12/10/25

What DID is not - a commentary on DID representation in media. - The Crystal Website

which is honestly a hard question to answer because there is alot of variation within this condition,
and i would say the best advice is simply just make them people what i mean by this is-
don't make them just "Oh yeah this character has DID", they (and alters) should just be their own people.

alot of systems, myself included honestly- tend to think you shouldn't even really write DID characters without having the condition yourself
however im also not about to be a cop about this or whatever, yknow, do what you want forever-

so instead id like to approach this- as instead of just going "dont do this"- but instead just working within your interests rather than against them-

instead of actually answering the question, outside of just "make them be like actually people?"
im gonna go over a bunch of things that DID explicitly isn't. that alot of media gets wrong

also alot of this comes up on social media and in general conversations from people without DID
so even if you arent about to write anything, this might still be worth looking through anyway-

DID is not  "The Alters Disorder"

a common focus on DID in media is on alters and like switching

and although they are a large part of it, and alot of stuff is somewhat related to it as well-
they also are not the be all end all of DID either--

there is dissociation where you become less aware of yourself or your surroundings,
there are trauma responses where you just suddenly have a adverse reaction to something, often without warning or knowing why
there can be giant headaches, unexplained tiredness, self-persecution, loss of memory, existential dread, and more-

and even with alters there are more interactions than simply just switching- you can have passive influence-
where one alter may influence how you act or behave in a certain situations by simply being present.
there is blending- where one or more alter is present at once- .

even with switching- its rarely a sudden hard change, and when it is it often has a bit of a toll on you
instead switching often is a gradual a slow transition from one to another - sometimes others can still blend through while your there,

these aspects are often overlooked, and in general i have never seen anything do this right-

Alters should act like their own individuals.

Basically they should be more than just a role or job description- like they should act somewhat like their own independent people in the sense that they approach certain situations differently- and have different concerns and such however they also typically are different but not extremely drastically so-
its important to remember that they aren't physically separate, which means that they all come from a similar environment to eachother

which is likely to make certain things be similar- what changes is in what way and in what situations they do engage with that environment
(for instance, a protective alter is more likely to be around when something 'bad' happens, which may lead them to be less trusting.)

in general DID systems typically try to remain hidden and go mostly un-noticed, this means that although deviations in what alters are a thing,
they usually are not super obvious to the point that it would raise any questions about how your acting-
typically this would be done via a kind of ' plausible deniability '- where anything could have a more 'normal' non-system explanation for it happening;

for example a lost interest or skill can be seen as just 'not feeling up to it today',
amnesia can be simply "sometimes people forget things" and so on,

its not typically noticed unless you already know about it; or like exactly what to look for

DID is not dangerous, or overly violent or murderous

this really shouldn't need to be said, but unfortunately does- somehow so much shit gets this wrong,

like uh basically calling out Split but also to an extent also Moon Knight
(basically, moon knight still portrays us as murderers, it just also pretends murdering people is okay, which doesn't change anything-)

like this couldnt be further from the truth beleive it or not i dont think its okay (like- even if you slam down a hammer and blert out "guilty"),
or whatever the fuck- that should not happen period; DID is also not an excuse to normalize or legitimize harming other people;

like one thing that makes me exceedingly angry is when horrible shit being done to someone
is used to excuse doing more horrible shit to someone else- even more so if its specifically shit that happened to _me_
like fuck people who have been severely hurt, the last thing they would want is other people to be severely hurt too?

and no 'persecutors' are alot more about "self-persecution" like hating and blaming yourself for what happened;
see our other more general DID page about that.
unlike their state sanctioned actually murderous counterparts like why dont you make media about actual state-sanctioned persecutors being serial killers instead- its more accurate

the worst you are likely to see is like if you attacked us we'd maybe fight you or like try to get away from you-
and we might sometimes raise our voice or be mad at you, which is just like everyone else really ..

DID systems do not have total amnesia over every aspect of everything ever.

it is true that people with DID very often, can suddenly have lapse in memory over things they probably should remember
(sometimes it can be over things that happened only a few minutes ago, for instance) ..
however it is not over everything, i am able to remember some stuff, i can tell you way too much information about the playstation vita, for instance

its generally that you remember what you were there for, but not what you were not there for- but even that isn't completely accurate
there have been times where i have suddenly just known something i "shouldn't" and heck,i can even sometimes feel kinda "fake" about that

like say something that some alter knows that i wasn't fronting for, but i somehow do know the details of
this can be for a multitude of reasons, it can mean you are co-fronting or 'blending'

but like rather annoyingly i still remember kinda bad traumatic shit, (especially like more recent stuff)
but not general day-to-day life which is frustrating, and is the complete opposite of what you want.

though even if it is brought up and i do not know them well i will just act like i know what someone is talking about
like 'yeah', or 'uh-huh' .. etc

DID is not *Just* Multiple Personalities

There are multiple reasons for why the name changed from MPD to DID, some of which are somewhat bad (like trying to make it less accessible and exclude certain systems from it) and some of which are less bad (clarifying its not a 'personality disorder' and being a bit more specific)
either way this is still true, we are more than just "multiple personalities"

this plays a bit into the previous "Not just the alter disorder" point, however- alters often have their own entire sense of self and identity,
like their own gender, their own names, and place that they feel they are in the world-
views and whatnot, which is a bit more than what 'personality' usually entails

CW: Maybe a bit existential

DID is not Sunshine rainbows all nice friends living together in a happy-go-lucky collective

alters do not always get along! often we have conflicting wants or feelings about something
sometimes an alter will do something that will be annoying or upsetting to the rest of us,
like maybe we go somewhere, but then we switch and someone finds there's too much going on and so they leave-

another time; i had an protective alter try push us away from or try block people i know or are friends with

i have wanted to say a certain thing or talk about some stuff and been blocked from doing so-
some of us want us to be more private and share less about ourselves

and so on, alters can be really nice and supportive and cute and comforting to you sometimes,
but they also can not be, often its different from alter to alter but also situation to situation, i don't hate our alters,

infact id dare say they actually kind of mean alot to me and important to me --
but they aren't the greatest either. but like were also stuck with eachother and got to make things work!

