#dissociation that happens randomly without triggers

[skyedancer-system]

When your memory issues and dissociation are so wacky that not even your therapist knows what’s going on with you ✌️

[daphnesian]

Regression with God.

A Reflection on Age Regression with Dionysus

What is age regression?

Age regression involves reversion to a younger state of mind where the regressor displays thoughts or actions that are typical of that age. It is inherently NOT sexual, NOT kink, and should NOT be conflated with people who pretend to be younger in a sexual context (DDLG). Regression occurs as a defense mechanism in response to distress or trauma, but some people participate in voluntary regression as a coping mechanism (agere)

Regressing around Dionysus.

For me, age regression is accompanied by a great deal of anxiety and self-consciousness, especially because it's usually triggered by distress or overwhelming stress. I don't want to regress. I also have trauma associated with regression because my ex suddenly revoked their caretaker role in an explicitly negative way before breaking up with me, so. It has been genuinely difficult to trust even Dionysus to take on that role without fear of abandonment

The first time I regressed around Dionysus, I had just finished an intimate conversation with him and Ariadne toward the end of my shift. I was suddenly exhausted, overwhelmed, and dissociated, which isn't uncommon at work. I hate my job. I was cleaning up to leave when the switch happened. It's weird. I don't stop functioning as an adult but instead split in half, in a way, where my body was on autopilot while I was "smaller" in my head

Regression around Dionysus was the last thing I wanted. It was embarrassing. I felt guilty and ashamed because at that point in our relationship, I was still greatly affected by the religious opinion that interactions with the Theoi must abide by strict standards (fuck that). What would he think? What would other people think if they knew I wanted to be "babied" by a deity they believed had far better things to do? None of that mattered. The moment I switched, Dionysus and Ariadne switched too

I don't remember all the details. Recording anything while distressed wasn't possible, and I probably wanted to think about anything else once I recovered. I do remember how gentle Dionysus was. He would have parented me if I consented, but I didn't. I was too upset, too confused. Mouse, my "little" alter who has since fused, popped up for the first time in weeks to "take over" our regression. She essentially force-fronted so that I could catch my bearings

Unlike me, Mouse wanted attention. It was unsurprising for an actual toddler who had barely interacted with anyone beyond our system since my breakup. She demanded "uppies" and Dionysus readily complied, holding her on his hip like a man who had done so a thousand times before (he probably has. He loves children). She fell asleep with her cheek smushed against his shoulder and I regained control of front. Dionysus says I apologised, but I don't remember anything else from that night

Regressing with Dionysus.

I'm much more confident and secure in my relationship with Dionysus now than I was when I first regressed. I've allowed him to take on a more overtly "parental" role when I regress: a level of trust specific to Dionysus, Ariadne, and another deity I won't name. I do call Dionysus "daddy" to differentiate between being an adult (calling him "Dio" or "Dionysus") and being a child

Once again: age regression is NOT sexual, and this aspect of my relationship with Dionysus is NOT kink. Dionysus and I both take that boundary seriously. When I'm regressed, I might as well be an actual child because to him I am

Dionysus and I were in our bedroom, where we often are when I'm too exhausted at work to travel elsewhere. I love our bedroom! It's small and cosy, with a canopy bed, fireplace, and balcony overlooking the sea. It often storms because I enjoy the sound. We were in bed, cuddling and talking about I don't know what, when I suddenly and seemingly randomly regressed

I wish I could properly articulate how gentle of a dad Dionysus must be, how gentle he was with me. No hesitation. No fuss. Our previous conversation wasn't important anymore as he immediately tried to counterbalance my distress. He asked if I wanted to colour. I said yes. He set up a small table on our bed and procured from nowhere a bug colouring book and crayons, and sat with me in his lap while I furiously coloured some bugs

Regression has become common for me as I navigate the next six months of hell, but Dionysus is always ready with a soft smile and a colouring book. Sometimes Ariadne brings me a snack (popcorn) because I don't want Dionysus to "leave," and sometimes Dionysus cooks me something like a grilled cheese and tomato soup. I never leave our bed because the bed is safe. Rinse and repeat until I'm comfortably back to being an adult!

Will I ever regress voluntarily? I don't know, but I am learning to trust Dionysus implicitly when my regression is triggered

Questions.

Does Dionysus do certain things to help you regress?

He doesn't and I wouldn't want him to! Regression is primarily involuntarily for me. It happens spontaneously and he reacts accordingly - not to "maintain" regression but to help me work through it. It can be enjoyable to be small with him, I won't lie, but I prefer our adult relationship

What is your favorite activity to do with Dionysus while you're regressed?

I like to pat his cheeks or squish them until he makes a fishy face!

What is something specific Dionysus does when you're regressed that comforts you?

He takes me seriously! Dionysus doesn't become an actual parent, but there's no vibe that he's "pretending." It's not a game. His gentle voice is sincere, like he's speaking to a "real" child, even when he's being silly. He holds me differently, still affectionate but less intimate, with room for me to wiggle around. Dionysus treats this aspect of my inner child with care and respect

I always welcome respectful questions about my experiences or practice! If you enjoy my writing, support me on ko-fi

Dividers

[heartmeadows]

Just ranting about my mental health.

I'm basically diagnosed with dissociative disorder without alters and PTSD. Among others. And my memory has been getting worse and worse. I remember a lot of abuse but there's more I don't remember. Yet anyway. My mind protects me by suppressing my memories and emotions. But as much as it's protecting me it's also doing harm. I forget most things that happen. Every single day. My mind is able to remember things randomly if something triggers a memory. But mostly my head is just empty and I can't choose to remember most things. It's crazy what trauma does. It's become my normal. To live in a fog. I even prefer not remembering most of it because what I do remember is already so traumatising I couldn't handle whatever my mind is suppressing.

I think therapy is going to be difficult now that we're focusing on allowing myself to feel emotions and showing them. I can't choose to feel. My psychologist doesn't seem to understand that I can't choose it. It's not a switch I can just turn on and off. I wanted to start talking about some "less traumatic" abuse I've gone through but we can't until I'm capable of feeling and having heathy coping methods. I can't just stop myself from having a panic attack the moment I start feeling and crying, though.

I wish we could just talk about that stuff and she'd let me do it without emotions. Because it is without emotions I've nearly always talked about my trauma. It's like small talk. I cope by not feeling. Or rather my mind suppresses everything because it's not safe to feel and have panic attacks. I just want to intellectually talk about some of it and if feelings arise then I'm sure my mind will suppress them as always.

I know I should be able to feel but would you want to feel strong, negative emotions tied to your trauma when they trigger a panic attack for at least an hour where you just cry, hyperventilate and go into a state where you stare at nothing and hold your breath and then hyperventilate and then hold your breath, and on and on... No one wants that, right? And it just goes on until I'm totally exhausted. My psychologist saying it's not dangerous feels invalidating to me. Honestly, I'm going to explain this to her and ask that we go about this a different way.

[edensvessel]

What’s the problem with endo systems? I am not a system and don’t know much about this but I vaguely know what endo systems are, I just don’t know why they’re bad/wrong /genq

hello anon!

i would like to start this by saying that none of this is to invalidate anybody's experiences, but to point out that while your experiences are valid, that does not make them right. i can have a trigger of spoons but i cannot force everyone in the globe to stop using spoons for my benefit. self diagnosis is valid when you put in the proper research, so i'd suggest looking into things before you start labeling yourself with them. i say this because that is what i find a majority of endo systems do, for reasons i will explain below along with the sources provided. i do not think they are inherently bad people, i just think they are misinformed people that are doing a bad thing. that does not make them morally corrupt or mean that they are doing anything on purpose, no matter my feelings on the topic.

that said, i'll begin. i have sources listed at the end of this post for you to look into it further if you'd like.

endo systems are people that claim to be systems without trauma. that's medically not even possible, since the way alters are formed in the first place is the trauma that happens before the identity can fully integrate.

i'll break it down, and i will include some sources at the end if you'd like to look into it further.

when you are a child, your identity is not fully formed. it's not very clear exactly when the identity fully forms, but the general consensus is that is usually happens by the ages of 6-10.

before those ages, your identity is categorized into neat little parts. there's a part that focuses on anger, a part that focuses on sadness, a part that focuses on confusion, etc.

for a non-system, as their child brain ages, it learns things and absorbs them like a sponge. the child is in a safe-enough environment to retain memories of things happening around them. this provides an environment for the 'parts' of the identity to integrate into each other and form one full identity.

this is why you see those memes where people joke about randomly coming into consciousness at a random point in their childhood. that's your identity integrating.

for systems, their parts could not integrate. they stayed as separate parts. why? because their environment was not safe enough. their brains were witness to repeated trauma that affected them so heavily that the brain essentially said, "I cannot function like a normal person if I were to remember any of this, I have to protect myself," and stopped the identity from integrating.

a quote from the first source listed below, "Instead of integrating into a core personality, people with DID experience prolonged trauma in early childhood which causes the original different "behavioral states" present from birth to become parts of the personality that are increasingly dissociated (disconnected) from each other, which prevents them from integrating to form a core personality. Over time, the early dissociated behavioral states, influenced by the trauma, develop into dissociative identities (also known as dissociative personality states,distinct personality states, alternate identities or alters). It is generally accepted that developing multiple identities protects the child psychologically by keeping trauma memories and emotions contained with specific identities, rather than overwhelming the child completely."

so when endogenic "systems" come along to say that they are systems without ever having experienced trauma, that is factually and medically incorrect.

and before anyone brings up systems that don't remember their trauma, i'd like to point out that not remembering your trauma as a system is the entire point of your brain forming alters. that does not make you endogenic. as well as that, saying "I just go by the term endogenic because I don't remember my trauma" is also contradictory to the endogenic term, because you're admitting that you do have trauma.

living as a system is very difficult. you cannot "become" a system just because you want to. you cannot "become" a system just as a symptom of neurodivergence. it's a trauma response. it's like when people say "omg, i'm so ocd" just because they're a perfectionist. that's also why many systems say that endos are ableist.

i understand that a lot of singlets want to accept endos because there's so many moral dilemmas in the modern age. i implore you to do your own research. no, that does not mean scroll the tumblr syscourse tag and observe fights between systems and endos. no, that does not mean send asks to endos or people who dislike them, including me. that means do your own research. look into the dsm-v. look into medical records. ensure your sources are unbiased. this is not me hammering the anon for sending me an ask, consider this a small nudge in a different direction.

a lot of this is me heavily summarising to make things easier to understand, but you can check these sources if you want to look into it deeper. i highly suggest that you do, even if you're not a system.

