This video really highlights that systems can have different experiences, and that is a thing that causes Calon a lot of grief and anxiety (with questions like 'We haven't had any switches today does that mean we're not real?' and other such doubts), so this video will be really helpful for us to reaffirm ourselves, thank you for that - Frey, Locke System
🦄 I'm glad!! That's honestly one of the reasons we started this channel! We didn't find anyone with experiences quite like our own, so it's nice that we could pay it forward in that way :)
I’m a newly diagnosed DID system and I have yet to really communicate with anyone but I know through my journaling and art therapy that I have a non human alter (or maybe fragment) who is a sentient floating TV with arms that always plays static it their screen. I don’t know any other systems IRL and trying to explain stuff like this to my friends is really hard. Thank you for this video, it’s helped me accept that it doesn’t matter that my DID looks different from systems I follow online.
Your brain sets the rules. Open a suggestive (this is what we want) policy of no secrets, but allow them to come out on their own time. As you let them in you will have to take on their pain too, but can be worth it. Don't make it happen, or YOUR imagination will get in the way. Do not block it out, because they use your imagination to speak sometimes. Just let it happen and it will. Your brain will process information. You don't have to force it. That's probably part of what got you into this situation, depending on your trauma... you know, being forced or trapped. I know the feeling. ;)
🦄 I think it all depends on context. Tbh switching doesn't have a bad connotation for us, but blending often does, especially the blending of more than two people. An old therapist was really surprised that we're the least functional when we're the closest together
i'm used to that too! it was interesting to hear that flipped. for us, if there are lots of distinct switches meaning it's fully one alter fronting and not just co-cons changing (3 or more) it's probably not a good day/something is affecting us negatively. however, not switching at all for a whole day can also be bad. so it's interesting to see what switching can mean for different systems
I'm currently working on getting a diagnosis, I only discovered my osdd-1b system a couple of months ago. our experience with the points in the vid: our switches are very infrequent. sometimes we switch several times a day, but more often it's just me, with Dam being co-conscious or at least nearby. I think it's because I'm still discovering them and I'd get overwhelmed if I suddenly started consciously switching every day. I also feel like not switching when I'm dealing with personal things in my life is either a deliberate decision on their part, or it's that my stress levels just don't let them out. not sure yet. either way fronting for weeks on end is extremely exhausting. I don't know everyone yet, but our body is female, I'm confused as far as gender goes and my secondary host (or at least the one alter who is the most active besides me and is also out to me) is male. but he's also the only male alter I know of so. interesting stuff there. no non human alters as far as I know, but MAYBE we have an alien? as far as decision making goes, we don't have a system for that, but I do seek opinions and advice from others when I'm deciding something important. sometimes they tell me what they think even if I don't ask, especially if they don't agree. I'm not so stubborn to not listen to them when everyone is universally against my choices. eh this is long, but wanted to share my experience. I'm thinking about making a youtube channel as well after we get diagnosed and document our system journey. :> thanks for this video and I wish you a wonderful day!!!! ^-^ -mari
Alexandrite system, Have you considered an undercut? It would be easily hidden in a workplace setting and also when claudia fronts they can put thier hair up and feel a bit less bogged down by hair!! ^.^
I know I'm a bit late to comment, but writing this as a trauma holder of a DID system, I've really struggled with being able to trust my reality or my experiences and I sometimes have a hard time trusting my host. Your videos bring a lot of comfort to me and decrease my fear of distrust. I just wanted to voice how much it means to me.
This helps. I’m still pretty newly aware of my system, and our collective experience is so different from most of the systems we’ve interacted with, and I as host keep getting caught out by feelings that I’m a fake because we’re not like so and so. Slowly realising how wildly different even the few systems I know as friends are is helping
I cannot tell you that you 100% have DID, but you should bear in mind that feelings of being fake are one of the symptoms that the majority of systems experiences.
I know that this video was made a while ago but I'm trying to do more research on my situation (with having OSDD 1b) and this really did help with any doubt that me and the system had, especially with the fronting situation. - Jay, Blues Clues System
Hello Alexandrites! Fantastic to meet you, I'm Mona from the Phoenix System :) Your collab video on Rings' channel brought me here. Hearing your experience is very comforting because we hadn't heard of a system with similar switch times and mechanics as us. We're OSDD-1b too (possibly polyfragmented DID) and as we're undiagnosed, it's especially difficult to get past the "No I must be faking, this can't be real" thoughts. Hearing how similar your experience is really helps, so thank you so much! 😁 Liked and subbed, we will be watching 😊 Mona The Phoenix System 🖤 💛 🧡 ❤️ 💜 ❤️ 🧡 💛 🖤
I just discovered an alter for the first time and it honestly terrifies me but I think lacy is just now becoming aware of himself and his identity. As we discover more about ourselves I am glad to say that this video was very helpful to me and I hope for lacy as well. Thank you.
Hearing about another system who can't really have non-hosts front for more than a few hours or so is actually really comforting? We actually dismissed the prospect of systemhood for a long time because for a long time we only had Dark and Moon, and Moon doesn't enjoy fronting and can't ever really front for more than a half-hour, so we didn't know we could. And even now, we don't really have anyone who can front alone for more than a few hours.
Ooh our decision making process is somewhere between your two kinds! The frequent fronters (myself and dandy) make the majority of decisions day to day about style, personal wants and needs etc. but it’s understood that mal has the clearest vision of what we need in the long term and what is best for our healing. We don’t always do what she asks of us, and sometimes we literally can’t, but it’s understood that there is always someone you can turn to who will know what’s best in any given situation
1:26 - Silver, we're not all humans but we're all people. human is a race person is any creature who can attribute subjective meanings to things, have complex thoughts and has the ability to live normally in society. very important distinction
Good video! My response to the video: We have multiple non-human alters, one devil, 2 objects, 1 wolf, 1 dog and two robots we have a few males but like 1/5 of our system members are male we switch EXTREMELY infrequently but have goodish communication. we only switch like once a week or two and then sometimes we switch like 5 times a day everyone else only switches out for a few hours but its mostly me, the host. no one besides me wakes up in the body I control switches a lot, i usually make the body not switch for a while because switching gives me anxiety. its why i think i may also be a gatekeeper idk though. one other alter we know of can control switches but we dont switch enough to test with everyone else Ain't dating or married at the moment We dont talk much so dont really have any disputes (I only can only hear one alter at a time which makes communication hard) I still block them out of our/my life! I have executive control but I get input from everyone else if we need to. Like on getting the body testosterone, everyone was ok with it except one and we decided it was best so i could keep hosting. me and the protectors are pretty equal but Im usually the one actually doing the decision I probably missed things to respond to because i got distracted (I never just do one thing for 5 minutes, never 20 minutes) I love the normal-ness of the way to you talk to the viewers, its as if we are having a conversation! which is great because we dont have many system friends (rings system we count you as one of our two system friends!)
