THE STELLAR NURSERY

Syscourse Unaligned | It/Its | Psych Critical | No DNI

[regulus-den]

WELCOME TO THE LION'S DEN

We are Regulus, two it/its users running a syscourse unaligned blog. We are both rather tired of the current state of the tag, and want to encourage more sysconversation. Our primary focus is CDD discussion and psychoeducation — we will likely not be discussing origin discourse.

This blog is run by two mods, Mod Venus and Mod Sol, using she/it and he/it pronouns respectively. We have separate roles on this blog, and intros are below the cut.

Mod Venus — Hi, you can call me Venus! She/it pronouns, or plural they. I'll likely be the one answering asks and responding to discussion questions and topics in syscourse! I have a personal interest and educational background in disability studies, and many of my posts are likely to focus on CDDs through a disability theory lens. I am a DID, cluster B, and psychotic genderqueer lesbian and I am currently working through the early stages of establishing system communication. I have been heavily effected by rhetoric pushed in r/systemscringe and adjacent spaces, and I will be making posts debunking common misinformation and having in depth discussions on the internalized ableism that can occur as a result.

Mod Sol — Hallo, I'm Sol, I use he/it pronouns. I will primarily be focusing on education posts and analyses of media that I find interesting or relate to CDDs or other mental disorders that I find interesting. I will occasionally answer asks, but that is mostly Mod Venus' role. I am interested in psychiatry, and am psychotic and questioning a few cluster B's as labels. I consider myself fairly integrated with my system/later in recovery than Mod Venus, and will also be focusing on writing recovery and communication tips for systems like us. Thanks for reading :).

[regulus-den]

are you both in the same body, or different?

We are two separate systems! Though Mod Sol is a close personal friend of mine :)

[regulus-den]

Online System Misconceptions (pulled from both Sysblr and Systems-Cringe - extra points if you guess which are which!)

1. Alters are separate individuals with little to no connection / Alters experience black out amnesia when they are not fronting 

I see this pair rather often online, and the first half almost always comes with a caveat that the individuals in the system are capable of relationships that directly mirror those of external sorts (siblings, parents, boyfriends and girlfriends, etcetera). Although this may be true for some systems (I personally would wager that it occurs more earlier on in recovery when there is less global integration of alters), the latter stages of internal mapping make relationships muddy. Most people have confusing relationships with their parts that involve a lot of shame on both ends. It's important to remember that the long-term relationships you have with your parts is permanent, and it's important to try and act in accordance to this knowledge. 

2. "Grey-out Amnesia" versus Black-out Amnesia

There's a lot of discussion of grey-out versus black-out amnesia, and I think that calls for a tangent on - 

> What is amnesia? 

Amnesia occurs when there is an inability to explicitly recall information that should otherwise be known

"Grey-out amnesia" (perhaps better known as emotional amnesia, derealization, depersonalization, or partial dissociation) is considered a level below full "black-out" dissociation. All of the above are common symptoms in Complex Dissociation, and distinguishing between them is difficult even for the individual experiencing it. Amnesia can go unknown by both patient and support system (including clinicians) for years and even decades, labelled as the person being indecisive, bipolar, borderline, or obsessive (think about how different clinicians may perceive a double checking symptom, as an instance), and it's widely accepted in clinical spheres that this is the primary reason that Dissociative Identity Disorder as a whole was perceived as covert. 

From my own experience, I consider myself to be far more overt than I actually am. Those who live with me and know me well still are not able to tell my switches unless they have had extensive time to attune to them. My own Mother told me that as a child she knew she had to approach me in different ways, but that she didn't know it was me switching. Even now, even with the new tools, she cannot reliably tell switches other than our child alters - the ones she spent the most time around. 

On the other side of this coin, of course, there are systems that are more overt than they believe. I personally would say that this occurs more in earlier staged recovery than later. This form of amnesia can be particularly difficult to deal with, as recollection of any collaboration between parts becomes difficult to recall willingly. This sort of amnesia can be particularly frustrating to deal with, and may be aided by extensive journalling (I like having a physical notebook I can take record on). 

All this to say, that there is often overlap in these seperate types of dissociation, and where these overlaps occur the most frequently may help individuals identify what stage of recovery themself or their part may be in. 

Black-out amnesia is often portrayed as being alter-tied, but we've noticed that this is not always the case. This paradigm is often seen in earlier stages of recovery, but in middle to late recovery these "grey-outs" are more likely to be events and emotions based. (Disclaimer: any and all events and emotions that cannot be actively and healthily integrated into the current concept of Self are dissociated when that is the habituated behaviour). 

3. Alters are inherently secretive

This one is a big one I see on a certain platform, and it's simply not true! Many alters exist and come into existence as a response to bein unheard or being forced to keep secrets, and may present with oversharing habits or excessive vulnerability (emotional whoring, as my alters call it) when meeting new people or even when being introduced into the wider system. Alters who are hiding things often present with a tough exterior, playing the protector, but a very important part of trauma recovery is acknowledging that these parts are not required to keep these secrets to maintain the happiness and health of the system, but that the entire group and collective are here to share that burden and help one another. 

4. The DSM-V as a source

Regardless of your opinion on the DSM-V as a diagnostic manual (incredibly debatable on its validity please ask me about it please please), it is still widely used by medical professionals. A lot of self diagnosers, redditors, and internet gurus like to act as if it works on its own, in isolation, but this is simply not the case, and it must be taken as a framework for mental health diagnoses. Please fight your internal white woman urge to create a Champion and think critically about your source (the DSM). It is an inherently flawed and often blood-soaked manual, and it should be treated as such. I personally find a majority of its diagnoses to be defunct especially in comparison to the ICD-11 that is in the works. 

[regulus-den]

FILMS AS CDD (Complex Dissociative Disorder) REPRESENTATION - A SERIES:

Fight Club (1999)

Accuracy For Laymen: 1/5 Accuracy For Systems: 4/5

Summary: Fight Club is one of the most famous films of the 20th century, starring Brad Pitt. It's main twist (sorry for spoilers-) is that the main character, Narrator, has Dissociative Identity Disorder, or at least that's the takeaway the film gave its viewers. Despite it's surface level symptom-ological inaccuracies, it has surprising insights into the CDD experience and relationships between alters, as well as anti-endo obsession with "fakers" and the current state of syscourse.

