I was a bit of a mess. I had to stop and cry. A lot. Most of the rest of the time I had my head in hands with just this heavy feeling of dejection, not saying anything.
At one point my therapist commented on what a big achievement something I’d done that week was, and I just broke down, had to just stop & sit with myself, shut the conversation down for 5 minutes & go inside while I felt this huge well of pain, sadness, and shame about someone saying something good about me & all of the inner fallout that created.
We carried on, hard terrain the whole way. We tried doing some grounding a bit further on. I got as far as naming a couple of things in my room, then had to ask if we could just stop – I was done, my body was a lead weight. We were exhausted, physically and emotionally.
So we stopped. It was near the end of the session – and my therapist said, “You’ve done incredibly well today – it’s been a long time since you’ve sat with everyone for that long & held all those feelings at once…”
Weirdly, it didn’t come as a surprise. I felt it. Present through the pain, the mopiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust…. aware, listening, and still in the driver’s seat.
I guess, in a way, this doesn’t feel worse per se – just different. I’m just more aware of what big loads we’re each carrying (stop snickering, Jesse!).
But it’s a place we can build from. A stable foundation.
Work in progress.
‘Til next time – take care of yourselves, kiddos x
There’s a term we’ve come across a lot less often – “jamais vu” – “never seen”. It’s sort of the opposite of déjà vu – feeling like something is completely new and alien to you, despite the fact that the something in question is your house, your spouse, your favourite mouse… (Harley sweetie, please give mommy back the keyboard… thank you x)
It’s a common thing to experience alongside depersonalisation / derealisation – that odd sense of, “familiar but strange” is a big part of what makes them unsettling. However, the thing about dissociation is that feeling of “I know I should recognise this but I don’t” is what happens some of the time.
Other times, you straight up get amnesia for a thing and don’t even register as being something you should recognise.
Like the book on chronic pain I’ve read three or four times in two years. And have just got halfway through, only to find a highlight from the last time I read it ‘for the first time’…
I asked my therapist the other week if he’s ever read the book (it’s The Way Out, by Alan Gordon – good book, just difficult material for us). He said, “No, but I know people who have”. He didn’t seem very encouraging about me reading it. We discussed some very specific sounding tips about how to approach the content. I thought it was all a bit weird.
He says that about things we do. “Some people keep a whiteboard and use it for rollcall…”, “Some people keep a journal and use it like this…”
Obviously those things could be true of other people. But in those situations, there’s almost always a moment later on (sometimes later that day, sometimes a month later…) where I realise, “Oh, shit – by ‘some people’, he meant me…”
Sometimes the advice sounds very specific & you intellectually know what you’re talking about should sound familiar but it just doesn’t. Jamais vu. Sometimes it feels familiar, but you can’t put your finger on why on earth that might be. Déjà vu. Sometimes it’s both. WTF – how can it be both?
Well, funny things happen when you dissociate a lot, and a lot of memories get coded weird. That’s my understanding, and it’s good enough for now (I went down a biiiig rabbit hole on this one, too – and that’s why I don’t remember reading The Haunted Self the first couple of times).
So anyway, I don’t think reading the book went very well last time – so no wonder my therapist wasn’t jumping for joy when I was like,
“So I’ve found this book…”
The thing that’ll really bake your noodle is…
The Matrix Reloaded was good, actually.
“Ok, who changed all our inside avatars to 16 y/o Riley again?”
I love the whole architect reveal about the repeating loop of the rise & fall of Zion, where each uprising believes it is the first… gods that always felt so familiar to me & I couldn’t put my finger on why.
Yes he’s a wordy bastard – and it fits his character perfectly. The Merovingian too – the computer programs in that series love to construct reality through words, codifying, signifying, quantifying – creating & restricting, controlling, through language. To quote Morpheus, “That sounds like the thinking of a machine to me.”
So yeah, The Matrix Reloaded is actually one of my favourite films – I know it’s not always a popular choice, but as a teenage Hong Kong cinema fan (the martial arts & HKBO gunplay in Reloaded is sensational) & avid reader of philosophy when the first two films released, along with how applicable a lot of the themes are to feeling disconnected from your life, your world, yourself (and trying to understand those, “amnestic loops” we sometimes find ourselves in…)…
…. I should re-watch The Matrix 1 & 2 (not 3, that one actually does suck).
“You’ve got the sight, kiddo – but none of us can see past the choices we don’t yet understand…”
… by Ella Everett, foreword by Dr Adrian Fletcher.
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A Brilliant Adaptation: How DID and the power of the therapeutic bond saved me, by Sally Maslansky, sounds like a great book, from what we’ve heard. Well, this post isn’t about A Brilliant Adaptation, because we read the first chapter and honestly, were finding it too intense.
We’re looking forward to going back to it when we’re ready, but it includes some very intense and prolonged descriptions of trauma & therapy (both of which can be a lot when it comes to DID!)
