Dual Journaling for DID
Lately I've been doing a lot of "dual journaling" with my cohost. I'm unsure how other people do this, but we take turns journaling whether it's longform writing or our "one line a day" journal. The "one line a day" journal has sort of become a longform conversation to talk about our goals and mutual frustrations and it's been somewhat illuminating even if we're taking turns on a daily basis. Sadly we've been at odds for a while now, and I worry sometimes that our communication is now irreparable. I realize this is controversial to most people, but the parts of myself in my system mean quite a lot to me and it is important to me that we continue working harmoniously...
I think that's why I was quite irritated today at someone telling me how and when I should speak up about my lived experience with this disorder. I think it is frustrating when people tell me how I should experience it and my personal thoughts about its depiction in fiction. I have not been in therapy for quite some time now but I use many of the strategies I learned there and from support resources for people with DID/OSDD in my daily life to resolve conflicts within myself. I think that is why I may relate more closely to "unconventional" depictions of DID or ones where personalities "disappear" and become absorbed into a perceived "main" personality.
It does speak volumes to me that people see individuals with DID/OSDD as completely helpless and unable to make connections with their alters/parts/themselves on their own and that a person's environment doesn't fully inform the way parts form or front. It's not uncommon for OSDD alters especially to be more of a background presence in times when they're not necessarily needed; in these cases they act more as a passive influence... I guess that is why it annoys me for people to invalidate my experience of living in a "safe" environment where I felt more in-tune with my inner parts and many parts were able to front safely, with more control, and without fear of being retraumatized or splitting.
I don't like it. I don't want to feel obligated to perform a certain level of "suffering" for people and how people's concept of DID/OSDD is severely limited to cases of complete inability to care for oneself when it has a broad spectrum of presentations and many people lead functional-looking lives with DID/OSDD.