#the plural association

[subsystems]

Final Fusion Misinformation

You might have seen people saying something like this before: "studies find that final fusion only works 12.8% of the time." When I was pursuing final fusion, people in the community threw this 12.8% at me to try and discourage me from my desired recovery. After all, what's the point of pooling all of my time & energy into pursuing final fusion if it has such a low success rate?

Although I don't know where exactly this "low success rate" idea came from, most people I know explain that The Plural Association introduced it to them. This would make sense, because this nonprofit frequently states that final fusion has a 12.8% success rate on their webpage & resources. Here's some examples:

(Source)

(Source)

(Source)

Now, here's the thing:

This is at best a misquote & at worst purposeful misinformation.

The study that is linked here does not say that final fusion is only successful 12.8% of the time, or that only 12.8% of DID patients achieve final fusion.

In this study, a handful of DID clinicians are interviewed about their patients. It says that 39 patients terminated their therapy. 25.6% of those patients said that they reached a successful resolution in their therapy, they no longer needed it. 12.8% of those no longer needed therapy after full fusion, 12.8% no longer needed therapy but didn't fully fuse.

This is not a success rate. This does not say how many patients achieved final fusion. This is just a reason behind why some people left their therapy. The percentage is the same for people who did and did not achieve final fusion.

Here's the exact quote from the study:

(Source)

I have no idea how anyone can take a look at this and misconstrue the 12.8% to be about how successful final fusion is. It's possible it was just a misunderstanding, but I have trouble trusting that as The Plural Association has cited this study multiple times, including writing a whole article on it, yet continues to misconstrue final fusion as only being successful in 12.8% patients when that's just, blatantly, wrong.

Please reblog & spread this! Final fusion is horrifically stigmatized and fully fused systems are subjected to frequent harassment & misinformation about their recovery choices. It's not okay, and we should hold nonprofits like The Plural Association to better standards.

#actuallydid #actuallydissociative #actuallytraumagenic #actuallyplural #final fusion #integration #DID recovery #misinformation #anti fusion #anti recovery #look out #community issues #the plural association

[moon-and-firefly-syscourse]

Why the tpa "warmline/hotline" is harmful- to everyone.

if you aren't yet aware- the "tpa", or "the plural association" is trying to gain funding to start a hotline by plural people for plural people. this, in short, is a bad, BAD idea.

very very first and foremost, they are NOT TRAINED. and while im sure many of their volunteers mean well and genuinely do want to help, well meaning can only go so far. they aren't trained like crisis professionals from say, 988 (the USA national suicide hotline) or the trevor project- (a crisis line for lgbtq+ people) who are trained on what to do in dangerous situations and KNOW what to say in order to de-escalate, not continue to ramp up the issue. this is not to say that volunteers cant be helpful in certain times, even if they arent trained, but there is a great risk with untrained volunteers that they'll accidentally escalate the situation and be seriously dangerous because they simply arent trained for those kinds of situations.

second- they are plainly twisting data to serve their goal and manipulating numbers to make their cause seem way more necessary than it is. in a wonderful post by @sysmedsaresexist (do let me know if you want me to untag you), theyve pointed out that their statistic that "62.58% of survey respondents indicated that they felt that DID/OSDD was not understood by crisis or hotline providers they have been provided with" was out of 60% of responders- meaning out of 60% of those 100% of participants, 62.58% said "no, did/osdd was not understood- which brings the total tally of those participants who said did/osdd was not understood to 37%. now that sounds a lot less impressive than 62%, doesnt it? thats purposeful. it makes their idea sound a lot more "noble", and while i would LOVE to have a hotline for people with DID/OSDD, i want a hotline with TRAINED VOLUNTEERS/PROFESSIONALS. without trained volunteers, there is a high risk for harm

link to SAS's post (go read!!)

yes, it's extremely frustrating that many suicide prevention lines dont know much about DID/OSDD, but making your own, untrained hotline is NOT the solution. many hotlines, though uneducated perhaps, can be very helpful for crisis- yes, even for people with DID/OSDD. dont just take your chances with untrained volunteers who may make the situation worse.

they claim that this hotline should be used before a full blown crisis- but unfortunately without trained volunteers and a proper system of training them, they might cause much more crisis's than they'll prevent.

if you are in crisis, please please please dont use their hotline- instead, here are some helpful numbers:

988: USA national suicide hotline

678-678: TrevorText- the text version of the trevor project. my personal favorite hotline, super super helpful and especially because it's for LGBTQ+ people.