maybe a shell, and not a gatekeeper. I think you'd know if you were a gatekeeper. I'm sure it depends on the system, but gatekeepers normally know a lot about everything in the system and can talk easily to everyone, which is crucial for them to perform the gatekeeping job. A Shell is a host who has the job of preventing the outside world from finding out about the system, the shell usually don't know that he/she is a shell but the rest of the system need permition from the shell to front when the shell is nervous about it.
I'm the opposite as silver, I'm the host, and I stay in the front for almost the entire day, but I never wake up in control of the body. Like, ever. And that's good, I think, because I have a lot of anxiety and I tend to push the body into doing more stressful things no matter how tired we are, so everytime we wake up, there is like two hours in average of someone refusing to get up no matter how much I try to move the body like "oh, my god, we have to do X, Y and Z or else we're gonna lose A, B and C" and everybody is like "dude, chill"
You make us so happy. My name’s Rhea and I don’t front much but Leila likes to watch you. I was triggered by a background video talking about alters who are POC. I am black and the body is mix race. We love y’all! 💜
The last week's has been so eye opening for us. I could write an essay about everything we've discovered but I'm just gonna say, thank you SO much for sharing, you're helping a lot of people! ♡
How does one let themselves actually switch because I seem to be unable to. They get really close and they can influence me but I am almost always fronting. I sense others are near and they can speak through me at times and be co-conscious but I don't know how to let someone else take over and fully step back myself. This is all super knew to me and I'm just coming to terms with it. I'm still trying to figure out how to communicate and such while also coming to terms with the fact that this might actually be real for me.
We really love this video, it helped us honestly!!! We also have OSDD-1b and it's sorta odd with us. We only found out a couple of weeks ago so it's like "ahhh blah blah!!!" We have done a headcount and we only have 6. Jax, the host, always fronts. We believe it's called 'Base'. We formed due to personal reasons, but we all wanna live a life. For example, Leo, loves knitting loom bracelets. But Chole wants to always do color guard. We all have conflicting ideals, but we still try and live the life. We again love this video, and gave us some good advice. Tnank yoy!!!
I feel so much better knowing we're not the only system that doesnt switch very often and I can go a week sometimes on my own as the host. I've only met systems who switch often before the rings system :) its also nice seeing another system where the host(s) are trans with male alters. Me and my co-host are male (ftm) but we have female alters and we decided to transition since the most frequent frontiers are also male
I've been married for 17 years and my husband has no clue. He met my alters for sure, and had some weird conversations with them but he probably just thinks that I was in the mood that day.
i'm one of a frequent fronter too and i have a thing for being the one to wake up first mostly and it was contributing so much of me feeling my system was fake or making them up. seeing another system with a similar, although not exactly the same, experience felt a bit reassuring.
I really wish I had the control or awareness to be-able to time how long they stay in front ,it’s pure rapid switching co -conscious chaos here,I’m just becoming aware more aware of us and being able to catch them before they “fade back “😅 and know it was a switch : before I thought it was all me with voices and that I was just dumb or spacey and accepted multiple personalities as me (because it still is in a way😮💨)cause every one said they had them just not to this extent 😹so hard to articulate but your helping me do it 💞thank you guys so much I’m learning so much about us.
I do dnd and my protector alter came out during a new campaign cause I personally am terrified of doing exclusively roleplaying and he was like “you know what I like the sound of this campaign I wanna play” and he played the way our actually friend who has DID his protector DMs and liked how mine was playing. My protector is a party boy but REALLY blunt
Since coming to terms with not being alone in my head I've felt better and validated but theres times I worry that I'm just going insane. Do others deal with this and do others have access to the inner world as in they can go inside or am I the only one who can just glimpse and see what everyone else is up to but not go in
Self doubt is something a lot of systems struggle with, and different systems and even different people within those systems will have different access to the inner world or parts thereof. We actually cover both of these sorts of topics in our videos about Quiet Days, and All About Our Inner World!
I have only been inside once and it’s an area I haven’t been able to even glimpse into for over three years now. I can only see glimpses of the inner spaces and I can not navigate it very well.
@@angeriettv its really neat what all our brains are capable of and can do. We are fortunate we are able to communicate internally and see each other inside.
Do not let this become a feedback loop. Let it go. If you are worried about "crazy" then you are probably not. You may be suffering from derealization. It kinda goes with the dissociation sometimes.
"Deal with this"? It lead to a PTSD feedback loop until I almost starved. One of my alters was created by the question "am I crazy"? He's a pretty zany guy. Lol. ...and scary... because he is the personification of my impression of PTSD itself. He is 36 years old, from my first split. I just noticed him. He's been growing this whole time. Persecutor protector, he would throw his PTSD reverse logic at my "enemies" and screw up their heads. He has a unique perspective on the issue. It's all in your head. Where else would it be? "Good for you, doesn't change a thing." -Tyler Durden "Am I crazy?" is a question that can make you feel crazy. It creates feedback loop of thought. Let it go and just listen. Listen to yourself.
We have non human alters. One of which is a Dragon! another is just "darkness" we have a dark angel, but can't get her to talk, We have an 'abstract" named just Sabotage. Nice to hear your diffrences. Great analogy about the recipe for brownies.
Our switching varies a lot. Sometimes we have times when we switch a few times a day and have a switch basically every day for weeks, sometimes we go months with just very occassional co-fronting and passive influence but no switches. Our ex with DID basically only switched in extremely stressful situations, with a single alter fronting for months or even a few years if her life was good. So she ended up with very long periods of amnesia and there was no host or communication in the system.