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hello, I had some more questions about programs breaking down. Do the programs themselves stop working? So say scramble programming or pain programs do they null? Places in inner world like castles literally crumbling for example? Asking this because we experienced some scary stuff happening lately with what we assume are things breaking down. All of the symptoms match up

Do you perhaps have more information on stuff like that? As well as alters being able to cause pain from programs does that stop as well?

The programmes aren’t necessarily what stops working. Parts/alters can also stop responding to the trigger. The thing(s) in place that leads to a triggered response becomes ‘extinct’. 

Parts can stop doing their task when they feel they are safe. They can work towards realising they no longer have to harm the body. 

Programming tends to break down at the around age of 30. It isn’t as if on their 30th birthday things fall apart. Programming breaking down is a process not a crash. This can occur if the person is away from the environment. In one's 30's, memory recall, thought processing speed, and the storage space for new memories begins to decline.

Dissociative barriers that may be present in survivors of any type of abuse or trauma begin to break down over time. As survivors get older, especially around midlife (starting between ages 35-50), the dissociative barriers in the brain, which contribute to the survivors ability to function at a higher capacity without having to process the trauma, begin to break down in ways that often cause disruption to the survivor’s life.  When this happens, trapped feelings, beliefs, and forms of coping initiated by past events seem to make their way to the surface of people’s lives. Some of the beliefs and feelings that occur may be related to conditioned responses induced by abuse from the past.  As emotions, thoughts, memories, or beliefs that have been contained in pockets of one’s personality that are trapped in the past (sometimes also experienced by emotional parts that feel separate from the individual now experiencing them) begin to be noticeably experienced by the survivor, the experience can be very confusing and overwhelming.   Some of these symptoms of the breaking down of dissociative barriers may include intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, nightmares, severe anxiety or depression that doesn’t seem related to the present, also panic attacks, urges or actions toward self-harm, suicidal ideation or attempts, increased urges or actions toward other types of coping behaviors that seem out of the ordinary.

Some signs of programming breaking down are:

Becoming aware of aspects of programming is an indicator that the programming is beginning to break down.

Parts of the system will want to return to handlers (Home)

Inside programmers will attempt to find parts who are defying programming, and attempt to shore up programming from the inside.

Flashbacks

Rapid switching

Attempting to leave

Confusion

They may speak in coded language

Panic attacks

Insomnia

Regression

Isolation

Repetitive motions

some alters may go mute

Become lethargic

Alters going dormant

Alters may hide

Become verbally or physically aggressive (This occurs when the system perceives a threat from the outside. The person isn’t going to randomly attack people. The system will feel very vulnerable, and weak during this time.)

Alters become severely depressed, suicide attempts or completion

Self harm

Oz

[rielzero]

Dissociative Amnesia and what it does (Yes this post is also about Astarion)

TRIGGER WARNING: I discuss how Trauma affects your memory and my experience with it.

This post is specifically about amnesia surrounding the self, there is a variant to this type of amnesia that erases the access to a bad memory or collection of memories itself. A quick google search will tell you;

Dissociative amnesia involves not being able to recall information about oneself (not normal forgetting). This amnesia is usually related to a traumatic or stressful event and may be: localized – unable to remember an event or period of time (most common type)

Hi! I have CPTSD, and as a result of a lot of life events I experienced, I have dissociative amnesia. I wrote in detail about my experience with bad memory in a much older post: This one here. I recommend you read it as I'll skip over some things explained in more detail there.

In DND lore, Elves use meditation to recall memories of oneself, they do not require sleep and have different physiology when it comes to rest. Spiritual physiology counts here too, since Elves reincarnate. This lore is explained better on the forgotten realms wiki.

I've seen a lot of posts going over Astarion's line when you ask him about himself after the vampire reveal.. Instead of the magistrate thing he will mention that 200 years of torture leave little to remember.

Now, this- as someone who has cptsd is a thing I recognize very well. If you take in consideration that elves at a certain point meditate memories of their years and eventually past lives- when next you are being tortured and disconnected from your past lives by becoming undead, your most recent memories will be those decades and decades just torture. When you are in a place of misery- you will lose connection to good memories, or distant memories. The worse something is, the more precedent that memory becomes- It's a survival thing. ''This is the bad thing, we must avoid'' and you might relive it at random, without knowing why exactly. Astarion says so himself. What's 39 elf years vs 200 years of being undead and put through pure hell? (Still unclear on what Astarion's actual age is, but I'm not going into that, I had another post for this.)

Please know: This does not mean you have permanent memory loss- you lose attachment and association to good memories. One day can be a nightmare, but something good could also have happened that same week. When you're traumatized by repeated events unfortunately the repetitive ''bad thing'' will be prioritized by your survival instinct and shock you more if you are continuously exposed to it in a dangerous environment. The longer you are in an unsafe environment, the more your association to good things becomes detached. You develop coping mechanisms and behaviors, avoidance, bias. We see this in Astarion and how he treats the player when they meet. He's in a situation he feels incredibly unfamiliar with- so he falls back on daggers and threats. Manipulative charm comes afterwards. His coping mechanisms of course, have been discussed in more detail by others on this platform. Now to the memory thing; from my own experience with randomly remembering stuff once I got out of the ''unsafe'' environment for a long time, once your body feels settled or secure.. Things just come back. Either its a nightmare flashback that you need to process slowly, because you haven't had time for it while you felt unsafe, or it can be the ''good'' or the ''normal'' memories too.

I personally headcanon and believe- that 200 years alone of torture don't necessarily erase ''39'' years of something else. I have been in ''unsafe'' environment for most of my life, since I was a kid. Once I hit 21, when I finally felt safe things just started popping up in my head. Both bad and good. I might not be an immortal long living creature, but I am still having random memories flood back these days.

It's very alienating at times to see your old self through that lens that you often don't recognize that person as someone that was you. Simply because you've outgrown it or you've matured. Your brain has distanced you from it because there was no space to even think of it.

I still experience horrible short term memory and frequent recollective ability malfunction. (Basically I struggle with routines or storing information I have not been able to process thoroughly.) Memory loss happens to me all the time and it is more inconvenient to me than it is to anyone who's annoyed by it..

Now imagine either ending route of Astarion, (Wether spawn or ascended) finally settling down in a place of peace, and he goes and meditates. Sometimes he dreams of torture again, and eventually after a while.. He remembers his parents, he remembers an old friend.. He remembers being bullied at school, he remembers a lover he cheated on.. He just starts remembering his life before the torture. Just bit by bit- very small things. And it's like.. It feels like A completely different person to him.

That's what it was like for me. Sometimes out of nowhere, I will recall something I said, or did in my youth. Something outside of the shitty things I went through. And sometimes I'll remember things that were done to me and realize.. That was wrong, and someone should've said something about it. Sometimes I'll remember something incredibly cringe I did as a kid and just cringe about it again. Eugh. I don't always remember the trauma and only the trauma. I'd remember things outside of it too, just not as frequent.

CPTSD doesn't always ''trigger'' your brain might not associate the memories with anything. They just pop up casually like ''hi! I exist! U feel safe?? WELL NOW-'' It's annoying and distressing sometimes.

Even the color or shape of something might just quietly nudge your mind.. ''Oh hey here's this image'' there's not always telling were it comes from. It might just happen, because.

And it takes time to heal too, remembering is a part of healing. Remembering your past both good and bad. Some people don't heal from it though, and instead dive deeper and deeper into the misery. They feel more unsafe than they did before.

[sapphire-heart-tippy]

may I ask why you suddenly have a crush on Kars? not mad or anything it just kinda came out of nowhere xD /genq

I actually don't really know tbh...

I would have dreams about him sometimes and he would randomly show up in fantasies too. He's not even my favorite pillarman and never really was, weirdly enough. Wamuu and Esi were my favorites and I wouldn't even have Kars on my mind...

It's really weird how it happened too. Without going into too much detail, around the time I had started developing a crush on him, I got triggered very badly (by multiple different things all in one day, but one in particular hit my breaking point. I don't blame anyone for my triggers or forgetting to put tws, it's nobody's fault) to the point I started dissociating and somehow it even caused my body to become violently ill (didn't have a fever, but I was very physically and mentally sick and had laryngitis)

I just kept imagining Kars protecting me and loving me. I think the biggest reason for the sudden crush was my subconscious panicking and needing a way to cope. It probably went, "this guy is basically indestructible, he's huge, he's strong, and if he falls in love with you then nobody and nothing can ever hurt you again."

Why it wasn't Wamuu, I'm still not sure. Wamuu is a lot nicer and admittedly way more interesting than Kars... but maybe that's what my subconscious wants? Somebody who's hissy and prickly to potential threats but very soft and gentle with me? I don't know... but it's clear that I just want to feel protected, and now I have 3 husbands who can protect me 🫂🫂🫂

(I guess technically 4 if you want to count Esi, he's a queer-platonic-partner of mine because he's married to Kars)

[omnium-gatherums]

so I know there’s times where someone just goes in autopilot, but how do u know when it’s that vs it’s an indicator that someone else is fronting? sometimes it feels so weird that I’m moving. Like my body just is but I don’t feel present. when ppl say “it feels like someone else took over my body” I wonder if they are referring to that? or are there certain tasks u are just so used to doing that it’s normal to feel that way?

You might be better off trying to focus on the other DID symptoms and other signs of switching because trying to figure out if you're switching by looking at the autopilot feelings alone is not likely to get you very far.

If you're under the assumption that switching always feels like being on autopilot or something, that's not true, and actually plenty of people with DID don't feel that way, switching can feel and look like so many different things and can look and feel like nothing more than a simple mood change.

So there are tons of other ways to figure out if you're experiencing switching or not without focusing on this singular aspect (feeling like you're on autopilot) - I don't think Anybody with DID experiences ONE singular kind of switching, so it's not very helpful to try and figure out if you're switching by focusing on one form of switching; by doing so, you're likely to miss your own switches because maybe you switch differently than the way you're expecting yourself too, or maybe your switches can look any number of different ways depending on a variety of factors, and by focusing on one kind or type or form of switching (like feeling like you're on autopilot), you would be missing those switches and not noticing them if you're only looking at one kind or type of switch.