SPOILERS UNDER CUT

As the film develops, there is a slow build to the levels of dissociation and hints to the fact that the main characters/system - Tyler Durden and the Narrator - in fact is a system. While I will not get too deeply into the development here, I will be discussing parts of the film I found accurate to the CDD (namely DID) experience.

In the beginning of the film, we learn that Narrator lives alone in a one bedroom apartment, cannot cook (mainly eats condiments), and has fairly severe moral scrupulosity OCD traits. Narrator also attends group therapy for various trauma groups, and seems to not be aware of why he relates to these people, or he feels unable to cry. He is also an insomniac. His engagement with (other) traumatized individuals, while feeling like a fraud, and subsequent obsession and hatred of Marla Singer as a "fellow faker" truly resonated with me, especially with the current state of the syscourse tag.

While at these support groups, Narrator goes by different names and never is named as a part (though there is a slight nod to a possible name, which will be discussed later) which resonated with many of my more host-oriented parts.

At these support groups, Narrator is also prompted to try meditation. As someone who has done group meditation and Inner World work, these two things are often difficult to distinguish, and i personally believe that individuals who have practiced any internal communication or work will often have an easier time trying this meditative work, and this is mirrored in Fight Club, in which Narrator enters what I think is his Inner World and meets a child/animal alter, a penguin that says "slide" and slides away.

As the film continues, we meet Narrator's part/alter, Tyler Durden, who he believes is a separate person from him. For the sake of this analysis, we will be referring to them as a collective/alters in a system. Their interactions are highly accurate to those between CDD-havers, especially the internalised narratives that they bounce between one another. Namely, when they share their family histories. They keep agreeing and saying their histories are very similar, with very little awareness of the fact that they are differing perceptions of the same situation. Later, Tyler ends up disappearing as a part, which is also a very accurate note of the CDD experience - parts will hide themselves, and while it's played for shock value and to allow Narrator to discover his system, this is often exactly what it feels like to discover one's own dissociation. Tyler is also highly deceptive towards Narrator, though it's unclear if he believes these things himself or if he is purposefully deceiving him. In one scene, Tyler says something to the effect of "Maybe I thought about the wrong wire the whole time, so you'd cut the wrong one." This sort of thought process and magical thinking is very common within those who have dissociative disconnects. The truth is that both of them do know, as they share a brain, but this internal creation of dissociation and enforcement of it is rather accurate. Also, Tyler pushes the narrative that "everyone does this" (hallucinate themselves doing what they Want To Do) and the idea that CDD experiences are "normal" are common factors in the internal gaslighting that happens with these sorts of disorders.

Finally, I think that the dual representation of the Paper Street house as their Inner and outer reality, especially with lines such as "the last occupant was a shut in" which implies a former host, as well as the many books that Narrator and Tyler read, that further imply internal fragmentation ("I am Jack's colon," "I am Jill's nipples").

[regulus-den]

Reading Fight Club (book by Chuck Palahniuk) and it is honestly a very honestly portrayed experience of a 30-some year old man going through system discovery.

[eepy-possum-420]

I have SO many concerns with those "develop a fragment" or "anti-endo/anti radqueer build a headmate" blogs popping up. like I have no ill will but this can truly hurt someone with a CDD.

The concept of these blogs normally seems to be: someone sends an ask like say, "I have/am a fragment, assign me an identity, name, pronouns, traits, and faceclaim". Often, they will request a specific aesthetic, theme, fandom, character, or general concept to associate them with. The person(s) running the blog responds accordingly.

Often the responses use images of real people as faceclaims. I don't like telling people what to do but honest to god PLEASE don't do that, it's weird, inappropriate, and you probably wouldn't want someone to post a random picture of you to go "hey here's a faceclaim for you".

But for the most part it seems harmless enough. Helping someone find themselves, or something like that, that's the idea I think. I don’t think the intention behind blogs like this is malicious. And I don't fault people who just want to help and think this is healing or productive because these online communities not only reinforce and reward identity elaboration, performance, and presentation, especially aesthetically but, it seemingly revolves around it.

However, intention and impact aren’t the same thing. Encouraging elaboration in someone with structural dissociation ignores the functional purposes of a CDD, and that it is a survival mechanism meant to compartmentalize trauma. You must not forget this fact.

Even if the blog says “this is anti willogenic/radqueer/endo, endos fuck off!” the mechanism being encouraged is very similar. It's online suggestions shaping identity formation in people with a dissociative disorder. You can name your demographic, but your blogs are identical without that specification. Call it anti- whatever you want, do what you want, but I can't ignore that fact. I see no distinction. I point this out to emphasize how removed it is from clinical reality.

Don't get me wrong, I have a problem with all of the BAH type blogs. But if you have a CDD, you're probably ignoring the rq/endo oriented ones (ik there are exceptions). The anti endo/rq ones are more dangerous imo. It uses the framework of structural dissociation and invites people with a severe psychological disorder to interact, while a "transplural build-a-headmate" blog doesn't intersect with medicalization and tell people with a disorder "this blog is for you, specifically". Those blogs are dangerous and offensive in their own ways but that's not what I'm focusing on right now.

But, this is where it gets concerning for me. Like, really really concerning.

Early DID treatment guidelines emphasize stabilization before elaboration. There’s a reason clinicians don’t sit down and go “alrighty let’s flesh out your fragment’s aesthetic, gender microlabel, and social persona! Any characters or aesthetics in mind?”. Increasing identity complexity too quickly can increase emotional flooding and trauma leakage. Kluft, Howell, ISSTD guidelines, all caution against pushing identity elaboration too fast. This is genuinely dangerous. In worst case scenarios, life threatening.

And when it’s happening in a public, performative space where differentiation is socially rewarded, that risk increases.

Fragments in CDDs are typically narrow-function states. They hold specific affect, memories/memory clusters, or defensive responses. They’re not however, blank slates waiting for aesthetic completion. That's the thing. Identity elaboration in dissociation usually develops internally over time and in response to lived experience and/or therapy.

When you start externally "customizing" identity for something that’s already dissociated, you risk reinforcing separation without stabilizing it. And if you don't understand why this carries such a risk, I don't feel you are in a place to give advice of this nature to pwCDDs. In my humble opinion.

