Inside our System Journal

I get a lot of requests about our System Journal from people who really want to improve internal communication within their own System, so I thought I would share what I have in my own journal. For privacy reasons, I won’t be sharing personal information about myself, my family or my therapy, but I’m happy to share stuff that you might find useful in setting up your own journals.

You don’t need to spend a lot on a journal. I bought mine from K-Mart for $4 AUD. If you do want to spend a little more and buy a D.I.D. Journal, I believe you can purchase them from amazon or e-bay. However, since I love stationery and am very creative, I like to make my own. It comes down to personal preference.

So let’s dive into mine.

I’ve sectioned my journal into various categories:

· Rules

· Members

· Short-term Goals

· Long-term Goals

· Member’s Bio

· Littles

· Important Dates

· Notices

· General Chat

· Therapy

Rules

In the Rules tab, I have listed rules and boundaries that I felt were important to help maintain System functionality and cohesion. Sometimes an Alter will break a rule, and that’s where System Responsibility comes in. I’ll list the rules I have, and you’re very welcome to plagiarise!

1. Always be respectful – to each other and to others

2. Always be kind – No hate speech

3. Everyone has a right to the body

4. Take responsibility for your actions

5. Protect the Littles

6. Collective vote before major body changes (ie: piercings, tattoos etc)

7. Always attend therapy, even if it’s hard

8. Potential relationships need vetting by Protectors and the Gatekeeper

9. Seek help if you’re struggling

10. Try not to harm the body

11. Try not to drink too much alcohol

Occasionally we add new rules if something comes up that we didn’t anticipate, and there is plenty of room to do that. The rules aren’t there to take the fun out of life, but to protect us all and keep us safe. We have vulnerable Alters we need to protect, so it’s important we all do what we can to keep us all safe.

Members

This tab is simply a list of our Alters. To meet our Alters, click this link.

Short-term Goals and Long-term Goals

At the moment only I (Sapphire) have written my goals down. I’ve asked the other Alters what they want to do in the short and long term, and they’re still thinking about it. For the most part I think they are happy to go along with what I want to do, but I like to give everyone the opportunity to decide what they’d like to do as well. One of my long term goals is to study psychology so I can help people like me. I also want to spread awareness by doing seminars on Dissociative disorders. And I want to write a book or two. My short term goals include Functional Multiplicity (although that may take longer than I thought), moving into my own accommodation and starting my studies.

Member’s Biography

This is where each of us tell a little about ourselves; our role, our gender (if appropriate), our age and some of our favourite things. And its fun to see the different handwritings of each of us as well as our signatures. Having this section helps new Alters to meet and learn about their head-mates. We don’t include the Littles in this section. They have their very own section:

Littles

Like the Member’s Bio section, this part is just for the Littles. One of the adult Alters helps with the writing for the very small Littles. Here they get to tell everyone their favourite colours and toys.

Important Dates

If you’re anything like me, remembering stuff is a huge problem! So things like important birthdays or anniversaries go here.

Notices

This section is for any of us to write down anything important we need to remember; like what we need to speak to the doctor or therapist about or if anything has come up that needs addressing. This section is super important to have so we are all on the same page in our journey. If an Alter deals with an issue but doesn’t write it down, the rest of us might be unaware of it. So it’s good to keep a log of stuff from day to day.

General Chat

Just what it says! Here is where we can chat to each other if we want to. Occasionally, communication between Alters is hard for various reasons, and if one of us needs to get a message to another, sometimes it’s easier to do that in writing.

Therapy

This is probably the most important of all the sections. This is where therapy notes go plus anything we need to discuss with our therapist. This is the most private part of our journal and the only person we share it with is our therapist.

So that’s our System Journal. What kinds of things would you put in yours? Would you include other sections that could be useful? I personally feel that having a journal like this is super helpful and important for Systems as it really does help with communication between Alters. I see a lot of people on some of the D.I.D. Facebook groups say they don’t have good communication and really struggle with some of the Alters. Having a journal can help with those problems. Maybe you’re not one for writing, and that’s okay too. I believe you can download apps on your phone for keeping journals. Or perhaps you prefer to do everything on your computer. That’s great too. However you choose to communicate, make sure it’s right for all of you.

Thanks for reading and happy journaling!

Cover photo: Sapphire Graver ©

Inside the mind of a BPD sufferer

Imagine this scenario:

You text a friend. Your friend doesn’t immediately respond.

A regular person without BPD or other major mental health disorders would probably think “Oh, they must be busy. They’ll text me back later, and if they don’t, I’ll give them a call tonight.” Right? It’s no biggie.

But here is what goes on in the minds of someone with BPD:

“OH MY GOD! They don’t like me anymore! I’ve upset them! They hate me! They aren’t talking to me!! I need to text them again to ask if I’ve upset them! They’re abandoning me!!! I’m such a bad person! I’m EVIL! I hate myself. Why aren’t they texting me back? What did I do wrong???”

