#didresolution

[hiiragi7]

Things I've experienced post-Final Fusion:

All of a sudden, the days felt really... really... really long. I never really felt like there was any time in the day prior to final fusion; living my life in parts, I had never experienced such continuous flow of time before. It's long.

It feels like I now have a lot more time to do things in the day, and I have to be careful not to push myself too hard. I've found myself being online less and less and getting a lot more involved in my offline hobbies and reading. I have a lot more time to work towards things I want to do.

I can actually think about and plan for the future now, and it's incredibly exciting. I talk to my partner constantly about it. I am very excited about the future.

I can remember so much more of my childhood, things I never thought I would ever remember I now do. That being said, there are still things I don't remember, likely tied to other memory issues, and I've made my peace with that.

While my memory certainly got significantly better in many ways, I've realized I struggle with non-dissociative memory issues as well, and I will live with those issues for the rest of my life; it's just how my brain developed, and that's okay.

Speaking of memory, I can remember things freely that before were limited to the memory banks of my individual parts. I no longer have to worry about what parts hold which memories and go about tracking them down; I as a whole either remember something or I don't, and of my memories, I can remember any of them whenever I want.

I feel a sense of ownership over my life, over my memories and my sense of self and my body. I can look at it all and very confidently say "that's me", and I feel and know it to be 100% true. A long way away from not being able to recognize myself in the mirror.

I can't dissociatively "take a break" from life the way I used to (ie switching out and letting another part handle it), and while it took a long adjustment period to get used to this, I'm okay with that; I have other ways to take breaks while still being present, I can listen to music or watch videos. If I really just need to be unconscious, I take a nap.

I had to come to terms with the fact I couldn't push myself past my limits anymore in the way that I used to, and that this is in fact an expression of self-care for me. I used to be able to push far past what I should have been able to, especially with regards to physical pain, and to some extent I can still do this under specific circumstances, but it is no longer something that I will do in my day-to-day life living with disability and chronic pain.

Actually existing in my body now, I have come to realize just how much chronic pain I have been in. It's made me a lot more alert to my needs and how to care for myself, what makes it better and what makes it worse.

When people say "there's always a chance you'll split again", it doesn't scare me; it comforts me to know my brain would still know how to cope if such an extreme situation occured that I needed to split again. I've worked through dissociative barriers, I could do it again. I know what lies at the end of that path is love.

No part of me has ever gone away. Even fully fused, we are all still here. I can even still communicate with myself as parts if I choose to. I still have parts, they just look different now. There are no barriers between us.

My parts held a lot of different aspects of my identity to them, aspects I'm still to this day sorting out. I've had a lot of realizations about who I am as a person post-final fusion, especially with regards to gender and disability. A lot of things about myself were formerly very heavily fragmented and dissociated which no longer are, and I'm still making sense of them.

I no longer experience flashbacks and nightmares. This is a major thing for me I sometimes still am in disbelief about, my nightmares used to be so severe that I would refuse to sleep because of them, and my flashbacks were horrible and caused very intense physical sensations. I no longer have them, and that's incredible.

Life is so much more vivid and colorful than I ever realized. I never realized how dull everything felt and looked before final fusion. It feels like a complete perspective shift that is hard to grasp in words.

I can feel my body so much more now physically than I ever could before. I feel each of my limbs, I feel changes in temperature, I feel my own breath, I feel different textures and sensations, everything I hear and see and feel and taste has so much more depth to it now.

I have emotions! A whole lot of them, and I can feel all of them. I can feel emotions that might be percieved as "contradictory" at the same time, I can feel emotions over little things and big things and just about anything at all. I'm no longer limited to feeling my emotions in parts, and it's incredibly freeing.

On that note, I have so much more emotional capacity now for feeling all of the love I have for myself and others. It's wonderful. I can't shut up about it.

[reimeichan]

Stages of DID recovery

Stage 1: my brain is so quiet. I feel nothing. hear nothing. remember nothing. it's just... nothing.