DID is often caused by complex trauma, not single-event trauma!

an extremely common depiction of systems and traumatized people in general, (and even an expectation placed on me by people around me)
is some idea of traumatic events that is basically just "One giant terrible event that caused all your problems"

like idfk some idea that like you have to witness a murder or like your house burned down or some really huge thing-

however although those things can be triggering they often do not cause DID-
rather more often DID stems from this concept of "Complex Trauma"-

where it is a continuous stream of mistreatment and abuse over a long period of time that you cannot get away from;
in this sense it can be a combination of a bunch of generally 'smaller' things combining onto eachother-

maybe you were physically mistreated, maybe you were also constantly scapegoated or blamed for all the problems that came up,
you also were constantly denied autonomy, privacy, and just basic decency in general- then ontop of all that they also dont respect who you are gender identity wise..

that is the kind of dynamic that creates DID-

parental figures are often a big cause of it because of bullshit oppressive systems, their mostly just 'allowed to' mistreat their children-
and due to the same oppressive bullshit systems, children do not have an easy way to escape or get away from that-

DID systems are not Perfectly able to communicate with alters!

There are two things i typically see in portrayals of stuff, either, a system is able to perfectly communicate with alters and nothing else
or they are not able to communicate with alters at all- but in reality it is a bit more messy than that

sometimes i can communicate really easily, i just say a thing and immediately get an answer back
other times, the answer back can be clearly present but kind of hard to make out or parse

sometimes i also just get no response whatsoever.

in general- talking to the alters that's the easy part, getting them to talk back .. thats.. the hard part-
understanding what the heck their saying when they do talk back, is even harder

DID Systems often have more than just two alters

yeah so its possible to only have two i guess, but the average is more like 8-10ish, i don't know why systems with only 2 alters are so common in media and such;
but there very rare in reality,

also, alters do not have a numeric numbering system, there is no "4th" alter i could order them in any way i want;
yes- this is about you Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice (also why tf frame someone else why not just like make it _not_ frame anyone? like huh?)

not just that but the alter count and system around you can change at a moments notice, nothing is set in stone
the host can be suddenly not the host anymore, and someone else can be the host, alters can go dormant or long dormant ones can re-appear

the host is also just another alter and there is nothing special about them other than that they front the most-
there not more or less 'real' than any other-

DID symptoms are Non-Voluntary, and alters cannot be summoned on-demand

sometimes, (*ahem* Ace Attorney Spirit of Justice) switches are shown as being a completely voluntary and seamless process,
where you become someone else basically immediately but in reality i don't choose to make these things happen they just do,
mostly automatically and uncontrollably, but also switches do not happen immediately and take some time, (though no one can measure exactly how much time)

although you can influence fronting to an extent, you cannot control it,
its more like you might know someone is around, and ask them 'hey want to do this' and it might happen, or it might not,
its not a on-demand thing rather than a case-by-case one- you can't easily make yourself experience dissociation (which is usually a prerequisite for switching)

even things that typically cause you to switch as like a sort of trigger, can be inconsistent at times;
don't try to rely on it too much-

and attempting to leave this way is often very unstable and doesn't last very long anyway;

its not something i can just do at any time on-command, its also not something i can just not do either,
but its also not completely outside the realm of influence either;

DID is not a replacement for social interactions

Interacting with your system can be good, it can be bad, but it really doesn't work the same as just talking to physical people
we can still feel extremely isolated, or lonely or whatever the heck else just as much as anyone else

they don't always want to talk to us, we can't always talk to them, and besides maintaining an actual conversation with them is hard
can lead to headaches, talking for too long can also bring you closer to front and other issues, and can have a hard time finding topics to talk about-

DID Systems are kind of chill?

We do not constantly talk about system things all the time, it may seem that way if your constantly in system spaces- but we do other stuff
we are regular people with regular interests and wants; i just want everyone to to be able to exist comfortably and not be mistreated. its really not alot

im talking about it now because this page is pretty much all about that, and its something im public about online;
however- i dont talk about it very often in the real world, and the few times i have ive been kinda burned for sharing anything;
i mostly make vita homebrew and reverse engineer things;

but also being a system isn't horrible its not the end of the world or anything, don't get me wrong its not great and can completely suck at times;
however it is also not a horrible 24/7 suffering impossible to experience anything 'nice' in the world either,

its a nuanced experience, sometimes things go mostly alright and its just a minor annoyance, with not being able to remember what im doing,
or having internal conflicts or wondering what it means about ourselves. other times we suddenly feel like we're in immense danger
and get thrown into "yeah i need to get the heck out of here NOW" mode, for like absolutely no reason

it really depends, its annoying on a good day, and horrible to live with on a bad day.

but hey, "atleast i am here" right? .. i guess?

This site was last updated 10/29/25

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