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mournfall-syscourse · 7 days ago

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@anomalymon Hey there!

Responding to your reply in a reblog so that it's easier to see (and frankly because I had a lot more to write than would reasonably be useful to have in a reply thread). I'll be going through your reply paragraph by paragraph. I'll include a screenshot of your reply at the bottom of the post as well, for clarity.

First Paragraph:

Persecutors are indeed a spectrum! I don't think I really said anything against that fact. I even provided examples of some possible variations of how persecutors can present themselves. Sure, I could have listed more and gone into detail. However, the post was already quite long, I wanted to avoid it being more of a wall of text than it already is.

As far as headmates being mentally ill and potentially being labelled as persecutors. I do mention that persecutor as a label can be misattributed to alters who don't necessarily fit it. I gave a different example, but yours also could fit. We apply the label of persecutor to our own alters (myself included) with compassion, and purpose. It's a tool to help us, not a tool to label an alter as "bad".

As far as headmates who were or are extremely abusive towards other headmates, I do make direct mention of some of our persecutors (who are still acting in their role) who have done some horrific things to us internally. I didn't go into depth on how they've done that, I simply said "hurting us internally, quite drastically". I don't want to go into the specifics of that, because frankly it could be very triggering to read about, even if we were comfortable talking about it in that depth. My point being, is that I fully understand the perspective of having persecutors who abuse other headmates. It sucks. It's painful. And it's very easy to slip into hating them and treating them like shit because of it. Honestly, we struggled with it at first, we lashed out at them in return, in the ways that we could.

Eventually we realised that they were doing what they were doing for a reason. Some persecutors knew that from the get-go (and were definitely the easiest to work with to solve the problem), while others didn't - from their perspective they were hurting us because they wanted to, because it was fun, to them. And yeah, that's a painful thing to process and work through. To still treat them as a person, to be willing to forgive them. To not just see them as a monster. We've had such a persecutor retraumatise some of our most vulnerable alters at the time. It was awful. So, I get it. I do. We are not speaking from inexperience, here.

Response continues below the cut:

Second Paragraph:

System responsibility. Alright. This might be a long one. Is it a hard rule? No. It's important, and if you don't work on trying to do it, then you'll likely get in a bit of trouble with people, or even the law, depending on the actions that people in your system take. There is nuance. I, frankly, do not really believe that many things truly lack nuance. It's everywhere. System responsibility is no exception.

I said as much in the post, but we are a system that uses both a separate-people viewpoint and a parts viewpoint for our system. These viewpoints, while they might seem contradictory at times, actually can work together quite well, and they do for us. We used to be entirely separate-people-focused, for our system, but added in the parts-focused side of things later on, without detracting from the separate-people side of things.

We know what it's like to have separate people within the system who have (sometimes drastically) different viewpoints and opinions on different things. It varies, and we have discussions around those different viewpoints when they come up, if they seem necessary. Other times, we agree to disagree. When two or more viewpoints are in conflict with one another, we try to find a suitable compromise. One that makes sense, and it's worked out as a system, with those that run the system (leaders, the more responsible ones, etc.) generally organising and facilitating that.

System responsibility has the nuance that it isn't necessarily up to every individual alter to practice it. That's just frankly not always possible. A highly vulnerable alter may very well struggle to participate properly in system responsibility, like apologising for another alter's actions, and trying to make amends. System responsibility is something to be done as a collective.

For instance, if one of our alters (persecutor or otherwise, sometimes people are just being an ass for a bit, for various reasons) lashed out a friend of ours, said some hurtful things to them, it is the responsibility of the rest of us, as a collective, to apologise to that friend, to try and make amends, regardless of whether or not the offending alter is willing to do that themself. It's also our responsibility to try and limit the possibility of that happening again. Sometimes that's giving a warning to the friend that they're coming out, to make sure they're not going into a potentially rough chat without warning, or to give them the chance to take a step back, if they feel that's safest. Other times that might be finding a way to restrict the actions of that alter, or to be ready to stop them, etc. if something were to happen. It varies. It has nuance. There are too many possible examples for me to include here.

An alter like one of our littles, who is more akin to a child, might struggle to do more than an apology, in the above example, and may not fully understand the situation. Another of our littles who does have a better understanding of things and is emotionally intelligent, might be able to, in the same way that a more adult alter - particularly a protector or caretaker - might be more suited to acting on taking that responsibility for our collective. For making those amends, for pushing for steps to be made within our system to avoid that happening again.

System responsibility is not designed to be victim-blamey. For starters, it primarily applies to the impact these actions have external to the system itself. How you (as a collective) impact other people, how things apply in regards to the law, etc. - You share a body, a brain. You're separate people, but you still have a responsibility of a shared life, together. You have a responsibility with regards to the actions of one another.

If another alter does something hurtful to someone else, be it a friend to the system, or a stranger - is that your (as a different alter to the one who caused harm) fault? No. You didn't do the action. You are not to blame for that action. However, you still must take responsibility for the effect that the action has. Maybe not you specifically, within your system. But someone in your system needs to. If you don't, that itself is a choice.

And there are consequences to that choice, too. A friend you hurt might not want to talk to you for a while, or at all. With a stranger, it may not be as big of a deal to you, though it could result in a reputation for not taking that responsibility. In the case of anything against the law, then your body, your collective, still must face the consequences for the actions. There's no way for a justice system to actually function properly with regards to attempting to punish individual alters for something they did, so system responsibility is required in that way.

