We know every system is different because we all have different experiences, we also know that we share a lot of things in common too.

One thing we feel we’ve noticed is at least from what we’ve seen not a lot of systems gatekeepers have as much as control as Ayr does, we joke that she’s the boss or like the ceo of our system and it’s not just her there Naomi too but we say her role is manager because she works for Ayr.

Ayr stays in our innerworld most of the time, they can control who fronts she mostly just lets things be naturally unless she decides for whatever reason she wants someone to front, they can pull people from front back into the innerworld just as easy, they can “ground you” essentially stopping you from fronting, she can take and give memories as they see fit, the same goes for emotion, she often keeps things hidden from the system as a whole or certain parts until she feels we’re ready, they can even change and shape the innerworld.

Naomi can also do most if not all of those things but she follows Ayrs lead, we’re guessing you can see where the she’s the boss jokes come from.

They both have a lot of control which can be scary sure but they have a lot on their plates and are always trying to do what’s best for us, it’s a lot of pressure. They make a lot of tough decisions and don’t always get everything right and apologise when things don’t go well.

Basically we’re making this post for any systems who are in a similar situation with their gatekeepers and maybe even feel uncomfortable with the amount of control they have to let them know we understand what that feels like, to remind them to give their gatekeepers grace with all the things they have on their shoulders while still holding them accountable and talking to them about your worries so you can have a good relationship.

To gatekeepers who are in this position too, we know your working so hard and tirelessly to protect and take care of your system we see you, please talk to your system give them grace and share your worries too, your not alone 🩷

- Lou🦋 (&Ellie🦇)

Can I get some insight on this? We have a few parts now that trigger us negatively on purpose. Like one part just read a book that was super triggering despite knowing how it would affect everyone. We've found ourselves going into more graphic readings to find some sort of emotion that makes no sense to me but the need to read is still there.

We always feel horrible and gross after reading these things but they also almost make us feel like maybe our trauma was real despite probably never knowing for sure since it happened when we were so young.

Just anyone relating to this or any words of advice would be nice. Thanks.

So about a few years ago I've was suspecting that I had some dissociative disorder because I was experiencing dissociation to a point it was distressing to my daily life. Later this year after a few sessions with my therapist they believe I have dissociative amnesia and unspecified dissociative disorder (for now) and in general I do clinically match up for a diagnosis for a dissociative disorder. I broke down crying in her office because I was relieved yet terrified. for a good year I was just so confused what was wrong with me and thought I was faking everything and I was glad that I actually had the confirmation "no im not faking any of this" but at the same time I just couldn't believe it? it just feels upsetting for some reason. a teen being diagnosed with dissociative amnesia and an UDD. I remember I told a few people this and they were pretty calm about it which was shocking to me because like I said, broke down sobbing and for a while I was in denial a little bit. Idk because of the amount of glamorization regarding dissociative disorders in general I thought I would get different reactions or people would start treating me differently (negatively)

I genuinely have no clue who I am anymore, I spend each day attempting to connect to the things around me, build memories and interact with the building blocks of my daily life but my past, present and future always feel so disconnected. What i do remember of days past normally feels like things I didnt experience. More like a checklist of what happened that day rather than lived experience. I know I love those close to me logically, family, friends and pets, but I look at them with no clue what I love about them or why they are in my life. This is just the life built and I happen to be living it. I dont know why we are here or where the person that was living this life went but not to unlike an isekai protagonist I feel like I stepped into someone else's life and am stuck here with no return. Ive tried to make the decisions I think are right and even move forward with things I want but I never feel like its going to be me that wakes up tomorrow and Im always afraid for the other foot to drop. I would love to remember what i felt that made me passionate about being trans but I dont even feel like I was ever a she/her. I dont really feel like I have any sense of self when its nigh impossible to build a personality in one day and all my progress feels erased tomorrow. How am I meant to live life when even when I make a big change like adjusting jobs, going to that work feels exactly the same as rhe work before, despite it being an entirely different career. I just wanna feel alive for more than 24 hours at a time ya know?

