[scribble scribble]
Kiki: Hmm . . .
Kallie: Awwww!
???: . . . My hips aren’t that wide. And Kaleo’s aren’t wide enough.
Kiki: Leave me alone, I just need practice!
I’m still not good at drawing every body.
Leif & Thorn
Fantasy comedy about a magic knight trying to have a romance in his second language
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Aww, that’s so good!
And at 23 in, we have a title drop!
This is heartwarming. Reminds me of pictures the kids in our system have drawn of us 😊.
I was abused by someone who had DID: I counted at least eight different personalities, each with their own mannerisms, body language, and manner of speech, but ALL of them engaged in varying levels of gaslighting. I already go to therapy and have my anxiety/depression medicated. Are there DID-specific resources where I can learn more? ‘Cause Kiki, Kallie, and Atarangi seem nice, but this is the first time something in Leif and Thorne has made me go, “Nope, nope, nope, nope!” Every other type of representation I have seen here has made me go, “Daww!”, “Squee”, or, “I’m so happy that Erin put this here!”
I’m sorry for your experience. I’ve done therapy for many many years, and as I understand it, I came pretty close to DID myself. I’m not sure that’s possible, though.
Anyway, when I get time, I plan on exploring the links in posts yesterday (and possibly the day before). For me, I have VERY distinct definitions and boundaries of various “types”, for lack of a better word right now. But rarely has any of them identified with a different name. And over time, the “generalized” one has worked to incorporate, and be more , um, “fluid” maybe? In the workings together and transitions, that is.
Dang! I MEANT to say that exploring those posts might help you, too? Knowledge really can be so empowering, and Foxy’s System sounds like a really good bunch of folks to start to know.😊
We’re sorry that you were treated this way by a DID system, it’s not at all okay. We were abused by many people, men and women, from different backgrounds, so we can understand having trouble with trust after that. One thing we have worked hard to remember is that the people who abused us were individuals and it’s not healthy for our mental health to extend that to others. Living in fear is no way to live. We also do our best to remember that we wouldn’t want to be judged by the actions of others, so we do our best to judge others as individuals. It isn’t easy, but it’s certainly beneficial to our mental health. Maybe that could help you too. There’s lots of good resources. We’ll post links one at a time so you can see them all.
Here’s a link to our YouTube channel if you’d like to see our videos about DID. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCno2EIIlsQ4uUnXY-UnbofQ
Here’s a link from a reputable organization that focuses on mental health. https://www.nami.org/learn-more/mental-health-conditions/dissociative-disorders
I’m a pretty firm believer in the ‘therapist induced’ theory of DID. It’s especially suspicious that the majority of cases are diagnosed by a relatively small number of psychologists, and the susceptibility of DID sufferers to hypnosis is certainly suggestive.
And I have a lot of experience with people suffering False Memories. I also subscribe to a very socially driven theory of the mind.
I generally believe that people’s mental constructs are typically driven by social interaction, and cultural expectations. For example in japan and the US, the symptoms of schizophrenia are very different. This is despite very similar neurochemical profiles, which interestingly my grandfather was part of the research team that discovered the neurochemical profiles of schizophrenia. Well, seven of them at least.
As an odd side note US’s original ‘schizophrenia’ was more about discrediting rebellious black people who reasonably distrusted society, just like Germany’s Asperger’s was originally about finding an excuse to euthanize people.
To clarify my statement about my grandfather because it was unclear: Back when he was still working, he helped discover the neurochemical profiles of seven patients with schizophrenia. It’s not super impressive, but I think it’s an interesting family factoid.
Oh, and my ‘experience with false memory syndrome’ would be more accurate to say ‘I’m morbidly fascinated with it, and read about it’ Sorry, I presented myself a bit poorly there.
It’s pretty clear that people’s experience of mental health conditions is shaped by the society they live in, yeah. That doesn’t mean they’re fake or illegitimate, it just means human development is affected by our culture, just as much as it is by our diets or our activities.
