The Retro System

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Being a system is being “more than one” in some way.

Disordered? You can use the term plural or system.

Non-disordered? You can use the term plural or system.

Trauma-formed? You can use the term plural or system.

Non-traumagenic? You can use the term plural or system.

Created, intentionally or not? You can use the term plural or system.

Median/not completely separate? You can use the term plural or system.

Purely psychological? You can use the term plural or system. 

Spiritual? You can use the term plural or system. 

Fictive-heavy? You can use the term plural or system.

Non-human sysmates? You can use the term plural or system. 

Two folks only? You can use the term plural or system. 

1000+ folks? You can use the term plural or system. 

Formed when you were little? You can use the term plural or system. 

Formed when you were older? You can use the term plural or system.

Figured it out via tumblr or tiktok? You can use the term plural or system.

Literally the only requirement is being “more than one”. That’s how it’s been since the 1990s. The DSM/ICD/etc requirements are only for clinical cases. It isn’t the be all and end all for ALL systems, and science doesn’t prove ANYTHING about systems beyond “yeah there’s something going on here”.

Be kind to systems or plural folk different from you. The boots some of you are licking want to stomp on all of us, your system included.

We’re a system. We’ve been a system for over 30 years.

When we first began interacting with each other, before we had words for it, it was a bit murky. We were very young, and didn’t really understand not to talk about it. We were shamed and scared into silence. Things got really bad after that, for a long time.

Then we found a community, and words for what we were experiencing! And things started getting better! It took time, effort, and a lot of trial and error. It was sometimes stressful, sometimes scary. There are still some things we don’t understand, even after 10+ years of having words for those things and a community to talk to about it. But it did get better. And it’s no longer scary.

Being a system now is so much better. There’s so many more resources than there were even just five, ten years ago. There’s bots, and apps. It is becoming less stigmatized, slowly. And at this point, just within ourselves, we’re so much more comfortable and sure with ourselves. It’s just a natural thing, like blinking. We don’t even think about it a lot. We just are.

We love being a system. We love one another, fiercely.

And we wish the same for all other systems, and plural folk.

but YOU. you see children deliberately choosing to consume adult contents and say "oh no we need more children's space, and in doing so, we must ban and censor adult contents FROM ADULTS' SPACE that children deliberately choose to be in.”