welcome

// "YOU WERE BEAUTIFUL, OUTSTRETCHED LIKE ANTENNAS TO HEAVEN."

- ULTRAKILL

Hello and welcome to the blog of the Aventine System! It's nice to meet you! Unfortunately I'm burnt out as hell, so updates are going to be infrequent, but please feel free to come and say hello!

This blog is both a safe space for me to exist on the internet, a place for other systems to relate to our experiences and or share their own, and a place for non-systems to learn more about what life with Dissociative Identity Disorder is like. Feel free to ask whatever questions you may have! I'll more than happily answer almost any question asked in good faith!

Please note that as this is a blog about mental illness, there will be frequent discussions of and references to mental illness. I'll do my best to keep this PG-13 and trigger tag anything that I think falls outside of normal or expected content to be on this sort of site, but if you're sensitive to dissociation, in all kindness, I recommend that you don't dive too deep into this site. Stay safe! :)

If you're trying to get the music to work, you need to go to your site settings, allow audio, refresh the page, and then play it. It will update itself as you navigate through the entire site so there aren't any weird pauses/cutoffs! There is no workaround to automatically enable music without turning on autoplay (which I don't want to do!) or else I would've done so already. I wish there was more I could do! The good news is once you figure out how to do it, it'll work until you clear all of your site cookies!

I hope you enjoy your stay in our little corner of the World Wide Web!

And while you're here, sign our very own guestbook! :)

about DID

// "Dissociative identity disorder is characterised by disruption of identity in which there are two or more distinct personality states (dissociative identities) associated with marked discontinuities in the sense of self and agency."

- ICD-11

In case you've accidentally stumbled upon this site with little to no information about what Dissociative Identity Disorder is, this site will be extremely confusing to read without context. Here's a quick explanation, with all information being pulled straight from the International Classification of Diseases 11th Revision. This is the European equivalent for the DSM-V. I am American, but I prefer to reference the ICD-11 as it is much easier to access online.

Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID for short, is much more complicated than just 'disorder that gives you funny characters in your head'. The most pervasive symptoms of DID are derealization/depersonalization episodes, near-constant amnesia both in the short and long term, a discontinuity in identity, perception, and behavior, detachment from the world around you, problems starting and maintaining relationships of any kind, fragmentation of the self, intrusive thoughts, and symptoms of many other psychiatric disorders. But as the most well-known and talked about symptom of DID, I should probably discuss the alternate selves.

Dissociative Identity Disorder starts in childhood as a result of prolonged and profound abuse during childhood, specifically, around ages 6-9 when a child's personality or ego states are attempting to form consistent with a child's expected development. As a result of the trauma, the brain cannot form one cohesive personality, so as a last-resort protective measure, it compartmentalizes itself and its different functions into different personalities, which can have different genders, apperances, and even memories. (I personally refer to mine as "alters".) As a rule of thumb, the entire disorder is a trauma response. DID causes symptoms of dissociation, amnesia, difficulties with cognition and perception, and "switches" -- which is when one or more alters take over the body where they then "front" (control the body). Usually, different alters will remember either little or none to what happened when they were not fronting (except in the case of OSDD-1B, but that's an entirely different essay). I personally have severe memory issues because of my DID that are as frustrating as they are frequent.

For more terminology and information on DID, check out the 'Resources' tab!