My system is traumagenic; formed due to childhood trauma. I've long wanted to write about antipsychiatry and mad liberation specifically relating to plurality and systemhood. There's only one way to do that - defend endogenic systems. I hope after this you'll defend them with me, reader.
Let me set the scene first. Plurality, or systemhood, refers to an experience where one person has more than one separate identity, sense of self, memory, et cetera; as if more than one person occupies one body. This, generally, is said to come about due to dissociation during childhood trauma. Endogenic systems (shorthand 'endos') are plural systems which did not form due to trauma. There are many ways they could form, but childhood trauma isn't one of them. There's long been infighting in system communities where traumagenic systems ('people with DID/OSDD') see endogenic systems as faking a serious illness, as taking away resources from 'real systems,' and trivialising an often disabling trauma response. I'm not here to deny that 'DID/OSDD' (more on that later) isn't, or can't be, disabling. I know first hand that it can be. I'm also not here to say that no one ever fakes a system - people have faked anything and everything that exists. Systemhood isn't special in that regard, I'm sure. But, most importantly, I'm not here to say that anyone is faking; the opposite.
Now, I want to spend time debunking some common arguments I've seen against them.
1. "But they're faking a serious illness."
Let's start simple and crude. Systems, of all people, should know how damaging fake-claiming can be. You do not know these people. You are not inside their head. Would you want to constantly be dogpiled and told your lived experience is fake just because it maybe is different from others? Or because it doesn't make you as miserable as it makes other people? The human experience is vast, multiply so when you are in some way more than one human.
2. "They take resources away from real systems."
Ah, yes, the plentiful resources we have. Let me ask you this - what resources are you referring to? Let's go through a few. Let's start with something basic; communities of like-minded people, plural spaces. The spaces endos are driven out of by bullies. So, the spaces they don't occupy. Next: diagnosis. There isn't a limit to the number of people who can be given a psychiatric label. Also, you won't get a diagnosis if you don't have impairment, distress, trauma, if you don't fit diagnostic criteria. This leads me to therapy, treatments, et cetera. If you don't have a diagnosis, you won't be given access to these things. They're gatekept by psychiatry behind white gowns and clipboards. Even if someone is given access to therapy, so what? If someone accesses a resource and it helps them, that’s using, not stealing. Would you say a mostly-untraumatised, largely ‘regular’ person getting a therapist to deal with a short-term life stressor is “stealing resources” from the severely mentally ill? Probably not. “Everyone should go to therapy” and all that. Why apply this logic to plurality, then? It isn’t the fault of the system user that the system doesn’t serve every user adequately - to suggest it is is to victim-blame and put the responsibility onto the service user, rather than the psych system. So what resources, exactly, are endogenic systems taking from you?
3. "They're trivialising a disabling trauma response."
Yes, for many of us, systemhood is a trauma response that affects how we live our lives. It can be life-limiting. Not just the trauma aspects, but the amnesia between headmates, the dissociation between them, the social stigma, the psychiatric abuse. These are all real. But, and I don't know how to say this any nicer, we aren't as special as some of us want to be. We aren't exceptional for this. Just because someone's system didn't form from trauma, doesn't automatically mean it isn't difficult to live with. What about endos who experience amnesia and dissociation? Are they trivialising their own lived experience? These systems also experience a lot of social stigma - arguably even more than we do as traumagenic systems. Hell, even fellow systems bully them out of the only spaces they could feel welcome in. Disability has significant social dynamics, and stigma, bullying, harassment, is part of it. When we accuse endos of faking it, of appropriating our lived experiences (after all, it’s not appropriation if it’s your true experience and there’s no real cultural or economic capital to gain from faking), we ignore theirs, which makes us no better than what endos are, according to you, doing.
4. "But psychiatrists are the experts and they say you need trauma to be a system."
Oh boy. Where to begin? Psychiatry has fooled you if you believe this. You fell for propaganda, I'm sorry. Let's start with an argument that is pro-psychiatry and follows its logics. Firstly, psychiatrists say you generally have trauma to have DID/OSDD. Not that you "need" it. Also, DID/OSDD-1 is not synonymous with being plural, as I've hopefully established. Being plural is only one part of DID/OSDD-1. It doesn't necessarily cause distress or impairment - distress or impairment is the defining criteria of DID/OSDD-1. What if your plurality doesn't cause distress? Does that mean it doesn't exist? Are you only mentally ill or plural once a psychiatrist decides you are? Of course not.
Secondly, why are psychiatrists the experts, and not Mad people or systems ourselves? The field serves to medicalise every aspect of the human experience, to "fix" people who weren't necessarily broken at all. Go here for a good overview/intro to antipsychiatry - this blog post isn't long enough to fit a cohesive view of antipsychiatry: An Antipsychiatry FAQ by Pasleciel. Psychiatrists are the experts because they can decide who is plural, and psychiatrists decide who is plural because they’re the experts. It’s circular, non-explanatory, and non-sensical, the same way every pro-psychiatry argument is (you’re x because you experience y, you experience y because you’re x). This sort of medicalism dismisses plural peoples' ability to understand ourselves and our own experiences and boils us all down to what psychiatrists think of us. We are dynamic and dimensional beings with autonomy and knowledge about ourselves which is invaluable. It's about time we start recognising that.
One way we can begin to recognise and value our own lived experiences and knowledge about ourselves is by understanding plurality as not necessarily a mental illness per se. If you, personally, want to consider your plurality a mental illness, then go ahead. That’s an individual choice. People also have the choice to not do that. I, personally, choose not to do that. After all, plurality and that framework of existence is merely a way to categorise a specific internal experience and way of existing in your mind and body. Anyone can experience this. In the end, I mean, every single person sits somewhere on a spectrum of human experience and gets medicalised and psychiatrised based on outward signs of illness (what they show/don’t show to a psychiatrist), not necessarily what they are or feel internally. This is really clear in the example of the somewhat arbitrary binary of neurotypical and neurodivergent, and the same can be applied to singlet/system. What we feel, what we are, can (and I believe should) come before what a psychiatrist thinks we look like. Endogenic systems are the perfect example of a group of people who value their own selves and lived experiences over what a psychiatrist thinks of them. That’s cool as fuck, liberating as fuck, and we should all be taking notes.
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