Syscourse stuff, can we please just get along?

Alters are a fucking symptom of the disorder, not the disorder itself!

Hi, my name is Kitty, and I am a little in our system who literally feels like putting their head through a wall from hearing what some people try to say!

Like, oh my God! Plurality is not always disordered! 

I am tired of hearing you try and tell me that some of my system members, and some of my friends aren’t real systems or part of a system because they are endogenic. Not all systems/members of a system are traumagenic.

Here’s the thing, DID/OSDDR already very under researched. Do you really think there is going to be more research for plurality that isn’t disordered?

Shit takes time! We used to call DID multiple personality disorder for God sake. Do you think that didn’t take time to change?

I hope that with time there will be more research on non-disordered plurality, but for now there isn’t a push for research on non-disordered plurality.

Kitty

The term plural as an inclusive identity label did not appear out of nowhere. It was coined and popularized in endogenic and pro-endogenic communities — long before "endogenic" was even itself coined — and has its start in midcontinuum and median system communities. It was an alternative to "multiple" for people who did not see themselves as being a system with Multiple Personality Disorder.

It was intentionally designed to be a broad, shared term, not an exclusive one.

PluralKit, Simply Plural, the myriad plural tags here, #pluralgang on Twitch and Twitter, and many large communities on Discord, Dreamwidth, Pillowfort, Bluesky, and other spaces — these spaces were built and named by people who explicitly wanted a term that included endogenic systems alongside others. That history matters.

It’s also worth noting that while some CDD systems use “plural,” it has never been, will never be, a primarily CDD term. In fact, most endogenic systems identify as plural, and many people with CDDs don’t use that label at all. Many pwCDDs are not "more than one", they're "one, divided into parts".

Anyone who wants to use it is free to- it's meant to be an opt-in label. That also means anyone who doesn't want to consider themselves plural is allowed to. In fact, there are many CDD systems who very explicitly do not want to be called plural because of it explicitly being a non-medical term, inclusive of endos, and/or simply because it means 'more than one' and they don't feel that is accurate to their experiences.

Hey, Oops, see? SEE? Told you no one can separate it

Can you please explain for those of us less in the know about what you're saying here?

"no one can separate it" - what are people not separating?

I've been talking about how the dynamics within the group of syscoursers engaging in the sophiecourse channels in galaxy of plurals is unhealthy because of groupthink. This is something that has occurred in every single server I've been a part of with a sophiecourse channel. It affected me personally. It affected the person I considered my best friend in a way that broke my heart. Because it was my feelings. Exactly mine, in their own words.

To further explain, the isolated group gets themselves riled up over a mostly harmless post to the point that they've got their pitchforks out and see something being said that isn't quite there, but no one is allowed to actually engage publicly or say that it wasn't said, so they seethe and get angrier and angrier until they end up as a stressed wreck that can't hold a conversation. Hi, you know who. Left alone, they turn into me, who eventually started harming to deal with these big feelings that I had no outlet for.

Anyways, you'll see lots of examples of this in the doc when it's released. You'll also see that it's pretty much just Dia and okimi getting everyone riled up. That's also important.

Finally, you need to know that the sophiecourse channel from galaxy of plurals was leaked, showcasing this dynamic on repeat.

In trying to talk to oops about this dynamic, oops said it was in my and that friend's head, that everyone has always been free to disagree that sophie is the devil, that people speak positively about sophie all the time, that of course you can say something positive about sophie and not be ostracized from the group.

Oops then went on to talk to that friend in a "lovely conversation" where, presumably, they reassured that friend that it was okay, they would always be friends, they could always talk. Who the fuck knows.

But to then come back to me and double down that it's not actually an issue?

So I said Sophie supported me by telling me I could post whatever I wanted.

We're not in Galaxy of Plurals, so I don't know how the dynamic is there aside from the occasional screenshot that's been floating around, but we've been in a fair few servers with channels specific to Sophie. Not all of them have felt group-thinky to us, but some definitely have. I might dm you to ask more details about specifics regarding servers you and us have both been in that have had such channels.

Hm, I see..., I think. Not certain.

We shall see the doc when it's released, then, if we haven't disappeared to the underworld for another few months by then"""

Hm. Okay.

Do you know if Oops was meaning in general, or specific to that server's dynamic? You were both on the same page about the specifics of the discussion? (/gen, just wanting to make sure I understand the situation)

Ahh, I see.

What would be the false accusation in this case? I've been vaguely aware of some of the stuff that's been said in the past year but not a ton.

Hey, Oops, see? SEE? Told you no one can separate it

Can you please explain for those of us less in the know about what you're saying here?

"no one can separate it" - what are people not separating?

I see a lot online people who are like, “I’m not traumatized, I know this because [insert behavior here].” Like they don’t lash out, they don’t fawn, they don’t freeze, they don’t have flashbacks…

I’m a highly traumatized individual. One of the biggest behaviors I’ve had recently due to that trauma is playing mobile games.

