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Endogenic systems are not systems. They got some shit going on and that’s their business but they do not belong in DID/osdd spaces and they need to stop using our terminology and they need to stop shitting on us to make themselves feel valid.
What terminology? The main ones I’ve heard fought over are “system” and “multiple” so those are the ones I’ll be defending here.
It’s not shitting on you to defend what’s been ours for 30+ years, and to correct misconceptions about what is and isn’t DID terminology. Just like you aren’t shitting on us when you defend what you think is yours.
But of the two of us groups, only one can be correct. And these are the reasons I know them to not be DID/OSDD exclusive terms.
“System” is not, because it was adopted by mixed multiplicity communities (both those with MPD/DID or not, those with trauma origins and those without) because they were REJECTING the clinical terminology of “person with MPD/DID”. (This was in the same time frame as a lot of rejection of the new name DID as well, which they felt further implied that there was One Real Person and all their systemmates were fragments of that person. While that’s fine for some, not all systems, regardless of origin or diagnostic status, feel that’s a healthy and appropriate way to view theirselves.)
Basically, it was specifically a Not Clinical Term™ for All Multiples™ to use. Professionals only started using it *after* they heard it from systems who didn’t want to be referred to as “a person with DID” – there’s no reference to it in professional literature earlier than the early 2000s, and it was adopted by several multiple communities in the mid 90s.
Plus, “system” still isn’t in any medical dictionary anywhere – that’s really solid proof that it’s not an actual professional term. Name one other professional medical term that’s been in official use for more than a decade and is still not in any medical dictionary and I’ll concede this point.
Heck, “system” in that sense isn’t even used in the DSM, and you’d think it would be if it were an official term. Instead it uses what is and always has been the actual, official clinical term, which is “person(s) with DID”.
You may have heard from some people on Tumblr that system has been in use since the 1800s. Their source for this is a book, Systems of Hysteria by Pierre Janet. It’s easily findable on Google Books. Search it for “system” and “systems” – those words are used dozens of times throughout the book and NEVER the way it’s meant in a multiplicity context. Instead it’s in the “group of processes that do a thing”, like create a thought, create a sense of self, create a sensory picture. Or the nervous system. Things everyone has. In fact, these types of systems are the whole point of the book.
Never it is used as “the group of identities in a person with Hysterical Neurosis” (which eventually became renamed to MPD in the 1900s.)
And, even if it WAS used in that sense in the book, it would STILL be in the context of “group of processes that do a thing” (in this case, create the sense of multiple identities.) Just like it’s used in the entire rest of the book which is, again, all about all the different kinds of neurological systems that play a part in mental illnesses. It’s literally a collection of 18 essays on that category of system.
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“Multiple” may have derived from MPD, but the word literally means “having several different members or elements”. It’s not a specialized term; English doesn’t have any more basic a term for that concept.
We endogenics can’t just use “plural” instead because there’s already a completely different delineation between those two words that’s been in use for three decades now. “Multiple” means the members are distinct and clearly separate. “Plural” is that, and also for groups where the members are less distinct. All multiples are plural but not all plurals are multiple, basically.
If we tried to change that, there’d be sooo much confusion with everyone who goes or comes from elsewhere.
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What bothers me most about this sort of discourse is that newly diagnosed/newly realized DID/OSDD systems, especially those who are only active in plural communities on Tumblr, seem to think that endogenic plurality is this new phenomenon, just a bunch of kids trying to be Special and steal things that don’t belong to them.
The term “endogenic” is new, yes. Only been in use a couple of years. Before that, the common term was “natural system” (which is no longer used because of obvious implications) or “non-DID/OSDD system”. The terms you think were always yours, never were only yours (except “alter”.)
You think we’re stealing. We’re trying to prevent our shared terms from being stolen away from *us*. Words that have been ours AND yours for decades. Words we helped come up with. Words we helped define for glossaries for our communities. Words that have been part of multiplicity spaces for longer than Tumblr has existed. Words that have been in common use by systems of all kinds since the days when “social media” meant a bunch of people’s personal sites linked to each other in web rings. We’re not about to give them up now.
DID/OSDD is yours. Traumagenic is yours. Alter is yours. We don’t use those for ourselves.
If you really want to keep the official clinical terminology to yourselves, if you want to use terms that don’t have a shared history, then stop using System, and start again using “person(s) with DID”.
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