Sharp, Dangerous Things

Time for an updated pinned post.

This secondary Tumblr belongs to a system of dubious origin and will be used as a space for us to record our shenanigans and talk about system-related content. If you have somehow found your way here and have questions, throw an ask over the fence, and we might answer.

When we started this blog, there were three of us (April, Keith, and Kai). Since then, that number has grown slightly, and we don't bother keeping a list nowadays.

We do what most people do: go hiking, consume far too much media, occasionally write (however poorly), and try to make life work from one day to the next. I love stuffed animals, Keith owns a guitar and a sword, and Kai will talk your ear off about frogs. Wander is our archivist, and Micah does magic.

Our policy regarding all discourse is live and let live. On the whole, we're friendly to anyone and everyone, and believe in such lofty principles as radical acceptance, harm reduction, and the power of hope.

We will occasionally post about our experiences in the syscourse tag because it turns out that our existence is somehow a discussion point. We strongly believe in people and despise fakeclaiming in all its forms.

Just in case, let me be clear on behalf of our system:

Systems and singlets -- basically anyone you come across -- are people and should be treated with kindness and dignity afforded all human beings. It's not controversial. It's not discourse. It's basic decency.

Below are a couple of servers we frequent and enjoy:

They've said everything recently from "endogenic DID" to "either you have DID or you're not plural." Let me be clear that syscourse is a never-ending repetition of the same basic premises. It doesn't stop and it rarely changes.

DID is a dissociative disorder that's characterized by, you might have guessed it, dissociation. DID patients showing up at the doctor's office are going to be talking about symptoms like dissociation, depersonalization, loss of time, amnesia, mood swings, and so on. They may or may not mention childhood adversity or trauma.

For many of them, they will first notice the disorder as teenagers or adults, so somehow correlating that to shit that happened to them when they were six might not even register. Like, we're all human beings, some of us have shitty memory, and it makes sense that memory problems would make figuring out the why of it all difficult, if not impossible.

But a clinician looking at their symptoms and working with them might turn to trauma-management techniques to help them with some of their symptoms because underneath the dissociation, there is a very good chance that childhood trauma was involved. That is something important for the clinician to know, that there's a heavy-ass correlation between DID symptoms and childhood awfulness.

And remember, this is about DID (the disorder, the shitty thing that lands you in a therapist's office). This is not a discussion of plurality (the experience of being many that likely isn't the reason you're in a therapist's office).

DID being a trauma or not being a trauma disorder is actually not that relevant. If you show up to therapy with dissociative symptoms, your therapist isn't going to force you to remember childhood trauma before diagnosing you. But if you remember whatever heck you've been through, that will help them better support you (hopefully). And if you show up to that office and never remember any trauma at all (maybe you had a perfect childhood and still ended up with DID symptoms), the therapist isn't going to panic and toss you out.

So, to recap, a disorder can have dissociative symptoms and underlying those symptoms might well be childhood trauma, but you're not showing up in your therapist's office because of it (or maybe you are, and you're also multiple people, and that might not be DID).

And you might be plural and not have DID and therefore, childhood trauma might not apply to your particular plurality whatsoever. DID being a disorder that occurs because of underlying trauma does not invalidate anyone who doesn't have that trauma. You have the fucking symptoms, you get the funny-named disorder. That's how it rolls.

Denying someone's lived identity or experience and/or fakeclaiming breaks that contract, and we block people who demonstrate that they are not willing to be tolerant of others.

It's not about any particular belief or internal view of the world, but it is about willingness to exist in shared spaces in good faith.

Most people manage just fine, regardless of their beliefs and opinions. But the occasional intolerant bastard is removed from our dash with prejudice.

What is stopping you from creating a private Discord server or forum? Like, you could be interacting only with other CDD-havers right now! Today. For the low price of "free."

I feel like some anti-endos walk into an auditorium full of people of all shapes and sizes and go, "Well, I only want to speak to those who have one eye. The rest of you, don't talk to me."