Assigning names, pronouns, gender identities, and personality traits can strengthen differentiation in a way that increases compartmentalization. For someone with high dissociation, that can destabilize communication, increase internal barriers, and intensify identity shifts. I do not feel as though the risks are being assessed. In my opinion, while often well intended, it's highly, highly irresponsible.

Parts are more than welcome to explore identity just like literally anyone on Earth. I don't think I need to establish that, but I want to be clear on that- alters/parts can and do often elaborate naturally. However, when you're here treating fragments like customizable characters and not trauma organized states, you blur the line between stabilization and aesthetic identity. And that can have real psychological consequences. Devastating ones, in worst case scenarios.

Again, not saying someone doing this is inherently bad, malicious, or dangerous. But this conceptually, has the potential to severely harm pwCDDs in particular so I just think that should be highly taken into consideration for anyone running or submitting requests to blogs like this.

[regulus-den]

If you want to elaborate your headmates, ask them what they like and what they value, or if they have a friend or loved one they enjoy particularly, and ask them for a name and vibes.

[eepy-possum-420]

I have SO many concerns with those "develop a fragment" or "anti-endo/anti radqueer build a headmate" blogs popping up. like I have no ill will but this can truly hurt someone with a CDD.

The concept of these blogs normally seems to be: someone sends an ask like say, "I have/am a fragment, assign me an identity, name, pronouns, traits, and faceclaim". Often, they will request a specific aesthetic, theme, fandom, character, or general concept to associate them with. The person(s) running the blog responds accordingly.

Often the responses use images of real people as faceclaims. I don't like telling people what to do but honest to god PLEASE don't do that, it's weird, inappropriate, and you probably wouldn't want someone to post a random picture of you to go "hey here's a faceclaim for you".

But for the most part it seems harmless enough. Helping someone find themselves, or something like that, that's the idea I think. I don’t think the intention behind blogs like this is malicious. And I don't fault people who just want to help and think this is healing or productive because these online communities not only reinforce and reward identity elaboration, performance, and presentation, especially aesthetically but, it seemingly revolves around it.

However, intention and impact aren’t the same thing. Encouraging elaboration in someone with structural dissociation ignores the functional purposes of a CDD, and that it is a survival mechanism meant to compartmentalize trauma. You must not forget this fact.

Even if the blog says “this is anti willogenic/radqueer/endo, endos fuck off!” the mechanism being encouraged is very similar. It's online suggestions shaping identity formation in people with a dissociative disorder. You can name your demographic, but your blogs are identical without that specification. Call it anti- whatever you want, do what you want, but I can't ignore that fact. I see no distinction. I point this out to emphasize how removed it is from clinical reality.

Don't get me wrong, I have a problem with all of the BAH type blogs. But if you have a CDD, you're probably ignoring the rq/endo oriented ones (ik there are exceptions). The anti endo/rq ones are more dangerous imo. It uses the framework of structural dissociation and invites people with a severe psychological disorder to interact, while a "transplural build-a-headmate" blog doesn't intersect with medicalization and tell people with a disorder "this blog is for you, specifically". Those blogs are dangerous and offensive in their own ways but that's not what I'm focusing on right now.

But, this is where it gets concerning for me. Like, really really concerning.

Early DID treatment guidelines emphasize stabilization before elaboration. There’s a reason clinicians don’t sit down and go “alrighty let’s flesh out your fragment’s aesthetic, gender microlabel, and social persona! Any characters or aesthetics in mind?”. Increasing identity complexity too quickly can increase emotional flooding and trauma leakage. Kluft, Howell, ISSTD guidelines, all caution against pushing identity elaboration too fast. This is genuinely dangerous. In worst case scenarios, life threatening.

And when it’s happening in a public, performative space where differentiation is socially rewarded, that risk increases.

Fragments in CDDs are typically narrow-function states. They hold specific affect, memories/memory clusters, or defensive responses. They’re not however, blank slates waiting for aesthetic completion. That's the thing. Identity elaboration in dissociation usually develops internally over time and in response to lived experience and/or therapy.

When you start externally "customizing" identity for something that’s already dissociated, you risk reinforcing separation without stabilizing it. And if you don't understand why this carries such a risk, I don't feel you are in a place to give advice of this nature to pwCDDs. In my humble opinion.

Assigning names, pronouns, gender identities, and personality traits can strengthen differentiation in a way that increases compartmentalization. For someone with high dissociation, that can destabilize communication, increase internal barriers, and intensify identity shifts. I do not feel as though the risks are being assessed. In my opinion, while often well intended, it's highly, highly irresponsible.

Parts are more than welcome to explore identity just like literally anyone on Earth. I don't think I need to establish that, but I want to be clear on that- alters/parts can and do often elaborate naturally. However, when you're here treating fragments like customizable characters and not trauma organized states, you blur the line between stabilization and aesthetic identity. And that can have real psychological consequences. Devastating ones, in worst case scenarios.

Again, not saying someone doing this is inherently bad, malicious, or dangerous. But this conceptually, has the potential to severely harm pwCDDs in particular so I just think that should be highly taken into consideration for anyone running or submitting requests to blogs like this.

[boxedapartment]

Okay, last time I’m posting anything discourse related for a while

I don’t really care for polymindence, I think it’s an… okay concept at best. But if you treat it like being a system do not interact with me. Your subpersonalities cannot be co-conscious and they cannot split.

Do not treat your subpersonalities like alters or different people. Your subpersonalities are still you.

[regulus-den]

... Yeah, you're really not gonna like what science says about DID alters. Those are also still you I fear

[darling-lark-deactivated2026050]

reminder to anyone who is a system, is close with a system, any of that.

it’s ok to be hurt by a specific alter and feel uneasy around the entire system.

system accountability is a thing.

it being a “different alter” doesn’t excuse anything.

you’re ok and valid. i swear.

[mindwrms]

i think the conversation around system accountability shouldn’t actually be about taking accountability but knowing how to maintain relationships with others outside of your system. it shouldn’t be a conversation about, should you have to apologize for your sysmates actions like their your own but it should be about how to come to an agreement as a system on how you deal with conflicts with other people.

you need collective boundaries that everyone in sys knows and follows on how to deal with these situations and how to avoid them too. if someone in sys doesn’t like a collective friend, or a specific sysmember’s friend, you need to communicate that with that friend and between sys members so conflict doesn’t arise. say “x doesn’t like you very much but i still want to be friends, lets just talk when im fronting and x wont talk to you at all when their fronting.”

if someone in sys says something rude or shitty to another members friend its not about taking accountability and saying sorry like you did it, but you should say “x doesn’t speak for me (or the sys as a whole) and what they said to you was not cool, is there anything i can do to make you feel better?”

i hate that this conversation is just “you have to apologize for everything anyone in your sys does.” vs “i shouldnt have to do shit when something goes wrong because it wasn’t me.” when there’s so much more nuance to it. you dont need to have system accountability but you do need to be able to work as a team to deal with situations like this.

