![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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
no subject
Date: 2017-10-09 07:33 pm (UTC)If DID has knocked you flat and consumed a great deal of your life, you might be tempted to think that folks without DID live happy lives made entirely of sunshine and rainbows. You might be angry that there are people experiencing anything close to what you experience, but without the suffering, and insisting they are legit.
Combine it with a social climate that gives abuse survivors huge leniency in how they treat others, and well, is it any surprise this happened?
On some level, there's rage that they're suffering, and other people aren't. I'm not going to pretend that's okay. I understand it, but it's not okay. (Especially since I do believe that having DID doesn't necessarily entail suffering forever.)
--Rogan
no subject
Date: 2017-10-10 05:10 pm (UTC)Yeah, for sure, and I'm sympathetic to the feeling, if not their reaction to it. Like, do we here have a perfect life, has this whole system thing all been easy fun? Not really! But, lacking any surprise out of nowhere suppressed memory with absolutely no symptoms hinting toward it, we could probably only kind of sort of theoretically get diagnosed with one of the OSDDs, and even that's iffy because there just isn't enough distress. The dissociation, the PTSD, all that, I don't envy anyone else and totally get people being bitter that others "have it easier". Because in some very specific ways, yeah, they probably do.
But that's turned into this idea of "you either suffer as much as me (and have your suffering approved by a doctor) or your experiences are made up". Strict DID types are now assuming that they're being MALICIOUSLY attacked, that there's a sudden wave of singlets who enjoy roleplaying and making a mockery of their suffering, and that telling them to stop roleplaying should be all it takes. Anyone who resists after that is DEFINITELY faking their real illness for fun.
I compare it to trans stuff a lot, because it's a similar non-proveable mental state. And this reminds me a lot of truscum ideology, where lack of "enough" suffering means people are mocking a real medical condition by treating it as a fashion accessory. Because clearly "you do you but I personally don't want phalloplasty" translates to "I love pretending to be a boy for social status without having to deal with your crippling physical dysphoria lol!!!!". And that upsets people.
I don't know how to convince anyone otherwise, when they're so entrenched in this worldview that their suffering means everyone else must suffer equally to be real. Not that I'm, uh, really trying. I'm not a sweeping argument CHANGE THE WORLD type, I just ugh and move on.
no subject
Date: 2017-10-12 04:36 pm (UTC)You can't. The philosophy has crafted itself so it can't be disproved; in fact, the very act of TRYING to disprove it only proves the person trying to be recategorized as fake or malicious themselves.
Hopefully they grow out of it eventually and figure it out for themselves. If not... well, they won't find much company, and it will probably not be happy, since it relies entirely on mutual suffering, insuring that one can never stop, lest they lose their identity.
--Mori
This might be a lot of fail and rudeness because we haven't been sleeping well, let me know if it is
Date: 2017-10-11 07:38 pm (UTC)So there was one system who we met in our first few years on the Internet that we ended up debating and arguing with a lot about how multiplicity works, back when we were still identifying as "a soulbonder with more than usually autonomous soulbonds." We were (at one point) trying to argue that soulbonding could be like MPD/DID in significant ways, having full people with full ranges of emotions who could come out and take the body at any time, only "without the disordered part." I think in retrospect they may have been angry or jealous at the idea that you even could have "the good without the bad," and I almost want to say I can see their side of things and wish we'd handled it differently, except... they were all about multiples as superbeings who could behavioristically adapt to any and every kind of situation with people who were perfectly suited to it, and apparently disbelieved that our brains could have overall inclinations in terms of things like sexual orientation and gender identities and seemed to think that theirs were just fluctuating system demographics. Because something something children being blank slates at birth and if they learn they can become other people (but only before the cutoff age in response to severe trauma, of course), then the brain becomes neurologically flexible and retains this alleged childhood blank-slate ability to turn into anything that is necessary to survive in a given environment. (seriously those behaviorism theories about "you can take a child and make them into anything with the right conditioning" were shot down in the 60s and 70s but they didn't seem to have gotten the memo)
Also they were ultra-obsessed with their constant fighting and super edgelord hardcore struggles for dominance and attempts to kill each other in system, which they seemed to think was just a byproduct of the abuse-related stresses that created the system in the first place and that "if it doesn't spill out, it's no problem." That was kind of our first and last lesson in "if someone treats people in their system like shit or says it's okay for people to kill and torture each other, don't expect them to be super-ethical to people outside the body either." (But they also acted like they had earned the right to be pompous shits because they went through So Much Hell in-system, which apparently... was not totally preventable by laying down some ground rules and communication.)