I think in general when it comes to DID, you can't focus on one or a few aspects, you really do have to look at a wide variety of things and bring them together in order to see and notice a fuller/bigger picture, which is what I'm trying to get at when I say that it's better to try and look around elsewhere instead of only this.

I'm assuming you're asking this because you experience feeling like you're on autopilot at least frequently (?) Sorry if that's not correct, but assuming it's the case, maybe take note of when these feelings happen, and what other feelings accompany them/happen alongside them. Did something happen to trigger the feelings, for example, did somebody bring up a stressful topic? Were you doing something that was overwhelming? And take note of any other things that might happen along with the autopilot feelings - do you feel different in general (beyond feeling like you're on autopilot)? Do you feel like a different gender, age; do you feel like you'd like a different name, or no name, or like you no longer like the name you use generally? Does the autopilot feeling happen randomly, or can you notice a pattern (if there is a pattern, you wouldn't notice it until you started to take note of these things, to be clear)? Do other things about you change during these moment - is your voice higher, lower, does your voice sound different (oftentimes this can be quite mild - my voice changes are mostly about the volume - how loud or quiet I'm speaking - and how high or low, etc. my voice is)? What your personality - do you become bubbly and energetic/excitable and low-energy the next moment? These are the things that indicate a switch. It's not really about the autopilot feeling but about what other DID symptoms you may or may not have. It's not helpful to take one thing and try and figure out if that one thing is indicative of a switch, you have to take that thing and many other things together and figure it out from there, if that makes sense. If you feel like you're on autopilot frequently and clearly have other signs of dissociative problems, but those autopilot feelings are not accompanied by other DID symptoms and you don't have other signs of switching, that's probably a sign that it might not be DID. The key thing is to focus on a wide variety of things here - do you have other DID symptoms? Do you have other signs of switching? If not, then it's probably not DID.

[thesoleilla]

Hello dear sun,

I, the great gods of the gods of the gods, have arrived with a request for you!!!!!

I'd like to request for BSD yeah and uh Hurt Comfort YEAH

And i'd like uhhh Dazai x reader YE (that was predictable)

Uhhh Since i have no idea i will use whatever come to my brain !

Soo ! Let's say that we have a reader, a female reader ig with she/her pronouns because i said so ! And we have a Dazai ! Reader go through an existential crisis and ig she dissociate from herself and the real world so she gets confused and she just idk sHe AlSo SuFfEr FroM coTaRd SyNDRoMe

Good luck dealing with that!

Thanks !

Hi god!^^

First off thanks for the request ^^ I really appreciate it

And second off���

Here's your request!

(Srry I'm not really proud of this especially how I characterized Dazai but whatever this is my first time writing bsd stuff)

Also BIG trigger warning for s**cide

It happened again.

You got into a crisis and ran out of the office making everyone worry about you.

You didn't think this Y/N person deserved to be cared for but well, they probably thought listening to you was a waste of time right?

You didn't know what they found interesting about you really, you were just a rotten person in your eyes; but they tried so hard to make you see "the real you".

And you also looked for her, the agency gave you hope but she was nowhere to be found.

Every search ended in you finding yourself more and more rotten, and today you just couldn't stand it anymore.

So, after coming back emptyhanded again; you decided you had enough.

You carefully wrote a note and stuck it under your desk, hoping they'd only notice when it'd be late enough.

It was rather simple really, it didn't even reveal anything concerning but you figured they'd understand right away, after all this was a detective agency.

So, pretending you needed to leave for a mission, you ran out of the agency, tears filling your eyes as soon as you left.

But luck definitively wasn't on your side today as you randomly bumped into Dazai on your way home who was probably skipping work (again)

Uh oh, this wasn't good.

Why did he decide to skip work now of all times.

Well to be fair this wasn't very out of character for him…

But why does he always seem to slack off specifically where you are?

Couldn't he just find his own suicide place instead of constantly just picking somewhere between the agency to your place?

You brushed off your tears, hoping he hadn't noticed them yet.

"How could I deal with this without raising suspicion?"

Was a question you really didn't need to ask since Kunikida was already there about to put Dazai out of his misery.

So you planned to quickly run away while they argued back and forth for like the 6th time this hour.

But do things ever go as planned when you're apart of the Agency?

And the answer to that is a big no.

Because Dazai was already trying to use your "bad mental state" (his words not yours) as an excuse to avoid writing a report about his last mission.

God, was he really going to use that as an excuse?

Well, looks like he will.

And that really angered you, because you actually kinda liked him honestly, and you two definetively shared some traits; and you were starting to think that maybe he actually cared for your rotten self.

But well, looks like he didn't as he's litterally using you as a tool to slack off.

How nice of him. However, this doesn't seem to be working very well since Kunikida just grabbed Dazai, picked him off the floor and is screaming not very nice things at him.

Thanks for the distraction I guess?

That allowed you to discretly run away to your place without raising more suspicion than you already did. And you finally succeeded!

Pheeew that was harder than expected!

Maybe that's why Dazai struggles so much doing the same, you really underestimated how hard this would actually be… no, no you didn't want to think about this jerk again. Did he really lie to you about finding a not so rotten part in you for so long only to use you like that?

I mean it's not that you actually believed what he said or anything… but still that did hurt and you can't deny it.

Well, whatever you didn't really care anyways, he was allowed to use you like that I mean, it gave you a purpose at least... a dumb one but still! It was something, so you dying was useful! Yea,right suicidals help eachother! Well, I mean he did almost ruin your plan but whatever, you would have done the same! Right?

Aaaargh and there you were your mind drifting away from the task...Could you not complete such a simple task?

Knock.

Knock.

Knock.

Huh? Is dying without being interrupted really that hard? God, you were starting to understand him way too much!

But who could that possibly be... someone from the Agency perhaps? Nobody usually came to visit you so it's probably just about work!

However you did tell them that you were going on a mission... Could such great detectives forget about that?No...no that wasn't right.Dazai must have told the others so then...

IT WAS HIS FAULT AGAIN????

Man, you really needed to settle this with him in the afterlife!

"Y/N can I come in?"

Wait.That voice. Did he really wanted to bother you at a time like this? Out of all the people at the agency he's supposed to understand your feelings better! So why is he interrupting you like this?!

Could it be... he didn't lie? No,no this is Dazai we're talking about he wouldn't be actually serious about his reason to slack off! And maybe you just invented his voice and he isn't actually here!

"Y/N open the door or I call all the agency here. You know they'd come. So just open it. I promise, I don't want to stop you or anything, I just need to talk with you."

Okay, so this wasn't a strange hallucination and he actually wanted to talk with you? Huh that's weird... pretty out of character if you ask me

"Just don't bother me" you said as you slowly opened the door only for it to reveal a totally calm Dazai, strange considering the situation but heh, it was Dazai we were talking about, would he seriously be agitated by something?

"Wow, you finally opened it! I almost thought you were just going to leave me on the doorway!" He said, with way too much energy in regards of the situation...

"So what did you want to say that was important enough to stop my attempt?" You said, rudely trying to get him to tell you and leave as soon as possible, freeing you from him and freeing you from... everything really.

"Hey!Were you actually planning to do it alone? Do you really despise me that much?" He said, slightly offensed by your detachment.

"Ugh, no I don't and you know that it's just that all of your attempts have you know... failed and I'm starting to believe you actually don't take it so seriously... so no, I don't think you're trustworthy enough so that I'll succeed" You replied, about to kick him out if he says anything to anger you again.

"What do you mean"I'm not serious" do you really think killing yourself is that easy?Come on there's already someone stopping you as early so you should've realised how hard it is!" Dazai said, in a joking tone but you were starting to sense real anger coming from him and god that was one of the scariest things you felt in your life!

"Yes I don't think you're serious, you're literally joking right now, and besides I don't know if you're aware of this but you are the one stopping me right now so, will you leave?" You said pointing towards the door,trying to be menacing (you were failing miserably, but how are you supposed to scare an ex port mafia executive?)

He looked like he was about to start talking,so he apparently wasn't going to give up on whatever he was planning for you; and so you just decided your feet were very interesting and focused reallyy hard on them.

But he didn't speak, instead he just patted you on the back...huh weird but...strangely relaxing.

"Y/N?" He whispered into your ear as quiet as humanly possible, even though his humanity was indeed questionned by a lot of people.

"Yes?" You whispered back, really softly.

"This might sound really weird but.. can you stay in this world for a bit? I'm scared that the afterlife gods hate me for teasing them about dying for so long... and I don't want them to separate us as a revenge." He lightly giggled at the last part but he seemed really serious, and almost... hurt?God seeing him weak like that was definetely not something you'll get used to. But it was sweet, very sweet; he seemed almost vulnerable? Were you just having a fever dream right now? This can't be real. Dazai. The-old-executive-of-the-port-mafia-Dazai. That Dazai. That Dazai was also the one being clingy and really close to you. Is that really happening?

But you really didn't know how to respond, your logic told you to say no, not to stray away from your goal...but logic was fighting with another thing in your brain. Your feelings. You tried to supress them for so long...but the big wall finally broke down, breaking you down with it. Yes you felt good things about this person. And yes you were starting to feel good things about yourself too. And you don't have to be ashamed of it anymore. Because this part isn't ugly. It's just who you are and you're tired of hiding it.

But yea, you did breakdown. Your knees fell to the ground taking you with them. And soon your tears fell too. Every single thing about you was crumbling down. Whether it was physically or mentally. But a certain someone won't let you be ashamed of that. In fact, he was already picking you up and bringing you towards the couch, which was making your heart literally burst out of your chest. But he won't let you be alone in this anymore. Not after he saw you vulnerable like this. So he grabbed a blanket, put you on the couch and cuddled next to you. And you stayed like this for who knows how long. But after seeing you vulnerable like that, he decided that maybe he could show himself a litle more vulnerable to you too. And hell did that feel great.

You both were starting to slowly fall asleep (even though neither of you would have admitted it) but just before that you heard a soft mumble coming from the man right next to you.

"Y/N"

"Yes?"

"I won't allow you to try and die alone"

You giggled for a while "Only if you promise me to do the same"

"Of course...but actually I won't let you be alone anyways... not until you're fully better"

And at that moment you both knew, that you didn't want to be fully better anymore. Because you wanted to stay like this forever.