So, in the meantime, we picked up this book – The DID and OSDD Handbook: Understanding & Navigating Life With Dissociative Identity Disorder. Published late last year, and written by someone with lived experience of DID, it’s less of a first hand account of the emotional intensity of complex dissociation, rather, an overview of a wide variety of topics relevant to living & healing with those conditions.
It contains a lot of good stuff on what I imagine are the questions almost every DID / OSDD system has once the genie starts coming out of the bottle (so to speak). Things that I know I wish I had a good starting “handbook” for early on – every system may be unique, but I imagine most of us go through trying to figure out things like, “Am I a we?… no… are we an I? “… wait… what about the fact we’re different genders?!” (etc etc) at some point, for example!
It’s a lot of the kind of stuff that I ended up trawling through psychiatric journal articles, clinical textbooks (like The Haunted Self), and various blog posts and YouTube videos to find. Things like:
Pronouns, both in terms of gender, and singular v plural
System communication, including helpful journaling techniques
System birthdays!
Alters and system dynamics, names, interests
‘Coming out’ as a system…
… and much more besides.
I’d definitely say it goes wide & ‘shallow’ (in the sense that it doesn’t go into any one topic in a lot of depth), but when you have lots of questions and you can’t find anything without trawling the internet & still coming up blank half the time, I think there’s a lot of value in just knowing:
You’re not alone in having these questions… and yeah, finding what works for you might not be easy – but other people are finding their way with life as a system… & you can too
Digging through The Haunted Self trying to figure out how on earth to do something useful with all that info on action systems, APs, EPs, and the like… when what I really wanted to know was stuff like, “How do I handle the fact that everyone feels like they have different birthdays?I just want everyone to feel included!“…. it’s a very different angle to come at things!
It rarely presents, “This is the one correct answer” and instead, “Here’s what some systems do & what you could try” along with boxed-out sections on what the author personally finds works for them, and, “Tips for supporting people with DID and OSDD”, which is really lovely to see.
So if that sounds interesting to you, give it a read, and maybe consider recommending it to someone in your life who’d like to learn a little more!
It’s highlighted for us just how far we’ve come, as we’ve been reading – feeling like we’re among those finding their way through a lot of this stuff, piecing together whatever we can. It’s a nice feeling, and being given this chance to stop and reflect on that for a moment is welcome, too.
A couple of months ago, we posted about a research study we’d just enrolled in as a participant; the PREDICTSELF study, on sense of self in DID, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King’s College London.
In that post, we talked about screening & assessment of DID generally – the content of the first in-person session with the research team.
To recap, the goal of session 1 is to ensure that people enrolled in the study as DID participants both a) have DID (natch) & b) are at an appropriate place in treatment, i.e. stable enough, with enough coping skills, to manage participating in the research and any difficult feelings or experiences that it might bring up.
Well, yesterday we completed session 1, and we got an email not long after, asking us back for sessions 2, 3 and 4.
No surprises there – but we were still nervous until after we’d left the building that we were going to get in trouble for wasting their time, that we’d be too much, or not enough, that kind of thing.
We’re so glad the clinical psychologist we talked with for the 3 hour session was so kind & considerate, easy to talk openly with, and that even though it was hard, it all went well.
They’ve really put a lot of effort into co-creating the process with people with lived experience to make it as smooth as possible for people with DID – the experience so far is helping us realise that there’s a lot that can be done to help put people like us at ease, and that’s a super encouraging thing for the future.
Here are a few things that spring to mind:
Getting a chance to see the team before they saw us: Advertising the study with a video on The CTAD Clinic YouTube channel – behind able to see the two lead researchers faces, and hear them talk about the study, what would happen, and how naturally they talked about their passion for research that could help people with DID in the future made it a much less daunting choice for us, meant we knew who we were going to meet, and was just generally a nice touch.
Consent within a system: They re-issue the consent before each session, to make sure the person consenting to the session is the same as the person taking part in the session. I don’t think it was a requirement for us, we were there together, but I 100% get where that comes from & it’s great that they’ve thought that through.
Making the stakes feel manageable: So often, we feel like things are going to turn to disaster at any moment, and that, “the stakes have never been higher” (despite the fact that so many people describe us as one of the most calm, dependable & reliable people they know – how we feel is often a very different story!). The clinical psychologist we met with described what she’d be wearing before we arrived, was very friendly in email exchanges, and was explicit about just letting her know if we were running late, got lost, were having any difficulties, that kind of thing.
Such a familiar feeling – when people help keep things chill, playful, and grounded, we super appreciate it!
Supportive of us knowing our needs: She was also very receptive to one of our plushies, Bingo, coming along with us – and Bingo sat in a chair next to us throughout (we put her down facing the psychologist, so we had a buddy sitting there with us the whole time ^^)
Having resources for grounding out from the start: There were grounding bits and pieces like fidget toys, bottles of calming scents, that kind of thing, out on the table when we arrived – we didn’t need them ’cause we had Bingo, so we put them to one side, but still – it sent a message that they knew they might be needed, & that was ok – rather than making us ask for them.
