380

Find
Posted on April 24, 2017 by David M Willis

380 thoughts on “Find”

  1. Ana Chronistic

    “This isn’t getting along, it’s a MASSACRE”

    1. factorsofx

      Just wait till the blue shells come out

  2. Claire

    gaaaahh 🙁 Ambberrrr

  3. UltraKyrie

    Something off-putting about the phrase “meat-vehicle.”

    1. lia47

      perfect avatar

      1. Doctor_Who

        Carla doesn’t appreciate being a meat vehicle. She’d rather be a regular vehicle.

        1. TachyonCode

          I’d rather be all of the meat vehicles, but then I’d still be a bunch of meat vehicles. I’m much better off being made of tachyons.

        2. N0083rP00F

          But then you would always be getting ahead of yourself.

    2. Danni

      isnt that descriptive of ultra car after she changed to a human body?

      1. Showler

        Ultra Car never became human.

        1. MatthewTheLucky

          But Amber is human! And as we all know, Ultra-Car is-
          *keels over from staleness of joke*

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Neither did Aigis.

    3. Shiro

      We’re all lumps of grey junk driving meat-mechas.

      1. Schpoonman

        This mecha sucks. I want a Gundam. Or maybe a Saiyan.

        1. JetstreamGW

          Something something Erupting Burning Finger.

        2. DarkoNeko

          https://imgur.com/oLhScfm

        3. Schol-R-LEA

          Erupting Burning Hemorrhoids?

        4. Delicious Taffy

          Saiyans aren’t mecha. They’re super-powered fighting space monkeys.

        5. Schpoonman

          I’m willing to bend rules if it means I can fly.

        6. Schol-R-LEA

          Filthy monkeys! I’m glad I kill all of… oh, wait…

        7. Roborat

          Rather have a Gunmen.

      2. Tacos

        Maybe y’all are meat mechas but I….

      3. jy3

        Unless you happen to be a lump of grey junk driving a furry meat-mecha driving a meat-mecha.

        1. Cerberus

          Well, you know, you got to be in sync in order to drift and pilot that Jaeger.

        2. Reltzik

          ….. okay, now I’m imagining Pacific Rim, where piloting the Jaegers requires coordinated dancing to “Tearin’ Up My Heart”, and Jaegers who pilots fail get their chests torn up.

          …..

          WHY DOES THE COMMENTS SECTION PRODUCE SO MUCH WRONGNESS???

      4. TachyonCode

        Hey now. I’m reasonably sure those “lumps” are actually “brain squids”.

    4. Sporky

      I don’t know, I’m picturing a little trolley that brings you all kinds of delicious meats to eat and that’s not off-putting at all, it’s inviting!

      1. Danni

        jerky….. mince pie…… meatloaf

      2. JessWitt

        Sounds like an ice cream truck for paleo-eaters and most bodybuilders.

        1. Deanatay

          I’d prefer to share an ice-cream vehicle…

        2. Schol-R-LEA

          I expect it would melt.

          Excessive heat is a problem with ones made from pressed hemp, too, as Henry Ford – and Cheech and Chong, in the film Up In Smoke – learned the hard way.

    5. Tacos

      Is Meat Vehicle gonna be the name AG gives to her superhero vehicle when she finally gets one?

    6. Reltzik

      It’s an unusually-technical phrase for the more conventional term “pizza”. Since AG and Amber share a digestive track, they obviously share pizza.

    7. Knayt

      It’s probably not exactly the best mental model from a body image perspective, but it’s definitely one that I get (although I always favored “glorified meat vehicle”).

  4. Danni

    amber and sal’s get along sweater

    1. JessWitt

      I wish Yotomoe was here to draw the two sharing a giant sweater. And I mean nothing lewd by that.

      1. Spaz

        you say that, but all I see is them fighting over a sweater, sitcom style. pulling on it, neither noticing that a rip is just beginning to form in the middle…….

      2. Pablo360

        If you mean nothing lewd then why did you imagine Yotomoe drawing this?

        1. JessWitt

          Wishful thinking?

          But yeah, what was I thinking?

        2. Clif

          A surprisingly good question. 😉

  5. Schpoonman

    Well, neither Danny nor Amber have snapped at the other for one reason or another, so that’s goo–

    Can we talk about the WttFZ banner real quick?

    1. Doctor_Who

      What’s to talk about? Ruth needs to get that green garbage bag into the dumpster, so she’s leaning way back to give it a good hurl.

      Pretty tame, really. I thought these things were supposed to be naughty?

      1. Schpoonman

        Oh, of course, my mistake.

    2. Delicious Taffy

      Oh, do let’s. Were I a richer man, these panels would hide no secrets.

    3. Rukduk

      I’m…intrigued. I was unaware that Ruth and Billie were into light bondage. The idea is…a little titilating to say the least. And it will remain that way. For two reasons and two reasons only.
      1) Despite being an adult, I’m still ashamed of the idea of any porn related charges showing up on my credit or debit records…mainly because I may need to move back in with my mother and younger brothers at any time and I really don’t want to explain such a charge.
      2) I’m not currently very stressed. As such, I have no use for anything beyond intrigue and titilation.

      1. Knayt

        On reason 1: A bit of plasma donation generally gets you a second account, and that account is easy to keep hidden from nosy family members. I haven’t used it for porn specifically, but it’s not a bad practice in general.

      2. Kathleen

        If you sign up for slipshine, they bill it as “CC bill” -not CARTOONPORN.biz LLC

  6. Nono

    Sal/Meat Vehicle/Amber: the next Slipshine?

    1. Delicious Taffy

      The sheer mechanics are mind-boggling.

  7. Fart Captor

    😀

  8. shadowcell

    “put this banana down her favorite shortcut”

    sounds kinda weird for a “welcome to the fuckzone” but okay

    1. Opus the Poet

      Comments like this are why we need an upvote system.

    2. Rukduk

      (Read in George Takei voice) Ooh my!
      …
      (That’s still a valid reference right?)

      1. Pablo360

        Yes, but for completely different reasons. George Takei is now a general in the resistance, apparently. Who knew?

        (Anyone who was familiar with his activist work is who)

        1. Rukduk

          Yeah. Not gonna lie, I’d probably follow that man to hell and back if he so asked. Hell, if we have to have a second revolution because of the shredded carrot man I say we make George Takei president. If he’s both willing and still alive if/when that happens. (On a side note, anyone else find “The Second Union of States” to be a very snazzy government name?)

    3. Tacos

      Kinky.

    4. Plasma Mongoose

      DAMN, you beat me to it.

  9. Pogo

    One would hope that one day Amber gets to see a psychiatrist

  10. Passchendaele

    I thought she’d be taller. o-o

    and what a troll move, I love it (I wish I did more stuff like that). XD I’m sure Sal will like the competition, though, since she can now think even more outside-the-box. As a rebel, that fits her nicely, so she should be decent friends with Amber. Hopefully. √-√

    1. Passchendaele

      But seriously, who puts a banana on a windowsill?

      1. Leorale

        +1

    2. Leorale

      I thought she’d be shorter. Everyone’s always commenting on her height, and she 2″ taller than I am. : (

      1. David M Willis

        Being 2 inches shorter than Amber makes you about Dina’s height, though!

        1. Leorale

          If I’m Dina’s height, I’ma go put on my stilts, so at least I can be a Scleromochlus.

        2. Feathers

          Oh god I’m shorter than Dina, pls send help

    3. BBCC

      Eh, Willis said 5’3 a while ago, so 5’2 isn’t that off tbh. Apparently Marcie is the shortest of the main cast page at roughly five feet.

  11. Leorale

    Aww, Danny! He just wants whatever is best for Amber. What a sweetheart.

  12. Fart Captor

    Oh god, now I’m picturing Amber as that meat demon from the beginning of John Dies at the End

    1. MatthewTheLucky

      Nobody read this! Seriously, those books will mess you up! They’ve got spiders in them and everything!

      I’m only half joking, you probably shouldn’t read them.

      1. achallenger

        i started listening to the second book at work to mess with my office mate. whole building is worried about me now… heheh turkey voltron

  13. newllend(henryvolt)

    Yeah it’s good to see them get along, still would be a good idea to know why she was mad at you in the first time.

    1. Fart Captor

      Yeah, they should have that conversation at some point. But easing back into “talking to each other again” seems like a good step in that direction though.

      It’s not as if there’s some kind of rule forbidding Amber from talking to Danny until she’s apologized.

  14. caesaria82

    Panels 4 and 5 are legit terrifying in that way where you see someone with an untreated mental illness and it shocks you in that moment and you’re so scared for that person and their safety. I worry about her so much. I want to jump into this damn comic and get this girl help omfg.

    But I guess Amber’s gotta find her way there herself, in her own time <3 I just really, really hope she does.

    1. Claire

      Yeah it’s been a really subtle transition in the comic from alterego to alternate personality… And I’m not sure she evens realizes yet or she’s starting too.

      1. Fart Captor

        I’m pretty sure that she quite explicitly realizes it. Like, the words she’s saying right now don’t even make sense otherwise.

        1. Halpful

          Eh, you’d be surprised. I was talking like that to myself and my therapist for quite a while before one of Cerberus’ comments clued me in. …Then again, I blame the Wikipedia page on DID for part of that, because I read it a few months ago and was like “ok, I guess either I don’t have DID or it doesn’t exist at all”. 😛 and who knows, maybe I don’t have it, but it sure is a useful framing device. Ah crap, I totally forgot to read the resources Cerberus linked to. But I’ve​ been learning lots anyways, and omfg Steven Universe has been… Very something. (I’m near the end of season 1 I think)

          And before I forget again, I never found that Time Braid quote because it wasn’t literally a quote, but the concept was something like “so long as I remember to help/trust myself, we’ll be okay”. (And wow that fanfic has issues. I still like it but I first read it before I’d heard of boundaries or anything​ related.)

        2. Spaz

          sorry, what’s DID?

        3. BBCC

          Dissociative Identity Disorder

        4. Cerberus

          Aw, I’m glad I was able to help. *hugs*

        5. jimmy joey

          near the end of season 1? Oh boy you’re in for a lot of treats

      2. Cerberus

        Eh, to me it’s been apparent for a long damn time that it’s DID. I doubt Amber/AG have the words to describe what they’re experiencing yet, but I think this comic demonstrates that they’ve known that this situation has been the case for awhile.

        1. BBCC

          I think them not having the words to describe it nor an official diagnosis, plus the initial framing of ‘fun superhero hijinks’ made it hard for some people to wrap their head around that this might be DID and not some sort of fantasy fulfillment gone wrong.

    2. zoelogical

      yeeeee

      that mental unhealth feel is too real like. you are driving along thinking everything is normal for how you experience and then you realize that no, no it is not. this is not nearly as neurotypical as you thought you were being.

      w h o o p s

  15. TheKelliestKelly

    The more I hear about Amazi-Girl the more concerned I grow for Amber

    1. Architex

      Willis makes me genuinely worried for my fav.

  16. Keulan

    “Meat vehicle” makes it sound like she’s a Lovecraftian horror hiding in a human body or something.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Who says she’s not? Who says Amber isn’t the hidden Lovecraft bomb waiting to turn this comic into something completely different? I’m just saying, all the crazy things in the comic have happened at the school SHE’s attending.

      1. MatthewTheLucky

        She’s the host of Amazis The Masked, Mutilator of Patriarchs.

  17. Cerberus

    Comic Reactions:

    Panel 1: This is huge. Like, we’ve been seeing signs that Amber is no longer falling for the golden alter presentation of AG, but it’s still been set up in such a way that the dynamic is AG fucks shit up and then dumps it on Amber’s plate to deal with. And Amber has made do with that the best she can. Here? It’s her dumping a mess, albeit a small one on AG’s plate for her to deal with. It’s the first bit of Amber giving a bit back to AG.

    And that’s important because shattering this golden alter narrative, if she’s anything like me, will be so critical to her growth and healing and having them communicate more as equals with full acknowledgments of the baggage each alter carries as well as the strengths each alter exhibits.

    Panel 2: I love Danny.

    Like, in It’s Walky, Danny infuriated me. He was Nice Guy TM personified and it was awful. And early on in this comic, we saw some of those tendencies as well. But since then?

    Danny has truly exemplified kindness and empathy to an amazing degree. No one would blame him if he decided to yell and scream and react badly to this situation. He had a really nasty breakup over a friendship that AG has quickly developed herself and now Amber has as well and got a lot of bullshit from AG when AG was following her golden alterhood into some bad bad places.

    But here? He recognizes this isn’t Amber’s fault and that this is a major moment of growth for her. He is genuinely happy to see her getting along with Sal. He is genuinely happy to see her doing well. Because he still cares deeply for both Amber and AG and wants them both to be happy even if that’s not including him.

    I really want him to develop his self-esteem because it’s so sad that a man being this good can’t see it.

    1. BP

      I want to hug you for this entire comment, but especially the stuff about Danny. He went from my most hated character to one of the most lovable in the strip, not quickly, but at a realistic pace that made it sneak up on me how much I now loved him. And yeah, he’s being a good ex to Amber, and it’s always great to see that, especially with how complex her feelings on love can get.

    2. Rukduk

      Honestly, if there was a dictionary entry for the phrase “character growth” I feel like it would include pictures of Danny and Joyce as examples. And I think he’s slowly developing more self-esteem and a better self image thanks to his interaction with Sal as a tutor and the slowly dawning realization that he can help people. He’s not just to be measured by who he’s dating. And honestly, at this point I think the longer he stays single the more he’ll realize this. Also, and this may just be me, but I see Danny really developing into RA and teacher material. If the comic ever went past freshman year. But seriously, if Star Trek RA for the boys gets kicked, and a freshman ends up being considered for the position, Danny should probably get it. Such a development would also probably humble Joe quite a bit. Which reminds me, does Joe know that Danny is bi yet? Did Jacob spill the beans on that as well?

      1. fillerusername

        Based on his empathy and kindness when dealing with mental illness even despite his age and knowing very little about it I think Danny should seriously consider eventually becoming a psychiatrist.

        1. BBCC

          A psychiatrist, a teacher, anything of that nature. I think he wants to be a computer programmer, but I hope he helps with student outreach, mentoring, and/or teaching on that score. How cute would Danny tutoring a child into computers be? He should volunteer with Big Brothers and Sisters or something.

        2. fillerusername

          That sounds like a good idea. He clearly has a natural gift for helping people and putting them at ease. We’ve already seen him win over three people with HUGE guards up with Sal, Amber, and Ethan. He’d be great a kid in need. Honestly though as he learns more about himself I really hope he considered a change of major or a double major because computer science is nice and practical but he could do a lot of good in a more public service role and he probably doesn’t even realize it.

        3. fillerusername

          He’d be great FOR a kid in need. Once again I really wish we could edit these XD

  18. Nico

    It may not be my place to say this, Amber, but that’s a very… lax definition of “getting along” you have, considering your most recent interactions with AG. But I also have to say, this strip made me feel very calm and content. The 5th panel is really great.

  19. Cerberus

    More comic reactions:

    Panels 4-5: Okay. Which one of you shifty motherfuckers is going to be the first to try and deny her DID now? Like, the only way this could get more canon is if Amber/AG tattooed “I am a person with DID” on her forehead. C’mon, bring it.

    But seriously, I relate so deeply to this. When I was a kid, I had DID but I had little to no support. I hid it from my parents as best I could, I was definitely not in therapy, and I told some of my close friends at the time, but that constituted one person, because my close friends at the time were busy abandoning and bullying me because they could smell the queer on me in some form or another.

    And I fucked it up trying to make it work. I fell for the golden alter narrative, that parts of me should be excised to protect the world. It got bad.

    But in the end, what saved me* was the knowledge and recognition that all the parts of me that made me up were their own people with their own inner lives and they bickered like hell, but they still all shared the same meatsack and they needed to listen and coordinate between each other, genuinely cooperate if things were going to be functional. And not just three of my main ones, but all of me, even the one I convinced myself was just a dark dangerous monster.

    *And I mean saved me literally. What finally knocked my golden alter off her throne was her trying to kill herself with all of us in for the ride which lead the other two not caged up to fight for access again and severely re-evaluate the narrative she was spinning.

    And it was key to my recovery and becoming a more stable form of integrated, even though I’ve been more or less integrated for most of my life. Who I am today is the coordination of those alters that make me up working together in ways I would never have imagined as a fucked up teenager doing the best I could.

    And it’s beautiful to see Amber/AG to begin that journey like I did, out of the mistakes I made into the positive choices I made.

    And it’s… genuinely emotional. Because this, like Carla and Ultra Car, is a story I never expected to see in the world. To see who I was as a child, the good and the bad depicted like this. Not as some serial killer narrative that was used to abuse me, but as the fucked up me that I was and in many ways still am? It’s… yeah. Powerful.

    Like, if little 13 year old me had stumbled onto this way back when. Had seen this. Had seen how Amber/AG found stability? It would have meant so many fewer suicide attempts. It would have meant the goddamn world.

    Panel 6: I fucking love how Amber is finding a functional way to deal with her complex emotions towards Sal through a game with no real consequences. It’s… heartwarming.

    1. Chris

      I’m… Sorry. For your losses as a child. It feels better knowing others like me are out there

    2. Rukduk

      I want to start by apologizing deeply if this is a rude question, but what exactly does integration mean for someone with DID? From what I understand about DID (and I’ll admit that as someone without DID I will probably never fully understand DID and also again really want to apologize if this starts to sound offensive), it means that someone with DID has multiple unique individual alters in the same body, some of whom developed at different times for different reason. I want to know so that I can, well, not offend people through my own ignorance and in no way mean this as a malicious comment towards you. You are someone that I greatly respect and admire and mean in no way to hurt.

      1. BBCC

        From what I understand (and please correct me if I’m wrong, Cerb, or anyone else with DID) there’s two main models: The committee model and the fusion model (for lack of a better word).

        The committee model is where all the alters are sharing memories, talking, and more or less working together towards a common goal. They may have an arrangement where one alter takes charge more, but it’s generally a group decision, even as every alter has their own ideas about and feelings about their group goal.

        The fusion model is when the alters more or less agree to be together in one entity. This entity is made up of aspects from all the alters. This works best when the new ‘whole’ has a lot of love and respect for the alters and their contributions. It doesn’t tend to go well when forced from the outside, as then alters tend to hide or rebel (often acting out unilaterally) to resist their ‘deaths’. It’s slightly less likely to withstand stress than the committee model, but lots of folks find it’s worked for them. That said, if stress or trauma or whatever does go too far, the ‘whole’ can disintegrate back into the alters (and possibly new ones). This is becoming less and less popular, as it is more complicated to achieve and tends to withstand less stress.

        1. Halpful

          After watching the Stevonnie episode of Steven Universe… Forced fusion seems kinda rapey. :/ No wonder there’s so much backlash! … Actually, that would also explain why sometimes my mind reacts to simple requests as if I’m being asked to torture babies or something. :/

          Also, I’m partway through a meditation book that describes the mind using a committee model, and claims it’s based on actual neuroscience research, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a normal part of everyone’s subconscious and DID is just being consciously aware of it (and/or having it malfunction). 🙂

        2. BBCC

          I remember Cerberus described the committee model as being similar to Inside Out. Maybe Steven Universe’s gem fusions works as a handy descriptor for the (again, for lack of a better word) fusion model? I dunno. What do those of you with DID think on that?

