The "diagnosis is a privilege" rhetoric in the online DID community is actually really annoying. For some people you're right, being able to to seek out diagnosis is a privilege. If you don't have insurance and are in a rural area it can be really hard to affordably see professionals, let alone specialists.

That being said, it's not a privilege for everyone and calling everyone who's been diagnosed with something privileged because they have that diagnosis isn't very tactful.

Some people were literally abused to get their diagnoses. Some people were diagnosed against there wills. Some people were forced into therapy or hospitals they couldn't afford by the courts. Being diagnosed isn't always a privilege.

Getting my ADHD diagnosis at five because my family paid for me to be tested so I could get put on medication might be a privilege, but being involuntarily admitted to a mental hospital I couldn't afford where I was horribly abused and coming out with a BPD diagnosis isn't a privilege. Some of you really need to learn to tell the difference and realize that diagnosis isn't always a privilege. Most diagnosis isn't done because someone wants to feel validated. For a lot of people diagnosis means getting bounced around in the psych system. For a lot of people it means having professionals unwilling to work with you because of your diagnoses. It might even mean you're more likely to be hospitalized in the future and that courts could literally take away your children in divorce court.

Diagnosis is a privilege when it's sought out and given consensually.

This isn't me saying that diagnosis isn't important, it very much is. But people who sought it out hold significant privilege over those who literally had to be abused to get theirs. The people who sought it out are less likely to face abuse from the psych system and courts. Those who were forced to be diagnosed will always be considered unstable and irresponsible, by the psych system and by the courts.

adding to this, i know a diagnosis of ASPD is used as reason to deny parole to people and to give them harsher sentencing compared to undiagnosed people

diagnosis can, sometimes be a privilege. sometimes it's not. it depends. and this isn't even getting into how diagnosis is used as a tool of violence against activists.

this is indeed a topic where nuance is indeed helpful. it just depends.

System "hot" takes just for my introduction

Anyway, that's it for tonight send asks if you want me to elaborate on anything

I will say with the alters having different opinions... If they have specifically predatory or bigoted opinions that means you as s system hold some bad beliefs and need to work on yourself and work through it. Predating on children or other adults is completely reprehensible and not okay in any capacity it does not matter which alter does it your entire system is responsible.

As for DNIs... I think they more so exist as a warning to people to say "I'll block you on sight"

I half agree with you on the first point. Acting on the thought is 100% bad, wrong, whatever you wanna call it, but having them isn't. Sure, working on them should be a priority, but if you are still in a predatory situation then it's going to be really fucking hard with one side affirming that predatory feelings are normal and the other side trying to pull you away from them.

Ah okay thank you for clarifying it wasn't about physical actions!!! 👍

System "hot" takes just for my introduction

Anyway, that's it for tonight send asks if you want me to elaborate on anything

I will say with the alters having different opinions... If they have specifically predatory or bigoted opinions that means you as s system hold some bad beliefs and need to work on yourself and work through it. Predating on children or other adults is completely reprehensible and not okay in any capacity it does not matter which alter does it your entire system is responsible.

As for DNIs... I think they more so exist as a warning to people to say "I'll block you on sight"

how do you guys feel about alters that are sourced from siblings, or alters with age gaps, dating?

for example, in honkai star rail, sunday and robin are siblings. if an introject of sunday dated an introject of robin, what would you think about that?

and example two, if an alter that presents as fourteen dated an alter that presents as twenty five, what would you think about that?

im aware that introjects aren't their source and alter age isn't necessarily real but i still wanna get some opinions on this...

It's a headspace, the dating isn't actually of real life siblings or age gaps with problems, it's all within metaphysical or perhaps cognitive experiences depending on spiritual religious, philosophical, or other beliefs.

When it comes to people with a CDD especially it is quite common to have in system experiences of relationships that would be unacceptable in real life, including but not limited to genuinely abusive relationships in system. My system has area of our headspace where horrific things occur consistently. This is not okay for real life but in our minds it is a useful way of processing the emotions, events, feelings, and general concept of the things that happened to us as a child. Wether that be in direct relation to the types of situations we were in or a more metaphorical connection. It is our mind and our mind is vast, we are an artist and a writer with hyperphantasia as such we see very distinctive things and have a large amount of metaphorical experiences within our internal dialogue and experiences. It may be bad in the sense that in our case it comes from a place of hurt, pain, and anguish from ourselves- and the disdainful ire in the eyes of others.