Stage 2: HOLY FUCK THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE SHUT SHUT UP SHUT UP STOP THINKING THERE'S TOO MUCH THINKING

Stage 3: we're now in sync, everything is in peace, we understand each other, sometimes we need to talk but it's fine it's not as chaotic-

Stage 4: HOLY FUCK I'M FEELING AND THINKING EVERYTHING FROM EVERYONE THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING THESE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS FROM EXISTING THIS IS TOO MUCH SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPPPPP

Stage 5: actually this is normal and fine. we're good.

[symptoms-syndrome]

While I like the idea of a tag for later stage DID recovery, I don't feel like there's any really effective way to utilize it. What counts as late stage + where people are at after x years of treatment are still all going to be pretty different, maybe even more so than early stage. IDK I'm not as In Touch w things as I used to be but I remember being really frustrated by tags primarily because I thought I was in later stage recovery than I was mostly because I didn't relate to all the "I just discovered I have DID and I love my system mates and here's all their bios" type posts. What I was looking for was a different expression of DID moreso than I was looking for a different stage of recovery. IDK that's my thoughts, that if the problem attempting to be solved is unrelatablity I just don't think that's as easy as creating a new box basically everyone will start to hop into.

[system-of-a-feather]

Yo I just saw the tag #didresolution and I really like it and I think that might be one of the best tags to use with that said, I think we really should coordinate a bit and create a new space for specifically discussion on DID in later stages of recovery, full integration, and what not. So..

DID / OSDD blogs share for larger reach ^^

[thrivingwhilemultiple]

There's a misconception that people with DID can't "hang out" with their different parts; it's old, it’s tired, and I'm tired of hearing it. I might even argue DID survivors end up knowing themselves more deeply and intimately than most.

Group activities bridge the chasms between, and better our ability to get out of each other's way. Sharing space can be a wonderful experience, especially during the boring and mundane. Folding laundry. Picking up the mail. Movie nights. Choosing that day's socks.

We survived together, and we heal together. We laugh, we cry, and then we vacuum our floor together.

Group Activities

[theorionissystem]

It would be nice if there were specific tags for people further in recovery.

Like I really don't mesh with a lot of the stuff in the tags these days.

Well thats when the tags aren't also flooded with things having nothing to do with the disorder... but that's neither here nor there.

[greens-spilled-tea]

if you're ok answering: who are the late stage DID bloggers? 👀 i'm looking into integration/final fusion myself and would really really like to see more people who talk about it

@subsystems recently answered a really similar ask about this! I'll put the link here for ya.

I'll also suggest @theorionissystem for good late-stage content, and I also know @smokee78 has achieved final fusion. I have a few other systems in mind who may fit the bill but I don't know if they'd label themselves late stage/in remission DID bloggers so I'll leave them off the list for now. If you're a fellow late-stage recovery/in-remission DID blogger please let me know! I'm always down to follow more people further along in their DID journey as it gives me a lot of hope and a feeling of community in a space that often feels like earlier stage healing shenanigans are talked about. Not that earlier stage stuff is bad! But sometimes it can get a bit lonely feeling like you're the only person with these experiences and being able to connect with others who are in a similar place as me has genuinely helped me a lot.

[littlest-bugz]

Relapsing is a part of healing

[one systems perspective on relapsing during Resolution/late stage DID recovery.]

This post has been cooking in my drafts for a while, but since I'm back in a headspace where I would consider myself back in Resolution, I'm comfortable talking about this. I'm airing out my dirty laundry quite a bit in this post, but the reason I'm making this post is because of the fact I don't see many late stage recovery systems talk about relapsing back into dissociation and other CDD symptoms. I'm here to say it's totally okay and a part of healing. I don't know who needs to hear that, but I definitely did. I didn't hear it until i was in therapy.

