apollortaylor

Latest Posts by apollortaylor

Tip for any gender-queer or non-conforming people out there: Know the law.

Doesn't matter how cis you are, anyone who doesn't immediately fit the absurd and convoluted way the right thinks we should look/dress/walk/speak is at risk for harassment and hate crimes just for existing.

Do your research and know your regions laws on bathrooms, the use of preferred names, what counts as trespassing, and anything else that you might be told you're doing illegally. Know what protects you in what contexts and don't break those laws if you don't have to or are not intentionally taking a stance.

When harrassed know what you are allowed to do or say and give them NO reason to take action. They won't care what the law actually says but if you know it and have your receipts at very least you shouldn't be persecuted of anything. The people doing the harassing are usually breaking the law themselves and if they try to take action you can use that to protect yourself.

Don't give anyone a reason to be aggressive or violent, and don't ever do something you could get in legal trouble for. As soon as you give them something to use they will take full advantage of it and nothing else will be relevant. The right doesn't respect differing view points and fighting with morals will get you nowhere. But the have most of the systematic power, and some will violate every law they can as long as no one stops them. Knowing what they can and can't do is sometimes all you need to protect yourself. Being able to challenge corruption because you can label it as such takes away their advantage of trusting you can't call out their bullshit.

Be safe. Educate yourself. Don't do anything that will put you in danger if you don't need to. We can't fight a war on hate without at least showing how powerful peace and cooperation can be.

Don't give them a viable reason to go after you. Because they will if they have one.

Yep. This. Literally this.

There are SO many things that I didn't realize I actually experienced because the descriptions of those symptoms sound like they're saying something else.

About 85-95% percent of our memories are in third person but I totally thought most people had that to a good extent until I talked to several people who not only thought it was super weird, but also didn't even know what I was saying because the very idea of it is so foreign.

This is why discussions of dissociation in CDD spaces REALLY should be only for 'traumagenic' systems. Whether you believe you can be a system without trauma, if you don't believe you have the trauma or the disorder caused by it, you shouldn't be in spaces for those trying to figure out how to manage disorder.

Also the mental health medical system sucks ass. We need more professionals who can actually bridge the gap between text book definitions and what it actually fucking looks like. We went to an evaluation and downplayed our symptoms so fucking much because we didn't think they fit the written descriptions (and growing up being gaslit into believing we're overreacting about everything). We got a very noncommittal place holder diagnosis from that appointment, that we waited six months and drove 2 hours for, probably because we told the doctor we didn't have amnesia because we had no fucking idea what emotional or grey out amnesia was, AND we didn't know that you can have black outs and not realize anything. is missing. We figured the lack of 'waking up' and not remembering how we got where we were, meant that we had zero amnesia. But holy shit is that wrong.

Anyways. All that to say, OP, you are not the only one who experiences this.

-Apollo (maybe?)

Sometimes I genuinely hate that I have a disorder where I take things literally.

Especially when that's intersectioned by CDD spaces where a lot of the descriptions of dissociation are hard to relate to, despite having several periods of time where strong dissociation is the only explanation.

And it's not even necessarily because I can't relate to them, it's just that my brain gets caught on the literal wording of that experience and immediately thinks that I can't experience that because I don't feel that specific way.

Does anyone else reading this feel the same?

Because I hear descriptions like feeling like you're outside of your body or over the shoulder, and I never feel like I experience that in real time. It only happens with memories, where a ton of those are in third person.

There are periods of time where I want a certain drink, but my brain fights to find the right word because several different parts of me want a different drink, even though I know that I want the specific drink that my brain suddenly can't recall the word for.

Honestly, I feel like 90% of my dissociation happens without me being able to cognitively recognize when it's actively happening, and I only realize after looking back that I remember maybe the bare fucking minimum.

And I dunno, maybe I've just been dissociated for so much of my life that it's so normal to me that I don't even know it's dissociation. It's really hard to parse what is and isn't normal when you 1) are neurodivergent and 2) see your normal as normal.

If any of you out there have any other descriptions of what dissociation can look like I would love to hear them, because that's the only way my brain will get over the mental block / confused phase of trying to understand.

