I'd love to see your thoughts on the k-drama "Kill Me, Heal Me". The main character has DID, and while it doesn't do as good a job as moonknight, from my limited knowledge and after watching this video I think it still does a pretty good job, but I'd love to hear an experts thoughts on it. The end goal in the show is merging (? if that's the right term) of the alters, but although the relationships between them start as a power struggle and just trying to control the alters, they evolve to a place of understanding and respect that allows it to happen. Also the love interest is his personal doctor/therapist/fake secretary so that's definitely interesting lol. There are several alters and they each have a purpose that they discover and then relieve them of that responsibility. They're all very different and not as discrete as you mentioned is typical. When going through the "healing" process, a new personality comes to help with the process, which I think is very interesting. It's a really really interesting show, and even if it isn't completely accurate, I think there are a lot of things it did really well and the storytelling and acting is amazing.
I hope you pay attention to the comments in this thread because watching this has made me wonder if I am an undiagnosed DID system and I don't even know how to start down the path to finding out. All I know is that I have had 'blinks' like you see in the show, close your eyes for a blink, then open them and time has passed. Never very long, but there is no memory of the time that has passed. I'm in New Zealand so you almost certainly won't know of specific people to talk to here, but do I need a specific type of therapist or... I don't even know the right terminology. This is kind of eye opening in some ways. And I could just be fucked up and not DID at all. I just don't know. Mirrors are hard when I am looking at myself; if I am looking to look at my hair or face, deciding on shaving or not, that is okay, but looking at my face, looking at me is hard to do. So hard I rarely do and when I find that I am I walk away because there is great anger there. HELP, IF you can.
Hey!! I’d really love to see an episode on sucker punch. There’s a lot more to the movie than I feel like people initially realize and would tie into your channel really well
I watched the behind the scenes of this series on Disney plus. The director admitted that it was not 100 percent accurate of DID, because they wanted to bring the artist element to moon knight, but the director and the actor who is moon knight, spoke and spent time with people with DID to try to understand and portray it as realistic as they could, whilst also adding the artistic elements to it. I fully respect that someone would go to such research for a marvel cinematic series. Also the actor who plays Moon knight is amazing!
I’ll always be a little sad Bruce Banner never gets representation as a man with DID anywhere besides the comics. Both came from his traumatic childhood with an abusive father but the Gamma Rays made his DID more obvious. Savage Hulk the hulk we usually associate as Hulk is his repressed anger. Savage is literally a child and plenty of moments point it out because he can be subdued by songs, puppies and toys he just comes out when Bruce starts getting too mad as a sort of shield. Joe Fixit is Bruce’s hate and is a personality for more conventional escapism. Joe Fixit gave himself the name because he’s the guy that fixes problems. Joe is a thug and is everything the other two aren’t, he’s smart, confident, arrogant and not afraid to get mean. He’s actually the first Hulk to show up and mentions that he knows Bruce but gets frustrated with him because he’s so weak and in a few comics Joe and Savage fight to manifest and Joe has been commented on calling Savage and big baby and an idiot in those moments. Despite how disparaging he talks about the other two he says that those two need him more than they think.
@RamsTheNameCom they can still definitely write a lot of that stuff in was more my point while still having him have DID. All we know is his brother died it was an accident but also partially his fault, we don’t know fully what he was like outside of that except his mother blamed him, neglected him and abused him. Being neglected and abused definitely can make your anger more of a problem and can make you lean more towards violence (that was the reason hulk gets stronger the angrier he gets right?) so in his teens he might’ve been a terrible person. We saw how his Mum was to him but once she started physically abusing him we don’t know what he was like to her. We don’t know what he was like in the military, we know he was kicked out, we presume that was caused by Jake but we don’t actually know if it was Jake or Marc. We don’t know why or when he worked for Bushman and he didn’t want to kill the people in the desert then became moon knight. He was meant to die that night. So he can definitely be written as a terrible person inbetween what we do and don’t know. We know Marc doesn’t see himself worthy of love, we can assume it’s from the guilt from killing Layla’s dad but it’s also likely from a lot of innocent people he killed. In the afterlife we were told that what form it takes is essentially based off the mind. So they saw a psych ward (when Steven asked why they’d see a psych ward Marc said it’s because they’re insane. So we might eventually get more on that) and the therapist is probably a therapist they’ve had before maybe? Obviously Harrow definitely isn’t a therapist but I mean what he said they might’ve heard before (or something similar since some of the stuff they talked about only happened recently so just applying similar thing said to more recent events). In the psych ward Harrow said about feeling guilty for the things you’ve done in your life (I don’t remember the exact line right now) In general I think there isn’t too much wrong with the comics or movies and neither cancel each other out. They just decided to go with him having DID in the movie and are still adapting a lot of stuff from the comic books and there’s still room for a lot of the stuff not mentioned. Super excited for more Moon Knight and hopefully they maybe add in that stuff in the way either of us said (except for the deserving it from his Mum. I think he can still deserve to suffer later on just not deserve the stuff from his Mum. I think his Mum abusing him can more easily fuel him being a horrible person though. Maybe his Mum started abusing him then a couple years later in his teens is abusive to his Dad, angry that his Dad never got her to stop and in his eyes let it happen. That can then lead to everything else you said happened. Even in the show when his Dad was saying “she will get help” he said something like “you were supposed to fix this”) Hopefully they can get the rights back to hulk to make a solo movie or maybe we can see more of him when we see more of she-hulk. Or they can hopefully make a solo hulk movie with universal studios, colab to make it.
@Aspenture I agree, I would love to see Marvel Studios dive into Bruce's DID.... but I doubt they will, considering Universal Studios owns the character and they have little interest in doing a Solo Hulk film project. The problem with Moon Knight having DID in MCU, is that Marc Spector's mental health issues has always meant to be seen as a Justified punishment for him. You're suppose to WANT to see him suffer, because his mental health problem is actually helping him become a better person. He was a terrible person as a kid with no respect for his "peace loving" religious family, who craved guns and violence when his parents wouldn't allow it. The only way the MCU can fix this now is by saying Marc's Mother was a hero for beating him with a belt. Because (lets say for EX) "Marc lied about his brother & the cave story. They actually almost shot up a school when he was a kid, but his mother stopped him from doing it. His brother succeeded and was killed by police". But yeah, that would be horrible if MCU used this example and changed what they already wrote for Marc. I'm just saying Marc (ever since he was a kid) is suppose to be a terrible person. And his mental health issue after believing he was resurrected by Khonshu, is suppose to be like "therapy" to him. It's forcing himself to become a better person while also making him suffer for his past life. Overall (I think I mentioned this somewhere in this comment thread). I didn't hate the Moon Knight show as a TV show. It's like a 6/10. I just don't like it as a Moon Knight adaptation. It doesn't really feel much like the character. My whole reason for originally commenting is to just explain how it went down in the comics. Which eventually led to people arguing on the subject and I had to defend the original vision for the character.
@RamsTheNameCom so they still didn’t completely disregard older comics while still having DID. Still not seeing the problem with him having DID and again we still don’t know the entire story. I do hope they dive into Bruce’s DID and abusive childhood more though (I love Hulk I need more of him)
@Aspenture "Jake's already more violent and anyone can be a bad person so it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it." Yeah but like I said. The audience and other characters in the film can brush it aside as "Oh Marc has DID. He can't control Jake, so Marc is an innocent man. Just like Bruce Banner is to Hulk (in the older MCU films)". Even though that destroys the whole point of Marc Spector's character from the comics. He (the true identity) is suppose to be the evil brutal violent persona. Yes, Moon Knight fans are split down the middle. But I should explain that Moon Knight had a giant spike in popularity around 2014 to 2016 when normies invaded the comic due to popular youtubers recommending it. These are people who never heard of Moon Knight before DID and have no interest in reading the older comics. But then in 2021, The Jed Mackay Moon Knight came out alongside the Omnibus of the older Moon Knight comics and that managed to convert a good quarter of these new Moon Knight fans into believing "Moon Knight was never suppose to have DID". The Jed MacKay 2021 Moon Knight also started out basically stating "Marc Spector doesn't have DID. His insanity was caused from a combination of his guilt of killing innocent people in his past (he's doesn't want to be Marc Spector anymore), and from Khonshu resurrecting him too late (Marc is partially brain dead). Jed Mackay would later change his mind in the 3rd graphic novel by mid 2022 after the Disney + Moon Knight show aired, to not offend any newcomers/people with DID joining the new comics for the first time. Jed MacKay originally came to the conclusion that Moon Knight didn't have DID, because he actually made it his duty to read all the comics that came before (just like Charlie Huston did in 2006). The Disney + Moon Knight show is based loosely on the 2016 Jeff Lemire "All New All Different" version of Moon Knight. "All New, All Different" Marvel line of comics was created and intended to reboot/change older Marvel comic characters for the sake of diversity and representation. This would include making Jane Foster "Thor", Turn Falcon into "Captain America", introduce Korean Hulk, make Spiderwoman a pregnant crime fighting superhero, and rebooting Moon Knight completely to be Marvel's poster boy for DID representation. Though admittedly unlike the Disney + show, the 2016 Jeff Lemire Moon Knight just completely got rid of the fact that Moon Knight killed innocent people in his past. They instead just said "After Marc's Dad died, he felt no one else in his family understood him and his DID problem. So he ran away from home and joined the Marines. He would later get kicked out of the Marines for being Mentally ill and end up stuck in the middle of Afghanistan with no money. So he ends up getting manipulate by his new friend "Frenchie" to become a mercenary and team up with Bushman. Eventually Marc would betray Bushman when he saw Bushman kill innocent people. So I guess points to Disney + for that.
“You were just a child, it wasn’t your fault” is something one of my alters has said to me and watching that scene absolutely broke me into a sobbing mess. I felt so happy to see this portrayed and it made me feel like the things that happen in my head was normal. Thank you both for being so respectful and wonderful, my entire system thanks you
@JULIE Ann maloney Not to be rude, but maybe you should evaluate yourself cause if your child has DID and is old enough to be a serious alcoholic, they’ve been suffering for a long time without the support they need.
@Deez Nuts • 23 years ago KZclip seems to have eaten my reply, but it helps when you have good system communication. We're one big family, not everyone gets along but we have to work together, and that includes working through stuff together so that that scenario doesn't happen
@Wifi Wulf I’ve also heard a horrifying thing about some that they have an extremely depressed alter that can be suicidal which scares the shit out of me the fact you could not be in control of your body an someone who wants to kill you is and there could be no one around to stop them But the tik tok kids gloss over all the negatives because “tee hee I’m quirky”
We are a DID system. This series made us cry multiple times because it felt like seeing ourselves on a screen for the first time. We weren't portrayed as a monster or crazy, we were the hero.
The plottwist was amazing. The whole time you think, that Stephen is the "original" and Mark is there for protect him, because Mark does all this crazy fightning stuff. So it was really suprising to see, that Stephen emerged to protect Mark. And he does that with his kidness, hope and positivity. And that is just a super beautiful message. Because you not just helping people on the physical side, you also can help and save people on a emotional side
@Werewolf I read marvel hero reborn and I was like man they are doing there justice league joke character better then the of now adays they actually respect there Wonderwoman
@Werewolf in recent times I have preferred him over batman because recently DC has been writtinh batman and even Superman like gods falling from the moon beating dr Manhattan with no real explanation
I'm glad you guys brought up Jake Lockley as the third personality, because he does serve a similar purpose for Mark, but in a different way. Jake acts a shield for Mark's guilt over the terrible things he's done, where as Steven is a shield for the terrible things being done to *Mark.* Both Jake and Steven are there to keep Mark from feeling the full force of his suffering.
@Anastasia Barth Thank you for the spelling correction. I think the bolding was just to emphasize the different ways that Steven and Jake are shields for Marc, not related to the spelling.
Oscar's body double was his actual brother, Mike, which I think allowed for a much deeper connection to the emotional relationship between Marc and Steven. In a way, Marc and Steven are brothers inside the same body, so who better to play opposite you than your own brother. Also, as an Egyptology nerd, the significance of the Duat manifesting as a psychiatric hospital is often overlooked. The appearance of the Duat changes to fit the soul passing through, but it's usually out of comfort, as a way to ease the soul into their afterlife after their heart is weighed. Marc has always had issues with his DID and his guilt and self-deprecation over the death of his brother and the life he's led ever since didn't allow the Duat to offer comfort, it offered the same judgement Marc's felt his entire life. The Duat didn't appear as a psychiatric hospital because Marc perceived it as one, it appeared as a psychiatric hospital because Marc truly believes he deserved to be locked away in one. He never thought he deserved the peace and rest he so desperately wanted, so when he got to Aaru (The Field of Reeds) without Steven, he realized he was missing a piece of himself. He finally recognized Steven as a part of him, a part of his soul, and went back to be with him, just like how Steven had always been with him, too.
aw i didn’t know that. reminds me of how i want to be an actor and my little brother wants to be a stunt double (because he heard they do all the fun stuff)
As an Egyptology nerd myself I remember the cut to the psychiatric hospital and immediately thought "is this the boat?! Did the boat take the form of a hospital?!" then the creaking and rocking happened and I geeked out further. Good times...
