#It's not. It's not ptsd. It's not a trauma disorder at all. They're comorbid but they are NOT the same

[lemonxlimee]

DID is not a trauma disorder. Nor is it a plurality disorder (those don't exist).

It's a dissociative disorder. It's commonly associated with trauma but you don't need trauma to have it. Just like you don't need trauma to have any other dissociative disorder.

[wawawawawawawawawawawawawa]

i'm on my aspd izaya bullshit again but like. thru this lens, isnt his arc a perfect encapsulation on how aspd negatively affects the person that has it? even to this day, many professionals do not believe that pwASPD suffer from aspd. like at all. to the point where aspd was specifically listed as an outlier to the "patient distress is what defines a disorder" rule in an abnormal psych textbook

(see why i don't respect the field?)

but... he does suffer! a lot! like- remember his speech to mikado at the end of the first arc? how you need to keep evolving, keep changing in order to escape the mundane? how you have to keep going and going and going, wether it be aiming high or low?

yeah. normal people don't need to do this, izaya. you are a broken person.

but why SHOULD he be content with the mundane? the things people usually have that make them content with daily life- friends, family, a purpose, a distinct lack of extreme chronic boredom that drives you to do completely insane shit- izaya doesn't HAVE any of that!

"wait, chronic boredom?" i hear yall thinking. maybe. "isnt that an adhd thing?"

more than one disorder can have the same symptom. theres like a billion that have "want to die" as a symptom. but i dont really blame you for not knowing, its not talked about much

studies have shown that aspd and adhd are both problems with the dopamine receptors in the brain. more specifically, adhd is a chronic deficiency of dopamine, whereas with aspd, when you DO get dopamine, your brain gives you quardruple the normal amount.

studies have ALSO shown there to be a sort of... adhd to aspd pipeline. the story goes like this: you have a kid with adhd. maybe they're born like that, maybe the symptoms developed from trauma (which can happen? apparently??) anyway. kid gets abused. kid develops conduct disorder as a result of that abuse, as a natural extension of the existing adhd symptoms. they're MORE impulsive, which leads to them hurting others- and if it sets off the dopamine receptors, an abused kid starving for happiness and power is gonna chase it, no matter what. theyre like, six, they dont know anything about like. morality. all they know is, theyre sad and this makes them happy. anyway kid never gets treated, abuse continues to exasperate the symptoms, and now you have an adult with aspd, AND the original adhd diagnosis! and ptsd, which is HIGHLY comorbid with aspd! and probably another personality disorder, because you're actually statistically more likely to have two of them!

anyway! that's ONE of the ways aspd can develop from trauma, which it is Known To Do.

does any of that sound pleasant to go through? at all?

let me ask you a question:

imagine you aren't getting dopamine. maybe it's your adhd. maybe you're depressed. either way, you try to get it any way you can. wether it's throwing yourself into a hobby or a job, so the sense of satisfaction gives you dopamine, or something like drugs or gambling.

now, imagine that "rush" you felt. was Four Times Stronger.

wouldnt that compel you to do increasingly dangerous and risky shit, just to feel okay? imagine if you had no friends. imagine if this was your only way to be happy. wouldnt you, eventually, stop caring about others and only care about yourself? after all, other people have thinga like friends and a family that you don't have. they have a fallback. you only have this.

and you might say, "i'd never do that!" but every addict says that, and most eventually cross that line out of sheer desperation. and this? effectively makes you into a dopamine addict. which is dangerous! you can't just STOP... gettng dopamine....! it's necessary! but you have no help so you keep doing what youre doing. (and how could you get help? its baked into the system that people like you don't suffer. why try if youll just get burned?

anyway, back to izaya.

he's lonely. he has one friend and he sucks. he feels compelled to do these things even though he KNOWS it'll hurt him.

i stole this screenshot from some1 who insulted my friend once for something stupid <3 die

but it illustrates my point very well! does it look like he has much control over things?? he sure like to ACT like he does, but at the end of the day, he doesn't, really. he ends up spiraling more and more, doing increasingly risky and rash things, just to get his end goal... which is to die and ascend to the afterlife. a lofty goal.

aiming high, isn't he? a final, spectacular evolution.

or, it should have been.

but it wasn't.

izaya's impulses and deep desire to continue becoming more and more drastic, coupled with his lack of personal ties to anyone that could keep him from doing so....

it didn't make him ascend. it left him in a wheelchair, with chronic pain that will last his whole life.

THAT is where mental illness takes you. it doesn't make you a hollywood psychopath, reveling in the destruction you chose, of your own free will, wholly and truly, to cause. it makes you want More. no matter what, you need More. you see people content with lives worse than yours, everyone bound together with some sort of invisible thread, some sort of tie that keeps them together. a thread that missed you. your brain refuses to see people as people, thus you remain lonely forever, unsatiafied wirh company other than the superficial, because it's fun. that's all you're allowed to care about. an endless cycle of bigger and bigger actions, impulses slowly getting worse--

--and the worst part is, it tricks you into believing you ever had a choice. it tricks everyone into believing you had a choice. your suffering is worse than disregarded, to all the people you look at from your apartment, all the people you wish you could have been like.

it's nonexistant.

[duskcourse]

Duskcourse Controversial Take 3

I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this but at this point this is a genuine concern of safety in my honest opinion. There is genuinely no way to create a safe DID exclusive community online without therapists involved and it being a therapeutic group.

There should be no DID exclusive spaces online without third party moderation.

