A small peep into the life of a D.I.D system - Little Shopping Spree Edition

Please no angry or rude comments towards or about this alter. She is young and my system doesn’t understand money very well. In our inner world, money does not exist, so the littlies have not had any reason to understand money, or how valuable it is.

All money donated for our assistance dog has been put into a separate savings account that we do not have access too. I put money in it every month and only certain people have access to it.Not even I, Kiana/Raven, have access to the account, and it is under my name, so please be assured that any money donated has not, and will not be used for anything, other than the assistance dog.When the time comes to get our assistance dog, I will be able to access it, but currently, only certain trusted adults, including my parents have access.

One of my littlies, who we call Four (4), is obsessed with Care Bears. We have only been aware of her for about twelve (12) months. She is mostly non-verbal, and many of the things she can say, she struggles to articulate. The first few months of meeting her was like playing charades for my family, until my younger brother began teaching her ASL (American Sign Language) to help her communicate better. She has expressed a love of Care Bears for a long time, as we watched Care Bears a lot when we were very young. She was one of my main reasons for creating one of my previous blog posts about some marketing that Care Bears have done.

(This littlie holds a lot of traumas, and is often referred to as a “Secret Keeper” in our system, and the main reason we believe she can not speak properly, is because her purpose is to keep traumas a secret and keep them hidden. If she can’t say anything, then she can’t tell people about our ‘secrets’)

Before I go a bit more into the story, I need to speak a little bit about my younger brother, who we will call TJ, and his girlfriend. Four (4) has seen TJ and his girlfriend as she often comes over to visit and is aware of our system. TJ and his girlfriend are often wearing something matching, whether that be a matching shirt, matching socks, etc. Four (4) has seen this time and time again, but it wasn’t until TJ went Christmas shopping, and bought matching clothes for him and his partner, that she really understood. TJ explained to Four (4) that his girlfriend likes to match clothes with him, and he likes matching clothes with her.Four (4) found this very cute, and understood this as something you do with people you love, as a way to show love and affection. My mum and I have often bought clothes that match one another. We have matching pink teddy bear t-shirts, as well as matching dragon scale leggings, and matching dinosaur leggings.My family and I have always tried to ensure everyone in my system has something that can make them feel more comfortable when fronting. Whether that be a shirt, or some pants. I bought new bathers to make both males and females within the system comfortable, as I used to wear shorts and a bikini top, but that created a lot of body dysmorphia for the boys, so I changed to one-piece suits with shorts, or shorts and a swim shirt.

Four (4) also had clothes to help her feel more comfortable, including a Care Bear sleep shirt (one that matches one for my mum as well), some Care bear sleep shorts, and even a large jumper that covers her hands so she can give people high fives (She feels pain when she is physically touched, like pins and needles)

Four (4) has been seeing a lot of Care Bear clothes advertised on SHEIN, a favourite store of my system as they offer a large variety of things.

I feel that I need to address this. (I know I keep getting side tracked with smaller tidbits of information. It’s how my brain works. Just go with it)

I have a shopping addiction. When I was a child, my abuser showered me in gifts and this has now become one way I deal with overwhelming emotions.I struggle with Borderline Personality Disorder, a common disorder in people who have suffered with childhood trauma.

Many people with Borderline Personality Disorder have some sort of addiction. It is reported that approximately 26% of people with Compulsive Buying Disorder, had the underlying issue of Borderline Personality Disorder. Although this isn’t a high number in an overall comparison, approximately 78% of people with BPD suffer with some sort of addiction.

Borderline Personality Disorder plays a huge role in my addiction to shopping, but I take full accountability for my actions. My therapist is trying to teach me to handle myself and my money better. I impulse buy, not stopping to think about whether I really need these items, and ADHD plays a huge role in this, but it becomes a compulsion, which is apart of Compulsive Buying Disorder.