Creating natural breaks, while being flexible about them: The psychologist had suggested points in the conversation for breaks, so it wasn’t on us to bring them up, but also made clear we could take them any time we wanted.
We were nervous, but I think at a bit of an advantage compared to some by the fact that we’ve half a lifetime of experience being a psychology researcher at institutions like KCL – so the process, setting, and thought that goes into this kind of work was very familiar to us – none of this stuff ever felt like it had an, “alterior motive” (which I can imagine coming up for us in a different setting)
I’ve been the person interviewing people who are having a tough time, so many times over, and felt the genuine feelings of wanting to make the experience as positive & easy for people as possible. I could tell the team really care about this, and so far? they’re doing a remarkable job.
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The clinical psychologist we spoke with said she was, “blown away by our ability to talk about our experiences”, but it’s a testament to how at ease she put us that we didn’t just wall up. Also, I think writing this blog has really helped with being able to formulate our thoughts about how to communicate about all things dissociative.
I felt through the whole interview like I should be apologising for not being able to describe things better, but with a little encouragement, we made it through.
We also had a laugh together about how absurd all the questions about, “remembering the things you don’t remember” are in the standardized questionnaires, and how trying to give a single number from 0-10 for questions that different parts are giving very different answers to, is also kind of hilarious (but also – how that kind of thing is helpful to talk about in itself).
The most interesting thing for me was that talking about, “How things are for me overall” was waaay harder than talking about parts xD
So yeah – really encouraged by the first session, and the lab tasks for sessions 2 & 3 sound like they’re likely to be very interesting experiences – I probably won’t talk about those in detail until after the study’s concluded, but still – watch this space!
Until next time, take care of yourselves, kiddos ❤
And shout out also to @TheZebraPuzzle for recommending this one to us, soon after we started this blog last year!
We listen to podcasts a lot less than we did in our 3-hour-work-commute days as a Behavioural Science Director on the other side of London – but Healing My Parts is probably the first we’ve been routinely listening to new episodes of since then.
It’s a podcast by, “The system behind Healing My Parts podcast” who both have DID, and work as a clinician who is a, “a leader in a niche mental health space” (eating disorders & dissociation, I believe – there’s massive overlap there; The CTAD Clinic recently hired two eating disorder specialists to help with that aspect, for example).
We vibe with them big time – they know what’s up, and they really do get amazing guests and have incredibly insightful conversations with them. A few notable examples for us, they’ve had:
Dr Frank Putnam – leader in research on the biology of survival
Jamie Pollack – founder of An Infinite Mind, and runs the Healing Together conference (a wonderful sounding international conference that’s about 50/50 people with lived experience pf dissociation, & clinicians in the space)
Dr Jamie Marich – one of our absolute favourite writers & speakers on dissociation; a field leader in dissociation & EMDR, and a system themselves. Author of one of the best books in the field, Dissociation Made Simple
Holly & Dylan Crumpler – mother & son, Holly has lived with DID for a long time, and Dylan worked with her to create Petals of a Rose, the short film we’ve posted about previously, which is maybe one of the most succinct & effective ways to show someone, “what it’s like”.
A couple of stand-out favourite episodes
Two recent episodes we particularly loved & wanted to call out:
Affirming, moving, queer, inspiring: Karla Fleshman, the Irreverent Reverend
Karla talks about the relationships between dissociation and growing up queer in a world that is geared towards neither.
They talk about a lot that resonates about how early many people growing up queer know that something is different about them, and all the rejections and dismissals of who you are by the people who are supposed to protect & guide you, from a very early age, can mean you grow up feeling like you have no-one to go to, of being alone in the world, and how so much of the familiar attachment confusion that’s at the heart of the development of dissociation can start there.
They talk about how important it is to get out into the world, find community, and support each other. They describe themselves as an, “Irreverent Reverend”, and when they talk, we can’t help but be deeply inspired.
Their poem, “Who is Nex / Who is Nex.T?” is fire, this discussion is fire, and this may be one of the best things anyone queer & dissociative could possibly spend an hour of their time listening to.
(They also says, “kiddos” a lot, which we obviously love xD)
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Learning to live with a brilliant adaptation: Sally Maslansky
One of the most recent eps; Sally Maslansky has a wonderfully positive outlook on the role of DID in surviving complex trauma, and offers a message of hope for anyone struggling with the ways it can continue impacting your life when the danger is over.
Today, she’s a therapist specialising in dissociation – but in the 90s, Sally was a client of the fantastic Dr Dan Siegel. In this podcast & her book “A Brilliant Adaptation” (that we’re currently reading – it’s great, too) she shares her journey, from terror & confusion, making sense, and coming to appreciate everything her system had done to keep her safe & finding new meaning & joy in life.
Sally talks & writes elquoently about a lot of things veeeery familiar to us about what finding out about dissociation is like, but perhaps more importantly, how incredibly powerful therapy & finding safety and healing through the therapeutic relationship can be.
