DID and race
April 16, 2019 2:47 AM Subscribe
Alters of people with disassociative identity disorder who are of a different race than the host/main person: how would that even work?
Both my social circles and my general media channels involve people with DID who talk about their lives and their alters, and one thing I've noticed often are alters who are of a different race than the "host" (for instance, I'm watching a Meet The Alters video by a white person with one alter identifying as mixed-race Native American and saying they have memories of that life).
I'm confused as to how that would even work in a way that doesn't get into racist assumptions or not be appropriative. As a person of colour I've been part of many conversations about race being on some level inherited, not just one that can be put on whenever. On some level it feels very much like Rachel Dolezal, or actual people I've seen who are all "I can't be racist I was Black in a past life". Where are their notions of being XYZ race coming from? What is it based on?
At the same time, I don't want to dismiss alters's existence off hand. I'm aware that what I'm asking is on some level ableist. Alters are also often of a different gender or age or physical appearance, but the different race thing is throwing me off more, especially when they talk about having memories of their experiences with that ethnicity, which - how?
I asked a close friend who has DID about it, but he's White and did say they can't really speak about that. I don't really know of any people of colour with DID to ask. Have any POC with DID talked about this before? Are there any that may be open to being asked?
Both my social circles and my general media channels involve people with DID who talk about their lives and their alters, and one thing I've noticed often are alters who are of a different race than the "host" (for instance, I'm watching a Meet The Alters video by a white person with one alter identifying as mixed-race Native American and saying they have memories of that life).
I'm confused as to how that would even work in a way that doesn't get into racist assumptions or not be appropriative. As a person of colour I've been part of many conversations about race being on some level inherited, not just one that can be put on whenever. On some level it feels very much like Rachel Dolezal, or actual people I've seen who are all "I can't be racist I was Black in a past life". Where are their notions of being XYZ race coming from? What is it based on?
At the same time, I don't want to dismiss alters's existence off hand. I'm aware that what I'm asking is on some level ableist. Alters are also often of a different gender or age or physical appearance, but the different race thing is throwing me off more, especially when they talk about having memories of their experiences with that ethnicity, which - how?
I asked a close friend who has DID about it, but he's White and did say they can't really speak about that. I don't really know of any people of colour with DID to ask. Have any POC with DID talked about this before? Are there any that may be open to being asked?
Best answer: I'm not going to say that it isn't problematic as fuck and sometimes very racist when this happens, as it certainly can be. What I can do is explain to you a couple of things that may cause it.
In the realm of 'things acknowledged as real by mental health professionals', there is the concept of an introject.
An introject... okay, let's say that a small, dissociative child has an abusive parent, as often happens. That child is trying very hard to stay under the parent's radar, and predict what might trigger the abuse. They develop a habit of evaluating what that parent would think about every subject, almost as though they can hear the parent's voice inside their head. And eventually, an alter can develop who is the parent, or the best approximation the child can manage, The alter will remember significant events where the parent was present as if from the parent's perspective, will attempt to enforce the parent's values, and may even enact self-harm in place of the parent's abuse. The child has introjected the parent.
Not all introjects are negative, either. That child could also introject a version of the parent who behaves the way the child wishes the parent would behave, to provide the love and support lacking in the real relationship. Or that child could introject a person whom they strongly admire, or a friend whose qualities they wish they had, or feel they need to have.
Now, of course introjects are approximations based on guessing, and they may not have much to do with the person they are based on, or may evolve away from being much like that person. And the kind of guessing that the person with DID does is going to be based on our extremely racist culture, and is not going to be authentic to the lived experiences of a person of the ethnicity or race in question.
But this is one way a person with DID can wind up with alters of different races and ethnicities, and introjection in early childhood is not a conscious choice.