Now some people are going to react aggressively to this sentiment, they're going to get incredibly upset with me and see this as me wanting to take things away from them. The truth couldn't be further from that. I do think that it's important for people with DID such as myself to be able to find others and talk to them, I think our experiences feel more validated through having met others with the disorder. However the sheer amount of harm that we've experienced from the environments of DID exclusive spaces and some of the behavior of other systems especially those who I specifically became close with due to having a similar disorder has made it clear to me it's simply not safe.

You know what being someone with DID tells the bad people in these small enclosed communities? That you're vulnerable to abuse, manipulation, and may forget how bad their abuse is. There's this underlying idea that people have that others with DID are safe. In my case I was treated horrifically for having grown up in a cult and daring to mention it offhandedly. To this first server I was seen as literally the same as my abusers because clearly me mentioning my trauma would cause people to die for whatever reason. The second server wasn't actually an exclusive space, but the mentality from these exclusive spaces stuck with me. Others with DID obviously were safer to be around and understood me better and are naturally safe... she even had a plural section in her server. My ideas taken from the way people seemed to put those who have the same disorders on a pedestal of further safety than any others are what lead to me getting groomed and abused for two years by my mentor and her partner who was another mentor for me. This lead to them introducing me to their friend, my ex-friend and third groomer.

Of course now I am aware my past mentor was lying about having DID then claimed OSDD but from my current awareness is actually an endogenic system. This however doesn't erase the fact I found her due to claims of having DID and trusted her more intensely than others. I relied on her in a deeply unhealthy way the same amount and then more over and over again as I had in DID exclusive spaces.

DID is a deeply stressful and debilitating disability. Regardless of how hard you try to make a safe online community (specifically discord) you will not be able to. People with these very extreme conditions who aren't far enough into therapy and recovery should not be making communities when they're incredibly unstable themselves. People with severely unstable conditions should not be throwing themselves into places where people often claim to be a provider, psuedo-parent, a place of safety and knowing how to make them do better while nobody is a professional or a therapist. The amount of harm done to people from being convinced of things that hurts them and their recovery as well is horrific.

Most people with DID also have a lot of comorbidities. Putting a bunch of severely mentally ill and deeply traumatized people is a recipe for disaster. The amount of times people trigger each other into spiraling or blow up at one another due to comorbid disorders leads to the entire experience being between walking on eggshell and hot coals. These spaces are not safe as they're never equipped to handle the sheer amount of issues that all of us bring.

For example we ourselves have massive comorbidities. I have ADHD, Autism, Bipolar 1, Depression, Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and C-PTSD. I know I'm not stable enough to be able to moderate communities that include others with things like that too as I'm a 20 year old with no professional experience and a degree in something else. I've known people with longer lists of disorders than mine who moderate DID exclusive spaces and they get fucked over for it because of the sheer amount of horrific topics they have to shift through in that moderation.

I think there can be stuff like the Tumblr community where it's less centrally organized and has moderation done by the affirm already. But specific servers and exclusive communities without third parties are dangerous.

[antiendovents]

// fakeclaiming rant + ableism/sanism + caps + minor talk of stalking

Endos and singlets fakeclaiming other systems because of a high amount of comorbidies or even just a single stigmatized comorbid disorder piss me off so so so bad

They're a system, they have trauma, of course their brains are gonna react funky to that how the fuck do you think they became a system in the first place???

Why are you surprised when a system has ptsd, any cluster b disorder, other dissociative disorders, aspd, autism, adhd, etc etc etc

Especially because iirc autism and ADHD make you likely to develop MORE disorders from trauma!!

Don't even get me started on those who fakeclaim psychotic systems because they experience delusions, GO FUCK YOURSELF!!! LEARN HOW SCHIZOPHRENIA AND PSYCHOSIS WORK BEFORE YOU SPREAD YOUR UNEDUCATED BULLSHIT!!! PPL WITH PSYCHOSIS CAN BE COMORBID AND NOT BE AUTOMATICALLY FAKING IT.

There's also people who go "omg I wish I had your trauma!!" (usually in response to stalking, and usually romanticizing/sexualizing it) but if I start on that we'll here all day. Just going to leave it at this: one time we say someone call a fellow victim of stalking "lucky" for being stalked. For two years straight.

Endos and fakeclaimers go fuck yourself I'm sffr.

- 🍖🌾 (if I'm allowed to claim this)

oh, yeah this sucks. Fakeclaimers are the worst, having co-morbid disorders is common,, that's why they're co-morbid. Being a system and experiencing delusions or psychosis is valid and if anyone thinks otherwise I'd like them to leave this blog

And yeah,, that sucks. Don't sexualize or romanticise others trauma. If it's your own trauma then I guess it's fine?? I mean I won't judge people for how they cope though I'd prefer they keep it offline, but when it comes to other people please leave them alone :(

[practically-an-x-man]

random question- do you headcanon any x-men characters as neurodivergent?

Oooooh man don't get me started-

The short version is, yes. I think there are a lot of characters that are coded as neurodiverse in some way or another, more characters where the manifestation of their mutations could be an allegory for neurodivergency, and even some "lighter" headcanons that I wouldn't want to see in canon but think have good storytelling potential outside of it.

It's a common headcanon that Scott is autistic, and I agree with it. I also think Hank is autistic, but it manifests differently in him than in Scott. I also headcanon that Scott gets chronic migraines, though I'm not sure whether that qualifies as neurodivergency or not.