[adhbabey]

it feels a bit awkward for me to be asking this but what are things you consider as signs of dissociation? Can you be aware that you are dissociating while it is happening? I'm asking since I feel like zone out/disconnect myself a LOT (especially when certain topics come up).

You don't have to answer if you don't want to by the way! I just wanted to know your opinion. Thank you! <33

In terms of general dissociation, anyone can dissociate. But when you do it too often or everyday, then there lies in a problem.

Here's some different ways you may be dissociating, as well as different types of dissociation.

Daydreaming, spacing out, zoning out. this is the most common form, to which everyone has experienced. You can be understimulated and do this, or you could just be tired. You do not have to have a dissociative disorder to dissociate this way.

Denial. By this, I mean people who actively deny situations are happening to them, what people say, brushing off things, feeling like you're faking it or minimizing the troubles you face. Like, "oh it's not that bad, they didn't hurt me physically. etc." People tend to brush over this side of dissociation, but its a huge part of it.

Depersonalization/derealization. To experience this type of dissociation you must have a dissociative disorder, DPDR all the way up to DID. This is when you completely disconnect from yourself or the world around you. Commonly, not recognizing yourself in the mirror. Feeling like you aren't real, feeling like your relationships aren't real, feeling like you don't know the people around you. Also seeing yourself as fake/like a puppet, seeing the world as unreal or fake, not feeling like your body is yours, etc. This is an intense form of dissociation, and can happen due to stress, or often randomly for systems.

Dissociative apathy/amnesia. This is also a dissociative disorder thing, this really doesn't happen to people without some form of OSDD (other specified dissociative disorder) or DID. (Reminder, systems ONLY include DID/OSDD-1, the rest are not systems). When dissociative barriers are strong, people may lose time (have blackouts), or they may become emotionally numb(autopilot type mode). This only ever happens in stressful situations, or when the dissociative barrier is too big. Like say you have a panic attack, you may either completely stop crying/freaking out and go numb, or you lose time, and block out the memories of why that happened. This is a trauma response. This is the reason why many people may not have memories of their childhood or traumatic experience.

You are right in the fact that you can dissociate via a trigger. It may feel totally random or out of the blue, but often times you can experience an emotional flashback and dissociate. All dissociative disorders experience complicated post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD). Similar to regular PTSD, we experience flashbacks. But because C-PTSD is developed from prolonged trauma, there is not just a single instance of trauma, its from over a long period of time. So instead of regular flashbacks, we experience emotional flashbacks, when they are triggered, we will experience an intense emotion and often dissociate because of that.

In general dissociation is a disconnection, and there are long term effects to that. In more stressful or traumatic times in your life, you may have felt more lonely or had a harder time forming relationships. It is because your brain is trying to protect you, and all you can really focus on is survival. So please do not blame yourself if you are in a bad situation and you have a hard time making friends, its not your fault.

Trouble processing is also a big part of this. You may repress memories or emotions while in traumatic or stressful situations. You may feel confused or start to freak out when confronted with information that may be triggering. So take your time and don't overload yourself with information. It's okay to just accept things as they go and figure it out later. This also includes dream-reality confusion, when you think your dreams are reality, and when you think your memories are dreams, I experience this.

The biggest thing about all of this is your brain is trying to keep you safe. Do not feel the need to justify your existence or relationship with dissociation. They're covert disorders for a reason. Most people don't know they're a system or even have trauma. You could have thought your relationships were fine, or your parents were nice, or your childhood was okay. Your brain kept it from you to protect you. Be kind to yourself. The dissociation decreases when you start to accept the things that happened, and when you be gentle with yourself. It's a coping mechanism, it happens when you aren't in a safe space.

Build a little sanctuary for yourself, and then you can start to unravel what's happening.

[mithliya]

Hey I am a survivor of csa too. And I am ...struggling....to say the least.

Like I keep getting flashbacks and nightmares. They were not as common as before. Now I am getting at least one nightmare or flashback or strong intrusive thoughts almost everyday.And it's especially bad in the mornings yk because you just wake up with your head clear and empty and for some I feel mentally more vulnerable and hopeless in the morning. If that makes sense.

If you don't mind telling do you feel it got better even slightly? Is there a chance I could feel better.

Because this is such a fucking drag in my life I can't take it anymore. I can't even find any time to sit down and think about it properly because my life is currently very busy.

Sorry if this is triggering in any way and you don't have to answer it if it would be bad for your mental health.

i can almost guarantee you that it does get better eventually. i don’t know if it’s possible to ever go back to how u were pre-trauma but i used to have pretty extreme PTSD. nightmares everyday, flashbacks almost constantly, swinging between dissociative and depressive and anxious states, lost time, couldn’t sleep in my bed, couldn’t go out, avoided most places, etc. i still have PTSD today but it’s not as debilitating and disabling as it once was. it’s triggered by certain things at times which can lead to a week up to several months of nightmares and some flashbacks but if there’s no trauma triggers, i can go even a month without having a single nightmare. flashbacks still happen randomly but very often i can move on from them more quickly and they’re far less constant too. you also learn to manage it with time, you naturally figure out what your triggers are and will notice that there’s a clear pattern of sth triggering you -> flashbacks/nightmares and will learn what to avoid to keep yourself mentally safe. living outside of bahrain also helps me bc i know my rapist and other abusers aren’t in the same country as me or going to somehow come across me in the streets so that gives me more of a peace of mind. also my advice, it’s not great but utilise distractions if u can. if u find sth triggers u then try to turn ur focus on anything else. writing helped me, so does talking it through and/or doing sth i find comforting (for me it’s watching the tv show misfits and having some noodles)

[the-witches-you-couldnt-burn]

Living with what you’ve done

Uhhhhh

UHHHHHHH WHAT

Ok so I started writing the 100 special but then I got to 120!?! Wtf when did this happen?

Though I would like to thank each follower personally I have social anxiety and would rather not randomly message strangers following me. Here is my public thank you!

Idk what I did while writing this but it seems I managed to copy-paste the beginning four seperate times. This brought the word count up to 5.9k but it is now edited and brought down to 2.3k

Inspired by my friend @deltaxxk who loves angst and told me I have to write a follower special

Other prompts used: One, Two

Also! There are movie references within this fic, if you get them all you get a virtual lollipop 🍭

Ao3

Disclaimer: THIS FIC IS MAJORLY ANGSTY PLEASE DO NOT READ THIS IF ANY OF THE WARNINGS WILL TRIGGER YOU

Warings: blood, fire, death (+graphic descriptions of dying), injuries, grief, human trafficking and mentions of psychopathy

———————

“Robin we’re out of time! We must leave, we’re out of time!” Her yo-yo strained with tension as she swung into a goon, sending their body flying away from her team.

They had gotten a lead on a meta trafficking ring that involved some of the Gotham elite’s children disappearing. The lead brought them to the dock, GothDrill’s warehouse sat just off to the right. Its fluorescent lights signifying signs of life, Marinette knew most weren’t there willingly.

“Make more time!” He snapped back. Ladybug fumble slightly before regaining her footing, she wasn’t expecting the coldness in his tone.

She jumped back into the fray and watched from the corner of her eye Damian take on four goons by himself. She stifled a sigh before punching the man in front of her square on his jaw, ‘must he always prove himself when he has already?’ Damian edged himself closer to the garage doorway of the shed before disappearing into the building.

Focus her attention back on the battle around her, she saw Red Hood downed under a steel beam. She rushed over, and with her enhanced miraculous strength to lift the offending metal. He groaned with pain, the beam had pinned his legs, forcing him to lay stomach down. Wrapping his arm around her shoulder, supporting the majority of his weight to get him to his feet. Pain throbbed in his left leg and they stumbled onto the dock to hide behind down GothDrill crates.

Ripping the seams of his pant leg, she revealed a dark purple bruise that was rapidly spreading. She also discovered the beam had broken his femur and shattered his kneecap, how he wasn’t screaming in pain was beyond her. Pink light danced between her fingers before drifting down to his wound. Jason bit his hand to prevent any cries from leaving his mouth. He didn’t want another confrontation in his state.

The sound reached her before the light did. Jason panted as he looked up to see what distracted her from his healing. Reflections of orange and yellows dancing across her cerulean eyes. “Damian.” She whispered frozen stock still.

Something within her very core snapped and cardinal urges overtook her common sense. Shooting up like a bullet she sprinted towards the blazing inferno, her ears numb to the world around her.

Inside was worse than the burning exterior. She could see where the explosion originated from, big barrels of flammable chemicals blazed white with heat. The smoke and burning chemical gases penetrated her airways, coughs racked her chest.

She could see flames running up the walls and the lit barrels but the rest was black. The smoke was a blanket of darkness that wrapped around her.

And then she heard it. The screaming.

Multiple voices, so raw with pain, masculine and feminine, old and young. Running towards it she hoped to spot Damian but luck wasn’t on her side. Instead she found the trafficked civilians, their bodies red with burns with their hair and clothes set ablaze.

She ran full speed at the wall nearby, shattering the melted bolts. The fire blazed brighter at the new source of oxygen. She directed the victims out, the dove towards the water. The goons had fled during the initial explosion leaving the Batfam free to help.

She looked down at the bodies of those who didn’t survive. Some were burned beyond recognition, she kept looking, scouring for Damian.

She heard Red Robin calling her name, she looked up to see the scaffolding holding the roof breaking apart and falling to where she stood. She felt her body tackled out of the way and another thunderous crash hit the floor.

She was dragged outside and placed into the care of a newly arrived ambulance. Her eyes, red from the smoke and ash, looked out the back door of the vehicle. Firefighters and police had arrived on scene along with news reporters and the public. Families of the trafficked were reunited with their lost love ones and others mourned their deceased. Red Robin stood there, watching her.

“You can’t just follow me into fire.” She croaked to him, her oxygen mask muffling her.

The whites of his black cowl narrowed and his fists clenched. “Then don't run into fire,” he growled at her before walking off.

Her body moved without thinking, removing her oxygen mask against the protests of the paramedics. Ladybug reassured them she’ll be alright and that they should help the others who were more injured than she. She walked back towards the building but the black-clad figure of Batman stopped her stride.

“You’re not using your cure.” He stated. Her eyes widened, the cure could save his missing son, save the trafficked from their injuries and deaths. Who was he to deny the will of a god’s favoured?

