Morgue

empathy is a brain function that some people (including me!) struggle with.

There are three types! Affective empathy, which is basically the ability to read other people's emotions, Somatic empathy, the classic "I feel sad because you're sad" and Cognitive empathy, which is the ability to accurately guess what people are thinking and feeling.

If you use empathy to mean "caring about other people" when you could use words like compassion, you're implying a large subsection of the population (including people you may know) are heartless and bad simply because of the way they were born!

it is not A Superpower (fantastical), it's literally just a trait, and it's good to understand to what capacity you have/don't have it, so that you can better recognize your needs, but it's not what makes a person a good person. that's what actions are for.

Being normal people with basically any personality disorder, Narcissistic, Borderline, Obsessive Compulsive Personality, Shizoeffective, Antisocial, etc. seems to be a big struggle because of the manipulation tactics involved in many people's abuse.

Massive however, blaming other people with the same condition as your abuser for what they had nothing to do with is a little manipulation tactic that falls under Projection. Maybe don't turn your victimhood into a victim mentality. And you being triggered by an entire group of people is no different than my stepdad abusing and manipulating me because i was "flamboyant" and "he had a bad experience with a gay man" (which hurts as a trans woman on an unreal level but i digress).

Can i say that all people with [condition that i assume my stepdad would meet the criteria for] are just as bad as he is? Can my traumatic experiences be a way to shut down others? Does my triggers trunp theirs? Manipulation is a defense mechanism, no one, does it intentionally. That includes projecting, so watch how you act.

Psychosis similarly gets a lot of really weird hate? And the amount of infantilization and the... appropriation(?) with words like "delulu", and "psycho", and otherwise leaving people who struggle with REAL ISSUES, with nothing other than "literally crazy/insane/a freak".

The amount of "but we shouldn't encourage delusions!" when talking about things are not delusions in any capacity, or even the idea that "telling them they're being crazy/stupid" is going to help anyone. In fact, telling someone that they're crazy/stupid... to sew doubt in what people believe... so that you can look like you're smart/kind/respectable... Is that not just gaslighting? And the trying to control a narrative? And seeking validation?

As for systems... As part of a system myself, having my therapist, who is supposed to support and guide us through struggles in our life: Being told "it's considered a controversial disorder'" did not help us at ALL. Neither did "it's incredibly rare" (Off shoot Ad Populum Logical Fallacy lookin ass argument?), and "Anxiety can actually go in the opposite direction and you're probably just experiencing hypo-reactive anxiety, not dissociation" (gaslighting your client, likely because you don't have "the proper training" to treat a patient, despite years of being in practice, because you feel invalidated 😔).

Similarly the way fictives are treated as nothing more than their source, and even mentioning littles immediately causes a very strong gut reaction from people. The amount of people who ask you to switch, or ask to talk to a specific alter, or fakeclaim online (as if they have even a fraction of a percent of your life, history, struggles) is also disgusting.

And do i even need to comment on the media's portrayal of any of the above mentioned conditions?

Also let's be honest when people say that without being ND themselves, they're typically only talking about Autistic people and ADHDers when they're not "being extra", but many Autistic and ADHD peeps are also guilty of assuming that they're all the Neurodivergent label has to offer.

So anyway, here's a lil visual representation of only SOME of the various conditions that would fall under Neurodivergence. See that asterisk, and the corresponding note that says "non exhaustive list"? Yeah.

By the way, if anyone wants to correct any misinformation in reblogs, please do. We do not want to spread anything that could be seen as harmful or misleading. We only have our own personal experiences with AuDHD and DID stuff. Debatably others stuff, but regardless, outside of bits and bobs we've picked up from others, and a special interest in Psychology, we are by no means experts on others' conditions.

Also reblogging with your own struggles with Neurotypicals or even other Neurodivergents is totally cool to share too! Absolutely will reblog, love learning and hearing from other types of people!

you’ll see people who say they have “six alters” and then immediately assume it’s six fully fleshed out equal individuals with no confusion or fuzziness regarding identity. that’s simply not true in a majority of cases, as i have seen.

most systems still VERY much deal with confusion regarding potential splits, go through dissociative episodes where they’re unsure of who they are, sometimes feel no attachment towards any identities, feel like they might have split and then suddenly that person is gone, unsure if alters they haven’t heard from often have gone dormant, not sure how to react when alters do come out of dormancy, etc.

it’s not a fun feeling and it’s genuinely unfair in certain situations to force systems to list every single alter to you with full certainty, as if it will never change. because it will. for so many different reasons, systems will grow, they will shrink, they will fuse, they will develop. you can’t expect the person with the dissociative disorder and lack of core identity to be able to keep up a perfected list of forever, it’s simply impossible. you may have alters who stick with you, but that doesn’t mean changes won’t happen.

and systems who may be reading this — please don’t feel bad. you are not a hassle, you are not a headache, and you are not an inconvenience for simply coping with something like this. it’s out of your control and the only thing you can do is continue to cope to find ways to help yourself retrain from these reactions. please don’t allow yourself to be harmed by others who don’t understand what you are going through. there are people who will accept and love you for who you are, all of you.