Prodigy is AuDHD for sure, just by the nature of his powers - he collects skills, takes a new hobby and learns as much as he possibly can about it, masters it, then ends up dropping it and moving on to the next one? I know AuDHD is more than just that, but as someone who does the same thing, it definitely speaks to me and I think he's a good character to reflect that.

Peter Maximoff absolutely has ADHD, he's basically ADHD incarnate.

Erik has PTSD six ways from Sunday, I don't think that one even qualifies as a headcanon. Logan also has PTSD, along with Forge and most/all of the mutants who were drafted into the Vietnam War in DOFP (Alex Summers, Toad, etc.)

I do headcanon Dazzler as having some form, maybe multiple forms, of synesthesia. It could be comorbid with her mutation itself, given her abilities are to change one form of sensory input into a different form of sensory input, and that's effectively what synesthesia is within the brain. In general, I subscribe to the idea of superpowers that genuinely affect multiple aspects of a person's life - it's not just a press-a-button power to turn on, it's woven into their mind and body and genuinely affects how they interact with the world.

I also think any telepath would have to qualify as neurodivergent, given their view on the world is innately impacted by processing the thoughts of everyone around them. I don't know that there would be a specific "label" for what they experience, and I think it varies from person to person, but it's definitely a form of neurodivergency.

I also feel like clone characters are innately neurodivergent, especially in relation to developmental or age-related disorders. Studies of actual cloned animals tell us that they're more prone to neurological conditions and tend to develop age-related mental and physical disorders much earlier than they should, so I think there should be at least some sort of reflection in mutant clones like Laura Kinney. Healing factor of course would negate some of the effects, but I could see her with dyslexia or dyscalculia, or perhaps some form of memory disorder. And of course, in Logan (2017) she has a sort of selective mutism tied to trauma, which could be an neat thing to explore in writing her even outside the context of the movie.

I think there are a lot of characters that would be interesting to explore if they had some form of neurodivergency, even if it's not my headcanon for the canon character. These aren't necessarily what I'd want to see from canon, but I think it brings dimension to their stories and could be neat to explore how it interacts with their mutations.

I mean, it would be neat to see Husk with some form of sensory issues, since it would bind up with her mutation in an interesting way and could make for a cool plot. Take her mutation as a metaphor for dermatillomania, where picking at her skin becomes shedding her skin as her mutation manifests, which at best is unpleasant and at worst could be outright dangerous.

And it would be interesting to explore schizophrenia or psychosis in Magik, especially from a social perspective, since her manipulation of Limbo would no doubt be seen as a psychotic episode by others around her (angsty, but a strong metaphor for the hoops actual people with those conditions have to jump through to get recognized), and even from her own perspective it would be interesting to see how she learns to separate her actual, tangible mutation from the things she might experience with her neurological conditions.

[eternallyanxiousandstressed]

Turns out in the US of A, my psychiatrist can, in fact, diagnose me with autism. So. Someone PLEASE tell me how to bring it up to him without him dismissing it.

I fear he will because of my schizophrenia diagnosis, but I recently read some things about people being misdiagnosed with schizophrenia when they have autism instead. Like, actual things on the National Library of Medicine, a .gov website (and those are supposed to be the trustworthy sources).

Autism spectrum disorders, schizophrenia and diagnostic confusion. It's a good read and makes me wonder if, even though I do have hallucinations, that maybe I was misdiagnosed.

I read another article on the same website about hallucinations happening to people with PTSD. Dissociation, trauma and the experience of visual hallucinations in post-traumatic stress disorder and schizophrenia. It says that in studies focused on hallucinations in PTSD, 67% of people developing PTSD after civilian trauma reported those hallucinations.

The article about misdiagnosing people with schizophrenia when they have autism says, "Although comorbidity is a possibility in autism spectrum disorders, the prevalence of schizophrenia has been consistently shown to be low." Which I may be misinterpreting, but it sounds like they're saying that schizophrenia isn't very common in the first place so it's more possible for it to be just autism instead of schizophrenia (or both schizophrenia and autism).

So basically, I think my schizophrenia is misdiagnosed and I just have autism instead, with my PTSD causing the hallucinations that got me the schizophrenia diagnosis.

In conclusion, someone please tell me how to bring this all up with my psychiatrist in a way he won't dismiss me. Should I do the whole "so and so family member wanted me to ask you about me possibly having autism, and while I waited for our appointment I did research and believe that I was misdiagnosed with schizophrenia and it's just a mixture of autism and PTSD" thing?

[ellieellieoxenfree]

today is apparently world myositis day, so let's give a shoutout to an incurable, uncontrollable disease they're still relying on the same treatments (staggeringly large amounts of corticosteroids) from at least 25 years ago to vaguely manage. it's a very cool autoimmune disorder where your white blood cells aren't smart enough to tell the difference between your own muscle cells and foreign invaders, so it just attacks all of them. it causes muscle weakness, fatigue, chronic pain, inflammation, rashes (depending on your variety of myositis), difficulty swallowing, and often comes bundled with other diseases like raynaud's (increased sensitivity and numbness with cold) and calcinosis (regenerating lumps/clusters of hardened calcium under the skin). many myositis patients also suffer from a variety of comorbid mental illnesses, notably depression and PTSD, due to the constant trauma and exhaustion of a barely manageable disability.

also, importantly, if you either don't have the form of the disease that gives you rashes and/or you don't actively show a rash at that moment, able-bodied people love to chirp at you that 'you don't look sick!' and then you get to fantasize about beating them to death with the claw end of a hammer.

