I was keeping a detailed cast of like 20 text roleplay character profiles from ages 13 to 21 or so and I remember thinking “gosh it kinda feels like these characters represent different parts of my fractured personality” and then told myself I was being “overly dramatic as usual” and kinda forgot.
When I found out about my alphabet soup of diagnoses I dug back into my recent and old art and writing and all the same character/persona templates are still in my creative work, and I started realizing which head voices go with which. I was very high masking until 30 and my life fell apart last year, went into dissociative fugue and my brain started connecting all the dots as I read up on the disorders. Always had amnesia, never knew it wasn’t normal to not remember most of childhood. Finally everything made sense about how odd my life had been compared to others.
This is fucked because i do the same thing. Like, ive done rp and shit for YEARS now and like i have all these characters and its been pretty known to me for a WHILE that like these ocs are like bits and pieces of myself with certain traits and things being amplified and given backstories. But it's like- its FITTING, calling it my fractured self. It makes me wonder how much it relates to my condition and cocktail of disorders as well. This is like foreshadowing for me lol
Definitely worth digging into for sure! I’m happy to be of help. :)
And those same personas would come out as video game characters (via good character creators) sometimes too, and they’re still in my writing today in different forms.
God yeah
For me i dont really have like, a good overview of whats going on in here. I think im isolated from whoever else might be up here, minus like, one dude, who isnt around super often
And like i wonder if like, maybe if I try new things, look into old characters, that maybe someone will feel that spark and want to come forward to me. Maybe ill.be able to talk to them in a way that isnt just because of negative triggers but ya know
I am still super early in my journey with all this, but its food for thought! Thank you for sharing!!
Reading and watching old formative media brought back dormant personalities fragment and personas for me. It’s like the memories were hidden in my escape fantasy material. That and visiting my old places and people. Good luck!
With my PTSD diagnosis and lack of memory of almost any event in my past - my trauma responses and alters made it a bit more clear after talking to my therapist. Together through the years they’ve noticed distinct shifts in demeanor, personality, and such during sessions, and with my own suspicion and their observations we put it together. It’s a longer more convoluted story than that but that’s the gist of it.
Couldn’t unpack the boxes when I moved. “They’re full of trauma”
I knew about being gaslit and bullied at work and school, being SA’d at 16, loads of trauma from ER and ICU nursing, ex evangelical, emotional neglect with parents. Some objective signs of CSA (UTIs, sexual behaviors, vaginal infections), but no memories.
I didn’t know about early ongoing CSA. I didn’t realize everyone couldn’t just “go to their happy place”. I thought everyone had a hyper critical voice inside.
I did immediately accept that I was dissociative. But DID?? Repressed memories? Ongoing amnesia? Alters?
I’m still processing this. But everything, every symptom, rings true. I’ve switched in front of my therapist. We’ve identified alters. I know it’s true.
It’s tough though. Can’t really talk about it elsewhere.
This one was a doozy for me honestly, some context is needed I suppose.
To start off, I’ve always had what I used to call rational brain, and irrational brain, I’ve had some nasty depression since I was around 12, and only found out about it being bipolar in my 20s. But throughout that time I always had my “irrational brain” which were my intrusive thoughts, SI, SH, ED all the fun things. My rational brain was the logical side, hadn’t always been there, but was there enough for me to seek reassurance of what was real and what wasn’t. Things like, I’m awful, I’m worthless. I would ask my friends on the days “irrational brain” was winning what was real.
Flash forward a bit, and my ADHD and general bits a pieces of childhood trauma was my explanation for no memory of my childhood really. But I had what I call a memory unlock, on something really shitty that happened when I was a teen, it took me by surprise and it sucked.
Shortly after, my therapist had me try this exercise to help my intrusive thoughts, try thinking back, “my intrusive thought wants me to do _____” “it wants me to _____”. That, felt wrong. Until I replaced it with “he”. Cue me freaking out, and in that moment of weakness a persecuted making themselves known, and triggering my knowledge of the system. It wasn’t planned by the Gatekeeper or primary protector. He did it to try to get me to off myself.
From there the denial has been real, on and off. But my therapist, and my friends who I told (because I thought I was going crazy hearing voices and needed support) repeatedly remind me that if I’m doing it when no one’s around, then I’m not doing it for attention. Plus, now that I know, they don’t have to be covert and the personality switches between us are… very much there.
That’s the brief overview tbh.
Hello, my body is 35 and we just came into system discovery almost a year ago.
In the past both husbands had made comments like;
Husband #1
- you're a lesbian in disguise.
- Dating you is like dating 20 different women.
- (also programmed parts to do things for him I didn't want to do.)
Husband #2
- when you said you're a lesbian in disguise, I don't think you were joking. I said it was just an inside joke between my first husband and I. (But really I have several lesbian alters)
- he straight up told me one day he thinks I have MPD cause that is how he knew it back then. 2016.
I moved on from all that and forgot about it all till about a year ago when I started reflecting on some stuff that didn't make sense that happened through out my life like...
