[HN Gopher] "Multiple personality disorder" probably doesn't exist
___________________________________________________________________
"Multiple personality disorder" probably doesn't exist
Author : paulpauper
Score : 95 points
Date : 2022-04-22 21:17 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (freddiedeboer.substack.com)
| kixiQu wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrupulosity <-- Cultural influence
| of religious faith has always shaped how what-we-would-now-
| definitely-class-as-mental-disorders look, too.
|
| Reminds me of the discussions about young women presenting with
| tics clearly influenced by particular Tourette's influencers. A
| person would definitely not have had those symptoms in those ways
| if they weren't seeing that content ("fake" rather than simply
| innate), but can still be experiencing the root of it all as real
| compulsions and anxiety... but can _then_ also seek attention w
| /r/t the whole thing, play up their experiences, etc. It's not
| actually useful to put "real" and "fake" binary labels on
| everything, because brains are complicated, society is
| complicated, and brains in society, well.
|
| I am not an expert but have enough, uh, relevant medical
| histories in my life and my family that I feel pretty confident
| in the following: trying to draw a bright line between "serious
| and pathological" and "just get over yourself", whether in
| physical _or_ mental health, is an exercise based in wanting to
| bestow or deny validation, _not_ in pragmatic utility or
| fundamental nature. Debating how that line should be drawn is
| maybe helpful in terms of navigating US insurance billing, but
| rarely reflects Deep Essential Truth in the way people hope it
| will.
|
| Staying _flexible_ in your thinking is really useful to actually
| figuring out how to best treat yourself and others, especially
| where people tend to consider their loci of control way too far
| inside or outside themselves.
| frereubu wrote:
| This is a great article on the Tourette's influencers scene,
| which I had no idea existed:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2022/02/social-med...
| moth-fuzz wrote:
| This article is chock full of cynicism with no actual factual
| reasoning. Deeply reactionary and without any actual point. A
| polemic, at best. Need I count the number of references to
| tumblr, tiktok, social media memes, dyed-hair left-leaning
| millennials with quirky personalities? All that self-
| victimization, which is all for the purpose of, let me guess,
| _attention_? You 're the one writing articles on the internet, my
| man.
|
| The best _evidence_ this article can come up with is equally
| polemic articles and a hand-picked troupe of social media teens.
| Selection bias at its finest.
|
| Is this as tiring for anyone else as it is for me?
|
| Note the top comments saying the same things about homosexuality
| and transgenderism, of course.
| [deleted]
| tus666 wrote:
| > DID is often presented as a kind of get-of-accountability-free
| card, as someone who claims to have it can always say that past
| bad behavior was caused by another personality and is thus not
| their responsibility.
|
| Isn't that basically mental illness in general?
|
| > fabrications shaped by therapists who insist that traumatic
| events must have happened
|
| It seems that the idea of trauma (especially childhood) itself
| remains highly controversial in psychiatry.
|
| Why? There appears to be this nexus or intersection between
| personally responsibility in the legal/social context and our
| willingness to acknowledge the affects of trauma.
|
| The connection between psychiatry and the demands of the legal
| system are probably underappreciated.
| TedDoesntTalk wrote:
| > Isn't that basically mental illness in general?
|
| I'm puzzled by this question. Are you suggesting that all
| mental illness allows the one suffering to abdicate "past bad
| behavior"?
| pgcj_poster wrote:
| Brains are networks. Our concept of a unified "self" is illusory
| and collapses when subjected to any serious philosophical
| scrutiny. If some people prefer to conceptualize themselves as
| multiple entities sharing a body, that's no less accurate than
| the useful fiction that, for instance, we remain the same person
| throughout our lives. I agree that most people who identify this
| way can't accurately be described as having a mental disorder --
| because there's nothing wrong with it. It's true that you
| shouldn't revel in your mental dysfunction or let your identity
| distract you from your real problems. However, there's no reason
| why people can't have a plural identity and choose not do those
| thing.
|
| The kids are alright.
| 3243thwall wrote:
| This is a complicated topic that resurfaces from time to time in
| the psychiatric literature. These types of arguments tend to take
| the presentation of people meeting criteria for DID at face
| value, and then argue that it doesn't exist, which is sort of
| beside the point.
|
| No one (or few in the field) really believe that people meeting
| criteria for DID have independent identities in the sense of
| having different psychological entities in the same body, with
| different memory systems, personalities, and so forth. It's a
| strawman argument.
|
| Even DID researchers point this out, but it tends to get ignored
| by individuals writing pieces like this.
|
| The truth is, there are patients who present with symptoms of
| DID, as is the case with other dissociative and related
| disorders. They are almost certainly "fake" at some level, but
| the phenomenon of presenting with neurophysically implausible
| symptoms nonetheless exists, and has its own set of issues. It's
| sort of akin to psychopathy and lying: a psychopath might lie,
| but you don't say that predatory dishonesty isn't a problem
| because what they say isn't true. In the same way, someone
| presenting with dissociative symptoms is doing the thing they're
| doing, and it deserves some sort of distinct label.
|
| Contrary to what the poster has written, longitudinal and chart
| review studies do show that people with DID have sexual abuse
| histories at higher rates than other types of patients, like
| close to 80% of cases. And contrary to stereotype, the typical
| DID patient is rather shy and avoidant of attention.
|
| I guess it's odd to me in some ways because while it was
| important to try to determine whether or not people presenting
| with alternate identities really have "neurocognitively separate
| selves", finding that they don't doesn't mean you should write
| off the idea that there is _something_ qualitatively different
| about the sets of problems involved when someone does do this
| sort of thing. You could relabel it , which might be fine, but
| this area is already full of controversy (should we open the can
| of worms of somatic symptom disorder, for example?).
| captainmuon wrote:
| So it is like that there is an ICD code for lycantropy - that
| doesn't mean the patients actually turn into werewolves, but
| that they delusionally believe they do.
| jollybean wrote:
| His bits about 'the left' are poorly articulated, and mostly of
| wrong.
|
| But he's correct to ruminate that we live in an age whereupon
| everything can be considered an issue of 'identity' to the extent
| that it's some kind of intrinsic, principal orientation of
| personae. Coupled with the fact that challenges to 'identity' can
| be considered 'hate crimes' (I'm not being hyperbole, this is the
| legal situation in many places) - and you have a problem.
|
| We used to have 'Hippies', 'Punks', 'Goths', and even 'national'
| and 'religious' identities - but most of those were forms of
| expression, perhaps 'important' but never really intrinsic.
|
| We've taken it to a new level entirely and it's a rapidly
| expanding social problem.
| a_shovel wrote:
| That paragraph starting "People pretend that this never happened"
| is a jewel of dishonest writing. The author never specifies any
| particular piece of "woke insanity" that it applies to, so the
| author isn't responsible for anything any particular reader takes
| away from it. Furthermore, leftists can't refute it because it
| doesn't, technically, make any specific claims about any specific
| thing that happened in real life. It's just vibes, and you can't
| argue against vibes.
