#endosaretrash

They proudly say "I have tourettes" but only tic on command to prove a point, and still act like its the same

They never tic any other time, only on command or to feel "quirky"

you can’t accidentally fake being gay, lesbian, bi, pan, ace, or anything else.

you can’t accidentally fake being trans, nonbinary, genderfluid, agender, xenogender, or anything else.

you can’t accidentally fake having OSDID, depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or anything else.

even if later on, your explanation turns out to be incorrect, your experiences are still real. 

☾︎ 𝑜𝑚𝑛𝑖𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑; 𝑜𝑚𝑛𝑗𝑓𝑙𝑢𝑖𝑑 𝑖𝑠 𝑎 𝑠𝑒𝑥𝑢𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑡𝑦 𝑤ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑒 𝑦𝑜𝑢 𝑎𝑟𝑒 𝑟𝑜𝑚𝑎𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑐𝑎𝑙𝑙𝑦 𝑎𝑡𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑔𝑒𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑠, 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑎 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒, 𝑏𝑢𝑡 𝑦𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝑝𝑟𝑒𝑓𝑒𝑟𝑒𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑛𝑔𝑒𝑠 𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑟𝑦 𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒 𝑖𝑛 𝑎 𝑤ℎ𝑖𝑙𝑒 ☽︎

I want to take a moment to respond to a post that was recently made in endogenic positivity tags.

Before I delve into it, I want to say that the perspective of the OP is that endogenic and non-disordered systems are impossible, and have been disproven by science. This starting premise is untrue. What is true is that they aren't proven by the scientific community yet. But at the same time, study into non-disordered systems has been incredibly limited. What does exist is relatively validating, but ultimately inconclusive because more research needs to be done.

There is active research being conducted into endogenic systems. I've previously discussed the Stanford Tulpa Study that will be the first study to put non-disordered system under an FMRI to study their brains while switching.

It would be dishonest to say that there is 100% scientific proof that plurality can exist without DID/OSDD or childhood trauma, but it's equally dishonest to present it as a fact that this thing that's barely been studied can't happen.

If anyone has studies into non-disordered system proving they don't exist, or even arguing that they don't, they're welcome to present them. But I've never seen any. Most of the studies are strictly focused on patients diagnosed with dissociative disorders.

For our purposes, let’s say we have a young DID or OSDD system who is questioning if they have one of these disorders. Let’s say they pose a question in a community that happens to be endo-friendly along the lines of “I think I am a system but I don’t remember my trauma.” The response of this community is usually along the lines of “You don’t need trauma to have a system!!”

That’s where the first red flag lies. This system has been told by implication that they have no trauma because they don’t remember it.

No. They're told that their experiences are valid whether they have trauma or not.

The most important thing is understanding that your plurality is valid, and you're not faking. Determining if you're traumagenic or not can come later. When a system first discovers their plurality, they need to know that their experiences are real first without making them start questioning which of their headmates might be traumaholders and dealing with everything that comes with that.

And if they're not, gaslighting them into thinking that they are is going to do more harm than good, breeding distrust between headmates who otherwise likely have good communication and no memory separation.

Although, yes, if the system in question reports other side-effects of DID such as dissociative amnesia, or difficulty controlling switching, it would be irresponsible not to recommend seeking therapy to look into it. Having headmates, alone, isn't a disorder though. Otherwise, it's not really anyone's place to try to diagnose them on the internet

So, our system takes this in, but is still a bit skeptical. However, they notice that they don’t present in an overt way that many systems are portrayed. Their system doesn’t show in the way that is popular. They ask the endo community about this, and the response is “You’re probably a median or [insert origin here] system!!”

DID and OSDD present in many different ways. It’s okay to not present in the way that DID YouTubers or TikTokers present. This disorder is diverse and your brain’s reaction to trauma will be different than someone else’s brain’s response because you are different people with different brains. But the endogenic community doesn’t want our system to believe that. Endogenics want to microlabel the traumatic experience that is being a system.

Microlabels are important for communicating differences in how systemhood presents. Calling someone a median system isn't really much different than saying they have have OSDD-1a. "Polyfragmented" is another such term, used to denote a specific variety of disordered system. These are clinical terms, but they're used for similar purposes.

I want to disagree that "being a system" is a traumatic experience in and of itself. It obviously can be and is to many, and that's okay. But there's a reason many people recovering from DID ultimately choose healthy multiplicity over fusion. Being a system doesn't have to be a bad thing.

Our young system does some research and learns that individual members of systems don’t always remember their trauma. They also look at the DID community as a whole and observe the different ways that traumagenic systems can present. Most importantly, they learn that it is scientifically known that the only way to be a system is to have repeated childhood trauma.

They pose this knowledge to the endo community that they’re now active in and are told to ignore the research they did because it’s not endo-friendly. They’re told that they’re being a gatekeeper, or a bully, or an oppressor. They’re told that they pose an active threat to the endogenic community, who they believe are just a bunch of harmless, vulnerable people.

I think this presents a view of the endogenic community as being very anti-science. Which, in some areas, I'm sure is true.

It feels weird to me, though, coming from the tulpa community, which is in active contact with psychologists who are studying the phenomenon, and the subreddit has a list of peer reviewed papers in its resources.

