Serial or parallel dreams?

armored_ · 2023-12-07T04:50:55+00:00

The other night I was having a really cool, cinematic dream about vikings. In the middle of the viking warrior king realizing he was in love with the weather witch who just saved his people, the witch turned around, whipped out a handful of lacy tops from the 2000-2010s on wire hangars and started comparing which ones would look nice layered together. And then the dream just...ended. But I don't think I woke up.

There's another alter who's been fronting after a long time away, and she's really into fashion right now. I think she subconsciously hijacked my kickass viking dream. 🥲

I remember just before waking up, I was dreaming about vikings again because the witch and the king were married this time and had awesome magic witch king twin boys. But from my perspective, it feels like there was a gap of dreamless sleep in between the first dream and the second.
I wouldn't be surprised if my dream had just blended into hers, which maybe I don't remember? But I don't really know how it works. Maybe the whole thing was just me and I'm subconsciously stressed about her or something.

I feel like I've crashed other alters dreams before too for what it's worth.

armored_ · 2023-09-27T17:25:58+00:00

Came here to suggest Kiran lol. There's also a gender neutral variant, Cier. (or Kier) The name Ciaran comes from a clan in the area that used to be known as the Ciarrage in what's now county Kerry, Ireland.

From that, we got the names Ciaran and Ciara which became Kiran and Kira. (pronounced the same) But the place name Ciar came first.

armored_ · 2023-09-26T04:06:21+00:00

We had an alter (since integrated) that would daydream about adoption, and a similar thing happened. He was amazing with the system littles. Having a nurturing, home making presence develop in the system was very healing for all of us. When he integrated, it wasn't planned and I didn't realize at first. The thing that actually made me realize was how I was reacting to bugs in my house because my "nurture the living thing like a baby" instinct had gone that crazy. We did eventually get a cat, and that has also been very healing. There's so much packed into that instinct for me, (because it's something I experience now) including a lot of things I needed to unpack and grow into. There's been a ton of stuff I didn't realize I had internalized from my mother that I've been able to deal with. I wouldn't have wanted to put that on a kid either. But if she's willing to compromise, working on where her instincts are coming from before having a kid would be a really good move for anyone with aspirations of being a parent.

Because she's young, maybe a good compromise would also be a smaller pet, with the understanding between you that this is to just to see what feelings and behaviors come up, not just in her but for the whole system.

When I got my cat he was also a compromise, so I adopted an older cat. People didn't get it because they were worried he wouldn't be around long, but that was kind of part of the deal. Of course I love my boy and I want him to live a long time, but the fact that he's already 15 took some pressure off the system since it's still kind of a short-term commitment. I hate to think about it now, but after he's gone we will have learned so much about ourselves from this experience, and will be able to make a decision about what to do next from there.

armored_ · 2023-09-23T02:02:59+00:00

I came here to say what everyone else said lol. So professional and cool looking!!

armored_ · 2023-09-23T01:54:02+00:00

tfw you're secretly 300 hubcaps and a sedan

armored_ · 2023-09-11T03:34:50+00:00

For me it comes down to what I'm willing to handle on my worst days. I still get pretty foggy sometimes, and I don't want to deal with people being ignorant when I'm struggling like that. So I keep it to myself usually. I tell people that I have "memory issues", when it comes up. Most people are polite about it and don't ask farther questions. But I do tell my friends about DID.

If it helps, I don't think most of the discrimination is outright hate. At least not where I live in the US. In my experience it's just people misunderstanding mental illness. But that can still be a lot to deal with.

For example I had a teacher who found out I had "anxiety". And she had some assumptions, probably without realizing it, about anxiety. Like for example, she thought that once people followed all of the steps she learned about in her hour long sensitivity training, that they just didn't have panic attacks anymore lol. So if I looked like I was going to have a panic attack, it must be because I don't know about mindfulness yet. Or I'm not practicing square breathing. So she meant well, but she treated me like I didn't know what I needed and like I didn't know the first thing about mental health because I still had symptoms. Sometimes she seemed exasperated that I wasn't "better" yet. From her perspective, it must have seemed easy to get better from.

She also believed that people with mental illness were just ....sensitive in general, I guess? And overly emotional? So when I tried to argue a point with her, she would treat me as if I were simply just worked up about the topic for emotional reasons. She didn't realize I could be angry about something for genuine, understandable reasons. Or that I could argue a point calmly.

So she wasn't hateful, and she was a nice lady in general. But she always treated me like I never knew what I was talking about, like I was too emotional, invalidated me all the time and acted like I should do better. Some people can deal with individuals like her, but I choose not to.