That's actually adorable to know about his brother. That was either a very wholesome experience or an opportunity for brothers to mess with each other lol
Hearing Steven tell Marc “You were just a child. It wasn’t your fault.” really hit hard and I think it was an important line for anyone dealing with childhood trauma. Especially for those who may never have heard those words out loud or had been triggered by what was shown earlier in the episode.
The mirror thing. The closest I've come to having a mirror situation as someone with DID was when I was looking in the mirror putting on my makeup getting ready to go to a party I didn't want to go to, and suddenly didn't recognize my face. I was having a depersonalization event and didn't really realize it until after it happened. My younger alter was coming into consciousness with me (co-con) and questioning "why does my face looks like that?" So, I heard her voice, but answered her with my own logic without fully understanding what was going on saying to myself -- "I guess I'm getting older. I guess this is what being 40 does to your face." And then the worst WORST bit of confusion I've ever felt came over me and I heard her again say something like "I'm 26. I'm not 40" Then derealization set in and I had no idea how old I was. I struggled to remember even turning 40 and had to pull myself away from the mirror entirely never probably finishing putting on my makeup, thinking holy shit I'm having a midlife crisis. haha The rest of the day was blank to me but I hear she drank and had a lot of fun. I don't tend to look in mirrors anymore because for some reason it's a trigger for the young one and she has body image issues. So yeah....the mirror thing . . .
when i see my reflection in my phone screen, i don’t even think about it. when our little alter sees our reflection in the phone screen the dissociation kicks in and she gets real upset :(
That sounds really freaky and I am so glad I don't have to go through that. However, I'm glad you all can live your best lives no matter how old you all are
Thank you for sharing your story. Even as someone without DID, it sounds super scary! Sorry the young one has body image issues, it's such a common thing for folks, especially younger folks. ❤
@Meuthianabila Pratiwi sometimes yeah .... I have more than one alter ... So yeah .. but it's easier if I am co-con with my protector .. she has a lot of access to the inner world more than I do
as a person who does not experience DID and has little knowledge on it, i want to say a huge thank you to those of you in the comments for sharing your stories. this show was hands down one of my favorite marvel series, and it helped me realize i had a lot of unconscious bias against systems due to movies like split, like assuming that alters fought for dominance to “steal” the body from the “original” and other nonsense. this video and your stories inspired me to open my mind up to the fact that i had no idea what i was truly believing, and to actually educate myself instead of relying on the few examples i’d been presented. i wish you all the best, and hope it gives some comfort that you’ve enlightened a lot of us
Thank you for this, it's so good to see people taking us seriously, and hey if you ever have any questions about life with DID I am always willing to talk about it!
I completely agree, I'm glad that cinema is taking the right steps to keep teaching us about topics the correct and thoughtful way. I've started to learn about many things just because it was brought up in media. I truly enjoy learning about new topics especially from people who experience some of the topics we discus.
Same. While I have never seen Split I did watch stuff like Total Drama (season 4 and 5 had a DID character) and stuff that would make alters just evil or a joke. But Moon Knight has helped me understand DID much better.
One thing this show brought up that people don't tend to mention about DID, is that romance can get weird! For some people, they're dating the whole system. For some people, they're dating one person in the system, and the other alters are roommates. Thankfully, romantic love is a strong trigger, so either way the lovers can spend a lot of time together. There have been times when our ex went to hug me and her husband, one of our alters, shoved me out of the way like "IM GONNA HUG MY WIFE, MOVE IT OR LOSE IT NERD". Thankfully she got along well enough with the whole system.
@Connor Barkington For me personally, I do want to learn but I'm afraid of asking because I do not want to offend anyone about it. But I'm happy to see that you're open to talking and answering questions! I appreciate that so much. :) So thank you!
Ahhhh, I felt like I had to leave a thank you for everything you’ve provided in here, it always makes me feel grateful when others take their time to share their insights, even when it’s not their responsibility. I’ve read all your answers and learned from it. Highly appreciated 🙇🏻♀️
@Amanda Snider Connor Barkington said it best below: "honestly you REALLY should hire someone with DID as a consultant both for realism and avoiding ableism". I say this as gently as I can: right now, from here, it feels like you're on the path of taking advantage of other people's therapy, and it doesn't feel right to me.
I was watching a video by DisassociaDID and they talked about how alters/identities can develop from fictional characters, but they become their own person the moment they develop because now they are experiencing things that the character didn't experience and I think Steven grant is an example of that.
I've heard of those too, most systems i know or know of (all online) typically call them fictives or factives depending on the source (fictives being fictional characters and factives being real people). I know several fictives and a few factives in this fan discord I'm in, most of the systems have a single discord account and use a certain bot to proxy and show who's talking. There's a system on twitter i know that has several twitter accounts and they all have a link to something in the bio explaining their system and saying who typically fronts I've actually learned a lot about systems from the ones I follow on twitter and the ones in that discord server. A lot of them fairly young (or at least the body is) bc I'm young (19) and fandoms tend to attract similarly aged people most of the time, and i use twitter and discord to interact with my fandoms. Like the fandoms I'm currently in have a mostly gen z fanbase, at least in the spaces I'm in. Tho some previous fandoms I've been in have far more mixed sets of ages, marvel spans generations and i used to be a diehard for those movies and shows Lol my ADHD decided i hadn't rambled enough today and your comment set off an infodump, sorry about that
As someone with DID who's 7 years into being in therapy and taking meds, I can safely say that Moon Knight is literally the best media involving DID. And harmony is 100% the end goal. Finding common goals with my head mates for our life was the first step in truly healing. And since then? I've been doing so much better. Day by day, it gets better. It's truly amazing to finally see media that portrays DID in such a positive light.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
When I first saw Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, I thought, "Wow, this guy is a really talented and captivating actor. I hope he gets a lot more big roles." Apparently the rest of the world felt the same way.
As a teen we always thought we were a freak and broken, but the first ever comic we got to personally own was Moon knight because our therapist gave it to us in hope that we would be more comfortable in our body, our new world. And it worked so well. When I heard moonknight was getting a tv series I was more than thrilled that, not only is a great story being told, but that we were being heard as real people and not monsters.
As a system I can say that it's not only more common to stay in one state/person/mode for days, but also that you can stay in that one for years or be in that one 90% of the time for decades. Also, finding out Stephan was the protector was a huge and beautiful twist. I FELT this scene so hard, because my own experience was a LOT like Stephan's. I thought I remembered everything and was the "real" or "main" one, but I'm the host who was born to handle life as if everything was fine and normal. And our gatekeeper had to take me aside when I was digging too much into trauma memories (after learning we were a system and I didn't have all the memories after all) to make it clear I wasn't supposed to remember everything, because that wasn't my job and the trauma would make me incapable of doing my job right. Making the audience attached to Stephan as the "real" one and then turning this around also did SO MUCH to help my husband (a singlet) understand what it's like and how we're all "real" or equally valid. I hope to have the same moment with a couple friends next, because they still treat me as somehow more real or original than any of the others. THANK YOU for thanking them, YES! It means so much to have an movie that helps to educate and accurately represent! At long last we have something we can point people to who don't understand and don't wanna ready psychology studies or theories to get some understanding.
@char Just to jump in here after the fact, i'm the exact opposite. Due to childhood trauma, my brain developed the defense mechanism of simply locking the memories away. The more stressed or traumatic the event are, the worse the memory loss is. I have maybe a handful of memories until I was 10 years old, and the rest I describe to people as 'corrupted VHS tape. that white static snow where nothing is visible' so much so that I didn't know that my parents were by biological grandparents and that I had been adopted by them when I was 5. I wasn't aware of my biological father's existence until I was 18 because I had no memories of him and he contacted me out of the blue. Even now during stressful times, my memories just become vague recollections of events (the gist of it) or just completely are missing at 34. I'm not part of a system (or if I am, damn, cause I have zero recollection of any switches), its just all locked away permanently to the point that a previous psychologist I was working with suggested that I needed to start regression/hypnotherapy to unlock them and work through those traumas.
@natman2939 conversations between alter happen sometimes. It depends a lot on the kind of relationship the alters have and what role they have in the system but mainly, interactions have been described as either talking to yourself (but it's like... You + your alter) or kind of feeling them in the back of your head talking/whispering to you. Some people also have kinda of a corner of their brain dedicated to their alters where they can have conversations inside their heads but since I don't have one of those i can't be very specific about it.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@natman2939 We dont have a gate keeper in this system as we act autonomous but also we dont remember everything else also. We have read through some of our therapy papper work together but the mind wants to forget it.
@char no because i have heard about somethings about the incidents that i don't know and they are so horrible so terrible that after hearing about them i am grateful that i don't remember because if i did i would have took my life although i tried but if i remembered those incidents i would not be able to survive
15:17 what i love about this scene is that it's a subtle nod to steven's psychology. steven believes that he talks to his mother daily, even though we only see him talk to a voicemail. steven was 'born' out of marc's desire to have a healthy, loving relationship with his mum, and he is still immersed in that illusion even though he hasn't talked to his mother in an unknown time, he thinks that they're still talking
I didn't think I knew anyone with DID until I started talking about how great this video was and how people with DID deserve better representation. Turns out a family member has been recently diagnosed with DID and was having a hard time figuring out how to tell me about it. I'm kinda floored by the coincidence. Thanks for helping us start the conversation!
@ConceptVoid7 thanks for the advice and support! Definitely will follow it. We are good friends on top of being family and we're going to start family therapy in the new year to help us navigate any challenges we might face in our relationship (they have their own therapist for the DID, this is in addition to that). I want to be as accepting and supportive as possible. I'm also trying to educate myself on it. Waiting for their therapist to send me a book list right now.
Just sth I want to point out: Jonathan, I love that you say "not to my knowledge". Your professionalism and credibility skyrocket everytime you admit that you a) don't know sth, b) have made a mistake or c) are aware that some things might not be discovered yet/could be different in the future. Props to you for using your rolemodel-status to point out that even experts aren't perfect.
@Cimmerian Chaos you're experience is interesting to me as I am someone highly interested in learning all the different ways there are to be human. I'm autistic so neurodivergent in a different way, so please forgive and feel free to correct any incorrect assumptions at I want most to understand. Your experience reminds me some of the clusters in the Netflix show "Sense8". If you are unfamiliar, that show depicted groups of eight people around the world who are connected mentally my ways they can communicate and experience things together as if they are in the same place and can even mentally exchange positions in case one person might need the skills of someone else in the cluster. These sharing and visiting can take place with any number of the members of the cluster. I fully understand this is not the same as your plural experience. But is this a rather close visual analogy to help someone understand?
Zeta: Exactly this, we appreciate this so much. When it comes to being plural, there's also the fact that therapists and therefore the medical profession overall, deal with systems who come from trauma. Where that's only just a part of plurality, there's a lot of different kinds of systems out there and we'd like to have the ability to contribute too, for everyone's benefit. But even within plural communities there's a stigma of "Oh if you don't have DID then you're not a real system" We're a temagenic system, our history is complicated. But when we explain that we don't get blackouts, or anything else to where we don't meet some textbook definition of DID, or match some other system's expirience, we get told things like, "I don't know why you'd choose to have this." Like we didn't choose anything, we are the way that we are. And even if we did, does it matter in the end if we're helping eachother and not doing harm? The divide and stigma within the plural community is it's own thing, but we feel that the more there come to be therapists who aren't afraid to admit that they don't know everything, but are willing to learn and are compassionate, then the more we can break down all of these stigmas and fears. Maybe the stigmatization and anger that we've seen twoards systems that don't have DID or the like is a sort of byproduct of the way those systems are being treated by some therapists, since that sort of misdirection can happen in other things, we don't know. What we do know is that therapists and finding one and finding the right one is very anxiety inducing when you're plural. You never know when you're going to get a therapist who seems nice enough, only for you to come ot as plural and to be given the "this is the real one" treatment, or who knows what. And for some, you can't just go off and find another therapist. Or maybe you try and all of your options turn out to be bad. We can only speak for ourselves, but while ideally we'd like to just be like, "Oh yeah, we're plural btw" and therefore allow all of us equal access to the benefits of therapy, but oftentimes we're carefully evaluating whether or not opening that can of worms is worth it or not, while the systemmate in question can only really get support from the rest of us. Hell, tbh we need to find a new therapist but haven't due to the anxiety a lot of us have over the idea. We need a lot more compassion and understanding from therapists in this respect. Because here we are, revealing to someone what at least for us is the most important aspect of our lives and then to have everyone but whoever they happen to think is "the real one" dismissed is insulting to all of us, and for us is an immediate trust breaker and puts us in a place of fear.
