Three Kids in a Trench Coat

Whaddup

I’m Riley, a PhD Psychologist in my early 40s, living in the UK. I’m non-binary / genderfluid, and my greatest loves are dancing, nature, & video games. And music. And art. And boxing. And… yeah, some things it just depends which of us you ask xD

I say that because with me is my inner fam; parts of me that have their own voices & ways of being; dancing through life together.

We’re a system, 12 of us currently. I say 12, but it’s 13 if you include Riley, I guess – but when we move through the world, we all just go by Riley – Us, Together. Sometimes we describe our deal as, “plurality”. Therapeutically, we’ve been in treatment for Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) since Jan ’24.

I had no idea about the DID, or that I might have trauma (DID is an adaptation to early life complex trauma), until a couple of years ago. I thought my shit was OCD and some depression. One part of me thought everything was grand and I was doing a bang-up job of managing everything. Another, that at the end of the day, it was all a total mess and I was just kinda broken and bad. Locked in some kind of endless back and forth, with no understanding, thinking things would just always be that way.

That was until I started getting curious about some dangling threads I’d never seen before, and started pulling at them.

Gender hey, what’s that all about? *tug* Oh, maybe I’m trans sure feels like me but something isn’t quite making sense *tug* Oh, hey Chance, I’m Riley, I’ve got a lot to tell you about what we do in the evenings – but also can we do a transition please? … and maybe have a hug? 🙂

Feeling empowered, I started to look at other threads, ones I knew I’d been avoiding for a long time. Relationship stuff & addiction – gonna sort those right out *tug* Oh, hey… <static & redacted, all the moons of Jupiter are yours except Io. Attempt no landings there.> … well if you’re gonna be like that, I should probably find a therapist who understands the weird stuff.

*starts therapy*

*tug* *tug* *tug* Oh my god… it’s full of stars!

What has been unfurling since is a tapestry of so many different threads & colours. It’s beautiful, but overwhelming. I thought I was a teatowel with a map of Cornwall or something – simple & useful, but not much to it. Now there’s this huge, messy work of art, that’s been being weaved all this time – looking at it brings up so many feelings, and some of those have threads that go all the way back to… oh boy… ok, enough looking at the tapestry for today. Work in progress.

I thought I’d start a thing where I can share bits of my experience – other bloggers like Carolyn Spring have been pretty inspirational & informative, and they say sharing helped them along the way – so fuck it, why not 🙂

Next post I’ll give a bit more of an overview of what DID is, with a bunch of links & recommendations if you’re curious and want to know more.

Until then: be kind to yourselves

Riley & fam x