birdsong87 wrote:I am writing for Annett and Danielle and a bit for the Littles too. but mostly the teens...
we keep running into experiences when we just don't fit in.
although our teens feel like teens and think like teens they are not at all like teens today. they are like teens 20 years ago. It means interactions with people of their age group are always a nightmare of not fitting in, absolutely not belonging. even with other DID teens. its like they are worlds apart.
We never know how much of it is cultural differences, how much is that we as a system are more introverted and struggle with too much stimulation, loud noise, busy pictures, loud expressions of emotion... but we often don't feel like we belong within the DID communities because we are not extroverted. we are not loud and flashy. we are not overt.
it adds to the age problem, the sense of living in a different decade and feeling so unfamiliar with this decade.
we get hurt so often when we try to interact, not because there is open rejection but because there is little that seems to connect us with others. we are not like them. it is one of the reasons why we withdrew from this forum a bit. we just get overwhelmed with things that feel like it is nothing like us.
I would sometimes doubt our DID if we weren't such a classic example that the textbooks describe us exactly.
I am aware that there are a LOT of memories of bullying and rejection the teens carry. school was hell. we never belonged anywhere. never fit in. it makes it hard to tell apart if we are having an emotional flashback or if some of it is actually real
I just wonder how to help. because right now the teens are hurting and want to withdraw even more, not even try to connect anymore. like the Littles have done when they felt like they are all wrong and don't fit in.
we as adults have the same problem. being disabled, having DID, no job or family to talk about, being nerdy with nothing else to talk about... we don't do well in society. none of us fits in.
Our physical body is in its 50's and disabled but we have a couple of littles and teens whose era was the 70's and 80's. They'd like to 'come out' but no-one around us would understand. A teen tried to come out and wanted to be up front but there views I guess seem so outdated that people (online) don't seem to like them and their posts end up getting ignored so they've given up and gone back on the inside.
Our system is also autistic so I suspect whoever tries to fit in anywhere is lacking the right social skills on some level or other. we all struggle with 'sensory overload' to varying degrees. When we were younger and our ANP's and the body had more energy, we coped just about well enough but as the body has aged the energy needed for an ANP to front is more and more exhausting.
The lockdown provided a welcome break from social expectations IRL as we are in the shielded group due to the bodies physical conditions. But some are sad we can't even seem to fit in on online groups not even for people with autism or other mh problems. Not for the want of trying but the social skills needed seem to be completely missing in the hosts left to run the system after past hosts left. It's a frustrating and lonely life most days.
