New system, hello! Struggling greatly.

Hiya! I don't know how long this post will be.. so I apologize in advance! This post will also be trigger heavy, and I will try and put them as much as I can into sections, so if you need to skip them. I realized I just unloaded a lot.. and I apologize in advance for that as well.

My name is Narie, and I am the host, of our system. We are.. kind-of new to this whole thing.. and I have really been struggling, and I don't know where else to turn. I thought it might help me to go online, and just have an outlet where I can talk to people who also have DID, and who might have insights, or help.

Trigger warning:
Back in November of 2022, I moved across the country. EST to PST. Literally opposite ends. I took a three week long trip to get here, moving with only $2000 in my pocket and what I could fit in my car, literally. I stopped, couch surfed along the way.. and met up with some long time friends. It was a lot of fun. What got me here, wasn't. My entire life, I have lived with an abusive parent, and a parent who would not help, you only conformed. I am a very co-dependant person, and was never able to move away. I was even married at one point, and had never found the strength to move away from my abuser, my husband simply moved in with me. But in September of 2022, I almost took my own life. I was so very close.. and it scared me. I knew I had to get out. Thankfully my best friend, took me in, all the way across the country, and now here I am.
End warning.

I always just thought that my friend wanted me out here because she was worried about me, and she was concerned about me. It wasn't until January of this year that I found out why. Shortly after the new year, the stress from my move, and the stress I was putting myself under from all sorts of things like.. not being able to get a job, feeling useless, trying to learn who I was as a person outside of my trauma.. triggered a pretty bad mental snap. One so bad that I was pretty sure, I should have gone to a professional for help. I can't tell you the exact thing that triggered it.. but I just remember, knowing that I didn't want to be there anymore. And during this mental snap.. was when I mentally cracked pretty hard.

All my life, I had been a roleplayer. Someone who created characters on a daily bases. Someone who knew how to craft a story, and how to spin things the way I wanted. I thought I was just a talented writer, and I thought I just had a personal connection to my characters, and that everyone had this sort of connection with them. Being able to talk to them, in my head. Being able to sit around in a living room that I created for them. Each of them having their own rooms. Each of them having their own personalities, stories and lives.. but yet were somehow all a piece of me. I thought that was normal. I thought everyone just.. knew who their characters were. I thought everyone just had days were certain characters weren't active. What was this 'writing muse' people spoke about? Was it like when they were sleeping? It go to the point that in life, I would let these characters, 'channel' through me, or at least that's what I called it. When things got to hard with my parent, with friends, with life, co-workers, anything and anyone.. I would just.. 'channel' them, to stop the panic. It wasn't until my mental snap that I learned, this wasn't what it was.

Many months before I moved in, my best friend and I had been sitting on the phone. I was.. getting high because someone had triggered me. I didn't want to deal with things. It wasn't until I moved out here, and after my snap, that she even told me about this. I remember going to smoke, but I don't remember anything from our conversation. I told myself it was because I was high.. turns out we kept switching on the phone. One of my alters, Bella.. just wanted to party, and party hard. She wanted to smoke and drink, and drown our sorrows at the bottom of the bottle, while Jaiden, my protector kept trying to make us go numb, because I didn't wish to feel. It was a rough night she said because Bella kept getting upset that Jaiden was ruining her high.

For context, my best friend also has DID, and has known about her for many many years, and for a while had been suspicious we might have it as well, based on our interactions and how we talked about our "characters". She didn't confirm it, until this night.

When I snapped.. I don't remember much, other than knowing I didn't wish to be there.. and instead I pushed out one of my trauma holders. My best friend tells me I was curled up in a ball, rocking back and forth, repeating myself many times over, and just simply.. gone. For three days, it was just a mess, and a blur. I barely remember. I was in and out over these three days, and most of the time I was just laying in bed, staring at a wall.. unsure of what was happening, and unsure of how long I had laid there. I remember my best friend bringing me food, after the three days, when I was having some sense of control.. and we had a very long talk about what had happened. It was really hard, and I didn't wanna believe any of it. It didn't make sense for me, as an adult, to be diagnosed with DID in general.. much less so by my best friend and not a professional.

The best way I could describe to anyone else.. is that we were fractured from the beginning.. my primary trauma holder Jasper, tells me he's been here for a long time.. so he's been here.. but my mental snap, caused a crack in everything. Threw everything off.. and I fully buried myself, something I haven't done in a really long time.

Fast forward a few more days.

