Really What You’re Doing Is Making RA Systems Who Aren’t Polyfrag Less Able To Access Your Community

does RAMCOA always involve sexual abuse by default? We relate to some experiences of RAMCOA survivors but we don't feel sexual abuse was exactly the main focus of the abuse, in fact the sexual abuse we experienced was actually completely unrelated as far as we're away. feel free not to answer if you're not comfortable, we just can't seem to find a clear answer to this question anywhere.

100% No. CSA and SA are often a part of RAMCOA- a lot of people do experience it if they experience RAMCOA- however not a single one of the 3 types of abuse that it covers requires CSA/SA. We had this confusion ourselves for a while at first because we had no memory of CSA whatsoever- sadly we learned we were wrong on that front but even before we had learned we still were a RAMCOA survivor even without it. Hope this helps.

~Just Complex Childhood Trauma Things~

Medical appointments are a trigger

Deep shame from your parents being ashamed

Hypersexuality

Startle reflex to the max

Random kinda happy things make you doubt it happened

Other adults knew something was wrong but ignored it

Matching Sibling Symptoms

Looking back as an adult like “Wow that’s fucked up”

Big inner life makes up for the old one

Hospitals instead of school

Chronic mystery pain

Child to Suicidal in record time

Addiction at a really young age

Hatting the thing ur addicted to because your parent was too

Yelling makes you freeze

Hating when you see yourself doing the thing ur parent did, even if it’s just being loud or using the same phrase

Feeling like you deserve

Feeling guilty for being such a fuck-up

Being “so mature” the whole time growing up

We’re the ‘weird kid’, ‘class clown’ and /or ‘burnout’

Had inappropriate relationships online

Self-harm of some kind

All those mental illness labels

Nowhere feels safe

Not really feeling like a human person

Dissociating the day away

No identity 

Hiding the crying 

Why am I like this? (its the trauma)

Where did the years go?

Having imaginary friends 

Rich fantasy life

Body dysmorphia 

Hate school & hate home 

probably had a shitty first partner

hi,i was wondering if you have any tips on figuring out wether i might have alters/more distinct parts/a system or ”only” experience dissociation + memory issues + unstable and changing identity/sense of self (i dont mean that those are lesser problems or less severe, idk a better way to word this sorry) i know a therapist would be ideal but im unavailable to get one, at least for a few years.

Hey anon,

I'm sorry you had to wait a bit for me to answer, I really hope you'll still find this post! 😊

Though honestly I don't really have a clear cut answer. I think you can only find out by experiencing - and honestly I wish I'd done more experiencing myself, rather than trying to figure everything out by reading any and all literature I could get my hands on.

Regardless of what the right diagnosis/explanation for your symptoms would be (and I'm assuming it's psychological - but please always get memory issues checked out with a doctor if possible), the workbook by Janina Fisher could perhaps help a bit (it's called 'Transforming the living legacy of trauma').

I'd suggest trying some tools for what you're experiencing, and that's really a hit and miss. By which I mean, you'll probably try a lot of things and some of them will work and some of them will not, and some may not work now but when you try them again a year down the line, they may be useful then.

Some things that you could try to see for yourself if it helps a bit:

Practice grounding exercises (and there's LOADS of these, google can offer a lot), and for instance the emotion wheel (google has images) can help familiarize people with what feelings they are experiencing

Keep a diary/planner, something to keep track of your days. This can be as detailed or not as you want. Personally I'm really attached to my paper planner in which I just note down all my activities (I also add in spontaneous plans afterwards so later I can look back and remember what I did on which day). Other options are online agendas (like google for instance), apps like daylio, etc.

Writing. More like a diary. Stream of thoughts. What do your different sides of self have to say? Regardless of how "defined" your sides/parts are and what "label" would fit them, it doesn't do any harm to just write. Many mentally completely healthy people use language like "well partially I felt X, but partially I felt Y!" and stuff like that, you're not gonna do yourself any harm by approaching different sides of yourself that you experience with curiosity.

Try 'practical' things for any other things you struggle with. Usually this boils down to working towards a healthy sleep hygiene, creating a nice/safe space for yourself in your (bed)room/house if you can, finding things you enjoy doing (hobbies etc.), basic self care (hygiene, food, moving your body a bit if you can etc.)