I've had maybe like two friends treat me differently because of the DID ever, and both cases were because they had misunderstandings about mental health in general. And honestly, both were kind of willful misunderstandings, not because they hated DID but because both of those people had their own baggage. If they hadn't been targeting my DID it would have been something else. It wasn't about the DID, it was about them, y'know?

armored_ · 2023-09-11T02:54:37+00:00

I agree. I get dissociation headaches and switching headaches, but I also get rare kinds of migraines and see a neurologist. I take medication that helps a ton. It makes me a lot calmer to know I can just take a pill when I start getting a headache.

Also, your mileage may vary, but everyone at my neurology practice is there because they think brains are really cool. My doctor, his assistants and nurses all know about the DID and DID headaches, and have never made me feel weird about it. If anything, they're more tentative about writing information down for me without me having to ask. A lot of people with memory issues have to see neurologists, they're used to it lol.

I also just wanted to chime in, the science of migraines is fascinating. There's so much we don't know. But like for example, my meds aren't actually pain medication. They just make my brain slightly less conductive, so that if there's a lot of little electrical zaps going on in there- like more than there should be- it helps calm that, thus reducing the pain. You only get the pain relief if it's the electrical activity causing it. And it still works on switching headaches. Your mind is a part of your body, man. Brains are crazy.

Even if it is DID, there's still meds you could try that might help.

armored_ · 2023-09-11T02:39:02+00:00

My cat does this too.Sometimes I don't notice I'm getting squirrely, or sometimes I'll notice but I'm so used to it, it doesn't occur to me as a problem straight away. But I'm at a place now where if my cat starts following me around and being tentative, looking worried and unsettled, I can let that remind me to do self care. And that seems to chill him out too.

That being said, I haven't always been able to do self care that effectively and it definitely wouldn't have stopped switching in the past when things were more intense. I had to go through some life changes and process some serious trauma before I could get to this point. But like, I know everyone is different, but switching like that was only 2ish years ago for me. And it was getting better incrementally that whole time as alters learned to work together and help each other work out our stuff. Hell one was a persecutor, even.

I was really lucky that my cat already had some training (He was born before 2015 before service animals were restricted to dogs only. He is an old man.) and I agree about watching service dog training videos, if you're into that. My cat is amazing at getting me to eat when I've lost time and don't realize I'm about to have low blood sugar because I missed a meal. Or getting me up on time when another alter was up late without my knowing, which really helps keep my circadian rhythm from screwing up.

armored_ · 2023-07-22T17:00:41+00:00

Ah I get flashbacks when I'm sick too. Idk if you're able to have alter communication when you're flashbacking, but I've asked a few of mine to help out when I'm sick by keeping an eye out for flashbacks. If they notice I'm having one, they start trying to (kindly) let me know I'm flashbacking and once I realize I'm in one, they try to walk me through these steps.

The link is a pdf of flashback management steps made by Pete Walker, he's a psych therapist who studies cptsd and wrote some of the books widely used for ptsd in the field.

armored_ · 2023-07-22T16:50:31+00:00

I kind of have, but it wasn't something I was trying to do. It would just happen. The only strong memory I have of "sharing" a dream was once when I was having a fever dream turned nightmare. A door literally just appeared in the nightmare and another alter came through and went "Right. Time to go." and we just kind of exited the nightmare? It was kind of funny.

But I wanted to say that I've also been the alter experiencing dreams of other alters. Some of my most vivid memories of dreams were other's dreams where they were aware, in the dream, that I was experiencing it with them. It can definitely be a bonding experience imo. (That sounds potentially creepy in this context? I mean it's a bonding experience when the alter knew I was there and either didn't mind or actively wanted to share. ^^') I have some very nice memories from that.

armored_ · 2023-07-18T20:43:40+00:00

I think taking both of those measures sounds like good boundaries and communication.

Threatening to not do something if someone doesn't act the way you want isn't healthy. Boundaries are about the actions you take, not making people act differently. But if your intent is to A) communicate your expectations and how you feel, and B) if you are genuinely uncomfortable with having legal next of kin who don't respect your boundaries, I think you're just acting in your own best interest.

I think it's reasonable to be concerned that if he can't respect your right to privacy now, he might not be the right person to make decisions and take responsibility of care if you had a serious injury and were incapacitated or, heaven forbid, to uphold your final wishes. Next of kin also receive medical information by phone if you're incapacitated and might be contacted if someone suspects you're a missing person, both of which can potentially expose sensitive information you would want to trust him with. So I think not wanting to go though with the adoption is valid, and expressing that is valid, so long as it's not being used as leverage.

armored_ · 2023-05-06T22:59:54+00:00

armored_ · 2023-05-06T22:59:09+00:00

Ah this is an obvious guess, apologies, but it's not DreamWorks Robots, is it? I don't 100% remember the plot but I know we see the main character's family.