[rainofthestorm]

I don't disagree with the points made here, but for our own system, the examples as stated would simply not work. And that's okay, if it does work for your system, then that's good.

But for us... it would just promote internal conflict and division within our system, which we work very hard to avoid. Our internal relationships are important to us, and oftentimes there are cases where one headmate might be okay with some forms of treatment that others of us are not, or may be actively hurt by.

This framework appears to assume that you can model a given system as totally individual people. To an extent this may work, but in most systems we know, headmates are not perfectly separate like this; something one headmate does usually does have impacts on the system more widely, whether we like that or not.

That's probably a large part of why the conversation can often seem so flattened and simplified, a lot of the times we see it, in my opinion.

But. As said... if it works for y'all, fantastic. And I agree, this is always going to be something each system needs to sort out for their own situation.

[mindwrms]

my post was made in direct response to a different post floating around where multiple systems are directly saying “i wont take accountability for someone elses actions because they arent me and i dont care” but even for systems who see themselves as more of a collective (like ourselves) i feel like my point still stands my examples just may not work. so let me add too my original post:

the conversation around accountability should be less of a conversation around accountability and more of a conversation on how to deal with external conflict. its not about saying “im sorry for what i said (weather you were technically the one to say it or not)” and more of a conversation with your system and the people in your life who you are all close with (and know youre a system).

if you do stand by what a sysmate said to some extent, or a sysmate is just “saying what you were all thinking.” then the conversation is no longer about accountability for an individual’s actions its a conversation about how to deal with your external relationship moving forward. you still dont have to apologize for their actions (unless you want to) but you& need to work as a collective to decide how to move forward and as prev said, what works is going to be different for each system.

every system still need to work as a team to decide how to deal with this, and i think framing it as “every system has to say sorry for everything any sysmember does.” vs “i will never make amends for what someone in my sys does ever because it wasn’t me.” is people failing to look at the bigger picture.

[regulus-den]

I'm with @rainofthestorm , actually. While I agree with the broad strokes of this post, in that I believe system accountability should be more about managing external relationships than about personal guilt or whatever, "X doesn't speak for me" is, in my opinion, a downright horrible way to handle external conflict. You're right, you don't have to apologize for your alters if you don't want to. BUT. You do have to accept that not apologizing for them in situations where an apology may be warranted has CONSEQUENCES. It doesn't matter how collective or separate YOU see YOURSELF, because that's not how other people will experience you.

Like, picture this from the singlet's perspective for a minute. You have a friend who's a system, and at any second, they could switch to an alter who HATES you, who might say or do cruel things to you. And your friend won't even apologize. Would you feel safe around this person? At what point would you stop talking to the system as a whole in order to protect yourself? Just saying your alter won't talk to this friend isn't a solution. Switches aren't controllable. What happens when you're in person with this friend and the alter who doesn't like them switches in? And honestly, how would you feel if your friend told you that part of them doesn't like you, or even hates you? How would you feel when their proposed "solution" is to make you walk on eggshells around them and only talk to them when the "right" alter is fronting, something which you have no way of knowing before talking to them? I wouldn't want a friend like that.

And yes, I know some systems see themselves as separate people, and I'm sorry, but no matter what your internal experience is, you are NOT wholly separate people. You can be individuals but you can't separate your actions from your alter's actions when you have the same body, that is not how that works. And yeah, that sucks. You know what else sucks? Trying to maintain a relationship with someone who is highly volatile and unpredictable, and who expects you to be okay with it if they're cruel to you and don't apologize. Because it wasn't "really" them, right, never mind that they have the same face, voice, and body. Just forgive them! I truly am sorry but that's a completely unreasonable thing to expect from another person. The world does not revolve around you. You SHOULD "say sorry like you did it" even if that's not your internal perception, because like I said, it was YOUR body and voice that did/said that, so to your friend's external perception? Yeah, you did in fact do that, and excusing it as "it was my alter!" is going to feel like making excuses and a cop-out. If one alter commits a felony the whole system's going to jail, irrespective of whether other alters wanted to commit the felony.

Like I said. You can do whatever you want. You don't HAVE to practice system accountability or whatever. But don't then be surprised when people correctly identify you as an unsafe person and don't want to talk to you anymore.

[regulus-den]

Okay. We need to talk about r/systemscringe. First post, and I'm starting off with quite the controversial bang. Let's get into it.

We all know syscringe. We all hate syscringe. But I don't think that syscourse actually understands syscringe. Which completely makes sense! Because understanding syscringe would require engaging with its posters and commenters in good faith, and, yeah, you're absolutely not required to do that with the group of people that are creating and supporting online bullying and harassment campaigns against your communities. You are not incorrect for feeling hurt, defensive, and angry with syscringe communities. However. I do believe this has led to a community wide gap in how to actually address why and how misinformation spreads in these spaces.

I am a DID system. I am in therapy for DID. And for the past 5 years, I have engaged heavily with syscringe. I haven't posted, because I don't believe in online bullying and harassment. But I read the posts every day. I participated in the comment sections. I engaged with syscringe on a regular and personal basis. While I never completely bought into all of the radical beliefs, I did believe in some of the dog whistles, and over time I gained an understanding of what these communities are like and how and why people fall into these echo chambers. I believe that early intervention towards people who are falling into radicalized online beliefs is extremely useful and important - and that online CDD and plural communities completely fail to adequately address the concerns that pull many vulnerable people towards these communities in the first place. What I am here to do is attempt to start a conversation to bridge that gap in understanding.

To begin to address the harmful beliefs perpetuated by syscringe, it's important to understand who the people in these communities are, and why they came to syscringe. The most well known category of syscringer is the singlet bully who doesn't know anyone with DID personally and found systems to be an easy target. I will not deny that these people exist - they do, and they make up a significant portion of these communities. However, they aren't the majority, not by a long shot. So, who is? In my experience, most syscringers are people who either are or know someone who's been harmed by common CDD and plural community rhetoric.

