#tw mild syscourse

[indigochromatic]

Some Musings on Plurality and Mental Health (had a conversation about this earlier today, but we've also been thinking about it generally for a while, so hey, why not, post time) Something that frequently tends to get lost in the noise of discourse but is, imo, actually pretty relevant to system community spaces of all kinds, is the realization that many (I'd venture to say most) systems of any kind, origin, dx, whatever, often have concurrent struggles with mental health issues of one kind or another. Not every system or every person who experiences multiplicity in a significant way has a Textbook Case dissociative disorder (or even a diagnosable dissociative disorder at all, depending on your framework for thinking about what does and does not fall under the scope of the label). But also, that doesn't necessarily mean they aren't dealing with significant mental health challenges: - A lot of systems are queer in one way or another, and many have had to deal with the dangers and insecurity and heartbreak of being queer in our current society. - A lot of systems are autistic/dyslexic/have ADHD/have other kinds of processing differences that have affected many years of their lives, especially if they went through any kind of education system that tried to force their brains into something different, told them they were broken, and facilitated social isolation in one way or another. - A lot of systems, even those without dissociative disorders, have other mental health diagnoses. Depression, anxiety, personality disorders, schizophrenia and related disorders, etc. - A lot of people overall have undergone traumatic experiences in their lives at some point (or multiple points), which we all know have significant aftereffects on mental and emotional health. Also, there's multiple global crises that have been going on for a while, of which the COVID pandemic is just one example, which means a lot of new and exacerbated mental (and physical!) health issues for a lot of people in the last few years. So, what's the relevance of all this?

To us, it's yet another reminder that the idea of an easy division between "disordered system" and "non-disordered system" is frankly illusory. For anyone whose experiences of multiplicity/systemhood/plurality/etc are a significant part of their lives and functioning, that relevance will extend to their struggles with mental health, regardless of whether the mental health issues they're having fall under DID/OSDD or not. Control over switching, new or worsened in-system conflicts, system members being differently impacted by traumatic experiences, degree of dissociative disconnect vs ease of internal communication and memory sharing, system members experiencing and presenting symptoms of mental health issue differently, dysphoria over external-body-vs-internal-self mismatches, increased dissociation overall as a collective coping mechanism.... all of this is stuff that lies at the intersection of any mental health issues and systemhood, potentially, not just "DID/OSDD + its associated classical presentations and etiology". If a parogenic system fell into heavy depression over the quarantine, they might start experiencing more negative dissociative symptoms, and they'd also have to figure out how to navigate the mental health support system (such as it is) while plural. If someone with PTSD from trauma in adulthood decides to look into daemonism for comfort, and finds themselves more and more feeling like a system, they may or may not qualify for DID but they will still be contending with healing-from-trauma-while-a-system. If a system without memory barriers or other apparent issues gets long COVID and has their whole lives upended from new disability, their presentation may start looking more like a dissociative disorder. None of these examples are necessarily exactly the same as having DID or OSDD (...depending on how you define the scope of those diagnostic labels, which is a complicated question all of its own), but they're within a spectrum of related experiences that involve both mental health disorder and plurality in an intertwined way. Which, I guess, is a long way of saying: There is no specific diagnostic category or label that someone has to fit in order to be suffering and need support--and that includes systems as well as singlets.

[livseses]

Oopsies! We didn't manage to get our thoughts written up before this post went quiet.

@sysmedsaresexist I hope it's okay to tag you on this, if not, we'll go ahead and delete (feel free to DM us)

We wanted to thank y'all for taking the time to indulge our curiosity. We really appreciated it! Genuinely.

We started to get defensive about endogenic communities with Signal and Quill, but

they don’t speak their personal experiences as if they’re gospel truth for all systems

Uh... yeah. We needed to do that. We've had wonderful experiences from plural spaces and bad ones from CDD spaces. But, that's our experience. It'd be shitty of us to get all confrontational and try to tell y'all how to feel about your experiences with those spaces.

And I think that we generally agree on a whole hell of a lot. Some of that defensiveness came from the just ridiculousness of universalizing. Like, we personally find soulbonding and tulpamancy stuff to be really helpful. We'll share that fact and recommend it when asked, but saying that every system needs to do these things to improve their system is absurd! It seems so obviously absurd to us that it felt hyperbolic. But like, that's us trying to speak our personal experiences as gospel truth.

We're going to be a bit more careful with sharing the things that help us. We already do it for how DBT helps us, CBT hurts us, and why, for instance. Or the limitations we've encountered with EMDR. If tulpamancy is another kind of therapy for us, well, we should be more cognizant of those pros and cons.