If we get into the realm of 'things mental health professionals certainly don't believe but a lot of people with DID do', that brings us to the concept of walk-ins. A walk-in is an article of spiritual faith on the part of some people with DID: an alter the system believes cannot possibly have originated in the body for one reason or another, and who therefore must have come in from outside somehow. This overlaps somewhat with the concept of introjects, but has different emphases. An alter who insists they are a particular fictional character, for example, could be viewed by a therapist as an introject and by the system as a walk-in. One of the most common reasons for systems to believe in walk-ins is the presence in alters of memories and experiences the system believes could not have been made up in-house, as it were, such as memories of being, oh, the reincarnation of a two thousand year old peasant, or some kind of magical entity. Some systems view walk-ins as being invited on some level by the system, some think of them as accidental-- literally just wandering through-- and some think of them as the equivalent of guardian angels or demons, sent to help or hinder for a purpose.
I am not going to discuss here the validity, or otherwise, of this concept. It is, however, a way that a system can wind up with alters they believe to be of a different race, with or without some degree of choice.
As to how to wrangle the problematic: AlexiaSky is right that some kind of mental/emotional need is being met by the presence of this sort of alter. If the alter is an introject, the system may well be trying to improve the authenticity of the simulation, and things like debunking stereotypes will assist them in, at least, not being horrendously awkward.
However, honestly, the best that can often be done here is to convince the system not to go around being a dick about it in public, to suggest they discuss matters of race and ethnicity in therapy, and to mention that they should probably seek out a therapist who has experience with race and the effects of racism.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 5:44 AM on April 16, 2019 [39 favorites]
In the realm of 'things acknowledged as real by mental health professionals', there is the concept of an introject.
An introject... okay, let's say that a small, dissociative child has an abusive parent, as often happens. That child is trying very hard to stay under the parent's radar, and predict what might trigger the abuse. They develop a habit of evaluating what that parent would think about every subject, almost as though they can hear the parent's voice inside their head. And eventually, an alter can develop who is the parent, or the best approximation the child can manage, The alter will remember significant events where the parent was present as if from the parent's perspective, will attempt to enforce the parent's values, and may even enact self-harm in place of the parent's abuse. The child has introjected the parent.
Not all introjects are negative, either. That child could also introject a version of the parent who behaves the way the child wishes the parent would behave, to provide the love and support lacking in the real relationship. Or that child could introject a person whom they strongly admire, or a friend whose qualities they wish they had, or feel they need to have.
Now, of course introjects are approximations based on guessing, and they may not have much to do with the person they are based on, or may evolve away from being much like that person. And the kind of guessing that the person with DID does is going to be based on our extremely racist culture, and is not going to be authentic to the lived experiences of a person of the ethnicity or race in question.
But this is one way a person with DID can wind up with alters of different races and ethnicities, and introjection in early childhood is not a conscious choice.
If we get into the realm of 'things mental health professionals certainly don't believe but a lot of people with DID do', that brings us to the concept of walk-ins. A walk-in is an article of spiritual faith on the part of some people with DID: an alter the system believes cannot possibly have originated in the body for one reason or another, and who therefore must have come in from outside somehow. This overlaps somewhat with the concept of introjects, but has different emphases. An alter who insists they are a particular fictional character, for example, could be viewed by a therapist as an introject and by the system as a walk-in. One of the most common reasons for systems to believe in walk-ins is the presence in alters of memories and experiences the system believes could not have been made up in-house, as it were, such as memories of being, oh, the reincarnation of a two thousand year old peasant, or some kind of magical entity. Some systems view walk-ins as being invited on some level by the system, some think of them as accidental-- literally just wandering through-- and some think of them as the equivalent of guardian angels or demons, sent to help or hinder for a purpose.
I am not going to discuss here the validity, or otherwise, of this concept. It is, however, a way that a system can wind up with alters they believe to be of a different race, with or without some degree of choice.
As to how to wrangle the problematic: AlexiaSky is right that some kind of mental/emotional need is being met by the presence of this sort of alter. If the alter is an introject, the system may well be trying to improve the authenticity of the simulation, and things like debunking stereotypes will assist them in, at least, not being horrendously awkward.