866-488-7386: TrevorLifeline- the call line for the trevor project!

list of national suicide hotlines here

thanks for reading <3

#posted by moon #🌙 #TPA #the plural association #anti endo #anti tulpa #important #tw crisis #tw sui implied #long post #pro endo #tagging as pro endo because this post is for everyone #regardless of system origins

[sophieinwonderland]

One of the Most Harmful Ideas I've seen is That Plurals Shouldn't Help Each Other

A person is tied to train tracks. They're trying to untie themselves. You happen to be walking by.

You have a saw.

What do you do?

Do you help or walk on?

If you help, you could end up cutting their leg. Maybe those ropes are tougher than they look? What if you try and you fail anyway? You can't free them before the train hits and now it's your responsibility.

...

Or how about an even more blatant trolley problem. A train is barreling down the tracks towards a person tied to the tracks. You have a lever.

If you do nothing, a coin flips. If it land on heads, the track changes directions. The person lives. It lands on tails, the person dies. If you do nothing, there's a 50% chance this person is going to die.

If you pull the lever, a D6 will roll instead of a coin. Now, if it lands on 1, the tracks stay the same. The person gets ran over. But if it lands on 2-6, the tracks change and they live.

Logically, by taking an action, you drastically increase the odds of survival.

But if it lands on 1, you might have to wonder if you failed. If this was the wrong move and if it did more harm than good to try. Maybe, you'll wonder, if the coin flip would have been better. If the coin would have landed on heads. And that's valid. But it shouldn't hold you back.

...

Perhaps another analogy could be coming across a family of cavemen who are freezing. You know how to build fire but they don't. If they don't know, there's a good possibility that they could freeze to death in the night. But if you do, maybe they'd misuse it. Maybe they'd start a forest fire. Can you risk it? Do you teach them how to make fire for themselves or refuse because you're afraid of all the ways it could go wrong?

...

I think there has been a lot of fearmongering in the community about the concept of plurals helping other plurals.

This came up recently over the topic of switching guides.

But I've also seen it before with the demonization of the Plural Association's planned warmline for plurals. (This also was paired with a conflation of Warmlines and crisis Hotlines. Note that these are not the same.)

The argument you see against plurals helping plurals usually boils down to, "what if something goes wrong? What if you accidentally give someone bad advice?" And while these are concerns you should try your best to mitigate, one should also ask "what if I don't help? What if I do nothing, because I'm afraid of how it could go wrong?"

I am not saying that there are no risks. Of course there are. But sometimes those risks are worth taking.

We need more plural support and resources in the world, and even though the warmline is taking much longer to get off the ground than expected, I do want to send a shoutout to everyone who was willing to volunteer to make it a reality, and I hope you can serve as an inspiration to others! 💖

#syscourse #plural #plurality #endogenic #multiplicity #systems #system #plural system #endogenic system #pro endo #pro endogenic #moral philosophy #trolley problem #philosophy #system stuff #sysblr #tpa #the plural association #actually plural #actually a system

[multiplicity-positivity]

Websites we do NOT recommend for systems or those questioning

The Plural Association/Power to the Plurals

Reasoning: TPA (and by extension Power to the Plurals) claims to be a nonprofit, but does not reveal financial information, audits, or annual reports that are common among respected, genuine nonprofits. Most of TPA’s resources are behind paywalls, with options to donate on every page of the website. We’ve written before on why we think TPA/Power to the Plurals is a grift (in the link are sources to back our claims). The creator of TPA/Power to the Plurals has also manipulated statistics to make alternate claims, and does not understand the differences between fusion and integration in disordered systems.

