#diagnostic criteria discourse

[neurodiversepolls]

all neurodivergant and mentally ill people please respond!

A good chunk of disorders and disorder categories have on-going debates in the field of psychology. As the ND community, we tend to pressure eachother to all follow the same theories and are discouraged from finding multiple theories plausible.

Do you believe that every disorder should have one singular definition of symptoms and one singular explanation? Do you think there is room exceptions to a disorder or should any exception count as a separate disorder? There are often categories for people who have a disorder but experience it in an atypical way. Do you think these people shouldn't voice their experiences as much as those with the typical symptoms?

I'll shorten these into two questions, actually.

Do you believe diagnoses to be a tangible fact of reality or just the closest possible description of & explanation for someone's symptoms?

Do you believe our community would benefit from enforcing a unanimous definition for each disorder or would it be better for definitions to remain loose and flexible?

Poll answers:

Diagnoses are a fact of reality; each diagnoses should have a unanimous definitions

Diagnoses are a fact of reality; diagnosis definitions should be loose and flexible

Diagnoses are a fact of reality; I have another idea for diagnosis definitions

Diagnoses are a theorized explanation; diagnoses should have a unanimous definition

Diagnoses are a theorized explanation; disgnoses should be loose and flexible

Diagnoses are a theorized explanation; I have another idea for diagnosis definitions

I have another idea for what a diagnosis is; definitions should be loose and flexible

I have another idea for what a diagnosis is; defintions should be unanimous

I have another ides for what a disgnosis is and how to define them

Results

Okay let me try to word this in a simple way bc this is very long!

[katetorias]

don’t think it should be a crazy take to understand that by definition systems are a collection of dissociated self states found in people with complex dissociative disorders (DID, OSDD, UDD, etc). that’s what the word system means in this context, and is the definition used in books and scientific literature about systems.

complex dissociative disorders are seen by years of research and testimony to be caused by childhood trauma. systems are a symptom of CDDs, meaning systems are caused by childhood trauma. a system is just one of the symptoms of having a complex dissociative disorder, and things like CPTSD, amnesia, dissociation, depersonalization/derealization, depression/suicidal tendencies are also symptoms.

systems are a symptom of a disorder that is caused by repeated childhood trauma. it’s a life saving defense mechanism our brains had to create to protect ourselves from the trauma. the brain dissociates to keep us from experiencing the traumatic events directly. that is why systems exist. that’s it.

it’s not an identity it’s just a symptom of a disorder. if that’s not what you’re experiencing then system just isn’t the right term

[rob-nobody]

Me, reading this as I go into my fourth hour of not being able to make myself get up and make dinner or work on anything for my father's memorial coming up in a week and a half: Hey guys, I think I might be neurodivergent.

Ok so I’ve found a way to describe what Neurodivergent Can’t Do Task Mode™ feels like to neurotypicals

So you know how you can’t make yourself put your hand down on a hot stovetop? There’s a part of your brain that stops you from doing that? That’s what Neurodivergent Can’t Do Task Mode™ feels like

Even if we want to do it, there’s a barrier stopping us from doing it, and it’s really hard to override

And why does our brain see the task as a hot stovetop? Because when neurotypicals finish a task, they get serotonin, but we don’t get that satisfaction after completing a task. A neurotypical wouldn’t get serotonin from putting their hand on a hot stovetop, it would just hurt. When we can’t do a task, it’s because our brain knows that the task will hurt (metaphorically) and wants to avoid that.

It’s not that we’re choosing not to do the task, it’s that our brain is physically preventing us from doing it.

Neurotypicals can and should reblog but please don’t add anything

(Sorry/not sorry about the random bolding, it makes it easier for us to read)

[zeros-sys]

one thing I keep seeing is how systems with fearmonger newly discovered systems into not interacting with the online osddid community, which is stupid.

even if you think that there is a lot of misinformation online about the disorders, which I'm not gonna argue against, you're still assuming what that newly discovered system is looking for.

maybe they're not looking for diagnostic criterias or to sift through their trauma.

they're probably looking for community and personal experiences they can relate to.

which is very obviously a common thing for someone who just realised they might have a disorder is looking for.

support. community. comfort.

when I see a newly discovered system online and they ask where they start on system spaces, advice like "don't look around online, just go to (insert medical website)" is not helpful to someone who needs genuine advice from people with experience in system communities.

so, here's my advice to newly discovered systems :

— you're going to get things wrong and make mistakes. it's inevitable, and it 100% happens to everyone, even if someone's been diagnosed for 10+ years. don't be scared to make mistakes, you miss every shot you don't take.

