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it’s a series of negotiations you make with yourself over your whole life. it’s making one less self-deprecating joke. it’s looking at yourself in the mirror with a little more generosity. it’s forgiving yourself for that little mistake.

DID has biomarkers in the brain! This means that DID changes the brain structure and this has been observed through neuroimaging [1].

These structural changes and neural networks in the brain are very similar but also distinguishable from PTSD [2]! This supports the leading theory that DID is on a continuum with PTSD.

An algorithm was able to spot the difference between healthy brains and brains with DID with up to 73% accuracy (which is significantly higher than what was expected) [3].

Alters have also been observed through neuroimaging! When a DID system switches, different alters activate different neural networks. Even in studies where multiple brain scans were done months apart, the same alters still activated the same neural networks [4].

We have scanned the brains of both people with DID and healthy people instructed to “roleplay” DID and found that the healthy people do not show the same neural networks when roleplaying alters [5].

What this all means: DID is real. I don’t think anyone following my blog doubts that, but having this info is important in spreading awareness and combatting stigma (especially the stigma in the psychiatric field). DID is not something that people are just reporting to experience, it has an observable and distinct impact in the brain.

Like if the messaging around tumblr was "We'll never have an algorithm. We'll never sell your data. We'll never be bought by Elon Musk" and then they actually followed through on it all, they could fill a very desperately needed niche in the market. Rebrand tumblr as the not-predatory social media site and people will actually have a reason to check it out other than nostalgia

I think the consensus of the userbase is moving towards "staff is actually doing a pretty good job now for effectively the first time in history" so I don't think it's too far-fetched that they could go in this direction. And now really is the perfect time to do it