#i still experience symptoms of trauma as well as having several trauma disorders. and i feel like the same can be said for a lot of endos.

[ders1tes]

syscourse stuff in tags

[dark-audit]

Things I wish more writers understood about PTSD

Traumatic events don't always lead to PTSD. Two people can experience the exact same traumatic event, and one can go to work the next day shaken up but otherwise alright, while the other still has trouble functioning normally two years down the line. This is a fact that's been studied to death in psychology, but we're still no closer to figuring out why this discrepancy exists. So no, that character who experienced a very traumatic event and wasn't traumatized to your liking wasn't actually 'unrealistic'; they just didn't live up to your preconception of how trauma is supposed to effect people.

There is no flaw or 'weakness' in a person's temprament or personality construction that will make them more likely to develop PTSD, and likewise, people who don't develop PTSD are not inherently 'tougher'. PTSD is not the kind of illness you can blame on the person who suffers from it; human beings are more complicated than that. Furthermore, people who don't develop PTSD from a traumatic event exist, in fact they're very common, and while they don't develop that precise, largely arbitrary set of symptoms, they are still likely to be deeply affected by the event/s. Their experiences are no less real than those of their counterparts.

Sometimes, a person who experienced a traumatic even didn't develop PTSD afterwards - because they already had it. There are lots of people who go into therapy following a traumatic event only to discover they've been experiencing the symptoms of PTSD for years, following a previous unrelated traumatic event. This is especially common for people who had C-PTSD beforehand. Since PTSD can often manifest in very subtle ways, and since people are likely to 'mask' symptoms as a way to keep judgement or prying at bay, this scenario is not particularly uncommon.

PTSD doesn't always develop immediately following the traumatic event. PTSD can take any amount of time to develop. For most people, it takes around 3 months for symptoms to appear, but for a lot of people, the symptoms of PTSD do not appear for many months, even years after the event/s. This usually has something to do with the memory issues that can arise after trauma, and also might be affected by how a person conceptualizes the 'threat level' over time.

People with PTSD are not 'broken'; people with PTSD can be treated. Human beings aren't inanimate objects; we're living beings, graced with this incredible ability to adapt, grow and change. While there is no 'cure' for PTSD, there are loads of types of psychotherapy and medications that help to alleviate symptoms, and many people with this disorder are able to live fulfilling lives despite the diagnosis. Recovery is never out of the question, no matter how severe a person's symptoms might be. PTSD or not, I for one have yet to encounter anyone I would ever consider irrevocably 'broken'.

People with PTSD don't all experience the same symptoms. I feel like it needs to be said, because there is a bit of a 'type' in fiction, isn't there? And this can be incredibly disheartening to read for someone whose PTSD doesn't align with the way it is constantly shown to 'normally' manifest. In reality, PTSD is a very complex disorder, which might express itself in a wide breadth of different ways, and people handle their symptoms using a wide breadth of different methods. You'd be hard pressed to find two people who are completely alike in this regard.

Perpetrators of violence are just as likely to develop PTSD as their victims. This is one of those things I learned though my torture research escapades, and I've found it applies to other violent crimes as well, such as violent assault and murder. It's not a particularly nice fact to know if you want to maintain your straightforward good-vs-evil worldview, but alas, the real world is grim and complicated. There is actually a name for this type of PTSD, and it is Participation-Induced Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PI-PTSD), or perpetrator trauma. PTSD does not discriminate, and you're not safe from it just because you're not on the recieving end.

People with PTSD aren't automatically more violent. I don't know why this myth has to be so prominent with every single mental illness ever, but like, yeah, its not true for this one either.

[reimeichan]

I was diagnosed with severe combined type ADHD well into my adulthood. The many years of undiagnosed ADHD has a major source of my trauma, and I hate it so much.

I know a lot of people think of ADHD as a silly, quirky disorder. Someone with ADHD has trouble sitting still, has focus issues, has short term memory problems, etc. None of this sounds like anything so bad on the surface.

What people often don't see is... how people like me are treated.

(tw child abuse ahead)

Growing up, I was often punished and berated for things that "normal" kids could handle. I constantly forgot my homework, couldn't get the executive functioning to start on projects until the last minute, would be so hyperfocused in a book that I would miss dinner, be unable to sit still long enough to practice piano, etc. And each time that happened, I would be punished for it. Hit, spanked, yelled at, grounded, belongings destroyed... it was constant, daily punishment. It felt like I could do nothing right. Pretty much all of my punishable actions could be tied in some way to my undiagnosed ADHD.

It was genuinely awful and I have a lifetime of trauma from that. I'm scared of even shaking my foot when I'm by myself in my own room, I feel guilty for spending any amount of time reading or playing video games. I beat myself up for my lack of executive functioning. And my parents never, ever tried to help me learn those skills. All they did was try to beat those "habits" and beat the "laziness" out of me. And tell me that "all kids experience that, you're just making excuses" (I now know that ADHD is often found within the same family, and I highly suspect at least one of my parents to have it as well to the point they normalized their own experiences).

I can genuinely say that many of my mental health disorders (the DID, the depression, the anxiety, the suspected NPD, and anything else I've missed) can all be tied back to my undiagnosed and unmanaged ADHD, and all the trauma that came with that. Hell, even into adulthood, I struggle more with my ADHD symptoms than I do with anything else. If anything, the other things just further exacerbate my ADHD struggles. It genuinely sucks.

This isn't to say I find all aspects of my ADHD bad. I genuinely enjoy the hyperfocus (when it's hyperfocus on something I actually want to hyperfocus on). I think the way my brain jumps from topic to topic, connection to connection, has made me more creative than many of the people around me. And it's very much a part of me that makes me kind of uniquely "me". But also... I know it's such a big part of my trauma history that to try to paint it as this positive thing in my life would be a lie.

But yeah. I wish we talked more about how traumatizing living with ADHD is.

[system-community-corner]

support people with DID!!!! but not people with DID who think endos are real!!!

take that shit out of ur bio

Check your entitlement towards another person's blog.

I will always support people with my disorder, even if they support people who make a mockery of it. Do you know what DNI stands for, Anon? it stands for Do Not Interact. It's exceedingly simple.

I doubt you'd care enough about the reason as to why I have such a simple, easy to follow rule for my blogs. Yet I'll always be willing to repeat myself. Pro endos and the endogenic community heavily traumatized me and my system.

We were avidly groomed by multiple people who either identified or supported endos. We were told point blank our trauma would never be enough, that the abuse we went through as a child and young teenager wasn't actual abuse in any way and that we should be thankful to have it so good compared to others.

We were manipulated into believing that our trauma was point blank - not real. The symptoms we showed meant we were endogenic and that we deserved much worse treatment if we ever disagreed with that. We were manipulated into sending adults sexualized photos of ourselves to prove that we supported endos against those bigoted anti-endo sysmeds!!

We were threatened with being doxxed, among other things, if we talked about our experiences publicly. It sounds so stupid as an adult who Knows Better - but I need to be kind to our younger self. We just wanted to fit in, we craved approval, and we didn't care how we got it or from who just so long as we were liked and valued.

Got to the point where we eventually met our ex partner system, one that over time convinced us that alter death was a real thing and that they were able to system hop and kill our alters for stepping out of line.

Multiple people routinely used our trauma against us (after they couldn't claim it wasn't real anymore) to cause us to forcibly split new parts to mold into however they wanted. Oftentimes, they'd attempt to mold the alters into a new efuck buddy <3 our in our ex partner systems case yet another fictive to roleplay with and date <3<3

It took us far too long to recognize that as harmful and abusive behavior because it was heavily normalized in the spaces we were in. We are WELL aware that not every single pro endo or endogenic person is like that.

That said, I don't think its unreasonable for not wanting them to interact with the damage a certain subset of the community has caused me. Even still with how the majority of the community continuously harms people with severe disorders with the blatant misinformation they push - willingly.

[polufabrikat-na-vilke]

Thoughts about Diavolo and Doppio

Introducion

All that ton of text exists because I didn't believe it was DID since my first time watching and reading Golden Wind. Literally from the first time seeing their actions and interactions, I thought it looked more like some sort of supernatural thing than that condition, to which I only found more confirmation as I watched. I still want to call the following examples thin, since there is a very high probability that Araki was simply going way too wild with all this mystical mysterious secrecy of the antagonist, and everything that I will give may turn out to be just the fattest wicked technique for exaggerating this, but I want to express my thoughts nonetheless. Plus, I think it might be a narrative trick after all, so I may turn out to be right in the end of the day.