See, I didn’t even realize at first that this is what I was doing. But my spouse was playing games, and my parents used to do that when they wanted to be left alone; I’ve learned that interrupting this behavior leads to abuse, so I don’t interrupt them. However, I’ve learned my spouse does this as a neutral thing — something to do while waiting for something. These two ideas have mixed in my mind, so that mobile games are “I’m in neutral, waiting for some unnamed thing, don’t bother me.” I’ve also struggled a lot recently with trying to “fix” their upset or anger, and I want to stop doing that, so I want to show them that their neutral time is fine. I start playing mobile games to mimic their behavior to show them I’m okay with neutral time.

Cue me playing mobile games for 2 hours straight, because I can’t interrupt them, and we’re both time blind.

Do you see how this isn’t a huge deal? It’s not a big red banner above my head saying “TRAUMA RESPONSE!” But it is derived from my trauma, and it is something that gets better over time as I process my trauma.

It's the fact that "We're all systems!" gives a lot of people with vastly different experiences the idea that there's a lot more similarity than often is the case.

Would changing the terms used and who uses them for what have a significant effect on that tendency? I don't know. Maybe it would. Maybe it wouldn't.

But I find the idea that many people are harmed by that assumption to be the most important thing to care about, much much more important than who gets to use what words.

We didn't used to feel like that. I'm not sure if the difference is our change in dominant facet, or if we've grown to care more about people than who's got the more compelling argument. Or maybe it's both.

Either way, I can look back at our arguments from back when this topic first came out till recently and say "That's not helping." I empathize. I want to help.

Again, would using different terms actually help much? Idk. It's impossible to know.

No amount of changing terminology has ever satisfied sysmeds, and this wouldn't either.

And the "problem" you have isn't really solved because people will just say that "we're all plural" instead. And the sentiment will be backed by the plural association which is ran by a traumagenic CDD system. It will be backed up by other pro-endo traumagenic systems who support the endogenic community, and identify with many endogenic experiences.

You and I both know but if the endogenic community somehow unanimously came together to reject the term system, leaving it just to be a CDD exclusive term, they would be claiming the term plural next.

Some already are, though it's not as common here on Tumblr.

You would have us stuck in a cycle of forever giving up and surrendering our terms and identities in order to make sysmeds feel better, while they move on to the next to take from us.

You give your lunch money to bullies, and they come back for more.

They will claim to be hurt by the word plural. They will claim "endogenic" needs to be changed because it was invented by freud. (It wasn't.) They will move back to tulpa discourse and push the appropriation nonsense again, demanding all of our guides be rewritten and the name of the subreddit you moderate be changed.

There are already a significant amount of people with CDDs who don't identify as plural. There's a lot of discussion on how it's an opt-in term.

You weren't around for the change from natural multiple to endogenic. All of the discourse around that particular terminology eventually went away after the term change, and for the latter part of it was only used by antis who didn't know that no one used it anymore except them. And it took awhile but absolutely no one uses "natural multiple" anymore except in a historical context.

Also? You're missing the point. This isn't about the give an inch they'll take a mile, whatsoever. This is about real people, which absolutely includes pro-endos, being hurt by assumptions that are worsened by the lack of distinct terminology.

Some thoughts.

1. Just because I defend people's use of people language does not mean that's what I use in practice. Especially when it comes to my interactions with others. With all but my closest confidantes, I typically go with a "host with occasional other parts of themselves" approach that works well with our eternally frontstuck host.

2. There is no one to mourn. No one died. We fused. I'm still the same 2 alters I used to be, just now a more whole and stable part. I feel more complete than I have in a long time, and I don't feel bad about that.

3. To compare it to another experience I've been through, would you ask a trans man to bury his excitement about his future plans of transition just because his family is "mourning the little girl he used to be?"

4. The post was about how every place I tried to talk about this treating my fusion like it's a bad or emotionally complex thing. I just wanted someone to go "how are you feeling about this? Good? Well congratulations then!" instead of implying that I should somehow be upset about it. Individual people mourning is not the issue but the overall attitude that fusion is always an emotionally ordeal that I have to pretend to struggle with lest I want to be the odd one out.

So like. Comparisons and systemhood and median and multiple and plural and tulpa and… whatever the fuck.

I told two of my friends I was a system. One — someone I was incredibly close to at the time, one whom I loved like a brother, had a mental breakdown on me about it, insisting I was roleplaying and needed serious medical help. The other said, “oh cool! ^w^ I know someone with tulpas so I get this.”

The first friend — K — basically didn’t speak to me for years.

The second friend — D — did the same. I think because I didn’t speak with him.

See, the thing is, both of these individuals failed to understand who I was. Neither of them really got what I was going through. Hell, I don’t even get what I was going through. I was severely traumatized and still pretending I wasn’t. I didn’t even remember the worst of it.

So… even though one was cool with me being “plural,” it didn’t feel like I could… really discuss the aspects I dealt with on a daily basis. It didn’t feel like I could be myself.