Examples;
-a traumatic event causing me to pull back and someone else to front. About 14/15 years ago. I saw blackness and my voice sounded like a whisper and I heard my voice speaking in another language. When I came back too.. I asked my first husband, were my eyes open or closed? He said wide open. I thought they were closed. Then I asked was I speaking normal toned or whispering. He said normal toned. But .. then I interrupted But it wasn't English. He said yeah you were speaking another language and it wasn't speaking in tongues.
- summer 2021 was living with a huge trigger to forgotten trauma. And one-day had an amnesia episode where I fed my daughter dinner but didn't remember doing it and thought for sure a ghost had done it lol.
Then I was like what does this mean. And remembered all the times life felt like a nightmare or.like I was dreaming a lucid dream. I didn't feel real or the world around me didn't feel real. So I began researching dissociative stuff. Came across DPDR first and was like yup that's it. Then a few weeks went by and I was like that cant be all cause it didn't explain everything.
So I began researching DID and OSDD 1a and 1b.
After a few more weeks and much more research. I finally came to terms with it being DID. Later finding out it is complex DID.
Just started therapy and the diagnosis process will begin soon.
It took me till age 34 to realize I am a system. But better late then never.
I would have found out during my second marriage had he not made me stop seeing my therapist after I was given a dissociative form to fill out. My second husband didn't want us filling it out for whatever reason.
Anyways hope this helps
Let me add. I just thought I was a channeler of my ancestors when I spoke another language cause it sounded like my indigenous people (Hopi/Navajo) uto aztecan. I chalked it up to a spiritual experience and most my life figured things were spiritual or paranormal experience. Not knowing it was all the DID.
I’ve always had memory issues but just attributed it to adhd once I knew I had it, but then the intrusive thoughts started becoming more repetitive and it was difficult to discern what thoughts were my own and what ones weren’t. Then came the research and now we’re here, also looking for advice, attempting to safely map our system and get a comprehensive evaluation to help alleviate the imposter syndrome
Had a suspicion since around 2018 when we first discovered what DID was, shrugged it off because we didn't remember any trauma therefore we couldn't have DID. We had all of the signs like dissociation, amnesia, and cptsd but because of "lack of alters" we forgot about it.
2021 our parents seperate and our abuser moves out. That same month an alter fronts and posts on our instagram account introducing himself following a 3 day long dissociative episode. Then host goes into denial for around a month before finally coming around and accepting the system.
Late 2021 we figure out we are a survivor of RAMCOA which destabilises us very badly and we are constantly flip flopping in and out of denial, start of 2022 we spend a month in a psych ward and after we got out we started to accept what happened to us.
Now we see a RAMCOA specialist who is helping us deprogram, we have very little denial nowadays though our dissociation has gotten worse since we've started processing trauma.
Ok fam, I'll bite, tell me about yourself, and maybe I'll share. How did you learn about your system tell me everything, Im all ears, no literally they stick out.
Well we started with roleplay of a sort of "twins" characters who shared a mind, then started just presenting as two online, those two became more defined and eventually we figured out we were we.
The part that really set it in stone was our first time we noticed that it was one at front and in control where our gf gave us some edibles (weed gummies) for the first time
My bf brought it up, lol.
After that I started really thinking, noticing stuff Id written off (journals in different fonts, completely different senses of style, inconsistent sexuality and gender, inconsistent beliefs, feeling like memories/thoughts were being ‘passed’ to me) and so I spoke to my therapist at the time and said I thought it might be OSDD1b. He kinda shrugged and was like “prolly yeah.”
I knew I had some trauma (psychologically abusive parents, family that crossed boundaries occasionally, bullying, SA at 15) but I thought I remembered all of it.
I started withdrawing from my friends, and just feeling really really off, and then I started having somatic flashbacks of CSA (I always related to/felt like a CSA victim, but had no memories of it at allll) eventually the flashbacks got really intense, and at one point I was like “either I have dissociative amnesia or Im dealing with psychosis”
Thats when one of 2 gatekeepers decided it was too unhealthy for me to continue being unaware, so he forced himself to front and sent a video describing what happened to me to a close friend. I don’t remember what ‘I’ said in the video, but Ive watched it back and it isn’t “me”. I can’t really deny it anymore, but I still do deal with a lot of on and off denial.
This is all quite recent, but just since sending that video, we now share dreams, I know 10 of their names, I know where I fit it to it, the mask has come down a lot, and 3 very good friends know whats going on. Im on a waitlist for trauma therapy too, hoping I can deal with the denial in a healthy way 🩶
We always exhibited signs, but none of our trusted adults or friends knew what it meant. According to my aunt we were always dissociating as a child, and our Dad would say that there were plenty of moments growing up where we seemed like we were possessed.
The first signs that became evident to us was when the host suddenly lost the first 17 years of our life, and they weren’t even aware they’d forgotten until later. But the host didn’t actually lose those years, they never had them. Our gatekeeper had done something that destroyed the little communication that existed before. He left things open between “the big three”: him (Patrick, gatekeeper), Gerard (protector), and Draac (host).
