Gloves Off

[anonniemouse]

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.

Comments

Re: lb_lee?

[(Anonymous)]

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.

Re: lb_lee?

[(Anonymous)]

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