Let's get this out of the way: when syscringers call someone a DID faker, they DON'T always mean someone who is faking intentionally - in syscringe communities, this term also includes people who were unintentionally mistaken about their disorder. In fact, this is the most common usage of the term. When talking about "fakers", syscringers will frequently allude to the delusions and false beliefs that they assume the people involved are experiencing. A common genre of syscringe post that tends to go unknown and unspoken about in general CDD and plural communities is the "I Used to Be a DID Faker" post. The majority of these posts reveal that the OP was not an intentional faker, but was someone who was pulled into system communities at a young age and was misled about their symptoms.

These former DID faker posts provide valuable insight into the experiences and reasoning of many people who end up on these Reddit forums. So, what are they saying? There are several common threads that appear in most of these posts. Most individuals who speak up about this topic found out about DID and OSDD through unrelated channels - commonly reported points of first contact are discord servers, particularly leftist leaning servers with emphasis on topics such as queerness and therianthropy, as well as servers revolving around media with a primarily leftist audience. Tiktok videos are also commonly mentioned, as well as some occasionally bringing up popular DID youtubers such as DissociaDID. Typically, the OP, upon encountering the online CDD community for the first time, is young (likely under 18, though not always) and dealing with some form of identity disturbance, as well as loneliness and a lack of belonging in their real life communities. Often, people, especially younger people, will assume that they and their identity group is particularly unique, and that their experiences are exclusive to their particular in group. So, when a young, vulnerable person begins to empathize and relate with DID survivors online, it's rather easy to start conflating shared symptoms with having the same disorder. Often, people in CDD communities do not like addressing this, but many of the younger folk espousing CDD identities in discord servers are mistaken and are doing the same thing as the newly entered person, further muddying the waters and confusing the situation.

Now, let me make myself clear: I do not think that we should fakeclaim or reality check anyone online that we do not have a personal relationship with, even if we think we are completely certain they are mistaken about having a CDD. Quite frankly, we cannot know someone's internal experiences, and it is my belief that psychiatric diagnoses are not irrefutable truths set in stone, but labels that can be applied to explain specific symptom clusters. Beyond that, when someone is particularly set in an identity or belief, immediately telling them that they are wrong is more likely to set them on the defensive and entrench them further into the belief you were trying to correct.

That being said, the CDD community has a huge problem with over validation. It is understandable why we tend to be like this - many trauma victims faced consistent invalidation throughout their lives, and further dismissing and disbelieving victims is harmful, and not my intent. However, swinging completely towards the other end of the spectrum risks pushing people who are experiencing delusions about systemhood further into that belief. I do not believe that delusions of systemhood are inherently bad - if the delusion is not harming the person or anyone around them, or even helps the person, then challenging that belief is unnecessary and most likely unwanted. However, the ex-fakers on syscringe will, across the board, say that their delusions of systemhood did have harmful effects on their mental state. Common reported negative effects are increased identity confusion, fear of persecution by others outside system communities, denial of underlying symptoms, and self-induced dissociative symptoms which go away once exposure to system beliefs is ceased.

It's understandably tricky to strike a proper balance when having these conversations, but the majority of these posters report that they were further encouraged in their delusions of systemhood by members of CDD communities who reassured them unquestioningly that they were real systems when they were beginning to experience doubt and insight into their experiences. Personally, when dealing with system denial, I believe the most effective approach, whether someone actually has a CDD or not, is to ask questions aimed towards understanding why this person thinks that their belief of having a CDD may not be accurate and how they feel about it, and tailor your approach to these answers. You should not tell this person what their reality is for them - instead, your goal should be to understand the underlying distress, help them work through it independently, and address questions they may have about external perceptions of themselves.

Importantly, ex-faker posters almost universally report that members of syscringe forums were the only people who engaged with and criticized delusional beliefs about systemhood. Some of these posters will not go on to make more syscringe posts, but others will, believing themselves to be paying forward the favour of helping others escape delusional beliefs brought on by CDD and plural communities. From here, it's easier than most would think to go from being critical of the unquestioning validation and the proven misinformation commonly spouted online, to then listening to other more radicalized syscringers about more extreme beliefs, such as the idea that people with genuine DID cannot communicate between alters, or that alters come up for triggering events only and do not engage in daily life beyond that.

Other people who may become involved with syscringe are people who have DID or know or work with someone who does, and have significant distress and dysfunction around their symptoms, especially those involving alters. Because the alters aspect of the disorder is so emphasized online, those who have little to no communication with their system and/or experience heavy shame surrounding their alters often find CDD and plural communities unpalatable, and wind up going to syscringe to express their frustrations. Insulting and demeaning these people will only push them further into these spaces.

When someone is deep into radicalized beliefs, direct and authoritative denial of these beliefs will likely be taken as an attack not only on their person but on their sense of reality. Public posts using petty insults (ex. scum, stupid) against syscringers don't help - these posts are cathartic for users who are already against syscringe, but for those who've fallen into radical beliefs with good intent, it only further convinces them that the online CDD and plural communities are out to get them, and that they are doing something good by decrying the people who hurt them.

Let's bring in an allegory most of us will be familiar with. During the war on drugs, weed particularly was maligned as a "gateway drug" that will ruin your life. When vulnerable young people find out they were lied to about weed, they become more likely to think that more harmful and addictive drugs such as cocaine, MDMA, and fentanyl are also harmless, thus, ironically, creating more drug addiction. It's kind of like that. When someone who is already disillusioned with and critical of the CDD community finds out that syscringers aren't the imagined evil bogeyman who's only motive is to hurt systems online, they will tend to think that the CDD community was also lying about the misinformation on syscringe. Thus they fall down the pipeline. Once they trust syscringe, it's much easier to start believing more extreme forms of misinformation.

When addressing syscringe misinformation, it's not enough to just say that it's wrong. You need to explain WHY it's wrong, with cited sources. No, you don't need to write a full academic essay, but linking a book or study backing your claims, and explaining why it backs your claims, goes a long way. Generally, syscringers are very focused on scientific papers and evidence, because that's generally seen as more hard reality. Remember, these people are already doubting everything you say. You are more likely to get through to them if you prove that research articles, which they do respect and believe in, back up your claims.