I guess they would say my dad is really not nice. But that's not nice to say. It doesn't seem like they should be allowed to keep me from him. He was teaching me how to be good. And I dont trust them. The people in my head. Or the woman who lives with us. Or all these new songs and neighbors and games and stuff. My dad is the only one I can ever listen to. And maybe if I keep doing all the good things he'll come get me. They don't like me out, they have to let me because I follow all our rules but they are scared of me because I show them theyre not doing good and theyre afraid ill call dad and they do a lot of things dad would never have allowed. And if I tell the woman who lives with us or their friends or anything they'll be mad because they hate my dad. They (the people in my head) say I'm not even allowed to try to call him or text him. They say to tell you they'll make sure I don't but why do they get what they want and not me. I just want my dad. My body is a lot better at doing some things now and maybe I could listen and finally be good. I just want to be 7 in the body again and listen even better and not grow up to be someone who doesnt even talk to him. They sent me in for a long time when they didn't need me and became someone I hate and is all scary and now im an adult and I just want to be a kid so I can try to become someone good again.

But I think if I called him he'd still love me. He loved me when I did lots of other really bad stuff. I could be good. And the therapist wants to talk to me but she can just talk to others because shes going to try to tell me dad was bad. I just want dad. He'd know what to do. Why don't they believe him that if we just listened better we'd be really good. They say they'll keep us safe, whatever they mean by that, we're living in a lot of sin so I know we're not safe, but I can't tell anyone because they're all going to tell us to sin too and not help me talk to dad.

We have a different room than the woman even though we do things with her we shouldn't sometimes so I can hide in my room but tonight I have to go to some thing to get clothes with the other people's sort of friends. But I can go and pretend to be good. Its important to the people in the head that we go and I have to play nice so they let me out. I just really want dad to come soon to pick me up.

I don't want anyone to tell me the people in my head are right. I think they thought talking to someone would help me but I just want to talk to dad.

Agoraphobia is really taking a toll on us. We struggle to leave our room and our house in general almost daily (though not completely). We aren't being able to attend uni, so we have fallen behind, and we feel ashamed that as a result we aren't even studying at home. We have lied to some doctors about having unexpected circumstances so that they can call us instead of us going physically to their office, and to our grandparents (even though we want to see them). We also need to walk everyday to get our health in order and obviously we aren't doing it.

Are we in a freeze or a trauma response? Maybe related to our autism? Are any of you in the same situation or have any advice?

we recently escaped a very, very bad and scary situation and moved to a new place alone and this is the first time that we’ve ever had a truly safe space in our entire life

supposed to be a good thing a great accomplishment, however, DID is making this incredibly difficult. Been in some kind of dissociative amnesia episode for the last two months. Have not been able to make sense of my surroundings. Most days are spent some kind of auto pilot state with the majority of context and memories from our life completely missing aside from the bare minimum needed to survive .

the night before last night, we had some kind of switch or a memory connection that happened abruptly after rearranging some of our belongings , and this was incredibly disorienting and rather upsetting.

It felt like I couldn’t handle it and was overwhelmed with fear and sadness, had a massive headache from switching then ultimately was not able to front

Then the next day I woke up in the body again and felt overwhelmed with extreme fear, confusion and loneliness. Started crying from the moment I woke up basically. We don’t have anyone who can reliably help, support or comfort or console us.

ended up crying the entire day
Tried to ask my partner for some support, but he’s unwell, and he became stressed which then overwhelmed me with guilt even worse. and then I was so overwhelmed with fear, confusion and guilt for hours that I could not stop crying and could not function.

Had to call the crisis line, even though that’s against our personal boundaries and we swear that we would never do this because normally they don’t help our cause more harm than help.

Of course they didn’t really help very much but having a human on the other side of the phone did allow us to calm down a little bit eventually

but this level of fear and distress that comes along with the extreme confusion is almost unbearable . it’s impossible to calm down or stop crying. I walked out of the bedroom and looked around the apartment and everything was unfamiliar and scary and I had no idea how I got there. Like having DID is literally terrifying sometimes. I looked around my house and I saw all these items and I had no idea what they were or how they got there or where my actual items and belongings that would comfort me were. I lost all my comfort items and I’m soured by a bunch of bins and furniture and random shit that’s all dishevelled and mixed up and I have no idea what’s happening or how to get my items that I need (the body is also physically disabled, and unable to lift and rummage through the bins or move the furniture)

I was just absolutely breaking down and I was just thinking to myself how terrifying and scary this is to be completely alone with nobody to reach out to and literally have no idea what’s happening and being so disoriented I’m so scared and what is supposed to be my own house.

