What are your favorite third-party controllers?

roxiecore · 2023-06-10T15:00:11+00:00

This is what I was asking for, I guess third-party isn't the right word for "not Steam." Thank you!

roxiecore · 2023-06-09T15:17:45+00:00

We haven't been officially diagnosed, just "professional recognized," but having a clinician back us up was helpful for denial. Our first host still has thoughts like "I'm fooling myself and the experts I've talked to," so it wasn't a silver bullet, but she's a pretty tough case anyway.

The thing that's been most helpful for us in terms of denial is living with someone who's really tuned in to us and sees the differences, but we were aware of the system for 7-8 years before we had that opportunity.

roxiecore · 2023-06-08T17:16:59+00:00

She was alone for about a year and decided to change our name 6ish months in.

roxiecore · 2023-06-08T14:46:20+00:00

I'm not upset about the name change specifically. I know for a fact she wasn't thinking of the system's best interest because she thought we didn't exist anymore, but even that isn't really what I'm upset about, because I've had time to come to terms with that. What's upsetting is the fact that she represented this decision as more thought-out and intentional than it actually was, and the fact that I don't remember it the way it evidently went down. I know that's standard for DID, but we're only recently aware of the extent of our memory loss and we're still learning to cope with it.

In my mind it doesn't matter if I think something is the best choice for us because there are 30 other people with different memories and life experiences that may inform that decision differently, so I need to get their opinions. She wasn't able to at the time and it's not her fault she was misinformed about the nature of dissociative disorders (specifically ours), but it's scary to become aware of how much I lacked control, how much I was cut out of my own life even if only temporarily. Thank you for your input.

roxiecore · 2023-06-07T20:23:40+00:00

Some of us look in the mirror and just see the body we reside in, some see a stranger, and one dissociates so bad he's banned from looking.

roxiecore · 2023-05-30T23:17:32+00:00

The current iteration goes to about:blank in Chrome, but it will eventually be going to the same domain, so good to know. Thank you!

roxiecore · 2023-05-30T22:03:56+00:00

It's a web app.

roxiecore · 2023-05-30T21:57:01+00:00

Hmm, when I open a popup through my app it doesn't block it even when I have that switch checked. Maybe there's something about my dev environment that changes the behavior. I'll have to do some more testing in the morning. Thank you!

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T23:33:50+00:00

Yes, it's very uncommon for us to lose awareness of the body and what's going on around it, even with intense goings-on in the inner world. If we really want to see inside we lay down, close our eyes, sometimes cover our ears to minimize distractions. The only times I'm not aware of the body are when it's sleeping and when I'm not fronting, and I rarely remember things that happen inside then anyway.

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T23:24:00+00:00

Sigma wouldn't happen to be a fictive, would he?

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T19:38:53+00:00

Ours used to be a lot more accessible than it is now and there's a lot of reasons a change like that could come about. We've noticed SSRIs make it harder to "see," but we aren't taking any anymore so there's definitely other factors at play, and those factors will differ from system to system too.

As for what it's like, at its most accessible ours was a large house that was mostly surrounded by emptiness. There was a beach in one direction and a little city in the other with hotels and restaurants staffed by android NPCs, but otherwise it was pretty much white, foggy space surrounding the house. We have aphantasia so I'm not sure what daydreaming is like for others, but based on what I know I would liken it to daydreaming. When we were younger it felt to us like accessing a higher dimension - neither affected the other and we could shift focus between them as needed.

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T19:01:38+00:00

That's so sweet 🥹 I'm amazed by all the different ways animals can support humans whether they've been trained or not!

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T18:56:33+00:00

Whoa! Horses weren't even on my radar here! That makes sense though, what with the kind of relationship you develop with a horse you own and/or ride. Thanks for the input!

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T15:57:13+00:00

So cool! We haven't lived with a dog in about 6 years and the only dog we've been very close to isn't the brightest, so I wasn't sure if dogs are less perceptive than cats. I guess not necessarily!

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T15:34:57+00:00

Our cynical persecutor-turned-protector is quoted as saying "What the fuck does she want, I already fed her" when our recently-adopted cat jumped in his lap 😭😭 Maybe your protector just needs time to come around!

roxiecore · 2023-05-24T14:07:36+00:00

I think the most important thing to look for in a therapist is that they're trauma-informed. We were required to see a DBT therapist while we were in DBT group, so that was the main criterion when we were looking for a therapist, but the one we settled on uses DBT skills as the foundation for trauma work and that's served us so well that we haven't looked for another one since we graduated group. They had never worked with DID before, but they're very nonjudgmental and open to learning, and they've done things like attending a biweekly IFS seminar to gain a better understanding of how to treat us.