You aren't obligated to rehabilitate people who are already deep into syscringe. You do not owe your bullies your kindness. But I don't think it's too much to ask that we at the very least stop making the problem worse and pushing people who are on the fence further into these radicalized beliefs.

[sweatyjoekessler]

ive seen a lot of them flat out say they arent in an echo chamber either which would be an incredible, impossible feat for a subreddit and a discord server

[regulus-den]

Yes! A lot of people do say this! This is because knowing you're in an echo chamber would require leaving that echo chamber and seeing another perspective, at which point, you've already escaped. Definitionally, someone who's in an echo chamber is isolated from dissenting viewpoints through their exclusion and (likely dishonest) discrediting. Of course they don't think they're in an echo chamber, that is literally how echo chambers work.

This is probably going to piss some people off, but the vast majority of online DID sub-communities are also, by definition, an echo chamber. Like, almost all of them. Certainly not as badly as syscringe because I can still say this without being taken off the platform, but if republican/conservative tiktok counts, so does the majority DID tumblr. The whole point of this post was to target echo chambered beliefs in online DID communities by exposing people to the other side's perspective in a way that hopefully doesn't feel immediately threatening.

[regulus-den]

Honestly, I think CDD-spaces should start using the terms dissociative and non-dissociative instead of system and singlet.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Anyways, what's the saying? You get more bees with honey?

You do more good when you're kind and explain things clearly than when you just scream. You won't get through to anyone that way. The community mass blocks you and that's it, you're gone, you're never going to get accurate information out there to the people who might need it. Your links go to waste, your words are lost, no one will take you seriously.

You've managed to do nothing in your short time. Impressive.

You're left screaming only to people who already agree with you and see your hate as something acceptable.

That's an echo chamber. And you're in it.

[thecircularsystem]

As a reminder:

Nobody, ever, deserves death threats, suibait, or harassment.

No one.

Thanks.

[regulus-den]

Okay. We need to talk about r/systemscringe. First post, and I'm starting off with quite the controversial bang. Let's get into it.

We all know syscringe. We all hate syscringe. But I don't think that syscourse actually understands syscringe. Which completely makes sense! Because understanding syscringe would require engaging with its posters and commenters in good faith, and, yeah, you're absolutely not required to do that with the group of people that are creating and supporting online bullying and harassment campaigns against your communities. You are not incorrect for feeling hurt, defensive, and angry with syscringe communities. However. I do believe this has led to a community wide gap in how to actually address why and how misinformation spreads in these spaces.

I am a DID system. I am in therapy for DID. And for the past 5 years, I have engaged heavily with syscringe. I haven't posted, because I don't believe in online bullying and harassment. But I read the posts every day. I participated in the comment sections. I engaged with syscringe on a regular and personal basis. While I never completely bought into all of the radical beliefs, I did believe in some of the dog whistles, and over time I gained an understanding of what these communities are like and how and why people fall into these echo chambers. I believe that early intervention towards people who are falling into radicalized online beliefs is extremely useful and important - and that online CDD and plural communities completely fail to adequately address the concerns that pull many vulnerable people towards these communities in the first place. What I am here to do is attempt to start a conversation to bridge that gap in understanding.

To begin to address the harmful beliefs perpetuated by syscringe, it's important to understand who the people in these communities are, and why they came to syscringe. The most well known category of syscringer is the singlet bully who doesn't know anyone with DID personally and found systems to be an easy target. I will not deny that these people exist - they do, and they make up a significant portion of these communities. However, they aren't the majority, not by a long shot. So, who is? In my experience, most syscringers are people who either are or know someone who's been harmed by common CDD and plural community rhetoric.

Let's get this out of the way: when syscringers call someone a DID faker, they DON'T always mean someone who is faking intentionally - in syscringe communities, this term also includes people who were unintentionally mistaken about their disorder. In fact, this is the most common usage of the term. When talking about "fakers", syscringers will frequently allude to the delusions and false beliefs that they assume the people involved are experiencing. A common genre of syscringe post that tends to go unknown and unspoken about in general CDD and plural communities is the "I Used to Be a DID Faker" post. The majority of these posts reveal that the OP was not an intentional faker, but was someone who was pulled into system communities at a young age and was misled about their symptoms.

These former DID faker posts provide valuable insight into the experiences and reasoning of many people who end up on these Reddit forums. So, what are they saying? There are several common threads that appear in most of these posts. Most individuals who speak up about this topic found out about DID and OSDD through unrelated channels - commonly reported points of first contact are discord servers, particularly leftist leaning servers with emphasis on topics such as queerness and therianthropy, as well as servers revolving around media with a primarily leftist audience. Tiktok videos are also commonly mentioned, as well as some occasionally bringing up popular DID youtubers such as DissociaDID. Typically, the OP, upon encountering the online CDD community for the first time, is young (likely under 18, though not always) and dealing with some form of identity disturbance, as well as loneliness and a lack of belonging in their real life communities. Often, people, especially younger people, will assume that they and their identity group is particularly unique, and that their experiences are exclusive to their particular in group. So, when a young, vulnerable person begins to empathize and relate with DID survivors online, it's rather easy to start conflating shared symptoms with having the same disorder. Often, people in CDD communities do not like addressing this, but many of the younger folk espousing CDD identities in discord servers are mistaken and are doing the same thing as the newly entered person, further muddying the waters and confusing the situation.

Now, let me make myself clear: I do not think that we should fakeclaim or reality check anyone online that we do not have a personal relationship with, even if we think we are completely certain they are mistaken about having a CDD. Quite frankly, we cannot know someone's internal experiences, and it is my belief that psychiatric diagnoses are not irrefutable truths set in stone, but labels that can be applied to explain specific symptom clusters. Beyond that, when someone is particularly set in an identity or belief, immediately telling them that they are wrong is more likely to set them on the defensive and entrench them further into the belief you were trying to correct.

That being said, the CDD community has a huge problem with over validation. It is understandable why we tend to be like this - many trauma victims faced consistent invalidation throughout their lives, and further dismissing and disbelieving victims is harmful, and not my intent. However, swinging completely towards the other end of the spectrum risks pushing people who are experiencing delusions about systemhood further into that belief. I do not believe that delusions of systemhood are inherently bad - if the delusion is not harming the person or anyone around them, or even helps the person, then challenging that belief is unnecessary and most likely unwanted. However, the ex-fakers on syscringe will, across the board, say that their delusions of systemhood did have harmful effects on their mental state. Common reported negative effects are increased identity confusion, fear of persecution by others outside system communities, denial of underlying symptoms, and self-induced dissociative symptoms which go away once exposure to system beliefs is ceased.