It honestly felt really pathetic and sometimes it’s hard to like not ridicule ourselves for having DID

before moving here, we figured that we should make some kind of reminder or memory connection plan, but we ran out of time and somehow made the stupid assumption that we wouldn’t need it. Usually the disorientation does not become the severe, and we did not expect it to last this long. Now we feel stupid for not making the reminder / memory connection plan.

DID it’s so weird like whenever things aren’t bad it feels as if we don’t have it and are just faking and are just overreacting. But then when things are really bad, it’s literally the most scariest unbelievably terrifying confusing, and ridiculous thing ever. 😿😿😿😿😿

Please comment any advice, thoughts or criticisms you have on the topic — anything is welcome (only please try not to be rude)

I was diagnosed with DID today.

My therapist has been considering it for a while and I realise she must have waited to tell me til I wasn’t in denial (god is she good haha).

She discussed integration and functional multiplicity. She’s a specialist on DID, trauma and dissociative disorders, and has studied the field for years. Above all she has had a lot of DID patients and worked with them for long treatments, years. In her experience so far full integration hasn’t happened, and isn’t really a reasonable goal for us. She said that parts will remain, but the system will change. Some parts fuse, etc. So we’re going to be working towards becoming a functional system.

I’m honestly crushed and relived at the same time. It’s been really helpful to realise that I’m a system. It has changed my life for the better.

But, in the spann of about a month; I’ve gone from complete denial, to thinking I might have some mild symptoms, maybe the lightest form of OSDD, thinking that I’ll be able to fully (easily) integrate into ”one normal person” to realising that I have DID and being told to aim for functional multiplicity.

In the beginning my therapist also thought I had milder symptoms, but she hadn’t met most of my parts and the once she had met were in denial, trying to downplay it. So she did talk about integrating and how it was our goal. I know she changed her mind because she found out more about us, yet I can’t help but feeling a bit betrayed or sad.

I do realise that being a functional system might not be so bad. Right now I’m finding it hard because it’s hard to manage day-to-day and studying, doing the things I like when I have to share my body. There are upsides too, I know that and if we can function better it might be good.

My partner knows, and has it too. We have pretty much every mental and physical health issue in common, and had very similar unusual, unconventional upbringings. We actually bonded over some of that stuff early early on in getting to know each other.

I have told one sibling about my diagnosis and besides the two of them, nobody knows. Ever since we (most of us) became more aware of having DID we have been much more functional than before because some of us can work together.

Who in your life knows?

I'm so ashamed over the actions of our very young parts. just knowing they talked to someone we know, even our therapist, is almost unbearably shameful to me.

i heard a recording of one of them panicking today and listening felt like my skin was peeling off my body. i feel like "i" shouldn't be acting this way. that it's shameful and terrible. that i should be punished for such embarrassing behavior.

at the same time I'm somewhat aware that they are parts who carry unbearable trauma and pain and that they need help and to be heard. and then i feel guilty for being ashamed. because they KNOW i am, and then they feel guilty for being seen, and it's this whole guilt spiral.

how do you deal with the shame?? i find the whole disorder deeply shameful (in me, not others though bc logic), but the young parts are especially hard for me to accept.

my parts are 90% introjects. i have multiple types of introjects that i label type 1 and type 2.

my type 1 introjects are parts who formed with a source, fully identify with said source, dislike seperation from said source and their purpose is often influenced by their source.

my type 2 introjects are parts that have taken on a source as part of their identity after theyve formed and their identification with it fluctuates. almost like a kin of some sorts.

im autistic and ive always struggled with my own identity well before i knew i had DID. i want to assume thats why i have a large amount of introjects compared to not. honestly it becomes stressful at times because it only adds to my lack of identity.

