#sys conversation

[guardianssystem]

Okay, we actually just had someone tell us that "endogenic" is ableist because "endo" comes from "endometriosis"

Every time we think syscourse couldn't get any weirder, it proves us wrong lmao

-Nightsong

[psychephrenic]

Anti endos claiming that they aren't abelist while fakeclaiming nontraumagenic systems that come from other disorders

Hi hello, we're a schizophrenic system, plurality has always been a symptom of my schizotypy, since I was as young as 11 I have been going through the cycle of experience plurality for a while -> freak out that I'm weird and crazy -> suppress it until it goes away for a while -> pretend it never happened -> experience plurality again within a year

It has gone away many times but it always came back and I'm currently at the beginning of breaking that cycle, this time I'm not letting ableists tell me what's going on in my brain.

It's not even sysmedicalism at this point because me and my system FIT into a medical model, the only difference is that our personality states are separated by psychotic symptoms instead of dissociative ones but I guarantee we're still gonna get hate for this

I'm literally in therapy for my psychosis and I am openly plural. CDDs aren't even on the table for potential diagnoses. My therapist is actively supporting me in recovering my plurality because he believes that it is a benign symptom

I personally know another schizogenic system, he doesn't use that terminology because he's like. In his late 40s and doesn't use the Internet much, but he was telling me one day about how one of the things his schizoaffective causes is extra people in his head and how sometimes they do things and he has to work together with them. And I had this awesome moment with him where I was like "wait. Really? I have that too!" I'd never met another system irl and the first one I met was a forty-something endo old head on the downtown streets. Because people in the real world don't give a shit about your online discourse. M and his headmates don't know or care that anti endos exist, he's busy hustling, he has bigger problems than some teenage DID sys who's inevitably going to come in my askbox and say I made him up. And you know what. So do I. Come into my askbox. It'll give me something to laugh at with my hot schizo gf while we try to get this housing shit sorted.

[system-of-a-feather]

To white people out there, if there is a POC open and willing to call out racist and problematic behavior, the best thing to do to be an anti-racist ally is to support the POC trying to speak and limit the amount of which you add your two cents.

While the intent is good and appreciated and actually helpful when there isn't a POC around to speak for themselves, white people talking about the complex issues that POC bring up in mixed spaces will always make space for misunderstanding, removing nuance, and distorting the message POC are trying to say.

Always remember, as much as you care and try to learn about the issues POC have, you will not know the topic more in depth, more personally, and more intensely than someone with lived experience.

This also applies to POC that disagree with what most POC say.

If a POC disagrees with what you've heard other POC saying, it is not your place to tell them that they are wrong - you don't have the life experience to understand the topic enough to argue at other POC. Leave POC discourse with POC to other people who have the lived experience.

Know your place and stay in your lane, else you run a huge risk of being a white knight and speaking over POC and derailing the Point of any complaints that POC are trying to get heard.

[system-of-a-feather]

Honestly, real talk, I feel like people largely do not understand just how much characters within those who are maladaptive daydreamers and/or were maladaptive daydreamers literally are "parts of them" and how both healing and destructive that dynamic can be and I find that a bit visible with how people in DID communities talk about maladaptive daydreaming as a "form of plurality"

Its an absolutely different experience but that doesn't mean that the label of "plural" isn't equally suitable. Since that topic has come up on our radar like way back half a year or year ago, we honestly have been thinking about it as someone who is considered "recovered" from DID and has recovered from maladaptive daydreaming but still has a brain that functions creativity and imaginative worlds with the same semi-autonomous functions whether I like it or not

And honestly? My characters are very much not "my creation", nor are they "just my OCs" - the very way all of my character are made and at this point the only way I know how to write and make characters is by taking a part or aspect of myself (conscious or subconscious) and throwing it out there with a name and face. That part of myself engages with the world I created and develops within the narrative and impacts the world itself.

I repeat and do this for all my characters and the world that I have created serves as a hypothetical exploratory way to understand, engage with, and explore very complex topics with exaggerated and isolated parts of myself. I have never really "planned" a character of given them traits or really anything other than a basic premise of a name, MAYBE a gender, and a vague role and I let them define their own story. No real character arc planning. No real likes and dislikes. No real narrative or secret message.

The function and means of which that I "created" these OCs and the level of which I don't control the way they form and grow is extremely similar to how I "create" alters, albeit one is far more voluntary and intentional than the other and one is physically sharing my life with me and the other is sharing a mental world with me.

((Additionally I don't engage in the mental world I made for them beyond the half joke that I'm the god of the gods of that world and they dont know))

The dynamics I have with my characters is WAY WAY WAY different than my parts / alters but BOTH my characters (maladaptive daydreaming) and my alters (DID) are equally fair to call "parts of me" and "parts of a whole" in a very literal not "Oh yeah Im a writer and this character means a lot to me theyre a part of me"

With my writing partner (who does this as well) we regularly use our characters as well to explain what we are going through / how we are feeling to help facilitate real talk and venting a lot because we have a mutual understanding that while this is a story and these are our characters, both of us have "built" this world by literally giving very specific aspects of ourselves the ability to explore, grow, and learn in a world and that while some have grown SO far from who we are now, they represent an aspect and potential part of us that could have been should something have gone one way in a specifically extreme way in a specific environment.

With that in mind, I absolutely feel its fair to compare DID and MaDD "plurality" with some obvious understanding that while there are similarities they are also different (AND THATS OK).

Cause honestly? If I actually talked to my characters (like a lot of people with MaDD tend to do) I could see myself calling and feeling as though they were a system and I don't think it would be all that inaccurate and wrong. I don't have that experience as my MADD and DID are mostly entirely two seperate dissociative coping mechanisms, but I know for a fact the line between the two is a lot less clear and its just food for thought

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[SYSCOURSE AND DEBATE WILL BE BLOCKED.]

[Good faith conversation and discussion is WELCOMED and ENCOURAGED.]

[If you don't know the difference, don't add on.]

[system-of-a-feather]

You know, I think the thing about syscourse is that its largely devolved into "THEY HURT ME" and "NO THEY HURT US" and who hurt who and who said what bad thing and which group is meaner and whos problematic and controversial topics that just boil down into reasons to call names and yada yada

It's not even about being a system really, its just ad hominems, strawmen, pointless word banter, and personal PRIVATE conflicts being either put public or generalized to an entire group which is REALLY not good for what I hope is obvious reasons.

Syscourse isnt syscourse, its just thinly veiled public drama and I think a lot of people would benefit from learning to take their personal issues with people and individuals and handling them in their personal life and with support from their personal friends and therapist rather than putting them on spotlight for all to see (especially when the attention and validation can reinforce self destructive behaviors).

Personal hurt, anger, conflict and experiences are TOTALLY valid and fair to feel and express, but public shared forms, spaces, tags with strangers aren't really the place you should designate as your place of processing

Conversation around complicated and nuanced issues regarding systems cant occur while people are focused on the personal issues they have with users and while generalizing their experiences to a wider group.

This is why syscourse has become so god awful lately. No one is talking about issues related to systems, its just thinly veiled and themed venting, emotion processing, and ego validation made to look like a genuine attempt at advocacy of some sort.