Plural Joy! is a series of zines written by us about what it’s like to experience plurality and live as multiple people. This first volume includes a lot of information about our experience with plurality including some Q&A with our headmates.
Purchasing a copy of this zine supports a disabled transsexual plural system who struggle with housing, food and medication. Every bit of support helps us tremendously, and will make it easier for us to publish future volumes. Thank you for reading and supporting
I think what people don’t realize is that you oftentimes might not know you have the symptoms of DID until AFTER you start to explore the idea of having it in the first place.
It was so difficult trying to figure out what symptoms applied to me, what symptoms I related to, what symptoms I was exhibiting, etc.
And that’s because DID in and of itself oftentimes even hides those symptoms from you in the first place (especially if you are polyfragmented).
You don’t realize what symptoms you have until you really dive deep and try to LOOK for the symptoms in the first place.
Like, not only can a LOT of the DID symptoms be chalked up to “normal, everyday things”, but the amnesia and general dissociation that comes along with the disorder makes it difficult to really KNOW if you have those symptoms, how often you experience them if at all. It makes it hard to say for certain “yes, I relate to that” because amnesia can make it seem like you never experience it, or that you “only rarely, if ever” experience it. And dissociation, shame, denial, etc. can make it to where you downplay it if you DO experience it. AND, as I said, a lot of it is oftentimes excused by other things.
Especially, for me particularly, I never really related to “derealization/depersonalization.”
I certainly did in the past, and I know I still do, but the thing is, I don’t personally relate to the way that dissociation is DESCRIBED.
And I don’t know if I’m alone in that?
That DES test that everybody talks about is like my #1 enemy (this is a joke/light-hearted lmfao) because I could never really understand or relate or apply the things that the questions are asking me to myself. I also could not understand what they mean, and a lot of them did not apply to me because of my specific life circumstances, etc.
I would try taking that test on multiple different occasions and feel upset, frustrated and invalidated, because I could not understand the questions; I could not understand what they mean and apply them to myself; I could not make an accurate guesstimate on “how often” they applied to me; and I couldn’t relate to them.
I would try taking it and would get scored anywhere from around 23% to 32% at MOST. And it invalidated me so bad, because my friends would be getting scores in the 40% ranges, and I felt like “I guess I don’t have DID then” and “I guess I just don’t have it that bad”
I would see people making posts about the test online and “brag” almost about “haha lol I got 48% lol oops” and I felt so invalidated because I never saw anybody get below that. It made me feel like I don’t have DID at all and that I didn’t have it that bad.
And the people who would tell me they didn’t think I had DID, etc. and even one therapist (who was really shit honestly oh God I should make a post rambling about him cause. Oh Boy.) and a random psychiatrist I tried to see for a diagnosis (I hoped to be able to get diagnosed and go straight to a therapist instead of having to see a therapist to diagnose me first - I do not recommend this) (She was also horrible), coupled with the fact I just never met or saw anybody else like me, made it real difficult to believe that I could possibly have DID or OSDD.
And looking back at everything, my unawareness of everything - my symptoms, my feelings, everything - made it so much more difficult to be able to describe the precise experiences I was having.
Here I was, going out of my way to “that wasn’t another alter- it was just.. Me, doing and saying things, by choice, I am always in control, it wasn’t someone else!!!” while every single person around me so outwardly, so flawlessly, and so effortlessly seemed to fit right into system spaces; using the language of “fronting”, “switching”, “co-consciousness” as if it came naturally to them, and I could never understand, I could never relate.
No matter how much research I had done, I constantly felt like I was “missing” something - like everybody else around me already caught on and understood their experiences and their alters and everything, and I was an outsider intruding in spaces I didn’t belong.
No matter how much I thought I knew about DID, no matter how much people and the internet would say “hey, you know DID doesn’t require (xyz)”, I still felt like “but surely there’s something missing that I’m not getting; surely there’s something that these people are experiencing that I clearly am not, because if I was, wouldn’t I be able to relate to these words to? Wouldn’t I know who my alters are by now? It’s been years, why am I still so in the dark, and everybody else around me knows so much? There MUST be something I’m missing.”
I still felt like I was waiting for myself to pass out or have some experience where I’ve just “teleported” somewhere with no memory of how I got there, or some “obvious” sign that I’ve switched, and no matter how much research I did, no matter what people told me, I was still waiting, I was still expecting SOMETHING.
