If you want to help playtest this mod, join our Discord! It features the creation of different "profiles" on one account which each have their individual skin, location, inventory, and their own keep inventory toggle.
You can download this without joining the Discord here, but keep in mind it's still in early beta so there will probably be bugs. The keybind for the alter menu is 'K' by default.
It is. Once, one of my headmates made a bunch of words censored on my phone, which was very funny when another alter who frequently used those words fronted next :3
You can do this sort of thing with ADHD (or probably just poor memory), too. I just leave random rickroll traps (one of which I just re-discovered is typing that word, which autocorrects to the full lyrics if I’m not careful) around my phone for my future self to fall for. Anyways, while I do take a sinister joy in pranking myself, I have begun to get wise to my tricks (except just now)
I have many chaos gremlins in my system but they understand the value and need for at least some order and organization. They're letting me build us a scaffolding or external structure that will help us maintain stability and meet our basic needs, before releasing them to do their gremlin thing.
Several of us are assholes though. Haha we can be a bit rough with each other but never cruel.
I think when you can so deeply understand someone's mind and how and why they act and think a certain way, their chaos or assholery is far less upsetting or distressing.
Theres an anime that explores this, one side is constantly throwing the other sides clothes and shit away, to the point that they are k own around the neighborhood as the crazy lady always yelling at herself in the dump. She's one of the side characters in Paranoia Agent, a Satoshi Kon story. Pretty peak but maybe dont watch it on a day youre suicidal lol
Yes I can't live without google maps even when I was only driving to work at one place consistently, I stopped doing it because I knew where we went but then some other alter got lost lol
We have very subtle switches since we have very little amnesia barriers. Crocheting is a fucking trip sometimes. We’ll be trying to count a row of like 36 stitches and switch halfway through and it’s so annoying lmao
Not the OP, but for us, each of us have different characters on City of Heroes. We have pretty overt switches now that we know what they feel like; we typically go and lie down for comfort, and when switching in, walk in, log the character out without a word and log in the one that we actually play. It's not confusing at all to us.
We also read our own books after an incident where one of us finished reading MY book and returned it, and I couldn't check it out later. They read books very differently, so it's like it was spoilered badly and taken out of my posession.
I know it's not the point of the thread, but I'm surprised to hear City of Heroes is still going! I remember when it and CoV shut down, it took up a huge part of my life.
For us, we periodically just have a particular very floaty, drifty feeling, and if we don't risk a headache and fight through it, after a few seconds we close our eyes and are gone to the innerworld, and it's not our problem anymore. Usually about threeish times a day.
A shared dream/visualization/memory palace space that we have furnished with useful things to help us communicate and do our jobs, and sometimes billboards of important things everyone needs to do. Not really much, but it helps us conceptualize what's going on and be able to work with it. All part of our therapy to work better as a system.
I'm aware of them and their actions peripherally. It doesn't feel like sleeping but it doesn't feel like not sleeping? It kind of feels like nothing tbh. Feel free to ask more questions and I can answer them to the best of my capabilities.
Is Minecraft your only way of communicating, or just the preferred? Also, has it ever happened that some alters have conflict/don't like each other, or have conflict/don't like you?
I mentioned it in the comic but our other methods of communicating are basically either in a private Discord server or in our journal. It's not the main or preferred way since not everyone is interested in playing, but it is a nice way to get to know each other.
Does your body ever sleep, or is someone always awake? Is any of your alters a writer? Have you ever split chores between your alters to avoid doing something you don't like, whereas your alters don't particularly mind?
That's so cool. From what little I know, DID comes from childhood trauma, so I'm sorry it happened, but I can't help finding the idea of multiple people in one body incredible (unless some of them are assholes. That would be rough. It's already hard to be at peace with yourself when there's one of you, I can't imagine having actual beef with someone else, and sharing your body with them. That would be the ultimate asshole roommate hell).
I'm not sure what to ask more, so I'll ask this:
If you had to describe the most important part of your experience to someone else (either the part you feel is more precious as a personal truth, or the thing that stuck with you the most, or anything else), what would that be?
In one sense, we're always just ourself. There's a sense like the body is just one person. But there are several... think like accounts or profiles that switch in. When I'm not in front, I'm functionally asleep. I'm not completely comatose, but I don't have a real functional separate memory of what I did in the innerworld either.
