#like i should. but i've just kind of accepted that it's fucked forever. when symptoms progress i'm like 'eh. it be like that sometimes'

[crimeronan]

i keep being like "i bet hunter's nervous system is Fucked after the possession, he's almost definitely feeling phantom pain in his scars because of the damaged nerves underneath & he 100% thinks it's psychosomatic. this kid is gonna go years without getting his underlying shit sorted because of his complete inability to tell when pain is 'a problem'" & then i google neuropathic pain so i can indulge these thoughts accurately & google is like "heyyy girl. how's it going haha. so, like. have you scheduled an appointment for your bum leg yet,"

[damnfandomproblems]

Below the cut is all of the responses that were in the inbox related to Fandom Problem 3954 and the subsequent asks. These will be all of the ones that were sent as anonymous.

The following ask came in on April 19:

I just want to say I appreciate the DID asks on this blog. It was a nice sanity check for me. One of my friend's kids who is in high school got sucked into it, he started "switching" at 17, and she's getting him to go to therapy to find the source of the problem, but he's apparently really argumentative with the psychologist and keeps insisting he only has DID, for very wrong reasons. Symptoms that don't match any kind of DID I've seen. His mum was really careful to find someone who was familiar with DID, I know she wouldn't send him to someone who doesn't know what they're doing because shes amazingly good with google-fu, so it can't be because the psychologist doesn't know what DID is or how to spot it. For a while the whole thing made me feel a bit crazy because his obviously fake symptoms and onset (?) didn't match how adamant he was that he had DID, I was starting to believe him too. I want to thank the asks for resetting my perspective. He certainly needs help it just isn't going to be help for DID.

Here are the ones from April 17 and they are out of order because of how I added them from the inbox:

1:

I'm in college and know multiple people who are barely even minors anymore who just started faking tourette's out of the blue. One day they just showed up and started doing tics. Obviously fake tics for that reason, also because it's obvious they have a brief "wind up" period before them when they look like they're contemplating just how to pull off tics. They're all neck tics and arm tics too, nothing is ugly or painful. So I can confirm a lot more people are faking these things than people think. Dhar Mann even made a good skit about it because it's such a popular thing for kids (even college age adults who have trouble making connections and getting attention) to do

2:

Oh god this is syscourse

It shows up on my dash once in a blue moon and I never have any idea that the fuck people are taking about. All I know is it has two sides who both despise each other and years of grudges

3:

just wanna say that i'm glad most people here seem to have sensible takes regarding the "DID" boom online

4:

As someone who knows someone who uses a system and has DID, the anon that said they were not responsible for making someone feel safe in the discord server is awful.

That anon makes my blood boil because it literally happened to my friend who has a system. My friend's fictive is part of who they are, and it is them. They have the right to feel uncomfortable when people do strange things with the character the fictive is.

In my friend's case, they had been in that server before the rper had joined. But the server mods decided to take my friend's "character rights" away since they said "technically you aren't rping as the character, so someone else can have them." Would you all agree with the mods in this case?

Y'all saying people with systems who are uncomfortable with how people portray characters that are their fictives should just accept it do not get it.

Would you be okay with someone portraying a real life person in a different way?

Would you be okay with people rping as real people?

If the answer is no to both of these, then y'all should understand why people with fictives feel uncomfortable with people portraying their ficitives in such ways.

5:

Replying to a comment on 714814266546470912: "that doctor literally took videos from their tiktoks without permission" Bruh, first off, someone does not need permission to share something that was posted publicly on a public website. Once you post something to the internet, it's fair game. This is why adults tell you to never put something online unless you want it to be there forever, because once it's up, it's up for good, and people can save it, share it, edit it, however they want. If someone has posted selfies on the internet, someone has probably saved them, for whatever reason, because they thought the pictures were cute, because they're collecting dirt on them, etc, and even if that's not the case, the data will always be there. Maybe it's not pristine ethics to share videos of minors, young adults, etc with mental disorders (not DID, obviously they have something else like factitious disorder), but it's not illegal at all. And if you actually watched the video (which I doubt), you would know the doctor, faculty, etc had covered all legal bases by repeatedly saying they cannot diagnose anyone over the internet or thought videos. Repeatedly. And they were strictly looking at the behaviors which they see regularly in people who fake, behaviors which are a strong indication (but, again for legal reasons, not a guarantee) someone is faking. They said this. You really need to brush up on your knowledge of laws, most of all in medicine, research, studies, etc and actually using nuanced thinking.

