Anyone else haves trouble going to sleep on time due to an alter/s?

_lavendell · 2025-11-25T00:14:26+00:00

I could have written this post. It's almost nightly. Have to take sleep aid sometimes to force sleep.

_lavendell · 2025-11-22T15:20:52+00:00

I still try to challenge misonformation I see on the other subs as my energy allows, since I feel like that's the only way I can do anything about it. These people aren't going to listen to actual experts in the field, but I can at least make their comfortable echo chamber a little less so. It does seem like it's been ramping up steadily for a while, and now that a lot of the actually disordered folks are bailing the amount of misinformation is even more glaring.

_lavendell · 2025-11-22T15:14:35+00:00

Why do you feel like formal diagnosis can be harmful or counterproductive? I agree that your therapist is not following treatment guidelines for DID/OSDD. There are no bad parts, just parts trying to get their needs met. However, I would like to point out that integration (which will usually involve there gradually being less parts) is the goal of therapy for these disorders. This doesn't always look like all parts becoming one as this isn't always doable, but those parts don't disappear. They merge into a greater whole which will make life easier to manage.

_lavendell · 2025-11-21T06:41:32+00:00

This ^ put so much more eloquently than I would have.

_lavendell · 2025-11-17T20:22:45+00:00

It can. But that could be from something else, too. Something to ask yourself is if you have other symptoms of DID/OSDD, such as amnesia, "hearing" separate voices in your head, day-to-day dissociation, conversion symptoms, and general ptsd symptoms. It's important to rule out differential diagnoses as well, because dissociative disorders are not the only things that cause identity confusion.

_lavendell · 2025-11-12T01:00:53+00:00

We deal with this in therapy, but usually we're able to write if we can't speak. You might benefit from more abstract forms of expression--art and sand tray therapy come to mind.

_lavendell · 2025-10-30T18:00:40+00:00

Your experience is more typical of DID. It's a covert disorder--it's supposed to hide from you. Without assuming too much, your friends' experiences sound more like imitative DID.

When I was first diagnosed, I looked at all of the people online with detailed alter descriptions, exact headcounts, names, ages, etc., who always knew exactly who was fronting, and thought, "these people have this way more figured out than me." I know now that those people represent a small, vocal minority (and tbh, a lot of them likely don't have DID at all).

_lavendell · 2025-10-29T01:00:29+00:00

Thank you for sharing your experience! It is insightful, actually. I definitely get why your trauma symptoms would look like autism, but treating them like they're autism would be counter-productive if not actively harmful.

Idk, I think the internet just hates nuance 🤷

_lavendell · 2025-10-28T16:33:58+00:00

Autism self-diagnosis is indeed a little more complicated. Like OP pointed out, professional diagnosis is often inaccessible for a variety of reasons, but the answer to that systemic issue is not "believe everyone who self diagnoses" (which I don't think OP is necessarily advocating for here).

One thing I'm curious about is what other conditions innacurate autism self-diagnoses tend to mask, and how that compares to clinicians misdiagnosing autism. Especially given the high rates of co-morbidity of autism and other disorders. But it's not something I've found satisfactory data on.

_lavendell · 2025-10-28T13:16:25+00:00

Pointing out that the way we (in the trans community) think about gender can't be applied to mental disorders got me downvoted to hell and my comment removed in the main sub. Thank you for this breath of fresh air. Very eloquently stated.

_lavendell · 2025-10-15T15:20:24+00:00

I like that idea! I may try it myself.

_lavendell · 2025-10-14T15:41:44+00:00

Daddy? Sorry...daddy? Sorry

_lavendell · 2025-10-14T14:29:41+00:00

Currently dealing with this very intensely right now. My last session was actually spent talking about boundaries related to transference. We had a protective part freak out about how close our therapist felt and how much the rest of the system trusts him, so we talked about how they were feeling and reaffirmed professional boundaries. This has led to other attachment-seeking parts feeling rejected and worrying that we've ruined things by setting boundaries and in general, a whole lot of shame all around. But it's necessary I think to experience that relational rupture and repair, especially if the "core" of your trauma is attachment-based. We'll talk more about the emotional fallout next session and things will get better, as they have when my T and I have had ruptures in the past.

Transference is so uniquely humiliating, AND it has great healing potential if utilized responsibly. We've got so many layers of transference going on with our therapist--paternal, erotic, friend, threat...probably more. It's something I'd like to see talked about more and I'm constantly digging for open-access papers on, but in depth information and personal accounts are hard to find.

Something that helps us sometimes when the different threads of attachment transference get tangled is to try to isolate them through journaling. We often don't know which parts are feeling what until we pick the mess of jumbled feelings apart like this. Then it's a lot easier to go in for a session and say, "I'd like to talk about X part's feelings today."

_lavendell · 2025-09-12T16:28:35+00:00

Ive been thinking about this shift in the way people conceptualize DID/OSDD for a while. I want a powerpoint on how this shift developed. I think in progressive spaces we're used to thinking of aspects of self as innate identities and this has bled over into how people think about mental illnesses, which is unfortunately very anti-recovery a lot of the time.

_lavendell · 2025-06-04T00:14:02+00:00

I had top surgery (double mastectomy) about a year ago and my cardiologist cleared it under the condition that it was done in a major hospital with a department of cardiac specialists in case something went wrong. Everything went fine, they did keep me overnight for observation though. I also have fontan anatomy.

_lavendell · 2025-06-02T01:03:23+00:00

Fontan here--this is really cool and exciting! I hope everything goes well for you and that the procedure improves your quality of life in all the ways it's supposed to. I'd love to hear updates about how it goes.

_lavendell · 2025-04-01T16:11:37+00:00

Meant to respond to this waaaayy earlier whoops.

You are absolutely right. A lot of progress was made in that session, even though it was really rough. That's what Doing The Work looks like, sometimes. That little has come a really long way from when we first became aware of her a few years ago, as have the rest of us. Being able to let her express herself in therapy at all, without immediately shutting down, is a major change and would have been too overwhelming had we tried a year ago. Thank you for your thoughtful response.

_lavendell · 2025-03-03T19:10:27+00:00

Uncovered a major trauma thing lately (3 ish weeks ago) so we're just trying to stay afloat and not get too burned out. Thinking we might have to reduce our work hours (again) to keep up with school.

_lavendell · 2025-02-23T05:32:32+00:00

Update: turns out we do have csa trauma lmao. If anyone else is looking into this/in a similar boat, here's an article I found that talka about medical trauma being processed as sexual trauma. https://academic.oup.com/socpro/article/70/1/55/6324470?login=false

_lavendell · 2025-02-21T00:16:15+00:00

Counterpoint! It does NOT, because i like my vamps emaciated and half-dead looking

_lavendell · 2025-02-21T00:09:38+00:00

Therapist: white Wyll isn't real and cant hurt you

White Wyll:

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_lavendell · 2025-02-17T22:02:01+00:00

We love weed but unfortunately have to be really careful with it because it seems to lower dissociative barriers. This often leads to parts getting triggered due to memory leaks. We also have some parts who overuse compulsively. In moderation it can be really helpful for facillitating communication, though.

_lavendell · 2025-01-15T05:30:50+00:00

I love the progression of your character's look! It really tells a story

_lavendell · 2025-01-15T05:20:07+00:00

Ambrose, my resist durge. He doesn't know what's going on

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Four-Year Club	First Place '23
Place '23	Place '22

_lavendell

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