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FINALLY, a diagnosis
2 years ago
WE FINALLY KNOW WHAT'S WRONG WITH ME :hooray:
It's a long story and I've been shy to share public details but I know I have to or it'll eat me. In June I had a whole host of new and existing symptoms get horribly worse. The list of those alone is a paragraph long. It's been very difficult and the amount of surreal pain and nightmarish fear I was in almost put me in the hospital several times
We had to get a specialist to help us figure it out but it turns out I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (and cPTSD). Those who have followed me for a long time will know I've been posting about mental health for a long time and "I'm finally better soon I can feel it guys"™ every other month since 2016. My mental health professionals and I have been trying to figure out why I've spent 11 years in therapy but can't seem to get over some really horrendous anxiety and attention issues. I was previously being treated for ADHD, OCD-ish symptoms, PTSD, Rejection Sensitivity, Severe Anxiety, and major depressive disorder. turns out: OOPS! All DID. It turns out it's nothing like the movies and is often very covert. Many cases, mine included, have symptoms (and system activity) get suddenly worse later in life
cw: abuse
DID is a complex childhood trauma disorder most notable for "Multiple Personalities". It is a child's mind's way of protecting itsself from repeated trauma (usually abuse) by failing to integrate into a single personality. It keeps the parts separate so that some can hold the pain and others can grow to be as normal as possible. In spite of this, multiple personalities aren't the main issue with DID that needs to be treated, It's trauma.
I think I want to advocate a bit for those with DID/OSDD and plurals here and there and it'll be a topic that is mentioned from time to time. This has been very quickly life changing and I feel very blessed by my friends that have embraced the other parts of myself they have met and supported us through meeting and learning more about eachother. My idea of what makes up "Maney" as a person has so widely expanded in recent months. It's been stressful for everyone involved but has brought hidden blessings with it. Many of my friends have come to love and recognize these other parts of myself and it's put a lot of my history into perspective.
It's too much to educate everyone on every little thing I experience and I want some things to remain private, but I think if there's anything I wanted my friends and followers to know it would be these:
First of all, the stigma is stupid. There is no jeckyl-hyde situation with most plurals, and they are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Since the discovery of my system I have remembered surprising details to my past out of what was a 20 year long haze and my history is piecing itsself together. I know now I was emotionally neglected, beaten, and very likely sexually abused as a toddler (there have been allegations in the family but I always dismissed them) and again when I was 17. We still don't remember everything and have partial flashbacks of things I can't make sense of. We have about 30 parts that have any degree of substance, many of these feel like twinsies with different opinions and attitudes. All feel a full range of emotions and aren't just moods. 5 are running the usual day to day life. 3 of these are pretty subtle flavors of Maney that work closely together as co-hosts and are what my friends have been interacting with for years. Most of my life has felt like a movie I'm watching or kind of foggy and dreamy. Many of us have varying levels of amnesia to what the others were doing, my spotty memory makes a lot more sense now, and my memory is significantly worse than it was when I was mostly the host personality, but we're learning to share better. Each aspect of myself is a full person on their own and has their own agency, their own thoughts and ideas, their own goals, and in some cases their own mental and physical symptoms, and can't be controlled by their other headmates. it's only through collaboration and caring for eachother, talking to eachother in my mind and notes, that we are learning.
What this means for art and commissions: As before and even moreso now, I am unreliable, have an extremely shitty memory, motivational issues, and a lot of symptoms/issues I don't want to provide details on that all make art very difficult (we'll just say, for 7 years now most of the time I'm trying to art I'm sweating through fight or flight for hours and I'm just too passionate or stupid to give up and find another career). Art is wrapped up in my triggers and I think it can be difficult to understand just how much of a physically intense life-or-death reaction post traumatic stress can cause. Unlike before I'm learning to love and understand and respect myself. I know I'm not weak or flimsy or unmotivated, I didn't want to be this way and I know I've legitimately tried my best against an unknown obstacle. Someday I will be reliable, I'll do slots fast, I'll post often, I'll sell merch, I'll have something to offer on patreon. Until then, we're trying our best and we all have very different ideas of what we want for our life and career, even just within furry. We have different styles, our skills are compartmentalized and it takes a handful of us to paint. Some like Marley can create on their own without assistance. We often argue over brushstrokes. I was so tuned out my whole life I had no idea all that was going on under the surface
I've been barely able to work for the better part of this year and I'm both grateful for others and yet sorrowful that I haven't been able to lift myself with my own strength. Bills have been tight, I only have enough spoons to get out of bed for half the day, and I owe credit cards and roommates more money than I care to admit. But I'm still standing and moving along and for that I am happy. My prognosis is good, our future is bright <3
If you'd like to learn more about DID we think this is a fascinating resource: https://did-research.org/did/myths
Love y'all so much and thanks for sticking with us through the crazy.
