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Anyone can experience Schizophrenia
I believe there is a self destruct button within each and every mind. For some, this button is easier to press than others, but given just the right conditions even the most humane, sane person can experience madness. There are many types of madness, most of which are described in detail on this website, however the type of madness my blog deals with, schizophrenia, is a true escape from our world into an imagined one. It is considered by many to be the most debilitating and severe mental illness, because
You can’t put a price on good mental health. I might go broke, but that’s better than the misery of full-blown depression.
Last week I wrote about how fighting bipolar disorder is like fighting an invisible enemy. And I suggested that creating an internal visual of an "enemy" was a helpful way of differentiating the sick person from the illness itself.
I think stigma is similar. We can let stigma, or thoughts thereof, get into our heads. We can start to believe the ignorant judgements of others and we can let stigma bring us down.
But we don't have to. We can fight.
And while stigma is often something one feels, sometimes it is something one can see too. Like in print. Like in The Daily Athenaeum piece on depression that I wrote about on Monday.
It was chock-a-block with ideas of stigma. But I chose not to believe it and instead I chose to fight.
When you are diagnosed with a mental illness, your first reaction is probably fear. Those who love you also might feel fear. After all, mental illness is stigmatized, and certainly not something anyone wants to live with. But we can, and we do. Successfully.
Defining Fear
When in recovery from an addiction, feelings and emotions can often be overwhelming. it is common to want to run from feelings, and numb out from tough emotions. In early recovery and sobriety, it is important to learn healthy coping skills and learn how to feel all feelings, process the emotions, and learn from the experience. Here are 5 ways to approach triggering emotions in sobriety.
Yesterday, I arrived at school for my teaching assignment. Before the first bell, three staff members had already offered their assistance and described my class of sixteen 2nd-graders as "awful."
On my first day of substitute teaching, I had been handed a room full of manic, unmedicated Bobs.
Today someone struggling with severe clinical depression will hear that they need to snap out of it. A friend, family member, or doctor will tell them that physical exercise or a positive outlook will solve their problem. A stranger will comment, "Smile! It can't be that bad." And in a way, all of those people are right. Physical exercise is a helpful component of depression treatment.
"Build a better mousetrap and the world will beat a path to your door. However, the mice will switch all your street signs." Taz Mopula
One lovely, sunny afternoon, a traveling salesman was driving his shiny new Cadillac convertible down a quiet country road. Without warning, he was rudely wrenched away from his predictable, uninteresting thoughts by a flubadubbadub sound indicating his left front tire had gone flat.
The fellow pulled to the shoulder, stopped, and surveyed his situation. Beside him, an imposing wrought iron fence stood sentry before a sweeping, well-manicured lawn. At once annoyed and bemused, he observed the lawn to be studded with solitary individuals wearing white jumpsuits, calmly entertaining each other and themselves. His mystification ended when he saw a large sign that read, "Shady Acres Home For The Deranged".
You know how you sometimes have nightmares about monsters? Something like that happens to me. You know how the monsters lie to you? They lie to me, too, and sometimes I believe them. Sometimes I think that if I hurt myself, the monsters will leave me alone. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't, but every time I hurt myself things get worse. I go to treatment--usually outside the hospital, but sometimes inside--to make sure the monsters don't win.
I'm not a person who takes on a cause de jour - I simply have too much self-preservation for that. I have enough going on without worrying about the plights of the world.
However, when someone tries to spread mistruths and tries to silence my voice, then I start to get peeved.
Case in point. Recently, the West Virginia University's school paper, The Daily Athenaeum, printed an article about lifestyle factors and depression. And while I have no problem with that subject, the things they said therein were wrong and inexcusable.
And when they tried to silence my criticism of that article, I got peeved. I will not allow the voice of mental illness to be ignored simply because someone doesn't like what we have to say.
but i do have some things i want to bring up
>people looking for "sourcemates" never really made sense to us, but we got manipulated into it anyway and all it ensued was gaslighting, brainwashing, and grooming. it has put us in abusive relationships many times until we put our foot down about it. though, i have seen people use "sourcecalling" as "hey we have the same source we got introjected from lol" and not "I SHARE MEMORIES FROM ANOTHER WORLD WITH YOU", so im glad that's dying down a bit.
however, this doesnt change the fact that some of us fictives can have these fake memories, especially after splitting since that disorients us/the alter, it is just important not to fuel them, as that would be delusion, and it has hurt us many times.
it is important to steer away from these beliefs, but also know some of those people could be being manipulated right now by fakers (like how we were manipulated ie) etc.
