with the hyperfixation in order to get your happy brain chemicals.

So... Why is it such a strange concept to gain an introject during that time? It's in your brain 24/7 for an extended period of time, why would it be odd for the hyperfixation to influence your split?

Thank you for reading if you made it this far!!! I've been meaning to make this post for SOO long!! I hope you learnt something and if you didn't, I hope my words resonated with you! 🩷

[sysventing]

it’s so hard being a fictive-heavy system sometimes… we have 17 fictives at last count, and i’ve been anxiously worrying over them near constantly. or uh. less of themselves specifically and more about how people treat them. some people just get so… weird about it! please, stop idolizing them because they’re your favorite character! we’ve had multiple people genuinely get upset at us because our fictive sysmates don’t closely align with THEIR OWN HEADCANONS??? THAT THEY ARE PROJECTING ONTO US FOR??? SOME REASON?

this isn’t even scraping the surface! we’ve had people get so condescending about their identity to their source, whether they still identify with it or not! someone once attempted to force one of our sysmates to completely separate himself from his exomemories when he hadn’t even existed for a day, and it nearly sent him into a dangerous spiral that would’ve ended with us hurt! can people PLEASE be normal to fictives for once?? would it kill them to be respectful and kind for once??

.

[chemicalcarousel]

Yeah, I'm a fictional introject alter 😎 I'm kinda like if your favourite character was real, but instead of being all cool and hot I'm pathetic and not like that character at all actually sorry to disappoint 😔

[iwillbreakyourfuckingskull]

me drawing myself w/ my fictional bf bc im very sane & normal <3333

[just-another-alter-blog]

I doubt I'm the only person who's dealing with this, but I'm feeling quite lonely in being an alter who formed as having an internal age being much older than the body (mid-late 30s), but I formed in our late teens and went dormant in our early 20s? maybe 20-21? And only resurfaced again a few months ago now we are 28.

I feel simultaneously like a depressed teenage girl and a 30-something y/o man. It's very confusing, especially because I'm a fictional introject and I don't really feel like many people would understand how different I am to my "source"? I see myself as looking similar, but this character is a ruthless military commander and I'm the manifestation of teenage girl depression 😅 Like, I remember we used to be extremely depressed and were attempting or at least planning our suicide all the time and we felt like we were the worst person in the world. Uh, I still feel that. I hold all those old feelings of guilt and shame like I'm just "wrong" for just existing. I guess this character had a part of his story being that he hated himself for causing his dad to die by accident and he felt like he could never atone for his sins as he lead people to die on the battlefield as a military commander and had a lot of survivor's guilt. Like, I get why we introjected him, I guess? But I'm feeling so embarrassed by being such a failure of an alter. I guess my whole point as a part is to hold all of these feelings of shame and survivor's guilt from our trauma, but it's hard. I feel like I was supposed to be a big, strong man, but I'm weaker and more fragile than our parts that visually look like children. Or that's how I feel. I think being dormant through some very important years, including me last being host/co-host when we still lived in our abusive home and were wrongly diagnosed/medicated, has made me more "immature" in many ways

I'm actually genuinely shaking right now writing this 😅 I feel like crying. It's so confusing and weird surviving trauma. It's so weird being an introject and not matching your source that much. Idk what to say, but I just need to let some of this out

Anyway, I'm gonna try to be brave and talk more and let myself exist if I can. This healing journey is scary, but uh... I'll do it scared 😅

[wonderhorror-sys]

i know theres a lot of jokes made about systems who split the entire cast of things 2 days after watching them (as in, jokes made by the systems who do that, not at expense of) (bc yk i literally run introjectheavy-cultureis lmao i get them a lot) but can we just seriously talk about that experience for a bit?

its something we often criticized ourself for - we just cant seem to watch something or read something without someone showing up.. but then i reframed it in my mind. we personally are a DID system and most of our system is traumagenic, and i realized one day. we probably get introtives so quickly because we are constantly stressed (id be nervous about revealing this but whatever, everyone knows). of course! im always running wuth one hand over the "make another alter" button and we are notoriously bad at actually keeping alters with no sources around (another post, another post).

what im saying is.. that particular experience may not relate to you but, if you can, try to reframe how you talk about and view this habbit of yours if you share it with us. even if you dont view it the same way we do, no longer treating it as just a joke or an annoyance has begun to help.