SOMETHING that would make it “obvious” that I’ve switched; SOMETHING that would make it “obvious” that I have DID; SOMETHING that would make it clear as day and undeniable.
Of course it never happened, because it doesn’t work like that.
But when people so effortlessly talk about their alters using language like this:
“Gary is really depressed and likes to write poetry; he only fronts to feel our depression. He doesn’t really like to talk to people, so he keeps to himself. He speaks bluntly and doesn’t even really like to speak in general, it’s too much energy for him when he fronts.”
Instead of:
“When I’m really depressed, I really like to write poetry. I don’t really like to talk to people when I feel that way, when I’m in that state, and I don’t really like to speak at all, it feels like too much energy, when I’m in that state of mind. I also tend to speak more bluntly when I’m like that.”
It becomes hard to believe that you have DID at all when the first example is the only way people seem to talk about their alters and their DID.
With the first example, it gives the impression that you’re speaking about a totally separate person (which, is totally valid if your alters work that way, but that is besides my point here). It gives the impression that the person who has DID/OSDD is speaking about totally separate people, and like “someone else is in control of that person” or something. At least to me, it did. And that’s what I was waiting for, some “obvious” sign, some “obvious” THING to happen to me that would make it clear as day that I had switched, that I was a totally different person, etc. and I was still waiting for SOMETHING to happen, despite what I had researched, despite what people said, because the only way people ever talk about their alters is with the first example.
And I couldn’t get it, I couldn’t relate, I couldn’t understand.
When the only language you are given to explain a phenomenon is language you cannot relate to, it only makes sense that you then decide you must not relate to that phenomena.
It’s like if I tried to find resources about DID/OSDD in a language I can’t understand, putting it through Google Translate a few times, and then trying to read it and then trying to apply it to myself.
There are endless ways to describe subjective experiences, and when you are only given a few descriptions to choose from, it’s easy to say “I don’t relate to any of these!” when there are billions of other ways to describe the same phenomena.
It’s like if you were told to describe an apple, but you were only given three descriptions to choose from, all of which may or may not be true, depending on the size of the apple, what kind of apple, the color, etc.
Like you’re given these three options to describe an apple:
Sweet
Green
Large
Like, sure, all three could apple to a wide variety of different apples, but… There are so many other descriptions you could choose from, and these three descriptions may not apply to every single apple. Sometimes apples are not green, and sometimes they aren’t so much sweet as they are sour. Sometimes they are small.
But when you’re only told that these are three examples of descriptions of an apple, and you’re not given any other language, you start looking at red apples or tiny apples or sour apples and questioning “is that really an apple..?”
*This also applies to OSDD if it applies, I’m just a guy with DID and can only speak about DID since I don’t have OSDD
Honestly, nothing like being plural and doing bonding activities with your headmates. Feeling the excitement of another person(s) that intimately while doing something you all/both love is infectious. And the feeling of working as a team to do or experience something fun instead of having to work together for survival or basic functioning is so nice. I love my headmates so much 💖
DID is so funny. Sometimes you’re in a situation and your brain just makes up a new guy, and when you’re like “oh, nice to meet you! Who are you?” then they’re not around anymore and you never see or hear from them again
And then you’re like “huh, weird. Can’t wait for that to happen again soon, with no explanation”
ppl will find out you have DID (or osdd) and say “how many do you have?!” [even tho alters/dissociated parts isnt even the only part of DID. its certainly the most notable part sure, but not the only part of it] and in all honesty like. what do i say. do i get in to that we have tons of subsystems. tons of alters who are different parts but will use the same name as another. that there are 6 different parts that use the name maxx and we all just sign the same name and never make any distinctions (its kinda like a “you figure it out if u wanna know so bad”). that there’s four iraks in our system that theres two xanders that theres three ez’s, that we have parts that dont even have names? that we have like 20 fragments at minimum and have an extremely hard time telling them apart or even knowing much about them? that some parts are dormant? that some parts dont want to be known? that some parts refuse to share their name with some of us? what the heck do i say to a question like that. now its obviously something that therapists will ask bc its part of the therapy work to try and meet all different parts of the brain/system (whenever those parts/alters are ready), but i still dont even know what to say to medical people about it. like sorry we are an RA system its a lot more fuckin complicated inside than youd think and it certainly is more complicated inside than anyone on the outside or even online would or could ever know -maxx