[sleepy-shutin]

seeing that post by sophie was one of the biggest pieces of evidence that sophie doesn't know literally a god damn thing about DID.

she hasn't done enough research into DID to know that the last literal leading theory for how DID develops before the theory of structural dissociation was that children had imaginary friends that they dissociated and projected their trauma and trauma-related feelings onto to cope with the trauma they received, where these imaginary friends later became alters.

this right here is, by itself, one of the biggest reasons you should never take anything that sophie says seriously. she is a pseudo-intellectual who doesn't care about scientific fact, she just wants to sound smart, seriously.

she also (and the anon in the post) just don't know what the fuck self states even are. they're not fully formed separate identities without amnesia between them, they're states of being. self states are activated in certain situations, such as when the person is in distress or in need of comfort, or in need of mental stimulation and play, for example. EVERYONE has self states, from children to adults. "work self" and "home self" are self states that adults have, and children may have "school self" and "home self" self states. the difference in children is that these self states are less stable and less well regulated because the child is still developing, (which is how we can get to fragmentation where self states become full blown alters down the line if trauma is introduced), while in a healthy adult without a CDD, they tend to be more stable/consistent and are integrated.

even this is a very simplified explanation, but it should get the point across. you don't "remember" having self states as children because you're not supposed to remember having self states. they're certain action systems and sets of behaviors activated under certain circumstances, not necessarily something you actively choose to do.

when a young child is hungry, they may go into a self state that focuses almost exclusively on food and becomes distressed when it cannot be accessed for whatever reason, be it neglect or just an inappropriate time for the child to be eating. adults can regulate their hunger self states much better than children because their whole sense of self is much more well integrated and stable than that of a two year old.

you people would know this if you'd read the haunted self.

she kept posting screencaps of the DSM's entry for DID, which doesn't mention a trauma requirement because people with DID often don't remember their trauma or downplay it, it has vague wording like "associated with" instead of "directly caused by" because that is the nature of clinical language. in the DSM (and the clinical literature on DID itself, for the record), it mentions no other cause for DID than trauma, at all. if there were other causes people knew of, then it would be listed. if DID could just *happen* then it would be mentioned. but it can't, so the DSM says all of this instead.

people criticized her for posting these cherry picked and intentionally misread screenshots of the DID entry in the DSM, so she then took to posting the comorbidities section of the entry for PTSD instead, which says that the [visible] onsets of DID and other dissociative disorders could be preceded by a traumatic event. not that the disorders can be caused by single trauma, but rather that the symptoms could be visible under stress. this is another intentional misinterpretation of a cherry-picked part of the DSM, which is the only clinical literature sophie has read on DID.

oh, and, trauma primarily before the age of 2 can in fact cause DID in some cases. need i remind people that one of the lowest age range for the development of DID was up to 4 years old. not at all an agreeable age range, but there is a reason for that, and the reason for that is that things like newborn abuse and young toddler abuse can and do occur and cause DID in people. specifically, the kinds of DID it tends to cause are DID with comorbid BPD and polyfragmented DID because of how impactful the trauma is/can be at that age.

i follow more than one person on social media whose DID was caused by trauma and abuse and neglect from before the age of 5, some people even with mostly infant/young toddler abuse, like diagnosed and everything. so the notion that DID can't be caused by such things is just... wrong. sure, that's more than likely not the only factor that went into developing the DID of these people (trauma is never the only factor that goes into developing DID), but that doesn't make it any less wrong. while i can't say that these things are commonly the result of newborn/infant/young toddler abuse, or that these forms of abuse themselves are even especially common, i can say that this does happen.

all this to say: sophie is a pseudo-intellectual who has no business talking about DID the way she does, when she has barely scratched the surface in regards to reading clinical research on DID. first claiming continuously that DID can be caused by something other than trauma and citing nothing but the DSM (proving she hasn't read anything else on DID other than the DSM entry for it, because literally all the clinical literature on DID says it is inherently a traumagenic disorder, all the way back to its MPD days; the other sources saying it's not traumagenic are also saying that it's not real, i.e. the fantasy model. the DSM itself doesn't list another cause for DID than trauma, so anything she posts about DID not being inherently traumagenic is cherry-picking, intentional misreadings, and hypothetical based on clinical language that sounds that way for a reason), to this nonsense.

also, conveniently, she never lists what exactly can cause DID outside of trauma, or what would cause a person to dissociate to such an extent that they develop fully autonomous dissociated parts with amnesia between each other other than trauma. dissociation is inherently disconnection, and while dissociation is nowhere near DID-specific, dissociation to the extent of a disorder, and especially to the extent of DID, has no reason to happen without trauma. don't give me that "brains are complex" bullshit.

i'm saying this to everyone regardless of syscourse stance: sophie is not a reliable source on DID whatsoever. she has not read the literature, rather she pretends she has, and speaks on DID as if she knows anything about it when in actuality, she doesn't know what in the actual, gluten-free, home-grown fuck she's talking about, and just makes shit up 90% of the time, all basing it on pretty much nothing but poorly done endo studies and the DSM's entry for DID.

sophie doesn't care about being right, she cares about cherry picking, intentional misreadings of clinical literature and being intentionally obtuse, and doing whatever she can to save face and look right.

there are a lot of reasons not to listen to sophie and her bullshit, but her dedication to be as wrong as possible while posing herself as some kind of misunderstood high-brow academic. she continuously says the most wrong shit you've ever heard, and then doubles down as much as possible. nobody should be listening to her about anything, let alone DID.

and for reference, not to have a dick measuring contest or anything, but here is a portion of my personal library on clinical research on DID:

this isn't even all my papers, and doesn't get into the books i have on the subjects of trauma & dissociation.

to be clear: if you use this post to send hate or harassment to sophie, you are verifiably worse than her and her misinformation. do not use my post as an excuse to send some random internet assholes anonymous hate. doing so only fuels the dickbaggery of these people. i made this post specifically so people know not to listen to her.

