DID I Do That?

Sorry, we don’t read fics that are reader or author self inserts. No hate to anyone who likes that, but none of us do.

It makes us feel weird. We already have identity issues. We don’t really need someone else telling us what we are doing or how we are reacting to something.

Maybe someone else might have some recs like that.

Mitchell - gate keeper/protector?, around 30 y/o, prefers he/him pronouns. Bi. Best at standing up for us at work. Worst at listening. Loves Star Trek, video games, and soccer.

Norah - semi caretaker/protector, around 28 y/o, prefers she/her pronouns. Bi. Best at keeping a positive outlook. Worst at sleeping/managing insomnia. Loves comics, writing sad poetry, and giving pep talks.

Andi - Main host/ANP, 26 y/o same as the body, prefers she/her and they/them pronouns interchangeably. Bi ace. Best with day to day life and working our job. Worst at managing anxiety and stress of any kind. Loves movies, television, and reviews.

Nick - secondary host/protector, 26 y/o, prefers they/them pronouns. Aroace. Best with finances and schedules. Worst at masking until we break down. Loves comedy and showing affection with insults.

Thomasin - persecutor/protector, 22 y/o, prefers she/her pronouns. Ace Lesbian. Best at hygiene/best dressed. Worst at eating/issues with disordered eating. Loves true crime podcasts and fashion.

August - purpose vague, around 18 y/o, prefers they/them pronouns sometimes and other times she/her. Unknown sexuality. Best at creativity. Worst at taking criticism. Loves art and music.

Maggie - purpose vague, around 15 y/o, prefers she/her pronouns. Unknown sexuality. Best at comebacks. Worst at talking/goes non or semi verbal often. Loves animals and YouTube.

Edit by Nick: Mitch says Thomasin wrote all of this. She left it as a draft. This is great. This is literally the first time she’s admitted without any prompting that she deals with disordered eating. She’s been fronting for a few days now and we really try for that not to happen a bit because of that reason. Like I don’t know how to express how important this is and how happy it makes us to see this. She also has only expressed negative opinions about this blog and normally hates giving any information out about us. So all of this is just great. We’ve gotten a couple asks like this and mostly because of her we try to respect privacy of each other and not give info out and answer them but this is absolutely great. It’s like she’s giving her permission to talk about everyone or trying to apologize for stealing the for for so long. We will try to make a more detailed post about everyone plus some corrections to this after we try to discuss it more with her but we want to leave this as it is. The only thing I changed to what she wrote was she spelled Andi ‘Andy’ and called Maggie ‘Maddie’ because she does that to annoy them. I would also add that we are all human. We don’t have any known non human alters.

I was wondering though what your thoughts are of that post that’s all “buy one get one” joke with Marc and Steven. Because I’m a singlet, but I didn’t think that was very appropriate? Maybe that’s a bad take and it is appropriate?

First, I don’t like buy-one-get-[insert number here] jokes about relationships with DID alters. It implies you are entitled to the same (or at least positive) relationships with all alters. And that’s not always true.

Plus the whole “buy” and “get” wording is problematic anyway.

However, I don’t know what post you’re referring to. Maybe I missed that one. If it was made by a system I think the joke is fine. But still not great. But I don’t like thinking non systems are thinking like that.

Second, I don’t understand why you are asking our opinion of a post you don’t agree with. When you are also trying to explain to us why we are misunderstanding a different post you seemingly do agree with.

That post features an animated version of Doctor Strange talking to another animated Doctor Strange. How is that about the actors?

And like we said in our post, they could have used a gif of Steven seeing Steven, and that would have worked better with the theme.

DIFFERENT actors, DIFFERENT characters, DIFFERENT universe

Oscar Isaac playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight and Patrick Stewart playing Charles Xavier from X-Men

DIFFERENT actors, DIFFERENT characters, SAME universe

Oscar Isaac playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight and Ethan Hawke playing Arthur Harrow from Moon Knight

SAME actors, DIFFERENT characters, DIFFERENT universe

Oscar Isaac playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight and Oscar Isaac playing Apocalypse from X-Men: Apocalypse

DIFFERENT actors, SAME characters, SAME universe

Oscar Isaac playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight and Carlos S. Sanchez playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight

SAME actors, DIFFERENT characters, SAME universe

Oscar Isaac playing Marc Spector from Moon Knight and Oscar Isaac playing Steven Grant from Moon Knight

In contrast, this would be an example of one of Oscar Isaac’s characters “meeting” themselves.