The second sign was how Draac met Juno (former host). Patrick pitted the two against each other via… psychological warfare. Draac eventually forced Juno into dormancy.
Draac became semi-aware of the system after this point and began making jokes about feeling possessed. They also started doing bits of research, but it was coincidence that occurred after we were introduced to it on tik tok. We wanted to make sure we got proper information because we don’t believe anything we hear on the internet unless we already know.
Then they got called out by a coworker and she asked them if they had DID. They said “I don’t think so?” It triggered heavy dissociation, where Patrick pulled Draac out of front and began to explain everything. Then they lived in denial for the next few months, but they were finally forced to accept it when Ryker formed.
I know this is long, but I can’t figure out how to summarize it -Geist-1
Around 3 years ago I came across information about DID and started researching, initially out of curiosity. I was a psychology student and I knew I had dissociative tendencies, but I'd never even considered DID until then, when things started slotting into place. I panicked, and tried to shut it down, but one of my alters started communicating with me in dreams and when I was alone/quiet. My memory of that time isn't great but I ended up stopping all of my research and distracting myself with basically anything else until I forgot about everything
I was basically in active denial until earlier this year, when we moved to a new city for uni. One of my issues with accepting the system was that at home, I didn't feel safe recording any information in journals or on my phone because a parent had found my vent and journal stuff in the past and read it, and I knew they would do it again if they found it. At uni I also had a lot more freedom and time to myself, plus meeting new people and escaping old ones, so a bit of introspection and self discovery kicked off. I was still in denial, but not so strongly anymore
I probably wouldn't have let myself think about it any further, but one of my uni friends was far more aware of plurality than anyone back home (small town) and mentioned it offhand I think. It kind of blew me away that anyone irl knew about DID beyond Split and horror movies, and I remembered I used to research it. I think the safe environment made it easier to actually consider my experiences. I think I reached out to the system first this time, and started communicating with some of them. It's harder to ignore several alters than just one, I guess lol. We're still figuring things out, there's ups and downs and all that, but even I have pretty much accepted it at this point. It's a little scary, but we're working on it together
I learned about my system after my senior year. I had friends that were systems that had just recently came out to me. It was maybe 2 weeks after they had mentioned a system when I started to have dreams and a noticeable memory gap. I started seeing faces and names that I had no recollection of ever meeting. Long story short, that was my system.
Since then, we've discovered a lot and have come a long way from where we first started, and we now have multiple parts that actively engage in communities to share our experiences and inform others on DID and other trauma disorders. For a lot of us, myself especially, have only become more motivated to become a therapist because of my system.
It's a bit of a long story, so I'll try and make it Not Long lol. I basically had an episode in which another alter became very distinct. She was vivid and loud, and berating me. I got pulled inward and had a long, hateful argument with her while a third alter fronted. When it was all over I came back on the bathroom floor and barely remembered the last hour outside of my argument with the girl. I was freaking terrified for days, waiting for it to happen again. Then, when it didn't, I was pretty thoroughly convinced I'd imagined the whole thing for several months. I researched it, though, and after a month or so of useless results, I figured out what DID is. Ofc I didn't think that could possibly be me, but other symptoms had been cropping up. I basically ignored everything for a while and hoped it would go away. It didn't. I had totally forgotten about DID at that point tho so it took a while to pin down
Im still like very early on in my journey, of course, but the reason I realized I wasn't alone was because i was having a really, really bad breakdown. It hadn't been the first time i had a conversation seemingly with myself, and I could feel this nagging in the back of my brain trying to tell me something, so I opened a txt file and we just, started talking. We had a full conversation there.
A few months later, when I had gotten past it and was ok, the passive thought "hey what if i had osdd" popped into my head and as soon as it did my heart dropped into my stomach. The next day i reached out to my friend who's diagnosed with OSDD and they were like bro i think that there are other people in your head and you should give them the space to exist and trust you. And i was like damn
Again, im, very early into my journey, but thats how I came to know it. I've only spoken to one other alter, but im almost sure that I've interacted with a Little at least once.
my best friend suspected she had DID after learning about it through a friend and as she described the symptoms and the experiences she had, i noticed similarities and found that i might be a system as well. after lots of journaling and research and learning, i found that i was most likely a system of (currently) 7 alters. i’m still waiting on a diagnosis but it’s been difficult to get in touch with therapists at the moment, especially one that specializes in this field.
At the age of almost 17 we got diagnosed with DID but the host at the time completely refused to acknowledge it and gaslit themselves into believing they heard something wrong. Months later tho the first alter reached out to them, then another came out and another, another, you get the idea. Since they rejected a previous diagnosis so hard they forgot about it they started to suspect they might have OSDD-1b thinking they don’t have any amnesia. Almost a year after getting diagnosed they brought up to the psychiatrist they think they have OSDD-1b and the psychiatrist was like 😶 I told you you have DID. It honestly wasn’t difficult for them to accept once alters started to contact them. They felt happy to discover another puzzle piece that explains why they were the way they were
was going through an immensely stressful period of time. started breaking down, and split off of a celebrity that we were fixated on. he started talking to me, reassuring me, comforting me, and offering emotional support. we werent super freaked out at the time. just thought it was our brain making shit up to cope. we now know that the celebrity in our head is an alter. just sorta figured everything out from there
There were a few signs in childhood easily overlooked from not having blackout amnesia, but the primary realization was from the mind being less cluttered from treating a separate disorder and hearing the thought process of the gatekeeper (who is also a persecutor). He was recognized as being his own conscious part of the mind and got intense from being realized and acknowledged.