A couple of months ago [when I was initially writing this post], I went through a series of traumatic events, including little over 3 weeks of reoccurring flashbacks due to a re-traumatizing situation. I have lovingly dubbed it 'the three weeks of hell'. There was more than just that, including 2 explosive breakdowns, where I just couldn't handle all the input I was getting with what all was going on. I was a whole wreck for a moment there, that's for sure. THANKFULLY, we only split off a one new alter after everything, which is healing progress, but it meant an increase in blackout amnesia in our day to day life, let alone the dissociation it was causing the system as a whole, nearly putting us back at step one of recovery.

The moment I noticed the blackout amnesia and increase in DID symptoms, I started thinking I had ruined any progress I could've possibly made. It felt like I had taken ten steps forward and then tumbled down the stairs. I never got to process the trauma as it just began to pile on, and eventually I popped in probably the worst explosive breakdown I've EVER had- my fight or flight kicked in and for gods know what reason, my brain chose fight. But that breakdown had solidified that 'fuck, I'm getting worse again' mentality I had going on. Everyone I knew seemed to 'keep it together' during rough times, so why couldn't I?

So that brought me to this post.

I wondered why I don't see talk of relapse in Late Stage Recovery spaces, let alone general CDD spaces. I figure, in my mind, that it's because it just isn't talked about. At least, not frequently. In the space I have curated for myself, I see a lot of fellow late stage recovery systems and finally fused systems, but everyone seems to not have relapsed at any point. Granted, this is the internet, and people show what they want others to see, but I felt ashamed for a good while that I had relapsed back into the amnesiac aspects of my dissociation. I didn't feel like I could call the stage of healing I am in 'late stage recovery'. But that's just. not true. I still am. My healing is ongoing, and I was able to resolve it.

In recovery for many disorders, relapses are, inherently, a part of the process of healing. Symptoms resurfacing is, to some extent, part of healing. Everyone is bound to have slip ups and rough times, and if your go to coping mechanism is dissociation [in CDDs cases], it's possible that you might slip back into those maladaptive mechanisms due to the stress of life happenings, but that's okay. What is needed is to learn the proper coping skills to deal with that stress, but it can be extremely hard to unlearn maladaptive coping skills and make turning towards healthy ones a default. Relapsing gives you the time to reinforce and build up what skills you do have.

When the three weeks of hell was occurring, I didn't exactly have the coping skills necessary to keep on with life, and any I did have, they were not 'automatic' enough. On top of that, my therapist was conveniently out of office for those three weeks. It did give me the time to make my skills stronger. Of course, I felt terrible about it but Relapsing is okay. As long as you learn how to deal with the stress and trauma, that's what matters. I'm still learning how to properly cope with everything that happened during those weeks, to be blunt, but I have gained a grasp on Resolution pretty quickly afterwards. I don't think it would've been possible to recover so easily had I not been in late stage recovery, and like I said before, it helped reinforce my coping skill box, making them stronger and much easier to recall. I definitely would say that relapsing was a part of my healing. Didn't feel good, but it became a huge factor in how we cope day to day.

TLDR; Relapsing during Resolution [Functional Multiplicity/Final fusion] is a part of recovery itself.

[arcane-sync]

I'm not sure the specific tag chosen matters so much as getting the word out that tags are being crafted for the specific purpose of talking about late stage recovery of DID.

I dont care about the specific words, but I care about the cause. Go pay attention to that discussion. I'm just here to spread the word. These things exist. Using them might be helpful.

For those curious, I'm... probably close to functional multiplicity? Hell if I know exactly. I'm functioning, anyway. I dare say I'm even functioning well. I just feel like I have more stuff I want to work on before I claim the title for myself.

[littlest-bugz]

Another system who uses both SimplyPlural AND Pluralkit! As well as a system who has reached resolution [ie, functional multiplicity + final fusion- somewhere between both].

In the past, when we were first getting started on SP, we stressed about tracking switches because we had complete blackout amnesia where we would lose huge chunks of time because of not knowing switches, but kind of similar to system-of-a-feather, the hyper awareness of our symptoms almost made them worse. DID was extremely debilitating for us, so we wanted to keep track of all that lost time. It was stressful tracking front like that though- It's actually ALWAYS been stressful to track our fronting because of how complex our DID is and has been. We honestly stopped caring about tracking our front and focused more on memory sharing, especially these days when a good 90% of us are co-con in some fashion.