It's understandably tricky to strike a proper balance when having these conversations, but the majority of these posters report that they were further encouraged in their delusions of systemhood by members of CDD communities who reassured them unquestioningly that they were real systems when they were beginning to experience doubt and insight into their experiences. Personally, when dealing with system denial, I believe the most effective approach, whether someone actually has a CDD or not, is to ask questions aimed towards understanding why this person thinks that their belief of having a CDD may not be accurate and how they feel about it, and tailor your approach to these answers. You should not tell this person what their reality is for them - instead, your goal should be to understand the underlying distress, help them work through it independently, and address questions they may have about external perceptions of themselves.

Importantly, ex-faker posters almost universally report that members of syscringe forums were the only people who engaged with and criticized delusional beliefs about systemhood. Some of these posters will not go on to make more syscringe posts, but others will, believing themselves to be paying forward the favour of helping others escape delusional beliefs brought on by CDD and plural communities. From here, it's easier than most would think to go from being critical of the unquestioning validation and the proven misinformation commonly spouted online, to then listening to other more radicalized syscringers about more extreme beliefs, such as the idea that people with genuine DID cannot communicate between alters, or that alters come up for triggering events only and do not engage in daily life beyond that.

Other people who may become involved with syscringe are people who have DID or know or work with someone who does, and have significant distress and dysfunction around their symptoms, especially those involving alters. Because the alters aspect of the disorder is so emphasized online, those who have little to no communication with their system and/or experience heavy shame surrounding their alters often find CDD and plural communities unpalatable, and wind up going to syscringe to express their frustrations. Insulting and demeaning these people will only push them further into these spaces.

When someone is deep into radicalized beliefs, direct and authoritative denial of these beliefs will likely be taken as an attack not only on their person but on their sense of reality. Public posts using petty insults (ex. scum, stupid) against syscringers don't help - these posts are cathartic for users who are already against syscringe, but for those who've fallen into radical beliefs with good intent, it only further convinces them that the online CDD and plural communities are out to get them, and that they are doing something good by decrying the people who hurt them.

Let's bring in an allegory most of us will be familiar with. During the war on drugs, weed particularly was maligned as a "gateway drug" that will ruin your life. When vulnerable young people find out they were lied to about weed, they become more likely to think that more harmful and addictive drugs such as cocaine, MDMA, and fentanyl are also harmless, thus, ironically, creating more drug addiction. It's kind of like that. When someone who is already disillusioned with and critical of the CDD community finds out that syscringers aren't the imagined evil bogeyman who's only motive is to hurt systems online, they will tend to think that the CDD community was also lying about the misinformation on syscringe. Thus they fall down the pipeline. Once they trust syscringe, it's much easier to start believing more extreme forms of misinformation.

When addressing syscringe misinformation, it's not enough to just say that it's wrong. You need to explain WHY it's wrong, with cited sources. No, you don't need to write a full academic essay, but linking a book or study backing your claims, and explaining why it backs your claims, goes a long way. Generally, syscringers are very focused on scientific papers and evidence, because that's generally seen as more hard reality. Remember, these people are already doubting everything you say. You are more likely to get through to them if you prove that research articles, which they do respect and believe in, back up your claims.

You aren't obligated to rehabilitate people who are already deep into syscringe. You do not owe your bullies your kindness. But I don't think it's too much to ask that we at the very least stop making the problem worse and pushing people who are on the fence further into these radicalized beliefs.

[regulus-den]

FILMS AS CDD (Complex Dissociative Disorder) REPRESENTATION - A SERIES:

Fight Club (1999)

Accuracy For Laymen: 1/5 Accuracy For Systems: 4/5

Summary: Fight Club is one of the most famous films of the 20th century, starring Brad Pitt. It's main twist (sorry for spoilers-) is that the main character, Narrator, has Dissociative Identity Disorder, or at least that's the takeaway the film gave its viewers. Despite it's surface level symptom-ological inaccuracies, it has surprising insights into the CDD experience and relationships between alters, as well as anti-endo obsession with "fakers" and the current state of syscourse.

SPOILERS UNDER CUT

As the film develops, there is a slow build to the levels of dissociation and hints to the fact that the main characters/system - Tyler Durden and the Narrator - in fact is a system. While I will not get too deeply into the development here, I will be discussing parts of the film I found accurate to the CDD (namely DID) experience.

In the beginning of the film, we learn that Narrator lives alone in a one bedroom apartment, cannot cook (mainly eats condiments), and has fairly severe moral scrupulosity OCD traits. Narrator also attends group therapy for various trauma groups, and seems to not be aware of why he relates to these people, or he feels unable to cry. He is also an insomniac. His engagement with (other) traumatized individuals, while feeling like a fraud, and subsequent obsession and hatred of Marla Singer as a "fellow faker" truly resonated with me, especially with the current state of the syscourse tag.

While at these support groups, Narrator goes by different names and never is named as a part (though there is a slight nod to a possible name, which will be discussed later) which resonated with many of my more host-oriented parts.

At these support groups, Narrator is also prompted to try meditation. As someone who has done group meditation and Inner World work, these two things are often difficult to distinguish, and i personally believe that individuals who have practiced any internal communication or work will often have an easier time trying this meditative work, and this is mirrored in Fight Club, in which Narrator enters what I think is his Inner World and meets a child/animal alter, a penguin that says "slide" and slides away.

As the film continues, we meet Narrator's part/alter, Tyler Durden, who he believes is a separate person from him. For the sake of this analysis, we will be referring to them as a collective/alters in a system. Their interactions are highly accurate to those between CDD-havers, especially the internalised narratives that they bounce between one another. Namely, when they share their family histories. They keep agreeing and saying their histories are very similar, with very little awareness of the fact that they are differing perceptions of the same situation. Later, Tyler ends up disappearing as a part, which is also a very accurate note of the CDD experience - parts will hide themselves, and while it's played for shock value and to allow Narrator to discover his system, this is often exactly what it feels like to discover one's own dissociation. Tyler is also highly deceptive towards Narrator, though it's unclear if he believes these things himself or if he is purposefully deceiving him. In one scene, Tyler says something to the effect of "Maybe I thought about the wrong wire the whole time, so you'd cut the wrong one." This sort of thought process and magical thinking is very common within those who have dissociative disconnects. The truth is that both of them do know, as they share a brain, but this internal creation of dissociation and enforcement of it is rather accurate. Also, Tyler pushes the narrative that "everyone does this" (hallucinate themselves doing what they Want To Do) and the idea that CDD experiences are "normal" are common factors in the internal gaslighting that happens with these sorts of disorders.