6:

Sorry to add to the fire but in my fandom I see LOTS of "traumagenic systems" (DID) who also claim to "support endos". That raises so many red flags too because if someone really did have DID and was well educated on it as a result, they would know how DID really works and they wouldn't in a hundred years support people who are pretending to have something with totally wrong, obvious fake symptoms and consider them "part of the community". I guess it makes it easy to know who to block though?

7:

I want to thank the person who sent 714815628520898560 for sharing that video, I watched it this morning during my shift and it was really insightful!! I learned a lot :)

8:

I’m thinking about Roman genius and Juno spirits, and also of the post made by EarlGrayTay about how the English language struggles with nuance, when it comes to degrees of intensity.

We don’t have a word for something between having some tulpas and having DID, and so people are saying they have the latter even when they don’t clinically qualify. I do think that in most cases people who self diagnose with DID are more likely to be closer to the tulpa end than the disordered end.

Also, as memory stuff is part of it, it’s entirely possible that the apparent excess of people with DID in fandom is because the nature of the internet allows for pseudo-sockpuppeting, with multiple personalities creating different accounts, potentially unaware of what the others, as memory is a big part of the diagnosis

9:

714820580417863680 2% of the world's population as of 2020 is 156 million people.

Say that again, slowly.

156 million people do not have DID.

10:

These asks are wild lol. My thoughts are, fine, maybe "endogenic systems" exist in the context of not being actual DID, but if someone really thinks they can have multiple identities or parts without having trauma to predicate that, well, I hate to say but that's basically a religious belief at that point, and not even remotely related to a medical disorder. The human brain usually has one continuous, cohesive identity. Unless, like someone already mentioned, you experience harrowing trauma in your early childhood. You can call yourself a tulpa, you can call yourself endogenic, you can believe you have fifty fictional introjects, five different Resident Evil characters living in your head, but that doesn't make it science. If you want endogenic systems to exist, call it what it is: a religion. And stop trying to bully and force your way into getting medicine to accept these ridiculous things, because it will never happen

11:

Got diagnosed with did in my 20s. Here’s a thing most of the issues I’ve had with the online system community in general. Also this phone im typing on doesn’t show text cause tumblr so ye spelling mistakes a plenty.

1: the whole community regardless of endo or traumagenic is kinds crap. Came to it for resources on how to manage things like persecutors and understand wtf was up. Covid was a wild time. Therapist officially diagnosed me in 21. Why is this important, cause the whole ass community hted endos or trauma or whatever and all unanimously hated tiktok

2: the whole fictive debate became even more dumb when there were 50 different i ndividaula claiming to be a fictive from genshin. Really weird. Cause the peeps in multiple communities threw a fit making those name close cultures. Personally i think it was due to so many fictives or some blue haired guy?

3: the fact people treated it like fictionkin something i thought i had because yknow issues with dissociation well the fictives got treated more like kinning

4: the biggest thing is the community allowed delusional attachments to become such a common place thing. I get it identity be fucky but its an issue when delusional attachment’s cone into play. Mainly cause most if not all system communities used carrds and tiktok as resources.

5 or 6? Cause phone be fucky: despite claiming to hate endos the community was nothyper critical to self dxing without reseach and minors self dxing. There’s a lotta reasons why it normally os pouring gasoline on a fire.

Finally most system communities are primarily white and it shows cause of how much they prioritize racial relations and closed cultures along with treating introjects like shit.

So the submission about bein a fictive whos tired of people treating em like they’re gonna be identical as the character iscorrect. Rampant problem

12:

Re: all this DID stuff and certain people digging in in the comments to defend what they're doing, I think it's interesting to contemplate not just why people do this for DID delusions, but also for fandom things in general because I think it applies to both (and to keep things a little more on topic, ha). I read a comment recently where someone was talking about personal truths, which are subjective feelings and beliefs, and social truths, which are laws and social constructs. When someone loves themselves and has confidence, they're able to maintain personal truths that may differ from other people without feeling threatened, and they can maintain those personal truths or values. This is what happens when someone has strong feelings about characters, or identifies with a character, but is able to witness people sharing opinions without going to war over them.

