I’m thinking it’s actually the opposite. You can see that Amber wasn’t feeling well in one of the panels in the last strip. Dorothy being Dorothy she probably offered her bed to Amber to sleep it off, and meanwhile Dorothy went to sleep in different bed belonging to a certain ex that she’s currently trying to rekindle old sparks with.
I don’t know if I’d say that it’s worsening. At least the two identities are talking to each other now instead of one persona having no idea what the other is doing.
I think worsening is subjective in this case. As long as Amber has found a way to function without being a threat to herself or others, she’s doing okay.
yeah, that and it’s extremely hard, if not impossible to find good professional help for DID, because the vast majority of “treatment” there is basically the doctor gaslighting you into thinking you don’t have it T_T
Yumi
I want to validate that it’s extremely hard, but I don’t think it’s impossible. My friend is a therapist who sought out multiple resources for working with clients with DID, which included attending a conference about the subject, so there are others trying to build knowledge and skills to work with it as well. Now, I can’t speak to if this learning is helpful/successful or not, but I do know that in discussing DID with my friend, everything they said was inline with what I have read in the comment section from people personally familiar with it.
I don’t want to pretend it’s not hard, but I also hope it’s not impossible and people with DID can find people to help them who treat them with understanding and respect.
I’m glad your friend did the right thing, although for the time being professionals like them seem but an island admist a sea of punishment for DID folk seeking help.
DID is socially stigmatized even worse than autism, and knobhead doctors who think they know all they need to after having read a single fucking book thirty years ago are no exception to the rule as they compell their clients into an unwinnable war with their own brain.
Psychie
Honestly, good luck finding good help for any psychiatric condition in Bloomington. It’s weird, we have a really good psychology program at IU and yet not a single practicing psychologist or psychiatrist seems to be competent or even not actively toxic. I had a great pediatric psychiatrist growing up but she retired shortly after I reached adulthood and nobody else I’ve worked with or heard about could get their head out of their own butt long enough to help anybody dealing with anything.
The university mental health services are even worse, I briefly dated a girl who told me she went in due to depression and for some reason when she was describing her intrusive thoughts they heard “hearing voices”, diagnosed her with schizoprenia, refused to listen to her clarifications to their obvious misunderstanding, prescribed antipsychotics (which if you don’t have hallucinations to treat, will *cause* hallucinations), and lied to her about what they were so she’d take them. She wound up briefly hospitalized in the psych ward because she freaked out because she hallucinated that she hit a homeless man while driving her car with her friend in the passenger seat due to the unneeded antipsychotics. Then when she went back to explain they misdiagnosed her and prescribed the wrong medicine, they accused her of attention seeking behavior and diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder, which she did not have.
This is a terrible place to seek treatment for anything to do with the brain.
Sirksome
Unfortunately this is common with lots of high academic cost barrier to entry careers. Most folks that become doctors or lawyers don’t necessarily pursue that career for entirely altruistic reasons and the people who have the empathy to relate to mental illness are more common in lower income families where it would be incredibly expensive to pursue medical education and employment. We’re also in an increasingly severe doctor drought in general for many of the same reasons. Too expensive to educate and doctors usually chase money in concierge medical practices where they have less patients, higher pay, and access to better equipment.
I’ll be side-eyeing Booster for a bit cause they already seem a bit like that type. It’ll be very interesting to see what they do with their potential psychiatric degree.
I’m not sure about IU specifically though. I’m sure they got their good and their bad. For Amber specifically, finding a credited professional, that also has at least an interest in DID cases, that would also have a functioning relationship with her, and she could afford it? That’s like winning the lottery. Maybe Richard who is a doctor knows people in his medical circle?
Taellosse
Holy shit! I don’t suppose your ex had the courage to file charges and/or a lawsuit for what is very clear malpractice? Cuz whoever put her through that ought to have any and all licenses to practice revoked at a minimum. That goes way beyond the garden variety “providing poor care”!
This is a significant improvement I’d say. There’s nothing _inherently_ “wrong” with being plural. The circumstances that caused it are obviously awful, but the plurality itself is just a state of being. The important thing is they are communicating and at least somewhat cooperating.
Didn’t you say the same thing last time anyway? Maybe if you actually read the replies to your comments you’d see that 1. it’s not worsening, 2. What you’re asking for is damn near impossible for a teenage girl in Indiana and would likely do more harm than good, bc the vast majority of the psychiatric community is far behind on DID and haven’t figured out genuinely helpful treatment. Some are too busy trying to decide if it even exists
Diagnosed DID system here: Amber’s DID (assuming that’s what it is) is not worsening. Talking to your alters and treating them as separate from you is not unhealthy, it’s the first step in treatment. Having different alters front to face different challenges is also perfectly normal. It was far worse when she was having amnesia, no communication with her alters, and just going about life as if her alters didn’t exist.