DID seems like a really interesting lived experience. Obviously I'm sure it's hard and full of challenges, but wow. I feel like it would be really cool to date someone who had so many distinct personalities.
I used to think I was undateable because of it. My partner however likes how many different viewpoints I have on things, especially when it comes to writing/worldbuilding/plotting (we're both creatives).
It's definitely a challenge but we managed to find our rhythm :)
A large amount of us could be described as me but in another timeline, lol. However there are parts that don't front as often, and they usually behave as if they are stuck in a single instance in time which makes them very different.
...Yes. Both of those are true. Uncertain how to explain in depth more. We disagree on some fundamental things. For a basic example comprehensible to Americans, our system contains both a George Bush era Republican and someone who thinks that Bernie Sanders and AOC are conservative capitalist right wing flunkies. We have a high femme goth and a very masculine alter.
Not who you're responding to, but yeahhh. Our partner is amazing and found a house that has a ridiculous amount of small closets in the master bedroom. So we technically have four closets for all of our different styles, though we try to stay as minimalist as possible. (Our partner got the walkin closet) Clothing style ranges from black T-shirts and jeans guy, to cutsey pastel goth in skirts, to gay af dandy, business woman in pink or blue, to weirdo in a speedo and Hawaiian shirt. Though, to be fair, we haven't gotten him the speedo yet. I'm clinging to the remains of my dignity.
In a way, you're living my dream. There's just one of me in here but I bounce between hobo, princess, soft goth, and "whoops, went to work in pjs". As much as it has to be a pain in the ass for you, having closets to sort all the different styles is giving me a bit of envy lmao
I just want to say there are so many questions of both casual and invasive natures out of genuine curiosity swimming through my head, and I hope you've been receiving respect
I get that too! But then I remind myself that it is usually triggered by severe, childhood trauma and I'm like: yeah..., nah... I do not wish this on anyone.
I am, however, still intrigued by hearing someones lived experiences with DID (the real stuff, not the fictional stuff) in hopes to better educate myself. Should I ever run into someone who suffers from it.
Yeah, different inventories, different skins, and it saves your location. You can add or delete alters as you wish, and it comes with a keep inventory toggle for each one since some of us have different play styles
We have a lectern at spawn displaying our notebook :) it mostly has certain projects that need to be done (making spawn pretty, organizing our shopping district, making technical farms) and alters can just sign up wherever depending on how they want to play.
From previous post replies, it's at least inventories and positions. Each member of the system can sign back in where they last left off, with their own stuff.
I’ve been meaning to ask, but I’m afraid it’s already been answered and I missed it:
What happens to your knowledge? Like when you were in school and stuff. Do all your alters have all your knowledge? Like, whoever showed up for the exams, were they just as good as everyone else?
It's... mixed. There are skills the rock has that I don't even attempt because I was dormant for all of that. Some things are shared. It's kind of an incoherent muddle that some psychologist is probably doing a study on somewhere.
When we were in school we had several incidents where one of us would show up to take a test they hadn't studied for, or even been present in the classes for, and obviously failed. We barely graduated high school because of that, despite being more than capable. We've attempted higher education three or four times and barely managed to get an associates degree that was never used. Our knowledge used to be strictly divided up between us. Whoever studied the material and learned it would be the only one with access.
These days we can access each others knowledge, though how we use it will be unique. We also don't seem to have access to things like talent or natural inclinations. For example, I'm extremely good at problem solving, making rapid decisions, and team leading. No one else in my system has that. However, our dissociation/amnesia barriers are dropping and often times, we can just poke whoever has the skill that we need and get their input.
For us, skills that reside in the body are shared among all of us. (Think driving a car, knife skills, physical therapy) But skills that reside in the head are linked to the headmate that learned it. (Think programming, drawing and music)
That feels...respectfully, kinda arbitrary. But I guess when it comes to the mind, perception is pretty important.
The drawing one just stood out to me, especially in contrast to driving a car, because to me those function very similarly. Sure, at the very beginning there's a bunch of thinking, but once you got the hang of it the actual doing doesn't require much thought.
I don't really think actively about how I draw. There id a lot of muscle memory involved. The "what" is obviously not as passive, but unless I'm trying out something new obviously, it's not a "head skill" as you put it. No more than driving a car would be at least.
I dunno, just seems interesting to me.