— if you suddenly don't feel like you're a system, your communication sucks, you are frontstuck/no one else is fronting, don't worry. cdds are covert disorders, their whole intention is to not be found. you're not a liar or faker because you don't experience some symptoms of a disorder. (see this)

— look at what is already largely accepted in medical spaces, don't immediately jump into controversial/conspiracy theories

— start off with safe spaces, trying to participate in discourse when you're uneducated isn't going to end well

— figure out what alters do first, in our case and many others, it's a lot easier to "work backwards" when you already have an idea of what role an alter fills in your system before you try to fully find out their identity

— don't get too stuck up on alter labels, if you're lost on what role an alter has or don't even know what a lot of roles are, just focus on what they do for your system (see above)

[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

[cripplecharacters]

Hello! I need some advice on how to deal with something in my story. CW for mentions of violence. This takes place in a medieval high fantasy setting in a rural village, and it's going to be a comic.

I have a character who was injured during a sword fight. She developed PTSD from this (along with another unrelated, separate incident which isn't relevent here).

CW for brief mentions of violence, description of panic attacks.

I'm gonna try and condense this so it's not 20 paragraphs of nonsense:

She actually copes with her PTSD relatively well, and is only triggered in specific situations which are not common occurences.

She lives in a rural village with one healer who has advised her on healthy coping mechanisms, but does not have the time/experience to act as a therapist.

At one point in the story, she starts becoming closer to another character she needs to work with, and they spar with each other.

He swings a sword near her face, which triggers a PTSD flashback. (Her face was previously wounded in a sword fight). He does not know she has PTSD or would be triggered by this, it's a complete accident. All he knew is that she had a scar on her face from something.

There are other characters in the story with facial scars from things like slipping and falling or cleft lip repair surgeries so he just assumes hers is from something like that.

After realizing that something's wrong he immediately stops sparring with her. He doesn't have PTSD but he does have severe anxiety and panic attacks and he recognizes that she's freaking out.

I have anxiety so I know what a panic attack is like, but I don't have PTSD so I'm not sure what a flashback is like.

When I have a panic attack, I get severe tunnel vision and my ears ring to the point everything sounds muffled. I also sometimes shake/shiver violently and feel like I'm going to faint if I don't sit down immediately.

Questions:

Would the flashback look/feel similar to that?

How fast would she be able to recover or realize that she's not in any danger?

Would she be able to communicate to her friend what's happening and what he can do to help?

Would asking him to just sit with her and hold her be okay/make sense? She also has autism and she likes to be squished and hugged tightly, it makes her feel secure and safe.

I can recover from panic attacks pretty quickly and then maybe feel only a little bit off for the rest of the day, but I don't know if she would be able to do the same after a flashback.

Also, there's one last thing I'm debating on whether or not I want to happen:

The character is fighter and it's a HUGE danger for her to be having a flashback in the middle of a battle. She (or someone else) could die if she's unable to fight.

Since the village healer can't help much, would it make sense for her to sort of DIY exposure therapy?

Obviously in real life this would be risky, but the character really has no other choice in this scenario and, to be honest, it's entirely in character for her to say "Fuck you, I'm doing this my way."

I'm going to read a couple papers on it to see exactly how it works and what she might do, but my main concern is that it would end up being weird, I guess?

She asks her two friends to help, one of which is the man she was sparring with (and later falls in love with).

Obviously, he's not actually her therapist, but I'm worried people will read it and go "Omg unhealthy relationship! Power imbalance! Therapist is fucking the patient! Evil!" but Idk, maybe I've spent too much time around fandom discourse lmao.

A few more questions:

Do you have any other advice or things I should keep in mind about her PTSD, like (healthy) ways she might cope with it?

With enough time and therapy, will she be able to sort of feel "normal" and have so few symptoms that she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria, or is she just sort of stuck with everything?

Is there anything I've written about her PTSD that is inaccurate or that could be done differently?

I'm so, so sorry that this got so long. Hopefully breaking it up into bullet points helped. Please take all the time you need to respond <3

First of all love the use of bullet points. It was incredibly helpful and I appreciate it! Many of these questions don't have one straight forward easy answer. PTSD varies a lot from person to person and even day to day or moment to moment. There is no one answer to “How fast would she be able to recover or realize that she's not in any danger?” and “Would she be able to communicate to her friend what's happening and what he can do to help?” Recovering could take minutes to days. She might be able to speak fluently or not at all. That’s sort of up to you. 