Now, looking at in-system abuse, with regards to system responsibility. This is a tricky one, as the system responsibility often is with regards to indirect effects from the persecutor's actions. We ourselves have made mistakes with this, even somewhat recently. We lost a friend over it, actually (they've since returned, luckily, but we still need to make amends for the hurt we caused). One of our persecutors (one that we actually don't have a resolution with, as I mentioned in the original post) regularly messes with us, emotionally. Hurts us quite a bit. This then has resulted in one of their victims in our system proceeding to unintentionally hurt someone they care about deeply, because of their emotional state. The fault falls on both the persecutor, as the instigator, and the alter who did the actual hurting, regardless of their emotional state. We cannot control our emotions, but we can control our actions in response to them. This was not something that was an uncontrolled trauma response, this was a heightened emotion that was acted on irresponsibly.

As a collective, we faced the (somewhat deserved) consequence of that friend stepping away from us entirely, for a year. There's more nuance to it than that, that I won't go into detail about, but that was the consequence that our friend decided was best, to protect themself and heal from the damage we (as a collective) had done to them, through this alter's actions. We have to (and have been) take responsibility for that hurt, and trying to make amends for it, especially now that we have been given a chance to, by our friend getting in contact with us again. They didn't have to do that, either. They had every right to not want to talk to us ever again. Those of us who hadn't done anything to hurt them still had to face and accept those consequences, as part of the responsibility that comes with being a system.

It hurt, I won't lie. System responsibility is not something that is necessarily easy. It can be really hard, especially when you do have very separate-person viewpoints, to feel like it's okay that the actions of someone else within the system can have repercussions that affect you, and that it is actually fair for those repercussions and consequences to affect those of us who didn't do the hurting.

Try comparing it to being on, say, a competition team with other people. If one of the members on the team cheats in a contest, then the whole team gets disqualified. Did the other members cheat? No. Maybe they didn't even know the cheating happened until it was revealed by the competition organisers/adjudicators. Regardless, the team gets disqualified. Even those that did nothing wrong. They all have to face the consequences of that, they all have to take responsibility for that, by trying to fix the offending team member's behaviour, or taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.

With a system, you can't kick a person off the team. Not really. Some systems might be "able" to, but from our experience that tends to have long-term consequences that will make things worse down the line. Sometimes it's necessary, and it's a tough decision when that happens, but it's not one to be done lightly. You must be prepared to face the consequences of that, too. And in some cases it won't be possible at all.

As people, we have a responsibility to manage the impact that our actions have on other people. Regardless of whether or not the cause of it is our fault - it's not our fault that we have the disorders we have. Sometimes our actions aren't under our control. And that's not necessarily our fault, either. But it's our responsibility to deal with the aftermath, the fallout, from those actions.

Going to stop there for that one, I've said a lot, and I hope I've gotten the point across.

Third Paragraph:

Okay. So this has a few points to address. Yes, they're people. Any abuser is also a person. Regardless of what a person does, to anyone, they are still a person, and should be treated as such. Not going to go into that debate, but it's an important baseline to start with.

With an abuser external to your body, you can (ideally) walk away, get away from them, otherwise prevent them from impacting you. When you're looking at internally abusive alters/headmates, however, you don't have that luxury. There's also the difference in regards to how things function. An external abuser's reasons don't have anything to do with you, ultimately. It's all about them, who they are as a person, their choices in regards to what they have done, or how they've handled the aftermath. They have the same responsibility for their own actions that you do for yours. And you have the right to provide consequences for that (i.e. getting the fuck away from them, maybe getting them in legal trouble, if applicable, etc.). For an internal, in-system abuser, it's different. They are sharing your brain, your body.

From the lens of a Complex Dissociative Disorder such as DID or OSDD-1, alters are typically created with some amount of purpose. There is a reason for why they were made, or why they were changed, to be how they are. Their building blocks. They can still be fully separate people to the others in the system (ours are), but there's still an underlying reason as to why they exist. It's why we as a community find ways to describe these purposes. We assign role labels, to help figure out what an alter is there for, what situations they might be helpful to have around in, who to call on in certain situations, etc.

A protector is formed to keep the system (or certain people within the system) safe, to defend them. A caretaker is there to look after vulnerable people within the system, and perhaps even external dependents of the system. A trauma holder is formed to, well, hold trauma away from the rest of the system. To maintain a barrier. A personification of that. These are broad generalisations, they don't need to be taken too literally.

A persecutor, in turn, is typically formed as a self-destructive tendency, a maladaptive coping mechanism, a personification of trauma that cannot be dealt with by containment like a trauma holder would, or a highlighter of a problem - or smoke detector, as you will. These can overlap. These can go into far more detail than this. "Personification of trauma that cannot be dealt with by containment" on its own can cover so many things, like perpetuating abuse that the system has suffered outwardly, but internally, or a representation of self-victim-blaming for what has been suffered. Many more than that. There is a reason behind it. The persecutor themself may not be aware of it, on a conscious level. It varies.