Astraea’s Web

Reasoning: Astraea’s Web is very vocal about being anti-psych, anti-therapy, and anti-recovery. They continually refer to DID as MPD and drive a wedge through the plural community by attempting to separate and distinguish “natural multiples” from “disordered systems.” They have referred to systems seeking treatment or struggling with dissociative disorders as “basket cases” and attempt to claim natural multiples are better than and unaffiliated with systems with complex dissociative disorders. It is their plainly stated goal to demedicalize complex dissociative disorders and have them removed from the DSM! They sensationalize dissociative disorders and rely on stereotypes to get their messages across - on their site, they mention the infamous Sybil case almost twice as much as they mention dissociation or dissociative disorders.

You can read their FAQ to see all of this for yourself (brace yourself - this website is rife with ableism!)

Kinhost.org

Reasoning: Like Astraea’s Web, Kinhost is also anti-psych, anti-therapy, and anti-recovery. They would rather plurals pay for their life-coaching program than seek actual treatment for debilitating symptoms. They scorn therapy and treatment in their Multiple Manifesto, and claim that receiving treatment is akin to “being experimented on” which could not be further from the truth. The system who runs this site has referred to systems seeking treatment and the state of therapy today as a “therapocalypse” and is very open about being anti-recovery for systems who desperately need it.

Websites like these divide the plural community, cause misunderstandings, spread horrible stereotypes and disinformation, encourage infighting, and reject recovery. They perpetuate an “us vs. them” mentality that pits “empowered” (ie natural or nontraumagenic) multiples against systems with or without DID or OSDD who require treatment in order to live happy lives.

We’ve recommended some of these sites in the past before we knew more about the empowered multiple’s movement and exactly what it entails, or how each of these sites have caused tangible harm in the past. However, we will never recommend or advocate for these sites in the future.

Please take care of yourselves and use critical thinking when searching for plurality resources online. Watch out for ableism disguised as resources for nontraumagenic plurals, and remember that all systems are valid and unique in their own ways. No one deserves to be vilified or outcast for seeking healing, recovery, and stability, or for listening to experts and doing research.

#ableism #misinformation #unrecommended #tpa #the plural association #power to the plurals #astraea’s web #kinhost #psa

[selfcarecollective]

Hi everyone! Sorry it's been a minute since play by play updates on the survey! We recently reached out to TPA (The Plural Association) asking if they'd be kind enough to support and post about our syscourse survey! They in fact did! They've made a post on Instagram specifically as well as Twitter/X!

This is beyond exciting!

We've so far gotten 347 responses! It's remarkable how much of the community we've gotten to respond and we're so excited!

Just a general reminder the Survey is set to stop taking responses by the 10th of September 2023! There we will work on creating a document of analysis for the survey and post the results! Including the most interesting findings!

Again thank you to those that have reposted and shared and we are ecstatic at 2:02 in the morning hehehe!

If you wish to take the survey to be a part of and get your opinion out there, please consider following the tag "Syscourse Survey" to it!

#endogenic #traumagenic #pro endo #plural community #plural system #plural #pro endogenic #syscourse survey #google forms #the plural association #it's 2 am and we're shrieking #like we knew we planned this with them but it's surreal lmao

[moldybits]

notes: symptoms in this poll are defined as ptsd/trauma symptoms (dissociation, amnesia, hyperarousal, etc)

this is an inclusive poll for any type of system/system origin. but it’s specifically how weed affects systems with trauma. this is not syscourse and i want nothing to do with it!

reblogs are encouraged for sample size

i’m convinced that all the progress we’ve made since december has to do with THC and our endocannabinoid system and i’m curious if other people benefit the way we have.