If you need something to inspire you, or help you see / remember that DID is a brilliant adaptation you do not need to be ashamed of – this episode is worth a listen.
We’ll let you know we find the book as a whole when we finish it.
Some of the (many) great things about Healing My Parts
I think one of my favourite things about Healing My Parts is just how relatable the podcast’s host is (they choose not to share their name, partly because they want to minimise their visibility as a system in their professional space).
They are so up front about so many things we think & feel about system life, some of the misunderstandings, trials & tribulations (often from health & mental health professionals), the tired tropes (“when you’ve met one system, you’ve met one system”).
They also get incredible guests, many of whom are either field leaders professionally, inspiring people with lived experience, or, often – both. Among their guests with lived experience, some have found a place of integration into a single self, some function as a system – there are no knee-jerk assumptions that one is better than the other, just connection, curiosity, and compassion.
Those are things the world could always use a little more of, and we’re happy they’re here.
So if you’ve not listened, check it out!
We think you can’t got wrong with either of the episodes linked above to see if you like it, but it’s been great since the first episode in 2024 if you want to start from the beginning, too.
Harley, our resident 5-year old lil’ cheeky monkey, has been around a lot lately. Can you tell from the title? ^^
We apparently have two chunky looking posts on resources & Night in the Woods in progress, but f-that rn, we’re feeling identity-spicy – so let’s talk about that, rather than indulging our inclination to feel like we constantly have to explain ourselves (it’s a trauma response, what can I say? – C)
Getting them giggles
Is there a word or phrase for when members of a system start goofing off together & making each other laugh? We’ve heard other systems mention it, and it is most definitely A Thing xD
System giggles feels like a good name for what was happening earlier – I was ready to go out – Jesse was driving, so deep red baseball cap, aviators, jacket – but Harley was co-piloting, and found looking like Jesse hilarious – so kept jumping in front of the mirror & giggling xD
From a walk with J-man a few days ago, but you get the idea. Dude’s a dude.
Jesse tells a lot of jokes & teases the others. Ellie love making weird faces, dancing, & playing with our varying senses of where we are in our body (as does J-man). So the three of us today have been having a grand old time ^^
System giggles.
If we ever decide on a “system name”, maybe we should be the Giggles System 😀
Why cover up the colours stuck inside our head?
We went for a walk earlier, switching between Jesse & Ellie’s playlists – think Linkin Park, Fallout Boy, Metallica, Maiden (J-man), and Rihanna, Britney, and HUNTR/X (a few of Ellie’s favs).
Golden from K-Pop Demon Hunters was playing, and a weird thing happened. The line, “Waited so long to break these walls down / To wake up, and feel like me” often brings up the very familiar feeling of something missing – memories, time, sense of direction & purpose, feeling safe… feeling anything other than fear, really. Y’know, the finer things.
But today, Ellie was dancing as we walked, J-man & Harley chilling alongside, sun shining, and Ellie was thinking about how, “Eh, why be sad about it – it’s not like I want to be some one-and-only, I like this“. J-man & Harley felt the same. And we felt good. Hopeful. Relaxed. Joyful.
Who is Riley? No fucking idea, but at least my inner fam know who they are ^^
We’re doing ok trying, screwing up, learning, growing as a family.
We’ve covered popular media like Severance & Expedition 33: Clair Obscur, from our trenchcoat here on the blog. But here’s one you may not have heard of…
Identiteaze is a 2024, 45-minute drama, written & directed by Jessie Earl. It’s exclusive to the Nebula subscription service, and it’s not a big-budget affair – so I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d never heard of it – but I’d recommend watching it on a free trial, or a month’s £6 subscription – it’s worth it.
If you need a refresher, or don’t want another subscription – we’ve clipped together 6 minutes from the first half that should give you a good idea of the main thrust of what we talk about below.
Touch things
It’s a pretty simple premise – two people wake up in a plain, white room together, with no idea of how they got there, who they are, or who the other is… and apparently, no way out. The story follows the two trying to figure out… well… anything.
Aaron & Erin (as we, and they, soon learn are their names) take very different approaches to their situation.
Aaron is timid, in touch with his feelings, easily startled, and urges caution – it’s an unknown situation, that could be filled with danger.
Erin swears like a drunken sailor, tries anything and everything she can think of to find a way out of her current plight, and “doesn’t like therapy”.
Two different people, with a connection that becomes increasingly clear as they start to realise what they deeply, intuitively, have in common.. They start, “making a list” of what they know, and finding common ground in their feelings – so even here, unable to remember their pasts, they find a way to use their individual strengths to come together, work as a team & move forward.
A simple choice
When Aaron & Erin are told by the surprise VHS orientation tape that they’re avatars in some, “digital corporate hell”, followed by the appearance of a single door out of the room, there’s a realisation: only one of them can leave.
Erin starts to collapse… Aaron feels it too, wants to comfort her. Knowing he can’t reach over & touch her, he holds up his hand. Erin places hers against his.