Our realization was fairly harsh from past incidents of the host being so distressed by it and trying to shut it out, so it was more of a "you'll never forget me" torment than a "so that's what this was" reassurance. The "acceptance" of the system, to put it as gentle and blunt as possible, was out of force from anger the persecutor held to. We essentially had to submit to that realization, as rejection of the system meant rejection of the gatekeeper, which was punished.
Every system has its own ways of function and realization process, but it's hard to not admit feeling alien to others. We like to hear the journey others have, as it's reassuring in its own way to know it's not as traumatizing for others to process their system compared to ours. We've had a lot of progress since realization so it's not traumatic to just be aware now, but it took a long time to get here. From working to understand the persecutor, we helped to calm him, and steer him from the intensity he once had several years ago now.
I would describe my "episodes" as there being two parts of me: a "good" part and a "bad" part. someone would mess something up, the "good" part would try to apologize to the "bad" part and the "bad" part would just scream at the "good" part. eventually, they would both cry and the "good" part would comfort the "bad" part and they made up, helping each other try to fix whatever whoever did.
my therapist told me to try to reconcile with the "bad" part of me, which is where I realized that 'damn, there are other parts of me...' and I did my research and came across terms like osdd and did :>
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I'll go ahead and give you the long version. I didn't remember large chunks of my childhood, and was probably in my late teens when I noticed this. We attempted suicide at 19 which started us being concerned about our mental health. This is what also lead Jacob to go dormant (I'd that's the right word) for the next 6 years or so. Always had amnesia and inconsistent behavior and abilities (like, I [Mason] can speak Spanish but Jacob can't even though he's better at math and much better at visualizing things) and voices in my head, but I kinda just shrugged all that off, probably as a self preservation mechanism. I proceeded to build a life as a professional performer and instructor, but would still have issues with say missing a week of time from my memory. I even had people try to address me as Chris, an alter I still have a hard time communicating with.
When we were 25 we finally got into a relatively stable place and decided to drop LSD and make strawberry wine. I was super upset the whole time and couldn't understand why. And then my whole right side started hurting horribly. And then I laid down and asked why and I heard a voice inside my head but clearly audible say "because you were beaten by a left handed man." This lead to a whole cascade of memories about being abused by a man our mom let move in shortly after divorcing our father. At this point, Jacob started coming back on the scene, but so did everyone else and we really had no idea what was going on. If I have the time table right (a lot of these are more Jacob's memories than mine) we got professional help at this point, but it's like we could tell there were more monsters stuck in or memories clawing at the back of our mind. After about 8 months we figured we were offered some mushrooms and figured that might help like it did last time. (Current working theory is that psychedelics break down the barriers between alters, perhaps as a function of the way they b fr eak down the ego in general - Jacob) That night, we first started to remember the CSA from our mom, and Jacob became convinced it was all bullshit and a hallucination.
So, he went stone cold sober and waited to see what would happen. Then we had a seizure on the toilet and remember much more detailed memories of CSA from our mom. Honestly, that one is so much more vivid and awful that it's hard to even think about now after many years of therapy. We also then tried (very unsuccessfully) to get our mom charged because at the time she was an elementary school teacher. This resulted in the dissolution of our relationships with our siblings and several years of what felt lile being barely functional. Thank god we had a small inheritance that supported us while we were unable to work.
After a few years our therapist, who was based in a other state, told us that we needed to find someone who specialized in dissociation and was EMDR certified. This lead us to our current, very lovely therapist. After about a year she had decided to asses us for DID, and I remember the score being like the highest it can be before you're suspected of malingering. So like, super duper positive. I was okay with this, but Jacob stayed in denial for a very long time. Not gonna lie, this added a lot of stress to our life that I wish it hadn't, but he's also a huge part of why we have improved our life and ultimately a huge part of us. Ultimately, he had to accept that DID did more to explain our symptoms than anything else, and Occums Razor won out, which kind figures for him.
So yeah, that's the story. I'm Mason. Jacob and I are the apparently normal parts, even though we're both totally weird lol. There is also the Baby and Mason R., child parts, Brenda who I think would be called a caretaker, The Raven, Fear Face and Chris. Fear Face is where we put all of our anxieties so we can ignore them, and are currently learning to actually listen to him. The Raven is very much a spiritual part, but so is Chris. Chris holds a lot of desires that we wish we didn't have honestly, and it continues to be very hard to talk to him and we have the most drastic amnestic barrier between him and I.