So that person sends text after text to their friend, trying to find out if they’re upset with them, if they don’t like them etc, and what can happen is that friend will end up blocking them, which confirms the sufferer’s fears of abandonment, thus perpetuating the cycle of poor emotional responses, betrayal and abandonment.

So how do we fix this problem? Well, that’s a good question, and I’m not going to lie… it will take practice. And it means taking a firm control over irrational emotional responses and instead using the logical and rational part of the brain. It takes stepping back and giving yourself a reality check and asking yourself the hard questions:

1. Have I actually done anything that my friend might find offensive. Like… really done something?

2. Could my friend simply be busy? Even if I know they are home, they might be otherwise occupied with something.

3. Maybe my friend doesn’t have their phone with them or it ran out of battery/no signal?

4. Maybe they are ON the phone.

5. Maybe they are tired and having a nap.

6. Maybe they are at work and can’t look at their phone until after work or on break.

7. If my text is urgent, could I perhaps try phoning them rather than texting?

8. Is there someone else in my circle of friends who could help?

9. Just how likely is it that my friend is actually upset with me?

10. Am I over-reacting?

From personal experience, and trust me, I’m well aware of how hard it is, the best thing to do when you start feeling those very familiar fears invade your thoughts is to take a deep breath, ask the above questions, firmly tell your mind to stop stressing and then deliberately find something to occupy yourself to take your mind off it. Worrying it over and over in your mind will only amplify those feelings and make you feel totally wretched and that’s when you could make a huge mistake that makes things worse rather than better.

I know it’s hard. Believe me, I know it’s hard. I haven’t managed yet to “get there” on my own journey of recovery. Know that you are not alone. And whatever you do, do NOT beat yourself up if you slip and fall into the old patterns of thoughts and feelings. Remember, your feelings cannot be trusted, but your rational and logical thinking can be trusted. Practice being rational and calm and over time, it’ll get easier. Or at the very least, you will know what to do when those feelings hit you.

Stay safe. Be kind to yourself. You are valid and you are worth good things. ❤

One of those days...

...for the last 9 months!

Can you relate? Everyone has "one of those days" where everything seems to go wrong. But when those days drag out to weeks and months, there comes a time when you scream "ENOUGH ALREADY!" It's like that for me. It's a case of "Stop the world, I wanna get off!". If I think about it, I've had a tough run of it since around 2014, but the last 9 months or so have been particularly stressful, starting with coming to the realisation that there is no possible way I can stay in England due to the Home Office raising the cost of my VISA from 600 Pounds 5 years ago to over 3000 Pounds this year. My husband and I tried everything to raise the money, but sadly, we could not reach it. So I had to leave.

Then I discovered that my husband wasn't going to wait for me and help me return. That hit really hard and I felt betrayed and abandoned by him. Then came all the goodbyes which were so very hard to do. I'd lived there for 15 years; made a home for myself; friends, church, family. And I had to say goodbye to it all. It was so incredibly painful. And sadly, despite this being the age of technology, some of my friends chose to no longer remain in contact for reasons that I still don't understand.

I also had to say goodbye to my cat, Honey, who had bonded with me from birth. I miss her so much. Then, of course, was the trip back to Australia on my own with only my headmates for company. Well, at the time, just one headmate. I currently have 21 including myself. Pretty much as soon as I landed I hooked up with a local church and through them was set up with a therapist. She was great. Really caring, intuitive and supportive. We quickly trusted her and shared our story with her. She met most of us. Things seemed like they might be slowly starting to move forward. Slowly.

But then a new Alter fronted for the first time and immediately tried to end our life. He collapsed unconscious in our Therapist's office and paramedics took an hour to stabilise us enough to take us to hospital. That was a little over a month ago, and since then, our Therapist has ghosted us. We feel betrayed and hurt and very confused. The Littles, especially, have found it hard. Even as I write this, I am confused by her behaviour and don't know why I am being punished for something that was completely out of my control. I have no memories of the suicide attempt. I can only go on what was told to me. I don't even remember leaving my house to go to therapy. And despite me taking responsibility for my Alter's actions and apologising on behalf of him, we are all being ignored and it feels like punishment.

But, the good news is I have managed to set up an appointment with another Psychologist this month and she is well trained in DID and Dissociative disorders. I'm nervously excited to meet her but I'm also wiser now and know not to trust immediately, despite how friendly she appears. Once bitten, twice shy.

I hope that I can reconcile to my other Therapist. I feel dreadful and misunderstood. I realise she probably felt that she was not sufficient to help us, but abandoning us the way she did has been very hard and as a result, we've had 2 new splits; 2 new Alters. It's never my intention to cause trouble. The OD came out of nowhere. None of us were expecting it, and we are all in deep shock over it and the subsequent consequences. Oh well. I just needed to get this off my chest. Welcome to the joys of living with a severe mental health disorder. Thank you for reading this. Stay safe x