OMG I am so glad you stated that onBAD days you don’t switch as much, I feel like mental health figures will automatically assume that if you switch less you’re actually doing better NOOO that’s the worst I really feel the most integrated in my experience when the fronting “weight” is spread out elastically and flexibly like a nice cohesive dough of yummy grain and seed bread lol, I also have less dissociative dissonance when my consciousness is “working properly” (less harsh switching more slow, pressure less uninterrupted nice switching)
We literally just figured out we are a system like 2 weeks ago at 29. It has been quite the ride and I am still figuring things out. I also have a cat too she is modeled after (not sure if that would be the way to state it) my childhood cat. I also have a flower fairy and potentially a robot? I am the host and I seem to always be co-conscious. This is super different than my sibling's system. Maybe it's a control thing. Not sure. The first 2 days we were rapidly switching but we switch all the time. Sometimes I will think about someone else think their name and they switch to front. We all have different handwriting and I will often be filing out paperwork at work and there will be like 4 different handwriting. One of the most frequent fronters is super into fashion and will come out at any point to stop a different alter from choosing clothing she doesn't approve of. She only trusts a few others to make those decisions haha
9:33 - with us, it's already a thing we're used to doing, whenever someone that knows one of us come to talk to us, we'll normally switch to that person in order to talk to them, this prevents outsiders from finding out about the disorder and from pressuring us to be and behave like the person they know. It doesn't always work, the situation around us is much more important in controling our switches, so if we always meet a friend in a specific place or situation, which is normally the case, we'll most definitely switch to this person's friend and stay like that easily. If we're in a different environment that knows another one of us and an alien friend (a friend from another friend group, from outside that environment) comes to us, we'll probably stay with the fronting person of that environment.
It's very convenient because it's very similar to what singlets do, like, nobody is exactly the same in different situations and environments, so nobody ever suspected a thing.
It's not that voluntary actually. I don't know if one of our gatekeepers do it or if it's a thing the brain do on its own, but it happens and we can't really prevent it from happening. We recently tried to switch in therapy but the brain already associated me to that environment so we couldn't do it. This was very important in our lifes because everytime an outside person saw more than one of us, problems arised.
To the Alexandria system, have you guys considered an undercut hairstyle. The top layer of your hair can stay long while the underlayer is short/buzzed. Also, I find the texture of buzzed hair to be very pleasant to touch. :)
We have two of us who have woken up in the body, me and a teen alter who awkwardly uses the same name. We only split few months ago tho, for years I felt like a 14 year old and it just got too difficult to deal with college and adulthood with a teen host.
I've always just been on the outside my whole life singled out because of my difference.. it's so hard to be able to express or reach out and so hard to explain what the hell is going on in my head... No one has ever understood what I've tried explaining. And here I am wondering what in the actual fuck. Just stumbled on gold yo. Thank you for your videos. What a beautiful experience I have learning about myself from you. Never in such a way in words have I felt 'understood?' Thank you
still a relatively new system as we just discovered this back in 2021 (it's now march 2022), but when you guys talked about how you make decisions and your life and stuff i thought it was interesting how it worked for you guys. ours is similar to the alexandrite system in that whoever fronts the most say in decisions but it's also kinda similar to the rings system in that one vote will kinda veto others if necessary. for example, me (the host) and daniel (primary protector) both front the most often. we would get more say in certain things, while leo (social protector) would get more say in things that affect us socially as they front the most around friends and stuff. all three of us would get more vote than say, sadie, who fronts relatively rarely. daniel and amanda (secondary protector) would be sort of the veto vote if, for example, i or another alter was doing something potentially destructive to the body or we had a friend that needed to be cut out. also, im nonbinary (masc presenting) and when it comes to what clothes we wear or how our hair is done, i get the ultimate say as dysphoria is a big problem for me. for katie, though, who identifies as a cis woman, she wouldn't get as much of a say seeing as A) she fronts less and B) she's not affected by dysphoria. so for us it's really just kind of situational and depends on what affects who more and who has the better judgement about things.
I don’t mean this in any sort of critical or judgmental way, but as a cis male front who has female alters, I’m pretty confused by the concept of a trans woman “host” or alter having sis female alters. How is being a sis female alter with a trans female body/host different from a being a trans female alter with a trans female body/host?
I absolutely love this video, because it makes me ( and I hope other systems to) feels so valid. As for me, (sorry my bad English, pls): We have non-human alters: the diabolical-sarcastic spirit and robot (which is gatekeeper) I'm identifies as female, but all my alters, exept me(host) and one girl, is male/non-binary. I can't control switches, but with triggers can bring someone closer to front (it doesn't always work...) We switches in stress-free days from 2 to 5 times
Hi, sorry if this comes off as attention seeking but we're a young system starting out with our youtube channel, we found your channel and the Ring Systems channel and it's been so helpful to see this content, especially as an OSDD-1b system when OSDD-1 is hardly talked about. We're hoping to make some content related to system stuff, today I actually plan on making a video about Switching hosts, so maybe by the time you read this it will be out! Lou is also planning a video about Factives and misconceptions related to them. We saw your introductory videos for alters and decided to do our own version of those! Sorry if that makes u guys uncomfy or something. Anyways I thought it would just be nice to talk about how much we appreciate your channel and maybe promote ours as well!
i was gonna say that too!! on bad days we switch more than on good days :) on a good day we might switch once or twice or not at all and on bad days can switch upwards of 10 times. however not switching for multiple days or weeks would be considered bad for us.
I can't imagine having one person as the only/primary fronter for a whole day. We switch... uh... frequently enough that simplyplural really doesn't work for us
I just woke up after 26 years, with no memory of that time period. I am an old EP. I have a question regarding potentiality and classification of DID/OSDD.
