People who try to invalidate or discredit the existence of multiple systems based on their own lousy understanding of psychiatric literature (which, by the way, is not the be-all and end-all of our existence) honestly infuriate me.
The most frequent nonsense I see looks something like: “In the DSM, it says that there HAS to be some amnesia/lack of awareness/coherent memory between alters or system members for it to be DID. THAT TOTALLY PROVES THAT EVERYONE ON TUMBLR IS FAKING cuz if they really had it, they wouldn’t know they had alters at all!!!! Obviously, that means people with ‘real’ DID don’t know they have it!!!! I’m such a fucking genius! Everyone drop their identities immediately and praise me like a god!”
If this is the kind of logic you use to intimidate, bully, harass, and erase people over the internet, please consider the following points:
1. Amnesia between alters or system members does not automatically mean no awareness that other system members exist. It simply means that there are some things you should remember but don’t, and the things you don’t remember cannot be explained by ordinary forgetfulness. It can work in a number of ways like:
a. Amy blacks out when Sarah comes out, but once Amy returns, she is capable of asking Sarah to fill her in on what happened.
b. Amy, Sarah, Jane, and Tom all have a shared memory bank they’ve created through cooperation. Emma is a new alter who has not started to cooperate with them yet, meaning that if Emma comes out, people have no idea what happened during that time.
c. Amy stays conscious or co-present when others come out, BUT she loses time if something dangerous or abusive is happening to her or to her system members.
d. Amy, Sarah, Jane, and Tom all share memories but none of them can remember what happened to the body between ages 6 and 15. That time is just left blank or feels very blurred out.
e. Other ways I’m not even thinking of right now (feel free to add yours).
2. Some people who have DID used to have much messier, more complicated lives than they do now. For all you know, the happy/stable looking system you see on Tumblr is the result of years of work or is the carefully cultivated image they choose to put forward to avoid attracting negative attention. Someone “making it look easy” doesn’t mean they’re faking.
3. Some people who say they are aware of their alters are people who had help becoming aware. For example, maybe Amy thinks she has no social life, but then her friend tells her “hey, how come last week when you were downtown on Saturday night, you were asking people to call you Rachel?” Amy might have no idea what her friend is talking about, but the suggestion may prompt her to dig deeper into what might be going on. Alternatively, maybe Amy found out in therapy. Maybe Amy had a dream in which she connected with an alter. Maybe she found writing in her journal that wasn’t hers. There are many ways that a person who is 100% unaware that she’s multiple can find out about her alters.
4. Not all diagnosable multiple systems have DID. Some have OSDD (formerly called DDNOS). Some varieties of OSDD/DDNOS come with alters (just like DID) but do not feature time-loss (or feature significantly less of it).
5. Not everyone who’s multiple is claiming to have DID or DDNOS or OSDD. Some people simply have minds that work differently than other people. Unless these people are jumping onto DID boards screaming “I BELONG HERE EVEN THOUGH I DON’T HAVE DID!!!!” or coming into your space and going “BECAUSE I’M MULTIPLE, THAT AUTOMATICALLY ENTITLES ME TO YOUR ATTENTION!!!!” then you have no reason to accuse them of trying to take space away from DID or of trying to get attention. Simply posting about their own experiences on their own blogs (or challenging you when you post hate in their tags) does not amount to them committing a violence against you or against people who have DID or other dissociative disorders.
There are actually a TON of people with diagnoses who knew they were multiple long before a psychiatrist billed their insurance for it. If you cannot listen to the experiences of people without diagnoses (who are totally legit – it is actually very hard to find a doctor willing to diagnose DID or experienced enough to do so, and it can be prohibitively stigmatizing and expensive), at least listen to the people who have diagnoses that simply confirm what they already know.
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