This is pretty long and kinda covers a lot of different parts of possibly helpful system things. The more lighthearted aspects are at the top, and the possibly more heavy side of system problems or coping mechanisms are lower down. Feel free to take screenshots or screen records, or don’t if you don’t want to, also you might already know about a lot of these things but we figured we’d put them down anyway.
For us, we use a lot of different things to help deal with and cope with our system. For example, some of the apps we use on our phone that help is a lot are simply plural for keeping track of who is fronting or just to track information about different alters, the notes and reminders app for journaling for when we don’t want to use our actual notebook journal, keeping track of assignments and upcoming things, and tasks we need to do. We also use calm urge for helping with our co morbid self harm. There is also two other apps we use for external communication within our system, the first being Antar, the second being TwiNote. Antar is more in a private message format and isn’t actually made for system use specifically, it’s made to sort of break down your problems into different parts or “characters” so it might feel a little invalidating if you are a bit more sensitive to that. TwiNotes is like Twitter format, but you can create different accounts for different alters. It isn’t online and isn’t actually social media, but it can be used to communicate externally in a larger scale without as much cluttering messages. For tracking what alters look like (if your system is able to tell, not all systems or alters have appearances or can look the same) we use a few different apps. Firstly there is always physical paper and pencil, but drawing can take a lot of work and effort. There is ibis paint x that is a very convenient drawing app and I believe it is the free version of ibis paint. It is possible it costs money now, but when we installed it I think it was free. Live portait maker is for more feminine portraits or character you make, and it’s pretty realistic. It also has a similar app for more masculine character creation called live portrait maker guys. We also use Lily diary becuase it has a lot of different options, but it is in a more cutesy art style. This isn’t an app, but a website(s?) called picrew and there are a lot of different styles made by different people in which you can create characters. There is also Daylio which can help track your system’s symptoms for a lot of different things. I believe I’ve also seen it used for tracking alters fronting, but it’s not as in depth when it comes to that as simply plural is.
So now onto the darker aspects of systemhood. A lot of this if not all or most of it will be based on our experiences and knowledge, so some of this things we mention might not be a problem for you or we might not mention things that are a problem for you, it doesn’t mean either of us down struggle or are valid, it just means we experience different things and that’s okay.
Filling out a crisis sheet can be very helpful for keeping you and your alters aware and or safe while in or before being in crisis. Unfortunately we cannot upload a picture of a crisis sheet here, but we do have it on our Instagram and if anyone dms us we can give you our @ or if possible just the crisis sheet picture. If you don’t have instagram we can also find other ways to get you the sheet.
Finding good grounding techniques to help with dissociation can be a game changer. There are a lot of different techniques you can find online, but one we learned in the past is in the next paragraph.
When you are feeling like you need a way to ground yourself, taking a cold shower can help, but it should be done in a certain way to avoid putting your body into too much shock. Enter your shower with the coldest temperature you can handle and stand under the water for a minute or a few. Once you are ready to turn the (1/2)