There are different types of flashbacks and they will feel different to different people. These several links may be useful to you. Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4

So with the exposure therapy, you are right. It would be really risky. I don’t think it’s a matter of "Fuck you, I'm doing this my way." The risk here is that it’s entirely possible that it would make her PTSD worse rather than better. It’s not a fast process either, it takes time. Why can’t there be a therapist near her? 

The character asking him to just sit with her and hold her would be okay and definitely could make sense. 

My answer for “Do you have any other advice or things I should keep in mind about her PTSD, like (healthy) ways she might cope with it?” Honestly just do your research! Learn about how people with PTSD cope and experience the world. There are lots of personal records available on the internet. Maybe even look at the PTSD section of the DSM. 

“With enough time and therapy, will she be able to sort of feel "normal" and have so few symptoms that she no longer meets the diagnostic criteria, or is she just sort of stuck with everything?” The answer is likely something in between the two. It is unlikely she will ever be cured of PTSD. However, given time and help she can find ways to cope and have a happy life. Her happy life might never be able to involve sword fighting, maybe it doesn’t look “normal” but she can live a happy satisfying life without being cured. 

Now on your last point. I have some concerns when you say “The character is a fighter and it's a HUGE danger for her to be having a flashback in the middle of a battle. She (or someone else) could die if she's unable to fight.” First, this is a harmful trope of disability representation in media. It’s not great to treat disability as an active liability/threat. We also don’t need to moralize symptoms. To quote another mod “Flashbacks suck but they happen…having a character with significant PTSD never have flashbacks…is not super realistic especially if…she's retraumatizing herself by being in an environment similar to where the trauma happened”

If she knows she's being triggered by battles why does she keep fighting? I don’t understand why she would take the risk of retraumatizing herself in such a high-stakes situation. Especially because from the sound of things she’s coping well and knows about her symptoms. 

Thank you for your question. I hope this was helpful. 

-Mod Patch

[perestroika-hilton]

Isn't wanting to transition already like. Technically gender dysphoria. Like when you only have to tick off two out of five boxes it feels actively hard not to meet diagnostic criteria ? This isn't to say I'm like cool with deferring to psychiatric authority but like. I'm unclear about the argument being had or what the goal is but it doesn't feel like it's gone anywhere in the past 10 years

Like I don't want to be condescending or reductive (too late) but when I see guys on Twitter doing a poll about whether or not you need dysphoria to be trans I'm like is it 2015 . Could also be cynically driving up engagement but like the dudes tdick is so jacked it's like babe just post a gif of you playing with your bulge in a singlet we don't need to rehash discourse to get customers

[beguines]

In every industrial society and in every epoch there are examples of psy-professions pathologising dissent and resistance to the social order. As agents of the state, these ideological institutions have defined collective struggles at various times as unlawfulness and as mental illness. As Foucault reminds us: "To be dangerous is not an offense. To be dangerous is not an illness. It is not a symptom. And yet we have come, as if it is self-evident, and for over a century now, to use the notion of danger, by a perpetual movement backwards and forwards between the penal and the medical."

Indeed, the diagnostic criteria for antisocial personality disorder (APD)—the DSM-5 psychiatric label that equates closest to the mythic "sociopathic" or "psychopathic" personality types often found in psychology textbooks and popular Hollywood movies—overtly makes this connection between the violation of social norms, unlawful behaviour, and mental illness by the construction of symptoms including, "[f]ailure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors, as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest," "[d]eceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure," and "[c]onsistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain consistent work behavior or honor financial obligations". The production of such psychiatric discourse holds the promise for liberal democracies and dictatorships alike of nullifying opposition and confining problematic elements on the rational basis of "medical science." In this way, psychiatric intervention has become a much more useful method of neutralisation within neoliberal society compared to the criminal justice system. This is due to the power of the mental illness label to devalue political action and collective sentiments much more effectively than the martyrdom and punishment often associated with the imprisonment of political activists.

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

[hopey-thinks]

Knives and ASPD (antisocial personality disorder) (spoilers in post)

To preface this, I’d like to say I am not trying to demonize people who have antisocial personality disorder (sometimes also referred to as sociopathy). I am not saying that people with ASPD would do the things Knives does or are automatically bad people, nor am I saying that Knives is possibly a sociopath only because of the atrocities he commits. I am simply trying to get a better understanding of Knives’s psychology as a character.

