Okay, so... I guess I'll bite on this one. I want to say that first I don't think endo systems are "faking" it. I genuinely am asking for guidance on this to see if I'm missing something. I either am genuinely not understanding people's experiences properly or it's some sort of labeling thing I don't really agree with.

So my understanding is that DID is a disorder characterized by someone suffering severe trauma where the brain copes by creating dissociative identities in order to cope with it. It's a dissociative disorder created by a trauma response.

Now, the thing I don't really understand is "endogenic" systems. Or, systems that aren't completely traumatic in origin. This just seems to be completely at odds with how a DID system forms and what DID even is. Again, I'm not discounting that this is how a person experiences the world, just that it doesn't seem to be DID as defined in psychology.

So I guess my question is... how do endo people reconcile their interpretations of systems with accepted science? It seems like the main crux of the issue is that "sysmeds" are upset about the language around DID being appropriated by something that demonstrably isn't DID. Wouldn't it make more sense for the language for endos to be completely firewalled from the language used to describe a dissociative disorder?

(Also, respectfully, I don't think spiritual identities are based in reality. It's not possible for people to share connections to alternate universes, be supernatural beings, be from another planet, etc. Religion, spirituality, tarot, psychics, etc. are all not real and not based in reality. So I'd really like to avoid hearing from those people. Thanks.)

@Taullo just coming in here to second the spiritual thing yeah i don't believe in spiritual/religious stuff. im not getting into this discourse at all, but for anyone who wants to know how i feel i don't think spiritual/religious stuff is real

i wont argue or debate due to trauma i personally have but like. this is for ppl who want to block me

@UngorthTheDestroyer Yeah it's just not based in reality in the slightest. I'd rather have someone explain it to me who is accepting of reality and not talking about fairy tale concepts. I love fairy tales but at some point, people need to accept reality for what it is. I'm not gonna accept something without the scientific method being applied to it and I'm sick of people pretending that I need to be accepting by validating their delusional beliefs in a dude that got pinned to a cross for being a weirdo doomsday cultist.

@Taullo UM excuse u but uh jebus was like....a furry and thats why he got pinned to the cross

@Taullo you put all of my feelings about endos into words Beautifully

i feel like there are actual systems out there who refer to themselves as 'endogenic' because they either don't remember their trauma, or think that they have no trauma whatsoever when in reality they do. like it's some kind of sick coping mechanism for them, when in reality, that's not how systems work at all and they're actively spreading misinformation by trying to pretend that nothing happened to them

so i don't immediately think all endos are faking as well, but good lord i believe a lot of them are and are trying to invade system spaces

@Taullo So, I've talked with my psych about the existence of endogenic systems (non-trauma systems) and we both kind of came to the conclusion that like...

The science is still in its infancy and hasn't accounted for the possibility that some brains are just naturally "fragmented". I'm not endogenic personally, I have OSSD-1a which IS traumagenic in origin but isn't full on DID and there are "sysmeds" who will attack my existence because it didn't crystalize at the "correct" time (i.e., I didn't become a system/fully plural until my 30s -- even if there's headmates in here that remember us being a teenager, they themselves say they weren't really fully "realized" until more recently, it was more like the seed of who they were going to become).

The "sysmed" contingent/anti-endo contingent generally attacks anyone whose plurality doesn't match very specific parameters that aren't even necessarily supported by the research (of which there is SO LITTLE that making any definitive claim is inherently kind of suspect, at least in my opinion).

There's also the fact that the psychiatric community can even decide for sure if DID even exists at all or if it's all just delusions/faking it -- this is something my ex had a lot of difficulty with when searching for a psychiatrist to help him with his non-system issues -- up to having psychs completely refuse to see him because of the DID, which isn't even what he wanted to address.

Tl;dr: it's complicated and the science isn't really conclusive and doesn't account for potential natural divergences of neurology.

@Taullo And as for the whole "co-opting of DID terminology" thing... There's only so many ways to describe this stuff and honestly, the existence of naturally formed systems doesn't actually harm anyone with DID anywhere as much as the psychiatric complex does/can.

Most of the "sysmeds" I've encountered have been teenagers who are desperately seeking some sort of approval/validity from authority figures and have taken it upon themselves to attack people whose brains are different from theirs... Additionally, there's a lot of plural terms that were invented by the non-DID contingent of plurality which sysmeds have attacked as well.

If you really are curious about terminology and such, pluralpedia has a lot of information about both traumagenic and endogenic plurality!

@rozariosanguinem Thanks so much that's actually super insightful! So the idea is that endos put forth is that the DSM is like... inadequately summarizing it, basically? It's the idea that more research needed, basically?

