A warning. This blog post contains talks about splitting…at least about the topic in general as it relates to our system. I know that can be a very difficult and hard subject for people to interact with, so please, please, PLEASE do not read this post if you are not in the headspace to do so.
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So, perhaps our system is a bit late to this…but we watched the pilot for The Amazing Digital Circus today (in between a whole bunch of random but important tasks…such as working on holiday presents, fixing the handle on our oven, getting a new lightbulb for over our stove…and several other things which I personally wasn’t in or around front for).
It made us think about something we’ve had in our system for as long as we can remember…and look at it from another angle.
A recurrent topic of conversation between us and our partner-system is how abstract our system’s EVERYTHING is. Our thought processes, our symbology, a large portion of our alters (and that’s not even calculating in all of our fragments), large swaths of our innerworld.
To be perfectly honest, we ended up kinda latching onto it as a really cool/exciting sort of power. To be able to see something in such a multi-faceted way allows us to survive day to day, hour after hour. This isn’t always a good thing, as we often find ourselves giving excuses even to our abusers. But I’d like to think that we’ve been focusing on the more positive side of it…I know we find it helps us be more empathetic, as we have no idea what someone else may be going through unless they share it. So even if we’re stressed, someone else might be going through their worst day ever.
And since we’re a system, we are well versed in just how terrible someone’s worst day ever might be.
HOWEVER
This single pilot episode made us realize exactly WHY we have been so abstract for so long.
It talks and shows a character who “abstracts”. They have reached their breaking point. They have given up. They have split/splintered/shattered/exploded, and no longer look or act as they once did.
Or at least…it very closely resembled and felt like how our alters have been whenever they have split apart.
The term splitting has always brought the image of an amoeba splitting and duplicating into the forefront of our brain.
Shattering or splintering brings a much more violent, emotional, and destructive image to us. It also makes us think of something that has ended up in a LOT more pieces.
Being as polyfragmented (if that’s even the correct term) as we are, when we’ve split, it has definitely fallen into the latter category for us.
I don’t remember if the one character in the show who is said to be able to “fix/help” this abstracting character was indeed able or attempted to. As a single, pilot, episode, I’m not going surprised if it was left out. (Though, our amnesia is bad enough that I’m also genuinely not going to be surprised if I forgot something like that)
What was most important is just…how it made our system react.
People from all over innerworld focused in on this.
Many people started crying.
What we have been clinging onto with the positives as some sort of crazy empathy power…is (at least partly) a representation of how we have repeatedly been splitting/splintering apart for at least 26 of our almost 28 years on this planet, stopping only very recently, when our system was finally able to distance ourselves a bit from one of our main abusers.
This abuser used to have 1+/week access to us, with no-one around who cared to stop them. They have been their since our trauma memories begin. They have suspected, if not known, that we’ve had D.I.D. for a lot longer than we ourselves have fully been aware. They might not have had the term, but they knew we would forget.
After all, why would one of our most frequent and horrific abusers be someone we not could but WOULD talk about so positively and be so happy to see? (Unless of course, they came to the conclusion that we not only were okay with what they were doing to us, but actually ENJOYING it? I don’t want to think about that one, especially as we were a child for most of that time…but, with some of the things we’ve been remembering about this particular person, I also wouldn’t be completely surprised.)
But enough about that.
The fact is that, up to a few months ago, we were splintering nearly every week.
We haven’t ever had a chance to group any amount of pieces together.
We have so many fluid, pixelated, shadowy, ethereal alters…and we never once considered that this could be because that we have simply…not had a chance for them to become more cohesive.
So THAT’S a fun thing to think about.
I know I have more to talk about on this matter, but our partner-system is home, and I can tell we’re switching about, so I’ll leave it here for now…
Blahhhh
I am incredibly intrigued by this pilot now!