Really liked Robo's answer (feel free to DM us if you wanna chat more in depth)! We could go on about some of our speculating about plurality, trauma, and CDDs. We'll save that for another time though :D

A phrasing Robo used though really sticks out:

"endogenic CDDs" are a completely separate concept from "endogenic systems with CDDs."

This bit of nuance I think gets lost in the mix often enough. And it leads to a lot of the confusion, misinfo, and hostility. We've seen a lot of the "welllll technically" kind of counter hypotheticals brought up. While we're inclined agree with those, it's a bit of nuance that can really muddy the water.

Maybe to build on what Robo said about it never being clear cut and easy to understand: Aspects of a person/system's experience aren't always separable into neat categories. Maybe one person feels that some trait or behavior they have comes from their performance of gender, and another says the exact same things come from their neurotype. Our ADHD messes with our memory and so does our DID. From the inside, at the internal experience level, it's hard, if not impossible, to fully separate them.

And Dude, we're really glad you have these mods to support you, and really glad to see your attitude of self-determination. We love to see it and hope more people can adopt it.

I've posted from the beginning about how a lot of things that endogenic systems talked about were actually really normal in DID systems. [...] it's unfortunate that sometimes this confuses systems that are still learning.

This is kinda why we asked this question, or maybe why that question is on our mind a lot in conversations about plurality. We flip flopped a lot after our syscovery as to how we viewed ourselves. Folks saying that the two are so utterly different that there's zero overlap. Folks saying that the things you mentioned can't ever happen in CDD systems, and in turn, that we should keep out of CDD spaces.

(We personally have some hesitancy on the reliance of "hard" tests for mental health stuff. Something about a concern that those tests will have false negatives. But we can talk about that more elsewhere if you're interested in continuing that conversation.)

But thank you for taking the time to answer this ask regardless. We really appreciate it, and we hope others do too. We hope that information gets out there and more folk can balance that attitude of self-determination with understanding their own experiences aren't universal.

(Again, if you'd rather not have this post around, let us know and we'll remove it)

[indigochromatic]

Our origins are A Little Complicated, but as a system who ID'd for several years as uncomplicatedly-endogenic, I think the biggest things for us were: - Asking us about our experiences! especially if you haven't interacted much with endogenic systems and maybe have only heard about them from one or two blogs or via syscourse debates - Don't assume too much just based on the 'endogenic' label alone, there's a ton of variety out there (just like with non-endogenic systems)

Also, some vaguely discourse-y thoughts: - in general, unless they're a friends of yours that you know well, (or if they're specifically asking about it), don't try to convince an endogenic system that they're actually wrong about their label. we've heard it all before, I promise. However, what you absolutely can still do, and in fact we'd encourage it, is share resources if you think they might benefit from them. "Hey, this is an essay about DID, but it helped us a lot personally with similar issues", etc--make "getting help with mental health issues, as a system" separate from any particular label or framework around plurality. - Relatedly, I think some folks worry a lot about the existence of the endogenic label providing a dangerous opportunity for some systems with trauma to stay in denial, but imo that's looking at the situation from the wrong angle. First of all, a system whose brain is hell-bent on keeping them in denial will find some other "excuse" even if the endogenic label vanished overnight. That's just how denial works, honestly. Second, and even more importantly, the solution to that problem (at least in our mind) is to just...support any system who is struggling, regardless of labels. Teaching all systems to respect and listen to and take care of their headmates, plus the basics of "mental health first aid"/trauma-informed 101 stuff, means that everyone wins! Systems without much trauma history who go through rough patches later will have tools to help themselves; systems with trauma histories they're in denial about will have a way to start building trust and communication with their headmates in preparation for when it's safe for those denial walls to come down; systems with solidly happy and healthy lives will have information on how to support their friends with more issues. (of course there are additional complexities in practice, but as a general heuristic, this is our take, and this is what helped us personally the most when we started realizing that maybe we had more dissociation and PTSD-like symptoms than we'd thought. it wasn't people pushing a label onto us, it was people who gave us resources, talked about their own experiences, and let us have room to learn more about ourselves without pressure)

Hello! So this is a post mainly targeted at those who are on the endogenic spectrum of things, (this includes traumaendo of course) but we are a traumagenic system, we are very openly pro-endo, and I wanted to ask you guys how do you think traumagenic systems can support you and what do you want them to know?

