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lb_leeOkay, there’s this idea I’ve seen around tumblr, so let’s get this out of the way: ‘multiple’ is not a word you can appropriate from people with DID/MPD/DDNOS.
'Multiple’ is not a diagnosis. It’s an adjective. Some people are depressed because their cat died; other people are depressed because they have depression. We don’t go around badgering the people in the former camp because most people understand that depression isn’t JUST a diagnosis. Ditto multiplicity.
You also can’t claim that self-identifying as 'multiple’ is violating some mythical identity safe space, because I have no evidence that a multiple first coined it. Academics and shrinks were using it in the therapeutic literature by 1984. See for yourself. If 'multiple’ WAS coined by multiples, it was quickly co-opted by the people in power over us.
You can’t claim 'multiple’ is cultural appropriation because multiples are not a culture. We are, at best, a very small subculture. (And really, it’s more like a cluster of very different subcultures, constantly fighting and back-biting each other.)
You can’t even claim 'multiple’ is being infiltrated because c'mon. People have been whining about fake multiples since the 1980s. It’s an old fight. There aren’t enough multis, of any flavor, to make jealously guarding such an adjective worthwhile, and even if fakers started using it… so? There’s no Multi Police who will take away your Multi Card. There’s no legal/diagnostic criteria of multi. People like Kenneth Bianchi and Richard Angelo have been abusing the MPD/DID diagnosis for their own purposes for DECADES! Even now, you see small fish like Andy Blake using it to excuse their own actions.
If you’re trying to keep the word 'multiple’ out of the hands of everyone but the precious few, you can’t, because like I said, ain’t no Multi Police. If you’re trying to keep multiples from looking bad, too late, we already have Billy Milligan, the serial rapist. That train has LONG left the station. So what exactly is this policing meant to achieve?
Besides silencing and confusing young multiples and denying them the most obvious words to describe their experience, that is.
'Multiple’ is not a diagnosis. It’s an adjective. Some people are depressed because their cat died; other people are depressed because they have depression. We don’t go around badgering the people in the former camp because most people understand that depression isn’t JUST a diagnosis. Ditto multiplicity.
You also can’t claim that self-identifying as 'multiple’ is violating some mythical identity safe space, because I have no evidence that a multiple first coined it. Academics and shrinks were using it in the therapeutic literature by 1984. See for yourself. If 'multiple’ WAS coined by multiples, it was quickly co-opted by the people in power over us.
You can’t claim 'multiple’ is cultural appropriation because multiples are not a culture. We are, at best, a very small subculture. (And really, it’s more like a cluster of very different subcultures, constantly fighting and back-biting each other.)
You can’t even claim 'multiple’ is being infiltrated because c'mon. People have been whining about fake multiples since the 1980s. It’s an old fight. There aren’t enough multis, of any flavor, to make jealously guarding such an adjective worthwhile, and even if fakers started using it… so? There’s no Multi Police who will take away your Multi Card. There’s no legal/diagnostic criteria of multi. People like Kenneth Bianchi and Richard Angelo have been abusing the MPD/DID diagnosis for their own purposes for DECADES! Even now, you see small fish like Andy Blake using it to excuse their own actions.
If you’re trying to keep the word 'multiple’ out of the hands of everyone but the precious few, you can’t, because like I said, ain’t no Multi Police. If you’re trying to keep multiples from looking bad, too late, we already have Billy Milligan, the serial rapist. That train has LONG left the station. So what exactly is this policing meant to achieve?
