Graceful Degradation (the band (the system))

MINORS DO NOT FOLLOW. THIS IS OUR SEXBLOG. YOU WILL BE BLOCKED. • Brown disabled trans system • we like to joke that we're a band • body is mid 20s • TME • not everyone posts here, but you'll probably see stuff from Aster (they/she), BOLT (they/he), Jackie (any), Joan (he/ask), Stella (she/her), and terin (they/them) • likes/follows back from tre************

[gracedeg]

we are:

Graceful Degradation

(here is the meaning behind our band name)

this is our sideblog where we post about plurality + sometimes also sex + the overlap between those two

we don't engage in syscourse. you could say we're "pro-endo", but moreso in the sense that we don't believe in differentiating between system origins in the first place + generally favor inclusivity

we think ~problematic~ kinks r cool and awesome

[tall]

[orchardsys]

Whatevaaaa

[gracedeg]

seeing yourself through your lover's eyes as a system. looking in the mirror and seeing the face you wear together in the light they shine upon it. a newfound understanding of the beauty they see in this body. tracing the way they fell in love

[judgejudyofficial]

speedrunning getting fired by sending this to my boss over slack

[madz-the-3rd]

[bungerc0re]

[syscest]

getting emotional in the e621 plural tag

[effemar]

I’M NOBODY’S BABY / I’M EVERYBODY’S GIRL / I’M THE QUEEN OF NOTHING / I’M THE KING OF THE WORLD!

[k9clown]

there is a level trauma just being black in america especially if not even your home feels safe. that to speak up to advocate for yourself is inherently dangerous.

that safe adult conversation is different when youre black. you dont flag down police if youre scared and lost or hurt. because they might hurt you too.

guidance counselors and teachers? they might not believe you at all because your black. they might call cps which is 10x more likely to just snatch kids from family and throw them into institutions.

you try to find hobbies and are constantly told theyre not for you. comic books, reading, skate parks, anime, tv, movies, animals, etc. you try to get out go for a walk and there will be white people who feel they have the right to hurt you.

you try to figure out romantic and sexual connections and feelings well youre being too fast to grown. not to mention the adultification and sexualize of black kids.

youre forced to swallow your feelings constantly. youre taught to never make a fuss. youre taught your feelings dont matter. you cant do or be or think without being wrong.

mental health isnt talked about in the black community. finding black therapists who understand is incredibly difficult. finding a black CHILD therapist ooo girl theu exist but not many of them.

add in poverty, rural areas and more and you got a kid whos only solution is dissociation.

[mushysys]

LMAO meant to post this to this account

but anyway didnt even talk about the medical field BUT! let me add in every adult who is supposed to be a “safe” adult for children is warped by race. doctors, therapists, social workers, nurses, teachers, police, emts, pastors, community centers even fucking firemen.

because these people 1. arent being checked for racial bias. some of their training includes like active racism. 2. they know better than anyone that no one cares about black and brown kids. they go missing at higher rates. they get taken and abused at higher rates. they get found and helped almost never.

but the point is like i think similarly to autism most research and documentation of did and dissociative disorders is based on white presentations. im sure we would see that like 1% number increase if the world like cared about black people. not to mention most black people in mental crisis do not get sent to get help. they get arrested.

[charlieism]

all my girls with bellies that stick out, youre cute as FUCK your body is beautiful and you deserve high self esteem and love

[gondorrevealparty]

baseball interviewers will ask "how do you throw the ball so good" and Mariners players will casually drop that they have a headmate who plays the game for them

[jadeharleyinc]

all my alters become walters when i pitch the baseball of success

[serafawnforest]

There is this false narrative that Complex Dissociative Disorders are only caused by the most extreme trauma imaginable, when that isn’t true for most pw/CDDs.

Though it does happen, pw/CDDs do not usually have histories including the most horrific actions recorded in history, and this belief is often dangerous to people with the disorder.

Everyone with a CDD has severe trauma response. However, development of CDDs is not related to the severity of trauma, but instead to the complexity of trauma. This is why disorganised attachment to caregivers is common in pw/CDDs, because the shift of adapting from extreme kindness to cruelty is too complex for children to manage.