Having persecutors doesn't mean you necessarily need to forgive them. I'm not going to deny the hurt that some can cause. I've caused my fair share of hurt within my own system, as the people that became me. Some within the system are still upset with me for it. They don't forgive me. They don't have to. They still treat me as a person, though. They understand that it's complicated, that there's reasons for why I am the way I am, that I am a product of our disorder. I still did those things, I'm still at fault for them, and it's entirely possible I'll cause more hurt if I ever end up leaning into those persecutorial tendencies again - something I don't entirely have control over. In turn, I've been hurt by other persecutors myself, and in some cases I've been able to forgive, and even become friends, with those that hurt me. In other cases, I've kept my distance, not forgiven, even while accepting who they are, why they are. Even if I don't actually know the answers to why they do what they do, sometimes.

Nuance applies to persecutors too, just as much as it applies to system responsibility. You (general you for this paragraph) understand that persecutors are people, yes, but are you applying nuance to them? Or are you just labelling them an abuser and leaving it there? Are you looking into what's happening underneath their actions? Where those are coming from? This isn't easy to do, and I'm not going to fault you for having difficulty doing that. It is very challenging. It's very normal to want to be angry, to want to hurt them back. To want to make them feel the same way they made you feel.

And honestly, I've acted on those feelings before. I (or one of the people who became me, rather) tortured one of our persecutors in the past, because of what they did to many of us. It felt good, at the time. Satisfying. Now, though, I wish I hadn't. It didn't actually achieve anything except make me feel better in the moment. That persecutor and I are friends, now, we've gotten past our differences. It took time, discussion, both of us understanding the other's perspective. We chose to forgive each other. We didn't have to, there's nothing forcing us to, and it would have been okay if we didn't - though I imagine we would not be friends now, if we hadn't.

I worry that if you just use persecutor as a synonym for "abusive alter", then you'll not see them as anything more than that. And that will hinder your ability to manage the situation that is the reason the persecutor exists in the first place.

Fourth Paragraph:

Now, I'm going to immediately preface this by saying that (to our knowledge) we do not have OCD. We know people with it, systems and singlets alike, however we do not have first-hand experience with it.

I will address the wording choice to start with. "... being told that in-headspace abusers is a warning of something ..." - 'Warning'. I'm not sure why you chose to use that word. When I discussed persecutors highlighting problems, shining a light on them, serving as a detector for them, in some way (and, I'll add here, being a personification of a problem - something I didn't include in the original post, but perhaps should have, though I did note that there was more nuance to it than I could put into words at the time), I did not say they're a "warning". They're not really meant to be a threat in the warning sense. Some can be, sure, but it's not all.

I've noticed a few times in your reply that you seem to think that I was completely ignoring nuance with regards to different types of persecutors, that I didn't consider that there's a spectrum. I didn't use the exact wording of there being a 'spectrum', but I don't entirely understand how it could be taken that I was applying everything to every persecutor, when I explicitly gave examples of different possible types and presentations of persecutors. I also voiced that there was additional nuance that I didn't include, or other possibilities, etc. As I said earlier, I couldn't possibly have accounted for every possible variation within a blog post. I do think that the fundamentals still generally encompass most if not all parts of that spectrum, but it may require some amount of critical thinking to work out exactly how things do and don't apply to different presentations within that spectrum. I tried to keep things broad enough to generally be applicable. Specifics would limit that.

To continue about the use of 'warning', an example of some of our persecutors that I made in the post, about them giving us a heads-up when they're getting a target in their sights, is more about how we've been able to manage the problem that they're indicative of, that they're shining a light on. They give us that warning, so that we can find a healthier solution to the problem they're seeing. Ideally, they don't have to act, at all, in the end, once their heads-up is given. I was not stating that all persecutors function as a 'warning'. A smoke detector, a fire alarm, is not so much a warning of something to come, so much as an alert that something is wrong now. A persecutor being active in their persecutorial behaviours is that alert going off. A persecutor that isn't currently acting persecutorially might be more of a warning system. A smoke detector that hasn't yet detected the smoke.

Ultimately, the point of a lot of the post, especially when you consider that persecutors are created for a reason, and they often provide a beacon, a signal, an alarm, detector, etc. for that reason, the underlying problem that needs to be resolved, was to encourage looking into the why of a persecutor. Again, importantly, this isn't to deny the hurt that a persecutor can cause. It's to try and resolve the underlying issue. You don't have to forgive the persecutor. But working on the problem in the first place is going to make things easier. The persecutor may do less harmful things. They may stop being a persecutor entirely. They may remain as a detector for if things get bad again, becoming more persecutorial again if the situation arises again. A cooperative persecutor in that position can give you that warning in advance, so that you can work on things before they start setting stuff on fire again, so to speak.

So, the hurt they can cause. Exotrauma, and headmate to headmate abuse. These things are very real to deal with. And they can come with their own problems to deal with afterwards. Acknowledging that a persecutor has a purpose within the system, and that they themselves are people, doesn't deny that. It doesn't minimise that. Just like any other trauma, those are things that will need to be managed, recovered from (if that's the path you're seeking), etc. And just like any other trauma, you have a responsibility for managing how that trauma's impact on you affects the people around you. This stuff is hard. It's not your fault that you got hurt. It's not your fault that it's traumatised you further. You're allowed to blame the persecutor for hurting you. There's nothing saying that you can't.