I'm super new to discover alters and I'm super confused to it. Is there a safe way and place to discuss that (apart from psychiatrist) how to navigate this. We would appreciate some help on that.
wait…can different alters have like…different disorders? bc if so that might be the case for one of my headmates but i have no idea. i recently found out that i MIGHT have osdd but i honestly don’t know. i done a ton of research but i feel bad/weird for self diagnosing so i’m hoping to see a therapist soon
sorry this is super super late but if you still have this question or for anyone else coming here in the future who does it highly depends on the disorder. for the most part, yes! although, with certain things like autism it's more so that they hold symptoms of that disorder that you all have or that you don't and they just kind of have some of those traits. it's kind of complicated.
OSDD-1a has alters very similar to each other and strong amnesia between them, as far as I know, while OSDD-1b has very different alters from one another but no considerable physical amnesia. So I guess it's not that easy to get confused between them. Unless you have OSDD-1, which is both, similar alters and no physical amnesia.
Thank you so much, Alexandrite system and Rings system for this amazing video. I am learning so much. I have a question: why is it considered a “good day” when more system members are able to front? And why is it a “bad day”, when perhaps only one system member is able to front? I’m asking because I can kind of now relate to how that feels- but I’ve always considered it a “better day” when I was able to conceal all of my parts and only allow “one” to front #newsystemproblems
For us personally it means that there's more cooperation and communication in the system. Also our brain isn't really designed to do long periods without switching after nearly 30 years of doing this, so it can be a strain on us! I think everyone has a different definition of good and bad days, and good days for us are when we are grounded enough to be separate, and communicative and cooperative enough to share time among us
blocking everybody and monopolising the front is not nice or good, trust me, I did that for so long, very damaging, at least for us. It's good to see everyone having their time and being themselves, so now I wish they fronted more. Anyway, when watching the video, I thought 「good day / bad day」 was refering to the day itself being stressful or nice, and then, as a consequence of the good/bad day, the switches would get frequent/unfrequent. Like, "we had a bad day, so we switched a lot to deal with that" or "we had a good day, so we switched a lot because we were comfortable" or something similar.
Yeah! They're fine, they're just not doing RUclips for a while. They're doing in person activism and research and finishing school! They talked about it towards the end of our recent stream where we cut their hair
I have been doubting very heavily but I have did then Lesa comes up call conscious and basically says no we are real and we are here but one thing is none of them actually come fully to the front and take over they always can come coconsciousness but nothing more than that and they don’t want to on top of that they also don’t want to come forward to talk with my therapist our therapist but and I have two new alters today one is 7-Up nine from Star Trek Voyager and the other one is 11 from stranger things but I don’t know what they look like yet and they don’t want to show themselves to me yet but I also lost the Ed altar as well I think he split into those two but I’m not sure where he is because I don’t feel him and yeah I constantly am second-guessing about MI having do I have dissociative identity disorder or am I faking but yet Lisa lets me know otherwise you’re not coming home conscious lately because of me still having COVID-19 symptoms but I do come close enough to say hi or something but they don’t come total Coke conscious which doesn’t make sense to me end it is getting very lonely and isolating because no one can come over and I don’t get any calls from staff we have or the staff supervisor I always have to send messages to her letting her know of my status from my doctor and I do have weekly short calls with my therapist to check on me and then when I do have our long sessions then we go through different things and I tell him about my alters and she would like to find out more from them about the tremors but they do now supposed to say traumas and it’s actually getting on my nerves and I just wish I could get my alters to actually address and deal with the traumas that they have and I would love it if one or a couple of them will take turns being conscious and completely front to actually talk with my therapist directly but this is getting to be very stressful because I have been having self harm thoughts and I’ve also been thinking about suicide I hope I didn’t trigger anybody with those two and my system has finally realize that they’re all a part of a system and they kind of have been talking with one another when I had my very dangerous alter show up and now they have all moved in together temporarily until he is gone and they’re still staying all together in one house and they are not coming out until they know absolutely for sure that he is gone because he threatened all of my alters and he threaten me down that’s pretty much it but seven ofnine and 11 are both sitting back somewhere and they won’t let me see what they look like yet how can I solve a lot of these situations help me please anyone
Hey I'm gonna be completely honest, I don't fully understand this comment, it looks like you probably used voice to text and it jumbled some things. If you feel you're a danger to yourself or others, I really recommend contacting or going to an emergency center. Otherwise, you can dm us on our Twitter linked in the description; we're not professionals, but we can listen at least
Is it possible to have OSDD 1b or DID but do not know all their names like in my case, we used to switch a lot specially during overwhelming situation but I don’t know which one of them are in front, i just know we’re many, there’s also a male and he used to protect me a lot, there’s also someone who always rescued me in my academics like everytime he or she take over I really excelled in class😶
wait, what? long hair is always the superior choice because you can just tie it up and forget that your hair exists, then when someone else comes to the front, they can just untie the hair and have long hair.
I have an alter who, as far as I know, would like to front for longer periods of time but a gatekeeper just see that and go like "what? who's in the front? no no no no no no"
This video really highlights that systems can have different experiences, and that is a thing that causes Calon a lot of grief and anxiety (with questions like 'We haven't had any switches today does that mean we're not real?' and other such doubts), so this video will be really helpful for us to reaffirm ourselves, thank you for that - Frey, Locke System
🦄 I'm glad!! That's honestly one of the reasons we started this channel! We didn't find anyone with experiences quite like our own, so it's nice that we could pay it forward in that way :)
I’m a newly diagnosed DID system and I have yet to really communicate with anyone but I know through my journaling and art therapy that I have a non human alter (or maybe fragment) who is a sentient floating TV with arms that always plays static it their screen. I don’t know any other systems IRL and trying to explain stuff like this to my friends is really hard. Thank you for this video, it’s helped me accept that it doesn’t matter that my DID looks different from systems I follow online.