In most situations, dissociative responses to trauma are due to feeling like a situation is inescapable. Children may experience abuse, neglect or multiple “less horrific” traumatic events, and feel as though they cannot escape the situation, usually due to a combination of repeated trauma and lack of an adequate support system. Due to this feeling, children dissociate, since it is the only method of escaping the overwhelming feeling when other escape routes are not accessible. Missing a support system to overcome traumatic events or stressful feelings and situations is a recognised central cause of dissociative responses.

It’s also important to mention that children have a higher predisposition to dissociation, due to already having a less cohesive identity. For this reason, children may experience dissociative responses to situations that adults (without a history of dissociation) would not.

When adults experience complex trauma, for example domestic abuse, it’s not uncommon for them to mention feeling as though they “lost themselves” or “need to rebuild themselves” because they already have a cohesive self, but their trauma made them dissociate from that self. Children, however, do not have a cohesive self to “lose” and therefore the threshold for dissociation is lower.

Many people with CDDs do not recognise their trauma as being severe enough to qualify for a dissociative disorder. This is due to dissociation, and denial, but also because the false narratives about how CDDs appear, and what our trauma looks like, because people will often only listen to stories which can be turned into a spectacle for consumption. Your trauma is enough, regardless of what it may be, and you don’t need to doubt yourself.

TLDR — Development of DID is not exclusively connected to severity of trauma, and not everyone with DID has experienced the most extreme, horrific actions of human malice. Its development is more connected to complexity of trauma, feeling of inescapability, and lack of adequate support systems. Your trauma is always valid, and enough.

[funeral]

The Face of Another (1966) dir. Hiroshi Teshigahara

[mindnagerie]

A Drop in the Bucket.

[syscest]

the thing about insisting that plurality (that is, a multiplicity of identity within one body) is an experience exclusive to that of "dissociative disorders" is that it is a fundamentally anti-plural position.

if you believe "normal" or "healthy" psychological development necessarily involves the development of a singular identity, and that all deviations from this are disordered, it naturally follows that the cure to such a disorder would entail the creation of a singular identity (fusion) in its place.

it is not a mistake when psychiatrists start with the assumption that plurality itself is the disorder, and come to the conclusion that integration/fusion must be a part of the treatment process. instead it is a natural conclusion of their premises.

and the vision of this worldview, its ideal future, is one in which plurality does not exist. a world in which every system formation is prevented, or eventually reverted.

thus to deny the possibility that some people may simply be plural or become so over time, that it may even be a desirable state, is to reject the possibility of a neurodiversity approach for plurality.

i imagine some may disagree with this view. those who jump to explain all plural phenomena in a framework of traumatic dissociation, yet claim their personal goals do not involve fusion. these systems might turn to me, declaring their condition as a symptom, yes, but one they are happy to live with. an incurable chronic condition.

i think this is a profoundly sad way to think about the one's systemhood.

to look at a part of me that jumps out at conflict, ready to argue and assert themself, and declare them an "emotional part", a "protector", something that exists entirely as a symptom of trauma, rather than these behaviours as learned trauma responses - expressed across a plural identity yet separate from it. this remains profoundly reductive, objectifying, and wrongheaded.

even more, to assume "psychological integration" necessarily means "fusion" - that a singular identity is preferable to a multiple identity, even with strong internal cooperation, strikes me as wildly misguided. every system i've known who've tried to suppress their plurality, to act as one person, have found marked improvements as soon as they actually acknowledged these differing attitudes within them for what they were. i see no reason to believe a return to a singular identity is actually necessary or preferable to this state.

it is necessary then, as plural advocates, to reject the pressures of singlet-normativity, and to reject the theories that rely upon it. i choose to believe in a plural future. one where we are free to introspect and identify the multitudes within us, without this being taken as a definite sign of unspoken trauma we must then heal from and return to singularity.

[syscest]

system origin? we're from NEW YORK FUCKIN CITY BABYYY

[alteredpanel]

[syscest]

brush your headmate's teeth for them :)