Exotrauma, both pre-arrival in a system and as a result of headspace events (like headmate to headmate abuse), is a complicated thing on its own. Often it can be very representative, symbolic, of things related to the body's trauma. Other times it's its own separate things. Working that out, not an easy task and not one that we ourselves are particularly good at. The distinction can help with working out the underlying issue that the persecutor is acting in relation to, but not always. Either way, exotrauma can be just as painful as the trauma the body has faced. I'm not going to deny or minimise that at all.

With regards to your mention of OCD, and internally-harmful persecutors having a purpose for why they exist (paraphrasing your wording, to retain the original intent from the original post). I think it's very important to be careful with how that is interpreted. It does not mean that every piece of harm that the persecutor does is going to have that purpose. That very much depends on the persecutor in question, and the problem that they're representing. And even if that harm does have a purpose, that doesn't remove the possibility that there are other, better, ways of achieving that purpose, that aren't harmful.

For some of our persecutors, their actions have indeed had a specific purpose - and even succeeded in that purpose. They caused additional harm through that, and we've found alternative ways to achieve the purpose of the persecutor's actions, without needing them to hurt us. Their hurt of us was not necessary. It was not a good way to go about it. It got our attention, sure. But having a conversation about the issue with us would have worked too.

Unfortunately, a CDD is a disorder, and our brain doesn't work in the most intelligent/wise of ways when it comes to managing trauma in healthy ways rather than purely with uncontrolled trauma responses. There's a lot of instinctive response, a lot of acting on hurt and pain. This is what it knows "works", to it, so that's why it defaults to that. Something that we work on in therapy, or with exercises, or even just our experiences and how we approach the problems our persecutors represent, to try and teach our brain to manage things in a healthier way. To communicate in a healthier way, that doesn't mean we have to get hurt. It's a process. We have a long way to go with it. But we've also noticed the progress we've made since then, that our brain is more inclined to try healthier approaches (even if it still hurts us on a regular basis anyway).

Likewise, the hurt, abuse, exotrauma, etc. that you've suffered at the hands of your own persecutors, is not necessary. It's a method, one that may not even be successful in what the brain is trying to achieve. You do not deserve this suffering.

To use the smoke detector metaphor again. The shrill beeping, the alarm itself. That's painful. It hurts. It won't shut up, it won't stop. It's giving you a headache. But it's telling you that there's a fire. There's smoke. There's alternative ways it could communicate this, but it's designed to be done in a way that is noticeable, so that you can get out of the house or put out the fire, etc. Sometimes there is no fire. Sometimes the smoke is just from someone burning something in the kitchen. Sometimes these detectors are over-sensitive. Sometimes they malfunction and go off when there's no smoke at all, be it because of a fault in how they were made, or because their battery is dying. If they do get set off by a small fire, or a bunch of smoke from something burning, it takes a while to get them to stop beeping, because you have to clear out the smoke from the house, so that it stops detecting anything.

I'll stop there, for this part. I'd rather not chime in too much on the OCD side of things, I think other people can do a better job of that than me. I apologise if anything I have said on that part of it has been insensitive, or based on an inaccurate understanding of how the disorder functions, and best practices for how to manage it.

Fifth Paragraph:

This seemed more like a footnote, rather than a specific paragraph or argument. I still wish to address it and respond to it.

Yes, the use of neutral/inclusive language and sysconversation tags were deliberate. I want to acknowledge systems of various experiences. The post is more related to CDD experiences, as I don't know to what extent this discussion would apply to systems that are not structurally affected by trauma.

As far as systems that see themselves as separate people. I've said earlier in this response to you that our system has separate-people viewpoints and parts viewpoints, simultaneously. To exclude separate-people viewpoints in this discussion would partially exclude our own experiences. I do think there are pros and cons to managing persecutors, for each viewpoint, and having both viewpoints ourselves allows us to pick the approach that feels best, or mix and match things, in whatever way we feel will help us the best with the situation at hand.

Separate-people viewpoints help a lot with treating persecutors as people. Systems often have a lot of symbolism going on. In some ways, I think that's one of the advantages to being a system, over being a singlet. Dealing with a difficult emotion, a hurt, is metaphysical. A concept. You can't easily reason with a concept. A person, on the other hand, the personification of that concept, is far easier. There's a personality, a sense of self, of reason, behind it. You can have a conversation, argue, reason, show them alternatives. Collaborate. This applies to many areas of being a system, but we find it's most helpful with our persecutors. They're a person, with a core to their being. A why.

Parts viewpoints help with considering the ways in which alters work as mechanisms within the system. My part is to carry certain hurts, act on them to regulate them, but also to assist with regulating deep emotional hurt and pain. I'm quiet acceptance. These parts of what I am for the system influence a massive part of how I experience life and the world around me, and how I interact with it. They influence my emotional state, where I fit in with the system. I've recently found a lot of joy in figuring out what my part is, for us as a collective. Parts viewpoints also, I think, make it easier to consider system responsibility. We, as alters, are each parts of the collective system. We have a responsibility to each other, and to those in our life, to keep each other in check, to manage conflicts, even if we didn't cause them. We're connected to each other. Each of us are necessary parts of the system.