Oscar Isaac playing Steven Grant from Moon Knight and Oscar Isaac playing Steven Grant from Moon Knight

Understand?

Love,

We are!

We are all kind of new to sharing about this in general. So we might have a post or two in the future that we’d be less comfortable if someone without DID commented on it. Especially if they weren’t respectful. But as it stands we are comfortable with anyone following and interacting with our posts.

Hello!

Thanks so much for the questions! This is so cool!

I would say the biggest thing people don't realize when creating/writing a character with DID is you can't create/write just the one. This is different than schizophrenia where the voices or hallucinations your character interacts with are ultimately not real. This would be a singular body that inhabits multiple characters.

And all of these characters are not less of an individual individually! Lol That might be a little hard to understand.

What I mean is, just because a group of individuals is strongest when working together, it doesn't mean one individual becomes less of a person outside of that group.

Not all the alters need to be main characters or anything, but they should be treated as though they have as much autonomy as any other side character. And any alters you make main characters deserve their own character arcs.

But also remember that anything that would impact the body or brain of your character impacts all of the other characters. But you can have them interact with those impacts differently.

Ex. If one is hard of hearing, they all are. They have the same brain and ears. But some of them may like to wear hearing aids, and some of them might not.

You can have psychosomatic things. So one alter can have something like a stutter. Or a limp. Or certain dietary restrictions. But always remember not everything can be psychosomatic.

Also your side, or other main characters, shouldn't be at the beck and call of your other character. If anything, because that's boring and lazy story telling! Don't have the alter characters just around whenever it's convenient for your character. Have them make conflicting plans. Have them show up unannounced. Have them be unreachable when the character needs them most. But also have them assist with missions. Or help solve a mystery. Or take care of something ahead of time.

This is a big reason why we enjoyed Moon Knight. It's not a perfect representation. And it has some major downfalls. But Marc and Steven are two separate characters! They have different wants and needs, and one isn't more deserving than the other of getting those wants and needs! They can oppose each other. They can disapprove of each other's actions. And they can love each other. They can want the best for each other. And in the end, it's not about one of them disappearing for the benefit of the other, or staying around because the other wouldn't be a person without them. They are whole people individually who are happiest when they are together and working as a team!

Of course in real life not all alters in a system are "full people". Some are fragments. But unless you're trying to do a deep dive into DID, and showing everything about it, you don't need to add in types of alters you don't understand. Any character you write into your story should be there to move your plot along in a productive way. If you start sticking in characters you don't understand as the writer, the reader isn't going to understand them either.

My best suggestion would be to focus on the basics that you know, and don't infer anything you don't have to. If it sounds physically impossible, it probably is. So don't use it. Ask someone you trust with DID or a professional in the subject for any specifics you want to add.

I'm all over the place with this! Lol! Sorry!

I'm sure there are more detailed posts that get very specific. I don't have any good resources off the top of my head.

Biggest difference between DID and other forms of plurality I think is memory issues. Your character should not always be fronting, and when they come back they should have no idea what happened in between those times. (Although with context clues you can sometimes get a decent idea.) Sometimes even with co-fronting, you may forget something you just did. Similar to when you walk into a room and forget why you walked in there. I'm not a professional, so I don't know much about any different forms of plurality. I only know ours from experience. Sorry!

I hope this helps! I tried to take this from a building a character standpoint, rather than a teaching about DID standpoint. So if you want more of that version, tell me! If you have any more questions around this topic let us know! And if you want our opinion on a certain character too! I love to write! Just never post anything anywhere Lol

I have BPD(borderline personality disorder) and one symptom of BPD is called “splitting” where our mood swings are so bad we almost seem like two different people(that’s the best I can describe it lol) and at one point I thought I might have DID bc of how bad my swings were(I was nine at the time and was uneducated and I was eventually diagnosed with BPD among other things. I just thought it was a cool fact that created sort of a bond between BPD and DID which is why at times I feel sort of connected to DID, just a fun fact to thing about :))

I think it would be cool if you guys reviewed the show. Thanks

Hmm…. This might be a more complex question than you may have thought.

I don’t know if I would describe that as a conversation?

As a disclaimer, I’m kind of like the Steven of the group. I’m the one the others might ever be keeping a secret from. Maybe I’ll ask Nick to take a look at this and change it if they think I’ve answered incorrectly.

