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lb_lee(EDIT 7/22/2022: I have edited this entry because I considered debating whether plural culture exists as pointless hairsplitting. I also added new information from the BBS days. Apparently people still need this post, so it remains.)
There is a chestnut of misinformation on tumblr claiming that 'system' is a term made by DID folks, for DID folks, and nobody else is allowed to use it. This is often wrapped up in the idea that multiplicity is owned by people with DID/DDNOS/OSDD, and anyone else claiming it is appropriating. This is utter nonsense. I've written numerous posts on this before, but here is the more thorough breakdown, first focused on the politics of this statement, and then the history of the actual usage.
I. The Politics
The "system is DID-only" argument that tumblr makes seems to be based on a completely different form of social justice theory than disability rights--namely, the idea of cultural appropriation. People making this argument equate 'system' with language created by oppressed people for their specific culture, and other plurals using 'system' as appropriators at best and ableist oppressors at worst. But this is completely false and misleading!
First of all, DID folks probably did not invent the term 'system.' It is more likely that it was created by the mental health powers that be; Freyasspirit kindly gave me this citation from Richard Kluft's "The Phenomenology And Treatment Of Extremely Complex Multiple Personality Disorder" in 1988 where he refers to "a system of alters," and that's the earliest I've been able to find. I've also seen it used later in the therapeutic literature in 1995, in Stephen Braude's "First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind," Krakauer's "Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Power of the Collective Heart" from 2001, and many, many others. Just google "system of alters" and you will find plenty.
Even if I'm incorrect, and the term came from the DID folks themselves, it is clear that mental health personnel quickly picked it up and enforced it upon us from their position of medical authority. Not exactly the empowering narrative of a noble oppressed people coming up with terms for their own self-identification, is it?
But even if you ignore that, the fact is, plurals (or any subgroup therein) are not a homogenous culture. Social media can give the illusion that it is, but there are a LOT of independent plural cultures/subcultures who are completely unaware of each other and have completely different terminology, bugbears, and practices. The closest thing to DID culture I have ever experienced was at a DID conference that had a great number of doctors as honored guests and panelists--and I can say with certainty that the focus was on deference to medical authority, not self-determination. (Also, none of them knew what I was banging on about when I used the word "system;" it wasn't their slang.)
So to equate the terminology of medical personnel to the language used by oppressed cultures is horrifying to me. It implies that our most holy words, our culture... are words that doctors came up with. It puts doctors in a place of cultural authority, not just medical authority! And yet at the same time, the argument claims other plurals are the appropriators, the ones in power oppressing people with DID, "stealing" their words!
So the whole argument is undermined by the very virtues it professes. It uses a circular logic to claim that plural culture is only made up of people with DID (and/or DDNOS/OSDD, depending on who exactly is spouting this nonsense), that they came up with "system" completely all by themselves, and that their language must be protected from interlopers... but that is completely untrue. Non-DID plurals have been a part of our communities for over twenty years, at least, and I can prove it.
II. History of "System" as a Standalone Noun for Plural Stuff
The earliest use of the stand-alone word "system" for a plural that I've been able to find so far is in the December 1990 edition of the Many Voices newsletter, on page eight: "I'm the part of the system called Terry and Friends." I haven't managed to completely chase down the evolution or use of the term through this newsletter, and probably won't be able to unless/until Sneak gets around to transcribing a bunch of the older issues into easily searchable plain-text, making research easier. I'm not clear whether the people of Many Voices coined it, got it from therapy groups, or whether the term naturally occurred in multiple places because of the much earlier use of "system" to describe any arrangement of related people/parts/things to form an independent greater entity.
Back before the whole moving truck fiasco, Astraea gave me some of their old BBS records in plaint-text. They are not reliable narrators, and since I don't have the consent of the people involved in these old BBS records, I feel uncomfortable relying too heavily on them or sharing too much information. That said, I was able to independently corroborate statements in the September 1992 BBS record of the existence of the Rockielynn System, who joined both alt.sexual.abuse.recovery and alt.support.dissociation in 1994. Other people in the Sept. 1992 BBS record also use the term "system" in the standalone, familiar way it is still used now: "We refer to ourselves as a system... and sometimes the system works, and sometimes it does not." One system's singlet wife says, "I care very much for - and love - everyone in the System."
