You Have More In Common Than You Think. After All, We're All Here, Aren't We?

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.

Here’s my metaphor for systemhood that I tell my singlet friends.

Imagine you’re playing a first person video game. You have the controller, you control your character. It’s a normal first person game. You are an alter, the character is the body. This is fronting.

Other people live with you. Sometimes, they come into the room and sit and watch while you play. They sometimes try to guide you, give you advice on what to do next. They don’t always agree, and they can argue with each other. Other times they scream at you that you’re doing everything wrong and you suck at this game. This is co-consciousness.

Imagine how distracting it would be for people around you to tell you what to do, or to scream at each other or at you, even if they have good intentions. It wouldn’t be easy to focus on your game, would it?

Then sometimes, something happens in the game that prompts you to hand off the controller to someone else so they can play and you get a break. This is (some types of) switching. This can be good.

Other times, someone rips the controller out of your hand or fights you for it. This is (other types of) switching. And sometimes, six other players hook up their controllers, but there’s only one character to play as. So all of you have your controllers, but you’re all trying to play the same character. This is cofronting.

Imagine how difficult that would be. Imagine how hard it would be to try and play a game while someone is trying to take the controller from you, or while six other people are trying to play too.

There are also times that nobody is playing, or you can’t decide who should play. What’s happening to the character in the game? What are they doing if no one is playing? This is dissociation. The character is doing nothing. They’re stuck.

This is the best metaphor I have come up with for being a system. It’s something a lot of people get because they’ve played games before.

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

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.

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?

Ough wait a second....you're..."photogenic"? You need trauma to be a system, dumbass.

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 here's our thing, as a traumagenic system, right. for the longest time we thought we *couldn't* be plural because we "were not traumatized" and we only ever heard about DID-style, traumatized-at-5 systems. thing is, our trauma was just under lock and key of a lot of trauma-locked memories. we're completely pro-endo, because relying on diagnostic criteria helps *no one.*

Hey, Mod Quill here.

For a very, very long time, I was convinced I had DID without trauma. I was firmly pro-endo because I didn't have any trauma, so the DID community didn't welcome me. I wasn't like those other systems; I didn't have trauma, I wasn't upset, I never remembered fighting with my parts! Moreover, the endogenic community welcomed me with open arms, telling me over, and over... and over... and over... just how not traumatized I was.

Even after I started to realize I was in an active abuse situation. Even after I started noticing my symptoms more and more. Even after anti-endos had patiently and kindly (I know, insane to think about) explained that I likely just didn't remember my trauma before, and that what I described as clear and blatant symptoms were equally clear and blatant trauma responses.

I was, essentially, kicked out of pro-endo communities, way back when, because I was too traumatized, and too confrontational when people told me all the reasons I couldn't be traumatized -- such as "too rich," "too white," and "but your parents loved you." That last one was almost constant.

And you know what's remarkable?

Trauma is not part of the diagnostic criteria for DID. Is it a requirement? Yes! But it IS NOT part of the criteria.

You know what is?

Alteration of identity, causing marked issues with sense of self, and affecting many aspects of life (like social relationships, cognition, agency, etc)

Amnesia in some regard (inconsistent with normal forgetfulness)

Distress OR Dysfunction (and thank FUCK Mod Dude explained what dysfunction means, if it's hurdles in your path that you've learned to get over, guess what, neurotypicals don't have those at all)

I experienced all of these. Therefore, I have DID.

And therefore, controversially, many endogenic systems have DID. By the diagnostic criteria. If they experience these three things, that's disordered, babey! It doesn't fucking matter what their trauma history is.

The thing is, I have not known any systems personally who do have these things... without also having trauma. And that's because of many, many different things, but the fact of the matter is, in DID, the alters are a trauma response, not just an additional "thing that normally happens" to systems. And I say this as a DID system with mixed-origins.

Knowing this diagnostic criteria helped me so much. It helped me get the help I fucking needed. It helped me understand the hell was happening to me, and why it was so much worse around my (what I later learned were) abusers.

I'm sorry to say this, but comments like yours are one of many, many reasons why I'm no longer comfortable using pro-endo as a label. Too often, in the effort to support endogenic systems, DID systems and what is helpful for many of us gets... discarded. And that's not right.

I'm not saying what you went through was right either. And it sucks that you couldn't find anyone to relate to, or who could give you the proper information you needed. But the fact is, the diagnostic criteria of the DSM-5 is not to blame for that, and saying it "helps no one" is offensive to those of us who would have died without a diagnosis.

The thing to blame for not having the proper information is people spreading misinfo about DID, people spreading misinfo about systemhood in general, and a lack of role models within the community as it is.

We, as systems, need to be more and more vocal about different presentations of systemhood -- especially since the concept of systemhood is now kind of getting more and more public eye on it. And at the end of the day, it doesn't fucking matter if people are traumatized or not! It doesn't matter if people are pro-endo, anti-endo, or not fucking with syscourse. It doesn't matter if people are diagnosed, self-diagnosed, medically recognized, or not fucking with labels. It doesn't matter if someone is ACTUALLY a system or not!

What matters is getting the help we need. What matters is people getting the diagnosis they need, if that's even something they need. What matters is seeing people with life-long trauma disorders learn to thrive and heal and recover, regardless of what recovery might be for them.

Pro-endo doesn't mean discarding the DSM. Or at least, I highly doubt those who use that label mean it that way. And maybe you didn't either, and I'm sorry to have gone off so long. It's just...

I've seen too much anti-medicalism from pro-endos to trust it anymore, especially as someone who has had to deal with... a lot of ableism about my origins.

Good luck out there -- and I hope you get what you need as well. I hope we all do.

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.

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.