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Sharp, Dangerous Things
Side blog. See with eyes unclouded by hate. | They / Them | 30+ | sysmedsaresexist DNI
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Blocking only creates uninformed bubbles.
actually blocking creates a fun internet experience where the people u dont like cant bother u
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Can I ask for a source for that particular definition of degeneracy?
I posted some helpful links as a reply to my previous post. I think you'll find what you're looking for there, and I can recommend a few books I've enjoyed on the topic if you want to do a deep dive.
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Per request, a few links about the topic for folks who might be interested:
https://how-emotions-are-made.com/notes/Degeneracy (from How Emotions are Made) is a good starting point for understanding the concept. That's where I first stumbled on it a few years back.
This one I saw earlier this year and it might be a good place to start: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1571441/
Wikipedia also has a bit about this concept if you want to check it out. It's an OK overview that my family found interesting but nothing in-depth here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degeneracy_(biology)
And missing half a brain partly comes from this article: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/patients-missing-one-brain-hemisphere-show-surprisingly-intact-neural-connections (there are a few others, but you'll want to search for specific brain functionality if you're interested in what a brain can overcome).
I really enjoyed How Emotions are Made and would very much recommend the book to those who might be interested in cool brain facts and concepts. It has a very interesting section about how children learn concepts that fascinated me and Keith.
I consider brains to be a topic of interest and will happily infodump given half a chance.
I also wanted to add that none of this is to say systems can't form in other ways or to imply that spiritual or other types of explanations are not correct. I just happen to like brain science and so know a bit about it.
Friendly edit: some of the follow-up comments contain triggering content. Please be kind to yourself if you're wading into the reblog section. (By some of our favorite <insert their current stance here> syscoursers.)
For people eager to believe that the theory of structural dissociation is the only way to have headmates:
May I introduce "degeneracy?"
(Please google that concept as it applies to the brain before screaming into my inbox. Or keep reading.)
Here's a good explanation:
Degeneracy in the brain is the ability of different neural networks to support the same function. For example, different combinations of neurons can create fear.
What this concept means is that a brain has different ways of achieving the exact same outcomes. Variation is the norm when it comes to human brains. When you feel/hear/speak/think, you're not activating the exact same neurons in the same way every time. And that's normal.
And here is why this is important:
Degeneracy contributes to the robustness of biological traits. Degenerate components compensate for one another under conditions where they are functionally redundant. This provides robustness against component or pathway failure.
And what this means is that there is almost always more than one way of achieving anything inside one's skull. Language is supposedly in one area, but children born without half their brains still often learn to speak normally and have relatively normal speech processing.
Because the brain is robust.
Anytime anyone says "it can only happen this way" about the brain, please remember that to be, at best inaccurate and, at worst categorically wrong.
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For people eager to believe that the theory of structural dissociation is the only way to have headmates:
May I introduce "degeneracy?"
(Please google that concept as it applies to the brain before screaming into my inbox. Or keep reading.)
Here's a good explanation:
Degeneracy in the brain is the ability of different neural networks to support the same function. For example, different combinations of neurons can create fear.
What this concept means is that a brain has different ways of achieving the exact same outcomes. Variation is the norm when it comes to human brains. When you feel/hear/speak/think, you're not activating the exact same neurons in the same way every time. And that's normal.
And here is why this is important:
Degeneracy contributes to the robustness of biological traits. Degenerate components compensate for one another under conditions where they are functionally redundant. This provides robustness against component or pathway failure.
And what this means is that there is almost always more than one way of achieving anything inside one's skull. Language is supposedly in one area, but children born without half their brains still often learn to speak normally and have relatively normal speech processing.
Because the brain is robust.
Anytime anyone says "it can only happen this way" about the brain, please remember that to be, at best inaccurate and, at worst categorically wrong.
Friendly after-the-fact edit: some of the follow-up comments contain triggering content as identified by the posters of said content. Please be kind to yourself if you're wading into the reblog section. (By some of our favorite <insert their current stance here> syscoursers.)
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I understand why people cling so desperately to medical models, especially in contexts where your suffering is validated by the idea that you MUST have x to be like y, but like. Longer you live and the more people you talk to, the more you realise the world just doesnt work like that lmao. esp when you bring the human brain into it.
We Do Not Know How The Mind Works. We just dont. We guess. All the time. But to say "x literally just doesnt happen" is a basic misunderstanding of physical reality. you NEED to take a philosophy class or something. it deals psychic damage to me when people make impossible assertions like theyre "proven" by psychology
For ANY issue you have, theres someone without your history with the same exact issue. This doesnt mean your wasnt caused by trauma, but it does mean "well, at least I know BECAUSE you can ONLY have distinct parts if youve been traumatized" is inherently flawed bc thats never been proven, nor has it ever even Attempted to be proven, because no one in the medical field thinks thats a question worth asking. Because it isnt
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see the thing abt sysmeds is that they sound exactly like the people a few years ago whining that you cant be trans without having dysphoria. its like these people think you have to be miserable all the time to be "valid". but i dont have (a lot) of dysphoria! i love being a system! i love my headmates!
also, they put way too much trust and confidence in the medical field and what they say right now but things like that always change and update and the medocal field has HISTORICALLY been racist and sexist and a whole bunch of other shit. the dsm is not the fucking bible. there are things in the dsm that are wrong, or things that should be in the dsm that arent.
and why do you need a book to tell you not to harrass someone???
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I think being pro-endo means more than just believing endogenic systems exist. That's just like, the barest minimum possible.
