Alright, friends, it'sssss
SHITSTORY (SHIT HISTORY) WITH š SAS š
Before we get into it, I've checked in with OP, and we're going to have a nice, respectful conversation, I don't want anyone sending any crap to OP, from here on out it's sources and discussion, not argument
This post may be a bit jumbled, but I hope it's largely clear
The vast majority of this information has been archived on @pluraldeepdive, we thank them for their service š
So, I think a timeline might be best
Many Voices was a newsletter for pwMPD. It was started in 1989 and you can read all of it!
In 1991, alt.sexual.abuse.recovery was created, and hosted a very large community of CDD systems. In 1994, this usenet group became ASARian incorporated, and it would become host to peer support, web hosting, unix shell accounts, and DID/MPD resources.
Also in 1994, alt.support.dissociation, would go on to become the longest running group for people with dissociative disorders. It's still active today!
I bring these three up because of another post I saw.
1995 is when we start running into problems.
Astraea's web would be the first website to discuss non-disordered plurality. Go and search everything you can, use every search term you can think of, check every archive you can access. I assure you.
(This conversation does not and will not touch on spiritual and religious plurality as used in the DSM, that's a different conversation that I'm happy to have, but exists outside of the history of endogenic and non-disordered plurality, up until much more recently when it was twisted to infer proof of endogenic plurality (it's not))
Astraea would go on to coin "natural multiplicity" around 1996. They theorized that multiple personalities were not a disorder and occurred spontaneously instead of developing from trauma and dissociation [x] [x]
Astraea was, and still is, one of the biggest names in syscourse. They started the movement and maintained it. What's important at this point in time is specifically what they're saying to and about CDD systems. At first glance, it sounds good, but when you actually look into their sources, when you put it all together, it paints a picture of extreme ableism and saneism. It showcases highly dangerous ideals that has harmed many, and will continue to do so. There are highly credible claims of plagiarism, misattribution, and a strong anti-psychiatry bias on Astraea's Web.
@pluraldeepdive the above link is broken, any chance you can get one that works?
This is the start of the endogenic community (see 2014, when natural multiple is replaced with endogenic because "natural" implied, often directly by those using the term, that CDD systems were unnatural). The name changed, but the ideas did not. These ideals are ingrained in pro/endo talking points, to the point that many of the plurals I've spoken to don't even realize that what they said hurts.
Natural multiplicity wasn't just about non-disordered plurality, it was actively anti-DID.
Astraea and the natural multiples would go on to boycott the diagnosis and take steps to try to remove it from the DSM. Keep reading, we'll get there.
In 1997, natural multiplicity would morph into a monster. Out of the natural multiplicity movement would spawn the "empowered multiples."
Empowered multiples put a huge focus on functionality and were separate from, what they called, 'survivor multiples'.
Tumblr doesn't like when I try to edit paragraphs with links, so here's dark personalities. It's gross. You won't enjoy.
I'm trying to pick some choice quotes, but they all kind of suck, and I can't quote the whole thing, so... this, I suppose.
However, if you were to meet [an empowered multiple] in real time, you probably would not even realize [they] were a multiple because most people expect multiples to be either psychos or sniffling babies who can't handle anything.
They have a very low view of people who find use in the medical model and therapy.
In 1999, MultiGardens formed, but it was short-lived. Shortly after, the person who originally coined empowered multiplicity would make a statement that it was never meant to exclude survivors and they hadn't meant to cause so much conflict. Despite saying that, they continued to bash survivors and those who wanted fusion and therapy.
In the early 2000s, things take a sharp turn for the worse. The push to separate plurality from CDDs starts with Astraea. This is the article you linked, and we've barely started. We still have 20 years to go.
I highly suggest you give this post a read about Dr. Allison and the way Astraea presents the article.
It's at this point that natural multiplicity becomes a "movement." The purpose of this movement was to establish that plural experiences were not pathological. Participants in this movement often insisted that childhood trauma or abuse could not cause plurality or multiplicity.
Even today, the plural association continues to push that pwCDDs are just looking for someone to blame for something they already had (that they were multiple prior to abuse and would have been multiple without it-- with heavy implication that we're simply broken versions of endogenic systems that hate ourselves because we're pluralphobic. No really. That's the entire article.).
The problem is that those in the movement adopted the DID diagnosis despite acknowledging that it wasn't what they were experiencing (or could it be that plurality and CDDs are two different things?), and rather than talk about it, they just took to boycotting the diagnosis as a whole.
And they thought that the medical terminology was dehumanizing and derogatory, and rather than create new words, they just continued to encourage everyone to boycott the diagnosis as a whole.
I'm just going to quote PDD directly here.
Psychotherapy for DID was also denounced despite many participants never receiving such treatment. For example, the Astraea group had stated they were not diagnosed and had never been to therapy at the time [4:"Is it possible to know or discover that you are a multiple without ever having been diagnosed by a professional?" section]. Yet, on an essay encouraging the boycott of diagnostic labels, Astraea claimed that "[a]s a diagnosis, MPD/DID does not help multiples in the long run. Doctors and insurance companies make $$$ off us but are WE helped?" [3:"Removing Diagnostic Labels" section].
Discourse and REAL political activism to remove DID from the DSM continued for the next TEN YEARS. I highly suggest this post and this one for seeing what Astraea was up to, with screenshots and direct links.
We haven't talked about the misinformation yet. I don't know that I can cover all of it. It would take an entire blog-- oh. Pluraldeepdive exists!
None of this even touches on Lancers or Pavillion-- the cruelest of the entire natural and empowered multiples.
Wait, is that the layman's guide you're trying to link to?
The one created by these guys?
The association between non-disordered plurality and the natural multiplicity movement was solidified, and the damage was done. "The primary messages given by the non-disordered multiples [...] is that multiple personality is not a disorder and the anti-survivor message that multiplicity is natural and not caused by abuse." [X]
In 2014, endogenic was coined, as mentioned above, to be less offensive. The past was never addressed and buried. People deny all of this happened.
For a large chunk of the community, endogenic then became synonymous with the movement, with all the same issues as before. Just with a nicer name.
And here we are, in this great year of 2024, linking to Astraea.
This post is directly adjacent to this entire conversation-- plurality being coined as the anti psych alternative to multiple, and how everyone is going back to multiple again so we can do the whole song and dance one more time.
