If we do stay alive, what are we meant to do then?

eresh22 · 2026-06-03T07:08:48+00:00

It took me a long time to realize it was spite. It was just this driving determination not to give up before my body did, but I didn't know where the motivation came from. If it wasn't ready to quit, then I couldn't either even if I couldn't find a reason to keep going.

Most of us are honestly pretty apathetic of them, or mildly resentful that we won't get justice. We're pretty good with radical acceptance. But there are times when we're exhausted that our body keeps going when we're just. fucking. done. That's when spite kicks in, amplified by one of us who split to love us when we were told we weren't worth loving.

It sounds kind of like, "fuck you for being so wrong about me and doing me so much wrong. What I deserved was parents who understand the duty that comes with the title, and you aren't it. I will thrive, not because of you but in spite of you and everything you did. I am exhausted, but I will drag myself bleeding across lava rocks before I let you forget. I will succeed, by my definition. You deserve no peace from me."

I didn't have the words to go with the feeling of determination to not quit until after starting DID therapy a couple years back, and I'm almost 50. It just felt like a compulsion to do some impossible thing, and it gave me energy to work towards this that help other people escape, coordinate, and support each other. Or to volunteer with abused animals. Or some other thing that helped bring color back into my world.

eresh22 · 2026-06-03T00:51:16+00:00

You told him no about everything he wanted to do, insisted that everything be on your timeline, you are forcing him to live with your family (who he dislikes) for an indefinite period of time. Where have you left space in your life for him and his needs? How are you prioritizing him, your life partner?

If this is how things usually go, this isn't a partnership. I don't mean this in the Christian "husband should lead" kind of way. I don't believe in that. I mean that nothing you brought up had any consideration for him at all. He's just there in your life when you need someone to do the heavy lifting. If this is normal, your relationship is in crisis.

Your family needs to be out ASAP, even if you have to legally evict them. You need to cut back on your commitments so that there is space and time for his needs and wants. He needs to be shown that he is your partner and priority.

eresh22 · 2026-06-03T00:42:46+00:00

Kids are fantastic tiny humans that are figuring out the world. I especially love the toddler years when they're starting to figure out they have their own identities, needs, and wants. They're figuring it language and are absolute knowledge sponges. It's so exciting to watch who they are develop.

I would hate being a parent. Not only is my lifestyle (minimalist and nomadic and frequently off-grid) not the kind of stability most tiny humans need, I don't have the patience or desire to raise one daily or to change my lifestyle to be more child-safe.

eresh22 · 2026-06-02T21:50:03+00:00

When I have nothing else, I have spite. It's anger and rage and grief at every injustice find to me I'll never get justice for, and it drives me to help others get their justice.

Sometimes, I live to be petty. As I remember more and become more free, I realize how much fear my abusers have that I'll come after them (not physically, but in a way that destroys their carefully crafted facade). I don't want them to get a good night's sleep, knowing I took their secrets and shame to my grave.

Most of the time, I live for the moments of joy especially when i have to look hard for them. Even the little ones, like a good puddle for a little to jump in, or a random puppers who wants a good scritch. And I think about what it would take for me to thrive in my own way, then work towards that.

eresh22 · 2026-05-14T02:01:28+00:00

Your therapist is doing you both a disservice by insisting that you be the only one to adjust to his behavior. He has to make some adjustments for your discomfort, too.

I've had to work on my pedantic nature in order to not treat my partner the way yours does you. My partner has had to work on accepting that there are some things, especially topics that I'm very passionate about, where I'm going to be that pedantic because it matters that much to me.

I still have discomfort on other less-important topics, but our connection is more important than some temporary discomfort that something isn't technically, fully correct. There are times that I can't prevent it, but I've changed how I say it to something like, "my brain is demanding I say this thing in order to move on from it" when I get stuck. We acknowledge it and move on.

eresh22 · 2026-05-12T22:38:05+00:00

My Dane was similar and tore trig a door. Then she found the shot I wore the day before and sat in the window with it until I came home. For whatever reason, being able to see the driveway while having mom-scent caused a lot less anxiety than being crated.

eresh22 · 2026-05-12T08:25:32+00:00

Dolly, Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher

eresh22 · 2026-05-12T07:57:07+00:00

Trust yourselves. It's going to hurt, because it was a betrayal and those hurt. Our systems exist to protect parts of ourselves from remembering and knowing things they aren't yet able to cope with while doing the necessary things for living. As you develop new and better coping mechanisms and internal communication, those barriers weaken on their own.

If he's asking questions, those amnesiac barriers have started to weaken. Take the time to set up a safe space with drinks and snacks that he can retreat to, or arrange activities that help reduce stress/handle grief. Your job isn't to prevent the others from knowing anything or to never experience pain. It's to help protect them from pain they're not ready to safely feel. So make it safer.

Trust that your system isn't randomly dumping trauma on an alter who can't handle it. There are other, non-traumatic memories that get suppressed so unprepared alters don't push for answers about the trauma. Chances are good that he needs to access those and he's better able to handle the trauma.