And both of these viewpoints can function side-by-side. We are separate people, as well as parts of a greater whole. Each individual part, person, alter, is not "less than". And as a collective, we are not "more than", either. We just, are. We're us. Our individuality is something we celebrate and take enjoyment in, while our place in the system, our parts, are equally celebrated and enjoyed. We live life together, as friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances, but also as parts of a connected self. Many selves, and also one. Some of these concepts might seem like they conflict on paper. And sure, maybe they do. But we're not working with laws of physics here. We can have paradoxes. Quantum states of being two different things simultaneously. Psychology doesn't have hard and fast rules or laws, and honestly, that's one of its strengths.

The original reply, for referencing:

[Image ID: Reply from user anomalymon, which reads:

"I think it is worth mentioning that persecutors are a spectrum. We have headmates who were just mentally ill and might be labeled as persecutors, and we have headmates who were extremely abusive towards other headmates.

The way system responsibility is treated in general feels off to us like it being treated as a hard rule with zero nuance that some of us are separate human beings with different views and opinions, and the nature of system responsibility within the community created a mental minefield and made so many headmates completely stop fronting out of guilt), but in this case, it also comes across as a bit victim-blamey when applied to ALL persecutors including those that harm other headmates. It's not the fault of a headmate for being abused by another headmate. It also doesn't help that as were finding, in-system abuse is a very taboo topic.

Likewise, I do understand they're people, but also so is any other abuser. In our case they might have had their reasons for their actions, but people were still hurt and the victims don't need to forgive them.

We also have OCD and being told that in-headspace abusers is a warning of something is… probably not great. I do understand where this is coming from, but as I said, persecutors are a spectrum and I don't know if this is the best way to handle a topic that might involve genuine exotrauma and headmate to headmate abuse. Again though with topics of system responsibility and the black and white views within the community, that can be a bit of an OCD minefield, but also I can see this as an issue with those with complex headspaces in general.

(Also assuming by neutral/inclusive langauge and sysconversation tags that this post is also trying to acknowledge systems that see themselves as separate people)" /.End ID]

Persecutors are Smoke Alarms/Detectors

We've seen some talk about persecutors in systems, or similar stuff, lately, both on Tumblr and in some Discord spaces. Alters/parts/headmates/etc. that do harmful things within and/or external to the system/collective, typically for maladaptive and trauma-influenced reasons (though figuring out those reasons is easier said than done).

For simplicity, I'll be (typically) referring to these kinds of alters as 'persecutors', the behaviour as 'persecutorial', and so on, within this post. If that's not a label you like personally, consider inserting a more comfortable (but still fitting) label in place of the word, as you read. Though perhaps this post may shift your perspective on the label in general.

Persecutors as a topic is one that is rather close to our heart, as a system that is frankly quite heavily built on them. For the majority of our knowledge of being a system (including what we know from before our syscovery), we have had persecutor hosts (our current primary host is not, but a lot of our system in general still are). Realisation of this, early on in our syscovery, resulted in us having a bit of a soft spot for persecutors, both within our own system and within those of other systems we've known. We've always tried to treat persecutors with compassion, and as little judgment as possible. We've made mistakes along the way, especially with our own persecutors - we're not perfect - but we do our best. But the importance of persecutors to us is part of why we're making this post in the first place.

This is, of course, our own opinions and related to our own experiences on the topic. Maybe some of this will be helpful to you, reading this, maybe other parts won't be. Take what's useful, and leave the rest. Maybe some of this will challenge your views - it can be a good thing for those views to be challenged. Either they'll be changed, hopefully for the better, or you'll reinforce those views through that challenge. Either way, I hope that it helps you to read this. We are a CDD (specifically DID) system, so this will be from the perspective of that - I don't know how much of this will be relevant to systems that do not have trauma influencing any part of their systemhood, but maybe it'll still be insightful.

To avoid this being a massive wall of text in the tags or dashboard, the rest of the post will be below the cut:

The main things related to this topic that we want to address or talk about are:

Stigmatisation and demonisation of persecutors

Shame around persecutors specifically, but also how it relates to shame around any "imperfect" behaviour that comes about due to mental health issues, and the damage it can cause for actually recovering or improving

System responsibility with regards to persecutors and other alters who do harmful things, as well as responsibility with regards to mental health in general

Approaches to persecutors that we've tried (or heard about from other systems), and in general our own experiences (past and present) with persecutors in our own system.

Labelling in general, and how many alters or behaviours are mis-labelled as persecutors when that doesn't necessarily fit

Definitions of persecutor/persecutorial behaviour, and the ways that the system community has shaped that, and the good and bad parts of that - as well as how we typically define persecutors (and their behaviour) for ourselves

A lot of these things are rather intertwined, so rather than discuss them entirely one at a time, they'll generally be interspersed within the post, though some may be focused more than others at different parts. The post is long, so I'll include some kind of heading for different sections, to make it less of a giant wall of text.

Stigmatisation & Demonisation of Persecutors, and the Impact of Shame

I do want to kick things off with the stigmatisation and demonisation of persecutors. It's a really, really common thing to see in system communities of treating persecutors as "evil" or "irredeemable". That they're just abusive, or terrible. That they should be locked away or gotten rid of. This is a massive problem. It pisses us off, frankly. It's also just harmful to everyone in the vicinity that has a persecutor in their system. Yes, even you.