Point

So, let's get it straight: the theory is that there's no DID in that story, Diavolo is not an alter-ego, but something else and probably not a human at all. And now to the specifics.

Let's start from afar: his (to make it easier to read, I'm talking about Diavolo in a generally accepted way) mother, in her words, became pregnant from an unknown man who died 2 years before his birth, and, moreover, she has been sitting in isolation from the outside world for 2 years, in a specifically women's prison without any men at all. AND, MOREOVER, the anime adaptation shows that the fetus develops in just a few hours (I’ll say a few more words about the validity of David's version later). Well, it’s impossible, well, it’s a huge nonsense, even if we consider from a seemingly scientific point of view of this universe, with which Araki tried to explain, for example, the change in physical parameters when switching egos. Here's mystical supernatural shit number 1.

Further. This particular point is relevant only for anime adaptation. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any data on how much Araki took part in its creation, I confess, but I have the right to assume that if it was approved by him and released the way we see it, it is quite a canon by which we can argue. It came out after the manga and this is quite possibly a more correct representation of events from the point of view of canon details. In the same scene, after birth, the baby's eye color momentarily changes from hazel to red, then back. This move, I want to note, is often used to show a character’s possession, usually with supernatural forces or the like. Yes, it is also used to refer to a "second personality" or some hidden nature of a character, but newborns do not have DID, it is a disorder that develops after severe repeating trauma. Mystical supernatural shit number 2.

We smoothly move on to the extreme turbidity and ambiguity of DID, and I’m not even going to talk about body changes when switching. So, DID develops, as, by the way, even in the original source is noted, as a result of a deep shock or trauma. A person dissociates from the traumatic experience, which, if severe and repetative to the point when their mind can't really survive it, results in violation of an identity integrity. It does not develop immediately and is noticeable to others, while commonly not being noticable to a person expiriensing it. And what do we see on this topic there? Nothing, only Doppio shows symptoms of dissociation, and only in situations where something threatens to expose the boss’s identity (or in other situations related to him, that’s the only way), which is strange, because I can’t even imagine such a trauma can be (i.e., it becomes a chicken-and-egg paradox: the trauma, in theory, should be related to the boss, to alter, but without the trauma there should be no boss, no alter). Other trauma is either not shown, which is a serious omission from the script, because this is no longer a mystery, but a hole, or it simply does not exist, because in the village, as far as can be seen, the attitude towards him was near normal, and his foster father is caring and loving, and has a trusting relationship with him (judging by the phrase casually thrown by the drivers from a flashback with his youth, where they warn him not to complain about an accident on the road to the priest, which seems to refer to the fact that this has already happened at least once before, and as if he would hardly have gone to him to complain if he did not trust him). Mystical supernatural shit number 3.

The same muddy and unclear story with his mother under the floor. Why is she there? For what is she there? How did she survive there? But who would know. In my opinion, it looks like some kind of some ritual-related bullshit, or at least a sacrifice to something, but I don’t undertake to make any special statements or comments here, I’m just noting and thinking. Mystical supernatural shit number 4.

Let's get to non-flashback events. POSSIBLY Diavolo is able to influence Doppio's consciousness (which does not happen in the opposite direction). This is indicated by the latter’s holy faith in the fact that he is talking to his boss on real work phones, well, that’s how he sees them, as well as the clouding and memory lapses that suddenly occur after the end of the call, which is strange, but still convenient for Diavolo, what a goddamn lucky coincidence, huh? I don't think alters are able to perform such tricks. Mystical supernatural shit number 5.

In the SCR arc, characters mutually switch bodies with closest persons. What's going on with Diavolo in that situation? He, like a self-respecting individual soul newly revealed to the audience (!), not like everyone else, not like a sucker, "attached" to someone else’s soul (it was kind of similar with Doppio before), and for time secretly sit happily in one body for two. And now, this is no longer a person suffering from DID (that is, a soul with, in our case, an ego split in two (that's PSYCHE thing)), but a whole separate being, moreover, also capable of ruling his soul as he pleases. Mystical supernatural shit number 6.

We will need some of the things from the previous point now. At the end of the arc of Ciocolatta and Secco, Diavolo not only immediately knows from somewhere that Bruno can only see souls, but he also, in order to make Doppio look like Trish for him, lends him a fucking piece of his (let me remind you, separate, like we have already found out) soul. A piece of his soul, God damn it! He (again) not only knows some unreal information about souls, he, as already said, is able to manipulate at least his own. Mystical supernatural shit number 7.

His eyes (iris and pupil), already extremely unique in themselves, are the eyes of his entity, but not his body. When he takes control of someone's body it is visible, when Bruno is in his body it is visible. Worth a mention. Mystical supernatural asshole number 8.

The last, probably the most interesting mystical, but not so supernatural screw-up lies in a small detail: when the souls of the characters in the final battle return back to their bodies, we are shown all of them, except for Diavolo's (well, more precisely they showed King Crimson as it, but this doesn't count (otherwise Diavolo is KC, lol)). Coincidence? I don't think so. More likely it was done on purpose, and this is not even attributed to the supposedly yet another creation of an aura of mysticism around his personality - at this point we seem to already know very well what he looks like... Or we don't, actually?

Conclusion

That's all, actually. The bottom line is the same: Diavolo is something supernatural, I don’t presume to say what he is exactly. This is probably all the fairly significant evidence (meaning those that are less than half conjecture) that I had. There were a lot of strange things in JoJo, inspired by some things from the real world, and then blown up to the point of "incredibility," but here they tried to tie it into some kind of pseudoscientific nonsense that I didn’t believe in. In any case, this is not the first "spirit" in this universe (it’s worth remembering Anubis), so this theory, I think, is more than valid.

So thank you for reading, it's open for discussion, since we'll never know the truth for sure (DID was the assumption of the characters of Vento Aureo, and they called it "assumption" themselves (I want to believe with all my soul Araki fooled everyone, being an unreliable narrator so Diavolo will be even more of an enigma)).

[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.

[autistic-wolf-pack]

Little disclaimer about endo “syscourse”. Mild TW!for brief mentions of $H and Su1cid3

Okay, as an anti-endo system one thing we feel the need to address about “syscourse” is that when people say they’re anti endo or try to educate someone, that is not anyone trying to invalidate anyone’s experience. It’s just when you claim a trauma disorder can form without trauma and then go around spreading misinformation it creates a stigma around the disorder that impacts so many people with dissociative disorders, even if they’re not part of a system. Your lived experience ARE valid, HOWEVER, there are other explanations for what you’re experiencing, a lot of which don’t require trauma. It’s okay to be wrong but it’s not okay to create a stigma around already heavily stigmatized disorders and mental health conditions. Even when it comes to things like IFS therapy, there’s an important distinction that it’s not the same as an actual system, yes the parts are valid and real, but nowhere near the same, and in all honesty just because the s stands for systems, doesn’t mean using that terminology and other terms created for/by systems doesn’t do genuine harm.

The first people to popularize the concept of having this disorder without trauma were not professionals, one of which had the disorder but denied it and refused to take any treatments, and the other didn’t have it but claimed he did because he had some dissociative symptoms, even though you can dissociate without trauma and have some other dissociative disorders without trauma(some require trauma, some don’t, but for all o them it’s more likely to be developed with it). Both of these people created very dangerous stereotypes about systemhood, both encouraging the stereotypes we are dangerous, and just spreading a lot of misinformation and even encouraging su1cid3 and $H. Additionally, tulpamancy and religious beliefs are not the same as being a system. The DSM (and I believe the ICD as well) specifies that. So please stop using system terminology or claiming to be one without trauma, your experiences are valid, but that doesn’t automatically make you a system. Please do some research.