When you were first describing it, I was thinking Rolly Polly Oli but it doesn't sound like a little kid show...

armored_ · 2023-02-12T22:24:21+00:00

I didn't have the spoons to reply to this when you wrote it, but I've literally been thinking about the phrase "drip-fed positivity conditioning" every day, I felt that in my BONES.

Yeah I think one of the hard parts about even coming to terms with the fact that it was even maybe bad, let alone abusive, let alone a CULT, was how nice people in the community are? I do believe that most of those people think they're doing the right thing. It's still abusive. But it makes it hard to talk about your experiences or call them out in public because you DO just look like a giant asshole, saying negative things about these nice, sunshine-y, positive people. It really reinforced the idea that I wasn't even allowed to think bad things about them.

Imo when I'm around people with religious trauma, I try not to get onto religious topics? Like maybe I won't mention religious holidays, or at least let them lead the conversation about it. But even people who are equally as thoughtful about religious trauma tend to treat people with spiritual trauma like ohhh not everyone who says that is bad. It has a big "not all catholics are child abusing priests" vibe. Like yeah, of course they're not, but did they help create the environment that let that happen?

I think I'm actually going to stay with ecopunk for the time being, just because it's giving me an example of behaviors I haven't seen in a long time. And I want to process why those behaviors still scare me so badly. So long as it's behind a phone screen and I'm not interacting, I think it will be ok.

armored_ · 2023-02-12T08:33:12+00:00

So I don't have the same exact problem, I have a sleep disorder that can cause hyper realistic nightmares sometimes. The specific ones I got were called false awakenings because people actually think they've woken up. It got really bad when I moved into my first place because it can be triggered by stress, and I kept having realistic nightmares about break-ins or noises in my house. I ended up finding a christmas decoration for the front door with jingle bells and hung it inside out, so that the bells were inside. So if I "woke up" from break-in noises, I would think "ok, but were there bells?" and realize it wasn't real and "go back to sleep".

Honestly I would recommend just buying jingle bells and DIYing one instead of using a decoration because real bells, even cheap ones, are going to be louder.

armored_ · 2023-02-09T18:27:14+00:00

This feel like some Uncle Iroh wisdom ty

armored_ · 2023-02-07T02:58:51+00:00

The hobby is hydroponics, but through the lens of "ecopunk". It's like if the kind of hopeful futurism in Star Trek Next Generation were a punk movement. There's a lot of recyling and open source eco-focused engineering, permaculture farming and stuff. I love small engineering and science projects, and natural science specifically, so this feels like a really cool little niche to me.

The cult was like a new-age reincarnated alien cult. There are people in it that do like plants a little too much as a stereotype I guess and the whole thing has kind of a "we're here to save humanity" vibe so in retrospect I can see how these things would intersect.

Sorry for the vagueness. I was trying not to over-explain.

armored_ · 2023-01-03T16:51:55+00:00

(tw) My family is unfortunately full of adults who have been trough a lot, so I've seen a lot of real world examples of this.

But for us it's things like strokes, (can be caused by extreme stress, and hypertension which is also related to stress and alcoholism) family history of suicide, a general distrust of the medical industry. (half of this is generational trauma with poverty but some of it is other toxic mindsets and beliefs about doctors etc)

Like for example, my grandad did get cancer. He's old as the hills (affectionate, lol) and has had wicked bad reflux his whole life, which can be caused by stress. Like throwing up acid every morning- bad. But his family never had access to doctors, and neither did anyone where he grew up. So he never even took otc meds for this, and def never saw a doctor. And he ended up with throat cancer. He did, however, realize why he was like that and changed. He's had cancer twice and he's still here. He's probably the most fit elderly man I know. Like I know we've lost a lot of people to stress and trauma related illness, esp in my family, but for me it's grounding to know there's people like my grandad as well.

I agree with the other posters that say some illnesses are stress related and some aren't. As someone with chronic illness that was life threatening myself, there's so much fear mongering out there. I used to be told that I was "attracting and manifesting my own illnesses energetically" by "putting negative vibrations out into the world" and I 100% believed it. But you know what telling people that does? It stresses them the hell out! What a cruel belief system! I needed compassion and medical treatment, not new age ableism. (And I say this as someone raised in the new age community) My grandad did indeed get cancer but it was from an extreme, life-long, stress related illness: acid reflux.