I see something I want (impulse) like new clothes, new craft materials, new hobby materials, or decorative items. For example, I like giving things as gifts, so Christmas time can be a huge trigger for my addiction. My partner (sort of. I don’t know what we are kind of….) saw something that he thought looked really pretty. My younger brothers were shopping with us, and they wanted to look at some decorative pocket knives, potentially to buy for my older brother.My partner saw two knives that he really liked, and I kept offering to buy them for him. I only had about $70 left in my bank account after all the Christmas shopping we had done that day. I kept begging him to let me buy him one. He told me that I could buy one, and give it to him as a Christmas gift, so I saw the two that he wanted and he said I could pick one of those two, and give it for Christmas.My impulse went out the window, and I decided to buy them both. It was over $100 to buy them both, and instead of sticking to the budget that I had given myself (I kept about $500 in my bank account for Christmas shopping), I went over budget and transferred money to myself from my back account, to get the money needed for both knives. That was a choice I made. It was an impulse decision, but I knew it would make me feel happy to make my partner happy, and he would enjoy the knives.He wasn’t too happy that I had bought both of them, as he explicitly stated that I could buy him one. He is aware of my impulse buying and he trusted me to only buy one. He explained that I broke his trust, which for me was hard to hear. I am not used to having people explain how my actions make them feel, or the consequences of those actions. I am not used to be confronted about it, even though he was gentle and empathetic about why I made that decision. I didn’t understand why until he explained that he tries not to buy things for me, as he knows this makes me uncomfortable due to my trauma, but that he isn’t comfortable with me spending a lot of money on him, especially when he knows I do not have much money for myself.

That was an impulse buy. It made me happy in the moment because it made him happy. I quickly lost the high that I felt after buying him those knives.

When I haven’t bought anything in a while, I struggle emotionally. I struggle to regulate my emotions on a daily basis, but when I haven’t bought anything for a while, I tend to get very anxious. I feel uncomfortable and nothing feels right in the world. I constantly check my Auspost and shopping apps, just to see if anything is coming for me, and I visually become anxious when I don’t see anything. The longer I leave it, the worse I feel.

After buying something, I feel high, like a drug. Its an adrenaline rush, and it floods my body with dopamine. Dopamine is a hormone that releases in our body to give us feelings of pleasure, satisfaction and motivation. Unlike serotonin, dopamine gives us a quick burst of those “feel good hormones” so the high is shorter lived but stronger, unlike serotonin which is more of a slow release.

Dopamine is what causes that flood of pleasure when you purchase something you’ve been saving up for, or finding $20 buck on the floor.

When I shop, big or small, my body gets flooded with dopamine. Many drugs, like opioids, cocaine and nicotine cause dopamine to flood the body, ten times more than other rewards, which is a huge motivator when it comes to being addicted to these drugs. Although dopamine is not addicting itself, the feeling it brings can be addicting. That flood of chemicals is what I look for when I go shopping, and its also what makes it so hard for me.

In fact, medical studies find that a contributing factor to BPD is an altered dopamine and/or norepinephrine (noradrenaline). Norepinephrine plays an important role in our “fight or flight” response.

My impulse control is not the greatest, but my addiction is more based on impulse when I’m having good days.When I’m having bad days, it becomes a compulsion. I NEED to shop. I NEED that dopamine release.These are the days when I spend hundreds of dollars online. The reason shopping online for me is “better” than in person is because the high lasts longer. Waiting for it to be delivered to my house, means that I continue to get a dopamine release whenever I get an update on the tracking, and when the package arrives, it’s like an early Christmas.

If my package is delayed, I get very irritable, as those dopamine releases slow down. My family see that I get angry, irritable and reactive.

This is what shows that I have a problem. My mood should not be so heavily affected on shopping, but it is. I feel the need for that high, the same way my mum NEEDS a coffee in the morning. If you’ve ever seen a coffee drinker who hasn’t had coffee for the day, you will know what I mean.That’s because substances like coffee have that same dopamine effect.

The reasons this is important to this story is to help explain that I am not a good example for my system when it comes to this topic. I have spent hundreds of dollars on things that I have never used, worn, etc. Shopping gives me that rush, and I do not always have the best control over it, so I often give the wrong example to easily influenced little ones in my system, which is another reason why I wasn’t angry when this happened. She is seeing package after package arrive at my house, so for her, shopping online is normal, and it isn’t wrong because I do it all the time. I am partially at fault here, so please do not target her. So, what I was saying is that Four (4) was seeing lots of Care Bear apparel online. I had uninstalled the SHEIN app at least six times to try to settle my addiction, but she kept reinstalling it to look at all the Care Bear clothes. (She was not the only one to reinstall this app to look at their products.)She saw that they had clothes for both Boys and Girls, and decided that she wanted to have matching clothes with the people she loves and cares about too.

She proceeded to buy the following.

-      Matching shirts for her and TJ

-      Matching shirts for her and our youngest brother Tyler

-      Matching shirts for her, mum and our Cousin (Who we will call T)

-      Matching shirts for her and our dad

-      Matching shirts for her and my partner

-      Matching pants for me and my Partner

Remember these are all Care Bear themed by the way.

