the Wanderers' online arguing blog

Some of y'all have spent so much time arguing online that you've lost sight of what the real problems are. Endos and whether they are real or not is not the problem. They don't even come close to being the problem.

People with CDDs commonly experience profound interpersonal difficulties, significant functional impairment, and high rates of self-harm and suicidality. That is a real problem that needs addressing. Many people with CDDs spend 5-12 years in the mental health system before receiving an accurate diagnosis, often receiving multiple misdiagnoses along the way. That's another real problem. Trauma survivors with dissociative disorders are at increased risk of experiencing further victimization. That's a huge fucking problem that I've personally experienced countless times that the anti vs pro debate never helped me with. Let's not overlook how substance use disorders are a common comorbidity. Also something I personally struggled with.

Want a source for all of this? Here you go.

Don't wanna click the link? Here's screenshots with ALT text:

You don't have to agree with someone's opinions to recognize that they deserve support. Excluding someone with a CDD from community or resources because they disagree with you about a controversial and ultimately unwinnable discourse topic doesn't make the community healthier. All you're doing is leaving one more traumatized person without a place to turn.

one who obviously cares more about hating endos than supporting pwCDDs.

If someone is asking whether a phenomenon is a recognized mental disorder, then clinical psychology and psychiatry are the appropriate places to look. If someone is asking about a social identity, a community, a cultural phenomenon, or how people describe and understand their own experiences, then sociology, anthropology, ethnography, and related social sciences are also relevant.

For example, most people understand that alterhuman communities aren't explained by clinical zoanthropy. They're different phenomena that happen to share some superficial similarities. In a similar vein, discussions about endogenic plurality as a social or identity phenomenon aren't fully answered by literature on dissociative disorders. You will have to look at other sciences.

What frustrates me the most is when people dismiss social science sources as "not real science" simply because they aren't clinical studies. Social sciences are still sciences, and they're often the most appropriate for studying communities, identities, and cultural/spiritual/religious phenomena... Like endogenic plurality.

But... I will admit... if you're looking for the field most directly concerned with explaining the underlying mechanisms of subjective experiences... I'd probably point to psychology and cognitive science. There's just... not much there yet. What we do have are reports, interpretations, community frameworks, maybe some relevant psychological theories, and a LOT of unanswered questions.