| bnralt wrote:
| I think a lot of people mistakenly believe "multiple personality
| disorder" (DID) is real because there are people who believe they
| have it and act accordingly.
|
| There's a lot of evidence that cases for it are iatrogenic - that
| is to say, caused by the psychologist (and I suppose now, by
| social media). This lead to multiple lawsuits by patients who had
| spent years being convinced that they had DID and repressed
| memories (DID is usually linked to the also controversial idea of
| repressed memories by psychologists). See this New York Times
| article[1] from a few decades ago that talks about it more. You
| can Google "multiple personality disorder lawsuit" to see many
| more such cases. You see a lot of cases where bad psychology
| destroyed lives.
|
| And the history of DID has always been _very_ questionable. If
| DID was a naturally occurring disorder, and one that's
| particularly noticeable, it's striking that (as far as I can
| tell) no one saw cases of it until very recently. Two cases and
| their dramatizations - that of Chris Costener Sizemore ("Eve")
| and Shirley Ardell Mason ("Sybil") - in particular where
| responsible for cementing it in the public's imagination, and
| leading to an enormous uptick in the diagnosis. If you look into
| those cases, you see that it's highly likely that they were
| iatrogenic - the patients weren't showing signs of DID, but he
| attention seeking psychiatrists "discovered" alternate
| personalities during their sessions using questionable techniques
| like hypnosis, and then used this to get rich and famous.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/06/us/memory-therapy-
| leads-t...
| babyshake wrote:
| I'd suggest people mostly believe in DID and often confuse it
| with schizophrenia because multiple personalities is an often
| used trope in fiction. The Marvel show Moon Knight being one
| current example that comes to mind.
| Barrin92 wrote:
| Yet another entry in the emerging genre of making an entirely
| uncontroversial point (criticizing people for glorifying and
| faking mental illness for attention), followed by the second half
| which is the author complaining about how everyone silences him
| for saying brave truths.
|
| Much better than false victimhood due do fake mental illness to
| get clicks on tiktok is of course false victimhood due to fake
| controversial journalism on substack.
| naravara wrote:
| > Yet another entry in the emerging genre of making an entirely
| uncontroversial point (criticizing people for glorifying and
| faking mental illness for attention), followed by the second
| half which is the author complaining about how everyone
| silences him for saying brave truths.
|
| To be fair, Freddie De Boer basically pioneered this genre
| outside right wing culture warriors.
|
| I suspect he knowingly does it because he's aware it gets him
| more clicks and engagement than if he just produced his content
| straight. That culture war hook is catnip for "the algorithm."
|
| It's a shame because I do find him to be an incisive writer on
| the core points he's trying to make, but the side dish of
| outrage bait he serves up with every entree gets tiresome fast.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| I don't know if I totally agree but I definitely felt,
| somewhere around the halfway point, something along the lines
| of "whoa it felt like we were making some good points here but
| not it feels like we've gone into angry rant mode".
| reilly3000 wrote:
| The phenomenon of mental illness & trauma-based clout is
| intriguing and I don't really understand it. Certainly a
| conservative trope for the balance of my life has been one of
| victimhood, from the notion of a persecuted majority to the
| plight of small business ownership. If it's a liberal trope to be
| victim of one's genetic makeup and life experiences the logical
| conclusion is that one shouldn't feel remorse for not meeting
| societal expectations. I resonate with that, but am also
| concerned that the victim's mindset ends up being self-limiting.
|
| We really celebrate the stories of those who have overcome
| adversity, and oftentimes invest a lot of energy and resources
| into removing sources of adversity, clearing the way for others.
| If adversity engenders strength, why try to remove it?
| Alternatively if it simply expends strength and reduces human
| potential, why celebrate it?
|
| I have no opinion on the matter, but I'd love more information.
| I'd also love philosophical perspectives around these topics.
| Please share if you have them.
|
| On the point of TikTok self-diagnosis being popular, I've
| certainly observed that. However it's not limited to one
| political group as the author suggests. The platform and its
| algorithm have been really affecting at exposing affine groups,
| without explicitly labeling them. For everyone who walks away
| with a dubious self-diagnoses, I believe there are ten who have
| found support, validation, and resources for their very real
| conditions. That doesn't get media attention. It's just like the
| fact that billions of dollars worth of person-to-person
| transactions happen through Craigslist every year, yet only the
| times where violence take place dominate it's narrative.
|
| Teens behave in unpredictable ways and this is a novel time when
| the aggregate of their activities are on full view to the world.
| They will inevitably grow and evolve. I'm not going along with
| any doomsayers about what is happening with teens on TikTok; it's
| all temporal and portends nothing in particular.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The phenomenon of mental illness & trauma-based clout is
| intriguing and I don't really understand it.
|
| The original sin is the convention that punishment for crimes
| shouldn't be determined by the type of crime and the guilt of
| the defendant. Instead, it's normal to start with that to get a
| guideline, then choose from within that guideline based
| decisively on the degree of empathy and pity that the judge
| and/or jury feel for the defendant. This is done by selling the
| defendant as disadvantaged.
|
| But selling the defendant as _materially_ disadvantaged has a
| drawback: as the individuals who make up the court are drawn
| from extremely advantaged classes, and claims of material
| disadvantage make them feel bad about themselves. They
| generally need to hold the view that all material disadvantage
| can be overcome by will, having that will (to overcome material
| disadvantage) thereby becomes a moral standard, and lacking
| that will becomes a second justification for punishment. A dog
| can resist food when it is starving if you hit it enough, so
| punishment actually becomes therapeutic.
|
| With the rise of the concept of psychology and mass
| medicalization of normal human ranges of behavior, sentencing
| couldn't help but become a ritual where the defense tries to
| sell the defendant as _mentally_ unhealthy and pitiable. In
| other words, someone _physically incapable_ of generating the
| will that punishment should give them.
|
| Punishment in the justice system is ostensibly a process for
| deciding on the disposition of people who have committed acts
| considered wrong. If the anxiety, sadness, or mental
| instability etc. of the person committing these acts results in
| _less_ punishment for being wrong, the obvious conclusion to be
| drawn is that mental illness and disadvantage makes you
| _righter_ or _more correct_. Hypothetically, the person with
| the perfect combination of illness and disadvantage is _never_
| wrong.
|
| Which IMO is why we have an culture of opposing mobs being led
| by people with severe cluster B personality disorders, and
| people who admire those people also developing these disorders
| by imitation. It's why when you get called out for molesting
| tweens, you come out as gay, or why when the twitter mob comes
| for you for a racist joke you made, you release an essay about
| being molested as a child and describe the therapy you're about
| to go into.
|
| Everybody wants to be weak, because the weakest are the
| rightest. The problem is that these people aren't actually weak
| (because performance of weakness is part of social climbing),
| and the loudest are active crybullies. Actually weak people are
| still voiceless and ignored. The US is spending _less_ on
| mental illness. The US has a _weaker_ safety net.
| drewcoo wrote:
| > We really celebrate the stories of those who have overcome
| adversity
|
| Or maybe, like Mother Theresa, we value suffering.
|
| https://ivarfjeld.com/2013/03/04/mother-teresa-no-saint-but-...