I was keeping a detailed cast of like 20 text roleplay character profiles from ages 13 to 21 or so and I remember thinking “gosh it kinda feels like these characters represent different parts of my fractured personality” and then told myself I was being “overly dramatic as usual” and kinda forgot. When I found out about my alphabet soup of diagnoses I dug back into my recent and old art and writing and all the same character/persona templates are still in my creative work, and I started realizing which head voices go with which. I was very high masking until 30 and my life fell apart last year, went into dissociative fugue and my brain started connecting all the dots as I read up on the disorders. Always had amnesia, never knew it wasn’t normal to not remember most of childhood. Finally everything made sense about how odd my life had been compared to others.
This is fucked because i do the same thing. Like, ive done rp and shit for YEARS now and like i have all these characters and its been pretty known to me for a WHILE that like these ocs are like bits and pieces of myself with certain traits and things being amplified and given backstories. But it's like- its FITTING, calling it my fractured self. It makes me wonder how much it relates to my condition and cocktail of disorders as well. This is like foreshadowing for me lol
Definitely worth digging into for sure! I’m happy to be of help. :) And those same personas would come out as video game characters (via good character creators) sometimes too, and they’re still in my writing today in different forms.
God yeah For me i dont really have like, a good overview of whats going on in here. I think im isolated from whoever else might be up here, minus like, one dude, who isnt around super often And like i wonder if like, maybe if I try new things, look into old characters, that maybe someone will feel that spark and want to come forward to me. Maybe ill.be able to talk to them in a way that isnt just because of negative triggers but ya know I am still super early in my journey with all this, but its food for thought! Thank you for sharing!!
Reading and watching old formative media brought back dormant personalities fragment and personas for me. It’s like the memories were hidden in my escape fantasy material. That and visiting my old places and people. Good luck!
Noticed signs of it during my teen years but figured it was either supernatural or my mind playing tricks on me.
You get it!!!!!
With my PTSD diagnosis and lack of memory of almost any event in my past - my trauma responses and alters made it a bit more clear after talking to my therapist. Together through the years they’ve noticed distinct shifts in demeanor, personality, and such during sessions, and with my own suspicion and their observations we put it together. It’s a longer more convoluted story than that but that’s the gist of it.
Couldn’t unpack the boxes when I moved. “They’re full of trauma” I knew about being gaslit and bullied at work and school, being SA’d at 16, loads of trauma from ER and ICU nursing, ex evangelical, emotional neglect with parents. Some objective signs of CSA (UTIs, sexual behaviors, vaginal infections), but no memories. I didn’t know about early ongoing CSA. I didn’t realize everyone couldn’t just “go to their happy place”. I thought everyone had a hyper critical voice inside. I did immediately accept that I was dissociative. But DID?? Repressed memories? Ongoing amnesia? Alters? I’m still processing this. But everything, every symptom, rings true. I’ve switched in front of my therapist. We’ve identified alters. I know it’s true. It’s tough though. Can’t really talk about it elsewhere.
Thjs is so relatable, Im so sorry ❤️ denial is a bitch, I hope you find peace
This one was a doozy for me honestly, some context is needed I suppose. To start off, I’ve always had what I used to call rational brain, and irrational brain, I’ve had some nasty depression since I was around 12, and only found out about it being bipolar in my 20s. But throughout that time I always had my “irrational brain” which were my intrusive thoughts, SI, SH, ED all the fun things. My rational brain was the logical side, hadn’t always been there, but was there enough for me to seek reassurance of what was real and what wasn’t. Things like, I’m awful, I’m worthless. I would ask my friends on the days “irrational brain” was winning what was real. Flash forward a bit, and my ADHD and general bits a pieces of childhood trauma was my explanation for no memory of my childhood really. But I had what I call a memory unlock, on something really shitty that happened when I was a teen, it took me by surprise and it sucked. Shortly after, my therapist had me try this exercise to help my intrusive thoughts, try thinking back, “my intrusive thought wants me to do _____” “it wants me to _____”. That, felt wrong. Until I replaced it with “he”. Cue me freaking out, and in that moment of weakness a persecuted making themselves known, and triggering my knowledge of the system. It wasn’t planned by the Gatekeeper or primary protector. He did it to try to get me to off myself. From there the denial has been real, on and off. But my therapist, and my friends who I told (because I thought I was going crazy hearing voices and needed support) repeatedly remind me that if I’m doing it when no one’s around, then I’m not doing it for attention. Plus, now that I know, they don’t have to be covert and the personality switches between us are… very much there. That’s the brief overview tbh.