With that said, any repeated or prolonged trauma is “enough” to form the disorder, and it doesn’t need to be super severe on the brink of death abuse or anything like that. Medical trauma is a valid, emotional abuse/neglect is valid, sibling trauma is valid, your trauma is valid even if it “wasn’t that bad”. It does need to be during formative years to form a system, but what you went through, no matter how old you were is still valid, and no one is trying to say it isn’t. It IS possible you don’t remember your trauma, but dont force yourself to remember it without professional help, and don’t claim to have a trauma based disorder until you’re sure you have trauma.Thank you for your time reading this.

also this is the one post we’re not putting anti endo tags, outside of this post and conversations that may stem from this Endos please DNI.

[sophieinwonderland]

Tagging @explaceholder for post alert.

So, until recently I absolutely didn't care about multiplicity and in fact education that I received suggested that multiplicity is not real, including DID.

What coincided is that in the last few weeks several posts about it made it on my dash and I lurked r/fakedisordercringe. The subreddit left me with conflicting feelings because on one hand it's true that many of the featured people clearly don't fit the criteria for their disorders, but also the place felt too aggressive considering that the "fakers" may be just misinformed.

With most disorders it's clear because there always exist states that severely deviate from the norm but are not pathological. With multiplicity though it's clear that most of those people don't have DID, but some people noted (and later I saw it on your post) that said "fake" multiplicity may be just non-pathological spiritual practice. I know a number of ideas about how human psyche can be dissected into sub-personalities, including those that were proposed as psychotherapy techniques and for a time I semi-regularly interacted with tulpamancers who also fit the criteria of "believe in possessing multiple personalities inside one body". And while I never experimented with splitting psyche and don't want to, I have some experience with other spiritual practices and know that power of believe and symbolism may make you feel very interesting things. And some of the "ex-fakers" even report that those other personalities felt real as long as they were doing practice but eventually disappeared after they stopped.

So while having DID without trauma is scientifically impossible, I can easily accept that people may have brains or experience that makes them feel like there are multiple hypostasises inside of them. Which is very different but as legit as any other self-conceptualization.

What I am getting at is that I don't want to dismiss endogenic systems as non-existent, but they are obviously non-pathological. Main complaint from the cringers is that endogenic systems downplay the severity of DID and misinform people, and it would be in fact a very bad thing to do. But like, do they? Or are you mostly having discipline and distinguish pathological and non-pathological states?

I just recently learned about the whole thing and want to study it for scholarly reasons and also because it feels like it becomes louder and louder, so I decided to just ask the most important question directly. Also feel free to correct me on any of the mistakes

Thanks for taking an interest in this and being open-minded!

If you're interested in studying multiplicity, this doc has a ton of sources you can check out:

For plural history, you may want to check out the Plural Deepdive:

Something I find about r/Fakedisordercringe is that a lot of ableist misinformation gets spread around there. Many of the things they claim aren't symptoms of DID are, in fact, and have been well-documented.

I also think you shouldn't necessarily conclude based on behaviors from brief snippets that their experiences aren't pathological.

In the end, the only things you see are the snippets these systems want to show, which are then further cherry-picked by the cringe subreddits.

While it's great that you're more interested in non-pathological plurality, please don't assume that someone's plurality isn't pathological just because you see a video of them being happy with their system. Because dissociative disorders are immensely complex, and there are plenty of systems that get along very well. One study even showed a majority of people with DID said they would miss the voices of their alters if they were gone. But they still had DID.

It's very, very common for people with DID to enjoy some aspects of the disorder, even if other aspects still would result in clinically significant distress or impairment that would make it pathological.

So while having DID without trauma is scientifically impossible

I wish people would stop saying this. We are... in a very gray area.

What we know for certain is that people with DID nearly always report a trauma history with statistics being upwards of 90%, which is huge. And the fact that it's not quite 100% can possibly be explained by amnesia... but we can't know that for certain.

There is a huge difference between "DID is virtually always caused by trauma" and "it's scientifically impossible to have DID without trauma."

Remember, a lot of science operates in these gray areas and our scientific knowledge is constantly overturned with new research.

I don't mind if people believe that all DID is trauma-based. I just don't think it should be presented as if it's some sort of scientific law when there are still too many unknowns.

Main complaint from the cringers is that endogenic systems downplay the severity of DID and misinform people, and it would be in fact a very bad thing to do. But like, do they? Or are you mostly having discipline and distinguish pathological and non-pathological states?

Personally, I think it's kind of silly for people to say "these people who don't say they have DID are downplaying the severity of DID."

Because by and large, that's what we're talking about. Only a very small number of DID systems identify as endogenic.

At least purely. There are mixed origin DID systems who may report being plural before they experienced the trauma that caused them to develop their system, or they may identify some of their headmates as spiritual, or consider themselves mixed for other reasons. But people who will say they have DID without any trauma are an exceedingly rare anomaly.

So yeah, most purely endogenic systems are not saying their plurality is related to any disorder and there's no logical reason their presentations of plurality should affect the perceptions of disorders they aren't claiming to have.

...

Anyway, hope this was able to help! 😁

[luckyshouse]

your post about did helped me a lot i may or may not be a system but i have some people show up in my head sometimes and ones been around for a while so it means a lot to me and validating as im still very confused about it so thank you

of course! im more than happy that it helped. i speak from experience, i've been diagnosed with severe ptsd since i was twelve, and psychiatrists/therapists have brought up DID in the past, but for years i rejected the idea because i simply just don't line up with the typical presentations of DID. ive never felt like i had more than one person in my body, i've never had obvious or noticable switches, and everything i've ever done, i've always held a "oh yeah that sounds like me i did that" mentality, even if i didn't remember directly doing it. a lot of my DID symptoms are more internal than external, but even when it is internal, my alters do not come to me in the figures of people or even "Characters" most of the time. Just a large rotating wheel of concepts and aesthetics and occasionally kins, but even the kinning part is less about the character and more about the metaconcepts of the character and the tropes.

we live in a society in america that encourages people to bisect their identity even without DID, and i think that has contributed a lot to peoples experiences as well. even if you get all the help you can for PTSD, or feel like your trauma isn't that bad, the way society is set up to encourage you to splinter your identity and keep them seperate. that mixed with trauma is absolutely how you end up developing DID, and i think it's something thats left out of DID conversations all the time. another thing i think isn't spoken about enough is that DID is never the same as someone elses, and is primarily based on your preferred forms of escapism while you were a developing child. i believe the idea of DID having multiple people in one body may actually come from the older sorts of systems that existed before the internet, and before larger forms of escapism became common. with the internet, i feel like that's broadened the way people could develop DID as well, since it's easier than ever to get into rp spaces, or make ocs, or pretend to be different people, or distance yourself from your body. i know people whos alters genuinely do not come to them as characters, they embody themselves as a large processing machine and their "alters" are different apps they run on the computer for different tasks. when i was told about their experience, it sort of clicked for me, that this isn't a disorder about having "more people" in your brain, but an organizational system for your trauma and reactions/beliefs. it will always and forever be based off of how you existed as a child, and it never will fall under the rules of what people will try to tell you.

i think a lot of "syscourse" on tumblr has lead to a really terrible awful idea of what DID is and how someone can experience it, and has convinced people that they need to seek out "fake" systems. but even if a system WAS faking, they are still undeniably a person with PTSD and identity issues, and i don't see why assuming they are fake would help anyone in that situation. they still need help, they still need to cope, and they'd likely still benefit from plurality spaces. people see it as a very black and white issue, when in reality its like no system will ever be the same as the other, none of them will communicate the same, none of them will ever experience the same exact things, and this is because dissociative systems literally are based off of the persons family and life dynamics. no one lives the same life twice. there for no system exists the same twice.

i hope you have a good day! and i hope the ppl that show up in your head have a good one too

[kaija-rayne-author]

Is Solas neurodivergent?

Of course, unless Weekes confirms one way or another, we'll never actually know. But I'd like to point out a few things.

Firstly. I'm autistic/ADHD, so are my kids and I've been an advocate for invisible disabilities, especially those two, for almost a decade now.

I offer an option on my Patreon for parents (or even just people) who need or want advice.

I have a little bit of a clue here. (More like a massive clue by nuke, but I digress 🤣.)

Why I code Solas from Dragon Age: Inquisition as neurodivergent.