Besides silencing and confusing young multiples and denying them the most obvious words to describe their experience, that is.
no subject
Date: 2016-08-09 03:52 am (UTC)it's really just because there's been a lot of influx of "i hate endogenic systems because they are not real" on tumblr recently.
it actually makes me really mad because a lot of the stuff they say is like "if its not in the dsm it's not real" while never bringing up how the dsm has been wrong countless times before. if we had the original dsm we'd probably still be calling aspd psychopaths/sociopaths (which happens in a lot of pseudo-science documentaries, i know), thinking transgender and homosexuals were mentally ill, and still using moron and retarded in textbooks. and yes, we'd call people with DID "multiple personality disorder" and still force them to integrate against their will.
and the other thing is that not only that "only trauma can cause multiplicity and that is absolute face" against psychiatry in general, it's unscientific. and people seem to forget that psychiatry/psychology is a science. like, i haven't fact checked this but it's generally scientific law to not take something as 100% correct forever. which is why the dsm changes, our society progresses, and that the center of the earth isn't an ocean and that flies aren't born from meat.
sorry if i went off-topic here but the terminology thing really is part of a bigger problem. the bigger problem being that "endogenic systems don't exist". i've been thinking of making a vent post that echoes what i just said here and tag it with #systematicpride, but last time one of our system members made a big post about multiplicty it was reblogged without counterargument and just having people agree with it. (then again it was directed towards ableists who think people with DID or any multi can't use the internet, and there have been gatekeepers posting in the systematicpride tag so maybe it would get some attention?)
(kinda unrelated but the thing that made me realize this in the first place was watching too much of the bible reloaded)
tldr; people make up stupid shit without argument and/or fallible science
--jewel
edit: JESUS that looks so fucking long when it's posted. good thing i did add a tdlr
no subject
Date: 2025-11-09 11:32 pm (UTC)We have Ted Bundy too. He always insisted there was this thing in his head he called "The Entity" that was actually the one doing the Ted Bundy stuff. So, like everyone else, we just rolled our eyes and said "Right Ted, it was the Entity." But then we read "The Phantom Prince" by his ex-girlfriend and this was in the back, in his stepdaughter's (Molly) account of everything. It turns out, The Entity was real.
Then if you read The 1976 Psychological Assessment of Ted Bundy by Al Carlisle, PhD, he basically backs up this whole thing while trying to explain that Ted *wasn't* plural by likening this process to an actor who creates a headspace and monoconsciously and/or cephaconsciously becomes the character. (We're letting this slide since it was the 70's, but still.)
Carlisle also said that almost every criminal he's evaluated had a hero "persona" and a shadow "persona". They insisted the Shadow was the one doing everything and they were all desperate to become the hero mask, which is pretty obviously what Ted was doing by saving people/cats/purses.
Ted described his process of "becoming new people" by creating a person different from yourself the becoming them, which sounds like he was creating fragments and wearing them as clothes. Ted was also blatantly subjected to obscene SA though out his life, which probably started about 5 minutes after his mom brought him home from the orphanage. The orphanage he spent four long months in while no one connecting emotionally with him. Then it's insinuated that this SA continued well into adulthood with Liz's story about him calling off their first engagement. The man had no identity. He was never able form one. We think that's a big part of why trauma-induced forms of plurality happens. (The lack of identity is also why BPD happens, a condition Ted blatantly had, but that's an essay for another time.)
However, I/we must concede that Ted said that the Entity was not another mind in. But if you're plural and able to switch, you'll know that it never feels like another mind. In fact, if you asked us prior to late 2019 if we were all separate, unique minds, we would've told you "no". Then interacting with soulbonders caused us to re-evaluate this. Plus, when you're fronting, you blend with the body's consciousness, so it can be hard to tell what's going on.
So anyway, we wanted to share that. And I have a lot of strong feelings about the lie that "Only good people get to be mentally ill. The baddies do this because they're evil and enjoy doing evil things" when nothing could be further from the truth. (You can hate your abusers as much and as long as you want. I sure as hell hate mine. I know they're terrible. What I'm trying to say is they're not "evil". They're as human as everyone else. They're just terrible humans who need to die in a fire and/or a plastic shredder.)
Okay. That's what we wanted to share.
--Anton
no subject
Date: 2025-11-10 04:40 pm (UTC)Yeah, we may not have encountered a Bundy, but we’ve known plenty of plurals who committed everything from DV to animal abuse to rape and kidnapping and branding and getting kids to fuck each other, so extending that to serial killers isn’t much of a jump. And those are all people we TALKED to!
Nice as it’d be to think we’re above the worst of humanity, it’s a comforting fantasy, not reality.