sure, i’m happy to give my input, but it might not be what you’re looking for. you seem to have good intentions and this isn’t meant to bully or shame you at all, i just want to gently push back on this a little bit.

i personally believe there is never a good enough reason to accuse someone of faking a mental illness, especially something like DID/OSDD. there is no reliable way to spot a faker, and accusing people of lying does far more to hurt the community than faking does. let me explain.

some systems like to talk about their experiences, some don’t. same goes for anyone with any condition. talking about one’s plurality frequently is not automatically them flaunting it, and it’s certainly not grounds to assume they’re faking. plurality informs one’s entire life, we should be allowed to talk about it without having to worry if we’re being perceived as attention seeking.

here’s the thing. it’s wonderful that you want to help protect people who have DID/OSDD from people who might be faking it and i don’t doubt for a second that your intentions are genuine, but accusing someone of faking based on how you perceive them will do far more to discredit them than someone who’s actually faking it.

because here’s what’s going to happen if you remove them from your space because you think they’re faking: everyone around you who may be a closeted system - or even just anyone with a highly stigmatized disorder - is going to know that your acceptance of them isn’t based on their self-report, it’s based on your own perception of their symptoms. they will no longer feel free to be themselves, because showing their symptoms comes with the risk of being kicked out. you’ll have effectively made your space less safe for people with stigmatized conditions. and for the accused person, you’ll have removed them from a space that’s meant to be safe and completely invalidated their lived experience based on them choosing to speak about said experience.

on the flipside, let’s say they are faking and you do nothing. most likely scenario, they’re attention seeking and using DID to get the attention they want. what ends up happening most of the time is the person faking it eventually gets tired of the harassment and of having to keep all their lies straight and they stop.

of course lying about an already stigmatized condition for attention is an awful thing to do, and i’m not defending people who do it. what i am saying is that it is far less harmful to accidentally include a liar than it is to exclude someone who may or may not be lying with no way to know for sure if they are.

TLDR: whether they’re faking or not, them talking about it isn’t a reason to assume they are. and regardless, it’s always better to assume they’re telling the truth.

this popped up on our dash from someone we follow(ed, just unfollowed them after this)

sorry if you don’t want to see this stuff, please ignore this if it’s crossing any boundaries

(IDs: two screenshots of a tumblr post with the username blocked out claiming that RAMCOA is a conspiracy theory that people made up to be cool, that ritual abuse doesn’t exist because the satanic panic was incorrect, and that mind control only happens in movies.)

oh my god, i’m so sorry you had to see that. that’s awful. and so factually incorrect too. “no one would be alive if they were actually trafficked or tortured” is a ridiculous thing to claim.

to anyone who believes this shit - please understand that while there is no shame in being wrong, that doesn’t mean everyone else is wrong too. torture and trafficking are both extremely well documented, as are ritual abuse and programming (aka mind control).

surviving these things is absolutely possible. to claim otherwise when there’s a plethora of documentation is both ridiculous and insidious. people who make claims like these are speaking in the face of hard proof and an entire community of survivors.

i didn’t claw my way to freedom to be told by randos on the internet that my trauma is a conspiracy theory. i don’t watch my friends regularly have to be hospitalized because of programs being activated to be told mind control only happens in movies. my friends don’t have to live their lives in hiding because their abusers will murder them if found for people to get on the internet and say they made it all up to look cool.

ofc! :)

🌙 - do you have subsystems?

we have one confirmed subsystem of the “alter with alters” variety and are in the process of system mapping to try and figure out if there are more.

🎵 - what songs remind you of your alters/headmates?

of those who i know for sure have introduced themselves/consented to be talked about on our blog, i’d say Be Gay, Do Drugs, Hail Satan (by Super Cassette) for Thresh and Oh No! (by MARINA) for Avian. pretty sure there are more who have spoken on this blog but either i’m remembering wrong or tumblr ate their posts lmao.

🎁 - have you ever bought your alters/headmates things?

I'm staying anon because I'm a questioning system, and I found your playlist so damn relatable. Good shit. :]

-@narcissism-positivity

i was so confused by this until i remembered we had reblogged that ask game lmao. thanks for the asks :)

taro ⇢ if someone called you right now to catch up, what’re the things you’d tell them about?

we just got into a queerplatonic relationship and we’re super excited about it! we also recently were able to get on food assistance, which is helping a ton with our bank account and with accommodating our ARFID (avoidant restrictive food intake disorder)!

jasmine ⇢ do you have a movie or book you loved but will never watch/read again?

☀️ do you have any non-human alters (including hybrids)?

we do! among the ones who have talked or introduced themselves on our blog, Azrael and Arael are both angels, and Thresh is a human-shark hybrid. PIXEL identifies as a vocaloid and not a human, which…ngl i don’t understand, but good for sun.

✨does anyone in the system have a pet?

yes! we have a lovely cat named Tala (we just call her Kibby or Bibbles though. and some of the littles just call her Cat).

⭐️ does your system have a name?

yes, our system name is The Corvid Forest! it’s because we have a massive forest in the innerworld that’s guarded by corvids (a family of birds including crows, ravens, jays, etc) and a general love for forests & corvids.

🌎 any demon/angel/god alters?

we have quite a few demon/angel alters from christian mythology! Azrael and Arael have both talked on our blog a bit, and we have a good handful of others who haven’t introduced themselves yet.

🥀 any childhood things that should’ve tipped you off to being a system?