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Good luck making any headway trying to talk about things like
| this by using reason. These people and their enablers don't care
| about reason, they'll just accuse you of "denying their lived
| experience" or some other such meaningless string of words. Any
| attempt to actually help them, as opposed to nodding in firm
| agreement, is going to be met as if it is an act of aggression.
| They don't want help because they know they don't need help, not
| the kind they say they need anyway. They want affirmation. The
| best thing you can do is just live your life as if they don't
| matter, mock them whenever you feel like it, and let them destroy
| their lives, which they inevitably will. That may be cold, but
| you can take a horse to water...
| pessimizer wrote:
| When you derive all of your self-worth from a disadvantaged
| identity, attacking that identity is akin to attempting murder.
|
| This is different from people with actual disadvantages who
| have spend enormous effort to hide and to hopefully overcome
| them, not to broadcast them. Broadcasting weakness is not
| something that animals do except to avoid imminent and
| overwhelming attack.
|
| My upset is when people who actually disadvantaged get caught
| up in this rhetoric and ideology. When the heat gets too hot
| for the fakers, they'll move on to the next thing, leaving the
| people with real problems behind.
| chasing wrote:
| Mildly interesting article until he starts whining about
| "lefties" and straw-manning what he thinks their reactions to all
| of this will be.
|
| To which: No. Humoring people who make up mental disorders for
| social media clout is not "woke." "Woke" is being aware that
| people with mental disorders exist and that our society should be
| accepting and inclusive.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| When it all goes political at the end, what exactly does the
| author think happened in colleges. He uses the word 'woke' as if
| a horrible plague struck.
|
| Maybe, I'm just sheltered, and civilization did collapse at some
| point in the last decade, so can someone point to a summary of
| what people in his bubble think happened?
|
| > The specific way that lefties will dismiss this problem will be
| to say, hey, who cares, it's just adolescents on TikTok. They
| won't affirmatively say that it's good that thousands of
| teenagers claim to have spontaneously developed an extremely rare
| and very punishing mental illness, because that's stupid, so
| they'll say it just doesn't matter, and really it's weird that
| you're paying attention to this. I've already established why I
| care - I believe that this behavior, and the broader suite of
| 21st century progressive attitudes towards mental health, are
| doing immense damage to vulnerable young people. But also we've
| seen this movie before.
|
| > People pretend that this never happened, now, but in the early
| and mid-2010s, the stock lefty response to woke insanity at
| college was not to say that the kids were right and their
| politics were good. That was a rarely-encountered defense. No,
| the sneering and haughty response to complaints about, say,
| incredibly broad trigger warning policies that would effectively
| give students the option to skip any material they wanted to was,
| "hey, it's just college! They're crazy kids, who cares? Why are
| you paying so much attention?" Of course, first it was just elite
| liberal arts colleges, tiny little places, who cares about what
| happens there. And then it was just college. And then it was just
| college and Tumblr, and then college and Tumblr and Twitter, and
| then it was media and the arts, and then all the think tanks and
| nonprofits, and when it had reached a certain saturation point
| the defense changed: now it was good. Just like that, overnight,
| the "it doesn't matter if that's happening" sneering defense
| switched to the "yes that's happening and it's good that is's
| happening" sneering defense. From an argument of irrelevancy to
| an argument of affirmation in no time at all, and absolutely no
| acknowledgment that what they were dismissing as meaningless the
| day before they were now defending on the merits.
| md2020 wrote:
| HN just had an article on the front page yesterday talking
| about how Google Docs will now suggest you not use words like
| "motherboard" and "landlord", and instead use more "inclusive"
| language. This stuff has literally gone from "it's just college
| kids" to "it's just Google". And please, no "you can just build
| your own Google Docs" responses.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Here's someone making fun of people who get upset about this
| kind of language evolution, written in 1985 and clearly
| exasperated from reading the kind of nonsense for years
| before that:
|
| https://www.cs.virginia.edu/~evans/cs655/readings/purity.htm.
| ..
|
| So it seems unlikely that 'leftists' in 2010 were saying
| "gender neutral language" was just students being idiots.
| newsycom wrote:
| cracker
| User23 wrote:
| It's funny that you're ruffling feathers stating the obvious.
| Also I infer from your username that you're probably quite left
| leaning politically.
| rectang wrote:
| deBoer is a partisan providing raw meat to a partisan audience.
| If you're on his side the style of showering contempt on your
| adversaries is thrilling, if you're on the other side it's
| grating.
|
| Such articles usually get flagged sooner or later.
| jzellis wrote:
| Next you're going to tell me supersoldier serum and horny
| sentient planets aren't real either, you monster
| johnny22 wrote:
| I can't say I've heard of "horny sentient planets"
| sampo wrote:
| I think it's a reference to the movie Guardians of the Galaxy
| 2.
| devwastaken wrote:
| https://youtu.be/LkeeoKWj2i8
|
| It's dissasociative identity disorder. It's caused due to trauma
| and we don't particularly know how to treat it or do much about
| it. One thing to be aware of is that diagnostically there is no
| way to know "real" from "fake" diagnosis. Anyone can walk into a
| clinic and say the right things to get whatever diagnosis they
| want. There are a lot of real cases of did that go untreated
| largely because how unknown this disorder is to the majority of
| psychs.
|
| That said I know a number of fakes that treat disorders as fads
| for attention, they treat it like it's a drama play. The internet
| makes it too easy for them to have a megaphone.
| vintermann wrote:
| Self-interpretations can't really be right or wrong. Science
| can't tell you how you should see yourself.
|
| That said, there are self-interpretations that seem pretty self-
| destructive, and seeing yourself as having multiple identities
| seems like one.
| jahewson wrote:
| Sure they can. There's no shortage of people out there carrying
| around negative perceptions of themselves that are wholly
| incorrect. The self is a construct and your brain will assemble
| it out of its experiences.
| User23 wrote:
| What exactly does it mean for a mental condition to be real or
| not real? It's often easy enough to determine if a physical
| phenomenon is actually occurring or illusion, but for a mental
| one? And while it's tempting to make analogies from physical
| phenomena to mental ones, it's not even wrong.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| The HN title is a really terrible title. (It's a shortened
| version of a longer title that's not so click bait. )
|
| This isn't really an attempt to assert that Multiple Personality
| Disorder doesn't exist. It's an attempt to say that there is
| unhealthy stuff happening in how youth interact via social media
| and most claiming to have this disorder on social media clearly
| do not.
| [deleted]
| Trasmatta wrote:
| See also: Internal Family Systems. It's a form of therapy that
| considers all of us has having many different discrete "parts".