So, over time, we switched to using SP as just a, like, log of alters. Like where we keep their information and such, but SP has now become pretty obsolete for us as we switch over to Notion and Pluralkit. We don't like SP that much, and we are trying to get away from it. After all this time, It really doesn't feel productive for us.

About PK tho- We honestly do not use it that often, but we love it a lot. We have our whole system in PK and can use it pretty easily, but we like to not use it because not using it encourages integration for our system. For us, some of our integration and resolution was achieved through a mindset of 'no matter who I am, I am me', so using PK was sometimes the exact opposite of that motto, iykwim?

PK for us is used for more important decisions and discussions that are productive towards our healing. Sometimes, we can't just work through things as one whole, so we need to talk it out. Most of the time, we have someone transcribing these things on pk, as a means of saving the information, and transcribing it has helped us with so many aspects of our healing. Having that aspect with PK helped a ton. I've heard dialogue being an effective form of journaling with DID, and it's basically that same method but digital.

We don't really experience the privacy between alters bit for PK. We get that aspect from our notion, which has personal journals, and an app that lets us have pms with each other, but we are all pretty nosey with each other tbvh.

Shamelessly tagging onto the topic in this post, system question: Do you/your system personally use SimplyPlural and/or Pluralkit? Do you find it helpful, and why or why not? For us: We don't use SimplyPlural (we track switches with daylio, though we often forget for long periods of time), but we do use PK all the time for the two of us and find it very grounding. I know S especially likes that sense of being able to clearly present as himself, since it's a lot harder for him to do that in offline life. In contrast, however, S doesn't use PK--or any other external indicator--for any of his median facet/subsytem situation, and so far definitively doesn't want to, because (attempting to paraphrase his vibe check) it feels too definite/differentiated for something that is mostly always a kind of superposition or linear combination, and an inconsistent one at that. Also there's maybe a sense of not wanting to have the "responsibility/expectation to act a certain way", rather than just getting to be Approximately Himself and not have to think about it much.

[hiiragi7]

Fully Fused Multiplicity - Simultaneously One and Many

I refer to myself nowadays as a fully fused multiple - an identity that may seem somewhat contradictory, given how often functional multiplicity and final fusion are talked about as one-or-the-other.

Upon reaching final fusion, I came to the realization that the difference between functional multiplicity and final fusion is not and never was this unfathomable gap, that final fusion was not a bridge you crossed once and could never go back to multiple except through force (further traumatization, recovery falling apart, an inability to cope), but rather they are two sides of the same coin, fluid and overlapping and even inseperable from one another. The terms themselves quite honestly don't feel adequate to describe quite how this feels, and I fear they give people a rather binary view on the endless possibilities for recovery, seeing as I had this view before myself.

In my years in plural and system spaces, it was always "are you aiming for functional multiplicity or final fusion?", and so despite my own thoughts on plurality as a framework (if you view yourself as plural/multiple, you're plural/multiple), I somehow found myself surprised to learn the options for recovery as a multiple were never actually this narrow to begin with, and that the two are nowhere near mutually exclusive.

I am functionally multiple and fully fused; I am both, simultaneously, always. I have come to know each as a shift in view, both of which are needed. My parts are perspectives with which to explore life from many different angles. ( @reimeichan 's "Different Readers of the Same Book" frames this elegantly, and this idea has embedded itself in me ever since.)

Both as one and as many, it is a way of knowing myself on the deepest and most intimate level. Final fusion is a radical form of self-love, an absolute acceptance and celebration of everything that I am, and this has dramatically altered the way in which my parts express and how we come together into an overall self. Simultaneously, my parts are a relationship, one that can only be recognized as uniquely multiple in nature and yet has evolved in such a way that becomes difficult to describe using the language I had used before as an unfused multiple. I am undeniably a multiple and I am fully and completely fused.