- Maney, Marina, Moriah, Mira, Merryn, & Marley)
It's a long story and I've been shy to share public details but I know I have to or it'll eat me. In June I had a whole host of new and existing symptoms get horribly worse. The list of those alone is a paragraph long. It's been very difficult and the amount of surreal pain and nightmarish fear I was in almost put me in the hospital several times
We had to get a specialist to help us figure it out but it turns out I have Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) (and cPTSD). Those who have followed me for a long time will know I've been posting about mental health for a long time and "I'm finally better soon I can feel it guys"™ every other month since 2016. My mental health professionals and I have been trying to figure out why I've spent 11 years in therapy but can't seem to get over some really horrendous anxiety and attention issues. I was previously being treated for ADHD, OCD-ish symptoms, PTSD, Rejection Sensitivity, Severe Anxiety, and major depressive disorder. turns out: OOPS! All DID. It turns out it's nothing like the movies and is often very covert. Many cases, mine included, have symptoms (and system activity) get suddenly worse later in life
cw: abuse
DID is a complex childhood trauma disorder most notable for "Multiple Personalities". It is a child's mind's way of protecting itsself from repeated trauma (usually abuse) by failing to integrate into a single personality. It keeps the parts separate so that some can hold the pain and others can grow to be as normal as possible. In spite of this, multiple personalities aren't the main issue with DID that needs to be treated, It's trauma.
I think I want to advocate a bit for those with DID/OSDD and plurals here and there and it'll be a topic that is mentioned from time to time. This has been very quickly life changing and I feel very blessed by my friends that have embraced the other parts of myself they have met and supported us through meeting and learning more about eachother. My idea of what makes up "Maney" as a person has so widely expanded in recent months. It's been stressful for everyone involved but has brought hidden blessings with it. Many of my friends have come to love and recognize these other parts of myself and it's put a lot of my history into perspective.
It's too much to educate everyone on every little thing I experience and I want some things to remain private, but I think if there's anything I wanted my friends and followers to know it would be these:
First of all, the stigma is stupid. There is no jeckyl-hyde situation with most plurals, and they are no more likely to be violent than anyone else. Since the discovery of my system I have remembered surprising details to my past out of what was a 20 year long haze and my history is piecing itsself together. I know now I was emotionally neglected, beaten, and very likely sexually abused as a toddler (there have been allegations in the family but I always dismissed them) and again when I was 17. We still don't remember everything and have partial flashbacks of things I can't make sense of. We have about 30 parts that have any degree of substance, many of these feel like twinsies with different opinions and attitudes. All feel a full range of emotions and aren't just moods. 5 are running the usual day to day life. 3 of these are pretty subtle flavors of Maney that work closely together as co-hosts and are what my friends have been interacting with for years. Most of my life has felt like a movie I'm watching or kind of foggy and dreamy. Many of us have varying levels of amnesia to what the others were doing, my spotty memory makes a lot more sense now, and my memory is significantly worse than it was when I was mostly the host personality, but we're learning to share better. Each aspect of myself is a full person on their own and has their own agency, their own thoughts and ideas, their own goals, and in some cases their own mental and physical symptoms, and can't be controlled by their other headmates. it's only through collaboration and caring for eachother, talking to eachother in my mind and notes, that we are learning.
What this means for art and commissions: As before and even moreso now, I am unreliable, have an extremely shitty memory, motivational issues, and a lot of symptoms/issues I don't want to provide details on that all make art very difficult (we'll just say, for 7 years now most of the time I'm trying to art I'm sweating through fight or flight for hours and I'm just too passionate or stupid to give up and find another career). Art is wrapped up in my triggers and I think it can be difficult to understand just how much of a physically intense life-or-death reaction post traumatic stress can cause. Unlike before I'm learning to love and understand and respect myself. I know I'm not weak or flimsy or unmotivated, I didn't want to be this way and I know I've legitimately tried my best against an unknown obstacle. Someday I will be reliable, I'll do slots fast, I'll post often, I'll sell merch, I'll have something to offer on patreon. Until then, we're trying our best and we all have very different ideas of what we want for our life and career, even just within furry. We have different styles, our skills are compartmentalized and it takes a handful of us to paint. Some like Marley can create on their own without assistance. We often argue over brushstrokes. I was so tuned out my whole life I had no idea all that was going on under the surface
I've been barely able to work for the better part of this year and I'm both grateful for others and yet sorrowful that I haven't been able to lift myself with my own strength. Bills have been tight, I only have enough spoons to get out of bed for half the day, and I owe credit cards and roommates more money than I care to admit. But I'm still standing and moving along and for that I am happy. My prognosis is good, our future is bright <3
If you'd like to learn more about DID we think this is a fascinating resource: https://did-research.org/did/myths
Love y'all so much and thanks for sticking with us through the crazy.