With that out of the way, I’ve been learning a lot about personality disorders in my psychology class, and I’ve done quite a significant amount of research in and outside of class about personality disorders (including reading about it them in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders fifth edition text revision).

This comes to my current predicament. My teacher wanted us to think of examples in media of characters that exhibit certain personality disorders. I was particularly fascinated with the nature of ASPD, so I zeroed in my research on that disorder in particular. The first characters that came to mind for me were The Joker and Ren Yamai from Komi Can’t Communicate, but in my trigun brainrot I realized that Knives would actually be a very interesting character to consider.

While he meets most of the diagnostic criteria according to the DSM-5-TR, there are some things that are making me wonder if he actually has antisocial personality disorder. Mainly his motives.

I’ve seen a lot of discourse about his motivations. And the two most common interpretations I’ve seen are the following:

he genuinely believes that he’s helping the plants and doing what he’s doing selflessly for them and the benefit of them. He also genuinely cares about Vash and the Plants and is doing what he’s doing for “the greater good.” He is only hurting humans because they are destructive towards plants, and only hates them because they are cruel. If this is the case, he likely isn’t someone with antisocial personality disorder because his entire philosophy is based off of pro social, albeit extremely immoral and flawed motivations and ideas since he doesn’t consider humans a part of his social group.

Knives has convinced himself that he is fighting for the greater good of the plants to rationalize his cognitive dissonance, but that’s not what he’s actually trying to do deep down. His true motivation (which he is not something he is consciously aware of) is simply because he wants to hurt and kill humans out of his own fear of them and because of their inferiority. Essentially, he’s actually doing it all for himself and to quell his own fears and not because he actually cares about the safety or autonomy of other plants. In this case, he would be more likely to have antisocial personality disorder because his true motives aren’t in service of anyone else’s rights or benefits, and he exhibits antisocial behaviors towards the beings he does consider a part of his social group (plants). He also doesn’t actually care about Vash as his family, but only as a means to achieve his goals and be part of his plan.

There’s a lot more nuance to it than that of course, but in my personal interpretation I’d say Knives seems to align more with the second description. Here’s why: He consistently shows disregard for the autonomy, rights, and wants of other plants, especially Vash, and will exploit them just as awfully as the humans he hates have if it means achieving what he wants for his vision. This creates cognitive dissonance because he simaltaneously believes he’s a good person who is improving the world by doing that, but the humans who do that are bad and destroying the world by doing the exact same thing. So he rationalizes it by thinking he’s different because “it’s for the greater good of all plants and those who oppose me are preventing that” which then created more cognitive dissonance because he can’t exploit and abuse the plants without a second thought while also fighting for their rights and caring for them. The rights and safety of other plants don’t matter to him if they conflict with what he wants to do. Which would make the true motivation in this case, wanting to hurt humans out of his own fear and hatred (which developed because of his trauma), make sense.

When you think about Knives’s actions, you come to find that he cares more about hurting and destroying humanity than helping plants. He is fine with hurting the plants to hurt humanity, rather than hurting humanity simply for the good of the plants. He prioritizes “cleansing” the world of humanity over the actual lives of plants.

Here’s why I made this post. I think Knives is a very complex and fascinating character, and would like to hear other people’s perspectives and interpretations of him, especially in relation to his psychology and possible disorders he may have. So if you’d like to join me in psychoanalyzing him, I would appreciate hearing your opinion in a respectful discussion under this post. I’m especially curious about what any psychologists here might think, and I hope I can learn something new and also be corrected and get a better understanding if I’m wrong.

Ik this seems really strange that I’m writing and thinking so much about the psychology of someone who isn’t even real, but I just really like character analysis and think it’s interesting to see psychological concepts in media.

[thecircularsystem]

Thank you for messaging us via comments on that post rather than reblogging. The situation of being reblogged and stuff was really stressing me out because it was exposing my page to backlash for a simple fact from the dsm. I’m conceptually familiar with complex dissociative disorders but CDD is also, more prominently known to mean “childhood disruptive disorder” which is something completely different.

-actuallydidosdd

Hey there.

Let me start this off firstly with an apology; I'm sorry, because I feel like my response to you isn't going to be the kindest. I am burnt out, struggling with my words, and while I mean the best of intentions with this, I think this isn't going to come across well. I want you to know that I am not the most pleased with how today played out on your blog. I do like the concept of your blog, and many of the posts on it -- but I think you were faced with the fact that you did not post factual information, and when confronted, you lashed out. I hope you are taking care of yourself, and that you analyze your actions today to see what exactly went wrong.

