#i TRIED to be like 'no no no dont self diagnose as plural dont do that' but pearl just kept biting me with her big rodent teeth

[invisibleoctopus]

me struggling with the concept of self love because i dont feel better when i tell myself nice things in flowery uwu language. well i tried being aggressively nice to myself like 'oh fuck off you know youre better than a piece of shit stop devaluing yourself' and stuff like that.

[syscultureis]

Plural culture is just vibing and then seeing a singlet explain why you shouldnt self diagnose being a system and you just having. To sit there like. 'Bitch what I am I gonna do, pretend my alters dont exist? I tried that once and it was beyond detrimental to my mental health'

SINGLETS. PLEASE. GOOD GOD. Yes being professionally diagnosed is better than self dxing BUT 1. I HAVE MET SYSTEMS WHO HAVE TRIED TO BE DXED AND TURNED DOWN and 2. not being professionally dxed doesnt magically make your symptoms not impact your life until you are. Omfg.

A diagnosis is an *explanation* and something you can use to get accommodations, its not something that gives you the disorder fucking hell

Ppl in general just need to understand a diagnosis doesn't mean you start having something, it means you've had it the whole time.

And a lot of ppl DO notice their symptoms first. In fact, with ALL of our mental disorders (depression, anxiety, PTSD, paranoid personality disorder, ADHD, autism) we had ti self diagnosis first!!

We had to bring up that we thought we might have something, and want to figure out if we're right or not and then figure stuff out from there!

And ya know what, if you're wrong the worst that would happen is a therapist can help you figure out what it really is, and then you get help with that!

Also diagnosis can be expensive! Or unavailable! Or the only ppl you can afford/reach don't believe in your disorder, or aren't educated enough on it, or any other reason and then someone can't get a diagnosis!!

Self diagnosis means you recognize something isn't normal, and you can find ways to make you function in a way that benefits you.

[systemserendipity]

about this post

https://www.tumblr.com/systemserendipity/731283108856528896/come-on-yall-it-takes-like-ten-minutes-listen?source=share&ref=_tumblr

from one pro-endo to another, i absolutely agree that a ton of anti-endos really need to educate themselves more than just one biased google search. and since you're against people being biased in the info they choose to look at and accept as fact you'll be open to listening to me. so, as gently as i can possibly say this, i ask that you also do some research that's not just a biased google search

the caard that you linked does have a lot of good points! but it also has a lot of harmful misinformation.

for example, it tries using diagnostic manuals as 'proof' that DID/OSDD-1 aren't trauma disorders. bear with me on this! this isnt bs youd usually hear after a sentence like that! but i gotta address the misinfo before clarifying what i mean

diagnostic manuals are diagnostic manuals. they exist to help medical professionals diagnose patients. but its not a be all end all of whats True or False about disorders, especially not to people like you and me who aren't professionally practicing psychologists. its a tool to aid these professionals, but these professionals arent basing their entire understanding of the disorders on the manuals. if that was all there was to it, anyone could use it to diagnose anyone

now about did/osdd-1 being trauma disorders, its important to understand what they are. they are developmental disorders. in childhood there are things known as critical periods, where a child must reach a certain milestone by a certain time in order to be able to reach it. in did/osdd-1, something disrupted the child's ability to integrate their identity into one cohesive sense of self prior to the critical period. and, whatever that thing was, counts as trauma in the context of did/osdd-1

trauma is a word that has a ton of different definitions depending on what context its being spoken of. in medical contexts it has very specific definitions, and those definitions arent the same even across different disorders. what counts as trauma in PTSD isnt the same as what counts as trauma in DID/OSDD-1

for example, if say there was an autistic child who found moving to a new house so disruptive and stressful that they formed did/osdd-1, moving house would count as trauma in their case. because trauma in this context refers to whatever it was that caused the disruption in their development that lead to did/osdd-1 forming

do i believe that there's a problem with endogenic did/osdd-1 systems? no! well, it's a bit complicated, but ultimately no! there's a lot of different definitions for trauma, and an endogenic did/osdd-1 isn't using the kind im talking about here!

when i say its a bit complicated, i mean that i dont think endogenic did/osdd-1 systems are bad, as much as i think we could be a lot better as a community educating on what trauma means in context of did/osdd-1. i think itd really help bridge some communicative gaps and help create a more unified community. i also think itd help endogenic did/osdd-1 systems understand themselves a bit better! did/osdd-1 doesnt just form out of nowhere, something does cause it, and not having what youd personally consider 'trauma' doesnt mean that there wasnt something that caused it! i know personally that educating myself about all this helped me understand my system better, and stopped me falling into denial spirals of 'what if it wasnt really trauma'.

now that i've finished most of what i have to say, i have to address the elephant in the room: ive linked no sources. i want to bold and emphasise that, because i believe its important to take everything with a grain of salt when its just baseless like this. personal experiences dont need a source, but in depth convos about disorders like this do! and we all should be very mindful not to just believe anything without sources backing it up!

why didnt i include sources? because its 4:23am. its way too late for me to go gather all of them, especially when im not sure if youll be receptive to what i have to say. but! if you are! please let me know! i have done a lot of studying into research behind did/osdd-1 and i have sources in mind for everything ive written here. if youre open to all this, i can track them all down and make an edited version putting them where relevant!

second to last thing i have to add that i think is really important is that there's a ton of proof for did/osdd-1 being related to trauma (remember, the definition in context!). that was always the strongest evidence we had for did/osdd-1 existing, and brain scans have given further evidence! im going to link the resource i think is the absolute best to look at in terms of brain scans and our findings, but fair warning its quite long!

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S246874992030017X

and the final thing i have to say is psychology isnt an exact science. it could be possible for someone to fit the diagnostic criteria for did/osdd-1 perfectly without anything at all causing it. but! that doesnt mean that it isnt a science and that there hasnt been a lot of research into it, or that we should just discount it altogether. i still believe its misinformation to say did/osdd-1 arent trauma disorders, because even with that chance of what happening and other definitions of trauma, it is making people really misinformed about what trauma even is in did/osdd-1

Thanks for your good-faith conversation. We genuinely appreciate it. 🤝

Let's meet in the middle here. We think a lot of y'all's points are valid and concise. Despite the time of posting! lol

And we agree that there's a lot of nuance when it comes to dissociative disorders of any kind, let alone DID and OSDD. That's why a lot of discussions end up becoming essays! Ya can't easily summarize the spectrum of plurality, nor the medical diagnoses of such.

So, when trying to discuss it in-full, research can get mirky rather quickly. And we don't get things 100%, 100% of the time-- ofc not. We're huge advocates of self-education and, so, when we see responses like this that are constructive-- rather than destructive-- we really like to pay attention.

TL;DR-- make sure that you double-check your sources and take online conversations about plurality with a grain of salt. Misinformation's a-plenty. And, at the end of the day, we're all just trying to voice our opinions.

If you feel any of what we have to say about plurality strikes a chord, then educate yourself however best you can. And speak about if you'd like; *any* plural representation-- from the range of freshly questioning to the veterans-- is better than none imo.

But!

Make sure to supplement that by actually talking to people, and accepting feedback.

You don't know what you don't know, and every day is a chance to learn something new-- even if the subject is one you're passionate about. Everybody's got a voice and you're not always going to completely agree. But listening to your peers is part of growth.

And, again, addressing this anon poster, thanks for reaching out to us, and being so honest. DM us if ya wanna chat about this more; we'd be delighted!