Dealing with Memory Loss: Coping Strategies and Seeking Advice

My memory loss is not as severe as yours, but something that helps me is journaling. I often reread things I've written, which helps me remember.

How we typically go about helping ourself deal with this is through heafty journaling. We have a lot of structure and rules we had to build up over time with our gatekeepers, so now if someone fronts and doesn’t write down at least a bullet point list of what they did in a day, they get in trouble (basically certain privileges get revoked. We use certain voting privileges (not with super huge life decisions) as leverage, as well as a “jail” as some have started calling it (where they sit in their room and think about their actions. It was supposed to be called getting grounded, but no one used that terminology and instead called it jail lol). Unfortunately, with DID there is no getting rid of the amnesia barriers, as each alter will have a certain amounts of walls. Some alters share certain things with each other if they’re close innerworld or whatnot, but be careful to not share too much with others to avoid trauma-flooding, as that can cause a new split. Btw, if trauma happened in a day that shouldn’t be shared with others, we typically just write “unsharable event, 2pm-4pm” or whatnot. I hope this can be found helpful 💜

I've been working on better communication of what is going on between alters so we have been intentionally telling other alters what's been happening, but it mainly helps to write things down or text them to my partner.

Everyone here has already suggested things like switch trackers and daily journaling; which I would also recommend! Something that helped us when our amnesia was at an all time Worst, was having a sort of chronological timeline written down of major life events for us. That at least offered a broad structure to base the more intricate details around.

I suggest downloading an app called Simply Plural. It helps keep track of those who front and for how long. You can also send messages to specific Alters as long as they have a profile and you can write stuff down in your notes section. It's really helped me and my system. You can even have your loved ones download it as well and then friend them on the app and they will receive notifications when someone else frints as long as you give them permission. Feel free to pm me if it interests you.

Getting in the habit of writing and tracking stuff down like switches helps a lot. Not just for you, but for the others in the system as well. We’re not the best at it but we try. Simply Plural has helped us track our switches and there’s a bunch of different things you can do on the app. Discord also has PluralKit, so you could make your own server and track stuff like that. Having a written record of things done during the day, whether it be physical or virtual, has helped a ton.