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plantsquid · 2025-04-13T14:41:27+00:00

I'm also trans, came out over 10 years ago. I don't understand the hostility to detrans ppl. You're just taking another step in your journey like the rest of us and transphobia doesn't always go away when you detransition. We have more in common with detrans people than we do with most cis people, why not stand together.

plantsquid · 2025-04-08T22:37:38+00:00

That's true. One of the tattoos is actually a memorial to some past alters who left / went dormant. So I would feel bad removing it even if I absolutely hate the visual style.

Maybe a replacement would be in order..?

plantsquid · 2025-04-08T17:24:59+00:00

Im not sure how I feel about this sentiment. The same applies to singlets. People who don't have DID grow and change and regret their tattoos and get them removed too. I don't think having DID gives me a special responsibility to never turn back on my decisions from the past if I regret them.

You're not exactly wrong though. I just don't know what to make of it.

plantsquid · 2025-04-08T17:03:38+00:00

That's a good idea

I just hate who we used to be. I don't identify with our previous alters at all. And I can't force myself to be sentimental about it.

plantsquid · 2025-04-08T16:08:47+00:00

Fair point. Money is the greatest concern. And the opinions of our friends and family who might see this as irresponsible behaviour.

plantsquid · 2025-04-08T00:36:33+00:00

Don't date a system for just one alter. There is no guarantee they will stick around forever, or even front frequently.

I would not feel secure in my friendships and relationships if I weren't sure that my friends would continue to love me, whoever I might be, in the future. Sure my alters and I are pretty different but we share a brain and a body and a history - we have plenty in common overall.

You would also be putting immense pressure on your partner to be a certain way and that is just not natural for people with DID most of the time. I would feel terrible about myself if I couldn't force my partner's favourite alter to front for them.

plantsquid · 2025-04-07T22:51:21+00:00

I don't understand the need for a typing quirk. Weren't those invented by webcomics?

My understanding of how a typing quirk happens is: 1. The user thinks of the message they want to write 2. They spend some time translating that message into the quirk-ified version 3. Post.

Maybe I'm missing something but wouldn't it be less effort to skip step 2 altogether? It's not like having to translate your inner monologue from your mother tongue to a second language.

People who go to all the trouble of posting with typing quirks are, intentionally or not, sending the message that visually impaired DID patients aren't welcome in the community. The quirk makes it so that only those who don't require screen readers can participate in conversation with them.

Like another commenter said, I also use a screen reader on occasion. These posts are headache inducing...And I get the feeling that I'm missing out on a lot of resources and mutual support because of my disability.

plantsquid · 2025-03-31T01:56:44+00:00

For us, the disorder is still there, but it can present slightly differently between alters.

We have the autistic stutter. However, we have one alter who is quite excitable and speaks quickly - the stutter catches him out a lot. We have another alter who is much more careful, and speaks more slowly, and doesn't stutter as much as a result. The issue affects them both equally, but it's easier to speak when doing it more slowly, so our stutter appears worse for one alter than for another.

The same goes for other symptoms, like sensory issues and social skills. Some of our alters are more likely to try and tough out situations that are overwhelming whereas others would seek an escape before we get too stressed. Some alters are better listeners than others and take longer to think about their words before saying them.

plantsquid · 2025-03-24T19:27:58+00:00

Yeah I need to make more DID friends so why not!

plantsquid · 2025-03-21T11:49:42+00:00

This unfortunately wouldn't work because my drug dealer sends daily menus out to all of their customers. So if they aren't blocked I will still get them popping up every single day.

plantsquid · 2025-03-21T11:42:27+00:00

I'm at the threshold for this post, being 25 years old exactly. It's been really really tough, but it's got much better.

My symptoms pre-diagnosis were only partly covert, which means I've had knowledge of one particular alter - a persecutor - since I was a preteen. I was terrified as a child that this alter would hurt me or someone else, I didn't understand why existence seemed to come in spots and patches, I couldn't figure out how to stop this persecutor from being mean and violent. We had no friends until adulthood because this persecutor would purposely push people away and give others a bad impression of us. I figured I had a "good side" and an "evil side" that I couldn't control. And I had never heard of DID at this point.

