2000 - 2009
Medical
Diagnostic Changes
In 2015, the clinical modification of the ICD-10 (the ICD-10-CM) renamed multiple personality disorder to 'dissociative identity disorder.' It is listed under the category of anxiety, dissociative, stress-related, somatoform, and other nonpsychotic mental disorders.
Community
The Multiple Code
The multiple code is a social code that helps multiples and plurals convey information about their systems in a condensed and organized manner. Codes were often placed in forum or email signatures, or at the tagline of one's webpage. It was created by the Consortium System in March, 2001, although edited and updated by members of the Astraea System up until 2010. You can view an archive of the original multiple code here, and the one hosted on Astraea's Web here.
The original multiple code included 18 categories: universal modifiers, number, gender, species, age, origins, worlds, co-consciousness, outness factor, paranormal, religion, availability, job, diet, roleplaying, computers, social, and an additional tag for non-multiples. Integration and sexuality were added in the updated version.
There are a few spin-offs of the multiple code, including a modernized version of itself, as well as the emoji-based plural code.
The original multiple code included 18 categories: universal modifiers, number, gender, species, age, origins, worlds, co-consciousness, outness factor, paranormal, religion, availability, job, diet, roleplaying, computers, social, and an additional tag for non-multiples. Integration and sexuality were added in the updated version.
There are a few spin-offs of the multiple code, including a modernized version of itself, as well as the emoji-based plural code.
Controversial
Natural Multiplicity Movement
In the early 2000s, the movement to detach plurality and multiplicity from mental health truly began. The popular Astraea's Web might have been the one to incite this movement by encouraging a boycott on the DID diagnosis [1].
The purpose of this movement was to establish that plural experiences were not pathological. Participants in this movement often insisted that childhood trauma or abuse could not cause plurality or multiplicity. While these statements may ring true for non-disordered and endogenic plurality, it certainly doesn't for all experiences, especially trauma-related diagnoses! The problem with this movement is that participants adopted the DID diagnosis despite acknowledging that this wasn't what they were experiencing.
The purpose of this movement was to establish that plural experiences were not pathological. Participants in this movement often insisted that childhood trauma or abuse could not cause plurality or multiplicity. While these statements may ring true for non-disordered and endogenic plurality, it certainly doesn't for all experiences, especially trauma-related diagnoses! The problem with this movement is that participants adopted the DID diagnosis despite acknowledging that this wasn't what they were experiencing.
This culminated in people denouncing the DID diagnosis and many related labels that did not fit their experience [1] while simultaneously applying them to themselves. The medical nature of these terms was seen as derogatory and dehumanizing [2] simply because they did not experience the medical disorder that these terms described.
Psychotherapy for DID was also denounced despite many participants never receiving such treatment. For example, the Astraea group had stated they were not diagnosed and had never been to therapy at the time [4:"Is it possible to know or discover that you are a multiple without ever having been diagnosed by a professional?" section]. Yet, on an essay encouraging the boycott of diagnostic labels, Astraea claimed that "[a]s a diagnosis, MPD/DID does not help multiples in the long run. Doctors and insurance companies make $$$ off us but are WE helped?" [3:"Removing Diagnostic Labels" section]. |
There is more controversy around Astraea's involvement with this movement. On multiple occasions, they had expressed and supported the idea of removing the DID diagnosis from the DSM despite never being diagnosed with it [8]. Furthermore, a misrepresented academic journal was used to incite the boycott on the DID diagnosis [5]. Other people have also expressed concerns over plagiarism, misattribution, and a strong anti-psychiatry bias on Astraea's Web [6].
The Backlash
Many of those who were pushing to detach plurality from mental health would insist that it could not be caused by a disorder or trauma at all, while also frequently using the same language used by those with trauma disorders [7][9][10]. This is most likely what caused the natural multiplicity movement and, subsequently, non-disordered plurality to receive heaps of backlash. Eventually, the online community found itself fraught with discourse, constantly redefining terms and unable to agree upon how plurality, multiplicity, and DID should exist.
"I see this segregation, [these] divisions in the multiple community ultimately keeping us apart and discounted in the world. We discriminate against each other, trying to hold the moral high ground," stated one non-disordered plural in 2001 about the online community's reaction to the movement [10]. Another expressed that "The multiple community is finally starting to come together and I hate to see it get pulled apart by labels" [9].
Many people began to associate the concept of non-disordered plurality with the prejudice embedded into this movement. "The primary messages given by the non-disordered multiples [...] is that multiple personality is not a disorder and the anti-survivor message that multiplicity is natural and not caused by abuse," is what three DID systems shared in 2004 [7].
References
Image Credit
- Multiplicity is NOT DID. Please read. | Astraea's Web (archive.org)
- Terminology - Dark Personalities (archive.org)
- MULTIPLICITY RESOURCES & CONTROVERSY | Astraea's Web (archive.org)
- Astraea's Multiple Personality FAQ | Astraea's Web (archive.org)
- Plural Deep Dive: The Natural Multiplicity Theory P.3 (tumblr.com)
- Sources to Avoid | Plural Wiki (noblejury.com)
- 05/20/2004: "Empowered Multiplicity" | Pulses of Plurality (archive.org)
- https://imgur.com/a/tUddSGO
- Hyjinx of Volalupi. (2001, April 14). "Empowered or Survivor or Both?". Dark Personalities. darkpersonalities.com /rants/empowered/hyjinx.htm. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2021/10/30 from web.archive.org/web/ 20010414140237/http://www.darkpersonalities.com/rants/empowered/hyjinx.htm
- The People of Idia. (2001, August 30). "Victim, Survivor or Empowered?". Welcome To The Shire. theshire.50megs.com/ VSE.html. Internet Archive. Retrieved 2021/10/30 from web.archive.org/web/20010830151356/http:// www.theshire.50megs.com/VSE.html
Image Credit
- Created by me