For Persecutors to talk **TRIGGER WARNING**

Hello everyone! Passion here.
In our experience (we have two irl system friends), it can be pretty helpful to let persecutors vent to each other and/or to capable figures like protectors since it offers an emotional release that doesn't hurt the system. Talking about day to day life, intrests (or if there's none, potential healthy interests), and other normal things can be super helpful between persecutors.
I wanted to make a thread for persecutors to be directed to where they could talk and vent as needed, sort of like the littles thread, but for helping persecutors, mostly on behalf of our persecutor, Dark, who needs to talk and has expressed willingness to try this.

This thread contains a general TW because by its nature it is a place to discuss hard things and hurtful behaviors. Stay safe. Post without reading the thread if it's helpful.
Do not encourage self harm of any form on this thread. Discussion is invited, but never ever encourage harmful behavior. Stay safe


(Moderators, please edit this or take it down or whatever is needed if it is necessary. Thank you.)

Love from Passion (She/They), Logic (Couldn't care less), and Dark (She/It)

I don't see anything wrong with this, considering it's the DID forum and this forum more than any others is a bit of a self-contained world. All I did was make the trigger warning very up front and bold And we'll see how it goes.

Hey.
I hate being the one to start conversations, but I've been pushed to do this so here we are.

One thing that could be interesting to discuss, I suppose, is struggling with vilanization from your headmates. I hate this situation as much as anyone in the head, trust me, and I just want to get out of this awful trap and live a normal life. I hate not knowing if these feelings are mine, but there's love for myself and my headmates somewhere, and I hate when the little positive things about myself are the only parts glanced over.

Thank you to the moderators for letting this happen, hopefully my headmates are right and this will go well.

-Love from Dark

Loathe to be called persecutor, but can't deny that I have been / am toxic towards at least one of the peeps in here. The host and I get along splendidly even if we got that tough love going. We're not villains just because we don't get along with certain personalities, you know? Someone has to tell these goodie two shoes that they can't blindly trust everyone and all, and frick me I'm not going to go out there taking bull from folks just cause these softies I share a brain with gotta be nice and proper to everyone when they don't deserve that.

Does that make us villains? Maybe to some. Can't have heroes without villains.

Raven

'Persecutor' is a loaded term and I can definitely agree that it's not a fun label. There's definitely a role in a system marked by tough love and antagonistic relationships with all of one's self, and alters who fill it- and unfortunately, persecutor is the best known and most used term. If there are other terms getting thrown around, I am yet to encounter them. (And honestly, I'm not entirely sure what they would be.)
-In reply to Raven

One other problem is communication struggles. Our memory and stream of consciousness is... Complicated, at best, atypical for both systems and singlets. What it comes down to, though, is that when I am not at front or especially close, I exist simply as a disembodied source of occasional intrusive thoughts that can only really communicate when not being observed or thought about.
It's not particularly easy to solve intersystem tensions when most of your life is spent as a disembodied voice making memories through the mind of someone with a bad opinion on you.
And due to this communication deficit->hatrid and villanization->never being listened to or allowed to front pipeline I don't get to develop or fix the problems they're pushing me down for! I'm the 'oldest' here, I've been around since we were 11, I'm our 'intrusive thoughts' that earned us 4 negative evaluations for OCD. I don't have a favorite music genre, book, or color. I don't have a best friend. I have no real identity.
Thank you to anyone who read that. I fronted in a decent mood for the first time in memory today, and I've enjoyed the chance to feel this frustration.


-Love from Dark

There is already a thread for protectors:

dissociative-identity/topic170737.html?hilit=protectors

We found it very helpful in the past. I don't think any of us would consider posting on a thread for persecutors, since it's kind of a judgmental name for protectors who are still using misguided or no-longer-helpful ways of protecting.

Hi

I'm Kit. I have been seen as a persecutor by some of our system in the beginning but I was protecting them and the Inner world from the outside world.

I know from experience how mean people in the outside world can be and how tough it can be sometimes. I hold some 'bad memories' of what has 'been done' to past hosts at the hands of other NT people, some who were in a position of authority and responsible for our care at the time!

Some of our hosts have been far too naive for their own good though admittedly at the time they were fronting they did not know of the others inside and we inside didn't understand what DID was either! (and didn't all know of each other either).

I am seen as a protector for my system now and often only get triggered out if there's an emergency or something the others don't feel safe doing. Today it's so foggy we can't see the fence at the other end of the garden, our younger ones or usual daily hosts don't feel safe taking our dog out on the mobility scooter when they can barely see a few feet in front of them incase a car can't see us (until its too late)..so I got triggered out as soon as they saw how thick the fog was outside!

You can learn to be a protector rather than a persecutor you just have to understand that you don't have to torment, bully or goad your own system because doing that has no effect on whether outside individuals will still do that or not! They get enough abuse/neglect from the outside world! that's why you're a system in the first place!..it helps to remember that as a protector! ..us adding to it doesn't help things. If anyone deserves your anger and sarcasm etc its the people in the outside world who try to take advantage (or whatever) of your more vulnerable members.