And then… starkly contrasting green & red lights glitch to blue, darkness, blue, darkness, blue…
…. darkness…
… music…
… a sea of impossible to make out voices, all talking over each other….
… then everything snaps back, bathed in blue light, one final word ringing out clearly & decisively…
“Together”
They look over, and one door has become two. They are able to walk through, together. And on the other side…
… they find themselves in one body.
Together.
Switching in & out of co-consciousness
This is a very individual thing, but that stutter effect, with the escalating voice chatter followed by calm, clarity, and an unambiguous sense of, “who’s here” is what some of our more intense switches feel like. We found the same with Moon Knight & the Jake Lockley switches.
We just find it interesting – sensory & somatic effects during switches can be pretty individual to each system (and parts within a system – although headaches & neck/shoulder tension are common ones), but that that’s two places that specific sensory sequence has memorably shown up.
We are a them
There are some wonderful exchanges after that as Aerin (Aaron & Erin’s, “Us, Together” form) continues trying to make sense of things – stuff that just made us smile, laugh, and generally feel seen.
When the manager running orientation, Michelle, stands up and asks, “Who are you? Are you them?” with a conspiratorial whisper (meaning the mysterious Organizers), they reply:
“Ohhh…. yeah! That works for us! We are a them
That line… we love it. The feeling of comfort slipping into pronouns that work for you, when what you’ve been using for so long has had you wincing more & more each day… it’s liberating.
For us, we experienced it first with third person pronouns & gender (they/them for the gender neutrality, she/her), and then with first person pronouns & plurality (we, us, our).
“What about second person pronouns?” you might be wondering. Well, “you” works just fine there in all regards – but I will admit we’re pretty partial to, “y’all” now & then when people slip it in.
Anyway….
When Erin & Aaron lose each other, separated by asshole Executive Anthony, the way they find each other again by tuning into their feelings, and what they know the other must also be feeling… there’s a lot there.
One of the ways we’ve found each other again in the past, when communication has broken down, has been by, “listening to the little feelings”, and having empathy for parts that may not shout the loudest, but if you stop and listen – it turns out they never went away, they were always right there, waiting for you to hear them.
Clouds & night may obscure it from view – but the sun is always there
The silence that Anthony talks about, and that Aaron & Erin also seem to be being deafened by while they’re separated – that can be what it feels like. Mounting panic & loss for something no-one else will ever see or understanding – feeling like you’ve lost a part of yourself.
But we always find each other again. We’ve learnt that over these last couple of years. And it brings us so much joy & comfort to know that anytime we need each other, here we are.
The joy Erin & Aaron feel when they reunite in one Aerin body, with, “I’ve missed you! I mean me! (Ok, add it to the list, figure out pronouns)” is so very relatable. We’ve said it to each other when we’ve reunited after something’s gone sideways, hugging ourself & saying, “Ah, fuck the words – I’m just so happy you’re here…”
So yeah – that’s what this show does so incredibly well, as far as we’re concerned. Plural joy is absolutely a thing, and I love how unashamedly it’s celebrated here.
An executive obsessed with compartmentalisation
So that Executive (functioning), Anthony. The guy who’s obsessed with timing, harmony, conductors, everything in its place…
… yeah, I find him unsettling.
There’s a scene where he starts, essentially, dissociating. Not highway hypnosis or zoning-out – the kind of dissociation you get in DID/OSDD.
In “the space between the beats”, he loses his sense of time, where he is, who he’s talking to, and travels through time & space inside, reliving a painful memory, hearing the call of part of himself he tried to leave behind. That he exiled.
But, like exiled parts that show up in the real world, clearly that part didn’t actually go away – he just put it in a box, locked it behind a door, and thought that, “out of sight” was the same as, “gone”.
That part still clearly exists & has needs that aren’t being met… which is how you get “alter intrusions” – where parts thought to be past show up in the present, crying for attention, and overwhelm the senses & sometimes take control of the body, too.
One of the reasons the representation here hits so hard, is that I (intentionally singular pronoun there – hi, Chance here!) used to be a lot like that. Precise. Methodical. Highly, highly compartmentalising. Obsessed with a prescriptive rhythm of things, looking for someone else to tell me who I am & what my purpose is. Don’t get me wrong – I know, now that it was for a reason, and that I was doing what we needed to “get on with life”. But it was a different way of being – and one that, eventually, proved unsustainable.
I used to be like that. Now, we’re learning a new way of being, a lot more like Aaron, Erin, & Aerin. Trust us – we’ve tried, at times over the last few years, to go back to the old ways. But now, trying to control too tightly – to be all executive functioning… it doesn’t go well. We’re in this together, now – we always were, we just didn’t know it. So now we’re embracing fam life & each other.
One touch we love (given our relationship with colour in our fam) – while he’s getting lost in memory, Anthony’s badge changes from the usual split red & green, to blue – a colour that for Aaron & Erin represents wholeness, joy, & calm. They know & love one another.