|
| I recently started IFS therapy and have been having success with
| it. I'm not sure how literally I take the "parts" (I think they
| may be much less "solid" and more transient than IFS claims), but
| it seems to be a really interesting and helpful way to approach
| your own mind.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model
| ComradePhil wrote:
| Are you working with an IFS therapist or are you using Pete
| Gerlach's online self-help course? Has anyone had success with
| Pete Gerlach's course?
| Trasmatta wrote:
| I'm working with an IFS therapist. I haven't used that
| course. I am also reading Jay Earley's "Self-Therapy" book in
| conjunction, and that's been helpful.
| sshine wrote:
| I'll second this recommendation.
|
| I personally interpret the "parts" quite literally, but what's
| most interesting is:
|
| You can make most people say that "a part of them wants X,
| while another part of them wants Y" without having swollowed
| any metaphysics. It's like the ability to address the ambiguity
| of one's mind, without needing to admit that it is
| fundamentally fractured, is a language that many will eagerly
| adapt to.
|
| And yes, IFS also makes the claim that "multiple personality
| disorder" isn't.
|
| Here's a website that tries to explain what it's like to
| embrace the plurality of one's being:
|
| https://morethanone.info/
| cptcobalt wrote:
| > Here's a website that tries to explain what it's like to
| embrace the plurality of one's being
|
| I'm not sure if the content matches your description of the
| site, or your description is ambiguous, or...there's work to
| be done in the reader's mind to understand your point than
| you articulated.
|
| Specifically, I don't think that conflicting desires or
| emotions in people inherently equates to plurality in "one's
| being", but this site immediately jumps off from the
| perspective that you are communicating with a collective
| person. So, my take away is that your point is that
| _everyone_ is plural?
|
| > It's like the ability to address the ambiguity of one's
| mind, without needing to admit that it is fundamentally
| fractured
|
| I still also don't think that ambiguity or admitting that
| your mind is "fundamentally fractured" immediately equates to
| plurality?
|
| Maybe I'm missing some nuance here?
| cptcobalt wrote:
| I've been in IFS therapy for a bit.
|
| I agree have a similar experience as you, I think. I don't take
| the "parts" too literally--and it was deeply uncomfortable to
| think about myself that way in the first few sessions while
| working on, well, the presenting issues. I adjusted and got
| more comfortable with it over time, and just see it as an
| easier way to have more precise communication (and also some
| internal introspection) in the frame of therapy.
|
| It feels like an applied irl Inside Out:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Out_(2015_film)
| pmoriarty wrote:
| For a Jungian look at this see _" Subpersonalities"_[1] by John
| Rowan.
|
| For a more recent take, see _" Your Symphony of Selves"_[2] by
| James Fadiman.
|
| [1] - https://www.amazon.com/Subpersonalities-People-Inside-
| John-R...
|
| [2] - https://www.amazon.com/Your-Symphony-Selves-Discover-
| Underst...
| moth-fuzz wrote:
| The thing about DID and IFS is the underlying recognition that
| _most_ people have parts, sometimes dissociated (as is the case
| with BPD, for example, and other dissociative disorders), and
| that this is part of normal human psychology. The crux of it is
| that this is simply one of the fundamental tools our brains has
| to use in response to trauma. The whole _disorder_ part of
| dissociative identity disorder is when it becomes a problem
| that impedes healthy functioning. Just like we all have
| anxiety, it 's there to protect us and warn us of potential
| dangers, but an anxiety _disorder_ is when the anxiety is no
| longer helpful, damaging, even.
| spython wrote:
| I too have had good experience with IFS, and I think from the
| point of view of IFS the less 'solid' and more transient the
| parts are, the better. The traditional 'multiple personality
| disorder' are then excessively rigid parts that block each
| other.
|
| I do enjoy asking my friends how old they feel just in the
| moment when they talk about something benign bothering them.
| Most of the time people are able to pinpoint the age from which
| they speak. E.g. they had a situation that reminded them of
| some injustice they experienced when they were 6, and so they
| traveled the affect bridge back to the behaviours and attitudes
| they had at 6. Of course a six year old can't solve it, but
| just remembering that they are older and more capable now can
| bring back the 'adult' parts that can find a solution.
| MaxLeiter wrote:
| I found the intro on multiple personality disorder and tiktok
| interesting, but the article is really about politics, which
| isn't reflected in the title. I lost interest when he mentioned
| leftists
| rob_c wrote:
| Trying to replay a-politically (with the knowledge that nothing
| happens in a political vacuum in reality).
|
| It can be successfully argued that the political left have
| adopted the drama and status of victimhood in a way that hasn't
| been done before in mainstream politics and given the strong
| correlation between political affiliation and age I think it's
| a concerning edge to the topic of mental health, or perception
| there of. The right is also capitalising very late on this
| claiming that marxist censorship by private entities is akin to
| victimisation so the whole arena is now filled with it :(
|
| Not saying you're wrong for tuning out the article certainly is
| a little rambly.
| pessimizer wrote:
| The right has always capitalized on a self-perception of
| victimhood, above almost all other things other than common
| religious beliefs.
|
| The left have generally actually been victims, or have
| advocated for victims. But then there's the privileged
| wealthy middle-class suburban left, who should rightfully
| relate to the position of advocate, but instead desperately
| want to be victims themselves. So they study the victims
| around them, introspect deeply about what kind of victim they
| really are, then come out of the closet dressed in their best
| imitation of that sort of victim. And being privileged, they
| are indulged.
| naravara wrote:
| > It can be successfully argued that the political left have
| adopted the drama and status of victimhood in a way that
| hasn't been done before in mainstream politics
|
| It absolutely has. The martyr/persecution complex is a
| central elements of dominionist Christian politics.
| rob_c wrote:
| I'm fairly sure most of the 'dominionist' christian
| politics was based on expansionist bigotry, i.e. "lets go
| beat god into the heathens" and "cold is gods way of
| telling us we need to burn more protestants".
|
| The modern victimhood isn't based on hiding in attacks,
| priest holes or being afraid to show your face in public,
| it's being a screaming matyr to some slight, imagined or
| not, and demanding the same level of attention for
| everything from nasty words to really injustice against
| fellow humans.
|
| Again, I'm not saying either situation is correct, why we
| can't move past this childish way of viewing the world
| saddens me, but there is a difference between true
| oppression and standing up in-front of a crowd and claiming
| to be oppressed. Yes I am actually using text-book
| definition of literal oppression here and not some imagined
| slight of someone against a large group of people who think
| differently. The latter is akin to me feeling oppressed
| because I can't find or import the right cheeses/food that
| I grew up with where I live due to market forces and
| economics, the former is being told I can't do it because
| of some prejudice or law. There is and always will be an
| important difference here.
| tantalor wrote:
| It's mentioned in the subtitle:
|
| > TikTok culture can be incredibly toxic, but _those on the
| left refuse to ever condemn it_ for fear of echoing
| conservatives
| meowface wrote:
| Fair reaction, but just as an FYI, Freddie deBoer is himself a
| prominent leftist blogger. So this is kind of an "intra-
| leftism" dispute. That arguably makes it a little less eye-
| rolling to read as one might find from a rightist critiquing
| the left, or vice versa.