And as others have pointed out, it’s difficult to get treatment for DID. The vast majority of trauma therapists aren’t qualified to even diagnose it let alone treat it. The only reason I’m able to see a DID specialist is because the pandemic made remote therapy normal, so I can see a therapist from the big city 2-hours away.
Of course. that’s the way party hangovers like this usually are XD
Vanessa
I suppose they’ve been shuffling beds as various people get sexiled in turn? Where did Billie go, is she in the bottom bunk? Is Dorothy in Walky’s bed, and Sal and Danny have forced out Malaya?
Taffy
Every bunk is the bottom bunk. What is this persistent rumor that these rooms have bunk beds?
Needfuldoer
Somehow the student population is 50% desks, and they all claimed the bottom bunks.
Obviously Dorothy pins class notes and schedules to the ceiling so she can study while she falls asleep and knows exactly what she’s doing the moment she wakes up
If we really break it down, isn’t all anger useless? We’re all gonna dissolve into brownsauce in seven years’ time*, so being angry is a waste of energy we could be using to build cool monuments to prank whoever gets Earth next. And to fuck like there’s no tomorrow, because there’s literally only a couple thousand more tomorrows.
*Specifically on Christmas Day, the 25th of December 2031, at around 12:00pm GMT.
Laura
Hmm? What is the significance of that particular date?
I had heard 2040 or so.
Taffy
That’s a different scenario than the one I’m talking about. Don’t worry.
Straximus
Yes, but which one *are* you talking about?
Taffy
I already gave you people the exact date, time, and method of extinction. I’m not spoon-feeding you every minor detail of specifically your own personal demise, stop asking for unpaid emotional labor.
Emperor Norton II
What if you get paid in Imperial Internet Points?
Mark
Thank goodness, we won’t have to deal with the Unix epoch rolling over in 2038.
Nymph, it’s slang.
It means more or less that you can’t believe the thing being spoken about.
Said thing is usually neutral or even positive.
Like I told my brother that I was mad that someone pirated Deadpool and Wolverine on YouTube so that I could watch it in all its glory, but I was in fact the opposite of that.
Nymph
Thank you for explaining! 🙂
cbwroses
No prob! ??
Adept
Thanks, I hate it. (For real, some times slang really rubs me the wrong way)
cbwroses
You’re welcome ?
Taellosse
Same! Slang that involves deliberate inversion of words’ meanings makes me actually mad.
Amber said at the disaster dinner that she wasn’t getting back with Walky, and she told him they shouldn’t get back together when he talked to her about his Mike feelings.
I’m not sure how much actual heartbreak she’s feeling, despite still having feelings and desire for him.
Akane
Things have changed since that dinner. Lucy broke up with Walky, she was the first person he went to, and they, unlike Dorothy, have unresolved issues.
If she still has feelings for him, she should fight for his love. He sounds pretty down about Lucy hooking up with Jacob.
cbwroses
Technically, Booster was the first one he went to.
And when he went to Amber, she told him they shouldn’t mess around, like I said.
She had the chance to throw her hat in the ring if that’s what she wanted.
204 thoughts on “Hangover”
Ana Chronistic
DOTTY, YOU DAWG
Dara
I know, right? Dang!
Dante
We were so distracted by the Dorothy/Joyce vibes we failed to anticipate Dorothy/Walky takIng Amber in.
Dammit, it works
Ophidiophile
Unless Dorothy and Walky are using Amber’s bed.
Masumi
I’m guessing Amber just escaped the party into a bed Dorothy offered her?
(while Dotty is in Joyce’s bed)
Michael Steamweed
We can only hope!!
Adept
I’m not sure what to hope for.
I’m basically always on Amber’s / Amazigirls side. I hope she gets nice things for a change.
Sirksome
Damn, Walky lost twice last night.
Superducked
I’m thinking it’s actually the opposite. You can see that Amber wasn’t feeling well in one of the panels in the last strip. Dorothy being Dorothy she probably offered her bed to Amber to sleep it off, and meanwhile Dorothy went to sleep in different bed belonging to a certain ex that she’s currently trying to rekindle old sparks with.
HoopsieDaisy
Pretty sure those sparks are a full campfire at this point. I mean, we have the strips.
Erica
I really hope Amber gets help for her worsening dissociative identity disorder soon
CrazyJ
I don’t know if I’d say that it’s worsening. At least the two identities are talking to each other now instead of one persona having no idea what the other is doing.
Ophidiophile
Unless Amber is hiding from whatever happened the previous night.
Needfuldoer
Amber? Hiding?
… Actually, yeah that checks out.
RassilonTDavros
I can’t see how this is any worse than the point in time when the two of them weren’t sharing any memories at all?