I'm watching Good Omens and they happened to make a GREAT analogy for amnesia. Or at least how I often experience it. I've adjusted it to better explain, but this is the outline.

I've moved into empty house that someone used to live in. I don't know who lived here before or what they did, but I can see the evidence that something did. The paint is discolored where the furniture used to be against the walls, there's outlines in the dust where things sat on the shelf, scratches on the floor and doors from over the years.

I don't know what happened, but I can piece together some things by the evidence left behind. My unexplainable triggers and reactions to things give me hints as to what my trauma may be.

I don't know what happened. I'm just looking at where the furniture used to be.

Well of course you don’t remember it, to you it was just another time you had to deal with your kid being annoying. To you it was just a short second when you couldn't be bothered to control your anger. To you it was just another inconvenience after an already long day.

But to me, the kid that you yelled at to stop crying because you had a headache, to me it was the first of many moments that taught me I was only an inconvenience. To me it was the shocking reality that I am only worth your affection if I'm easy to deal with.

I don't expect you to remember what to you was only another tired day. But you can trust that I won't forget the first thing you ever taught me.

"I can't support you when you're killing my daughter"

I'm sorry that you're more attached to the mask I wore for you than who I actually am. I didn't realize that you would rather never know me than have to let go of the name you chose. I guess I just didn't understand that when you said you loved 'me' you were actually saying that you loved what you imagined I should be.

I thought you loved me. Not my gender.

I thought that you wanted to get to know me. I thought you wanted me to be myself. I thought you wanted me to be true to myself and happy.

My mistake.

It won't happen again.

-A trans guy whose parents refused to to acknowledge his name.

USA people! Buy NOTHING Feb 28 2025. Not anything. 24 hours. No spending. Buy the day before or after but nothing. NOTHING. February 28 2025. Not gas. Not milk. Not something on a gaming app. Not a penny spent. (Only option in a crisis is local small mom and pop. Nothing. Else.) Promise me. Commit. 1 day. 1 day to scare the shit out of them that they don't get to follow the bullshit executive orders. They don't get to be cowards. If they do, it costs. It costs.

Then, if you can join me for Phase 2. March 7 2025 thtough March 14 2025? No Amazon. None. 1 week. No orders. Not a single item. Not one ebook. Nothing. 1 week. Just 1.

If you live outside the USA boycott US products on February 28 2025 and stand in solidarity with us and also join us for the week of no Amazon.

Are you with me?

Spread the word.

Imagine being able to make shit like this. Like. Just bring it into existence. Just through sheer dedication and time and magic probably. I don’t fucking know I don’t have skills.

Deinonychus Takedown for animation practice

Is no one going to mention that the guys shirt says ‘LETS EAT KIDS!’

Being an ADHD author is so counterproductive sometimes. You scroll back twenty chapters to make sure you’re consistent with details and suddenly it’s been two hours, it’s time to go to sleep, and you’ve only written two hundred words because you went back to checked a detail and never stopped reading.

Since the diagnosis I have not switched out once. There have been several times where I almost have but I have fought so hard to stay here. I don’t know why but the thought of switching out now is terrifying. I think it’s because I can no longer convince myself that it’s not real and that I actually am the one in control. Now that I’m diagnosed I can’t put them into a box labeled ‘not real/important’ which is something I would do a lot before so that I didn’t have to deal with it.

Now I’m just terrified to let go of control because I don’t know if I’ll ever get it back.

So….. I got the results back the other night. After four and a half weeks of obsessively checking my email waiting for them to be sent.

Unspecified Dissociative Disorder

I’m We’re officially diagnosed

I haven’t really taken the time to process because in the two days before I got the results I’ve come out to my friends and family as a trans guy and most of that went well but not all of it. My mind has been very occupied by the euphoria of not having to pretend and not worrying who misgenders me because the people who matter would never do that.

So I have not yet taken that proper time and space to think about the diagnosis at all. When I opened the email it was 2:30 AM and I had to be up for work in three hours so I needed sleep. Which is partially why it took me three days to post this.

