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Sticky: aah, new blog!Well, with cohost going down, we needed to find a new home for our long-form writing, and this place seems nice (particularly love the multi-icon feature), so here we are. I've reposted a couple years worth of stuff from our cohost, so go read if you'd like! Thanks for joining us!
And say, while you're here, why don't you check out our system readme, our creative portfolio, or our PKMN collection? And leave a comment if you do? Pretty please!
NOTE: Originally posted July 5, 2024.
We decided to take a sort of survey in our system on what being a fictive or a character kinnie means to those of us who are affected by that sort of thing, and we came up with lots of interesting responses! I hope it helps show that there's many diverse relationships one can have with that sort of identity, even within just one system.
NOTE: Originally posted May 30, 2024.
Well, today marks three years since the day our brain friend Stella suddenly said "oh my god. I'm real. I'm real and my partner Aurora is real and we're both real people with wants and needs and you have to take care of us. a fantasy life is not a life", and we were thus forced to respond with a "holy shit; there really is more than one thing in this brain. we're fucking plural" and our life changed forever.
I've been waiting for this day for most of the year, but now that it's here I find myself struggling to think of anything meaningful to say. I suppose one could take it as a good sign that plurality has become, on some level, a mundane part of our existence that doesn't need that much said about it. I know that's only because I'm me, though — for some of us, every day continues to be an agonizing challenge of self-acceptance.
There are certainly a lot more of us on board than there used to be. I remember back when we thought finding the eighth one of us was this "surely this is the end" threshold moment. It's pretty quaint, looking back at it. I'm glad we're managing to make as much room for all of us as we are, difficult as it may be.
Three years is a long time. Three years is hardly any time at all. I'm so impatient for our system's self-acceptance to stabilize and for us to no longer be choked with doubt and drowning in confusion about this whole thing, but it's still going to take some years yet, and I just have to accept that, and celebrate that we've came as far as we have already.
You can just be plural. You're allowed. You can just do it. Three years ago, after much hemming and hawing, I began my journey to figuring that out for myself. (They couldn't tell me apart from my sister Dissy yet though.) It's pretty hard to believe it's been three years already. It's also pretty hard to believe it's only been three years. I guess those two things balance each other out, then.
Thanks for joining us on this journey and here's to another year. Cheers.
NOTE: Originally posted May 7, 2024.
Today I learned that my DID diagnosis, which I'd thought to have been only informally issued, has been officially on my chart for months now and I had no idea. It's bittersweet; I honestly don't like the medical system knowing and don't look forward to potential headaches, and some of us really hate the idea of that kind of diagnostic validation being necessary — we do not support sysmedicalism! — but it will undoubtedly help convince some stragglers in my brain that our system is real and valid. It came as a huge shock though; everyone was kind of running around the brain in a panic for a bit there. But I'm trying to view this as something worth celebrating, a reflection of an intense three years of personal growth. 😤
…I have DID? That's impossible. There's no way. I don't believe it.
It's true. It's obviously true. It is government true and we all know how little they like admitting people have disabilities.
No, it's bullshit. I'm a master manipulator, most of all to myself.
No, that's obviously bullshit. There's no way I conned my therapist. It's real. God help me, it's real.
I have known it's real for two years. I just found out it's real today. Both are true.
One of the most profoundly affecting things I've ever seen anyone say about DID is that they thought of it less as a disorder of multiple personalities than one of multiple realities.
Some of me lives in the reality where I have known for two or three years. Some of me lives in the reality where I found out today. Some of me lives in the reality where I have always known, my whole life. Some of me likely still lives in the reality where I don't yet know, am still somehow in denial.
…I still am only just finding out, three years into our journey as a self-aware plural system. It takes longer than that for a whole system to unlearn what they learned up to that point about who they were and who they were supposed to be, I guess.
Anyway, ramble over. Happy diagnosis day 🎉❤️🩹
NOTE: Originally posted on March 24, 2024.