Sirksome
I think worsening is subjective in this case. As long as Amber has found a way to function without being a threat to herself or others, she’s doing okay.
NGPZ
yeah, that and it’s extremely hard, if not impossible to find good professional help for DID, because the vast majority of “treatment” there is basically the doctor gaslighting you into thinking you don’t have it T_T
Yumi
I want to validate that it’s extremely hard, but I don’t think it’s impossible. My friend is a therapist who sought out multiple resources for working with clients with DID, which included attending a conference about the subject, so there are others trying to build knowledge and skills to work with it as well. Now, I can’t speak to if this learning is helpful/successful or not, but I do know that in discussing DID with my friend, everything they said was inline with what I have read in the comment section from people personally familiar with it.
I don’t want to pretend it’s not hard, but I also hope it’s not impossible and people with DID can find people to help them who treat them with understanding and respect.
NGPZ
I’m glad your friend did the right thing, although for the time being professionals like them seem but an island admist a sea of punishment for DID folk seeking help.
DID is socially stigmatized even worse than autism, and knobhead doctors who think they know all they need to after having read a single fucking book thirty years ago are no exception to the rule as they compell their clients into an unwinnable war with their own brain.
Psychie
Honestly, good luck finding good help for any psychiatric condition in Bloomington. It’s weird, we have a really good psychology program at IU and yet not a single practicing psychologist or psychiatrist seems to be competent or even not actively toxic. I had a great pediatric psychiatrist growing up but she retired shortly after I reached adulthood and nobody else I’ve worked with or heard about could get their head out of their own butt long enough to help anybody dealing with anything.
The university mental health services are even worse, I briefly dated a girl who told me she went in due to depression and for some reason when she was describing her intrusive thoughts they heard “hearing voices”, diagnosed her with schizoprenia, refused to listen to her clarifications to their obvious misunderstanding, prescribed antipsychotics (which if you don’t have hallucinations to treat, will *cause* hallucinations), and lied to her about what they were so she’d take them. She wound up briefly hospitalized in the psych ward because she freaked out because she hallucinated that she hit a homeless man while driving her car with her friend in the passenger seat due to the unneeded antipsychotics. Then when she went back to explain they misdiagnosed her and prescribed the wrong medicine, they accused her of attention seeking behavior and diagnosed her with borderline personality disorder, which she did not have.
This is a terrible place to seek treatment for anything to do with the brain.
Sirksome
Unfortunately this is common with lots of high academic cost barrier to entry careers. Most folks that become doctors or lawyers don’t necessarily pursue that career for entirely altruistic reasons and the people who have the empathy to relate to mental illness are more common in lower income families where it would be incredibly expensive to pursue medical education and employment. We’re also in an increasingly severe doctor drought in general for many of the same reasons. Too expensive to educate and doctors usually chase money in concierge medical practices where they have less patients, higher pay, and access to better equipment.
I’ll be side-eyeing Booster for a bit cause they already seem a bit like that type. It’ll be very interesting to see what they do with their potential psychiatric degree.
I’m not sure about IU specifically though. I’m sure they got their good and their bad. For Amber specifically, finding a credited professional, that also has at least an interest in DID cases, that would also have a functioning relationship with her, and she could afford it? That’s like winning the lottery. Maybe Richard who is a doctor knows people in his medical circle?
Taellosse
Holy shit! I don’t suppose your ex had the courage to file charges and/or a lawsuit for what is very clear malpractice? Cuz whoever put her through that ought to have any and all licenses to practice revoked at a minimum. That goes way beyond the garden variety “providing poor care”!
Thag Simmons
this is a notable improvement on where she was back in book 10.
Violet
This is a significant improvement I’d say. There’s nothing _inherently_ “wrong” with being plural. The circumstances that caused it are obviously awful, but the plurality itself is just a state of being. The important thing is they are communicating and at least somewhat cooperating.
DashWallkick
It was worsening when they were in conflict. She at least knows how to be a better friend to herself.
AG and Amber might reintegrate at some point but I imagine that’s an “and then the comic is over” sort of story beat.
zee
This is not worsening. Communication and cooperation are a vast improvement to memory black outs and conflict
zee
Didn’t you say the same thing last time anyway? Maybe if you actually read the replies to your comments you’d see that 1. it’s not worsening, 2. What you’re asking for is damn near impossible for a teenage girl in Indiana and would likely do more harm than good, bc the vast majority of the psychiatric community is far behind on DID and haven’t figured out genuinely helpful treatment. Some are too busy trying to decide if it even exists
Adept
Amber / AG are fine. She’s a literal superhero after all.
The Blueprint System
Diagnosed DID system here: Amber’s DID (assuming that’s what it is) is not worsening. Talking to your alters and treating them as separate from you is not unhealthy, it’s the first step in treatment. Having different alters front to face different challenges is also perfectly normal. It was far worse when she was having amnesia, no communication with her alters, and just going about life as if her alters didn’t exist.