Depending on the situation you're in currently (e.g. whether you still live with parents/carers or whether you have your own space, whether trauma is ongoing or not etc.), not all of these things may be possible for you and that's okay too.

Honestly, anything you can do to work towards general taking care of yourself is great. Also, if you can, write down what you experience. Write down how you experience dissociation and the other things you mentioned without diving into "but what diagnosis is this!!" (though yes I am fully aware how hard it is).

Despite what tumblr and other social media may show you, it's extremely common and normal for people with complex trauma disorders (such as CPTSD, DID, OSDD, etc.) to not become more aware until they're in a safe space, which often correlates with adulthood. And also despite what tumblr and other social media may say, it's totally fine to explore "parts of self" without knowing whether you have DID/OSDD or not. Honestly many different kinds of therapy are aimed at teaching people how to listen to all of themselves. It's just that for people with DID/OSDD/CPTSD, there is more dissociation between these parts.

Okay long story short, there's not really a lot you can do but at the same time it's a LOT you can do. You can read things (though this can be triggering and destabilizing), you can practice general mental health self care, you can work on some skills such as grounding. And I think maybe these things sound small, but actually they're massive and working on these things can be really difficult already. And working on these things can also cause a LOT of improvement already!

For now I'd suggest trying to approach your experiences as "parts [of me]" and just adjust along the way based on what you experience. It's okay to be wrong, it's okay to self-diagnose, it's okay to not have access to therapy (though I wish I could everyone that wants it a good, reliable, safe therapist), it's okay to not know what you are experiencing. And regardless of what you're experiencing, you can take tips/tricks from different places. I don't have DID, but a lot of tips/tricks for people with DID help me too. Some don't, but that's okay too. And regardless of what you're experiencing, you're not alone and things can get better.

Good luck anon, and feel free to send me another ask if you have more questions! <3

PS - just to be clear here, everything I just wrote is based on my own experiences. I am not a therapist, I am not a mental health professional, and what I say is not "the only truth" or whatever. I'm pretty sure I forgot a bunch of useful things, and it's also okay if people don't like this reply or don't relate to it or don't agree with it. Just wanted to add that, sorry 🙈

i’ve been told by a lot of people that robot alters who do what they’re told are from programming only. this is really scary to me because i did not experience that despite having an alter like that. i think if i had heard this as a younger system it would have made me very scared and convinced me of things that didn’t happen. can you share your thoughts on this?

Hi,

Blaming any presentation of DID or alters strictly on programming is a horrible idea. You're right that these kinds of claims are a major risk for false memories of ritual abuse, especially for young, newly diagnosed systems who are struggling immensely, still coming to terms with their symptoms and abuse history, and might be overly quick to take anything that older and seemingly authoritative systems claim at face value. I've heard of these types of claims going around for polyfragmentation, subsystems, internal worlds, and non-human alters. None of them are true. 

There are many reasons that someone could have a robot alter that does what it's told. It could be a metaphor for feeling like one's parents treated them like a robot instead of a child. It could have arisen from feeling like one's parents would have loved them more or punished them less if they were an obedient robot instead of a disobedient child. It could have been influenced by media that struck a cord regarding how robots were shown being treated or viewed by society. There's no reason whatsoever to assume robot parts or any other type of part automatically indicates any organized abuse, let alone programming.

There is no single or even combination of factors that can definitively indicate that someone experienced ritual abuse, programming, or any other type of trauma. Only actual memories (preferably continuous or spontaneously recovered, not recovered through hypnotherapy, creative writing, dream interpretation, or other potentially suggestive processes) or external corroboration of abuse can be trusted. No one should ever retroactively make assumptions about one’s abuse experiences based on adult symptoms, and no one should ever deny or downplay adult symptoms because they don’t have any of the causes that the individual has come to expect. That isn’t how mental health or DID/OSDD-1 work. That is how the Satanic ritual abuse panic got so incredibly out of hand. 

I’m glad that you were able to recognize that your robot part doesn’t indicate programming, and I appreciate you alerting us of this and giving us the opportunity to debunk it. 

I hope this helps,

Katherine

What Doesn’t Kill You Can Make You Weaker

Hi. This is a whisper reaching out to those of us who didn't become warriors after trauma & ab*se.

So Content Warning for insinuated ab*se/trauma, & here's something for you.