[aspd-culture]

Greetings,

1. Your content is very helpful, big thanks for answering questions so thoroughly!

I have aspd+npd and adhd.

cd in childhood ✔️

So I started therapy again, had my 3 visits to get-to-know-eachother and soon will have weekly or so appointments.

Now she ain’t really familiar with cluster b (I know I know…), but no other therapist in my area takes new patients or is familiar with the topic either.

Now today I told her about my diagnosis’s straightforward and she’s all about “not labeling symptoms as diagnosis’s”, she’s an in depth-psychotherapy psychologist and works with the NVC nonviolent communication concept by Marshall Rosenberg *deep sigh*

“Based on the teachings of Sigmund Freud, traditional psychoanalysis deals with the reconstruction of long-repressed memories, while depth psychology focuses primarily on the "present conscious".”

Now I know I will have to withhold my “I know better about this” reactions to some degree, I told her about cluster b treatment being specific and a lot of other disorders have same/similar symptoms aka having labels like aspd&npd IS HELPFUL CUZ NOW YOU KNOW WHAT YOURE WORKING WITH?? (+do precise research)

but we talked a little bit about me experiencing npd shame and she was like: “well that contradicts itself, you cannot have aspd and experience shame, aspd lacks that & you appear to be a nice lady anyway” *implodes*

The mocking laugh I had to withhold omg.

Now going by the books at least >3 symptoms have to be present & I have more than that.

Everyone experiences it differently, idk if it’s even considered somewhat of a spectrum?

And I HAVE THE LITERAL DIAGNOSIS ANYWAY.

Like what does she not get about me ALSO HAVING NPD COMORBID?! and shame being the core of NPD?

Now… I’ll probably stay with her for a while (if I have the self control) since I really need therapy to some degree at least, cuz things suck big time right now.

And my question is how to teach her her job and explain the aspd&npd comorbid stuff to her and that labels do play a role here? Idk just overall advice?

End of frustration rant🤦🏻‍♀️

-K

Thank you, I do my best!

TW, all caps text in the response (not aggressive, in a surprised/reaction way)

I'm just... gonna liveblog my response to this bc I have so many feelings on this therapist already and I have barely read 1/4 of the ask yet.

Not being familiar with cluster b pds actually isn't always a bad thing. I will happily take unfamiliar over some of the so called specialists in that area who believe in "narc abuse" and the like. I generally recommend people who think/know they have ASPD to seek out therapists in the range of trauma specialists over cluster b specialists for that reason.

Ugh, I can't stand the "I don't like labels/diagnoses" therapists enough already when they're referring to new ones while in their care, but to say that to someone who is telling you about a dx they already have is a new low.

Not the Freud! Not the "present conscious"! Gross gross all around imo. If that works for some of you that is awesome but I can't stomach that kind of therapist just for me personally.

Reconstruction of repressed memories is tricky because if they don't handle that right it is a very sensitive moment for them to fuck up/say something shitty, so I personally prefer to let those bubble up naturally, but because I have DID (oh ya, that official dx happened btw) they are more likely to bubble up for me than for a singlet. It makes sense to me that singlets would want a therapist for that.

OH DEAR FUCK I DID NOT THINK IT COULD GET WORSE. Ok so unpacking that - pwASPD absolutely experience shame, which is extremely common in traumatized people of any variety. In fact, shame is a very common symptom of PTSD. Remorse and shame are not only not the same, but they are so far removed from each other than even most ableist prosocials know and admit that those two are not even in the same family.

The "you appear to be a nice lady" is the icing on the "Get the fuck rid of this therapist if you can" cake for me, because it reeks of ableism and sexism at the same time. AFABs often have their symptoms of ASPD ignored entirely or intentionally mis-attributed to autism or BPD because they just cannot fathom an AFAB not thinking like a lady. ASPD is demonized and AFABs are infantilized and their tiny prosocial brains blow up because those two cannot co-exist.

I, to be quite honest, would chuck her in the unfixable pile. I wish I could give you advice on this, but there is just too much ableism, sexism, and ignorance in how she reacted in just this single interaction you described for me to think she's salvagable. When it's one little thing you can sometimes teach them/get them to learn with you - even though that is literally the opposite of what therapy is supposed to be - and get something good out of it, but with all of this I think it presents a much larger risk to you to try.

If you can't switch any time soon, I would try and stick to discussing non-cluster b issues as much as possible.

I can not and do not give professional advice because I am not a professional and in good conscience, I can't advise leaving one therapist without a direct plan on how and when to get another one ASAP. But I will say that specifically in relation to cluster b disorders, this therapist sounds like she will be more damaging than anything for that. That doesn't mean that she can't help with other conditions or stressors you're experiencing in the meantime, though!

Plain text below the cut:

Thank you, I do my best!

TW, all caps text in the response (not aggressive, in a surprised/reaction way)

I'm just... gonna liveblog my response to this bc I have so many feelings on this therapist already and I have barely read 1/4 of the ask yet.

Not being familiar with cluster b pds actually isn't always a bad thing. I will happily take unfamiliar over some of the so called specialists in that area who believe in "narc abuse" and the like. I generally recommend people who think/know they have ASPD to seek out therapists in the range of trauma specialists over cluster b specialists for that reason.