1. Mentally ill fits under the neurodivergent (ND) umbrella. There's no way on Thedas that Solas isn't mentally ill.

(Yes, it really does fit. I'm not going to entertain arguments on the topic. It originally meant 'autistic' it no longer means that and hasn't for a long while. Neurodivergent brains = brains that work in any way other than 'the average'.) The antonym is Neurotypical. I tend to abbreviate them. Neurodivergent = ND, Neurotypical = NT.

At the very least, he likely has survivor syndrome. I'd wager on Depression and CPTSD too. (I have these conditions and am comfortable with saying he has a lot of the traits.) The guy was the leader of an enslaved elves rebellion and a war against the Evanuris. In his own words, he got his hands bloody.

No matter who you are, violence, whether you're the perpetrator or the victim, causes trauma to the psyche. And it went on for actual ages. An Age, in The Dragon Age franchise, is considered to be 100 years, so for hundreds of years, if not thousands, this dude has been fighting. Humans can get CPTSD just from a bad childhood. There's no way he hasn't developed it too.

Survivor syndrome is the response of a person when they believe they have done something wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not, often feeling self-guilt. (Can we classify Solas clearly with this? Yes, yes we can.)

He wakes up in a world so horrific to him that he can't even conceive of the people as people.

That's a type of disassociation, which is a symptom of many mental illnesses. Depression is the most obvious. He fucked up, he knows it, he's now trapped in a hellscape. (Heeee, we're all trapped in a dystopian hellscape right now and Depression is on the rise, the correlation is there.)

Disassociation is feeling disconnected from yourself and/or the world around you. For example, you may feel detached from your body or feel as though the world around you is unreal.

There could be a few other things there. He'd be a classic case for Disassociative Identity Disorder, for instance, but given the shit rep on the topic, I'm not going there.

2. ADHD

ADHD is still not very well understood by the average person. Sometimes people think it means we can't hold still. But a lot of the time, the H-Hyperactivity portion is only evident in our brains. For me, for instance, I have to constantly be feeding my brain written stuff or I get very antsy and uncomfortable. (ADD no longer exists, we're all ADHD now.) It's why i developed the habit of reading encyclopedias for fun. (Yes, I really do this.)

Solas is constantly reading, or studying, or thinking.

He shows a pretty typical type of temper for an ADHDer several times. Our tempers can be hot, flaring up suddenly for seemingly unexpected reasons. He absolutely does that. Now, there's always a reason for it, but few people on the outside of us will be aware of whatever the issue is.

ADHDers can also experience incredibly fast (compared to neurotypicals) shifts in emotion. Solas does this. Especially in the after the well of sorrows/pre-breakup scene and the break up scene itself. He see-saws emotionally a lot.

He's incredibly creative. He paints (and probably draws at least a little to paint the way he does). So many neurodivergent people are incredibly creative.

Snark. Many ADHDers tend to be snarky or sarcastic because of, well, everything that usually happens to us in life. The snark and salt simply spill out of Solas. Especially on the 'make him hate you' route through the game. Or any time he's around Vivienne.

Finally, ADHDers very frequently have a deep seated drive to change the world and make it better. Stares at Solas. Yup!

3. Autistic

So, firstly, let me say that most people don't understand what autism is or what autistics look and act like.

As an autistic/ADHD person, my experience of life is completely different from a neurotypicals simply because my brain is wired differently.

Reminder that you can't see autism or ADHD. You can sometimes see common comorbids, but without a brain scan, you cannot see autism or ADHD.

I connected and empathize so heavily with Solas because he's a well written, complex character, and because I love anti-heros.

But also because he's exhibits the exact same type of autistic/ADHD traits that I have. (Both autism and ADHD come in different flavours.) Seeing that rep in a triple AAA game was an incredibly powerful experience.

Even though, given Bioware's absolutely shit rep re: disability, it had to be accidental. I credit Weekes with that rep. I read on Twitter they were recently dxd with one or the other (ADHD or Autism, I honestly can't remember which. And up to 80% of ADHDers are also autistic.)

Solas practices esoteric arts. It's a common thing for many autists & ADHDers to learn and practice arts that just aren't as common anymore. Mine? I spin with a spinning wheel, drop spindle, or Andean hand spinner. I make maps. There's several other strange hobbies and skills I've picked up along the way too.

He shows hyperfocus several times in the game. (Hyperfocus is a trait of both ADHD and Autism.)

He stims with his hands a lot. Especially in the kiss scene. I don't recall seeing any of the other characters do this. I'm not talking about the 'dry hand wash' movements most of the characters do. Solas does a thing I do, taps the tips of his fingers against each other. Whoever did his modelling (is that the right term for making a game character?) understood neurodivergency or are ND themselves. Whether they know it or not.

You could even call his painting a type of stimming.

Stimming is where someone will use repetitive motions or sounds to self-soothe. It's really bad to prevent an autistic/ADHDer from using their stims.

I used to have to have a book on my person at all times. I'm late diagnosed, so I didn't know I was using the books as both a stim and a comfort item.

Solas has something autists call 'flat face effect'. Basically, his face is a bit masklike. He doesn't show emotions strongly on his face or in his body language (unless you make him angry 😅 which is also pretty typical for many of us). I've seen rather a lot of discourse about how emotionless Solas appears. I can read him easily, the emotive cues are there, just subtle, like they would be in an autistic & or ADHD person.

He's a decent actor. Now, most autists will agree that we're not innately good at lying or acting. But we're also really good at acting, at least, many of us are by the time we're adults. It comes from having to mask (autistic masking) almost every second of every day just to survive. Masking kills us. So it's not good that we are forced to do it. But it does make many of us incredible actors.

Anthony Hopkins is argueably one of the best actors of the past several decades. He's openly autistic. And he's spoken of how he got to be a good actor. Dan Ackroyd and Darryl Hannah are a couple of others who are out about it. I code a lot of other creatives as being one or the other, but it’s considered rude to assign a diagnosis like that to a living person. That's for them to do.

Solas managed to stay hidden as a 'unwashed apostate hobo' for however long the Inquisition took to fix things. I've seen estimates of 18 months to 2 years. That's a looooong time to be acting like something you're definitely not.

We see in Trespasser that he's not like that at all. But he still sold it so well his reveal at the end of the game shocked many people.

He's a nerd. An absolute nerd about the fade. Nerdery isn't solely the domain of autistics and ADHDers, but it’s a really common trait.

He's stand-offish.

Many autists and ADHDers are rather stand-offish with people for a variety of reasons.

1) We've been hurt so many times because of people refusing to do half the work of communicating with us. (Trust me, autistics and ADHDers are trying ALL THE TIME to communicate with neurotypicals. Y'all could pick up your part of things, y'know?)

2) We've been rejected so often for a genetic condition(s) we can't change. But accommodations for us, which are usually pretty simple and often help neurotypical people too, are considered 'too much'. There's something called RSD that most, if not all, autistic and ADHD folks experience. Rejection Sensitivity Disorder is a bitch kitty and there's no dealing with it well. It hurts.

3) We're often stand-offish while we try to figure out whatever social rules exist in that space/time. We often warm up when we know (or think we know) the rules. Or once we get to know people.

4) Solas is often alone, he's rarely pictured as being with anyone else other than Cole and the Inquisitor. NDs often end up either pushed to the edge of the crowd, or we choose to stay distant as a preventative measure so we aren't rejected.

Food sensitivities: Solas utterly loathes tea. There's a whole cutscene about it. (Fun fact, Solas doesn't like tea because Weekes doesn't.) But that extreme reaction to a relatively innocuous drink is a classic example of a food sensitivity. Most autistics and ADHDers have food or texture sensitivities or both. I can't abide raw tomatoes, and I'll get the urge to cry if I touch corduroy fabric.

Sensitivities can really be anything, but if you know someone who has them, please understand we're not trying to be difficult or to ask for extra attention or to make trouble. The modern world is frankly hell for most autistics and many ADHDers. Brain scans of us when we’re exposed to our sensitivities show that they actually are causing us physical pain. Pain centres in the brain light up like a Yule tree.

Solas is quiet, until he's not. Then he'll talk your ear off. This is pretty common for many of us too.

Solas and the fade. Special interest, anyone?