On the other hand, people who have insecurities and a lack of self confidence (or worth) will fight to make personal truths into social truths, to make up for that self loathing. They feel they can force society to accept their personal truths to make them feel comfortable, because they can't derive any actual comfort from simply existing with their personal truths that differ so much from social truths. This is what happens when you have, like a lot of confessions lately have mentioned, people bullying others over headcanons, calling them bigots for not sharing a gay ship or something. Or when people have low self-esteem and might be struggling with mental health problems, and are trying desperately to find answers and find self-worth, but have accidentally opted for something that is not a social truth, but a personal truth (believing they have DID when it is very obviously not), and so they fight tooth and nail to make that warped version of DID into something officially recognized. That is the only way they can get validation beyond their bubble. I think it's a growing problem not only because it seems like the world is kinda imploding right now and people need some kind of stability, when personal truths may not suffice for that because of the above issues with self-confidence or insecurities, but also because we've reached the point where kids are growing up without ever NOT having known social media, and they have near-constant access to that social media, which makes for an increasingly bad precedent. Not just for kids, adults with underdeveloped coping strategies are susceptible too.

13:

I'm pleasantly surpirsed by the convo around DID here, because I read the post and was half expecting a horde of endogenic or willowgenic or (word)genic systems to come stampeding in here calling everyone ableists lol, I'm kinda relieved there hasn't been a bunch of that

14:

Honestly laughing at how a word like sysmed exists. Are people "sadmeds" or "anhemeds" for telling someone they're faking depression? Are people "schizomeds" for saying people are faking schizophrenia? This is absurd and it's ao fricking offensive to compare the above to being a transmedicalist.

[barbierpt]

fc banning is an interesting convo for sure and i think very difficult to find a good end result to. i was in a group where for example chris evans was banned, but the admin played a fc with a loooonngg history of racist jokes and comments. which to me didn't make sense bc by their own metrics their fc would be banned too? and it is a symptom of rp over policing, where fcs will be banned forever bc they liked a bad tweet in 2013 or their former costar did whatever. but popular fcs get a pass for the same antics. but at the same time a fc isn't always just a fc for me. idk as a black person i don't have the privilege to overlook someones fcs blackface or slur usage for the sake of a character. that shit cuts deep and i dont just move on. everyone does have different triggers or issues but do i want to be in a group where a fc has a long history of gross anti blackness? do i choose to leave when someone joins with an actor who hates poc or tell the admins so they deny the app? i honestly dont know. i guess lol what i'm saying is that aside from fcs who did really gross shit i just don't know how a universal line can be drawn that is fair and keeps it an environment for all but also not over policing. i think i just hate how far the pendulum has swung. sorry for the rant

don't apologize at all, i really enjoyed reading your "rant," anon!! i think everything you said was super interesting just as this topic is. i've noticed a lot like that where there's hypocrisy and performative activism when it comes to fc banning and does it really do anything to evoke change in the real world? not that i can tell. all it does is make a few people feel more comfortable, some might not care, and others might be annoyed by it. it's not an action i've learned that everyone will be happy about.

at that point, it's what you choose to do as an individual about it. everyone's entitled to their own opinions and feelings about this topic so if a fc that you find triggering is accepted into the group and the admin tells you to suck it up, then yeah, i wouldn't think that's a great place to be in and you can find something better.

i'm personally of the mindset that my groups ban fcs on personal comfort levels. i remember when the armie hammer shit went down, we had a player using his fc who came to us asking what he should do. we consulted in the group ooc and our members basically all reached the consensus that the claims were absolutely fucked up and gross but no one was so uncomfortable we felt the need to force a fc change for the player's character. ultimately, the player made that choice themselves because they personally were uncomfortable with the claims enough and how fresh they were, they would rather have a new fc and we allowed it.

i kind of think that's a direction to look into perhaps as a solution, banning fcs based on personal experience and listening to members when they speak up about something. even if it's just one person, it's worth hearing out.

[loren-ipsen]

the old story:

I love him, I feel so alone.

He doesn't think anyone has anything to offer him. I'm not his equal in his mind or life. He's so ready for me to leave that he's pushing me to the door.

He thinks he has it all figured out. It's such an arrogant thing to think. I can see so clearly how far he has to go and he insists this awful state and matching coping mechanisms are the end and it will be this way forever.

