#dsm-5

This person claimed to be "anti-sysmed," but literally was spouting sysmed rhetoric about how trauma is a requirement for DID.

So uh, newsflash: a disorder cannot be "trauma-based" if trauma is not a hard requirement to be diagnosed with the disorder. DID/OSDD/P-DID, etc are dissociative disorders, not trauma disorders. The DSM-V makes that clear:

[IMAGE TEXT:

Dissociative disorders are characterized by a disruption of and/or discontinuity in the normal integration of consciousness, memory, identity, emotion, perception, body representation, motor control, and behavior. Dissociative symptoms can potentially disrupt every area of psychological functioning. This chapter includes dissociative identity disorder, dissociative amnesia, depersonalization/derealization disorder, other specified dissociative disorder, and unspecified dissociative disorder.

Dissociative symptoms are experienced as a) unbidden intrusions into awareness and behavior, with accompanying losses of continuity in subjective experience (i.e., “positive” dissociative symptoms such as fragmentation of identity, depersonalization, and derealization) and/or b) inability to access information or to control mental functions that normally are readily amenable to access or control (i.e., “negative” dissociative symptoms such as amnesia).

The dissociative disorders are frequently found in the aftermath of trauma, and many of the symptoms, including embarrassment and confusion about the symptoms or a desire to hide them, are influenced by the proximity to trauma. In DSM-5, the dissociative disorders are placed next to, but are not part of, the trauma- and stressor-related disorders, reflecting the close relationship between these diagnostic classes. Both acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder contain dissociative symptoms, such as amnesia, flashbacks, numbing, and depersonalization/derealization.

END IMAGE TEXT.] This is on page 292, by the way. Yes, these disorders are often caused by trauma, nobody is debating that, but it is not the sole cause. The sources this user shared describes the disorders as "often caused by" or "trauma-related," etc, which are not the same as stating these disorders must have trauma to be present. Anyway, it was just kind of funny just so easily debunking every single point with their own sources until they got sick of it and blocked me.

one day because im inpatient (aka please if u can/want to feel free and it's encouraged to reblog)

tagging people i remember (😭 so sorry if u are/aren't here 😭):

[This poll was submitted. If you'd like to submit a character, please send it over here to the askbox]

[Only requirement for submissions is that the character is fictional]

Something I struggle with people who don’t have a degree in psychology thinking about mental illnesses is the concept of the DSM.

People struggling with a thing get frustrated by aspects of their problem behaviors missing from the DSM. I think there are some key reasons:

"Diagnostic" means a listing of criteria useful for evaluation to determine if the person meets the criteria. "Statistical" means the criteria together leads to the highest likelihood of meeting the criteria without too high diagnoses who don't have it while not too many misses on a diagnosis. It's expected the criteria will miss people.

It's written by committee and intended to reflect general consensus of the psychological community. Individuals in the field may disagree with the criteria. Professional grumbling about the lack of accuracy always rumbles in the background, so they do revisions.

It's probably written by people who don't have the diagnosis. It's about treatment, not building communities or shared experiences. My professors would object to any autistic person creating the criteria for autism as biased. Naturally allistic people also have biases, so who's to say which is least biased?