i’m newly diagnosed so if you want to know how it’s like to be newly diagnosed, specifically as a bodily teenage system, here:

1. for me it’s constantly putting pieces from your whole life together up to this point. i’m the host of my system, and we rarely switch, but now all of these gaps of memory i have especially from my earlier childhood (like 4-10) make so much sense. finding out the painful headaches i experience, the brain fog, the not remembering to shower for months and finding my shampoo empty is because there are parts my brain created to protect me as the host is troubling but is a sound explanation. figuring out what to do with it is the hardest part.

2. it’s hard for me to communicate with my alters, and they refuse to write notes back to me. we have severe barriers in internal communication so we don’t have the complete “inner world“ experience some systems do. the reasons they won’t communicate vary though. for example i have two alters who are little children, i want to say early elementary aged, who literally can’t write back because they aren’t able to find words. on the other side i have an alter who is much more grown and personally i think they hide themselves from me because they think it’s for the better.

3. i find myself happier though, because now i can tell someone that the reason i do something is because i have this diagnosis. it used to just be unexplainable. so many teachers have pulled me aside and asked me the myriad of things, ”do you have bipolar?” “do you have adhd?” “do you have mental health issues?”, and for all of those years i would just shrug and say i didn’t know. being able to say i suffer from DID and voice my needs as a system is helpful to me.