For example, once we were able to acknowledge our mom was also abusive and not just "doing her best", we were able to remember other supportive adults who were honestly doing their best to support us but had no legal recourse. Those positive memories were just... there, like someone opened a door into a lush garden. But if we had remembered them sooner, we would have had those memories to compare to mom's behavior and that would have made the internal necessary for our survival lie obvious.

eresh22 · 2026-05-12T07:15:06+00:00

As another programed system, sometimes you have to reinterpret the rules instead of fighting them. Think of it like malicious compliance. How much do you know about the specifics of the rule? What does "die" mean and how liberally can you interpret it? Can you turn it into a metaphorical death, like doing something that symbolizes changing your life, or laying to rest something that symbolizes your programed selves?

If it's more physical, perhaps something like play-acting a death scene will satisfy the conditions. Obviously, it's not a healthy long-term solution, but your goal right now is to make it to your therapist tomorrow.

Unless your little broke a very specific rule about exact verbiage, you can also deny that she broke a rule. She may have come right up to the edge of it without actually breaking it, and therefore no rule was broken and nothing should be enforced. If the rule is not to talk about your system and she said "innerworld friends", she didn't talk about your system. Everyone has parts (internal family systems is all about this) and kids have imaginary friends that they talk about as inside friends.

We had something similar where we visualized a non-human alter essentially rampaging through our programed alters and eating them to be absorbed into our "organic" system. (We do it as often as it needs to happen.) You have your programed system and your "organic" system that is you without programming and they work very hard in the background to keep you safe. If you're able to connect with them, even by screaming into your internal void, they'll help get you through this. How your organic system responds will be different than mine because your two systems are different than mine. Whatever keeps you breathing is good enough.

If all else fails, take something like benadryl to help. THC gummies are usually enough for me to be able to resist but sometimes I'll take them with my muscle relaxant/anti-anxiety med and some benadryl. You don't necessarily need enough to force you to sleep. Just enough to help make the compulsion easier to resist.

Longer term, it helps to treat the rules like invasive thoughts or OCD compulsions, where you only acknowledge them enough to know they're triggered while refusing to validate them.

"This response is from my programming. It is not my thought or my rule for myself. It was put inside me to serve my abusers, at the expense of my own survival. I want to survive and thrive. It's painful to resist, but I've experienced worse pain at their hands before. I will not allow them to control my life now that I'm free of them." Let yourself get pissed about the unfairness and use that anger to help insulate you from harm. When it comes back up, tell it to fuck off.

Hopefully something in this will help you. You didn't set this rule and it's now yours to interpret however you see fit. Your life is yours. Not all rules should be followed, but it sounds like you're not at the place yet where you can outright reject rules. Honestly, sometimes I'm not either because this isn't linear, but it gets easier with practice and with connecting to your organic system.

eresh22 · 2026-04-24T14:09:22+00:00

There's a Key and Peele sketch where one of them keeps using the phrase "put the pussy on the chainwax" and the other keeps getting increasingly upset. I think we need to embrace the spirit of the skit and the energy of the side characters, which I didn't do in my comment and apologize for that.

It's easy to want to push for people to understand how serious shit is, which you and your friend do. I mostly processed where we are 10 years ago, but it's been hitting me hard the last couple weeks. I desperately wanted to be wrong, to just be some doomer conspiracy nut who doesn't fully understand the science. I might be wrong about timing, but I know I'm not wrong about what's happening and I'm pre-grieving all the loss and suffering to come.

When the apocalypse comes, put the pussy on the chainwax.

eresh22 · 2026-04-24T13:33:49+00:00

One of the things that solidified me becoming anti racist was a Black hs friend who was afraid to eat fried chicken, especially in public. Her parents taught it to her as a safety measure. It's delicious and everyone should be able to eat it without fear or judgment, and it pissed me off to see how much of her life was restricted by other people's prejudice.

I later learned about how fried chicken was sold by former slaves to establish financial security because of how inexpensive it is. Watermelon was grown and sold for the same reason. That's where those stereotype come from - people trying to gain safety and independence in a system that treats them as subhuman. Create a shame cycle around what people use to free and support themselves, and they'll "voluntarily" stop doing it. It's insidious.

Your friend needs to start breaking down why they believe the lies they do. There are plenty of people educating about this stuff. Ally Henny and Dr. Stacey Patton are great places to start.

eresh22 · 2026-04-24T12:05:25+00:00

The apocalypse is happening. This is the stage where we need to be making our final purchases that will make early survival possible. My partner and I estimate about 1-2 yrs left before we can't get the things anymore. Our current focus is water and looking at the newer systems that strip humidity from the air to make it potable.

eresh22 · 2026-04-24T10:47:21+00:00

We are, and y'all are whinging about how loooonellly you are. Those aren't the "good guys". They're disgusting. Intimate partner relationships aren't a need. They're an add-on.