I was still in denial.. and I wanted to cut loose again, because I was stressed out. So I drank. At this time, I blacked out.. for long periods of time.. but there are pictures, videos and things like that of me, living it up. I wasn't even that drunk. Thankfully, nothing happened to us, and my best friend was with me the whole time, but I remember blurs. Just random blurs of the night. It was the first time that I really and truly blacked out since the snap.. and it made me realize, that this was actually happening.

It's been a struggle coming to terms with this over the last month and a half, on top of everything. So much so that.. we woke up with panic attacks pretty much every night for two weeks straight. Panic attacks that lasted for 30mins, sometimes more.

I have a laundry list of things stressing me out right now. Not having a job, trying to find a new place (because currently I am sleeping in my best friends bed, as I do not have my own room), our current roommate (not my best friend) decided to sneakily move out in the middle of the night as best she could, so now we are saddled with a huge rent payment, for a house we no longer want. Trying to find a new roommate because we wish for a bigger place, and just the three of us (my best friend, me and her daughter) can't afford a nice place on our own.. let alone with me having no job. We had someone who was going to move in with us, and he placed a deadline on me.. that I had to have a job by the end of Feb, and here it is.. the 23rd, and I am no where closer to a job. I have put in 50+ applications with only two call backs for interviews.

Not to mention, dealing with being a system, living with someone else who is a system, and some of our alters do not like each other.

Dealing with malicious alters.

All of this.

It causes more panic attacks.

As the host, I make myself ill physically when I am stressed out. I panic.

On top of everything.. I am tired.. constantly. We do not know how to function together. We push and pull and fight with one another. It causes headaches and we barely sleep because someone is always active. I do not know what to do. I have tried looking for online resources and ways to cope, but I do not know what is a reliable source.

I am so sorry to just.. unload everything to random strangers.. but I had some hope that someone might have advice, or help. Suggestions, even. I guess this is kind-of like.. my S.O.S.. because I do not have money or insurance to go and talk to someone.. this is all I have.

Hello and welcome to the forum!

I linked into my signature the ressources thread, it lists books about trauma and DID and therapy. The ones I like to advise for a starter are "Coping with trauma related dissociation" and "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors". Sometimes you can find them online in places like Zlibrary or PDF Drive so you can previsualize them or read them before you finally have the money to buy them. Or maybe your local library have them? Fingers crossed they do.

I am proud of you for reaching out for help! That was very brave! You are all super brave! Congratulations!

Welcome to the forum. I'm glad you have someone helping you though its difficult when some alters don't like the hosts friends or family, especially if they take over the front for a while.

I don't have therapy for this either but this board has great for helping all of us understand each other.

ArbreMonde wrote:Hello and welcome to the forum!

I linked into my signature the ressources thread, it lists books about trauma and DID and therapy. The ones I like to advise for a starter are "Coping with trauma related dissociation" and "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors". Sometimes you can find them online in places like Zlibrary or PDF Drive so you can previsualize them or read them before you finally have the money to buy them. Or maybe your local library have them? Fingers crossed they do.

I am proud of you for reaching out for help! That was very brave! You are all super brave! Congratulations!

Thank you for that, I will check it out. I do not know if my local library has self help books or not, considering I have only been in the area for a little bit.. a couple months, but it will be something I can look into for sure. ^w^

Also, thank you for that. It has been really difficult because we aren't really sure how to handle things..in all aspects. Especially with working. I worry that because we are all so new to this, that it will just be difficult to do certain things until we have a handle on it, like working.. and it just causes so much stress and panic attacks. It really feels good to hear, it's just hard.

- Narie, host.

TheTriForce wrote:Welcome to the forum. I'm glad you have someone helping you though its difficult when some alters don't like the hosts friends or family, especially if they take over the front for a while.

I don't have therapy for this either but this board has great for helping all of us understand each other.

I do, but I just feel like we end up stressing out my best friend more than I mean to. Mostly because she goes through her own things, and she has to deal with my stress, panic attacks, and everything else on top of her own stuff. It just really sucks because I don't know how to not. Which is what I am hoping this board will help with.. maybe? I dunno. I thought it was worth a go.

- Narie, host.

Hi Narie,

I am sorry you're going through such awful times. I have a friend who also has DID who had a horrible time getting and keeping a job. She is currently working on getting on disability, but for other reasons. Putting a hard deadline on someone trying to get a job is also rather awful too because finding a job is difficult (so is finding housing these days).

We are here to help as much as we can. Don't be afraid to unload your problems here and if nothing else it offers a release and we can try and offer encouragement. It took a year for us to finally get diagnosed (we're in therapy for autism and luckily have a therapist who understands DID enough to help).