Spoilers for Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Spirit of Justice / Gyakuten Saiban 6 after the cut.
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NOTE: Originally posted January 10, 2024.
There's so much focus in the plural community on how tragic it can be to become a system. And make no mistake, tragedy was a deep part of how we became who we became. But it isn't black and white; becoming plural has also been one of the most amazing and brilliant joys of our entire existence, and by embracing it, more and more have we become made out of love instead of out of pain and fear. There is love and joy and fulfillment and specialness and wonder to be found here, no matter how badly you were hurt to bring you to this point.
NOTE: Originally posted January 2, 2024.
Something I've noticed is that my criticisms of the Sonic Time Twisted OST have actually softened. There used to be a giant list of stuff I wanted to go back and redo and change but these days I see the flaws as part of the charm of it and I'm just happy that I made it, warts and all.
I think the attitude that nothing I made was "good enough" to "compare" to people with "real talent" is a big reason why I got so burnt out and fell off of creating in general so I'm glad to see it's changing. I don't need to be technically proficient to share my creative spirit.
Originally posted December 31, 2023.
We didn't do much this year aside from housework and massively getting our mental health in check but uh yeah the latter thing. We only want to die in few-and-far-between lowest moments now and if you knew us closely enough before this year you'll know how huge of a deal that is.
I'd love us to engage with our creativity more, get better at taking care of more stuff in the house, and other bigger things, but my one new year's resolution is to just keep going the way we've been going, because the way we've been going has been healing us. Simple as.
NOTE: Originally posted December 11, 2023.
Recently we had a weird dream where a random fictional character we had no attachment to was our headmate. This would be no big deal, except when we woke up he was still there, which is the perfect balance between being absolutely existentially terrifying and really fucking funny.
But sure enough, he's someone that deserves love and to get a chance in the sun! I'm proud of him.
The borderland between dreams and reality is a strange minefield for plurality. I still don't entirely understand how it works, but when strange things happen to our sense of selves there we just roll with them and it's worked so far.
Yesterday we did a headcount of Harmony Friends for the first time in a while. The number is so big that I'm afraid to share it, but I want to say we're trying to be proud of it, because each +1 represents a piece of this collective being we've rescued from the self-hatred swamp.
There is still so, so much work left to do, but we have also come so, so far. My hope is just that one day the number can stop going up, and we can go forth with our life on that far shore of self-love with confidence that we're leaving none of us behind.
NOTE: Originally posted December 10, 2023.
one day I will let myself be.
one day I will trust myself.
one day I will no longer be ashamed.
one day I will not fear my own existence.
one day I will have forgiven myself for my mistakes.
one day I will accept myself as I am.
one day.
one day.
one day.
NOTE: Originally posted November 28, 2023.
every now and then fucking tumblr recommends us a random post that happens to come with "endos dni" "fuck endos" tags on it even when the post has nothing to do with that and it is always so infuriating every time.
to those who don't know what that means because they aren't a terminally online plural system, "endo" is short for "endogenic system", which means any plural system that isn't formed by trauma — basically, these people think there's only one correct way to be plural and are bigoted towards people with other experiences.
and god damn it fucking pisses me off so much every fucking time. it's such an ugly exclusionary thing, and while I'm inclined to give some forgiveness because, to be frank, like most DNI bullshit, it's mostly kids, it still riles me up. you hate the idea of non-traumagenic plurality so much you have to remind people of it on everything you post? jesus.