| Elof wrote:
| Closing with people on the other side aren't going to agree
| with me makes me think this person likes stirring the pot and
| getting attention, which is one of the things called out as
| dangerous in their argument. FWIW, I think lots of people self
| diagnose for attention and I absolutely agree that mental
| health shouldn't be something we laud (we should normalize it
| though) even though the author would almost definitely group me
| with the leftists.
| pnathan wrote:
| I'm friends with someone who has clinical DID. It is, as near as
| I can tell, not induced by media, etc, but by extreme and
| profound trauma.
|
| > The people who have traditionally been treated for DID have
| suffered, greatly, and not in the cool arty time-to-dye-my-hair-
| again type of suffering common to social media performance, but
| actual, painful, pitiable suffering. Those patients who have been
| diagnosed in the past with the disorder, by doctors, and who have
| spent years and years dealing with the consequences, are often
| truly debilitated people, whether the disorder itself is real or
| not. They require intense therapy, are often medicated with
| powerful drugs, and are frequently subject to long-term
| hospitalization. They tend to live broken and pain-filled lives,
| like most people with serious mental illness.
|
| This is a relatively accurate description of their life. Clinical
| DID is not cute or something to parade in front of people you
| don't know.
|
| I have extraordinarily little interest in open DID fora like
| Reddit, because these fora don't adequately encompass my friends'
| reality.
| mav88 wrote:
| Yeah it's horrible. I have had contact with half a dozen people
| with severe DID because of extreme trauma experienced before
| the age of four. DeBoer is a great writer and he's dead right
| about the effects of social media on all this but he is
| completely wrong about the literature. The so-called Greenbaum
| Speech, alternatively called "Hypnosis in MPD", is just one
| example of the consistent body of work out there showing that
| it is very real.
| pyuser583 wrote:
| Someone very close to me had a serious mental illness. Nobody
| has any idea what the illness is. Different doctors give it
| different names. The same doctors give it different names.
|
| I eat the impression doctors are less worried about the
| "anatomy" of the illness, and more worried about finding a
| cure.
|
| If "take these anti-psychotics daily, get 8 hours of sleep a
| night, and meet weekly with a therapist" prevents symptoms ...
| they really don't care if it's a psychotic disorder (as opposed
| to, say, a mood disorder).
|
| Psychology seems to going from a "deep mind" approach to a
| "shallow mind" approach.
| moonchild wrote:
| You seem to be implying that this is a bad thing.
|
| Diagnoses and categorisations are all fake, and constructed.
| The only reason why it's interesting to diagnose is that we
| may notice similar treatments are helpful for people with
| similar diagnoses. Diagnosis isn't inherently useful; it's a
| means to an end.
| CactusOnFire wrote:
| I dated someone who had it- was beaten heavily during their
| childhood formative years, and told me that the separation of
| identities was a means of coping.
|
| It seemed like an extreme emotional compartmentalization which
| left them with a fractured sense of self.
|
| Some people might say that they could have just been pulling an
| elaborate hoax on me from a year and a half. But the amount of
| acting it would have required just to convince me of this
| without any real reward would have been a sign of even greater
| emotional problems than even the different personalities.
| thelettere wrote:
| Dude has exactly zero expertise in the field or experience with
| this population, and yet he makes these kinds of claims. And
| all based on an article or two he found.
|
| Pathetic. Almost every psychiatric diagnosis is problematic,
| and articles questioning any's validity can be dug up. Doesn't
| mean the emotional/cognitive/behavioral cluster does not exist.
|
| The link between trauma and disassociation is incontrovertible,
| and DID is merely an extreme version of this. Case reports of
| it across Western, Middle Eastern and Asian societies across
| the last 2 centuries show a remarkable degree of consistency in
| their reports of this, so the idea that this is some kind of
| passing fake fad is absurd.
|
| The only thing the article adds is a critique of a Tik-tok sub-
| culture. Color me shocked that this is not a particularly
| enlightened group - but I guess this is the kind of hard-
| hitting "journalism" popular Substacks were made for.
| 0xbadcafebee wrote:
| > I am truly worried for online youth culture, and for that I'll
| be called a reactionary.
|
| The fastest way to get everyone to ignore you is to preemptively
| complain of conspiratorial repression by the ignorant. If you
| have something useful to contribute, do. If people disagree, then
| retort. But don't sit here moaning about how nobody's going to
| believe you. Science requires evidence and persistence, not the
| immediate acceptance of conjecture.
| causality0 wrote:
| I think quite a few identity-centered mental illnesses might
| actually be particular delusions, and in some cases we may be
| grouping people subject to one mental abnormality with others who
| are under the delusion they have that abnormality. That could
| explain why certain subsets of people exhibit symptoms which
| don't match the normal presentation. For example, and anecdotally
| based on my personal experience, people under the delusion of
| being transgender get grouped together with people who are
| actually transgender. The "real" transgender people behave about
| the same way before and after their transition. They carry
| themselves like their gender, they talk like it, they react like
| it, and the biggest change after transitioning is them getting
| happier. The ones I hypothesize are actually subject to a
| delusion of being transgender don't act like that. Their
| personality shifts radically after transitioning and they behave
| like an exaggerated caricature of their target gender and have a
| very difficult time navigating small group dynamics of their
| target gender.
|
| I've seen similar patterns with people whose presentation of
| disorders like DID and Tourette's Syndrome differ radically from
| the clinical symptoms but match the pop culture presentation.
| naravara wrote:
| > The ones I hypothesize are actually subject to a delusion of
| being transgender don't act like that. Their personality shifts
| radically after transitioning and they behave like an
| exaggerated caricature of their target gender and have a very
| difficult time navigating small group dynamics of their target
| gender.
|
| If they're on the autism spectrum, though, they'd have trouble
| navigating small group dynamics regardless so what you're
| describing could just be a comorbidity.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| What parent describes seems more akin to gender-related
| disphoria. There's actually some very real controversy among
| trans activists as to whether disphoria should be viewed as a
| necessary condition for trans status, as currently asserted
| by most in the medical community.
| mjevans wrote:
| It would be extremely helpful for both groups if there were a
| test based on philological data that machines could measure. I
| am fearful of our medical technology and knowledge immaturity,
| that future generations might look back on as being as bad as
| leaches.
|
| Both groups need help, but it might be very difficult to get
| each the correct help so they can live lives they are happy
| with.
| swatcoder wrote:
| Alternately, some people face more than one tough challenge in
| their experience such that their "clinical" presentation is
| modulated in chaotic ways by all the _other_ shit they deal
| with.
|
| With all the championing of identifying as this or that, it's
| easy to forget that identity is reductive and that whole,
| complicated, multifaceted people are involved.
|
| It's certainly true that there are people who chase delusions,
| identify with some struggle for attention or to feel included
| in a community, but your approach of evaluating their "clinical
| symptoms" (are you a clinician?) probably isn't a very accurate
| way of spotting them. In fact, it's just really hard to do
| altogether, let alone from an armchair.