Also:
When someone tells you about their personal experience and it sounds weird or impossible to you, it rarely helps to announce to them “In my opinion, that’s not real and you’re making it all up.” Instead, consider that you don’t have all the data in the universe, and your theories should adapt based on new data, not automatically discard any data that doesn’t support your pre-existing theory.
And honestly, even if what they’re describing is *not* literally true as stated, they probably *are* trying to tell you a meaningful thing about themselves. Instead of picking apart the way they articulated it on the surface, sit back and think to yourself about what they might be trying to express underneath.
Fyi Phule, we’ve never been hypnotized and we had symptoms of DID long before therapy, including switching and internal communication, that was why we sought treatment. I don’t honestly care what you believe, our experience isn’t up for debate. Also, agree with Erin on all points.
I tried hypnosis once, for pain management. Another part of me wouldn’t stop heckling the recordings and she was so distracting I just couldn’t get it to work. 😛
And thank you, Erin, for the well-worded explanation of why it’s shitty to disbelieve people’s experiences to their (metaphorical) faces.
Thank you for sharing your experience too, the solidarity is much appreciated.
We second that thank you Erin, wholeheartedly.
Foxy, I am appreciative of your kindness and of the educational links you provided.
I am not sure how many years I have been reading webcomics by Erin, but I will say that my knowledge of different types of people continues to grow. I cannot count the number of times I have had to confront biases I didn’t know that I had. The number of research rabbit holes I have crawled into simply astounds me. And this from someone who considers herself to have already been open-minded, with a decent grounding in psychology, biology, and neurology!
I enjoy learning of all kinds and thinking about new information and how it applies to my existing knowledge. Sometimes, yes, it is uncomfortable. But it is always beneficial to continue to grow and try out new concepts. Erin, please continue to challenge my idea sets.
You’re very welcome Dingelhopper. I personally have the same philosophy. It’s important to be open minded and willing to learn more. It’s awesome that you feel the same, especially with a topic that is uncomfortable for you. You seem like an amazing person and we really appreciate your willingness to engage with us 😊.
We also reccomend this resource to learn more about DID.
http://did-research.org/did/myths.html ( on this one the rates of people with DID being abusive might be helpful for you, also check out the home page)
We really hope that these resources are helping to you and if there’s anything else we can do to help, please let us know.
Helpful*
This is real nice and I like that Kiki’s color is pink cause pink is the bestest!
One of the kids, LO, wanted to comment. We hope that’s okay. She saw that people mentioned the others talking here and wanted to join in, since this page is kid appropriate.
Did you saw Star Trek Voyager episode Infinite Regress? Can I ask what do you think about it?
I’ve never seen it, what’s it about?
Borg-technology-induced personality switching.
Personally I think it doesn’t relate much, because the other personalities were completely foreign, just random other people who got dropped into the body temporarily, and went away forever once the episode was resolved. Although, did it address the horror aspect of losing time? I don’t remember the whole episode any more.
On the other hand, actual dissociative personalities all grew up in the same body, and (with the exception of introjects and fictives) probably have a decent number of memories in common. I.. might be speculating too much here but maybe they’re more like alternate-reality versions of a person. Some might be very similar, while some might have had crazy shit happen early on and ended up very different, and some cut off parts of themselves to survive. Some haven’t been active much (or got stuck developmentally?) and are still children.
Ah okay, thanks for the explanation Inahc, doesn’t sound very relatable to us. Interesting theory, we’re largely nonhuman in our system so we might not fit that too well 🤣.
We haven’t met the fourth personality (I’ll call them ‘Red’ for now). But the lack of eyes is a little worrying. The pose makes them look a bit shy, but it could be something else.
Red sure sounds like a name for a protector or trauma-holding alter. That reminds me, I should dig up a link for the DID comic I like 🙂 I can’t remember whether there’s no updates or just no feed for that one :/
found that comic! https://emmengard.com/the-blobbies/ and there’s new stuff… huh, maybe there never was an rss feed for it.
the fronting chart (schedule?) on the fridge! relatable.
Nice catch!
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