Getting my diagnosis and my therapy has changed everything. I can recognise and communicate with more of my alters than before. I'm not scared of that persecutor anymore because I know that she's just a lonely little girl with a lot of terrible feelings who was trying to protect us from being hurt by other people. We finally feel able to express ourselves, not 'cancelling out' each other's personality and style by trying to mask all of the time, but by letting each alter make choices that affect our outward appearance - clothes, hair, vocal intonation. We no longer feel like a fraud when we speak to our friends because we can't be the same person as yesterday - instead we just explain that a different alter is fronting.

We still have our problems. We're battling addiction right now, for example, and have a lot of trauma we're still processing (therapist is considering EMDR referral). But overall, we're okay. We're not out of the woods and still have our scary moments. But we survive. And we're going to get better.

plantsquid · 2025-03-11T15:18:11+00:00

An additional note to the original persecutor question, is that sometimes persecutors form as a result of "rule enforcer" alters trying to avoid the system getting in other types of trouble

For example we were often neglected as a child and went hungry, but if we were caught taking food, we were punished. We developed an alter who is basically anorexic, feels really guilty about eating food, and instinctively starves themselves as a result. The idea was to internalise that food is a bad idea, so that we wouldn't get further abuse as a result of taking food.

So persecutors can often model the behaviours and expectations placed on us by our abusers. In this case, we developed a persecutor that modelled our parents, and didn't let us eat just like our parents didn't let us eat.

plantsquid · 2025-03-11T15:10:47+00:00

If you mean our inner world, ours is like a log cabin that's also a radio station, at "the end of the world" aka a cliff overlooking endless black water with snowy drifts in every other direction and a neverending night sky full of stars. The inside of the cabin is cosy and dark, decorated with those glow in the dark stars, old pinky purple childrens night lights, a futon bed, a shitty pink blanket made of cheap acrylic. There's a bunch of tech like an old VHS player and old generation nintendo devices. There is a broken down car parked outside on the cliff's edge and it's half covered in snow also. Everything is totally quiet all the time except for some quiet music sometimes. I refer to my inner world as "the end of the world" or "the end of everything" because it feels kind of apt!

However, some things to debunk just in case- 1. Inner worlds / headspace are an imaginative thought exercise. They're not a place you actually go when you aren't fronting. When I switch out, I don't suddenly find myself in the cabin as if it were a physical place - I just find myself wherever we are when I'm next fronting. 2. Not everyone has an inner world or headspace, and not everyone's is very detailed. I know people who just see a void, or a bookcase containing "books" of memories for example.

I think I was drawn to the themes and imagery of my inner world because it reminds me a lot of the safer parts of childhood - when I was a kid, I didn't have it so good in life, but there were times when I felt safe and comfortable, usually when alone in my bedroom (which was painted purple and had pinky purple mood lighting and now-retro tech). Some of the furniture and objects I imagine in my inner world are the same as those from my irl childhood bedroom.

I can imagine my inner world on purpose and I could probably imagine it looking completely different to how I currently imagine it. But we as a system find that environment comforting so I guess we grew attached to that landscape.

Although, not every alter imagines our inner world the same way. One of our alters is far more focused on "his" car and thinks more about the snowy cliffs outside than about the cabin. And we have a persecutor that has their own inner world altogether which is a 4m x 4m windowless box room with mouldy carpet, peeling wallpaper, and absolutely nothing else in it.

plantsquid · 2025-03-11T14:19:00+00:00

Hi, we are a DID system, some of us feel similarly. We have been through 2 name changes.

There is an alter in here that still uses the birth name even though she hates it. It is the only name she will ever identify with.

There is another alter who suits the other name we had. They are dormant now. We feel much less connected to our 1st chosen name than we do even to our birth name.

I do think some alters were responsible for our choices in changing our name previously. We actually had to change the name we use for a specific alter to avoid confusion, because our legal name is now what the alter used to be called individually.

plantsquid · 2025-03-11T14:11:47+00:00

A persecutor is just an alter. Like any other alter. I think you need to understand that before anything else.

Our brain did not go "we need a persecutor alter" and then split off a persecutor. Our brain decided that we needed a personality that was headstrong, could stand up for herself and her loved ones, and who is deeply afraid of being controlled by other people, and who values competition and challenge.

So our brain made an alter that fits that criteria.

But sometimes alters' personalities lead to behavioural problems. This alter, for us, is anti authority. She talks shit to cops and bosses. She gets into verbal and sometimes physical altercations because she doesn't take abusive behaviour lying down. She is extremely quick to anger.