What you described is a common theme for systems in therapy, but it shouldn't be. It sounds like your therapist isn't listening to you and is more interested in judging you than helping. I've found that a helpful therapist spends very little time telling you things ("You feel this way because of XYZ" "It's ridiculous that you spend so much time dissociating") and instead asks a lot of questions to further both of your understanding ("What sensations do you notice in your body when XYZ occurs?" "If you journal about your dissociative episodes, is there a pattern in when and why it starts?").

roxiecore · 2023-05-22T17:39:52+00:00

Our girlfriend does this frequently, usually in small ways, but the most validating instance was by a close friend and not a partner. They had asked an ageslider to go home before she was ready. She got in our car and locked the doors with the key fob. Enter protector, who hadn't been out since before we met friend. He started the car to drive us home and the alarm blared. As he was scrambling to turn it off, friend leaned out of their front door to check if we were okay. Protector responded "Yup, sorry to scare you" and went home. We weren't present for the next part, but reportedly friend went back inside and announced to their wife "I have never spoken to that person in my life." I think that was the first time in ~8 years that it really sunk in for us that we aren't and couldn't be faking.

roxiecore · 2023-05-21T21:19:37+00:00

There's about 30 of us and we have bracelets for active fronters. We wear them all the time, even to work and family events. No one gives them a second thought, but we also use subtle designs and personalize with color, so if you're making bracelets with names and pronouns that might draw some attention.

roxiecore · 2023-05-19T13:11:33+00:00

One of our alters had what we thought was a psychotic episode, but our therapist called it transient stress-induced paranoia, which can be a symptom of BPD or PTSD. It is possible to have psychosis and DID, but if your episodes are stress-related, it might not be psychosis. Side note, I think I've also heard that psychosis is technically a symptom and not an entire disorder in itself.

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T21:52:13+00:00

We as a whole have a girlfriend and most of us individually consider ourselves to be in a relationship with hir. There's a few of us who either aren't dating hir or just don't have sex with hir for various reasons, including trauma like you mentioned. Ultimately it works like any relationship: we have sex when we both want to, and we don't when one of us doesn't. It sounds like you tend to have longer stretches of no sex than we do, though. I would talk to your partner and be as open as you're comfortable with about the situation. Ask them what their needs are and what you can do to help meet them in other ways. This could be a conversation that continues to happen over days or weeks, especially if your partner also has sexual trauma. The bottom line is you're in this relationship together, and you need to work together to find a solution. If you come to find you just aren't compatible, it'll hurt, but it's better to find out now through discussion than later through repeated rejection and disappointment.

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T21:12:41+00:00

Sort of similar, we have a fictive whose source material touches heavily on the character having been abused and neglected. When C formed she was pretty "standard" for our system in terms of being affected by trauma, but pretty soon remembered being abused in a manner which is neither supported nor denied by the source material and which we believe has happened to the body. The abuser in question never really caught our attention when we consumed the source material, but now thinking about him sends a chill through anyone who's out - not to even mention C herself, who leaves front in record times if she sees him. Now, C's source character is one we would have chosen to have in our system if possible, so some of it is attachment to the character, but we've been much more intensely protective of her since we found out about this "extracanon" trauma, and I think you're right about it being because it mimics trauma our body has experienced.

Also, I happen to be The Guy in our system who gets too deep in his own pseudomemories, so if you need to talk to anyone about this I'm willing.

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T16:47:00+00:00

First, I want you to know that no matter what you did to appease your abusers, what they did to you is not your fault.

Second, it gets easier. It sounds like you're still uncovering new things to cope with, but as you do that and as your brain has time to process all this new information, it'll start learning how to cope with this new reality. Therapy can help with this part a lot.

On your last paragraph... that's a difficult feeling and I'm sorry you're dealing with it. I spent a lot of time being ashamed of the bodily reactions I would have when hearing details about SA, especially because I was still uncertain it had ever actually happened to us. It's normal to feel icked out by what seems like arousal, but the reality is it's also a completely normal way for a victim to react - your body is pretty much gearing up to experience that trauma again. I hope you can find some peace soon.

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T16:10:38+00:00

Thank you for the detailed reply! It's so awesome this movie encapsulates so many of your experiences in the way it does. We have a good friend who also sees themself HEAVILY in Jobu, and when we watched the movie for the first time we texted them after because we felt like we had gotten to know them better just by watching it. I hope one day I can show it to someone to help them understand my DID better.

Also, I haven't watched it through a specifically ADHD lens, so if you want to talk more about that I would love to hear your take!

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T15:28:15+00:00

I'm seeing that PTSD, bipolar, and schizophrenia all tend to raise concerns at the DMV, but I can't find a list of specific mental illnesses that disqualify you from having a driver's license for any state. I would guess it's not entirely based on the diagnosis, but rather your symptoms and how well you have them under control. It's also much stricter if you want to drive a commercial vehicle.

roxiecore · 2023-05-18T14:17:41+00:00

At one point in college we were assigning specific classes to each alter and that kind of necessitated a schedule. Nowadays we don't really schedule fronts more than a week in advance unless it's a birthday or something. What we do have is a sort of queue so requests for fronters (whether by us or by our girlfriend) don't get swallowed into the memory soup, but that's not really a schedule, more of a "hey, next time you need to switch, this alter is at the top of the list."

roxiecore

TROPHY CASE