The fluidity in which I find myself in is incredibly freeing, my self-expression made up of love letters to my parts. My parts are gradients of watercolor on a canvas flowing in and out of each other, only subjective distinction remains between any one of us, myself is the larger painting encompassing everything. All parts of me create a self so unapologetically full of color, the love found there as necessary as breathing. I have come to view even the painful parts as an expression of love.

I find my headcount these days to be infinitely shifting, all at once I am one and I am many. How I visualize myself, how many I am, it all moves with me. Alongside subtle changes in my emotions, my thoughts, my perspective, myself shifts from moment to moment in a way that just feels right. This is me, all of me. This is the love we have created.

[hiiragi7]

No Longer "Traumagenic"

Yesterday I was talking with some friends about systemhood, and about origin labels. At this point in recovery with DID, it simply no longer feels accurate to say I "am" traumagenic - It's more like I "was" traumagenic.

Traumagenic doesn't describe anything about my current experience, it's become more of a past event than anything. All of the parts which make up my system (and me, as a whole) are explicitly the result of self-love and my own forms of recovery rather than trauma; all of my parts are made up of many, many, many fusions of parts (ie., their origin is not trauma, it is fusion - which, for me, is an expression of love between parts). My system, as a whole, has been recreated through full fusion; this event can be seen, itself, as a new origin.

Calling myself traumagenic at this point feels not only inaccurate but unfair to myself. This new system, this new self, this experience of living as fully fused, is not traumagenic; in some ways, it feels like the opposite of it. Continuing to call myself traumagenic feels like a denial of myself and the changes that have happened (as well as the effort put in to get here), and brings to mind a familiar sense of time strangeness that I've felt before living as a traumatized person.

Because of the effort to arrive here and the ways in which my system survived for so long being a meaningful aspect of who I've become, I don't think it'd be fair to completely drop any and all labels relating to trauma, but framing it as past tense rather than present tense feels right. It's where I came from and who I was, but is not who I became and am now.

[hiiragi7]

Dissociative realities, meeting again and again...

Growing up, I never knew anything to be real. I lived in a foggy dream, reality seeming to be an abstract concept that I did not ever experience. It kept me safe and distant; if nothing is real, neither am I, neither is the horror I was living through. If it's all fake, then, nothing could hurt me - if even "I" do not exist, nothing mattered much at all.

My survival was pathologized a variety of things; diagnosed anything from Schizophrenic to Bipolar, finally Dissociative Identity Disorder. It didn't matter much what the doctors called it. They gave me pills for what they called a disconnect from reality, took my blood on a regular schedule within their all-too-white hospital walls, myself spending my days staring out at the world from behind thick glass while I stood on top of a plastic anti-suicide chair. All I could see from there was a parking lot, and yet I yearned for it; we were not allowed even short trips to the outside world.

How was I meant to be connected to a reality I was kept from? I could not understand it, and it only reinforced what I already knew; this reality was not my own, it was not one I belonged to. It was not my home.

I was born an artist, and so I found my most vivid realities somewhere in the space between my hands and my work. Here is where I found fragments of my own story, viewing reenactments through the eyes of others who never shared my name. I expressed it all through gory, twisted, horrifying tales. I did not know a happy ending, and so neither did my creations.

How ironic it was, that I knew these creations so intimately, the details of their selves down to their dominant hand, all the while with no concept of myself. Who are you? What do you like? What do you dislike? What does being alive mean to you? Questions I could answer in an instant for my art, but would struggle for a single word for myself. I was never good at introductions.

And yet, I was found introducing myself over and over, each time sure it must be the first time. My friends, too, introduced themselves back to me, although they knew this had happened many times before. This is something I will always be immensely grateful for.

I whispered, "I don't know you. I'm scared. Who are you? Who am I?" and my friends would reply in gentle tones, reassuring me, sitting as close as I would allow them. As I grew older, I met many others like me; others with DID, others who could not remember themselves nor others.

