Here’s My Metaphor For Systemhood That I Tell My Singlet Friends.

If it’s alright to ask - an argument I often see made by people in syscourse spaces is that “even the DSM doesn’t say DID is caused by childhood trauma” and that the literature around DID doesn’t say it’s caused by childhood trauma. I always want to refute this because I KNOW DID is exclusively caused by childhood trauma, but I feel like I don’t know how.

I’m also not anti-endo at all, I fully believe non-disordered multiplicity exists, I’m just tired of hearing that argument and knowing it’s wrong but not knowing how to refute it.

I also see arguments like “the DID community owes the non-disordered plurals because so much of the early community was MADE BY US!” which really rubs me the wrong way. I feel like there are a billion reasons why disordered multiplicity would have been mistaken as “not caused by trauma” even by trauma survivors themselves back before we had as much info on it as we do now. It feels like such a strange, disingenuous interpretation of the data. I dunno! I’m hoping you could share some of your thoughts on this if you have the spoons.

I get it

The fact is, the DSM DOES say that DID is caused by trauma. There's several pages to the entry that are often ignored that contain a lot more information about the trauma basis of the disorder.

Hell, look at criteria B

DSM 5, not TR, I don't have the TR in front of me, but it's the same

That "and/or" doesn't mean trauma is optional, it means you may or may not remember it

The entry goes on to discuss things that could trigger onset of noticeable symptoms, including a bunch of stuff about having childhood trauma retriggered in adulthood that pretty much make it impossible to deny

The number of research papers and researchers who call DID a childhood trauma disorder is insane, including Spiegel, who played a huge role in writing the DSM's dissociative disorders section

In 2011, he wrote

And now we have brain scans supporting this, the DSM 5 TR has been updated to mention these scans in the DID section

I would suggest reading this post, which contains supporting links that cover the above and that go into GREAT detail about adjacent topics

Even the ICD incorporated the ToSD and its trauma basis into their DID section

As for community history, CDD spaces existed a lot longer than people think!! Our history goes back longer than anyone thinks.

Here's a short deep dive

It's so important that we continue to talk about this history and how and when things happened.

It matters

CDD systems built our own communities first. While plurality has overlapped with some of it, and things like simply plural came from the plural community, it's not like we just didn't have community. It was smaller and quieter, limited by technology of the day, but it's there, and we even had our own version of SP which was literally killed in cold blood by endogenic systems

It's frustrating, keep talking about our history, it's there

anti-endos expect endogenic Systems to produce 137 quadruple-peer-reviewed studies each with N=10,000+ participants in an fMRI scan with a voxel resolution of 1 µm³ showing to within p<0.00000001 that endogenic Systems are real, meanwhile the existence of their disorder is still being attacked by people with impressive credentials

In looking for more mixed origin specific spaces I created a mixed origin system community. Just a space to hang out and discuss experiences with other mixed origin systems. If you are interested here's a link :)

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Mixed Origin Hangout • Community on Tumblr

A space for mixed origin systems to hang out and discuss their experiences.

This might be a little bit mean idk, I can't tell if it is or not but I wanna say things.

"Sysmeds die or change" "Sysmeds are ableist scum" "Anti endos are worked up over nothing" ..Endos really haven't shown that they care about us outside shallow allyship.

They complain about our misery because we dare to talk about it around them, they talk over us when we bring up concerns then use pro endos with CDDs as scapegoats when we call them out, I'm convinced at least some of them genuinely think they're better than us because we're traumagen and they're not, even if they don't realize it, they make so many CDD systems feel unsafe talking about their experiences because they're "too traumatized" and "too medicalized", they come from a movement that honest to god hated CDD systems and demonized us, they view created plurals as the gold standard of systemhood/plurality, they attack any form of plurality outside of systemhood because "they're just endos in denial", they bitch and complain when they're not involved in literally everything system related, plenty of them believe CDD systems shouldn't have any exclusive spaces, that they're entitled to every space and term we have.

There's still rampant abeism all over their spaces that they refused to be called out for. I'm sorry but I just can't support them when just going into their spaces makes me feel so fucking awful. I can't support people who talk over me constantly on system issues then call me a sysmed. Idk if it's just me being a "big meanie persecutor" but endos piss me off.

With what I've seen endos say and do, it's hard to believe that they actually give a shit about us. It just comes off as surface-level and superficial, like they only care because they want to be in our spaces. That's just how things come across to me idk.

All I'm saying is, if endo communities don't change, I'll never be pro endo.

-Toby

So when we were talking about mixed origin systems the other day with our friends we realized(at least for us) we kind of treat origin labels similarly to role labels. They are terms many of which are community based that help organize alters to better understand them. To know which types of situations are most likely to effect them or which they are most equipped to deal with. (We will be using alters in this for ease but many of our alters that don't identify as trauma formed tend also not to use the term preferring headmates. Not relevant to this post but I know some will care so thought I'd add it.)

To us identifying with an origin other than trauma does NOT mean that trauma couldn't have played a role in how the alter was formed. Most of our alters that don't put themselves in the trauma formed category still understand which parts of our trauma most likely played a part in their formation even if they don't feel connected to it at all. For example our neurogenic headmates... obviously our experiences with our disorders is and was traumatic on so many days but they see themselves as closer connected to the symptoms of our disorders than to our trauma so it's still beneficial for us to have that separation to better understand the different experiences both types of alters have and how they will interact with different situations.