Except when I really think about it, we had our own form of angry jealousy on our side, because we had been unable to make ourselves non-autistic or get rid of sensory overload or things we didn't even realize were PTSD by cycling through frontrunners. And here we were basically being told that if we'd had severe trauma before the magical cutoff age, that would never have been a problem for us (well, they said there were downsides but the ones they mentioned, apart from FIGHTING FOR DOMINANCE, hardly seemed like a sacrifice in light of fifteen years of struggles). I mean, looking back, we realize that the idea that we hadn't experienced severe trauma in early childhood was actually part of our family's bullshit narrative that we were going along with, but we kind of lashed back at them with "Yeah, well, some soulbonders can create 'full people' without the disorder parts too!", because they kept going on about why soulbonds didn't qualify as full people by their definitions (even though several of our fictive members actually did fit those definitions).
...and looking back, it also seems a bit unfair that they assumed there wasn't anything we could possibly be hiding from them, or in denial about to ourselves. They only knew part of the surface of our life, and used it to assume a hell of a lot. Like, yeah, we were wrong about the whole "no severe early childhood trauma" thing, because our memories were all jumbled and fragmented in a When Rabbit Howls kind of way where no one could focus on them for too long without freaking out so we didn't understand their significance, we just felt panic and terror all the time "for no reason," but even if we had been able to speak the truth at the time, I don't know if they would even have believed us. They had this very rigid set of ideas about "what REAL survivors do" that... literally discounted anyone who was too forthcoming in talking about their trauma and dismissed them as "exaggerating things for attention," and I have no idea where the fuck they got those goddamn ideas from.
We tried to describe the panic to them a few times, when we were panicking "for no reason," but they seemed to laugh it off and dismiss it and clearly didn't think it could possibly be that bad. Or consider that the fact we were living with our birth family at the time might have played a role in what we were able to understand about our childhood. (Been reading some of Jennifer Freyd-- Pamela Freyd's Evil Lying Daughter that the FMSF has spent the past 25 years trying to discredit-- and her theories about how parents and other powerful adult figures around a child can actively shape and distort their memories of abuse, telling them "No, that definitely didn't happen, THIS is the way it happened." I mean, we don't agree with every last thing she says, but the whole "creating a BS family narrative in which the family was totally healthy, just 'misunderstood by outsiders,' and absolutely not abusive at all" being used to shut down any chance to remember abuse in a non-dissociated, contextualized way or carefully examine memories which didn't fit the narrative was... pretty much our whole childhood and adolescence.)
...Actually the more we think about it, the more we realize that we felt animosity towards people we thought were "truly multiple, unlike us" for years before we found the "you can be multiple without being Sybil" stuff, since so many of them seemed to swear by the psychic superbeings stuff and "it's PROVEN we are more intelligent and creative than singlets!" That was a lot of why Tamsin wrote Sour Grapes in 2003 (gdi our webpage is so fucking out of date), sort of as a way of saying "Hey guys. This can make some people feel really fucking inadequate, you know? Have you ever considered if THAT'S the reason why some people have an investment in doubting your existence, if they don't know any other paradigm?" (Well, she tried to extend our skepticism more absolutely system-wide than it was because we were afraid of being laughed at, it's hardly a perfect essay, but we'll still admit to this day that bitterness that we didn't have all the "incredible abilities" and were just inferior earth peons was a factor in our not wanting to believe multiplicity existed when we thought we weren't really multiple.)
Re: This might be a lot of fail and rudeness because we haven't been sleeping well, let me know if i
Date: 2017-10-11 09:54 pm (UTC)And heh, if only it were so easy to simply create a system member for any given occasion!
--Rogan