However, honestly, the best that can often be done here is to convince the system not to go around being a dick about it in public, to suggest they discuss matters of race and ethnicity in therapy, and to mention that they should probably seek out a therapist who has experience with race and the effects of racism.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 5:44 AM on April 16, 2019 [39 favorites]
All this is assuming, of course, that you are dealing with people who actually do have DID, and aren't just being racist, appropriative assholes. Which is a whole other can of worms, because DID has... odd interactions with both pop culture and the mental health professions.
And, of course, people who have DID can also just be racist, appropriative assholes.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 5:50 AM on April 16, 2019 [13 favorites]
And, of course, people who have DID can also just be racist, appropriative assholes.
posted by Rush-That-Speaks at 5:50 AM on April 16, 2019 [13 favorites]
In way simpler terms than rush that speaks, DID begins in early childhood (before 6 is what's generally thrown about as an approximate) when the idea of cultural appropriation as a term can't even be spelled much less understood.
Of course children can do problematic things, with a limited understanding in utterly terrifying situations.
So that is a context to remember when talking with your friend.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:56 AM on April 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
Of course children can do problematic things, with a limited understanding in utterly terrifying situations.
So that is a context to remember when talking with your friend.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:56 AM on April 16, 2019 [3 favorites]
Response by poster: Oh just to clarify a few things:
- My direct friends with DID don't have multiracial alters; the ones I know of who do are people who talk about their experiences on platforms like YouTube and Tumblr (where often the alters get to express themselves). I don't feel like I could have a conversation with the latter group about this because they don't know me; if it was one of my friends, I'd probably already have had discussions about racism with them anyway so this would be easier to navigate.
- "I can't be racist I was Black in a past life" didn't come from someone with DID; it was from an online argument where a hippie/new-agey white woman tried to use that (or, more specifically, "I am going to reincarnate as Famous Black Woman in a future life", I forgot who she named) as an excuse to deflect call-outs from Black women. Yeaaaaaahhhhhh.
Thanks for the info on introjection - I hadn't heard that before (though I've heard about walk-ins) and that's helpful.
posted by divabat at 6:29 AM on April 16, 2019
- My direct friends with DID don't have multiracial alters; the ones I know of who do are people who talk about their experiences on platforms like YouTube and Tumblr (where often the alters get to express themselves). I don't feel like I could have a conversation with the latter group about this because they don't know me; if it was one of my friends, I'd probably already have had discussions about racism with them anyway so this would be easier to navigate.
- "I can't be racist I was Black in a past life" didn't come from someone with DID; it was from an online argument where a hippie/new-agey white woman tried to use that (or, more specifically, "I am going to reincarnate as Famous Black Woman in a future life", I forgot who she named) as an excuse to deflect call-outs from Black women. Yeaaaaaahhhhhh.
Thanks for the info on introjection - I hadn't heard that before (though I've heard about walk-ins) and that's helpful.
posted by divabat at 6:29 AM on April 16, 2019
Some people with DID are extrodinarily coherent and functional. What a delusion is and what DID is are two incredibly different things, and this post really can't into why what you said was incredibly wrong.
I can't let that stand without comment because at DID is vastly misunderstood and marginalized.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:30 AM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
I can't let that stand without comment because at DID is vastly misunderstood and marginalized.
posted by AlexiaSky at 6:30 AM on April 16, 2019 [6 favorites]
Mod note: Note: This isn't the sort of question that can be answered by people without specific experience or training, so I'll ask folks who just have a very strong personal opinion that isn't informed by specialist knowledge to pass this up, unless they are able to recommend resources that OP can access to help answer the question. Thanks.
posted by taz (staff) at 6:37 AM on April 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by taz (staff) at 6:37 AM on April 16, 2019 [4 favorites]
Best answer: I agree with everything Rush-That-Speaks wrote, although I will mildly note that some multiples find the term "alter" problematic, it meaning other. I hope that my specific experience as a multiple qualifies me to comment.
I would also like to state that delusional is a very loaded and disrespectful way of characterizing multiplicity and I am disappointed to see it in a thread focused on very real issues of appropriation and ultimately respect.