What is known for certain is that DID always or almost always results from severe childhood trauma. (It can't be proven to be 100% of the time, but there is an incredibly high correlation there.) Beyond that, there are still a ton of unknowns when it comes to plurals who don't qualify for a DID diagnosis. Things that are just not studied, or are barely studied at all.

There's nothing wrong with this hypothetical system determining that they're traumagenic. That's a perfectly natural part of the process. Their mistake in this hypothetical is coming back to proselytize and convince everyone else that they must be traumagenic too, when many of these system are older, more experienced, and know very well that their systems didn't stem from trauma.

We post to correct the misinformation that endos spread. We post that it is impossible to be a system without trauma.

Again, show me the studies. You are so certain that endogenic systems are a scientific impossibility. Where is the evidence that you can't be plural without DID or OSDD?

They are told that they are endogenic and that being endogenic is valid. They are told- sometimes by implication and sometimes outright- that their trauma didn’t happen.

I think you're misattributing responsibility here. If I say that you can be sad without having clinical depression, is that me stating or even implying that you don't have clinical depression? In the very rare instance that a traumagenic system is told that their trauma didn't happen, that's obviously bad, and should be condemned, but that is incredibly rare.

Their system communication is lost because of the intense trauma denial and members of their system might be retraumatized because of what’s happening to them, but they are so stuck within the endo community that they can’t recognize it.

Why is system communication lost? Why are members retraumatized?

I think there's a part of this narrative that you're leaving out. Simply believing that you're endogenic when you're not shouldn't damage communication. And given that a lot of the endogenic community is more likely to see headmates as individuals, being part of that community should encourage you to explore your plurality and build communication. At least, it did with us.

Granted, again, the tulpa community is a different beast than the larger plural community, with more of an emphasis on aspects of systemhood as skills to be learned, acquired and mastered. Talking to your headmates as much as possible is encouraged to strengthen your bonds and help them develop.

In any case, I don't think simply believing that they're endogenic resulted in this loss of communication or hurting their headmates. Rather, what causes the breakdown of communication is likely the communication itself breaking down.

Determining system origin is a job for the entire system. What it sounds like is being described here is the host unilaterally making a determination, and then pushing their headmates away and invalidating their experiences.

A system is a team. You work together. At least as much as you can. The host can't make the decision alone that they the whole system didn't experience trauma. And maybe that needs to be made more clear in these discussions. But nobody told this hypothetical host to disregard their headmates' experiences.

Let's Talk About The Other Side of The Coin Now

Saying that you you can be a system without trauma isn't meant to tell people that they don't have trauma. It's not intended to tell them that the things they or their headmates experience aren't real. But you are trying to invalidate the experiences of other systems.

And you fail to see how damaging it is to both communities.

Let's imagine the hypothetical endogenic system instead, who is young and sees this post. They don't have trauma. Their communication with their headmates is excellent, switching is well-controlled, and all their headmates agree that they aren't holding any traumatic childhood memories.

Now, one of two things happen. The first scenario is simply that they decide their headmates aren't real, and are just figments of an overactive imagination. This is terrible. But maybe you wouldn't mind that much. After all, you reposted this on your blog:

endogenic systems hurt the community as a whole, whether or not they’re real.

So maybe you think it's better if the endogenic system simply stops existing.

The other scenario is that they're convinced that they must have trauma. They dismiss their own experiences and assume that other members of their system must be lying to them. It's impossible to say how much psychological damage this can do to the system.

Worse, for the OSDD/DID community, is that they will be pushed into those spaces, believing they have disorders they don't have. They start sharing their experiences as a system. Only, their experiences are mostly positive, and not consistent with what is experienced by other untreated disordered systems. (Although after therapy, many do achieve healthy multiplicity that manifests relatively similarly to non-disordered plurality.)

It's not long before they're accused of spreading misinformation. And, to be fair, they are. They misidentified their plurality because they were told it was scientifically impossible to be a system without having DID/OSDD. Maybe they go into denial mode at this point. Or maybe they just find likeminded plurals who also claim to have dissociative disorders, while only actually exhibiting the one symptom.

Not only did this manipulation result in hurting the non-disordered system, it also hurt the larger DID/OSDD community by leading systems without those disorders into those spaces.

A Better Way

It is important for systems to know if they're traumagenic/trauma-affected. I've discussed before ways to help determine this.

The bullet points are to look out for dissociative amnesia, comorbid PTSD and defensive/triggered switching. Taking the DES is also good for ruling out DID, since 99% of DID patients score over 30. Most importantly, talk it out. (And if you can't because of communication issues, that should also indicate a problem.) Trust each other and your own experiences.

Simply telling everyone that they must have trauma if they're a system isn't helpful or useful to anyone, and will result in a lot of systems being hurt. Both traumagenic and endogenic alike.

Lastly, Please Stay Out of Pro-Endo Tags

Endogenic systems don't go into traumagenic tags to convince them that they're not traumagenic or invalidate their experiences. Endogenic systems who know they don't have trauma deserve a space they can go without people trying to invalidate them.

Regardless of what you think you're trying to accomplish, you're hurting systems who are specifically trying to avoid negativity, and may be in vulnerable mental states.

Stop it.

We couldn’t find a P-DID flag that wasn’t made by a pro-endo, so we made one ourselves ! Here is the flag ::

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And here are the meanings behind the colours ::

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This is a flag for TRAUMAGENIC SYSTEMS ONLY !! Endos and non-traumagenics/supporters DO NOT INTERACT.