Systems - Tumblr Posts

We don’t tend to engage in syscourse on tumblr (if this is an uncomfortable topic to any of our followers, we probably won’t post about it much) but we’ve got some opinions to share.

Of course sysmeds are often transphobic. It’s like we always say- people who are prone to one type of bigotry are prone to others. If you’re going to judge someone on something that’s out of their control- race, identity, neurodivergency, disabilities- why would you stop there? Why not victimize others for things they can’t control?

Someone who is hateful enough to act that way can easily be swayed into hating other marginalized groups because they believe factors completely out of people’s control are moral failings and that they can and should be judged for that.

It takes literally zero effort to not be a dick to other people. Yet sysmeds claim that they’re the victim after going out of their way to harass and bully random people for literally no reason other than to make themselves feel stronger.

But at the end of the day? Sysmeds only hurt themselves. To the wider public’s eye, all of us systems are “weird” and “scary” and “insane.” They don’t care if you fit certain criteria or not. We’re traumagenic and our host’s mom was still scared of us, because ALL systems have a bad reputation in media. She didn’t go, “Oh it’s ok because you’re not one of those fakers :)” because singlets who have little knowledge of systems don’t think like that. That’s only something sysmeds think. Instead, she thought of cliches of stories of “evil voices that tell you to kill people” and she wants us to “go away.”

And even if sysmeds did succeed in making all endo systems “disappear,” do you know what would happen? They’d turn on each other to appease online places like FDC who don’t actually care about “fakers” at all, but just care about mocking neurodivergent people under a facade of morality. They’ll change the rules to keep excluding people as “fakers.” There is no “winning” in a game that focuses around hating people, because it’s only a matter of time until the hate turns on you, and you’ll have nobody to back you up when that time comes.

Being traumagenic doesn’t make you “better” or more accepted. Instead of tearing each other apart, we should be supporting each other. Plurality is a great thing and we should be working together to educate the wider public.

-Michael (he/him)

Reminder: the "sysmed is transphobic" talking point was invented as a means of revictimization

Transgender Endogenic/mixed origin systems: *exists*

Sysmeds: being a system is a mental disorder. You can't be a system without a disorder and anyone who says otherwise is just doing it for attention. Everybody, bully the ableists!

Transgender Endogenic/mixed origin systems: *refers to them as sysmeds, comparing identical talking points as well as the hate and harassment they've received from sysmeds to what they suffered from transmeds.*

Sysmeds: Now the nasty transgender endos are stealing terms from the trans community! Everybody, bully the transphobes!

Abusers love pretending to be victims. Transmeds employ the same manipulation tactics, alsi accusing anyone who disagrees with them of being transphobic.

Another thing I see is claiming sysmed is a slur. This particular tactic is borrowed from TERFs who claim the word TERF is a slur and demand to be referred to as "gender critical" instead.

To anyone who thinks there's a notable difference or that the comparison isn't valid:

In my time dealing with sysmeds, I've been harassed and fakeclaimed for my identity. I've been sent more suibait than I can count and dealt with attempts to get me banned by mass false reporting. I've been maliciously misgendered numerous time as a means to hurt me, the way transmeds have done to non-dysphoric transgender people, including by the admin of a major anti-endo server called The Survivor's Network.

Sysmeds repeatedly employ the talking points of transmeds, the tactics of transmeds and the abusive behavior of transmeds.

Then when compared to transmeds, they call the victims (who are often trans or otherwise GNC) who call them out transphobic for making the comparison.

Sysmeds don't call their victims transphobic because their victims are transphobic.

Sysmeds call their victims transphobic to silence their victims.

What are endogenic systems?

Just a little thing I decided to do because a lot of people just don't know what they are, and still try to get involved in this dumb drama Do not reblog to syscou.rse blogs, or if you know your blog might attract bad attention (I'll also use my digression to block anyone who doesn't respect my existence. this is inherently not a fair debate!) Edit: can't believe I have to say this but radfems will be blocked without any engagement

Hi, an “endogenic” refresher course, right here!

1. We introduced the term “endogenic” into the community August 2014, along with some other terms! It was in response to exclusionists (wrongly) complaining about “systems without DID” using “their words”. It was an attempt at creating nonmedicalized terms that any plural system could use. 

2. It was also a way to do away with terms that had fallen into disfavor— specifically “natural systems”, a term that had been in use possibly as early as 1994. It was disliked because people felt it implied that trauma-caused systems were unnatural. “Endogenic” fixed that. 