As a part of a system, the idea of watching Moon Knight fills me with so much anxiety. Partly because I don't want to see another terrible, twisted interpretation of DID like in Split... but also because I'm terrified of it being too relatable and too spot on, and how uncomfortable that would be to see a bit of ourselves in Steven and Mark. Seeing this video makes me want to try to watch it, just to see what happens though. It gives me faith at least that it won't be like Split.
As a system, we had the same reservations and took quite a while to finally watch, but we loved it. Can’t say I personally cried or got too triggered since big emotions aren’t really my MO, but it’s definitely an emotional show and would affect a lot of people more than it did me. Oscar’s acting is incredible, and it’s hard not to connect with the vulnerable moments the Moon Knight system has. I think it’s wise to take it in smaller chunks if your emotions are more easily influenced by media you connect to. But I do think it’s worth watching and generally does a really good job with representation (outside of the parts they had to dramatize or represent in new ways for it to work on film and make more sense to singlet viewers-but you can’t really hold that against them because it’s necessary).
As someone with DID (diagnosed ~3 years ago) I cried through all six hours. It was really raw, and by the end a part of me kind of felt like I'd been scraped open for the whole world to see. It made me do a lot of introspection. It also triggered me a lot though, so I would say DON'T binge it, do take breaks.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
heeeeeey! took the words right out of our mouth, the hive of anxiety (and excitement) around this show has been nearly impossible to describe. thanks for the concise wrap on why I haven't touched it yet, despite being medium hyped up since it was announced. Not trying to catch any extra pain from another terrible, monster-style representation, I so dearly just want to see it be "right" or even just "okay" to see, just once. but also, we're all desperately afraid of the real emotions on the table, confronting them in someone else's story. If they get it "right," it means someone's having the misery of their life, I don't want THAT. -I- want to enjoy this media, but we know we're not ...ready yet?
Fun fact, in a lot of scenes, the body double is oscar issacs brother! so he was doing those performances opposite someone he loved deeply the way steven and marc would have loved each other. i think that is part of what made it so powerful. In a lot of ways Steven and Marc are brothers, so Oscar getting to have those moments with his own brother must have been really emotional.
Reading and seeing all these comments about people with DID who watched the show and the video and how much it means to them, makes all this feel so wholesome. I know there is a stigma about people with DID and it's so wholesome and heartwarming to hear that this has made them all feel welcome
I'm extremely close to a DID system. We lived together for a while and I remember the first time when one personality was emotionally overwhelmed (the "original") and so another emerged. It was my first time witnessing an emergence vs coming home to a different personality from whom was present that morning. The feeling of energetic change was profound and the physical transformation was exactly what Moon Light showed with adult Marce switching to Steven outside of the funeral. As an outsider of DID, I appreciated this series and the compassion they give.
I don't have DID, but there was something oddly cathartic about this series and watching you discuss it. I have high functioning social anxiety. It's not a "new identity" but sometimes it does feel like another part of me is controlling my body and mind. Even now that I'm very personable and make friends easily I can feel it whispering in the back of my head. I used to hate it and myself for it. I thought it was holding me back, and once I realized it was still there despite how many friends I've made and things I've tried I felt like I failed. What's helped me heal (outside of learning to address distortions) is realizing I didn't need to and COULDN'T hate myself into being better. I had to realize the anxiety wasn't bad; it was just too loud, screaming because it wanted me to listen, to make sure I was paying attention to others, holding myself accountable, and not embodying some of the things others did that caused me to develop my condition. So now when she's loud, instead of fighting her or telling her to shut up, I pause and ask "What are you trying to tell me?" and now she's a lot quieter. When I do have bad flareups, I can catch and recover from it sooner. From reading the comments it seems this show's ability to portray learning to validate and live in HARMONY with different parts of yourself resonates with folks with DID too.
That part about it feeling like your anxiety can control your mind and body feels familiar to me. I have anxiety too, at least to some degree. I’ve had experiences where something sets the anxiety/fear response off and it feels like the fear is a backseat driver trying to grab at me (the mind) and the wheel (the body). It’s trying to protect me by having me fall back into what is, for me, a mix of the freeze and fawn response. Does that sound similar? There might be information that I’m missing
What I loved the most about this show, is how they validate every single alter. The body died. And BOTH Mark and Stephen had a spirit and a chance at an afterlife. Stephen wasn't made up. Stephen is as real as Mark in every possible way. I'm not a system, but I love that messaging so much
@Krucible jake was inside another sarcophagus but wasnt released, because both marc and steven seemed to not know he even existed, unlike how marc seemed to always know of steven
@Krucible jake also had a spirit, he was in the sarcophagus, steven and marc just didn't let him out. I also think the scales didn't balance until steven was off the boat because there were 3 people and only 2 hearts, so once steven was gone then it was just jake and marc which is why it balanced.
I don't have D.I.D. but I relate HARD to Marc. My sister died and my mom blamed me. I ended up with PTSD instead. I think this is also good representation for mental health in general because while other heros clearly have mental health concerns...this show centers it. This is a superhero who openly has a mental health condition.
I don't have DID but my brain blocked out a lot of harmful memories for a long time until a therapist was able to help me re-open memories from that time in my life. I was an absolute mess for a while realizing all the stuff I'd forgotten and dealing with that pain, and around that same time this show came out. That scene where steven is looking through the house seeing the reality of his life while mark tries to stop him had me absolutely sobbing.
I also don't have DID, but my therapist and I have unlocked some hardcore trauma memories that I had blocked out, and it's been real rough. Sending you love ❤
I was diagnosed with DID in ~2016 and moon knight did so well. It almost made me cry seeing it depicted so realistically and with such.... nuance and love. Moon Knight was my favourite comic character even before my diagnosis, and seeing the episode with the psych ward excited me as a fan because there ARE whole moon knight comics that turn out to be entirely in Mark's head. I was absolutely convinced that in the last scene where he wakes up chained to the bed and asks "Are you there?" that we would not get a response, leaving us to wonder if any of it had happened after all.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
Moon Knight has influenced my system so so so much! The amount that we've related to it and have strived to improve because of it is notable. It's really touching to see such a beautiful portrayal of such a misunderstood disorder. My experience with system discovery was very much like Steven's, in that I thought I was the "original" for a long time, only to realize I've actually only existed as a consciousness for 3 or 4 years. Being the current host of your system like Steven and I, and the host that figures it out for that matter, can cause you to want to 'defend your title' in a way. You see yourself as the "real one" or the "core identity" that everyone else split off of (there's about 8 of us total), only to realize that the actual person/people (it's usually more than one,) that've been around the longest are chilling somewhere in headspace. When I met one of those type of people for my system, they tried to get rid of me. So, already off to an amazing start. They, and I quote, "Wanted the body back so that they could be normal again." whatever that meant. And as bogus and Hollywood as it sounds, it's a genuine thing that a ton of systems go through. We all want to be "normal" like everyone else, whatever normal means. So, when I, the current host, spoke to our primary protector, one of the first alters to form, she wanted me out so that she could live her life. I obviously fought her, and we fought for over a year. But it wasn't until recently that we had our little Steven and Marc moment. We had to work together to get through the bad parts of having DID and I went through some really horrible things. Bad enough to cause another alter to emerge fully. Someone who is very dear to me, very much like a brother. Anyways, me and my primary protector had our moment where she realized her trying to get rid of me was hurting the system (which is the opposite of her job btw,) and she apologized for what she did. Now she's like my cool wine aunt who sneaks me out of school to go shopping or whatever cool wine aunts do. We love each other and it's awesome. We are far from perfect though and there are still things we need to work on and other relationships to heal, but with this, we've come a bit closer and now we can all fight like badasses :))
@DeluxeTux5249 (1/2) Yes yes yes. I'd be happy to and sorry for assuming everyone knew what the terms meant! Ok so alter roles are kind of bs in some cases (my opinion) and just cause unnecessary confusion. depending on how many alters the system has, alters can take on 2 or 3 different roles the smaller the system is. For example, Marc, Steven, and Jake all take on so many roles that I can barely pinpoint them. At this point, having roles would be kind of pointless. That being said, I can speak to how we use the terms to figure out who might front when and what the words mean. You can predict a lot about who might be fronting based on situation alone! Imma give a basic definition of each role and what they do: Host: the alter that fronts most often. If there's more than one alter that fits that description, they would both be co-hosts. Hosts usually Identify with the name the body goes by and how the body looks but depending on how many different hosts there are this could stop being the case for one reason or another, which I will get to later on. Protector: pretty self-explanatory. they protect other alters from various things and usually don't hold trauma. A primary protector is one that kinda does it all like a general protector and a first line of defense, at least for my system. Physical protectors specialize in keeping the body safe from physical harm and may even fight back to defend the body in some cases. Emotional protectors take over the body when emotions get too strong and may even act as soothers for alters in emotional distress or will just front when in a highly emotional situation if an alter can't handle it. Sexual protectors are exclusive to systems that have experienced sexual assault and take over when the body is being sexually assaulted or in sexual distress to either perform for the abuser and not show fear to keep the body safe or just endure the assault in place of another alter. These kinds of alters may be hypersexual and may even harm the body because of their hypersexuality or they may be asexual and have a bad relationship with sex, or they fit into neither of those boxes, but sexual protectors do vary like that to the point that it's notable. Some systems may also have internal protectors to keep alters safe from internal abuse. Jake, Imo feels like a physical protector for both Marc and Steven, since he takes over when physical fighting and abuse becomes too much for Marc or Steven to handle. Persecutors: these are alters that actively seek to harm other alters in the system. although they may seem counterproductive on the surface, persecutors act as a sort of misguided protector or a protector who holds trauma. they are alters with good intentions but bad ways of fulfilling their role as a protector. Most of the time, the logic is "if I hurt the others enough, they'll be stronger the next time someone hurts us." they'll gladly be the bad guy if it means the system can handle more abuse when (if) it comes. With therapy, persecutors usually realize what they're doing isn't helping and they may become a protector or just a trauma holder. (oh, hoho perfect segway) Trauma holder: another self-explanatory one but this one is the first of the roles that can double and make things complicated. trauma holders hold trauma. They're the ones that remember so others don't have to. They may only front during trauma and act as a punching bag, or they serve as protectors that may or may not turn into persecutors. in our case, our emotional protector who takes over when things get too much is also a trauma holder. he protects from and holds on to the trauma, but trauma holders can also just take the suppressed memories from protectors so that protectors can do their job without the weight of trauma. I would probably consider Marc a trauma holder as well as a host because he's the one who held on to the bad memories so steven didn't have to. but at the same time, he could also be considered a physical protector for Steven because he endured the physical abuse. Smaller systems like in Moon Knight and definitely much more confusing lmao. Gatekeeper: these are alters that see all and know all. they can sometimes stop alters from feeling certain emotions/put them in a dissociative state, deny access to certain memories, and most importantly, they can push and pull alters to and from the front. they are the big person in charge, the brains of the operation, if you will. These alters are rare to front and usually keep in headspace to have better control of everything. Most people think hosts are the ones in charge because you see them outside the most, but more often than not hosts answer to gatekeepers and often don't remember much or feel much because of the influence of gate keepers and this could cause a rift between the two. It sure has for me and my gatekeeper, I've never even met or heard from the guy and he literally yoinks all my memories. littles: child alters. this is less of a role and more an age range. littles have the mannerisms cognitive behavior and thinking skills of a child. they highly resemble children in their interests, the way they speak, the way they act, etc. A big misconception though is that littles cannot access adult parts of the brain. Littles are capable of doing adult chores, they understand things at the educational level as someone the body's age and have the same capacity for though as a person the body's age. they are not, however, capable of adult decision making, are usually quite naive, and do not have an understanding of things to be able to consent like an adult. littles should be taken care of as if they were children because, usually, their purpose is to be the child the body never got to be. littles are not really their own role because littles can be protectors, ex-hosts, trauma holders, gatekeepers, and persecutors. usually, the goal of a system with littles is to relieve them of their role so that they can just be kids. As for an example of a little having a role, in our system we have a little who was about 8 and was a hypersexual sexual protector. she didn't necessarily enjoy sex but felt as though she needed to keep performing her role and would take over even when the body wasn't in sexual danger. It was very sad and I'm glad she no longer feels she needs to do that.