So Im getting to the point of dealing with and processing the emotions of finally being validated while also having confirmation that I can’t just ignore it till goes away cause it’s more than my imagination. And then figuring out what that will mean going forward in my life.

For the time being I’m going to start posting on here again. I’ve been avoiding putting anything on here because I DID NOT want to think about the results until they were in.

Anyways, that’s the life update. Hope you guys have a good day/night

-Apollo

I have a psychological examination in a week. It’s four hours long and a two hour drive to get there. It’s been scheduled for months and I had been trying to get an appointment for literal years. I’m hoping that I’ll get diagnosed with DID among other things because of it (that’s the whole reason for the appointment) , but I am terrified of what the outcome will be.

Basically there are three ways this can go.

They tell me I don’t have it and I believe them. If this happens I will most likely cave to denial. Not forever but it’ll probably be at least a few months before I try to talk to my alters again. Might end up front stuck because I don’t believe they’re real. (All of that of course assuming I DO have it and the doctor gets it wrong) if they say I don’t have it I probably don’t and yes this means I can try to rehabilitate and live my life without alters, but I’m also going to feel like a shit human being for even INSINUATING that I have this disorder, let alone placating it.

They tell me I don’t have it and I don’t believe them. In the scenario, whether the explanation the doctor told me are bullshit or even if they say they ‘don’t believe in the disorder’, whatever the reason I have to go through this whole process again, anxiety and frustration and all. So let’s hope it’s not this.

They tell me I DO have it. This is genuinely probably the least messy outcome. I will most likely believe them just because they specialize in this area (assuming they believe in the disorder). The downside with this (aside from the obvious point of it all being real and incurable) is that the ONE other time I got validation from a mental heath professional (who was coincidentally the only mental health professional I talked to about this for more than five minutes and was also trauma informed) the ONLY time anyone said ‘yeah that very well may be what’s happening’ the system got so out of hand so fast. I could no longer push away my alters with the excuse of ‘they may not be real anyways’. And because I couldn’t use that reasoning to keep things in check everything went haywire for a few weeks until I could convince myself that we still don’t know if they’re real. So yeah. If it plays out like this things are going to be so hectic and stressful for a bit.

Either way, I’ll update you after the appointment and once I get the official diagnosis.

That moment when you (a guy) realize your boyfriend is gay :O

-Apollo

ED, weight and food talk below the cut. Proceed with caution.

So in the past couple of months I’ve started being very particular with my food. Like I could only make myself eat my safe foods unless I was really forcing myself. And then slowly it turned into only being able to eat my safe foods at all. And then two weeks ago it developed into not even being able to eat my safe foods.

In the past three months I’ve lost 25 pounds unintentionally. In the past ten days I’ve eaten a total of four meals. And it’s not like I don’t want to eat, it’s not like I’m having a ED relapse and I’m keeping myself from eating because I don’t want to gain weight it’s just that every time I get something ready, heat it up and put it in front of me, I cannot get myself to actually eat it.

It’s to the point when I’m freezing, shivering, in my bedroom, the same place I used to always think was way too hot. (And don’t blame the season, I’m in Florida and the highs are still in the 80s every day). I’ve started fitting into my mom’s clothes. My mom who is underweight for her height and three inches shorter than me. My own clothes don’t fit anymore. And even seeing all of this, wanting to eat, I just CANT.

I don’t know why.

And I don’t know what to do about it.

I’ve tried eating distracted, giving myself something to give my focus to, all that does is give me an excuse to not look at the food at all and not touch it. I’ve tried eating things I’m in the mood for and that worked until about three-four weeks ago when I was no longer in the mood for anything.

Not eating combined with ten hour work shifts I’m actually scared I’m going to pass out while working. Cause it’s all manual labor and walking around. Todays the first day of my four day work week, with any luck today won’t be terrible but the 500 calories I had yesterday and the 5 hours of sleep that I’m running on are not promising numbers.

Ok, I’m done ranting for now. Hope you guys have a good day.

Today is judgment day. My appointment is in like 40 minutes. Totally not freaking out.

I’m either going to cry, have an anxiety attack, or switch out. I hope I switch out but I really hope it happens DURING the appointment so the doctor can see it happen.