But it is not bad to experience a symptom.

It is not wrong to have a confusing and atypical structure in your own sense of self or selves.

Example 1: Falls into an area where it may very well be for coping reasons or perhaps they're not actually siblings in your system or even if they are- they're not an actual reflection of genuine familial relationships and how you as a system view them but rather more likely a way to conceptualize of familial relationships as the type of idealized romanticized bonds that are shown in media as the truest form of care. This of which could also be a form of coping. There are endless reasons and as long as it's understood this is not analogous to the world outside of the inner world and the reality you physically live in with your shared body- I see no harm.

Example 2: I do see this more so as being slightly more concerning when it comes to this area as there's different ways systems function. When my littles front we become childlike to the extent our fiance is entirely convinced and clear that we are not in a state where we can consent. It is similar in our case to being drunk or high while our partner is sober. This means the mentality of our child alters is one that is genuinely reduced in capability and they genuinely do not comprehend certain subjects. When it comes to our teen alters they are much the same. Brash and brazen, childish in their own right, and not fully at the maturity level of an adult. In our system such a relationship would be taken as a sign of something being wrong or perhaps our trauma being reenacted. This would be a case of something to discuss in therapy and should not be shamed. If it caused distress for the younger headmate this should be worked through to put an end to but if not it should be understood this is again not analogous with real life relationship. Beyond that other systems may not have their child alters actually hold less maturity or at least knowledge and comprehension of consent and other adult knowledge and proper understanding. Though I don't consider alters like that to truly be child alters or littles many do for their system and as such it is the case that these things could happen.

Brains are weird. And things happen. It's a very very messy area as it always matters for if it causes distress or not within your system, if you're concerned about internal relationships and experiences please speak to a mental health counselor who can help you.

Ya know. Therians are relatively accepted by a lot of plural folk. People accept them for different reasons. You don't see people attacking wolfkin for believing they are a wolf. They are not being attacked or called ableist because they do not have clinical lycanthropy. Their different experiences are (in general) accepted. Sure. You have some people who think it's only spiritual and others who think it's only mental related. There is obvious discourse and plenty of ableist language thrown around about being delusional.

But the point is, I never see people saying they cannot be therian/otherkin/alterhuman/nonhuman/etc just because they do not have a medical diagnosis of clinical lycanthropy.

So why is plurality so different? Why is identifying as a non CDD system so different? Why is a medical diagnosis the only way to experience plurality?

“you’re not allowed to compare being a system to being trans!!!” why. why can’t i? if my personal experience with both are incredibly similar and overlap greatly why am i not allowed to make that observation? does the possibility that you are wrong and being plural is not inherently pathological scare you this much? genuinely what is so terrifying about endogenic systems receiving acceptance to make y’all act this way? can you just snap out of it already?

so, since it's now a topic in syscourse.

emotional self harm is real. when untreated, it often escalates to physical self harm. spreading around the idea that it is not a thing, leads people to not seek out treatment and to not get help.

some people are strongly emotionally distressed by such things as syscourse or fdc or syscringe. some seek them out on purpose to hurt themselves emotionally, repeatedly. that is harming themselves. and based on our experiences, those people who did not get help would go on to physically self harm.

in conclusion: let's not do severity olympics with self harm. and, what's emotional self harm for someone may not be for someone else.

100% this as someone who both emotionally and physically elf harmed a lot in the past two years around differing subject matters.

It's so so so real and important to look out for

Because now I am VERY curious. Not including a "complicated" button because it's always complicated-- this is about whether y'all, as a system, OVERALL see your plurality as a net positive.

Please reblog for sample size. Mixed origin systems + systems who don't know, vote however you want, idc.

Yeah, one more poll after this. Bear with us.

Just reblogging this in case anyone missed the polls, or would like to reblog for reach. Very interesting results so far, lol.

The plural community has a major problem with how it treats final fusion and systems who are fully fused.

