#but!! it also applies to non-did/osdd systems!!

[subsystems]

hope sending ask is ok rn, i have hard time looking resource. looking for book how to co-exist with independent dissociative parts (have system but not feel safe in saying DID yet). cannot do therapist addressing parts yet but want to cope in daily life. hope can help. or others comment/reblog and give. thank you 🍀

This ask was sent a while ago, I hope you're doing okay now anon. You say you can't talk to a therapist yet but I hope you have someone else in your life who is supportive and you can talk to about these things! You shouldn't have to face this alone.

Even though you don't have therapeutic support, it's still possible to build up communication and cooperation with your parts. I reblog a lot of tips and resources to my coping tag if you want to check that out. Here are some other resources that you might find helpful:

DID/OSDD Self-help Masterlist There are so many resources here, categorized by different topics. You'll find stuff here for both survivors and loved ones, and you don't need to have DID/OSDD to use them!

Beauty After Bruises Blog You'll find so many articles here on coping with daily life as a dissociative survivor. I love how they're written, they feel very approachable and almost calming to read.

Dissociative Living Admittedly, I haven't read many of these articles but the few I've seen have been good. I think their writing is very approachable for people who are new to all of this.

DIS-SOS Lots of advice and informative articles on living with DID here -- in both English and German! I've found some really interesting and unique coping tips here, I definitely recommend it. It's actually because of this blog that I discovered one of my favorite methods of system communication.

CTAD Clinic Youtube Channel A channel run by the director of this clinic which specializes in dissociation and trauma. I've watched probably all of his videos -- they're very good! Lots of the videos provide tools and self-help tips on coping with dissociation & dissociative parts!

Carolyn Spring's Blog You'll find amazing articles here about trauma and dissociation, but do be aware that the author is both a professional and a survivor with DID herself. She isn't afraid to talk about her lived experience, shining a light on the reality of trauma and dissociation which can be confronting but oh-so empowering to read.

System Speak Podcast A podcast run by a DID system. She talks about her own healing journey as well as interviews professionals and dives into the psychology behind trauma and dissociation. Personally, I think the website is a bit hard to navigate but every podcast I've listened to has been extremely informative and relatable!

Self-help books can also be extremely useful if you don't have access to a therapist. You can find a bunch of free downloads here! I would recommend starting with "Got Parts? An Insider's Guide to Managing Life Successfully with Dissociative Identity Disorder" by ATW. Personally, I think this is the best book to start with. It's a bit old and there are some outdated ideas in it, but I think it's a very gentle entry into learning system communication and coping with DID if you have never worked with a therapist.

Some other resources that might be useful:

Strategies for coping with distressing voices

FREE 100 page e-book for trauma survivors

Talk/vent to listeners on this non-crisis support chat line

Apply for a grant to receive financial help or a therapy box -> (Also learn about the Therapy Box Project! If anyone is able to donate, please do!)

- Sunflower

[sysmedsaresexist]

Let's face it. Not everyone uses the term "system" to mean to same thing. For some people, it exclusively means someone with a complex dissociative disorder (DID/OSDD/etc.). For some people, it means anyone who experiences a plurality of people, parts, or identities within the same body.

These two definitions for the same word are like oil and water, apples and oranges. CDDs are caused by trauma, so "system" in the context of exclusively-CDDs invalidates people who use the other definition. Not all experiences of inner people/parts is caused by trauma, or ascribed to a disorder, so "system" in this context invalidates the people who use the other definition.

When you see "system" as being exclusively CDDs, you see people claiming that CDDs aren't disorders, you see people claiming that CDDs aren't caused by trauma, you see people claiming that they have CDDs without the disorder or trauma. It's triggering, it's isolating, it's scary.

But it's not what they're actually saying.

It’s important to understand this if you’re engaging in syscourse. Otherwise, you’re just going to feel hurt all the time. There's so many posts that aren't talking about CDDs at all and someone comes onto it shouting things about CDDs. Vice versa. All because of terminology.

Not everyone uses the same terms to mean the same thing. Terms change over time, and you have to understand that. Even within the CDD community this happens so much. The community nowadays likes to use “host” to mean the part that fronts the most, but twenty years ago people often used “host” to mean a part that they thought existed before all the other parts, and many clinicians believed that this part didn’t front hardly at all. Years back, the concept of someone having a system of parts was used in reference to CDDs so much that it was often what people automatically thought of. Now, it’s a common framework of various therapies like IFS, for disordered experiences like PTSD and trauma-based psychosis, and for non-disordered plurality.

Before 2014, "endogenic systems" were called natural plurals. Tumblr has always preferred the term "system", meanwhile I've been on other social media platforms that majorly prefer the term "plural" and some that prefer "multiple" over anything else.

I’ve seen so many people identify as “anti-endo” even though they believe in endogenic plurality, and also people who identify as “pro-endo” but think that all endogenics are actually disordered with hidden trauma.

Yes, this can all be frustrating and confusing; I’ve been fucked over by it many times as an autistic person. I often struggle to understand what people mean when they rely on labels to communicate their opinions, usually because I’ve met people who use the same exact terms to communicate an entirely different opinion. So much of syscourse literally centers around certain labels and who they apply to. Yet, people can't even agree on what these labels mean.

Does it really matter that much...?

I guarantee you guys within the next twenty years, you’re going to see some of the terms you’re fighting over now be changed to mean something entirely different. Time moves on, things change. It’s just not worth hurting others over.

I hope that we can all learn to be a little gentler with each other regardless of what terms and labels we use. In a community so full of trauma survivors, who already have to deal with so much of society disbelieving and hijacking our stories...I think we need the gentleness.

[anameistoohard]

Oh boy, lets open that can of worms

There's a LOT of discourse with endo vs anti-endo stuff (endogenic system=plural system not formed by trauma if you don't know 🙂). Like, death threats coming from both sides kinda thing. We try to stay out of it. But it's easy to accidentally stumble into it if you're not familiar with some of the nuance. So we want to share some observations as like, a crash course. (And apparently we had a lot to say lol.)

This post isn't really to debate how plurality forms. Just to give some context as to why so much hate is flying between these two groups.

Basically, you have 2 extremes. (And everyone in between obviously)

On one side you have people making up extra rules on top of the diagnostic criteria to exclude and gatekeep anyone who doesn't meet "their level" of disordered. (I've literally heard people say "you can't be a system, you're not as traumatized as me"). A lot of accusations of faking come from this bunch. Too much internal communication? Faker. Too many non-human alters? Faker. Too many or not enough alters? Faker. You can't win with them even if you have a diagnosis.

We've noticed a lot of parallels between this group and transmeds. You need to have x level of dysphoria to ride this ride. You can't be trans if you don't want xyz treatment. You need to reach my arbitrary bar of "trans enough". Enbys and everyone else are fakers. That kind of bs.

But on this side you also have a lot of people who just want to be taken seriously. They want to be validated by their diagnosis and feel hurt when people say or do things that they think will compromise that validity. They, at least initially, come from a place of sincerity not malice. But they fall into the trap of trying to be "one of the good ones".

On the other extreme you have the wild west. Things people treat as fact aren't codified with the same scrutiny as the DSM-5 or ICD-11. This breeds its own confusion and misinformation. We've seen people conflate plurality with things like maladaptive day dreaming, lucid dreaming, adhd, and (applying it to other people with ferocity to the point of harassment) metaphors of all things.