Thanks for sharing something personal like this; It's nice to hear that you and your primary protector were able to come to an understanding. Wine aunt ftw lol. That said, just the image of a bunch of identities fighting over who "the original" is, while the actual first is just chilling in a corner is kinda funny to me. Question though: There are a lot of terms here that I think I vaguely get, but not completely. Would you care to explain what terms like "little", "gatekeeper", and "host" mean/entail? How are these roles typically defined specifically?
@Saturn Batista it helps a lot! And don't worry about the extension, I think that even that is long, it was necessary to understand it right, specially the last 2 or 3 pharagraphs. I'm someone that had never experienced that (not more than "a talk with yourself"), so more information helps to understand something that only know for fictions (and maybe in a wrong way, like the video suggests) Thanks for sharing so much of your life!! Specially to an unknown. 😁
@Camilo Lehnebach Bravo I’d love to answer that! So we as a system have very thick amnesia walls. Thick enough that the way we found out we were a system was when our little fronted for the first time in years. We’ve noticed it’s harder for some people to communicate with each other than others so we’ve assumed it’s because we have subsystems. Subsystems are basically just alters that are separate from others. Kinda like cliques in school where everyone goes to the same school but we just have people it’s easier to talk to. it doesn’t have to do with how well we get along tho, it mainly occurs because of how the brain compartmentalizes certain alters by role. so, for example, my caretaker/ primary protector, my emotional protector, and our little are all in a subsystem with me. We all work in tandem to be able to live our life as one unit so we all are able to talk to each other much easier than people in the other subsystem, which includes one of the old hosts, their sexual protector, and their caretaker/the systems gatekeeper. Our primary protector (Bett) is sort of like the bridge between all of us bc she’s the old hosts physical protector and can talk to mostly everyone in the system. Now, thanks to therapy, it’s much easier to talk to my subsystem of alters in headspace (it sorta sounds like thoughts but not my thoughts, like they’re in a different voice but a thought voice not an actual voice; i don’t actually hear anything when they talk to me.) but before, i couldn’t talk to them at all. Before, we mainly communicated through writing in our journal, sticky notes, or our notes app. That, and the fact that Bett can talk to them, is the only reason I know about the alters in the other subsystem. I’ve read their journal entries, i’ve read their notes, i’ve heard my therapist mention their names, but i’ve never actually spoken to them. I think i might have co-fronted with one (Harley is her name) once while Bett was there, but that was because Harley was doing their sexual protector duties and Bett was stopping her bc we weren’t in any danger and she has some self destructive tendencies. That’s probably the most contact I’ve had with anyone outside of my subsystem. I do have a pen-pal type relationship with the old host tho, we have the same music and book tastes so we share control of the Spotify and audible account. There are people I don’t know anything about, like our gatekeeper, our little, and an introject i’ve never met. Our little is in my subsystem but she doesn’t really like to talk to anyone other than Bett. Our gatekeeper on the other hand is in the other subsystem and doesn’t talk to Bett much so she doesn’t have much to tell me about him. The introject isn’t in either subsystem and might be dormant. The only reason I know he exists is because my therapist met him once and never again. I’m sorry this got really long but I hope this answers your question!
Something i really liked is the relationship to Konchu and how Systems aren't dangerous to others, but actually *more vulnerable* to being used and abused *again.* How he takes advantage of them, how Mark suffered, and then *lies* to them and takes advantage of another alter in the system (they dont know about and therefore can't shield against. and the implication they cannot be sure how often he could try to do this). that thought is terrifying but strikes me as sadly realistic. a system as a victim and the bad influence coming from an outsider i havent seen before and was also done with such compassion. you just want them to heal and be happy and konchu to get the hell out
DID system here: I think that the portrayal of DID in Moon Knight was incredibly respectful. It sounds like everyone working on the show tried their hardest to avoid the stigma and stereotypes around the disorder, and I'm so glad that the main character, who has DID, is the hero, not the monster.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Harmless Horrors DID system here and fellow writer. In order to avoid the connotation that this is "the bad alter" or that DID leads to dangerous, deviant behavior, I'd try a few things: 1. Have the alter committing the crimes consider the ethical implications at length. Do the crimes actually harm someone? Is it punching up or down? Does the result justify the means? If the crimes are, for example primarily against powerful people who can absorb the damage, I'd dig into how our society conflates "crime" with "unethical" and pick that apart. 2. Make sure that the alter that commits the crimes does other things too rather than being defined as "the criminal one." Give them a full range of values, goals, interests relationships, and using crime to protect the system fits into that larger persona. 3. Consider contrasting the alter that commits crimes with a non-DID character who either also commits crimes but does so out of selfish greed, not necessity, or who doesn't commit crimes but uses existing systems to exploit, harm, etc.
@Harmless Horrors Hi, I'm NOT a system and have no insights on that front, but an idea did occur to me. Not sure about your other story ideas, but what if it wasn't that one of the alters is breaking the law. Instead, it slowly comes out that the laws they are breaking are totally unrelated to DID. They all agree that the law is unjust, or the acts are necessary, and it's not a matter of "shifting into criminal alter mode - HENSHIN!". Instead the differences between alters are mostly unrelated to "criminal vs not criminal", and the assumption of the reader or perhaps characters in the story that it does work that way being wrong is a bit of a twist. Not sure if that would work with your concept, and obviously "The Big Twist" can be overplayed, but it could be an interesting way to work with the character.
I loved this so much, especially the realisation Stephen is not just an alter, but a fictive, a kind of alter that's so easily, so often looked down upon as fake and childish and pretend and we see just how real a person he is. Because all alters are fully real in terms of having memories, making choices, having goals, in terms of their self awareness and conscious thought.
I have a couple friends with DID and learning how to interact with their alters as unique and special individuals has been such a positive experience. I don’t have knowledge other than that which I’ve learned from my friends, but seeing the compassion from y’all and on screen that my friends never got from their families and seeing DID portrayed this way made me cry. It takes a huge amount of trust for people to share that part of themselves.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
Absolutely love how the show makes you get used to the dynamic of "Steven is the kind & innocent coward, and Marc is the rough & brave protector". And then episode 5 hits you with the "When danger is near, Steven Grant has no fear" line kinda implying that to Marc, Steven is the brave one. (Dynamics like this, where the one that is more outwardly confident secretly looks up to/respects the more timid one just really get to me). Also, love the seen with Steven telling Marc that it's not his fault and that he shouldn't blame himself for what happened to his brother. Self forgiveness is something a lot of people struggle with and I feel like a lot of people wish they could just give the more damaged parts of themselves a hug and say "it's okay"/"it's not your fault".
Watching this with my mom, was actually a really powerful way for her to understand what goes on in my head, as a person with DID. And at the end of the series, she actually understood for the first time why there were different alters and why the protector personality was established. It was a really amazing moment. And thank you for taking the time to not only review this, and show some of the incredibly powerful moments, but acknowledge that a system is an alternative way of existing, rather than something that needs to be fixed.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@InsideJoke I couldn't have said it better myself. Awards are such a self-suck that somehow still boost a recipient's career. "We're gonna make up rules about what we think good movies are, then give awards to people who do things the way we like them!" Such an insulting joke.
Btw if anyone wants to read a moon knight book that also focuses on the DID aspect, I really recommend the jeff lemire run. The asylum episode is directly based off it, and the book itself spends a lot more time there and on marc's relationship with his mental health. It also features his alters heavily in the 2nd half and is just a beautiful depiction of the system as a whole working together to reclaim their lives for the themselves.
I've always thought that people with DID were injured to the point that they needed a safe place, and the only safe place was to splinter. I have my own issues, but to hurt that badly, that the only place you can go is another place you've created in your mind. I'm so sorry for anyone that has been through that kind of pain and turmoil. May you know peace, may you heal if that is the path you wish, and may you make that place of safety for yourself in the outside world.
As someone with OSDD, the length of time between switches can vary immensely. One alter may come out to respond to a situation or do a task that only takes a few minutes and they go back in. If our body is physically sick, one alter may take the brunt of suffering through it for the entire duration. It could be a single person for multiple days or a dozen switches in a single day. And I actually do have mirror conversations some times. Where the alter out needs to talk to someone inside (the ability for alters to communicate with each other depends entirely on how the individual system functions) and while only the one "in the front" at the time is speaking out loud, the other half of the conversation is happening inside the mind. Much like hearing someone on the phone.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
As someone with D.I.D. I cannot tell you how therapeutic it was to see this portrayed as a disorder that stems from childhood trauma and not as an evil thing where every system has a murderer. We similarly lived with an abusive mother and a father who stood by in that abuse, and it was amazing to see a system portrayed this well. Thanks for the amazing review
i happened across a system on discord some months back. i had no idea that any of this was "real" and thought they were just looking for attention or playing a character to be interesting. thanks for videos like this guys. this is like the clearest cut example of spreading awareness when it comes to mental health
The fact that when we are getting the backstory and Steven is wearing the black because he is in the dark and Mark is wearing the white because he is the vulnerable one, the innocent or victim, in that moment. So much though put behind it. The acting is phenomenal. The amount times I've cried during this show. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
I also saw the moment between Marc and Steven as my adult self reparenting and talking to my inner child with our abandonment trauma. “You were always there, full of hope… You didn’t abandon me and there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to abandon you”.
As someone with DID, i actually cried. Thank you so much for having compassion for us and listening to us. So often, we are told our experiences are fake and manipulative, and despite how much we protest, we are seen as maligerers and abusive people. Thank you, really. I appreciate this.
You said at the beginning of the episode, if any systems wanted to comment on your critique, they should... I just wanted to personally thank you for spreading this series as an accurate portrayal. I'm too afraid to watch Split, as many of my parts already hate its existence, but Moon Knight has been so nice to watch and relate to. Also, coming from a protector part, I LOVED getting to see Steven as a whole. So many people in our life, once they find out I'm not the "original", treat me differently. Thank you for advocating for all the parts as whole people. We are, and I wish more people would understand this. I also LOVED how the series depicted their "inner world" (as we and our therapist call ours) as a safe place that houses different aspects of your life and past. I'm now sure how to word that last part better. You did a great review and critique. I look forward to seeing more.
My favourite part of the DID representation is that Marc specifically acknowledges that them being able to talk like that is explicitly unusual and implies that it’s a recent development.
@Edward Callisto "YOU are acting like a defender of the internet yourself" and then doesn't even argument the accusation. This is just like kids saying "no, YOU are stupid" without even knowing what "argumenting" means. Spreading rumors and trying to convince someone are to different things, if you feel personally attacked because I shat on your favorite youtuber, that's a you problem and shouldn't blame me for just writing a comment. There are many more reliable sources about DID than DissociaDID. Do I think they're up to something? I don't know, couldn't care less. I firmly believe in the power of knowledge and the capability of humans to do their own research without being so dull and gullible every time they hear a public figure say something. So you want to actually give people actual knowledge and valid hope? Study, get a degree or a PhD, get a job or be a researcher and make actual progress to help people instead of saying random folks on the internet "you don't need to disparage people, blah blah blah".
@Riley Okami Anyone has their own unique ways about it. Some report this kind of behaviour, others report not having them. We do not for example have them, closest we get to this kind of stuff is a kind of subtle influence by one another, like an emotion or sensation pushed by one to the other to convey something basic. I am happy to hear though you have one of the more unique and effectively working systems going on without such a direct communication. That seems like it would be useful, though personally, also likely very annoying.
@Breezy The first contact is always bizarre. Up to that point, you'll know "weird things are happening" but you'll have no clue it's DID... Is it Possession? Hallucination? Schizophrenia? Imaginary friends? Paranoia? Drugs? Sleep deprivation? Memory issues? Sleepwalking? Suggestibility? Spirituality? A medical disorder? A stress-induced breakdown? GHOSTS???? Maybe you'll feel like someone's always watching you. Maybe you're nervous when you see yourself in the mirror. Maybe you have blackouts. Maybe you have short-term memory issues. Maybe people call you by the wrong name. The first episode of Moon Knight is pretty realistic, it's a bunch of little stuff that doesn't add up. You figure it out when you start playing detective. Depending on your symptoms and how you interpret them, you'll come to it from different angles. Setting up cameras is normal for sleepwalkers. Interrogating people about why they called you a certain name. Trying to call out to the creeping presence you feel behind you. Trying to look into the eyes in the mirror and talk. Finding someone else's stuff in your house... food, soap, clothes... sometimes notes! Sometimes computer files! Sometimes a journal with unfamiliar handwriting! Sometimes you realize that the "internal narrator" who voices your thoughts, is actually unpredictable and seems to have separate opinions from you... I don't remember how we finally started zeroing in on our suspicions, but I remember our first conversation... I opened a text file on the computer and typed some greeting like "Hello!" ... I'm remembering how scared I was because of how batshit insane it felt... My own hands, guided by a will that WASN'T mine, hit the enter key a couple times and typed out a response. "Hi, how are you?" How do you explain that after experiencing it? There's absolutely no logical explanation at all. Or so I thought, until I learned what DID was. That's how a lot of us start. Scared, confused, feeling like we are experiencing supernatural, impossible things. The good news is, once you start taking bricks out of the walls, communication becomes way easier. With practice, you can just call eachother up in the mind and talk directly. But lots of people have to start by passing notes, and we still find that speaking through a chat adds more clarity to the situation.