For all their negative qualities, Astraea have been fairly consistent over the decades over resisting medical terminology. Indeed, the 1992 September BBS record sparks the whole "system" conversation off with Iris of Astraea asking, "What do you call yourSelves? Or, do you? Some find it too labeling even to name themselves in this fashion. We only did it so we would be able to talk about it without saying something dehumanizing like 'alternate personalities'." So I feel pretty confident that
"System" seemingly spreads from the BBS users to the alt.support.dissociation Insider FAQ, also from 1994, created by Discord and Sapphire Gazelles. The FAQ offers the following definition of "multiple system": "someone who has multiple persons/personalities living inside of one body. These are referred to here as alters. (As of the DSM-IV, this condition is called Dissociative Identity Disorder, but most people here will probably not use the official term.)"
So from the very start, the implication is that DID is not the be-all, end-all of plural experience. And the FAQ goes further! When they come to the question "What causes multiplicity?" Discord and Sapphire Gazelles specifically state that while many experience trauma, "there are exceptions to this." These include, "a few multiples exist that do not believe that they were abused but have had dissociative role models, such as a multiple parent." In later edits of the FAQ from 1995, this expanded to also include, "Some people explore identity or alternate identity games, like role playing, acting, pretending, or alternate social structures to the point where they begin to question their original identity. In some cases, these identities can take on aspects, experiences, and problems which are essentially identical to those experienced by multiples who experienced trauma." They also emphasize, "Some multiples are unaware of any initial trauma. Whether such trauma exists and the memories blocked or whether no such trauma exists is usually impossible to determine."
Compare and contrast to the tumblr argument, which does not allow a plural to exist if they don't have trauma. The alt.support.dissociation FAQ allows far more self-governance and flexibility.
This FAQ was reposted and linked over and over up until at least 2012, and the drop in references more reflects falling use of the site, rather than terminology. The last one I can find is from 2013, and specifically uses 'system' to refer to all kinds of plurals, even ones other posters are skeptical of the existence of. (Ironically, tumblr systems with fictives. Note that fictives are still a more-or-less accepted part of the DID phenomenon on that site, so enjoy the subcultural differences there!)
But non-DID plurals took and ran with the 'system' word off of Usenet too. By 2000, the Anachronic Army was using it, dismissing MPD as "An inaccurate label. We are people, and not disordered!" and further stated, "We have dropped the label of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) and simply call ourselves 'multiple'." By 2001, Astraea were also using it, and similarly rejecting the medical model of multiplicity, stating that they had never been diagnosed, and asking, "Do you really think the mental health system has the patent on multiplicity?" By 2004, Amorpha had also picked it up.
In 2007, we joined the multiplicity and soulbonding communities of Livejournal, and by that point, 'system' had most definitely generalized into use by all plurals on that site. We used the term in our first comic, MPD for You and Me, which we created that year. We can also find members of the multiplicity community with 'system' in their usernames that we can date back to this period, such as mysidia_system from 2006 (who followed soulbonding comms) and elementalsystem from 2008, who clearly reject the medical model and DID diagnosis as well.
'System' became such a general purpose word, in fact, that it spawned other words based off of it, like 'in-system relationship,' which I've primarily seen discussed by non-DID systems, such as Plures House. (And that article dates from 2012.) And while I saw many, many tedious turf battles during my time on Livejournal, none were ever pitched over the word 'system.' That didn't appear until recent years on tumblr, and still seems highly specific to that site.
Furthermore, I have no reason to believe that 'system' was ever reclaimed to be specifically for DID folks during this time either! Certainly not on a general basis. In 2015, I went to the IGDID Trauma and Dissociation Conference, and nobody knew what I was going on about when I used the term 'system.' The terminology was not used in that subculture.
So 'system' has been general purpose for over 20 years, and it's been used by specifically non-DID systems during that entire time. It never got reclaimed by DID folks, who aren't a monolith to begin with. So for to claim that non-DID multiples are "appropriating" their language, even if you ignore the incorrect usage, is patently false. They've been using it a long time! And they were using it specifically in communities that mixed us all together. They aren't barbarians invading DID Rome; they were here from the beginning, and crafting the language from the beginning, and a great number of them have been huge boons to our community. I consider it deeply rude to try and strip their language from them now, especially for such a ridiculously contrived reason.