        3. Halpful

          IIRC Cerberus brought up Inside Out in response to me using fusion to wrap my head around the integration model. 🙂 I think you and I are the only ones calling it a fusion model so far? OTOH, fusion as shown in Steven Universe is much healthier than the dominant definition of integration, so maybe there’s a use for both terms there…

        4. BBCC

          Well, there’s two models of integration. According to Cerb, the committee model (the one like Inside Out) tends to have more permanent success than the other one. As far as I know, I came up with the term ‘fusion model’ for lack of a better word for the other model (which is when alters become one entity), just because the way Cerberus described it kind of reminded me of a gem fusion. If that model has a name, please definitely correct me!

        5. Cerberus

          Yup, those are the two main models and I really like the fusion metaphor for the other model, because yeah, that’s what the folks for whom that model works for describe it as. “You’re not two people, you’re not one person, you are an experience”. And that makes me realize how important works like Inside Out and Steven Universe are for young DID kids trying to seek out a means of describing their experiences.

          For me, the committee model is what has worked best for me and it’s the model that’s been coming more and more popular owing to the issues of alters feeling erased that can come in a fusion model, especially when there isn’t enough care and respect given to the alters that make it up (which I guess makes it somewhat like a gem fusion like in Keystone Motel where when Ruby wasn’t feeling heard and considered, it split Garnet back up temporarily).

          So yeah, to answer your question Rukduk, under the Fusion model (totally stealing that) of integration, integration looks like one person made whole by the parts coming together and becoming one. Which yeah, works for some, but is largely falling out of favor.

          Under the committee model, full integration looks like all the alters communicating with each other and largely working together more or less harmoniously, though they will sometimes fight, but at the very least regularly sharing memories, communicating regularly, and recognizing shared goals.

          Amber/AG has in the comic pressed on the edges of that integration in the same way I did where I was more or less integrated and then some shit went down, I had another split and I bought the golden alter narrative and really harmed one of my alters and allowed her to get really abused and mistreated and just like with Amber/AG that was very risky and I could have ended up with a situation where that alter stopped sharing memories and I ended up having the lost time and unexplained actions characteristic of a full split that is not integrated.

          And that last one is what most people think of when they think DID, but it’s not the entirety of our experiences.

          Hopefully that all makes sense, let me know if you have any other questions.

        6. Halpful

          🙂

          I suspect the committee model and healthy fusion can complement each other. Like, imagine the Inside Out aspects learning gem fusion. 🙂 But then, I’ve always liked a little bit of everything. (And the world should have more sample platters 😉

        7. Halpful

          I just realized I’ve been thinking of the committee model as an alternative to integration, but you’re talking about it as a *type* of integration, right Cerberus? With the other type we’re now calling fusion (and I thought was called integration) not having a name before?

        8. Cerberus

          I’m a firm believer in both “the system that works for you is the system that works for you” and “almost everything is spectrums”.

          So yeah, I think the models can totally complement each other and I guarantee there are DID folks out there that have completely different models to these that work for them.

        9. BBCC

          Okay, yay, the fusion thing works! Mostly it was the comment about how the integrated ‘whole’ can split back into their component alters (and possibly new ones as well) with stress. That kind of reminded me of how Opal can’t take much stress or trauma because Pearl and Amethyst will start fighting and Opal splits apart. Or, yeah, how when Garnet’s really stressed or traumatized, Ruby and Sapphire tend to split apart because they can’t hold it together anymore.

          I’m not sure how widely applicable this goes, but it might be a good way of explaining the basic idea to children or the general public, the same way Inside Out was for the committee model.

        10. Cerberus

          BBCC- I think so too. They’re really good metaphors for each that even include what can go wrong, like the Fusions breaking apart when arguing sets in or one feels disrespected or the committee becoming fragmented if an alter tries to be the golden alter that dictates things or an alter is being forced into an ill-fitting box (like Sadness was).

          It’s pretty cool to think that somewhere there is a DID kid seeing one of these works and finding a language to talk about their experiences.

        11. Temperaryobsessor

          In Steven Universe healthy long term fusion needs to be earned, even the healthiest Fusion needs a break once in a while, and the components talking is a key part of Fusion.
          If Steven Universe is good at showing some pitfalls.
          The golden alter dynamic sounds a lot like Malachite.
          Alexandrite in Fusion Cuisine Seems like something that can happen when the Fusion model is treated like the only model.
          I see the clusters as people with DID vs normal fusion relationships between people with their own bodies.
          When Lapis gave up Malachite it was a victory and better for both her and Jasper. People with DID don’t have that option.
          Am I getting this right.

        12. Cerberus

          Heh, my fiancee is very much of the opinion that The Cluster was basically a big DID metaphor. And yeah, golden alter dynamics are toxic as all hell and frequently end up involving abuse to make another alter seem like all of the bad to make one of the alters seem like all of the good. So yeah, I feel parallels could be drawn to Malachite in that way.

        13. BBCC

          Plus, while people with DID can’t just leave, a bad integration model can split up. So, in this metaphor, Malachite is integrated via fusion model, but the alters don’t get along and both hurt each other, with one being the primary aggressor. So, eventually, it can’t hold, they split back to their component alters with no new ones, and one refuses to integrate in a fusion model again.

        14. Spaz

          *squints*

          Okay, you guys are blowing my mind here.

          I was already rewatching Steven Universe (just past Giant Woman atm) but now I’m gonna have to rewatch more carefully.

          This shit is fascinating from an…..what was the term again? alloneurative? perspective. Er….pretty sure that’s not right.

      2. Liliet

        Cerberus posted resource links a bit a go, and as far as I understood, there are two competing definitions of “integration” that you just gotta differentiate from context:
        1) make the multiple single again, mush all the alters together until there’s only one personality left (not all people think this is desirable or realistic)
        2) get the alters to cooperate and share memories to a functional degree, so they help and not hinder each other
        What these two definitions have in common is that integration is the end goal of therapy.

        Someone please correct me if I’m wrong!

        1. zoelogical

          http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/03-the-thing-i-was-before/cornered-2/#comment-1215649

          gotcha link

        2. Cerberus

          Yay, thank you zoelogical!

        3. zoelogical

          😀 you are very welcome!!

        4. Deanatay

          Heh, that’s sorta Cerb’s ‘Leslie helping Becky’ moment:

          -Um, would you perhaps, have any –
          -DO I HAVE RESOURCES?!?!!?
          *reaches into bag*
          *THUMP*

        5. Halpful

          Thanks zoelogical 🙂 finding those links is hard. it’s amusing to see my memory had the order of comments essentially backwards for that thread, lol.

        6. zoelogical

          i like research. 😀 this one was kind of like detective work – i went to the last book in the archive, and then looked for the last strip with interaction between Amber and Amazi-girl, since I knew it was recent but I wasn’t sure how recent. HEY PRESTO.

          (this, maybe, is sort of like a magician unveiling how they accomplish their magic, but like the point of research is the expansion of knowledge, yadda yadda, blah blah. boom. knowledge expanded.)

        7. Cerberus

          Those tags are like night and day for this kind of research and makes it a lot easier to find things.

        8. zoelogical

          just to tag your work is a miracle – complete tagging, it would be enough!

          (all apologies to lin manuel miranda)

    3. Halpful

      *Jedi hugs*

      Listening is very, very important. I had quite a day today, and I think that’s like 90% of what I learned. Parts of me were still in the habit of suppressing and ignoring other parts, and there was lots of anger on all sides, but I finally managed to get them talking and it’s like.. I was taught that my feelings didn’t matter (that’s an oversimplification but close enough) and I thought I’d dealt with that but nooo, it went way deeper, and was still a big influence on my subconscious. Once I’d dragged it out into the daylight, some of the stubbornly counterproductive behaviour made a lot more sense. 🙂 And even though I spent most of the day’s spoons on figuring that out, it put me in a state of mind full of compassion and patience and kindness that made several things take just a tiny fraction of the spoons they would have this morning. 🙂

      1. Cerberus

        I’m glad you were able to reach that!

        Yeah, listening and empathy towards ALL my alters was a hard learned lesson, but it was a really useful one and it gave my alters more space to trust each other more and feel safe enough to calm down and share their experiences without constantly itching to rumble.

        I hope things continue to be easier for you and use less spoons in the future. *hugs*

        1. Halpful

          *hugs* 🙂

          Hard is an understatement… Some of my aspects picked up emotionally abusive habits from nMum. Some tend to get so hyperfocused they forget how to empathy. And patience does not come naturally to me. I’m still not entirely sure how I got Productivity to actually listen today. It was so focused on the schedule über alles, and there was some ADHD train of thought from dishwashers to global disasters, and then I was actually sitting down and listening to all the sides instead of trying to pick which one got to railroad the others today.

          Maybe it’s like the little piece of corn… It doesn’t make sense, it’s just there, and somehow acts as a catalyst. 🙂

          So much happened so fast… Impatience to “actually we do have time for this” to guilt over being lucky/privileged enough to have that time and space, to seeing the silliness of that, to fear of becoming “healthy” but still not functioning, to all the logical flaws in that, then another round of misplaced guilt, and poking more holes in that… To maybe partial acceptance of the safety I’ve been given. And through all of it, compassion holding things together over a bridge that Dexedrine built, despite me being almost off the Dexedrine now. 🙂

          And that’s just the parts I’ve managed to remember so far. Memory doesn’t work so well when thoughts run in parallel, or aren’t using words.

        2. Cerberus

          *hugs* That’s rough. As someone who’s had an abusive alter, I sympathize a lot.

      2. Delicious Taffy

        Spoons?

        1. BBCC

          Spoons in mental health refers to reserves of emotional, physical, and psychological, and cognitive energy you have to put towards a given thing. For instance, if someone says they don’t have the spoons to deal with a troublesome roommate, being forced to deal with said roommate can sap their energy to the point of a breakdown.

        2. zoelogical

          it’s kind of an unofficial tumblr-originated slang metaphor.
          https://thespoontheory.tumblr.com/post/44757754831/faq

        3. Cerberus

          Well it more comes from the chronic pain/fatigue/condition communities who used it to describe and explain the limited reserves of energy that come with those conditions but has been largely also adopted by those with other mental health conditions, especially depression and anxiety as well as by activists and emotional care workers to describe and explain burnout.

          Given the high concentration of folks with depression/anxiety as well as activists among the general tumblr community, it’s no surprise that it has flourished and spread wide there but they’re not the ones who made it up.

          In fact, Carol Miserandino developed the theory or rather the metaphor in 2003, a full four years before tumblr was even founded and I remember seeing it spreading among various communities since at least 2004 (Melissa McEwan of Shakespeare’s Sister was one of the ones heavily involved in popularizing the term among general communities, especially the activist communities).

        4. zoelogical

          ………………..i probably should have read what i linked before linking lol. it’s where i happened to learn it from!! and it was presented as something this person had *just* come up with. rrr.

          thank you!! for your wonderful and copious amounts of information!

        5. zoelogical

          hahahaha WOW i am actually really mad about this plagiarism!! the post i originally read had no link, no citation, no “written by person”, nOTHIng. not a bar. not a note. nada. but it was the same exact story as from here: https://butyoudontlooksick.com/articles/written-by-christine/the-spoon-theory/

          rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

        6. Cerberus

          Wowwww, that’s super douchey.

    4. Gesc

      Just because Amber is acknowledging the situation, it doesn’t mean that she and AG have any sort of working arrangement. With any luck these are the first steps towards them working together, but it remains to be seen how does AG feel about this all.

      That said, go representation!

  20. Fox

    This, as a person with DID, sounds like similar conversations I’ve had about myself and the others. It’s nice to relate and on another note Amber needs to see a therapist so that healing can happen from the trauma and her and amizi-girl can cooperate/communicate better.

    1. Cerberus

      *DID fistbump*

      And yeah, I swear I’ve had very nearly this verbatim conversation before in high school trying to explain my internal drama to friends.

      It really is amazing to see that reflected in a work without judgment.

      1. Fox

        *fist bump returned* Yeah, it can be hard to explain to others. I also like the lack of judgment.
        For us the hardest thing is trying to find the ability to work with the people inside who are very abusive to us in the front, as a person who has achieved cooperation, do you have any tips? We are poly fragmented so that makes it harder, but tips would be very appreciated.

        1. Cerberus

          I had a lot of success with a “we’ll listen to you, but you’re not allowed to dominate the conversation model” with basically de-escalation techniques. We also set forth rules for conversations stating that everyone had to use I statements and was not allowed to attack others. So the golden alter eventually ended up having to use I statements to describe her fears and experiences instead of stating things in directed abuse.

          It’s not going to work for everyone and it helped that at that point, all the other alters were thoroughly sick of her shit and so were very united in enforcing these rules and even then, the former golden alter threw a LOT of tantrums about it and refused to engage for a long time, only coming out at times to try and wrestle control of the body for a self-abuse session.

          But yeah, in the long term, she’ll still sometimes get riled up, but she’s been a lot better in sharing her fears and being less openly abusive and introspecting about why she felt the need to so closely try and regulate everyone else (she’s the alter of mine most affected by societal messages and fears of social condemnation and most wants to fit in, everyone else is pretty anti-authoritarian-leaning).

          But yeah, I took a lot from basically couples counseling techniques like this:
          http://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/psychpedia/i-message

        2. Fox

          Well we can certainly give it a shot. My husband and I did couples counseling and I messages really helped us, maybe it’ll work.

        3. Cerberus

          Good luck!

        4. Fox

          Thanks.

        5. BBCC

          I too want to wish you luck. It sounds like a tough situation and I hope it goes well.

        6. Halpful

          I statements don’t work for me (for weird reasons); what has been working is an assortment of things meant for handling abusive/unreasonable people. I picked up most of it from Captain Awkward and r/raisedbynarcissists. Plus some general compassion/mindfulness/loving-kindness practice and boundaries and CBT things. Different tools work (or don’t) in different mental states, and I seem to cycle a lot. 🙂

          At first it was mostly just learning not to JADE, and just saying “okay” when nVoice was off on an abusive rant. And focusing compassion on the parts of me that were getting hurt by it. At one point I figured out a trick for sitting with it, being a shield for the more vulnerable aspects, without fighting back or actively resisting… it’s often about finding that middle path, where you’re neither fighting back or letting it get what it wants. Just weathering the storm. 🙂 I have plenty of practice with that from pain management, so it was easy once I made the connection, but it’s probably hard to learn from scratch.

          Now it seems like that phase has mostly passed and there’s more willingness to talk instead of attacking 🙂 yay! It’s a good thing I’ve been learning how to use my words, I suspect there will be lots of them. I also suspect Compassion could become a stable chairperson to keep the conversation somewhat constructive…

          now I need to go find out what “poly fragmented” means… 🙂

  21. Chris

    I believe this is necessary:

    https://www.xkcd.com/290/

    1. Rukduk

      Does “singing along with my music” count under miscellaneous?

      1. Reltzik

        No, singing along with music is ironic.

        Don’t you think?

        ….

        *flees for dear Alanis-referencing life*

        1. Rukduk

          Not really. Also, you have no idea how many times I have barely caught myself before saying the n-bomb from singing along to rap music.

        2. Chris

          Its so obnoxious. All my classmates drop n-bombs all the time

        3. Chris

          One time I found out about who really nuked Hiroshima. It was Pablo.

          Oh God did I just hit the repoly button

        4. zoelogical

          isnt it ironic
          to be ironic
          when you’re not ironic
          anyways

        5. Remmington Steele

          I prefer goldy or bronzy. Or even silvery …

        6. zoelogical

          but Steele will always be with you

  22. Gryph

    Amber is…just getting more and more disassociated from herself, isn’t she?

    1. Reltzik

      …. maybe? But she’s also rejecting the narrative of herself as someone who can’t be trusted to coexist with Sal, so it might still be an improvement?

      …… fuck if I know. Why am I even replying? I’ll just hit Cancel reply, it’s way on the opposite side of the comment field so I can’t possibly hit Post Comment by accident.

    2. zoelogical

      eh. the two alters exist already. not acknowledging their existence would be more dissociative from her reality than acknowledging that they do exist. like. can’t know there’s a problem unless you identify it as a problem.

      and i mean like. having alters is not the Worst Thing Ever, it’s just a response that evolves to meet a particular kind of scenario, and it’s something the mind does in order to protect itself. Amber doesn’t need to protect herself so much, so she and Amazi-girl can be brainmates and work it out.

      I mean. on some level there isn’t a right or wrong way to brain, there’s just how you cope with it and learn to utilize it. most of the point of therapy is just getting the patient to a place where they’re happy with their life and not being held back from living it

    3. Cerberus

      More the opposite, really. This is marking a really healthy shift where there is less enforcement of artificial boxes which will allow each to grow and communicate more openly and healthily.

      These last few strips have been really heartening after the really scary times when AG broke up with Danny, got really into beating up people, and stalked Sal. And in my mind a clear sign that the golden alter mystique has been broken and the alters can begin to learn to interact as equals.

  23. Bagge

    This the most open I ever heard Amber be about discussing her condition. And she doesn’t freak out on Danny OR Sal. I think this is good.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Well, there was some dialogue about it in the Slipshine.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        I am talking SO far out my ass on this one.

  24. Rukduk

    This is good. Amber has found a way to safely interact with Sal that may one day (multiple years IRL) enable her to talk to Sal face to face. Also, currently she can talk to Danny without feeling awkward. Which is good. They don’t have to address what made AG mad at Danny in the first place (it honestly feels like Amber herself was never mad at Danny about talking with Sal) at the moment but they definitely should eventually. And, while I’ll admit that I think Amber and Danny (not AG and Danny) could work out long term as a couple, just remaining friends would also be very good for them.

  25. Reltzik

    Regarding Panel 6….

    …. I always interpreted Danny as not really GETTING that he was dating someone with DID. Like, he thought it was about role-play or a “take that” for his initial failure to recognize that the two were the same person. (Or so he thought.) He had the evidence, but lacked the knowledge, awareness, and understanding to interpret the evidence. I thought of him as just kinda stumbling along trying to accommodate a girlfriend’s quirkiness without really learning what was at the root of them.

    That makes a big difference for Panel 6. If I’m wrong and he did know that she has DID, then Panel 6 is, “Oh, humorous pronoun misunderstanding providing opportunity for character-development-exposition.” But if I’m right, then Panel 6 is “humorous pronoun misunderstanding providing opportunity for mind-blowing reveal!”

    1. Reltzik

      ….. also, on reread, the pronoun misunderstanding did not, in fact, arise from pronouns.

    2. zoelogical

      yuuuuuuuuuup

      he thought he was dating a Superman-type divide but actually he was dating a Batman-type divide

    3. Liliet

      Yeeeah.

    4. Cerberus

      Yup.

      He had no context for understanding DID and likely no real life experiences to serve as a framework. And it’s not a condition that’s… let’s just say “well-depicted” in general media.

      And that’s why he bumped into shit like moving to kiss Amber and having Amber be like “no, you’re in a mono relationship with AG, not me.”

      I think what we’re seeing here in his last few strips is he’s realizing that it wasn’t an affectation and she really is DID and is trying his best to figure out her alters from outside.

      Which, I doubt is much easier than trying to figure that shit out from the inside. And it’s made all the worse that Amber/AG doesn’t have words for this shit and so hasn’t been able to just be “Hey, I have DID” to him to give him some pointers.

      I think he’s made the best of it he really could under the circumstances.

      1. Deanatay

        And yet, oddly, Dina recognized it instantly. Has she had some experience with DID in her life? Or does her inherent neuro-atypicality (is that the right word?) give her special insight?

        1. Cerberus

          I don’t think there’s a canon reason, but I suspect a big factor is that most people just dismiss possibilities like that out of hand, but Dina’s way of interacting with the world is more inclined to take things at face value so the alters made quick sense to her.

