(Click here to read content warnings.)
Some parts of the system community believe that you need to have experienced trauma to be a system. We (papierfliegerfalter) disagree [footnote 1]. Nevertheless, we believe that even if that is your belief, you should never push other systems on the subject. Please hear us out!
So let’s assume for the sake of argument that every system out there is traumagenic (has formed due to trauma) and some just don’t know it yet. What would be a compassionate, kind, healthy way to treat those systems?
We believe that it’s never helpful to push anyone into recognizing or accepting their trauma. If they aren’t aware, they’re likely not in a situation where it’s safe to be aware. [edited] If they don’t take their trauma seriously, they might not be able to emotionally handle taking it seriously. Generally, if you think you recognize someone employing a coping mechanism: don’t take away their coping mechanism!
It’s a really good thing to be able to get to know each other as a system before you process any hard stuff. It’s like the stabilization part of therapy, but by yourselves – becoming a team, handling life stuff together, building a better life for all of you. All of those are resources. Don’t take that away from people.
There’s also the factor that people who do have traumagenic DID [footnote 2] will very likely have
- Amnesia: they might not know about trauma at all, they might not remember their childhood or parts of their adulthood, or they might have emotional amnesia and believe that their trauma wasn’t so bad
- Different system members, some of which might not remember trauma at all or consider it as belonging to them
- A denial response to trauma, so the very idea triggers denial/doubt spirals and makes it really hard to think about the topic at all.
Will those people answer with an affirmative “Yes!” to the question “are you a system because of trauma?”. No, they won’t. We believe that’s why the question of trauma isn’t in the diagnostic criteria for DID: Because you will rarely observe this in a newly discovered traumagenic DID system. So it’s a bad response even for people with traumagenic DID, because of those very common features of DID.
Even in a therapeutic context, talking about possible trauma should only be done if the therapist considers the patient stable enough. Trauma therapy should always start with a stabilization period that can go on for months or even years. And it would be done by experienced therapists, who know their patients well, who can observe their behaviour and have learned how to recognize responses such as dissociation, and who have been asked by the patient to help them.
(Many therapists are unfortunately not that careful and end up doing harm; we’re talking about good, trauma-sensitive therapy here.)
People you meet on the internet are not your patients. They didn’t ask you to help them. And they are not required to share their personal information with you.
So if you meet a system who says they don’t have trauma: if you can’t believe them, at least don’t question them about it. Just let them exist.
And if you want to make a community safe for traumagenic systems: please don’t say “all systems are formed due to trauma”, because it will spook newly discovered traumagenic systems and push them away from help that they need.
Footnotes & Edit notes
Footnote 1: We know many systems that work in many different ways. We aren’t interested in claiming that our friends’ lived experiences can’t exist.
Footnote 2: We are completely uninterested in discussing whether all DID is traumagenic. So we just use this clunky phrasing instead.
Edit note: We linked this post instead of the one we meant to link. Fixed that. We also fixed the link to these footnotes. (25.11.2023)
Content warnings
In this post, we are thinking through the thought experiment “what if all systems were traumagenic?” to show to those that believe it that even if that was true, pushing people about it would be a bad idea. This might be upsetting to read for non-traumagenic systems. Please know that we intend this post as harm reduction; we know y’all exist!
Also, discussion of coping mechanisms for trauma – no details.
Multiple Multitudes 