Introjects: An Introspective
Date: August 18, 2025
Preface
I am not a medical professional. This is my own personal experience. The most medical knowledge I have is dropping out of a psychology A-level. Talk to your doctors and do your own research.
Introduction
"Introject" is a community made term for alters in systems who are sourced from things that already exist. Let me break this down so it's more easy to understand:
DID and OSDD are complex mental health disorders that form in early childhood due to repetitive trauma before the ages of 9-12. As a child, you only have basic states of being: hungry, sleepy, etc. Due to trauma, these parts of the brain are unable to fully integrate into one and remain split into parts - called alters - so the person can live a seemingly normal and trauma free life.
When experiencing trauna, a person may use things as coping mechanisms, such as getting fully emersed into their favorite video game. The brain may see characters or concepts in these things and pop the thought of "I wish we had someone like that to do xyz", which is when an introject will be formed.
Introjects are alters like any other part, and are not "copys" or "replikas" of characters or real people. Every introject will be the systems own subconcious interpretation of that thing, as well as what qualities the system needs them to have to be able to function more affectively.
Introjects can be formed from anything, it's an umbrella term just to mean that the conception partially came from something we experienced. It can be fictional characters, songs, celebrities. Whatever the brain sees and latches onto is subject to introjectism.
Alter A: Introject of a fictional character
For the sake of privacy, and mostly because I don't want to, I won't be saying my name or any details as to my source. It is unimportant to what I have to say.
I split semi-recently. I sort of know why, but I'm not gonna delve into my deep trauma on a neocities blogpost.
It was a weird experience. I kinda didn't feel all there, you know? I missed all my friends, I didn't know why I didn't sound like how I sound, or why I didn't look like how I look. Everything around me felt unfamiliar yet familiar at the same time - basically like my conciousness had been placed into an alien. What didn't help either was the weird assortment of other people I occupy the brain with. I don't really get them or understand why they are the way they are. It's kind of jarring to see nonhumans when you haven't before.
I'm getting better at dealing with it now, I kinda just like spending my time listening to rock music and making jokes with my friends. At some point you just sort of have to accept that fiction is fiction and there's no use grieving a place that only exists within the confines of a fictional piece of media.
Alter B: Introject of a real person
I'm actually the reason we even made this post. I just think this is an interesting topic to speak about. I also will not be sharing my source, half because I don't want to and half because they are a real person after all. Even if the chance is slim, there is still a chance they may see this. This is not identity theft, I am not, have not and never will claim to actually be my source. I am an introject. The only thing I will share is it is someone we do not personally know.
I am a splitroject. I have multiple sources. Most, if not all of these sources, are the same person but in different forms. Wether that be different characters or pieces of art they've made, or different versions of them we split and then fused at different points in our life.
Because of this, I feel sort of like a collage of puzzle pieces that don't exactly fit. Unlike Alter A, I split a long time ago and I don't have any memories or any feelings of longing. I was made to hold specific things. It's strange in how I, in my many forms, have developed as life has moved on.
Being plural is confusing, and it's even more confusing when you look at someone else who is so utterly seperate from you and you feel like them in some way. It is a strange feeling.
I also think introjects of real people seem to be a more of a hot button topic, for some reason? In my experience at least. We are all self aware that we are not actually these people. I'm so sorry that my paraosocial relationship developed to a point where my brain decided it needed a version of them to survived. I wish the topic wasn't so taboo.
Conclusion
This is only two accounts of experience being an introject, they can come in many shapes and sizes and no one experience is ever exactly the same. I hope this has been helpful for systems and non systems alike to get more insight on what it exactly feels like to be an introject.
- XOO