Using the cure in Gotham was always straining and the Batfam knew that. On multiple smaller occasions, she was prevented from using it due to the amount of damage and crime being reverse causing serious health concerns they observed in Marinette. But she never thought it would also be denied on an occasion like this.

“I have to! Robin cou—“

“No, you could die.” He cut her off, her foggy mind becoming more enraged.

“And he could live!”

Without a reply he injected her neck with a sedative, her body collapsed from the drugs and exhaustion. The world going dark around her.

+++++++++++++

Three days after

Her blaring phone distracted her from her dissociative state. She was staring lifelessly at her TV, she could say what happened in the show even if her life depended on it. She scrambled to her phone, Dick’s name lit up the screen.

She accepted the call, answer with a hoarse “hello?”

“Marinette? Are you able to make it over we have some things to tell you.”

Her breath caught in her throat. Pressing her phone to her ear with her shoulder she ran around her apartment, grabbing her keys, shoes and jacket. Rushing out the door she rapidly fired questions at him, “What is it? Did you find him? Is he there?” All of which were answered with silence.

“It’s best that we discuss this when you get to the manor.” And with that, he hung up. The click seemed to echo in her car, even though she knew it didn’t. Driving towards the outskirts of Gotham where Wayne manor resided, she felt a spark of hope rekindle in her chest. Although Dick didn’t give her much to go on she still hoped they found him and everything could go back to how it was.

Fate wasn’t merciful to the naive it seems.

Her world shattered around her as she saw the crisped cape on the table. The smell of burnt blood permeated the room. Her eyes stayed locked onto the cloth as she spoke, “But this is only his cape, not his body. He still could be alive somewhere! He is injured and hurt and we have to find him!”

No one spoke. Their eyes flicked to one another.

Jason limped in her direction, his crutch clicking against the stone flooring. He placed a heavy hand on her shoulder, his eyes brimming with unshed emotions. “The cape was found with the body, everything else was unsalvageable except the cape.”

A silent “we’ve found him, just not how we wanted,” resounded throughout her being.

She glared at Bruce, “He could be alive if you didn’t stop me! I could have saved him!” She lashed out, tears pouring down her cheeks.

“And we would have been having this exact conversation with Damian about why we didn’t stop you. The best outcome for this situation was you living.”

“No the best outcome was both of us being given a chance at survival” Marinette screamed at him, his face was emotionless. How could he be so uncaring to the fact of his youngest son dying?

Running out of the Batcave and manor she gasped at the cold night air. A sob escaped her mouth. Her head banged against her steering wheel, tears dripping onto her pyjama pants. There was no way she’d be able to sleep tonight.

++++++++++++

Twelve days after

Fire danced in her peripheral. A medley of bright oranges and golden yellows. She remembered the times when the two of them would watch the sunset in silence, sipping on hot chocolate and green tea. This blazing inferno was different. Its colours more violent and foreboding.

The screams. They were different from the ones she heard that night. They were his screams.

She saw her body encased within his burnt arms. Damian was little more than a burnt corpse, his eyes blazed green and his bone was replaced with metal pipes. The cure resurrected him but he was not wholly there anymore.

She awoke screaming. Not in control enough to remember she had neighbours; mentally pleading that they’d understand. They knew of his disappearance but not of his death. She was still heavily in denial.

She isolated herself away from everyone, afraid she would hurt anyone else that got close. She couldn’t stop wanting to hurt Bruce for making her unable to use her cure or the goons for setting the place alight and killing her fiancé. She wanted to go scorched earth.

She snuggled into his pillowcase, his faint scent of honey was still present. She willed herself to fall back asleep, his scent surrounding her. His pillow, his shirt, his ring; but she was missing him.

++++++++

Two hundred and eighty-seven days after

Red trickled down her finger. It took her a moment to move the fabric away from the dripping blood source but managed to before it stained. It had been years since she had pricked her finger with a needle, but her subconscious must have needed to feel something; even if it was pain.

She looked around at her juvenile pink room. She had moved back into her parents six months after Damian’s death. Three months into her stay and she still had most of her belongings in boxes. The only decorations in the room were scattered commissions and a wooden blanket.

Looking down at the puddle of blood that was growing on her white desk she wonders if Damian bled before the fire cauterised his wounds. She had researched that burning to death was one of the most painful ways to die, it takes hours, each nerve ending burning. The burn victim usually passes out after a few minutes but she could imagine Damian desperately trying to put himself out, only to find more fire encompassing him.

His cape was bloody so she hopes he bled rather than burned. Or maybe he was crushed by the falling roof and killed instantly. She hoped he didn’t suffer for long.

Similar intrusive thoughts plagued her mind constantly but she kept her focus on her art to push through the days. Gazing down at the wound she found Tikki had held her and Wayzz had wiped the puddle with tissues.

Today she’ll live for them. Tomorrow she might live to try her father’s new recipe of cinnamon macarons. Last Tuesday she lived to hear Luka’s new song. Next month she might live just to pat the stray kitten that lives in the alley behind the Chinese restaurant two streets over.

++++++++++

Five hundred and twenty days after

She froze at the sight before her. Thinking it was another hallucination or she was having another nightmare. “You thought,” The glass in her hand cracked under her grip. Her brain couldn’t process what was happening. She hasn’t disassociated this much since the day he ‘died’.” That by faking your death, you could find out who you could rely on?”

“TT, yes. Now that I know everything can go back to the way it was.” She swigged her glass again, wishing it were whiskey instead of water. When they had met, Jon and his family had warned her that he was severely emotional constipated from his upbringing but this was in the psychopathic area of emotionless.

“No.”

“What?” His shock almost seems real. His eyes had widened and his body language was unsteady.

“No, we aren’t done talking about this! How ignorant do you have to be to think this won’t affect our relationship? Won’t affect me?”

“It wasn’t real. I’m here.” He stepped forward, arms rising to hug her. He never was one for physical contact. She pulled back, grabbing a steak knife and placing it between them. He told her he had set the place aflame. He found the lead for the trafficking ring. He planned it all. And now he was back, almost a year and a half later.

“That doesn’t mean it didn’t hurt! I’m going to have nightmares for the rest of my life! How selfish, how, how stupid do you have to be to not consider what it does to someone who cared about you?!”

“Cared?”

“Do I need to spell it out? We’re done. I don’t want to see you ever again,” She seethed. “You think everything can go back to how it was before? Well, it can’t. I spent months of my life mourning over a guy who wasn’t even dead. Who didn’t even care about me enough not to toy with my emotions. My life isn’t a game Damian!”

“I only did this because I thought—”

“I don’t care. Get out. Out of my house. Out of my life. Just get out.”

“I didn’t intend to hurt you, I just wanted to know.” Hot, rage-filled tears ran down her cheeks. She jabbed the knife at him, stopping inches before his chest. She had backed him down the stair and to the front door. Neither of her parents were home and he was more unpredictable than ever.

“I hope you can live with what you’ve done, le miel”

[butts-bouncing-on-the-beltway]

@your-url-is-problematic

Okay so I can't properly tag you but here's my best attempt at answering right now.

1) creating distance where I can between myself and the biggest of my feelings. Sometimes in my less healthy moments, this looks like dissociation or "turning off everything" so I have the space and time to do what needs doing without feeling all kinds of ways about it. Sometimes it looks like using my med management routine to it's fullest including as needed stuff to support my neuro chemistry through pain. Sometimes it looks like cycling through distress tolerance exercises long enough to think through what I'm feeling and what it means to me. Sometimes it looks like failing to do any of those things and having a nice little mental breakdown because something mildly inconvenient happened, then once I've cried myself out, saying to myself "**yes**, all those feelings are valid, **and** I still need to get back into my routine again, so what would it look like to make that happen?"

2) learning about cognitive distortions, what they feel like for me specifically in my brain, and what it means about my life when they start to appear more often than usual. I tend towards all or nothing thinking and mind reading when I feel emotionally unwelcome/rejected by people I care about. I tend towards filtering when I'm experiencing depression or self-harming/self-blaming cognitions. And I tend towards emotional reasoning when I am feeling afraid or anxious. Knowing these things helps me not only identify what is going on in my head, but what feelings may be accompanying those thoughts, whether those thoughts have rational, irrational, or misdirected triggers, and how I want to actually move forward.

3) learn to ask myself what I need and what it could look like to seek out having that need met, either by myself or by someone else. Am I eating enough? (Rarely) Have I been managing my pain effectively? (LMAO) Have I been communicating with my partner when I feel overwhelmed or when I need help? (Making progress!) Have I been seeking supervision at work? (Usually) Have I talked to my friends recently? (Forming habits here!) When was the last time I experienced joy/appreciation/comfort? (Try to set aside time daily, but at least weekly - mmmm potato leek soup...) Basically, I try to live my life for myself and my well-being as an active process, recognizing that it can be easy to lose track of myself in amongst my commitments and responsibilities.

4) Ask for help, even when I don't know what help I need yet. This is....hard. It doesn't feel good as someone with a history of being condemned for needing things from others, let alone a history of being taken advantage of by those I needed to rely on. I often feel afraid and angry and confused when I try to do this, and end up having to do a lot of self-soothing/distress tolerance in order to get through it. I usually cry a lot after. It feels a little safer every time it works out though, and the more I get to a place where I know who I can trust with these asks and who I can't, the better I feel about it.

5) this sounds really silly and it kinda is but like. I bought a bunch of double sided whiteboards and hung them up in every room of my home with a short list of routine care tasks that room needs to stay clean and cared for. It lets me wander into a room, pick a task randomly off the list, do it, and wander out, rather than say going on hours long cleaning binges that leave me exhausted and overwhelmed. Or conversely going months without cleaning anything because I can't think enough about how to break down the project. I used goblin tools to make the lists even which was really nice.

6) sometimes you just don't manage to navigate things effectively. You try your best. You put your all into a situation. And it still FUCKING SUCKS. So you sit down. You cry a lot. If you're me, you maybe chain smoke an entire pack of cigarettes. You smoke some weed and howl at the moon. And when you're too tired to move, you go to bed and sleep it all off. Then you wake up the next day and you make a 1, 2, 3 list. The 1st, 2nd, and 3rd thing you need to do in order to feel like you have your shit together that day. Start with thing 1. If you finish, move to thing 2. If you finish that, move to thing 3. Go to sleep and promise yourself you'll keep taking steps forward tomorrow. If at any point you get stuck, take a break, take a nap, and let the place you got stuck become your new thing two the next day. Thing one is to tell yourself that you're content you got as far as you did, and you are allowed to be at peace with that. Repeat this as needed until you feel capable of "continuing to walk" without having to force one foot in front of the other.