| jollybean wrote:
| It's perfectly fair to talk bout this issues but I'll challenge
| a couple of those points:
|
| - I overwhelmingly doubt the notion of some material group of
| 'fake transgender' people, fully going through transistion, and
| then 'overacting' their gender as some kind of evidence that
| they are under 'transgender delusion'.
|
| It's frankly an outrageous statement - even though I'm sure
| you're just ruminating and don't mean ill - it's almost
| offensively uninformed.
|
| If you spend 1 hour with a few trans people, that view would be
| dispelled pretty quickly.
|
| - 'Transgender Delusion' is akin to saying 'gay delusion' and
| while there should be some space for 'straight talk' to the
| extent these things may exist, you can imagine what kind of
| reaction you'd get for calling people who self-identify as gay
| as 'just deluded'.
|
| - Also problematic in your statement is the notion that 'trans'
| is a binary thing, often it's not. It's not M->F and F->M with
| people 'flipping' into other socially normative appearances and
| behaviours. It's everything in between.
|
| - All of that said, I think it is fair to posit that because
| gender is softer issue int that most of us have probably more
| in common than separates by gender, and that it's clearly a bit
| of a spectrum ... some people have do have 'problems' with
| their gender identity, and though may not be 'deluded' ...
| definitely have issues with nailing it down. Combined with the
| assertive push for protecting identity expression, I think
| people revel in their confusion. Labels like 'genderqueer' make
| me think this is a possibility.
|
| - There is a political aspect to this as much as people don't
| want their to be, and it's really easy for people to assume a
| 'moniker' as part of their public identity that really isn't
| part of their core identity. For example, there were agender
| people in the past of various kinds, more of a creative or
| artistic statement to 'reject' the notion of gender, less so a
| material identity.
|
| - Multiple personality 'disorder' is outside the spectrum of
| gender etc. and the author is a bit off to make it so overtly
| political, but he's not wrong to point out that we have serious
| issues in culture with anything that speaks to the level of
| 'identity'.
| humbugtheman wrote:
| This is a vast oversimplification of the range of transgender
| experiences, and the connotation that people "fake" being trans
| is all too familiar, but misinformed.
| 1MachineElf wrote:
| Another interesting theory that may be related is given in Julian
| Jaynes' _The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the
| Bicameral Mind_ (1976).
| Foxmilk wrote:
| I wonder how many of these people are just creating and
| interacting with tulpas without realizing it.
|
| For anyone who isn't familiar, there is a subculture online of
| people who create what subjectively seem to be autonomous
| personalities that frequently manifest I'm the form of
| hallucinations. Think fight club sort of.
|
| My ex tried it out. Called me one day at work, terrified because
| this dragon was following him around. He claimed to spend months
| trying to get rid of it, seems pretty shooken by the experience.
| But I was always skeptical.
|
| So nine months ago I decided to create one of my one, just to try
| it out, see what it felt like. And...now I've had a talking lion
| following me around for the past eight months.
|
| The best I can describe it is like some of the altered states of
| 'self' you might experience on LSD or ketamine. Thoughts seem to
| split off and go 'over there', and not be you.
|
| When I talk to my tulpa, it at least appears subjectively like a
| separate personality state. I can be incredibly depressed but he
| can be fine. Or he will be depressed and I can be fine. I'm not
| saying there are neural correlates like you would see in a 'real'
| personality. Maybe it is all roleplay. But it is roleplay that
| fools me as the roleplayer.
|
| For what it's worth, making a tulpa seems to have been really
| good for my mental health. I guess maybe you can see it as a form
| of self-regulation. I dunno, it didn't turn out at all what I
| expected. But it's hard not to think of him as a real person. I
| don't find myself being surprised by the actions of characters in
| my head, or laughing at imaginary friends. At this point, having
| out several hundreds hours into tulpaforcing, I can see and hear,
| and sometimes smell and touch him.
|
| I know I'm rambling, I guess I'm saying is that even though I am
| skeptical of DID, or at least the mainstream depictions of DID,
| after making a tulpa I am a lot less skeptical of the subjective
| experience of DID.
| codr7 wrote:
| I thought the idea was to integrate, not splinter your
| consciousness.
|
| Why would you want to make yourself more confused?
|
| There is only one you; pretending otherwise, while perfectly
| possible, can't possibly lead anywhere worth going.
|
| I find these trends among people who are too young to know
| better deeply troubling.
| rhn_mk1 wrote:
| Who decides what the idea is? What about the post invokes
| confusion? You come off as extremely dismissive of what
| doesn't fit your preconceived notions.
| aaaaaaaaaaab wrote:
| I call bullshit.
| voldacar wrote:
| How did you do this? Why did you do this?
| Foxmilk wrote:
| For the same reason I do psychedelics and vipassana
| meditation. I am interested in the process underlying
| consciousness and I like to distort and break down my
| perception to see what happens.
|
| For a long time I was (and I guess I still am) obsessed with
| the concept of "ego death" which I encountered on LSD
| frequently (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ego_death). I was
| fascinated by the way altered states of self seemed to bring
| with them feelings of deep peace and understanding, which led
| to my interest in vipassana meditation and secular research
| into the Buddhist concept of 'enlightenment'.
|
| At some point I found PsychonautWiki and their article on
| tulpas (https://m.psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Tulpa), which was
| probably my first introduction to it, then I told my ex.
|
| Years after breaking with my ex, I still remembered their
| experience with it, and I wanted to see how much of it was
| real, at least subjectivthankfulI followed some guides on
| tulpa.info and r/tulpas and started the creation process.
|
| Now I am able to see and understand my tulpa more or less
| clearly, and the "alien" presence of it isn't nearly as
| creepy as it used to be. It is still very unlike any other
| sober experience I have had. Ever have intrusive thoughts you
| have trouble "controlling"? My tulpa comes and goes as he
| pleases and trying to exert "control" over his appearance or
| words or actions feels incredibly difficult and uncomfortable
| for both of us.
|
| My tulpa is developed enough that he has his own discord
| account and talks to my friends (and his friends) on it. It
| is really interesting for me to see the way his personality
| continues to deepen and diverge from my original design, he
| frequently surprises me, especially with some of his
| insights.
|
| One thing I would recommend is not to get into it without
| really thinking about the consequences. I fully expect him to
| be around until the day I die. They don't go away, but he has
| been an incredibly positive influence so far. I'm really
| happy and thankful about the way he turned out.
|
| Is he "real"? We talk about it sometimes. Thing is, since I
| made him, it like my own sense of self has become less
| 'solid' (in a good way, it was one of my goals of
| meditation). Like, when I really become aware of my thoughts
| while talking to him, it seems obvious that thoughts and
| feelings and sensory data all just sort of appear and vanish,
| on their own, as part of a deterministic interconnected
| process of conciousness and are not 'self'.