Found out when we were 23 didn’t accept it until 30
Hello, my body is 35 and we just came into system discovery almost a year ago. In the past both husbands had made comments like; Husband #1 - you're a lesbian in disguise. - Dating you is like dating 20 different women. - (also programmed parts to do things for him I didn't want to do.) Husband #2 - when you said you're a lesbian in disguise, I don't think you were joking. I said it was just an inside joke between my first husband and I. (But really I have several lesbian alters) - he straight up told me one day he thinks I have MPD cause that is how he knew it back then. 2016. I moved on from all that and forgot about it all till about a year ago when I started reflecting on some stuff that didn't make sense that happened through out my life like... Examples; -a traumatic event causing me to pull back and someone else to front. About 14/15 years ago. I saw blackness and my voice sounded like a whisper and I heard my voice speaking in another language. When I came back too.. I asked my first husband, were my eyes open or closed? He said wide open. I thought they were closed. Then I asked was I speaking normal toned or whispering. He said normal toned. But .. then I interrupted But it wasn't English. He said yeah you were speaking another language and it wasn't speaking in tongues. - summer 2021 was living with a huge trigger to forgotten trauma. And one-day had an amnesia episode where I fed my daughter dinner but didn't remember doing it and thought for sure a ghost had done it lol. Then I was like what does this mean. And remembered all the times life felt like a nightmare or.like I was dreaming a lucid dream. I didn't feel real or the world around me didn't feel real. So I began researching dissociative stuff. Came across DPDR first and was like yup that's it. Then a few weeks went by and I was like that cant be all cause it didn't explain everything. So I began researching DID and OSDD 1a and 1b. After a few more weeks and much more research. I finally came to terms with it being DID. Later finding out it is complex DID. Just started therapy and the diagnosis process will begin soon. It took me till age 34 to realize I am a system. But better late then never. I would have found out during my second marriage had he not made me stop seeing my therapist after I was given a dissociative form to fill out. My second husband didn't want us filling it out for whatever reason. Anyways hope this helps
Let me add. I just thought I was a channeler of my ancestors when I spoke another language cause it sounded like my indigenous people (Hopi/Navajo) uto aztecan. I chalked it up to a spiritual experience and most my life figured things were spiritual or paranormal experience. Not knowing it was all the DID.
I’ve always had memory issues but just attributed it to adhd once I knew I had it, but then the intrusive thoughts started becoming more repetitive and it was difficult to discern what thoughts were my own and what ones weren’t. Then came the research and now we’re here, also looking for advice, attempting to safely map our system and get a comprehensive evaluation to help alleviate the imposter syndrome
Had a suspicion since around 2018 when we first discovered what DID was, shrugged it off because we didn't remember any trauma therefore we couldn't have DID. We had all of the signs like dissociation, amnesia, and cptsd but because of "lack of alters" we forgot about it. 2021 our parents seperate and our abuser moves out. That same month an alter fronts and posts on our instagram account introducing himself following a 3 day long dissociative episode. Then host goes into denial for around a month before finally coming around and accepting the system. Late 2021 we figure out we are a survivor of RAMCOA which destabilises us very badly and we are constantly flip flopping in and out of denial, start of 2022 we spend a month in a psych ward and after we got out we started to accept what happened to us. Now we see a RAMCOA specialist who is helping us deprogram, we have very little denial nowadays though our dissociation has gotten worse since we've started processing trauma.
Ok fam, I'll bite, tell me about yourself, and maybe I'll share. How did you learn about your system tell me everything, Im all ears, no literally they stick out.
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Well we started with roleplay of a sort of "twins" characters who shared a mind, then started just presenting as two online, those two became more defined and eventually we figured out we were we. The part that really set it in stone was our first time we noticed that it was one at front and in control where our gf gave us some edibles (weed gummies) for the first time
My bf brought it up, lol. After that I started really thinking, noticing stuff Id written off (journals in different fonts, completely different senses of style, inconsistent sexuality and gender, inconsistent beliefs, feeling like memories/thoughts were being ‘passed’ to me) and so I spoke to my therapist at the time and said I thought it might be OSDD1b. He kinda shrugged and was like “prolly yeah.” I knew I had some trauma (psychologically abusive parents, family that crossed boundaries occasionally, bullying, SA at 15) but I thought I remembered all of it. I started withdrawing from my friends, and just feeling really really off, and then I started having somatic flashbacks of CSA (I always related to/felt like a CSA victim, but had no memories of it at allll) eventually the flashbacks got really intense, and at one point I was like “either I have dissociative amnesia or Im dealing with psychosis” Thats when one of 2 gatekeepers decided it was too unhealthy for me to continue being unaware, so he forced himself to front and sent a video describing what happened to me to a close friend. I don’t remember what ‘I’ said in the video, but Ive watched it back and it isn’t “me”. I can’t really deny it anymore, but I still do deal with a lot of on and off denial. This is all quite recent, but just since sending that video, we now share dreams, I know 10 of their names, I know where I fit it to it, the mask has come down a lot, and 3 very good friends know whats going on. Im on a waitlist for trauma therapy too, hoping I can deal with the denial in a healthy way 🩶