And as others have pointed out, it’s difficult to get treatment for DID. The vast majority of trauma therapists aren’t qualified to even diagnose it let alone treat it. The only reason I’m able to see a DID specialist is because the pandemic made remote therapy normal, so I can see a therapist from the big city 2-hours away.
Schpoonman
Well, I have no idea what’s going on.
NGPZ
I do believe this is what earthlings call a “hangover” :p
Agemegos
That answer, though manifestly true as far as it goes, is not fully forthcoming about who is where with whom.
NGPZ
Of course. that’s the way party hangovers like this usually are XD
Vanessa
I suppose they’ve been shuffling beds as various people get sexiled in turn? Where did Billie go, is she in the bottom bunk? Is Dorothy in Walky’s bed, and Sal and Danny have forced out Malaya?
Taffy
Every bunk is the bottom bunk. What is this persistent rumor that these rooms have bunk beds?
Needfuldoer
Somehow the student population is 50% desks, and they all claimed the bottom bunks.
Nono
Wait how do you recognise being in Dorothy’s bed
Dana
They share a half bath. She’s probably seen it a million times.
Yumi
Amazi-Girl has done research on what it’s like to be in everyone’s bed. Amazi-Girl is always prepared.
Dana
Never mind. I much prefer your explanation.
clif
Same.
Michael Steamweed
Same. (it’s headcanon now)
staszu13
For everything it seems but Amber’s girl liking tendencies (does no one remember her reaction to Rachel’s triumphant reemergence in Shortpacked?)
PedanticJerkass
She has a Brother Bed satellite for this purpose.
Thag Simmons
don’t worry about it
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Wrong Dexter and Monkey Master poster on the ceiling.
Bogeywoman
Obviously Dorothy pins class notes and schedules to the ceiling so she can study while she falls asleep and knows exactly what she’s doing the moment she wakes up
(Ngl I have done that)
Taffy
Ask your mom.
cbwroses
I’m mad she recognized whose bed it was from the ceiling.
Nymph
Seems a useless thing to be angry about, but go off.
Taffy
If we really break it down, isn’t all anger useless? We’re all gonna dissolve into brownsauce in seven years’ time*, so being angry is a waste of energy we could be using to build cool monuments to prank whoever gets Earth next. And to fuck like there’s no tomorrow, because there’s literally only a couple thousand more tomorrows.
*Specifically on Christmas Day, the 25th of December 2031, at around 12:00pm GMT.
Laura
Hmm? What is the significance of that particular date?
I had heard 2040 or so.
Taffy
That’s a different scenario than the one I’m talking about. Don’t worry.
Straximus
Yes, but which one *are* you talking about?
Taffy
I already gave you people the exact date, time, and method of extinction. I’m not spoon-feeding you every minor detail of specifically your own personal demise, stop asking for unpaid emotional labor.
Emperor Norton II
What if you get paid in Imperial Internet Points?
Mark
Thank goodness, we won’t have to deal with the Unix epoch rolling over in 2038.
cbwroses
Nymph, it’s slang.
It means more or less that you can’t believe the thing being spoken about.
Said thing is usually neutral or even positive.
Like I told my brother that I was mad that someone pirated Deadpool and Wolverine on YouTube so that I could watch it in all its glory, but I was in fact the opposite of that.
Nymph
Thank you for explaining! 🙂
cbwroses
No prob! ??
Adept
Thanks, I hate it. (For real, some times slang really rubs me the wrong way)
cbwroses
You’re welcome ?
Taellosse
Same! Slang that involves deliberate inversion of words’ meanings makes me actually mad.
cbwroses
Slang can be really “bad”.
Newlland(Henryvolt)
Dorothy & Walky were looking out for Amber, that’s nice.
Coatl
Indeed
Akane
Despite causing her heartbreak with this rebound.
cbwroses
Amber said at the disaster dinner that she wasn’t getting back with Walky, and she told him they shouldn’t get back together when he talked to her about his Mike feelings.
I’m not sure how much actual heartbreak she’s feeling, despite still having feelings and desire for him.
Akane
Things have changed since that dinner. Lucy broke up with Walky, she was the first person he went to, and they, unlike Dorothy, have unresolved issues.
If she still has feelings for him, she should fight for his love. He sounds pretty down about Lucy hooking up with Jacob.
cbwroses
Technically, Booster was the first one he went to.
And when he went to Amber, she told him they shouldn’t mess around, like I said.
She had the chance to throw her hat in the ring if that’s what she wanted.
NGPZ
Where’s Amber’s glasses? 😮
Those and much more to be found in The Hungover Games!!!! XD
jeffepp