Here’s the part I find way more interesting that all that though.

Cut to years later — I’m talking like 4 years — and K reaches back out. He watched a show where a character “has DID” (not sure how accurate that is, haven’t watched the show, Mr. Robot for those curious) and he realized that he was acting just like the ableist bad guy. That he had treated me like shit. And he listened as I explained the shit that had happened, what I remembered now — and he was genuinely horrified and genuinely caring about my feelings. We still really don’t talk, but I appreciate how he treated me. When he did check in with me now and then, I updated him on how therapy was going, how integrations been going, and alter shenanigans. I don’t think he was ever comfortable with the last one, but… he listened and treated me with respect.

D reached back out too — about 3 years after K did — to make sure I was safe. He was worried about the political climate. He still reaches out. But I don’t really mention my system.

And you know what stands out to me? They both still call me Sie. Because that’s what I went by online.

My spouse didn’t believe in DID when we first met. They now know when I switch just by looking at me. They love me more because I am multiple.

Many of my coworkers know I have DID. They don’t care but they don’t treat me like I’m multiple at all. Not even after I told them my names.

My friends IRL use my name, my pronouns, they care; say they get it cause they had something like that in high school but they grew out of it. Pull me aside and tell me, for 3 hours, all about how they feel weird sometimes and dissociate, and describe derealization, and “is that what alters are like?” I don’t use the word alters myself. Not often anyways — only when it’s easier for others.

I’m not sure if folks are getting what I’m getting at here. I’m not sure I even am.

It’s just…

When someone compares me to tulpamancy, it hurts. I’m not that. It doesn’t describe me. When someone says, “I understand you,” they don’t, not unless they’ve taken the fucking time. Depends on the system, right? But we aren’t even all systems. Sometimes a singlet understands me more than anyone else; sometimes a CDD system gets me the least.

We’re all fucking people at the end of the day. Is that not enough?

(It’s not. We all need someone to relate to. Someone we care about.)

It does hurt to be compared all the time. It does hurt to be told that people somehow understand an existence I never got the chance to explain to them. I don’t see how. It feels as if my identity and personhood are robbed when this is said.

And it feels like, if I say that too loudly, the response will be that the filthy sysmedical rhetoric I spout makes me deserve it.

I don’t think this hurt — the hurt of constantly being compared — is unique to CDDs.

How many endogenic systems reveal to others that they’re plural, only to hear, “Oh, like DID?” Mapping it out like it’s my own experiences:

An endogenic system, Hypo, realizes they are a protogenic system. They were born this way, and it’s only now that they’ve realized there’s words for their experiences.

Hypo goes to find other systems online and falls into a highly medicalized group of DID systems, who all insist that Hypo’s “symptoms” match up directly to DID. “You just don’t remember the trauma that led to you splitting them,” those DID systems say. Hypo brushes it off. But it doesn’t hurt less.

They start parroting the same. Hypo is young, after all. They spout the same DID-only information to all systems, even contemplating labeling themselves as a DID system once and for all, just to get folks off their back. They drift away from the people, realizing only later how badly it all hurts. But they’ll move on.

Hypo introduces themselves to people in real life as a system. Just a few — it’s dangerous. Those people are kind. They help and celebrate that person’s plurality.

Not everyone is that kind though. When discussing with a friend online, that friend insists that everything is fine with this, really, because it’s just like roleplaying! Hypo… also roleplays. Hypo knows this is nothing like roleplaying. Hypo tries to explain that this isn’t like roleplaying for them, and the friend goes off that they were just trying to be accepting. That’s one friend lost. And it doesn’t hurt less.

Another friend said, “Oh, I get this! It’s just like my friend with DID.” Those years of those DID systems telling Hypo that they had DID come surfacing back; those scars are still there. But their friend is excited for Hypo. Their friend isn’t saying they HAVE did, just. Just that they understand Hypo’s protogenic system because they know about DID. They laugh it off. It doesn’t hurt less.

Especially when that friend asks how their parts are doing. Or how they’re dealing with amnesia. Or how the dissociation is impacting them recently.

It’s not like they’re trying to be hurtful. But…

Hypo starts avoiding shared spaces with DID systems. They don’t want to deal with being compared 24/7. It’s… it’s exhausting. Yes, even if people know what plurality is because they know about DID, that doesn’t mean they know Hypo. It’s almost easier to deal with an uneducated person than someone who thinks they are educated and aren’t.

So instead Hypo sticks to those who DO understand. Protogenic servers, DID systems DNI. Hypo gets rallied — it isn’t fair that there’s so few spaces to feel like they can be themselves in. How dare those sysmeds (cause really, aren’t they?) make Hypo feel this way.

It takes years to dismantle the new radicalization. And all the while…

“Oh like split?”

“I dated someone with DID!”

“Have you ever considered using this DID workbook to help?”

It hurts. People deserve to be recognized for who they are. Not constantly compared. And I think it’s fair, in Hypo’s case, to feel hurt! Don’t we deserve better?