3. The word “endogenic” was lovingly created to help systems put their experience into words. All it means is “a system not formed by trauma”; it doesn’t imply any other cause, set of beliefs, or experiences. It doesn’t imply the system is nondisordered or doesn’t have trauma. It doesn’t mean any other system’s origins in trauma or dx status is “invalid” or whatever.

4. Though the terms were eventually posted to tumblr, the idea didn’t start there. Tumblr was created in 2007; the concept of systems not caused by trauma has, again, been online since the 90s. Nor was the term created by singlets! We’re a trauma-caused system with DID. 

5. “Endogenic” wasn’t created as an insult or to exclude anyone. We have loved ones who are endogenic. Many of the terms in use now were created by endogenics. They have helped preserve plural history, and defended the community. They are good people, and real systems. The hate they get is completely senseless.

Thanks for coming to our talk. Please stop insulting endogenic systems, and educate yourselves instead, thanks. (Unless it’s just pure malice at this point in which case, fuck off I guess.)

https://endogenichub.weebly.com/ is a decent site to learn more.

ENDOGENIC RESEARCH CARRD AS TEXT!

as the endogenic research carrd is down for who knows how long, due to me being eepy, very tired, exhausted, and a procrastinator, i will post all the links here. I feel like i owe it to you to give you this. anyone is free to copy paste these links to wherever. heck, you could even make your own endogenic research page! I actually encourage you to, please do!!

i no longer wish to be associated with this, please respect that and ty

-- endo research --

"There's no research on endogenics!" well that's wrong...

all of these must have sources / references, if i have made any mistakes please contact me.

Exploring the experiences of young people with multiplicity

Varieties of Tulpa Experiences: The Hypnotic Nature of Human Sociality, Personhood, and Interphenomenality.

NORMAL DIMENSIONS OF MULTIPLE PERSONALITY WITHOUT AMNESIA *

Tulpas and Mental Health: A Study of Non-Traumagenic Plural Experience

Multiplicity: An Explorative Interview Study on Personal Experiences of People with Multiple Selves**

Imaginary Friends: Helpful or Harmful?

Personality Characteristics of Tulpamancers and Their Tulpas

Transgender Mental Health - pages 157-165

Tulpamancy: Transcending the Assumption of Singularity in the Human Mind

*it makes you sign up for an account to access it **tw: purposeful misgendering

-- old sites --

"Endos are just a new fad!" wrong again...

These sites are dated from the time of when they were created.

Astraea's web - 1995

Disenchanted Forest FAQ - 2001

Kinhost.org - 2001

The Multiple Code - 2001

Four and Twenty - 2001

Multiplicity Is Not a "Disorder," - Unknown

MidContinuum - 1999

A breif history of midcontinuum - 2002

The Median Side - Unknown

-- other sites--

while these are not research, they provide good points

Debunking Sysmeds

Endogenic Proof Masterlist

-- points, opinions, and experiences --

these also are not research but they also provide good points. the asterisks may overlap in meaning but yknow, wanted to differentiate the points.

* Just opinion ** Experiences *** Has truth to it (can include having sites, archives, etc to back it up.)

Sysmed's TERF/transmed rhetoric**

A Brief History of the Use of 'System' in non-DID Space***

It’s Not Just a Tumblr Thing***

Why not just use "thoughtform"?**

-- other / unsorted --

The ICD says this ^

-- END ---

FAQ

questions or statements ive heard or thought of;

Q - this isnt true! these have no sources! A - please take a look at the links, all of them have sources, if they do not, bring this up with me so I can remove the link, thank you. I really doubt you can just say "no" to the word of a psychologist on a psychology topic, etc.

Q - can i add something to the carrd? A - yes! send me an ask, and ill check it out. It must have references/sources though.

Q - I cant access the carrd! A - the carrd is down due to the reasons listed in the top paragraphs.

Q - when will the carrd be done / up? A - sorry, I don't know.

NO DISCOURSE ON THIS POST OR I BITE YOU

Why do so many sysmeds seem to base their whole identities around the concept of pain and suffering?

One of the most common arguments we see amongst anti-endos is the idea that endos and their supporters promote this fantasy where DID/OSDD is all fun and happy. Anti-endos claim that we downplay the difficult parts of having a dissociative disorder (fragmented memory, PTSD, an altered or incomplete sense of self, etc).

But here's the thing..... endos aren't actually saying that.

Having DID/OSDD is hard, especially when you don't have access to the proper support. Nobody is denying that fact. But what's so bad about the people who have these disorders choosing to seek out the positives instead of being miserable all the time?

