Been thinking about this for our *personal* experience w DID/OSDD, on a scale from “pathologized” to “disability justice.” There’s a lot of thoughts swirling around for different scenarios! Have a nice lil tread about our thoughts and feelings. https://twitter.com/sheer_awe/status/1281768188481622017

If we could change anything while working within psychiatry/pathologization as it currently is, we’d swap DID for “dissociated consciousness disorder” to better reflect system members.

The idea that DID is just identity change is kinda wrong - system members have different sets of memories, thought processes, and can think about ourself individually. That’s much more than personal identity changes.

Plus, whether you subscribe to “parts” (dissociated part of consciousness) or “people” (multiple consciousnesses separated by dissociation), the name fits both frameworks well.

However, as we work towards healthy multiplicity, we don’t consider systemhood a negative or abnormal symptom to eradicate. Our issues are
-some of us are traumatized
-we don’t communicate/cooperate well.

I can’t think of a really good name for it, but the favorites are “uncooperative consciousness disorder” and “estranged consciousness disorder” stemming from trauma/dissociation.

However, we don’t like the concept of pathologizing trauma responses as “abnormal,” or putting the burden/blame on the individual brain. Do you need to heal from it? Yes absolutely - but in absence of support, having trauma responses to traumatizing situations is only normal.

The concept of “your brain did something wrong/abnormal in response to traumatizing situations” sits wrong with us. Our brain did the best thing it could to help us survive because we had no other options.

If reacting to traumatizing situations by being traumatized is “disordered,” what’s the “non-disordered” way to react to them? The right way to be (un)affected by them? Answer: to not be traumatized by abuse or systemic oppression.

...and when it’s considered the “right” or “normal” response to be unaffected by the traumas society inflicts, it fundamentally lets society off the hook when it comes to fixing problems that cause trauma.

If those who are affected by society’s trauma have something inherently disordered and abnormal about them, it conveys that we should focus only on “fixing” them and not the trauma-inducing society.

Thus, because our communication issues fundamentally stem from our trauma, we don’t really want to pathologize those on our path to healing either. Healing from our trauma & healing the society that caused the trauma can be done outside of pathologization.

In fact, I’m proud of our brain for surviving. I’m proud it got us through abuse alive. I’m glad it reacted the way it did, bc it means I’m here to write these tweets today. It’s a good brain - it’s resilience should be honored, not used to describe it as broken.

This is another reason why we prefer to call ourselves plural/multiple alongside acknowledging and healing from our trauma. We need to heal from trauma & heal the society that caused trauma, not be pathologized/told there’s something inherently wrong with us for undergoing it.