I will be reading all the replies, you can comment, reblog, or even send an anonymous ask to our blog if you don’t want to say it publicly, just whatever works for you! We intend to respond to as many people as possible!

our blog gets a decent amount of traction from systems, and we want to use the fact that our posts and blog get seen a lot to actively push these things!

and to any anti-endos reading this, this isn’t for you, you aren’t very welcome here, endogenic systems are real, and you need to get over it <3

[undeadfvckgirl-base]

I can't believe I need to do this but if you are anti endo and follow me I need you to get off my blog right now because news flash I'm pro endo polyfrag and I think it wrong to debate peoples existences! Sorry if you feel like endos aren't real they very much are and I have a community I'd like to keep away from you. If you can't handle endos talking to you don't go talking to endos is all I'm saying

You can find my art or fandom takes good or cool i have no problem just liking and rebloging that but come at me with a follow as an anti endo AND a dsmp hater and you're getting blocked (targeted)

[love-me-love-my-weirdness]

Hello! If you don't mind me asking: Whoever wants to answer, what does 'endo' mean?/genq. I'm assuming it's something that, if searched up in Tumblr, won't yield 'nice' results (as in, it would come up with discourse blogs or something along the lines of that.) I'm not looking for an argument, I'm just curious/gen as I've seen the term floating about, but I'm not sure what it means.

Thanks if you answer, no problem at all if you don't/won't! :D/gen Have a nice day

Hi! Endo is short for endogenic system. An endogenic system is one that exists without DID. There's a lot of discourse as to whether you can be plural without being disordered (ie having DID, OSDD, UDD etc). Personally, we don't think we know enough about the topic to definitively say whether we think it's possible or not. Some people very strongly think it is possible and some very strongly think it isn't.

Discourse around the topic is harsh from both sides so I'd advise you to try and stay out of it and form your own opinion!

Endogenic systems sometimes use other terms to describe themselves like multigenic or mixed origin. Multigenic means they think they formed for multiple reasons and are multiple types of "genic". Mixed origin means they think they formed from both trauma and endogenic reasons. There are also BPDgenic and MDDgenic which are terms referring to the idea that the system formed because of another disorder.

Another term you might hear is traumagenic. A traumagenic system is one that formed from trauma. The vast majority of the time they have a dissociative disorder.

If we're going even deeper, there's something called tulpa. The term tulpa originates from an Asian background (Buddhist I think) and refers to purposefully creating an alternate identity. There is a lot of talk about whether it's cultural appropriation for non-asian people to use this term. We believe that this is a closed practice and people without Asian origin shouldn't be using the term tulpa but not everyone agrees.

There are also traumagenic systems who use endogenic to refer to a specific alter who they feel didn't split because of trauma.

On top of that (and I know this is getting long) there are endogenic systems who believe that they are disordered without having a dissociative disorder or a system that formed because of another disorder. Our personal opinion on this is that it's offensive and that endogenic systems are not disordered. However, we might be wrong and I encourage you to come to a conclusion on your own.

That's everything we can think of right now but feel free to ask more /gen! Take care of yourself because discourse can be rough.

:D

[reflectionlessraven]

I’ve never joined this godforsaken subreddit in my life and I feel ill. Why the fuck does it say I joined? I’ve spoken against it and ”users of systemscringe” is in my dni. This is probably my 12th reason /hsrs

I left it like as soon as I realized.. I feel like I was hacked or something happened and forced us to join?? all I know is that the content of the sub is gross and horrible

[indigochromatic]

Really enjoying reading this discussion! There's a lot of what sleepy-shutin said that we think has a ton of truth to it, and fits with our understanding of how DID and CPTSD are generally understood as diagnostic labels, but/and, we also have a few followup thoughts, and points where we think that model of the situation breaks down a bit in practice.

First off, I think we also know the post about DID vs CPTSD they're talking about, and we also really liked it and thought it got at an important, rarely-described-that-clearly distinction. To us, additionally, it suggests a way of thinking about how certain types of dissociative trauma responses--the amnesia + observed dramatic behavioral differences etc that the post author describes seeing in their partner with CPTSD--are not necessarily inherently equivalent to the experience of discontinuous sense of self that characterizes DID/OSDD/etc (and, I would argue, multiplicity/plurality overall). If multiplicity is at least partially distinct from those responses, it could be reasonable to imagine that there could be cases where multiplicity could exist separately from them, or even entirely without them (e.g. non-traumagenic systems). (Note: this isn't actually an argument about anything, just an additional elaboration on that same line of thought you brought up, because it's a really cool post)