Also, I personally think less in language than in concepts. Like I don’t think “Oh what do I want to eat?” More I think of the concept of food and things I may want to eat. If I’m thinking in language it’s almost always to reply to or say something to someone I’m co-conscious or co-fronting with. So if I want their input on what to eat I may ask “What should I eat?” And they know to reply. (I don’t normally do that specific question because we can never agree on what to eat). We also may exchange conceptual thinking back and forth occasionally as well. I find it's just a helpful way for me individually to think without the others thinking that they need to answer, and it comes more naturally. I sometimes think if I didn't have DID I wouldn't ever think in language.

So this may also be different for systems who may all think in language all the time.

In something like this case, I would experience more of a transfer of knowledge than a verbal conversation. So it’s more like, if I want Nick to know something that I don’t want anyone else to know, I would kind of let Nick know that there is something I want them to know and we would sort of work together to kind of…let Nick know it. That’s not easy to do for me, or easy to describe. It’s like someone says “I have a secret to tell you” and then you just know what the secret is. Does that make sense? And sometimes it doesn’t work, and all of a sudden everyone knows. I really don't know how to describe it.

I don’t do this very often. I’m struggling to remember a specific time I’ve done this. In my opinion, this type of information exchange isn’t healthy or helpful when you are a system. However, other systems, or even members of my own, may be better at this than I am personally.

I'm not sure why you would need these characters to do this in this way. You could have Marc fronting and Jake co-conscious while Steven isn't "around" and then have them have that conversation. However, if you really need Steven to be fronting at the time for some reason, I think I would let this kind of conversational exchange go in a fanfic, because I’m unsure of how you would write that in an engaging way otherwise. Also, like I said, other systems may describe their experiences in that way anyway.

I don’t know how many people that write or read Moon Knight fics will see this, but I wanted to both vent and try to maybe get some tips out there about the things people are misunderstanding about DID.

I recently binged the show in preparation for the last episode coming out soon. I have fully seen the first 4 episodes and I’ve been told what happens in the 5th. The way the group works is, if I think a piece of media may be triggering in some way, but I want to see it, I let Mitchell know to watch, if he has a chance, the next time he’s fronting, and tell me if he thinks I can handle it. Sometimes Norah will do that instead of Mitchell if he doesn’t want to I guess. So, Norah actually watched the whole thing. I trust her judgement, and she said I could watch episodes 1-4, but that I should just let her summarize episode 5. Based on her summery, I don’t think I ever would have finished that episode without switching anyway. I also haven’t read the comics myself. We have some of the comics downloaded on our kindle, and they’ve been read, and while I assume Norah is the one who’s been reading them, she hasn’t said and I haven’t asked.

All that to say, I have been reading fanfiction about the show only, and I may have some blind spots on what has and hasn’t been demonstrated in the show.

The show, in my opinion, while definitely not perfect, does a pretty good job representing DID. I was very excited to find out that apparently the characters with DID are culturally Jewish and autistic as well, because I am too! That’s a lot a representation I can relate to. There are things that they do that seems a little off, but over all, I think it’s pretty good. Maybe I will review it more in depth after it’s all out.

Now, on to things I want to explain to fanfiction writers. I made a list.

1. If the body is unconscious, all alters are going to be unaware of whats going on outside of it. I’ve seen in fics where Marc, who’s in control of the body, will be knocked fully unconscious, and Steven will somehow be able to tell Marc what happened after he wakes up. What?! How?! You already have Khonshu to use for stuff like that. Say Khonshu told him if he needs to know.

2. Marc and Steven don’t require mirrors to talk to each other. We see in the first episode that Marc can say things to Steven without a mirror around. The show uses mirrors because it’s easiest for an audience to distinguish between the characters, and understand they are two different people if they physically show them both. There are fics that have them unable to talk to each other unless a reflective surface is around them. If you want them to not be able to talk to each other in the moment, just say they aren’t co-conscious.

3. They are not always co-conscious. The show has them frequently shown as being co-conscious or co-fronting, but they aren’t always. If they have DID, not OSDD, then they aren’t always going to know what the other has been up to. This, I will say, the show is not great at getting across, at least with Marc. He comes across like he knows everything about Steven and everything Steven has ever done. However, even with Marc, he doesn’t have the knowledge that Steven does about Egypt. Yet still, there are fics where Steven can’t keep secrets from Marc, because he will just know, when that is just not true. If you want to say Khonshu ratted him out to Marc, use that.