Special interests: Most autistics and ADHDers have Special interests. It's something that can utterly enthrall us. We tend to want to learn everything we possibly can about the subject we're fascinated with. And we love to share that information. In something called 'infodumping' we're trying to connect with other people. It's one of the ways many of us say we care about someone. By sharing our favourite things. We're also deeply penalized for something we can't change, there, too.

We deeply enjoy the thing and want to share our enjoyment with people we like/love. This can utterly backfire on us, but it doesn't change the urge to share. Often until our audience is giving us the 'dead fish face'. It's where the person's eyes are a little glazed over and they look a bit concussed. Anyone who has ever taught a class of students or is a parent or child caretaker, or is autistic/ADHD knows the look I'm talking about.

I'll stop blabbing for now, but those are most of the reasons I heavily code Solas as autistic/ADHD/mentally ill. Or, in another word. Neurodivergent.

Thanks for reading! If you have the wherewithal I'm a disabled mom of two disabled kids and a tip would help more than you can probably understand. Another way to help is to become a patron. My work of words is my only income and we live well under the poverty line. Like a lot of other neurodivergent people do.

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[antiradqueer]

hi. this is probably going to be a long ask, but i don’t do discourse on my public blog and i want this to be somewhere relevant and visible

i am an autistic bipolar trans man with scizophrenia symptoms. i have had, and still struggle with: very unpleasant intrusive thoughts that are sexual or violent, maladaptive daydreams, delusions, and pathological lying. i’ve encountered transid identities before, but i didn’t know about the radqueer “community.” i also want to add that i’m a psychology student and aim to be non-judgmental under any circumstances relating to mental health.

it seems to me like a lot of people who identify as radqueer are just kids or young adults who are still learning about themselves, their identities and their mental health

i’ve read a lot of posts from transtrauma folks, and my initial impression is that a lot of them are attention starved and need validation in their outside lives, or have minor or complex traumas that they don’t realise are valid due to them not being one recognised traumatic event. you don’t need to have gone through something completely life-ruining to deserve sympathy, nor do you need to be mentally ill.

the same applies to transabled identities as well - i know from my own experience as a person with a chronic illness that affects my physical ability, but i don’t identify as physically disabled - that the disabled and cripplepunk communities are full of love and acceptance, and it seems like a lot of radqueers are seeking that same acceptance.

i saw a coining post for the term “transvegan” - one who wants to be vegan, identifies as vegan, but isn’t vegan right now due to life circumstances. and the way i see it is that these people have discovered queer identities as a way to label themselves, eg “i feel this way because i am lesbian”, and as a result have chosen to label all their personality traits as queer identities. you don’t have to call yourself transvegan! you can say “i’m not vegan right now because that’s not feasible for me but i agree with their ideas and advocacy,” and that’s okay. most decent vegans will respect you for that anyways.

before i knew about my bipolar disorder, i thought i might be a system - so guess what, i tried it out for a few days, using tools like pluralkit and a system tracker. it turned out that it wasn’t an experience i shared, but that was okay. at the time, i did want to be a system as that would help me understand why i was the way i was - but after i realised i wasn’t, i kept going and eventually got my bipolar diagnosis that has brought me a lot of comfort.

i relate to the feeling of wanting to have a severe, labelable trauma as well. i was desperate for a reason why i was struggling and mentally ill even though nothing “big” and “horrible” had happened to me.

transracial identities seem to stem from a similar thing imo - i love japanese folklore and history, and actively do research into it in my free time. i enjoy hearing accounts from japanese people about their personal experiences with their mythology, and while i don’t want to live in japan, i think other people like me might. if the radqueer community had existed when i was a young teenager, i might even have identified as transjapanese. however, it seems to me like trace identities stem from misattributing an interest (and again, a specific desire for respect and inclusion from those with a culture they’re interested in) to wanting to be their specific race.

i identify as asexual, and don’t relate to any feelings of attraction, nevermind paraphilias, but i do have intrusive thoughts, and dealing with that has taught me the attitude that your thoughts are not your fault. i love and respect people with paraphilias, even the “weird” ones, but the important part is understanding that if your actions due to your attraction could harm others, like children and animals, it’s your responsibility not to act on those thoughts. whether you want to seek therapy and try and stop having them is a personal choice and up to you, but you cannot refuse the responsibility not to harm others.

if you want to think or write about societally unacceptable scenarios such as grooming or rape, you can - thoughtcrime isn’t real and censorship is a slippery slope - and if the point of your work is not to condone or encourage that kind of thing, and you are clear and do not make people read it if they don’t want to, it does no harm.

unfortunately, that ties in to the other part of the radqueer community who have harmful opinions, like ableism, racism, and pedophila, who simply use the guise of “queerness” to try and get away with it. at its core, queerness is about playing with gender norms and identity, and how you are perceived by society; not “having sex with someone you aren’t “supposed” to be having sex with,” or “having views not agreed with by current society.”

animals and children cannot consent. period. it is not about knowing what sex is, it is about understanding the meaning and gravity of what you are doing, and to take advantage of someone or something that doesn’t is inherently violating. if you think any actions that cause harm to others, sexually or violently, are normal or justifiable then you are not a good person. you are not respectable.

i can’t speak on racism in the radqueer circle and the concept of winterqueer because i don’t know enough, but i can tell you now that the queer and punk communities do not accept racism, and that it goes against the core of who we are. you are not and will not be part of us.

i also think there’s something to be said about how transid views trans people as not truly what they are. if i fully physically transitioned, i wouldn’t stop being transgender, but it feels like a lot of transid identities are only defined by the wanting of, not the being. a trans man is not a woman who wants to be a man. he is a man who at some point used to be viewed as female, and no longer feels that way.

(not adressing anyone on this blog, just things i have seen) i think my point was that the argument of “these people will never be accepted by society” does more harm than it does good - i don’t think their beliefs are normal or will be accepted, but by arguing that the people themselves will never be accepted when they are in the community in the first place because they want to be respected and seen only serves to push them back into the circle of people who genuinely desire harm.

on a similar note, harrasment and death threats on either side are also horrible. you are not helping, you are not getting one up on them, you are just hurting people, and wasn’t the entire point of being anti-radqueer trying to prevent people hurting others?

idk. this was long and rambling, but it’s just. you can want things that are unachievable but you’ve gotta come to terms with the fact they’re unachievable. there’s a difference between “fiction is not reality” (true) and “fiction does not affect reality” (provably false). radqueerism is not as progressive as it claims to be. and there are a lot of people out there who refuse to grow or learn.

.

[syscurse]

I watched Dr. Robinson's lecture on social media & self diagnosed DID (didn't watch the Q&A part though). It was a surprisingly decent lecture for the complex subject it's tackling! I took notes throughout the entire video if anyone is interested & doesn't want to watch the hour long video (but I recommend you do so you can form your own thoughts on it).

Here's a link to the video.

My notes are under the cut. If you want, you can read a short version here.

Important to keep in mind: Dr. Robinson says that the TikToks he shares in the lecture are for illustrative purposes. He knows nothing about the people behind them, and he cannot verify who does or does not have DID. Further in the video he says that harassing or fakeclaiming people who say they have DID, regardless if they actually have it, does extreme harm. Despite that, it still feels inappropriate that they used these TikToks without permission, and without censoring.

The introduction starts off with describing how the DID patients in their clinic look nothing like the sensationalized portrayal of DID in media. People with DID experience distress & confusion towards their symptoms, which they are reluctant or ashamed to report. Many of their patients report feeling distraught/confused by online content where people promote DID symptoms openly in a fun, sensationalized way. For illustrative purposes, Dr. Robinson shows a TikTok of a person asking their partner to guess which alter is fronting. It's a bunch of clips cut together of them going "guess who's fronting!" in a different voice and their partner gets it correct every time, like a little game.

He explains how recently, many people are coming into the clinic self-diagnosing as DID. They do not have a trauma history and their parts are character-like. The symptoms they present are not typical to DID.

He shows a TikTok of someone changing outfits to music, with the caption asking to guess which system member is wearing what. Robinson says that these overt changes in wardrobe are not characteristic of DID. Nearly all patients with DID are reluctant to discuss their symptoms and conceal it. So this begs these questions: Do online influencers genuinely have DID? If not, what are they experiencing? And what role does social media play in self-diagnosis & the perception of DID?