7) forgive yourself for the past. Even when you don't. Forgiveness is a skill. Keep doing it until it feels like it's working.

8) grief is made up of many feelings, and you have to let yourself feel all of them in order to get through it. Sometimes that means letting yourself cry. Letting yourself scream and yell and tear up photos of people who hurt you. Letting yourself go numb for a bit. Letting yourself laugh. Letting yourself want to be wanted. It's gonna look different for everyone, and it's gonna even look different for you each time. That's okay. Feel, breathe, say "yes, and"

9) i have been in weekly therapy since I was 17. I don't think I would be here without that. I have had bad therapists, amazing therapists, and therapists that were...fine, I guess. I learned how to take what I needed from the process, regardless of what they brought to the table. Being able to talk through my thought processes with someone, and get feedback (even when that feedback was shitty lmao) has always been really helpful for me in getting through bad times, and making the most of good ones. It helps that I have a lot of knowledge about the process and field at this point in my life (in and out of mental health care at various levels of intensity for nearly 20yrs now, on top of my work in the field) and know more or less how to create a safe therapeutic relationship for myself, including managing my risk of being. You know. Forcibly institutionalized again.

10) I am fortunate enough to be highly educated and qualified in a field that is desperate for staffing, and got hired immediately out of my graduate program by an employer that actually pays a living wage in the current economy. It demands an intense amount of work and commitment from me, but in exchange, my wife gets to be stay-at-home and focus on caring for the house, her unpaid labor organizing work and hobbies that she is passionate about, and caring for needs of mine that I have trouble tracking and keeping up with. We are literally a one-income family, with my wife essentially only working small gigs for pin money. It's not always easy, and we do sometimes find ourselves pretty tightly budgeted, but as compared to households where everyone is desperately working as many hours as possible for too little money with not enough time for themselves let alone each other, it would be pretty fucking disrespectful of me not to acknowledge how much of what I do for myself stems from the fact that I can pay my family's bills on my own income without working more than 40hrs/wk. Getting to this point wasn't easy? I was literally homeless and living in a tent for part of my last year of MSW lol, but like. Being capable of doing it at all is a privilege, and it has opened the door to even more privileges in life. I think a lot about how important it is for people to have access to college educations, technical training programs/apprenticeships, and other professional skills development opportunities in order to allow for economic enfranchisement. We all kinda get shoved towards the same "high value" degrees these days if we talking about whether or not we want to pursue career development, but there are so many fields whose numbers are dwindling at alarming rates that mean newcomers are able to negotiate their value really effectively (think plumbers, electricians, and other skilled laborers, certain medical care fields, etc). Unionization helps enhance this and support you in advocating for better labor conditions and compensation. I'm really proud of my wife and her work on labor advocacy, as much as I am on the work we do together for community care. It's important to me that one of the things my job allows me to do is support her in her work despite its tendency towards being uhhhhhhh real badly paid. It would be a lot harder for us to contribute our (and especially her) time to labor work the way we do if we relied on her to use her time to earn our bill money.

I don't know if this all is really an answer. It's....certainly not going to be everyone's answer. Life isn't perfect for me, and there have been several really difficult days recently that I have struggled with. I have especially been struggling lately with feelings of anger and frustration that certain people from my past who did me harm seem to have "gotten away with it" which is.....something I'm processing. Like. To go back to the cognitive distortion piece, I don't think that's really true? Like it *feels* true because "oh well nobody knows what they did to me and they get to go through their life not being perceived as someone who did me real, violent, and intentional harm" but like. That's not the same thing as "getting away with it. For one thing....I got away from them. Far away. They can't hurt me any more than they already have. Isn't that consequences enough? My life is absolutely better than it ever was while they were in it, and isn't "living well the best revenge"? I'm not the person I was anymore when they hurt me, in that I have better boundaries with those in my life, a stronger sense of self, and a clearer understanding of what it means to be truly loved. Maybe that's enough? Sometimes my wife still has to hold me when I wake up screaming from the nightmares, and I usually can't get back to sleep after but....I usually sleep without them. That doesn't always feel like enough, but sleep has always been hard for me, so any progress feels like a blessing.

So. I guess the answer is that. I don't really *deal* with the unfairness of it all. I just. I acknowledge it. I let myself be angry about it. I grieve it. Sometimes, that's enough. And sometimes it's not. I just. I don't expect it to be any more or less than it can be for me. I forgive myself for the moments when I *do* expect too much or too little of myself and my situation. I remind myself that it is *always* my choice whether or not I keep putting one step in front of the other. I don't *have* to. I *choose* to. Every time. If I'm not ready to make that choice, I don't. But I do ask myself what it will take to get to the point of being ready. Because while, yeah, it's my choice. The alternative is giving up. And I learned a long time ago that, suicidal as I have been in my life, final endings, giving up, it's not....me. I want to be me. And to do that I have to keep going. Even if that scares me sometimes.

Sometimes you choose to want to keep living. To keep walking. Even when that's hard. Even when it hurts. Even when you can't begin to picture what that will look like yet. You choose. You walk. And you realize that everything in life is temporary. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the sorrowful, the difficult, the straightforward. Nothing lasts forever, and whatever slows your steps will pass one day too. Your feelings about each moment matter, but ultimately they're temporary too. You'll experience other emotions someday, and then the same ones again, and then more emotions still. Life and the world keep turning, whether we like it or not, and we can choose to keep walking, we can choose our pace, we can choose when to take a break, and when to mourn our pain and griefs, and when to celebrate our victories and joys. Life is many things. Unfair is only one of them.

You know. I have been through a lot in my life. I have had a lot of horrible things done to me by people I trusted. I have had to start over more times than is fair. I have often heard the voice in my head sob and scream and kick it's feet that it's just not fair how hard I have to work and how much suffering I have to endure to get the bare fucking minimum of life needs met and I have held that inner tantrumming child in my arms and reassured it that of course, they're right, it's not fair, it never was, it never could be. And yet we must hold hands together and walk on anyway.

So we do. We sniffle and cry and keep walking, hand in un-fucking-loveable hand for years. Decades at this point. Sometimes things get better. Sometimes they get bad again. Sometimes we have to sit down and take a break to cry some more before we can keep walking because it hurts so much and it's so unfair. But we do keep walking.

I don't know what the future holds for me, and I can't pretend the present is perfect. The night terrors still wake me up crying and begging some days when I wish I could think myself healed and unaffected. Sometimes I hold child-me close and whisper that we'll be okay, as long as we're together, even though I have no idea if it's true.

I am not the people who hurt me though. I am still kind. I am still walking. I am still growing and changing. I am still loved even when being loved is hard. I still love even when loving feels dangerous. I still accept and learn my flaws, my vulnerabilities, my needs, my strengths, my blindspots, my selfhood, my wholeness, even when those things are hard to sit with. I have learned what it means to ask for and accept help, and what it means for help to be the kind you need, not always the kind you want. I am learning to find peace in my imperfections while still seeking and striving for growth.

I don't know who I will be ten years from now. But I know that it's important to me that I be a continuation of myself. That I never leave myself behind even as I never hold myself stagnant. I am learning what it means to dance through that kind of change, that kind of forgiveness, that kind of hope.

I wish I had real answers to life. I don't. But I know that I will wake up tomorrow, climb to my feet, dust off my walking boots, and take a few more steps into the future.

[the-edgy-enby-shitposter]

Hey I was up all night and then drank caffeine and my ADHD decided that it will use those things to dump a bunch of random-ass Nico di Angelo headcanons onto my blog for yall to see

Autistic Nico. Please he has so many traits just let my boi be autistic Rick you fuckin coward

Extreme adhd. Like how Leo’s supposed to have. It just manifests in smaller and less “disruptive” ways. Like tapping his fingers or legs constantly and that kinda shit yknow

Stims lots. Lots of different ways too. He especially likes flapping his hands when he’s happy but he’s kinda embarrassed to do it around people but it also makes him even more happy to stim and he is conflicted- he also kinda scrunches up his face and rocks his fist from side to side when he’s distressed, yes I’m projecting leave me alone

When given the chance and like. Once he’s asked like 20 times whether the person’s SURE because he doesn’t wanna be annoying. He infodumps LOTS. Like he will infodump about something for like 10 minutes lmao

Lots of hyperfixations and special interests!!! Lots lots lots!!! Yknow when he was like 10 he liked pirates? I hc he got more into just general ocean stuff (like creatures and plants and stuff) and sailing stuff as he got older to the point of a special interest- and then he was fascinated by the way people used the stars to navigate before gps and compasses and etc and that got him into space stuffs. Gods help you if you agree to let him infodump about both, he’ll talk for like 20 minutes straight (gay) about the stars and planets and sea life and how space is just a parallel of the sea because it’s deep and mysterious and rockets and probes are like ships and submarines and he’s just rlly excited plz you Have to let him infodump or he’ll give you sad puppy eyes

Oh yeah when all else fails but he really wants something he just pulls out the puppy eyes card and it works every single fuckin time even for people whom it doesn’t usually work with

Another special interest: different “mythologies”. Not just Greek and Roman (though ofc those too), but lots of different ones. He knows lots of “myths” and creatures and gods and stuff from them

He identifies as a cis guy bUT he Lowkey vibes with they/them pronouns and if someone used xe/xem then he wouldn’t be mad either- so like if asked xyr pronouns they’ll say “he/him” but if like ASKED asked by someone who isn’t afraid of a longish answer he adds “but they/them or xe/xem’s chill too, basically call me what you want and I’m fine lol”

Sensory issues. Lots.

