harmonyfriends | well, I got diagnosed for realsies

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 🎉❤️‍🩹