DID is considered the most severe/complex trauma-related dissociative disorder. It involves symptoms of:

Depersonalization Derealization Amnesia Identity Confusion Identity Alteration At times, pwDID report experiencing someone in their mind who is "not me." At times, it feels like someone else is "driving" the body with a distinct set of thoughts & behaviors. Shifts are subtle or completely hidden. Dr. Robinson emphasizes that they rarely see obvious signs of switching or changes like what was depicted in the video earlier.

What's interesting to me is that he describes amnesia in DID as only being trauma-related… From what I understand, however, amnesia in DID can apply to everyday life as well.

He states that identity alteration (alters, switching) is the most sensationalized symptom of DID. Agreed. DID is not an alters disorder. "DID is really about the 'not me' experience." It is about wanting to get through everyday life without having to re-experience overwhelming trauma info.

He brings up media portrayals of DID like Split & the United States of Tara which have sensationalized the alters aspect of DID. This media has also perpetuated other myths such as the idea that pwDID are dangerous or extraordinary.

He talks about the development of DID. It's a posttraumatic disorder. Requires chronic, severe trauma during early development. In the absence of nurturing & soothing adults, the child internalizes aspects of their environment. The process of personality development is fragmented & those personality parts are anthropomorphized.

DID is really a disorder of hiddenness, he says. That's why it's surprising to see so many people online coming out and celebrating the diagnosis.

He uses a TikTok video of someone saying they got diagnosed with DID & that they're going to get a cake to celebrate. They literally ask the bakery person to write the phrase "happy DID diagnosis" on it. Omg I would not have the balls to do that… Tbh I don't vibe with thinking it's bad to feel happy/relieved about your diagnosis. I think more people should feel happy about it, because in the past it was so common to feel like a diagnosis was more like a death sentence. Robinson says that patients usually feel more fear after getting diagnosed, but that's not a good thing in my opinion.

The problem here shouldn't be that someone is happy/relieved they got an answer to their questions & a label for their pain. The problem here should be the sensationalization. It should be about how they boosted the entertainment value of it for profit.

He describes the history of DID being delegitimized. Freud decided it was false memories, then there was false memory syndrome. Etc. Etc. In the most recent decades, there has been so much more research & support for DID as a legitimate, trauma-based disorder. But many people still don't believe it and false memory controversy is still perpetuated. Robinson says that the recent trend of inaccurate social media representations is further delegitimizing DID.

At the heart of DID controversy there are two models for it: 

Trauma model: DID is trauma-related and trauma memories are true

Fantasy model: DID is unrelated to trauma, resulted from fantasy-proneness or suggestibility, influenced by social media or other factors, and trauma memories are exaggerated or simply not true

He discusses the neuroscience behind it! Researchers are finding that DID has a unique biological imprint, further supporting its legitimacy as a real, trauma-based disorder.

Robinson says that people with DID have always been online & had online communities. Yet, specifically in facebook, youtube, instagram, TikTok, and twitter we see an issue. They are a bit different because (on the monthly) the active users are up in the billions. They are also algorithm-based, so liking content on DID will result in your feed giving you more DID content. The pandemic has also further driven people to social media, too.

TikTok DID hashtags get billions of views.. Robinson says these views have grown by 200-400 MILLION over the past 4 months.

PROS of discussing DID on the internet:

Evidence & info on DID is becoming widely & easily available. More resources for people. This has created safe spaces online for people who are trauma survivors, researchers, & clinicians. With so much good information, many of the false representations & misinfo can be countered. This means that many people can self-diagnose accurately! There's been a general destigmatization of DID online. The dominant narrative is no longer skeptical.

CONS of discussing DID on the internet:

There is also more inaccurate information. Most of the time the representation of DID is wrong. This leads to inaccurate self-diagnosing. People (especially young people) may attach clinical labels to normal experiences. They may elaborate or manifest DID-like symptoms instead of acknowledging they have a different problem. COVID has made people more vulnerable to this. There is also significant online harassment & fakeclaiming towards DID influencers.

FAKECLAIMING HARMS EVERYONE WITH AND WITHOUT DID. Robinson says that fearing you may be faking is one of the most common symptoms of DID. Regardless if someone genuinely has DID or not, calling them fake will harm both them and all other people with DID.

Now, I find it a bit questionable that they are using uncensored TikToks in this lecture despite acknowledging that these people face elevated fakeclaiming & harassment... I get that it's for educational purposes but it feels especially inappropriate when acknowledging this.

Social media has dynamics that reinforce these uncharacteristic DID representations. It rewards people who create attention-grabbing content for likes & follows, regardless if the content is true. That's why you can't know if someone is faking just because of their uncharacteristic portrayal, because it's possible that social media is influencing them to express themselves in different ways. But, it's also possible that these dynamics are still contributing to an increase of inaccurate self-diagnosis.

He brings up someone called the ace system (?) who has generated millions of views. I have NO IDEA how to describe the TikTok he just played. It was like…snippets of different system members talking about their day? They talked about panic attacks and stuff. They also switched so much in just one day. Seems exhausting.

Robinson does say "it's possible that some social media influencers like the ace system(?) may be malingering or have factitious disorders" which I personally don't see as him doubting that person in particular. He's not saying THIS PERSON IS MALINGERING, he's just saying some people might be malingering but we really wouldn't know as onlookers.

Describing what malingering & factitious disorders are now.

Malingering: intentional reporting of symptoms for some external gain like money

Factitious: intentional reporting of symptoms, but not just for som external gain

For illustration of external gain (which isn't inherently malingering), he's showing the ace system's (?) merchandise website. Then a cameo account where you can book a personalized video from the system. Another TikTok system he showed earlier makes a reappearance, this time to show that they are selling hats that their system made.

Imitative DID is for people who do not actually have DID but genuinely believe that they do. They may benefit from psychological or social gain, which makes social media platforms the ideal platform for them to thrive. Claiming they have DID might provide them a sense of connection/community. They may struggle with their identity such as who they are in the world, what community they belong in, who they'll be in the future, etc. Robinson says that "the DID narrative helps these people explain frequent confusion about who they really are."

Dr. Robinson says that endogenic systems (which he also just calls plurality/multiplicity) can sometimes be an example of Imitated DID. He mentions Astraeasweb from the 90s claiming nonpathological multiplicity/plurality as an identity. He plays a new TikTok of someone telling people to look up The Plural Association and "welcome to the plural community" and tips on how to start system communication.

He says that people with DID don't choose this or wish for this. The symptoms are developed out of need for survival.

Endogenic plurality refers to any development of plurality that does not have a trauma origin. They promote their plurality as a healthy way of their mind working; an identity. Some of them don't identify as having DID, but Dr. Robinson says that many do (I personally think it's the opposite but *shrugs* he might be lumping all cases of imitative DID in there).

He says that more research needs to be done to see if endogenics are genuine DID, imitated DID, or something else entirely.

Dramatized, obvious switching is actually very rare in DID. Yet, it's very common in online videos. He shows a TikTok of someone sitting in a car who is "switching." They stare into space, close their eyes slowly, drop their head down for a while, then they lift their head up and smile. He shows another TikTok of someone who also drops their head down (it says "no one in the body"?) and after a long time, they lift their head up, start swearing(????), and then cheekily take their name tag off while staring at the camera.

Robinson says that in both of these examples we see an uncharacteristic awareness of the process of dissociation, because these individuals could actually plan for and videotape what was going to happen. He says the switches in genuine DID are subtle and often unnoticed by outside observers.

In imitative DID there is also an emphasis on elaborated parts. They lack the confusion & distress/conflict with these parts which is characteristic of DID. He shows a TikTok of someone showing Picrews of their parts. Then he shows another TikTok with someone playing guess-who trying to figure out who is fronting. So literally playing a game. "A game-like way of presenting symptoms that would be very distressing in genuine DID," Robinson says about that video.

There was a recent case study that interviewed people who were not given the diagnosis of DID and found that they were angry + relying on the diagnosis for connection & attention.

Once again, he says it's difficult to distinguish whether social media influencers are genuine, malingered, imitative, or something else. It's not something even professionals can distinguish as onlookers. We don't know anything about the people in the video examples except for what they put out online.