I have a psychological examination in a week. It’s four hours long and a two hour drive to get there. It’s been scheduled for months and I had been trying to get an appointment for literal years. I’m hoping that I’ll get diagnosed with DID among other things because of it (that’s the whole reason for the appointment) , but I am terrified of what the outcome will be.

Basically there are three ways this can go.

They tell me I don’t have it and I believe them. If this happens I will most likely cave to denial. Not forever but it’ll probably be at least a few months before I try to talk to my alters again. Might end up front stuck because I don’t believe they’re real. (All of that of course assuming I DO have it and the doctor gets it wrong) if they say I don’t have it I probably don’t and yes this means I can try to rehabilitate and live my life without alters, but I’m also going to feel like a shit human being for even INSINUATING that I have this disorder, let alone placating it.

They tell me I don’t have it and I don’t believe them. In the scenario, whether the explanation the doctor told me are bullshit or even if they say they ‘don’t believe in the disorder’, whatever the reason I have to go through this whole process again, anxiety and frustration and all. So let’s hope it’s not this.

They tell me I DO have it. This is genuinely probably the least messy outcome. I will most likely believe them just because they specialize in this area (assuming they believe in the disorder). The downside with this (aside from the obvious point of it all being real and incurable) is that the ONE other time I got validation from a mental heath professional (who was coincidentally the only mental health professional I talked to about this for more than five minutes and was also trauma informed) the ONLY time anyone said ‘yeah that very well may be what’s happening’ the system got so out of hand so fast. I could no longer push away my alters with the excuse of ‘they may not be real anyways’. And because I couldn’t use that reasoning to keep things in check everything went haywire for a few weeks until I could convince myself that we still don’t know if they’re real. So yeah. If it plays out like this things are going to be so hectic and stressful for a bit.

Either way, I’ll update you after the appointment and once I get the official diagnosis.

The frustration of being a fictive from something my host created is so overwhelming. No one knows my source mates. I can’t simply look up fan art when I want to see my friends. I can’t have conversations about my friends and have anyone know who the fuck I’m talking about. No one knows me.

So, the host of our system has written a novel. Fantasy fiction type that can be really dark at times. She’s been working on it for like ever and is really proud of it. She’s in the final editing stages. Good for her.

But… as with any media we hyperfixate on, we now have a fictive of probably the most traumatized character in the whole thing. And they really miss their friends that they fought so hard to protect. Recently they came out and was talking with the hosts boyfriend, something they had refrained from doing with anyone. And he asked if the fictive wanted to talk about his friends in source.

This was a game changer, up to this point we had refrained from thinking of any of our sourcemates as real people. We didn’t want to cling to them. But then someone suggested that we were valid for missing them, and that they were more than a figment of our imagination. Which was revolutionary to our system and thought process.

So for the first time one of our fictives started reminiscing on their friends from source. It was incredibly therapeutic for them. And as much as we’re aware that clinging to source can make moving on harder, there is a certain level of acceptance and respect you have to give it first. Letting go of your source does not mean forgetting. It just means accepting that you can’t go back.

Anyways, in case you didn’t guess the traumatized fictive from the host’s book is me. I’m the traumatized fictive.

Yay for me.

So if you’re a fictive struggling with missing source, maybe try this out and see if it helps.

I have a psychological examination in a week. It’s four hours long and a two hour drive to get there. It’s been scheduled for months and I had been trying to get an appointment for literal years. I’m hoping that I’ll get diagnosed with DID among other things because of it (that’s the whole reason for the appointment) , but I am terrified of what the outcome will be.

Basically there are three ways this can go.

They tell me I don’t have it and I believe them. If this happens I will most likely cave to denial. Not forever but it’ll probably be at least a few months before I try to talk to my alters again. Might end up front stuck because I don’t believe they’re real. (All of that of course assuming I DO have it and the doctor gets it wrong) if they say I don’t have it I probably don’t and yes this means I can try to rehabilitate and live my life without alters, but I’m also going to feel like a shit human being for even INSINUATING that I have this disorder, let alone placating it.