-      A Care Bears pajama set (Shirt and Pants)

-      Black Care Bear leggings

-      White Care Bear leggings

-      6 pairs of Care Bear underwear

-      A Care Bear Jumper (We are in the middle of Summer here by the way)

-      3 Care Bear keychains

-      50pcs Care Bear packaging bag (They’re 14cm long and 17cm wide. WE HAVE NO USE FOR THESE.)

She also bought a few other smaller things for Christmas presents for people, or on behalf of others within the system, so I won’t count them.All up, Four’s (4) order, only counting the things listed above, came to a total of $334.82

This is one of the sides of D.I.D that not many people may talk about. Shopping, especially in person for me, can be extremely overwhelming. I have littlies calling out to look at toys, caretakers trying to wrangle littlies, protectors scanning constantly to make sure we aren’t running into people we know, causing me to be extremely anxious whenever anyone gets to close to me. The radio constantly plays in shopping’s centres, and if certain songs are played, it can positively trigger others to front. I get distracted and become overly stimulated very easily, and I get agitated and reactive when I am overwhelmed with how many people are around me.

Our system is nowhere near where we hope to be one day when it comes to communication. Our communication is not clear, and often leads to debilitating headaches, blurred vision, loss of feeling in my body, and in extreme situations, dissociative seizures. People trying to communicate with me often sounds like bells ringing in my ears, or a constant static sound inside my head, like tv static that you can’t turn off, with a distorted voice behind it. My family have slowly been trying to teach my alternate personalities, especially my little ones about money, and the importance of saving up. I needed money that week for my medication, as well as some extra Christmas presents. I am saving up for an assistance dog, so $200 automatically comes out of my account whenever I get paid, and I have been putting $100 aside every pay cycle for a new PC so I can continue streaming and recording videos for my youtube channel. That is nearly $400 in bills or payments due that week, as well as the approximate $350 that Four (4) spent. That’s $750 spent, not even a week into my pay cycle, which is every two weeks, which is almost all of my pay.

It is not easy to teach my alters about things when we can not have round table discussions together. Although Four’s (4) heart was in the right place, as she wanted to show her love and affection by giving presents, which is what our abusers taught her, (you have to buy peoples love), this was a lot of money that ultimately, I could have used for other bills, including a debt I have to my therapist.

D.I.D isn’t always sunshine, rainbows and Care Bears. I have had people spend money on things I wasn’t okay with, spend money that I didn’t have, or spend money on things that were scams. No one was doing this to be naughty or cause problems, it’s because money has no value to them. The little ones especially need constant reminding that money is not never ending, and that everything costs money.

This is one of the more difficult things about having a D.I.D system, but it definitely isn’t the hardest. I want you all to remember that D.I.D is not something that is fun every day. It is caused by intense repeated trauma from a young age, which leaves majority of the alternate personalities heavily traumatised.

Our trauma is the very reason Four (4) has the struggles she has. Our trauma is the very reason she can’t articulate words properly, or even hug somebody without feeling pain. Our trauma is the reason she sometimes hides under tables, or snatches things. Our trauma is the reason she struggles to share her things, and is often quite blunt, and can be seen as rude with some of the ways she addresses people.

Yes, we have good days every now and then. We have alters front who want to spend time with the family, play games, colour in and celebrate Christmas, but they more often than not front on their good days. On their bad days, our Watcher, better known in the D.I.D community as a Gate Keeper, keeps them inside, so they do not cause harm to themselves or others.When Four (4) becomes distressed, she pulls at her own hair. She bites and hits people as this is the only way she knows how to communicate when she is overwhelmed. Now a physical four-year-old hurts when they hit, but a four year old trapped in the body of a twenty two (22) year old is going to hurt a lot more. It is very difficult for my parents to manage us when we have a child temper tantrum in an adult body. It is not always fun and games, and I want you all to remember that.

If you wish to donate towards our assistance dog, press the button below and it will take you to our GoFundMe.Once again, all of this money goes straight into an account that we do not have access to, and this money will ONLY be used for an assistance dog, and the things needed for an assistance dog.

Assistance Dog GoFundMe

I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas and a safe holiday season.

I am hoping to offer much more content next year, and I have a few things planned already.

Photos of the matching clothes will be put up on our Facebook Page once everyone has worn them! So Keep an eye out!

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I See You, I Hear You, and I Love You.

Please Be Kind To Yourself This Christmas Season.