I'm actually putting forth the discussion points that I came across in my own research from people who have a therapist diagnosis. Also some psychologists are putting forth the idea that people are using the system framing as a way to contextualize their experiences, without actually having a DID/OSDD diagnosis. The way it was explained to me is that it's really hard and debilitating for some people to see someone acting in a way that doesn't line up with their experiences and the DSM verified symptoms. Which I understand but it's why I'm also curious how endos reconcile that.

So the endo response can basically be accurately summed up as... "the DSM is inadequate, and more research is needed but the DID framing fits"? Endos believe the brain can fragment from something not related to trauma or in addition to it?

And I tried reading pluralpedia but it really got bogged down in a lot of the spirituality so it was getting hard for me to cut through that.

@Taullo I too am a system (OSDD, not DID) so I seriously debated actually contributing to this, but I would be remiss to let myself just see this pass by.

Honestly I'm not a big believer in the spiritual stuff myself either, I just live and let live on that front. People can believe what they want as long as it's not hurting anyone, that's my view on it.

But, on the scientific/medical side, referring to systems. Ever since DID/OSDD/Any form of plurality was still known as "Multiple Personality Disorder", or MPD, trauma has actually never been a requirement both in the DSM and the ICD for diagnosing DID (and OSDD/UDD for that matter). They acknowledge that traumatic events, typically in childhood, are frequently present in people who get diagnosed with it, and provide a bigger risk for someone developing it, but again, it's not an actual requirement. There is also some mention of people having a possible genetic predisposition to dissociating more easily than others for what it's worth.

First two images are the DSM-5's requirements for a DID diagnosis, third image is from the DSM-3-R (where it's called MPD, circa 1987), and fourth image is the ICD's requirements.

So, that's a big long sprawling answer to how endos/not-fully-trauma-based systems reconcile with science, because it's still a very under-researched field, but science has supported it from what little we have.

Links in case you wanna do reading of medical text:
https://archive.org/details/dsm-5-tr/page/n721/mode/2up
https://archive.org/details/diagnosticstatis00amer_1/page/272/mode/2up (have to select "borrow for one hour")
https://icd.who.int/browse/2024-01/mms/en#1829103493

@Taullo I think that's about the right of it!

Honestly, a lot of it reminds me of the whole transmed mindset of "you MUST by dysphoric and HAVE a diagnosis of dysphoria to be trans" vs the more open "you just have to want to be a different gender than you were assigned to be trans" thing.

Sysmeds believe that plurality is exclusively caused by trauma but pro-endos believe that plurality is a part of natural human neurodivergence.

A lot of the reason I come down on the side of being pro-endgenic is that, to my knowledge, none of my siblings developed DID or OSDD -- not even my brother who has heavy dissociation issues. I'm the only system in my family which hints at there being something about the natural structure of my brain/mind which lent itself to a system developing.

Ah, yeaaah spirituality is a big part of explaining plurality for a lot of people. I'm a religious person myself but I don't really view my plurality through a spiritual lens at all. I don't think my characters came from their actual universes or anything. They're aspects of myself that I split off into my writing who kind of just... eventually gained some kind of sapience and became people who live in my head with me over time. I can see how it would be hard to parse things though if you're not at all spiritual.

@mayoi The thing I'm confused about, and trying to understand, is that it seems like a lot of people's experiences who identify as an endo system don't line up with the actual diagnosis for DID. One of the psychologists' opinions I was reading kind of summed it up that how someone experiences the world doesn't always need to be tied to a mental illness. Like, someone is just allowed to experience things differently as part of being a unique person.

It doesn't seem like most people are faking it though, at least from my understanding. Like, I mean, of course some people are because it's the internet. But like... to me, the least charitable read is they think their experiences are genuine but they're confused about them. But it seems like they're using a framework that works for themselves? ​ I guess the way I parsed it is "this works for them, but I dunno why they have to use DID terminology for it necessarily". But I guess endos do really believe those experiences align with DID/OSDD?

The thing that really sucks about all this is mental health really should be more accessible. It's such a bummer that people are getting their mental health advice from Tiktok and Tumblr.

@ultrastupid Thank you so much for engaging with this, this is exactly the perspective I was looking for :wolf_heart:​ I've been having such a hard time finding material to read that cuts through the wikis and debates and stuff

@Taullo I always try to link to resources when I can! I personally have a PDF of the DSM-5 downloaded for my own personal "speed dial" referencing lol.

I also saw your response about pluralpedia and honestly I feel that way too lol. Aside from going into religion and spirituality stuff a lot, it tends to lack sources, or it doesn't archive the sources so they go to dead links :blobcatgooglyholdingitsheadinitshands:​

@Taullo I'll be honest and say that I don't have much knowledge of systems, but this discourse always makes me think of my old interest in tulpas, which basically is building another personality inside oneself, and that it can indeed start functioning somewhat similarly to how systems do, depending on the progress.

In all honesty, human brain is weird, and relying on the medical view of conditions affecting it feels very narrowing to me