On to a point of discussion/critique: I've heard other folks also voice the same worry you mentioned, about "endogenic + CPTSD systems mislabeled as DID" running into trouble in therapy, due to their systems not operating on the same principles as DID systems and therefore the therapist offering incongruent treatment based on a model that doesn't fit them. In some ways, I think this idea is on the right track--but there's also some problems with that concept, imo: -> A lot of standard, well-accepted DID therapy concepts are actually exactly the same ideas that would likely help any system who is in need of therapy, regardless of origin: stuff like "improving internal communication, cooperation, and mutual respect", "addressing and resolving in-system conflicts", "finding system members who are having trauma responses and supporting them in working through those reactions and experiences", "helping all system members feel valued and cared for", etc. An endogenic system in therapy (especially an endogenic system dealing with CPTSD) would very likely need to do all of these things, just like most DID systems do. -> Meanwhile, though, there are other concepts frequently used in some DID therapy which we'd agree tend to be ones that many/most endogenic systems feel strongly averse to: "system members as dissociated parts of one whole", "innate functional roles for alters based on why/how they initially split", "one possible therapy outcome goal being final fusion", etc. It'd make sense that an endogenic system with CPTSD, who got dx'd with DID and then ran into assumptions like these in therapy due to that dx, wouldn't benefit from those frameworks and might even be upset by them. -> However, while plenty of DID systems find a great deal of utility in those second category of concepts, there is also a very large number of systems with DID who, (like many endogenic systems), do not find that some or all of those concepts fit well for them, and in fact may have actually been harmed by them. We certainly have a biased sample population to draw from, but easily 50% of the hundreds of systems we've interacted with would fall into that category (ourselves included, lol), and especially in all-origins-inclusive system communities, DID/OSDD/etc systems like this tend to be quite common.

All three of those points taken together kind of necessarily leaves us with one of two options. Either: 1) The population of the DID/OSDD community, as it currently stands right now--the people online using the community tags, getting or self-applying the dx's, talking in the servers, understanding themselves with those labels in general--contains a near-hopelessly mixed combination of "endogenic + CPTSD" systems, "True[tm] DID" systems, "traumagenic + CPTSD but not fully in a DID way" systems, and many more in between, (any number of which might have professionally applied DID diagnoses on paper!), -or- 2) The idea that the label "DID" is only accurately when applied to the slice of experiences that are perfectly separate and disjoint from endogenic or other non-DID experiences...just isn't the whole story.

In our opinion, it'd honestly be entirely reasonable to have a label (it could be "DID") for just the subset of the population that experiences a particular stereotype of disordered system experience: strong episodic + emotional amnesia separating dissociated parts of self that fit into clear roles based on their function, and so on. (Systems like this absolutely exist!). However, not only is that stereotype too narrow of a description for how the label "DID" is currently used, both community-wise and in clinical settings, but also, we'd need a bunch of new labels to describe a lot of other kinds of disordered and (frequently) traumagenic system experiences that currently fall under the umbrella of DID/OSDD/other CDDs--but wouldn't, under that narrower definition. (Us, for example: We have a professional DID dx from two separate psychologists, and we definitely experience disordered dissociative symptoms, but we're also a pretty atypical case in several ways, and certainly wouldn't fit that particular stereotype I described above.) Anyways--in short: Our own observational experience, for ourselves and from having been involved in system communities for multiple years at this point, is that while the model sleepy-shutin described is an accurate and important part of the picture, it's not enough on its own to explain the whole picture of how plurality, dissociation, and disorder present in different folks. Very grateful for the positive and constructive/genuinely interested way that these discussions are turning out, btw, thanks to OP for starting them, and hope everyone is having a lovely day out there <3

endogenic doesnt mean that someone is not disordered from having a system, it just means that their system didnt form from trauma. in the same vein, traumagenic doesnt mean that a system is disordered, only that their system formed from trauma. endogenic systems can be diagnosed with osdd and did.

im tired of seeing posts about a disorder i have that people dont want me to interact with because of the -genic label i choose to use. the -genic label i chose to use, mind you, because people wouldnt stop taking posts i made about being disordered and adding anti endo tags to them.

honestly i think -genic labels are silly anyways. they tell you zero information about a system past how they formed, which in the grand scheme of things is much less important than how that system might be functioning now.