For Anthony, it’s clearly impossible for him to hold, and intensely dysregulating – and he soon returns to the split red & green badge. That’s what happens when “worlds collide” inside when parts are still burdened by unspoken & unaddressed trauma – there’s a huge surge of energy, which if unheld, burns hot, briefly, then leads to re-fragmentation. That’s been our experience in the past, at any rate.
In other words, to us, Anthony seems like a remarkably accurate representation of what DID is like before you embrace your system & start working together on healing – and Aaron, Erin & Aerin are a great representation of what happens once you do.
Together
In one of the ending scenes, where Arron, Erin, & Aerin are reunited in an ecstatic club dance scene (seems like as good an inner world representation as any!), you might wonder, “how does that work? Isn’t Aerin just Aaron & Erin combined?” And, well….
… welcome to DID, where questions like that are part of what we’re still working on xD Some people identify with the idea of there being a, “host”, who is just the alter that fronts the most often, and in many cases, can express communications inside from the rest of the system. Some people identify with some variation of, “system anarchy” – we swap in and out as and when, with no one part, “in charge”. Some may use terms like a, “core self”, distinct from parts/alters.
Whichever version seems to be the case for each person (“when you’ve met one system, you’ve met one system” as the system behind Healing Our Parts podcast like to say), gaining a sense of, “Us, Together”, at least a share of the time, really does seem to be key to being able to move with intention, direction, and a certain amount of harmony in life.
So that where we put our focus, rather than getting lost worrying about the words.
Another thing Identiteaze gets so right.
Seriously, there’s so much here to love, and love it we do ❤
So thanks for joining us on this tour of probably the most unapologetically joyful depictions of plurality we’ve seen ^^
Us, Together. One of our favourite pieces we’ve drawn so far this year. One where we knew we wanted to sit down and draw, but had no idea what… so we sat down, and this just sorta came out:
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Decisions, decisions
We don’t want to talk specifics, because it’s early days and some of us sometimes feel forced by what we share – but I’ve been making some decisions recently, and sticking by them, even when they felt hard.
In the confusion of trauma & dissociation, doing anything that there isn’t an existing team member for, is extremely difficult. Hell, half the stuff we did know how to do we’ve been cut off from for much of the last couple of years (it’s amazing how quickly it comes back when those parts re-emerge, though).
So I’m trying to celebrate the positives, acknowledge the wins where we make them.
That’s a challenge in itself for sure, though… because so often we find ourself…
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Dissociating the positives
Last week, for example, after sharing several really positive things I’d done over the week before, my therapist said a bunch of things – I think about being proud of me, saying that I’d done something that must have been really difficult, finding how I’ve been doing really encouraging…
I say, “I think” – because he then asked how it felt to acknowledge that stuff… and it wasn’t until that point that I realised, having talked for 15-20 minutes or so, telling stories from the week, & responding to my therapists’ questions back & forth… I’d zoned out of every encouraging thing he’d said in response, was barely aware of what I’d been saying, & that I had no idea what he was asking me about.
I told him as much, and we talked through things. I spent most of the rest of the session in a kinda robotic & depersonalised state – though that could have been about so many things.
Keeping us in a place of worried vigilance is a role some of my parts play, because saying, “Yeah, we’re doing alright, actually…” feels like giving away control & inviting in disaster – and dissociation is one of the tools through which this system goal & affect management happens.
I was just taken aback by just how stark the experience was this time (the vibe when you start, “noticing the dissociation”, is a heckuva thing).
I know “Discounting the positive” is a common “thinking trap”, or “cognitive distortion”, often one of the focuses of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – but I realise (/remember) that sometimes I literally don’t hear positive shit people say, because it’s positive, and positive feels dangerous….
… isn’t that kinda wild?
The default for so many trauma survivors is to be sent into panic mode by signals of safety. In fact, becoming gradually able to notice signals of safety and to learn, through slow & steady repeated experiences where the signal matches what happens next, is at the core of unlearning hypervigilance, and to lay the groundwork for further healing.
One step at a time – sometimes it’s ok just to notice at first.
Us, Together in 2026
Anyway – part of being able to make choices in the present is a big part of what being able to operate as, “Us, Together” means – and that includes being able to compassionately be with, for example, parts dissociating from positive experiences, understanding that there’s a reason we do that, and moving forward without it becoming an internal battleground.
We’re all doing our best, here – and some of us need light, while some of us prefer the shade, and that’s ok. This piece of recent art is very much a depiction of that, and the very different energies that can be a lot for one body & brain to hold sometimes – but it’s all part of the journey of being an us.
Rising Fire & Falling Night – drawing this was like a conversation, a dialogue, between two very different parts of us, with very different energies – we’d draw a little on one side, then a little on the other, then back & forth until we found a place we were happy to let things rest
Speaking of contrasting emotional energies that are hard to hold in one body – quick shoutout to Ratatoskr from our current video game of choice, God of War: Ragnarok. For being… well, just kinda awesome – we love him so much xD (he has four spectral aspects I’ve met in the game – Anxious, Arrogant, Bitter, and Perfectionist).