And I get it. I get why persecutors are treated this way, especially when people aren't informed of why persecutors tend to happen. Why they do the things they do. People see them as a problem, someone hurting them or their friends, maybe even using their own body or voice to do it, etc. depending on how things manifest. It's a knee-jerk reaction. The problem comes about when things never progress past that knee-jerk reaction, though. When people just label persecutors as bad and that's that. When it's all about shame and hurt. When the compassion is completely left to the wayside.

I think this problem varies in different parts of the community. In our experience, it's been more common in communities that focus more on alters/headmates as individual, separate people - especially those where system responsibility between alters is not as strongly encouraged. Now, to be clear, I'm not saying that treating alters/headmates as individual separate people is a bad thing - our system started out exclusively with that viewpoint, and it's one we've remained comfortable with, while also adopting a parts-based viewpoint simultaneously (the two viewpoints don't actually conflict) - I'm just pointing out that the problem is more common within communities that have that focus. I've seen this problem occur in parts-focused communities, too, it's just less common, in our experience. I could probably make a whole other post about the thoughts we have on this on its own, but that's for another day.

So why is it harmful to just say that persecutors are evil or irredeemable and that's that? It puts up a wall. A roadblock. It shuts down any potential for recovery, as long as that wall remains. It disregards why persecutors happen, why they do what they do. It treats the symptom as the problem, instead of actually dealing with the problem that's causing it in the first place. It also disregards the possibility that the persecutor is actually helping the system. It shames the persecutor for existing, for being the way they are. It shames the system for having the persecutor. It's counter-productive.

Shame, as a whole, is a stopping force. It shuts things down. Pushes people into silence. Into hiding. Into stopping a behaviour. It's built on fear and rejection. There are situations where shame is a beneficial thing, though I think that's far rarer than the situations where it is actively harmful. How often has shame stopped you from speaking up about something? From seeking help? From talking about what's hurting you or how you're suffering? From feeling like it's okay to make mistakes, to be imperfect? How often has shame made you beat yourself for messing up, for hurting someone accidentally?

This can apply to not just systems, here, though it definitely does apply to them, too. Think about how many mental health conditions are stigmatised, demonised. Ones people feel like you can't talk about, that you have to keep hidden. That people will judge you for having it, for having any kind of symptoms be noticeable. Will make assumptions about you if they know. How crushingly alone that can make you feel. Even with just being a system, disordered or otherwise, this happens.

Shame often results in a persecutor being even less cooperative. Trying to be louder, or more destructive. It's like trying to bottle up a problem. It might work for a time, but eventually that bottle is going to build up too much pressure and explode, and you'll have an even bigger mess on your hands.

Approaching Persecutors with Compassion and Understanding, and Taking (System) Responsibility

Why are we shaming each other, and ourselves, when we're hurting? What if we treated each other and ourselves with compassion and understanding, instead? The painful, 'ugly' parts of ourselves, the things we don't want others to see. Alters/headmates/parts that are persecutors, or who have persecutorial tendencies and behaviours sometimes. Why not try to treat them kindly? To understand where they're coming from, why they're doing what they're doing.

Now, this isn't easy. And I'm also not saying to just let them walk all over you and hurt you with no repercussions or without protecting yourself. If a persecutor is hurting you, do what you can to protect yourself and the others in your system. You also need to take responsibility for their actions. They're in your system. Whether you view them as an entirely separate person, or a part of you, or somewhere in between, you have to take responsibility for their actions. Yes, it hurts. You might be a victim of their actions, too. And it's not even necessarily your fault that they're doing what they're doing. But it is your responsibility. This is one of the ways that I think parts-focused viewpoints for systems can help, with having system responsibility come more easily.

This goes for all trauma and mental health conditions, and related behaviours that can come about because of them. Something triggers a fight response from you and you lash out at someone? You have a responsibility to manage that situation. Make amends with the person you lashed out at. Try to repair. Try to work on ways to manage the trigger and your trauma responses. What happened to you is not your fault. Your responses that you can't control are not your fault. But they are your responsibility to manage, to find ways to bring under control. And if you choose to not take responsibility for those, then your responses will become your fault, as a collective, through that choice. You have control over whether or not you will work on things, and how you go about it.

Remember that the persecutor is like you, too. A person, or a part, or both, or however you view those within your system. It's actually one of the ways that I think that people-focused viewpoints for systems can help quite a bit: Seeing a persecutor as a person. Someone who is hurting. Lashing out. Or maybe seeing a problem and trying to solve it in the only way they know how. Someone who is scared, or angry, tired. Yes, it sucks that they're hurting you, or the people around you. So, how can you help them? How can you ease their pain? Help them cope better? Work with them to find a better solution to the problem they're seeing. Maybe even help them see that the problem they're seeing isn't actually there. Persecutors are so varied in how they can be, why they are. Each one might need a different approach. For trauma that originates in childhood, especially,

For us, we've had persecutors that have held individual problems, related to trauma they hold or that is strongly influencing them, that is causing them to lash out or react in certain ways, or to hurt us; others have been created in response to a wider problem in the system, that they're the brain's way of trying to manage the problem. Sometimes they're aware of this, and don't want to do what they're doing but don't know how to manage things otherwise, or they lose themselves to their emotions. Other times they've been unaware that they're doing anything wrong in the first place. It varies. It's also not always easy to figure out which is which, so trying different approaches and seeing what works, can be a good starting point.

