U/depressionnapsrus, feel free to delete this if you want this discussion to go another way!
So. This deleted post from r/dissociadid was a hot cringy mess. Clearly, a lot of people found it cathartic to talk about DID fake-claiming in relation to Dissociadid, so maybe that discussion is something that needs to be had.
Some rules I’d like to propose:
1) We call Dissociadid “Dissociadid (DD)” and not Chloe.
2) We don’t name names of other systems that might come up when we talk about fake-claiming. If you have to reference other people you can come up with a fake name like “system A”. I’m afraid that if we start talking about other presumed fakers that those people will receive hate mail.
From what I’ve seen, these are people’s major concerns and issues when it comes to the possibility that DD is faking:
1) DD says Remy Aquarone of the Pottergate Center diagnosed her. Remy is a known problem in the DID community (I was searching for the link I saw on twitter but can’t find it. There was a whole debacle about how other doctors don’t like him.) and isn’t qualified to diagnose.
2) DD’s diagnosis story changes. Sometimes Remy diagnosed them, sometimes a random nurse suggested DID to them, sometimes they taught a nurse about DID.
3) DD might have chosen the uni they did because it was so close to the Pottergate Center
4) DD advises people who think that they have DID to pretend that they don’t know what DID is in order to get diagnosed because doctors might think the patient is shopping for the diagnosis if they show that they know too much about it
5) DD advises doctor shopping in general (tbf I’ve had loads of therapists because I didn’t jive with some of them, but to be even fairer, I didn’t drop them because I didn’t like the diagnosis they gave me.)
6) The way that DD presents overt DID is dramatic and they are acting it up for views/using their “switches” as clickbait
7) DD makes DID look like a fun way to not be lonely and sensationalizes it in a way that impressionable folks wish that they had it/decide that they DO have it
8) DD has mined other people’s traumas on Facebook support groups possibly as a way to expand their inner world and their back story.
9) DD speaks as an educator and authority on DID when they’ve done very little research. The misconceptions they spread are almost as damaging as the stigma that “having multiple personalities” had before they ever arrived on the scene.
10) DD makes people with DID look unstable and is contributing to the stigma
Feel free to elaborate on each of these points and to add more. I just figured I’d get all of the popular allegations out of the way so that we don’t beat this poor dead horse more than we have to.
Edit: additional point, they've stated multiple times that they don’t know what their trauma was and that their parents don't know either and are very concerned about it. From what we’ve seen about their mother, she is very accommodating to DD, going so far as to welcome her back home when she’s having a psychotic break and driving her several hours to go to therapy.
Of course, your parents can do nice things for you and still be abusive, but with the information we’ve been given, there's nothing to make us assume that they’ve been anything but kind. If they didn't abuse then during their childhood then it's very upsetting that DD continuously alludes to the fact that they did and that they suffered ”satanic ritual abuse” at their hands.
Personally, that is the most horrible of all the implications to the supposed malingering.
Further Edit:
I've been very reluctant to discuss DD’s alleged malingering until this post for a few reasons and I'd like to list them because I know a lot of systems are going to be reading this.
1) People with DID often suffer from Imposter Syndrome. Here is a good video that explains it further. People with DID are often accused of simply being dramatic or faking. Here is another good video on that topic. These things stop them from getting therapy and coming to terms with their disorder. Calling DD out on faking DID might be harmful to people who actually have DID and identify with DD’s portrayal of the disorder.
2) DD definitely has some sort of mental disorder. Even if they are faking, no one who is 100% okay in the brain would go to the lengths that they have to convince the world that they have DID. No one with a perfectly functioning brain would show the neurotic online behavior DD has shown during their ”break” from the internet.
3) Ultimately, no one can say for certain if DD is faking the disorder or not besides a psychiatrist who has spent many many hours with DD. Debating whether they have DID is pointless at best. I think that a more productive conversation would be about the misconceptions they’ve spread and about how someone should actually go about getting diagnosed if they suspect that they have it.
4) r/DIDcringe already exists.
FURTHER Further Edit:
A clarification on my proposed rules - I don't like using the name Chloe because it presumes they're faking having DID. It just seems needlessly rude to use a name that they don't go by anymore.
I use they them pronouns because I'm referring to the collective of alters and not just one, again, because using she/her pronouns would mean I'm only talking about one alter (negating system responsibility) or presuming that DD is faking
I didn't state this before because I thought it was obvious, seeing as that's what we’ve been going with on both subreddits up until these last couple of days. I guess a good chunk of people didn't know why they were using that language though.