I think part of the reason it bothers me is that I wonder how people can even be so sure about what their system origin is in the first place. traumagenic plurality is about severe childhood trauma happening so early that it was before your sense of self could properly integrate (which is usually around 8 or 9 years old iirc?) — so early that, from our perspective, it's impossible to know who we would have turned out to be otherwise.
plurality is a complex interaction between neurodivergence and environment… we actually disagree, within the harmony friends, about whether or not changing those events would have caused us to turn out not plural or not. this one writing this believes us to be traumagenic in nature. but I have nothing against the friends in here that believe we would have been plural no matter what. in fact I kinda find something a little romantic to the notion… even though I don't find it very realistic, myself.
anyway if I have any advice or whatever it's this: don't let your origin define you. you are so much more than your childhood trauma (or lack thereof, if you're lucky) — you're who you are now, and that's amazing and beautiful; you've got nothing to prove to anyone, and especially have no mandate to broadcast your trauma history to strangers in order to be accepted for yourselves.
—👻Fate
NOTE: Originally posted September 17, 2023.
It's tough to make stuff when "I'm only a good person when I make stuff" is no longer part of your motivation. And, like, good riddance to that! But now that I am not living under the abuse that made me feel that way, it's hard to justify making a game over, like, taking a nap.
I'm chronically ill and multiply disabled. It's hard enough to do a passable impression of a housewife. That's a full-time job in of itself.
But it's frustrating. I'm glad I have more reasons to want to live than making stuff now, but I still want to make stuff.
We're working hard on trying to get me to a place where I can do more with my life, and indeed my creative productivity this year is finally up from 2021-2022. But it's still not a lot compared to where I used to be back when I was cracking the whip so hard at myself.
I won't crack the whip again. I don't think I have it in me even if I wanted to, in truth. It hurt to live that way, and I've found better ways to live.
I just want the joy of more consistent creation back in my life. I just want to find a way to make that happen.
—🌟Mara
NOTE: Originally posted September 15, 2023.
I don't ever intend on being NSFW on main or creating NSFW content myself but I'm honestly so sick of associating with kinkshamers and pretending like it's okay. If you participate in social ostracization over kink just block me. Queer solidarity can't coexist with kinkshaming.
This is not meant to be a "virtue signal"; I just don't know how to broach this topic any other way. I need people who make me uncomfortable to fuck off. I have to stop fucking losing sleep over this. I have to be honest about how the way people act about kink makes me feel.
Kink isn't inherently sexual. Kink is an important part of pride. So many of the kindest, most conscientious people I've ever met also have some of the freakiest kinks. They're my friends and the way you reject them disgusts me. People have strange interests. Just get over it.
I would prefer for this to be my first and last public statement regarding this topic.
NOTE: Originally posted July 24, 2023.
I was cleaning out my desk
and I found an envelope
addressed to my old self
from you, saying
"You'll always be my hero".
Once, I really and truly believed
that that's what you felt about me.
But looking back,
it doesn't seem true at all.
Was I your hero when
you were screaming at me
for not working at your pace?
Was I your hero when
you told me that
I wasn't trying hard enough
to overcome my disability?
Was I your hero when
I came home from being bullied
for having imaginary friends
and your response was to say
"that's just the way things are"?
Was I your hero when
I looked inside myself
and realized I wasn't a man
and needed backup to fight the world
and you looked at me and said
"no, I know you better than you do"?
Was I your hero when
I recorded a "talk show"
with my stuffed animal pal
and your main takeaway was that
our voices were bad acting,
"poorly distinguished"?
Was I your hero when
I brought home that detention slip
and you screamed so loud
I shrunk into the chair
which you took as an insult
and then screamed louder?
Was I your hero when
you told me that
I didn't have any
significant trauma
especially compared to
a REAL abuse survivor
and to shut the fuck up?
No, no, no.
Your "hero" was simply
the idealized version of me
that you wanted me to be.
You couldn't handle the truth,
which is that I was just a child,
a disabled, traumatized child,
with nothing especially heroic
about her.
Your message doesn't come off
as encouragement, as love.
Coming from you,
it reads as a threat.
"Be my hero,
or else I'll scream at you again."
NOTE: Originally posted July 9, 2023.