We also literally have a origin folder labeled syscourse for those whose formation was directly related to distress we experienced in any way connected to syscourse. Because it helps us when we are triggered and making quick decisions to have alters categorized by what parts of our experience they are most connected to so we know who is most likely to be triggered and who is most likely to help.

It can also be more beneficial than roles are because it can help us categorized both the ones that help and hurt together to make things easier. An alter that's an autism symptom holder and will obviously make symptoms worse and an alter that formed to be an autistic mask can be found right next to each other so on days when we are struggling with autism we can go to the neurogenic folder and go through who we are going to try to prevent from fronting and who we are going to try to get to front all in one place. Because going through all 88 profiles and trying to remember who is who when in distress is a freaking impossible task and having alters split by origin labels helps us with this so much. It wouldn't be worth it to label alters in this way if it didn't help us significantly.

Can we stop saying people with covert DID/OSDD or other covert forms of plurality are privileged? Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand how suffering in a way that goes unnoticed is more privileged than suffering in a way that’s noticed.

Both have their ups and downs person-to-person. So what makes one more privileged than the other?

Tbh I feel like the anti->neutral->pro endo pipeline is pretty close to the recovery pipeline, but I don't think syscourse is ready for that conversation yet.

Silent repost…

Though admittedly, it has gotten a lot better since the last time I have been in plural spaces… but there is still room for major improvement.

Blog posts like these still speak to me now as much as they did back then.

i hate the idea of syscourse being CDD systems versus endos because im fucking traumaENDO and i have DID. and i know people like me are forgotten because it makes discourse easier but it doesn't make me and people like me feel any more safe with any of yall. in fact it makes me see yall as less safe in general.

This was also my experience. It’s both comforting and depressing to know I wasn’t the only one who went through this.

I'm tired of this narrative that it's just the endogenics or it's just the anti-endos being ableist because it is typically the vocal minorities in BOTH groups who are doing this behavior. I'm going to be talking about my experiences with how both sides hurt me here but this isn't me throwing a pity party or anything just want to draw attention to things.

Starting out in the system community as a trauma formed system I of course initially interacted with CDD spaces which of course led me to interact with a decent number of anti-endos. Unfortunately when I first started discussing my experiences with the disorder which 100% do not fit into the anti-endo box of how a CDD system is supposed to experience their system I immediately got dubbed as an endogenic and got pushed out of CDD spaces over and over.

I was repeatedly the excuse anti-endos would use to say endogenics were invading their spaces and using their terms. They repeatedly acted as if they were better than me because they had trauma because despite the fact that I repeatedly discussed having childhood trauma because they dubbed me as endogenic I therefore could not have experienced any trauma in my life and was therefore lesser than them. I was just that faker destroying the community because they never once sought to understand the trauma basis for my odd presentations.

Of course not being accepted by other CDD systems in the anti-endo community of course I felt more comfortable with the pro-endo community who were accepting of my trauma and my system experiences. The one main thing they did though... was convince me due to how my symptoms presented I couldn't be experiencing distress/disfunction(which I was) because of the symptoms of the disorder and was therefore a non-disordered system. This held me back from seeking care for the disorder for multiple years.

If you are following along you might notice BOTH sides repeatedly told me I did not need treatment for my experiences. Both sides tried to convince me I was healthy and thriving while I was dealing with severe trauma responses that were subtlety destroying my life.

And the people who helped. The people who recognized how my presentation of the disorder was a valid but commonly overlooked one because of how high functioning I present outwardly with the symptoms. Were people who acknowledge the ableism in both sides. Ones that are willing to call it out in both sides. Those are the people in syscourse who weren't ableist towards me.

And this isn't to say everyone on both sides is a monster but to say what both sides promote as what is and isn't a CDD experience ends up being used for ableism by members of that respective side. Both sides struggle to define CDD systems in a way that ACTUALLY defines ALL CDD systems. And there are always going to be CDD systems who are victims of ableism from both sides of syscourse because of it.

Even as someone who is pro-endogenic, I think it is important to say that the research done on DID, OSDD, and other trauma-based dissociative conditions is still valuable and important, even if you’re not a traumagenic system.

I’m not saying you need to be an expert or spend several hours reading so many books and peer-reviewed papers that you might as well have a PhD. I’m saying that having a basic grasp of concepts like C-PTSD, structural dissociation, and the core clinical models of trauma-based plurality will help you become a better ally to traumagenic systems, mixed-origin systems (like me), and traumatized endogenic systems.

I’ve noticed that some endogenic spaces have a tendency to either dismiss research on traumagenic systems as irrelevant or criticize it for not including endogenic experiences. But here’s the thing… that doesn’t mean the existing research is wrong. It’s just focused on a different population of people whose system formed because of trauma.

Research doesn’t extensively talk about endogenic or mixed-origin systems because those aren’t typically studied in a clinical (i.e., pathological) context. That doesn’t make our experiences less valid. It just means we exist outside the current research. And that’s okay. But it is still good to understand where traumagenic systems are coming from because not all of us are without trauma, and we need you as an ally. Especially if we want mutual respect and solidarity within plural spaces.

I think about this a lot because if endogenic spaces were a lot more like this a few years ago, I would’ve gotten support and found community a lot sooner. It has gotten a lot better since the last time I’ve been in plural spaces, but there is still more room to grow.