I'm guessing (not at all someone who knows what they're talking about) it's a difference of motor skills vs cogitation? You'd still retain the ability/innate motor skills to draw but any of the actual why (the methods, techniques, or even art style) would be vastly different depending on who is control?
My partner is an artist with DID and I can confirm (at least for them) that that's pretty much how it works. Their alters can all draw but the way they draw is different. One's better at and prefers sketching while another colors and renders art in a more painterly style, for example.
I can only speak for my own system here, but for us (3 in total) the knowledge is shared as well as open bounds of communication in all ways (we all talk to each other rather than some being locked away from others that some people might experience). The execution of someone's system's knowledge might differ though. Some might collapse under pressure for an exam while others are composed; the information is all in there but retrieving it could be easy or difficult depending on the front person.
Its less about a manifest of ability and more about a response toward outward stimuli if that makes sense? I feel fortunate in that we all communicate fairly openly. Ive heard of others that experience amnesia between shifts because they all work separately. While having the privilege of a cohesive system, it hurts my heart to think that others cannot integrate the same way
Is that mod Switchy by any chance? This one is not plural itself but it knows quite a lot of systems, and if it isn't Switchy than something a bit more functional would be very nice (Switchy uh... tends to crash on switching on servers)
Would you share the mod or is it private since you commissioned it ? I'd like to try it as well for my own system but I completely understand if you want to keep it private
I have now added it into the description! Keep in mind its still in beta, and you can reach out on our Discord if you have any future suggestions or bugs to report :)
If it isn't touchy, how does it feel when you're not "in control" for lack of a better term? Is it like a "blink and in a different place" situation, or...?
The complete black outs used to happen before I started treatment, so now it's more of "hm, I can't remember what I did the last hour/day/week", or I can vaguely remember the big picture but smaller details are lost.
Do you think the same may be true for all your alters, that whoever’s in control at any given time struggles to remember what happened since the last time they had control?
It's like zoning out, and then you blink and Stuff Happened. The circumstances of the switch affect how much context we get communicated. A couple hours ago, I came to in an office at a scheduled appointment we all knew about, and had to ask the guy behind the desk whether it was the start of the appointment or the end. Awkward.
I think they've mentioned before that it's kind of like graying out and at worse it just seems like no time has passed at all and they're suddenly in a different location and it's a different day
The way it works for me and my system is like this:
We are all on a couch together playing a video game. Our player character, much-replacement-167, is controlled by whoever has the controller. The game is in 1st person like Oblivion or Fallout. The controller also has a built in mic to talk to npcs in real time and thats how we interact with the world around us.
Despite person 1 having the controller, 2 and 3 can still talk around the group since we are all on the couch together and we all see whats happening in game (on the tv so to speak) despite not holding the controller.
We pass the controller (or sometimes wrestle it away, depending) for some things. "This level is scary, can you do it?" Or even "i like this area, can i play?" A bit simplified, but thats how the switch occurs for me(us).
In my own case, we all see the whole game and know the mechanics, but the people who are not fronting can only sort of "watch whats happening" if that makes sense? At least in my system i can see it all and i can give input to the player with the controller so we work together. Not everyones systems are as communicative, so be sure not to take that as an overarching rule.
Some people black out entirely, some people are like me where its a lot more "gathered"
It makes it very difficult, I thought about applying to disability but the restrictions on it are very harsh. Right now I don't have a job and just make money doing commissions & comics (Not quite enough to live off of but sustains me for the time being)
(Not OP) I have DID and I work full time. And in the past had jobs with very strict and long hours and no one ever knew. It just takes everyone in the body to understand that if you don't show up for work the result is homelessness and no food etc. It is not exactly optional. Once that has been communicated someone will always make sure work is being done. It is literally the most important thing to do for survival. It does get tricky sometimes with people who are suicidal, but other than that DID in itself does not need to import your career. You are just an entire team doing job-sharing instead of one worker, needs coordination, but not inherently worse in any way.
This is obv just my experience. There are DID systems who don't work, its a big spectrum.
EDIT: One of the more famous people with DID was Prof. Robert Oxnam, he was very accomplished, President of the Asia society NY. He wrote an autobiography about his life with DID.
(Not OP) We managed to work for a relatively long time but each job got increasingly difficult because of the DID until we had to switch jobs, just to avoid being fired. We were certainly never able to build any kind of career and haven't been able to work at all in a while now.