4. While sometimes you can have an out-of-body experience while being co-conscious but not in control of the body, you are not going to notice things that the body wouldn’t notice. You’re not a ghost roaming around the room. So Steven would not be able to tell what someone had hidden behind their backs to warn Marc about it, unless Marc could tell. I literally saw a fic where Steven told Marc what cards someone else had while playing poker. Not because Steven can count cards, but because he could look and see them. No. Not possible. Again, use Khonshu for that.

5. If Steven is autistic, Marc is too. Most people seem to understand this one, but some don’t. So for the people who don’t, if one alter has something like autism or ADHD, all alters will have it. Some may manage it better than others, but they all have it. I don’t want to read another fic where Marc explains to someone that Steven specifically is autistic. He can specifically be vegan, but he can’t specifically be autistic.

6. Television shows need characters to say their thoughts out loud because visually it’s better. So I don’t blame the show for showing Marc and Steven discuss things aloud, but they don’t have to. There are many fics where, whichever one is not in control of the body, will say something, and the other will not want to or be able to reply because they would be speaking out loud, and that would be bad/awkward. That’s not an issue in real life. I think some systems may prefer to reply out loud, but I don’t think any are unable to just reply by thinking.

That’s my list. It’s not long. I haven’t read a whole lot of fanfic yet, so I don’t know if those are even the biggest issues out there. I just wanted to kind of vent about the stuff I had seen.

DID isn’t magical. Yet some people write it like it is. Which for this show, is even more ridiculous to me, when Khonshu could be used as a magical all knowing outside presence. 

however, there’s the idea that a system could have DID but be not wholly formed from trauma, or that a traumagenic system could be a system but not have DID (like, they don’t wholly fit the DSM criteria but they are a system formed by trauma). In the end, I think it comes down to seeing being a system as something self-determined, rather than with a DID diagnosis via a therapist.

As someone who’s been on both sides of the whole pro-endo/anti-endo deal, we try to stay out of it now, since it’s all so tiring

Thank you for trying to help us understand. We really appreciate it.

I’m actually slightly confused about your second paragraph there. Wouldn’t traumagenic systems without DID be ones with OSDD or UDD? Not having a diagnosis because you haven’t or can’t see a psychiatrist also doesn’t mean you don’t have DID. Just me, but I would think that what makes a system “traumagenic” or “endogenic” would be how it began to form in the first place regardless of whether some of the alters appeared for reasons outside of perceived trauma. Also what is the person’s definition of trauma? Something that wouldn’t be a very big deal to one person might be traumatic to another based on the way they perceive and react to the situation. You may not realize you’ve experienced trauma because to anyone else it wouldn’t have been traumatic. I’ve looked at the few scientific papers written about certain endogenic systems I could find and I feel they fall short because none seem to have control groups or a look into before and after the systems were said to have formed. If forming a system can be self determined I’d love to see a study of people who are willing to admit they want to form a system and are actively trying to and see where it goes over a length of time. I’d also love to see a study comparing and contrasting a group of self identified endogenic systems and diagnosed traumagenic systems and see where exactly the differences and similarities may be. Especially in utility and difficulties of being a system. Maybe even a study between the different types of endogenic systems. I’m not being facetious, I truly would love to see them. Of course we haven’t even looked into or thought about any of them that say they are born this way. That seems objectively false given people don’t have a sense of self until around 2 years old. Which contributes to why most people don’t really have memories before that time in life. We were initially curious and looking into it because there seemed to be SO MUCH discussion about it in the community and we had never heard about it before. Honestly we might not be talking about it too much or looking into it much anymore because something about it has caused Andi to start avoiding it. I think it might be that there seems to be a lot of negativity and conflict back and forth and she avoids that like a plague. They can be a bit fragile. Maybe I’ll continue looking into it. Andi was getting a little upset about it but I think it’s kind of fascinating.

Yes, now that I have seen more stuff I have realized that is what it means. I do have the language now to say that I’m a traumagenic system. My DID and other mental health diagnoses come from horrible things I have experienced and the genetic predisposition to develop the disorders.

What I’m really confused and curious about now is if endo systems are saying they don’t have DID and that they have alters because of some spiritual or cultural belief that they have. Not because of a mental health disorder. OR are they saying they do have DID, it is a mental health disorder, but that it isn’t caused by trauma. Or something else? Or both?

