the weather

Dissociate

Go missing Under mysterious circumstances

Cmon, antis.

"Having other people in your head isn't normal"

Duh, no one is saying that it's normal.

We're saying it's not pathological.

also, the mechanism behind most endogenic systems and even many traumagenic systems is very very different from classical did. the clinical definition and understanding of systems is extremely limited to a very specific point on a very specific axis on the spectrum of structural dissociation and to try to push endogenic systems into a clinical box is honestly doing them a disservice (no offence op). 

because theyd rather someone stay terrible or just straight up die than become a better person 

from a compassionate point of view it’s deeply distressing and from a pragmatic point of view it’s outright frustrating

the truth? DID is not performative. it is largely internal. switches usually are not super dramatic, alters do not have to think and act drastically different from each other in order to be separate alters, and not every alter needs to have a 100% consistent pattern of behavior. co-fronting and co-conning is common, lines are blurred, it’s not as black and white as the little people in your phone make it out to be. it is not always obvious when someone has DID & it is not always obvious when a switch has happened. lots of systems are designed to be covert for protective reasons. alters can impersonate the host. alters can have similar voices. lots of systems use i/me pronouns by default. masking is a real thing. DID absolutely is a spectrum and every system is different. a covert expression of symptoms is valid and acceptable and even normal. you don’t need to be aware of every one of your alters, it’s ok to confuse different alters and not always interpret things perfectly, not everyone has a headspace or functional communication with the rest of their system. alters may have varying levels of understanding of their system. it is not all cut and dry. you don’t have to know everything about your system, you don’t need to be super attuned to your inner world. it isn’t always like that.

that’s not to say, of course, that diagnosis is invalid, or that we don’t want to act like ourselves. Getting diagnosed is very valid and important, at least for us. And, we all want to be ourselves around those we trust. It’s just that being in the same body makes that difficult.

what I’m trying to say is that most people don’t appreciate what DID/OSDD actually looks like.

(kind of turns into a rant about here lol)

the truth? DID is not performative. it is largely internal. switches usually are not super dramatic, alters do not have to think and act drastically different from each other in order to be separate alters, and not every alter needs to have a 100% consistent pattern of behavior. co-fronting and co-conning is common, lines are blurred, it’s not as black and white as the little people in your phone make it out to be. it is not always obvious when someone has DID & it is not always obvious when a switch has happened. lots of systems are designed to be covert for protective reasons. alters can impersonate the host. alters can have similar voices. lots of systems use i/me pronouns by default. masking is a real thing. DID absolutely is a spectrum and every system is different. a covert expression of symptoms is valid and acceptable and even normal. you don’t need to be aware of every one of your alters, it’s ok to confuse different alters and not always interpret things perfectly, not everyone has a headspace or functional communication with the rest of their system. alters may have varying levels of understanding of their system. it is not all cut and dry. you don’t have to know everything about your system, you don’t need to be super attuned to your inner world. it isn’t always like that.

If you’re unaware, The Crowded Room stars Milligan, a man with Dissociative Identity Disorder (the same man the movie “Split” is based on). Milligan is portrayed as a criminal mastermind, in court for murder that he is later acquitted of due to his “other personality” that he seemingly has no control over. This marks the second major time in media that systems have been portrayed as “evil” or “dangerous”.

you don’t know all your system members, how many there are, or whether some system members actually are separate or are also you

you don’t know your system members’ roles, or your system doesn’t identify with roles

you can’t clearly differentiate between/see your system members in headspace, or you don’t have a headspace

you can’t clearly differentiate between members in front/tell who’s fronting or when you switch

you don’t have a system name

you use i/me pronouns

you don’t present differently or have distinct ways of talking/typing from each other

switching feels less like your body is being taken over and more like the state of who you “are” is changing into someone else

your system members feel more like different parts or versions of the host than entire people

you can’t tell whether a new system member split or you’re dealing with an unstable sense of identity

you can’t switch at will or communicate with your system members

you are unable to make a list, set up coherent profiles on tumblr or pluralkit for your whole system, or similar.

we’ve seen these expectations placed on systems online, and people dealing with impostor syndrome because their system doesn’t fit the expectations. but none of it is actually required to be a system. 

the main part of dissociative disorders, after all, is dissociation. many systems experience confusion, because the dissociation is part of what makes them a system. and since dissociative disorders develop as a trauma response, it’s actually extremely common that system members aren’t obviously distinct from each other, since splitting in the first place is the brain’s attempt at a survival tactic. it just usually isn’t as clear-cut as the online community makes it out to be.

it’s okay to not know. it’s okay to be unsure. having a disorder doesn’t mean you have to know everything about how it works and what’s going on in your head.

You don't have to know who's fronting all the time. It's normal to be blurry or just not want to know. It's ok it doesn't make you any less real and it's healthy to not know sometimes.