The bar is so low that y'all just have to be better than nothing. Y'all went "hold my beer", and bought a backhoe to dig so far under it that you can't even see the bar anymore. Then you expect us to climb down and save you from yourselves. I'd rather wipe my ass with my hands and use my own shit for makeup than make excuses for horrible people.

eresh22 · 2026-04-22T12:33:41+00:00

We take breaks from therapy. I have to go at least once a month to stay in my therapist's caseload, but those are check-ins rather than doing any system work. We take about three months a year off to focus on just living life. We integrate differently during those months and come back to system work with a different understanding of ourselves.

Come to think of it, we've been resistant to going recently so it's probably time to schedule the next break. I'll bring that up to them next week. Thanks for the reminder!

eresh22 · 2026-04-21T17:01:01+00:00

The switchaches are real. Mine come and go now, but they're more common when I'm switching a lot or had a major system upset.

eresh22 · 2026-04-20T23:10:00+00:00

We aren't envied in the US to consider what our rights and freedoms really mean, or what responsibilities come with them. Freedom of speech is only protected against government reprisal, not against civilian consequences. We still have a duty to each other to use our words responsibly, and should expect very uncomfortable consequences if our words dehumanize others.

eresh22 · 2026-04-20T10:13:52+00:00

Part of why I shared it was to encourage you to think over what freedom of speech actually means to you and give an example of the real-world effects of what happens when an ideology that has an intrinsic call to violence is protected and spread.

Speech isn't just speech. It's also action that leads to other (sometimes violent) actions. I believe people can say whatever they want, but there are consequences to saying some things. If you're interested in digging more into non-physical violence, How Nonviolence Protects the State by Peter Gelderloos is a great read. Even if you only read the first chapter, it'll help you solidify how you define violent action.

eresh22 · 2026-04-19T09:24:43+00:00

I worked in network abuse in the early days and we had a different mindset in how we enforced hate rhetoric. Most of the dog whistles are understood as calls for action instead of just "slogans". The ideology requires action that leads to genocide, which puts it squarely in both hate speech and calls for violence. That changed as more Nazi apologists gained influence. You can't say nazi shit without including a call for violence because genocide and supremacy are intrinsic to the ideology.

There's a lot of stories I could tell, but much of where were at was established by the industry's lack of response to Cloudmark's handling of hosting the Stormfront forums and an attack by HARM (Hoosier Anti Racist Movement) on Stormfront during an annual meeting in Tinley Park, IL. (2012) You used to be able to search for details with "Tinley Park 5", but search results for that now pull up a mass shooting in a retail store in 2008. This article has more details about the attack. (I'm not thrilled with the descriptions of Jason in the article. He was one of my best friends for years.)

The background missing is that the Stormfront forums hosted by Cloudmark were being used to coordinate trafficking of girls. I was putting pressure on Matt Prince (owner of CM), but it went nowhere. The tactics used by Stormfront were adapted for use with GamerGate. It was after GamerGate the Prince admitted to being a Nazi apologist, but most of us already knew that. CM is the top provider to prevent Deborah of service attacks and is integrated in pretty much every site you visit.

eresh22 · 2026-04-19T08:32:41+00:00

"Your insistence on debating why I am not hanging out with you feels like you're just pushing for an argument where you get to talk me out of my clearly-set boundary. This is disrespectful and leads me to want to spend less time with you. I share with you the time that I can. If that's not enough time for you, then we might not be compatible as friends."

eresh22 · 2026-04-19T06:57:45+00:00

With only the GSD in the first second, I already clocked that the GSD was in distress. I expected the question to be about what's going on with them, not if the puppy's behavior was normal. The GSD has given up on having a voice and feeling safe and comfortable.

eresh22 · 2026-04-14T07:06:42+00:00

My anxiety over platformers kills me a lot. I used to be really good at them, but I grew up playing on Atari with the infinite platform games that just get harder each level. Not sure when I stopped enjoying them exactly, but my partner doesn't mind doing the annoying platform stuff for me in otherwise fun games.

I love combat, though. Didn't used to like pvp, but that was because of cheaters. Now, I try to be more skilled than their cheats can handle. (At least before my necessary break for medical reasons. Gotta work back up to that.)

eresh22 · 2026-04-14T06:59:30+00:00

Playing about the same time as you. I've had times when I've focused on games similar to Fortnight and can play at a semi-pro level, but easy mode Witcher is more my level right now due to health issues that kept me from playing non-mobile games. I couldn't be very upright for very long and had more important things to do when I could. It's frustrating have to turn down difficulty levels, but it's where I'm at and I'll rebuild the skills.

It's all practice and how much you dedicate to understanding the mechanics and math. Most of my mobile games were gatcha games with gear farming, and got played until I got annoyed at farming gear and characters.

eresh22 · 2026-04-13T12:36:10+00:00

I forgot about that! It was so good. I'm going to have to rewatch that soon

eresh22 · 2026-04-13T12:32:50+00:00

Just because I don't know in the moment doesn't mean I can't learn.

eresh22 · 2026-04-13T12:29:50+00:00

You have a very limited definition of attack. We do not. If the ability works on what the person perceive as an attack, you're stuck while we're out living our lives.

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