Aden Polydoros

I filmed my first short back in January. Just under 8 minutes, cost $750 for locations, and I'm incredibly proud of it. It might not look as flashy as all these AI videos flooding my timeline, but I did it all myself. Shot it, acted in it, edited it. It's all mine.

Like, it would feel typical--I can't recall my childhood or my adolescence or my undergrad--except, I know that the level of daily amnesia I experience is abnormal. And this level of identity variance is abnormal.

It's funny, because before I realized I had a dissociative disorder, this would all feel relatively in sync, but it's paying attention to these subtle nuances, I realize--the reason I can't clearly recall the last two years of my life, is because we are fractured.

There is a clear cleavature of emotions, of experiences, that is separated by the adult trauma. That divides, me as Aden, with the one that became.

There was a divide, between who I was as Aden, and how I viewed myself in the moment. And I can't relate, on a baser level, to how I viewed myself in the past, before that moment.
I feel no emotion or relation to the classes I took in undergrad, to studying abroad in Germany, to my writing career.

I think, the worst part of realizing I have DID, is struggling with the feeling, that I am not a person. That I don't quantify the necessary amount (of my daily life, of my piecemeal past) to be a whole, complete person.
Like, I think, a few years ago, after an adult assault, there was a schism.

A few minutes later, the man came up, GF said, "I heard you offered to buy our friend here" and I said "F- you, you pedo- f---." Guy said he was working for police; police had no record of him. Still think about that...

A few years ago, I was living in Vancouver, and hanging out with my friend and his GF at the beach. We were drinking and smoking, and my friend went over to him to ask to use his charger. The man asked me friend if he could buy me, which my friend relayed to us when he returned.

Now I know why, and I know the abuse I suffered has defined my entire life. I'll never know the person I could've been, had it not happened. And that's gutting.

CSA ruins lives. It literally destroys a part of you, of the child you could have been and the adult you could've become.
I began having symptoms of DID several years ago, but even before that, since I was a kid, I felt horribly wrong, broken, rotten. And I didn't know why. 1/2

Also, reading my previous books, it's wild seeing the metaphors for dissociation and repressed trauma. Like, from Project Pandora to Wrath Becomes Her, there's a clear pattern of subtext that becomes more and more overt.

So, writing feels much more collaborative now. Their role in my books, is the other reason I decided to be public about having DID. I know I'm a good writer, but I don't think I would've been able to sell ten books before the age of 30, without my alters.

But then, sometimes it's also a joy, writing in the moment and feeling so close to my characters, in a way I didn't before. I can match my alters up with different characters, throughout multiple books, based upon their faces and individual voices; I know the ones they wrote and roleplayed as.

Like, it's been a journey this last year, on all fronts. It's terrifying, as an author, looking at your own manuscript, not being able to remember you wrote it, not being able to conceptualize the plot in your head, not knowing how to edit. Because /you/ didn't write it.

and I don't intend to detransition--it would be horrific for me and the majority of my alters. And I'm so grateful I was able to transition as a teen, because I would have literally killed myself. But I still want to be able to talk about this aspect.

And, as a trans person, it was shocking and distressing when, after being satisfied in my gender identity for years, I began feeling like a woman at times, or a young girl at times. I've since found a satisfying medium to balance my dysphoria +

I thought it was normal to have multiple trains of thought going at once, to have an ongoing dialogue in my head, but it's not. I thought it was normal to not be able to remember your childhood, or forget the classes you took earlier that day, that it was just ADHD, but it's not.

When I get into the 'flow', I dictate my novels without thinking, barely aware of what I'm saying. And my voice changes. I can literally hear, through several years of recordings, when other alters have decided to write passages.

Like, I hid it for 2+ years after becoming aware I had the disorder, just because I was terrified of the stigma. It felt like my life was over. But I've come to realize, the sole reason I am such a successful writer, is because of my alters.

I'd really love to start talking more about DID, and how getting this diagnose in my late 20s, really changed my life. It's such a stigmatized disorder, I feel like there's so many stereotypes and misconceptions, I want to help combat that.

Anyway, highly recommend reading "The Gift of Fear". It definitely made me rethink how I view my own intuition and gut feelings, and how modern-day rationality sometimes forces us to bury the animal instinct that lays at the basis of our evolution as a species.

The masked man was being escorted out by security, I guess for shop-lifting, but my immediate feel upon seeing him lift up his mask was, "armed robbery", and I should've just gone to another gas station, to alleviate the fear and risk.

A few months ago, I had a similar thing happen, where I was going into a gas station late at night and the man who came in behind me immediately pulled up his face mask. That time, I left, but sat in my car for 5 minutes, feeling ridiculous, before deciding to go back into the store.

Since reading "The Gift of Fear", I've decided to listen to these inner cues, even if they feel irrational. Any other mutuals experience something like this?

I've never had that happen before. It was only a brief glance, and the man gave me this odd, hard look--but it just immediately caused me to dissociate and go into protector mode, and be like, "we need to leave."

Ever come across someone and get an explicably bad feeling? A few days ago, I was at the grocery store, and made eye contact with this couple--the moment I met the man's gaze, I felt an immediate sense of danger, and actually decided to immediately check out and leave the store.

I hear all the time about how reviews are for readers, but do any other authors read their own reviews, in order to learn how to improve their craft or see where they fell short? For me, reading reviews of TCB and the pacing in the novel, definitely influenced how I wrote the sequel.

It's honestly wild editing IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU. I wrote the book before GenAi became a thing, and early revisions of the killer AI in my book reflected the many-fingered, many-toothed atrocities of early AI images. Now that's obsolete lol.

As an author, I realized, I need to put as much thought into the thoughts and psychology of side characters, in the moment, as I do for the POV character. I can't just rely on how side characters act or respond. I need to know how they think.

Like, just going over a script I wrote with my acting coach, I realized I filter so much of my writing through the main character's POV, I don't spend enough time considering what other characters are "thinking" in the moment.