DID
My goal with this page is to document my journey as I work towards final fusion and resolving my post-traumatic symptoms, and just overall improve my life, really. I want to establish some of the beliefs and frameworks about DID and trauma that I am working with here, and then go on to talk about my specific circumstances and where I am at in working with my system.
To start, I tend to take a no-bullshit approach to dissociative disorders and the treatment of them. I am anti-endogenic, I just don't think this kind of disorder can happen without the kind of severe, repetitive trauma combined with a disorganized attachment to caregivers at a very young age as it is described in research. I personally don't mind if somebody identifies as "plural" or finds parts work to be beneficial for them without meeting these diagnostic criteria, do what you gotta do, but it isn't DID and going into DID spaces talking about not having trauma is a little disrespectful, no? But if someone goes by multiple names and doesn't call it DID when it isn't DID, then we can get along just fine.
I also dislike the idea that fusion is "murder" or that it is an unsustainable goal. I don't appreciate people who discourage complex trauma survivors from healing. I don't see my alters as entirely separate people, but as facets of me that have been dissociated apart due to trauma, so I just really can't get behind the idea that fusion is killing a person when I don't see alters as people. I also can't get behind the idea that someone isn't responsible for their alters' actions. Big fan of system-wide accountability here.
I have experienced fusion once already, and it has been nothing but beneficial for me. Once I realized that the fusion was happening, I was afraid because of the negative things I had heard about it online. That those two alters would be gone forever and the ways that they had helped me in the past wouldn't work again if I needed that kind of help in the future. That couldn't be farther from the case. Both of those alters are still here, as one, happier, more capable, more emotionally stable than before. Not to mention the documented cases of dissociation causing chronic fatigue, and fusion reducing that fatigue. I feel so much more energetic now, and that was only one fusion of the many I will have to go through to reach final fusion. After experiencing the one, I am no longer afraid but instead I am excited for what the future holds and how much more energy and happiness I can come by as I heal past wounds.
Currently, I am working with a great therapist who helps me with EMDR and parts work. My goal is to lower dissociative barriers slowly. What I have noticed is that, as I lessen my dissociation, I become more aware of problems in my life that I had been tuning out, more aware of pain and discomfort in different parts of my body that I had ignored, I gain more painful memories to process and sort through. It is a painful but necessary process to improve my wellbeing, and this is why I am taking it slowly. I lessen dissociation a tiny bit, I become aware of a new problem, and then I put in the work to fix or treat those problems before moving on to work on the dissociation again. This is also why I plan on talking about my health at large and not JUST my DID and my mental health. One of those problems that has been revealed to me this year was the fact that I coped with a lot of my stress by binge eating, and I gained weight and developed many health problems as a result of that. To me, the DID and the binge eating, and now the parts work and the weight loss, go hand in hand with developing the emotional intelligence, resilience, and coping skills that I never learned as a young and traumatized child.
I think that about covers it, so readers have context as to where I am coming from when I talk about DID and trauma recovery. I tend to ramble a lot lol. From here on, I plan on writing little blog posts ("little") about my DID recovery process and stuff I learn along the way. I think my first post will be an alter list, because I think that kind of thing would be nice to look back on as I grow. I might also start a list of DID and trauma educational stuff, like videos and books and wherever else people learn about this thing, and review and collect them to look back on later.
January 30th 2024 Edit: I have decided to remove the alter list from my page because it actually made me uncomfortable to have this list online, even on a page as small as this. This is something I'll track privately lol.