Hello, Newbie here!

Hi! I am new to this forum as well as fairly new to being aware of my (our?) DID. I'm finding it difficult to deal with despite having two friends with systems. I can't really communicate with my system, and am struggling to figure out how to establish communication. Every time I try to study up on DID I tend to get switched out. So, I am here to try and get advice on how to make contact and educate myself without getting yote, and have a place my alters can talk without me being scared of getting outed.
Thanks for your patience,
Ceru

Hello and welcome! You will find ressources in the ressources thread linked in my signature. Some of the websites have pages explaining how to communicate with your parts/alters. There also are books with exercises on communication such as "Healing the fragmented selves of trauma survivors" and "Coping with trauma related dissociation".

Take your time, browse the ressources, baby steps!

Hi! Welcome. Don't worry too much at getting switched out when trying to read up on DID. Something of the sort happened to me at first, too. I think it makes sense, as the whole point of DID is hiding things that could be uncomfortable, painful, or dangerous. Just keep trying. The information will eventually get in.

As for getting in contact with your other selves, meditation can really help, as it tends to bring down conscious/subconscious walls. If you know anything about your alters, offering them things they would enjoy if they come out where you can see them could help.

For me, the biggest help along those lines was proffering a deal: that we could communicate and cooperate, that nobody needed to hide or go without their needs being met anymore, that we would all work to further all our aims, and that nobody would get left behind.

Hi. This is Violette.

It took us a long time to acknowledge having DID. In our twenties, our host at the time thought it might be possible and researched it only to have our gatekeeper Queen and our main protector Beth destroy or hide her research. Somehow a list of alters did survive until recently, but I've misplaced that again. But that's probably the ADHD showing up. We again started researching having DID back a decade ago only for the same thing to happen. It was a year and a half ago that a friend made sure we saw it and even then it took three tries by her to let us know it was happening. It wasn't until then that we were mostly ready to start healing.

In the early days, we wrote out notes to each other until our internal communication got better, and kept a running tab of things on here.

Hope things get better,
Vi