I'll also state that we're white and for that reason if anyone in our system were to identify as a person of colour, we wouldn't discuss it in an open forum, because we have a kind of "first do no harm" approach and we don't feel that it's appropriate to equate inner identity with the external experience of being a person of colour. There is no way that our experience as a multiple can map to the experience of being a person of colour and so while we, like everyone, can interrogate our own experiences and identities, we feel that as allies our job is to listen.
All that said...what I wanted to bring to this discussion was this.
I cannot express strongly enough how isolating and miserable self-identity can be as a multiple, but also that it is not the same as other things.
Whether the root cause is a 3 year old child trying to experience the world in some kind of creative way that involves remapping their brains under stress, or whether multiples "just are" who they are, the experience of being multiple and how identity exists within a system is very, very complex. And also very emotional.
And one reason multiples are hesitant to get into it with non-multiples is because non-multiples tend to treat inner identities like roleplaying or writing, both of which I have done, and it is really not at all the same thing. And language is difficult, which I think is also part of the problem of race and multiple systems, because being "inner-fae" isn't the same as having wings on the outside (to pick an example that is obviously not real-real) but it also is not, in our experience, something that you can just take up and put down like a character in a roleplaying game.
First, part of being aware of yourself as a multiple is understanding who you are. As an example, I have red hair internally. This is a pretty easy one, I can dye my hair at any point. But I also have a bit of a Mary Sue complex about it, like why is it red? There’s no reason for it to be red. But it is. I would like it not to be, sometimes. Sometimes I wish our body had it. I wish I could talk myself into being brunette like my body (well…grey.) But like, no, that is the colour of my hair.
I have an entire body most people don’t. It’s the body I dream in, the body I feel when I close my eyes. It’s not my physical body. I don’t know if anyone not multiple can understand this, but it’s mine and I can go away and do things in it that make me a better person, but don’t connect to my physical body. And I can’t change it.
And because I’m the I speaking, I also want to explain to you what it’s like to be fae and trapped in a human body because my own body isn’t really that different, so you won’t get it. But see, I am resolutely not the fairy. The best I can say is my headmate finds it very painful. So I say hey, come tell the nice people of MetaFilter about it, and she says didn’t we do all this online already and *feeling of humans!!!! ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT THINGS!!* and so…there you go. However, I will say that this is the person who cried alone at night every few nights for a few years because she was never going to get to live properly. And that pain was real. And it still is, she’s just used to it. And she also feels an affinity with some myths and stories involving fae but also…not. But that does feel like a piece of her heritage, the way that other people might recognize our (physical) Scottish ancestry.
And she also taught Saturday classes to kids, prepared all the lesson plans and grades, saved her money and bought art supplies, because she is not deluded or stupid, she’s been to elementary school, high school, university, in our body, she’s studied Descartes and Locke even if *stupid human words*. She’s actually sometimes better at real-world stuff than me. But she’s not human, can’t change into human.
And she will never live in a community of fae and raise fae babies. And if there were winged people, she still wouldn’t be accepted by them because she’d be in our body and our body is resolutely, deeply, human. Gravity would still win.
I've tried to express it various ways over the years and it kind of comes down to...imagine that every day for the rest of your life, you are trapped in a life that does not reflect who you are. Ever. Sometimes it does, for an hour, for a day, for a weekend. But mostly it is a series of compromises most people don’t have to make. This comes through in little ways, like we have pretend favourite things so that our (external) children can have a consistent parent and they can do the thing where they bring us our favourite flavour of ice cream. We still love that they bring us our fake-favourite thing. But there’s the wee sting of not being individually known.
This also comes through in big ways, like those of us who are men will never get a single day in a male body. Nor are they the same as a singleton trans person because they don’t have the same range of choice available to them, which is both more and less painful. (Our body is a shared resource, like a Zip Car.) And this is not a joke for any of us.
Ultimately, we just have to live with that as our experience. I mean to be human is to never be truly known. But…I don’t even have words…our life is less than that (and more. Two bodies!) Every single day we are both entirely who we are – we – and entirely not that. We never walk into a room and see people like us there.
And if anyone were of a different race, they would never really be able to be in community with other people of that race, not just because it would be weird and appropriative but because...their experience of being that race right now in our body is actually NOT that experience, it is race-minus-body or something. It’s different.