This should give you an idea of what we mean – don’t worry, I don’t think any of this is a spoiler for any main plot threads:
Yeah, we’ve a Bitter (and the rest) of our own in here, and we love them dearly xD
An unintended detour into Pluribus
Anyway – thinking about Us got us reflecting on Apple TV’s Pluribus, and what we dig about it (the show is one my therapist recommended to me – we have similar taste in plural-vibes TV xD). One of my favourite lines comes in ep. 1:
“This individual’s name is Davis Taffler… but you’re currently speaking to everyone in the world… including Davis Taffler…”
Which, if you know the show, doesn’t 1-1 translate on a bodily level because while Severance basically is DID (multiple selves, one body), Pluribus the reverse (many bodies, one self… sorta – literally from the Great Seal of the United States, “Out of Many, One”).
Still, I imagine that translating for us roughly as (for example):
“This individual’s name is Ellie… but you’re currently speaking to everyone in Riley’s system… including Ellie…” xD)
Some other moments we really enjoyed early on include the non-joined people arguing on Air Force One, and Lakshmi being shocked at Carol:
“How could you not ask them what it’s like?!”
I find myself wondering what it’s like to be non-dissociative from time to time – as far as I can gather, it sounds kind of like Us, Together, only with less familiarity with your parts (but more of a focus on experience as a whole). In my buck-wild oversimplification, at any rate ^^
Oh, the other thing in early Pluribus that is just… so painful to watch, is the way Carol can literally kill people she’s never met with her expressions of anger and grief. There is something about that that gnaws at us in such a raw way. Both externally – anger and loss are two of the emotions we grew up learning it wasn’t safe to feel or express – but also internally.
Internally, because we experience the world through our own perspectives – but there is also something that’s really important for everyone to be on the same page about in a system:
We all share one physical body.
and
Something that happens to one of us, happens to all of us.
That’s just a fact of a shared physiology, and living in a mono-selfing society (legal personhood, interpersonal responsibility, etc – all shared).
Well, sometimes we feel really, really big emotions – and the way we respond to them can lead to some of our more sensitive members really getting shaken up by the whole thing. Anger is one of those emotions that tends to burn hot, bright, fast, and it can fuel itself into a firestorm if we don’t take steps to address the source, or otherwise de-escalate (which includes validating it – telling an angry part to, “just calm down” doesn’t work – trust us).
So yeah, seeing Carol literally killing people with her explosive outbursts is a real, “Yeowch” for us, depicting something we fear will happen to other people if we express our anger outwardly, and something we know can burn parts inside if we try to contain it in unhealthy ways.
It’s a good show, I’d recommend it – particularly if, like my therapist & I, you’re particularly into plural-vibes stories. Expect a slow burn though, and Severance remains the best depiction of DID I can think of. I’ll write something about the amazing Identiteaze soon.
Anyway – this, “Us, Together”ness has been a feature of the year so far, and while TV & games are a great way of communicating about it, art continues to be our favourite ways of expressing it.
We’ve worked in the field of psychology & health research for over 15 years.
Well, now we’re getting involved in a slightly different way – by participating in a study being led by researchers at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London (KCL). It’s on sense of self and self-related processing in DID – a topic that over the last year in particular has been… highly salient, shall we say.
We give a brief outline of the study below – and talk about something (I gather) a lot of DID systems have a complicated relationship with; diagnosis.
What’s the study?
The study is called PREDICTSELF, and is currently running in the UK at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at KCL. It’s already started, and is running for up to another year of recruitment, and then another year or so of analysis & reporting etc. The Health Research Authority have a brief summary here, along with confirmation that the study was approved by an NHS Research Ethics Committee (REC) last Feb.
As we live in London, the researchers seem passionate about the topic & supporting people with DID (as are we)… sense of self has been a really big challenge for us this last year… and the fact we’ve been a Visiting Lecturer at KCL for a decade, it felt like the universe was nudging us along.
All in all, an easy decision – time for a fam outing!
The study itself involves answering various questions and completing some experimental tasks at the IoPPN labs, some of them while wearing a sexy electroencephalography (EEG) cap (below). The researchers, wisely, don’t want to give everything away about the exact tasks or hypotheses for each. I could probably figure most of it out in advance (I’ve designed a lot of clinical research, and, as you may be able to tell, also think about DID a lot). But – I’d rather help them out by just waiting & finding out by doing.
A EEG cap. Gonna be difficult to match my outfit to this one, but Phoenix loves a fashion challenge…
I do know at least one of the tasks involves photos of us, and also (I assume) photos of a friend. They asked us to submit 15 photos (from the last 8 years, face clearly visible) of ourself(ves), and to have a close friend send 15 of themselves, too. We have plenty of photos, but it took a little while because most of us wanted to have at least one photo in there ^^
A few of the photos we submitted – including Chance presenting some of our research at UCL’s Digital Health Behaviour Change conference ^^
The aim is investigate the sense of self in DID. For the sake of the study, they’re doing the same procedures with two other groups of participants; people with PTSD (without DID), and people from the general population without clinical levels of trauma or dissociation.