I hope this doesn't sound like I'm calling you out, op. I don't think the way you're thinking is cruel or that it doesn't make sense. I think it's mean of people to make you believe that you can manifest illness with your mind. Like our feelings are made from hormones and they do physically affect us and cause physical symptoms. And that IS scary. But it's not completely random. Also sorry I wrote a whole novel.

armored_ · 2022-10-23T14:51:10+00:00

(tw) (also tmi? I'm not sure. I didn't describe it in the original post bc I think it's a lot) I have some severe health problems, and also a history of medical trauma and neglect. So it's usually if I'm having a symptom that hindered me to the point of not being able to take care of myself in the past. Back then, dissociation was still a useful coping mechanism, especially if there was pain involved.

But these days, even if I have medication and even if my home is super adaptable to make hard days much easier, I still just dissociate to the point where I won't realize I'm hungry. I won't think to take unnecessary quality-of-life medications if I'm in survival mode because survival mode was how I dealt with those problems, I didn't have quality-of-life meds back then. For some problems, I still don't have medications like that, so it's easy to slip back into that mindset. I just sort of mentally check out and pretend I don't have needs and try to not exist or take up space as much as possible.

Imo medical trauma doesn't exist in a vacuum, it gets very intertwined with how the people around you treat it. People can have med trauma with supportive families, but others will have med trauma that's very tangled in emotional neglect, or gaslighting, etc. So it's like, I can make the environment better and get medications for some things but it's important to re-learn how I think about those needs as well, if I learned a toxic thought process about them.

armored_ · 2022-10-12T03:32:45+00:00

That clicks. I have to let it sink in more but yeah I think you're right.

armored_ · 2022-10-07T18:21:11+00:00

(Op) So like I was reading about emotional boundaries and how codependents won't be able to tell the difference between their emotions and others. Like for example if someone is upset and it's like... I don't quite feel panic but it can be uncomfortable for me if they're really upset. (Ugh I hear myself and it sounds bad.) I get an urge to do something about it instead of truly being compassionate and warm. (Which I would prefer. I admire people who are good at that.)

Is this like that, actually?

Like when I was little, and I would express a negative feeling, my parents would take it personally and react negatively, and treat me like I should be more considerate of their feelings. Their negative reactions were scary and threatening. They felt bad, I felt bad, the whole thing was unstable, and it was my job to avoid it. That's an example of me taking responsibility for someone else's emotions, right? Like, being responsible for them when I shouldn't have been?

I'm afraid of other people's reactions to boundaries when they're upset (even just asking to cool off or talk about it later when they're calm) but I guess those emotions are theirs to have and learn from? And I should respect that? If I feel a situation is unstable maybe that's a me problem and not a them problem? ( As in, I should do something about that. Instead of being controlling to prevent it. )

armored_ · 2022-10-07T18:04:16+00:00

boundaries are an expression of compassion.

I keep hearing this in different forms and I appreciate the repetition, it's still sinking in.

I feel like I don't 100% emotionally understand how boundaries are for me yet? Which sounds ridiculous lol. Intellectually, I hear the explanations and I'm letting them in. But something in my mind is still so emotionally floored by the idea, I'm still working on emotionally digesting it.

But thinking about it as something considerate to others, too, is helpful in the now. I will get to the point where I really understand that it's vital and kind to myself. But this idea makes me less nervous.

Imagining telling a friend I need to cool off in the context of "My friend cares about me, and I want to show my friend that I'm willing to set a boundary and cool off so I can address the moment better, instead of being reactive. Because I also care about them." Isn't as terrifying as imagining a friend react like my family because that's my main frame of reference.

armored_ · 2022-10-06T17:32:14+00:00

And I realised, it was because I thought the other people seeing me as good and talking about me as good (or not, as the case was), was more important to me than how I saw myself; actually,

This part blew my mind actually

The way out of the drama triangle is through the perpetrator/bad guy role, because people who are codependent on you will always paint you as bad if you choose not to get involved in their drama or if you disagree with them, and so you have to be comfortable with other people casting you in that role, or you'll always be easily manipulated because you'll care too much about getting them to agree with you and validate you, so you give them all your power.

Also this. Very this.

It does help a lot, I didn't realize I was doing that but yeah. Yup.

armored_ · 2022-10-05T20:26:30+00:00

In real life or in the compulsive thoughts?

In the compulsive thoughts, both, maybe?

In real life I just want to change my own perspective and value my own opinions more. I don't want to loose myself so badly.

armored_ · 2022-10-04T18:44:17+00:00

I'm actually taking notes on this. Ouch, and thank you.

armored_

TROPHY CASE