Some systems have an alter who’s entire role is to host and/or go to work, those ones definitely can work although having DID is a lot of mental strain regardless of how ‘well’ they function. Other systems experience more switching, dissociation, and other struggles that would make working harder or impossible. My friend who has DID is a host who is the only alter I’ve met and who does all the socialising and working, but she has told me about at least 3 other alters she has and their different roles [a protector and a little].
The second part was the most difficult for me to grasp. We always worked under the assumption that I was the original, and that he was an intrusion, a parasite, a foreign body injected due to the trauma. Took a lot of therapy to finally get myself AND him to realize we're both the same guy. Which, to an outsider is a "no duh" moment, but it's very different when you're living it and one identity is fronting 95% of the time.
Ooh ok thank you for answering, sorry if the second question is rude at all; That answer makes sense I was just imagining how it works wrong (I always thought it was one personality then others were added onto the first one)
It's from a missed development milestone. Children are scrambled all over the place. At a certain age, their brain gathers all their memories and builds one coherent timeline and sense of self out of it. Because we had profound childhood yikes and certain coping mechanisms, our brains built partitions to hide the memories from ourself, so the memories aren't available to make a coherent whole, and we end up with a fragmented jumble of partitions.
This might be too personal, so feel free to not answer, but how did you find out you had this condition? Was it a surprise to you, did you know all along, or maybe some combination of both?
We knew about the symptoms, but never had a name for it. I generally only existed when somebody was very emotional or distressed by scary people around, and then I would show up and instantly, well, I wasn't crying, so the body would just shut down mid sob, and I'd smile and talk to people in a calm fashion, be friendly to the people who other people had nightmarish memories of, and so on.
Eventually I did that to quiz one of our counselors (we've gone through too many) because the host(age) at the time was too much of a gibbering mess to continue therapy that day, and she realized that that looked like a DID switch.
For us, we noticed that our internal sense of gender kept changing, and it continued doing this for years of us actively keeping track of it. Trends and clear patterns started emerging and we brought it to a therapist and asked “is this DID?” … and it turned out someone else in our body had already had already discussed it with him a previous week.
Some of this has been addressed in previous comics, so I'll restate on behalf of OP.
They do have different frequency when it comes to fronting. The alter represented by the Bat Wings here is one that fronts more often, referred to as a new host(age) in a previous comic.
The artist of this particular entry is different from the usual artist, but the previous artist stated that there isn't really an "original." Everyone's an alter. Even the current host is definitely not the original, as they (Bat Wings) only showed up later.
If someone has asked this already, I'll look for the comment, but how does sleep work? I'm assuming biology functions as normal, so the brain needs downtime for maintenance. Does switching interfere or coincide with rest periods?
Not OP but generally when the body needs rest it needs rest. That being said, whether they follow a stable bedtime schedule or not is dependent on the person and their system/the alters they have. We have one friend whose system is generally pretty good about letting her sleep when she's ready to sleep. Another friend, especially early on into learning he was a system, had issues with alters switching in to do their own thing when he was supposed to be sleeping (sometimes they just want to socialize or watch a movie or play something). Every so often we still have to politely ask that they let the body sleep when someone new shows up and we realize how late it is where he lives.
Wildly depends on the person. Friend of mine has DID and one of her/their alters just up and sleep walks. Will do a bit of laundry or make lunch or something and back to bed they go. She has no clue which one it is, but has joking named them "Casper" since they seem well intentioned but never actually show themselves otherwise.
We tend to switch multiple times a day, and that doesn’t tend to stop when we’re asleep either. Sometimes one of us will wake up for hours and another alter won’t even know until looking at our watch’s sleep tracking (usually after wondering why they feel so tired). Some of us prefer different sleep schedules and we almost never wake up as the same alter that went to sleep.
Because DID is basically just an extreme form of PTSD (developed in early childhood), it can come with severe and/or repeating nightmares or other serious sleep issues as well.
This may be a dumb question, but are all these comics made by "you", or did other alters contribute to them?
Also, do you know if there is a "prime" among you who gets to spend significantly more time "awake" than the other alters? If so, are you the prime or do you only experience a small fraction of your life?
I understand not wanting to identify any alters who haven't already given permission to be identified yet, but would you have a way to help us distinguish who's commenting or posting in the meantime? I had no idea this one was made by someone else than the others, and I personally find that kinda cool.
