tf_talk | Gloves Off

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Please use this post for discussion of those contentious, murky, triggering issues too complex to discuss/moderate on the main post.

Note that this post is NOT a free-for-all and will still be modded for slurs, namecalling, doxxing and trolling. But fair warning that it will not be moderated for discussion of issues some find triggering (trans issues, mental illness, etc.) and that if you choose to participate here, you do so at your own risk.

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lb_lee is a system/multiple/what have you - someone who has dissociative identity disorder/multiple personality disorder. Thus they refer to themselves in the third person plural and refers to their different personalities.

So, to them, the concept of having multiple personalities inside one person isn't an issue. The issue is that how Andy describes it is nothing like how it actually is. So, even if you accept DID as a legit diagnosis (it's kind of contentious in the psych community), he's still lying about it. His version is clearly a pop cultural idea of it (complete with pop culture's idea of how mental health treatment works, with a miraculous rate of improvement).

DA

Except the fact that DID is a controversial diagnosis that a bunch of mental health professionals call bunk on. This is like someone with fictionkin saying "thats not how it works." ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ okay sure dude considering half of mental health professionals doesn't think it exists but you know exactly how it works!

AYRT Well, I did say it was a contentious issue. I know a couple of people online who claim to have DID and personally I don't think it's real, but I'm not going to argue with people about diseases they may or may not have. Even if it isn't real, me saying it isn't going to change anything, and (as is the case with everyone I know who's lied about having a mental illness) there's likely a different mental illness they do have - in this case, Andy's a diagnosed narcissist.

Personally, I see it like this:

If it isn't a legitimate diagnosis, but is psychologist-induced or created entirely by pop culture, then Andy does not have DID and is lying about it.

If it is a legitimate diagnosis, and everyone who has it has similar symptoms, then Andy still doesn't have DID and is lying about it.

Regardless of whether he does or doesn't have DID, that would only explain the "alters" - that wouldn't explain the compulsive lying, the need for attention, the sexual assaults, or any other aspects of his MO or things he's done, since none of them are symptoms of DID.

And even if they were, just because you do something due to your mental illness doesn't mean you're not responsible for it. If I don't pay a bill because I can't do anything in the throes of my depression, it's understandable but I still have to pay it, and it's still my fault that I didn't. Andy tries to use his "illness" as a get-out-of-jail-free card that absolves him of responsibility for the things he did in the past and negates any need to improve himself in future.

So like, any way that you slice it, Andy still doesn't get off the hook. Whether or not he has DID or if DID is legitimate or not is kind of a red herring.

AYRT
Agreed!

finally, someone fucking said it.

I was mostly curious because in LB's takedown of Andy's "apology " they mentioned they hoped he was lying about the new personality of Andy being a random guy who's come through the mindhole, because if Andy wasn't lying about that he legit ripped some poor person away from their life and forced them to deal with his garbage fire life.
Which makes it sound like LB legitimately thinks channelling is real in the sense of a soul moving from one body to another, not as simply a delusion/ manifestation of DID.

Andy: As I try to tactfully explain, this was the first one who had openly been male. And as horrible as it was - because to him and his as I’ve mentioned before full personality and previous memories, he’d been yanked from his life and thrown into this mess - it was at the same time wonderful in a way I couldn’t possibly describe to be able to look over memories and actions and have them feel somehow more right even as they were so so wrong.

LB Lee: So what you're saying is, you took this dude, ripped him away from his life, forced him to deal with YOUR bullshit, but it was just SO NICE to have a guy in your head that you chose to do nothing about it and keep him around? That's a terrible thing to do. What a shitty channeler you are. I dearly hope you're lying here, because if it's true, I feel incredibly sorry for the chump who got stuck with you.

I took this to be a hypothetical, not necessarily a statement that LB Lee believes a person can be forcibly removed from their body and become nothing more than a presence in someone else's mind. Like, "If Andy's telling the truth, and if this is actually how it works, I feel sorry for that poor guy." The one time I've seen them write about a factive member of a multiple system (not theirs), they said the factive was "based off" the real person.

Ok that make sense. I was just having a hard time understanding how to take that blog post.

LB has done a lot of writing about people using pop-culture DID diagnoses as a pretext for cult-founding and chronic abuse. In most of this material, they clarify that they're describing their own lived experience and the lived experience of people in the DID community who are trying to live with the condition in a functional, ethical, positive way. They've said repeatedly that they don't know for sure if multiplicity is a particularly strong and compelling coping mechanism, or if "alters" are real, but that when it comes to managing systems, that doesn't really matter.

One point they keep coming back to when discussing Andy, who used a DID diagnosis as an excuse for cult-building, partner abuse, and criminal behavior, is that in their experience with DID, there may be personalities or personality aspects that are destructive or lash out, and that it's the responsibility of the system to try to keep that aspect of themselves under control. That's a responsibility most of the people with the condition that they know take on as a matter of course, in the same way most people consider it their responsibility to keep a violent temper in check.

In LB's experience in the DID community, most people who identify as systems are horrified at the thought of a destructive alter lashing out and harming other people, and will do whatever they can to contain the behavior, in stark difference to Andy's claims that he was only too glad to let his supposed destructive personalities "take him" and create endless chains of abusive and criminal situations. Whether LB believes that alters are different people, or aspects of one person is almost beside the point-- their issue is that within the community of people who find themselves living this way, it's a priority to manage their condition to make sure they're being ethical to people and personalities inside and outside the system, not use their experience of multiplicity as an excuse to be an abuser.

I think when LB was talking about Andy ripping some poor guy away from his life, they were mostly trying to illustrate Andy's abuser mentality. Like within the DID community there may not be consensus about whether or not this is a supernaturally "real" phenomenon or an experiental (or delusional) one, but there IS consensus that when these personalities appear, you don't just treat them like toys or force them to deal with your life because they have some identity aspect (like gender, which bothered LB because they are also ftm transmasc) you like. Treating internal aspects of yourself that you claim/believe are separate consciousnesses like tools or toys to use and abuse is about being an abusive person, not a symptom of DID.

Thanks, that's actually a really clarifying breakdown of what was confusing me.

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