If you ever wonder why you don't meet many fully fused systems in the community, part of it is because we are actively pushed out of the community.

People have been really shitty towards me ever since I hit final fusion in January. My friends who are fully fused have also experienced similar.

I feel like I can't talk about my experiences at all in a lot of spaces. When I do, I feel like I have to put in extra effort to word myself carefully, and even then it doesn't really help. It doesn't matter how much I say "everyone's experiences are different" or "this is how it is for me personally", people act weird towards me just because I am fully fused. I can't just talk about my experiences with my system like everyone else and it's really draining and frustrating.

People assume that because I am fully fused I will be pushy about fusion or even force fusion onto other systems. People say they are intimidated by me and don't want to talk to me because I am fully fused. People tell me about how horrible they think fusion is and how it's murder. People say they feel bad for fused systems because they think all fused systems are tricked into fusion and about how parts language is dehumanizing and abuse. People say I must hate myself or hate being a system because I chose final fusion. People say they don't believe in final fusion existing at all and that it's unhealthy to believe in it, that fused systems are just systems pretending to be singlets, and that we just need to deal with our internalized ableism and accept we're plural.

People even assume I'm "sysmed" because I am fully fused and use parts language. I have been vocally pro-endo the entire time I've been in system spaces. Hell, I myself am endogenic.

My very belonging in the plural community is constantly in question. I have witnessed numerous debates over the years about whether fully fused systems should be allowed in the community at all, or be allowed to talk about system experiences... because we "chose to be singlets". I've even seen people suggest that we are "appropriating" systemhood by talking about it because we are "no longer systems and have no right to talk about what being a system is like".

"No singlets should be allowed to talk about system experiences or be allowed in system communities, and that includes fully fused individuals" was and still is a major stance here on tumblr, as well as several discord servers I've been in.

I'm constantly expected to censor or completely not talk about my experiences at all because I am fully fused. Final fusion is on the blacklist for a lot of plural servers, and on tumblr a lot of folks get asked to trigger warn anything mentioning final fusion. This isn't something that really happens for any other form of DID recovery. This is specifically targeted at final fusion.

Yes, I understand that there are systems who are pressured to fuse and that it may be a triggering topic for these systems; at the same time, the plural community fosters a lot of fear and shame around final fusion by barring any talk of it and framing it as a negative thing, and it is rarely taken into consideration how triggering it is for many fully fused systems like myself to not be allowed to speak about our experiences and be treated like our existence needs to be hidden and censored, especially when we constantly see others talking very poorly of us and our experiences on top of that.

I get told I'm wrong about my own experiences as a fully fused system or about my thoughts on functional multiplicity and final fusion by systems who are neither fully fused nor functionally multiple, many of whom have never even spoken to a system who is or read about our experiences at all. People in the community are extremely black-and-white about it, and when I talk about how from my experience functional multiplicity and final fusion aren't actually a strict binary, people are very quick to tell me about how they're completely different experiences when they haven't even experienced it or even really know anything about it.

There's so much misinformation in the community about final fusion and it really fucking sucks.

It's so painful hearing my fully fused friends talk about how many of them have been chased out of the community or know folks who have been.

Plural community, be better for fused systems.

Questions for systems: High alter count

Just one question that could have a couple answers because I can't understand this. Anyone can answer no matter syscourse stance

If you have a high headcount (like 100+ to 1k+) how the hell do you track that and count it? Especially if you have an exact number

I can't be bothered to count something if there's more than 50 of it lmaoo

This is in no way fake claiming people with high alter counts

We're a system who has around maybe ~150 alters noted down and listed currently in our simply plural. It's an app we've found incredibly useful in order to keep a somewhat decent log. It's very similar to other forms of symptoms tracking and with added therapy it's become a lot easier to figure out. I started this in December of 2022 and we've found a lot of alters over time because we did end up in a very unfortunate and unhealthy situation while doing DID therapy (basically was in an online cult for a few years). This lead to us having a MASSIVE amount of switches in a day, sometimes going from 11 to even twenty three or more switches in an average day. It was deeply unhealthy and caused by consistent triggers leading to more deep alters from our childhood trauma being able to front and specifically front often. Often enough they'd show up at therapy or be aware of themselves enough to write down their own existence.