Secondly: I responded in comments because, frankly, I didn't want to continue spreading the misinformation from your post on my blog by reblogging it. I am a user who struggles with psychosis, due to my disorder, and while I am eager to point out that my alters are not fake, I am severely disappointed to see a supposed "educational" blog doubling down so severely on verifiably false information in order to make a positivity post. I'm grateful that you finally, finally changed the post to be more accurate, but that was after... what, four different posts, all those links, and you telling SAS that they need to be better at talking??? I'm sorry, but you need to understand the words you are saying before you say you're an Educational Blog. You said in a comment that you were just talking about your own lived experiences -- in which case you need to make that more blatantly clear, because you say your information is factually correct, and yet you started off with misinformation, changed the post to have more misinformation, and doubled down and yelled at SAS for correcting you.

Thirdly: It is not syscourse to correct your misinformation. Sysmedsaresexist may post quite a bit of syscourse, but the post in question had nothing to do with syscourse. It was correcting misinformation about a disorder, simply put. Yes, it was a debunk, and getting upset about your misinformation being debunked is... Well, perfectly understandable, considering that, despite all evidence to the contrary, you still believed your misinformation to be correct. Proud of you for not "putting syscourse" on your blog, but please understand there is a difference between System Discourse and A System Telling You You're Wrong. I'm sorry the backlash was a lot to handle. In the future, I might suggest just... blocking SAS if you don't want corrections, or better yet, taking a step back if it's overwhelming. You can turn off tumblr notifications on your phone and just... breathe and come down. You do not have to respond immediately!

Fourth: I'm not sure what you're calling "a simple fact from the DSM." If you're saying the simple fact is that the diagnostic criteria does not include hallucinations or delusions -- well then, I believe SAS clarified how your post did not come across as saying that. If you're saying the simple fact is that delusions and hallucinations are the same -- I do not know anywhere in the DSM that supports that. If you're saying the simple fact is that DID does not cause hallucinations -- Again, I would love to see the evidence, because I don't know anywhere it says that.

Here's a link to the DSM saying that pwCDDs often experience hallucinations, and does clarify that these hallucinations are usually accompanied by a different type of delusion than in cases of schizophrenia or personality disorders. Is this what you were aiming for?

This is another good one. I hope these links work, but they may break -- lmk!

Fifth: You said you're familiar with complex dissociative disorders, but you also said you had to google it in your reply to me on SAS. When you are in an educational space, you need to know the terms being used -- and if you don't know, I don't think the proper course of action is to use a term you don't understand. I think the proper course of action is to ask for clarification.

^-- This isn't asking for clarification.

You were corrected on initial information, and you lashed out because you didn't like how the correction came (tone policing is always a bit frustrating; I'm sorry you didn't take SAS's reply to be genuine originially and took it in bad faith, but to then say in the response to the other mod that you expect better from "a pro-syscourse-conversation blog" when it was you who misinterpreted? It gets frustrating how often bad faith is assumed in CDD spaces.) Then, you "corrected" the information to be more incorrect; then the user who corrected you originally corrected you again, and you got angry about them doing so. You sent them an inbox ask about how you don't even participate in syscourse, you sent this reply, and... It just speaks to you not knowing the space you're in.

I'm not sure why someone, in this situation, who knows the term complex dissociative disorder, would assume that SAS had meant childhood disruptive disorder. That to me speaks to you not understanding the terminology being used in these spaces -- and while that's okay, you need to be willing to ask for help from those correcting you, or for clarification. Not... google it, then yell at them for your misunderstandings.

Then you came and sent this ask to me...

Sixth:

This is my icon picture. Just. Tossing this out there. I'm not blatant about it, but I use this icon a lot, particularly after a few close friends reached out to ask if I wanted to join their blog and help them review/edit posts, since I tend to be a bit better with editing grammar and helping people come across with their genuine feelings. This is related. 100%. I'm just not really public about it.

Anyways.

Lastly:

I do genuinely hope you're doing well. You made a simple mistake, and you got around 100 notes on the post because of that. It happens! Mistakes happen, and while it's frustrating, and yes people are going to be upset about it...

It's just a mistake.

A long, long time ago, I created a DID centered blog that was dedicated to educating people on DID, and it was using what I had researched "based on my own experiences." I made a post about "the differences between MPD and DID" because I was uneducated. I was then nearly harassed off the platform, deleted all evidence of that post, and I still hold trauma from that event until this day.