It's so unfair to me. I want to be there for him but I'm so tired and I'm going through my own stuff too. And when I am, I feel so neglected by him. That he's not on my team, has no support to offer me, has no understanding, wouldn't ever want to accommodate my emotional needs.

Why should I always have to lift everyone up while I feel this horrible deadly feeling every day? I wanted to be in a relationship with someone attentive and thoughtful and humble and positive. Someone mature enough to know things change and no situation is ever permanent. Someone mature enough to love deeply, to love and take care of themself and their body because if you can't do that, you can't do it for anyone else.

He will always get defensive. Nothing hurts more. He doesn't think I'm wise, he doesn't think I'm smart, he thinks he knows everything and I don't. But he's still in this trauma survival state. And to act like he is farther along than me and knows more than me and everything I've been through he's had it worse... I don't want that relationship. I wanted someone different.

I want to go home on awful awful days like these to someone who acts way nicer and is more respectful and humble and empathetic. It feels like he has selfishly claimed that slot in my life so that I can't search for any other relationship of this nature, the thing I want most, yet he refuses to provide emotionally, refuses to recognize everything I do to pull him up and realize that I'm trying for him and that means something.

I will always make it by financially. Even when I was getting food out of dumpsters and pantries, even when I used a mobility aid for two years because work was so grueling, I made it by. I need something only another human could provide. And I believe in this. I believe in love. I believe in our ability to save each other.

He has this terrible habit that he has to one-up you, and I can't stand this about male culture. I will never tell anyone I have had it worse than them, I will not tell people that what they've been through doesn't matter and to get over it. I'm not one of his guy friends, why can't I ever just say something and he accepts it and doesn't compare it to his own thoughts or experiences? Why can't he just tell me what he's thinking and what he has been through? There is no competition, there is no fight.

Can't he accept that he is out now, that it is over and the recovery can begin? Why keep yourself bouncing between reliving those feelings and being in a state of shock where nothing gets done and you convince yourself that that's the answer all while wallowing and rotting in the sorrow and anger???

The sexism, the misogyny that surrounds me every day and saturates our culture and media is the disease. We won't eradicate it, we try like idiots to treat the symptom with metoo or whatever stupid bullshit. But no one tries to call each other out on perpetuating that kind of thinking. And that's what's responsible for Michael walking free, for any sexual abuse to anyone of any gender being allowed to happen. The way we assign asinine irrelevant meaning to how we are born. I will never allow racism, sexism, etc. in my presence no matter how casual. And I'll always be the snowflake idiot hysterical sensitive stick-in-the-mud girl because God for-fucking-bid anyone is afforded that same feeling of safety and life being worthwhile that comes so easily to the people on top.

I'm not a sensitive snowflake complainer. I'm a good, normal, competent person who gives a shit and the rest of you are so selfish, greedy, and foolish that you can't see past your own life into caring about others. You should be embarrassed and ashamed.

Please lord, if you hear me, heal all this. I'm so miserable in a home that should be my one place to be completely safe and loved. I'm tired of this old cyclical story.

[natandacat]

re: your school + covid post, i am currently in what seems like a very similar situation and i've felt really alone in it - i have to give up on my education for the forseeable future b/c my school, despite claiming to commit to ""accessible classrooms"", refuses to offer online options or even set a mask/vaccine mandate

so i just wanted to say that you're so fucking right and justified in what you're doing, and thank you for standing up for us. it's so hard being part of the people still caring/shouting about this, and it's harder when everyone is acting like it's fine. thank you so so much, and take care of yourself in this fight. solidarity forever ❤️

I am beyond happy that you sent this ask. We are far from being alone, in the past few weeks alone I have met countless people like us. The most conservative estimate I have seen is that about 5% of people who survive covid become severely disabled with long covid. This number is not accounting for people like my friend who didn't get long covid but has lost part of their taste. They will never get to enjoy food in the same way, and while it's not a disabling condition I don't believe that this kind of loss should be acceptable when it can be avoided.

How do I know of this conservative estimate? I got randomly selected to be part of a series of surveys commissioned by my country's government to help them make decisions regarding covid measures. The answers to those surveys heavily inform federal policies and directives. Lately, a new question in the survey has popped up:

Since that last survey, my governement has dropped all measures. Which means that most people answered a 3 or below to that question. This is extremely sobering to me but I have studied enough about past pandemics that I am not surprised by this. I knew what the results would be as I was filling the survey myself.