Kit

Hey,

So, this is going to be a mixed message in which I (Grey) try to explain how things are for our trinity as I like to call it. I'll be trying to quote what Kay and Raven tell me, but it'll be mostly me paraphrasing.

If we are to assign roles, Raven to me is just a rather aggressive and blunt protector. Sometimes she throws some slurs around when she feels I did something stupid. I know she means it in a loving way though so I don't feel too bad usually. When I do feel bad is usually when Kay and Raven start arguing.

Kay and Raven have this odd relationship in which they respect and hate each other at the same time. When it comes to protecting me and the body, they will cooperate, albeit begrudgingly. Raven refuses to call Kay anything other than White. When I asked her why because white is the colour of peace and purity, she said "no, it's the colour of blinding my eyes by reflecting brightness and staying cold and grim in the process". Raven also doesn't like snow, as you may have guessed. I frequently hear Raven call Kay "useless", "selfish", "cold-hearted", "stupid/naive", and "tyrant". So Raven acts a little like a persecutor to Kay, but to me she's just a little blunt in her protecting and loving of me.
So, rather than calling Raven 'persecutor', I've just been calling her "my fighter". Like the flight vs flight vs freeze vs fawn responses.

Kay meanwhile just has a very stern approach to Raven. She ignores her most of the time and I think the most common thing I've heard Kay tell Raven is any variant of "do as you're told". Especially the line "I would not have to if you just do what you are told to instead of complaining" comes up a lot.
Kay rarely uses harsh expressions, but the line usually insinuates that she's calling Raven incompetent.
So using the labels, Kay is also a bit of Raven's persecutor.
Yet to me, Kay would fit the roles of 'internal self-helper', 'gatekeeper' and even 'protector' though she doesn't fight, she just absorbs the damage.

So what I'm trying to point out is essentially what Raven pointed out (or tried to) in her initial post: relationships are naturally different between different personalities. Some personalities clash, some are toxic, some are symbiotic, some are as close to perfect as possible, and that's okay. Someone's villain can be another person's hero.
Rather than labelling an alter one specific role, it's good to acknowledge their personality and how it drives their actions.

I do think it's good to have this thread besides the protector thread that has been mentioned. Some alters start are so hurtful to the system that they need to push through those feelings before they can consider themselves protectors.

Then Raven wants to say that communication was horrid for us initially cause I (Grey) am very good at ignoring things to the point that I can see a distortion in the world and can just be like "ok, that's not normal so it's not real". It took time before I stopped ignoring the voices and tried listening to them, which significantly improved my state of mind as well as communication between all of us.

I hope I made sense here.

~ Grey, speaking for Raven and Kay as well.

So our mute alter, is responsible for our fuges and is generally self destructive when it comes to outside relationships.

Right from when anyone else was first conscious of me I was othered. The religious bigots that were torturing pete (sa) basically told him any sence of wrongness or self presivation was a devil that had infected him and what they were doing was to purge me.

I'm meen that's basically the narrative of my early life. Being left handed was sign of devil spawn so we had our left hand stripes to the side of our bodies were thrashed shamed etc. We were 2 maybe 3 cause this was a church run nursary where my earliest memories are from. I took that I absorbed all that hurt and religious bile. I kept the others blissfully unaware of everything. Only me and the mute alter are still left hander the others don't even remember being left handed they don't remember all that $#%^ because I took it. So of course when the sa being used to purge us of devilry started I took on that role, I became the hated figure that Pete could blame for his predicament and our "protector" was split from pete to be a guardian angel that could banish me. They made a fuvkin labyrinth mind prison to banish me to. My only crime was to tell those pedos no. So when I eventually got back front I figured if saying no to the abuse was not allowed I could at least kill us so we didn't have to suffer. Peters memories of the sa have been boxed away into the mud men thanks to our T but for most of our lives he was suffering. Suicide seemed like the only thing I'd been left with. Our so called "protector" got us involved in all sorts of awfull to distract from reality (including heavy underage drinking).

Therapy showed me that suicide wasnt my only option. I threw myself into music I am now the one our so comes to when something big is happening because he can trust me to deal with it calmly and reasonably.

I guess I'm angry that I get labled persecutor when the alter that causes the most issues both past and present who hasn't learnt ANY healthy coping mechanisms gets to be protector.

Hey.
I see the protector thread, and I think it's helpful but I think there are values to having a safe space for persecutors.
Namely, as many have shared previously, It's tough to establish communication and form a real identity, and having a discussion space with understanding individuals is invaluable.
As much as 'persecutors' and 'protecters' have in common regarding their roles, the differences are tough.
Thank you for bringing up the protector thread since I'm sure it will be a helpful resource, but I think it fills a different purpose than this thread was meant to.

We would have called the thread a less accusatory name if we knew a better term that still conveyed what we wanted to convey.

-Dark and Passion

Aside from the drama, I do want to continue actual discussion since I've had a decent experience in the short time this has been open.

Quick edit to add our gratitude for your sharing, it's good to see shared experiences.