i want you, not them

i ignore people sometimes because i feel like the most annoying person alive

Ok that's the one

how I would describe my dissociation

Depersonalisation:

• It feels as if my whole life was a dream
• Or a game in which a player makes choices, but I'm not the player, I'm the character that's being controlled
• Hands, arms feel very heavy, but not like physically? And also as if there were prostetic which I do not control, just look at what they do
• When I touch my face it feels as if it was paralyzed like after the visit to the dentist
• When I look at my body, hands, I feel as if I was looking at hands of a person sitting next to me. I don't feel any connection to them
• The line between what's my body and what's not is very blurry - it's hard for me to understand that my arm and foot are me, but the table, cup or a pen are not
• I don't recognise myself in the mirror, it's as if I was looking at somebody else's picture/video

Derealisation:

• It feels as if the whole world is made of cardboard. I don't believe that the objects have a solid form, only the outer layer
• Words don't describe objects and objects are as abstract of a concept as words that we assign to them
• The whole world is fake, arbitral and there is no reason why it looks... like it does
• At times it feels as if it all were to just collapse, disintegrate, fall apart in front of my eyes

“Chuuya Nakahara does not dream.
His awakening was similar to muddy bubbles rising to the surface.
[...]
Chuuya sat up. He was sweating a little around his chest, a reminder of some sort of violent emotion that had swirled around inside of him like a whirlpool in the sea. But what that emotion was, he couldn't remember.
That always seemed to be the case, these days.”
Storm Bringer CODE 01

Did he have a nightmare?

i had to draw her

Twins and Religions

In light of the Phantomhive twins’ birthday celebration, this post is dedicated to them. (Yana Toboso hasn’t forgotten about them.)

Sometimes I can’t help imagining Yana T (and her staff) rummaging her table and her floor brimming with books of possible topics and references that she might incorporate into her manga. I mean, this is a mangaka who employs a Victorian era expert/consultant (author/translator/Anglophile) for her story, Rico Murakami, who released several translated books on Victorian era. Did Yana T ever consult books that concern twins and ancient and new religions for her work? Perhaps, I’m giving her much too much credit, but I’d like to think that she does a lot of research to authenticate her work and, at the same time, equalise her anachronism.

Let’s begin with the Egyptian ancient religion:

“Still, the Egyptians did not lose the sense that gods represented one divine principle. The deadly enemies Seth and Horus were perceived as brothers, twins, doublets, sometimes even as one god with two heads. The conflict between them was a violation of ma’at (the ordered, harmonious justice of the cosmos) and has to be resolved. The Egyptians were torn between two solutions. So they also considered another solution, one in which Seth seeks to restore the cosmic unity, but in all wrong ways…. Always thinking wrong, Seth tries to restore the divine union by an act of grotesque force: he attempts to sodomize the divine Horus the Younger. Horus resisting, castrates Seth and so deprives him of his power…”

And this time from the indigenous group in North America:

“Among the Iroquois the earth’s daughter bears twin sons, who quarrel within her womb. One twin is born in the normal way, but the second twin is born through his mother’s armpit, killing her. The younger son, called Flint, strives increasingly to undo the work of his constructive brother. The older son creates animals; Flint tries to imitate him, fails, and in his rage throws up rugged cliffs and mountains to divide tribe from tribe and so frustrate the unity his brother has planned for humanity. Like the Yin and Yang of Taoism, such twins or doublets are both opposite and united; beneath their conflict they seek integration and centering.”

What does it say in Christianity:

“If the ‘Good Spirit’ is not God himself, is it God’s Son? Lactantius (an early Roman theologian and an adviser to Constantine I) was inconsistent, but he sometimes thought Christ and Satan as twin angels, one beloved and the other rejected, heavenly counterparts of Cain and Abel. Although Lactantius meant this twinship of Christ and Satan metaphorically, it went further in the direction of dualism than Christian tradition could countenance.”

(All taken from Jeffrey Burton Russell’s “Prince of Darkness”) (all boldfaced and italicised words mine)

Lastly, the significance of the twins in every mythology through the Theosophical Society.

Twins in the world are like witnesses to the archetypal transition from the wholeness of the androgynous race to the duality of the separation that marked the lighting-up of Manas. They are a testimony to this, though few of them actually divide the opposing forces of higher and lower consciousness. Usually they blend the two individually as well as collectively, although there are few cases where the divine and animal natures pit themselves against each other as two separate persons inexorably linked in a desperate struggle which can only end in the death of one or the other. But this too is a reflection of the inherent potential unleashed with the awakening of self-consciousness.

When François Ozon adapted Joyce Carol Oates’ novel with his “L'amant double” about a woman and her “twin visions,” it has become a part of “twins are scary” trope. Like “Dead Ringers” before him, Ozon’s main character Chloe (Marine Vacth) began to suspect that she was in a relationship with twins having different personalities (the first one tender yet secretive, the other rough but brutally honest), the manifestation of her cats double, and the realisation in the end, which has to do with, yes, twins. (If you haven’t seen it, it’d be best not to spoil it. Though it is a fine film to explore about the complexities and the allure of Ozon’s way of filming: his choice of takes and mise-en-scènes.)

All in all, the “twins trope” have become synonymous to light/dark, yin/yang, good/bad.

Between Ciel and his older twin brother, who’s the light? Who’s the darkness?

Bordergenic and BPD Systems

I recently saw a post claiming that BPD can't form systems, and thought I should comment on it.

First, let's try to define what a system is in the context of multiplicity. Generally, when we're talking about systems, we're talking about a group of internal agents with their own consistent sense of self that's distinct from other agents in the system.

Among other things, BPD is closely associated with voice hearing, with studies showing prevalence ranging from 50% to 90%.

As I've discussed before, dissociative identity disorder specialists Dolores Mosquera and Colin Ross have put forth the theory that many of the intelligent voices heard in psychotic disorders are parts of a person's system as well.

It should stand to reason then that if voices in BPD voices also demonstrate self-consciousness, then they too would fall under the system umbrella, just as other forms of hallucingenic systems with psychotic disorders would.

Of course, not every voice heard by voice hearers demonstrate self-consciousness. Not every person experiencing auditory-verbal hallucinations is a system. Some voices may just be intrusive thoughts with no consistency or sense of self.

Unfortunately, I can't find any studies into the agency of voices of AVH in BPD, nor any addressing their longevity or if these have consistent senses of self over a long period of time.

One thing is clear. As more research is being conducted, AVH are increasingly found to be more closely related to DID than to Schizophrenia and psychotic disorders. DID is also more closely linked to other forms of hallucinations, such as tactile and visual hallucinations. DID voice hearers also are more likely to hear multiple voices and the voices are more likely to start before the age of 18.

All of this supports a conception of AVH as not being psychotic symptoms but dissociative symptoms.

Some would say that treating these voices as separate and engaging them would increase dissociation and make symptoms worse, but I would look back to the article on treating hostile voices which says the opposite.

If we apply this same standard to consistent, self-conscious voices in BPD, actually treating these voice like the hostile voices mentioned in that article and building communication would be beneficial to reducing dissociation between them, while ignoring the voices would be harmful.

There is a lot more information I would like on experiences of people with BPD with voices. A lot more questions I have about the experiences of AVH in BPD. (For example, do the voices correspond with different "states" the same way alter voices do, or are they a completely unconnected phenomenon?)

But my position is that anyone who experiences the voices of other people in their head with their own agency and consistent sense of self can be considered a plural system, whether these voices originate from Schizophrenia, BPD, or are not associated with any mental disorders at all.

I'm still learning, but if systems with BPD say that BPD caused their systemhood, I will 100% believe and support them. 😁