#syscringe

[mildly-inconvenient-plur-is]

Just wanted to know that you got posted to syscringe. Didn’t take long fkr them. They are scum

WAIT REALLY??? LMAOOOOO I kinda forgot that was a possible achievement when I made this blog

thank you for telling me& I'll go look at it for funsies (and sorry to whoever's ask it was)

[mushrooms-and-machinery]

I'm honestly really surprised we haven't been posted to syscringe yet-- We have a lot of traits that they consider "faker traits" or just "cringe" in general;

Non-CDD

Mixed origin (mostly endogenic)

Enjoys being plural

Little to no memory barriers and dissociation between members

Members know a lot about each other

Good internal communication

Headspace

Fictive-heavy and fictives from a popular source (Half of us are from Deltarune)

Introjects are all from special interests

Introjects are mostly all source connected

Interested in plurality

Under 18

Considers members their own separate people

Can switch voluntarily pretty easily and quickly (mostly only with Susie but still)

Don't want to "recover" / no desire for final fusion (it doesn't negatively affect our life)

Relatively overt? Maybe? I mean, WE feel like our switches are kind of obvious if you look for them but our family has never noticed haha.

Likely have some kind of cluster B disorder

How have they not found us yet?? lmao

[kankoshi-san]

YOOOO WERE FAMOUS

We got posted to syscringe

Unfortunately. They didn’t censor our user. So. That’s literally against Reddit TOS lmao

That explains the hate comments!

(tw syscringe screenshot so you dont have to search it yourself)

[cambriancrew]

Curbing the full truth of your experiences to appeal to the public is neither healthy nor helpful.

Be your full self and let the haters die mad about it.

Respectability politics is not a game you can win.

[anti-systemscringe]

Ableism is never the fault of the disabled.

[plurapony]

Every time our SimplyPlural gets posted we get cross posted to r/syscringe and flamed for having "100+ MLP introjects" "Introjects of MLP background characters"

and meanwhile im just screaming in the background THEY ARE JUST PROFILE PICTURES! THEY ARE NOT ALL MLP INTROJECTS! IT IS JUST PROFILE PICTURES! PROFILE PICTURES!

[installzoey]

Ever wonder who's on the other side of the screen making fun of you? Let's take a look today at one prime example!

This is someone who posts daily to Systems Cringe. Now, believe it or not, I'm not a system - so I don't have a dog in this fight. But what I am is a good human being. So naturally, someone who spends their time 24/7 bullying people online made me go "yuck"!

but.. who are you letting get under your skin? let's recap!

these people spend all day on reddit, discord, and god knows where else discussing and posting about people they look feverishly online for to post (hi, you found my post by accident, but I'm not a system)!

they think the world revolves around them and DID. they think that everybody has a grasp on syscourse and people you meet in real life will ask about your trauma to see if you pass the validity test or not. but no, because you guys have never been outside, here's how it usually goes talking to someone else IRL: "hi, nice weather today, isn't it?"

they're unhappy with their lives and themselves. let's take a look at the example we picked for today's lesson - they constantly post on Reddit, red flag, right? but what they post about shows how pathetic their life truly is

they're obsessed with my spouse, posting them daily, but sorry, we're monogamous! find another relationship to join and crash..

they talk about how the world sucks because nobody notices their art. I would feel bad but.. karma much?

they post yaoi hazbin art and discuss gay hazbin hotel ships. please, don't let a yaoi viziepop shipper ruin your day - they clearly don't have much going for them already. (no offense to viziepop fans.. smh)

they are OBSESSED with character.ai to the point of posting about it regularly as well. I mean, I knew they needed to touch grass, but wow.. make some real friends! your waifu robot doesn't really love you (or exist!)

they're an adult but browse minor-oriented spaces like teenager subreddits - WEIRD much?

they also just have very weird stances which doesn't sit right with me, especially given the above - like defending the option to romance a child in a video game (because she's actually 200000000, duh) and comparing dating someone with DID to dating an anime child.. wow..

and so much more.. horrible takes and sad cries for help...

So what's the point? I just want to remind everyone that the people on the other end of the screen are often super miserable and unhappy with their own lives, riddled with their own flaws, and use others as a punching bag to feel better about themself and project their insecurities on - like this dude! As someone who again is not a system, regardless of any takes on syscourse, bullying is just objectively pathetic. Do better. And if you're a victim of their bullying, don't let them get to you.

[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.