#may do another poll if i get any interesting results from this #i’ve been fascinated with THC and how it impacts mental health #cuz it’s normally associated with making it worse #but it’s literally saved my life #curious to see if having DID is what allows me to benefit more #but yeah no syscourse you’ll be blocked on sight #pluralgang #plurality #multiplicity #systems #did #osdd #actually dissociative #actually plural #polls #tw drug mention #plural polls

[thatcakelovingwitch]

"I am Nobody"

#i pulled out my copy of the odyssey for this #i like to think he shaves his beard to not be associated with mike (plural) #and just like his name he has no face #nobody walters #ulysses walter #nemo walters #woe.begone #woe begone #w.bg #mike walters #wbg fanart #little cake drawings

[orange-orchard-system]

The Plural Association is having an event for DID Awareness Day tomorrow. We can't tell if it's just us, but the link on their emails to reserve tickets isn't working, so we went ahead and dug around their site until we finally found the link there to reserve tickets, so we could share it on here.

If you're looking to schedule for the event, click this link!

If you need a scholarship (discount) to attend the event, click this link!

If you want to know more about the event, click this link!

I hope this helps anyone who's interested in attending tomorrow's event!

#tiny rant but if there's one thing this association cannot do well it's site organization lol #... or email organization. there were several buttons to reserve tickets scattered throughout their emails and none of them worked #oh well #still enjoy and appreciate the events #plurality #pluralgang #actuallyplural #plural system #front soup.txt #did #actuallydid #flores.txt #levi.txt #eritha.txt

[blankmogai]

alterhuman flags! (normal and simplified)

umbrella term for identities that are alternative to or outside of the common view of humanity; common forms include otherkinity, therianthropy, plurality, otherlink and constelic

we know there's a few of these already but we wanted to throw our own design into the ring! we've worked on it for a while and finally got it somewhere we're happy with so we are Finally posting it... the intent for this is to also serve as a template if someone wants to create "[x] alterhuman" flags without further specification ^_^ we hope you like it!

#txt #the colors are based on dawn/the magenta teal and purple were chosen for their association with nonhumanity #and the stripes are (maybe obviously) patterned after the alt symbol #sort of in our head we are calling it the dawn alterhuman flag but idk if they need the specification in the same way as say lesbi.an flags #ok we're about to be very annoying in tags for visibility SORRY :( #alterhuman #otherkin #therian #plural #otherlink #constelic

[anqaspond]

yknow youd think the plural/ramcoa community would have a better grip on cults and organized abuse but a lot of these fucks are about as dense as anyone else when it comes to poc being subjected to cults or ritual abuse. somehow its okay when we're subjected to it because somehow its our culture (just another way to say "in our blood".)

#how do you woke-ify abuse ??? #by hiding it under the guise of multiculturalism. #oh and american sensationalism. these guys think the rest of the world is held under american laws and standards. #hey as someone who lives in a theocracy #no! are you stupid! #also what a shitty fucking display of racism to look me in the eye and tell me fgm is my culture so i should just let it happen #you dont know fuck about my culture fuckface #christ. this is why plurality is so associated with being white #ramcoa #ramcoa survivor #plurality #plural system #did #osdd

[highway-userboxes]

Hi! Can I request a user box that says “This system has POTS” please? And maybe one that says “This system has chronic pain” if you’re up for it. I haven’t found any out in the wild yet, and want those represented on my blog! Thank you!!

-🫐

I hope these are good!

text: This system has POTS

text 2: This system has Chronic Pain

text 3: This plural has POTS

text 4: This plural has Chronic Pain

text 5: This collective has POTS

text 6: This collective has Chronic Pain

#apparently POTS awareness is associated with a teal ribbon and chronic pain is a royal purple #so i decided to use those colors! #also: plural pots gang!! #ꈨ⤷ user-billboards #ꈨ⤷ user-billboard request #ꈨ⤷ requested by: 🫐 #ꈨ⤷ ask the highway #userboxes #system userboxes #custom userboxes #this system #this plural #this collective #pots #postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome #chronic pain #purple #black #teal #blue #water #sky

[median-culture-is]

median culture is buying a food/drink because a facet likes it but wondering if it's fair for you to consume it if they're not fronting but you still share memories and are part of the same whole

.