So I agree with the cringe-factor but I hope to help you understand that while it seems obvious to other people what to do about it (stop doing that!!) the fact is that for that inner person, their choice is either to live in isolation, or try to express that truth. Those multiples who are out there about it…it wouldn’t be my choice, although in my late 20s maybe a bit, but they are coming down on a different side of this massive identity compromise, is all.
Because it is no more true that I am someone who grew up normally (I did not, I arrived in our body at 13, from a race of noble warrior heroes…ok I stole that last bit from Marvel😊) or that I than that someone is Native American as a multiple when their body is white and they grew up in Chicago. (These last two details are not ours.)
People are just more comfortable with a particular half of my experience (2/3? 7/8? 234/235?) of the truth because it’s physical and verifiable. But I have red hair. Even though I don't. I'm not confused about this. Both are true. I don't hang out in ginger communities though.
And no, I'm not equating race with hair colour. I'm telling you what being multiple is like.
I think other people, particularly people of colour, have a complete right to challenge anyone in a multiple system on these issues, and I think that ultimately that person probably needs to interrogate their understanding so that they are operating in a thoughtful and sensitive way. It is okay to call racist stereotype or point out that someone makes linguistic claims about First Nations languages that aren't true.
And unfortunately multiples come in all flavours just like regular people, so some will be sensitive and thoughtful and...some won’t.
But it’s not really very simple, is all I’m trying to say, because the choice isn’t, for a multiple, to change up their identity. It's to understand that it is a freak identity that does not have a home.
Wow, this was long.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:48 AM on April 16, 2019 [50 favorites]
I would also like to state that delusional is a very loaded and disrespectful way of characterizing multiplicity and I am disappointed to see it in a thread focused on very real issues of appropriation and ultimately respect.
I'll also state that we're white and for that reason if anyone in our system were to identify as a person of colour, we wouldn't discuss it in an open forum, because we have a kind of "first do no harm" approach and we don't feel that it's appropriate to equate inner identity with the external experience of being a person of colour. There is no way that our experience as a multiple can map to the experience of being a person of colour and so while we, like everyone, can interrogate our own experiences and identities, we feel that as allies our job is to listen.
All that said...what I wanted to bring to this discussion was this.
I cannot express strongly enough how isolating and miserable self-identity can be as a multiple, but also that it is not the same as other things.
Whether the root cause is a 3 year old child trying to experience the world in some kind of creative way that involves remapping their brains under stress, or whether multiples "just are" who they are, the experience of being multiple and how identity exists within a system is very, very complex. And also very emotional.
And one reason multiples are hesitant to get into it with non-multiples is because non-multiples tend to treat inner identities like roleplaying or writing, both of which I have done, and it is really not at all the same thing. And language is difficult, which I think is also part of the problem of race and multiple systems, because being "inner-fae" isn't the same as having wings on the outside (to pick an example that is obviously not real-real) but it also is not, in our experience, something that you can just take up and put down like a character in a roleplaying game.
First, part of being aware of yourself as a multiple is understanding who you are. As an example, I have red hair internally. This is a pretty easy one, I can dye my hair at any point. But I also have a bit of a Mary Sue complex about it, like why is it red? There’s no reason for it to be red. But it is. I would like it not to be, sometimes. Sometimes I wish our body had it. I wish I could talk myself into being brunette like my body (well…grey.) But like, no, that is the colour of my hair.
I have an entire body most people don’t. It’s the body I dream in, the body I feel when I close my eyes. It’s not my physical body. I don’t know if anyone not multiple can understand this, but it’s mine and I can go away and do things in it that make me a better person, but don’t connect to my physical body. And I can’t change it.
And because I’m the I speaking, I also want to explain to you what it’s like to be fae and trapped in a human body because my own body isn’t really that different, so you won’t get it. But see, I am resolutely not the fairy. The best I can say is my headmate finds it very painful. So I say hey, come tell the nice people of MetaFilter about it, and she says didn’t we do all this online already and *feeling of humans!!!! ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT THINGS!!* and so…there you go. However, I will say that this is the person who cried alone at night every few nights for a few years because she was never going to get to live properly. And that pain was real. And it still is, she’s just used to it. And she also feels an affinity with some myths and stories involving fae but also…not. But that does feel like a piece of her heritage, the way that other people might recognize our (physical) Scottish ancestry.