If it’s a cultural or spiritual belief and is in fact what we would call DID just looked at and defined through a different outlook, I can understand that in a way. But I just think that’s ultimately not good for that person to hold those beliefs. Some religious and cultural beliefs are objectively bad for the people that engage with them, and I can see no way in which that belief specifically could do them any good in the long run.

If it’s the second one, what does that even mean? I can definitely tell you it is in fact Maybelline, you don’t need to wonder if you’re born with it. Meaning you got it because of a traumatic event. You don’t get PTSD out of no where, and you don’t get DID out of no where.

I’m going to address the answers here. I don’t want to answer them directly because they were not very nice. I’m also worried that other people might read my last post and also not understand what I meant.

To start, no, I did not discover I had DID through watching Moon Knight. I discovered other people talked about having DID online through Moon Knight posts I saw in the Marvel tags. I haven’t even watched Moon Knight yet. I will watch it, because I’ve watched all Marvel media, but I haven’t seen it, and until the posts did not know the character had DID, because I was never interested in reading his comics either. The only DID related media I’ve ever watched was Split, and I hated that movie, so never looked at anything to do with it afterwards. I’ve been diagnosed with DID for several years now.

No, my therapist nor my psychiatrist has ever referred to me as “a system”. That I can remember at least? They have always used words that I was comfortable using, and allowed me to come up with those words. The others in the group may have a different experience. I don’t know how it works for other people but we don’t always know or share what we may have talked about in therapy separately.

Never going online or looking a lot of this stuff up, no, I had never heard of “Endogenic systems”. From what I’ve seen in the last couple days, I’m not one, I don’t understand how that would happen, or how it works, but I still don’t have a lot of knowledge on the subject so I don’t really have an opinion on it yet.

I am in my mid 20s. At this stage of my life, it’s not hugely important that I keep up with the jobs of everyone in the group. As long as they do what they need to do in a productive way. We sometimes focus on it more, but for ME, I don’t. I could go into detail thinking about it and say, well Nick is a protector and maybe a co-host, but they used to be more of a persecutor, Mitchell is a gatekeeper now, but he didn’t use to be, Thomasin is a persecutor, but only internally and is she really or just a perfectionist? etc. To ME in MY opinion, I don’t like labeling them in that way. Especially because I don’t fully believe that everyone can exactly pinpoint what their function is, or why it matters most of the time. I’m not the only one with an opinion, though, and the others may want to focus on that sometimes. But for an introduction, I did not want to introduce them with information they may not have wanted put out there. Namely their function in our life.

Nick is the only other one that has expressed any interest in this. That’s why I said that they may be the only other one to post.

I refer to the group or system sometimes as I and me and myself, rather than us and we because I’m not used to being open about the fact that I’m more than one. If that’s understandable at all. In real life if like Nick goes to the grocery store and I’m talking about it to someone else other than my therapist, I will say that *I* went to the grocery store. I’m not used to using language that suggests others, because that wouldn’t be good for me in real life.

An introduction.

My name is Andi, she/they. I’m the host of a DID system.

I’m new to the idea of talking about having DID, because I wasn’t really aware that other people with DID talked about it. I don’t use social media, and I’ve only ever used tumblr for fandom stuff. I’m a big marvel fan, so since Moon Knight is out I was kind of shocked to see how many posts were by people with DID and then see all the other posts as well and it made me want to do so too. I’ve never even met another person with DID that I know of, so I would really love to interact with others.

However, as excited as I am to get into this, I’m also nervous. I only talk about this stuff with my therapist. My family and co workers are barely aware, if aware at all of it. And we don’t really have friends.

I’m new to all the lingo too. Like I’ve never called myself a system. Me and my therapist refer to us as “the group”. But I realize that if I said I’m the host of a DID group, it would sound like I’m hosting a party for a club made up of people with DID or I’m in a weird band.

I can guess what a singlet is - someone without DID. But I have no idea what an Endo is?

I’m looking forward to finding out about these things and the community.

Anyway,

There are 7? alters in our system. I put a question mark because there could be more that I’m not aware of. We do all have names but roles are not something we focus on much because some of us fill more than one or it’s confusing. I’m bad at describing that.

There’s Nick, they/them, who might be the only other one to post on here. Mitchell, he/him. Norah, she/her. Thomasin, she/her. August, sometimes she/sometimes they. And Maggie, she/her.