For things that are related to something the persecutor themself holds, trying to talk to them can help. Trying to understand them. If they're not willing to talk (to you or anyone else), then analysing their behaviours, looking for patterns. Getting a read of their emotions, where that might be coming from. Sharing a brain and body can help with some of that. Trying to figure out what the underlying issue is, and working out ways to manage it in a healthier way. You may not be able to solve it fully, especially not right away. You might need professional help, or simply time and effort. Take it step by step. Try to find ways for the alter to have an outlet that doesn't cause harm to others, or at least causes minimal harm. If it's a misconception caused by trauma, then helping them see how things really are, in reality, can also help.

For things that are more about a greater problem that the persecutor was formed to try and manage, then it's a similar approach. What is the problem they're acting on? Is it actually a problem, or is it something that trauma is making the system/persecutor believe is a problem? If it's actually a problem, what can you do to work on the problem? Are there alternatives to what the persecutor is doing to try and manage the problem, that could be done instead? Maybe degrees of solutions. Even analysing if the behaviour of the persecutor technically helps a bit with the problem - having it as a backup, just-in-case way of managing it, while you try other solutions. Sometimes the persecutor themself isn't actually helping the problem at all (even if they think they are), but serve instead to point out the problem in the first place, through their actions. If it's not actually a problem, then how can you work on teaching your brain that? Maybe you need to convince the persecutor themself, or maybe you need to help the system/brain as a whole learn that what you're doing that it's reacting to is actually okay.

We've had plenty of different types of persecutors, ourselves, though we tend to almost exclusively have internal-acting ones. It's been a long time since we had external-acting ones, those that would lash out at others.

Some of our current persecutors are capable of acting outwardly in a persecutorial manner, but we're aware of them and are trying to avoid potentially activating those tendencies. It's complicated - one of them is a part that would try and isolate us from everyone we know, if they felt it was needed, for our safety. The other is more inclined to prevent the rest of us from being able to talk to someone in our life that they deemed to be a threat to our well-being emotionally, restricting access, while discussing the problem (and not really being particularly kind about it) and working out if the people that they view as a threat are going to fix their behaviour.

As for our internal-acting persecutors, the host we had at the time of our syscovery, was quite internal-focused. She held a deep sense of self-hatred, in part so the rest of the system wouldn't have to. But it resulted in her being self-destructive. Hurting herself, making decisions that weren't safe. Self-harming behaviour, less obvious on the outside, that was indirectly hurting the rest of us. Self-sabotage, and the like. We helped her to find better outlets for her pain, and also to not keep it entirely to herself all the time, to share some of what she was holding with the rest of us, so that it wasn't so heavy on her shoulders.

Other internal-acting persecutors, like some that are currently still around, have taken rather aggressive methods to force us to deal with certain problems they've seen. Hurting us internally, quite drastically, to achieve that goal. Initially, they were incredibly secretive about it (and still are, at times), not really giving us an idea of why they were targeting certain parts, what they were trying to achieve outside of just hurting us. Over time, they came to realise that we wanted to work with them if we could, to try and find better solutions, so we now know why they do what they do, and have strategies for trying to mitigate the issue in a way that we can. They tell us who's in their crosshairs, with enough time to try and work on things before they feel like they have to act, and if we don't deal with things properly, then they'll still do what they do, as a back-up. Their method has helped, in a twisted way. It hurts, and it's not healthy, but it ultimately does the job, in a pinch.

Some of our persecutors, we still don't really get along with. They're hurting us, and aren't willing to talk about things to find any kind of resolution, and we also can't stop them from doing what they're doing, either. Maybe they will someday. Maybe we need help from our therapist. For now, it's something we need to manage the fallout from, it's all we can do, right now. Managing how we act in the emotional states that their behaviours leave us in. Oddly enough, some other persecutors are actually helpful in managing those, albeit in a maladaptive way.

And then, some persecutors do something we call "system-sanctioned" persecutor activity (not our idea to call it that, but it's what we use nowadays) - which is when they feel compelled by the system/brain to act in harmful ways, even if they don't agree with what they're doing. Sometimes this feels like them watching themself do something, their body moving on their own, internally. Other times, in the moment, their mindset shifts to suit what they're being made to do, only to return to clarity afterwards. Both scenarios typically result in the persecutor in question feeling an immense amount of guilt for it once they're in control of themself or have returned to their senses.

We could have done so much harm to our recovery, and the state of our persecutors, if we'd treated them the way we were told to treat them by people we once knew. People who, like some parts of the community now, treat persecutors horribly. Who push for the locking up, or "killing", of persecutors. We've seen those approaches go very badly. Sometimes they're necessary, we've done those before, to manage certain persecutors, but it's not a decision to be made lightly.

Locking up a persecutor is something that we think can be done in a good way. In the past, we've had a location in the headspace where we would confine certain persecutors to limit their influence. They'd be comfortable, and they'd still be able to front, to communicate, but their ability to cause harm would be far more limited. In some ways, it forced them to communicate more, as they knew they wouldn't get out if they didn't. We didn't do it to hurt them; it was simply a protective measure for the rest of us. Some of our persecutors went into it willingly, especially those who didn't like their persecutorial nature and wanted to improve, while others we did have to force into it, though we still did that carefully, and only when we felt it was absolutely necessary.