And she also taught Saturday classes to kids, prepared all the lesson plans and grades, saved her money and bought art supplies, because she is not deluded or stupid, she’s been to elementary school, high school, university, in our body, she’s studied Descartes and Locke even if *stupid human words*. She’s actually sometimes better at real-world stuff than me. But she’s not human, can’t change into human.
And she will never live in a community of fae and raise fae babies. And if there were winged people, she still wouldn’t be accepted by them because she’d be in our body and our body is resolutely, deeply, human. Gravity would still win.
I've tried to express it various ways over the years and it kind of comes down to...imagine that every day for the rest of your life, you are trapped in a life that does not reflect who you are. Ever. Sometimes it does, for an hour, for a day, for a weekend. But mostly it is a series of compromises most people don’t have to make. This comes through in little ways, like we have pretend favourite things so that our (external) children can have a consistent parent and they can do the thing where they bring us our favourite flavour of ice cream. We still love that they bring us our fake-favourite thing. But there’s the wee sting of not being individually known.
This also comes through in big ways, like those of us who are men will never get a single day in a male body. Nor are they the same as a singleton trans person because they don’t have the same range of choice available to them, which is both more and less painful. (Our body is a shared resource, like a Zip Car.) And this is not a joke for any of us.
Ultimately, we just have to live with that as our experience. I mean to be human is to never be truly known. But…I don’t even have words…our life is less than that (and more. Two bodies!) Every single day we are both entirely who we are – we – and entirely not that. We never walk into a room and see people like us there.
And if anyone were of a different race, they would never really be able to be in community with other people of that race, not just because it would be weird and appropriative but because...their experience of being that race right now in our body is actually NOT that experience, it is race-minus-body or something. It’s different.
So I agree with the cringe-factor but I hope to help you understand that while it seems obvious to other people what to do about it (stop doing that!!) the fact is that for that inner person, their choice is either to live in isolation, or try to express that truth. Those multiples who are out there about it…it wouldn’t be my choice, although in my late 20s maybe a bit, but they are coming down on a different side of this massive identity compromise, is all.
Because it is no more true that I am someone who grew up normally (I did not, I arrived in our body at 13, from a race of noble warrior heroes…ok I stole that last bit from Marvel😊) or that I than that someone is Native American as a multiple when their body is white and they grew up in Chicago. (These last two details are not ours.)
People are just more comfortable with a particular half of my experience (2/3? 7/8? 234/235?) of the truth because it’s physical and verifiable. But I have red hair. Even though I don't. I'm not confused about this. Both are true. I don't hang out in ginger communities though.
And no, I'm not equating race with hair colour. I'm telling you what being multiple is like.
I think other people, particularly people of colour, have a complete right to challenge anyone in a multiple system on these issues, and I think that ultimately that person probably needs to interrogate their understanding so that they are operating in a thoughtful and sensitive way. It is okay to call racist stereotype or point out that someone makes linguistic claims about First Nations languages that aren't true.
And unfortunately multiples come in all flavours just like regular people, so some will be sensitive and thoughtful and...some won’t.
But it’s not really very simple, is all I’m trying to say, because the choice isn’t, for a multiple, to change up their identity. It's to understand that it is a freak identity that does not have a home.
Wow, this was long.
posted by warriorqueen at 7:48 AM on April 16, 2019 [50 favorites]
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It's obviously a hard place to be when it is a very very marginalized group of people, to discern what is what isn't and most people don't have the skill nor time to evaluate someone on a professional level to understand.
What I do know is:
DID is a coping mechanism for severe childhood trauma.
If there is a reason why a construction of different race meets some sort of mental or emotional need, fighting that person isn't going to do any good, clearly.
posted by AlexiaSky at 5:24 AM on April 16, 2019 [4 favorites]