Anti-endos will even attack other traumagenic systems for not having the same mindset. To us, it almost feels like the people who make this argument are jealous that other plurals with DID/OSDD don't let their suffering dictate their sense of self. In fact, it even feels like these people don't even want to heal or seek help. They've become so engrossed in their misery that they can't possibly fathom the idea that others aren't also suffering 24/7. When you build your whole identity around your pain and misery, seeing anyone who doesn't think and act that way is going to make you angry and upset.

It's so incredibly easy to fall down a rabbit hole of thoughts when all you can think about is how miserable you are. That's why so many people struggle to get out of depression; it eventually becomes second nature for your brain to adopt a negative thinking pattern, and changing your thought process is unbelievably hard. This is especially true with people who have suffered abuse and/or trauma, because of the way these things impact them mentally and emotionally.

And maybe this is why so many anti-endos make the argument that our community downplays the negative aspects of having DID/OSDD. They see the plurals who have these disorders and seemingly aren't constantly suffering, and they get defensive because how DARE these systems who have the same disorder as them not be in misery all day, every day? How DARE these systems make the decision to accept the good and bad things that come with their disorders. How DARE people choose to not let their suffering define who they are.

- Blu

sorry for the possibly dumb question

what the fuck is a system

Don't worry, anon, this isn't a dumb question at all! Systems aren't very well-known, so I'm happy to explain them to you. I'll start by explaining what a system is, then go more in-depth about systems in general.

So, you know how most people are one person? Or, rather, you know how when you meet someone, you assume they're the only person in their body? You don't really think "I wonder if this person shares their body and life with other beings." or "I wonder if this person I know is actually multiple people all sharing the same body.", but that's how it is for systems!

In simple terms, a system is any collective group of self-aware entities that share the same body (which is, I fully acknowledge, a complicated definition, but basically we have multiple selves whereas most people would have just one, and each self has their own identity). We may not specifically consider ourselves individual people (some systems see themselves as separated parts of one whole person, for instance), but it'll probably help you understand if you think of us as people that happen to share the same body. We each have our own sense of self, ideas, feelings, personalities, and on and on, just like anyone else.

Although this probably sounds very strange and surprising, it's likely that you've heard of systems before – just not with that language. Many people have heard of "multiple personalities" or "Multiple Personality Disorder", which is how systems used to be known. This sort of understanding of systems is especially common in horror movies, which tend to depict systems as serial killers or monsters. Of course, systems are no more likely to hurt others than anyone else is, but the stereotype and stigma persists, and can lead to harassment or even violence against systems.

However, you may have also come across more positive depictions. Body sharing is a common trope, for instance. People with Dissociative Identity Disorder, who often describe themselves as systems, are being more often portrayed as regular or kind people rather than serial killers, such as Uendo Toneido from Ace Attorney. I've often seen systems point to characters and series like Venom, Sense8, and Moon Knight – which depict systems or situations and characters that resonate with systems – to describe what their lives are like. We often find characters that are rather like systems that may not have been intended to be read as such and have a laugh about it; you might be able to spot the same, now that you know what you're looking for.

So, systems can be understood as when a single body is inhabited by more than one person, or being, or entity (whichever term you prefer). We may share the same body, but we each have our own selves, and often, our own names and identities, too.

That's the essence of it! I'll put more under the cut about systems in case you're curious.

For starters, if you're looking into systems, you'll probably run across the term "plurality", which is an overarching term that refers to all instances of someone sharing a body/brain; it is the state of being more-than-one, not just an individual collection of beings in a single body (the latter is what the word "system" specifically refers to). There's also the word "plural", which can be used either as a noun to mean the same thing as "system", or as an adjective to describe things that involve or exhibit plurality. For instance, I am plural. I very much enjoy talking about plurality and plural characters in fiction.

(As a comparison, you may think of video chats/group calls. Plurality, here, would be video chats in general. Meanwhile, a specific video chat – called a webinar – would be a system. And the people in a webinar would be the members of a system. Or, for another example, plurality would be education, a system would be a class, and the members of that system would be the students.)

Speaking of, beings who share a body – who are part of a system – are called many different terms. Two of the most common are "headmate" and "alter", although I also see "system member" a lot. I could say that my headmate was rather helpful today, or that my alter was fronting yesterday. Alter is more medical of a term, but it's more standard, especially in some other languages outside English.