Gets sensory overload super easily, Will buys him noise canceling headphones to help with part of it and xe’s legitimately OVERJOYED when Will gives them to him

He 👏 goes 👏 non 👏 verbal 👏 sometimes 👏

Xe has a phobia of needles (same)

Also sp*ders and butterflies (yea butterflies)

But they’re actually rlly good with animals as long as said animals are not like. Insects lol

Xyr sleep schedule is fucked- he switches between sleeping for days on end but awake for 2 hours and being awake for 5 days in a row but sleeping for 30 collective (not consecutive) minutes

Just randomly dissociates for like a solid few minutes for absolutely no reason and if xe dissociates while talking to you then you better be prepared to wait because you cannot get him out of it

Chronic nosebleeds. The littlest things trigger his nosebleeds and sometimes it just happens randomly

Will swears xe goes out of xyr way to get injuries because every day he has five new bruises or cuts or scrapes but in reality they’re just clumsy as fuck

A rlly picky eater because ✨textures are weird✨

Cannot cook to save his life. He’s disgracing his Italian origins (/j) but he doesn’t rlly care, all he wants is to make boxed mac and cheese without burning something (including himself)

Actually rlly good with patients in the infirmary and he just goes to help Will all the time with things like checking on patients and bandaging/suturing wounds and splinting broken bones and stuff like that he just loves to help

Combat boots. That’s all. Combat boots.

He 100% does awkward finger guns or peace signs all the time lol

His sword is a falcata because ✨dramatic✨ and ✨ominous✨

He lives in fingerless gloves during the winter

Really intolerant to cold- they’ll just come out of his cabin in the winter wearing like four of Will’s hoodies and two beanies and the thickest pair of sweatpants xe can find

He has lots of tiny half-visible freckles from hanging out with Will I do not make the rules

His hair is wavy and thick and poofy and I lomve- also the kid never brushes xyr hair and there’s always tangles in it

Sorry this is so fuckin long adhd said “mmmm yes infodump all your hcs about your child why don’t you”

[myherorp]

THE QUIRK DATABASE HAS BEEN UPDATED !

incoming information on hero in training, glitch.

get to know them !

faceclaim: park seonghwa 

name: min kiha

hero name: glitch

gender & pronouns: male he/him

age: 19

year group: third

department: hero

agency: nighthawk

reputation: although he’s seen as a pretty good hero by his teachers and his hard work and time spent training his quirk is highly noticed ( especially given the agency he was signed onto ), there are still a lot of people that don’t know him. most have heard of glitch, but most are surprised when putting the name to the person given how naturally quiet he is and on the softer side. for the most part though his reputation among students and teachers is positive, most knowing that he’s one of the reliable ones and someone you can go to for pretty much everything.

the quirk !

quirk name: glitching

quirk description: a form of what could be considered teleportation where the user has the ability to glitch in the real world, like in a video game.

abilities:

he can essentially teleport through the use of glitches to different places. it leaves a sort of after image of himself behind him as he glitches to wherever he’s going and then that image will fade.

his power isn’t limited to only being able to glitch his entire body at once, kiha can actually glitch certain body parts instead. e.g glitching his hand to grab something and glitching it back to him if he didn’t want to move to get it. it makes it more versatile and gives him more abilities with it.  

the power allows him to move quickly in rapid succession, so despite the limitation of only glitching to where he can visualise, he can do it quickly enough that it doesn’t matter too much ; though it does run the risk of completely glitching him out.

weaknesses:

it’s a completely unstable and difficult to control power and because of that kiha can lose control of it quite easily. when losing control it leaves him in a glitched out state where his body is both here and not there at the same time and is painful and disorientating for kiha. when in this state anyone or thing that touches him will also glitch which can be extremely harmful if it is another person as there would likely be backlash for them and even more instability. also due to difficulty in control, his glitching does sometimes happen randomly sometimes without his control.

it’s draining to kiha the more he uses it. it often leaves him tired and prone to falling asleep at random, or reacting slower. it can be considered similar to narcolepsy in some regards, but his glitching can be difficult for the body to handle at times and this is something that will likely never improve.

despite the fact he can glitch through walls and objects to get to anywhere that he can visualise, it has to be within a certain distance. kiha can’t glitch across the world or to the other side of the country. it has to be within one hundred meters, or the rough estimate he has, and kiha has to be able to visualise the area clearly enough. he can’t glitch somewhere he’s never been or at least seen clearly. he also runs the risk when glitching to places he can’t physically see at the time of glitching into someone if someone is in the spot he glitches to.

like the unstableness already mentioned, kiha could completely glitch away. in between glitching and reality there’s a space that he enters which separates his body in the glitching form and there’s the possibility his body, or parts of it, could get stuck in there leaving that part of his body completely glitched away until he finds enough strength to get it back. he still doesn’t fully understand that in between zone or if he can get to it without completely disappearing or losing himself.

although possible, he can glitch others with him though it runs the risk of glitching him out or glitching them out. it’s a risky move, but it is possible.. he’s just worried about it even if it’s one of his main focuses in training.

mutation: due to quirk overuse in the past there are various parts of his body that look to be permanently glitched out, like missing pieces.

the history !

triggers: fire, death

kiha was the oldest of two sons. the exciting first addition and happily received kid all around. it was exciting for the family, his parents looking forward finally starting their own little family now too. it wasn’t long after him either that their second son was born, a little brother for kiha to grow up with.

having two young kids though, it was only natural in the day and age that kiha and his brother alike would grow up to idolise and stand in awe at the heroes of the world. it was only aided by the fact his aunt was a hero too, and really he couldn’t help but love looking up to her i every way. it was his aunt that nudged him into thinking about being a hero from a young age too, and oh she’d be all too right in what he’d grow up to do then.

things got a little difficult when the boys quirk manifested though. something that was difficult to control and almost seemed to be more detrimental to kiha than helpful, given how he began to fall asleep more and easier, lost concentration.. and it took almost all his will power just to stop from accidentally using it. that didn’t stop it though, he still found himself taking a step some days and ending up on the other side of the room whilst half his body lagged behind.

it was difficult to get used to, and although it led to some.. interesting situations ( like the time he got stuck in the wall or accidentally phased through his mother ), it was still draining on the young boy. it meant quirk training started early just to try and give him some way to release built up energy, or get it as under control as he could before he inevitably applied for a hero school.

his aunt and a few of her sidekicks were the ones to help train him too in the more professional manner. training him to use his quirk effectively as a hero would, as well as combat skills and strength training as they tried to build him up. of course, this was when his parents had deemed him a suitable age, not wanting their child to be too young and learning this.. but they knew how serious the boy was about being a hero.

that wasn’t to say his parents didn’t worry about their oldest son though, knowing that kiha wasn’t exactly the typical hero. he was quieter than most, not exactly outspoken and sometimes his confidence was weighed down. he struggled with things others didn’t, and sometimes his quirk just left him empty. so they worried, but their support never wavered despite that as they helped push him onto his dream.

his brothers support was probably the best he could have though. having him excited to see him get into a hero course and to set himself on the path to being a hero. it was no secret that the younger of the two was excited to become a hero himself too.

when kiha got into u.y though? that was a shock. he hadn’t thought he’d done well on the exam, despite studying day and night for the written and training as much as he could with anyone that would have him. he did his best, and it paid off. it was terrifyingly amazing.

his first year passes then too, leaving kiha learning so much more than he’d ever known before and only proceeding to get better, his quirk stronger as he found more control and precision. there were still faults, and a lot that he’d never be able to push past ( like the collapsing, dissociation and unpredictable glitching that happened sometimes ). but he was learning.

the end of the year brought tragedy though.

kiha was called from where he’d been in class only to be told that his aunt had died in a villain attack. nobody needed to say it, but her death affected the family incredibly. all of a sudden his parents going from supportive to worrying and fearing that the same thing could happen to their sons. his younger brother was so close to exams and determined, yet his parents were fearful of what could happen. kiha was already in the course though, and although they urged him to think it over more, the older boy still stuck by wanting to be a hero. he wanted to make his aunt proud of all she’d taught him. of all her teaching that he was using. he would make her proud too. both the brothers would. she deserved that.

so time passed and kiha continued to train and work on himself. he joined the nighthawk agency after being scouted, turning into an intern for them and finding that he quite enjoyed the underground work more. it wasn’t the most normal thing for hero’s to go into, but it suited the boy better. being away from the spotlight as much as he could and not having to deal with media? it was a blessing for the quiet boy. it made it easier for him to focus and work and just learn, plus the agency was nice and he found himself fitting in quite easily.

it was the beginning of the new year though, coming up to his third year at u.y, that things took a turn for kiha instead. so far being lucky to avoid anything too major ( sure he’d ended up in hospital a few times and dealt with events that would probably scar him for life in some way ), but it was never anything so serious as this.

it was supposed to just be a basic patrol. something that kiha was used to and comfortable doing considering he knew his routes. he knew the people in his area and even if it was night, he wasn’t scared. he should have been.

chasing down a basic robber led him into an alley that gave way to an open area shielded from everywhere. it was almost as if as soon as he stepped foot within it that he knew he’d made a mistake. that something was so wrong. so very wrong. a cold feeling spread through him and the feeling of being watched was back.

he couldn’t move, body stuck in place when normally he’d be so quick to escape. but the robber was gone, and in place was a dark and masked figure approaching with a laugh. the sound was distorted. the voice. but kiha could still work out what was said to him. asked of him ( more demanded ).

whoever they were.. whoever they worked for. villains. they wanted information from the school. intel and knowledge that only those within it knew. they knew that kiha was trusted. a good student and helpful, always doing what he could for others. they’d been watching him. closely too considering when his brother was brought up, his parents and his family. his aunt. they knew all they needed to know about him to put him in a position of defeat.

but finally his body kicked in. fear pushing him to try and attack. to capture the villain in front of him to stop this act.

that was kiha’s second mistake.

almost as if it was expected, the buildings around them. civilian homes and flats. began to catch fire. small explosions igniting hidden traps. it should’ve hit kiha before how prepared the masked one was, but out of fear and protective instincts it led to the mistake that could cost lives. and it did.

kiha tried. he tried as much as he could to signal the agency before he tried to save as many as he could. he was alone though, this part of the city was never too bad and he wasn’t expected to need any help with it tonight. he was alone and there was only so much that kiha could do as he glitched from house to house trying as hard as he could. he just didn’t factor into the equation how destructive it was for him to use his quirk like this against all rational thinking. pushing his limits and breaking past them in a frenzy. it was never going to end right.

see, it wasn’t the first time that he’d ‘glitched out’. a state where his body went into a completely glitched form, kiha barely having any idea of what was going on around him or whether his body was actually connected or not at that time. it was disorientating and horrible as a feeling usually, but something he’d gotten as used to as he could. but this time it was different.

this time it was like that was amplified as he lost complete sense of everything. everywhere hurt and kiha couldn’t even tell if his body was joined together at all or even close by. if he was one piece. it just felt like he was splitting instead, everywhere. it went on too long this time too, by the time he was coming back too, his body and mind so horrible drained and aching that all he could do is collapse as daylight breached the sky.