Ugh, I can't stand the "I don't like labels/diagnoses" therapists enough already when they're referring to new ones while in their care, but to say that to someone who is telling you about a dx they already have is a new low.

Not the Freud! Not the "present conscious"! Gross gross all around imo. If that works for some of you that is awesome but I can't stomach that kind of therapist just for me personally.

Reconstruction of repressed memories is tricky because if they don't handle that right it is a very sensitive moment for them to fuck up/say something shitty, so I personally prefer to let those bubble up naturally, but because I have DID (oh ya, that official dx happened btw) they are more likely to bubble up for me than for a singlet. It makes sense to me that singlets would want a therapist for that.

OH DEAR FUCK I DID NOT THINK IT COULD GET WORSE. Ok so unpacking that - pwASPD absolutely experience shame, which is extremely common in traumatized people of any variety. In fact, shame is a very common symptom of PTSD. Remorse and shame are not only not the same, but they are so far removed from each other than even most ableist prosocials know and admit that those two are not even in the same family.

The "you appear to be a nice lady" is the icing on the "Get the fuck rid of this therapist if you can" cake for me, because it reeks of ableism and sexism at the same time. AFABs often have their symptoms of ASPD ignored entirely or intentionally mis-attributed to autism or BPD because they just cannot fathom an AFAB not thinking like a lady. ASPD is demonized and AFABs are infantilized and their tiny prosocial brains blow up because those two cannot co-exist.

I, to be quite honest, would chuck her in the unfixable pile. I wish I could give you advice on this, but there is just too much ableism, sexism, and ignorance in how she reacted in just this single interaction you described for me to think she's salvagable. When it's one little thing you can sometimes teach them/get them to learn with you - even though that is literally the opposite of what therapy is supposed to be - and get something good out of it, but with all of this I think it presents a much larger risk to you to try.

If you can't switch any time soon, I would try and stick to discussing non-cluster b issues as much as possible.

I can not and do not give professional advice because I am not a professional and in good conscience, I can't advise leaving one therapist without a direct plan on how and when to get another one ASAP. But I will say that specifically in relation to cluster b disorders, this therapist sounds like she will be more damaging than anything for that. That doesn't mean that she can't help with other conditions or stressors you're experiencing in the meantime, though!

[thestarseersystem]

im just overwhelmed and stressed by the fact that we're harping on words or labels here, instead of being simple in our definitions.

like ive always felt that being more simplistic in the way I describe general experiences is to be important.

system: those with multiple separated parts, whether now or in the past. usually those with a complex dissociative disorder.

plurality: more than one person/part inside the headspace.

introject: outsourced alter from real life (factive), a fictional universe (fictive) or in between.

host: the one that has the role of "fronter", also known as Apparently Normal Part (ANP). The host does not have to be unaware of trauma to be the host, it's just common.

alters: alternate states of consciousness. the different separated parts within a system.

CDD: (at least my definition, I know there is a different medical definition) Complex Dissociative Disorder means the dissociative disorders that cause systems. All of these specific dissociative disorders would have to first developed in childhood. Other dissociative disorders can develop at any time.

etc etc. like, we don't need to debate on what complex means, we don't need to debate on what specific words mean. We do have general definitions for these. And of course, we can contest and discuss definitions such as for "polyfragmented", but that doesn't mean we should tear every word apart like they didn't mean anything.

CDD is a term accepted by the community, and its RECENT. It's very very new. So let's chill on debating it and maybe ask ourselves why it was needed in the first place. Just let's make things more simple and easy to understand, because discussing whether or not something is more complex is not helpful. and even if it is more complex, it does not mean its more severe or worse. It doesn't mean it's less than either.

ALSO!!!!!!! also!!!!!!!! You literally can have multiple dissociative disorders. Just because DID/P-DID/OSDD-1 is mutually exclusive between one another, does not mean you can't also have DPDR (which is comorbid with system disorders btw), it does not mean you can't have dissociative amnesia, dissociative fugue, and what OSDD-2 is. You can be a C-DID system and also have OSDD-2, its just that dissociative disorders often stack. That's why the system dissociative disorders are talked about more, because they're stacked together of all the previous "less complex" dds, just with extra symptoms.

Like literally,, not everyone has OSDD-2, but every single system I've met has DPDR. Every single system I've met has C-PTSD. Not every single system has dissociative amnesia, but a lot do. Not every single system has dissociative fugue, but some do. You get comorbid shit when you develop this. Are there some people with OSDD-2 without DID? Yes. Mainly because it probably didn't develop in their childhood.

Y'all please research or something. We don't need to debate this.

[fierceawakening]

Like, I have PTSD. I self-diagnosed after reading books like Herman's Trauma and Recovery. Even then, the way I asked for help was "Hi, I'm Fierce, I had this experience happen to me and these things have troubled me since. I know it's not the classic traumatic experience but do you think it's possible I could have PTSD?" I was so clearly right my therapist laughs about my having doubted.

But nowadays, whether it's something I looked up or an algorithm or something else, everything I get recommended on Youtube is "Is it PTSD or CPTSD? And did you know CPTSD is comorbid with a lot of personality disorders?"

If I was relying on social media now and not on hundred page books twenty years ago, I think I very easily could've decided I have CPTSD and BPD, just because the way people talk on socmed really downplays "the regular one" and makes it sound like if you experienced anything more chronic than One Big Event, PTSD is Inadequate to Describe You.