I don't want you to think that's what's happening here.

SAS was genuinely trying to correct you, because what you were saying was genuinely harmful to a lot of systems. I convinced myself for years that I had some other disorder going on due to my hallucinations and delusions, that I was just schizophrenic, because so many people said DID doesn't have hallucinations and delusions. But they do. You've been provided sources that say they do. And I'm glad to see you've corrected your mistake.

Now keep going. Keep researching. And be open to correction. I like that you've made a post saying that you prefer if people correct you via messager, because that helps reduce your fear and mental duress. I really hope people take you up on it. I will take you up on correcting you via replies, if you'd like, because I genuinely hate tumblr messeger, it's so bad.

And hey.

Maybe take a small break. Go, relax, get a yummy drink, play some roblox or minecraft or other videogame of choice. These spaces are high intensity traumatized spaces, and it can be a lot. I know this post is likely going to heighten those emotions.

Just work on riding that wave and feeling it. It'll be okay, genuinely.

Good luck out there <3

[fandomcentralsposts]

An actual explanation as to why I think Jonah Beck from Andi Mack is autistic (by an autistic person)

Disclaimer every autistic person is different. This has become a popular hc in the fandom, and I am explaining why, based on my own traits and common signs and symptoms I've noticed in the character.

Hyperfixations:

Lots of autistic people have hobbies or special interests that they take really seriously they like to talk about it with other people even if they don't seem as interested or if its annoying them. Jonah's special interests were ultimate frisbee and guitar he would get so defensive if anyone said ultimate wasn't a sport, and he carried his frisbees with him a lot apparently even after he had stopped playing as much and when he took up guitar, he literally started wearing shirts with guitars on them bro found a new special interest and never looked back (its especially important bc it helps him cope with anxiety).

Social queues (lack of awareness)

Ik Jonah is sometimes comic relief and portrayed as oblivious, but he fr doesn't understand things like flirting like that scene from unloading zone when those girls were flirting with him and he just "Yeah uh... its free 🧍‍♂️😁". He also sometimes doesn't understand when something is really important to someone else, especially if he's concentrated on a special interest (when andi protested her school dress code in s1, for example). Also, just amber saying at some point, "If you want Jonah to not say anything, you have to be very explicit," and the fact that he accidentally got himself and the ghc in trouble in unloading zone.

Anxiety/meltdowns/sensory aversions

ofc anyone can experience anxiety, and it's not a part of the diagnostic criteria, but lots of autistic people experience high levels of anxiety in later life. Jonah canonically has panic attacks and struggles with anxiety, which (in my opinion, anywho) can be taken for a meltdown, but like I said, everyone's different not all meltdowns are out of sadness sometimes they can be angry like when Jonah flipped that board game and said "now its over". I noticed he gets them in uncomfortable social situations that are overwhelming he also said on a few occasions that he doesn't like confrontations, which could be seen as too much sensory input, which causes meltdowns

And he has food aversions from again too much sensory input when at Cyrus' grandmothers shiva he says he couldn't recognise anything on the food table even tho there was literally a bagel in front of him and he ate the fish Cyrus told him not too eat. He also says he's embarrassed of his panic attacks. I'm embarrassed of meltdowns he's so me. Also, this whole discourse of people saying Jonah doesn't have feelings he does he just struggles expressing or processing them.

Face blindness/masking

Many autistic teens and children have face blindness or facial-agnosia, meaning they don't always recognise faces they've already seen or just identify people in different ways Jonah's little line in s1 "some people never forget a face, I never forget a foot" was enough proof for me. Also, masking is when an autistic person basically hides that they're autistic by suppressing certain behaviours around certain people, and I think Jonah does this a lot in s1 to keep up this mr. popular image when Buffy said he only had 2 facial expressions could be taken as a sign of masking. I noticed it seemed like he didn't have any other friends after s1 accept from the ghc this could be because he felt he didn't have to mask in front of them (as an autistic person masking is exhausting I don't blame him) he definitely feels least judged around Cyrus and Buffy.

Stimming/repetition

Once again, it was likely for comedic purposes, but Jonah sometimes repeats things that have already been said, which is how some autistic people like to communicate whether it be repeating their words or echoing others (echolalia) I noticed Jonah do this in s3 when Buffy's talking about why she rejected Walker and he just says "I feel bad for the guy" like twice and I've noticed subtle stims when he's both nervous and happy Jonah is very expressive with his hands when he talks plus that trampoline park date must of been one fun sensory experience.

