I am traumogenic (trauma created/clinical DID) plural system. It is highly likely that I never had a "core personality" that I was born as and instead have always had either an infant mental state or multiple personalities. (During the time most babies begin to form a coherent personality, I formed several. It is possible that not every system forms like this but highly like I did)
Every time I've felt I was singular, I've experienced mental walls, amnesia and other DID symptoms. If someone could do a "I'm singular ama" that'd be cool because I have questions too. :)
Good question! So alters (and the people you see up "front"/as hosts are also alters. It is extremely rare to meet a person who has either integrated or is being fronted by a "core" as host for DID systems. OSDD systems work a little different depending on if they are type A or B but sometimes OSDD is a catch all for DID systems who don't match the diagnosis criteria exactly) can certainly have different politics and systems communication is important here. Some alters can also be coded as being younger or older than the age of the body/brain. I had an alter talk about how cool a monarchy would be....she was coded as being 13! That was a conversation we had to have. (She certainly wasn't an actual reactionary, she just had kinda checked out of the real world when the body was around that age and didn't get a real education until system communication increased.) We've had people in the system not understand somethings about how the world works in other ways due to them being "traumaholders" but with pretty much all alters, you slowly engage them and introduce them into the present in a gentle way. I don't think we have a single Biden supporter among us besides maybe the one who was taught she wasn't allowed to have any opinion ever. (We're working on helping her/us with over coming that)
:sankara-salute: Hell of a job radicalizing your alters, that's pretty lit. Imagine it's a lot of work to try and create some cohesive political agreements between alters but that's amazing that y'all have been able to do it.
Thank you, this is much appreciated. This is actually standard and clinical recommended treatment of DID and many systems also do similar things outside of a clinical context. In the book "Got Parts? An insider's guide to DID" (might have gotten the title a bit off but Google should fix that), the book recommends daily internal meetings and check ins. The goal of many systems is not to become one personality but to have internal agreements and communication based on consensus. In some ways, organizing "inside people" is easier than organizing outside people. It's not a walk in the park, especially for survivors of extreme abuse and I REALLY have to know my theory to explain it to the others.
Yeah the system analogy seems really helpful! Almost like you're running an automonous collective where no one alter can possibly control everything or be relied upon for everything. I imagine that there are seriously helpful lessons all of us can apply from those with DID when dealing with organizing communities!
I strongly agree that singular organizers have a lot to learn from functioning DID systems. Though, there are some major gaps. Like, some systems have internal mirrors of abusers. The alter acting as this mirror is not the literal abuser, but the cognitive system creates this mirror in an attempt to predict what the real abuser is going to do and bully the system before the real abuser can. These alters can be reformed into protectors much much easier than an externally abusive person can be reformed. For DID systems, the task is to deeply internalize that what they have in their mind is not the literal abuser or a weird thought, but a very confused and wounded alter. Embracing an external abuser as one would embrace an internal introject would be very dangerous. Forgiveness practices are healthy and safe for systems but dangerous for all survivors when applied to external relations.
That's so interesting that your system creates almost sock puppet abusers to practice protecting themselves. Thanks for sharing!
It's an extremely common thing. In clinical literature, these are called persecutors and they are sentient. They can also be reformed. When reformed they tend to be some of the most protective members of the system. I actually don't have many conventional persecutors and they don't come out often. I mentioned this because I think it is the easiest area for an organizer to cause harm when trying to apply DID treatment strategies to organizing. Many survivors are pressured to let external family abusers back into their lives. With internal persecutors because they are inherently part of the psyche, you cannot and should not banish them. They also have a different capacity for harm than an external abuser. So, the whole "Awww...you're hurt, I'll forgive you" can sometimes work for an internal meeting but can potentially fatal when applied to external abusers. (Unfortunately, systems can also be abusers of external people and if a person is being abused by a system then the same protocols apply as being abused by a singular person)
man holy shit brains are so cool