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I am not entirely sure if I am using the correct tags for this, so please notify me if I am wrong.
Anyways, I have a request to make of my fellow DID, OSDD-1, and trauma systems. I would like you to help supply me with terms and phrases that specifically are only meant to be used by DID, OSDD-1, and trauma based multiples. Terms like alters and system as opposed to headmates and collective, which anyone who is multiple outside of DID, OSDD-1, and trauma systems can use.
I wish to make it clear what terms are appropriative of non-DID, OSDD-1, or trauma based multiples to use. People who take our terms without our illness or struggles should be able to have their own terms instead of ours.
While we complete support the overall message of this post… Is there -any- proof anywhere that “system” is -only- for DID, OSDD-1, and trauma based multiples? People keep bringing this up, and in all the years we’ve spent in various communities, we have never known the term “system” to belong -only- to trauma-based groups (unlike terms such as “alter").
It’d just be nice to see it put to bed, really.
But best of luck with this, otherwise.
Well, did-research.org defines a system as “[An] entire collection of alters within one body.” Which, with alters being a term for DID, OSDD-1, and trauma based multiples only, as you state, this makes system a term that only they are able to claim.
There are still other terms for non-DID, OSDD-1, and trauma based multiples to use, such as multiple or collective.
I have almost completed a smaller post on what terms are for DID, OSDD-1, and trauma based multiples specifically and terms that are okay for other types of multiples to use.
It may be the definition that website uses because the website is directed at DID research, and they are placing it in a DID context. That doesn’t mean it’s the one and only true definition ever; many other websites define the term differently, and more neutrally.
Especially considering this site only appears to be a couple years old, correct me if I’m wrong there… When was this website created? And by who? What resources were they using to create their glossary? They must have gotten their information from somewhere.
Again… having been in the community for over ten years now, it is only VERY recently that people have started the idea that only trauma-based systems are allowed to use the word “system”. Obviously yes, there ARE other terms people can use, but that doesn’t change the fact that “system” never belonged solely to trauma-based systems in the past.
As I’m sure you can imagine, it’s just a bit strange to have systems who haven’t even been alive as long as we’ve been multiple telling us that we’re not allowed to use a word that has been around, and used by all types of systems, since at least the early 2000s. One website– even if it is a VERY good website– using the term “alter” in a definition doesn’t reverse 10+ years of history.
@lb-lee @solipsistful Any knowledge/insight into this you lovely folks would care to offer? You all seem to know more about this than we do, anyways.
We very much want traumagenic and non-traumagenic groups to have a greater awareness of terminology! But we also would love it if that information was… you know, accurate.
did-research is actually the site of a DID system who uses tumblr, Those Interrupted, admins of e.g. this-is-not-dissociative and whynot-dissociativedegu. So, yes, very much in a DID context – it’d be really weird to expect a caveat of “but also this is fine for non-DID/OSDD-1 systems, here’s what that even means” etc.?
The first (and only, before this post) place we saw this “system is a DID/OSDD-1 term only” in a way that wasn’t followed by “because non-DID/OSDD-1 multiplicity doesn’t exist” was fromfiction (forget which exact blog of his), where he also emphasized the term “collective”.
(Really, it strikes me as a belief that oh if only us non-traumagenic systems just stopped using the wrong words, we’d be fine and no more conflict. As if the problem people have is that we use the word “system” and not that we describe an experience of multiplicity in the first place.)
– Thomas
@solipsistful that was me on Fromfiction in specific. I posted about it because I had recently been harassed by a particular DID system who was interacting with the fictionkin community. They insisted loudly and violently that ‘system’ was a DID/OSDD term only. That was the first time I had heard of it being DID only as well.
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