It’s been an interesting month or two for us.
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Decisions, decisions
We don’t want to talk specifics, because it’s early days and some of us sometimes feel forced by what we share – but I’ve been making some decisions recently, and sticking by them, even when they felt hard.
In the confusion of trauma & dissociation, doing anything that there isn’t an existing team member for, is extremely difficult. Hell, half the stuff we did know how to do we’ve been cut off from for much of the last couple of years (it’s amazing how quickly it comes back when those parts re-emerge, though).
So I’m trying to celebrate the positives, acknowledge the wins where we make them.
That’s a challenge in itself for sure, though… because so often we find ourself…
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Dissociating the positives
Last week, for example, after sharing several really positive things I’d done over the week before, my therapist said a bunch of things – I think about being proud of me, saying that I’d done something that must have been really difficult, finding how I’ve been doing really encouraging…
I say, “I think” – because he then asked how it felt to acknowledge that stuff… and it wasn’t until that point that I realised, having talked for 15-20 minutes or so, telling stories from the week, & responding to my therapists’ questions back & forth… I’d zoned out of every encouraging thing he’d said in response, was barely aware of what I’d been saying, & that I had no idea what he was asking me about.
I told him as much, and we talked through things. I spent most of the rest of the session in a kinda robotic & depersonalised state – though that could have been about so many things.
Keeping us in a place of worried vigilance is a role some of my parts play, because saying, “Yeah, we’re doing alright, actually…” feels like giving away control & inviting in disaster – and dissociation is one of the tools through which this system goal & affect management happens.
I was just taken aback by just how stark the experience was this time (the vibe when you start, “noticing the dissociation”, is a heckuva thing).
I know “Discounting the positive” is a common “thinking trap”, or “cognitive distortion”, often one of the focuses of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy – but I realise (/remember) that sometimes I literally don’t hear positive shit people say, because it’s positive, and positive feels dangerous….
… isn’t that kinda wild?
The default for so many trauma survivors is to be sent into panic mode by signals of safety. In fact, becoming gradually able to notice signals of safety and to learn, through slow & steady repeated experiences where the signal matches what happens next, is at the core of unlearning hypervigilance, and to lay the groundwork for further healing.
One step at a time – sometimes it’s ok just to notice at first.
Us, Together in 2026
Anyway – part of being able to make choices in the present is a big part of what being able to operate as, “Us, Together” means – and that includes being able to compassionately be with, for example, parts dissociating from positive experiences, understanding that there’s a reason we do that, and moving forward without it becoming an internal battleground.
We’re all doing our best, here – and some of us need light, while some of us prefer the shade, and that’s ok. This piece of recent art is very much a depiction of that, and the very different energies that can be a lot for one body & brain to hold sometimes – but it’s all part of the journey of being an us.
Speaking of contrasting emotional energies that are hard to hold in one body – quick shoutout to Ratatoskr from our current video game of choice, God of War: Ragnarok. For being… well, just kinda awesome – we love him so much xD (he has four spectral aspects I’ve met in the game – Anxious, Arrogant, Bitter, and Perfectionist).
This should give you an idea of what we mean – don’t worry, I don’t think any of this is a spoiler for any main plot threads:
Yeah, we’ve a Bitter (and the rest) of our own in here, and we love them dearly xD
An unintended detour into Pluribus
Anyway – thinking about Us got us reflecting on Apple TV’s Pluribus, and what we dig about it (the show is one my therapist recommended to me – we have similar taste in plural-vibes TV xD). One of my favourite lines comes in ep. 1:
“This individual’s name is Davis Taffler… but you’re currently speaking to everyone in the world… including Davis Taffler…”
Which, if you know the show, doesn’t 1-1 translate on a bodily level because while Severance basically is DID (multiple selves, one body), Pluribus the reverse (many bodies, one self… sorta – literally from the Great Seal of the United States, “Out of Many, One”).
Still, I imagine that translating for us roughly as (for example):
“This individual’s name is Ellie… but you’re currently speaking to everyone in Riley’s system… including Ellie…” xD)
Some other moments we really enjoyed early on include the non-joined people arguing on Air Force One, and Lakshmi being shocked at Carol:
“How could you not ask them what it’s like?!”
I find myself wondering what it’s like to be non-dissociative from time to time – as far as I can gather, it sounds kind of like Us, Together, only with less familiarity with your parts (but more of a focus on experience as a whole). In my buck-wild oversimplification, at any rate ^^
Oh, the other thing in early Pluribus that is just… so painful to watch, is the way Carol can literally kill people she’s never met with her expressions of anger and grief. There is something about that that gnaws at us in such a raw way. Both externally – anger and loss are two of the emotions we grew up learning it wasn’t safe to feel or express – but also internally.
Internally, because we experience the world through our own perspectives – but there is also something that’s really important for everyone to be on the same page about in a system:
We all share one physical body.
and
Something that happens to one of us, happens to all of us.
That’s just a fact of a shared physiology, and living in a mono-selfing society (legal personhood, interpersonal responsibility, etc – all shared).
Well, sometimes we feel really, really big emotions – and the way we respond to them can lead to some of our more sensitive members really getting shaken up by the whole thing. Anger is one of those emotions that tends to burn hot, bright, fast, and it can fuel itself into a firestorm if we don’t take steps to address the source, or otherwise de-escalate (which includes validating it – telling an angry part to, “just calm down” doesn’t work – trust us).
So yeah, seeing Carol literally killing people with her explosive outbursts is a real, “Yeowch” for us, depicting something we fear will happen to other people if we express our anger outwardly, and something we know can burn parts inside if we try to contain it in unhealthy ways.
It’s a good show, I’d recommend it – particularly if, like my therapist & I, you’re particularly into plural-vibes stories. Expect a slow burn though, and Severance remains the best depiction of DID I can think of. I’ll write something about the amazing Identiteaze soon.
Anyway – this, “Us, Together”ness has been a feature of the year so far, and while TV & games are a great way of communicating about it, art continues to be our favourite ways of expressing it.
Until next time, take care of yourselves kiddos ❤
Riley & fam
Three Kids in a Trench Coat 
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