>"endogenic" is completely made up and scientifically impossible. endos claim they do not need any trauma at all to form did/osdd, this is far from true. i dont think you need me to tell you that though, it's just for people scrolling by mostly.
>a lot of people try to loop tulpamancy into did, which is harmful for both the disorder and the spiritual practice. a lot of people call themself "tulpagenic" system, meaning they think they just manifested their system willfully. this is, like endogenic, scientifically impossible, and tulpamancy has nothing to do with a dissociation disorder at all.
>i also disagree with people posting about their "system", ESPECIALLY on tiktok, like its some show or diary for them. not only is it extremely harmful for that system if they happened to be a real system making a bad decision - but if the person is faking being a system, then now they are spreading false info on did, which is why us as a real system get slurred and screamed at by people we called "friends" anytime we tell them after knowing them for a year or so. it is messed up and i agree with the disdain for tiktok.
>for us, some of our fictives formed off of recent medias we have seen before having a traumatic or dissociative experience. our brain i guess picks up stuff like that and thinks whatever qualities the fictional character had would be helpful to us and put it in an empty shell and formed that alter, which has always confused us and made us get scared of faking despite or diagnosis process. ive met confirmed diagnosed systems who also have this experience. none of us picks what the fictive is based on or when they form, the brain is a mystery. ive also come to conclusions autistic systems have higher chances of having more fictives/general introjects than non-introject alters.
>anyone who claims they "recently became a system" might be confused on their wording or how it works, or they might really just be faking. some people are newly discovered, which is VERY VERY VERY normal for us with DID. we usually wont notice it until we are older or something very drastic happens (being hospitalized because of a persecutor ie.) for us, we began to notice weird things more in 2018, then found out about it in 2020. which was awful. when you finally figure out what could be wrong, and then get medically recognized or a diagnosis, its both hell internally and socially, and this usually happens when you are a child/preteen/teen, which makes it even harder and people make a lot of bad and unhealthy mistakes with how to cope (like getting manipulated or being waayyy too open about it/using tiktok like a diary.)
>for alters "already knowing the ropes of the system", this has always made us very distrusting of other people, but there are many factors as to why that can possibly happen, or just at least to a short degree.
-they might be an osdd-1b system, meaning they have little to no amnesia, or just emotional amnesia.
-when they split, another alter or that system's friend already explained everything to them internally/privately, so of course you wouldnt see that.
-alters split from each other, so that can leave to those two alters having a lot of similarities, along with a few key memories that alter may have as an instinct in order to survive or function.
what ive found is its best to not fakeclaim a system based on a few things you know about them because of how different each system is. they could be a did system, an osdd-1a system, or a osdd-1b system - so if you were one of the three, you wouldnt be able to really understand the other two. many systems can also have different traumas, experiences, coping mechanisms, and their medical history (other disorders the body has, if they have a therapist or not, what theyve done to cope with did/osdd, etc.)
the only time i ever fakeclaim someone on this is if they are spewing factually proven incorrect statements as true, and maybe even putting ACTUAL true statements down, but i find it's best not to interact with fakers, as they are usually just baiting and they will never change their mind for you. it's best to just research correctly, (did-research.org is a good source.), and make sure you spread the correct info and tell people to watch out for endos/myths. though, i have seen cases where "endos" were manipulated into thinking they were endo (by someone giving them the wrong definition, usually being "endo means u dont remember trauma!" [ which is incorrect, that is still traumagenic.]) or they are in denial of their trauma. it's best not to assume, and arguing with endos is draining, so as i said, its better to educate generally than to argue directly.
this was long, but i hope any of this helps.
As a fictive, yes, we KNOW we arent the character. we are fully aware of that. while i do agree i and most others in our system HEAVILY dislike the "sourcecall" "sharing memories" stuff, as it never made sense to us, and even then when we blindly followed it somewhat, it was used to abuse us. so you are correct about that and i hope other systems who are newly diagnosed/process of diagnosis do not fall into the rabbit hole we did, but i should make it clear to you that most of us fictives DO experience these fake memories, especially when a fictive newly splits, a split in general leaves the alters and system disoriented and confused. a lot of DID communities online fueled our "psuedo memories" and it only harmed us.
fictives DO experience these fake memories, having them doesn't invalidate the existence. you just need to not fuel these "memories" because it can be harmful for that alter to the whole system. sorry that this was long, but a lot of your comments were borderline fakeclaiming fictives, which are proven to be real. yes, some fictives can be convinced they ARE the character, but it's them and their system's responsibility to alert them of the truth, instead of the entire concept of our (fictives) existence being claimed to be fake.