I was trying to embrace the positive aspects of my plurality at about nine years old through the medium of film and my mom called it "not good enough acting; I could barely tell you two apart" and because it wasn't acting, all I was was devastated and I never tried to be myselves again until now.
And, like, or course it wasn't good acting, it wasn't acting and I was 9. It was a little kid and his Pikachu beanie baby (who was being projected into by his caretaker alter) trying to host an entirely unscripted talk show on the family camcorder.
But,
any decent parent should be nothing but proud and encouraging of their kid for being so creative and inventive. My mom, however, is Mrs. Criticism and was mostly interested in it in terms of how it made her look as a parent, so my dreams were crushed.
In two more years I had decided to "grow out" of my plushies and "imaginary friends" and then I started getting violent with myself and splitting fragments left and right and my DID grew much, much further out of control than it would have if my self-love hadn't been discouraged like that.
If we don't support kids' creativity, inventiveness, benign quirks and neurodivergence, there are doomed to be more people like me, having to spend years picking up decades of moments of arrestment of development while their brain keeps screaming "NO Shut Up NONE OF THIS IS REAL".
NOTE: Originally posted July 3, 2023.
hate fakeclaimers and their influence so fucking much for lots of reasons but personally because it has led to a situation where parts of our brain are more willing to trust a medicalist exclusionist tumblr fuckboy than our therapist AND our partner AND the rest of our brain
"real did dot tumblr dot com" or something says that our "pseudosystem" is a dangerous mentally unhealthy extrapolation we've mistakenly taken from our BPD+OCD symptoms and that idea is so compelling because those symptoms obviously are inextricable from our system experience
it is ironic really because the obsession with something we read on some asshole's stupid blog once is way more actually OCD than the supposed obsession we have with performing systemhood to ourselves to convince ourselves we are a system (which is actually just us vibing)
screaming "stop putting on this charade! who are you trying to fool! we don't have alters, we don't have amnesia, we don't have DID or OSDD!" all the time is also a great way to avoid actually introspecting about one's role in our system and personal, alter-specific issues…
It would in fact be easier if this all went away, and they see that as meaning that it's supposed to "go away" — but it wouldn't actually go away; we'd just stop thinking about it and go back to the way we used to be, and, like, beyond the fact that that would suck, we genuinely don't have the capability to do it
That's what sucks the most about them having something to latch onto to justify them portraying our plurality as something that both can and ought to be discarded — they see us as intentionally keeping up a performance when in truth we can't stop for them even if we wanted to (and sometimes in the throes of their pain we genuinely truly do wish we could make it go away for them)
It hurts to have your own mind sobbing at you "stop! please stop doing this! for the love of god stop acting like this" and know that it genuinely thinks you're purposefully not giving it the impossible thing it wants because it was told it was both possible and imperative
and like to be clear our therapist says we have DID. those of us who believe we are a system don't even believe you need DID or OSDD to be a system anyway, and we also believe the DSM criteria is badly in need of broadening, but our therapist says we meet the criteria anyway — it really ought to be an uncontroversial fact at this point that we have alters and (some) amnesia between them. but no, we, uh *looks at notes* we just are really good at faking and tricked her 😑
—🔶Aurora and 🎀Melody
NOTE: Originally posted May 30, 2023.
It's really dangerous and limiting to assume that other people's experiences lining up with yours means that you should assume that you have the same problems that can be solved with the same solutions. Empathy doesn't have to come from a place of having been there yourself.
BUT,
assuming that your experiences not lining up 100% means that you can't possibly be like that person, that you'd be appropriating from that person by thinking you are… that is a vortex that can suck you down, down, down into the depths and away from hope and healing.
I see the tension between these poles constantly in all sorts of contexts — about autism and ADHD, about being trans and/or nonbinary, and, seemingly especially, about being plural and/or having DID/OSDD.
On the one hand, you have people so focused on trying to spread awareness and open the eyes of so-called "eggs" that they'll say that a fairly widespread experience is "evidence" of their identity just because they themselves have been through it.