- Maney, Marina, Moriah, Mira, Merryn, & Marley)
I think only in the past few weeks has it ceased feeling like a crisis, and now we're used to the new normal even if it's sometimes kind of unnerving and confusing
I know we're all gonna go good places in time n--n I really appreciate all the uplifting words and catching you at cons.
It may take you some time to figure it out for yourselves, but I'm sure your audience will appreciate a guide on how to address you as a system, and as individual headmates, and what personality boundaries to look out for in each of them.
Also, I have had some experience with plural friends, and have read up about the DID and its manifestations, but I'm still very much in the dark and don't have enough frame of reference to truly relate; that said, I'm you the kind of friends who would be educated and understanding of your needs and specific behaviors, and grant you all the support you'll need. But it's likely going to be a difficult journey, with many people expressing skepticism, outright dismissal, and being hurtful even without meaning to -- I wish you the strength to face those challenges, as well.
Good luck to you, mindspace constellation!
As for how to address us, that's a good point I hadn't considered. As a whole when addressed as a system prefer a singular she/her instead of singular or plural they/them. Some individuals have differing pronouns but generally consider the body to not be their own and also address it as she.
In general we are very chill and just calmly educate if anything becomes a concern. As long as people are respectful that we don't all share the same preferences or memories and are patient with the amnesia between parts we are quite happy with that great effort on its own
And may other extraneous factors like your financial situation improve before long; it's difficult enough to keep track of the temporal continuity with the possible memory lapses and switching around, and staying competitive and productive on top of that can be unbearable. You have a hard life, but a unique and incredible perspective on the world -- you should cherish it and share it with others. May you find many wonderful systems to bond with!
🫂 Take care, and get well.
It's been a very rough time for you and I'm glad you are still moving, even if it feels like a crawl.
We'll keep giving it our best. I can't be normal but I can at least be an adventure
Good job seeking treatment. I used to work in Rehab and for a while was leading the charge at that workplace on getting new Dissociative spectrum detection measures up to par for their use in diagnosis. It's a complicated and difficult to arrive to diagnosis to come out the other side with capital DID, and with a lot of folks online using "plurals" to describe something that rhymes with but is not (by their self reports) really the profile of DID, it's a complicated social media space to exist within as well. People are quick to invalidate the hard work of assembling a model of your brainspace when they're ignorant to the facts, so try to remain grounded when that happens, they haven't sat down and done the detective work to know what's up.
I hope you all have luck in getting a new sense of normal put together. It's possible, but remember that the compartments/alters/personalities/etc tend to have a purpose and can also have an origin that can be unexpected or emotionally difficult to process. One step at a time, it's a marathon and not a race. cheers!
I think plural identity without DID is valid to identify with as long as we're all being honest about how DID itsself presents. I sort of attribute it to people being upset at "transtrenders" for not suffering enough with gender dysphoria but honestly any presentation of identity as valid as long as it does not actively harm those who are suffering from a similar condition
We're looking forward to the days when things feel easy, but we believe in it at least <3
I know in some DID friendly or operated spaces, the lingo of "plurals" is really frowned upon because of that gap in clinical features between people posting online more generally and DID-specific spaces, so I've tried myself to shy away from it just because I think it needs a few years to go from lingo to verbiage, if you catch my meaning. But I'm a traditionally trained ex-clinician who still uses "Alters" as my go-to terminology, that word itself is a title linked to the Freudian-originated hypothesis about the now thoroughly debunked psychodynamic model; so no one's choice of verbiage is gonna be perfect lol
As you already know, I wish you (ALL of you!!) all the best. The best of luck, the best of care and support, the best of friends. Onwards and upwards, forever learning how best to manage and communicate internally, to best function and be the best you-all can be. <3