I hope things get better. With this, it always seems to get worse before it does. As for malicious alters...one we have worked with on her problems through various forms of communication and gotten her to open up and the other has been mostly locked away. I don't know if I can give a lot of advice other than keeping a journal and encouraging everyone else to do write in it too.

Take care,
Vi

ViTheta wrote:Hi Narie,

I am sorry you're going through such awful times. I have a friend who also has DID who had a horrible time getting and keeping a job. She is currently working on getting on disability, but for other reasons. Putting a hard deadline on someone trying to get a job is also rather awful too because finding a job is difficult (so is finding housing these days).

We are here to help as much as we can. Don't be afraid to unload your problems here and if nothing else it offers a release and we can try and offer encouragement. It took a year for us to finally get diagnosed (we're in therapy for autism and luckily have a therapist who understands DID enough to help).

I hope things get better. With this, it always seems to get worse before it does. As for malicious alters...one we have worked with on her problems through various forms of communication and gotten her to open up and the other has been mostly locked away. I don't know if I can give a lot of advice other than keeping a journal and encouraging everyone else to do write in it too.

Take care,
Vi

Hi Vi!

Thank you, I appreciate the kind words. It is really hard for us right now, and we are still struggling every day. We have a journal, though we got out of the habit of using it. Most of the people that use are myself, (as I was a journal keeper longer before any of this actually happened), Jaiden, my primary protector, and Rosabella, one of the other random alters we have. So sometimes it's helpful for me to see what is going on in their head, but they don't always like to write, and they don't always like to sit down and put their words down. So I am working on trying to make it more of a habit for all of us.

I do look forward to being able to add a signature, so everyone will have a base line of my alters. haha

As far as malicious alters, I have 2. One, really doesn't present a bunch, and so Jaiden isn't really worried about her. The other, is an enigma, and we keep that one locked away as best we can.. but Jaiden is our primary protector, and gatekeeper, and it's hard for him when we don't really understand how we are supposed to lock it away. We started to introduce our craft into it as well, as I am a Witch, so we started sealing it in with sigils, which seem to be helping for the most part.. but it's still a struggle.

- Narie, host.

Hi Narnie,

Our worst malicious alter, Marcus, got locked away and is guarded by Keira, a dragon. We've tried to reach out and work with him lately, but he doesn't want to talk and it upsets several of us when we do so. Our other maladaptive alter, Lilith, was mostly vicious and mean to hide her own pain. We've worked with her a lot and she's getting better.

It takes a lot of work, and you seem to be on the right track. It's taken a year to get to the point we are at, and we've realized it's probably been longer even if we didn't realize.

Take care,
Vi

"Malicious" alters, or maladapted protectors, can be redeemed. Once they understand that their behavior used to be useful in the past but needs to be updated now, they become strong adapted protectors.

You will find infos about them in some of the books and websites from the DID Ressources thread. They are sometimes nicknamed "persecutor alters" but the proper way to describe them is "maladapted protector" because their behavior used to be adapted in the past situation but needs to be updated to the present situation.

ViTheta wrote:Hi Narnie,

Our worst malicious alter, Marcus, got locked away and is guarded by Keira, a dragon. We've tried to reach out and work with him lately, but he doesn't want to talk and it upsets several of us when we do so. Our other maladaptive alter, Lilith, was mostly vicious and mean to hide her own pain. We've worked with her a lot and she's getting better.

It takes a lot of work, and you seem to be on the right track. It's taken a year to get to the point we are at, and we've realized it's probably been longer even if we didn't realize.

Take care,
Vi

ArbreMonde wrote:"Malicious" alters, or maladapted protectors, can be redeemed. Once they understand that their behavior used to be useful in the past but needs to be updated now, they become strong adapted protectors.

You will find infos about them in some of the books and websites from the DID Ressources thread. They are sometimes nicknamed "persecutor alters" but the proper way to describe them is "maladapted protector" because their behavior used to be adapted in the past situation but needs to be updated to the present situation.

Vi and Arbe,

I appreciate the words, it gives me hope that we may be able to rehabilitate the malicious alter. One of ours never comes around, and the other I have locked away to the best of my ability.. which is limited considering how new our system is. We have resorted to sigils and protective wards, and it seems to be helping greatly. I used to be able to see and hear them trying to escape, and that has decreased, if not stopped in total. So that is a positive. I normally do not have hope, but our host does, so I hope that gives her reassurance.

- Jaiden, Primary Protector/Gatekeeper.

You are most welcome.

Healing takes time, even for maladaptives, and some of them view their role as a means to help someone hide the abuse and 'normalize' it even if it is wrong. This is a long road, but you will get through this one day.

Take care,
Vi