Obviously you know when you're "me" versus the original poster of the previous comics (well, less obvious sometimes, I can't imagine the confusion), but we'd have no idea if you didn't just let us know just now. And unless you identify in every reply, we never really get to know each of you. Just the account. Hell, I wouldn't ever know if any reply to this is from the same "me" I'm replying to right now.
Which, if that's what all of you would prefer, not gonna impose otherwise. You're perfectly welcome to privacy the same way as any of us are.
I had guessed from the bat wings instead of the astronaut helmet. Uncertain how I (not the original artist but pigeoning replies) would do that; using our internal names seems a bit much.
The artist does depict each alter differently, but only internally. For scenes representing the outside body, whoever is fronting is somewhat unknown as the body is drawn instead of the alter's inner representation.
Bat Wings here was introduced in an earlier comic as a relatively recent new host(age), the alter who is more generally active instead of specialized (definitely the wrong terms for this, but I'm blanking at the moment). Bat Wings has a tendency to front more often or almost as a default? If no one else is?
I recall the artist indicating that they have a host (an alter who spends a lot of time in front) who sometimes gets burnout. Also that that host is a newer alter. My system used to have a host (two, one became self destructive and was retired for a decade) but when we went through system discovery, our host refused the job and we're just taking shifts now.
I know it must be a really difficult and exhausting condition and I don't want to minimise it, but damn I sort of wish when I'm burned out I could just fade away for a few weeks and let an alter keep things ticking over for a bit.
I can assure you that that is awkward to handle on our end. Understandable, but awkward. We had to get a medical withdrawal in a class once because the alter who was taking the class went unavailable for a couple weeks, for example. I took notes in one of the missed classes. They were notes on the wrong things, alas.
Yeah that figures - practically speaking I guess that times of maximum stress when you want a break, are probably also typically the worst possible times to have someone else take over. And it sucks for whoever takes over you when you're flung in to that situation without even knowing what you're meant to be doing!
First off, as someone dealing with their own ND situation they’re still trynna parse, thank you for this truly fascinating insight into your DID! 💛
Maybe a weird question (within comfortability) but are there any media (games, shows, characters etc) that you felt kinda “got” the experience of having DID in a certain way?
(And I don’t mean like a “wow, Split/the Incredible Hulk is clearly the epitome of DID cinema! 🙌” type shit lmao. Cuz I know well enough that making that comparison can be…problematic for some; I.e. the ‘turning it into a superpower’ trope)
I mean like, any sorts of media that you felt caught the Vibe that you perhaps better related to?
Not intentionally, but Severance. The scene of Mark talking to his innie struck me really hard. I also like Deltarune, the whole theme of it being about control and how Kris acts on their own without player intervention.
I’ve watched a bit of Severance, but the comparison of the separate parallel lives of the severed to a condition like DID never occurred to me. Thanks for reminding me to pick it back up!
Waittttt oh my god I never read Kris’s whole thing as DID adjacent in any way before! I know that isn’t directly what you said of course but it is an interesting read. It’s cool to hear how other people see artistic metaphors
Dammit. Being in a few ND friend circles myself, I keep getting thrown back towards Deltarune 😅 (I’m the “I liked Undertale, so I wanna wait till it’s finished first!” Guy lol) That being said, it’s only more reinforcement to finally just take the plunge I guess
I’ll have to check out Severance too thank you!
If I may make an inquiry on it, I’m curious if you’ve seen or have an opinion on Slay the Princess? That’s a game that was thrown my way recently too, so I figured I’d ask
For us, it's rare. There are a couple things in *City of Heroes* that are very DID coded to the point that I would be side-eyeing the writing dev team for example. Usually there just isn't much of a match though.
If im remembering correctly rn, theres a little bit more ppl with did than red heads, so its possible youve met a minimum of one person with the condition in your life. And while its caused by extreme trauma (well from my understanding thats at least the most common theory), sadly theres still many children in incredibly bad situations all around the world. Is not that rare a total of like 20 ppl have congregated in the same thread
Assistive Tech: I suspect only a fraction of that 1% have a presentation acute enough to really show up clearly, but that's still a lot of people, and we definitely keep an eye out for content like this.
We have a set bedtime for this reason, a certain alter has a fun habit of staying awake all night and doesn't get tired. We used to have chronic insomnia but I generally get tired at a specific time and I have meds to help fall asleep.