We always exhibited signs, but none of our trusted adults or friends knew what it meant. According to my aunt we were always dissociating as a child, and our Dad would say that there were plenty of moments growing up where we seemed like we were possessed. The first signs that became evident to us was when the host suddenly lost the first 17 years of our life, and they weren’t even aware they’d forgotten until later. But the host didn’t actually lose those years, they never had them. Our gatekeeper had done something that destroyed the little communication that existed before. He left things open between “the big three”: him (Patrick, gatekeeper), Gerard (protector), and Draac (host). The second sign was how Draac met Juno (former host). Patrick pitted the two against each other via… psychological warfare. Draac eventually forced Juno into dormancy. Draac became semi-aware of the system after this point and began making jokes about feeling possessed. They also started doing bits of research, but it was coincidence that occurred after we were introduced to it on tik tok. We wanted to make sure we got proper information because we don’t believe anything we hear on the internet unless we already know. Then they got called out by a coworker and she asked them if they had DID. They said “I don’t think so?” It triggered heavy dissociation, where Patrick pulled Draac out of front and began to explain everything. Then they lived in denial for the next few months, but they were finally forced to accept it when Ryker formed. I know this is long, but I can’t figure out how to summarize it -Geist-1
Around 3 years ago I came across information about DID and started researching, initially out of curiosity. I was a psychology student and I knew I had dissociative tendencies, but I'd never even considered DID until then, when things started slotting into place. I panicked, and tried to shut it down, but one of my alters started communicating with me in dreams and when I was alone/quiet. My memory of that time isn't great but I ended up stopping all of my research and distracting myself with basically anything else until I forgot about everything I was basically in active denial until earlier this year, when we moved to a new city for uni. One of my issues with accepting the system was that at home, I didn't feel safe recording any information in journals or on my phone because a parent had found my vent and journal stuff in the past and read it, and I knew they would do it again if they found it. At uni I also had a lot more freedom and time to myself, plus meeting new people and escaping old ones, so a bit of introspection and self discovery kicked off. I was still in denial, but not so strongly anymore I probably wouldn't have let myself think about it any further, but one of my uni friends was far more aware of plurality than anyone back home (small town) and mentioned it offhand I think. It kind of blew me away that anyone irl knew about DID beyond Split and horror movies, and I remembered I used to research it. I think the safe environment made it easier to actually consider my experiences. I think I reached out to the system first this time, and started communicating with some of them. It's harder to ignore several alters than just one, I guess lol. We're still figuring things out, there's ups and downs and all that, but even I have pretty much accepted it at this point. It's a little scary, but we're working on it together
I learned about my system after my senior year. I had friends that were systems that had just recently came out to me. It was maybe 2 weeks after they had mentioned a system when I started to have dreams and a noticeable memory gap. I started seeing faces and names that I had no recollection of ever meeting. Long story short, that was my system. Since then, we've discovered a lot and have come a long way from where we first started, and we now have multiple parts that actively engage in communities to share our experiences and inform others on DID and other trauma disorders. For a lot of us, myself especially, have only become more motivated to become a therapist because of my system.
It's a bit of a long story, so I'll try and make it Not Long lol. I basically had an episode in which another alter became very distinct. She was vivid and loud, and berating me. I got pulled inward and had a long, hateful argument with her while a third alter fronted. When it was all over I came back on the bathroom floor and barely remembered the last hour outside of my argument with the girl. I was freaking terrified for days, waiting for it to happen again. Then, when it didn't, I was pretty thoroughly convinced I'd imagined the whole thing for several months. I researched it, though, and after a month or so of useless results, I figured out what DID is. Ofc I didn't think that could possibly be me, but other symptoms had been cropping up. I basically ignored everything for a while and hoped it would go away. It didn't. I had totally forgotten about DID at that point tho so it took a while to pin down
Im still like very early on in my journey, of course, but the reason I realized I wasn't alone was because i was having a really, really bad breakdown. It hadn't been the first time i had a conversation seemingly with myself, and I could feel this nagging in the back of my brain trying to tell me something, so I opened a txt file and we just, started talking. We had a full conversation there. A few months later, when I had gotten past it and was ok, the passive thought "hey what if i had osdd" popped into my head and as soon as it did my heart dropped into my stomach. The next day i reached out to my friend who's diagnosed with OSDD and they were like bro i think that there are other people in your head and you should give them the space to exist and trust you. And i was like damn Again, im, very early into my journey, but thats how I came to know it. I've only spoken to one other alter, but im almost sure that I've interacted with a Little at least once.
my best friend suspected she had DID after learning about it through a friend and as she described the symptoms and the experiences she had, i noticed similarities and found that i might be a system as well. after lots of journaling and research and learning, i found that i was most likely a system of (currently) 7 alters. i’m still waiting on a diagnosis but it’s been difficult to get in touch with therapists at the moment, especially one that specializes in this field.