#i like to think of it like seeing a friend's favorite flower and thinking of them #but instead eating a food you associate with them because it makes you happy engaging with something they like #actually median #actually plural #actuallymedian #median system #plural #median culture #plural system #actuallyplural #median culture is #median

[sophieinwonderland]

The Smear of the Stronghold System

Has anyone else seen this?

Anti-endos have been posting this a lot out of context as evidence that The Plural Association doesn't consider alters in DID people.

This narrative should be recognized as total nonsense right from the picture alone, which clearly says that they believe all systems should be able to claim personhood.

Additionally, the author is a system who has DID and very publicly identifies as such, while also considering themselves separate people.

The full article can be found here:

In context, the diagram is a criticism of the de-personing of alters by the psychiatric community. The article targets quotes like this from the ISSTD...

And this...

Most of the article is disputing these guidelines.

And in the comments, this smear was directly addressed.

And they're right about this being hurtful when you remove the context and intent.

But that's what anti-endos do. They take things out of context. They lie. They hurt you to manipulate your emotions, divide us and spread hate.

If you've seen anti-endos post this without context, this is the full story that they don't want you to know.

#syscourse #psych critical #plural #plurality #endogenic #plural system #system #multiplicity #endogenic system #mental health #systems #pro endo #pro endogenic #therapy #psychiatry #tpa #the plural association #hate group #hate groups

[multiplicity-positivity]

Re: your tags about TPA. What harmful beliefs do they have around DID/OSDD and recovery? We're still relatively new when it comes to them and we want to be aware.

*deep breath* hoo boy. so this answer comes from our personal opinion from what we understand about tpa. we’re not experts and we don’t know them personally. you’re welcome to look into their cause and come to your own conclusions. that being said:

it’s definitely debated a lot, and we might get a lot of backlash for saying this, but we believe the plural association does not have the best interests of the plural community at heart. in a search to find out what they actually do at all, it seems like the big things are setting up the plural positivity world conference (that we boosted back in july, it’s basically a rival conference to the isstd conference) and setting up the warmline which we had reblogged that post about. note that as of writing this, the warmline still is not up and functioning. we’re not sure if or when that will happen. a quick look at their website shows a lot of exciting buzzwords “empowering,” “resources,” “community,” etc… but it does appear that all links lead back to the subscription-based community you can join, the warmline, which has been in development for 4-5 years now, and a handful of blog posts written by the stronghold system (and one by the alexandrite system) many of which containing personal experiences framed as absolute truths.

one thing we know about tpa, is they have pulled individual statistics while purposely withholding context in order to make these numbers align with their views multiple times. you can read about one example of this in this discussion post by system speak where they debunked a few claims made by the stronghold system (the main system behind tpa) on the system speak podcast, particularly regarding integration and the theory of structural dissociation. this is where we first learned of tpa’s harmful, incorrect ideas about did/osdd and what recovery means for these individuals, and what our tag was referencing specifically.

you can check out another example in this tweet which was referenced in the post we had reblogged, where tpa claims 62% of their survey respondents indicated that they felt that did/osdd was not understood by crisis hotlines, when the actual statistic is 62% of 60% (since 40% of respondents had never used a hotline), totaling closer to 36% of respondents. we absolutely recommend checking out the full survey results here, so you can see the context for yourself.

overall, we weren’t impressed with their website. it asks for money on almost every page, without disclosing clearly and specifically how that money is used besides “empowering plurals.” community access is behind a subscription paywall, and the free resources and options they offer are opinionated and sparse. after spending time on their website, we believe tpa serves the functions of a blog and a paid service (like patreon, in a way). it doesn’t seem to function like many other nonprofits we know of, which actively do fieldwork with goals of improving the lives of others, yield real, tangible results, and don’t offer more paid services than free ones. it honestly just looks like a place you can go to donate to the stronghold system personally.