How do your alters feel about this discussion that you're doing on Reddit? Could you ask if one of them could give us their opinion of your whole ordeal?
I don't know about the artist, but our sleep schedule is pretty consistent. One of us sometimes stays up late, another of us goes to bed early, the alarm goes off at the same time for all of us.
How does DID affect password and account management ?
(Also knowing that your body is not fully your own must be a surreal fucking feeling (unless I'm misunderstanding DID))
Not OP but I just wanna say; yes. Yes it is. I always tell people that it's scary feeling like you're not in control of your body; it's a lot less scary when you know, and more importantly, trust, the ones who are
Also, having similar passwords for everything helps!
I literally don't know most of my passwords. My partner keeps up with them better than me. Different alters have different body dysmorphia too. Like I've been gone for maybe 10 years so it has been a shock to me that my body is so much older and different now. But then there's one who doesn't care at all and then one who is a girl (the only one) who doesn't like how masculine it is.
I call it "the vessel" rather than my body but if I'm not thinking too much about it I'm okay just getting by, but the one girl won't leave the house sometimes.
I honestly just wasn't around to notice not being here. I have some memories of the 10 years but with a lot of blank spots and missing context and info.
I think I'm just in a better position in life to handle some stuff, there's one alter that more or less replaced me when life was too hard to handle and now that things are stable and I have some independence and I'm living away from some of the people who made it too hard.
As a DID system, we are fundamentally one person, even if it doesn’t feel like it. We keep all of our accounts in password managers, and we all have access to them. We all need to get along, because we all share a body, so keeping hidden passwords doesn’t seem particularly helpful to us. But yes, the realization that “somebody else” is or was doing something with your body that you didn’t agree to—it can be terrifying, but it also happens for us so frequently that we kinda just get used to it unless it’s something problematic.
Sure, some of us have different accounts for different purposes, but we don’t hide them from other alters. Some alters may not want to see what’s on the other accounts because it may be triggering for them, and that’s their choice, but we try to at least make information available to each other.
If you personality "A" goes to sleep but who wakes up is personality "B" and they are the entire day, next day or after that one you personality "A" wake up, you notice that 1 or 2 days have passed?
Or not that heavy time skip but just maybe an hour or two?
Not OP but had a friend with the disorder, and she would routinely check the time and date when she woke up because she didn't know if someone else took over while she was asleep. Both of the "main" personalities admitted it's the hardest part for them because they both would go to sleep expecting rest but the other might take over and want to live for a time.
Sometimes they'd just stay up an hour or so but they both knew they needed rest. I admit that it would be difficult to imagine being asleep for days or feeling like you have to share a body and take turns. It's extremely hard to sympathize to so she always had grace when it came to missing something because she was exhausted.
Not OP, but if you’ve ever experienced “highway hypnosis” it’s often a lot like that for us. Sometimes it feels like coming out of that, like realizing that you’ve just driven the last few miles on autopilot and now you’re back aware of the situation; and sometimes it’s looking around and realizing it’s a completely different month or year than you thought it should be. Occasionally it feels like a clean handoff of “okay, I was able to ‘hear’ your last few thoughts before you switched out so I know how to continue with what we’re doing”
For a lot of people with DID, there tends to be a spectrum of how strong/severe switches are.
DID symptoms are usually protective in nature. Although they cause issues in day-to-day functioning and cause distress, not dissociating causes way more issues.
It's a protection mechanism, as emotions and memories, and our nervous systems are simply too much to bear.
If it only magicked away the dissociation I already know how that would go. It would be hell. Most probably wouldn't survive it to be frank about it.
Meditating went badly. And desperately digging for memories was even worse, and extremely dangerous. For some dissociation might be unwelcome. Some parts of it isn't fun, but for people with DID/OSDD it's usually necessary. The PTSD and other issues must be treated first with care.
Not OP, but diagnosed as well. If it "cured" it as in making my crewmates go away or made us all become a single person, absolutely not. If it actually cured us of the dissociation, memory loss, PTSD, lack of co-consciousness & inner space, and otherwise eliminated the need for therapy, then absolutely yes. If it magically gave us all our own bodies, definitely yes.
Assistive Tech: Your idea of a "cure" would be just as traumatic as all the hell we had to go through just to survive and become who we are, so... yeah, we're good.