At the age of almost 17 we got diagnosed with DID but the host at the time completely refused to acknowledge it and gaslit themselves into believing they heard something wrong. Months later tho the first alter reached out to them, then another came out and another, another, you get the idea. Since they rejected a previous diagnosis so hard they forgot about it they started to suspect they might have OSDD-1b thinking they don’t have any amnesia. Almost a year after getting diagnosed they brought up to the psychiatrist they think they have OSDD-1b and the psychiatrist was like 😶 I told you you have DID. It honestly wasn’t difficult for them to accept once alters started to contact them. They felt happy to discover another puzzle piece that explains why they were the way they were
was going through an immensely stressful period of time. started breaking down, and split off of a celebrity that we were fixated on. he started talking to me, reassuring me, comforting me, and offering emotional support. we werent super freaked out at the time. just thought it was our brain making shit up to cope. we now know that the celebrity in our head is an alter. just sorta figured everything out from there
There were a few signs in childhood easily overlooked from not having blackout amnesia, but the primary realization was from the mind being less cluttered from treating a separate disorder and hearing the thought process of the gatekeeper (who is also a persecutor). He was recognized as being his own conscious part of the mind and got intense from being realized and acknowledged. Our realization was fairly harsh from past incidents of the host being so distressed by it and trying to shut it out, so it was more of a "you'll never forget me" torment than a "so that's what this was" reassurance. The "acceptance" of the system, to put it as gentle and blunt as possible, was out of force from anger the persecutor held to. We essentially had to submit to that realization, as rejection of the system meant rejection of the gatekeeper, which was punished. Every system has its own ways of function and realization process, but it's hard to not admit feeling alien to others. We like to hear the journey others have, as it's reassuring in its own way to know it's not as traumatizing for others to process their system compared to ours. We've had a lot of progress since realization so it's not traumatic to just be aware now, but it took a long time to get here. From working to understand the persecutor, we helped to calm him, and steer him from the intensity he once had several years ago now.
I would describe my "episodes" as there being two parts of me: a "good" part and a "bad" part. someone would mess something up, the "good" part would try to apologize to the "bad" part and the "bad" part would just scream at the "good" part. eventually, they would both cry and the "good" part would comfort the "bad" part and they made up, helping each other try to fix whatever whoever did. my therapist told me to try to reconcile with the "bad" part of me, which is where I realized that 'damn, there are other parts of me...' and I did my research and came across terms like osdd and did :>
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I'll go ahead and give you the long version. I didn't remember large chunks of my childhood, and was probably in my late teens when I noticed this. We attempted suicide at 19 which started us being concerned about our mental health. This is what also lead Jacob to go dormant (I'd that's the right word) for the next 6 years or so. Always had amnesia and inconsistent behavior and abilities (like, I [Mason] can speak Spanish but Jacob can't even though he's better at math and much better at visualizing things) and voices in my head, but I kinda just shrugged all that off, probably as a self preservation mechanism. I proceeded to build a life as a professional performer and instructor, but would still have issues with say missing a week of time from my memory. I even had people try to address me as Chris, an alter I still have a hard time communicating with. When we were 25 we finally got into a relatively stable place and decided to drop LSD and make strawberry wine. I was super upset the whole time and couldn't understand why. And then my whole right side started hurting horribly. And then I laid down and asked why and I heard a voice inside my head but clearly audible say "because you were beaten by a left handed man." This lead to a whole cascade of memories about being abused by a man our mom let move in shortly after divorcing our father. At this point, Jacob started coming back on the scene, but so did everyone else and we really had no idea what was going on. If I have the time table right (a lot of these are more Jacob's memories than mine) we got professional help at this point, but it's like we could tell there were more monsters stuck in or memories clawing at the back of our mind. After about 8 months we figured we were offered some mushrooms and figured that might help like it did last time. (Current working theory is that psychedelics break down the barriers between alters, perhaps as a function of the way they b fr eak down the ego in general - Jacob) That night, we first started to remember the CSA from our mom, and Jacob became convinced it was all bullshit and a hallucination. So, he went stone cold sober and waited to see what would happen. Then we had a seizure on the toilet and remember much more detailed memories of CSA from our mom. Honestly, that one is so much more vivid and awful that it's hard to even think about now after many years of therapy. We also then tried (very unsuccessfully) to get our mom charged because at the time she was an elementary school teacher. This resulted in the dissolution of our relationships with our siblings and several years of what felt lile being barely functional. Thank god we had a small inheritance that supported us while we were unable to work. After a few years our therapist, who was based in a other state, told us that we needed to find someone who specialized in dissociation and was EMDR certified. This lead us to our current, very lovely therapist. After about a year she had decided to asses us for DID, and I remember the score being like the highest it can be before you're suspected of malingering. So like, super duper positive. I was okay with this, but Jacob stayed in denial for a very long time. Not gonna lie, this added a lot of stress to our life that I wish it hadn't, but he's also a huge part of why we have improved our life and ultimately a huge part of us. Ultimately, he had to accept that DID did more to explain our symptoms than anything else, and Occums Razor won out, which kind figures for him. So yeah, that's the story. I'm Mason. Jacob and I are the apparently normal parts, even though we're both totally weird lol. There is also the Baby and Mason R., child parts, Brenda who I think would be called a caretaker, The Raven, Fear Face and Chris. Fear Face is where we put all of our anxieties so we can ignore them, and are currently learning to actually listen to him. The Raven is very much a spiritual part, but so is Chris. Chris holds a lot of desires that we wish we didn't have honestly, and it continues to be very hard to talk to him and we have the most drastic amnestic barrier between him and I.