@Padascos not to sound like an ass, but yes, yes it can work like that. We often talk amongst ourselves out loud, though its only ever two or three. It is usually one of us complimenting another, blowing off steam complaining about something, or asking questions along the lines of "what's next" after a sudden swap, as it makes it really easy to lose track of what we are doing, be it during chores, gaming, or even writing. The wife used to get confused by it, but grew adjusted after a bit. The rest of the inhouse family however is another story, often causing them to think we are trash talking them under our breath when we are just trying to keep track of what we are doing and what needs to be done. Course, none of it is as glorified as it is in the movie. Only short back and forths usually, and it isn't a frequent thing.
as a system thankyou guys for being so compassionate and being so accurate with your comments on life as a system. It's so hard to only have representation of us being evil and being just a horror trope so thankyou so much for your love and support it means the world. honestly, I almost cried because you were both so empathetic and compassionate and that's really all we ask for.
Not gonna lie when i first watched the series I legitimately thought that the actor had a twin and they played the same vessel. But when I realized it was just one guy I was freaking mindblown because not JUST the individuals acting but the way they can interact with each other is so smooth
we stopped watching CT and mended light when those original DID videos were made on mended light then the gollum one, we were too hurt and too triggered by the mistakes made but i returned to see the Split analysis and this one to be really pleasantly surprised and impressed by jonothans understanding of DID and self-awareness/accountability when it comes to his past mistakes we wanted to say thank you for your hard work and thank you for educating on DID with much more correct info - also thank you for saying things like "not to my knowledge", not claiming things as correct due to your clincal license. seriously, thank you. we wanted to say that while moonnight is great representation, we feel the best one out there (as far as we've seen) has to be "What if it works", it's *very* realistic and a really great resentation of DID, also in the fact it examples a few core aspects of systemhood! such as splitting, 'persecutor' alters acting out in a non-problematic ways (opposite of split), and the big one is that it displays and encourages functional multiplicity, i believe it also touches on fusion everything you said in this video though was quite spot on, i thought i'd go over a few things though: - most systems do prefer not to be called "personality" or anything like that - person, alter or part is typically the most preferred wording - yes, rapid switching can be like that but it is extremely tiring and often induces pain such as a headache and generally the rapid switching happens due to a stressful situation, not any other time - yes, internal communication is much more common than external, you can talk externally while someone replies internally but it typically isn't as common/helpful - hallucinations are **not** a part of DID, steven and mark seeing eachother outside of the innerworld is just visual aid for the audience - similarly, the sort of stiff posture + eyeroll is typically not a "tell" of someone switching, maybe for some system out there sure, but it isn't common at all more typical tells are pupils dilating, posture shifts, sharp inhale/breathing pattern change, looking around to check environment, seeming dazed or far away, that sort of thing typically a "tell" of a switch is subtle which is clearly because DID is a covert disorder
@Amanda Snider It would be rather refreshing to see a better portrayal of DID. Moonknight did a better than average job on it, but there are definitely still issues. We actually have a funny story to share. My (Dawn) husband and I have been together for 10 years this month. But I was diagnosed with DID only 3 years ago. He has been doing his best to try and "keep track" of who is talking to him and actually does really well most of the time. But this wasn't always the case. Shortly after we were diagnosed he requested that any of the others be willing to come and talk to him so he could get to know everyone. He works as a long haul truck driver so is only home for 5/6 days per month. Normal operations for us was that the others would do their best to keep from fronting when he was home so he and I could spend time together. But once he requested to meet everyone it was a slow process. I have two male alters (cis female body), the one this happened to, Alex, is a protector and gatekeeper for the system. Well, my husband hadn't met Alex yet and wasn't seeing body language changes. So he did what he sometimes does to me, gives a good Ole smack on the ass. Alex spins around, growls and tells him if he wants to get frisky he should wait for Dawn (me) or Hemi (our other male alter who is gay). Alex refused to even speak to my husband for about 4 months afterwards lol.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
I was once talking to someone who had DID, but hadn't told anyone. And they switched during the conversation. So, I got to know two people that day. They were very apologetic about it the next day, but they had nothing to be sorry for. While it wasn't a super dramatic change in personality, I could definitely tell I went from talking to a girl, to talking to a boy. A whole different person.
The backstory episode was really hard for me. Watching someone's mother blame them for something that's not their fault, and that caused a mental disorder that they battle with into adulthood was waaaay too close to home.
Usually only when I'm off my schizophrenia meds, it feels like repressed portions of me swell in the dream of my mind, and seeing that scene even on my meds started to well those emotions up. It's so powerful.
My cousin has DID. I've met several of her alters (she asked me to use that word) in her System. I especially enjoy spending time with the littles. When my cousin and her System watched Moonknight (each one watched it separately I watched with each of them, I love watching the differenting reactions), each one told me they never felt more understood
As someone without DID, I felt this show did the research and really took time to portray mental differences in such a positive and wonderful light. I'm so glad to see that I was right. ❤ Also, I'm loving all the comments from the systems sharing their stories. Thank you for being so vulnerable to share, everyone.
I was diagnosed with DID about 11 months ago and it’s been a lot. The rapid switch can happen it just depends on the system and how they’re triggers occur, for me personally I rapid switch frequently almost as if the alters are having conversations with each other through actions. Like one will go to the store and get groceries and then when we get home another might come out to put them away and clean. And the conversations in the systems happen for me as well but it wasn’t like that in the beginning until I started accepting the other alters. Some people have barriers between their alters that are almost impossible to break down, but I’ve been going to therapy 3 times a week since August of 2021 working on trauma and it’s helped build strength and unity as a system.
I never thought about it this way but I honestly think that the reason why Mark says to the therapist "You're not really a doctor..." is because he reimagined the therapist as a villian; in his mind, he did that on purpose because he believes his techniques aren't working/helping him. His therapist is hitting home and cutting too deep but Mark doesn't want to admit it due to his protective nature and wanting to protect Steven at all costs so he won't have to experience any more trauma he has already or revert to coexisting trauma that's still embedded in his head. I do have one question that's been on my mind lately, in regards to how DID is portrayed within Moon Knight: is short/long term memory loss common symptoms for those who have DID?
Thank youuuuuuu!!! After being greatly triggered by episode 5 and not knowing why, I brought it to my therapist and we discussed it. She told me that she had suspicions of me having DID for about two years and I decided to get tested, and.... yes I do have DID. This show literally has saved my life and brought me so much clarity on my life and my alters. Moon Knight literally got me to realize I have DID! It's crazy! Thank you Cinema Therapy for covering this and thank you Moon Knight for saving me!
@A. Wren I would say that overt systems don't start out that way. I think, at least in our experience, all systems are covert and don't become overt until they have found a "safe place". We were diagnosed about 3 years ago. But my (Dawn) husband started noticing that I sometimes spoke with an Irish accent about 8 years ago (we have been married for 10). I had never heard anyone tell me about an accent change before my husband started hearing it. Since then I have been Journaling regularly with one of my alters (Fiona) who says she does speak with and Irish accent. But she would fake a US accent when she fronted. Now I am just one system, and I do know other systems who are only overt when speaking to us or friends who know about their diagnosis but go covert when someone new shows up. So I wonder if no system starts as overt. They only become that way when in a place the system considers safe.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@SomeOnlinePerson Sure, I'll try to explain it. Simply put, DID systems are either covert or overt. Overt meaning that it is very easily noticeable by the people around you (alters with different accents, mannerisms, and different names). Covert meaning that people, even close family members, are unable to tell the difference between alters (no accent, hidden mannerisms, and alters pretending to be the same daily-living alter that usually fronts). There are ONLY 4% of DID systems that are overt. It is waaaaay more likely to be a covert system (I am a covert system). After all, the point of dissociation and DID is to be hidden. So with coverts, alters won't "change their name" and they will pretend to be one person. And with dissociation, some alters do not know they are pretending. I have an alter who pretends to be me and didn't know they were pretending, but they were always so exhausted after pretending. In order to imagine it, let's say you have SOME social anxiety and you're going to a party, and you have to pretend to be NOT anxious and be all happy and personable. A lot of people might not realize that they are pretending, and that it's an automatic adjustment to your personality. It's kind of like that! My alter is only now trying to STOP pretending and to be themselves. It's really hard for them, because they just go on auto-pilot and forget to NOT pretend. As for memory loss, me and my family and friends just thought I had bad memory retention. Like someone who is comically forgetful. But with simple reminders, I can "remember", even though I didn't experience it, my alter did. So even though I can "remember" after being reminded, I have no connection to the experience they are talking about. Let's say that my alter cried and got super emotional. And later on after I switched back to me, my sister might say "so what do you think about last night?" I might cock my head and not recall. And she might say "... you were crying...? About this and that." And then I might remember what it was about, but I have no emotional connection to the actual sadness! And in terms of identity, whenever I looked in the mirror (and it's been this way since I was a teenager), I could not for the life of me fully recognize or identify myself with the person staring back at me. It is super off-putting. I hope that cleared some things up!
If you (or anyone else) is comfortable sharing, could you share more about what was in the way of realizing you experience DID sooner? When I've seen depictions and even real individuals discussing their experiences, it always seems like something that would quickly become fairly obvious. The loss of time that can be experienced, distinct individuals with their own names and self-perceptions, and so on; it seems like even if someone is unable to detect it in themselves, that other people one spends time with would notice and comment about things. I'm asking in part just because I'm curious and like to try to understand things better. Another part, though, is that my mind is trying to fill in the blanks of how someone could be so unaware of it in themselves and some of those attempts are, frankly, presenting me with reason to wonder about myself. I'm figuring I shouldn't be, though. I already have multiple recognized & diagnosed reasons for my own issues with time weirdness (and it is more of a weirdness than consistently a loss thing); multiple aspects of my identity and even some fundamental views are wobbly, but I'm quite certain I maintain a single, consistent consciousness throughout; and from what I understand, having some of my characters sometimes "talk" at me is a pretty common writer thing (and it's usually not really AT ME so much as just blips of expression or likely response regarding some given context; it's struck a little weirder the rare times it's be actually at me), plus those are, indeed, intentionally created characters. So far as I know, the only ways I experience any kind of dissociation, it's more the sort that's akin to observing oneself on autopilot or, prior to starting HRT (I'm non-binary), I'd often be momentarily startled whenever I'd see my reflection. Pretty sure I'm only in the realm of mood disorders, but the curiosity, at least, remains.
It's crazy how shit like that happens. One of the characters I've made has DID, and I wanted to portray it accurately, so I was discussing it with a good friend of mine who is plural. As we spoke more, I was kind of confused as to how it was different from everyone else -- people talk to themselves all the time, having conversations and arguing with yourself is normal... Right? Apparently not, now I know I have DID. Later my friend told me he was surprised how accurate my character was... It's a self-insert. 🤣 Took my story back to the drawing board after I realized that.
The scene that hit me the most is when Marc screamed "Shut up, SHUT UP!!" while destroying the mirror. Oscar Isaac's portrayal of the frustration of being controlled by some entity in your own brain was so accurate! I have severe OCD and I sometimes scream into a pillow or injure myself for my mind to just shut up. I have friends with DID who cried because they were so happy to see it represented like that. Some neurotypical people said he overacted, but in my mind he was absolutely spot on!
18:10 exactly. In that instance Steven had an identity crisis, 'I'm just something that you made up' is what's he's feeling right in that scene. It was a shock for him, it put his whole world upside down and questioning everything he thought he knew. But that doesn't make him less real. Many people took Steven way too literally here. Taking Steven falling in the sands of the duat as 'oh Steven wasn't the 'real' one so he *had* to disappear' *sigh* as wonderful and detailed and layered as the storytelling was in the show, many people still didn't get it. Thru started off way too ignorant about DID to begin with. Like most of them completely missed the whole point of the ending of episode 5. The episode brilliantly tricked us, but I was still surprised by how many people still feel for that trick. As you said, Steven was the main character of season 1. Even if we were in Marc's memories in episode 5, the episode was still about Steven and about Steven's story-arc. It's the episode where the main character - Steven - learns the truth. And it's by the end of that episode that he accepts it, that he accepts who he is, and accepts his role in the system by protecting Marc from the sand-zombies. *That's* why tge scales balanced. Not because Marc got closure or nade peace with his past, he barely even started on that path, but because *Steven* accepted he was part of a system, and that he had to protect Marc directly now, not just indirectly like he's always done. That was such a great choice to make Steven the pov character and the main character of season 1, for so many different reasons. This is why I trust them with Jake. This is why they *can't* not make a season 2 to develop Jake as much as they did Steven. They can't leave Jake with the possibility of being interpreted as an 'evil alter' by people who don't know better.