        2. Nightsbridge

          Dina doesn’t have a good understanding of normal. Which is a blessing in disguise, because ‘normal’ is made up, and she bases what she knows more on what she sees and experiences than the myths we tell ourselves.

        3. Halpful

          both of those (Cerberus and Nightsbridge) fit with the way my aspergers works. 🙂 It doesn’t really occur to me *not* to accept things, and I spend much more time with raw sensory data because I don’t have as much of the assumption-laden subconscious processing NTs seem to rely on.

        4. zoelogical

          it’s funny, because my adhd means that I’ve had to carefully work through so many of my assumptions because I have a large tendency to accidentally skip over stuff. it’s taught me not to take things for granted!! but that was a skill that I had to learn, not something that happened naturally – in counterbalance to the adhd, not as a result of it. i’m pretty sure that’s how it worked, anyways. it probably helps that my brain doesn’t have an off switch

        5. Jhon

          You’ve put your finger on why Dina will be a great scientist!

  26. Delicious Taffy

    Amber’s the same height as my girlfriend, and only half as nutty. Also, somewhat stouter. This meat vehicle stuff is troubling, though.

    1. Liliet

      Is it? I see this kind of joke all the time, ‘meat vehicle’ isn’t so bad when the joke norm is ‘flesh prison’…

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Granted, it’s not as bad as “flesh prison”. Still, it conjures up all sorts of unpleasant imagery.

        1. Halpful

          Yup. I suspect Amber’s body might get its own persona if that goes too far (or at least, that seems to have been happening to me as I struggle with the frustration of chronic pain issues, and I’m not even in constant pain any more!)

          Self-hatred is toxic in so many ways. :/

  27. AeroQC

    The struggles of sharing a body with someone else…
    [n.o]: It’s easier when you learn to get a long right away.
    [d.d]: Right Boss?
    Correct, Kyu. You did enjoy watching ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’, I hope?
    [n.n]: Yes, thank you.
    [ó.ò]: It’s a shame we didn’t have any popcorn though…
    Yeah… Would’ve made the experience just a tad bit better. But not by much, it was still corny.
    [u.o]: Well I thought it was sweet.

    1. AeroQC

      [O.O]: Oops…
      [n.n’]:*along

  28. Teddae

    it’s so nice to see fluid DiD being represented. and it’s nicer to see Amber finally getting along with the person who was related to her trauma.

    1. Delicious Taffy

      Maybe by 2020, she’ll be able to say the words “stab”, “hand”, “knife”, and “Twinkies” around Sal without getting that “Oh, shit” look on her face.

    2. Cerberus

      I know, this is like… holy shit amazing. Like, I’ve been really hyped up on this for awhile, but the last few strips where it’s been made unmistakably canon? It means a lot.

      Like, I owe Willis so much, he’s the only one who’s given me a badass queer trans girl ace character like me and he’s the only one that’s given me a non-problematic DID character.

      Like, I’m tearing up a bit, this is real representation like I never would have expected to ever see as a kid watching Psycho for the first time.

      1. Halpful

        Heh. I just went from “I’m glad I avoided horror movies” to “oh. Another boxed-up alter. I’d forgotten they were the reason I avoided those”.

        I don’t even know anything *about* that alter, I boxed it up so quickly and thoroughly. And it’s got a warning that it’s not to be opened lightly, I should probably set aside a full day at least for processing that…

  29. BenRG

    In some ways, it’s good to see Amber acting like a teenager for once.

  30. Tomas

    Meat vehicle? Oh God, is Amber looking forward to the transhumanist singularity? Is that why she took up computer science?

    1. Suitora

      Amber has dissociative identity disorder.

  31. Golli

    Amber is being hypocrit and doesn’t seem to recognise it. She dumped Danny because he was friend with Sal against whom she was prejudiced based on one traumatic expirience with her in the past (and it was clearly shown that the most trauma was inflicted by her father not Sal).

    1. Suitora

      Amber and AG are two different people. AG is Amber’s protector, and she avidly distances Amber from people to make sure she’s safe.

      1. Deanatay

        Yep. And Danny making nice with Amber – well, Danny HAS said he’d rather have a relationship with Amber.

    2. BBCC

      One, Amazi-Girl dumped Danny, not Amber.

      Second, you say that like traumatic reactions are not a good reason to avoid someone. Treat badly, no, she shouldn’t have, flee, sure, why not?

      Third, trauma isn’t rational.

      1. Cerberus

        What BBCC said.

        And I definitely want to emphasize that third point. Trauma is very much not rational and neither is PTSD. This is why triggered jokes are such unfunny bullshit, because that unpredictable trauma response to stimulus that reminds her of a traumatic event? That’s what a trigger actually is. And the way she had panic attacks and full on hyperventilations before is a reflection of what that can actually mean.

        1. Golli

          She is one person with a personality disorder but she is aware of what she’s been doing in ther AG persona. Moreover, we have just witnessed Amber using her AG voice to distract Sal from a game. So this is not only caused by trauma, which in my opinion makes the “traumatic past” argument less valid.
          BBCC, in your second point you are completely mixing facts.
          In her AG persona she dumped Danny for being friedns with Sal but she had no reason to hate Sal. She didn’t know her and didn’t care to learn anything of her. She was fuelled by her anger. It seems that she is now able to tolerate Sal or even get along with her (both as Amber and as AG) as she get to know Sal better, but still haven’t apologized to Danny. And not feeling any remorse for that makes her a hypocrit in my eyes.

        2. Cerberus

          Well, if you’re in denial about the condition she has, I can see why the storyline is confusing for you.

        3. Fart Captor

          Trauma. Isn’t. Rational.

          The robbery was an EXTREMELY traumatic event. Sal was an aggressor who held a knife to her friend’s throat, and it’s quite likely that Amber did not realize how awful her dad was at that age.

          Of course that doesn’t excuse stalking and harassing Sal, or shouting at Danny the way she did. But the way she felt was beyond her control. It’s a remarkable feat for her to have been able to interact with Sal at all, considering we just saw in the previous strip how Sal STILL triggers panic attacks.

          And we’ve SEEN her feel remorse about how she treated both Sal and Danny. Or have you already forgotten how she has repeatedly insisted she was horrible and dangerous and that Danny was better off without her?

          Is she not allowed to do anything else until she’s groveled at Danny’s feet begging for forgiveness?

        4. Stella

          Beating herself up isn’t the same as apologizing. Neither, for that matter, is grovelling at someone’s feet.

          When someone, a friend or lover especially, hurts me deeply, I don’t want them to grovel. I don’t want them to self harm in any way; they’re my friend. I genuinely just want an apology. I want them to fully acknowledge my humanity and the harm they caused me, and offer a way to make amends. That’s it; that’s all I want.

          Grovelling and self-flaglation over harm caused to a friend doesn’t ease your friend’s pain; rather, it adds to it, because it makes your friend feel guilty on top of feeling hurt.

          I am absolutely sympathetic to Amber (and AG, for that matter). But I have been on the Danny-side of things often. I genuinely do not understand why someone who says they love or care about me cannot simply apologize and try to find a way to move forward. It makes me feel unloved, or, at the very least, that what I thought was a mutually caring relationship was actually all about them.

          I know many people dislike the ritual of apology and forgiveness, and also that it is different in different cultures. However, where I come from, apology is meant to be like this: first, only apologize if you genuinely mean it. Then, fully acknowledge harm done. Then, ask for forgiveness and and offer a way to heal what was broken. Then the wounded party can forgive and healing can happen, or the wounded party can choose to part ways.

          Incidentally, this is not always so formal and a Big Deal. For instance, a few weeks ago, I was going on a day trip to a nearby big city and my friend was driving. She is a bit anxious and tends to run early. I overslept and then, on top of already making her run late, I asked to stop for fast food so I could eat breakfast. I genuinely felt bad because I knew I shouldn’t have overslept, and it’s my fault that she was more anxious now. I apologized, and at first she said, “okay,” but clearly was still upset. So then I said, “I know oversleeping was disrespectful and that now there’s all this stress because I didn’t keep my promise to get up early. Can I buy you some of those fancy macroons when we get there to make up for it? And then you can make fun of my terrible pronunciation with the French people?” And she laughed because 1. that was a running joke between us, which acknowledged our longstanding friendship, 2. I made fun of myself and took full responsibility, rather than blaming her in any way for being more anxious than me, and 3. I actually tried to make up for the issue with an action (buying a snack food) rather than a words-only apology.

          This is just a thing that bothers me because apology and forgiveness, when done right, actually resolves a lot of relationship issues, including your relationship with yourself! But done wrong, it’s this weird shame-y power play that distorts what makes the ritual valuable in the first place, which leads people to refuse to apologize altogether with no ritual in it’s place to make true amends.

          There are at least two friends whom I would forgive in an instant if they just apologize and made a single step towards making amends. They are friends I love deeply and who have their own struggles. But I love myself too, and I cannot bring myself to forgive someone who despite saying, “I hate myself,” can never love me enough to say, “I’m sorry.”

        5. BBCC

          Being aware of what AG did means jack. She and AG are sharing a body and are semi-integrated, so yes, they’re sharing memories. Yes, she remembers what AG did. That’s still on AG. And the AG voice isn’t actually a requirement for AG to be present – the AG voice was a thing she made up to keep Danny from noticing her. AG can be present without it (look for the little blushes on her face – when they’re not there, you’re dealing with AG) and Amber can still use it. In this case, to get Sal out of her face before she had an anxiety attack.

          “Had no reason to hate Sal” – I repeat: Trauma isn’t rational. Even if it were, she absolutely does. Sal has her reasons for doing terrible things like taking Ethan hostage, but it’s still a terrible thing to do.

        6. Golli

          You guys are completely mistaking compassion with forgiveness. First of all two people sharing one body is a mumbojumbo. it doesnt exist. Amber has a mental disorder and while it does excuse some of her actions it cannot be excuse for everything as we see that she uses her alternative persona from time to time for her benefit.
          Finally, i have never said that she should always begging for forgiveness nor suggested it. She simply should apologize to Danny for what she said. They need not to get back together after that or anything. only then shesheShe can be forgived. She has never done that though…

        7. BBCC

          First of all, DID is very much a thing that exists. Amazi-Girl is the alter who broke up with Danny. Therefore, she is the one who owes him an apology for snapping at him. Both Amber and AG have been shitty, but they are not responsible for what the other has done. Amber used the voice they made up to keep people from figuring out her ID to get Sal out of her face before she had an anxiety attack. AG had nothing to do with that because AG wasn’t there.

        8. Fart Captor

          You’re right, she DOES have a mental disorder. Dissociative Identity Disorder to be precise. One that several real life people have been commenting that they have, on this very page, and it’s disrespectful and dehumanizing to talk about them that way.

          You’re also right that Amber should apologize to Danny. At some point. It’s not as if Danny was asking to talk about what happened and she was blowing him off, or she’s refused to apologize. She simply hasn’t done it yet.

          They’ve only even had ONE brief conversation since the breakup, and it even feels very likely that this very conversation they’re having may turn to what happened if nothing interrupts them.

        9. Cerberus

          Mm. *has had DID since at least when I was 5*

          Oh do please go on, that hole isn’t going to get deeper on its own.

        10. Minder

          Dude. Stop. You are arguing with persons that HAVE the disorder you are calling “a mumbojumbo”–it is real, they are real, and this comic is being written in a way that acknowledges this disorder is real. Their words have more weight here than you claiming it’s made up.

    3. BenRG

      In Amber’s defence, that was very much her PTSD talking and driving her actions. I’m wondering if her changing perspective of Sal and of Amazi-Girl may make both her and AG reconsider that decision.

      They may not get back together – Danny would be be forgiven for viewing ‘dumped’ as being forever and not being willing to go beyond ‘friends’ with her.

  32. Gesc

    I feel like Danny has no idea Amber is talking about herself and AG as literally two entities sharing a body. Or he is and it’s being uncharacteristically chill about it?

    Anyway, this is Amber’s opinion on things. I wonder what AG thinks about their err, rooming arrangement.

    1. Liliet

      It probably just now dawned on him. She didn’t really talk about it so clearly before.

  33. Flowers

    watching the singletons be terrified of a very healthy development in a collective is very frustrating. we’re looking at this and seeing good progress while a lot of you are freaking out like you’re expecting surprise ax murders when nobody in that collective has ever even looked at an ax and the violent one is a literal superhero.

    it’s nice to see in the comic but that reaction is why most people like us mostly don’t talk about ourselves with people like you.

    1. BBCC

      While AG has done some very VERY not okay things that deserve to be addressed in treatment (ex. stalking Sal three times, looking for a fight two of those times), this is definitely a positive development – the two of them communicating is an excellent start to them working together and integrating better.

    2. Icalasari

      Flowers, are you saying you’re split personality?

      I’m actually quite fascinated in learning about that some

      1. Icalasari

        Shit DiD, I KNEW I was remembering the wrong term for it. Sorry for any offense

        1. CJ

          I’m not sure about Danny’s look in the last panel.
          Is this shock about what Amber just said (which makes overlooking or misunderstanding her DID nearly impossible) or just irritation that she didn’t answer the question he meant?
          Or, like some of the commenter here, dislike of her phrasing?

        2. CJ

          Sorry, this wasn’t supposed to be a reply.

        3. Halpful

          I read it as awkwardly pointing out a misunderstanding, possibly mixed with some shock and concern as the implications sink in.

    3. Cerberus

      *DID fist-bump of solidarity*

      And I feel like part of the reason for the mixed response is that to us DID folks, it’s been clear for awhile that Amber/AG is a multiple, cause we’ve recognized those experiences. So for us, we saw her going down a bad road and now getting better because there’s more awareness and communication.

      For the non-DID folks, though, it was a lot easier to stay in denial or ignorance because that wasn’t an experience that resonated (or they believed I was reading a lot into nothing). And so this strip where it is unmistakable that she has DID feels like “oh no, she suddenly has DID where before she was just… playing or something”.

      I dunno, I feel the moral of the story is folks need to listen more to marginalized folks saying “dude, this is totally a thing, trust me I have this” more.

      1. Heavensrun

        My understanding of DiD is that a major part of the diagnosis is the presence of memory loss beyond mere forgetfulness, and altered memory states caused by disassociation. As far as I’ve seen, Amber hasn’t exhibited either of those. Nor has she exhibited any signs of confusion or fear about the behavior of her other persona.

        She definitely has problems with disassociation, but I don’t think most mental health professionals would classify her current state as DiD.

        1. SarahSaur

          So like, we are not talking about what a mental health professional would say (Most of whom do not have any actual lived experience with being DID), but rather about very real experiences that people here have.

          So maybe I am misunderstanding you, but I am taking your words to mean that your interpretation of the words of professionals has more credence to you than the experiences of people who are DID.

        2. Crumplepunch

          The question of whether mental health professionals who study a condition with objectivity is more valid than the collective reports of those who self-diagnose is an interesting one.

        3. Crumplepunch

          I missed a “the opinion of” there, durr.

        4. Fart Captor

          Unless those mental health professionals are commenting here themselves, the actual conversation happening involves people who think they’re experts because they read one page of the DSM arguing with people with first hand experience with mental illness, most of whom have done a good deal of research.

        5. Cerberus

          Well, I mean, I’ve only had the condition since at least when I was 5, massively studied my own condition, spoken to various members of my community, and tracked and noted the gaps in research on my community from experts and why (huge part is that folks who are non-integrated to the point of memory lapses are sexier to study and are also the pool of DID individuals in the most need of direct care as that has the ability to most severely impact someone’s life).

          Clearly less worthy than someone’s half-remembered reading of the famously flawed DSM (reminder that the DSM still considers asexuality to be a mental disorder rather than a sexuality for those of you who want to pretend that’s the holy bible of impartial knowledge about psychology) or something they’re sure they heard in a pscyh class once.

          Sorry, I don’t mean to be snippy, but this kind of ignorant invalidation when I’ve spent who knows how long talking about my life experiences in the comment threads based on half-remembered conjectures somewhat bothers me.

          Especially because “I half-remember something from my school days” is something I also encounter a lot regarding my trans identity, where someone wants to pretend that their HS science teacher inaccurately telling them that there are two genders trumps all of the actual research and lived experiences of non-binary individuals.

          And especially as I feel that this “pfft, you’ve only lived this thing” perspective comes up a lot as people want to pretend that people with no connection to a thing are somehow inherently more objective on a subject than the people most likely to know the ins and outs of something intimately because they’ve lived it.

          Especially as it creates a false dichotomy where we are presumed to never be experts on this shit, not just from lived experience, but also research and it reminds me a lot of current ace research, where all they’re doing is asking the current ace community what’s going on so they can slap a “academia seal of approval” on it.

        6. Crumplepunch

          I think you’re reading an attack into what I said where I didn’t mean one. When I said it’s an interesting question I meant exactly that much. I don’t know the answer.

          Personal experience is definitely valuable evidence, but it is evidence that needs to be put in the context of its perspective (I can tell you what it feels like to be depressed, but that’s not the same as understanding the condition).

          On the other hand, studies in this area, as you say, are flawed and incomplete.

        7. Cerberus

          Oh no, sorry, that frustration was mostly directed at Heavensrun’s response.

          I took you as more talking about the general issues in general that come when there are mismatches between “expert” testimony and first-hand accounts.

        8. Pablo360

          People keep talking about “plasma” but there are only three states of matter. I learned that in elementary school. Anyone who believes in “plasma” is therefore stupider than a second-grade science student.

          — what people sound like when they say they “learned in high school” that there are two genders

        9. SarahSaur

          Which, to be clear, I am not calling myself someone who has lived experience with it. I don’t. Most of what I have is the comments section on dumbing of age, which has provided me far more information than any of my student/ametuour attempts to look up official/dsm type information on DID.

          And the information that I have that that I trust that isn’t from this comments section? It is from talking with DID friends who have told me a bit about their experiences.

          I am not saying that there are not dsm type resources that are accurate or what not, but I am saying that as a non-professional that happens to be interested in the human mind that I have found this comment section to be the best resource.

        10. JBento

          Yeeaaaaaaahh… You might not want to tell Cerberus that “according to this stuff I might have heard from other people you didn’t have REAL DID.” Just saying.

        11. Cerberus

          Nah, it’s totally cool to be directly invalidated and dismissed when talking about how marginalized individuals need to be listened to more as we know what we are talking about.

          Especially in a way that attempts to erase decades of personal lived experience.

        12. Leorale

          I’m training to become a professional someday. I won’t be making diagnoses, but if she came into my future-office with this diagnosis already, I’d be confident in it, especially as her experiences are well in line with those of the DID commenters here. (Don’t forget to take the DID people’s opinion into top consideration on this one, as they are lifelong experts on it.)

          For memory in particular, memory lapses could represent the more severe version of what she’s experiencing, and it’s healthier that she hasn’t had those, style of thing.

          Diagnoses are fuzzy, and they are very practical: they’re the best available description of her experience, and the best available guideline for treatment options.

        13. Killjoy

          The mental health field has more than its fair share of people more dedicated to conceptual / philosophical purity, and/or with more than their fair share of passing-judgement-on-others.

          For pete’s sake, there are still paid, professional psychiatrists, psychologists, and therapists who regard Freud, Jung, or Skinner as the “final word” on the field.

          At some point, the only person who’s been in an individual’s head, is that individual, and they’re the only ones who know what they’ve really experienced internally.

        14. Cerberus

          *hugs* Thank you.