But, wait, you might be wondering what fronting is! Well, since we all live in the same body, we've got to share control of it too, don't we? Fronting is what we call controlling the body, and switching is when we change who is in control. Some systems switch often, while others switch rarely, or only under certain circumstances, and some systems never switch at all. Switching may be involuntary, or it may be a voluntary skill a system has picked up. There's a lot of variety across systems.

Plurality is most often known in the context of DID, or Dissociative Identity Disorder, which often involves a lot of involuntary switches. P-DID, or Partial Dissociative Identity Disorder, meanwhile, involves very few switches, but these are likely to be involuntary, as well. There are other disorders that plurality may be a part or symptom of, but plurality can also exist as its own non-disordered state, so long as there's no attached or related issues causing problems for the system (ex. memory issues are another frequent problem in DID, and these memory issues come from the members of a system not remembering what the others did when those alters were fronting).

You may be wondering, how does this happen? How does someone become a system? There are many different ways. Sometimes, it's a part of someone's culture, religion, or spirituality. Sometimes, it's the brain's response to trauma, trying to protect itself. Sometimes, someone is simply born this way. Sometimes, someone may become a system out of the blue, or cause their own plurality somehow. Some systems have a multitude or mix of origins. Most studies on systems currently focus on systems that originate from trauma, as these systems most often have issues – including the trauma in question – that need to be looked into and addressed, but there are some budding studies into systems with other origins, such as the few current and ongoing studies on created systems (the aforementioned systems that cause their own plurality).

I'm simplifying some things here; identity such as this gets increasingly nuanced and personal as you learn more and more (for example, as said before, not all system members identify as individual persons, even if it can help understand them to think of them like individual persons that just happen to share a body). But I hope this helped you learn at least the basics about systems!

Think systems with a high number of fictional introjects are a new phenomena? Kluft's paper on polyfragmented/extremely complex DID from 1988 includes a patient with LOTR introjects, and another based off of Shakespear's Tempest. Fictional introjects have been a thing for a very long time!

Here’s my metaphor for systemhood that I tell my singlet friends.

Imagine you’re playing a first person video game. You have the controller, you control your character. It’s a normal first person game. You are an alter, the character is the body. This is fronting.

Other people live with you. Sometimes, they come into the room and sit and watch while you play. They sometimes try to guide you, give you advice on what to do next. They don’t always agree, and they can argue with each other. Other times they scream at you that you’re doing everything wrong and you suck at this game. This is co-consciousness.

Imagine how distracting it would be for people around you to tell you what to do, or to scream at each other or at you, even if they have good intentions. It wouldn’t be easy to focus on your game, would it?

Then sometimes, something happens in the game that prompts you to hand off the controller to someone else so they can play and you get a break. This is (some types of) switching. This can be good.

Other times, someone rips the controller out of your hand or fights you for it. This is (other types of) switching. And sometimes, six other players hook up their controllers, but there’s only one character to play as. So all of you have your controllers, but you’re all trying to play the same character. This is cofronting.

Imagine how difficult that would be. Imagine how hard it would be to try and play a game while someone is trying to take the controller from you, or while six other people are trying to play too.

There are also times that nobody is playing, or you can’t decide who should play. What’s happening to the character in the game? What are they doing if no one is playing? This is dissociation. The character is doing nothing. They’re stuck.

This is the best metaphor I have come up with for being a system. It’s something a lot of people get because they’ve played games before.

SAY IT LOUDER FOR THE PEOPLE IN THE BACK

Go read the comments on this posts there’s some good additions, if you see this through the comments read some more

y'know what? fuck it! shout out to all my fellow "stereotypes!"

shoutout to my fellow autists who do feel like a kid in an adult’s body because their mind works differently. shoutout to my fellow systems who have alters that lash out, and/or alters of fictives from popular media. shoutout to my fellow bpd folks who get clingy and have abandonment issues. shoutout to the autists who act "robotic" and love trains or dinosaurs. shoutout to the people with OCD/OCPD who do get obsessions with cleanliness and orderliness, who do wash their hands over and over, who do lock and unlock the doors a specific number of times. shoutout to the people struggling with intrusive thoughts that do get the violent ones and the sexual ones, not just the self-injurious ones.

shoutout to my fellow flamboyant gays. shoutout to the lesbians who wear flannel and have buzzcuts. shoutout to the aces who like space and cake and dragons. shoutout to the aces who are stoic and don't have an interest in bonding with people even non-romantically. shoutout to the nbs with neopronouns and names like "star." shoutout to the queers(or otherwise lgbt+ folk if you don't use that term for yourself) who have dyed and cut hair, wear a shitload of pronoun pins, wear a rainbow binder that can be seen, and love talking about how much they love being part of the community.