It is incredibly tedious work to have an awareness of as many alters as we do and quite simply we've found it to be more a nuisance than anything else given how many times we've had to spend therapy sessions explaining and expanding on things to do with our system and alters. We've had to make literal charts and massive word documents for our therapist to understand things. It's... Tiring to say the least.

Basically on paper we seem to have around over 140. I don't have any idea how much we really have though. 😭

Duskcourse Controversial Take 3

I know I'm going to get a lot of flack for this but at this point this is a genuine concern of safety in my honest opinion. There is genuinely no way to create a safe DID exclusive community online without therapists involved and it being a therapeutic group.

There should be no DID exclusive spaces online without third party moderation.

Now some people are going to react aggressively to this sentiment, they're going to get incredibly upset with me and see this as me wanting to take things away from them. The truth couldn't be further from that. I do think that it's important for people with DID such as myself to be able to find others and talk to them, I think our experiences feel more validated through having met others with the disorder. However the sheer amount of harm that we've experienced from the environments of DID exclusive spaces and some of the behavior of other systems especially those who I specifically became close with due to having a similar disorder has made it clear to me it's simply not safe.

You know what being someone with DID tells the bad people in these small enclosed communities? That you're vulnerable to abuse, manipulation, and may forget how bad their abuse is. There's this underlying idea that people have that others with DID are safe. In my case I was treated horrifically for having grown up in a cult and daring to mention it offhandedly. To this first server I was seen as literally the same as my abusers because clearly me mentioning my trauma would cause people to die for whatever reason. The second server wasn't actually an exclusive space, but the mentality from these exclusive spaces stuck with me. Others with DID obviously were safer to be around and understood me better and are naturally safe... she even had a plural section in her server. My ideas taken from the way people seemed to put those who have the same disorders on a pedestal of further safety than any others are what lead to me getting groomed and abused for two years by my mentor and her partner who was another mentor for me. This lead to them introducing me to their friend, my ex-friend and third groomer.

Of course now I am aware my past mentor was lying about having DID then claimed OSDD but from my current awareness is actually an endogenic system. This however doesn't erase the fact I found her due to claims of having DID and trusted her more intensely than others. I relied on her in a deeply unhealthy way the same amount and then more over and over again as I had in DID exclusive spaces.

DID is a deeply stressful and debilitating disability. Regardless of how hard you try to make a safe online community (specifically discord) you will not be able to. People with these very extreme conditions who aren't far enough into therapy and recovery should not be making communities when they're incredibly unstable themselves. People with severely unstable conditions should not be throwing themselves into places where people often claim to be a provider, psuedo-parent, a place of safety and knowing how to make them do better while nobody is a professional or a therapist. The amount of harm done to people from being convinced of things that hurts them and their recovery as well is horrific.

Most people with DID also have a lot of comorbidities. Putting a bunch of severely mentally ill and deeply traumatized people is a recipe for disaster. The amount of times people trigger each other into spiraling or blow up at one another due to comorbid disorders leads to the entire experience being between walking on eggshell and hot coals. These spaces are not safe as they're never equipped to handle the sheer amount of issues that all of us bring.

For example we ourselves have massive comorbidities. I have ADHD, Autism, Bipolar 1, Depression, Anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and C-PTSD. I know I'm not stable enough to be able to moderate communities that include others with things like that too as I'm a 20 year old with no professional experience and a degree in something else. I've known people with longer lists of disorders than mine who moderate DID exclusive spaces and they get fucked over for it because of the sheer amount of horrific topics they have to shift through in that moderation.

I think there can be stuff like the Tumblr community where it's less centrally organized and has moderation done by the affirm already. But specific servers and exclusive communities without third parties are dangerous.

This is not meant as a personal attack but this needs to be very clearly rebutted so this will be blunt.

1. People have the right to choose what is and isn't to risky for them. Your experience is valid but that doesn't effect the rights of others to make decisions about their own life and recovery. Having DID does not mean someone should be treated as incapable of making their own life decisions.

2. A DID space online is in essence just a large friend group. Friend groups also tend to form based on shared traits and there are plenty of even irl system friend groups. Functionally, the only way a did centered space and a friend group of DID systems differ things are different is average size, and even with that there is significant overlap between large friend groups and small spaces. It is not okay to prevent people from choosing their own social groups.