        15. BBCC

          Memory loss is a sign of a full split – the alters are not talking, not working together, and (as you note) not sharing memories. Nobody is suggesting Amber and AG have a full split. The best guess seems to be she’s semi-integrated – sharing memories, sort of talking, haven’t quite established an arrangement for working together.

        16. thejeff

          My guess is more “semi-split” than “semi-integrated”, if that’s a thing. There’s no indication that they were worse and have worked their way to more integration. If anything, I’d guess that Amazi-Girl has been more and more split off over the course of the comic, as she’s been given more time in full charge. That’s just a guess though, since we don’t know how they interacted before coming to school and it could largely be a matter of how it was presented to us.

        17. BBCC

          Her dissociation has definitely been getting markedly worse since she beat up Blaine and again after Sal saved her life. I’d not be surprised if they were okay-ish before that.

        18. Dragon_Nataku

          For awhile there I didn’t think Amber had DID, because of the same “but they both remember stuff” thing, but I never said anything about it because, although I have two degrees in psychology and got them in the time where professors literally stated “DID (or multiple personality disorder, as it was called back then) does not exist,” I also know that the DSM used to say that being gay was a psychiatric illness, which is all sorts of wrong.

          We are learning new things about hard sciences every day, so why can’t “softer” sciences like psychology be wrong sometimes and evolve sometimes? Well it is and it does, so personally when comfronted with so many people (and not just in the comments section btw) who have so many different life experiences I can’t help but keep an open mind.

          Like a decade ago I came to terms with the fact that my professors had been wrong about DID not existing, and today I have learned that “DID alters never share memories” is also wrong.

          TL;DR: “Your” understanding is not the be-all and end-all of everything, and sometimes we have to change our minds about stuff when presented with evidence, otherwise that’s terrible science.

        19. Cerberus

          *hugs* Thank you.

        20. Flowers

          there are a lot of memories we can’t access at all and a lot of memories we can access but are incoherent jumbles and they’re all very old and from before we all got together and settled on how to work with each other. we think it’s because they were recorded by somebody very different than any of us and who stored their memories very very differently.

          we suspect this is how other collectives fail to share memories and some other collectives we’ve known had similar experiences and suspicions.

      2. Killjoy

        I was leaving the door open to other possibilities until the recent “sealed it” moment in the comic, but I figured DiD was a strong enough possibility, based on some people saying “That’s just like my experience”, that it wasn’t worth the tension that openly saying “wait for more evidence” would potentially create.

    4. TheKelliestKelly

      I apologize for being one of those people. After I made my earlier comment (which was right after the comic was posted), I went to read discussions on past strips because I really didn’t understand DID and I knew people were talking about their experiences.

      I understand better now and I really appreciate you and everyone else who’ve shared their experiences in spite of the atmosphere being what it is.

      For what it’s worth, I wasn’t concerned about any violence I was worried about Amber having another illness on top of her PTSD. I was too ignorant to realize that Amber’s collective communicating with each other is actually a healthy way of coping with the disorder. If that’s the right way of wording it.

      I deal with anxiety and mood disorders so I just want to apologize again if I’ve contributed to a unfriendly environment.

      1. Cerberus

        *hugs offered*

      2. Halpful

        if you find particularly good comments I’d love a few links; I only started paying attention around april 10th, and this is not the time for an archive binge. 🙂 (heck just reading new comments isn’t sustainable for me; the comic updates just before my bedtime, and sleep deprivation is…. risky. I absolutely need to stop using my eyes at a reasonable time tonight.)

  34. Spaz

    Okay. I missed some days in the comments section when I was working on other things.

    Last thing I remember here was something about baby gays and gaybies, and now I try to hop in tonight and……

    entirely new concepts to try to wrap my head around.

    huh.

    ……..welp, looks like it’s time for Research! Let’s hit the Library, and make sure that Xander picks up the donuts.

  35. Halpful

    It’s such a Pearl reaction, too. ( I’m quite enjoying how much mileage I’m getting out of the Steven Universe metaphors here 🙂

    1. Halpful

      Er, that was supposed to be a reply to Flowers.

  36. localvigiliante

    I am really encouraged to see Amber and AG communicating. And the meatvehicle comment was great. It was a realistic touch.

    1. Cerberus

      Very realistic! It’s really easy to make “meatsack” jokes when you’re a multiple because it’s an easy way to explain that you’ve got all these distinct people sharing one big old piece of meat.

      1. Halpful

        Whoa, I just remembered a DID-like rant from Major Houlihan on MASH. Where she’s telling a guy that she’s all three – iirc a nurse, a Major *and* a woman. I can’t find a quote, but the episode was “stars and stripes”.

  37. Cerberus

    I’ve been crying a lot tonight about how important representation like this is.

    One side effect of that? I’ve mentioned that once I realized I was ace and trans, I stopped talking openly about being DID cause I didn’t want that used against my identity. I let myself be closeted for years over a part of my identity so important it has been with me for the entirety of my life that I have strong memories from.

    Tracking Amber/AG’s story, explaining the resonances I’ve seen? It’s allowed me to be more open again, take the risk of talking about this more openly. I’m even thinking about writing a DID-protagonist story for an anthology call.

    More and more I’m taking the risks to be open outside of just giving my romantic partners fair warning.

    And I guarantee that wouldn’t have been the case without Amber/AG in my life. And that would have been tragic. Cause my DID is a source of bonding with my fiancee who also has DID. It’s allowed me to reach out to other DID folks and feel less alone. It’s allowed me to regain my pride that this is a piece of who I am and not something I should be ashamed of.

    So, Willis, I want to, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

    This really does mean the world to me.

    1. Zaxares

      Could you clarify for me what DID stands for?

      1. Halpful

        *facepalm* you got this far down the comments without noticing any of the other explanations? Dissociative Identity Disorder.

        1. No Name

          Just to say this: if you click the “comments” button under the comic, you start at the bottom. It’s entirely possible this was the first comment Zaxares saw.

        2. Jhon

          If you read the other comments first, you can avoid looking like a fool. (sometimes)

        3. Pablo360

          I try not to call anyone a fool for not knowing something, in most circumstances.

        4. zoelogical

          yeah but there’s a difference between asking for more information about something and asking a question about something that is easily google-able

        5. Zaxares

          Thanks for the answer. By the time I get to reading the comments, there are usually 10+ pages worth of writing, and frankly, not everybody has the time/energy to sit through it all. So I usually just skim the comments near the bottom to see if there’s anything enlightening or informative (as there often is).

      2. StClair

        I can field this one, I think:
        Dissassociative Identity Disorder.

        1. Cerberus

          This.
          Disassociative Identity Disorder.

    2. Spaz

      Damn, Cerb. Every time you say something like this I wish that I could sit you down and just listen to you talk.

      You’re ace, you’re trans, you’re DID…..and that’s just who you are, and not taking into account your history that constantly makes me go “No way, really? All this stuff couldn’t possibly have happened to one person.”

      We all have to settle for your commentary each day, but every time I see something like this I want to buy you a [drink of your choice that may or may not have alcohol] and listen to you talk for hours.

      After the obligatory appropriate gesture of support.

      1. Cerberus

        Aw thanks, it’s funny, I’m pretty sure I’ve made a similar comment as to myself when I was figuring out all my stuff, like, really? I’m this as well? I’m currently in a headspace where it’s like, yeah, okay, let’s see what the next super marginalized identity I turn out to be is.

        So yeah, it’s been weird growing up essentially rocking the more super uncommon traits. Like, I felt so disconnected from so many people cause my experiences were so outside the mainstream of those around me. I’m really glad I’ve found community since and found spaces where I can just be open as me. And it’s also been awesome having a fiancee who is all of those things as well and thus just gets it without having to explain everything.

        1. Halpful

          lol, that sounds familiar. I feel like either I got the sample platter of mental issues, or I’m somehow a delusional hypochondriac with… well, no, the hypochondria hypothesis doesn’t hold up well. It’s just getting kind of silly how many things I can relate to. Ace is one of the few things I’m almost certainly not. 🙂

          It’s really not good for the anxiety, though; I expect to be the exception that wasn’t accounted for because I so often *am*. I can’t afford to trust people who say everything will be okay because that’s been wrong just enough to keep me feeling unsafe and off-balance. I’m finally starting to understand this world well enough to have some sense of safety and reasonableness… but at the same time, I know too much to pretend the risks aren’t there. I’m just learning to accept that the universe is what it is. Learning to dance in the rain. 🙂

        2. Pablo360

          *five years later*

          “Huh, so I’m a mutant, and people hate and fear me? Even more? So that’s a thing.”

      2. Halpful

        What Spaz said. 🙂

    3. ObiKemnebi

      Might I ask whether you figured out the trans or multiple part of yourself/selves first, and how they interact with each other? Is a single alter trans because they don’t match the body, or does your whole collective as a group just kind of fall outside of binary, or something completely different? The primary of our collective is a droid without a natural “form” so I personally usually go with tenderness or unicorn, but others fall elsewhere on the spectrum so it’s pretty confusing to try and label the whole mind. I’m interested to see how it all sort of works for someone else, if you don’t mind sharing?

      1. ObiKemnebi

        Genderless. Sorry, didn’t realize I had to teach my phone a new word…

      2. Cerberus

        I figured out the multiple stuff really early on as it was kind of unavoidable, so like around 5, though if we go by when I first talked about it with other people including introducing people to alters, that’d be around 11 or 12.

        I figured out I was ace when I was 19. I figured out I was trans when I was 23. And I figured out I was non-binary like this year so all of the gender and sexuality stuff was way after the DID stuff.

        For alter genders, all of them ended up being trans, but for two of them that meant trans woman, and for the two others that meant agender, so now I as a whole identify as a demigirl and non-binary to reflect that.

        For alter sexualities, I got lucky, they’re all ace and queer-romantic with one being slightly more aro than the others but not enough for me to consider myself arospec.

        My fiancee was not so lucky and has alters all across various gender identities and sexualities making it really hard for them to pin down their gender and sexuality so they usually settle for “somewhere in the non-binary, somewhere in the biromantic grey-ace lands”.

        1. ObiKemnebi

          That’s cool. Thanks 🙂

  38. Eukie

    That Slipshine advert is going to be a distraction for me the whole week…

  39. DarkoNeko

    Last panel : “kinky”

  40. Joe Covenant

    Part of me is channeling Sally Brown here and screaming,
    “KISS HER, YOU BLOCKHEAD!”

  41. JBento

    Good on you two for coordinating. It’s amazing how Amber gets so much more relaxed about… everything really, as soon as she gets a game going.

    A couple of more strips on this direction and we might just see A/AG apologising to Danny for the “talking to Sal” blowout.

  42. showler

    Completely off topic (and realizing that today’s topic has been relatively serious)….Willis’ Tumblr led to the discover that there is a named Shortpacked character who hasn’t made it over here yet. Beatrice. There are probably reasons why (the big one being that Marcie may have absorbed some of her “character”).

    1. David M Willis

      Beatrice will appear. I know where she lives, so to speak.

      1. JBento

        Shit, man, at least wait until you introduce the characters to start THREATENING them.

      2. BBCC

        BEATRICE IS GONNA BE HERE?

        *Squeeeeeeeee*

  43. Richard

    Weren’t the Batman writers trying to imply that Bruce was DID in the issues leading up to “Bruce Wayne: Murderer?”?

  44. Delicious Taffy

    Does anyone know a non-violent way of getting a bitter, pathetic, narcissistic old alcoholic with “Never My Fault” Syndrome to stop being a dipshit and listen to reason? I’ve tried, my mother’s tried, even my little brother’s tried, and he just keeps being a shitheel. We’re actively seeking a new place to live, because he’s said he wants us to move out, but then takes it back the next morning because “I don’t remember saying that, so you’re a liar.” The thing is, he does remember everything he says, and everyone knows it, because he’s argued about the same shit sober.

    Every single day for the past week, him and my mother have gotten into a heated argument, and every time I listen in, it’s the same fucking thing, like he’s stuck in some kind of pathetic, whiskey-fueled loop. It’s wearing Mom down, and all I want to do when I see him or hear his voice is to punch him, as hard as I can, and just not stop until he’s broken, because this is the same shit she’s had to put up with from every boyfriend since she divorced my stepdad, and I just can’t fucking stand to see her treated like this, anymore.

    But I know if I start a physical fight, or even intervene verbally, it will only escalate the situation to the point the police have to get involved, because that’s what happens. I take it too far, and someone gets hurt. She’s a hard-working woman, and she’s tough as nails, and I respect the hell out of her for what she’s been through raising me and my siblings, but even she has her limits. And when she hits that limit, I step in to take the heat, but it always ends poorly.

    So, I just need to know a way to deal with this situation non-violently, besides playing the long game and waiting until we’re able to find a new place. Because I can’t do nothing, but I can’t do what I always do. I just want to do right by Mom and help her weather through this until we’re out of it.

    1. Reltzik

      I have exactly zero experience with this sort of thing, so don’t take my advice as particularly valuable…

      … but you say, in your last paragraph, that the long game involves “waiting until we’re able to find a new place”. Is that a search that’s ongoing? If so, can you help move it along faster? If not, can you initiate it?

      1. Delicious Taffy

        It’s definitely an ongoing search. We have as many people as possible helping us look for a new place.

    2. zoelogical

      uM. yes. this sounds like a situation that is only ever going to get *better* when you leave.

      there’s no way to make someone listen to you. there’s no way to make someone change their behavior. all you can really do is assert your boundaries and avoid conflict. and from what you’re saying it kind of sounds like this person really wants conflict.

      keep your head down, avoid conflict if at all possible, and get out. you don’t have to prove anything to someone who doesn’t want to hear what you’re saying and can’t even manage to be consistent. like: at this point: what he wants in regards to you and your family does not matter. if you want to be out, that’s enough.

      you can’t control him. you can control you. you can control his access to you. so like: get a new address, and don’t let him know what it is.

      1. Delicious Taffy

        We’re already working on yanking the rug out from under him, in as many ways as possible. This isn’t going to be a clean break, but most of the mess will be on his side of it.

        1. zoelogical

          excellent.

          yeah just…take care of yourself and get out of dodge is the best advice i have to offer. this sounds really awful.

          -offers a punching bag-

        2. Delicious Taffy

          Oh, a punching bag would be so satisfying at times like these. Or maybe one of those dummies they use on Forged in Fire.

        3. zoelogical

          MAN.

          you know what else is great? playdough. you can punch that one-dollar son of a drum as much as you like and it’ll pull itself back together in no time

        4. Cerberus

          What zoelogical said. Keep trying to find a way out, take care of yourself in the meantime, leave temporarily when it’s safe to, even if it’s just to stay for friends for the night or stay at a Denny’s for awhile.

          And the main thing is going to be remembering that you have worth and that all the crap your dad is throwing at you is garbage and not true, no matter how badly your brain wants to try and make that fit.

          Domestic Violence Hotlines are also good for resources and coping stuff as well as people who can potentially meet with you at safe places:
          http://www.thehotline.org/

          Overall, my general advice is to be kind to yourself and remove yourself from shitty situations when it is safe to.

        5. Delicious Taffy

          This is great advice. I have a nitpick, though. He is not my “dad”. He is a man who, for the last couple of years up til this point, was dating my mother. The closest thing to a “dad” I’ve had was my stepdad, who Mom divorced when I was 15, and I only ever referred to him by name. He did alright, but Desert Storm caught up with him and his mental health degraded until he attacked Mom.

          In a biological sense, I suppose a “dad” I could have had was my father, but he’s thankfully been dead for nearly 15 years and I only ever met him as an infant. Since divorcing the Marine, she’s dated a few guys, all of whom have made half-assed attempts at being a father figure to me, and all of whom have shattered any hope of that when they began abusing her. This sad excuse for a man is no different from the rest of them, and he’s just a name on a list to me, now.

          I do not resent your word choice, though. Just thought I’d provide some clarity regarding the concept of “dads” in my mind.

        6. Cerberus

          I’m terribly sorry, that was super rude of me. Thank you very much for the clarification.

        7. Delicious Taffy

          No worries. I’m not upset by it, even if it’s a bit of a hot button.

    3. Li

      I don’t have anything helpful to add but I just want to offer my sympathy. 🙁

  45. Fruit

    Last panel Amber: Calm down there, Satan

    1. Power Stranger

      Amazi-Girl would kick somebody’s ass for that level of villainy!

      1. Delicious Taffy

        Great, now I’m imagining that one scene from Bates Motel, except instead of Norman and Norma, it’s Amber and Amazi-Girl, and instead of Dylan, it’s Danny.

  46. CanadianShinobi

    So, a couple of days ago I posted something completely idiotic regarding Amber. I said that I didn’t know if it was the writing of Amber, or the character of Amber that frustrated me more. And, since I was an idiot and this is the internet, I was rightfully called out on my bullshit. And I would like to do two things: Firstly, apologize to Mr. David Willis for my stupidity; secondly to give a little more insight as to why I think I find Amber frustrating, because maybe then my stupidity can be understood.

    So, first things first. I’m sorry. Frustrating characters (unless poorly written) are a sign of good writing. It demonstrates depth and talent that a creator can present fictional characters and make them relatable. That Mr. Willis has created characters that I and others have invested myself in speaks volumes. So, I am sorry for what was a shortsighted and unproductive comment that did nothing to elaborate on why or how I came to my position.

    Now, on to the explanation. After some serious thought, I realized why Amber, or at least Amber’s situation frustrates me. The frustration stems from her condition not being noticed by someone in a position of authority, or some other adult figure in her life. At least, that I can discern within the comic. I understand this is a fictional universe and the rules of fiction apply more than the rules of reality. But, I also believe in the suspension of disbelief applying to fiction. And Amber’s situation breaks that immersion.

    Perhaps this will be addressed in the future, it certainly seems like things are heading into some form of conflict regarding Amber/Amazi-girl. It may also be something to do with my personality. I’m someone who trusts in experts. I have a very practical mindset. Someone’s in trouble? Get help. But, I have also witnessed some of the ways Dissociative Identity Disorder manifests and it wasn’t exactly subtle, especially untreated. However, my experience and knowledge with it being limited, I will defer to someone who knows better than I. But, I do find it difficult to believe that no one has noticed Amber’s condition aside from her peers.

    There are other things here. Variables and the like that could explain what I’m missing. However, I think I’ll end it here. Yet, once more I want to extend my apologies to Mr. Willis for my rudeness. It might seem excessive, but… well I am Canadian.

    1. JBento

      Much of the issue is that pretty much the only adult in Amber’s life is (was) Blaine, whose only input on her DID was to exacerbate it. Pretty much everyone else in her life is her age, and no-one seems to be in a field that would allow them to detect the signs.

      For me, the REAL break from reality on the A/AG story is that no-one official has looked into the campus vigilante… and then I remember the whole thing has only lasted for a couple of months.

      1. BBCC

        Stacey was there, but she was a single mom working double shifts. If her babysitter ever said anything, she probably didn’t have time or resources to make it work. Couple that with Amber being into role playing and her trauma the robbery (which – her stabbing Sal seems to have caused the split), people might have mistaken it as a way to cope. Especially since the alter we know as AG likely didn’t have a name at the time (as AG only started up as a superhero now and if she’d used the name before, people who knew her – like Ethan and Mike – would have recognized it.)

        Walky has noted the police are searching for AG, but they haven’t found her yet. And the paper’s been up her ass since they confirmed she existed.

      2. trlkly

        I don’t find the lack of police involvement with Amazi-girl a break from reality. It isn’t realistic, I agree. But the comic has set up this idea that the police just are not there.

        In short, there is a hyperreal aspect to the comic, and that manifests at its strongest with Amazi-girl. She is somehow a superhero, and her interactions bring with her the rules of a superhero comic universe.