Labels are Tools, and Our Definition of 'Persecutor'

As far as the label of 'persecutor' itself goes, we view it as a constructive label, one to be used with compassion and care, a tool and a utility, instead of one of shame or to put an alter in a box. We don't do it to label someone in the system as a "problem".

Now, labels in general are a tool. They're something to be used if it helps you. People use labels all the time, for identity, for instance. It's a way to find community, people who are similar to you, who can relate to you. So, looking at the label of 'persecutor', does it help you to use it? What do you associate with it? If you associate being a persecutor with being a problem, something to be ashamed of, or any number of things that make you feel awful for being one, then the label isn't helping you. You could find a different label, if you want to, or you could change your perceptions and associations of the label. You don't have to use a label at all if you don't think it'll help.

For us, we view being a persecutor as an alter that acts on trauma in a maladaptive way, uses maladaptive coping mechanisms, that cause harm to the system or the people around it. Some may do it intentionally, others may not. Sometimes it's consistent behaviour, other times it's only occasional. Typically, the behaviour is destructive, but it may not be entirely so. Persecutors, through this behaviour, can often serve as detectors for problems, highlighting issues that the system needs to work on. Sometimes that's a specific issue that the persecutor holds within their part that needs to be dealt with, that can't just be kept behind a barrier untouched. Sometimes that's a wider issue that the persecutor was formed to try and deal with, to manage, or to shine a light on, so that the system can do something about it. Persecutors are smoke or carbon monoxide detectors. They detect 'smoke' or 'harmful gas' in the system - i.e. problems that need dealing with, often ones that have slipped under the radar or would be difficult to notice otherwise until it's too late - and when they do, they do so in a rather loud, disruptive, perhaps painful (to one's ears, to continue the analogy) way, often resulting in quite a headache. Sometimes they have false alarms or don't work quite right (like when a detector's batteries die, or when you burnt toast by accident - the house isn't on fire but the detector still goes off sometimes and you wish it wouldn't), maybe they've been calibrated incorrectly, but they're trying their best. There's frankly more nuance that could be included in this, that I don't fully know how to put into words, but that's the gist, and I kinda like the analogy/metaphor I came up with.

Sometimes people attribute being a persecutor incorrectly, as well. Whether or not an alter actually fits the label, really depends on the system and the alter, how you view the label, the situation you're in, etc.

For instance, a system that is overly non-confrontational (likely due to trauma, and may typically fawn) might view any alter that sets firm boundaries as being persecutorial, especially if that viewpoint is reinforced by people external to the system getting upset or angry, or even punishing the system, in response to this boundary-setting. However, this alter is more likely to be a protector, under normal circumstances. Perhaps 'persecutor' fits, temporarily, as the system isn't in a safe place to exhibit certain protective behaviours yet. Where something that would be healthy normally is actually harmful in the moment, due to the situation the system is in. If the system has left that unsafe environment, they may still mistakenly attribute setting boundaries as being persecutorial, when it's now healthy and safe to be able to do that, it's not maladaptive. At this point, the fawn response that kept the system safe might be more accurate to be considered as being persecutorial. A now-maladaptive coping mechanism that, while helpful in the past, is preventing the system from moving forward, or is maybe getting the system hurt again, either by people who take advantage of it, or by people who don't even realise they're hurting the system because the fawn response meant that things weren't communicated.

In the above scenario, if the alter that sets boundaries forms (or surfaces) after the system has gotten out of the unsafe environment, they still might be mislabelled as a persecutor. Trauma can make it difficult to feel like we're allowed to self-advocate, to stand up for ourselves. For many, setting boundaries can feel like we're being mean or hurtful to people around us, so often we avoid doing so, and this can lead to labelling an alter that sets boundaries for the system as being a persecutor when they're actually just being a protector. They don't even have to be a protector, they could just be an alter setting their own boundaries for themself, not struggling with the feelings around that. (As such, persecutor isn't the only label that can be misattributed or given incorrectly.)

System roles are things that can change, too. Not every persecutor is going to stay a persecutor forever. Alters can become persecutors when they weren't initially. These roles, these labels, come and go, and there's nothing wrong with that. Alters can and often do have multiple roles at the same time, too. Many of ours do - we have caretakers who are also persecutors, protectors who are also trauma holders, and so on. It varies a lot. Use the labels that are useful to you. Make up new ones if that works better for you.

Conclusion

This was a long post, longer than we really intended to write. I probably rambled quite a bit, but we have a lot of thoughts and feelings on this topic. It's important to us, and there's a lot to go over about it.

I hope it was helpful, enjoyable, or insightful to read. If it challenged your views and beliefs, remember that's not a bad thing, and it doesn't even mean you have to change your beliefs or views, either. It means that it got you thinking.

Please feel free to respond in the comments or in reblogs, or even in DMs or in our ask box, if that's more comfortable - I'd love to discuss this further with anyone who wants to. Share your own experiences, or ask questions. Debate with me if you like, too, if you disagree with something I've said - calmly and respectfully, please. Maybe you can challenge my views on something, as well.

#syscourse #sysconversation #syscussion #persecutors #persecutor #cdd system #long post #reply response

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