I think I get where you're coming from. My main question is, how would an endo system get diagnosed with did/osdd? cuz the definitions of those is having a system formed from trauma, so how could you have one of them and still be endogenic? (genuine question, I'm not trying to attack you, just confused)

anyways, I think you have a good point that -genic labels are too broad and don't tell you very much about the system itself. however, I do still think it's fair for people to want traumagenic only or endo only spaces. the -genic labels have a lot of issues, yes, but they do hold *some* meaning.

[biolumi-sys]

mild vent ig

tw for syscourse relating to anti/pro endos

guys i only recently joined tumblr (like a month ago recent) and i already feel so behind. i hadnt even HEARD of endogenic systems like two weeks ago and it seems pretty relevant in my community. i haven't had the time to do any research (finals week youch) and yet the system-related tags i follow are inundated with more discourse than actual posts. its overwhelming, to be honest. i'm planning on doing research this weekend, so i can be up to date on whatever the hell is going on. for now, count me as neutral due to lack of information, and willing to hear out both sides.

furthermore, unless we bring it up, please don't bring syscourse into any interactions with us. its pretty triggering for a multitude of reasons that frankly don't have to be explained.

[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.

[indigochromatic]

Seconding QFH’s question above! We don’t really use origin labels anymore personally, because with either one we were having to add so many asterisks and qualifications that they just weren’t conversationally useful anymore, haha, but we’re also happy to discuss and share what we know (and some thoughts/opinions) about non-traumagenic and non-disordered plurality.

We’re right with you on being confused as to why there’s even debate about “ff vs healthy multiplicity”, btw, and see it as something that wholly depends on the individual system and what works best for them! Neither one is inherently “good or bad”, and they’re also a lot less of a distinct binary than they’re often made out to be, at least from how some of our friends have talked about the experience.

As for introject source-separation, I’ll have to try to dig up one of my headmate’s old essays about it for you, if you want—honestly our take is that having a healthy relationship to source is important, but that isn’t necessarily dependent on how distant an introject is from their source, and it’s much more about the mindset they have about it. (And many of the issues folks cite as “problems from insufficient source separation”—anxiety about identity, feeling unable to grow or change, dysphoria, derealization/disconnect from life, etc—can happen with or without even having a source in the first place, though they’re certainly problems that deserve attention!)

Hello! Are there any syscourse topics in particular that you're hoping to have friendly conversations with other systems about? And what do you personally enjoy about those conversations? (For us, even though we don't often like getting into syscourse, we do like occasionally trying to deescalate the discourse and get a little closer to building more of a community.)

howdy! generally, i'm most interested in discussing non-traumagenic, non-disordered plurality, because it's not something i understand very well and would like to know more. most of my debate regarding this topic as of right now would be asking questions and giving a rebuttal based on what i do know.

there's also the topics more hotly debated in the CDD community - as far as i know - regarding source separation in introjects, and functional multiplicity "vs" final fusion (they're both good recovery options, i don't know why people are so mad about this).

in general, i enjoy debates about a multitude of topics because i like hearing others' perspectives, and i like sharing my own. the world is wide and ideas are everywhere!

i think it's super good that you're more focused on de-escalating! at the end of the day, we're all just people :]

[jesterboxes]

intro . request rules . tagging request status : CLOSED !

request rules :

requests sent when requests are closed will be deleted.

specify theme, text color, and image or we'll pick for you.

say word for word what you want the text to be.

we're not weird about communicating. if we're uncomfy with a request we'll just directly let you know. we will not do any requests pertaining to anything about syscourse, system origin, etc. i want nothing to do with it. we have low masking/lv 2 autism so uhh be nice.

tagging system :

you can ask us to tag triggers but if its not a common trigger we're probably going to forget & you may be better off blocking us.

yes all of my tags are will wood references.

we just tag triggers with the word. so '#scopophobia' as opposed to '#tw scopophobia.'

'#amicable animal . ' -> my texposts / non request asks

'#mild mannered cannibal . ' -> userboxes

'#sick is defined by what's different . ' -> other

'#vice versus virtue . ' -> reblogs

[funnier-when-objectum]

by exclusionist do you mean just lgbt exclusionists or all exclusionists? is this a transid and endo safe space?

This is a good question, thanks so much for asking! I'm sorry that I wasn't clear enough in my DNI.

I've just googled what 'transid' means, and I'm getting conflicting results. On one hand, some people are saying it includes things like 'transracial' or 'transabled' individuals, which I do not agree with and will not make space for on my platform. On the other, some people are saying it includes therians and otherkin folk, which I absolutely do agree with, love, and appreciate. Until I learn for sure what the label 'transid' is supposed to mean, I won't make a blanket statement, sorry.