Saying someone should not be allowed to live as they choose based solely on a mental illness diagnosis is ableism and saneism. Though that likely wasn't the intention, this suggestion is inherently ableist and saneist.

Please place the blame and consequence for the danger of system spaces where it belongs, bad actors taking advantage of vulnerable people, and not suggest taking rights from those with mental illness (the victims). Spread around the warning signs of grooming and abuse. Speak up about bad behavior. Don't take peoples' dignity and the ability of people to make their own choices.

I can actually see how this may have come off as ableist or saneist if you read it and interpret my words in the way you have, and I do wonder if some of this comes from my own internalized issues considering I no longer see myself as someone who is worth relying on by anyone due to recent traumas and just sorta got further projected, and that's wrong of me to do.

I personally however still believe that the room for harm is just too great of a risk to justify having such spaces accessible specifically to minors.

Adults on the other hand can make poor decisions. You have the freedom to take risks as an adult and as long as you're actually informed on them I don't have any plans to take any action to stop you or anyone (if people are uniformed I may inform them whether or not you consider that stopping them idk). I can think it's not a great idea and will likely end up hurting you and others to some capacity but this isn't a case where it can be justified to force an option away from people.

I do not believe DID itself hinders your ability to make decisions and I find it quite offensive you would proclaim that to be the meaning of my words. My worries are that specifically I do not believe there is a such thing as a properly moderated space for people with severe mental illnesses to congregate that will not include risk of harm, regression in mental health, further splitting and fragmentation (in the case of DID), further exasperation of symptoms, and a lowered quality of life. I originally saw a resolution to that as a therapeutic environment because of access to therapists who could help those who do get hurt and triggered process things and not fall down a pit of despair. However it has been pointed out to me there are issues with this due to the presence of psychiatric and psychological abuse. This is why I now have shifted my opinion to that of- there is no ideal solution and I myself will never feel safe in the communities my abusers plucked their victims from. This is also true for others who have been brutalized by the psych field. Thus I now see everything as equally bad options and just a case of picking your own poison. You may do amazing in those groups and that's wonderful, but what about the people who your community push off the deep end? What about the people like me who are mocked for experiencing these things and told it was our fault, we should have known better than to think we would be safe with people who everyone proclaimed were their saviors and were safe? I know people who have had amazing experiences with my groomers for example but why does that negate the harm these people are capable of? I do not want bad people near vulnerable people, I do not want to see more spaces for people with specific disorders fall apart after scandal after scandal of horrific cases of abuse and predation. This goes beyond just DID. Every single mental health server I have been in has inevitably broken due to trauma endured by ex-members at the hands of those in it- there is always a scandal with sexual predation. Once is a coincidence, twice or thrice maybe still, but when all of them without fail lead to horrific suffering endured by multiple people I cannot hold faith in them. But the fact of the matter is there's at least a few of those spaces that do genuinely help people. And even bad spaces can help people and nobody who was helped is wrong for being there.

More time and more thinking on this subject is leading me to an understanding that you cannot make sure that everyone in these spaces are good people, both for what I saw as solutions and as problems. There is no way to ever fully erase predators. We already know there's ableists who make fake accounts to mock and bully disabled people on reddit... guess what, predators do that too (make fake accounts)! Abusers who understand the conditions you have are more dangerous than those who do not. It is inevitable you will encounter a predator in these spaces. My abusive ex-mentor was also a therapist but her space was not set up professionally, I had somehow convinced myself had it been professional someone like her would have never been involved. Obviously such an idea was stupid.

I am not taking away anything nor do I wish to see it taken away. I am scared for the predators who lie, manipulate, and infiltrate communities. I have DID, and everyone seems to forget that I do in this conversation. I don't think I'm lesser for it. I think I'm more vulnerable to abusers because MY DISORDER actively makes me forget I'm being abused as a way to cope. The literal reason people have DID. That is what I'm scared of.

Baseline is I went from "DID spaces are too dangerous to exist as they do now" to now the position of "well everything is equally fucked, pick your poison. Everything needs reform but even reform may not work"