From 6:00 on is exactly what I had with my best female friend, before she told be about her condition. I knew she had some other psychic illnesses and I interpreted these switches as mood swings based on that. Given the fact that she has a younger personality it explained why she was much more quirky/happy/fooling around sometimes after I left and re entered the room. Pretty fascinating to learn and it really took her some years to open up to me about it, I'm glad she did
I worked in IT for years. I once had a client who almost certainly had DID. He wanted me to secure his computer, which I did, but I was “hacked” within 24hrs. The poor guy was so genuinely concerned that someone was messing with him, drugging him (because he would lose hours or days of his life). When he went to jail after reporting that someone broke into his house and put drugs in his pants pockets, I advocated as hard as I could for the guy. I still think of him often and wish him the best.
As a system, this video... we appreciate this video a lot. Thank you for doing this! First off: 'They deserve compassion. Not fear and judgement'. Thank you. Really. Whenever a reviewer or a piece of media tackles DID/OSDD1, That is the biggest message we worry they'll miss. There's so much hate and stigma regarding this disorder, and people believe it, and some of those people set out to cause more harm to systems, or they're professionals who have genuine power over the futures of those with the disorder... And honestly, we've all suffered enough. We have alters- mostly little ones- that just cannot comprehend why someone would be scared of us. No alter is evil; but a lot of them are very hurt. We were super hoping you'd do this episode, and oh gosh you covered it really well. 'Moon Knight' is something so close to our heart as a System; we've heard others say similar in that it's one of the only times they've ever felt 'seen' by the media (for us, it was this and the interrogation scene with Crazy Jane in ep.2 of 'Doom Patrol'). You're absoloutely correct in that Oscar Issac is... utterly incredible in this, and you can tell he did his research (a favourite of ours- as an English system with a couple of off-American-accented alters) is Steven's accent is, if I remember correctly, purposefully wrong; because the body's not English, so why would it suddenly know a perfect English accent? Such great details. The other big one is one we hoped would happen: over time, as they begin to intergrate (which- 'fusion' is the generally accepted word for alters becoming one; intergration is just breaking down walls and communication, etc) with eachother, their switching becomes less intense and quite easy; it's a thing we and other systems have personally experienced, and it single-handedly proved to us they'd done their research. Notes watching the video: • Talking to eachother in a mirror IS something you can do, but- at least for us- it's more of a focuser so you can hone in on communication (feelings, psychoverbally, sometimes yelling 'you idiot' at eachother verbally, etc. /hj). We definitely- unless there's something comorbid- don't see them move in a mirror or anything though; just sometimes a feeling like it's not You looking back at you, which can be discomforting even when you're used to it (it's in the eyes I find; they never feel like My eyes). • Episode 5 broke us. Having witnessed so many little ones in our own system who are traumatized, who witnessed our childhood, vs the ones who front all happy and don't really know what went on because they weren't Meant to... that scene in the bedroom, that hit hard; that was incredibly real, and something we actually have to give a trigger warning to when recommending it to other systems, that's how on-point it was. The response freak-out from Steven- who, an aside, we appreciate So Much is an Introject (an alter that takes their basis personality to some degree from a pre-existing person/character/object), which are also stigmatized heavily even within the DID/OSDD1 community- felt so Familiar also; it can be hard for alters who aren't educated in the matter to come to terms with not 'being the original'*- heck, our own host upon finding out he was multiple freaked out quite similarly and mentally disappeared for a week. The switch at the end of Ep. 5 was really amusing though, because yeah for some of us, you can be going through a huge breakdown and then- suddenly quite happy. Someone else is mentally having a breakdown, but front's like 'on with the day! :)'. We felt bad laughing at it, but... some moments in this series are a comedy when you live like this on a daily. *it feels important to note: it's generally accepted that there isn't actually an 'Original'. The currently accepted theory of structural dissociation suggests we actually All start in a fractured form, but systems fail to fuse and integrate at a young age due to trauma barriers. • 'The self is a collective'. Yes yes yes! Even systems struggle to come to terms with this: self-love in a system is loving eachother. 'It's a love story between members of a system' is the best description of this series I've heard, and it's not one I thought singlets would really get? We often feel this series was a Whole Different Relatable Watch to a lot of systems than it was to those without. • The scene in the beginning of Episode 6, to this day, will make most of us cry. 'I survived because I knew I wasn't alone' will take so long for any piece of DID media to top, in our opinion. It's... That whole speech hurt, in a really good place. A lot of systems didn't actually like 'you're the only real superpower', but we thought it was a fun tongue-in-cheek personally. It isn't a superpower, no, but it sometimes has its silver-linings amongst the utter hell it can be to live with CPTSD, Dissociation, Amnesia, etc. But that scene... damn that scene. We're one of those systems that said 'I've never felt so seen'. • Rapid switching does happen. Not too often, but it... happens, and it sucks. Headaches galore for us, and a lot of lack of personality. I feel like people think it's super rare, but most of the time it's a switch went to hell and back, a trigger issue, or too many alters trying to front at the same time. There's this important on stating this stuff, because those who dislike DID, or those who are less in the know, will latch onto it and spread that information around. • I kind of wish you'd covered the earlier episode where Steven acts like he can audibly hear Marc. It was a part that bugged us, because generally that's not a symptom of DID (without co-morbidities that might cause it) as far as we're aware, and it perpetuated the stigma that it's 'outside voices' which unfortunately leads to people conflating- more than usual- Schizospectrum disorders and DID/OSDD1. --- comment came out a bit longer than expected, ha- but really though: incredible series, absolutely fantastic review. Thank you for making this and getting it out there; it's so important that a channel with so many followers reports on it in a non-harmful way, and we've definitely left this video feeling seen!
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Otherbuttons & the BRB @Seth Redmond @Zack Ramirez Thanks for all your replies! For some reason KZclip didn't notify me. I see, that's really interesting! Thankfully sharing some memories must make life a bit easier, but it still must be quite a handful to manage. Heck, I struggle to get some things done with just a bit of ADHD 😄
Thank you for taking the time to explain and show examples of what being a system is. I'm not going to lie, it made me cry to hear y'all say you felt seen. I learned a bit from watching the show but y'all and all the other systems have taught me thousands times more. So, again, thank you.
We watched this when it first came out. There were some moments that were really hard cause it was very close. That being said this was the first time that I feel DID was portrayed accurately -including the seizure episodes - my DID developed into PNES (psychogenic non epileptic seizure disorder) but once we got out of that area life became more manageable. We just want to be safe and loved. Im really happy y’all spoke on this. -Us😊
Got a question for them if I'm not intruding over this, how much is the switching a conscious/voluntary action? For example, one of them absolutely cannot tolerate loud music, is it possible they'd get the crap of luck of switching to the noise sensitive personality (I'm not really sure how to refer to an individual in a system in a way that's concise and humanizing, so I apologize if I fuck up with that) in the middle of a very loud rave or something. Would the enviroment/context prevent/delay the switch from happening if it caused direct distress? essentially.
I used to think i might have DID, after growing up, getting depressed to the point of suicidal tendencies and self harm, i got some therapy and got diagnosed with BPD instead, doin a lot better now that i have clarity. Childhood trauma can be so jarring, on that note, would love to see y'all cover something BPD related
DID is fascinating to me cuz I had no idea the human brain was capable of having multiple people sharing the same body. I love this series so much. It really is a love story.
System here. We just watched your last video on Split and had to come here. We absolutely love Moon Knight and how it portrays systems in such a beautifully tragic light. No freaky monsters with superhuman abilities, no over the top acting. We feel truly seen here, and it's fantastic; Down to the fronting/switching disputes to the trauma.
Important to note: Jake emerged earlier than thought. As a child, Marc transitioned to Steven as a relief from his abusive mother. But Steven never remembered any actual beatings. This is initially why Jake emerged, to absorb brute force. Later, we see who we think is Marc perform killings in a truck. I challenge that this too was actually Jake. And while we see Jake's sarcophagus in the mental ward seemingly sealed, Jake is actually the person with the injured nose. The accent and attitude change, although we are lead to believe it is Marc. Jake emerged to give and take brute force and to do the work too dirty for the others. Jake actually played a much bigger role in the show.
@Chickadee Stevenson Konshu in this show is a bit more accurate to the original myth,it means he has no jurisdiction or power in the afterlife.Only Osiris and Tawaret does.And possibly Thoth,but he wasn't seen taking notes anywhere here.
Yees !! I've been theorizing this. Stephen whole point was to be there when his Mom would beat him, but he doesn't remember anything. And in DID is not uncommon to have an alter to deal with someone else's memories of trauma and I think that's what Jake comes in
@KeitieKalopsia and it's further potentially confirmed because Jake fronts at the very end fight when their body is in a massive amount of pain because of the staff being pressed onto their chest. Due to that trigger of a massive amount of pain Jake fronts. So that kind of further points towards Jake being the one to take the beatings. 🤷♀️
This actually answers one of my biggest questions about Mark and Steven’s backstory. “If we saw their mother walking in to give Steven a beating, why doesn’t Steven remember any beatings?” You’re right, Jake could’ve taken the front to bear the attack instead. Good thinking!
Was 3 years old when events that lead to MPD/DID occurred. It's always interesting encountering others with DID or seeing it in media in various forms - in part because never have I seen it depicted how it is for me. The closest so far has been the book "This Alien Shore" by C.S. Friedman - though it's still a long way from what we have. We don't swap out and have always referred to ourselves as "A Community of One" with everyone (except our origin) always aware at once - it's our comfortable norm and we're generally content to refer to our selves collectively as I because we are in many ways still functioning as one. Granted that one personality is more of the "driver" than others, but each moves just a little more to the fore as the situation best fits. Well...there are caveats and exceptions galore. Way too complex a dynamic to get into in a youtube comment. The point is that we consider our arrangement to be the closest thing to the ideal for our selves to exist and make our way through life and the major thing that has stopped us from having ever talked to professionals is actually the fear that they'd try to "fix" us. For over 3 decades - over 90% of our life - this is us. The fear of someone trying to destroy what we are and turn us into what they think we should have been is...intense. It was appreciated hearing you mention that integration is moving away from being the goal any more and that honestly makes it more likely we might try talking to a therapist someday. After all, the events that started everything still have lingering effects beyond our little community. There are things that affect our ability to function in some parts of daily life, and we've always recognized that getting help would be wise. Just... the fear, you know? So, thank you for that little comment mixed in among everything. Maybe it's time to look for some help. On a side note, how common is it for the original personality to be permanently repressed? Ours has never come back out after first fleeing the situation. It was another aspect of the fear of seeking help: what if something happened that killed us and suddenly we reverted to a scared and lost 3 year old with no memory of the past decades?
That is an utterly *terrifying* thought. Do what you need to do to keep y’all safe. This video and these comments are teaching me a lot, and I want to be on systems’ side all the way.
The creators made such a good job with this show. I really enjoyed it and although I am not familiar with some with DID compared with split. This portray a humanizing understanding and it gives those like me who didn't understand it. Thank you guys, awesome deep dive into this masterpiece. I personally would love to see a deep dive into Tyler Perry's Acrimony.
As a system, thank you so much for making this video! The show was something we looked forward to IMMENSELY, and ended up getting introjects of all three MK alters after so... you can sorta tell how much we latched onto it. It was so disheartening to see people bash the show for stuff that just... wasn't right. I don't have enough energy to type out a whole message but just. thanks
The idea of 'is this actually real or just in my head' is a huge part of being a system and having DiD. It actually showed what it can be like to experience DiD from the inside perspective when they showed the psychiatrist scene. How disorientating it can be and having to come to terms with it.
I don't have DID but I have read a lot of articles and reddit posts from people who have it talking about their experiences. They're also usually very helpful with making people who disassociated through depersonalization, extreme space outs via loss of time, or maladaptive daydream cope with coming back to reality and talking through the experiences of losing time or touch with reality. But one story I read was the first time some one realized they had DID. They had been trying to avoid a therapist due to bad past experience but as they were getting older and in a healthier environment and better mental state they began noticing things. Odd dreams, loss of time, moments of de ja vu, the sense of not being themselves but not being able to explain who they were either, ect. Their toxic parent tried to reach out to them and even followed them to work one day to try and make a scene and there was just this moment of seeing themselves, like their body but knowing it was some one else, and watching their body turn and look at them and say "let me protect you this time" and just coming to having called the cops and confronted their parents and actually stood up to them for once. So they finally reached out to a psychiatrist and learned they had DID and that the lost time extended far back as child hood when these other alters would take over to protect them from harmful memories and that they were still doing it. They slowly learned how to organize their system and how to meet new alters and which one filled what role and how roles sometimes change and how some alters disappear and new ones form. But they will always have the moment of one of their alters just stepping in and saying they were here to protect them.