In conclusion:

[dapg-otmebytheballs]

Thoughts on the, Phil is autistic discourse?

Simple answer: yes, yes he is, and I've been collecting stuff in my 'tism' tag for the same

To get more serious tho: neurodivergence is a massive spectrum of symptoms, and a lot of diagnostic criteria we uphold as watertight categories are actually quite arbitrary very often. Now I'm someone who, like much of the autistic community, do not see it as a 'disorder'(ie, I do not see it as needing a cure/something being wrong, I do understand that it is a disability and I find it to be so myself for many of the symptoms) but a neurodivergence. And a key part of the neurodivergence movement is to reject psychiatric categories and accept "symptoms" as just traits, ways in which different people's minds work and different ways in which people process trauma and different sensory experiences since all sensory experience is neurological and therefore inherently subjective etc etc. It's an alternative to the pathologising medical model of psychiatry. That being said, autistic people have particular kinds of shared experiences, not everyone will have them the same way it's a broad range of traits, but we are able to recognise, let's say, "one of our kind" very often. That's how I found out I'm autistic too, by talking to other autistic people who helped me figure out this part of my neurodivergence amongst other stuff. I think people who don't go for diagnosing - whether "professionally" or through self-identification - are completely valid for doing so, it's really just a matter of whether or not you're trying to put a word to your experiences, and if you aren't then you aren't. I will say that so many autistic people here talking about how they have shared experiences as autistic people with Phil probably indicates that he is one of us, but whether he chooses to use that as a label or no is up to him of course, and at the end of the day "is xyz autistic" will come down to "does xyz wish to use the label of being autistic to put a name to their neurodivergent experiences". Can a lot of what is considered strange and random behaviour on Phil's part be explained when you look at it from the lens of autism though? Yes definitely. It's all about people finding people they relate to and going [leonardo di caprio pointing meme]

[shrimpmandan]

I honestly can’t tell if the modern definition of transmedicalism (or just the community around it) has changed, or if MY own opinions have changed. It’s a surreal experience seeing people talk about transmedicalism like from the 2016-2018 era, but then in my own groups I don’t see any of that associated behavior hardly at all (or the people who do show that behavior are treated as clowns).

I already put a biiiig thing clarifying my stances in my Carrd, but I figured I’d also plop it here since I don’t want anyone to assume what I believe in just because they see the funny buzzword discourse label.

So:

- You DON'T need to medically transition to be trans. Or “do” anything to be trans. There’s no real barrier for entry; it’s just whatever helps you to feel more comfortable with yourself. The only “barrier” is the presence of dysphoria, which is what that discomfort is-- feeling like something is missing, feeling like you’d be happier as the opposite sex, wanting to be treated as another gender. That’s all dysphoria!

- People who genuinely fake being trans are a minority of a minority, and nothing good will come out of restricting trans healthcare further.

- I'm antsy about research (especially neurological research) into the brains of nonbinary people and may reblog things both in support and against the identity, but I respect them regardless. Consider me to generally lean pro.

- The psychological community does not understand trans people and conflates the concept of gender nonconformity with being trans, under the label of “gender expansive”. I (and many others) find this conflation to be inaccurate and offensive, and it also bleeds into public understandings of what a trans person is.

- MOGAI kids and nonbinary people are not responsible for our oppression and to say so is fucking stupid. My reasons for being anti-MOGAI have more to do with the creator and the fact that I don't view gender as being solely a social construct.

- Dysphoria does not mean suffering, nor does it mean hating your body. Go here if you wanna see the diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria.

- TransID is ableist and racist. I shouldn't have to explain why.

It’s like being stuck between a rock and a hard place. By all means I don’t agree with the sentiment of “you don’t need dysphoria, gender isn’t real, go nuts”, because it feels like it stems from misinformation about what gender dysphoria means and also disregards the biological components of gender that DO exist. But I also can’t fucking stand the flop/cringe crowd that scrutinizes everything a trans person says. I’ve definitely been on the receiving end of “oh you have DYSMORPHIA, not DYSPHORIA” before and it was extremely irritating, not to mention a blatant misunderstanding of what body dysmorphia is. It also shoves “actual trans people” back into the closet because imposter syndrome is a bitch and while insisting people to know absolutely 100% for certain that they’re trans is advice given out of a good place, it ultimately ends up not being helpful for those who have fluctuating dysphoria, imposter syndrome, OCD, or any amount of other conditions that can make them go back and forth on it a lot.