Finally, I think that the dual representation of the Paper Street house as their Inner and outer reality, especially with lines such as "the last occupant was a shut in" which implies a former host, as well as the many books that Narrator and Tyler read, that further imply internal fragmentation ("I am Jack's colon," "I am Jill's nipples").

[system-of-a-feather]

do you think western individualism and cultural christianity affects system communities? if yes, how so?

Man, so I think someone really cool set me up with this question and I almost feel it has to be someone in my online friend group circle just because of how much I bash my head into a wall about this and I think a homie is just giving me a space to Go Off about it, but man, absolutely yes.

Honestly, when I talk about how the system community has a racism issue / White Person TM problem, most of it boils down to Western Individualism and Cultural Christianity / Catholicism just running so fucking rampant and unchecked. It just so happens that those two things make up a HUGE amount of the issues that come with White People Shit, at least from my AAPI lens.

The issue is, most people don't really think about or question the idea of Western Individualism when they've grown up with it, and those that do RARELY even acknowledge Cultural Christianity / Catholicism if they are not a Christian / Catholic and even more so if they were not explicitly raised Christian / Catholic but are white and/or lived in a predominantly Christian / Catholic space (ie all of America). I honestly couldn't sit here and list off all the ways both of those things seem so annoyingly into system spaces and how regularly so many people - especially in syscourse spaces - are ignorant to their role in it.

The very notion of "everyone fuses into one person / one identity and becomes one person" is a notion based in Western Individualism (which comes largely from Abrahamic religions, Christianity and Catholicism being the relevant ones here) and not actually really nearly as "scientific" as people take it to be. The very premise that people fuse into "one person / identity" is an assumption WITHIN the theory of structural dissociation and it does not prove itself to be true. Its an ASSUMPTION because there is literally no strong research even proving or locating where / what consciousness really is and it's relation to identity is so far beyond where we are in research.

Even so, the individualist and culturally christian (which Ill just be saying now for my own ease, I mean christian / catholic) makes it so NOBODY questions it and everyone likes to take it at face value: One Identity and One Person and One Sense of Self is the Norm and everything else is Deviant is just such an eyeroll

But then you get around to this dichotomy of "good and bad" things which roots all of syscourse and a lot of the ways people talk about personality, hobbies, opinions, views, actions, parts, alters, coping mechanisms and its just such a fucking eyeroll as well. The way things are With Us or Against Us is just so frustratingly Christian and ugh.

Honestly I've been saving this ask for me to have my head wrapped around it more, but honestly, its such a LARGE topic that I don't think I'll ever be able to do it justice.

I do think if you want some discussion on the cultural influences of how the tales of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, and all the classic Old Testament narratives impact American society, the book "The Curse of Cain" by Regina Schwartz talks about it pretty well. I havent finished it but from what I have read it really brings up some points I hadn't really thought about.

[antiarasaka]

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.

[antiarasaka]

Reblogging this with the new tag, ty Feathers for the suggestion! Think it fits much better and implies less.

[system-of-a-feather]

No worries honestly XD I was sitting here looking at you be like "so many people took this to be more aggressive / read too much into it" and I'm like "well yeah, you posted it into syscourse lol"

Cause like I think it's a really good thing to talk about and I agree with the sentiment but I also DNI with syscourse tag most of the time /hj

But I mostly agree on the account that I generally think a lot of "anti" really anything comes from this reactionary sense of defensiveness and it comes from a lot of a trauma response to something being seen as Bad and Abhorrent. A lot of that defensiveness and aggressiveness to things seen as a threat / disrespect / insult / personal attack that draws a lot of anti behavior is a completely understandable thing ESPECIALLY from trauma survivors that have gone through a shit ton of trauma. Of course while recovering from a lot of events where you couldn't or have had to defend yourself, that the response would be a lot more knee jerk.

It's largely why I refuse to be anti-anti-endo or really hate or be really MAD at anti-endos cause honestly, I understand it and get it. I don't think its "anti-recovery" to be anti-endo, but being anti-endo often comes from a sense of fear / anger / threat that is completely expected from the obvious large demographic of people with C-PTSD, large trauma histories, and a CDD. I refuse to hate on or be mad at trauma survivors for having a trauma response. It doesn't excuse horrible behavior, but I also am not someone who is going to hate someone just because they use a label that some people also use when doing shitty things. I think everyone deserves the time and space to feel the way they feel and think the way they think. It doesn't mean Ill engage or that I won't block and move on, but I think people are allowed to have their feelings towards things.

Honestly, it takes a lot of ability to hold two opposing things as true and a lot of emotional regulation to be able to look at things with an open mind and while that sounds like a diss, thats not what it's meant to be. Trauma will fuck up your ability to look at things in shades of grey rather than shades of black and white. It will fuck up your ability to regulate your emotions and how you interpret the world, other people's actions and separate what is personal from what is not personal.

People with trauma are allowed to struggle with that and I'm not judging the coping / self regulation skills around that! Its hard to learn and do

The only reason I say it is because the reason a lot of recovery seems to go anti -> neutral -> pro is because as you get better at looking at things in shades of grey rather than black and white, and as you get better at emotional regulation and being able to differentiate personal attacks from things unrelated to you - things that almost always happen as you recover and heal from trauma - you just generally tend to stop caring so much about what others are doing.

Sure a lot of the recovery pipeline will probably go anti -> neutral with that logic, but honestly like... the anti-endo mindset tends to just be one rooted in a strong attachment to trauma and a strong sense of hurt / victimization / being personally attacked by the existence of endos and its just really hard to hold onto that as you 1) become more secure in yourself, your identity, your experiences, your internal relationship, your external relationships, and the world and 2) watch as trauma becomes more and more and more of a side note / foot note in your life