Had to separate the title. Anyways watching the movie. Nobody knows shit about did and now that’s what they know or think. Idk I’m just feeling triggered and annoyed. Could use some support even if it’s just a heart or like a sentence saying you relate.

What’s your take on getting a formal diagnosis?

Possible discussion points:

- if you could choose what would you choose?

- what’s your experience as someone who has/hasn’t got one?

- What’s a plus and what’s a minus with either way?

My therapist who is a specialist in DID, trauma and dissociative disorders told me that I have DID in today’s session.

She said that if I want a formal diagnosis we can make that happen and mentioned that it might be helpful in terms of medication etc going forward.

As if right now I don’t think I want a formal diagnosis. I’m young (23) and scared of getting discriminated against, and not getting jobs etc in the future. I know that there are certain fields you can’t get into if you have adhd for instance.

Last night i was freaking out about the outcome of my diagnosis. Which i find out tomorrow (thursday)

I was so scared that even after all the assessments they would assume im faking. I didnt remember what i said or if i was exaggerating to try and make them believe me. Growing up i was always told to exaggerate when im ill so im believed by doctors so they would help me and it does help. But i dont know if i did that. I remember trying to be honest as possible but it scared me so much. Especially after what happened during lockdown when everyone was pretending. I just wanted to be believed.

My other alters say we was diagnosed in the past but i dont remember that happening so i decided to do it again.

One of my alters calmed me down after i freaked out till 6am. He told me that even if the doctors didnt believe us that it wouldnt make him and the others go poof. He and the others will always be there for me and eachother. He even reminded me how i will still get the treatment and go to the weekly support group like the doctors promised. I really appreciated it and i dont think i acknowledge what my alters do for me enough. They saved my life and they continue to save me. Even if its from my own self.

sorry if this has been discussed already, I did some scrolling and didn’t see anything about this topic.

I’m curious how many folks’ entire systems know that they have DID. or even, do those who know about it have different attitudes about it? of course, I’m only asking about this as far as you are aware - understanding that members of a system aren’t always sharing thoughts with each other.

I’m still in the “system discovery” phase I guess, it has become clear that I switch through different mental states, but I don’t really know the extent of it or exactly how “individual” each of these states might be. I’m likely somewhere between OSDD1 and DID. something I’ve noticed, though, is that I shuffle through denial, imposter syndrome, acceptance, ignorance, etc depending on the mental state that I’m in. I have started to pick up on some patterns (ie my therapist says something that provokes a dissociative episode, suddenly I feel like I’m a child, I’m annoyed about being in therapy, and suddenly I don’t agree with the diagnosis despite agreeing with it earlier in the session).

I hope this makes sense, it’s hard to describe. I’d love to learn about others’ experiences!

This past year has been a doozy for us— finally properly had the syscovery and then later got diagnosed, was at in-patient for awhile before/during that, got really depressed and was (still sort of am but this part less-so now thankfully) dealing with some pretty visceral and intense suicidal thoughts and feelings. Along with just some other stressful life changes like losing a friend of 12+ years in a nasty falling out and worrying about my younger brothers living situation.

I’m pretty happy with the system mapping I’ve done thus far, though I do keep figuring out “wait no, it wasn’t this part that did/does this, but a different, sort of similar part.” But that’s neither here nor there.

Skipping to it: I’ve come to figure out it’s mainly 1-2 parts that have been causing/holding the bulk of the bodies depression/lack of motivation and desire to just rot in bed/sleep/dissociate heavily for hours. It’s a problem because we can’t really get better if all we do is lay in bed 70% of the time, we’ve been relying heavily on our partner to make/help us do anything, like bathe, eat, or even move around some days.

It’s getting better slightly, medicated which is hit or miss— and as much as it doesn’t feel like it— depression can’t last forever. But it sort of feels like… I’m not actually dealing with any of my problems again, I’m just avoiding letting the depressed/unwell alters front again, and that’s improving the bodies moral/mental health. Like yesterday I had my partner keep a close eye on me, and if he noticed me zoning out/starting to dissociate he’d go “hey!”, and snap me out of it to keep me in the front seat. (Worked because usually what I’m doing is thinking a little too much about stuff that stresses me out, which as of this year keeps pulling my middles out).