They tell me I don’t have it and I don’t believe them. In the scenario, whether the explanation the doctor told me are bullshit or even if they say they ‘don’t believe in the disorder’, whatever the reason I have to go through this whole process again, anxiety and frustration and all. So let’s hope it’s not this.

They tell me I DO have it. This is genuinely probably the least messy outcome. I will most likely believe them just because they specialize in this area (assuming they believe in the disorder). The downside with this (aside from the obvious point of it all being real and incurable) is that the ONE other time I got validation from a mental heath professional (who was coincidentally the only mental health professional I talked to about this for more than five minutes and was also trauma informed) the ONLY time anyone said ‘yeah that very well may be what’s happening’ the system got so out of hand so fast. I could no longer push away my alters with the excuse of ‘they may not be real anyways’. And because I couldn’t use that reasoning to keep things in check everything went haywire for a few weeks until I could convince myself that we still don’t know if they’re real. So yeah. If it plays out like this things are going to be so hectic and stressful for a bit.

Either way, I’ll update you after the appointment and once I get the official diagnosis.

YALL! I JUST FOUND THE ‘GOTH RAVE’ COLOR PALLET SETTING!! WAS NO ONE GOING TO TELL ME THIS WAS A THING??!

New metaphor for a systemhood just dropped!

Our friend said something that got us thinking of this. I always use a spaceship (the millennium falcon specifically because it’s well known and fits the metaphor) but this one works pretty well too.

Your body is a computer. Most of the time it works best when a single person is using it (fronting), and sometimes it’s helpful to have someone else in the room watching you work and make suggestions though it can also be annoying and distracting (co-con). And there are also a lot of computers —though not all— that allow you to connect multiple game controllers to them in order to play a game with someone (co-fronting), when someone is doing this it often makes it more difficult to do certain things ,like typing, until you go back to a single user —the same way that co-fronting can be complicated and messy.

And being a computer, sometimes there are glitches. And it’s sometimes best to let someone else who is more equipped and tech savvy take over to solve the issue (switching under stress) and that moment where no one is actively using the mouse or keyboard the computer doesn’t do anything (heavy dissociation while switching). It’s also important to note that there are multiple people using the same computer, and they all prioritize different things, so a lot of time important files and information may be deleted by someone who deems it’s not necessary to keep or is better off unknown (amnesia).

If anyone thinks of a point to make please lmk, I’d love to add to it. Other than that, hope you guys find a good use for this metaphor and that it helps you give a singlet a better understanding.

Day 6: Problematic Alter

So here’s the thing. I feel like calling an alter ‘problematic’ is not a great way to communicate with your system. Anything they are doing is almost certainly a coping mechanism brought on by trauma. Does that means it’s always healthy? Absolutely not. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing it to harm the system, even if that’s what happens sometimes. Labeling an alter as ‘problematic’, to us at least, has the same kind of feel as labeling them as ‘the evil alter’ it’s not a great feeling. It often alienates them and a lot of times makes them feel unwanted, you are literally attaching the word ‘problem’ to their identity. How would that make you feel?

And this is not to say that alters don’t do things that can harm the system, or their relationships with others. It’s just to say that EVERYONE should have their own side heard before a conclusion is made. And understanding why an action was taken isn’t going to make the action okay. But it will help you empathize with the person who did it and give you insight on the help they need, as opposed to ridiculing them for what they have learned they need to do to survive.

Labeling an alter as ‘problematic’ is many times a fantastic way to distance them from the system and make them not want to talk to you. Honestly, would you want to sit down and have a conversation with your parents, for instance, if they told all their friends you were the ‘problematic child’? Probably not. That doesn’t mean you were never a pain, or that you never acted up, it’s just not healthy to attach that word to a persons identity.

All this to say, can we not label alters like this? They aren’t just characters for you to talk about and headcannon and label, and doing so isn’t really in the sake of progress. If you have an issue with something your alter is doing a good first step is to try to understand why they do it.

-Angelo/Apollo

Systober I guess?

Apparently there’s a systober thing going on??? I’m gonna use it as a prompt for text posts each day (might draw some stuff, who knows) and we’ll see how far we can get into it and how many days we just forget. I’ll post the photo of the prompt list below. Credit to @persmo for the list.