I wish there was more of a middle ground between the two extremes instead of it feeling like you just have to dig around for the transmeds who aren’t exceedingly insecure and/or malignant. And you STILL get kicked out of most trans communities anyways because they’ve (understandably) built their walls up so high that it goes really far in the direction of accommodating one type of trans person, while utterly alienating another, which is how we get transmed spaces (and echo chambers) to begin with. 

I think my opinions will always lean transmed because I’m someone who puts a lot of stock into psychology and neuroscience-- those are my special interests, moreso the former than the latter. I feel like psychologists and doctors in general have failed trans people on a lot of fronts, but is that the fault of kids with atypical identities? No, not at all, for as much as I find the whole “meowgender” business to be dumb. But also going out and starting debates or god forbid harassing random teenagers and young adults because you think you’re entitled to know every little thing about their identity is JUST as dumb, not to mention pathetic. The transmeds who don’t think that way are the ones I agree with. The ones that do are just as bad as the ‘tucutes’ they criticize, and both contribute to dividing the trans community further. And yes, BOTH. This whole discourse was started by a tucute cis girl pretending to be a trans girl, lest we forget. Transmeds aren’t evil and neither are tucutes. Tumblr discourse just makes an ass out of everyone.

[vocalsynths]

Rant about our personality disorder (PD-TS)

I can't remember if we've spoken about this here but it's obvious that we as a system have a personality disorder of some form. It negatively effects (and has ruined) several relationships alongside imparing day to day function (sometimes).

However the major issue is that I don't actually fit the diagnostic criteria for one specific disorder and instead have the major traits of every cluster b disorder- All of which which contradict eachother, vary between alters, and all in all make a big mess of contradictions and unstableness.

Technically this fits the diagnostic criteria for PD-TS (personality disorder trait specified) aka PDNOS (personality disorder otherwise specified- Which is no longer a valid diagnosis but I prefer this name personally) and I'm happy with that.

It's just very frustrating because there is hardly any content or support for it. All our therpaists think we have a PD but they can't work it out either and tend to dismiss any and all symptoms that are 'undesirable' as me being edgy.

This is where my next issue comes in: Can I post about specific signs and symptoms of the personality disorders that make up my actual personality disorder or do I have to keep them separate? For example reblogging posts relating to NPD signs and symptoms despite the fact I don't fit the criteria fully. I mean, tbf I don't really care but I would rather avoid Internet discourse around 'tumblr user vocalsynths claims to have NPD when it doesn't' (which I'm not I only have traits)

Conclusion: PT-DS is so frustrating and I hope it explodes.

[dyspunktional-leviathan]

Today in disability discourse: got told that I cannot be not distinguishing between my experience of two of my disabilities because they have them too and experience them differently and because they are in different systems and their diagnostic criteria doesn’t intersect, then got fakeclaimed about being severely disabled because I’m pro-transid.

They ended up blocking me before I blocked them (I did then, anyway), but not before all this and more, I feel very sick.

Edit: they also seem to have implied autism cannot be a severe disability.

[beguines]

As would progress further under the neoliberalist doctrine, the development of new classifications such as social phobia would appear to the profession to originate in some sort of "evidence base" (which are actually people's problems in adjusting to changing arrangements of capital in arenas such as work, home, and the school). Psychiatry then does in fact maintain a key role in setting the agenda for what potentially ends up in the DSM; however, the origins of that agenda are external to the profession, dictated by wider social and economic forces. By the time of the DSM-5, psychiatric diagnoses are blatantly mirroring neoliberal ideology in relating mental illness to underperformance. With the diagnostic criteria for premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), for example, the manual (emphasis added) states that "[t]he symptoms are associated with clinically significant distress or interference with work, school, usual social activities, or relationships with others (e.g., avoidance of social activities; decreased productivity and efficiency at work, school, or home)." Thus, the prevailing ideological values of our time—for instance, to be productive and efficient in all aspects of our lives—is conceived through psychiatric discourse as a common sense mental health message. Are you failing within neoliberal society? Then you might have a mental illness. As Conrad and Potter have summated of psychiatry's diagnostic project here, the process is necessarily historically and culturally contingent: "[c]ertain diagnostic categories appear and disappear over time, reflecting and reinforcing particular ideologies within the 'diagnostic project' (the professional legitimization of diagnoses), as well as within the larger social order."

Bruce M.Z. Cohen, Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness