Heyo, I’m Green from the @reimeichan system. Got tired of holding back my syscourse takes from our DID blog so I decided to make my own so I can ramble to my heart’s content. I’m a system who’s reached full integration/final fusion with parts so you may see me tagging sometimes as Reimei or Green. It’s all the same me, I have multiple names, deal with it.
20+ years old, he/him, Chinese American, polyamorous and gay. Diagnosed with DID, ADHD, and schizoaffective disorder.
No DNI, feel free to talk to me if you wanna. If you respect me, then I will respect you.
Syscourse-specific stances underneath the read more. Note that these are my specific stances and are not a reflection of the system as a whole.
What’s my syscourse stance? - I am syscourse-annoyed. That is my official stance. Wording stolen shamelessly from @system-of-a-feather lol
Do I believe in endogenic plurality? - I honestly do not care if endogenic plurality exist or not. You can describe your experiences however you want. Just don’t go around trying to demedicalize CDDs in your crusade to have endogenic plurality recognized by others.
Do I support tulpamancy? - I believe it to be a bastardized version of a Tibetan Buddhist practice that many so-called tulpamancers do not actually understand or respect. I am fine with created alters or headmates, so long as you do not call them tulpas. I’m a big proponent of changing the terms “tulpa” and “tulpamancy” and related terms as I find them to be orientalist and racist.
Do I think CDDs can be formed without trauma? - There is a strong correlation between trauma and the development of CDDs to the point where if you have a CDD, you almost definitely also have childhood trauma. I don’t like dealing in absolutes and like to be open-minded to the possibility that CDDs may be able to form outside of childhood trauma but the research has not yet shown that. However, oftentimes people who are diagnosed with CDDs may not remember their childhood nor their traumas, and trying to get people to recall those memories is irresponsible at best and likely incredibly damaging.
Opinions on alters using names from a culture that is not their own? - I cannot speak for all cultures. My answer here is not going to cover everything I believe about this point. I think alters may internally be able to use whatever name they feel comfortable with; many times an alter may form or split with a name (ie. introjecting a fictional character) with a name from another culture. However, they should be able to recognize that, if the body is not of that culture, then they are also not of that culture, and it may be prudent to choose a different name (like a nickname) to go by when talking to other people.
Do I support self-diagnosis? - To a certain extent. I think you should always go into self-diagnosis with an open mind that your diagnosis may be incorrect, but if the tools and resources you found for that diagnosis is helping you and you’ve done a lot of research into the matter, including looking at differential diagnosis, then so long as you are being responsible then it’s fine. Not everyone has the luxury to be able to get properly diagnosed. That being said, even diagnosis has its own issues as being diagnosed is, at least in the US, mainly used for insurance purposes and to make sure the patient gets the care they need. Whether someone is diagnosed or not doesn’t make their disorder any more or less real. I think we should focus less on diagnosis and more on people’s symptomology, including symptoms outside of the presence of alters.
Language I prefer to use when talking about alters, headmates, parts, etc. - I alternate between parts and people language as they are simply interchangeable for me. Headmates feels weird to me in a way I cannot put my finger on but I will not be upset if you use it for my system. In general I’m pretty flexible with whatever words people use to refer to the members of their system and I don’t really care what people use for my system.
Language I prefer to use when talking about systems, a collection of people inside one brain, etc. - I tend to call myself “someone with DID”. I don’t prefer the term “system” but I will used it for communicative purposes. I’m very bad about using people’s preferred terminology here and I’m trying to change that, but I will absolutely slip up on accident and I apologize ahead of time. I do not mind people pointing it out to me so long as you’re not being an asshole about it.
you'll feel like a total dipshit train wreck and no matter what some girl is gonna see you and think "role model". you can't kill yourself you have to go be clocky in the gas station so a 14 year old can have the trajectory of her life altered forever
as annoying as it is to work fast food, at my previous job one time a kid recognized the theta delta pin on my hat and was so fucking excited because i was the first other therian they had ever encountered offline.
"hey....are you a therian?" "yeah!" "what kind of animal?" "eh, some kinda dog" "😲😀 im like a wolf coyote hybrid" "that's fuckin awesome"
what really drives me nuts is that like. this happens an average of x times per year as a visibly weird person, but we only get made aware of it a small fraction of the time. you can't kill yourself you have to be clocky in the gas station.
Being clocky when i was working as a barista was one of my big joys. Being clocky when i was teaching high schoolers how to play the marimba was my reason for being for half a decade. It sucks how scared I am to leave the house I live in now. But I still need to try and be clocky at the grocery store. I wish i had a job to be clocky at. Being visibly me is one of the most radical acts I'm capable of, and I hope that one day we live in a world where it isn't radical at all.
So much of this. I don't even try to pass. "Passing" isn't on my transition goals. At all. Being comfortable in my own skin is, and if that happens to coincidentally make me pass sometimes, okay. But I'm just loudly and sincerely and proudly myself everywhere I go, and people love it. I'm about to go run some errands and have lunch with my girlfriend in an outfit to be determined, but whatever I wear it's gonna scream "trans witch!" at the top of its lungs.
One of my rotating fashion staples is a denim jacket covered in queer/trans and anarchist patches. Which I will not be wearing today because it's "fuck that shit" degrees outside.
I remember when it was a big shared sentiment in the queer community that "sex =/= gender =/= pronouns =/= physical appearance or expression" and. I feel like everyone even other trans people have forgotten about all that except the first part. and in many cases people forget the whole thing entirely
the fun thing about having a mental health crashout in your thirties is that sure yeah you're crashing out, but at the same time there's a part of you standing across the room smoking ben affleck style, going yeah yeah you're crashing out. you crashed out before you will crash out again can we wrap this up yet. and the most annoying part about it is that they're right, and that that does Not stop you from crashing out even a little. love and light on planet earth.
cunt-ass part of my brain swigging whiskey from across the room: yeah yeah you're not real we get it. that's not gonna get the dishes done and the trash taken out tho is it 🤨
Announcing that you're using your whiteness to combat racism, like specifically saying the words:
I'm VERY white and VERY privileged and it's because of this whiteness and privilege that I'm here, saying this out loud, with all the good in my heart and the finest of intentions, to speak out about racism 😌
Is inherently racist, inherently brownie-point seeking, and the VERY definition of white knighting
Stop it
Uplift POC's voices and the change they're asking for, use your whiteness to punch other whites out of their way (you'll fare better in the legal system, don't worry) so they can hot walk to the end at your side, shoulder to shoulder
We don't need a pat on the back and a bunch of likes for fighting racism, the only way we should be announcing it is by calling out others when they say something racist or discriminatory
We show that we are anti racism, we don't need to announce it (this isn't about like "DNI racists", or "weekly reminder that racists get dropped kicked in the gender neutral tit," not all announcements of it are bad)
Am I missing something?
Am I doing that right now?
This is a genuine request for conversation if there's conversation to be had. It's what I wanted originally.
One of my mixed, white-passing friends put it best I think in a very succinct way.
If you're white, your role is to *listen* to POC voices and to *speak up* in white company.
You uplift the POC voices. When we're present, you make sure our voices and our thoughts and our opinions are actually heard.
And only when we're not present, if there's literally not a single one of us there to be able to make our voices heard, is it your job to actually speak up for us.
This is something I've had to talk about with my white partners a lot. On social media, in public spaces, it is literally not your job to speak for us. If our voice is quiet or if people aren't paying attention, your role is to use your privilege to say "hey, this person is talking! LISTEN UP!" If you're, for example, talking to your very white family members and nobody at the table is POC and your cousin makes a racist comment, that is when you speak up and say "that's fucked up". You do not need to stand up for us if we are present and able to make ourselves known.
So yeah. If you're a part of the privileged group, you shut up and let the marginalized speak for themselves. Only when they are very literally unable to speak up do you step need to step in.
Actually been trying to think through something I don't particularly care for in depictions of DID in media, and that thing is when there's something very obviously physically different between alters, even within the headspace. And while I'm aware that that experience is something many people do have... I find myself feeling kinda alienated in those depictions because that's not really my experience nor how I see myself. So something like Moon Knight, for example, rings a lot closer to home for me than, say, Fight Club.
And I keep going back to thinking about Ave Mujica and Mutsumi's DID, and just how striking that depiction is. Mortis and host!Mutsumi take turns in control over the body and when one is fronting, the other is depicted as a plush doll. But not always! There are times where Mortis is fronting and we see host!Mutsumi talking to her in human form, sometimes even looking virtually identical to each other. And to me that's so much more evocative than seeing a story with different alters looking markedly different from each other.
I guess I do make a pass for if, say, the alters generally look the same but have something specific that differentiates them from each other, like hair or eye color. And of course, clothing and hairstyle also get a pass for me because god knows how even I can have different fashion tastes when I'm a different version of me. But there's just something to be said for when the alters aren't very physically different from each other and the only real way to tell them apart would be how they hold themselves, how they speak, how they express themselves. I guess those are the stories I feel most drawn to when it comes to depictions of DID and stuff.
One of my non-DID non-plural friends asked me a very simple innocuous question that basically amounted to "hey you're a system, is this post I saw a common thing people do or talk about in plural spaces?" and I had to, as calmly and collectedly as possible, explain that I don't identify as plural, that I'm not in plural spaces, that DID and systemhood do not necessarily equate to being plural (and why that is), and then (because of the tags and topic in post itself) give the most basic rundown about traumagenic vs endogenic and what it means to be pro-endo vs anti-endo while also specifying to her to NOT ask me what my stance on the topic is.
Honestly I wish I could have figured out a way to answer her question without getting into syscourse but it's like almost 2am and I have no idea how to do that without also feeling like I'm giving too biased or unnuanced of an answer.
“trans men don’t experience misogyny because they’re men thus cannot experience women’s oppression”
I hate to tell you this but even cis men experience misogyny if they step a toe over the line of what our incredibly sexist society sees as “proper” for a man. You really don’t think that a man with interests or expression the world sees as “female” aren’t treated with violence?
“would you say that of other privileged groups? do you think white people experience racism?”
I mean sometimes they do yeah. I know a white guy with monolid eyes and zero known Asian ancestors and he absolutely experiences anti-Asian racism on a fairly regular basis because people think he’s mixed Asian/white. I know a woman who was told throughout her life that she was Native as an adoptee with no known history or background who experienced incredibly violent amounts of anti-Native racism until she discovered as an adult through DNA test that she is 100% white. I know white people who tan incredibly dark in the summer comparatively that are constantly accused of being mixed race and experiencing racism due to that, usually anti-Mexican racism perpetrated against white people with Greek or Italian ancestors.
Their ability to make it stop by saying “hey, I’m white actually” only goes as far as the person enacting violence on them is willing to believe them. They still have to live with the trauma and physical scars from the altercations. We live in a racist world and thus there will be violent people who force all others to pass a whiteness test and eliminating or harming the rest.
Got an ask that I just block/deleted but it was basically “so you think cis people experience transphobia!?!?!?!?” and uh
If you think cis butches don’t experience both transphobia and misogyny and homophobia for daring to be women who break gender roles while still holding onto their womanhood you’ve sorely misunderstood just how bad butches have it in this world sorry. If you don’t think cis queens experience transphobia and homophobia and misogyny for daring to be men who break gender roles while being loud and proud about it and still holding onto their manhood then you’ve sorely mistaken just how bad they have it in this world as well.
Not to mention all of the cis men who wear dresses and skirts and makeup and nail polish and heels simply because they like them who experience all of these things. All of the cis straight women who simply just exist but something about them doesn’t pass society’s “woman enough” test, leading to them being caught in bathroom bills and sporting rules and being attacked by people who mistake them for being transgender or gay.
Just like how straight people experience homophobia to such a degree that they literally beat their children out of any potential deviance from rigidly upheld gender roles and let politicians make jokes on national TV about how they’d drown their pre-teen kids if they came out as LGBT. Do you really think a straight kid still figuring themselves out hears that and doesn’t internalize that homophobia? Doesn’t rigidly hold themselves to some impossible standard so that no one could ever possibly think they’re gay? You don’t think straight teenage boys who maybe don’t pass some bully’s straightness test are getting the shit kicked out of them for “being gay” when, surprise, they aren’t? You don’t think all those kids being attacked by their priests and coaches and teachers are being told “this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t gay” when they’re literally not gay? Do you know how many straight kids had close calls at my school that famously expels all gay kids, because someone made up a believable enough rumor? Do you know how many of them still got their shit kicked in even though administration ultimately decided to let them stay?
All bigotry is violent and all bigotry catches people it doesn’t “intend” to and hurts them as well. It doesn’t matter what someone’s label is, or if they even have one. It matters if the person enacting the violence is doing it because their victim didn’t pass whatever “acceptable enough” test they didn’t know they were being subjected to.
Everyone is at risk. Oppression doesn’t care what your label is. Some people are more visible targets than others, and as a result those people are the more common targets. That doesn’t mean no one else experiences it.
late to the littlecourse but just like. trying to tell me to treat my littles as actual children is actively anti-recovery for me. a huge part of my healing has been re-integrating the parts of me who are stuck in time or who still see themselves as kids, and helping them become more comfortable with our current day life. the vulnerable child parts who were stuck in our past traumas thus slowly become a part of my adult life. the parts of me who didn't grow up because they're scared or because they never got a chance to be a kid start to accept that despite everything, we have grown up. and to tell me to keep these parts of me away from the various kinds of intimacy in my life including sexual intimacy simply because they are "child parts" is frankly harmful for me.
The difference between me and, for example, a cisgender perisex woman is not some list of characteristics and traits, it's not some hard line in the sand about "biologically" this or "biologically" that, it's not a medical diagnosis nor is it that she is "normal" and I "was born wrong".
The difference is not gonads, hormones, anatomy, chromosomes, etc.. We may not share every one of these, but that is not what "makes" me trans + intersex and her cisgender + perisex; these are things which, in humans, naturally vary and lie on a spectrum. They are not inherently trans / intersex or inherently cisgender / perisex - we use labels like trans, intersex to describe an identity, a community, a sense of belonging in a world which tells us there is nowhere for us. Power structures and our position within them, as well. A lived experience, a sense of self.
At some point, she might opt for a hysterectomy. She might go on Estrogen or Testosterone HRT post-menopause, just like me. She might have a double mastectomy or a breast augmentation. She may even experience a lot of the same barriers and much of the same discrimination that I do. That's not to say it's exactly the same, but there is quite often an overlap in our experiences, and that's meaningful to me.
Yes, we have differences, and it's important to acknowledge that. It's important to bring up how trans and intersex people are targeted for violence and how cisgender and perisex people often perpetuate this violence. And also, we are not so different that we cannot find common ground and build solidarity and understanding from there.
We are not the same, but I would be a fool to say someone who is cisgender, someone who is perisex, will never understand me or my experiences and is incapable of doing so - rather opposite, most are quite capable. That knowledge, paired with the fact that it is often not utilized, is more painful to me than if there were some inherent barrier to connection.
We are different, and I want you to understand me as I've had to understand you.
Actually maybe saying separate spaces isn't the right term. I think what I meant was focused spaces. And less spaces but I mean the communities at large. I wish the CDD communities focused more on what it's like to have a CDD and our experiences with that, without necessarily focusing on the existence of people who may or may not experience plurality outside of a CDD. Maybe this same community could be open to talking to people who don't necessarily fit the diagnostic criteria for a CDD but still find their resources helpful in some way. Maybe there's still talk and discussion about experiencing plurality in these spaces, but from the lens of having DID.
And in plural spaces, the focus is more on what it's like to experience being more than one and what that means for you and yall. And I hope that -genic terms would focus less on the false dichotomy of traumagenic and endogenic and instead see a wider variety and spectrum, and that other -genic terms don't necessarily get lumped under the "endogenic umbrella" and instead seen as their own things. And maybe there's still discussion of the overlap between CDDs and plurality and how someone's CDD may inform their plural experiences.
Because like, yeah I don't truly believe in completely separate spaces because human experiences are so varied and there's no way to truly pull apart one aspect of yourself from another. We gotta allow for some overlap still. But I don't think the way these two communities are so entangled is good either.
That when I say that I'm more integrated, I do not equate that to fusion even if I do also consider myself a fused system. I see fusion and integration as separate but related terms. This hasn't been as much of a problem online but whenever I switch therapists I've had to explain this to them a lot, that I use integration separate from parts fusing into one identity and also I find neither of those concepts scary or something to be avoided. And just because I'm integrated and regularly operate as a fused whole doesn't mean that certain versions of me may be more front and center sometimes, or that I don't dissociate anymore, or that there isn't more integration I can be doing, etc. I'm not and never will be someone without DID so don't expect how I operate to be exactly the same as people who don't have a CDD, even if I have fused and integrated.
Sickcourse: I hate the terms endogenic and traumagenic and I hate -genic terms because ultimately from what I've seen, these terms arose due to people trying to argue over whether someone can be plural without trauma or whether plurality can only happen due to trauma and thus inherently ties plurality with CDDs, and creates this false dichotomy between traumagenic and endogenic in particular. I think we should really strive to move away from categorizing plural folks with -genic terms in order to separate out plurality and dissociative disorders because they are two different things. Plurality is an identity and an experience. CDDs are a psychological disorder. These two things are neither mutually exclusive nor are they inherently a part of each other. You can be plural without a diagnosed dissociative disorder. You can have DID without being plural. You can have P-DID and call yourself plural. I just really think plural spaces and DID spaces would each benefit from detangling themselves from each other while acknowledging they're not necessarily the same thing.
Like, let me be clear I'm not clamouring for separate-as-in-segregated spaces, because that serves nobody. But the current climate of many plural and CDD spaces tend to see these two topics as either equivalent or intertwined such that you cannot separate them from each other. They are related and there is overlap but should be allowed to exist as their own things disconnected from each other.
I don't see my DID as inherently being plural because frankly that's not how I experience it, and it feels pretty lonely to be like this on social media. In many ways I do feel jealous of those who do experience themselves as being multiple people in a body, when for me I experience myself as basically being different expressions of the same person and never being a consistent self. We may use different names and have different memories and even a different sense of self and identity but ultimately they all feel like "me", just whatever is "me" is unstable and ever-shifting and ever-changing.
I want to be plural and feel like all these different alters in my head are all different people who are interconnected somehow. I want to feel like we're... friends? Family? A community? *something*. But it's all just me. My brain is loud and argumentative and there's always so much going on, but it's also lonely because at the end of the day it's just me in here with myself and I.
And like. I know this isn't really how the rest of me feels. Some versions of me don't feel particularly lonely despite seeing us as parts or modes or facets or whatever. Some of me actually do see us as essentially different people and different individuals. But for the me right now, I feel so alienated from much of the online DID community whenever I try to talk about my experiences or see anyone talking about theirs. Don't get me wrong, I do have plenty of people I know who have talked to me about their own experiences with DID and identity and self that more similarly reflect and echon my experiences. But like, the wider online DID community doesn't really offer a lot of that, especially as I continue to integrate more with my other selves and the boundaries between me and not-me get blurrier and blurrier.
I think I relate to this. Especially in having parts that are able to see it with more interconnection.
I've seen your account around before. I can't really remember when (the irony..)
Nice to see you again!
I've been considering posting more about my multiplicity.
(^ I call it that because I relate to medical research and terminology a lot. Medically recognised DID)
It's really hard to word what my alters are like to experience as a whole.
My face, never the same. When I'm so afraid I don't realise I'm holding my own hand until it's over.
I get so frustrated when I create, but it's not quite how it went another time. Sometimes I really can't f/ing draw.
What can even be said about 'coming to', as it's often put, and expecting it to be.. I don't know, 10 years ago? My muscles, so wrought with hypertension, as if I were dragged through time backwards.
Some of my parts don't like to interact with this blog, and use other socials.
I was encouraged by many friends, years ago, to essentially live my "plural truth".
Having only just discovered DID, I internalised that doing otherwise would be a rejection of myself.
Now, I see a lot more room in my experience to just be whatever I am.
I've always enjoyed browsing your content and, often, I've related! I know it feels lonely.
Your presence makes it less lonely for those similar to you :)
Heyo o/ you may also be more familiar with my main DID/mental health account @reimeichan where I talk more about my experiences. This is just my syscourse account where I post my bad takes and stuff lol.
But I'm really glad that you relate to my stuff. I post and talk about my experiences as much as possible so that things can be less lonely for me and the people around me. So thank you for taking the time to write out your thoughts as well and reminding me that there are many people out there who have similar experiences as me ^^
I don't see my DID as inherently being plural because frankly that's not how I experience it, and it feels pretty lonely to be like this on social media. In many ways I do feel jealous of those who do experience themselves as being multiple people in a body, when for me I experience myself as basically being different expressions of the same person and never being a consistent self. We may use different names and have different memories and even a different sense of self and identity but ultimately they all feel like "me", just whatever is "me" is unstable and ever-shifting and ever-changing.
I want to be plural and feel like all these different alters in my head are all different people who are interconnected somehow. I want to feel like we're... friends? Family? A community? *something*. But it's all just me. My brain is loud and argumentative and there's always so much going on, but it's also lonely because at the end of the day it's just me in here with myself and I.
And like. I know this isn't really how the rest of me feels. Some versions of me don't feel particularly lonely despite seeing us as parts or modes or facets or whatever. Some of me actually do see us as essentially different people and different individuals. But for the me right now, I feel so alienated from much of the online DID community whenever I try to talk about my experiences or see anyone talking about theirs. Don't get me wrong, I do have plenty of people I know who have talked to me about their own experiences with DID and identity and self that more similarly reflect and echon my experiences. But like, the wider online DID community doesn't really offer a lot of that, especially as I continue to integrate more with my other selves and the boundaries between me and not-me get blurrier and blurrier.