((It's okay to reblog this but please don't add on to it in post (adding on in the tags is okay).))

~Lyle & Nico

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“What Doesn’t Kill You Can Make You Weaker”

---

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”

“What doesn’t kill you makes a fighter”

Survivor (Destiny’s Child), Fighter (Christina Aguilera), Warrior (Demi Lovato), Stronger (Kelly Clarkson), plenty of songs about someone who says their trauma made them stronger, a warrior, a fighter, a survivor play on our radios, in our stores, in our lives.

And while that’s admirable, it’s not the only option.

What doesn’t kill you can make you weaker.

Or, to be more accurate, what didn’t kill you makes you feel weaker and changes how you act.

Because what doesn’t kill you doesn’t MAKE you a fighter. YOU make you a fighter.

But the thing is, ‘the same water that hardens the egg, softens the potato’ (/paraphrase of an ancient proverb). Just because you’re put under pressure doesn’t guarantee you’ll “get a thick skin”, become a warrior able to handle trauma, whatever.

Some of us melt. Some of us become softer. Some of us weaken.

Some of us become sensitive to the most miniscule insult, the slightest harsh tone, someone setting the groceries down a little too hard, someone talking a little too loud, someone moving just a little too fast.

And that doesn’t make us bad people, or stupid, or “too sensitive”. Some people aren’t meant to be hard warriors. Some of us are lovers, not fighters.

We exist. I exist.

So here’s to those who got softer, those who got more sensitive, those who became hypervigilant, those who made themselves smaller, the fawn and freeze and flight/avoid and normalize responses, those who feel like they should be stronger, those who are too afraid to raise their voice and become a “warrior”, those who can’t stand up to their abusers.

Here’s to those of us who didn’t become warriors, fighters, or stronger. You are valid. I see you, I hear you, I feel with you, I hurt with you, I believe you.

There is nothing wrong with you. You are not existing wrong. Our world celebrates the loud warriors, but you are just as important.

Survival is still rebellion, even if it’s silent rebellion.

Thisssssss

Debunking Sysmed Claims

Debunking Sysmed Claims

Picking apart sysmed takes and why they're wrong

Tried reading this shit. Absolutely made me nauseous. Sick to my stomach. This is all taken out of context. And also, in alterhuman communities, which I was part of, people claiming to have DID or DDNOS because of it were very frequently shunned. I would continue but I'm sure the reblogs will.

I need breakfast.

Warning for anyone triggered by endo rhetoric: this is nothing but that

hope this is okay to ask but how would a system who suspects RAMCOA figure out what their programming type is if they show signs of a few different kinds? alternatively; are different techniques sometimes programmed together?

(Warning ahead of time; I will not be censoring any words or topics here. Also, I talk a lot.)

I want to emphasize ahead of time: most cases of RAMCOA do not involve programming. RAMCOA exists on a wide spectrum, and programming is extreme conditioning, starting as a young child, that specifically creates dissociative barriers (thus, creating a system) which requires consistent access and organization. Most cases of RAMCOA do have some levels of conditioning, but well defined programs are considerably less common. You can be a RAMCOA survivor without programming (or, in our case, loosely defined and poorly executed programs that border on "normal" conditioning).

Anyways...

I've recommended this before, but track your symptoms. RAMCOA relies on patterns & consistency, but especially programming. Track emotions, internal system happenings, switches, and their triggers the best you can (whether using a digital medium like Notion or a physical journal). Being able to correlate specific dates & stimuli to symptoms will make a huge difference. Part of how we figured out we have some sort of proto-Delta (aggression, fearlessness, emotional detachment, etc.) programming is through noting how we reacted to wounds/blood, both ours and others'; how specific parts front or come closer to front during times of stress or fear; vague memories of forced perpetration being triggered by certain weapons, scents, or bodily positions; etc.

It is honestly way rarer to find a system with one kind of program in this context. This because nearly all have some sort of basic obedience training, often referred to as "alpha" programming. Another near-universal program is some sort of access program: basically, a way in for programmers to call alters to the front, modify & implant programs, etc. Other kinds of programs are stacked on top of this, relating to whatever the victim's "specialization" would be. For example, sex trafficking that utilized programming would result in a victim probably having some sort of transport program (often to fall asleep on command so they do not know the route or location), one or multiple of the many sexual related programs, an amnesia on command program, and typically, some sort of therapy & abreaction interference program. And that's just the bare bones.