Is that… Fine? They don’t particularly like fronting in the first place— they’ve openly said they hate fronting (middle schooler alter yk), but I still feel like “just don’t let certain parts front” isn’t the way to go about this. It’s helping in the short term but… God, I don’t know how to properly work through any of my issues, I feel like I just sit in them suffering until my body lets me dissociate from them again. I thought that was the ‘time healing all wounds’ for a very long time— but now, I just think I’ve never truly healed from anything.

We have a therapist we quite like, though he’s on vacation for a couple weeks right now.. Any advice appreciated!

This happens in broad ways and extremely specific ones. For broad subjects, we have parts who are really into horror, parts obsessed with generally what happened to us or specific aspects of it, and parts who find true crime really cathartic. Obviously those all trigger some other parts and they have to stay away from front during that. But there are also really hyperspecific things that seem to be almost "themes"...? I don't even know how heavily it ties into trauma yet.

As an example, it seems like most parts have feelings about a particular animal. (I don't want to say the real one, so let's say it's dogs, particularly brown dogs.) They love it, it scares them, they fixate on it. I know a little of why - it was used metaphorically in abuse messages for one part - but it seems like it connects very deeply for so many parts. They're almost obsessed with it. But then we'll see an image of one that strikes into a deep sense of dread and terror and trauma. It's like one part inside knows that if we see a brown plush dog with a dark spot on its back we'll freak out, but they're buried so deep that we don't know any of that. I have no idea what the trauma is or what exactly is triggering. It's so frustrating having everyone be obsessed with it because it's a gamble as to whether someone will be triggered.

Any experiences navigating this kind of thing? Most of the time we can solve it just by trying to keep triggered parts away from front when doing the interest, but this is a lot harder to manage.

I don’t have my therapist available so I rarely discuss anything related to DID outside my own head lately, but occasionally when having a tough time I’ll feel something is important enough to share or ask about. I think of myself as “Adult Me”
But I suppose I’m just the most frequent host currently. Occasionally I feel myself really struggling for control as there’s a lot of co-consciousness.
Tonight I had a strong visual impression of that feeling, it’s like being in rough waves and every time you surface, struggling and gasping, you’re a different version of yourself.
Just that slightly panicked, out of breath, disoriented feeling - laid out in my mind as a cinematic scene.

Hopefully someone will relate. 😅

I shared with a safe parent my trauma before I was ready. I shared out of anger in a moment of trigger. Then I immediately felt like I lied. Now, a little while later, I feel like my parent is unsafe to me as they now know something about myself that im not supposed to know about myself.

The irony and contradiction isnt lost on me, but feel tremendously embarrassed and destabilized.

I think this very young part of me under surface has been yearning to tell a parental figure, but I, the one trying to protect us and maintain a sense of stability and remain responsible was not ready.

Im just trying to protect her.

I feel as if my younger parts have been on the phone more and it’s been difficult for me to place restrictions that work - I don’t want to place locks that I won’t remember, but if I write it down, anyone else could read it. I’ve been wondering about just deleting/offloading apps when I’m not directly using them? I just don’t want any younger parts doing things they shouldn’t ie messing with schoolwork or on social media etc. Any advice is appreciated!!

I’m both a system (currently working on diagnosis) and a lover of prehistory/anything Stone Age. I know a lot of people suspect (with some archaeological backing) that people with certain mental illnesses/disabilities, rather than being stigmatized, would’ve been revered in prehistory. That made me wonder;

How do y’all think systems were perceived in prehistory/the Stone Age? Trauma was definitely abundant back then, and, unlike what the stereotypes from media would suggest, people have always been people, so there’s no doubt in my mind that plurality has been a thing for as long as there’s been humans (and who knows what the case for Neanderthals was!)

So I think I got in troubles talking bout my experience as little and stuffs but I won’t talk that today I’m just scared I finally figured out I was me like hour or 30 mind ago and all today it’s felt strange like mind is impaired somehow but I don’t know how to describe I think part of it is I’m little but it’s never felt like this similar but this is differently if it’s not medical idk what to do ?