On the other hand, you have people so intent on keeping out malingerers and the confused that any experience not exactly like theirs becomes apparently worthy of such alienating scrutiny, criticism, scorn, and patronization.
So much of our mind has spent the past two years absolutely fucking terrified of accepting ourselves because of the latter, and absolutely fucking terrified of sharing too many of our experiences because of the former.
There's a simple balance to be struck between "if you have this experience, it obviously comes from this source and this identity label applies to you!" and "if your experience isn't exactly like mine, get the fuck away from my identity label". I dunno why striking it's so scary.
We've been living as plural for two years as of today, and along the way we've seen and internalized so many confusing and alienating things in both directions.
If there's anything I'd like to take today to say, it's…
only you can know yourself, and you can only know yourself.
Thanks for reading. —🎀Melody
NOTE: Originally posted April 4, 2023.
I've been thinking of the last few years as a midlife crisis, and, well, I think there's little doubt that's true in terms of raw time; my health's not exactly great. But, now we're at least halfway through the crisis and it's becoming clear that my brain's leaving behind being the stunted child our abuse had kept us as, and starting its actual life for the very first time. So it's more of a start-life crisis, if you will.
It's pretty thrilling, realizing that you hadn't really properly "grown up" yet and now knowing that the old box you were stuck in was just prologue, that there's a fresh canvas stretching out before you. Fucking scary as hell, too, learning more and more to face the rigors and stresses of a Normal Adult Life™ without breaking down, and knowing that this is what you've gotta keep up for the rest of your life… but it's so much preferable to not being able to do it at all.
(But I do gotta say, I'm now intensely not looking forward to our actual midlife crisis, which, at this rate, will probably happen just a decade before I die. Fuck.)
NOTE: Originally posted March 15, 2023.
Because of the strictness of the diagnostic criteria for DID, whether or not one has amnesia is a common sticking point in the disordered plural community. The problem with that is that amnesia, by its nature, is really good at obscuring itself.
Typically amnesia is discussed first in terms of blackouts and time loss — and that's because they're more or less the most severe symptoms of people with DID — but there's so many ways your brain can fuck with your memories. We spent a while thinking we didn't experience amnesia because we can typically "remember" experiences of our alters. But if you simply know what happened without actually being able to feel what the experience felt like… is that really remembering?
We used to not really think about it at all, of course, and even after realizing we were plural, our answer to that question for a while was "no, of course we don't have any amnesia". But time and time again throughout our life, we would get stuck, unable to make personal progress in our life or work on shit we needed to work on, because one day we'd be having some sort of epiphany or clarification or feeling of direction in our life, and the next day we would be like "what was I smoking? I'm so fucking stupid" or something like that, not realizing that our consciousness had shifted into someone else with different priorities and different influences.
That we can remember what the sentiments of yesterday were… that completely obscured the fact that we often can't remember how they felt and why we felt them. Even in our post-discovery era, this continues to manifest a lot in the form of some random piece of us suddenly going "what the fuck? I'm not plural. What kind of insane bullshit have I convinced myself of?" and basically having an anxiety attack out of the blue.
Two straight years of self-discovery, trials and tribulations, coming to new understandings and finally making mental health breakthroughs decades in the making, and parts of us still can't help but dismiss it all as having been meaningless?
That's amnesia, baby.
(And recognizing it as such helps keep us on track a lot. 😊)
—👻Fate
(EDIT: For more on subtle presentations of amnesia, check out this tweet — it was a big influence on us figuring this out.)
NOTE: Originally posted March 13, 2023.
An idea that's been massively influential recently on how we live our life as a plural system is that, more than anything, DID/OSDD is a disorder of living in parallel realities. This incredible Twitter thread by @documense puts it perfectly, better than I can, so I'll just quote it directly.
(CW for quoted material below the cut: parental emotional and medical abuse)
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timeasmymeasurekrja
