I still dissociate, but I'm more co-conscious with my alters. The good part is that I'm more in control. The bad part is that my traumas and triggers are more apparent, real, and painful. It's as though healing from dissociation means increased PTSD, so then we work on PTSD treatment, which is painful and causes some relapses in dissociation along the way, but then we keep working forward to being co-conscious.

We also try to be co-conscious with fun stuff, so that's not too bad. But sometimes even the fun stuff is triggering for some. For example, the older alters, including the teens and myself will see the littles play and then feel sad because our childhood was lost, robbed from us via parentification, stolen from childhood emotional neglect, and lonely because we often played alone - just with our system. We realize then that multiple traumas in childhood probably caused our dissociation, and that we needed it to protect ourselves from deep pain and threats to our overall lives. It's more than a coping mechanism; it's a *survival mechanism.* We needed it so much in order to stay alive that we get confused whenever we feel suicidal. But lately, we've been doing well with coping with suicidal thoughts, and we do very much want to remain alive and get better. We struggle each day with this though.

We're doing better this week, but we still have tons of triggers that can make or break us. So we are trying to take it easy.