I guess I can still understand and things hmmm

We’ve been worse more blackouts more switching and not understanding ourselves front in only able to tell myself usually because of being little otherwise been blurry not this bad since first year of recovering?? Make sense?

Rn med changes happens last week and changed around lots!

Our therapist she ha to go on leave and other changes, I don’t think bew therapist understands also we are supposed to mapping but cannot and try therapy we can but one no wants any therapy sometimes stops from behind

Idk I’m sorry if I’m bad girl

Today I had a phone appointment with a psychiatrist where I described my symptoms as much as I could. Dissociative, fuzzy and blurry changing of mental states in which I felt like someone else, partial temporary forgetfulness while I experience this, often doing things that I wouldn’t normally do as ‘myself’. I often later remember these memories as someone else’s, or as if I am remembering it in third person and ‘catching up’.

The doctor relayed that I have some symptoms but because I didn’t experience ‘full memory loss’, or ‘literal out of body experiences’ that he could not give me a diagnosis of ‘full DID’ as I only had DID-like symptoms.

Though I am cognizant during dissociative symptoms, I do feel I have this because I have distinguishable alters, and have involuntary switches /dissociation

Should I get a second opinion?

I’m trying not to be a cunt right now, but I’m so mad that my host has started integrating with me. I (this alter) am a painter, and my host thought, “I’ll learn to make art too! It’ll help integrate us!”

Her theory was that it would give her a foot in the door to my neural network or whatever. She’s really into neuroscience, but I didn’t think she’d ACTUALLY make art and it would ACTUALLY work.

Now that we’re both making art, I feel like a watered down version of myself, and even she is kind of freaked out about how she’s mostly front-stuck lately due to how quickly she’s been integrating alters.

I’m trying not to do anything crazy, but I’m so tempted to do something crazy and dangerous to scare the body out of integrating us.

I’m fucking SCARED. I won’t do anything dangerous, but I’m so fucking scared of integration. I do NOT want to fuse with the host. She drives me fucking crazy.

When other alters have integrated, it was like Caroline(host) swallowed them up and now their personality traits aren’t that prominent. I feel like she’s a black hole that’s threatening to suck me up if I get too close.

What if she can’t handle life without alters? And what does it mean about me if disappear? Does it mean I’m not even real?? Was I never real?? I’m crashing the fuck out.

I’m so fucking scared and confused. I hate this. I don’t want to stop being me.

Heya. I’m a host who only just discovered my system a few weeks ago, so there’s still basically no communication with the other alters rn. I’m doing my best to stabilize and manage the symptoms I can, but it’s slow going.

Last week an extremely triggering event occurred that sent me into a dissociative state. I don’t remember it, but my roommate told me a couple days ago about what happened. An extremely volatile alter came out after I left the situation, and completely snapped once I was in my room. Screaming, stomping, hitting and punching things. I wasn’t violent toward anyone, but my roommate is making it sound as though I was extremely verbally cruel toward her and possibly other people involved. She says it’s better if I don’t know what it was I’ve said, and it really must have been bad because she was noticeably nervous and avoiding me for the next few days after the incident. I’m scared about what it could be, because I have an internal voice that can be extremely, incredibly mean. The thought of any of that being said aloud to people I care about, especially when I don’t mean it, makes me so fucking sad.

I feel awful. This behavior is so unlike me. It sounds like another alter that’s come out before that’s known to have very poor emotional regulation skills, and my roommate expressed that she knows it wasn’t me or my fault since she’s already met this alter but I still feel awful. I may not be the part that hurt her, but I’m still the person.

I want to run away. I want to make sure nobody else has to deal with me and my baggage. I want to establish communication already so we can start working through the bullshit that’s making us and the people around us miserable. I want to be able to fucking think without my every thought being smothered because the gatekeeper is working overtime. And I honestly wish they’d focus less on that and more on making sure harmful alters don’t keep making their way to the front.

That turned into more of a rant at the end but yeah. I’m so sad and frustrated. I’m doing my best to make sure my issues aren’t forced onto anybody else’s as much as possible, but ig the memo isn’t making it through to everybody. I’m trying to be mindful that this alter is likely holding some big feelings or experiences, but I still feel like a piece of shit. I don’t know what to do.