shoutout to my fellow activists who yell and get mad. shoutout to my fellow activists who bring up the problems in things, even if it means "always making it political." shoutout to the feminists who don't wear bras or shave, and don't get along with men.

shoutout to the men who struggle with emotions. shoutout to the men who love blue and camo and trucks and fixing things and sports and hunting. shoutout to the women who cry easily. shoutout to the women who take hours getting ready. shoutout to the women who love pink and shopping and shoes and cooking and taking care of kids and cleaning.

i'm very white so i'll summarize the next one: shoutout to all the BIPOC fitting into "stereotypes" as well. if anyone who is BIPOC wants to give specific shout outs, go for it!

to anyone who fits these or any other "stereotypes":

You are not a stereotype. You are a person with traits and qualities. You are not doing anything wrong by being true to yourself, whether that means fitting expectations or not.

Anyone who hates whatever group you are in for these "stereotypes" would hate your group regardless; anyone who accuses you of "giving your group a bad name" is deflecting the hate onto you because it's easier to pretend that it's nothing they are doing that gets that hatred; the truth is, bigots are bigots and they will always find a "reason" to be hateful. You trying to avoid "stereotypes" will never change that.

(do not fucking clown on this post. you will not get a debate from me, you will get blocked.)

Hello systems who have cookie run introjects

Are your cookies running around in the brain with no one to talk to? Well now they can stop running and talk to other cookies in  Our cookie run introject server! made for a system with cookies for other systems with cookies (because they are lonely /hj) But before you join here are a few rules! 1.Please do not send hate for this, but no Endos, please. We want to keep syscourse out of this server, and this is the best way.  2. No singlets / Non-systems!  3. please only join if you have cookie run introjects.  ok uh those are all the rules here theres more posted in the server plz come join we are lonely-  https://discord.gg/6Va9MNyx

; these are some neurodivergent ( stims, tone tags, systems, etc ) emoji discord servers !!

Non-verbal:

https://discord.gg/bhCNsWNpwV

Tone tags:

https://discord.gg/xsxfX8zw9v

Alphabet:

https://discord.gg/JV49R7sw3y

Systems:

https://discord.gg/WABnAEgYSw

A mix of above + others

https://discord.com/invite/KK67WDAxNT

; enjoy !! <33

Syscourse

I feel like honestly, the dissociation side of DID is not talked about enough

Most of the stuff I see on other blogs or even in stuff like multiplicitymay is all centered on alters

Like yes there are alters but what about the c-ptsd? The body memories?? The forgetfulness??? The DISSOCIATION???!?!

(Like literally guys it’s called Dissociative Idenity Disorder)

I have just recently had a major realization, or set of them. I was in denial about the fact that yes, I have more of a complex dissociative disorder than I had originally assumed or believed.

Seems I may have OSDD-1 rather than just DRDP alone. I have strong, strong reason to believe this.

My best friend is heavily, heavily plural, and I run in circles with high concentrations of plural folks. People have always been like, "Are you sure you're a singlet?"

Yeah, they were right lol.

Traumagenic, in my case. I had a severely abusive mother. (However, I believe the experiences and self-reports of endogenic people too, and I am of the opinion that while very rare, that is indeed a thing. Their experiences are presumably rather different from ours, due to the lack of trauma being a factor, but theirs are valid too.)

i'm disappointed to realize that blog headers have a form of scaling dynamic to them depending on the device... and that the entirety of this doesn't display on mobile or desktop!

i just wanted to make something that included everyone :(((

Someone in our system made a userbox, I feel like this is one worth sharing for anyone who would find it useful. Enjoy. Feel free to use it.

We have complicated opinions on syscourse lol.

That moment you realise your best childhood memory was actually severe disassociation

...oops

Some of y'all really need to read up on the structural disassociation theory btw

Dropping back into my body like 22 dropped into Joe Gardener's body (I haven't fronted in a month)

I keep seeing systems posting their fronter bracelets and felt left out so

Here are some of ours!

We don't wear them all the time but they're helpful when we do

And yes, Kyle does in fact have '69' on his... though I suppose I can't say anything when our blog has 69 in it too. Everyone hid meaning in their bracelets, flags and relationships etc but I don't know them all..

mine doesn't have any special meaning; I just really like orange, and I'm witchy sooo.. evil eye.

bringing this one back

Researching DID as a system always leads to this.

Purple links.

Someone's already looked.

And we forgot.