Additionally, some victims may not have a singular specialization, possibly because they were some sort of experimental ground for new programs or new combinations of programs, their group was not very organized or changed focus mid-programming of the victim, or they were the child of higher-ups in the group and expected to perform more complex roles.

If by "technique", you mean different methods of implantation or organization, that is also somewhat par for the course. Some groups change goal or formation over time, others may on-board programmers with a different "style" (an organized crime syndicate utilizing a programmer with a military background, for example). I know that only some of our system is structured strictly & militaristically, because one of our abusers was in the military.

Also... Don't be afraid of being wrong. Sorting out what happened with RAMCOA is confusing on multiple levels—trauma & dissociation warps memories, abusers will lie and trick victims, what happened is often decade(s) old, etc. You are allowed to question, research, and, if you want to, join survivor's spaces. It will be a long journey, but you are not the first and, unfortunately, quite definitely not the last.

I hope your answers come quickly, painlessly, and clearly. - Aisling

Resources!!

There are many masterlists of resources for or about plurality, but we thought we'd make one about sites and posts that have been extremely helpful to us. Some resources are about overall plurality, some about headspaces, even some about alterhumans. This is a catch-all for helpful things and will always be in progress as we find more. If you would like us to add something, please tell us!

The Plurality Hub by the Heretic System

The Alterhuman Hub by the Heretic System

Alt + H: The Alterhuman Advocacy Group by Alt + H

The Chimeras Library by House of Chimeras (liongoatsnake)

Developing Internal Communication - Starting With The Basics by Kathy Broady MSW

All the Resources You'll Need to Build Your Own Wonderland, Headspace, or Inner World by Sophie in Wonderland

Power to the Plurals by The Plural Association Nonprofit

Here for the Plural Folk

Healthy Multiplicity by LB Lee and The Zyfron System

Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experiences by John Doe, Jacob J Isler

Endogenic Systems by Plural Culture

More Than One

Plurality Resource

New Alter Rundown by the Heretic System

Plural Terms by Cluster Brains in collaboration with The Trifecta Collective and the Polybius Network

Multiplicity Database Systemology

A Tulpamancy Resource Site

Quick'n'Dirty Plural History by LB Lee

System Internet Safety by Sunflower

Pluralpedia

Alternatives to "System" When Choosing A Collective Name by The Xenodelic Effect

Tips if You're Having Trouble Visualizing Your Inner World by the Orange Orchard System

Multiplicity and Plurality Wiki

List of Tulpa Guides by Vos

The Plurality Playbook by Lucia Batman and Irene Knapp

Plurality Resources by Rolal District

Endogenic Hub

The Plural Dictionary

System Sources by Cluster Brains

Resources for Faceclaims/Forms by Wild Tulip Field

DID Basics by Cleveland Clinic

Simply Plural Website (There is also an app version)

System Communication and Journaling by The Wonderland System

I am just going to say this outright and bare with me until the last paragraph. The idea that "the few people who are faking this disorder aren't actually hurting real people with DID or taking away resources" is demonstrably false. I check around sometimes for other people looking for dissociative specialists and ever since ~2019/8, if I call and ask a therapist if they have experience with DID their questions are "does this person spend a lot of time on social media" and "have they actually been diagnosed with DID before." I've met therapists who took their dissociation specialty off of their websites because they kept getting tons of calls from people who were seeking a diagnosis and they could not keep up.

This trend where large amounts of people are claiming to have RAMCOA and polyfragmentation within the past few years, which a significantly smaller number of specialists believe in and treat, IS going to detrimentally affect survivors even quicker and harder than general DID where there are a larger amount of people involved both professionally and not. I called this a few years ago that sometime in the future polyfragmentation would be commonly considered a "fake marker" (just as prior community trends turned into "fake markers" like introjects and kid parts) and that's already started.

We need to be able to talk about community issues like this from a practical perspective for people who need those resources, without it turning into a validation discussion or a discussion about malingering or pointless discourse. We need to step away from "shoulds"--yes it is true that practitioners should not let these things affect their overall care, but it does and simply saying it should not be that way doesn't fix anything. We need practical discussions that say "We are at this point. Now what?"