Systober I guess?

Apparently there’s a systober thing going on??? I’m gonna use it as a prompt for text posts each day (might draw some stuff, who knows) and we’ll see how far we can get into it and how many days we just forget. I’ll post the photo of the prompt list below. Credit to @persmo for the list.

Why does writing have to take so much time? Like, I have a feeling I want to convey, wdym I can’t just download it straight into the paper?? Why do I need 150 pages of build up and complex yet understandable plot that revolves around relatable and realistically layered characters before I can write the one scene that I actually have motivation to writ and will be all of two pages long???

Uhhgggg!!!

Okay so, I’ve been very aware that we do this thing, but only recently did I actually realize HOW OFTEN we do it.

So we do this thing where we think through conversations that MIGHT happen, and we typically either mouth along to the parts we would say or just say it out loud like we’re talking to them.

And I’ve known we do it for a while but I totally thought of it as like a once or twice a day thing. And then today driving home from work I started thinking about how often we do it. And while thinking about it I started running through a conversation where I explain it to a friend and ask their opinion. And then I caught myself like three lines in. And then I started thinking I should talk to my therapist about it, and started running through THAT conversation. I caught myself about half a sentence into that and was shocked at how quickly I fell into it. And then started thinking about how a conversation with a friend explaining THIS EXACT SITUATION AND THOUGHT PROCESS would go. And only got about two words out before I realized.

All of the sudden I am very aware of just how often I do this, which is apparently ALL THE DAMN TIME.

Does anyone have a word for this or like a name for it? Cause I have no clue what’s happening but I know I can’t be the only one who does it.

That feeling when you tell a guy you like him and not only does he like you too but when you tell him about your system he starts asking respectful questions to better understand and even takes notes on what to do more research on.

I’m going to cry /pos

Totally off topic, but does anyone else wish you could leave comments on YouTube adds so you can tell the company just how stupid and unintelligible their ads are?

Not to mention that a huge part of DID and other dissociative disorders is the constant battle with denial. And that fake claiming someone feeds the imposter syndrome and can seriously set someone back on their fight against it. It can seriously harm the person who’s been trying to hard just to believe themselves.

Fake claiming doesn’t help anyone at all. If you manage to correctly call someone out who doesn’t actually have DID I can guarantee your words will do absolutely nothing to change them. And on the much greater chance that you fake claim someone who ISN’T faking, you are going to very likely do a lot of damage to someone who is already struggling.

If you claim to be ‘calling people out’ for the sake of the community, I promise you that you are doing absolutely nothing for them except attacking a lot of already vulnerable individuals.

So please stop.

"if you really had DID you wouldn't care if you got fakeclaimed"

I'm sorry but people are ALLOWED to feel emotions about being fakeclaimed

If someone who's disabled just so as BREATHES online you guys go "lol fake" no matter what

We are allowed to angry and upset over this

It's not a sign of faking to feel emotions

It's hurtful and sends people into denial spirals

What fakeclaimers do IS HURTING DISABLED PEOPLE and then y'all call us fake for being HURT by what you say??? Your a fucking bully.

If someone is bullying someone they have every fucking right to be upset.

We really need to choose comfort shows that are actually, you know… comforting.

Just started rewatching one of our favorite shows and I honestly don’t remember it being so heart wrenching wrenching.

Anyways. *wipes tears and starts new episode* Back to it.

-Apollo? Maybe??

You don’t truly realize how hard pronouns are when referring to yourself until you are either

1. Trans and have to use different pronouns around different people because you aren’t out to everyone yet.

2. An alter in a system desperately trying not to ruin your singlet persona with the words ‘we’ and ‘us’ in place of ‘I’ and ‘me’

We need to stop consuming gravity falls media and fan art. Specifically Ford related stuff. I can PHYSICALLY FEEL our brain storing the character away in some dark pit in our head for later use when we next split. And let me tell you we do NOT need another deeply traumatized character living rent free in our head.

-Angelo, the current deeply traumatized character living rent free in our head.

Do you guys ever just look at your phone and mindlessly scroll for a bit and then you look back up and you’re an entirely different person?

-idk who this is rn