{"id":281,"date":"2012-10-22T01:06:34","date_gmt":"2012-10-22T01:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/?page_id=281"},"modified":"2023-11-27T23:32:10","modified_gmt":"2023-11-28T04:32:10","slug":"serious","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/articles\/medicalisation\/serious\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting Serious about Plurality"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack Dawkins, 2012<\/em><\/p>\n

The problem that we\u2019ve seen with anti-plural hostility is the dismissal of any identity that varies from a particular norm, without any explanation other than \u2018I think it\u2019s bullshit, so your experience can\u2019t be valid.\u2019 There just isn\u2019t any serious discussion happening, because people believe that it\u2019s outside the realm of seriousness. It doesn\u2019t help that some environments, such as Tumblr, turn discussions of identity into a sideshow, rather than actually teasing out the important issues underneath some of the bluster that appears on people\u2019s dashboards.<\/p>\n

Asking questions about identity, though, is hard<\/em>. It requires people to question their preconceived ideas about selfhood, personhood and what it means to be \u2018mentally healthy\u2019. Since Western culture doesn\u2019t currently have a mainstream framework for mental variance that doesn\u2019t use the medical model, and positivism<\/a> prevails in most of the social sciences, including psychology, more philosophical explanations aren\u2019t brought in as much as they were in the past. Neurodiversity is gaining more traction in popular discourse, but it will take a bit longer before that mindset displaces the current set of ideas.<\/p>\n

There are people who will say \u2018It\u2019s crazy! Because it\u2019s not \u201cnormal\u201d, something\u2019s wrong with you.\u2019 That those of us who are non-DID plural systems can\u2019t have valid experiences because one model of cognition tends to be rather hostile to the idea of variance being just that\u2014variance<\/em>. Some conditions do require treatment, but variance in and of itself shouldn\u2019t be the reason why treatment should be mandated. Unfortunately, a lot of people conflate \u2018variance\u2019 and \u2018disorder\u2019. It\u2019s thoughtless traditionalism for its own sake, as opposed to a thoughtful stance that considers all aspects of identity.<\/p>\n

As usual, I\u2019ll add the disclaimer that I don\u2019t think that DID isn\u2019t a thing, but that plurality itself need not always be explained with that paradigm. It\u2019s a bit like gender variance\u2014there are \u2018classic\u2019 trans people, who have binary gender identities and want to physically change their bodies to match their identities, and there are other gender-variant people, who may or may not identify themselves as being on the gender binary, and may or may not want to change their bodies.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, we\u2019ve seen people come round just by knowing others who have had different experiences to them, and are willing to listen to them (that\u2019s the important bit), even if they may not be completely knowledgeable at first.<\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know conclusively how we came to be separate people: some of us think that we emerged naturally; others think that our plurality may have occurred as a response to stress. Regardless, though, we like who we are, and don\u2019t want to lose our identities to gain the social acceptance of people who aren\u2019t willing to listen in the first place<\/em>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack Dawkins, 2012 The problem that we\u2019ve seen with anti-plural hostility is the dismissal of any identity that varies from a particular norm, without any explanation other than \u2018I think it\u2019s bullshit, so your experience can\u2019t be valid.\u2019 There just isn\u2019t any serious discussion happening, because people believe that it\u2019s outside the realm of seriousness. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":1234,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"coauthors":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-281","1":"page","2":"type-page","3":"status-publish","5":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/281","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=281"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/281\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1249,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/281\/revisions\/1249"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=281"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.exunoplures.org\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=281"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}