And as for endogenic systems, I personally don't feel comfortable making a statement on that. As a singlet, I find it important to listen to plural people, and I have been given points from both sides of the 'issue', as it were, by friends that I hold very dear, and I just don't think it's right for me to definitively state that I know more about someone's own mental health/community than they do. I'm really sorry for my non-answer, and I know that by 'not choosing a side' I am, effectively, choosing a side. For my own comfort on my blog, and for the comfort of my followers, I tend not to engage in this argument. I apologize for that.

[indigochromatic]

Interesting question! Our experiences are mainly in mixed system spaces (any origins welcome) and not in endogenic-specific or endogenic-majority spaces, but/and I agree with a lot of what some of the other folks who responded have said so far. The sentiment of "you can't know someone else's internal experience from the outside" is pretty strong, and there's a lot of emphasis on evaluating labels from a utility mindset: "does thinking of yourself(s) this way make sense, and does it help you navigate your life and any struggles you may be having?" more than "is this label Correct or not?". When someone's questioning, it's really common for folks to share a lot of details about their own questioning process and what were the deciding factors for their own decisions, other options they investigated first, etc, but to then leave those as "here, this is our experience and perspective", rather than trying to make specific, concrete rulings on what's required in order to be a plural or a system. We also personally tend to place a lot of emphasis on experience-over-time when questioning, rather than trying to 'figure it all out for sure' over a few days or weeks. Do we sometimes see folks who ID as plural but describe their experiences in ways that that we personally wouldn't be using the label of plurality for, if we were the ones experiencing them? Yes, it happens. But, crucially: we're not in their heads, so we don't know if their description of their experiences matches how I'm interpreting it, and furthermore...it's not our experience to label, and if thinking of their experiences as plurality is what makes their life make more sense, that's way more important than whether we think of systemhood in exactly the same way. I think a lot of it comes down to the spaces we're in seeing plurality as a spectrum (so not everyone's experiences will match all the time), and focusing less on, say, whether a person's experience would fit specifically DID/OSDD diagnostic criteria or not, and more on open-ended questions like: "so, are you having issues with anything? if so, what? ok, here's some strategies we've heard and/or used for similar troubles, maybe those will be useful starting points for you." For us at least, we've really benefited from this type of community space and general thinking about system stuff, since it helps us step away from debating (whether internally or externally, lol) about labels and actually focus on finding strategies to help us manage our issues and using them, and being open and curious about other peoples' experiences in a way that doesn't see mismatches as a threat of potential invalidation.

Random thought that came to me after watching Strange Æons video on reality shifting the other day (hard recommend that video, absolutely fascinating insight into internet communities and belief).

I'm not in any Endogenic plural spaces cause I just don't relate to what's being said but I get the impression from the outside that it's very uncritically inclusive of experiences. Like, if you say you're plural then your experiences are plural even if that same experience could be quite common with singlets. Like for instance how pwADHD can have multiple trains of thought at the same time and mask differently in different social situations but would just say it's ADHD not that they're plural, but they totally could say they're plural and that would be fine with the community or even suggest that the ADHD singlet person is plural and just in denial or socially conditioned to think they're a singlet, right?

Whereas in other communities there seem to be much stronger attempts to draw lines around themselves to distinguish their experiences from those outside it. For instance the Therian community make attempts to differentiate having a theriotype or a kintype, with community made criteria like "shifting" being a requirement in some spaces.

In Reality Shifting Æons highlights discourse in the community between really accessing your desired reality or just lucid dreaming/daydreaming or the idea of having a "clone" that can deal with daily tasks while you spend time in your DR which many think is impossible.

Or another thing would be like pointing out that one kind of experience isn't enough, like "just because you have social anxiety doesn't mean you have autism, you need to have sensory issues and difficulty communicating and like trains as well" or whatever

Am I right in thinking this isn't a thing in Endogenic spaces? Or does it go on and I just haven't seen it? Like I imagine the whole anti endo thing is a good enough reason for it not to happen, you don't need it coming from inside the house as well as outside but then transmed communities exist, is there truendo? Is that a thing?

[h3r3-4nd-qu33r]

About Us!