--Rogan
There is a chestnut of misinformation on tumblr claiming that 'system' is a term made by DID folks, for DID folks, and nobody else is allowed to use it. This is often wrapped up in the idea that multiplicity is owned by people with DID/DDNOS/OSDD, and anyone else claiming it is appropriating. This is utter nonsense. I've written numerous posts on this before, but here is the more thorough breakdown, first focused on the politics of this statement, and then the history of the actual usage.
I. The Politics
The "system is DID-only" argument that tumblr makes seems to be based on a completely different form of social justice theory than disability rights--namely, the idea of cultural appropriation. People making this argument equate 'system' with language created by oppressed people for their specific culture, and other plurals using 'system' as appropriators at best and ableist oppressors at worst. But this is completely false and misleading!
First of all, DID folks probably did not invent the term 'system.' It is more likely that it was created by the mental health powers that be; Freyasspirit kindly gave me this citation from Richard Kluft's "The Phenomenology And Treatment Of Extremely Complex Multiple Personality Disorder" in 1988 where he refers to "a system of alters," and that's the earliest I've been able to find. I've also seen it used later in the therapeutic literature in 1995, in Stephen Braude's "First Person Plural: Multiple Personality and the Philosophy of Mind," Krakauer's "Treating Dissociative Identity Disorder: The Power of the Collective Heart" from 2001, and many, many others. Just google "system of alters" and you will find plenty.
Even if I'm incorrect, and the term came from the DID folks themselves, it is clear that mental health personnel quickly picked it up and enforced it upon us from their position of medical authority. Not exactly the empowering narrative of a noble oppressed people coming up with terms for their own self-identification, is it?
But even if you ignore that, the fact is, plurals (or any subgroup therein) are not a homogenous culture. Social media can give the illusion that it is, but there are a LOT of independent plural cultures/subcultures who are completely unaware of each other and have completely different terminology, bugbears, and practices. The closest thing to DID culture I have ever experienced was at a DID conference that had a great number of doctors as honored guests and panelists--and I can say with certainty that the focus was on deference to medical authority, not self-determination. (Also, none of them knew what I was banging on about when I used the word "system;" it wasn't their slang.)
So to equate the terminology of medical personnel to the language used by oppressed cultures is horrifying to me. It implies that our most holy words, our culture... are words that doctors came up with. It puts doctors in a place of cultural authority, not just medical authority! And yet at the same time, the argument claims other plurals are the appropriators, the ones in power oppressing people with DID, "stealing" their words!
So the whole argument is undermined by the very virtues it professes. It uses a circular logic to claim that plural culture is only made up of people with DID (and/or DDNOS/OSDD, depending on who exactly is spouting this nonsense), that they came up with "system" completely all by themselves, and that their language must be protected from interlopers... but that is completely untrue. Non-DID plurals have been a part of our communities for over twenty years, at least, and I can prove it.
II. History of "System" as a Standalone Noun for Plural Stuff
The earliest use of the stand-alone word "system" for a plural that I've been able to find so far is in the December 1990 edition of the Many Voices newsletter, on page eight: "I'm the part of the system called Terry and Friends." I haven't managed to completely chase down the evolution or use of the term through this newsletter, and probably won't be able to unless/until Sneak gets around to transcribing a bunch of the older issues into easily searchable plain-text, making research easier. I'm not clear whether the people of Many Voices coined it, got it from therapy groups, or whether the term naturally occurred in multiple places because of the much earlier use of "system" to describe any arrangement of related people/parts/things to form an independent greater entity.
Back before the whole moving truck fiasco, Astraea gave me some of their old BBS records in plaint-text. They are not reliable narrators, and since I don't have the consent of the people involved in these old BBS records, I feel uncomfortable relying too heavily on them or sharing too much information. That said, I was able to independently corroborate statements in the September 1992 BBS record of the existence of the Rockielynn System, who joined both alt.sexual.abuse.recovery and alt.support.dissociation in 1994. Other people in the Sept. 1992 BBS record also use the term "system" in the standalone, familiar way it is still used now: "We refer to ourselves as a system... and sometimes the system works, and sometimes it does not." One system's singlet wife says, "I care very much for - and love - everyone in the System."