To conclude the lecture, Dr. Robinson says that accurate online information & professional education is MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER given the increase of DID awareness. Wrong info & poor representations delegitimizes DID and causes harm. We don't want it to undermine all of the progress in research in the recent years.

[nonasemporium]

There is a complicated and intertwined relationship between autism and schizophrenia, as well as ongoing struggles with how we define experiences with psychosis in other disorders and circumstances outside of schizophrenia, and I wish people were less afraid of both of them, and more willing to understand all of the above [autism, schizophrenia, psychosis].

I think people are also less aware of the possible comorbidity between autism and psychosis, or how autism as a diagnosis was initially linked to (now outdated concepts for) schizophrenia. It is also difficult to know the exact numbers, regardless, as often the communication difficulties present in autism, or the more subtle aspects of psychosis, or the cultural notions around either can make the actual categorization of it hard to quantify.

Psychosis is also present in schizoaffective, bipolar disorder, and several personality disorders (I know for a fact borderline personality disorder can present with psychosis, for example).

I wish I was better at putting my thoughts to words, but I'm reflecting also on how all of these discussions are generally within a certain realm of psychiatry anyway, and what we define as psychosis--as disconnect from reality--is complicated by a drive to pathologize complex experiences. Often times, "disconnect from reality" can also be applied to groups or individuals who are experiencing a very strong connection to reality, that works against other purposes--like the history with labeling Black civil rights activists with it (especially with labels implying violence and paranoia) for speaking up about oppression.

Ugh, I wish I could keep topics in a streamlined manner, but everything is interconnected, so it's difficult.

I promise this is here because of The Locked Tomb. I was reflecting on Harrowhark's experiences with psychosis--which are irrefutable and acknowledged. She has psychosis and she's being haunted and there's a lot of weird shit happening around her, and that means something to me anyway, because I am also psychotic and have experiences that have made it very confusing and distressing to tell reality and psychosis apart (ie, being convinced I'm not experiencing something, when I am, as a means to control me and evade consequences, with me being willing to believe it because I already have a disconnect from reality, then learning that it was a purposeful exploitation of my symptoms).

I don't personally think it's obscure at all that she has psychosis. And I think it would be more difficult to be sure if she's autistic--sensory processing issues, emotional disconnect, etc can easily be seen in schizophrenia; she is also deeply traumatized and traumatized from a very young age making it hard to discern if that would correlate to social issues. Social issues that may also be culturally influenced anyway (of course, one could perceive the entire Ninth House of being isolated and small enough to essentially be built off a handful of groups that had autism and then were all mostly fine with one another and simply developed all deeper into certain habits and structure, obfuscating larger social issues they may have with the other Houses).

Social isolation and trauma, by the way, can lead to people having similar symptoms to autism, but there's a lot of complicated discussions on what that even means for how they meet the criteria, or what the criteria would mean, or how useful it would be for certain circumstances. Ultimately, autism is recognized as a developmental disorder relating to social and communicative difficulties. There are still a myriad of theories about what that even truly entails.

I view Harrow as autistic, because I personally believe she probably would, in a general environment, still not have the intuitive social sense that allistics have, and that it is not solely linked to her psychosis. I also view Harrowhark as schizophrenic, but am unsure how mood may correlate or interact with her psychosis (which would technically change how it would be categorized). I saw confirmation from Muir that Harrow would benefit greatly from antipsychotics and I saw a tweet stating schizophrenia was confirmed, but it has already been proven that people will "summarize" statements in very general ways, and I've been unable to get the actual source (a video of the statements summarized).

[agirlunfilteredsblog]

MY LIFE WITH BPD

(MAJOR TW: TALKS ON BPD, SH AND S**CIDE)

Hi girls! Today we are going to get a little more personal and talk about mental health. I’ve always found it crucially important to raise awareness on it, no matter how big or small my platform is. Two years ago, I was sent to the emergency room after suffering a severe depressive episode and through a grueling challenge and error process, I was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder six months later. Now I know what I’m going to talk about isn’t necessarily EVERYONE’S experience with this disorder, but I still think my story will resonate with some, and talking about it may help.

It was when I was about 8 years old that red flags started presenting themselves. I went through something traumatic within my family and after that incident, I wasn’t the same individual. Because I was just a child, I would mask it. My parents always described me as a happy and light child, though on the inside it was the total opposite. In reality, I would see busses and cars and wish I could jump in front of them. But I was too scared back then. Instead, I would turn to self-harm. By the time I turned 15, it had become a full blown addiction. I couldn’t stop hurting myself, almost like it had become part of my routine. It was systematic in my brain, a lullaby that would not stop.

It was around this time my mother noticed something was wrong. She begged my father to put me in therapy, but it wasn’t something he believed in, so he refused. I don’t hold any resentment towards his choice; he might have simply refused to accept that I was mentally ill. After what seemed years of suffering, I gathered the “courage” to go through with my attempt. I will not go into details about it, as I know how triggering it may be. However, it is important to note that the moment I felt like I was dying was the moment I had a huge chunk of regret for what I had done.

As I woke up from my attempt, the first thing I felt was shame. The look on my mother’s face was enough for me to feel guilty for life. It was also the day I realized I NEEDED to help myself. My mother also divorced my father around that time and gained full custody of me and my sister. I started intensive therapy, and it truly saved my life. Therapy was amazing for me, I was lucky to have a psychologist who truly cared and with her, I surmounted years of trauma and even subconscious trauma I didn’t even know existed. I finally felt a sense of light and peace. Once I started feeling better, I foolishly believed that I did not need therapy and I signed out of the program. At first it was all okay, but soon, symptoms started to present themselves. I would get angry at little things often, I would lock myself in a room, I cut off a majority of my friends out of paranoia and I started lacking basic empathy for people I cared about (I still had empathy, don’t get me wrong, I just didn’t care about hurting people’s feelings if need see fit).

When I had refused to leave my room for 2 weeks and wouldn’t show up to class, my mom got extremely worried and attempted to take me outside for some air. She knew immediately something was wrong, I was laying down sobbing relentlessly and no matter what she did, I truly could not stop. She saw the fresh wounds on my legs as well. Out of fear that something might happen to me, she rushed me to the hospital.

From there on, I promise, my life got better, and for real this time. After I was diagnosed, I started learning how to manage it with a combination of therapy and anger management classes. I grew back, not into the person I initially was, but a new person. Some days are better than others, but I am grateful now for every blessing I have. I celebrated one full year of sobriety from self-harm a while ago as well! I have a great circle of friends who keep me grounded and make me feel valued above all else. The constant ringing of thoughts of death has ceased and I truly live a life filled with gratitude. Life may not be the same after an attempt, that is true, but I’m grateful I get to live a life. So many people do not get that opportunity. I know it is hard to reach out when you need help; but trust me, it’s worth it in the end. There is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark it may seem.

so much love,

a girl unfiltered 💋

[duskcourse]

Our Syscourse Stances

We are filling this out based upon the popularized "Syscourse Code" and will be going in depth in our explanations of our opinions here.

👍💜📘🔺🔵🌖🟦🌲☀️🥧🐊🐞🐳

Question one - Do you believe in endogenic plurality

👍(Y)- Yes

We are pro-endo and have come to the very solidified conclusion that the experience of feeling there is more than one self cannot be limited to one disorder or even category of disorders. It is very clear to me that DID is not "alters disorder" though alternative identities is a major factor in the disorder the focus is on the dissociation and amnesia between these selves/identities. (Selves are a philosophical concept meanwhile "identity" in this sense refers to a psychological phenomenon)

Question two - Opinion on tulpas

💜(TNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

We are pro the practice of what is known as "tulpmancy" in the case that practitioners are willing to learn about the history of the term and understand the problems with how it originally came to be due to the racist history. I believe the modern practice is incredibly divorced from any semblance of what was the original Tibetan practice with "sprulpa". I am however not someone of said culture, thus I defer to them and by and large I have seen the idea that the term should be changed or moved away from.

Question three - Do you think endos just don't remember their trauma

📘(NETR) - People sometimes misunderstand their identity, it doesn't mean everyone is misunderstanding / not remembering.