It always takes a while for results from participation to be collated, analysed, and translated into findings & journal publications. But, after the study is complete, you’ll be able to read all about it – along with some (hopefully!) juicy results helping us understand a little bit more about sense of self & processing self-related information in DID.
I’ll probably have a lot to talk about when that happens!
Before we begin… Screening & diagnosis
This is also a good opportunity to talk about the… sometimes lively… topic of diagnosis in DID…
The researchers have already talked to my trauma & dissociation specialising therapist, who I’ve been working with for the last 2 years – and he’s very supportive of me participating. However, he also works transdiagnostically (as many Psychologists do, in contrast with Psychiatrists), so despite working to the ISSTD guidelines on DID together, & the fact there’s no way anyone could get to know us so well in a day – I need to go through the joyful process of diagnosis, for research rigour. It’s a fair cop.
So… I’ve read the information sheets, signed the consent, sent the photos (& a close friend has kindly done the same)… and, ahead of the 4-hour in-person SCID-D interview – I’ve completed the Dissociative Experiences Scale (DES) II.
The DES-II is a 28-item screening measure, that maps to the 5 major DSM ‘types’ of dissociative experience (along with a couple of items on ‘everyday’ non-clinical dissociation, like highway hypnosis & zoning out during the odd conversation). The 5 types are:
Depersonalisation (e.g. I don’t feel real, I feel disconnected from my body)
Derealisation (the world doesn’t feel real, other people don’t feel real)
Dissociative Amnesia (losing time; not being able to remember significant people, events. or how you got somewhere)
Identity Confusion (my sense of identity is blurry, I don’t know who I am)
Identity Alteration (I feel like there is more than one person inside; I feel like different people)
Each item has a simple 1-sentence statement, and asks you rate each for proportion of the time (0% of the time to 100% of the time) that applies to you.
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Example items from the DES-II
If you don’t consider yourself dissociative & answered a few of those positively – don’t worry. Like I say, there are a few, “everyday” experiences in there, and averaging at least ‘30% of the time’ across all items is indicative that it may be worth further assessment for DID.
Like I say, it’s a screening tool, meaning it’s intended to give an indication, not a diagnosis.
Diagnosis is assessed through a 4 hour interview, in this case with the lead Clinical Psychologist on the study, using the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM Dissociative Disorders (SCID-D). We’ve got that to look forward to next month.
That involves many, many questions, and follow-up probing from the clinician, on those challenges above & more, along with assessing broader mental health & functioning.
It also involves questions on somatoform symptoms of dissociation – things like groin & digestive pain, changes in perceptions of the size & colour of surroundings, numbness, paralysis, finding yourself unable to speak, and being unable to sleep at night while remaining active in the day.
Sound irrelevant? – Well, the Somatoform Dissociation Questionnaire-20 (SDQ-20) might as well have a, “Yes to all” option for us (more or less). The items included are commonly experienced alongside dissociation. Anyone who says DID is, “all in your head” is being very optimistic – honestly, it’s the body stuff that causes us more dysfunction than anything else.
Example items from the SDQ-20
Given I’ve been working with my T&D specialist therapist for 2 years now, he’s spoken with my parts, with and without me, taught me how to call parts forward & remain with them… he’s (extremely capably, patiently & kindly) humbled me when parts have come forward to challenge his knowledge & skills (and I’ve come back to the room with a sense of, “Oh no… not again…” – fortunately we got over that phase eventually, after enough integration to realise, “Holy shit – he’s been working with all of us this whole time?!”).
He’s helped me be less ashamed of the lost time & amnesia, and welcomes all of my parts in words & actions. He helps us to look after each other. We trust him with things we never thought we’d trust anyone with.
So the idea of covering all that face to face with a new person in an interview setting is a lot.
I mentioned a lot of systems apparently have a complicated relationship with diagnosis – and that’s certainly been true for us at points in the past, particularly the first year.
Talking about dissociation can be triggering, especially when you’re answering questions face-to-face (rather than writing about it at your own pace – hi!) Add to that that some parts may think diagnosis is very important, while others want to remain undisturbed… while others still don’t believe they have DID, parts, or trauma at all… (with all parts just taking different approaches to trying to keep us safe…)
It can all get very noisy, as you try to just answer as best you can.
We found this question hilarious – I’ve left our response in so you can see the enthusiasm behind that one xD
Anyway – research rigour demands standardisation – so this is just something we have to grin & bear, as honestly & openly as we can, while looking after ourselves & each other.
We’re more used to talking about this stuff now… and writing this blog has partly helped with that. It’ll all be worth it – and if anyone’s learnt anything helpful about the screening & diagnosis process reading this – then it already is.
Until next time – take care of yourselves, kiddos ❤
Three Kids in a Trench Coat 