Your brain sets the rules. Open a suggestive (this is what we want) policy of no secrets, but allow them to come out on their own time. As you let them in you will have to take on their pain too, but can be worth it. Don't make it happen, or YOUR imagination will get in the way. Do not block it out, because they use your imagination to speak sometimes. Just let it happen and it will. Your brain will process information. You don't have to force it. That's probably part of what got you into this situation, depending on your trauma... you know, being forced or trapped. I know the feeling. ;)
im super use to hearing people call bad days as being switching a ton and good days as less switches so to hear it flipped is kind of nice ? in a way
🦄 I think it all depends on context. Tbh switching doesn't have a bad connotation for us, but blending often does, especially the blending of more than two people. An old therapist was really surprised that we're the least functional when we're the closest together
The Alexandrite System Blending is the worst and very dysfunctional.
blending for us is not any dysfunctional but is very, very confusing and uncomfortable.
i'm used to that too! it was interesting to hear that flipped. for us, if there are lots of distinct switches meaning it's fully one alter fronting and not just co-cons changing (3 or more) it's probably not a good day/something is affecting us negatively. however, not switching at all for a whole day can also be bad. so it's interesting to see what switching can mean for different systems
I'm currently working on getting a diagnosis, I only discovered my osdd-1b system a couple of months ago. our experience with the points in the vid:
our switches are very infrequent. sometimes we switch several times a day, but more often it's just me, with Dam being co-conscious or at least nearby. I think it's because I'm still discovering them and I'd get overwhelmed if I suddenly started consciously switching every day.
I also feel like not switching when I'm dealing with personal things in my life is either a deliberate decision on their part, or it's that my stress levels just don't let them out. not sure yet. either way fronting for weeks on end is extremely exhausting.
I don't know everyone yet, but our body is female, I'm confused as far as gender goes and my secondary host (or at least the one alter who is the most active besides me and is also out to me) is male. but he's also the only male alter I know of so. interesting stuff there. no non human alters as far as I know, but MAYBE we have an alien?
as far as decision making goes, we don't have a system for that, but I do seek opinions and advice from others when I'm deciding something important. sometimes they tell me what they think even if I don't ask, especially if they don't agree. I'm not so stubborn to not listen to them when everyone is universally against my choices.
eh this is long, but wanted to share my experience. I'm thinking about making a youtube channel as well after we get diagnosed and document our system journey. :>
thanks for this video and I wish you a wonderful day!!!! ^-^
-mari
We actually switch a lot like that, it's nice to know we're not alone.
I relate so much to this! So glad we're not alone like this! It would be awesome if you started a channel bc the similarities :)
Alexandrite system, Have you considered an undercut? It would be easily hidden in a workplace setting and also when claudia fronts they can put thier hair up and feel a bit less bogged down by hair!! ^.^
Funny enough, Claudia actually gave us an undercut last month!
vm.tiktok.com/31JpgX/
Niiiiceeee!!!
I know I'm a bit late to comment, but writing this as a trauma holder of a DID system, I've really struggled with being able to trust my reality or my experiences and I sometimes have a hard time trusting my host. Your videos bring a lot of comfort to me and decrease my fear of distrust. I just wanted to voice how much it means to me.
"Cats are beautiful people"
-starts having flashbacks of the horrifying movie "Cats"-
This helps. I’m still pretty newly aware of my system, and our collective experience is so different from most of the systems we’ve interacted with, and I as host keep getting caught out by feelings that I’m a fake because we’re not like so and so. Slowly realising how wildly different even the few systems I know as friends are is helping
I cannot tell you that you 100% have DID, but you should bear in mind that feelings of being fake are one of the symptoms that the majority of systems experiences.
I know that this video was made a while ago but I'm trying to do more research on my situation (with having OSDD 1b) and this really did help with any doubt that me and the system had, especially with the fronting situation.
- Jay, Blues Clues System
Hello Alexandrites! Fantastic to meet you, I'm Mona from the Phoenix System :) Your collab video on Rings' channel brought me here.
Hearing your experience is very comforting because we hadn't heard of a system with similar switch times and mechanics as us. We're OSDD-1b too (possibly polyfragmented DID) and as we're undiagnosed, it's especially difficult to get past the "No I must be faking, this can't be real" thoughts. Hearing how similar your experience is really helps, so thank you so much! 😁 Liked and subbed, we will be watching 😊
Mona
The Phoenix System
🖤 💛 🧡 ❤️ 💜 ❤️ 🧡 💛 🖤
I just discovered an alter for the first time and it honestly terrifies me but I think lacy is just now becoming aware of himself and his identity. As we discover more about ourselves I am glad to say that this video was very helpful to me and I hope for lacy as well. Thank you.
🦄 I'm glad we could help! I suspect a lot of systems are going to be finding people over the next little while so I'm glad we can help in some way :)
Hearing about another system who can't really have non-hosts front for more than a few hours or so is actually really comforting?
We actually dismissed the prospect of systemhood for a long time because for a long time we only had Dark and Moon, and Moon doesn't enjoy fronting and can't ever really front for more than a half-hour, so we didn't know we could. And even now, we don't really have anyone who can front alone for more than a few hours.
Two of my favorite system youtubers collabing! Yaaaaay!! So happy to see this. ❤ Have a wonderful day, both of yall!
Ooh our decision making process is somewhere between your two kinds! The frequent fronters (myself and dandy) make the majority of decisions day to day about style, personal wants and needs etc. but it’s understood that mal has the clearest vision of what we need in the long term and what is best for our healing. We don’t always do what she asks of us, and sometimes we literally can’t, but it’s understood that there is always someone you can turn to who will know what’s best in any given situation
1:26 - Silver, we're not all humans but we're all people.
human is a race
person is any creature who can attribute subjective meanings to things, have complex thoughts and has the ability to live normally in society.
very important distinction
Agree!
We agree
Good video! My response to the video:
We have multiple non-human alters, one devil, 2 objects, 1 wolf, 1 dog and two robots
we have a few males but like 1/5 of our system members are male
we switch EXTREMELY infrequently but have goodish communication. we only switch like once a week or two and then sometimes we switch like 5 times a day
everyone else only switches out for a few hours but its mostly me, the host.
no one besides me wakes up in the body
I control switches a lot, i usually make the body not switch for a while because switching gives me anxiety. its why i think i may also be a gatekeeper idk though. one other alter we know of can control switches but we dont switch enough to test with everyone else
Ain't dating or married at the moment
We dont talk much so dont really have any disputes (I only can only hear one alter at a time which makes communication hard)
I still block them out of our/my life!