My friend sent this video our way and as a system we both sat down to watch the whole series and finish this video and I am so so thankful that they portrayed DID in such a kind and compassionate way. As someone who was a system and got backlash from others who I thought were close to me when Split came out, this was such a refreshing show and video to watch. I thank you guys for mentioning that integration does not have to be the end goal. Especially if it is rushed or forced, in my case it was EXTREMELY traumatic. It resolved nothing as I am 99% we weren't ready. That trauma was never resolved, and of course everything got chaotic again and a new alter stepped in. Ironic enough, she and I were very much like Marc and Steven. I found her mildly annoying over small differences, but she has helped me through so much and I love her to pieces. I would not be where I am without her.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face. Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ). I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Emy Seoni "fusion" aka integration is a natural part of life for most systems, ours is no exception. I (Onyx) have had several integrations and seperations over the years I have been here. Sometimes you feel like a new person, sometimes you feel like yourself but having "absorbed" someone elses traits. Though Lexi and Fenix, the ones who spoke about temporary fusion, have never gotten stuck themselves, nor have either had to deal with integrating before.
@Zayne Lewis well, not literally. It doesnt technically exist as a real place. It's more like a "mind palace" if youve heard that term. Something we use as a setpiece in our imagination to facilitate easier interaction with eachother. It is easier to contextualize things in a room than in a blank void. Also, not every system has one or can have one. And the ones that do have them vary depending on their ability to plan and organize and imagine it all. Or some dont control it and just end up with one on accident i guess? I cant speak for them, we made ours on purpose.
@ᗪεɱσηɨςΔηgει Who let’s a HORROR movie change the way they see/treat their friends?? I know this isn’t the case with all horror, but the genre doesn’t have the best track record for portraying mental health disorders fairly or accurately, it can be really stigmatizing sometimes. I love horror, and I know that most of the time, no harm is meant through these portrayals, but it still happens sometimes. I hate that Split had such a stigmatizing affect on people, and I hate that it had a negative impact on some people who struggle with DID. No one deserves that
This is one thousand percent my top favorite Marvel show. I dont have DID, but they way they tackled the childhood trauma and self love aspects was amazingly accurate. Oscar Isaac just continues to take the cake. Hes so phenomenal
I recently got diagnosed with DID. And I recently found your channel. This timing couldnt be any better! Thank you for making this video! I havent watched moon knight but i definitely plan too because theres hardly any media getting this disorder right
I have DID too, in fact my whole family has it from genetics and just the way we grew up. About different personalities talking to each other it's not very common for a system to *not* communicate amongst the personalities but each one might do it differently. From what I've seen in my own family, when a system is not aware of the other personalities or is unable to communicate to the others it's usually because the "host" (so to say) is traumatized about it or has some malicious intent (Malicious as in faking it to a degree). This is kinda why the movie trope made it seem like when someone has DID the other personalities are evil, it's because to the outsider it seems like the split is being rude or hostile when for the split it looked like some random person handed them a type of chocolate they hate and the random person had the audacity to get mad when they said they don't like that chocolate. Personalities that act in an aggressive way are usually just acting that way because they don't understand why are people saying or doing all these things and blaming them for something they had nothing to do with, and this can also happen if you say that a personality did something good when they were not the ones who did it, personalities can sometimes get really upset if you complement them just because they didn't do it and might not know why you're saying it. For systems that are healthy or stable the communication has 3 main types from what I've seen in my family: The Memory Baton is when the current split has no way to speak to the others while they are active so instead they hand off all the thoughts and memories to the next personality that comes out. The Voices In The Back is what most people think of when you think of multiple personalities in one brain, it's more common and you'd have no way to tell if they are talking, also asking about it can be seen as being intrusive since it's essentially the same as talking on the phone with your sibling and someone next to you asks you to put the convo on volume. Then there's The Imaginary Friend which is what Moonknight uses to show the split personality, it is something that can happen but again, you wouldn't know it's happening because they won't give any sign unless they are actually freaking out or if you accidintally walked through one of the personalities that aren't taking control at that moment. This can sometimes lead to a System to punch you for getting close because you're basically walking through one of them as if they aren't there (which for you they of course aren't), which if someone did it to you you'd probably be very mad too.
Omg I wanna talk about this because I also was diagnosed with DID like a year or two ago, and it was something I’ve had since I was 8 years old (I’m 20 now). But like, the worst part of it all is that I could never figure out what it was. Lots of therapists misdiagnosed saying “oh its trans” or “oh it’s genderfluidity” and I was like no this isnt it. One person mentioned to me it might be a mental thing like DID and I never believed it because I had seen split and I knew how tv portrayed DID and in my mind I was like “this other person in me is not a crazy psycho killer. I DON’T have DID and I DON’T want to go to a psych ward.” After doing more research and talking to an actual psychologist, I found out “yea it actually is DID, just my previous idea of DID was slanted.” And now I’ve come to terms with my Did and the other person living in me (I don’t say alter or system or anything like that because to me it just feels like two people sharing one body, not like an alternate person or something. I’m not saying people that say “alter” and “system” are wrong or inconsiderate, because I don’t care. That’s just what I personally do). And that’s why when I watched moon knight like over a year after I was diagnosed, it meant so much to me because it felt like they genuinely cared about explaining DID and genuinely portrayed it so well. Like I was so surprised because I was expecting something over the top, especially from marvel/disney. I was expecting another Split. But no, it felt like I was genuinely watching how my own life has been. Even how Steven was created to cope with Mark’s abusive mother, that was one of the many things that led to my other person’s creation. Even the emotional scene where Mark was like “I can’t leave Steven!” I felt so hard because I genuinely don’t think I could continue living without my other person. She means so much to me and is so important to me that it just feels like if she were to disappear one day, it would hurt as much as if a physical friend or family member died. Moon knight understands. They understand what DID is and how to portray it. And they didn’t do some bullshit to make it like SPLIT. Thank you guys for reviewing this show. It means so much to me.
Watching this video has sparked a curiosity to learn more about DID and helped get me into watching Moon Knight (I was a little iffy about watching it), so thank you guys so much for this! I'm curious about something after watching Moon Knight: I know Khonshu is manipulative, but does he genuinely care about Marc and/or Steven deep down or is it just Jake he's really interested in? Most of this curiosity comes from the line "You are worth protecting" (and the way Khonshu says it) but some of the curiosity does come from some of the other interactions
Konshu is overall just really bad.Even in the comics,it's shown clearly that he doesn't care about the system,just their use to him.I'm not really into the comics but I guess he demands Marc to use violence more often as we can see him often screaming "Is this enough for you,Khonshu?!" everytime he killed his enemy.He show fondness to Steven,but Steven in the comics is basically the money maker that funds Moon Knight's gadgets.I don't know about Jake,but Jake is usually more 'heroic' and he handles Marc when he's in breakdown. So I think it would be the same with the show.If they're really making Jake the heroic one in MCU too,my guess is Khonshu can persuade him into doing his bidding with the reason so others won't suffer the injustice he went through or he takes advantage of Jake's habit of violence to protect Marc. To put it simply,he doesn't care about Jake,he just care about his tool for his questionable quest of vengeance and 'justice'.
I love how the alternate personality is the protagonist of the show rather than having it be the original personality, or host, which is how it's usually potrayed in film and TV.
@Spino you couldn't get it, since I assume you’re older than 9. You can only get DID as a kid, at which point (so the current theory goes) a person's mind is still kind of split apart. There used to be parts of you specifically for being happy, sad, hungry, and so on. Your parts all became one as you grew older, forming the person you are now, but for people with DID, this never happened. Thus, there's no "first" alter, since multiple parts have been there from the beginning. Disclaimer: I don’t have DID myself either, though I've done a lot of research on the topic in the past. I hope my information is correct, but if I've made any mistakes I apologize
@Catcolour what about the person who, Y’know was there in the first place before the DID developed. I don’t have DID, but if I suddenly got it tomorrow. I’d declare myself the original and supreme leader of the system.
I loved that Stephen had a full life and his own interests and personality traits, his own memories and experiences separate from Marc's. I thought it was a great cinematic touch to have us focus on Stephen's life first.
@Pedro Scoponi I would refer to alters like Marc that identify with the body's name and/or appearance simply as alters that identify with the body's name, I don't think they are referred to as anything different because ultimately their name or appearance is the only thing that is fundamentally different. Yes, that alter is usually the "host" or primary fronter but not always. And some systems don't have an alter that identifies with the body/ birth name.
I don’t have DID but I do have Split Self syndrome, and I’ve always felt a little distant because I don’t understand or relate to total DID but I still have alters that still protect me, and hearing the similarities between the two that I never knew before really helps me feel less like an identity crisis that’s “just faking it” (I would be aware of my switching, I would just take the “backseat” and watch from the sidelines as opposed to dissociating entirely, and that awareness mixed with imposter syndrome was just really cruel to my psyche)
I'm so glad you guys are covering D.I.D. (or MPD as it was called when I first heard of it.) My mum was diagnosed when I was only 11. I wasn't living with her at the time, which I believe was a catalist for it finally being diagnosed as it was "safe" for the system to being to let themselves be "seen". When I moved back in when I was 18 (long story...short version - she said she was doing better...) She was only partially co-concious. I got to see the physical changes, hear the speach manerisms, voices, and everything...alter. From what I've been able to gather - some (I can't say all, but some) systems do have a sort of internal "meeting" room where issues can be discussed - but - again from what I've been able to see/experience/read about... only if they're co-concious. (Please let me know if you personally or someone you personally know has a different experience, I'd love to hear.) I had to learn to grow up with my mum's sytem being there. The person I knew as "mom" growing up - doesn't seem to be present any more. The system took on a new legal name, there were distinct personality changes from "Mom" to the new personality being presented. There were some merging of personalities, but they're not all reabsorbed. It's been... 30ish years now. She think's she's completely unified, but I still see occasional glimpses of the system trying to hide ... and that bother's me deeply. I myself am highly dissociative, though not "multiple" that I know of. I think the proper term is Depersonalization (?)
I recently had the plot twist in real life and that is honestly a really difficult thing to deal with, I think our original is actually dormant cause we can't find them. Seeing a superhero deal with a very similar thing around the time this realization happened for me meant a lot and your analysis honestly helped with processing as well 💙
Even if you aren’t able to talk about it on the channel (bc it’s 5 seasons for the fullest possible story) PLEASE watch Mr. Robot, as I’m certain that Moon Knight took a lot of cues from that show. Mild spoilers but it’s another incredibly compassionate portrayal of DID.
One thing I found fascinating is that Marc, the hardened badass mercenary, is very emotionally fragile while Steven, the soft-spoken and nebbish fellow is very stabilising; the latter was meant as a protector, which is highlighted by his being named for an Indiana Jones-inspired action-adventure hero, and while he’s very meek and maybe naive he’s deeply compassionate and really does look after Marc when he sees just how tormented and broken he can be.
@Borjan Kosarac What I’m thinking (and hoping) is that Jake will be portrayed as a protector also, but in a more extreme/literal sense. I’ve known (still know) a few different systems in my life as well as read/watched other systems sharing that one or more of their alters have this sort of “antagonist” role in their system. These alters are the ones to take over if they feel there is “dirty” work of some kind that needs done that would be psychologically dangerous/further damaging for the other alters. I think that’s what Jake is meant to be.
yes! especially in the scene in ep6 when they talk to Khonshu, Khonshu tries to manipulate Marc again and Marc hides behind, but Steven comes forward and protects them, confronting Khonshu and making a pact to free them
Steven is the protector, while Marc is the avenger, a great dichotomy and embodiment of their different roles. Here's to hoping Jake is handled equally as well.
It's as if he gives up his physicality so he can protect Marc emotionally. And then when they learn to love and communicate with each other with respect, Marc becomes stronger emotionally and Stephen becomes more tough physically. Yet they are still different people. It's really beautiful.
I really hope you're right about a season 2 coming up. We need more of Jake! And I'm dying to know how Marc and Steven are going to react when they find out about him.
23:35 'it's a love story between members of a system' yes exactly! ☺️ I called it an 'unusual found family story' or a found family...within their own head. The real treasure was the family they found along the way of their mind ! ❤️
ALSO the portrayal in this movie?? I'm 100% watching this now. It also reframed how I think about writing characters....and ALSO really spoke to me as someone who has gone through childhood trauma myself. This was so beautiful to see and very impactful, even in snippets.