They have a spaghetti at the wall approach that reminds me of a less extreme MOGII (an attempt to define just about every possible form of gender and sexuality). It's a messy patchwork of ideas. We've seen 8 different labels that all mean the same thing and are being used by exactly no one. Redundancy and hyperspcificity, that's the name of the game. But frankly we like this if for no other reason than we want to see what sticks, what becomes mainstream.

We've seen people from this group attack people as badly as the anti-endo group. Openly mocking people for having trauma or saying vile shit like "traumagenics kys". They feel threatened by the exclusionary nature of diagnoses. But instead of taking their frustration out on the systems of power they take them out on normal people. After all if you're diagnosed, you "represent the system"... I guess. Equally bull shit.

But this is also where the edge cases go, the exclusions, those that don't fit into a neat little box. The DSM excludes people whose plurality is accepted as part of their culture or religion. These people don't suddenly stop being systems just because they're accepted, but they're distinctly not disordered. They don't meet the clinical definition of DID or OSDD. Same goes for someone whose symptoms are mild enough to not cause "clinically significant distress". You also have people who don't want to be pathologized or have been failed by the medical system.

So lastly, a warning: When dealing with plural stuff, it's very easy to go stumbling into a mine field.

Tldr: I would always rather land on the side of letting too many people in than exclude people who needed the support. However, no matter your in-group, some people take things too far. Like, ffs don't attack people. 

-Taylor & Mark

[sophieinwonderland]

Response to Sysmed on the Boundaries With Normality

Here's the original post.

Yay! You finally found it!

Did anyone else catch what they did there?

Here is the full text for comparison:

For those who are not aware, "e.g." is short for exempli gratia, which essentially means "for example."

Acknowledging this, the boundaries with normality could be rephrased as such:

The presence of two or more distinct personality states does not always indicate the presence of a mental disorder. In certain circumstances (such as experienced by ‘mediums’ or other culturally accepted spiritual practitioners, for example), the presence of multiple personality states is not experienced as aversive and is not associated with impairment in functioning. A diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder should not be assigned in these cases.

The use of e.g. intentionally leaves it open for other nonpathological forms of plurality.

But it seems to have been strategically omitted by the OP in their quote of the text.

I find it extremely deceptive to pull that part of a sentence out of context, and cut the e.g. from it, without showing readers the full text.

If they were specifying that only those practices apply, it would have used "i.e." instead.

There are a bunch of claims here that are being made at once. Let's see if I can dispel them.

#1 "Tulpamancy is a spiritual practice"

This is largely false. Although it's a claim that sysmeds love repeating and spreading among their circles.

In Varieties of Tulpa Experiences, by Dr. Samuel Veissière, 76.% of tulpamancers surveyed reported having purely psychological explanations for their tulpas. Comparatively, only 8.5% reported purely metaphysical explanations.

Tulpamancy is largely a psychological practice, not a spiritual one.

#2 "Spiritual Practices Are Inherently Intentional and Therefore Aren't 'Natural Systems'"

Genuinely, not sure how they are making such a reach.

If you listen to spiritual mediums, many will describe having connections to spirits at a young age, and that being a medium wasn't something they chose.

For a concrete example though, here is one case study describing a spiritual leader who experienced possession states since childhood.

While this is just a case study, one wouldn't need to venture far into spiritualist circles to confirm this as fairly common and natural.

#3 "Being a System is More Than Just Headmates"

We've entered into the semantic part of the conversation. "This isn't a system because it doesn't meet my baseless and arbitrary definition of systemhood."

Anyway, the use of "system" in reference to people with multiple parts has also been applied by Internal Family Systems therapy since the 80s. And researchers into endogenic systems have frequently referred to endogenic systems as systems.

See Dr. Michael Lifshitz referring specifically to tulpa "systems" in the r/tulpas AMA.

The fact is that there is no strict definition of system that only applies to DID and OSDD.

If you disagree with this, I might ask under what basis you would have for believing Dr. Lifshitz is misusing medical terminology.

No.

But you are intentionally misleading people by omitting the "e.g." from the quoted text because you know it would undermine your argument to quote it in full.

I find it incredibly dishonest and deceitful to cut words from your quote but make it clear that this is just an example which inherently implies that there are other scenarios where someone can be plural without a disorder, then accuse me of stretching the exclusion.

It does NOT specify that.

It uses that as an example.

Again, it only has the appearance of specifying because you selectively removed part of the sentence.

Do you possess clairvoyance to know what the authors intended?

The ICD-11 was published in 2019.

This was 3 years after Varieties of Tulpa Experiences delved into the tulpa community's plurality.

This was 2 years after "Multiplicity: An Explorative Interview Study on Personal Experiences of People with Multiple Selves," the first interview study into the online plural community outside of tulpamancy, which interviewed plural systems and concluded that multiplicity made up a spectrum.

This was 1 year after Transgender Mental Health was published by the American Psychiatric Association, affirming that you can be plural without trauma or a disorder.

Trying to read the minds of the authors of the ICD-11 seems like a pointless endeavor to me. And also, a distraction.

It's distracting from the fact that the ICD-11 explicitly confirms that there are other ways to experience plurality (i.e. what it refers to as multiple "distinct personality states") without a mental disorder.

We've shown our sources. Now burden of proof is on you to provide this evidence you claim exists.

Thus far, the only sysmed sources pertain to DID exclusively, and do not address plurality outside of that. This makes these sources utterly useless against the mounting papers affirming the existence of endogenic plurality, and the ever-growing number of professionals who have acknowledged that endogenic plurality is a real psychological phenomenon.

*Makes sideways glances to my list of sources on endogenic and non-disordered plurality.*

Though to be honest, I actually like the Guardians doc better since it gives a brief overview of what each one is about.

Mine has become more of a personal thing. A list of sources I'm familiar with to be able to easily find and cite as needed, stored in one easy location and categorized with simple sifting in mind.

But the sources are there.

Wrap-up

Overall, as a rebuttal to the Boundaries With Normality, this seems pretty weak.

The fact that you've conceded that plurality can be caused by intentional effort heavily undermines the trauma-exclusive claims.

You've acknowledged that some endogenic systems are real. Specifically those with spiritual origins. Though I'm sure if given the chance, you would invent stipulations why only certain spiritual origins are valid.

But the most important part of this is the acknowledgement that you don't need trauma to be plural.

It seems the goalposts have moved from "you can only be plural with trauma" to "you can only be plural from trauma or intentional practices."

Which I suppose is a good start. 🤷‍♀️

[mogai-headcanons]

May i ask, why do you support endo-systems? (Coming from someone with did themself)

i've talked about this before (can't remember which blog it was on) but can't find it so i'll just run down my reasons again:

above all else, i do not have the right to tell anyone what is actually going on in their own brain. the only time that might be acceptable would be if i was a doctor treating them for a psychological issue, and even then, it's not often a good idea to outright tell someone that their brain is Wrong. this applies both to fakeclaiming endogenic systems and to telling them that they're actually traumagenic but have repressed their trauma; neither is good form.

secondly above all else, we NEED to have solidarity among plural folks. this is coming from a psychology major and a system — there is a large number of psychology practitioners and researchers who straight up do not believe plurality exists in any form. there is also a large number of them who believe systems are far rarer than current diagnoses show, and therefore most diagnosed and suspected systems are not real. i have had to write an essay on why did is fake for a grade before. there are extremely prominent psychologists (ex: allen frances, the literal chair of the team who developed the dsm-iv) who believe did is a fad (allen frances has stated that he wanted to outright remove it from the dsm-iv). if we are fakeclaiming each other in our community, this only makes us more susceptible to the people who want plurality to be seen as entirely fabricated.

on that point, we also need to have solidarity against non-psychologist singlets who fakeclaim systems. things like the r/fakedisordercringe subreddit can be legitimately damaging to the people who are posted, scrutinized, and ridiculed, and we should be protecting each other from that, not shoving endogenic systems into the line of fire.

there is scientific evidence of non-traumagenic and non-disordered plurality (there are some interesting studies linked on this page), especially in spiritual communities.

though not all endogenic systems are disordered, they Can be; having experienced trauma is not a diagnostic criteria for did or osdd-1 in the dsm-5 tr or the icd-11. though it's obviously highly common for did/osdd systems to have experienced trauma, a non-insignificant portion of diagnosed disordered systems (something like 4% iirc) are not traumatized.

to go with the above point, many endogenic systems don't claim to have a dissociative disorder or that their system is disordered. if you're worried about people 'appropriating' or 'faking' your disorder, they largely are not, since plurality can and does exist outside of disorders.

as a traumagenic system, i feel unwelcome and threatened by anti-endogenic folks. i've been fakeclaimed by anti-endos before, either because they mistook me for an endogenic system since i support them or because they decided the behaviors i perform on the internet are evidence i'm faking. i'm not the only traumagenic system this has happened to.

i think that's the main points, i may have more idk

[the80srewinders]

We used to be pro endo, but we're not anymore. We've learned, we've grown. We've seen bad things from both sides- anti endo and pro endo. We took time away from the online plural community to do immense research into endogenic systems and have concluded there's no proof they exist, and the only proof they give into their existence is opinion or studies that don't involve brain imaging. They never cite real medical sources or scientific sources, and since plurality is neurodivergence, endogenic plurality would still be considered disordered. There is no such thing as non disordered plurality, even if endogenic systems are real. The endo community largely spreads misinformation by saying non disordered plurality is real. The brain does not just make alters, headmates, whatever just to make them. There has to be a reason, and if endogenic systems are real, then that reason is they're neurodivergent. Which is disordered. There's no such thing as "non disordered autism" and the same applies to systems. So the pro endo community lack of scientific proof and linking non medical articles is enough proof they're probably not real. Endos also are taking over the plural community, when its focus should be on DID/OSDD because its a real disorder with a century of misinformation to debunk and lots of stigma, the people who have it suffered immense trauma as children and have struggles in their daily lives singlets won't understand. Instead of making a strong tight knit community for DID/OSDD systems, literal childhood trauma survivors, endos and their supporters have made the whole plural community a place of instability, fights and side taking. They've made it into everything a safe place for neurodivergence shouldn't be, especially for a posttraumatic and highly stigmatized disorder. The community that should be helping DID/OSDD systems and ending stigma, ending stereotypes, spreading facts is damaging the DID/OSDD community, and if singlets think it exists. We have no proof endos are real, but they've came and invaded our community and ruined it. Now endos want to invade other spaces not even related to plurality- autism spaces, fandom spaces and lgbt spaces. They also steal DID/OSDD terms and other cultural religious terms and even invade religious spaces or beliefs with their "everything is plural! god is a system!" tricks. Sure, the anti endos who choose endos to bully and bait are toxic, but most endos we've seen are just as toxic, just not by blatant harassment. Endos are for appropriation, invasion and "pluralizing" everything. They also damage the DID/OSDD community in ways I'll have to write a guide or ted talk on. I may be neutral as far as if i think endos are real, but I'm definitely anti endo in the sense that i am against the endo community for their spread of misinformation and damage to the DID/OSDD community.

[hiiragi7]

Honestly, it's talked about a lot just how rigidly medical many anti-endo spaces are, but I don't think it's talked about nearly enough how pro-endo spaces often fall into the exact same rhetoric. In fact, I have seen many pro-endos who push for even more strict medicalization than anti-endos do with regards to CDDs.

I cannot count the amount of times I have seen a pro-endo system say "I cannot have DID because I did not experience this specific type of severe abuse" or "I cannot have DID because my trauma didn't happen before the age of 9" or "I cannot have DID because I can still function fairly well in my daily life".

By making statements about what kind of trauma needs to happen, or quoting rigid age ranges for DID, or drawing lines in the sand at how disabled you need to be in order for it to count as "disordered enough" to be DID, pro-endos very much frequently fall into the exact same arguing points as anti-endos in order to seperate themselves from DID even if they claim to be against and mock the strict medicalization of DID often seen in anti-endo circles.

Despite claiming all the time that the rules are not as rigid as anti-endos make them out to be, pro-endos still often view DID as something "other" and create similar strict rules and binaries surrounding DID. It's especially prominent in systems who call themselves OSDD, who view OSDD as "less bad DID" and so cling to the OSDD label when their symptoms actually align more with DID. The lines they draw between OSDD and DID very often just show a lack of understanding of what DID's diagnostic criteria actually describes based on their own misconceptions about what DID is, which tends to be very narrow and specific. (Not to say everyone with OSDD is actually DID, of course, but it is a much higher number than people are really comfortable talking about.)

A lot of the time, this is very heavily related to downplaying symptoms as well as misinformation about what DID is. However, when downplaying is related to trauma, it is also a massive issue that the pro-endo community largely does not know what trauma is, either. Similar strict binaries and rules that people make about DID are also applied to the concept of trauma as a whole; especially when trauma has been so discoursified and used as an arguing point to harm endogenic systems, many systems are not comfortable talking about trauma at all.

We see this not only as it relates to dissociative disorders (ex., "Emotional neglect isn't enough to cause DID, you have to have been physically or sexually abused and I wasn't so I cannot have DID") but also as it relates to origins, particularly with things like traumagenic vs. stressgenic. Many pro-endos have very extreme ideas about what counts as trauma, and so do not believe they are traumatized if whatever their idea of "severe abuse" is was not present. Many who were abused in less overt ways or who dealt with trauma that was not related to abuse (ex., chronic stress, major surgeries, or natural disasters) tend to believe they are endogenic and non-disordered because they do not fit the picture of "trauma survivor" they have stereotyped in their head.

A lot of systems also have very narrow ideas of what a trauma response looks like, and believe it only ever looks like classic PTSD symptoms. If they do not have PTSD symptoms such as flashbacks or nightmares, there is a tendency to say "I am not traumatized".

Pro-endo spaces absolutely need to become more comfortable discussing and sharing information on disorder and trauma, because the current lack of knowledge is depressing at best and a barrier to recovery for many systems at worst. I do feel that syscourse has definitely worsened a lot of the pro-endo community's avoidance of discussing trauma and dissociation and the push to seperate experiences into anything except "traumagenic DID", though I do also feel it's related to unchecked trauma responses and internalized ableism as well. There's a lot of nuance and complexities to be found there, and this isn't a problem that can be solved overnight, but I do believe it can get better.

[acorpsecalledcorva]

*Maladaptive Daydreaming is the disordered form of Immersive Daydreaming/Dissociative Absorption (which I believe is the foundation of endogenic plurality experiences), therefore would only really apply to "disordered plurals" that don't have a CDD, similarly not all pwMD would identify as plural the same as most pwCDDs don't use that label

*"Plural Dissociative Disorder" is used here as the best phrase I can come up with to communicate disorders that involve systems of parts/alters/headmates as it wouldn't be a CDD. Although I recognise many do not like this term, everyone hopefully understands what I mean by it

This is the best summary I can find that I feel argues for why it should be included as such:

Arguments against: As a concept it may err ever so slightly too closely to the fantasy model of DID or give credibility to many aspects that the community has worked very hard to move away from.

Overlap: Early reports put comorbidity of MD and DID at only 12.8% but more recent reports have it at more like 40-50%. Prevalence of MD, that is the disordered utilisation of immersive daydreaming/dissociative absorption as a form of escapism, increases dramatically during periods of global unrest, the COVID 19 pandemic saw a marked increase in communities seemingly built around utilising Immersive Daydreaming/Dissociative Absorption such as the reality shifting communities which used guides very very similar to switching and imposition guides shared by the Willo/paragenic communities

Possible explanation for rift in community: many people simply do not have the ability to immersive daydream, and it would seem that the majority of DID research and literature has been written about and focuses on pwDID that don't have this innate ability. A lack of inner world and phobia of the inner experience such as no knowledge and access to parts are commonly described in literature but are at odds with the majority of online presentations of CDDs. It may be that more CDD systems are utilising an immersive daydreaming capability in a more (mostly)positive way thanks to community sharing of experiences, while those who do not have this ability are left dumbfounded by how much the online community doesn't match their experience. Similarly, those with CDDs who can and do utilise this ability would find more shared experiences with the wider plural community including identifying as mixedorigin because immersive daydreaming would be an ability that predates trauma development of a CDD or becoming disordered due to later trauma

Personal experience: I have both DID parts/alters and Immersive Daydreaming headmates. I find this a very useful framework to understand my experience as it allows me to differentiate the needs of both and ensure that one doesn't negatively impact the other. I also believe it's very important to differentiate between them in form and function, while not viewing one as more valid than the other. Treating all ID headmates as alters can quickly become overwhelming if healing is a goal while treating alters as ID headmates can be very damaging and make them feel like they're being exposed and need to retreat further or have protectors and persecutors lash out. I don't think it's wrong to acknowledge that right now there are pwCDDs who mistakenly believe they're endogenic plurals and disordered plurals that mistakenly believe they have CDDs (and potentially therapists misdiagnosing as well).

Psychs: Nijenhuis, Ross, Dell, and Somer all seem to be dancing around this issue from slightly different angles right now, Nijenhuis trying to differentiate purely trauma based pathological dissociative experiences, while Ross has explored a proneness to dissociation, Dell has explored a proneness to hypnotisability, and Somer first identified maladaptive daydreaming whilst also being one of the key researchers into trauma and dissociation over the last few decades. Outside of these there are many psychs that have noticed a marked shift in presentations of patients that supposedly have CDDs resulting in increased research into things like Imitative DID and Malingering/factitious disorder as it relates to DID. Identifying immersive daydreaming as a contributing factor to this change in presentation may help reduce the number of false negatives AND false positives.

I can also very much understand why some might find the particular language of "daydreaming" and "character" to be invalidating towards their headmates, there are cultural connotations to those words. This may largely be due to the research being done into non plural patients but that is clearly changing. There certainly seems to be acknowledgement of the autonomy that can be found when analysing MD through a plural lens though so this language may certainly change as endogenic plurality is brought into the literature more.

[budgetbuildsystem]

This may be a bit long of a read, as a notice:

Introjection and "source memories" (a common term used in the community, though other common terms are pseudomemories [a more ) are a complex thing and whether or not any introjects (fictives, factives, other kinds that cannot be organized in such a way) even develop them varies greatly between systems.

Some introjects' memories "update" with whatever their source is, while others do not.

Coming from a more psychological view of why introjects' can form pseudomemories:

Psueodomemories are often there to "explain" or sort of to be a "backstory" for the alter in question. Maybe to be a better way to explain why their personality is the way it is, or why they have the fears they have. Pseudomemories though often can be there as "coverups", or ways to show what you all collectively or the body may have gone through, while still providing a kind of "safe distance" from the body trauma. A good example would be A (a system) goes through trauma as a child. C splits off at some point with pseudomemories related to things that while aren't a 1:1 to the body's trauma, still hold feelings and maybe similar experiences to what the body went through. This time though, since in the mind these memories aren't exactly the same as the body's, it may be processed a bit seperately so you may have time to process those invidually and may come to realise that processing that opened up for being able to better process and understand the body's trauma later on when you have tools. In a way, C having these memories may also serve as a way to not trigger other alters who DO have memories of the bodily trauma, but since they're a bit more "distanced" from it in a way, the chances of triggering others out or causing a chain reaction may be a bit lower thus processing this overall may be a bit easier. Though easier doesn't necessarily mean it won't be difficult, at the very least it may mean that there are less chances of triggering multiple alters or a chain reaction if you have "coverup" memories.

Though this isn't the case for every single memory, and still trying to dig could end up in triggering something so regardless if they are source memories or body memories, I suggest you treat all of this with care and take it slow.

Pseudomemories aren't always a cover up as I said before, and sometimes they can just be there to provide a backstory or even just some sort of comfort.

I think tying this into why introjects form could be beneficial, but I'll leave it at that. And again, not every introject has their memories "updated" either. "Non-canon" introjects or introjects who don't follow their source 1:1 is also very common, and I'd argue simply is what happens to anyone given the fact that people can grow. Characters can not (in a way, they only grow as far as narrated). Introjects are not their source, and naturally introjects are the system's mix of interpretation, what the system needs at the time (say A splits off C who is based off of someone, but only splits off more resilient or positive traits of them because that's what's needed at the time), and probably a few other things I'm missing.

Keep in mind that it really also depends on your all's outlook of source memories too. I'm speaking from a very medical side of things, and also more strictly about DID/OSDD, so this may not apply if it's something you all experience moreso from spirituality, etc.

So essentially, yes it could be that Astarion doesn't feel comfortable enough or wants to keep things private. It could also be that Astarion doesn't have many memories or even memories of what happened as you all continued playing. It really just depends, but at the very least I will reiterate to just take this slow. Pseudomemories can be just as personal and often very intimate part of alters' lives.

I really appreciate this break down and honestly it makes a lot of sense. Sometimes the things astarion went through in source do slightly mirror my own feelings and thoughts. But yes I do try to give him his privacy as I know he is more than just a character in my head, he's a part of me and his own person at the same time.

[pn-confidential]

Greetings. It has been a while-ish since our last post, however we are now back with quite a long one. Recently- a user who requested to stay anonymous has contacted us with quite a lot of concerning information regarding the behind the scenes and goings on of the plural nest staff team. This post is going to be recapping exactly what we have been told- with very slight formatting alterations for smoother reading.

Please keep in mind that while this post is incredibly long, our longest yet, I believe- it is imperative that you read through the entire thing thoroughly. Especially if you are either a current plural nest member, or are considering joining their server.

Content warning for the following:

Mentions of harassment

Dog piling

Staff misconduct

Predatory relationships/grooming

(Please bare in mind- everything in quotations was taken straight from the user who has informed us)

“ I think a fun place to start would be mentioning that the current owner, QR, never actually applied for staff and as far as I know, never actually passed through whatever vetting processes were in place at the time?

The previous owner, Bari, started acting... Really erratic in their last few months before handing off ownership, due to a lot of emotional stress around the owner *before them,* Polychrome, trying to beg to be let back into the community after being outed as an anti-endo, and trying to blame their bad behavior on a prolonged schizophrenic episode?

QR was a regular user at the time (and pretty new too, I think) and was mini-modding some sort of dispute in #ask-the-staff. Bari saw this, and instead of telling QR off for mini-moding, they... decided they were really impressed by QR's performance as a mini-mod that they just offered QR a position as a real mod on the spot, in front of the public. I'm not sure how QR rose to owner from there, but... Now you know!

I don't know a whole lot about the actual story behind Bari and Polychrome myself, but partner sys did just find the link to Poly's "apology" for their time as an anti-endo and the post where they blamed it on a mental health episode, if that's something that interests you. ”

“ Someone else we have a *lot* of criticisms of that I know is still current staff is aqua system. aqua system is also still currently staff in nest, and they were really regularly touted in the year or so after we stopped posting in the server as holding a pretty consistent "second-in-command" position in the staff. To my knowledge they're still in that position, and tbh their presence has been always been a lot of why I keep deciding Nest still isn't a home I can return to whenever I check to see if it's improved at all over the years.

I do not know if their views on things have improved in the three years since (I certainly *hope* they have, but... We don't actively go out seeking their posts anymore, for obvious reasons!) but I know shortly after they were elected to staff back in 2021, they used to post a *lot* of... Our friend group used to call it "sysmed light" takes. The one that stands out to me the most in my memory is that they believed that traumagenics were marginalized in the plural community by non-traumagenic voices, and they were constantly advocating for people to basically view traumagenics and non-traumagenics as two separate species that just happened to share the same community, rather than encouraging people to come together over our commonalities. I've also got a really CHOICE screenshot of them talking about how "yeah, medicalizing plurality is bad, but plurality is inseparable from DID/OSDD" which is a WILD FUCKING STATEMENT TO MAKE AS A HIGH RANKING MOD OF WHAT WAS THE LARGEST PLURAL DISCORD COMMUNITY AT THE TIME. They also *really, really* liked to talk about how they saw their plurality as a solely negative force in their life and something they feel ruined their future, which is. Also a cool view to have as someone so high-ranking in a community built upon solidarity and pride.

IMG ID: [A message from Shouto of Aqua System reading:

"I think a lot of it is yeah medicalizing all plurality is bad and no plurality is not inherently a bad thing HOWEVER plurality is inseparable from DID/OSDD and those ARE mental disorders and it's not harmful to acknowledge them as such

Not to mention non traumagenics tend to ignore how much trauma can mess and screw with your experience with plurality

We try to look at our plurality positively but it's still hard for me to act like being plural is something amazing and great when our system is traumagenic

plurality like any other neurodivergency such as autism needs to be treated as neutral: neither inherently bad nor good. It just is. For some it's pros outweigh the cons, for others the cons outweigh the pros"] - END ID

Aqua also really, *really* liked traumadumping in non-vent channels. We have a *really strong* memory of our partner system, during their time as a Nest mod, making an @everyone announcement reminding people that vents go in the vent channel, and literally an hour later aqua sys was posting REALLY HEAVY stuff about their exotrauma unprovoked in plural-discussion-1. This is kind of notable, because in a weird way staff accomodating for aqua's need to traumadump in public spaces is a large reason why #traumagenic-discussion exists? My partner system made me privy to a staff discussion where Aqua was. Bitching and moaning that there was a #parogenic-discussion channel, but not a #traumagenic-discussion one, and eventually they whined about it enough that the rest of the staff made it happen!

This is so WILDLY misguided because #parogenic-discussion wasn't created to be a Cool Treehouse for non-traumagenic systems (who... aren't all inherently parogenic, mind you,) it was created specifically to be a place to discuss the *process* of parogenesis, the difficulty and the psychological alchemy of creating a new headmate out of nothing. Pointing at that and going "but why can't traumagenics have one" is SUCH a wild false equivalence, because... If you want a space to talk about the process of traumagenesis, the actual ways in which traumagenic headmates are created, that's cool and valid, but... 90% of it is just going to be people talking about their trauma in a non-vent channel.

Guess what aqua immediately started using it for.

I know my partner sys pretty directly challenged staff on this once upon a time using exactly this argument, and got entirely shut down on the sole argument of "endogenics get their own channel, traumagenics should to." which. again. is not *exactly* how that story happened. ”

“ Which I guess leads me to my next fun story, which is my partner sys getting ganged up on and harassed by the entire rest of staff for... Knowing the history of why the server's staff was structured the way it was, and insisting that minors probably shouldn't be handling potentially volatile bad actors who could post gore and nsfw at them. Lemon and aqua were MAJOR violators in this story, and to my understanding they're *both* currently still nest staff *and* pretty highly ranked.

A long, long time ago, the interview you used to go through to get verified in the server wasn't run by a bot, but it was conducted by a real, live server member acting as a volunteer. It *was* really labor intensive, but it was also a really cool and refreshing experience, since you *immediately* got to have a fun conversation with a community member and have someone express interest in you as a person the moment you walked through the door.

These volunteers all had the "Helper" role, denoting that they were acting in an official capacity for Plural Nest, but were not Moderation Staff (who just had the "staff" role.) Since Helpers weren't expected to perform moderator duties other than passing off any problematic interviews to a *real* moderator, it was a position that was open to users of all ages, whereas staff was explicitly reserved for adults. At some point during the latter end of Bari's time as owner, after they started acting really erratically, there was a major turnover in staff, and all the new staff members were told that helpers were. A lesser tier of moderator, who were more focused on moderating chat and verifications in order to free up the Real Moderators for more pressing issues. Helpers, accordingly, *were* given the same permissions and as regular mods in the server's settings.

My partner system, who had been in nest for two years now and had talked to the old staff that created that system... Pretty clearly knew that was wrong, and were vocal about as much. They made a large argument that, with Nest being as high-profile of a server as it was, they get a *lot* of bad actors who sometimes post gore and nsfw, and make really violent threats towards staff when they don't get their way, and it was *wildly inappropriate* for minors to not only be willingly exposed to that, but *expected to moderate it.* This was not a hypothetical situation they were arguing, this was very much based on experiences *they* had to deal with during their time as staff, *as well as other staff* talking about how harrowing and traumatizing some of the things they were expected to moderate were to them, and then going "By the way my 14th birthday is coming up.”

Everyone was expressing at first that this was sensible and actually agreed that it was something they needed to work on. Aqua system made some wildly out of pocket comment that a lot of their headmates' exomemories as being literal child soldiers made them unable to see what was wrong with the situation, but they also eventually used the same excuse to decide that they were probably going to trigger themselves if they participated in the discussion further and respectfully bowed out. Everything was cool!

Up until about a week-ish later, when my partner system woke up to 6 pings and 500 unread messages in the staff channel basically calling for their head on a fucking pike.

Lemon collective (who, mind, was 13 at the time, just *Barely* above discord TOS age) and one other minor staff member (can't remember which, sorry) had made a post where they essentially went "Hey, we've been rolling this over in our head for the past few days, and we realized we don't actually agree with this ruling and feel like we are being infantilized, and that they didn't understand what changed to suddenly remove these responsibilities from their plate when they were just as capable of performing them before.” Mind... Lemon was one of the examples our partner system brought up when they were talking about other staff members openly commenting about how some of the things they were seeing was damaging to their mental health, so... that's cool.

Bari immediately threw our partner system under the bus, claiming that it was our psys' idea and all complaints should be aimed at them! Bari also made some WILDLY out of pocket comment claiming that our psys was using abuser tactics to get everyone to agree with them, and implying that psys' angle was "if you don't agree with me you're all inherently immoral and problematic”

and thus the mobbing began

Psys wakes up and sees this whole mess aimed entirely at them, and asked for a moment to backread the whole damn thing before saying anything. After taking it all in, they did eventually try arguing their point in good faith and continuing to stand by it, and tried to be empathetic with "I understand your frustration, I remember being 13 on the internet too and feeling like the stupid age gates were stupid age gates, but... I don't think it's appropriate for y'all to be interacting with bad actors posting death and rape threats” To which lemon retorted with something along the lines of "okay cool, still ageist," and. unironically hitting our partner system with a /neg tonetag.

A lot of other users were backing lemon in this fight out of nowhere as well, and going "Yeah, 13 year olds like you who are actively expressing this shit is harming them SHOULD still be allowed to interact with it! Yeah, psys IS being really rude and unprofessional and manipulative about it!” at which point psys' fronter at the time went "alright. the rest of the sys is probably going to be upset at me for this, but this is such a lost cause and they'll get it." and slapped that big fat "server leave" button. ”

“ Alright, one more story and I think I'm done for now. I don't want to go too in depth about this because A) I haven't. actually talked to the ex-mod affected by this, and B) I just kind of only know the general story beats anyway, but.

Back in 2021, there was a moderator and longtime community member, Abyssal Void, who got outed as being in a predatory adult-minor relationship. One of the other moderators had receipts *from the victim* that this was going on, and it's. Pretty hard to argue with a screenshot that says "don't tell anyone until you're an adult.” Reasonably, receipt-holding mod banned Abyssal on the goddamn spot.

The *entire* rest of staff jumps on receipt-holding mod for this, arguing that receipts mod shouldn't have acted without a discussion or a vote. Receipts mod very explicitly said at one point, "do y'all really want to have a multi-week discussion about an adult and a minor fucking before we do something about this" and *at least three mods said yes, unironically.*

receipts mod was also *denied the opportunity to share the receipts they gathered,* and bari even told receipts mod "hey, you should take a break. For a year. Because you're clearly not fit for mod duty right now” at which point receipts mod said "uh, no actually, i quit" and left server.

If I recall correctly this incident is actually what lead to nest getting *kicked off of plural hubs* back when that space was big and relevant to our community, because it was *so clear* this was a wild mishandling of a very active and dangerous situation. ”

All in all- as you can see, plural nest is a place to be avoided. The constant misconduct and mishandling of situations from staff- all that which has been mentioned in our other posts- and ESPECIALLY the final situation mentioned within this very post, regarding the groomer situation. Which I hope you are all aware- is very much potential lawsuit material, and definitely not some petty internet drama.

IMG ID: [An embed-message from HubBot. It lists Plural Nest as delisted from Plural Hub. The Delist Reasoning reads as follows:

"Due to consistent and recent reports of an unsafe environment, Plural Nest has been delisted, said staff even going so far as to reprimand a staff member for banning a groomer with proper evidence without referring to staff members, and (CW: CSA) asking for farther, more explicit evidence [of] sexual content with the minor, including the minor's identity."] - END ID

------------------------------------------------------

Plural nest is a genuinely dangerous server. One not even worth joining for the morbid curiosity of it all.

Stay away.

( Thank you to @/anti-endos-are-weird for providing the image IDS/alt text for the images )

[somepoetwannabe]

You don't have to answer, but I'm just curious:

What, to you, makes DID/OSDD more "proven" then non-disordered systemhood? That seems to be the point you keep coming back to.

Because OSDD/DID weren't always medically recognized. Does that mean before they were medically recognized, plurality itself wasn't real?

You INHERENTLY can't "prove" a subjective experience, and to apply that logic to anything psychological in nature is to ignore the limitations of psychology as a science, which is itself anti-scientific.

I don't have dyslexia. If I suddenly declared that dyslexia isn't real because I don't have it and nobody can objectively 100% without a shadow of a doubt prove to me that it is, regardless of how much supportive evidence there is, I'd still be wrong.

I will never experience the same experiences as a dyslexic person. Doesn't mean I can't acknowledge that the patterns in the wider human population heavily suggest that it's a neurodivergency that exists, because hey, there are all of these people with dyslexia symptoms!

Similarly, there are all of these people claiming to have symptoms of plural experiences without trauma. Not my experience, but ignoring it would be stupid.

And the idea that it must not be "real plurality," but that it could be something else is... I hate to say it, but that's ableist. "Ableist" in this case being used as a word for prejudice against neurodivergent people, yes including those whose neurodivergency may not be a disability in a vacuum but very much is within a societal context, such as endogenic systems.

(^ I could write a lot more on this point in particular, of why the word "ableism" actually is applicable in this situation, but that's ultimately not the point of this ask.)

First off using people with psychosis as your argumentative scapegoat just alienates psychotic systems, and yes, those two things don't cancel out. Even if it was psychosis that doesn't rule out systemhood as a possibility, and the possible interactions between psychosis and plurality definitely aren't studied enough to make that claim.

Also you're inherently promoting the idea that neurodivergent people should not be trusted to speak on their own experiences, which is ableism. I don't think there's any room to argue on that fact.

Especially given that plurality as a subject is extraordinarily under-researched. Even OSDD/DID are far from fully understood.

- A (traumagenic!) system member with a passion for psychology who doesn't really appreciate how y'all have presented psychology as a field.

(Sorry if I come off as rude, I speak rather bluntly but I'm not trying to offend. I am genuinely trying to engage in productive conversation. /Gen)

DID/OSDD is medically recognized, with an accepted theory of how it is formed and a known way/ways to treat it. That is what I regard as “proof” so to speak. You are right, DID/OSDD were not always medically recognized, and I would not claim they were not real prior to medical recognition. However, I do not claim endogenics are completely impossible or definitely do not exist, nor do I refuse to treat them with empathy and respect. I simply offer alternative explanations for endogenic experiences, and possibilities more medically supported than the idea of them being systems. Because of this, I am not entirely sure what your point is here. Just because something might be possible doesn’t mean I should immediately believe it. What I am saying is, without substantial evidence, I have no reason to believe in the idea of endogenic systems being possible. You cannot expect me to trust claims, and I hope you can acknowledge why I may not. Especially online. The idea you cannot prove a subjective experience is…interesting. I am no expert on matters of psychology – I have no qualifications and am simply a high school student with an interest in it – so I am not qualified to speak on that. However, I am yet to see psychology support the idea of endogenic systems. I am also unsure what you mean by “anti-science”. Again, I do not actively claim endogenics are not real, as there is as little evidence to support that as there is to support that they are real. It is not that nobody can 100% prove to me it is, but rather nobody can prove to me at all (as far as I have seen). “Regardless of how much supportive evidence there is"…there is no (or at least none I have been exposed to) evidence for endogenics, but please feel free to give resources if you have any. I am open to be proven wrong. “I will never experience the same experiences as a dyslexic person. Doesn't mean I can't acknowledge that the patterns in the wider human population heavily suggest that it's a neurodivergency that exists, because hey, there are all of these people with dyslexia symptoms!” People lie. That is a reality of life. There is proof of dyslexia [neurobiology supports the idea of dyslexia and there is an understanding of how it occurs in people, though not what causes it] and they are medically recognized. I do not ignore endogenic experiences, as that would be irrational. I would be screaming into a void and arguing against a blank wall. Listening to endogenics is something I must do to come to a reasonable conclusion on whether I believe there is a possibility it is possible to be endogenic. I’d need you to elaborate on the ableist point. I’m not quite sure how it is ableist to propose that there may be other explanations for endogenic experiences. For me, this would only apply if endogenics were supported by psychology and had a suitable theory on how they occur but I was simply choosing to ignore the already fitting explanation. That is not what I am doing. I am not claiming to know other people's experiences better than they do, I am not saying for a definite I know what causes endogenics to experience something akin to plurality. Also, you cannot be ableist to someone who is not disabled. You may say or do things that stem from ableist belief systems, but you cannot be ableist to an abled person. I don’t understand what you mean by “may not be a disability in a vacuum but very much is within a societal context”, you are either disabled or you are not. While someone’s disability may not affect them every second, even when their disability is not affecting them disabled people are disabled nonetheless. Please do feel free to elaborate on these points. (1/2)

[savagestarlightsys]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ THE SAVAGE STARLIGHT SYSTEM

● traumagenic p-did system of more than 15 alters

○ call us starlight collectively; they/it prns

● bodily an adult, all alters who post here are 16+

○ audhd, c-ptsd + others; physically disabled (ehlers danlos, pots)

｡･:*˚:✧｡ about us

we have over 15 alters but only a few will post here. those include:

● angel, it/its 🌻 ○ luka, she/it/spark ⚡ ● cain, he/she 🌹 ○ mabel, she/hers 🎂 ● dorian, he/him 👾 ○ ford, he/him 📖

we were prof dx'd several years ago with osdd. given new research, we feel like we would be diagnosed with p-did today.

we use a combination of i/me and we/us, depending on whose fronting, how we're feeling etc. all of us are queer in some way and most of us are not cis.

for a full list of alters & additional information, go here! we also have a list of (shared) interests here!

｡･:*˚:✧｡ byf / dni

please do not interact with us if any of the following applies:

○ fall under any of the "basic dni." ● you're a zionist. free palestine. ○ you are (bodily) under 16. ● you are an "endogenic system" or support them. you cannot be a system without trauma. end of. this includes any non-traumagenic origin or "mixed origins." ○ you're a radqueer/transid/anything like that. ● you cannot respect our boundaries. this includes prying for information about our system, being weird about our introjects or littles, etc. ○ you fakeclaim. there is a difference between not validating endogenic systems, for example, and explicitly attacking particular systems. the block button is free.

｡･:*˚:✧｡ int guidelines

some tips for interacting with us:

○ we will block people who try to fakeclaim us. you aren't our doctor, we don't care about your opinion. anon hate will also be deleted (unless it's particularly hilarious). ● questions about us, however, are of course fine, as long as they are respectfully asked. ○ singlets are more than welcome to follow and interact. again, just be respectful. ● please do not approach our fictives unprovoked about their source and/or "sourcemates." most of them are not interested. if they are, they will post about it. ○ we may refer to alters not on this blog in posts. if we do, we'll provide relevant context. ● finally, while we do have firm beliefs in regard to things like endogenic "systems", transids etc, we would not consider this a syscourse blog and we don't intend to post a ton of that stuff personally. we just have our beliefs stated for the purpose of ensuring those kinds of people dni.

feel free to reach out to us with any/all questions! happy to be here!!

[sophieinwonderland]

Reminder: System has been a shared community term since the 90s.

System has a broad usage in the field of psychology for referring to parts of a person, such as in internal family systems therapy. There is no solid medical definition that only applies to people DID and OSDD. Psychologists and psychiatrists studying endogenic and non-disordered systems are calling also calling them systems.

The World Health Organization's ICD-11 affirms the existence of non-disordered and endogenic plurality. Transgender Mental Health, written by Dr Eric Yarbrough and published by the American Psychiatric Association states that you can be plural without trauma. Endogenic systems have also been supported by experts like Dr. Colin Ross. Numerous studies into these other forms of plurality have been conducted and are being conducted as we speak. This includes an fMRI study into tulpa systems showing neurological changes during possession.

Relying on institutions to determine if you should support people's identities and believe their experiences isn't very "punk" of you, and you should respect people's right to self-determination regardless.

But if anti-endos do want to have this discussion, they should know that the doctors don't support them either.

The existence of endogenic and non-disordered systems is not up for debate.

The anti-endo position is not rooted in science or psychology. It's rooted in hate, bigotry, and internalized ableism.

And will be no safe spaces for hate and bigotry.

[silverjetsystm]

Interpreting 49 Years of Comic Book History

Standard disclaimer applies. I'm a non-DID/OSDD writer. I'm also not a medical professional.

We get inconsistent characterization at times (looking at you, back half of MS:MK where the wheels fall off and the other trio of lousy writers). Here's how I make sense of 49 years of real world comic book history, decisions made by various writers, and the evolution of the mental health field.

Let's party.

The MK System has DID. Marc was diagnosed in his early 20s after his flirtation with the CIA. He ran tf away to be a merc because Denial and escapism.

The MK System's mind has been changed by a god.

For years, Khon.shu did not speak to the System. They had an eerie feeling and attachment to the Khon.shu statue.

Marlene tried to get the System to move past being MK and having all these fighting corruption via fists. Which isn't a bad idea on paper. She and the System had continual talks about All This and she was their anchor to their sanity/normalcy.

The System saw some decent doctors but were not enthused by letting go of MK or achieving fusion. Fusion is not death. They are not at the point where they could fuse. When they communicate and cooperate, they are in a healthier.

However, there is potentially some loose fusion during certain points. Marc suddenly being an art dealer in MS:MK, for example. Or, that whole Marc acting Jake from Vengeance 2009.

Steven and Jake pull away and go dormant, leaving Marc at the front for good and ill. Khon.shu starts talking, is a West Coast Avenger, and doesn't really stop talking. There's some positive bits with Khon.shu in all this. Bringing Marc back, assisting Marc in getting T'Challa connected to Bast again, uh…

Marc pulls off his most violent act. Takes a break because of the toll on his body and mind. Then has his most violent period in the background of Civil War, egged on by an introject of Khon.shu (or real!Khon.shu but in a messed up phase feeding off of Marc's worst parts of himself). He gets a lot of professionals telling him Khon.shu isn't real while he himself says he made Steven and Jake up. Which makes sense based on what was going on at the time and the evolution of mental health. But also, it's Incorrect.

Marc plummets into His Worse Depressive Violent Episodes. Pushed his friends away. Wanted to get help. Bad doctors. He starts to open himself back up to working with Steven and Jake against Khon.shu (the god or introject). And then, the god Khon.shu is like "hey, let's kill Mephisto. steal the Avengers powers."

We get this long spiral or phases, if you want to lean into the moon analogy. Jewish time is in spirals so I use both.

Marc was reborn from violence to do vengeance/justice

Steven and Jake are the eyes and ears while Marc is 'dead' or holes up because he's ??? about normalcy

Marc tries his hand at normalcy while trying to balance vengeance/justiceing. Steven and Jake take a step back because the writer/editorial doesn't want to deal with mental health that isn't edgy or know how to use Steven and Jake effectively

Marc fucks up. Marc does more violence/pushes people away. Having a literal or metaphorical death.

Marc starts over

Each time he learns a little more, even if the low lows last for literal comic book runs and yeaaaaaaaars of real time.

[justanothersyscourse]

So apparently none of these things are up for debate because no one can reblog or comment

Nice

@amaranthis

Go ahead, "make an example out of me," but only after I make one of you.

First, I swear to god, the only ones making #miserablyDID a thing are people like you. What people like me are trying to tell people like you is that dysfunction is a fluctuating label, and the DSM entry for DID explains that dysfunction can be minimal to non-existent and you can still be disordered, and that's okay.

Disordered isn't a bad word and it's not synonymous with dysfunction, and the DSM explains why and how.

You just don't want to listen and instead continue to spread the idea that you have be miserable and struggling every day if you're disordered. As if people don't live fulfilling, happy lives with all kinds of disorders.

No, DID is definitely the exception, right?

You ignore that the DSM allows for someone to reach final fusion and still have DID based on their ability to split later in life.

You ignore that the DSM explains that a disorder doesn't mean need for treatment, and you silence and hide voices trying to explain that under the guise of protecting endogenics from "hate", meanwhile, the misinformation you're pushing is actively harmful to DID systems.

You ignore when we explain that the DSM states that you can be trans without dysphoria, and that in most cases, dysfunction in that case comes from failures on the side of medical practitioners and deniers. Transmeds go against the DSM and current research, and comparing syscourse to that is hugely dismissive of the fight trans people have fought.

In terms of DID/OSDD, the DSM explains that it IS a trauma-based disorder, but no one bothers to read beyond the criteria (which also mentions trauma? The and/or doesn't mean trauma is optional, but go off I guess). Sysmeds support the DSM and current research.

The fight isn't comparable, and you're basically denying science and history at this point in favour of an argument that doesn't actually apply.

You ignore the very real damage that IFS has done to the treatment of DID/OSDD, and you ignore our concerns when we say we see the same things coming with endogenics if the language used isn't changed and the line clearly separated.

You ignore that we have answers to all of those questions you asked in the tags. We know why and how the cut off age works, and how autism can increase that age to about 12. From the writers of the DSM.

In b4 hypothesized, because we can see it now, and the DSM 5 TR has been updated to reflect this new understanding.

You ignore that we already understand how and why those with DID have alters and how trauma plays into that.

You ignore that this means that: those biomarkers, or injuries = DID/OSDD, and that if someone is apparently a system without those injuries, it is completely, 100% different. How can it not be? Those injuries affect every aspect of our lives-- the way we retain, recall, and manage memories and information, our emotional reactions to things. Someone without them isn't going to understand it, but people like you demonize people like me for pointing that out, despite the fact that it's kind of obvious when you think about it.

You ignore that the DSM is quite clear about what kind of cultural experiences are excluded and why and how, and it's not for teens on tumblr, and saying it is, is denying the long, hard fight to keep spiritual and religious practices out of the DSM, because they're not the same things.

We already have the answers, you just don't like them, and you just proved on this post that you don't actually care about education, you care about silencing people who disagree and try to point out that you're misreading and misunderstanding things.

[granulesofsand]

Hiya! I've been really struggling to identify whether or not we are a HC-DID system or not, and my own role as an alter may hint towards it? (This may be long, I'm sorry!)

I act as a sort of shell or proxying alter for other alters. I can't leave the front seat at all nor can I see the innerworld vividly, I am made aphantasiac by it. Other alters work in the outerworld through me, I am always aware of what the body is doing and I can hear their thoughts and sometimes snippets of their subsystems voices as they do.

We are capable of doing what we call 'shelling' (since we know of no better wording for it) in which I'm made completely amnesiac to the other alters workings. I'm still in the body and aware of all of our senses, I can still see everything they do, feel their touch and emotions, etc. but I can't remember over 90% of what they do in the body. I also don't have the ability to feel emotions or think in such a state, all of my emotions and thoughts are purely of those fronting through me and I don't remember them afterwards unless granted memory by our archivist or primary gatekeeper, and even then the memories are foggy but don't feel entirely separate of me because I was there during them.

Our supposed previous hosts and I have always felt empty in personality, like we only exist as a conglomerate of other alters influences and illnesses, not a person. Our previous host described existing as meaningless and empty because they didn't feel like a person nor a human, and found themselves trying to justify their existence and why such a person would exist. This is all pre-discovery so they had no idea DID existed nor complex terms such as shell alters, but they experienced exactly what I do but much more covertly. I supposedly split off of them into the front seat and stuck, whilst they were freed from it and now are innerbound and more developed. This also means I don't have an innerworld body, I am just a plain white manniquin in the front seat that other alters can mess with but not move (attempts by our best have been made).

We know we are polyfragmented. We have a vast innerword, multiple subsystems and layers, and terrible dissociative amnesia that doesn't allow the main system to remember anything that happened to us below the age of ten, so I'm certain we don't have OSDD-1B nor P-DID.

Do my experiences line up with that of a HC-DID shell? Is it possible for them to develop into awareness of themselves and others as I have? Thank you so much!

I have several things to say about this. There will be mentions of RAMCOA throughout, but it’ll be marked when it gets specific

Shell Alters

I don’t know if the term ‘shell’ was originally meant for programmed systems. We first saw it in a book for RAMCOA survivors (Becoming Yourself by Allison Miller), where the author described some of her clients’ front people.

The clients had either

A) very strong, front-locked presentation alters who were notably elaborate that the rest of system worked through

or

B) almost clear front-locked presentation alters who were not at all elaborate and served mostly as a buffer to the system’s overt appearance.

Non HC-DID

Both of those are common in OSDD (-1a) and P-DID systems. Amnesia is only definitely absent in OSDD-1b systems, so if that’s your reason for leaving out the others it may be worthwhile to look again.

It is very possible to have this kind of ‘shell’ without any programming. What makes a system Highly Complex is the programming.

I have heard that ‘shell’ refers specifically to the phenomenon as applied to HC-DID systems, and there are synonyms others have come up with to describe their experience without intruding on others’ (prism is the one that comes to mind).

HC-DID

Having this type of alter isn’t an indicator for or against RAMCOA programming. It can be further proof if there are other symptoms of HC-DID, or it could be that your brain just decided that would be good for survival.

Some programmed systems are diagnosed with a non-DID CDD, similar to many polyfrag systems. The polyfragmentation itself is what indicates the higher level of dissociation, so the community refers to all variations as C-DID.

I would say that HC-DID tends to have more dissociation than C-DID, but the specifier is still to signify the external control placed over a system. The complexity follows because an outside adult can create more structures than a child typically would.

RAMCOA

Looking into RAMCOA sucks all around, survivor or no, because it will be overwhelming and shoot right over most folks’ distress tolerance. For survivors, there are added risks of programs set to prevent information seeking and disclosure.

Read: if you weren’t in danger of suicide or returning to abusers before, you might be after. That said, I’m going to give some overview of RAMCOA.

This site gives broad indicators of RAMCOA, many of which are particular to programming. The only required feature is programs themselves, which are the manifestations of Mind Control (the MC) on survivors with DID.

Programming

Programs can be

A) intentional splitting of alters with abuser-desired qualities

B) cued sequences of behavior in said alters, where the cue is a trigger weaponized by abusers to set off chains imbedded during torture or drugging

C) organization of alters by abusers in structures, hierarchies, roles, or whatever else the abuser chooses

D) mindsets forced onto victims by abusers via torture or drugging

E) pretty much any mind control tactic, in this case specifically on a system with extra measures to manipulate dissociation

Our Shell

We had a programmed shell alter who elaborated and now functions as a gatekeeper to our fronting layer. It was programmed because our cult used torture to split it, then continued using trauma and substances to force it into a fixed worldview and set of tasks that were regularly reinforced.

That alter was amnesiac to the programs they held and could only be removed from front by alters programmed with that capability. They knew very little of our history and had an aura of glowing orbs to hold skills and memories.

When they became aware, they could only leave front by knocking the body unconscious. Now they can come further in than before, and they have a separate realm with all of their parts. We call that layer ‘headspace’, and it’s the only way alters from different inmerworld areas can meet.

Moving Forward

I’ve seen organic systems with similar alters achieve similar results. Some are able to leave that role completely and become more like the rest of their system. Programming comes with different aspects to undo, but both are possible with time and effort.

I hope you find a path that feels right for you, no matter if your system is programmed or not. Rushing rarely leads to desirable outcomes, so please take the time to care for yourselves as you go.

My brain is now empty, so please do reach out if anything was unclear or didn’t answer the question. Good day and good luck.