        In short, it works for me, even if it’s not realistic.

        1. BBCC

          The police are apparently investigating AG, but because of her secret ID it’s not come up in a while. Apparently they’d like to at least question her regarding Toedad.

    2. Cerberus

      It can go unnoticed by authority figures, especially in circumstances like Amber’s where she was already inclined to try and be anonymous and where she had an abusive father denying her access to resources.

      Certainly growing up, I had very similar experiences to Amber/AG and no one in authority ever intervened in any way or sought out professionals. Not teachers, not administration, and definitely not my family and this was despite suicide attempts, many instances of self-injury and cutting, severe emotional swings caused by doing dumb things in trying to handle my DID, and openly telling my closest friends that I had DID (not that I had the words for that at the time, but I was definitely describing it as a multiple system and being very open about experiences) and introducing them to my alters by name.

      Now part of it was on me. Just like Amber/AG, I tried to hide a lot of it. Largely because I was scared of being institutionalized and never let out (One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest fucked me up, as did various movies where the DID character is locked up forever in the “loony bin” to “keep everyone safe”).

      But I was not terribly subtle nonetheless, so yeah, it feels super realistic that no one has noticed or given name to her condition or directed her in the direction of resources (certainly I did all the brunt work of my integration and building a healthy dynamic long before I ever went to my first therapy session). Cause people don’t like to notice things like this and have a lot of baggage.

      For example, look at some of the folks who still deny she has DID, because the idea of DID they have in their head looks like it does in movies and TV.

      1. BBCC

        I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again: DAMN YOU KESEY.

      2. Halpful

        yup. and when ‘authorities’ are involved, it’s very focused on short-term results.

        from some people, “is something wrong?” isn’t support, it’s a threat. which makes it really scary to risk talking to someone who might be supportive.

        and if you thought someone employed by the university would notice… sorry, they don’t. teachers generally have hundreds of students, and even those who pay any attention at all only have time for a handful, generally the ones who speak up. If you’re quiet, only the course selection software knows you exist.

  47. Guairdean Beatha

    I kept expecting her eyes to switch from Amber to Amazi-Girl at some point. Amber’s admission that there’s a definite rift is intriguing.

  48. Power Stranger

    Amber please get help

  49. Power Stranger

    …unrelated to anything else, since I don’t know how else to contact Willis…

    I just noticed that a thread of comments from a couple days ago just kind of disappeared? It was about Ghostbusters. What happened to warrant that getting removed?

    If I broke any rules or whatever I’d rather know, so that I don’t do it again/get banned. I looked over everything in the guidelines up top (the about section) and don’t think I did anything wrong? Just want some clarification I guess, to steady my anxious gay nerves.

    1. JBento

      I didn’t see the discussion in question, but considering the topic, money is in SOMEONE there claiming the movie sucked because it was remade with women and now their childhood was ruined forever and women ruin everything and they shouldn’t be allowed to be in movies except as eye candy and GODS YOU FUCK JUST DON’T WATCH THE FUCKING MOVIE IN THE FIRST PLACE. Ahem. This doesn’t mean necessarily you, note. If Willis deletes a comment, then all replies seem to automatically go along for the ride.

      You might try his twitter for direct communication, or one of his tumblrs. Or he might see your comment. I dunno.

      1. Power Stranger

        I didn’t recall any of that, but maybe it happened since I last checked… three days ago or so? I started the thread, tho, so it’d mean he’d have to have deleted MY comment to specifically, yeah?

        The topic was basically how the humor in the new one is super low brow, in my opinion, because it was really basic poopy fart jokes and stuff. Knowing the people in these comments sections, I don’t think anybody would be complaining about the fact that it’s all chicks.

        He checks these, I think, so I’ll just bank on him replying here. It’s not really a big enough issue to warrant a tweet ya know?

        1. Fart Captor

          The original was low brow as HELL. Jokes about ghost blow jobs and non-consentual sex aren’t exact classy by ANY reasonable standards.

          The non-TV edit of that movie gets really cringey in places if you watch it today.

          I myself forgot about some of those “jokes” until recently, because that stuff wouldn’t have registered when I saw it as a kid and it’s been years since I’ve watched it, but it makes complaints about the NEW one being low brow really ring hollow.

        2. Knayt

          It depends on how the original is positioned – “the jokes in the new one are too low brow; they changed it now it sucks” is a terrible position. “Ghostbusters sucked from the beginning at least partially due to the low brow humor and that tradition was carried through” is pretty reasonable.

        3. Power Stranger

          I’m referring SPECIFICALLY to fart jokes, queef jokes, “slime in my crack” jokes, etc etc etc

          That and Patty being… the most stereotype.

          That’s what I mean by low brow. Potty humor. IMMATURE humor, I guess is the better term.

        4. Fart Captor

          Did they joke about sex with an unconscious woman? Because if queefs make you uncomfortable and that does not, the I’m fairly sure we’ve determined why your thread was deleted.

        5. Li

          This completely — and I mean in what world are ghost blowjobs not “immature humor”.

          I liked the original movie, but it was Not That Good.

        6. Power Stranger

          When did I say I was made uncomfortable by the queefs? I queef, you queef, everybody queefs. There’s even a book about it.

          From a standpoint of COMEDY, I think fart jokes are very LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR. There’s a difference between one joke that’s in poor taste (the unconcsious thing (THIS ISN’T ME SAYING THAT IT’S OKAY OR TRYING TO MAKE EXCUSES FOR IT, OR EVEN SAYING IT’S PARTICULARLY FUNNY)) and a movie of nothing but childish humor that no sane adult should find funny.

          I’m allowed to not think one joke that’s in poor taste doesn’t make the entire original film irredeemable, you know? MOST of the jokes in the original film are fucking gold, and they’re very subtle, dry, and smart, as opposed to the ENTIRETY of the new movie, which didn’t make me chuckle once (except the Dan Akroyd cameo, which was nice).

          Like, I hope you at least see my viewpoint?

          IN ADDITION, that’s still not a great reason to remove a thread? Why should my opinions on what’s funny and what’s not mean I get my voice silenced? That’s not… fair? I guess? I love this comic and wanna keep discussing it with other fans, but not if I’m in constant fear that a “wrong” opinion will get me kicked…

        7. Fart Captor

          You can still enjoy the original Ghostbusters movie. The problematic nature of some of it’s jokes doesn’t prevent that. I still think its a good movie.

          I find the way you are so fucking insistent that (1) fart jokes are somehow even more awful than jokes sexual assault, and (2) you think it’s so damn important to tell everyone how you think the new movie sucked.

          Maybe stick to actually discussing the comic instead of shitting on something other people enjoy?

        8. Power Stranger

          1) I don’t think that any type of humor is intrinsically worse than any other type of humor. Every type of joke has a place and a context where, in the right hands, it can be funny. Humor’s subjective. It’s not that 1 fart joke > 1 sexual assault joke, it’s that a movie entirely composed fart jokes, loud black woman jokes, and “rember the original movie?” jokes that I don’t find funny isn’t a movie I have much respect for, especially since it’s a remake of and continually makes references within itself to a better film with the same premise.

          2) I didn’t think it was important. The original comment was just an offhand jab at it, I didn’t think it’d be anything inflammatory. The reason I’m still talking about this is because the thread got removed, and I wanted to ask why. I legitimately don’t care if people enjoy the movie (though I do care if they say me not thinking one joke in bad taste in the original film is terrible means my opinions are invalidated…), I care that, for some reason I’m not aware of, I now have to worry that anything I say can be removed without warning, for not even breaking a rule, but for having an opinion that isn’t even about anything really controversial.

          I would completely understand, if, say, my problem that I’d expressed with the film was “BLUR HURR WOMEN ARE BAD, MEN ARE THE ONLY FUNNY FOLK”. That’s an opinion that’s actually harmful, and has the potential to start shit and make people genuinely upset. If it was that or something similar, I’d completely agree that Willis had good reasons for deleting it.

          Instead, however, all I said was “eh I’m not crazy about the fart jokes”, and I got deleted for it. All I asked was why that lead to the comments’ deletion.

        9. David M Willis

          You insulted me as a person and put a strikethrough across it, as if that doesn’t make it even more obnoxious. Your problem is that you were being not only an asshole, but a precious asshole. That your comments were increasingly about how rape is “highbrow humor” was a bonus.

          I REALLY DON’T WANT BANDWIDTH I PAY FOR TO BE USED DEBATING WHETHER RAPE OR FARTS ARE FUNNIER

          If you want to be banned for real instead of just having your comments deleted, by all means, keep flooding this page with your outrage.

  50. Tenn

    Panel 2-6, I’m Danny.

    Also, Sal spent the rest of the day going around campus, yelling “Hey! Where’d ya go?”

  51. FactsMatter

    Ok, breaking comment silence to ask people to please stop spreading misinformation about DID! I also have professionally diagnosed DID and “research” DID not just through casual internet searches but also as in I’m working towards researching trauma and dissociation as a professional. Yes, DID does require clinically significant amnesia to be diagnosed. You can keep the DID diagnosis if you previously experienced time loss / black outs but became increasingly co-conscious as you healed (which may be what Cerberus is trying to reference above?), but if you never had amnesia associated with switches, the diagnosis you will / should get is OSDD-1 (other specified dissociative disorder subtype 1; this used to be called DDNOS-1) according to the DSM-5 and most actual clinicians.

    The distinction between DID and OSDD-1 is also supported by DID researchers such as Paul F. Dell (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/7247074_A_New_Model_of_Dissociative_Identity_Disorder). His model of DID informed his creation of the Multidimensional Inventory of Dissociation, one of the gold star diagnostic tools for DID; amnesia is required for both this tool and for the other gold star diagnostic tool, the SCID-D. This overview of DID (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/262025048_Dissociative_identity_disorder_An_empirical_overview) which was authored by 7 different experts (including well known experts such as Dorahy, Brand, and Sar), states that “identity alteration” and “amnesia” are the two core symptoms of DID and are what differentiate DID from other disorders, DDNOS included. As well, this model is supported by organizations such as Sidran (http://www.sidran.org/resources/glossary/) and the ISST-D (http://www.isst-d.org/default.asp?contentID=76#typesdd).

    I have to say, I’m actually really worried about the idea of Amber being said to have DID or even OSDD-1 for exactly this reason. I don’t want the disorder(s) to be misportrayed and for this to become a breeding ground for misinformation. DID is already seen as enough of a joke. It doesn’t need to be portrayed yet again as comparable to having an alter ego or being confused about your identity. There are enough superhero stories where someone’s alter ego is ‘*gasp!* actually their alter!’ already. Based on what we’ve seen so far, I don’t trust that this comic won’t portray a similar case.

    Having Amber already knowing of and communicating with “Amazigirl” already makes her experience drastically different from that of most individuals with DID, who require professional help to become aware of or work with their / our parts. As well, the average number of alters is 13-15. In reality, systems of 2 are extremely rare. Most systems have one or more traumatized child parts. Most systems have a host of comorbid conditions beyond even PTSD (depression, eating disorders, anxiety disorders, BPD, etc). Most importantly, the vast majority of systems are not violent. Showing someone with DID as a masked vigilante who can’t always control their violent tendencies is not only inaccurate, it’s potentially harmful to perceptions and acceptance of actual individuals with DID.

    Finally, alters in DID are generally far more complex than has been portrayed here. Alters for individuals with DID (and some with OSDD-1) often have not only their own names but also their own ages, genders, sexualities, preferences, opinions, abilities, and even reactions to medications. Less differentiated parts are associated more with OSDD-1. For example, someone with OSDD-1 may feel like they have multiple modes of being or are fragmented. They may experience their alters as different versions of themself, themself at different ages, or as parts of themself that they can’t otherwise access. Even then, it’s almost always more than an even split. I’m really concerned about this being yet another case of “a superhero has an alter who’s like them except more aggressive. Also, there’s no amnesia in sight, but lol who cares about erasing people with OSDD-1, DID is a much shinier label!”

    (And yes, it is extremely hypocritical to act like DID research ignores people who don’t experience amnesia while completely erasing those who have OSDD-1, most of whom don’t experience amnesia. OSDD-1 is a valid diagnosis and a valid way to experience multiplicity. Acting as if it’s lesser than DID or like it doesn’t even exist separately from DID is not okay.)

    Also, to blanket respond to some of the comments here, yes, alters absolutely do need to take responsibility for each others’ actions! Even if Amizigirl is an alter, it’s still absolutely Amber’s responsibility to clean up her messes and apologize for the harm that she causes. That’s easily one of the most important things you actually learn early on after being diagnosed with DID. DID, like other mental disorders, is an explanation, not an excuse. If an alter can’t or won’t solve their own problems, it’s on the rest of the system to do so. There’s one body, one brain, and one legal identity no matter how separate you view alters as being. Especially if you don’t have any amnesia for your alters’ activities, you have absolutely no excuses for not doing everything that you can to keep them from causing harm and to mitigate any harm that they do cause.

    Maybe the comic will portray all of this accurately or at least acknowledge it. I really hope it will! But I’m afraid that even if it does, the damage from the comments will already be done. People commenting that they view this comment section as a good place to learn about DID really, really worry me, especially because several of the commentors you all respect the most can’t even spell dissociation right!

    Again, I’m saying all of this as someone with DID who’s done actual (lit review) research on DID and who’s working towards actual (published) research on trauma and dissociation. I’ve also been in multiple (pun not intended) DID/OSDD-1 communities over the years. I’m not fully integrated, but I’m usually aware of my alters’ activities and only rarely lose time (though my memory for my childhood is almost nonexistent and my autobiographical memory is as a general rule only slightly better than nonexistent). I’m speaking as someone who respects actual facts about a disorder and as someone who’s tired of their disorder being horribly misrepresented. I’m not trying to attack anyone, I’m just begging people to think twice before taking some of the things being said here at face value, especially when those things contradict actual DID research, or before taking Amber/Amizigirl as in any way a typical presentation of DID.

    (Because this was a really harsh first comment, I want to at least end this by saying that this is a really entertaining comic! It’s just because this is such a well done comic in general that I really don’t want to see this screwed up.)

    1. Cerberus

      http://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/problems.html

      “Finally, one might question the distinction between primary, secondary, and tertiary structural dissociation. Consider the distinction between OSDD-1 and DID. Is the distinction solely related to the number and types of parts present (as defined by the theory of structural dissociation) or does it relate to differentiation and amnesia (as defined by the DSM-5)? If all that matters is whether or not there are one or more EP and one or more ANP, OSDD-1 and DID do not fit neatly within their designated categories. An individual who would fit the clinical criteria for OSDD-1 due to a lack of amnesia between their alters or a lack of sufficiently differentiated alters could be labeled DID by the theory of structural dissociation if their alters included two or more ANP. Conversely, an individual who would fit the clinical criteria for DID due to amnesia between two or more sufficiently differentiated alters could be labeled OSDD-1 by the theory of structural dissociation if the individual had only multiple ANP, multiple ANP and one EP, or one ANP and any number of EP. However, if the presence or absence of amnesia is what differentiates OSDD-1 from DID, problems arise when EP for those with PTSD, C-PTSD, or BPD can fully take control of the individual in a manner that cases the ANP to black out and lose time. A solution is to define structural dissociation solely by the number of ANP and EP and accept that OSDD-1 and DID can represent either secondary or tertiary structural dissociation depending on the individual.”

      Like, you know as well as I that the OSDD-1/DID separation is one heavily debated as to validity or meaning within both the psychological community as well as the DID community especially as the edge cases show that some of the distinctions become just-so separations to preserve DSM labeling rather than something that shows distinctive separation in meaningful fashion. Which is a large part of why OSDD-1 already broke apart into a and b and why a good large movement considers OSDD-1 a sub-specification of DID or otherwise considered part of the catch-all terminology.

      This is especially worth keeping in mind when compared to issues other “catch-all” edge case DSM listings have run into where treatment protocols become unhelpful and frequently end up having to follow the treatment protocol of a condition that the edge case was designed to try and separate out because of established DSM protocol.

      You’re not the only one who’s done years of research on this topic.

      Oh, by the way, there’s this in the first article you linked:
      “Amnesia is the most frequently reported dissociative symptom of DID”

      Not required, most common. The article you cited goes on to note that and to note the difficulties in using that as a universal marker that should be treated as required.

      Which makes sense as that fits evolving theory on DID and the acknowledgment that the limitations of the DSM are proving inadequate to the population, especially with regards to members of the DID population who are stabilized/integrated.

      1. BBCC

        Also, the DSM is made by mortal men, not, like, gods from on high. Same reason why their personality disorder axes tend to be considered woefully inadequate by a lot of personality psychologists, especially since they don’t recognize a lot of them.

        1. BBCC

          Also out of curiosity, what do ANP and EP stand for?

        2. Cerberus

          EP – emotional parts (defined as any collection of dissociated materials that focuses on emotion, memory, or sensation, tend to be more likely to be traumatic or disconnected in moments)
          ANP – apparently normal parts (defined as present-oriented and grounded parts of the individual that take over more of the heavy lifting of day-to-day functioning)

          It’s not universally used.

          Did I mention that the state of research, especially outside amnesiac non-integrated individuals with DID is something of a mess? Cause yeah, the field is a goddamn clusterfuck at times.

        3. Cerberus

          Yup. There’s a lot wrong with the DSM and so I’m not a big fan of modes of psychology that treat it as a flawless document to the point where we should ignore best practice or community experience.

          Like, among many other things, the DSM STILL considers asexuality to be a mental disorder (hypoactive sexual desire disorder) which has left a lot of psychological researchers who want to be DSM-inclusive in a fuckton of a bind because it becomes clear really fast that holding on to HSDD is immensely fucked up.

          Other big DSM problem? Well, transgender stuff. Like, yeah, things have been steadily improving, but dedicated transphobes still hold a lot of sway, including in the labeling of paraphilias which is why scum-sucking piece of shit Blanchard and his fucking “autogynephilia” bullshit STILL has a place in the DSM-V under the listing for Transvestic Fetishism.

          So yeah, I’m gonna go with best practices and take the holy word of the DSM with a wee bit of fucking salt given the amount of hate it has consistently had for both my gender and sexuality.

          Sorry to be salty about this, but, like… yeah.

        4. Cerberus

          http://www.ifge.org/?q=dsm-5/302.3_transvestic_fetishism

          For my receipts.

        5. BBCC

          Yeah, the DSM is a good thing, but how about we go with DSM + best practice and community + something for personality disorders because holy shit is the DSM awful at them. I’m told the MCMI is good.

        6. House

          FactsMatter pretty much addressed every other point I was going to bring up, so I’m going to focus on the DSM arguments you’re making here. Because your claim that the DSM considers asexuality to be a mental illness is flat out wrong. There’s also trans specific arguments being made that I want to expand on a bit. FactsMatter addressed that too, but not in-depth.

          Disclaimer: I’m responding to this as someone diagnosed with DID and whose system identifies as nonbinary as a whole. GID diagnosis, the whole shebang. We also used to ID as ace before coming to terms with the differences between hyposexuality and asexuality.

          So your first point I want to address is the claim that hypoactive sexual desire disorder (which is technically split into two separate diagnoses, female sexual interest/arousal disorder and male hypoactive sexual desire disorder) categorizes asexuality as a mental illness. I’m sorry to burst your bubble, but it doesn’t. Both diagnoses require a clinically significant level of distress regarding their symptoms. In other words, the client has to feel like the lack of arousal/desire is a problem that needs treatment. The DSM-5 actually specifically states that “[i]f a lifelong lack of sexual desire is better explained by one’s self-identification as ‘asexual,’ then a diagnosis of female sexual interest/arousal disorder would not be made” (p. 434). Telling people that asexuality is considered a mental illness according to the DSM, when the DSM specifically excludes it as a cause for hyposexuality, is misleading, intellectually dishonest, and an unnecessary scare tactic.

          Why am I pointing this out? Because hyposexuality, just like hypersexuality, is one of many possible responses to trauma. The very same thing that causes DID and OSDD-1. In fact, such misinformation is a large part of why even though I’ve been trying to figure out my sexuality since I was a teen, I remained completely unaware that my lack of sex drive was connected to the trauma that caused my DID. Which meant that it went untreated for over a decade because I bought into the idea that there was nothing wrong with it. For me, there was. Hyposexuality is a legit mental health diagnosis that can interfere with a person’s ability to maintain healthy relationships, whether they be romantic or sexual. Disregarding it feeds into the false impression that the field of psychology is trying to turn life experiences into clinical diagnoses. It does a disservice to psychologists who are genuinely trying to be supportive of the LGBT community and to people who are hyposexual.

          Second. When FactsMatter mentioned that people can’t and shouldn’t pick DID and OSDD-1 as an identity like they can with various gender identities or sexual orientations, they are not suggesting that literally anyone can claim to be part of the LGBT community even if they’re not. What they mean is that DID, OSDD-1, (C-)PTSD, and BPD are clearly defined concepts with years of research to support their diagnostic criteria. They are not abstract concepts. Like many physical health conditions, these disorders are paired with a variety of evidence-based diagnostic tests in order to ensure the most accurate diagnosis possible. Figuring out one’s sexual orientation or gender identity doesn’t go through this process. They’re incredibly confusing concepts to navigate, are constantly expanding with new or newly defined identities, and there’s no objective way to verify which one fits the person best. It involves a lot of trial and error. They are social constructs with no clear marker, whereas there’s actual neurological differences between the four mentioned disorders. Thanks to decades of research, scientists have been able to determine differences in brain structure that help to differentiate between these disorders even though their experiences can easily be confused for each other. Those neurological differences aren’t diagnostic, but as the field of psychology grows, it’s very possible that they will be in the future as we learn more about the conditions.

          Whether you intend to or not, you really are coming off as comparing these concepts. They don’t compare. Not at all. I’m not even sure I’d call these disorders a spectrum either. Dissociation as a symptom? Yeah, that’s definitely a spectrum, one that includes naturally occurring dissociation as a defense mechanism that may not even be pathological. But conditions like DID, OSDD-1, (C-)PTSD, and BPD are able to be clearly differentiated from each other. A person’s symptoms may make the diagnosis a bit less clear at first, because the four conditions share many different symptoms or have symptoms that can be mistaken for each other, but that doesn’t mean that it’s a spectrum. It just means that the individual and their mental health professional need to take a deeper look at their symptoms and figure out more about how they relate to other symptoms in a given diagnosis. We see the same problem happening with many physical health conditions that share symptoms or have symptoms that are easily misinterpreted at first glance. Border cases call for more careful and more closely analyzed testing, not disregarding the defined differences between diagnoses.

      2. FactsMatter

        So the day finally came. Someone quoted [b]my own website[/b] while trying to argue against me. I don’t know whether to laugh or throw up my hands in exasperation.

        Hart, Nijenhuis, and Steele don’t see the contradiction that I pointed out because they fully endorse (or at least try really hard to pretend like they endorse) that everyone with DID has multiple ANP and that ANP are always amnesiac to each other. I clearly disagree with that, hence why I wrote what I did on my website which you are now quoting. In any case, structural dissociation is an origin theory first and foremost. For clinical presentation, one turns to other research… such as Dell’s research, which you clearly skimmed at best.

        “Oh, by the way, there’s this in the first article you linked:
        “Amnesia is the most frequently reported dissociative symptom of DID”
        Not required, most common. The article you cited goes on to note that and to note the difficulties in using that as a universal marker that should be treated as required.”

        Go down to Box 1 on page 10, which most clearly shows Dell’s proposed criteria for DID and which is the basis for the MID. Note criteria C: “evidence of fully dissociated intrusions of another self-state (ie, amnesia), as evidenced by either [clinician observed amnesia] or [self reports of recurrent amnesia.]” Convenient, how you’re ignoring that. You’re also ignoring statements such as “DID has two major clusters of dissociative phenomena… switching from one personality to another with concomitant amnesia.” Dell’s criticism is of how the DSM-IV-TR described the amnesia of DID, not of the requirement for amnesia; he, too, believes that DID requires amnesia, he just believes that it requires partial dissociative intrusions in addition to amnesia. Note as well how the article mentions that the MID criteria can discriminate reliably between DID and DDNOS.

        I’m not relying on the DSM, hence why I linked you to actual research from experts in the field. You, meanwhile, seem to be lacking in academic sources supporting your position.

        As for there not always being a clear differentiation between DID and OSDD-1, that doesn’t give you the right to erase the latter. Some cases of OSDD-1 are very clear cut. I’ve met such individuals in person. I’ve met such individuals through DID/OSDD-1 communities. My therapist has talked about having clients like that. I’ve read blogs and forum posts by people like that. Many of these individuals with OSDD-1 can’t relate at all to some of the most commonly discussed experiences of DID, such as distinct alters and memory issues (even outside of dissociative amnesia between parts). Why advocate to collapse our experiences and so erase those differences?

        I’ve never come across a professional seriously suggesting to collapse all cases of DID and OSDD-1 under the same label. The closest I’ve come has been seeing the terms “partial DID,” “almost DID,” or “minor DID” for OSDD-1, but I’ve never met anyone with OSDD-1 who actually preferred those terms, and for good reason. Those sound far more dismissive than just accepting that people with OSDD-1 have slightly different experiences than those of us with DID. Different, not lesser, like such terms suggest. Different, not identical, like ignoring the need for different labels entirely suggests.

        DID and OSDD-1 reside on a spectrum. It can be said that not all individuals with DID/OSDD-1 have amnesia associated with their identities. It cannot be said that not all individuals with DID have amnesia associated with their identities.

        Also, you blatantly ignored the rest of my points.

        1. Cerberus

          That’s your site? That’s really really cool! I love your myths page and I think it’s so so important to the community! *offers giant awesome awe-struck hugs*

          And yes, I read the article in question. Yes, Box 1 includes that as a proposed criteria, but, like there’s all of this:

          “Only 2 of the 13 dissociative symptoms in Table 1 are strongly includedin the DSM-IV-TR diagnostic criteria for DID: amnesia and objective signs of self-alteration.”

          “The ‘‘take-home message’’ is that there is a large difference between theempirical literature’s account of the dissociative phenomena of DID andthe DSM-IV’s account of the dissociative phenomena of DID.”

          “DID has two major clusters of dissociative phenomena, only one ofwhich is described by DSM-IV: switching from one personality to anotherwith concomitant amnesia. This cluster of dissociative phenomena is, infact, identical to the DSM-IV model of DID . The second cluster of dissocia-tive phenomena in DID is intrusions into executive functioning and sense ofself by alter personalities.”

          “The first cluster of dissociative phenomena in DIDdswitching from onepersonality to another with concomitant amnesiadis known almost univer-sally, even by the general public. Conversely, the second cluster of dissocia-tive phenomena in DIDdintrusion into executive functioning and sense ofself by alter personalitiesdis largely unknown.”

          “According to the subjective/phenomenological model ofpathological dissociation, the phenomena of pathological dissociation arerecurrent, jarring intrusions into executive functioning and sense of self byself-states or alter personalities. Such dissociative phenomena are startling,alien invasions of one’s mind, functioning, and experience. These intrusionsare always confusing [65–67] and often frightening. They frequently causepersons who are dissociative to fear for their sanity.”

          “Thus, as predicted, patients who have DID recurrently undergoan array of consciously experienced dissociative intrusions into their execu-tive functioning and sense of self.”

          And especially:
          “A major shortcoming of the DSM-IV is encountered here. DSM-IV’sclassic picture of DID embraces full dissociation (ie, amnesia), but omitspartial dissociation. This omission is a problem because incidents of partialdissociation are vastly more common than incidents of switching-accompa-nied-by-amnesia”

          Like I get that his diagnostic model incorporates that as an add-on, but that feels like it is still making the same mistake he critiques which is that it prioritizes full dissociation over partial dissociation and his work is what prompted so many other individuals to look more closely at partial dissociation especially with regards to modification of integration modeling.

          And yeah, I totally agree OSDD-1 and DID are totally part of a larger spectrum and I 100% validate OSDD-1 individuals and their right to their diagnoses in a way that does not imply they are a lesser form of DID.

          If I am coming across as erasing OSDD-1 individuals in my statements I apologize.

          But here’s my perspective specific to coming from a transgender/queer/ace-spec perspective and that’s external hard line divisions to spectrum experiences runs into significant problems. And this is especially true of things like psychological disorders where diagnosis and treatment can get heavily personalized.

          And here’s the thing. I do not experience full dissociation (amnesia). It’s possible I never did. I dunno, I’ve been at least partially integrated (partially dissociated) for a REALLY long time. But I’ve consistently received a DID diagnosis especially with regards to those Schneiderian first-rank symptoms. And especially with regards to the possession cluster of alter hijacking while everyone gets to go for one of the most terrifying joyrides of my life. And I’ve met a lot of folks who’ve had similar experiences including my fiancee.

          You may argue my diagnosis is inaccurate with regards to your model. And that is fair, but I’m going with what my care professionals have given me as official diagnosis and my experiences in my sector of the community, especially post-integration community where partial dissociation in healthier more cooperative manner is fairly common.

          And that’s what I can speak to.

          And like I know I’m hardcore disagreeing with you on certain points, but can I just take a second and just fangirl squee at you being behind the did-research.org site? Because holy shit! You’re a fucking rockstar and I love everything you’ve done for the community!

        2. FactsMatter

          Thank you! Yes, it’s my site and precious baby, ahah. I’m always really, really glad to see people appreciating it, having it quoted like that was just surreal on a lot of levels!

          I maintain that all of those quotes are trying to highlight that partial dissociative intrusions need to be paid attention to in addition to the two most well known symptoms of switching and amnesia. I don’t think acknowledging the main two as well are mistakes, I just think more attention needs to be paid to other symptoms as well.

          The way that I understand it is that partial intrusions are seen in all structurally dissociated states. Partially dissociated intrusions often indicate EP intrusions and can be seen in PTSD, C-PTSD, and BPD as well to varying degrees (even if in different ways than they manifest in DID). Partially dissociated intrusions start indicating OSDD-1 after a certain number of them are met (judging based off of how the MID is scored; I can try to explain further if needed, as I own a scoring spreadsheet). Even more partially dissociated intrusions and amnesia indicates DID. So partially dissociated intrusions are important to structural dissociation as a whole, but amnesia is important to DID specifically, if that makes sense.

          I do really appreciate you explicitly validating OSDD-1.

          Regarding treatment, treatment is largely the same for both disorders. If you follow the ISST-D guidelines, it’s very trauma focused, and alters are to be dealt with (for lack of a better phrase) according to individuals’ needs. OSDD-1 and DID aren’t differentiated for treatment purposes so much as they are for helping clinicians and the actual individuals to understand how their symptoms are most likely to present and be experienced. It’s also vital for research purposes because DID tends to have more researchable differences (though I personally would really like to see more studies comparing DID to OSDD-1 to PTSD to BPD to normal controls).

          I really want to stress again that I absolutely do not mean to argue anyone’s actual diagnosis, and I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear about that.

        3. Cerberus

          Your site is the bomb! Sorry for the surreal moment and I see your perspective on the matter.

          Like, I guess it almost feels like your argument is similar to asexuality versus general ace-spec stuff, where both experience very shared acephobic violence and erasure, but asexuality as a specific orientation rather than an umbrella term has the added factor of never experiencing sexual attraction period.

          I dunno, I might be massively misinterpreting you.

          Question, though. It feels like there’s a heavy spectrum aspect to this, so what would you recommend as an umbrella term kind of like all the non-binary identities are part of the non-binary umbrella term, all the transgender identities are under the transgender umbrella term, all the ace-aro-spec stuff under ace-aro-spec, and so on…?

          Like would it be dissociative-spec? As I feel like just doing DID/OSDD-1 is just begging for future issues with edge-case stuff or expanded definitions.

        4. FactsMatter

          I usually just use DID/OSDD-1 and could change wording if needed. Other than that, there’s the much more clinical “individuals with structurally dissociated parts.” Another option is just “individuals (/people) with alters” or, if you’re being more colloquial, “systems.” I usually use DID/OSDD-1 for more academic discussions and systems otherwise. (“Dissociative systems” for Tumblr, but that’s a whole other can of worms that I refuse to open here!)

    2. ZombieFlamingo

      Thanks for speaking up. I’ve made a lot of similar comments elsewhere in the past, and it makes me feel better that I’m not the only one hoping Amber doesn’t officially get diagnosed with DID. My boyfriend only has one alter, but dealing with him is a handful on its own. It is stressful and exhausting at times. His alter occasionally sneaks to the front and decides to be rude, but we’re on better terms now. And yet it’s still almost like being in a room with a stranger.

      There is way more to DID than Amber’s stuff. I too feel like she uses Amazi-Girl as an excuse to avoid responsibility and that people with mental disorders shouldn’t be consistently shown as violent.

      Even Amber knows she’s not completely telling the truth. She has put on the mask as a coping mechanism for dealing with Sal, and yet she has also taken off the mask as a coping mechanism for dealing with Sal.

      Alters are designed to protect the main person. Amazi-Girl, if she truly were a different person, would protect Amber from her panic attacks around Sal. She would take over and remove her from the situation, not intentionally take off the mask and switch back so she can deal with the panic attack on her own.

      Even Amber doesn’t know which one of them broke up with Danny. I think there are a lot of things going on with Amber, but if DID is one of them, I’ll be very surprised.

      Amazi-Girl is essentially a hobby. When you’re angry, you can go make art or go punch a punching bag or write or go shopping. They make you feel better. Amber has inherited some tendencies from her father (as Mike noted quite some time ago), and being a hero allows her to get all of her issues off her chest and into fighting crime.

      Being Amazi-Girl is not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s almost certainly not DID. Dissociation isn’t always having actual alters.

      1. Li

        You’re speaking directly over the lived experiences of other people with DID, other people who have been professionally diagnosed with DID, and who find Amber 100% relatable, on the basis that your boyfriend has DID, and it makes you uncomfortable. To be blunt, you are being rude.

        You’re also speaking, inexplicably, _after_ Cerberus pointed out that the seemingly-unironically-named FactsMatter’s own source disagrees on amnesia being a requirement.

        1. ZombieFlamingo

          I’m not saying that it makes me uncomfortable. I’m saying it’s not clear-cut and certainly not all fun and games.

          Amber seems to be using Amazi-Girl as a hobby. She enjoys it. Does anyone with DID enjoy it? (Asking as a serious question, because all the people I have talked to and studied have had varying levels of distress because of their DID.)

          FactsMatter talked about a LOT of other important points. Saying that one singular point is enough to dismantle an argument is not constructive.

          Sorry for coming off as rude. I’m simply contributing what I’ve experienced and seen.

          My points are relative to what we have seen canonically in the comic. Amber’s situation changes by the second. Her DID–if it is DID–is inconsistent with itself.

        2. Cerberus

          Hmm, interesting question.

          I dunno if I honestly could say whether I enjoy it or not per se. Like, it’s just been what I’ve had since a very early age, so there was no really point to enjoy it or not and certainly it’s been at points highly distressing (as has been shown for Amber/AG) and downright dangerous for myself. It’s certainly severely impacted my life and marked it as decidedly non-normative.

          I dunno, I guess my current perspective on my diagnosis and condition is probably similar to some forms of disability activists. Like, it’s what I’ve always known and that’s sort of defined me to a degree and things are more or less in a really good space with regards to it so like if a magic fairy offered to insta-cure it, I don’t think I’d take it. Cause the alters that make me up are well… me, they’ve been a part of me so long that I don’t know if I’d be the same person without them.

          And I’ve been able to make lemonade out of the lemons of it at times, using aspects of the alters or dissociation to handle extreme stressors and compartmentalize hell. And at times, just like Amber and AG find their ways to make fun, my alters have their fun as well, their activities that bring them joy, that energize them.

          Maybe I’m over-reading into it, but I see in Amber/AG someone like me, making the best of what they’ve got and trying to integrate that more harmoniously and make something stable that works. And that’s something that deeply speaks for me.

          Another person with DID would have wildly different answers on this, I’m sure, so I can really only speak to my own life experiences on this.

        3. ZombieFlamingo

          I appreciate your thoughtful response! Since this subject is so close to you and so sensitive for you, I know it must be tough to talk about on here.

          It’s interesting to read about your experiences in this sense! I get what you mean about making lemonade–I’ve always struggled with my OCD, but I realized when I started college that I could use it for good! I’ve been able to turn a profit from editing for people. I can funnel my OCD into helping with writing, and especially punctuation that no one else can see as well as I do.

          Still absorbing everything you wrote, so I’m sorry I don’t have much more to say in response. You’re the person who keeps getting brought up when it comes to this subject, so I appreciate hearing from you directly on the matter.

        4. Cerberus

          Yeah, there’s… satisfaction? I guess would be the right word, in taking something like a mental disorder and finding ways to use that positively in ways that neurotypical people would not.

          I dunno, maybe that’s just making lemonade out of lemons, but I dunno, in some ways it feels like having a non-normative gender identity or sexuality. Like, it’s a part of me. It’ll always be a part of me and it feels worth taking pride and finding the strength in that.

          I dunno, that might be a very tumblr thing of me to do, that whole mental health pride thing, but especially with my DID, it’s something I just have and will always have and at this point, I’ve got a fair few years of everything being more or less integrated and cooperative and stable, so it’s like, I might as well take pride in it because it’s not like things are super scary anymore and it’s not like this is a thing that will ever not be a part of me.

          And thanks for listening.

        5. Fart Captor

          I think there’s anything wrong with you thinking Amber doesn’t have DID, or saying so. Though I’m slightly irked by the “it’s certainly not DID” bit at the end, what with Cerberus on this page saying how she’s convinced Amber has DID and having that representation means a lot to her. I think that may have been what Li was reacting to as well (maybe not that exact sentence, but the tone)

          I disagree with Amazi-Girl being just a hobby though. The costume and the crime-fighting are a hobby (and she does enjoy those), but we’ve seen her be Amazi-Girl without the mask, and be Amber with it. It may not always have been so (or originally written as such), but it definitely feels like it’s not an act to me, particularly in Amber’s last several appearances.

        6. ZombieFlamingo

          You’re right that I probably shouldn’t have said “certainly not,” but it’s just something I feel quite certain about, just because it seems to fall so far from every good explanation of DID that I’ve ever seen, after studying it and after seeing it and letting it cause so much pain in my life.

          The other guy shook me in a computer lab on my college’s campus once.

          If that representation helps, even if it’s violent, then I guess I can’t argue too much about it.

          Her lines between the two personalities are so blurred that it feels less and less unlikely every time I see her in the comic. In DID, the alters are generally separate from each other, but Amber and Amazi-Girl don’t seem like they’re different people, because they blend together so much.

          Maybe it’s not a hobby, but that’s what it seems like in the context of the story. But that’s the great thing about fiction–it has many interpretations.

        7. Cerberus

          I’m very sorry that happened to you. *appropriate gesture of support offered*

        8. Fart Captor

          I don’t even know that the wording was a problem really.

          It irked me a little the first time I read your comment, but on the second reading it was pretty clear you were advancing your own interpretation, and it wasn’t your intent to dump on anyone else’s.

          I can definitely understand how getting that representation from a character who didn’t engage in violence at all would be greatly preferred, even if it’s heroic violence.

        9. Halpful

          oh yeah, amber reaaallly enjoys calling herself names and interacting with a person who gives her panic attacks. 😛

          you sound exactly like the people who dismiss depression, anxiety and adhd as “an excuse to avoid responsibility”. “rude” is a hell of an understatement.

          go back and reread some of the comics where she’s talking about how worthless she is, or trying to talk herself down from a panic attack, or having red-background flashbacks.

          you know what else this reminds me of? people who accuse someone of “faking” depression because they saw them in a rare moment of not-entirely-awful, or saw them putting on a show to avoid someone *else* punishing them for not performing the expected level of happiness. like crabs in a fucking bucket. 😛

          … I’m probably gonna regret letting anger have the keyboard. not very constructive. but without anger I wouldn’t have the energy to say anything at all at this point.

        10. Halpful

          …well, at least I learnt that the part of me trying to shove anger back in a cage now is way, way too invested in other people’s opinions of me.

          like, I partly regret lashing out at ZombieFlamingo, because that doesn’t help them learn, but I’m also sick of feeling like I have to crush my feelings if I can’t figure out how to express them perfectly. I have yet to find a fully stable middle ground.

        11. ZombieFlamingo

          I appreciate your secondary comment.

          It’s hard to know when to speak up and when not to.

        12. ZombieFlamingo

          I’m a freelance writer, and I haven’t worked in 2+ weeks because of my crippling depression. I have panic attacks multiple times a month. The only way you can get me out of the house is to spend time with my boyfriend. And even then, I usually stay cooped up in his house as much as possible.

          I have always struggled with OCD. I can’t get a “real” job, because I have arthritis, scoliosis, and Fibromyalgia, and most jobs require too much standing for me to be capable of performing them. But no, my crushing depression is totally fine. I shouldn’t have to be sitting here holding back tears, but here we are.

          So please, screw the high-and-mighty horse you came in on. Take a step back.

          Also, I understand her depression, anxiety, and flashbacks. She can be traumatized and have depression and anxiety and panic attacks without having DID.

        13. Halpful

          too busy arguing with myself to take a step anywhere. 🙁
          I feel like yelling at you because you hurt me, and yelling at myself because I hurt you, and because I can’t sanely respond to anything outside with everyone fucking arguing like this! I can’t even figure out how to apologise. it feels like something isn’t getting heard but, like, arrrrrrghhh I don’t even. I don’t know what to *do* with all these feelings. well, I probably know somewhere, but I can’t remember right now. I can’t even remember why silence got vetoed. I wanted to say something but I didn’t know the right thing to say. But I really wanted to say something because…? ha, if I knew why then I’d probably know what the right thing to say was. *facepalm*

        14. Cerberus

          *hugs*

      2. FactsMatter

        Yeah, out of everything, Amber/AG being shown as aggressive and sometimes violent is easily my biggest problem with the idea of a DID/OSDD-1 label for her/them. People with DID/OSDD-1 are almost always portrayed as violent. It’s nothing new or progressive, it’s just the same old thing you see in practically any media we show up in, especially superhero media. It’s so incredibly detrimental for how others see us. I really don’t want to see that show up here.

        1. Cerberus

          Which is very very fair.

        2. Halpful

          While I think I can see your point to some extent, I think Willis has a good enough track record to handle Amber well. I’ll wait for Robin to stop being a horrible trainwreck, and I’ll wait for amber to learn that her anger doesn’t need to be destructive or violent to do its job.

        3. FactsMatter

          The problem is, if Amber has DID/OSDD-1 now, she’s had it throughout the course of the comic. Meaning that all of her previous harms done would have been harms done by an individual portrayed as having DID/OSDD-1. It would already be a very questionable representation. I just hope that if Amber is meant to have DID/OSDD-1, the representation will be better going forwards, and maybe other cases that don’t center around aggression will be shown or at least referenced as well.

        4. Cerberus

          That would be cool. I think we’re at least going to see the Amber alter’s more aggression-averse/violence-averse approach becoming more highlighted and celebrated, just as AG had to confront the way her aggression/violence was getting out of hand and losing focus.

          But I can totally understand the fear and worry, especially as someone who’s been abused under the excuse of pre-emptively protecting against the “inherent danger and violence” of me being DID.

          And ooh, multiple Dissociative-spec characters… that would be really really cool. I doubt we’ll be so lucky, but I know what I’m going to dream about tonight.

      3. Halpful

        ok… let’s try this again.

        the excuse thing felt really hurtful, I think I covered that :/

        the idea that alters are meant to protect… well, yes, ideally. but they can have really fucked up ideas of what that means, and that leads to a lot of counterproductive awfulness (like the goddamn voice that yells at me about how I’m going to fail, thus ensuring that I will). and then there’s the ones that have fucked up ideas of what exactly they should be protecting.

        there was another thought, but it wandered off while I was typing. all I’m left with is a general sense that something’s off about the “when you’re angry” bit, and more hurt at amazi-girl being called a hobby when I see it as a very real, very painful coping mechanism.

        1. Halpful

          and sorry about the rant earlier.

        2. ZombieFlamingo

          Okay, so I can see where you’re going with the excuse thing. My point is that Amber herself doesn’t even know who’s responsible for what. When Danny confronted her about talking to Sal and working with her, she waffled about who was really dating Danny. To me at least, it often feels like she uses it as a reason to act unreasonably (which is exactly what PTSD, anxiety, and depression will do) and then say, “Oh, it wasn’t me!”

          I myself am sensitive about using the alter as an excuse, because my poor boyfriend had an ex who claimed she had an alter, yet very, very clearly did not and was using it as a way of being awful and then saying, “Oh, it wasn’t me.”

          Maybe that’s not the case with Amber. I’m sure it’s not with a lot of people. But in a narrative sense, that’s what I’m feeling from Amber. And it doesn’t make it wrong, from a story standpoint. In a story, a character who desperately tries to cling to lies and deceit and confusion would be very interesting! (Not saying Amber is exactly like that, but if you exaggerate some of her attributes and assume she’s lying, it quite literally becomes a different story.)

          Alters generally form under the assumption that they will help the main person. And it’s true that they may have different ideas about what that means. For me, though, when I see Amber switching back and forth, I see inconsistency. Amazi-Girl knows how Sal affects Amber, yet she seems to switch out at the most inconvenient times, the times when it couldn’t be possibly helpful. I think it would help the story if there was some point where amnesia does happen, where Amazi-Girl strikes out on her own, and Amber has no idea what she did all night. I think something like that would help tie it together a little more neatly from a story perspective.

          As for the voice in your head that tells you that you will fail, that sounds like what I refer to as Depression Brain. I don’t know if I think that’s an alter. I think it’s a deep, dark part of you that cashes in on whatever part of you desperately wants to succeed. Sometimes the voice is louder than other times. Many people have this voice, so you’re not alone. It helps to find coping mechanisms to shut that voice up. Let me know if you find one, because I’ve been working on a set of articles for over 2 weeks now with almost no progress because I’m deathly afraid of screwing it up.

          I’ve seen recommendations to treat it like some idiot kid in the back of the car who’s all like “you suck,” and you’re the driver and respond, “Shut up, Tim,” or something like that. Pretend that voice belongs to someone whose views you don’t respect and would never give attention to. It’s a lot easier to tell that voice to shut up when it belongs to someone you dislike.

          Other than that, most recommendations boil it down to meditation and whatnot, and that just doesn’t work for everyone. Try to find some kind of mind-numbing hobby that helps you tune the world out, like coloring. I know everyone’s doing it, but there’s a reason for that.

          I feel like Amber is angry most of the time. And as a writer and someone who supports all of the arts, anger is often best handled with creative expression or some other way of blowing off steam. For Amber, her anger is lessened when she gets to go deal out justice, the same way a person with depression can lessen their sadness by writing a poem. Doesn’t work for everyone. Not everyone with anger issues can go punch criminals, but people have their own ways of managing stress.

          I feel like we’re almost on the same page about it being a coping mechanism, but I’m getting some disconnect. Coping mechanisms and hobbies are often quite intertwined. I like to play video games, which can help when I’m angry. It’s a hobby, but it helps with stress management. At least the way I read it, Amazi-Girl comes off as what Amber does in her spare time, just like how she plays video games and writes code. It doesn’t come off as an alter, but rather a coping mechanism for her PTSD and anxiety.

          I see I’m still really blurring the lines on those. To me, there’s little difference between a hobby and a coping mechanism, because I can’t imagine having a different hobby from the ones I have because they’re so important to me and how I manage my feelings about my life. It occurs to me now that there are most likely people who have hobbies for reasons other than stress management. I guess I’m more out of touch than I thought.

          My hobbies are the same ones I’ve had all my life. I suppose there are people who make scrapbooks and knit–or whatever it is people do with their free time–for reasons other than coping with life.

          I hope this helps you understand where I’m coming from and how my original post was not meant to cause any harm. I’m a writer, but I’m also a depressed writer, so I’m not as aware of things as I should be. I’m tired, and I apologize for making you and anyone else here upset. It felt like I was being invalidated earlier. I’m in one of the worst depressive episodes I’ve ever had, and I really need to get out of my bubble. Sorry for the length, but I hope to clear the air as best I can.

    3. Fart Captor

      I’m not qualified to address much of that, but when has OSDD-1 been erased by anyone here?

      Like, I’m not denying it might’ve happened. I just don’t remember seeing it. I’m fairly certain nobody has commented that they or someone they know has OSDD-1 and been told they were wrong or their was no such thing. I can imagine someone posing it as an alternative theory and being told off by mistake because we’ve seen a number of jerks insisting that DID (or even dissociative disorders in general) just aren’t real, though I hope that hasn’t happened either.

      I’d still be interested to learn when that happened here (particularly if I myself might’ve done it), since that would be crappy either way.

      1. Cerberus

        I dunno, I guess it’s shade at me for using DID instead of OSDD-1*. Except, I’m not diagnosed with OSDD-1. I’m diagnosed with DID from multiple licensed care professionals. Multiple times over. And with that diagnosis I have found resonance with Amber/AG.

        Which is the background I’ve mostly been speaking from as well as the background of what I’ve pulled together because I’m a giant academic nerd and voraciously try and read things relevant to my identities (ace research is so anemic you guys, it’s not even funny and trans research frequently leaves me wanting to punch things thanks to Blanchard, Bailey, and Zucker’s band of transphobic goons).

        Could someone with OSDD-1 also find resonance with Amber/AG? Hell, yeah, especially as that condition is in the same general umbrella and I would fight anyone who’s like “but OSDD-1 is totes valid identity for me and should not be considered lesser” just like I fight for DID folks for whom the fusion model (loving that metaphor for it) of integration works best for them even though that is not the model that worked best for me.

        Honestly, the whole community of multiples, just like the whole community of trans folks is a wondrous diverse body with so many unique experiences and I want to hug/fist-bump all of them, because they are all part of a beautiful community I am proud to be a part of, even though I’ve recloseted myself about it for a really long time.

        *Kind of like the shade at me for “being unable to spell dissociative”.

        1. Pablo360

          To be fair, in a just world “dissociative” would be spelled with the extra syllable. Unfortunately, we live in a world with both the English language and the English empire, so “dissociative” it is.

        2. Cerberus

          Heh, yeah, it feels like it scans better even though I know it’s wrong so it’s really easy for me to fuck it up. I feel like there’s a short list of words I fuck up on the regular because my brain wants to default to what it believes scans better. Likely because a lot of the time I’m writing things I’m saying them in my head, so all my shitty talking quirks get pulled into things.

        3. FactsMatter

          My concern is that you repeatedly state that DID can involve no amnesia whatsoever without ever mentioning OSDD-1. DID without amnesia is what makes up the majority of OSDD-1 cases; by labeling all of those cases DID, you’re functionally erasing OSDD-1 as a separate disorder. You seemed to do the same above, implying that you don’t believe that OSDD-1 should be a separate diagnosis or that it’s a sub-type of DID.

          I don’t care what your personal diagnosis is and whether DID or OSDD-1 would be more accurate. Especially if you’ve already partially integrated, your case can’t really be used to generalize, and I’m not here to argue against established diagnoses in any case. I do care that you’re continually collapsing OSDD-1 and DID and so both misrepresenting DID and erasing OSDD-1 in the process.

        4. Halpful

          yay, now this is sounding constructive 🙂 I like hearing about OSDD-1 vs DID. Cerberus’ interpretation reminds me of the way Aspergers got folded into Autism a few years ago.

        5. FactsMatter

          I have a page about it on my website, if you’re curious about further differences!

          http://did-research.org/comorbid/dd/osdd_udd/did_osdd.html

          You might also find this interesting, if you want a slightly more in-depth overview according to the model of structural dissociation.
          http://did-research.org/origin/structural_dissociation/index.html

          The difference is that Asperger’s and autism had no reliable differentiation. The same person could be diagnosed as having Asperger’s, PDDNOS, or “”high functioning”” autism according to different clinicians. The main supposed difference between them, language development, didn’t correlate well with other factors. In contrast, OSDD-1 is often reliably distinguishable from DID, especially now that a DID diagnosis doesn’t require the clinician to witness a switch. Even though DID and OSDD-1 are most often differentiated due to a lack of amnesia between parts, OSDD-1 cases in general involve less differentiated alters and less severe dissociative symptoms overall (as assessed by the SCID-D and so including depersonalization, derealization, and identity confusion in addition to the main points of differentiation, identity alteration and dissociative amnesia). There was unfortunately a lot of confusion before, but that’s being cleared up with better diagnostic criteria and tools.

        6. Cerberus

          Ooh, shiny.

          Though I’m curious, what are your conclusions with regards to edge cases? Like, I’m pretty sure I have my DID diagnosis without amnesia and full dissociation because I have very differentiated alters and have a history of very severe dissociative symptoms, which as you note tends not to be the case in those given OSDD-1b diagnoses.

          And I promise not to get offended no matter what you say because I’m genuinely curious as with regards to your particular wheel-house as to how that feels like it should be handled.

        7. FactsMatter

          I usually assume OSDD-1 for any case where there’s no amnesia at all. There are OSDD-1 cases with highly differentiated alters and severe dissociative symptoms, which I tried to make clear above. They’re just not the norm. That said, when you really poke at those cases, they usually do have some amnesia after all like I talked about below. It’s not black out amnesia, but it’s still present. I have no idea if that applies to you now or ever did; it’s really a case by case basis thing, and integration complicates things a lot. I’ll trust your clinicians conclusions in any case!

        8. Cerberus

          Interesting. And yeah, I can see integration complicating things. Which I guess is what I get all frustrated about the most because there’s just so little anything as far as resources or research on post-integration DID.

          Oh, man, I’m actually really excited, because I really like learning new things and the stuff about amnesia not just being blackouts is super interesting to me, because that’s often the part that causes me to rant about DID not just being amnesia, but it might just be that I really don’t understand the expanded definition of amnesia.

        9. Cerberus

          I’m sorry if that is what I’m doing. I don’t believe that OSDD-1 should be erased as a separate disorder or invalidate people’s experiences with regards to that disorder. But I’ve known a lot of people diagnosed with DID who have not experienced amnesia or are not experiencing amnesia.

          You state that OSDD-1 would be more accurate to that. Maybe that is even true, but it’s not what folks I’ve known have been diagnosed with so there’s at least a fair amount of rogue psychologists that are seeing DID as not necessarily requiring full dissociation. And I’ve met a lot of community members who argue passionately that intrusion cluster, possession cluster, and so on should be given more focus and attention.

          I dunno, I feel like we’re running headlong into the whole bisexuality vs pansexuality thing. Where some people by their models of pansexuality or bisexuality say that members who identify with the other would be more accurately identified with the one and folks getting bristly because well, no, that’s not their identity as to their sexuality.

          Like, yeah, not one-to-one because mental disorders are not nearly as defined by self-identification and relies much more heavily on trained professionals (as is proper), but yeah, not amnesiac, diagnosed with DID. OSDD-1 might be other people’s diagnoses for similar experiences to mine, but DID was my diagnosis.

          Like, I dunno, it may be my non-binary, ace-spec background, but if OSDD-1/DID is as is likely a spectrum of a lot of individual experiences marked by this sort of central stuff, then yeah, that’s a perspective I’m naturally drawn towards.

        10. FactsMatter

          Part of the confusion may be how dissociative amnesia is talked about. It’s too often interpreted as referring only to black out switches, but it’s not meant to. Retroactive amnesia, or not being able to remember what an alter did after the fact even if you were present while they were present, counts. So does being sure that you remember everything that happened but still finding evidence of unremembered actions. It goes both ways, as well. For example, one of my alters who switched out recently was able to be fully co-con with me, but they expressed that they had had no idea about a major physical health diagnosis we recently received. They hadn’t even known we were having issues with joint pain! According to multiple clinicians that I’ve talked to, that sort of thing counts as dissociative amnesia between parts, it’s just less often talked about.

          Mind you, it’s also likely that many clinicians just don’t know enough about OSDD-1 to diagnose it. Most non-trauma and dissociation specialists know disappointingly little about DID, much less OSDD-1. I’ve seen clinicians who didn’t even know what OSDD-1 is, which is kind of unnerving. That’s part of why I try so hard to educate others, though. The information is out there, it’s just not easily accessible or well known.

          I fully agree that intrusions should be given more focus. I just don’t want to see amnesia completely discounted, especially not since it is such an important diagnostic factor. Intrusions are present in other forms of structural dissociation as well, so focusing on identity alteration and amnesia for DID (and some degree of identity alteration most often without amnesia for OSDD-1) is the best way to accurately diagnose that there currently is.

        11. Cerberus

          Oh, now that is interesting, most of the works I’ve read have made it sound like dissociative amnesia was just black-outs.

          Hmm… in that case would you consider alters hiding key aspects of themselves like say their gender or sexuality or romantic attractions from the other alters to be a sign of dissociative amnesia, cause maybe I’m really off on me and my fiancee never experiencing a form of dissociative amnesia.

        12. FactsMatter

          I’m responding to both of your recent posts here because I don’t see a reply button for the other one.

          Yes, the lack of resources for systems further along in healing is a real shame! I think it might be the worst for individuals who choose to fully integrate / fuse, though. (Final fusion is an actual clinical term, by the way. I saw you using it but couldn’t tell if you knew / remembered that.) I’ve had people contact me asking for resources for fully integrated individuals before, and I didn’t really have anything for them. At least those who choose to remain plural have some community online, but academic resources are lacking for both groups. There’s a fair amount of research on treatment and its effectiveness, but I can’t find anything on the aftermath beyond measuring if the treatment remains effective in the long term.

          Yes, non-black out amnesia is so rarely talked about! I actually first heard about it when I was formally assessed with the SCID-D a few years ago. My amnesia was rated severe almost solely based off of my amnesia for day to day life even in the absence of switching. I could hardly hold on to anything emotional even if I didn’t appear to switch and even though my perspective remained consistent (ie, I never felt like I’d lost time). I could retain some semantic facts, but the actual sensory memory was just gone. Everything in my memory was fragmented by default. Then, later, some of my alters who were less involved in daily life started fronting, and amnesia on their end became apparent.

