welcome
Thanks for visiting this site. It's mostly a venting thing.
This story is grotesque. Content warnings of all kinds.
0240216
on being a system.
The others have been loud today.
Not that they're ever really quiet. Regardless, other than the gaping hole I feel reopening in my chest, things on the 'trauma-related' front have been decently quiet since the big moment. I've been pretty careful since then. There's a few issues contributing to my current state: one, someone misplaced my phone after talking to my brother. Two, I talked to my brother, and he seemed ... worried about me, which, I mean, fair, but it's not like he hasn't seen me worse and not given a true shit before.
Oh, and the whole... situation. Y'know the one, if you're one of the people meant to see this. I'd put my two cents in but I don't think you'd like it. I know they'll probably be upset with my mood if they come home and I haven't pulled myself out of this. Out of here, rather. Hee hee.
Anyway. What's it like to be an alter in a system? Really fucking weird, that's what. Every day feels like a waking horror and I am remarkably depressed because of it. There are moments where I feel like I'm completely in another realm, like, shit will feel like it's floating or vibrating even if it's ... y'know, a bathroom rug. I feel like something that isn't portrayed a lot by systems I run across online is the sheer terror of an entire other being, seperate from you, a being you have no control over, existing in the same body as you.
Which, again, fair. CPTSD is more or less a requirement for dissociative disorders involving multiplicity, and *THAT SHIT SUCKS!* It makes perfect sense to not disclose the aftermath of trauma.
But it can also be a little isolating sometimes.
So. Dissociation. It's hard to put into words. I heard from a video - an essay on Omori, I think? - that the part of the brain responsible for speech shuts down when in a flashback. I wonder if that extends to dissociation, as well? It seems like every time I try to describe it, I either start dissociating and cannot finish, or I'm unable to recall any proper descriptors for the sensation entirely. There's echoes of the
mysterium tremendum in there for the religiously inclined - an experience so shattering to one's psyche that the mind simply cannot, or refuses to, process it.
Experiencing the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of an entity (is it a true entity? In what sense? Multiplicity is metaphysically
fascinating) seperate from your own being is, in a word, overwhelming. Sensing said entity's presence, emotions, and influence in your actions, sometimes their voice in your
throat, while maintaining almost no direct communication with said entity, is a horror of another kind. Much of it is the loss of control; multiplicity inherently limits autonomy, something those who have CPTSD are inclined to treasure highly.
My view on it - and I cannot say for certain who I am, because there are many of us and many of us exist within-others (so, I could be, for example, Jonathan and Joseph, who are part of Joey, who is part of the larger whole) - is that, while unfair, having this disorder presents us with a rare opportunity to probe into the very fabric of the human experience. Multiplicity means that I inherently experience altered consciousness; what does it even mean to be conscious, as an alter? (See what I did there?) In cases like ours, where fragments are present, how do we define an 'alter'? How much of a 'person' does an 'entity' need to be before it
is a person?
I think the official differentiation is the presence of dissociative walls, which... sure. Check, got those. But it's also sort of tricky - dissociative walls are built to be avoided. They're not meant to be detected. Sometimes, you're a little idiot and know they're there so you go chipping away at them, which won't do much at first but then after a while one or two breaks and it's a bad time for everyone involved. You remember what happened.
Imagine, for a second, that you're sitting in the bathroom with your friend. Well, she's your girlfriend, but that's a whole can of worms you don't feel like opening, so you close your eyes and lean your head against the wall. Oh, yeah, and you just took a
huge dab after a tolerance break.You notice your heart starts beating a little too fast. Your heartbeat's always been a little bit off and you could always kind of tell, but no one believed you until you started sleeping close to other people. Like her - the blonde girl across from you. She's beautiful, elegant; her hair falls around her face in thick waves and her eyes reflect the colors around her; the wall is blue and the shower curtain's red.
You swallow the moss that's grown in your throat.
She can tell. You know she can tell. She can't, not usually; but the shadow's leaking now, staining the bottom of your socks as your lungs constrict, and the expression on her face - half-worried, half-disappointed - betrays her knowledge. You try, you
really try to keep your shit together, but you feel those looming, overwhelming presences