this is what we believe after taking a closer look at tpa, who they are, and how they function. again, what we’ve expressed here is our opinion, and we’ve included hyperlinks throughout the post. we definitely encourage you to take a look for yourself and come to your own conclusion. we’re not trying to spread misinfo or sway you one way or the other - we’re just providing our thoughts.

there’s even more we could say here, but this post has gotten long enough. we are happy to continue this discussion with anyone else who chooses - the stronghold system has a big presence in the plural community, and we understand we may not have the complete picture as to who they are and how they run their business (tpa). i’m sorry this post got so long - i honestly do feel a bit betrayed by tpa after doing some research for this response and realizing that their site may actually just be a grift. again, please, please do your own reading and research (you can start with the links we’ve provided) and come to your own conclusions. we don’t have to agree here. we just want to look out for each other!

🐢 kip and 💫 parker

#long post #the plural association #tpa

[solarisgod]

After more researching and reflecting, we're coming to terms, positively speaking, that we actually have DID instead of OSDD-1b ( a partial form of DID ) and... wow! This is still a lot to process as it's making me more emotional, but this feels right and better.

#𓁹 ༑ ࿐ྂ ⩇⩇ : ⩇⩇ ⚠︎ [ 𝙴𝚇𝙸(𝚂)𝚃 : 𝙶𝙾𝙳 ] * ‹ OOC . › #[ apparently from our recent research ; it's so common that systems would be - both professionally and self - diagnosed with OSDD-1b ] #[ mainly because they incorrectly report their own alleged lack of informational amnesia ] #[ even though - ironically - they do have amnesia FOR their amnesia ] #[ which is so funny because it IS a frequent case for us and esp. me that we'd forget we have ongoing amnesia ] #[ or at least we don't remember how actually severe it is ] #[ and that's a main thing with dissociative amnesia : ] #[ it exists to protect one from recalling events usually of a traumatic or stressful nature ] #[ so as we're not meant to remember those events ; we're not meant to know our continuous amnesia along with DID as well ] #[ there's very little information that talks about different forms of amnesia associated with DID such as childhood amnesia while ] #[ blackout ( switching ) amnesia is the most common form and we don't have that but we still have a severe form of amnesia ] #[ that tells us we don't have partial dissociative disorder but a full one instead ] #[ yeah we wish to make this post so especially those who's well familiar with us collectively to Know and we do feel good to say this out ] #[ thank you guys so much for giving this a read and the continuous support to our plurality and cluster!!! ♡ ]

[sunkern-plus]

funny (in hindsight) little ocd compulsion i remember having (partially because of autism most likely): when i was like 11 i was told by one of my teachers (one of the shit ones) that people had to wash their hands and NOT run the water while putting on soap because if you DID run the water, it contributes to global warming

but little ocdtism me did not understand the concept of abstract thinking, and i jumped right to "oh god if i run the water while i'm putting soap on my  hands i'm personally responsible for the earth getting destroyed"

#actuallyocd #my childhood obsession/compulsion cycles were SOOOOO funny in hindsight if i think about it #like. i HAVE to wear dresses from ONLY certain counries but NEVER hungary or sri lanka because #apparently that's where ALLLLL the sweatshops are. no other country but those. (i don't remember what my mom said was my Evil Countries list #or like. by running the water while using soap i am Personally Responsible for millions of climate change related deaths #come to think of it late elementary/early middle school was both around the time my positive schizo-ocd symptoms #and plurality stuff (that i DISTINCTLY remember) occurred. which makes sense because fifth grade was the Trauma Year #and schizospec disorders while being developmental in some extent are ALSO heavily associated with trauma #and people with tendencies to develop psychotic disorders are more likely to become psychotic or schizospec if suffering trauma recently #but like most of my trauma was bullying and REALLY subtle ableism that somehow my dumb brain picked up on. how was i traumatized by THAT