the heroes were there, probably had been for hours, but all kiha could focus on for a moment as he fought for consciousness was the hand around his throat suddenly. he couldn’t see the masked figure, no glimpse of them at all. but a female voice was there in his ear now, telling him the same thing that the other had. to get the information or suffer the consequences that he now knew all too well. but this time she left him with something.

he didn’t know her quirk, but it was clear it was something to do with silencing. a manipulative action as she left him with the inability to voice anything he’d been told or anything that happened. anything about the encounter or what they wanted. no way for him to seek out help.

a large part of him prayed it was a nightmare as the hand disappeared and so did his vision, slipping into darkness as his body gave out.

he woke up two days later in hospital. no visible injuries minus a few burns and scrapes, the rest already healed. he had a horrible headache, but nothing was too bad. until he remembered what had happened.

he realised quickly when his family came in that the moment he’d hoped was a nightmare was all too real. opening his mouth to try and ask if anyone had contacted them or anything strange had happened-- it was almost like his throat closed off. no words came up and luckily, or unluckily, kiha couldn’t tell right now, his parents just took as his having a silent episode. the incident had been traumatic enough for it anyway.

he tried signing it then too. nothing. his hands froze up. couldn’t write it either, the same thing happening. and it was really then his situation set in. no way out but to do what they wanted, to wait to be contact and do what they asked lest they do something to his family. he was stuck.

things went by slowly then though as he was questioned about what happened and if he knew if it was attack or not. he managed to give a variation of a story that didn’t include what had really happened, and it was satisfactory enough. then kiha was pat on the back and praised for his valiant effort at trying to save as many as he could despite the effect it had on him.

he was praised despite knowing that all of it was his fault. it was a terrifying feeling, guilt seeping into every part of him.

he didn’t know what to do then but push on as he was taken back to the dorms eventually and given a rest period of a few weeks to get back to himself given all that had happened. it was during that time that kiha started to notice the physical effect that overusing his quirk had cost him too.

parts of his body were glitching. a continuous state that left glitches in place of missing spots. missing pieces. lost. fear led him to covering it up instead, something somewhat easy to do given the uniform and his costume, but there was a fear there now knowing that using his quirk could.. do that.

some part of kiha wanted to curse out whatever god was watching over him then too. if there even was one. because how was it fair to throw all of this on him? he was a hero, and yet now he was working for the enemy against his will with no way out. he was stuck. truly stuck.

still, time passed and just like they’d said, kiha was contacted. he tried all that he could to find a way out, but still he was left giving information that he didn’t want to away in the form of notes being left in specific places. information given about agencies, the school.. security-- everything. students even.

how could he be a hero when he was putting everyone in danger? kiha didn’t have an answered to that.. all he had was guilt.

the personality !

kiha is gentle by nature. known for his quiet and calming demeanour, most people tend to not notice him at first. he comes out of his shell most around people he’s comfortable with, able to joke and make comments a lot more freely than around strangers.

he doesn’t do very well in meeting new people at first, usually coming off a lot quieter than he can normally bee, but kiha has pretty bad social anxiety. he’s managed to push through it enough that it doesn’t effect his hero career too much ( he enjoys the smiles or praises he receives from anyone he helps, a reassurance of sorts ). but it can still be difficult for kiha at times, sometimes leaving him to lapse into silence for a while instead of talking.

that being said, he’s nearly always some sort of tired due to his quirk and it can lead to him coming off more aloof or uncaring than he actually is.

[system-of-a-feather]

hi I don’t have DID but I did have a question about it. how do repressed memories work in a DID system? if I did my research correctly, “repressed memories” aren’t really a thing for anyone without a dissociative disorder, most people just forget parts of trauma due to normal forgetting, but people with DID and OSDD actually have repressed memories that aren’t due to normal forgetting. I’m very interested in that, can you explain it a bit, or at least what your experiences with it? thanks!

I actually took a bit to look this one up a bit more through my university’s research journals as I haven’t actually looked too much SPECIFICALLY into repressed memories XD ((Honestly Imma cry when I graduate because I won’t have free access to almost any animal, agriculture, biological, and psych research journal ;-;))

I was initially intending to do more research, however my internet died leaving me with the five sources I had collected before. I was going to see if I could find anything directly focusing on DID / OSDD and repressed memories as a specific focus, but I suppose I will respond with what I have here.

With that disclaimer out of the way… 

I would say what you have researched is mostly correct, repressed memory and the clinical term for when repressed memory is extremely notable, occurring frequently, ongoing, and/or chronic, Dissociative Amnesia, is a dissociative symptom. However, to say that you would need a “dissociative disorder” to have repressed memories would be a bit of an absolute / heavy handed statement that is not only not researched or supported enough to say, and there has been some evidence to show otherwise. What is important is that there is a traumatic event and a “repression” and dissociation of the memory and while that is a dissociative symptom, having dissociative symptoms does not mean you have a dissociative disorder and one can have dissociative symptoms without having a dissociative disorder. PTSD and Complex PTSD have been shown to have repressed memories somewhat regularly and while some may argue if they count as a dissociative disorder as they are on the dissociative spectrum, they have been shown to have it. Additional, one of the sources I was reading from showed that Cluster B and C Personality disorders may present with repressed memories. One would have to take into account that there is a high comorbidity with dissociative disorders, PTSD / C-PTSD, and personality disorders, but it is possible to have repressed memories without necessarily being able to be diagnosed with a dissociative disorder.

Additionally, a lot of the time repressed memories, while not being able to be properly recalled initially can be shown to be present and affecting an individual with them unconsciously in the form of body memories (not remembering sexual / physical abuse and feeling pain where it happened for example) and hyper reactivity regarding memories not known for otherwise unapparent reasons. There is a lot of controversy between suggestibly created false memories and genuine repressed memories but repressed memories are certain to be a thing and often approaching them is best to find if there is information surrounding the time that the event supposedly occurred to see if information matches. However, for many, that kind of ability to match known information / accounts of others to the retrieved repressed memory can be hard / difficult.

Now the general information I researched about repressed memory out of the way, repressed memory / dissociative amnesia around traumatic events is different from naturally forgotten parts of trauma as the memory of a repressed memory is still strongly imbedded somewhere in the mind of the individual. Similarly to PTSD, the memory has latched itself deeply into the brain as an unprocessed traumatized event and as a result, the memory is generally actually considerably “fresh” feeling and is often easy territory for flashbacks and all aspects you would see someone with PTSD having towards a traumatic event (can’t stop thinking about it, memories appearing out of nowhere, flashbacks) if said memory was to be uprooted again. However, due to a dissociative wall or barrier around the memory, it is – on a conscious level – blocked out of the individuals memory. While the memory is very alive and unprocessed, the brain has compartmentalized and stored the memory away as to help the individual live despite the trauma that was experienced. For some people, this wall may be harder or easier to breach, sometimes small bits might trickle through, but the mind intentionally wants to keep this memory away.

When an individual naturally forgets a memory or parts of trauma, the event is generally vague but still there and it isn’t as charged cause it actually is a forgotten detail, where as with repressed memories they are still very strong memories similar to those of PTSD that are “hidden” and “swept under the rug” for more colloquial ways of explaining it. Through therapy or triggering related events these memories can be uprooted and brought to light where these repressed memories will return and behave like traumatic memories in PTSD would respond.

As for how this works specifically with DID / OSDD? I can’t say in a researched manner as I didn’t get the chance to research into that enough to confidently explain or assert anything. Instead, the bottom portions are going to be mainly on our own experiences as a system with DID regarding it.

For us, I suppose what many would consider “repressed memories” are mostly held by our trauma holders. I have little direct memory or direct experience with a lot of the trauma our system has been through (especially in our younger ages before seven as I have no memory other than hearsay) and a lot of our trauma for me are considerably repressed memories as I really don’t know much other than the summary / jest of what happened to us. For me, those memories are much like stories you hear from your friend as that is just about as much about them as I know. I know there is a lot that has happened to which on a fraction of them has Aderis has given one sentence explanations. None of those events I really remember, but they are events that she claims to have happened that the facts seem to line up with.

I honestly though don’t have too much experience with a lot of repressed memory, or at least recovering repressed memory, as I admittedly am EXTREMELY avoidant of recovering those memories regardless of if I consciously want to or not and Aderis is very protective about keeping a lot of those memories unknown or detatched.

[tw: minor memory recollection regarding food and neglectful parenting; this is one of the lesser traumatic instances so I was comfortable sharing it with more detail]

The only key moment of recovering a repressed memory that I could think of that I have personal experience with is one time our Little, in an attempt to try to give me more reason to get my parents to let us eat fried chicken, had shared (as in given me the full memory, first person, and all) of a dinner back when we were like five or six when we were eating fried chicken. I think it was processed to her as a happy fun childhood memory, but when it came over to me it was a really bad memory as even though our body and self were happy, I knew that it was the sixth day in a row we had fried chicken for dinner and that it would repetitively keep happening for weeks and weeks as our dad had been put in charge of taking care of the family while my mom worked and he was less than healthy, less than intelligent, and considerably neglectful to say the least

[tw: clear]

When that memory hit I actually had a really bad panic attack (internally cause around family) and it honestly kind of really messed up my relationship to chicken which, prior to gaining that memory, was one of my main staples in my diet. It is actually to the point that I find randomly the taste of chicken can actually set off a panic attack and flashback to that time. I hadn’t particularly remembered what our dinners were like back then, I knew they were laughably bad, but I hadn’t ACTUALLY known or remembered what it was like and having it return was heavy.

In a sense, I feel repressed memory in DID and OSDD might be correlated with the compartmentalization of the memory being almost allocated to alters to hold and handle rather than simply being a repressed memory. That is just a guess though.

Honestly I don’t know TOO much on this topic so that’s all I think I’ll say on it as I don’t really have much else from the research that I feel is fitting to the topic and I personally don’t feel confident enough on the topic with my own experiences. Apologies if this is a bit long. This is one of the things I wrote to pass time while my internet was dead.

Some research journals I read / searched for important parts to read from are here below, some if not most might not be accessible to the public without pay however unless you too have access from a university or similar.

Repressed Memory [x] [x] 

Axis of Dissociative Amnesia [x]

Personality Disorders + Dissociative Amnesia [x]

-Riku (Host)