I have little to lose on my side of things, which is giving me the ability to want to fight. Hopefully, my new medication will give me enough energy to make noise in the upcoming month. If you want to dm me, please do so. I don't know if I have the means, but the only way out of this that I can see is activism. I am more than willing to help people negociate with their own university/workplace, and if we can't get anything from them, then I want to at least make our voices heard.

[Image ID: a screenshot from an official survey that reads: "Post-COVID condition - also known as long COVID - occurs when someone continues to experience physical or psychological symptoms more than 12 weeks after getting COVID-19. If you knew that 5 per cent of people infected with COVID-19 go on to experience long COVID, would you be more or less supportive of stricter public health measures?" The answers are ranked from 1. "Much less supportive" to 5. "Much more supportive", with 3. "Neither more nor less supportive" being the middle. There is also a "Don't know/No response" answer.)

[loren-ipsen]

the old story:

I love him, I feel so alone.

He doesn't think anyone has anything to offer him. I'm not his equal in his mind or life. He's so ready for me to leave that he's pushing me to the door.

He thinks he has it all figured out. It's such an arrogant thing to think. I can see so clearly how far he has to go and he insists this awful state and matching coping mechanisms are the end and it will be this way forever.

It's so unfair to me. I want to be there for him but I'm so tired and I'm going through my own stuff too. And when I am, I feel so neglected by him. That he's not on my team, has no support to offer me, has no understanding, wouldn't ever want to accommodate my emotional needs.

Why should I always have to lift everyone up while I feel this horrible deadly feeling every day? I wanted to be in a relationship with someone attentive and thoughtful and humble and positive. Someone mature enough to know things change and no situation is ever permanent. Someone mature enough to love deeply, to love and take care of themself and their body because if you can't do that, you can't do it for anyone else.

He will always get defensive. Nothing hurts more. He doesn't think I'm wise, he doesn't think I'm smart, he thinks he knows everything and I don't. But he's still in this trauma survival state. And to act like he is farther along than me and knows more than me and everything I've been through he's had it worse... I don't want that relationship. I wanted someone different.

I want to go home on awful awful days like these to someone who acts way nicer and is more respectful and humble and empathetic. It feels like he has selfishly claimed that slot in my life so that I can't search for any other relationship of this nature, the thing I want most, yet he refuses to provide emotionally, refuses to recognize everything I do to pull him up and realize that I'm trying for him and that means something.

I will always make it by financially. Even when I was getting food out of dumpsters and pantries, even when I used a mobility aid for two years because work was so grueling, I made it by. I need something only another human could provide. And I believe in this. I believe in love. I believe in our ability to save each other.

He has this terrible habit that he has to one-up you, and I can't stand this about male culture. I will never tell anyone I have had it worse than them, I will not tell people that what they've been through doesn't matter and to get over it. I'm not one of his guy friends, why can't I ever just say something and he accepts it and doesn't compare it to his own thoughts or experiences? Why can't he just tell me what he's thinking and what he has been through? There is no competition, there is no fight.

Can't he accept that he is out now, that it is over and the recovery can begin? Why keep yourself bouncing between reliving those feelings and being in a state of shock where nothing gets done and you convince yourself that that's the answer all while wallowing and rotting in the sorrow and anger???

The sexism, the misogyny that surrounds me every day and saturates our culture and media is the disease. We won't eradicate it, we try like idiots to treat the symptom with metoo or whatever stupid bullshit. But no one tries to call each other out on perpetuating that kind of thinking. And that's what's responsible for Michael walking free, for any sexual abuse to anyone of any gender being allowed to happen. The way we assign asinine irrelevant meaning to how we are born. I will never allow racism, sexism, etc. in my presence no matter how casual. And I'll always be the snowflake idiot hysterical sensitive stick-in-the-mud girl because God for-fucking-bid anyone is afforded that same feeling of safety and life being worthwhile that comes so easily to the people on top.

I'm not a sensitive snowflake complainer. I'm a good, normal, competent person who gives a shit and the rest of you are so selfish, greedy, and foolish that you can't see past your own life into caring about others. You should be embarrassed and ashamed.

Please lord, if you hear me, heal all this. I'm so miserable in a home that should be my one place to be completely safe and loved. I'm tired of this old cyclical story.