We found each other in a dance, meeting each other over and over again. You're my best friend, you're a stranger; I hold so much love for you I can barely contain it, I don't know you at all; We have so many memories together, I just met you today.

Over time, something shifted in me. I don't know you, and yet I know you are familiar, you are safety and I love you. I don't know you, and yet I have this sense we have known each other a very long time. I don't know you, and yet all I want is to be close to you, to talk to you until both our voices are hoarse. A deep knowledge grew in me, one which cut through my dissociation - an understanding that you are my best friend, you are my lover, you are a precious somebody to me even when I have lost the details, even when I have lost your name. I know you on a level I cannot put words to, and I love you.

This understanding then expanded to myself, to the individual fragments and pieces of me so long dissociated and unknown to each other. A love encompassed my whole being, and I could finally begin to know myself. I met myself over and over, much in the same way I had met those outside of me again and again. I began to understand, each of those inside of me is someone I have known before and will continue to know again, these someones are myself. I began to see their faces in my artwork, in old photos, in stories others have told me, and then even in my own memories.

Through loving others, I learned to love myself. Through love, I have found a reality which is not only my own, one to belong to; it is one shared with many others, it is community, it is everything to me. The love of those precious to me became my own.

[littlest-bugz]

DID/OSDD is like being a broken plate. Healing is like kintsugi.

You will never be the same again, but when you heal, you will be beautiful together.

[reimeichan]

I've read many accounts from those who have fused or reached final fusion or achieved any amount of integration. Everyone describes their experiences differently, but each time it gave me a better understanding of what integration may look like. You could still feel your parts, you could flow between different states, you felt like one person, whatever the case may be, I thought I had an understanding of what everyone else was describing.

And yet, when it happened to me, I was still wholely unprepared and had no idea what to expect for myself. There's a difference between reading and hearing what someone else has experienced, and then experiencing that for yourself. And I'm finding that I'm sad that no matter how I try to describe what I was feeling and thinking and stuff in that moment, I'll never be able to fully communicate my experiences to everyone. I'm constantly frustrated by how limiting language is when it comes to expressing my thoughts and feelings.

Final fusion is wonderful, and confusing, and overwhelming, and amazing. I can feel all parts of me and I am all parts of me- but what does that even mean for someone who has never experienced that for themselves? How do I explain that in a way that you can get even a fraction of understanding how I'm feeling? I can use metaphors- it feels like a pointillism painting where even though there are individual pricks of paint on the canvas, you can step back and see the whole picture for what it is. I can try to be as literal as possible, where it feels like I can finally feel all of my emotions at once and experience each part's thoughts at the same time and even if I may be able to pick out aspects of the different alters that make up me it all still feels like I am experiencing all of it. Maybe I can add another metaphor, where it feels like we're all in a giant cuddle pile together and it's warm and safe and comfortable. And another literal experience, where even when connected I may still engage in dialogue with the various parts of myself as if we were different entities yet still be able to sense that the other me is still me. But I don't think any of this ever truly captures the whole picture, and all I can give you all is a shadow of my experiences.

So... I hope that even if I'm not satisfied detailing everything I'm going through right now, that you guys may at least have a bit more understanding of this new version of me I am.

[theorionissystem]

Being able to say "I'm not angry for no reason I'm actually just in pain" was not an expected outcome of recovery.

Reiterating bc I wanna elaborate a bit.

Emotional regulation is a problem I've struggled with for as long as I can remember, or perhaps it's one of the only things I can remember from that early on.

Like, a major compounding factor for my traumas is definitely the inability to self regulate emotions nor identify them. Not knowing why you feel the way you feel nor what it is you're feeling really makes it difficult for anyone to help you in a constructive way. It's more complicated than that but thats the gist of it.

Dissociation from pain is also a pretty major thing I experience due to chronic pain shenanigans and nerve issues.

So to not only identify feelings of anger but to also be able to source that emotion to pain I am experiencing is something I've only ever been able to figure out in retrospect before now.

This is, like, absolutely amazing and unexpected progress. It gets better. It may get worse before it gets better, but it gets better.