I'm diagnosed as is OP, and I can tell you that I would not. there are two options long term for did, either therapy to become functional as a mostly combined person or therapy to become functional as a system
My friend described it rephrasing the question. "Would you like to enter a human blender, be killed along with a lot more people and used to make a new, completely different person?"
They're all different people. A "cure" or "merge" would be the same as dying for them
Are all of your alters of the same gender? Are people with DID more likely to be "genderfluid" (though it's not really just the gender that'd be fluid but I hope y'all get what I mean)?
We're a complete mix of gender. We have two women, about six men, and the rest are some mix of non-binary. The interesting part is that we all seem to need to be male, or occupy a male body. Even the women are doing better now that we're transitioning ftm.
Something I appreciate about this subreddit is that it sometimes gives us glimpses into uncommon disorders like this one that most of us would typically never have any interaction with or know what day to day life is like for someone with it.
This is a pretty cute way of including all your personalities, I find the disorder fascinating on the psychology side of things, but ive never actually looked into it too deeply. But something ive been curious of, do you get headaches/migrains often? As I would assume it would take more processing power to store the other personalities, and do you ever feel lonely, or does the internal presence of your alters help satiate that feeling?
We used to get chronic migraines when we were younger, now its more just headaches every once in a while. I do get lonely too, since I can't connect with my alters in my head as well as some other systems.
Every time we switch I usually get some level of a headache. If we don't switch? Gets worse. When we were young and didn't know we were a system, we would get debilitating headaches. Might be connected.
Minecraft has helped us a ton as well, for a mix of these reasons and another. Communication is hard and we don't have any visual 'innerworld'/headspace, and irl we don't live somewhere we feel comfortable or can express ourselves much, and also we're always moving around. So Minecraft is where we can have a shared living space that reflects all of us and that we all can contribute to and feel at home in.
There hasn't been like, an "everyone works on this one thing" project yet but we do have a little village in a meadow! Here's a few screenshots of it so far :)
My system's amnesia barriers were pretty extreme, even for DID, but we still had leakage, namely emotional. But the way switches were depicted in the beginning of the series was jarring because it was so accurate to our experience.
Yet we still didn't figure it out until age 35. It's wild what the human mind will normalize
Okay, gotta ask- are any of your headmates (I just learned of and love that word) a villainous type or do y’all get along? You see it a lot in fiction and it’s probably a trope, right?
Yep. It's called the Evil Alter trope. At most there's a type of alter called the Persecuter that harms the system under a very misguided notion that they're helping their system. Once they're better educated and able to process the things that gave them that belief, they always become a regular member of a system.
In my system we only had one that was angry and externally aggressive. Once she learned and witnessed that vulnerability was far more powerful than anger, she leveled off and is now one of our most friendly and outgoing crewmate.
How do you know what your alters's preffered appearances look like?
Like does alter A write down what they look like, alter B draws them based upon the description, then alter A verifies if they look like that or not?
If it's like the above, how long did it take to find out?
(And did different alters have different ideas on what another one looks like/supposed to look like?)
How sweet to think video games would allow an avenue of communication that people with the same condition years prior would be unable to access. Creating together is a much different experience than just writing a collective journal together or leaving notes for each other. It’s very fascinating.
NO lol, mostly other systems answering some of the more common questions. I only have two accounts and the second one doesn't interact with this community.
We do have good internal communication, but we also find Minecraft to be a wonderful way for different folks to express themselves. One will be working on building an animal sanctuary, another mining for diamonds, and then I’ll come back to find a bunch of signs talking about how I need to be sure not to hurt some rare frog. It’s adorable.
Also, bedrock makes switching between skins pretty easy which we like! Most of us who regularly play Minecraft have separate skins and it’s fun to get to switch between them.
I just wanted to tell you that I find your comic fascinating. I wanted to thank you for allowing us these glimpses into your system. My Grammy was diagnosed with MPD in the mid 80s not long before I was born. And my mom dealt with "fractured personalities" after a nervous breakdown in the early 90s. And it's been great getting this glimpse into what they could have had if their existence had been better understood.
If it's fine to ask, how do you organize yourself? I mean, could one of you put something somewhere and the others can't find it anymore? Could you as a prank change a password to log others out? I hope you don't prank yourself too often, sounds really annoying
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u/ArchaicSoil 5d ago
DID griefing sounds like a whole different can of worms.