For all their negative qualities, Astraea have been fairly consistent over the decades over resisting medical terminology. Indeed, the 1992 September BBS record sparks the whole "system" conversation off with Iris of Astraea asking, "What do you call yourSelves? Or, do you? Some find it too labeling even to name themselves in this fashion. We only did it so we would be able to talk about it without saying something dehumanizing like 'alternate personalities'." So I feel pretty confident that
"System" seemingly spreads from the BBS users to the alt.support.dissociation Insider FAQ, also from 1994, created by Discord and Sapphire Gazelles. The FAQ offers the following definition of "multiple system": "someone who has multiple persons/personalities living inside of one body. These are referred to here as alters. (As of the DSM-IV, this condition is called Dissociative Identity Disorder, but most people here will probably not use the official term.)"
So from the very start, the implication is that DID is not the be-all, end-all of plural experience. And the FAQ goes further! When they come to the question "What causes multiplicity?" Discord and Sapphire Gazelles specifically state that while many experience trauma, "there are exceptions to this." These include, "a few multiples exist that do not believe that they were abused but have had dissociative role models, such as a multiple parent." In later edits of the FAQ from 1995, this expanded to also include, "Some people explore identity or alternate identity games, like role playing, acting, pretending, or alternate social structures to the point where they begin to question their original identity. In some cases, these identities can take on aspects, experiences, and problems which are essentially identical to those experienced by multiples who experienced trauma." They also emphasize, "Some multiples are unaware of any initial trauma. Whether such trauma exists and the memories blocked or whether no such trauma exists is usually impossible to determine."
Compare and contrast to the tumblr argument, which does not allow a plural to exist if they don't have trauma. The alt.support.dissociation FAQ allows far more self-governance and flexibility.
This FAQ was reposted and linked over and over up until at least 2012, and the drop in references more reflects falling use of the site, rather than terminology. The last one I can find is from 2013, and specifically uses 'system' to refer to all kinds of plurals, even ones other posters are skeptical of the existence of. (Ironically, tumblr systems with fictives. Note that fictives are still a more-or-less accepted part of the DID phenomenon on that site, so enjoy the subcultural differences there!)
But non-DID plurals took and ran with the 'system' word off of Usenet too. By 2000, the Anachronic Army was using it, dismissing MPD as "An inaccurate label. We are people, and not disordered!" and further stated, "We have dropped the label of Multiple Personality Disorder (MPD) and simply call ourselves 'multiple'." By 2001, Astraea were also using it, and similarly rejecting the medical model of multiplicity, stating that they had never been diagnosed, and asking, "Do you really think the mental health system has the patent on multiplicity?" By 2004, Amorpha had also picked it up.
In 2007, we joined the multiplicity and soulbonding communities of Livejournal, and by that point, 'system' had most definitely generalized into use by all plurals on that site. We used the term in our first comic, MPD for You and Me, which we created that year. We can also find members of the multiplicity community with 'system' in their usernames that we can date back to this period, such as mysidia_system from 2006 (who followed soulbonding comms) and elementalsystem from 2008, who clearly reject the medical model and DID diagnosis as well.
'System' became such a general purpose word, in fact, that it spawned other words based off of it, like 'in-system relationship,' which I've primarily seen discussed by non-DID systems, such as Plures House. (And that article dates from 2012.) And while I saw many, many tedious turf battles during my time on Livejournal, none were ever pitched over the word 'system.' That didn't appear until recent years on tumblr, and still seems highly specific to that site.
Furthermore, I have no reason to believe that 'system' was ever reclaimed to be specifically for DID folks during this time either! Certainly not on a general basis. In 2015, I went to the IGDID Trauma and Dissociation Conference, and nobody knew what I was going on about when I used the term 'system.' The terminology was not used in that subculture.
So 'system' has been general purpose for over 20 years, and it's been used by specifically non-DID systems during that entire time. It never got reclaimed by DID folks, who aren't a monolith to begin with. So for to claim that non-DID multiples are "appropriating" their language, even if you ignore the incorrect usage, is patently false. They've been using it a long time! And they were using it specifically in communities that mixed us all together. They aren't barbarians invading DID Rome; they were here from the beginning, and crafting the language from the beginning, and a great number of them have been huge boons to our community. I consider it deeply rude to try and strip their language from them now, especially for such a ridiculously contrived reason.