When we were younger we thought our alters were spontaneous "tulpas" as we were still living in trauma we did not recognize and had excessively high amnesia. We were wrong about that part of our exploration and later amnesia came back and we forgot we were a system all together. This does not mean that all my peers when I was younger had lied about their systems or also were people with DID or OSDD-1.

Question four - Opinion on shared spaces

🔺 (YSP) - Supportive

Originally I thought there should still be specific spaces for DID/OSDD-1 but also as more time has gone by and I have been in so many spaces geared towards mentally ill people- it never goes well. No online spaces should be for just severely vulnerable people. Predators flock there in mass. Thus shared spaces, in my opinion, are best for the safety of all persons. Groups should be created in real life in the form of therapy groups however.

Question five - Do you think endogenic plurality is comparable to transX

🔵(TXA) - No, and I'm against transplural

I want to be clear this isn't us being against willogenic systems and people who engage in what was previously known as "tulpamancy" and now often is referred to as crafting thoughtforms (or the other term I am sadly blanking on). We are against the radqueer community due to extensive racism, sexism, transphobia, ableism, and abuse apologia. You are not transitioning in the way a trans person is. You are either plural or not. Working with spiritual or psychological practices isn't the same as transitioning in gender. Also I would argue whether or not you happened to be plural by chance or chose to do practices to become so the level of oppression you face is the same- unless it is disordered plurality in which you face systemic ableism as well.

Question six - Do you think you can have DID/OSDD/UDD without trauma

🌖(DTN) - Neutral

I do believe that current research shows all known and studied cases seem to tie back to some level of trauma mixed with other very important elements. However due to the way disorders are categorized in psychology as grouped symptoms and are not actually a true easily spotted one condition... it is very likely that it could be caused by other factors. DID is not one condition, it is a grouping of symptoms. We know all these various symptoms may theoretically occur without trauma. This means it's a very complex issue. However we also know through case studies that almost every case of these coinciding symptoms are predated by trauma.

Question seven - Do you think introjects from other cultures should be able to use that culture's names if they aren't bodily part of it (eg. Japanese introject using Japanese names, while in a white body)

🟦(CNNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

As a mixed white/native person who has never lived in Japan nor had community with Japanese people we believe it would be racist for us to use those names. However there are cases where people can take names from specific groups that on first glance may seem questionable. What matters is the connection to the actual cultures. If someone lives in a specific country, interacts with the cultures, and/or has family of said culture where in the names relate to those relationships it is okay.

Question eight - Opinion on researched self diagnosis

🌲(SDXY) - Supportive

Self diagnosis can be incredibly helpful for those who cannot at some point in time afford care. People who cannot get the care they need should at least have ways to try and find helpful mechanisms to cope. Knowing a disorder you may have can be helpful in order to look at advice and aid from others with the condition or from medical sources until a proper diagnosis and treatment can be had. It is also important you do not attach yourself too much to the self-diagnosis and allow room to accept if it turns out you are wrong and it is something else.

For example when we were younger we thought we might have had BPD aka borderline personality disorder. We have since learned we do not have that disorder and other issues of ours can explain our limited symptomology of BPD.

Question nine - Sysmed as a term

☀️(SMY) - I support it's usage

Sysmed is very useful shorthand for system medicalist and it works well to describe the anti-endo position of needing ton have a diagnosis to explain a form of self-identity that is atypical from the norm. As much as people get mad about it... there is similarities between transgender medicalism and system medicalism.

Question ten - Traumascum as a term

🥧(TSA) - I am against it

My understanding is the term was purposefully made to be shitty by a bait blog. However people at times have used it. It is disgusting and helps nobody.

Question eleven - Endogenic systems using the term 'system'

🐊(ESY) - Supportive

Not that deep- they're systems. System is a very common word.

Question twelve - Endogenic systems using the term 'alter'

🐞 (ESNU) - Nuanced opinion / other

If they're diagnosed with DID or OSDD-1 or medically recognized or have the symptoms aligning with either I believe it's more reasonable. However I do think it's good to have the term alter kept to just DID and OSDD-1 because I see the term as being used more so when expressing there are barriers that need to be worked through between headmates.

Question thirteen - Xeno-origins

🐳 (XEY) - Supportive

Have fun honestly. If labels for yourself help you express and understand your own identity and feel safe and happy then go for it. We like looking for things we can sorta identify with and honestly it can just be comforting as an idea of "wow others experience splits from this too" or similar.

[plural-culture-is]

i fear that i may be a system in denial or something along those lines.

for years of my life, ive struggled with three voices in my head, dissociation, derealization, depersonalization, way-too-over-the-top delusions, hallucinations here and there, and never feeling like who im supposed to be. a few months ago, i thought that it could have to do with undiagnosed schizophrenia or some type of schizo-related disorder (because of the delusions and hallucinations). but recently, ive noticed that these things are all getting worse.

there are more voices. its no longer just the three. and i feel like i should know these voices, even though i dont. they're still strangers to me.

my struggles with dissociation, derealization, and depersonalization have gotten worse---especially the derealization and depersonalization.

my main delusion has been growing stronger and stronger, becoming more and more severe. (though the strength of it tends to vary, so...)

nothing's gone on with the hallucinations. at least, i dont think so. i haven't been paying attention.

and my feelings of never feeling "right" or "correct" have gotten so much stronger. i cant go ten minutes without thinking, is this who i really am? am i faking who i am? if im faking my identity, who am i really? why dont i know who i truly am? will i ever learn who i truly am? am i the only one who cant figure out who they are? why do i never feel like im my true self? why do i always faking who i am? how do i act like my true self? does my true self even exist at this point? and et cetera.

i dont think im a system. i dont want to be a system. i dont want to be plural. i already struggle enough with my neurodevelopmental and physical disabilities. i already struggle enough my mental health and with trauma. i dont need the struggles of having did or osdd or something related. i dont want the struggles, either.

but the more and more i research did for my system character in one of my books, i find more that i can relate to. as i mentioned earlier, i used to think that i might be schizophrenic due to my delusions and hallucinations. but just the other day as i was doing more research about did for my character, i found out that its possible for systems and plurals to often struggle with those things. and my brain went down a deep rabbit hole, like, well fuck shit balls, could i possibly be plural? did my trauma fuck me up that much???

as i went down that rabbit hole, i realized that i dont remember a lot of my childhood. i remember a few specific memories, most of which are either traumatic or just funny memories that ive told as stories numerous times. other than that, i know next to nothing. i also have times where i cant remember shit about anything. my name, my age, my address, what schools ive gone to, what school i go to now, what i did ten hours ago, what i did five seconds ago, et cetera. ive also noticed that im constantly remembering those things wrong. "how old are you?" someone could ask. "im thirteen years old," ill say, then correct myself, "no, wait, im x years old." ive even said that im seven years old when im in fact much older than that. people could ask me, "what's your name?" and ill answer with something that's not my name. could be a nickname from school, a nickname from the many summer camps ive gone to, my pen name for my books, or a random name in general. and there are so many examples that i could give.

back to my doing research stuff for my character, i was going through one website when i found an infographic. it was a simple thing; just five common symptoms of dissociative identity disorder. it listed...

~ inability to remember large portions of your childhood

~ out-of-body experiences, hallucinations, and/or flashbacks

~ suicidal thoughts or self-harm

~ differences in handwriting and changing levels of functioning

~ episodes of memory loss

if i dont experience them now, ive experienced all of them before. the first one, i just mentioned. the second one happens all of the fucking time. the third one happens on a daily basis. the first half of the fourth i haven't really noticed, but the second half is very true. and i just talked about the fifth one.

i dont know if i just have some type of dissociative disorder or im just crazy. but i cant get it out of my head that i might be a system or a system in early development. (dont really know how to explain what i mean by "in early development," but ill try to: what i mean is that im in the early developing stages where dissociation starts happening frequently and alters start forming, but switches arent possible yet.) that or ive been forcing myself---if i am plural and in denial---to act like a normal person, just like ive been doing with autism and adhd.

do you have any advice on how to figure out if im a system or not??? i dont have access to a therapist or psychologist due to my parents not believing in mental illness and things like that.

sorry, we've just stopped accepting am I plural asks, so this one goes out to the public

also, here's our resources for questioning systems