haze et al

Haze, he/him, adult

Diagnosed DID, SzPD, C-PTSD

Leftist (who hates all kinds of transphobes)

Anti-endo (if you don’t have trauma you’re not a system, if you genuinely experience some kind of “multiplicity” through a separate process than tertiary structural dissociation, it wouldn’t look anything like DID and there wouldn’t be any need to insert yourself into our spaces or appropriate our terminology). More details here, here, here, and here

Critical of the mental healthcare system, but still pro-science, pro-diagnosis, pro-psych medication, pro-psych hospitalization, etc. Don't like misinformation or demonization of mental healthcare under the guise of "criticism", it does more harm than good

Don't like misinformation in general (especially in reference to DID and trauma related stuff)

Don't support the demonization of trauma-based disorders and symptoms such as avoidant attachment, empathy deficits, NPD, and ASPD. I have no tolerance for that kind of rhetoric on my page

Low empathy (by virtue of being schizoid)

This is the void I scream into about schizoid personality disorder, dissociation, trauma, and other mental health related things. Don’t be a dick and we won’t have any issues.

Links to research surrounding inter-identity amnesia and general memory function in DID. Also some links to basic studies on dissociative amnesia as a stand-alone dissociative disorder, which operates similarly to amnesia within DID.

I'd recommend just talking about the reasons why you believe you may be a system, without explicitly bringing up DID itself.

It's entirely possible you might be wrong about being a system (which doesn't necessarily mean you're faking), and so it would most likely be better to just have your symptoms assessed for what they are without any assumptions of a specific diagnosis.

Also, mental health professionals may be suspicious if you bring up DID yourself (for a variety of reasons that may or may not be reasonable), so not doing so might make it easier to get an unbiased assessment.

Tell them about any struggles you have with amnesia, dissociation, inconsistencies in your sense of self or behaviour, whatever it is that makes you suspect DID. Try to describe it in your own words, don't describe it in a way that would specifically make it seem like DID (i.e. "sometimes I feel like my thoughts aren't really mine" would be better than "sometimes I hear different people in my head").

It might be a good idea to take some time away from DID spaces to really figure out how your symptoms feel to you and how you would describe them in your own words. Again, it doesn't mean you're faking, but spending a lot of time in spaces for a specific disorder can influence the way you perceive your own symptoms. It's best to have these symptoms assessed in the way they naturally present for you personally, as free from outside influences as possible.

Above all, just be as open and honest about your experiences as you can. Don't be afraid to advocate for yourself or seek a second opinion if they aren't taking you seriously, but don't just brush them off if they end up telling you that you have something else instead.

It also might be a good idea to make it clear that you're looking for some kind of assessment, i.e. specifically mention that you don't understand what these symptoms are and would like to know what's causing them. If you don't, they may just take your symptoms at face value without trying to assess them for a cause. Depending on the qualifications of the therapist, they may have to refer you to a psychiatrist or clinical psychologist for a proper evaluation.

Finally, depending on your age, they might hesitate to diagnose DID even if that is what it turns out to be, in which case they might just diagnose it as "dissociation" or something. I wouldn't necessarily panic if that's the case, so long as they can still offer you treatment for your symptoms, a less specific diagnosis will still be useful. Having documented dissociation and identity fragmentation can be used for a full diagnosis when you're older too.

The romanticization and constant misinformation surrounding systemhood has frustrated me to no end and I’ve been too scared to speak up against endo rhetoric in fear of harassment. This blog has given me the confidence (albeit shaky) to speak up about the ableism that is constantly shoved into my face. So thank you -TC 🌮

No problem. Glad to hear it, it's honestly ridiculous that people with dissociative disorders have to put up with such blatantly ableist pseudoscience anyway, and the more people are willing to acknowledge that for what it is, the quicker we can get it out of our spaces.

And yes, it's practically impossible to recover from a trauma-based disorder when you are still in a traumatic situation. That doesn't mean you still can't work towards better functionality though, and establishing communication with six parts in an actively traumatic situation is honestly impressive. While recovery should obviously be the end goal, there's nothing wrong with just doing what you can to keep yourself as safe as possible if you're currently not in a situation that would allow you to heal.

