Even with the constant inner noise, being a system can also feel incredibly lonely. Not having someone to share your daily life with, not having some who truly gets it, makes you feel isolated and alone in your struggles.
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.
A darling who is so desperate to be free from their yandere pro-hero that they intentionally destroy their own life. The darling commits almost as many crimes as possible, so they have a despicable record that causes the reputation of anyone who is seen with them to plummet. The yandere always pays their bail or has them pardoned (often via threatening/blackmailing), but their goal is to get a permanent life sentence before the yandere can kidnap them. Who would fit this best (aged up included)?
The first one that popped into my mind for this one was Izuku, honestly. Even though his darling keeps committing these crimes (which are absolutely awful), he can't help but hurt a little when he sees them stuck in the cell. The first few times he believes that if he gets his darling out, they'll realize that what they did was wrong and would stop doing it. After the 7th time that it happens.... is when he starts to think more about that kidnapping. Clearly, something in the world is driving them to do these crimes, and closing them off from the world might help to 'rebabilitate' them and steer them away from a life of crime. Unfortunately, Izuku is an incredibly delusional yandere, so he wouldn't really be able to see that he himself is the reason why his darling is so driven away.