I have executive control but I get input from everyone else if we need to. Like on getting the body testosterone, everyone was ok with it except one and we decided it was best so i could keep hosting. me and the protectors are pretty equal but Im usually the one actually doing the decision
I probably missed things to respond to because i got distracted (I never just do one thing for 5 minutes, never 20 minutes)
I love the normal-ness of the way to you talk to the viewers, its as if we are having a conversation! which is great because we dont have many system friends (rings system we count you as one of our two system friends!)
A Unicorn ❤️❤️😊
We're another system with a combined host and gatekeeper!
maybe a shell, and not a gatekeeper. I think you'd know if you were a gatekeeper. I'm sure it depends on the system, but gatekeepers normally know a lot about everything in the system and can talk easily to everyone, which is crucial for them to perform the gatekeeping job.
A Shell is a host who has the job of preventing the outside world from finding out about the system, the shell usually don't know that he/she is a shell but the rest of the system need permition from the shell to front when the shell is nervous about it.
I'm the opposite as silver, I'm the host, and I stay in the front for almost the entire day, but I never wake up in control of the body. Like, ever. And that's good, I think, because I have a lot of anxiety and I tend to push the body into doing more stressful things no matter how tired we are, so everytime we wake up, there is like two hours in average of someone refusing to get up no matter how much I try to move the body like "oh, my god, we have to do X, Y and Z or else we're gonna lose A, B and C" and everybody is like "dude, chill"
That's interesting!
You make us so happy. My name’s Rhea and I don’t front much but Leila likes to watch you. I was triggered by a background video talking about alters who are POC. I am black and the body is mix race. We love y’all! 💜
The last week's has been so eye opening for us. I could write an essay about everything we've discovered but I'm just gonna say, thank you SO much for sharing, you're helping a lot of people! ♡
How does one let themselves actually switch because I seem to be unable to. They get really close and they can influence me but I am almost always fronting. I sense others are near and they can speak through me at times and be co-conscious but I don't know how to let someone else take over and fully step back myself. This is all super knew to me and I'm just coming to terms with it. I'm still trying to figure out how to communicate and such while also coming to terms with the fact that this might actually be real for me.
hi im leo im a lion alter in the 08 system. RAWRRRRRR. Yall are great. sending love❤️❤️
We really love this video, it helped us honestly!!! We also have OSDD-1b and it's sorta odd with us. We only found out a couple of weeks ago so it's like "ahhh blah blah!!!" We have done a headcount and we only have 6. Jax, the host, always fronts. We believe it's called 'Base'. We formed due to personal reasons, but we all wanna live a life. For example, Leo, loves knitting loom bracelets. But Chole wants to always do color guard. We all have conflicting ideals, but we still try and live the life. We again love this video, and gave us some good advice. Tnank yoy!!!
I feel so much better knowing we're not the only system that doesnt switch very often and I can go a week sometimes on my own as the host. I've only met systems who switch often before the rings system :) its also nice seeing another system where the host(s) are trans with male alters. Me and my co-host are male (ftm) but we have female alters and we decided to transition since the most frequent frontiers are also male
I just woke up after 26 years, and I have no memory, because I am apparently an EP. No one was more surprised than I.
I've been married for 17 years and my husband has no clue. He met my alters for sure, and had some weird conversations with them but he probably just thinks that I was in the mood that day.
i'm one of a frequent fronter too and i have a thing for being the one to wake up first mostly and it was contributing so much of me feeling my system was fake or making them up. seeing another system with a similar, although not exactly the same, experience felt a bit reassuring.
I really wish I had the control or awareness to be-able to time how long they stay in front ,it’s pure rapid switching co -conscious chaos here,I’m just becoming aware more aware of us and being able to catch them before they “fade back “😅 and know it was a switch : before I thought it was all me with voices and that I was just dumb or spacey and accepted multiple personalities as me (because it still is in a way😮💨)cause every one said they had them just not to this extent 😹so hard to articulate but your helping me do it 💞thank you guys so much I’m learning so much about us.
I do dnd and my protector alter came out during a new campaign cause I personally am terrified of doing exclusively roleplaying and he was like “you know what I like the sound of this campaign I wanna play” and he played the way our actually friend who has DID his protector DMs and liked how mine was playing. My protector is a party boy but REALLY blunt
My protector would cause all of the characters in the game to develop ptsd feedback loops, flip the table, and then talk about nonsensicals.
Since coming to terms with not being alone in my head I've felt better and validated but theres times I worry that I'm just going insane. Do others deal with this and do others have access to the inner world as in they can go inside or am I the only one who can just glimpse and see what everyone else is up to but not go in
Self doubt is something a lot of systems struggle with, and different systems and even different people within those systems will have different access to the inner world or parts thereof.
We actually cover both of these sorts of topics in our videos about Quiet Days, and All About Our Inner World!
I have only been inside once and it’s an area I haven’t been able to even glimpse into for over three years now. I can only see glimpses of the inner spaces and I can not navigate it very well.
@@angeriettv its really neat what all our brains are capable of and can do. We are fortunate we are able to communicate internally and see each other inside.
Do not let this become a feedback loop. Let it go. If you are worried about "crazy" then you are probably not. You may be suffering from derealization. It kinda goes with the dissociation sometimes.
"Deal with this"? It lead to a PTSD feedback loop until I almost starved. One of my alters was created by the question "am I crazy"? He's a pretty zany guy. Lol. ...and scary... because he is the personification of my impression of PTSD itself. He is 36 years old, from my first split. I just noticed him. He's been growing this whole time. Persecutor protector, he would throw his PTSD reverse logic at my "enemies" and screw up their heads.
He has a unique perspective on the issue.
It's all in your head.
Where else would it be?
"Good for you, doesn't change a thing."
-Tyler Durden
"Am I crazy?" is a question that can make you feel crazy. It creates feedback loop of thought. Let it go and just listen.
Listen to yourself.
We have non human alters. One of which is a Dragon! another is just "darkness" we have a dark angel, but can't get her to talk, We have an 'abstract" named just Sabotage. Nice to hear your diffrences. Great analogy about the recipe for brownies.
Our switching varies a lot. Sometimes we have times when we switch a few times a day and have a switch basically every day for weeks, sometimes we go months with just very occassional co-fronting and passive influence but no switches.