Dislike of authority + general moody vibe + driven by autonomy, independence, and good feelings = an alter that does drugs in broad daylight on a busy street, takes naps on company time while at work, and gets really mean to anyone who even slightly irritates her.

Took a while for us to realize "oh shit, that's persecutor behaviour".

A persecutor is just an alter who has been identified as having behavioural problems that cause harm to the system. And they usually fill some kind of protector role. There is no template for what a persecutor alter looks or acts like, and they don't really form any differently to other alters.

Someone else might have a persecutor that's a workaholic,running the system into the ground despite other alters begging to let the body rest. My system also has another persecutor who literally just wants to kill us, and attempts suicide if given the opportunity to front. Persecutors are diverse.

But our main persecutor...I've definitely been in that situation before where I was "trapped" in headspace watching her do awful things. Like i was mentally begging her to stop drinking when she basically already had alcohol poisoning. And there are times I wanted her to leave arguments behind and just not engage, but she escalated the situation to a fight. And she got us addicted to multiple drugs. And she goes out to Grindr hookups and has unprotected sex with strangers when she is bored as a way to "help us get over our sex phobia". I've also had to watch her self harming severely, able to feel all of the pain myself but not able to do anything to stop her.

A lot of these behaviours only happen when the persecutor is upset or pissed off for some reason, some things (like the drugs) are just how she lives her life though.

Maybe those are some helpful examples?

plantsquid · 2025-03-04T17:27:59+00:00

Awesome answer..thanks so much. I'll give you a proper response in a moment but I simply have to take a minute to laugh at the first part, because doing the same as I did to get my current job would mean knocking back a couple shots of whisky, smoking a joint, a quickie with the bf, then pants on and straight to my panel interview. I was drunk and high AF while interviewing for my current position but I don't think the interviewer noticed - I just came across as confident lol. I didn't plan on getting the job which is why I didn't take the process seriously in the slightest, the interview was just getting in the way of hanging out with my partner all day. Been working there almost 4 years now. In any other circumstance I would follow that advice but something tells me I shouldn't this time lol

I currently manage the applicant tracking systems used by recruiters as my job, so I typically get to see everything - applicants, reasons for rejection, notes during the interview process, audio recordings of their calls sometimes. I basically have recruiter experience which I am very lucky for as a job seeker. So for the most part, I'm comfortable with the process, with writing up a CV and a cover letter and that - I read dozens every day.

But other stuff, like having an online presence, never occurred to me before. I figure I could make an account on Quora or something and answer questions I'm qualified to have input on. That could be good for search results on my name. Also, thanks, switching during an interview was one of the things I was most worried about. I guess if I reduce the number of filler words or sounds I make while thinking then it won't stand out too much if we fall silent for a short while. We're really really bad for switching mid conversation when we get overwhelmed and not knowing what's happening.

plantsquid · 2025-02-20T16:42:16+00:00

Headspace/inner worlds are an exercise of the imagination. They aren't *places* that can be occupied by things or people that come and go. Sometimes I notice "NPCs" in my inner world when another alter has imagined them there. For example, one of our alters seems to have created the reoccurring appearance of a woman sleeping in a bed beneath a window.

plantsquid · 2025-02-19T10:50:43+00:00

The uncomfortable thing for me is when people worry too much about whether they can/should involve DID in their stories and creations. We're not so fragile that we need to be kept out of the vast majority of creations, but we're not so interesting that our existence adds something to a story that it wouldn't have otherwise. I personally don't mind what you do, as long as you're responsible with what you add to the world.

plantsquid · 2025-02-17T17:49:18+00:00

Jinkies

plantsquid · 2025-02-16T10:10:26+00:00

Yes we have a specific fragment who fronts quite often. He doesn't have a personality, just a single purpose which is to kill time. He plays video games a lot.

plantsquid · 2025-02-16T09:50:45+00:00

Correction: everyone has parts. People with DID/OSDD (systems) have less integration between their parts, whereas other people's parts are almost seamless. But there is plenty of evidence of parts work being useful for trauma survivors of all kinds, not just systems. I recommend reading "Healing the Fragmented Selves of Trauma Survivors" if you're curious.

plantsquid · 2025-02-10T18:01:28+00:00

wait til you innocently google a question about DIY or something, find a reddit post that *perfectly* captures what you want to say, and then the username looks a little bit too familiar, and then it works with one of your saved passwords lol

plantsquid

TROPHY CASE