We’re a traumagenic, polyfragmented DID system

We have over 1,000 alters in our

We’re autistic, psychotic and possibly schizophrenic

We love video games, especially Terraria, Stardew Valley, Skyrim, Minecraft and ACNH

Our Names

Nikolai

Niko

Muzzle

Fynn

Fyntan

Our Pronouns

He/him/his/himself

They/them/theirs/themself

It/it/its/itself

xe/xem/xeirs/xemself

Vi/vem/veirs/vemself

Yawn/yawn/yawns/yawnself

Paw/paw/paws/pawself

Do not Interact

Basic criteria (racist, islamphobes, antisemites, ableists, MAPs/NOMAPs/ACNOMAPs/PEARs/Zoos/Necrophiles & supporters, Sanists, Queerphobes/homophobes/transphobes/TERFs, SWERFs, fat-phobes/fat shamers, etc.)

Proship/Anti-anti

MOGAI exclus

Aspec exclus

If you think the split attraction model is only for aspec ppl

Non-binary skeptics

Anti-neopronouns

Anti-xenopronouns

Anti-emojiself pronouns

Anti-nounself pronouns

Non-traumagenic “systems” or supporters (questioning traumagenic systems and traumagenic systems that don’t remember their trauma are welcome to stay tho!)

g*re blogs

if you s*xualize age regression

If you believe that NPD abuse, BPD abuse, ASPD abuse, cluster B abuse and PD abuse are real

Please Interact

Queer people

Questioning people

DID and OSDD systems who have queer headmates

queer supporters

those who aren’t accepted by their friends or family (if this is you, we’re your family now /pos)

Allocishets who are here to learn and educate themselves on queer matters

Cosplayers and fursuiters (ilysm /p /pos)

Neurodivergent people who identify as queer in any way

Before you Follow

This page is not for discourse or syscourse. We’ll be making a page for those pretty soon tho as long as we’re mentally up for it. So basically, keep the discourse away from here

The tags we use for TWs are #tw #tw eyes #tw gore #tw blood #tw candy gore #mild tw #medium tw #heavy tw #tw medical stuff #tw vent #vent #tw traumacore #tw sexual #tw sexual mentions #tw gore mentions #tw blood mentions #tw medical mentions #tw religion #tw queerphobia #tw ableism #tw racism #tw antisemitism #tw islamphobia #tw colorism #tw sanism

We try to not mention triggering stuff too often but just incase, if you can’t see that stuff without it triggering you we recommend you block those tags

This is a sage space for every type of queer person except for exclusionists. Queer people that are welcome here includes those with “scary” disorders/mental illnesses and also are queer, those who use neopronouns or xenopronouns, those who use xenogenders, microlabel users, ND queers, baby queers, experienced queers, etc. And if you say anything hateful to any of those groups of people you are immediately getting blocked.

[last-thoughts-of-a-shooting-star]

Intro + Info

Greetings and salutations, our name is Astral, we are a system that uses I/Me and We/Us interchangeably, and our collective pronouns are They/Them, and we are a-spec.

This blog was made for things we wanted to say but didn't out of fear of being called cringe :[

Are you afraid for being called cringe? Feel free to submit an anonymous confession!

Yes this blog is named after/themed around the mitski song, it's stuck in my head.

DNI, boundaries, common tags below

Tags

Think of me nicely ☄️ - Positive thoughts

Come for my things ☄️ - Negative thoughts*

Just a replica ☄️ - Neutral/Wandering thoughts

Liberty Bell ☄️ - Current events*

Music in the night ☄️ - Syscourse/System related*

Clean and pretty ☄️ - Vents (could be relating to eds, sh, mild paranoia, or abuse :[)*

Reflected gaze ☄️ - Confessions!*

Forecasted turbulence ☄️ - Asks!

Original Walls ☄️ - Art/doodles

Tw (topic)/(topic) tw - Not above listed topic that could be triggering (if you have an uncommon trigger, you could tell us, and we'll add it :])

We are allowed to reject asks!

(*will all be tw'd accordingly)

Boundaries

Allowed:

Ask our opinions on topics

Ask for tws/cws

Doodle requests

Playlist/Song requests

Compliments

Platonic flirting

Signed off anons

Anonymous confessions

Name suggestions

Using doodles as pfps

Reality checking for paranoia (only)

Mutuals only:

Joking threats (ex: 'im stealing all your shoes' 'ur not invited to my birthday party')

Tag us

Ask for advice

Photos of poorly made pasta

Photos

Ask about system/headmates

Random asks (ex: 'how was your day?' 'whats your favorite color?')