"I believe endogenic systems exist but I can't stand the community, will spend all my time telling them they're not oppressed and to shut up about it, and generally fighting against the interests of endogenic systems" is not pro-endo.
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"endogenic systems are a target of ableism"
"thats not ableism bc you claim not to have a disorder"
"ok we'll call it pluralphobia then"
"ummm, why the FUCK are you using that word? that thing is Clearly ableism"
i love you people. never change
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I think a lot of "sysmed is transphobic" people miss that yes, being trans is not a mental illness, but gender dysphoria is.
In exactly the same way, being a system is not a mental illness, but DID and OSDD-1 are.
And we are not comparing being a system with being trans. We are comparing the way people assume all trans people must have the mental illness of gender dysphoria with the way people assume all systems must have DID or OSDD-1.
Sincerely, a trans member of our system,
Varyn, birdboy in an afab body
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I do think internet discourse really does tend to overshadow what's important.
For some, the most important issue in syscourse is that some endogenic systems use a word that happens to share an etymology with a word from an open religion, despite most people from that religion outside of syscourse circles not considering the use of this word offensive.
This is a strictly online issue that will never affect people offline in the slightest.
Meanwhile, we live in a pluralphobic society where all of us are forced to mask all the time. Being out as a system IRL often means risking the loss of your friends and family.
It also means risking your job and livelihood.
And while it's technically illegal to fire someone for mental illness, there are no legal protections for non-disordered systems.
On top of that, we have a healthcare system that erases plurals.
If you're a CDD system, you have to jump through tons of hoops to find specialists trained in treating DID and OSDD because most psychiatrists aren't educated in treating these disorders.
If you're a non-CDD system with other disorders you need treatment for, nobody is trained to help you. Nobody is trained to treat multiple people in one body, unless they're a CDD system. This means non-CDD systems will often have to hide their systemhood from their therapists. And those that do reveal it will face being misdiagnosed with disorders they don't have, whether a CDD or Schizophrenia or something else entirely.
Misinformation and a lack of awareness of plurality means young plurals will continue to grow up thinking voice hearing makes them "crazy."
Despite studies showing that most voices in schizophrenia don't come until adulthood, many people growing up with voices in their head will dismiss them and even antagonize them under the belief that they're "just hallucinations" or "not real." Previously friendly relationships with headmates can devolve because "imaginary friends" are supposed to be outgrown, and "hallucinations" are associated with psychosis and need to be ignored. Even after syscovery, scars from this damage may never be able to fully heal.
For CDD systems, this may progressively worsen dissociative barriers for years before the systems discover themselves. For non-CDD systems, this can lead to hosts shutting their headmates away or forcing them into dormancy.
Headmates can't even go by our actual names in public without facing discrimination. (Not to mention our genders, due to the fact that transphobia also extends to GNC-headmates.)
If your opinion on all of this pluralphobia that permeates through every level of society is that it's just meaningless internet drama that will never affect people in real life, you're not just anti-endo, you're anti-system.
You're a useful tool for a singlet-normative society to minimize and dismiss continued discrimination and oppression against systems.
You are not an ally to endogenic systems.
You are not an ally to traumagenic systems.
You are not an ally to mixed origin systems.
You're not an ally to any systems.
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"Should parents read their daughter's texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?"
Earlier today, I served as the “young woman’s voice” in a panel of local experts at a Girl Scouts speaking event. One question for the panel was something to the effect of, “Should parents read their daughter’s texts or monitor her online activity for bad language and inappropriate content?”
I was surprised when the first panelist answered the question as if it were about cyberbullying. The adult audience nodded sagely as she spoke about the importance of protecting children online.
I reached for the microphone next. I said, “As far as reading your child’s texts or logging into their social media profiles, I would say 99.9% of the time, do not do that.”
Looks of total shock answered me. I actually saw heads jerk back in surprise. Even some of my fellow panelists blinked.
Everyone stared as I explained that going behind a child’s back in such a way severs the bond of trust with the parent. When I said, “This is the most effective way to ensure that your child never tells you anything,” it was like I’d delivered a revelation.
It’s easy to talk about the disconnect between the old and the young, but I don’t think I’d ever been so slapped in the face by the reality of it. It was clear that for most of the parents I spoke to, the idea of such actions as a violation had never occurred to them at all.
It alarms me how quickly adults forget that children are people.
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An endogenic system might in fact experience itself as multiple people in one brain. The point here is that while you don't experience something a certain way, that doesn't mean other people share those experiences.
My take is that when a person tells me that they're part of a system, I am not going to assume they have trauma, nor would I ever imply they're not a full person.
System does not mean "person with DID."
A person with DID is highly likely to have trauma in their past, but not all systems originate from DID. And even those who do, do not all self-report trauma (and this does not mean their diagnosis is any less valid).
to me, saying you can form a system without trauma is like saying you can form a scab without a wound.
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to me, saying you can form a system without trauma is like saying you can form a scab without a wound.
#syscourse#dissociation without trauma isn't some sort of bad thing#it just is#it's a symptom#people experience dissociation#April
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Reading the headmate economy blog is a bit like reading the Onion, in my opinion. Funny but somehow a little too close to reality to feel fully comfortable.
There are people who believe system members can leave their brains and travel to other brains. That alone makes me uneasy about how much people understand about the nature of their own brains.
Please learn more about the three or so pounds of electrically charged jello in your skull.
#good point#thank you for the addition#I can see how impossible is just not something we can know#April#one of these days I'll remember to tag myself the first time around
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The definitive solution to all our problems
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More people need to question if the reason syscourse looks like it's only an online issue is because the world is SO inhospitable to systems that most don't feel safe being themselves in public.
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