Our ex with DID basically only switched in extremely stressful situations, with a single alter fronting for months or even a few years if her life was good. So she ended up with very long periods of amnesia and there was no host or communication in the system.
OMG I am so glad you stated that onBAD days you don’t switch as much, I feel like mental health figures will automatically assume that if you switch less you’re actually doing better NOOO that’s the worst I really feel the most integrated in my experience when the fronting “weight” is spread out elastically and flexibly like a nice cohesive dough of yummy grain and seed bread lol, I also have less dissociative dissonance when my consciousness is “working properly” (less harsh switching more slow, pressure less uninterrupted nice switching)
We literally just figured out we are a system like 2 weeks ago at 29. It has been quite the ride and I am still figuring things out.
I also have a cat too she is modeled after (not sure if that would be the way to state it) my childhood cat. I also have a flower fairy and potentially a robot?
I am the host and I seem to always be co-conscious. This is super different than my sibling's system. Maybe it's a control thing. Not sure.
The first 2 days we were rapidly switching but we switch all the time. Sometimes I will think about someone else think their name and they switch to front. We all have different handwriting and I will often be filing out paperwork at work and there will be like 4 different handwriting.
One of the most frequent fronters is super into fashion and will come out at any point to stop a different alter from choosing clothing she doesn't approve of. She only trusts a few others to make those decisions haha
My host fronted for 26 years.
He's absolutely exhausted. He only sends me images of run-down exhausted horses.
Whoa. That was a weird day.
Great videos! (On both sides), I’d love to see more of these chat style collars with you two!
9:33 - with us, it's already a thing we're used to doing, whenever someone that knows one of us come to talk to us, we'll normally switch to that person in order to talk to them, this prevents outsiders from finding out about the disorder and from pressuring us to be and behave like the person they know. It doesn't always work, the situation around us is much more important in controling our switches, so if we always meet a friend in a specific place or situation, which is normally the case, we'll most definitely switch to this person's friend and stay like that easily. If we're in a different environment that knows another one of us and an alien friend (a friend from another friend group, from outside that environment) comes to us, we'll probably stay with the fronting person of that environment.
It's very convenient because it's very similar to what singlets do, like, nobody is exactly the same in different situations and environments, so nobody ever suspected a thing.
That's good control!
It's not that voluntary actually. I don't know if one of our gatekeepers do it or if it's a thing the brain do on its own, but it happens and we can't really prevent it from happening. We recently tried to switch in therapy but the brain already associated me to that environment so we couldn't do it. This was very important in our lifes because everytime an outside person saw more than one of us, problems arised.
To the Alexandria system, have you guys considered an undercut hairstyle. The top layer of your hair can stay long while the underlayer is short/buzzed. Also, I find the texture of buzzed hair to be very pleasant to touch. :)
Haha we actually shaved half our head like 2 or 3 years after this
@@WeAreAlexandra I'm glad you guys found a better compromise!
We have two of us who have woken up in the body, me and a teen alter who awkwardly uses the same name. We only split few months ago tho, for years I felt like a 14 year old and it just got too difficult to deal with college and adulthood with a teen host.
I've always just been on the outside my whole life singled out because of my difference.. it's so hard to be able to express or reach out and so hard to explain what the hell is going on in my head... No one has ever understood what I've tried explaining. And here I am wondering what in the actual fuck. Just stumbled on gold yo. Thank you for your videos. What a beautiful experience I have learning about myself from you. Never in such a way in words have I felt 'understood?'
Thank you
still a relatively new system as we just discovered this back in 2021 (it's now march 2022), but when you guys talked about how you make decisions and your life and stuff i thought it was interesting how it worked for you guys. ours is similar to the alexandrite system in that whoever fronts the most say in decisions but it's also kinda similar to the rings system in that one vote will kinda veto others if necessary. for example, me (the host) and daniel (primary protector) both front the most often. we would get more say in certain things, while leo (social protector) would get more say in things that affect us socially as they front the most around friends and stuff. all three of us would get more vote than say, sadie, who fronts relatively rarely. daniel and amanda (secondary protector) would be sort of the veto vote if, for example, i or another alter was doing something potentially destructive to the body or we had a friend that needed to be cut out. also, im nonbinary (masc presenting) and when it comes to what clothes we wear or how our hair is done, i get the ultimate say as dysphoria is a big problem for me. for katie, though, who identifies as a cis woman, she wouldn't get as much of a say seeing as A) she fronts less and B) she's not affected by dysphoria. so for us it's really just kind of situational and depends on what affects who more and who has the better judgement about things.
I don’t mean this in any sort of critical or judgmental way, but as a cis male front who has female alters, I’m pretty confused by the concept of a trans woman “host” or alter having sis female alters. How is being a sis female alter with a trans female body/host different from a being a trans female alter with a trans female body/host?
I absolutely love this video, because it makes me ( and I hope other systems to) feels so valid.
As for me, (sorry my bad English, pls):
We have non-human alters: the diabolical-sarcastic spirit and robot (which is gatekeeper)
I'm identifies as female, but all my alters, exept me(host) and one girl, is male/non-binary.
I can't control switches, but with triggers can bring someone closer to front (it doesn't always work...)
We switches in stress-free days from 2 to 5 times
OMG I'm so happy I'm not alone :') I'm not the host but I still always wake up in the body
My name is young Colleen. We love you so much. We like Rings too,yay.
❤️
Hi, sorry if this comes off as attention seeking but we're a young system starting out with our youtube channel, we found your channel and the Ring Systems channel and it's been so helpful to see this content, especially as an OSDD-1b system when OSDD-1 is hardly talked about. We're hoping to make some content related to system stuff, today I actually plan on making a video about Switching hosts, so maybe by the time you read this it will be out! Lou is also planning a video about Factives and misconceptions related to them. We saw your introductory videos for alters and decided to do our own version of those! Sorry if that makes u guys uncomfy or something. Anyways I thought it would just be nice to talk about how much we appreciate your channel and maybe promote ours as well!
This was so very helpful. Thank you.