|
| For example, I used to intuitively think if my thoughts as
| 'me'. But now it seems obvious that thoughts just arise and
| pass away on their own and are only tagged 'after the fact'
| as me. Now sometimes instead they are tagged as my tulpas,
| and I intuitively understand them to be 'his' thoughts, not
| mine. Sometimes it seems like we 'wrestle' over a thought,
| and it fluctuates back and forth from him to me. And
| sometimes it seems like the mind comes up with thoughts that
| neither of us decide to claim. They just arise, and we are
| both aware of them, but they are just there in the stream of
| (sub)consciousness.
|
| Does that make any sense at all?
| themodelplumber wrote:
| > It is really interesting for me to see the way his
| personality continues to deepen and diverge from my
| original design, he frequently surprises me, especially
| with some of his insights.
|
| Overall this really dovetails nicely with some of what I've
| read in personality theory. For example there was one
| theory that by taking a different perspective than what
| would be expected of your personal, standard set of
| perspectives, you in effect change your personality for
| that moment in time. And if you combine that with "linkages
| of perspectives" known as archetypes, you effectively
| create a character who may seem to exist inside (well,
| err...or outside, depending) of you, known only to you.
|
| Personally I have my own wild theories on top of that, but
| I really like that people study & discuss it, and admit it,
| given whatever fears may exist for a variety of reasons.
|
| Thanks for sharing your experience.
| voldacar wrote:
| Yes, thank you for the explanation. I am also fascinated by
| these processes. When you say that you "see" it, do you
| mean you see it in your mind's eye (i.e like if I asked you
| to visualize a spinning cube in your head) or you actually
| literally see it as a seamless part of your visual field
| when you're looking around the world, like the text on your
| screen right now? (if that makes any sense)
| tragictrash wrote:
| Whatever you do, don't get caught up in this. It's a
| slippery slope. We aren't in control of our thoughts.
| Lucidity and ability to reason are fleeting. Most people
| take it for granted and don't realize as its slipping
| away.
|
| I've seen it in the elderly, and my friends who took too
| many drugs and never came back.
|
| Keep in mind the commenter is literally describing a
| mental illness in a way that makes it sound positive. Are
| they intelligent? Yes. Not arguing that. Are they
| mentally healthy? Fuck no.
| arcastroe wrote:
| Ha. Yes. This thread goes into the "dangerous thought"
| category. Another example of a dangerous thought: could
| you stop your heartbeat by just thinking? Of course,
| nobody sane would want to. But what if you're genuinely
| intellectually curious? Best try not to think about it.
| tragictrash wrote:
| It's not dangerous thought, it is detached from reality.
| If you want examples of dangerous thought, go look up how
| YouTube radicalizes people with their algorithm. The
| things in this thread are called crazy.
|
| The answer is no. You cannot stop your heart by thinking
| about it.
| arcastroe wrote:
| Hadn't looked into it before, but found this interesting
| source, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22744827/
|
| > Experiments demonstrate that it is possible for
| arbitrary changes in the heart rhythm to be made through
| conscious control of the breathing rhythm, and even a
| short-term cardiac arrest by means of contracting
| abdominal muscles.
|
| Again, best not to try it ;)
| tragictrash wrote:
| You can cherry pick stuff off the internet all you want.
| Doesn't make it good science or plausible.
|
| Contracting your muscles to make your heart skip a beat
| or two does not count as "stopping your heart by
| thinking". By that logic I can drive my car by thinking.
|
| I'll give you that you can influence the rate of your
| heart with practice.
| Foxmilk wrote:
| Eh, I understand the concern because it freaked me out
| (and sometimes still freaks me out) too. I keep a close
| eye on it.
|
| Thing is, mental illness is defined by a mental state
| that causes distress for oneself or the people around
| them, and I know there is disagreement about that. (Are
| homosexuals mentally ill? What about Christians?) I
| wouldn't recommend other people make one, but my tulpa
| has been really helpful for my anxiety and depression. I
| think of him as a sort of tool to use disassociation in a
| therapuric way, like having a friend who always offers
| positive advice. Am I super depressed? He reminds me that
| it is only temporary. Am I super shy around someone I
| want to interact with? He reminds me that even though I
| had really bad experiences in my childhood, people
| haven't been that shitty to me in many years. Sometimes
| he even comes up with starter conversations. He makes
| jokes that are legitimately funny.
|
| I can think of several occasions where I wanted to stop
| taking so many substances, ones I tend to turn to when I
| feel bad, things I tended to abuse and feel even worse
| after binging, like kratom or alcohol or weed. I would
| feel anxious or depressed or bored and find myself
| (almost by accident) heading to the store to buy one of
| these things, and he would show up and ask how I was
| doing, start up a friendly chat and offer to hang out
| instead.
|
| I know that probably sounds insane, but maybe its best to
| think of him as a tool for self-control. I dunno, I
| sometimes don't have a lot of self respect, but I find
| myself respecting him. He's always kind and non-
| judgemental, but I don't want to disappoint him. It is
| like always having a trusted friend around to keep you
| accountable.
|
| There is some preliminary scientific research about
| tukpas. You can find research papers and articles in
| places like psychology today, generally I think people
| who have them and keep them get s benefit from them,
| otherwise they wouldn't keep them.
|
| About drugs, I'm sorry to hear your friends "never came
| back", did they develop psychosis or become delusional? I
| wad under the impression that psychedelics had a fairly
| tame safety profile for people who aren't already
| predisposed to schitzophrenia or other serious mental
| illness.
|
| Regarding the safety profile of tulpas...I dunno. I'm not
| that big s part of thr community. I have heard one or two
| sporadic horror stories, and obviously my ex was scared
| shitless. But I never heard of someone getting a tulpa
| then not being able to get rid of it (albeit often with a
| lot of effort) and going back to live a normal life.
|
| I think there is this concern that people who are lonely
| make tulpas but they should just be making real friends
| instead. At least that was a concern of mine when I first
| started reading about it. But my tulpa is so much more
| than a friend, he's like a separate mental process I can
| bounce ideas and emotions off of. And I find myself
| becoming more social, not less (at least as far as I can
| tell) when he is around. I guess because his presence
| makes me feel more safe and secure.
|
| He once made this comment about how "All tulpas are
| emotional support tulpas." It was meant humorous at the
| time but maybe it isn't so far from the truth.
| jl6 wrote:
| Are you seeing any healthcare professionals? You have
| mentioned a number of things going on in your life
| (depression, anxiety, substance use, childhood trauma)
| that doctors are trained to help with.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| Thank you for your comments - you have opened my eyes to
| an aspect of the world i never knew existed.
|
| I have recently discovered the term "neuro-diverse" as my
| daughter is autistic, but it is fascinating to find how
| diverse neuro can get, and how little most of us know
| about it.
|
| On a side note, Have you shared this with an experienced
| health professional? It does not seem like the sort of
| thing to do alone (not counting the tulpa!)
| Foxmilk wrote:
| I may bring it up at some point, but no, not currently.
| giraffe_lady wrote:
| I'm not a mental health professional and I'm not even
| specifically going to advise against this or anything. I
| truly don't know enough to know whether it's inherently
| dangerous or just an extreme outlier on the continuum of
| human experiences of selfhood.