So... yeah. I am not against self-dx, me doing it is probably why I am currently not dead. But I think there's a weirdly anti-intellectual bent to some of the way people talk about it and downplay looking for official confirmation, and I worry that distorts some things.

(Again, not an expert here either, but I often look at Tumblerians saying that we've all got narcissism wrong if we assume someone who has it might be manipulative and wonder, have WE all got it wrong, or are young people self-dxing and minimizing the "lots of people like this are abusive" bit because they're not abusive and don't have another word for what they actually are?)

i'm against accusing random tik tok accounts of faking their mental disorder because it is impossible to authentically express anything on tik tok, much less to authentically express your tourette's syndrome.

[cptsd-skywalker]

I'm no psychologist but I have listened to 2 professionals diagnose Anakin with BPD. However you and @gch1995 think he has CPTSD. Can you say why? I'm not sure what the difference is.

Thanks for your ask @fanfic-lover-girl !

Now let’s get into it:

CPTSD is a point of contention for many psychologists. Some argue that CPTSD and BPD are really the same diagnosis, that BPD is an outdated diagnosis that should really fall into the PTSD spectrum. Other psychologist think they are separate disorders that may be comorbid. Still other psychologists do not thing CPTSD exists, but is rather just BPD in a milder form. CPTSD is not currently listed in the DSM5-5, and many people who are officially diagnosed with CPTSD were first diagnosed with BPD, yet suffered immensely from the stigma with many people believing they were born bad with no chance at redemption. Even their own therapists turned on them. For them, CPtSD helped them to get treatment from a trauma informed perspective. CPTSD and BPD have a lot of overlap even if you consider them separate diagnosis. Everyone will have a differing opinion based upon circumstances. To me CPTSD fits best because of Anakins long standing trauma over a long period of time, and a lack of a personality disorder as a child. Many people develops BPD as a trauma response, but depending on how you view the disorder it may also be considered something one is born with. I’ll never tell someone who headcannons that Anakin has BPD is wrong because to me they are so similar as to be almost the same. Many new psychologists have come to view BPD as a specific manifestation of CPTSD. So both could arguably fit Anakin. As a diagnosis, it is primarily diagnosed in women where as men are far more likely to have the same symptoms but be diagnosed with PTSD instead. This leads to the question of any bias on the part of the psychologists diagnosing. I have CPTSD on my chart, but my mother had BPD. We suffer from almost identical issues, but hers were more severe. I actually thought I had BPD until my therapist suggested CPTSD when I was in inpatient care.

Let’s get some definitions:

Complex PTSD

comes in response to chronic traumatization over the course of months or, more often, years. This can include emotional, physical, and/or sexual abuses, domestic violence, living in a war zone, being held captive, human trafficking and other organized rings of abuse, and more. While there are exceptional circumstances where adults develop C-PTSD, it is most often seen in those whose trauma occurred in childhood. For those who are older, being at the complete control of another person (often unable to meet their most basic needs without them), coupled with no foreseeable end in sight, can break down the psyche, the survivor's sense of self, and affect them on this deeper level. For those who go through this as children, because the brain is still developing and they're just beginning to learn who they are as an individual, understand the world around them, and build their first relationships - severe trauma interrupts the entire course of their psychologic and neurologic development.

Borderline Personality Disorder:

a personality disorder characterized by severe mood swings, impulsive behavior, and difficulty forming stable personal relationships.

Here is the obvious overlap:

As you can see, the similarities are almost 50/50 with the dissimilarities, and arguably, if the trauma is sustained and experienced through abandonment or the person with CPTSD has enough of an identity disturbance they may also fear abandonment or suffer from dissociation, paranoia, or a shifting sense of self identity, and psychosis. I for example have suffered from all of these, but have been diagnosed with CPTSD. For some psychologists, BPD is simply a divergence of CPTSD. However this is hotly debated so don’t take only my word for it.

This paper says they are comorbid and almost the same yet distinctly different:

https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40479-021-00155-9

This paper says they are the same and BPD is outdated:

https://bpded.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/2051-6673-1-9

This one is an opinion piece but still worth a read:

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/should-we-abolish-the-diagnosis-of-borderline-personality-1015134/amp/

TLDR: I don’t disagree with anyone who head-cannons Anakin as Borderline, Or with CPTSD, or both.

[justanothersyscourse]

so i just heard the take "I get very tired of the argument that "DID is about more than having alters," because while I understand where you're coming from, having alters is in fact why you get diagnosed with DID rather than PTSD or another dissociative disorder." i'm curious to see what you think of this standpoint !

There's actually a very specific, annoyingly interesting reason this has BECOME an argument, and it's based on a few things:

1) the idea that endogenics can be DID/OSDD

2) the idea that DID/OSDD is a disorder of multiplicity, not a childhood trauma disorder

3) it's taking the DSM criteria of DID and sort of breaking them up to allow for the existence of endogenic plurality

4) it's trying to discredit the dysfunction criteria, and the exclusion criteria

This might get a bit confusing, feel free to ask for clarifications!

While it is true that alters are the reason DID/OSDD is diagnosed, it's in tandem with all the other issues and comorbid disorders that come with being DID/OSDD.

The big thing to note is that people who are "tired" of this argument are usually pro endogenic. They believe that you're multiple first, AND THEN disordered. In other words, that you can be multiple for ANY reason and without any dysfunction. Since this is how most endogenics view themselves, this allows for them to fall under these diagnoses, because it ignores the DSM's need for childhood trauma.