Thank you for this video! 😊
I was surprised to hear that you switch *less* on bad days. We mostly switch from distress
i was gonna say that too!! on bad days we switch more than on good days :) on a good day we might switch once or twice or not at all and on bad days can switch upwards of 10 times. however not switching for multiple days or weeks would be considered bad for us.
I can't imagine having one person as the only/primary fronter for a whole day. We switch... uh... frequently enough that simplyplural really doesn't work for us
This is so validating :)
this video made us feel so much more normal
this is very validating :]
I just woke up after 26 years, with no memory of that time period. I am an old EP. I have a question regarding potentiality and classification of DID/OSDD.
I'm super new to discover alters and I'm super confused to it. Is there a safe way and place to discuss that (apart from psychiatrist) how to navigate this. We would appreciate some help on that.
wait…can different alters have like…different disorders? bc if so that might be the case for one of my headmates but i have no idea. i recently found out that i MIGHT have osdd but i honestly don’t know. i done a ton of research but i feel bad/weird for self diagnosing so i’m hoping to see a therapist soon
sorry this is super super late but if you still have this question or for anyone else coming here in the future who does it highly depends on the disorder. for the most part, yes! although, with certain things like autism it's more so that they hold symptoms of that disorder that you all have or that you don't and they just kind of have some of those traits. it's kind of complicated.
Rings system, I relate to the talking to all the alters before a decision is made way too much. It makes me think mine is osdd1b not 1a.
OSDD-1a has alters very similar to each other and strong amnesia between them, as far as I know, while OSDD-1b has very different alters from one another but no considerable physical amnesia. So I guess it's not that easy to get confused between them. Unless you have OSDD-1, which is both, similar alters and no physical amnesia.
"In person system friends" We don't even have ANY in person friends
mood
Thank you so much, Alexandrite system and Rings system for this amazing video. I am learning so much. I have a question: why is it considered a “good day” when more system members are able to front? And why is it a “bad day”, when perhaps only one system member is able to front? I’m asking because I can kind of now relate to how that feels- but I’ve always considered it a “better day” when I was able to conceal all of my parts and only allow “one” to front #newsystemproblems
For us personally it means that there's more cooperation and communication in the system. Also our brain isn't really designed to do long periods without switching after nearly 30 years of doing this, so it can be a strain on us!
I think everyone has a different definition of good and bad days, and good days for us are when we are grounded enough to be separate, and communicative and cooperative enough to share time among us
blocking everybody and monopolising the front is not nice or good, trust me, I did that for so long, very damaging, at least for us. It's good to see everyone having their time and being themselves, so now I wish they fronted more.
Anyway, when watching the video, I thought 「good day / bad day」 was refering to the day itself being stressful or nice, and then, as a consequence of the good/bad day, the switches would get frequent/unfrequent. Like, "we had a bad day, so we switched a lot to deal with that" or "we had a good day, so we switched a lot because we were comfortable" or something similar.
Good video
I haven't seen any activity from the Rings system, has anyone heard from them?
Yeah! They're fine, they're just not doing RUclips for a while. They're doing in person activism and research and finishing school! They talked about it towards the end of our recent stream where we cut their hair
I have been doubting very heavily but I have did then Lesa comes up call conscious and basically says no we are real and we are here but one thing is none of them actually come fully to the front and take over they always can come coconsciousness but nothing more than that and they don’t want to on top of that they also don’t want to come forward to talk with my therapist our therapist but and I have two new alters today one is 7-Up nine from Star Trek Voyager and the other one is 11 from stranger things but I don’t know what they look like yet and they don’t want to show themselves to me yet but I also lost the Ed altar as well I think he split into those two but I’m not sure where he is because I don’t feel him and yeah I constantly am second-guessing about MI having do I have dissociative identity disorder or am I faking but yet Lisa lets me know otherwise you’re not coming home conscious lately because of me still having COVID-19 symptoms but I do come close enough to say hi or something but they don’t come total Coke conscious which doesn’t make sense to me end it is getting very lonely and isolating because no one can come over and I don’t get any calls from staff we have or the staff supervisor I always have to send messages to her letting her know of my status from my doctor and I do have weekly short calls with my therapist to check on me and then when I do have our long sessions then we go through different things and I tell him about my alters and she would like to find out more from them about the tremors but they do now supposed to say traumas and it’s actually getting on my nerves and I just wish I could get my alters to actually address and deal with the traumas that they have and I would love it if one or a couple of them will take turns being conscious and completely front to actually talk with my therapist directly but this is getting to be very stressful because I have been having self harm thoughts and I’ve also been thinking about suicide I hope I didn’t trigger anybody with those two and my system has finally realize that they’re all a part of a system and they kind of have been talking with one another when I had my very dangerous alter show up and now they have all moved in together temporarily until he is gone and they’re still staying all together in one house and they are not coming out until they know absolutely for sure that he is gone because he threatened all of my alters and he threaten me down that’s pretty much it but seven ofnine and 11 are both sitting back somewhere and they won’t let me see what they look like yet how can I solve a lot of these situations help me please anyone
Hey I'm gonna be completely honest, I don't fully understand this comment, it looks like you probably used voice to text and it jumbled some things. If you feel you're a danger to yourself or others, I really recommend contacting or going to an emergency center. Otherwise, you can dm us on our Twitter linked in the description; we're not professionals, but we can listen at least
Is it possible to have OSDD 1b or DID but do not know all their names like in my case, we used to switch a lot specially during overwhelming situation but I don’t know which one of them are in front, i just know we’re many, there’s also a male and he used to protect me a lot, there’s also someone who always rescued me in my academics like everytime he or she take over I really excelled in class😶
Oh yeah totally! Most of us didn't even have names until we picked them!
We have kittycats.i like when they say,cats are people. Cause they are.🐱
I agree :)
wait, what? long hair is always the superior choice because you can just tie it up and forget that your hair exists, then when someone else comes to the front, they can just untie the hair and have long hair.
I have an alter who, as far as I know, would like to front for longer periods of time but a gatekeeper just see that and go like "what? who's in the front? no no no no no no"
Oof :/
I know a system a bit like the ring system. but they are able to combine to a singlat. and split.
Does Rings know Audrey. 🐢
They do!
HELP YOU LOOK LIKE MY COUSIN