You can’t force yourself to forgive. Even setting aside whether you have to forgive (you don’t), you cannot force yourself to forgive. You will either forgive as a natural result of healing or not. And even if you do forgive, you don’t have to, and you probably shouldn’t, have a relationship with your abusers. You will only traumatize yourself more. You cannot force yourself to forgive.
alright, i’ve seen a lot of posts saying integration is “murder” or even censoring integration like int*gration or int/gr/tion. i’m very very sick of this anti-recovery narrative so i’m going to call it the fuck out. this is going to be something of a rantpost.
okay, here’s my background on this situation. i am currently the only alter in my system, i.e. i’ve achieved integration or “final” fusion. i put “final” in quotes because i believe it’s possible that i could split again under extreme stress in the future and that this is not a permanent state of being. obviously, i would hope it is permanent; i don’t want to split again, but i know my brain still has the capacity to do so.
i still have dissociation (to a lower degree) and alter-body dysphoria – i still have DID, and fusing won’t change that or remove the splitting mechanism or other DID symptoms that the brain created to survive the trauma i went through. my mental body image is still a nonhuman; i took on the form of one of the alters that is now part of me. but i have healed enough to be one again, and for that i am thankful.
that said, let’s run through some things.
FULL INTEGRATION OR FUSION… - is a form of major recovery - is fulfilling and healing - makes you feel more whole - lessens dissociative symptoms considerably FULL INTEGRATION OR FUSION… - will not make you a singlet - will not completely cure your DID - is not the only way for a system to heal - is not always better than functional multiplicity - is not the best way for everyone - is not cruel or abusive - does not “kill” or “delete” or “erase” alters - is not murder.
what does it feel like to be integrated?
it feels like i am everyone combined and i am more whole and more stable and more okay than any part was before. by saying the alters who integrated to form me were “murdered” you’re saying i was murdered, because i am each alter that came before and i am all of them together. i have a nearly complete memory – of course, some areas are still lost to dissociation – but i can’t tell apart the memories made by each different alter that is now part of me. they’re all just mine now.
i retained the form of one of the alters that integrated to form me, but that form is just mine now, and it feels like it has always been mine. does that make sense? all the parts’ memories and characteristics have always been mine. the timeline is complete. i didn’t “kill” anyone. i healed everyone, and everyone is me. i’m one, i’m whole – if only maybe for a while – and i’m happy with that.
it goes without saying that forced integration is bad and is abusive behavior. anyone who wants to forcefully integrate a system before they’re ready should not be a mental health professional. however, we need to stop assuming that’s the same thing and thus minimizing the benefits of voluntary, consensual and happy system fusion. this is an anti-recovery view and is extremely harmful to the DID/OSDD community.
integration shouldn’t be something we’re afraid of. it should be considered, welcomed, accepted. if you want to work toward functional multiplicity, great! if you want to work toward fusion, great! if you want to work toward these things with a mental health professional, great! if you don’t have access to professional help but want to work toward these things on your own, great! your recovery path is specific to you, and no one else should shame you for how you help yourself.
we, as a community, need to stop implying that people should be scared of recovery. all healing is good healing. integration is not murder.
Joined a few discord’s for did/osdd I feel like I could write several blog post reviewing them at this point. So much is going on in the world of DID/OSDD discord’s lol
I’m most disappointed by the one I thought had the most potential. It had channels for poc systems, physically disabled systems and even an area for syscourse. It’s honestly by far the most negative and and unwelcoming of all the discord’s I joined.
On the other hand by far my favorite group is most lightly and gently moderated. Everyone there is very friendly and welcoming and despite the very light hand of moderation I don’t think I’ve seen any issues with triggers or between users yet.
For the most part aside from the first one we have found a little something from each server to enjoy. If nothing else the distraction of general everyday chat is nice. Our life can be very isolating in general and because we are a very covert system. It’s nice to be able to talk a bit more freely. If I had more time free I think we’d think about doing our own server, idk maybe someday.
Anyways we don’t actually like the word fictive or factive and only use the word introject. It’s sometimes annoying when we have a few times talked about how many introjects our system has, because people make assumptions. We all know that assumption just make asses out of everyone right? No, no we don’t so yea. For systems or people who have only experienced systems with say a few alters and/or fragments (3 to say 20) it would definitely seem we have a whole system of them but in reality they only make up maybe 10-15% of the system total? For the size of a polyfragmented system it’s not many. Also considering our use of media of any kind as a coping mechanisms I think that a surprisingly low number. What the assumptions also don’t take into account is the amount of religious based introjects grouped into that count from our religious background. People assume it’s just idk a bunch of anime, tv, cartoon fictional introjects?? They assume it’s all new media introjects because some people act like that is the only kind that exist, and evidently those automatically make a system fake in some circles. It’s honestly painfully annoying. I think we are comfortably in a place now where it just doesn’t matter who thinks the system is fake or not. I know our truth we know our truth and the system is focused on continuing to move forward dealing with the trauma that causes our dissociative barriers and learning to work in a cohesive way that brings success to us.
That being said our path for integration isn’t specifically focused on a fusion of parts but directly on integrating memories. If fusion comes that’s fine we aren’t inherently against it. It’s just not something we will try to force or even focus on and creating stress and pressure that isn’t necessary in a life of stress and pressure. We are finally functioning and productive and enjoying more happiness than we ever have. It’s not perfect we have so far to go still, but we have found for our path it’s better to focus on integrating the memories lowering dissociative barriers and letting what happens happen with no other pressures or assumptions of what that will ultimately mean for us.
