This Is Really Comforting To Hear As Was Your Reply To My Ask - Tumblr Posts
im a DID system with STPD and it's really disappointing you believe in non-traumagenic origins
if it's not rooted in trauma it is not systemhood. hearing voices isn't the same as having distinct personalities.
‼️ This Is A StPD Blog, Not A System Discourse Blog. Do Not Send Any More Asks About This Or You Will Be Blocked ‼️
Firstly, I’m a DID system with StPD, and I run a blog where I provide information that’s sourced from scientific and medical literature, and I’m disappointed that you refuse to acknowledge that scientifically and medically speaking, non-traumagenic origins for systems are possible, because it doesn’t confirm your personal bias. This blog exists to A.) help form a community around the experience of having StPD (via the concept of “StPD culture”, and what that means for a pwStPD) and B.) educate people on StPD either by providing links to study journals and medical essays, or to explain study journals and medical essays as best I can.
Secondly, what a gross oversimplification of DID and StPD.
A.) I understand that you believe the only way to be a system is through trauma, and due to that belief you’re comfortable stating something as misleading as “DID = distinct personalities”, but, like or not and agree with it or not, it’s possible to have alternate identity states without having DID, and insisting that the only way to have differing and distinct identity states is through DID will leads those who do not have DID to diagnose themselves with a disorder they do no have, because they know they’re a system.
B.) DID isn’t the only way to be a traumagenic system. There’s also: OSDD, UDD and P-DID. And according to the diagnostic criteria, under OSDD 1a, distinct personalities is NOT part of the diagnostic criteria, and that’s what separates it from DID. So your insistence that DID is the only possible way to be a system is already gatekeeping other disorders on the dissociative disorder spectrum.
C.) Implying that DID is the Distinct Personalities Disorder does a horrible disservice to the parts of DID experience that are actually distressing. DID is largely considered a trauma response. It’s part of the Structural Dissociative Disorders, along with PTSD and C-PTSD, both of which have symptoms overlapping with DID (flashbacks, nightmares and night terrors, trauma triggers, dissociation). This trauma response combined with the systemhood of DID also results in symptoms like: negative front triggers, being unable to control who’s in front, fragmented memory, etc. THAT is what DID is. DID is NOT just “distinct personalities”, it’s a trauma response in which the distinct personalities exist to cope with trauma.
1.) Similarly, schizo-spec disorders are NOT just the “Hearing Voices Disorders”. In fact, excluding the other schizotaxic personality disorders, pwStPD are the least likely to hear distinct, separate, individualized voices consistently compared to schizophreniform, schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorders. PwStPD are more likely to hallucinate what sounds like conversions being had in the room over, the sounds or a radio or tv playing, and other “background” noises. I know when I do hallucinate a single voice, it usually speaks a single word (often my name being called) or a sound (coughing or v*m*ting). I have never once been able to have a conversation with my hallucinated voices. They just don’t work like that for me. This isn’t to say that pwStPD can’t hallucinate voices the way the other schizo-spec disorders do, as we can experience brief reactive psychotic episodes, we’re just not as likely.
2.) StPD is known for odd, strange and eccentric behavior more than it is Hearing Voices. Our quasi-psychotic way of thinking paired with ipseity disturbance means the way we perceive and experience life around us Isn’t Fully Rooted In Reality. That may include reacting to auditory hallucinations, but StPD isn’t solely defined by auditory hallucinations. Magical thinking and ideas of reference inform our every day behavior way more than auditory hallucinations do (for the most part, generally speaking, with the exceptions of brief reactive psychotic episodes).
Thirdly, schizo-spec disorders and DID both experience dissociation and altered identity states. Psychotic states are very much an altered identity state that is also marked by dissociation and DP/DR. The psychotic identity state vs non-psychotic identity state may present more as OSDD 1a, with the psychotic identity state not necessarily having its own identity (but may). Also, the Theory Of Ipseity Disturbance states that schizo-spec disorders have a disturbance of the minimal self, while DID, like the other Structural Dissociative Disorders, are disorders of the narrative self, and the minimal self is the foundation in which the narrative self is formed. I’ll not rehash that, since you’re obviously not interested in the scientific literature anyways.
And finally, StPD plurality is going to be different than DID plurality. You’re right, hearing voices isn’t the same as having distinct separate alternate identity or ego states. That doesn’t make one experience any more or less plural. Just because StPD plurality may not align with the DID experience in a 1:1 way doesn’t make it any less real or plural. Not everyone who claims to be a system is claiming to have DID.
You’d think someone with StPD would understand the world is so much weirder than it seems, and not everything fits into nice, neat, easy-to-understand boxes.