I was asking because the alters in OSDD1a systems are usually described as not completely seperate but different aspects of the host. I am currently questioning if I might have OSDD1a because it would explain a lot and also have a character I'm questioning being a kintype since forever. Him being a fictive would actually explain why fictotype never really fit, but I wasn't sure if that's possible because of the "alters are not completely seperate" aspect. So thanks for the answer~
If you’re considering the possibility that your system mates are not wholly separate from you, you may also want to look into the term “median system”, which can also be described that way. It may be helpful to you! But yes, there’s nothing stopping any kind of system from having fictives.
I hope it's okay to ask, not sure how knowledgable you are about this. Is it possible to have fictives in a OSDD 1a system?
Buddy, any system can have fictives. Any system.
Endogenic. Traumagenic. Spiritual. Psychological. Fictive just means they either are a fictional character, or believe they’re a fictional character.
The nuance comes in only when you believe there’s a difference between those two things, IE: you believe as I do that the spirits of actual fictional characters can literally and metaphysically share someone’s body.
New essay by ranthmimi on fromfiction net!
http://fromfiction.net/index.php/2020/06/13/variant-terminology/
Labels are important to people. To some, labels and properly defining
those labels is the purpose of these communities (a goal that feels
incredibly redundant and useless, personally, since this was supposed to
be about experiences of being Not Human and Not From Here in one form
or another). To many others, labels are a pain and easily misused or
misconstrued.
.. (cont…)
Hooboy. Uh, I started using the word collective to avoid “system” syscourse. If people are taking issue with that too, I don’t really know what to tell you. As far as I’m aware no one has come up with a system synonym specifically for endogenics. (Honestly, because endogenics and traumagenics have been sharing language for ages up to this point without incident.
Maybe something like a mental ‘party’ or a ‘comradeship’. A ‘union’ maybe? Maybe just ‘a shared headspace’?
Honestly, the sad fact is that no term you pick to use is going to appease people who think that you& don’t exist and don’t have a right to exist.
Alter is a DID/OSDD-1 specific term, and refers only to headmates created by trauma.
While trauma can certainly cause your system to change, current diagnostic criteria as per the DSM states that for multiplicity to be considered DID/OSDD-1 the trauma that causes it must occur during early childhood.
- Systems are groups of (at least two) separate people that share one body.
- Systems caused by trauma, called DID or OSDD-1 systems, are the only systems currently recognized by medical science.
- Systems not caused by trauma do exist and are generally on tumblr referred to as ‘endogenic’ or non-trauma systems.
- Members of a system are referred to as “alters” by DID/OSDD-1 systems, and headmates by non-trauma systems.
- Headmates/alters are fully separate people from one another with different thoughts, ideas, hopes, tastes, memories, etc
- Sometimes, especially in trauma systems, system members have difficulty communicating, and might have little to no memory of what happens when they are not fronting.
- However many systems, especially after practice, get good at communicating with one another and can be active and even fronting at the same time.
- Headmates/alters are not just moods or shifts. They are really separate.
I think that’s the most important things?
Fronting is something that only happens to members of systems. To “Front” means to come to the front of the headspace and pilot the body. If you are “in front” or “fronting” you are in control. Singlets would be considered to always be fronting, if they were to use that terminology (which they shouldn’t).
A mirror system is a system whose members ‘mirror’ or match another system in some way. AKA: one system has Legolas, the other system has Gimli.
I don’t know if there’s a kin term for it but it sometimes happens to kin as well.
A mirror system is when one person with headmates knows another person whose headmates that reflect or interact with the other person’s in some way. For instance, one of them has Sailor Moon, the other has Tuxedo Mask, etc.
Thank you for chiming in. I think you’re absolutely right that the dispute started there. I am saddened that there is such a situation going on.
Yeah, that is the problem there is no consensus. If there were an agreement, I would simply go along with it. Obviously I don’t want to harm DID systems who feel the term is being appropriated. But I also don’t want to harm other multiples who feel like they are being forced to stop using a word they have used for many years, and feel they have as much a right to use.
My compromise is that I personally only use the term system to refer to those with DID. I can’t change the language that my followers and asks use, aside from by pointing out that the term is disputed.
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.
Hoo boy, wow, okay. The idea that ‘system’ is a DID-only term seems to be very much a recent tumblr thing. Back when we joined up on LJ back in ‘07, ‘system’ seemed to be the neutral term that everyone could agree on–and believe me, I saw PLENTY of terminology turf wars.
I was at a DID con this past October, and NOBODY knew what the fuck I was going on about when I used the term ‘system.’ NOBODY used it. And digging through DID articles, I can find one citation of any expert using it–Kluft, back in 1999. There may be more, but I am really not down for wading through dense academic articles right now.
However, a fair number of well-known specifically non-DID systems have been using the term ‘system’ to refer to themselves a good while, and that I have a much easier time tracking and dating. Amorpha specifically uses the term ‘system’ to mean any kind of multiple, and the Wayback Machine proves this back to 2004. Astraea was using it in 2003–you can dislike them and their page all you want, but their page is proof that non-DID systems were using the word over ten years ago. And while there has been many pissing contests between the various sects of plurality over the years, over the most banal, trivial shit you can imagine, I don’t remember a fight over that term until tumblr.
And the ‘system’ word didn’t suddenly drop out of use and get reclaimed by DIDers either–I used the term ‘system’ as a general purpose word in MPD for You and Me, the script of which I wrote in 2007. Going through the member names of the old LJ multiplicity comm, I find folks with ‘system’ in their name from 2006, 2008, and so on, and many of them didn’t claim DID. A lot of these systems, like Plures House, have been out as multi longer than me, are among the most civil, language-conscious systems we know, and have been active and a positive force in the online multi community for… god, ten years! I would consider it an act of colossal douchebaggery to strip their terminology from them, when the term started getting used, far as I can tell, as a NEUTRAL EQUIVALENT.
What I’m saying is, it’s horseshit. Bunk. Flagrant lies. Far as I can tell, DID folks NEVER claimed ‘system’–at best, it was applied TO US by therapists. It is not part of the major therapeutic lingo, at least not at the Ivory Garden Trauma and Dissociation conference and in the scholarly articles I could look up on a cursory glance.
There you have it, folks.
((Not directly relevant to fictionkin, but there is enough crossover between kin and multiple communities on tumblr that I think this is good discussion to share. Remember, fictionkin are not fictives, fictives are not fictionkin. http://fictionkin.net/what-kin-isnt/kin-multiple-difference/ ))
A system is a collection of people who exist in the same body at the same time.
The people in a system are often referred to as headmates. Headmates are independent individuals with their own minds, memories, preferences etc.