          Looking at the MID, possible amnesia items include a lot of items that suggest blackout amnesia but don’t require the individual to be aware that they lost time. For example, contrast “having blank spells or blackouts in your memory” (time loss scale) with “finding things that you must have written (or drawn), but with no memory of having done so” (Being Told of Disremembered Actions Scale) or “Finding something that has been done … that you don’t remember doing—but knowing that you must be the one who did it” (Finding Evidence of Recent Actions Scale). Now consider that alters can endorse those items as well, and you can see how things are much broader than are often discussed.

          I don’t think that alters hiding personal information about themselves counts, though. As far as I’m aware, the focus is meant to be on external knowledge or actions.

        13. Cerberus

          Sorry for all the questions and demand for education as I know that can be exhausting, it’s just this is a really interesting thing that feels like it might explain why my care professionals have the diagnosis they do for me and why I’ve had the interactions with other folks with those diagnoses that I have had.

        14. Cerberus

          Thanks for the answers!

        15. FactsMatter

          No problem! I do like educating people, and this is a nice break from what is usually asked of me (namely, being asked to diagnose people over the internet or answering questions that can be easily googled). I’m glad this discussion went well, and I hope that you’re able to find the answers that you’re looking for!

        16. Cerberus

          Like, I still feel like I have hesitation on the hard line to what feels like a very fluid borderline, especially as the treatment protocols are so closely related and the diagnoses can kinda blorp all over those categories depending on care professional philosophy and dominant care protocol.

          And especially as the amnesia requirement at a certain point starts feeling really arbitrary in a way that’s not overly helpful*, or at least not in a means that it would make sense to risk invalidating people’s language for describing experience or diagnoses, especially as I’ve seen it too often used to utterly erase all alter/dissociative-spec stuff including frequently in the comment threads.

          *Obviously, it is useful in a diagnostic sense to know if one needs to find a means of connecting memories between alters, but I’ve seen too many people use the “DID means amnesia” thing to utterly discount all of the other aspects heavily associated with dissociative-spec disorders and that shared experience.

          But then, that’s always a perspective I’m going to be inclined towards given my experiences in the trans and ace communities and uh… non-binary communities*.

          *Yeah, I had an experience this last weekend that really hammered home for me that demigirl is very much the term for me and that I am very much a part of the non-binary community.

          But I totally respect your willingness to answer so many of my questions and give me some cool new education I didn’t have before and I think I’ll try and be more careful about labeling Amber as dissociative-spec even as I also relate my experiences with DID and the resonances I find with her.

        17. Cerberus

          I dunno, thinking more, I’m leaning in more with the community critiques against the insistence of treating it as monothetic vs polythetic and definitely still in favor of the spectrum model I’ve been seeing pop up more and more.

          Like, if the treatment protocol is the same for the edge cases, the lived experiences are very similar for a good number of edge cases, that feels a strong argument for treating it more spectrum as the separating line starts feeling like well… attempts to separate non-binary identities into male or female or to be more accurate to the metaphor male and not-male.

          It probably doesn’t help that the amnesia requirement starts feeling like a tautology. Like, so many articles that try and defend the choice basically go, well, we define DID as requiring amnesia so 100% of the DID people by our criteria have amnesia and yeah, the edge cases get real fuzzy on what does or does not count on that and it’s definitely applied inconsistently in practice.

          Like, I know a good portion of folks who have been diagnosed DID while having possession or intrusion clusters rather than amnesia clusters (based on FactsMatter’s breakdown of it) and it all becomes a giant mess post-integration.

          And especially as many of the arguments against expanding the DID bracket officially according to the DSM-V and that sector of recommended protocol state that it’s due to a fear of DID being “over-diagnosed”. And especially as so many edge case folks feel likely in a future DSM to be fully recommended under all protocols to be included in DID based on the changes from DSM-IV to DSM-V and the existing problems with the focuses of research.

          Like I dunno, I get really antsy about trying to draw straight lines in wobbly spaces where a line is not easy or is arbitrary to draw largely due to my biological sciences background as well as my trans and ace backgrounds. And while there are people that are definitely DID or definitely OSDD-1 and those feel like they fit, I’m not seeing the monothetic imperative in a system where if say an individual had severe and highly differentiated alters and experiences directly in common with most DID folks but had possession cluster events instead of amnesia cluster events that’d be forcibly grouped with folks that have dramatically different lived experiences.

          Which might be why in practice the strong lines of theory tend to break down, which is why I know so many folks that experience the other clusters and have a DID diagnosis.

          And yeah, I think that’s why I’ve been seeing so much post-integration or partial-integration community resistance and pushback against the attempted strong line of the amnesia requirement.

          It all just reminds me too much of lines being externally imposed without an adequate defense for reasoning of handling of edge cases.

          Still going to use dissociative-spec for Amber/AG as it’s important to me that OSDD-1 folks who find resonance with Amber/AG has that acknowledged and celebrated, but not quite ready to state that the people I know who have a DID diagnosis without amnesia are not DID (probably including myself, though I dunno, being partially integrated since being a kid I’m not sure I’d have any hippocampus development to know if there was a time where amnesia occurred) and their lived experiences should be invalidated in favor of a theoretical model.

          Sorry.

        18. FactsMatter

          Ok, answer this, then. Many cases of OSDD-1 overlap with BPD and C-PTSD. Would you see that boundary erased? Would you be willing to see people who don’t have alters at all claiming the same experiences and spaces because they need similar treatment and have intrusion based symptoms? Or would you go the other way and agree with those who claim that DID is just an extreme manifestation of PTSD and that alters are just a distraction from the posttraumatic intrusions that they hold?

          There will always be edge cases, as you call them. Some people will always be borderline for any set of criteria, no matter how strictly defined. That doesn’t make the diagnoses meaningless or useless, it just means that some people have to be considered on a case by case basis. This holds for clinical diagnosis of physical health problems, as well. You mention how your biological sciences background makes you wary of drawing hard lines, but hard lines are also the norm for determining if one’s ANA count is alright, if their thyroid is functioning, if they have generalized joint hypermobility, or any host of other cutoffs. While some people need to be considered more individually, the larger criteria exist for a reason, and borderline cases don’t invalidate those reasons.

          Clinicians not knowing enough to accurately diagnose OSDD-1 also doesn’t invalidate OSDD-1, it simply highlights the need for more awareness and understanding. Possession-type and intrusion symptoms are typical for individuals with both OSDD-1 and DID, and those alone can’t differentiate between the disorders. Again, intrusion symptoms can be present in PTSD, C-PTSD, and BPD as well. Having significantly differentiated parts, which I believe is what you’re calling possession symptoms, is what characterizes both OSDD-1 and DID. It’s amnesia that sets DID apart, and it’s the presence of amnesia that usually indicates more severe overall dissociative symptoms and typical DID experiences and presentations.

          Of course individuals who have healed will no longer neatly fit criteria. How they want to be classified then is up to them and their therapists. However, their existence says nothing about the basic diagnostic criteria. Diagnoses in general aren’t meant for individuals who have healed.

          Similarly, if individuals have been diagnosed a particular way, that’s between them and their therapist, but it doesn’t invalidate any clinical or theoretical models that their diagnoses may or may not have been appropriately based on. Keep in mind that a misdiagnosis of DID does not invalidate anyone’s experiences! One’s experiences are the same no matter what label is applied to them. If OSDD-1 is a better label, that’s really all that that means; someone with OSDD-1 can still be multiple, they can still claim the same spaces, their experiences are still their own, they just have a slightly different diagnosis due to their experiences being slightly different from those of individuals with DID.

        19. Cerberus

          Well, it’s worth noting I’m coming in with specific baggage of coming from queer/ace/Trans spaces. So for me, I’m inclined to favor especially for umbrella categorization categories erring on the side of inclusive. If that means folks without alters sitting in those spaces because of shared experiences or recognizing connection points with c-PTSD and bpd, then I’m inclined to welcome that while also validating the labeling of larger distinctures within that.

          So like recognizing agender as valid and celebrating specific identities like that while also not policing whether someone is “non-binary enough” to be included in enby spaces. Because those edge-cases are people’s lives and if that’s a razor’s edge then overly policed boundaries on that razor’s edge don’t sit right.

          Again, I’m coming in with specific baggage on this, being in trans, queer, and ace spaces. So I’ve seen folks deny themselves communities and resources because they worry they’really not queer enough or not trans enough or not ace enough and it breals my heart.

          Additionally, I’m inclined to be wary of external enforced boundaries in general owing to how they’ve been used against those communities, especially when being queer anD being Trans were more seen as disorders to be treated.

          Because of my baggage, if I see an external demaration line treated as an absolute rather than a suggestion, I get antsy and want there to be a clear marked difference that is worth policing with aggression.

          Again, want to emphasize this is all my baggage, but it feels like the line is a bit arbitrary and fuzzy and as you note, general individualized multiple care may be a better best practice and what is already done on the edge cases. And that makes me especially antsy because I’m on that border and don’t like the idea of folks invalidating my diagnoses and dictating what community I belong to.

          Like yeah, you note that there’s always lines that have to be utilized for care, but most things in biology are spectrums rather than on/off. And so there’s a great deal of individualization thst happens on that edge. If someone is just below a line several months in a row, many doctors will reccomend a just-in-case secondary diagnostick and/or heavily monitor it. If they are barely over, doctors can sometimes wait to see if variation drops that back down over the.the line and.individualize care. Basically, diagnostics that are descriptive not prescriptive.

          Cause what’s the best treatment protocol for an individual should follow that regardless of diagnosis.

          And again, this is me coming in fromy particular baggage surrounding hard external prescriptive lines in what appear to be spectrum identities or communities because of how stuff like that is used to harm*.

          *Like right now, AERFS are trying to push ace folks out of the queer community based on their… unique ideas about hard lines separating us out.

        20. Cerberus

          I’m also coming from a perspective and baggage where folks have repeatedly used a lay understanding of this demaration line to invalidate my and my fiancee’s identities rather than to argue a narrow diagnostic point.

          And that makes me bristle because people are already inclined to dismiss our multiplicity in a way meant to treat our experiences as an affectation we made up rather than something that has impacted both of our lives for years. And because the clarification frequently comes in the comment threads in dismissive ways to my identity.

          Like universal statements about how no one is DID in practice without full dissociation/amnesia ARE wrong because both me and my fiancee ate diagnosed DID w/o those experiences. You can argue that is wrong or that integration complicates matters, but it does not change the specific erasure I’m dealing with.

          Again, I REALLY want to emphasize that a lot of my uneasiness is related to these baggages.

        21. FactsMatter

          That’s the thing, though. Only certain experiences are shared. Posttraumatic intrusions and some degree of identity confusion is shared between all, but identity alteration is unique to DID and OSDD-1, and amnesia is unique to DID. That’s exactly my point. There can be a spectrum with shared experiences and shared overall spaces without that erasing the different unique groups within that spectrum. All of the disorders are united as posttraumatic and dissociative. Not all are united as involving alters. Not all are united as involving sufficiently differentiated alters. The similarities matter, but so do the differences.

          Keep in mind that unlike with identity terms, someone thinking that they have alters when they don’t or someone treating their alters as more differentiated than they actually are can hurt them. It can worsen identity confusion and fragmentation and even introduce sociocognitive symptoms. In short, it can make someone sicker and more dysfunctional than they’d be otherwise.

          It’s one thing for someone with DID and some people with OSDD-1 to acknowledge that their alters are fairly well developed. It’s another entirely for someone with OSDD-1 to treat their alters as more separate than they really are because of how much attention is paid to alters at the expense of other dissociative symptoms and to DID at the expense of OSDD-1. Someone with OSDD-1 could really reinforce dissociative barriers in doing so and so make healing harder. Even worse is people without alters mistakenly believing that they have alters. That can, again, worsen identity confusion, confuse and distract from the actual issues, and even lead someone to unconsciously mimic symptoms that they otherwise wouldn’t.

          Identity labels are very different from correctly diagnosing disorders for accurate understanding and treatment. It’s really not accurate to conflate the two. DID and OSDD-1 are disorders, and they must be viewed through clinical models because of this. If someone wants to talk about supposed non-disordered multiplicity, that’s on them, but DID and OSDD-1 are actual, validated mental health conditions, not terms that anyone can claim regardless of their symptoms.

          Again, all medical labels will have some “edge cases,” but medical labels are valid and necessary. Someone can’t identify into or out of a medical label. The same applies to mental health diagnoses. Exceptions do not make the rule unnecessary or unhelpful. Exceptions are exceptions for a reason; they are not the norm.

          What you’re saying about how someone with borderline symptoms may be assessed in another way or heavily monitored matches what I’m saying. Borderline cases exist. They’re not automatically given a diagnosis that may not fit them and may lead to unnecessary care or inaccurate understandings of their experiences. In some cases, based on their individual symptoms, they may receive the diagnosis anyway. Their existence does not invalidate the diagnosis or its general criteria.

          OSDD-1 and DID is general share a community and resources. There should be no access issue regarding whether someone is diagnosed with OSDD-1 or DID. I’ve never come across any communities that accept DID but reject OSDD-1. Again, the differentiation is to promote understanding of each individual disorder. OSDD-1 and DID are different in how the afflicted experience alters, memory, and dissociative symptoms. That’s okay. OSDD-1 and DID are similar in how their overall treatment path should look, their experience of having some degree of significant fragmentation, and what communities they share. That’s also okay.

          I would appreciate if you would stop conflating clinical conditions with identities. Identities, especially marginalized identities, do not need to be compared to mental health disorders. DID and OSDD-1 do not need to be compared to labels that anyone can claim. Doing so helps no one.

        22. FactsMatter

          I’m sorry that people are trying to invalidate you and your partners’ identities. From my perspective, that comes from a place of ignorance, and misrepresenting DID as a disorder that doesn’t require amnesia only spreads a different kind of misconception. It also makes you look less reliable to anyone who knows DID’s criteria. What might be more productive is to keep repeating that you and your partner were diagnosed by professionals who know your symptoms better than some random person online, that DID doesn’t require all alters to be amnesiac of each other all the time, that integration and healing by definition lead to a reduction in or even elimination of some symptoms, and that even someone who experiences no amnesia can still have OSDD-1 and be a valid multiple. In any case, it’s really not the place of anyone online to try to argue against your diagnoses, and I’m sorry that that is a problem here.

        23. Cerberus

          Fair, though I would ask in turn that you do not refer to gender and sexuality as something “anyone can claim”. I was merely noting why I carry the uneasiness that I do. Explanatory not comparative.

          And I fully understand we need marcations to best guess most effective treatment protocol and that someone getting the wrong protocol is actively damaging. And I fully differ to trained experts as to diagnosis and treatment.

          And that’s where my unease is coming from. The intersection of theory and practice and those edge cases. Cause in my experience that’s where presciptivist systems start fucking up people.

          Like, okay here, I’m stabilized and integrated and have been for a whIle so the system could give less than two fucks about me. But my fiancee is not as integrated and has way more intrusion and switches and intrenal badness. Now when they first started getting help they initially got diagnosed with BPD and that treatment protocol fucked them up and made splits worsen.

          They then got a diagnosis of DDNOS from another doctor and maybe the doctor they were with fucked it up but the treatment protocol for that was too minimal and they said that things just weren’t improving and it really got them down and made them feel broken.

          Now they have a diagnosis of DID and the treatment they are getting seems to be really working for them and they say their alters are like actually starting to more or less sort out their shit or at least more than they used to.

          Individualization of care matters and that means recognizant that edge cases are edge cases and that might dramatically affect what treatment protocol is best. That’s all I’m saying with my uneasiness.

          Like, biologist. We hate making absolutist statements in general. Add all my other stuff and you get someone that gets real antsy about certain stuff.

        24. FactsMatter

          You have actually fairly consistently appeared to be comparing the two issues during our discussion. That’s something that you might want to keep an eye on in the future.

          Again, you’re taking individual cases and generalizing them. Individual cases don’t define diagnoses. No matter what your or your fiance’s experiences have been, DID as a diagnosis still requires amnesia. This requirement is based off of decades of research and clinical observations. Exceptions do not render the criteria useless.

          If your fiance has benefited from being diagnosed with DID, good for them! Maybe their current doctor just required a DID diagnosis to give appropriate treatment that another doctor would have provided even if they were still diagnosed with DDNOS/OSDD-1. Maybe their symptoms do more closely match DID. I can’t say. I don’t know them or their situation which, again, is part of why I’m not arguing individual cases.

          To reiterate, our discussion was over your claim that DID doesn’t require amnesia and then that the division between OSDD-1 and DID is not a useful diagnostic division. If you accept that DID does require amnesia and that OSDD-1 is a useful category to indicate significant fragmentation that lacks some combination of sufficient elaboration of parts and amnesia between parts, then we have no real issue. I accept that some cases are ambiguous and can be diagnosed either way depending on their needs; I maintain that this does not invalidate the differentiation between DID and OSDD-1 and the need to not conflate these disorders. Individual cases should be discussed as individual cases. Diagnostic criteria need to be discussed as they are, not ignored because of exceptions. Treatment, in any case, should be shaped to the individual’s needs.

          And, again, I think you’ll find that it’s actually in your benefit to not openly contradict diagnostic criteria without clarifying that you’re referring to individual cases which are exceptions for X reasons. Contradicting diagnostic criteria can too easily be read as you not understanding your diagnosis, and it hurts your overall credibility. Like you said, some people grasp for any reason that they can find to invalidate someone’s experiences with DID/OSDD-1. If you show that you do know what you’re talking about, people will have less ground to stand on against you.

          This will probably be the last reply that I make unless you have novel points because I feel as if our discussion has drifted a bit off track. I just want to end this by wishing you well.

        25. Cerberus

          *hugs* Be well.

        26. Cerberus

          FactsMatter-
          Thanks! *hugs*

        27. ZombieFlamingo

          I’m demisexual! Can you share some of your ace research? I almost never tell anyone, because so many people online say “Oh, so you’re normal?”

        28. Cerberus

          Well, academic research tends to be pretty anemic, like there’s “Asexualities: Feminist and Queer Perspectives (Routledge Research in Gender and Society)” that I own in hardcover and at least is edited by ace-identified researchers, though I’m pretty sure there is an overly expensive e-copy.

          And a lot of the academic research is uh… well, allo folks doing a study that’s hyperfocused on existing AVEN community works like so, which is… not ideal:
          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2893352/

          Especially as a lot of it is ace-spec erasing and just so fucking allo, oh my god. Like there’s only so many fetishizing “I’m a brave allo researcher going into this group to validate them by my inexpert observation” you can take before you want to scream.

          For demisexual stuff, it’s even more anemic as far as academic research and well… lemme just say fuck Jodi McAlister and her “compulsory demisexuality” to describe romance heroine shtick which attempts to show some understanding of the concept and then fucks it up so badly by making it into something someone can “become” and erasing the fact that plenty of Romance heroes and heroines are decidedly NOT demisexual.

          But that’s a separate angry rant.

          Also *totally offering an ace-spec high-five*. Demi erasure both inside and outside the community is fucking bullshit and pisses me off so much. Like you all deserve so much more than you all get.

        29. StClair

          *toff Brit accent*

          “I’ve set up a sort of ‘duck blind’ from which I can observe my subjects. At first they were rather curious about it, but they’ve come to accept its presence. Now, these two, I’ve nicknamed ‘Alice’ and ‘Bobo’…”

        30. Cerberus

          Yeah, one of the frustrating things about being in an under-studied population is you tend to get either fetishization, hostile gatekeeping/harmful research used against the community, or you get straight up ignored. It sucks.

          Especially as I really like and believe in academia but it has let me down so bloody often.

        31. merbrat

          ok, now *that* needed a Beverage Alert!
          But, well done!

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