[bubblef1zz]

Hi! This is a blog looking at introjection, projection and introjects as a whole. Welcome!

To start us off, I want to explain first what introjection actually is! I think a lot of people forget what it means and what it refers to. So, in terms of psychology, introjection (or internalization) is an unconscious process. It's the process of internalising the thoughts or personality traits of others. It can be a normal part of a child's development, like when a child takes on parental values, attitudes, ideology, and such.

Introjection also works as a defence mechanism! They take the ideas, feelings, and/or attitudes of others and make that part of themself. Though it can be healthy, it can also be unhealthy; many may internalise negative or harmful beliefs. Introjection affects people's thoughts, too.

Introjection does not only apply to Dissociative Disorders! It's a process anyone can go through.

I see a lot of people talk about introjection online through the lens of introject alters, some I've seen have made it out as if only alter systems experience introjection; that's not quite right! While yes, introjects of people in our lives can exist, that's not all there is to introjection. It's not exclusive to CDDs.

Introjection is not the same as projection. While introjection is internalising those values, projection is where someone takes those internal beliefs and values and projects them onto external subjects. Projection can be a defense mechanism; used to expel and externalise those uncomfortable inner thoughts and feelings. Introjection is the opposite of projection.

Introjects are alters that hold onto those beliefs and values.

If they didn't introject those aspects, they wouldn't be considered introjects! Whether that be fictional or factual introjects, they need something to introject in order to be considered such. They need to have those compartmentalised aspects.

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Introjection

https://www.simplypsychology.org/introjection-defense-mechanism.html

https://www.therapytrainings.com/pages/blog/introjection-understanding-and-addressing-internalized-beliefs-in-therapy?srsltid=AfmBOor_G-r3tS3fxMg-DMAoUJ-QCTKvN7mLbd2jOZMmJQ7cpSFP7Kod

https://changingminds.org/disciplines/psychoanalysis/concepts/projection_introjection.htm

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/introjection

https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/medicine-and-dentistry/introjection

[wysecollection]

I have no proof for this but maybe the reason a lot of systems have introjects from more recent/popular media is because when the disorder was getting brutally misunderstood on Tiktok and other social medias was around 2020-2021 which was also when kin culture was becoming more "normal" or mainstream (I'm aware it existed in full force before, just that a lot of new people were getting into it), and was also during a time that people were spending a lot of time indoors and engaging in media during a globally isolating and stressful time and pwDID found it easier (not by choice but by their brain's function) to take traits from fictional characters that made them feel less alone.

[hellgai]

✦ Planoject …

A Planogect is a term used to describe a headmate whose source is a planet. This doesn’t have to be one of the eight, any planet. { includes pluto }

[plurapony]

Introjects are SO much more than "I'm Just that Character!"

Introjects, whether fictive or factive, all have a role they contribute to the system, they have a reason why they exist. Sometimes that is being source connected and an exact copy of their source! BUT THAT ISN'T ALWAYS THE CASE!!!!

To demonstrate what I'm talking about I want you all to meet Shy, Flora and Petalfluff. All three are introjects of the character Fluttershy from My Little Pony. But all three are very very different and the ways they have introjected from Fluttershy is different.

Shy introjects mainly Fluttershy's shy and innocent qualities. He himself scares very easily and his role in the system is to be a childlike part.

Flora introjects Fluttershy's love for animals as well as her assertiveness. Flora does not have any qualities of being shy - to the point where sometimes she says it's like she's introjected from Mean Fluttershy. Because of her fierceness, Flora is a protector in the system.

Petalfluff introjects the well roundness of Fluttershy's character, the assertiveness when she needs to but also the timidness. The most important part of what Petalfluff introjects is Fluttershy's ability to be kind and see the best in the world. She's hopeful and encourages us to always take the route of kindness. Petalfluff's role in the system is housekeeper.

Introjects rely on perception, and as you can see for a multi-faceted character or person there can be multiple different perceptions. Introjects themselves are multi-faceted and there's so much more under the surface than what a lot of people think.

The brain is simply taking some, or all, traits from a pre-existing character or person in an event of stress or trauma in order to benefit the well-being of the overall system. If you are an introject and are super source connected! That's so cool, a bunch of our introjects are also source connected! Just know that isn't always the case :)

[IMAGE ID: ponyville is (pro) endo free zone break dni and get blocked loser! END ID]