--Rogan
This is one of those Just Me (tm) opinions, but...
Date: 2017-09-21 02:03 am (UTC)And oh god what the baby Jesus vibrating buttplug is that response of theirs you linked to further down. Who the hell appointed them to speak On Behalf Of All Multiples? (Well, that's the eternal question, really.) I mean, I know we get kind of irrationally twitchy when people insist that "headmates" is some kind of technical term based on origins rather than one based on aesthetic preference (like, why not just say "people") but their insistence that "mental collective" is the New Endorsed Word For A System Not Created By Trauma (tm) is all the officious Pavilion bullshit we wanted to get away from and want people to know we don't endorse any more.
I suspect they are operating under the false assumption that if doctors approve our existence, the rest of the world will follow suit. Or want to avoid the painful work of having to come to terms by themselves, without authority's approval.
hahaha
hahahahahaha
AHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHA
THE TRUE LIFE MISSION AND GOAL OF PAVILION HALL, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!! ON DISPLAY UNDER THE BIG TOP FOR YOUR FACEPALMING AND... MORE FACEPALMING!! There's a sucker born every minute, you can fool some of the people all of the time, this way to the egress, but first stop by and see our amazing collection of Systems Who Realized The Fires Model Fit Them Exactly PERFORM THEIR AMAZING DISAPPEARING TRICK BEFORE YOUR EYES.
No, seriously. That's what it was all driving at in the end: getting doctors to approve the existence of non-DID systems and/or having media portray them, because SOCIETY! SOCIETY! SOCIETY will never take us seriously unless we have a doctor's endorsement or SOME form of authority backing us up. Actually, one of the systems involved stated numerous times that people just didn't understand that healthy multiplicity would NEVER get anywhere until we could GET A DOCTOR TO BACK US UP.
Yushyu commented later on, after she'd lurked in some otherkin communities, that a lot of people with non-socially-approved identities seemed to believe in some kind of Identity Rapture, the Day When The Veil Will Be Rended And All Otherkin Gain Their True Forms, and Multiple Systems Can Walk Around In Society Asking Everyone To Call Them By Their Own Names And Everyone Will Accept This As Okay, and also I Will Get A Pony. I mean, I get the appeal of this idea when it hits home that the overwhelming majority of society thinks you're just batshit insane and nothing you say will convince them otherwise, but. But. Your activism is doomed to go nowhere if you insist from the very start that the only outcome you'll accept is everyone like you being accepted and viewed as normal within your lifetime.
Re: This is one of those Just Me (tm) opinions, but...
Date: 2017-09-22 03:15 am (UTC)--Mori
Re: This is one of those Just Me (tm) opinions, but...
Date: 2017-09-22 06:18 pm (UTC)...there are people who think, or used to think, that we had to participate in secret keeping about all this because something something Pavilion Is Still The Last Best Chance For Multiples To Get Positive Media Publicity, and/or because This Is One Step Away From Being Our Own Family's Dirt And You Don't Speak Of That In Public, but all the fucks I could have given left a long time ago and went off to become adult film stars.
Re: This is one of those Just Me (tm) opinions, but...
Date: 2017-09-22 07:55 pm (UTC)Rogan: This stuff is interesting to me because from my experience, the most positive reactions I've seen to plurals has been... well, offline stuff. At the end of the day, no matter how pretty your website is, after a certain point it's still text and images on a screen, and for a lot of people, that puts a barrier between recognizing the source of that text as a person. (Especially if they have no way of knowing whether the person writing that text is telling the truth.)
A lot of my singlet colleagues have mentioned to me that they never knew a plural before us, and just having an example of us... I dunno, walking around, eating food, being a rather ordinary human being, helped ease some of their surprise or unease. We weren't "LB the Multiple," we were, "LB who helped make that science comic," or "LB who is always late" or "LB who is always at these meetings."
When I think of plurals who got media coverage, I think of Chris Costner Sizemore fighting for the legal rights to her own life story, or folks fighting for the right to tell their own stories. The web can be part of that, for sure, obviously I use it, but at the end of the day, I feel like you have to acknowledge the limits of focusing ONLY on the web.