SYSTEM INFO.
hi there. if you're on this page that means you're curious about my DID. sweet. lemme start with the basics!
I am a CPTSD survivor. I'm currently in recovery.
as a result of the trauma that fell on me before I was old enough to form an identity, my brain split in order to protect me, resulting in Dissociative Identity Disorder.
this is a widely misunderstood disorder.
this is not scary. this is not bad. this is not evil.
this is a brain that loved a child so much it formed a hundred people to protect and nurture and raise them.
I am part of what's known as a system, or group of headmates (also known as alters) living within one body. we share the primary consciousness of the body, are able to talk to each other, and have a rich inner world we all live in and interact in when we're not a part of conscious reality.
we all have different names, ages, interests, ways of talking, accents, mannerisms, and personalities.
my headmates are not my "alternate personalities" as all of us are individual people that happened to form and grow inside one brain.
we are all different people to each other.
my headmates are not dangerous.
we function happily as system and actively work to communicate and go about our life together.
this is not the case for all systems.
some systems may not be able to see their headmates. some systems may not be able to interact with them. some may not be all that different from each other. some may want to integrate fully and no longer be a system.
every system is different. every system works differently.
every system, in my eyes, is beautiful.
I am the "host" of my system, aka the primary headmate that goes by our legal name and frontruns the show pretty much.
we have co-hosts and occasionally share this responsibility. but I'm the only one that goes by Matthew.
I am a headmate just like everyone else in this system. we're equal.
most of us do have specific responsibilities in our system, and you're welcome to ask about those individually, but please note that these responsibilities are not who we are. they don't come before the identity of each headmate.
because fiction was all I had as a safe place as a child, a lot of our system mates are "fictional introjects" and believe themselves to be specific fictional characters that have jumped from their universe to here. many of them either identify heavily with their source and memories, others choose to forget about them. whether you believe them or not, they are 100% who they say they are. but because they're here, as growing people, they are never exactly like they are in their source, and should be treated with basic respect. we respect each other's identities and we ask that friends do as well. if you need more info about fictional introjects you're encouraged to ask us.
there are around 100 known headmates in my system. there may be more that we haven't discovered yet. that may seem like a lot, but some system have over 1000. we all schedule time fronting (being the conscious alter) and share our life best we can. some of us never front, some of us can't. but for the most part we're all active and in touch with each other.
honestly sometimes we fight over who gets to be out to see their friends or work on their hobbies lmao
I love my system very much. we all love each other very much. we're a family 100%. we're out and open to most people in our lives, including our spouse who is also a system, and we're happy.
I don't experience this like some weird scary thing, so neither should you feel like you have to! I am just a normal dude that happens to live with a bunch of other people in one tiny 5'3" body.
we have a list of names of all the alters that are comfortable being known by the public, and you're welcome to ask to speak to any one of us personally if you want. :3
I hope this has all been explained well. there are resources out there, but this is a widely misunderstood disorder, so please don't believe everything you read. and remember that no two systems are the same.
feel free to shoot me any questions you may have about this! thanks for reading!!!
-Matt