a (long as hell) #syscourse thread about the neurology of multiplicity and how it shows no room for plurality.

see the condensed version on my (very) WIP carrd here: https://muffinsyscourse.carrd.co/#neuroscience 

in literature i found two main approaches to looking at dissociative experience: neurological (psychological) and anthropological. the former is focused on the brain's operations that allow the mechanism to work, and the anthropological view is focused on the experience.

i suspect this is why DID/OSDD systems and endogenics clash too.

in anthropological approaches the researchers are focused on the experience and not the underlying cause - they care more about the feelings, social context, culture and lived experience, which is vital. but it

is not accepted as an explanation for the experience - that is what neuropsychology does.

so how does neurology say we experience a personality, and what makes it possible to divide up this one cohesive brain communication system into separate, autonomous parts?

personalities are extremely complicated patterns of neural networking trained and refined over the course of a lifetime. rather than the outdated "left and right brain" model, a newer approach observes the "top and bottom" brains and how they interact and work together. in order

for a personality to be cohesive as one, all parts of the brain have to contribute together and combine information and analysis. the brain is not capable of blocking pathways on the grand level of an entire personality shift, including completely altering basic facts about

oneself such as name and age.

the TSD is well respected because of the level of detail it can continue to go into while still apparently being accurate when challenged in further studies, among other reasons. it explains that we have simplistic "states" as infants and toddlers,

up to around age 7-9 at most. we go from only being able to instinctually cry for food or in pain (each of the core needs is a "state") to being able to ask for certain foods or describe where the pain is as we learn and grow able. this is where a personality is formed. the

"food" state becomes "i want this food and not that", and as each state becomes more complex they also learn to interwork themselves and integrate into one cohesive use of the brain. this would allow for more nuanced and complex interpretations that don't focus on only one need/

state at a time, but can rather absorb the world and their needs all at once.

the idea that one can circumvent the brain's inability to block its own neural pathways and change basic facts about oneself is easily explained away: dissociative barriers keep multiple sections

intact at any given time. if there are no blockades separating functions, the only other way would be if the entire cohesive brain were to "switch" between modes and somehow in the process create a new identity that it stores. the reason this still doesn't explain endogenics is

obvious though, because if the entire brain is switching modes then only one can be active at a time, with only "hard switches", no co-consciousness, no internal communication, and complete blackouts being the outcome. even in this impossible case, this description is so

fundamentally different in experience and in root cause that the two shouldn't even be conflated. and in addition, this description would be a disorder too. trauma does not make DID a disorder, the fact that it interferes with life is what defines it as one. this hypothetical

situation would be incredibly difficult to live with, and would not only be clearly a disorder... it also would be formally documented by now because it would make quite a scene, not having the covert operations that a coping mechanism from trauma would have formed while hard

switching at random.

in sum, there are not any neurological ways someone could be endogenic. this is not just a "mean evil science field" conclusion, it's rational and detailed. if there's no barriers upholding identity states, there is no multiplicity. these barriers are

caused by trauma because they're dissociative by function, so all multiplicity is traumatic.

i didn't proof read this because i wrote it mid migraine and cannot be fucked but hopefully it gets the point across xoxo