It's a very clear misunderstanding of WHAT the disorder is and how it presents for different people. Alters alone doesn't make someone DID-- because one, you can't have alters without childhood trauma, and two, alters DO NOT need to be the issue. Many, many systems see their alters as helpful, and this is perfectly okay. Most system's dysfunction comes from OTHER issues, specifically the (C)PTSD that follows from childhood trauma. If you want to even phrase it differently to -shudder- allow for the existence of endogenics, the formation of alters due to trauma as seen in DID/OSDD would imply that endogenic plurality with dysfunction should be it's own diagnosis, because WHAT the alters are, how they're formed and why, what KIND of entities they are, is something completely different.

If alters were the ONLY criteria for DID/OSDD, then endogenic plurality could exist. That's not the case, but no one wants to hear that.

The argument is being used currently as a very roundabout way to silence survivors and victims. Alters are usually the LEAST of a system's problems. If you ignore the dysfunction criteria and the lived experiences of people with DID/OSDD, and instead put all of the focus on the existence of alters as a singular symptom, the argument changes drastically.

[justanothersyscourse]

You heard it here first, folks. All old research on DID (formerly MPD) is trash.

Just like PTSD

Anything talking about PTSD when it was considered an anxiety disorder is no good Only research after 2013, when it was reclassified as a trauma disorder, counts

We also can't trust PTSD until it's fully moved into dissociative disorders, they've only added one little thing to mention the dissociative tendencies, and it's clearly never been researched beyond that, and it won't be until it's reclassified

And we definitely can't talk about research into BPD until it's reclassified as a trauma disorder, because it's more trauma than PD (not sure how we know that when all the research is trash)

Also, ignore that PDs are heavily comorbid with DID, with systems often having alters that display a single PD each, they're definitely not related at all

Also, ignore the fact that DID isn't listed as a trauma disorder, that doesn't matter, there's clearly, definitely sense to the way things are categorized, I swear. Things definitely don't belong in more than one category at any given time, and once they're moved

*poof*

All that old stuff is trash, and not part of the reason it was reclassified, so don't bother with it.

If your link to prove a point calls it "MPD" you're wrong.

Because the understanding of personality disorders completely differs from the understanding of dissociative disorders.

If the research is on the basis it is a personality disorder it has *nothing* to do with the understanding of it as a dissociation disorder.

Your point is naught. You are wrong and should understand medical text and how disorders get classified, researched, and understood.

[lonelier-version-of-you]

is it bitchy if I'm annoying at people calling autistic characters/coded characters adhd? I'm not against adhd representation and ik they're often comorbid but it really irritates me how people are so much more comfortable saying a character is adhd and get much less backlash about it than saying they're autistic even when they're clearly being coded as autistic first and foremost (like robin, or how people prefer to say henrik's symptoms are only due to trauma or 'just how he is').

like it's just like, when a character is shown to mask and lack social filters and is explicitly some level of dyspraxic with sensory issues but people only latch on to the hyper-fixatative or hyper-talkative 'acceptably weird person' behaviour to say they're adhd and ignore everything else that's screaming autism. it just feels like some kind of erasure and people being a lot more comfortable with one kind of neurodivergence than another.

I don't think it's bitchy. It's a totally valid way to feel, especially since, as you say, a lot of it mostly seems to come from people viewing ADHD as a more socially acceptable equivalent to autism or something (which isn't a view that helps people with either disorder, or even both). (Or with characters who canonically have comorbidities, people insist all their autistic symptoms must be solely down to those comorbidities, because usually they find the other disorders much more "acceptable" than autism. Like, as you say, people who say Henrik's traits are just trauma. Or people who insist all Dylan's autistic traits are actually part of his OCD.)

And yeah, as you say, people get a lot less backlash saying characters have ADHD. Probably because of the idea that ADHD is "less serious". And the related phenomenon too, where certain characters in media will very obviously have PTSD or depression or something, and people are totally fine with saying "this character has PTSD" or "this character has depression" or whatever, but if a different character (or even the same one... cough, Henrik, cough, no one had a problem saying he had PTSD long before his canonical CPTSD diagnosis but calling him autistic got you faced with accusations of "backseat diagnosis") is clearly autistic and you say they're autistic, people will start yelling at you for "pathologising" or whatever. It's ridiculous and just blatantly ableist.

[justanothersyscourse]

What's the typical treatment for OSDD1b? Unlike DID, there isn't any amnesia to work through, right?

There can be minor amnesia, maybe between certain alters or for certain situations and events. Typically a treatment plan involves trauma processing and system growth and communication.

Just because a system doesn't have amnesia, doesn't mean they're not still experiencing high levels of dysfunction. There may be unruly or violent alters, and a lot of disagreements between alters. There are some alters that can't or won't contribute toward finding a functional work/home/social balance, and there may be alters who shut things down with panic attacks or spirals.

A lot of therapy for OSDD systems is working through trauma to get everyone functional to the best of their abilities, and get everyone on board for system set goals (are you in school? How do we get all alters to help achieve the goal of graduation? Do you work full time? How do we encourage alters to contribute and understand that the job is necessary to the body's well-being and life in general?).

Of course, there's also the option of fusion, if a system chooses to go that route, so even once optimal functionality is reached, there may still be more work to do together.

Therapy and treatment is highly personalized and is different for everyone. There's a lot of other symptoms other than just alters stemming from PTSD and dissociation. Maybe your system functions just fine already, but you'd like more help dealing with other issues-- comorbid disorders, perhaps.

Therapy is yours and yours alone, and you get treatment for what YOU need, as you need it.