Here's a handful of links to scientific articles about DID that outline some basic concepts of the disorder, for anyone looking for an intro to DID research:

Overall Reviews of DID

Dissociative identity disorder as interdisciplinary problem. Part I - psychiatric and psychological aspects 

Separating Fact from Fiction: An Empirical Examination of Six Myths About Dissociative Identity Disorder 

Dissociative identity disorder: An empirical overview 

Dissociative Identity Disorder: A Comprehensive Review of Etiology, Diagnosis, Neurobiology, and Treatment

Frequency of dissociative identity disorder in the general population in Turkey (not open access) 

From the neuropsychiatric to the analytic: three perspectives on dissociative identity disorder 

Analysis of demographic and clinical characteristics of patients with dissociative identity disorder 

Dissociative identity disorder: An Australian series 

Basic Concepts & Mechanisms of DID

Shame as Affect Regulation in Dissociative Identity Disorder (not open access) 

Familial and social support as protective factors against the development of dissociative identity disorder (not open access)

Symptom patterns in dissociative identity disorder patients and the general population (not open access)

Self or selves? Dissociative identity disorder and complexity of the self-system 

Total otherness in dissociative identity disorder 

Dissociative identity disorder as a wide range of defense mechanisms in children with a history of early childhood trauma

The sense of self over time: Assessing diachronicity in dissociative identity disorder, psychosis and healthy comparison groups 

Measuring fragmentation in dissociative identity disorder: the integration measure and relationship to switching and time in therapy 

In my experience, SzPD and DID tend to play into each other quite a bit. The anhedonia and alexithymia from my SzPD often worsens the derealization and depersonalization from, and vice versa. The identity confusion from my DID is made worse by my lack of a core self from my SzPD. It's near impossible to ground myself when I don't care about anything in my external reality and I don't emotionally react to things that other people find "calming". So on and so forth.

I've felt for a while that for me, the SzPD and DID kind of come from the same place. They're both based in disconnecting from the world around me and my own internal experiences. They both seem to fill this role of "psychologically playing dead" in response to overwhelmingly stressful experiences.

When I was a child, it wasn't safe to consciously process what was happening around me, so I just didn't, and that lead to me forming alters. It also wasn't safe for me to develop a personality, because every little thing I said, did, thought or felt resulted in me being traumatized. So again, I just didn't, and that lead to me becoming schizoid.

They're both based in the same thing: it wasn't safe to exist, it wasn't safe to be a person. So my brain just tried to become "nothing". Both through heavily dissociating away from and compartmentalizing my experiences, and by never developing the ability to properly process emotions or form attachments to people.

Or something like that, I guess.

SzPD also complicates my DID because of the fact that a core trait of being schizoid is "lacking a personality", so to speak. It can be difficult for me to identify alters when all of us are so lacking in personhood. For me, identifying different alters tends to be a matter of observing differences in memory and behaviour as opposed to "personality".

We still have traits that make us distinct, like identifying with different ages, genders and internal senses of appearance. But it can be very difficult to determine differences in personality traits when we're all so emotionally flat and disconnected from everything.

It was also hard for me to even realize for a long time that I was switching between alters, because I was always lacking the feeling of having a core self at all. I noticed that I had episodes of thinking, feeling and behaving "differently", but it never felt like having multiple personalities, because I've never felt like I had a personality at all. All of us just feel like hollow shells at our core, it's the traits that decorate the outside of those shells that differ.

I've also noticed that while we are all schizoid, individually we seem to represent different subtypes of SzPD. Not entirely sure if that's literally what's happening, but there is variability of SzPD presentation across parts. Some parts seem to have traits of other PDs as well, especially those that formed earlier in life when our schizoid traits were less concrete.

New direction for this blog: screw the science stuff, time to only respond to asks with tarot readings. I have a deck lying around here somewhere, what could go wrong?

signed....... a schizoafective... !

Here's a few:

Not open access

Schizoaffective Disorder: A Review

Neuropsychological and neuroimaging underpinnings of schizoaffective disorder: A systematic review

Characteristics of patients diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder compared with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

Life events in schizoaffective disorder: A systematic review

Open access

What we know and what we don't know about the treatment of schizoaffective disorder

Schizoaffective disorder: a review of current research themes and pharmacological management

Genetic Relationships Between Schizophrenia, Bipolar Disorder, and Schizoaffective Disorder

Comparison of parietal cortex volumes in schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder

Epigenetic Influences in Aberrant Salience and Reality Testing in Schizoaffective Disorder: A Multi-Level Adaptive Network Modelling Approach

Neurophysiological Distinction between Schizophrenia and Schizoaffective Disorder

The Modern Concept of Schizoaffective Disorder: A Narrative Review

Cognitive function in schizoaffective disorder and clinical subtypes of schizophrenia

Antipsychotic Management of Schizoaffective Disorder: A Review

Brain structural changes in schizoaffective disorder compared to schizophrenia and bipolar disorder

P.S. I truly respect your thorough, evidence-based approach — backing everything with articles and sources.

I'm glad it's been helpful. I do really think people in this community (and other adjacent mental health communities) would benefit from looking at more academic sources, so I try to link them whenever possible. I'm happy that it's appreciated