Not a Vibe:

Anything sexual

4+ asks from one person at the same time

Ask for any personal info

Paranoia inducing/stalker-ish stuff (this includes more serious/personal threats)

Bashing

Treat doodle requests like commissions (you get what you get, it's ms paint quality)

Ask for specific headmates

Personal questions

Dream Stans (tm) (yes we're serious)

Fakeclaiming

All subject to change

Extra

Idk I'll add something eventually

DNI

Standard bigotry (racist, ableist, homo/transphobic, anti semitism, etc.), proship/anti anti, map/nomap/pear/p3do, zoophile, antikin, anti MOGAI, queer exclusionist, radqueer, fakeclaimers, anti-palestine, this is subject to change

[indigochromatic]

Yeah, this gets at a concept that we also think is important to discussions of plurality and multiplicity as a whole, especially for folks who are questioning or who feel like their experiences are 'on the fence.'

As a disclaimer: yes, of course people can use the framework of plurality in unhealthy ways, like OP mentions; this is bad, and responsible plural spaces of any kind should do their best to foster different values (mutual respect and compassion, system responsibility, support for folks who conclude that plurality actually doesn't describe their experiences well, etc). But the ability to be misused isn't somehow unique to the concept of plurality. Medications, therapy modalities, spiritual principles, etc, all have the potential to be abused or misused, too. And I think the emphasis should be on helping folks figure out what does work for them--how to recognize when something isn't working vs when it is, but it's hard work, etc--rather than making assumptions from the outside about what their experience will or should be like.

Story time: so I (me, S, specifically) sometimes experience my own emotions, memories/exomemories, and clashing perspectives in ways that can have some 'median subsystem flavor' to them. It's often especially true when I'm wrestling with something emotionally challenging, or trying to sort out conflicting values, and has a tendency to get less vivid or disappear entirely when those inner conflicts get resolved. Usually it's not inherently uncomfortable, but rarely, at its most problematic, the experience at least feels a lot like how we've heard some systems describe their experiences with CDDs: stronger dissociation than usual, 'voices in my head' arguing chaotically back and forth with each other, blurry sense of self, deep sense of inner conflict, 'facets' that feel directly associated with specific identity concepts or roles or reactions.

I don't consider myself a median subsystem, for the record. However, this process is still frequently beneficial to me. And when I brought this whole thing up to our therapist, the very first thing she did was to ask me a very important question:

"Does it feel good or bad when this happens?"

Which allowed me to take a moment to figure out how to articulate the more complicated reality that, for me personally, it...feels right to "come back together", but it also doesn't feel wrong to be able to "spread apart a bit" to work out problems--especially if L and I are collectively able to give the issues attention right away. Our brain has always been very verbal-oriented and 'dialogue-based', and being able to talk directly to 'aspects of myself' that are struggling, whether it's me 'talking within myself' or L giving extra attention to a part of me that particularly needs it, has consistently worked well for us, throughout these past 2-2.5 years since I showed up.

Simultaneously, however, the long stretches of time (like...most of the time, maybe 80%) where there's little to no median-y stuff going on for me feel just fine. 3 days with no in-system communication between me and L? Fucking awful. Hell, I get depressed if I'm fronting for longer than half a day without being able to contact her. But when my own internal experience feels "together", I don't feel wrong or bad at all--I just feel…like me. It's good.

I could call myself median; I don't. I could find that whole overall experience to be net negative for me; I don't. And if some hypothetical random person on the internet wanted to tell me I was wrong about either of those, I guarantee you that they do not have enough context to make that call--let alone the authority to.

To me, (and yeah, this is an anecdote of one guy's personal experience, not statistical data or anything), the takeaway to all this is that the mental frameworks that people use for themselves are intensely personal--by which I mean, it's way more important to figure out how a particular framework or technique or label is working for someone, than to get caught up on whether or not they 'should' be using it, a priori. Doesn't mean that people don't sometimes have dysfunctional frameworks that can and should be changed! But the key question is about whether it's actually being dysfunctional for them, not what it is or what it sounds like.

the concern that people will worsen their dissociative symptoms/identity disturbance by misinterpreting their experiences as plurality has never made sense to me because, like. most people who report benefiting from therapies like IFS/parts work also report that unblending (purposefully detaching) from parts of their psyche allows them to engage with those parts more fully and analyze their wants and needs. i guess 'detachment' is a scary concept for people because it can imply rejection or disavowal? and i agree, that absolutely hurts people! but if you're actively not rejecting or disavowing whatever you perceive as, like, an independent agent that shares your brain, i don't think it's inherently going to harm you to detach yourself conceptually from that agent, even if you end up being wrong about what it is.