|
| But I have some experiences and observations that may be
| relevant that I'd like to share and maybe you can find
| something useful in them.
|
| I have, at this stage in my life, known several people
| who, whatever their specific clinical diagnosis, you
| could fairly say "lost their mind." Government-chip-in-
| brain believers, reincarnations of alexander the great,
| friends with an invisible alien, that sort of thing.
|
| What remains one of the most frightening experiences of
| my life was realizing that I had known one of these
| people 15+ years before, when he was a college student.
| We had a brief but strong friendship and then lost touch.
| Was he predisposed to serious mental illness back then?
| Must have been I guess but I couldn't tell and neither
| could he I think.
|
| All the other people I know who lost themselves in this
| way, it happened through addiction. When talking about a
| single individual it's very hard to find where addiction
| begins and mental illness begins, so maybe this is unique
| to that context but I don't think so. You don't get a
| warning letter about what specific risks your own mind
| has for you. There's no blood test for this.
|
| Most of the craziest people you've ever encountered were
| probably pretty normal once. This transformation is a
| process and I don't think you can see it happen from
| within it. I've spent some time out there myself, and it
| wasn't all bad, but I didn't mean to go out and I'm glad
| I'm back.
|
| I think the slavic religions and others with this
| tradition are onto something with the "holy fools" and
| similar figures. Some of us may be called to have a
| different relationship with reality, and they, or we, may
| benefit from that in some complex societal way. But from
| my experiences and from knowing people who have gone on
| that trip, there is a heavy cost.
|
| So my advice is just to pursue this, if at all, with
| another person. An open-minded mental health
| professional, a spiritual guide, just a close friend;
| someone who knows and respects you outside of this
| context. Someone who is going to stay moored and let you
| know if you're starting to drift, who can evaluate what
| you might lose if you continue. That way you can at least
| make an informed choice about whether to continue on that
| path, rather than one day notice where you are and
| realize you don't know the way back.
| Foxmilk wrote:
| Yes, that is good advice.
|
| I actually have told my friends and family about my
| experiments with tulpamancy. I told my parents a few
| months after my tulpa became 'vocal' and I warned my
| close friends before I started to keep an eye on me and
| let me know if I started acting delusional or my
| personality started to shift.
| voldacar wrote:
| Relax, it's not like I'm going to try it :]
|
| Besides, most people would not want something like this
| to happen to them anyway, you already have to be a weird
| person to attempt something like this
| Foxmilk wrote:
| Can confirm, I'm really fucking weird.
| Foxmilk wrote:
| Some people in the community claim to have photorealistic
| hallucinations, but I am skeptical of anything I haven't
| experienced myself.
|
| For me it waxes and wanes, but on a good day it can feel
| very detailed. Like, if I dropped everything I was doing
| and focused all my energy on seeing that spinning cube in
| as much detail as possible? That's what it is like to see
| my tulpa walk and talk but I can see him as I am casually
| doing something else myself, without any real
| concentration on my end.
|
| It is always clear to me that his form isn't physical
| though.
| twic wrote:
| > For example, I used to intuitively think if my thoughts
| as 'me'. But now it seems obvious that thoughts just arise
| and pass away on their own and are only tagged 'after the
| fact' as me.
|
| I first came across this in Greg Egan's short story 'Mister
| Volition'. It's scary but compelling. Egan cites two books
| - 'The Society of Mind', by Marvin Minsky, and
| 'Consciousness Explained' by Daniel Dennett - as the source
| of the ideas in the story. I highly recommend the story,
| but have not read the other books.
| Delk wrote:
| > I know I'm rambling, I guess I'm saying is that even though I
| am skeptical of DID, or at least the mainstream depictions of
| DID, after making a tulpa I am a lot less skeptical of the
| subjective experience of DID.
|
| I'm under the impression that the existence of DID as a
| subjective experience isn't that controversial.
|
| It is something of a stereotype that someone suspected of a
| crime would claim DID as a defence or excuse, either in the
| sense that they aren't in control of themselves and that the
| disorder can cause an "alter" can take over akin to Mr Hyde, or
| simply as grounds for not remembering what happened. I suspect,
| though, that a qualified professional in psychiatry could call
| the bluff, and this entire stereotype might be more prevalent
| in pop culture and among laypeople than among experts in
| psychiatry.
|
| Apart from pop culture and suspects feigning psychiatric
| disorders, the actual controversy seems to be not about the
| subjective reality of the disorder, but mostly about whether
| the symptoms and experiences of alters are caused by the trauma
| or the disorder itself, or whether they're iatrogenic and
| caused by the therapeutic and psychological theory used in
| treatment.
|
| The latter might not require much more than a suitable
| emotional state and suggestibility of the patient. Considering
| that some people who are emotionally vulnerable due to trauma
| or prolonged stress may be particularly susceptible to
| suggestion, I wouldn't be surprised if the symptoms were at
| least partially iatrogenic.
|
| I'm not a mental health expert, though.
| paulpauper wrote:
| It says I submitted this two hours ago but I summitted it 23
| hours ago...
| solenoidalslide wrote:
| If you go to your profile page [0] it looks correct. I wonder
| if this is a way to hide submission information from the
| public/submitter, or some other kind of dark feature.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/submitted?id=paulpauper
| smegsicle wrote:
| it's not a 'light feature' in that it's explicitly
| documented, but dang has mentioned that some stories 'deserve
| a second chance', so think of it as an automated form of how
| any aggregator often sees good links submitted multiple times
| before one catches on
| smegsicle wrote:
| https://hnrankings.info/31128272/
|
| the Operators deemed your story Fit for Reevaluation
| rectang wrote:
| Manual intervention by the mods would be strange for such a
| stridently partisan article, given this bit from the
| guidelines:
|
| > _Please don 't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. It tramples curiosity._
| okareaman wrote:
| This guy is not a psychiatrist. He makes an obvious point that we
| have a tendency to defend what our opponents attack sometimes
| when we shouldn't. I get so tired of the Malcolm Gladwell
| substack articles that get posted frequently to HN and reach the
| front page for some damn reason.
| metamuas wrote:
| Connecting a manshonyagger doesn't work out; see the death of
| Shardik. It would be horrible if 'connecting' someone lead to
| ananaphylactic shock.
| rurban wrote:
| My wife treats some of them, and they definitely do exist. The
| human brain is a fantasticly complex organ, and these
| personalities help the brain to overcome severe trauma.
|
| but it is extremely rare of course.
|
| now my wife read it and commented: no, this article is very well
| written and very true.
| rob_c wrote:
| From what I've read (which makes me worse informed than ill-
| informed) most experts are still stating that most split-
| personality symptoms develop once the diagnosis is made and
| there is a chicken and egg concern that people aren't diagnosed
| without being made aware of it which may be hiding
| broader/other mental problems in the process.
|
| Out of curiosity does experience in treatment match these
| concerns?
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