For those confused by the dynamic; Steven was the trauma holder/"stress ball" so Mark wouldn't feel it. Steven's role was to take the abuse then forget all about it. It's why he's so forgetful at his job, why he's cowardly and easy to bully, shown at the beginning of the show. The disorder makes him delusional and forgetful, so you could argue Steven himself has Dissociative Amnesia Disorder which is infinitely more possible when someone already has 1 dissociative disorder. Often it's not just 1 diagnosis; there's a constellation of symptoms from various dissociative disorders, all stemming from trauma.
In case no one's mentioned it, HUGE props also have to go to Oscar's brother Mike - he worked as Oscar's body double, especially in the back half of the season, and he trained just as hard, if not harder, to make those scenes in the hospital and the barge work.
My favourite part of the harrow in the psych office scenes is that we see all three known alters. It's incredibly subtle, but Jake with the New York cab driver accent is there for a bit before Stephen jumps in and in different sections of scenes in that location there's Mark aswell. It's so well done that it's easy to miss Jake entirely. First watch my brain registered it as not quite right to what I'd come to understand of Mark/Stephen but it took a while to sink in and after discussion with a marvel nerd who knew more about Jake who could make sense of my reaction to the scene I was like oh snap I didn't realise that's what I was picking up on!
I recently had a moment like the one where Steven told Mark it wasn’t his fault during IFS therapy and watching it back now in this episode is just…damn. I never had full alters emerge, finding myself more on a spectrum of dissociative disorder, but I have what I call parts and like man this shit is hard. So much empathy to all the systems out there and everything you do to keep each other safe
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I'd love to see your thoughts on the k-drama "Kill Me, Heal Me". The main character has DID, and while it doesn't do as good a job as moonknight, from my limited knowledge and after watching this video I think it still does a pretty good job, but I'd love to hear an experts thoughts on it.
The end goal in the show is merging (? if that's the right term) of the alters, but although the relationships between them start as a power struggle and just trying to control the alters, they evolve to a place of understanding and respect that allows it to happen. Also the love interest is his personal doctor/therapist/fake secretary so that's definitely interesting lol. There are several alters and they each have a purpose that they discover and then relieve them of that responsibility. They're all very different and not as discrete as you mentioned is typical. When going through the "healing" process, a new personality comes to help with the process, which I think is very interesting. It's a really really interesting show, and even if it isn't completely accurate, I think there are a lot of things it did really well and the storytelling and acting is amazing.
If you want to watch more shows with DID "Bad and Crazy" is pretty good. It's not as accurate but I think you might find it interesting.
I hope you pay attention to the comments in this thread because watching this has made me wonder if I am an undiagnosed DID system and I don't even know how to start down the path to finding out. All I know is that I have had 'blinks' like you see in the show, close your eyes for a blink, then open them and time has passed. Never very long, but there is no memory of the time that has passed. I'm in New Zealand so you almost certainly won't know of specific people to talk to here, but do I need a specific type of therapist or... I don't even know the right terminology. This is kind of eye opening in some ways. And I could just be fucked up and not DID at all. I just don't know. Mirrors are hard when I am looking at myself; if I am looking to look at my hair or face, deciding on shaving or not, that is okay, but looking at my face, looking at me is hard to do. So hard I rarely do and when I find that I am I walk away because there is great anger there. HELP, IF you can.
@Kyle Ong or maybe, Bullseye character (from the show one, not the movie)
Hey!! I’d really love to see an episode on sucker punch. There’s a lot more to the movie than I feel like people initially realize and would tie into your channel really well
I watched the behind the scenes of this series on Disney plus. The director admitted that it was not 100 percent accurate of DID, because they wanted to bring the artist element to moon knight, but the director and the actor who is moon knight, spoke and spent time with people with DID to try to understand and portray it as realistic as they could, whilst also adding the artistic elements to it. I fully respect that someone would go to such research for a marvel cinematic series. Also the actor who plays Moon knight is amazing!
I’ll always be a little sad Bruce Banner never gets representation as a man with DID anywhere besides the comics. Both came from his traumatic childhood with an abusive father but the Gamma Rays made his DID more obvious. Savage Hulk the hulk we usually associate as Hulk is his repressed anger. Savage is literally a child and plenty of moments point it out because he can be subdued by songs, puppies and toys he just comes out when Bruce starts getting too mad as a sort of shield. Joe Fixit is Bruce’s hate and is a personality for more conventional escapism. Joe Fixit gave himself the name because he’s the guy that fixes problems. Joe is a thug and is everything the other two aren’t, he’s smart, confident, arrogant and not afraid to get mean. He’s actually the first Hulk to show up and mentions that he knows Bruce but gets frustrated with him because he’s so weak and in a few comics Joe and Savage fight to manifest and Joe has been commented on calling Savage and big baby and an idiot in those moments. Despite how disparaging he talks about the other two he says that those two need him more than they think.
@RamsTheNameCom they can still definitely write a lot of that stuff in was more my point while still having him have DID. All we know is his brother died it was an accident but also partially his fault, we don’t know fully what he was like outside of that except his mother blamed him, neglected him and abused him. Being neglected and abused definitely can make your anger more of a problem and can make you lean more towards violence (that was the reason hulk gets stronger the angrier he gets right?) so in his teens he might’ve been a terrible person. We saw how his Mum was to him but once she started physically abusing him we don’t know what he was like to her. We don’t know what he was like in the military, we know he was kicked out, we presume that was caused by Jake but we don’t actually know if it was Jake or Marc. We don’t know why or when he worked for Bushman and he didn’t want to kill the people in the desert then became moon knight. He was meant to die that night.
So he can definitely be written as a terrible person inbetween what we do and don’t know. We know Marc doesn’t see himself worthy of love, we can assume it’s from the guilt from killing Layla’s dad but it’s also likely from a lot of innocent people he killed. In the afterlife we were told that what form it takes is essentially based off the mind. So they saw a psych ward (when Steven asked why they’d see a psych ward Marc said it’s because they’re insane. So we might eventually get more on that) and the therapist is probably a therapist they’ve had before maybe? Obviously Harrow definitely isn’t a therapist but I mean what he said they might’ve heard before (or something similar since some of the stuff they talked about only happened recently so just applying similar thing said to more recent events). In the psych ward Harrow said about feeling guilty for the things you’ve done in your life (I don’t remember the exact line right now)
In general I think there isn’t too much wrong with the comics or movies and neither cancel each other out. They just decided to go with him having DID in the movie and are still adapting a lot of stuff from the comic books and there’s still room for a lot of the stuff not mentioned. Super excited for more Moon Knight and hopefully they maybe add in that stuff in the way either of us said (except for the deserving it from his Mum. I think he can still deserve to suffer later on just not deserve the stuff from his Mum. I think his Mum abusing him can more easily fuel him being a horrible person though. Maybe his Mum started abusing him then a couple years later in his teens is abusive to his Dad, angry that his Dad never got her to stop and in his eyes let it happen. That can then lead to everything else you said happened. Even in the show when his Dad was saying “she will get help” he said something like “you were supposed to fix this”)
Hopefully they can get the rights back to hulk to make a solo movie or maybe we can see more of him when we see more of she-hulk. Or they can hopefully make a solo hulk movie with universal studios, colab to make it.
@Aspenture I agree, I would love to see Marvel Studios dive into Bruce's DID.... but I doubt they will, considering Universal Studios owns the character and they have little interest in doing a Solo Hulk film project.
The problem with Moon Knight having DID in MCU, is that Marc Spector's mental health issues has always meant to be seen as a Justified punishment for him. You're suppose to WANT to see him suffer, because his mental health problem is actually helping him become a better person.
He was a terrible person as a kid with no respect for his "peace loving" religious family, who craved guns and violence when his parents wouldn't allow it.
The only way the MCU can fix this now is by saying Marc's Mother was a hero for beating him with a belt.
Because (lets say for EX) "Marc lied about his brother & the cave story. They actually almost shot up a school when he was a kid, but his mother stopped him from doing it. His brother succeeded and was killed by police".
But yeah, that would be horrible if MCU used this example and changed what they already wrote for Marc.
I'm just saying Marc (ever since he was a kid) is suppose to be a terrible person.
And his mental health issue after believing he was resurrected by Khonshu, is suppose to be like "therapy" to him.
It's forcing himself to become a better person while also making him suffer for his past life.
Overall (I think I mentioned this somewhere in this comment thread). I didn't hate the Moon Knight show as a TV show. It's like a 6/10.
I just don't like it as a Moon Knight adaptation. It doesn't really feel much like the character.
My whole reason for originally commenting is to just explain how it went down in the comics.
Which eventually led to people arguing on the subject and I had to defend the original vision for the character.
@RamsTheNameCom so they still didn’t completely disregard older comics while still having DID. Still not seeing the problem with him having DID and again we still don’t know the entire story.
I do hope they dive into Bruce’s DID and abusive childhood more though (I love Hulk I need more of him)
@Aspenture "Jake's already more violent and anyone can be a bad person so it doesn't mean he doesn't deserve it."
Yeah but like I said. The audience and other characters in the film can brush it aside as
"Oh Marc has DID. He can't control Jake, so Marc is an innocent man. Just like Bruce Banner is to Hulk (in the older MCU films)".
Even though that destroys the whole point of Marc Spector's character from the comics. He (the true identity) is suppose to be the evil brutal violent persona.
Yes, Moon Knight fans are split down the middle. But I should explain that Moon Knight had a giant spike in popularity around 2014 to 2016 when normies invaded the comic due to popular youtubers recommending it.
These are people who never heard of Moon Knight before DID and have no interest in reading the older comics.
But then in 2021, The Jed Mackay Moon Knight came out alongside the Omnibus of the older Moon Knight comics and that managed to convert a good quarter of these new Moon Knight fans into believing "Moon Knight was never suppose to have DID".
The Jed MacKay 2021 Moon Knight also started out basically stating "Marc Spector doesn't have DID. His insanity was caused from a combination of his guilt of killing innocent people in his past (he's doesn't want to be Marc Spector anymore), and from Khonshu resurrecting him too late (Marc is partially brain dead).
Jed Mackay would later change his mind in the 3rd graphic novel by mid 2022 after the Disney + Moon Knight show aired, to not offend any newcomers/people with DID joining the new comics for the first time.
Jed MacKay originally came to the conclusion that Moon Knight didn't have DID, because he actually made it his duty to read all the comics that came before (just like Charlie Huston did in 2006).
The Disney + Moon Knight show is based loosely on the 2016 Jeff Lemire "All New All Different" version of Moon Knight.
"All New, All Different" Marvel line of comics was created and intended to reboot/change older Marvel comic characters for the sake of diversity and representation.
This would include making Jane Foster "Thor", Turn Falcon into "Captain America", introduce Korean Hulk, make Spiderwoman a pregnant crime fighting superhero, and rebooting Moon Knight completely to be Marvel's poster boy for DID representation.
Though admittedly unlike the Disney + show, the 2016 Jeff Lemire Moon Knight just completely got rid of the fact that Moon Knight killed innocent people in his past.
They instead just said "After Marc's Dad died, he felt no one else in his family understood him and his DID problem. So he ran away from home and joined the Marines.
He would later get kicked out of the Marines for being Mentally ill and end up stuck in the middle of Afghanistan with no money.
So he ends up getting manipulate by his new friend "Frenchie" to become a mercenary and team up with Bushman.
Eventually Marc would betray Bushman when he saw Bushman kill innocent people.
So I guess points to Disney + for that.
“You were just a child, it wasn’t your fault” is something one of my alters has said to me and watching that scene absolutely broke me into a sobbing mess. I felt so happy to see this portrayed and it made me feel like the things that happen in my head was normal. Thank you both for being so respectful and wonderful, my entire system thanks you
@JULIE Ann maloney Not to be rude, but maybe you should evaluate yourself cause if your child has DID and is old enough to be a serious alcoholic, they’ve been suffering for a long time without the support they need.
Yes but I have a child who now has it Also
And she is a serious alcoholic that abuses me terr😢and blames me for everything
@Deez Nuts • 23 years ago KZclip seems to have eaten my reply, but it helps when you have good system communication. We're one big family, not everyone gets along but we have to work together, and that includes working through stuff together so that that scenario doesn't happen
I'm so happy you feel represented, what really resonated with me is the representation of how being a system affects relationships and your life.
@Wifi Wulf I’ve also heard a horrifying thing about some that they have an extremely depressed alter that can be suicidal which scares the shit out of me the fact you could not be in control of your body an someone who wants to kill you is and there could be no one around to stop them
But the tik tok kids gloss over all the negatives because “tee hee I’m quirky”
We are a DID system. This series made us cry multiple times because it felt like seeing ourselves on a screen for the first time. We weren't portrayed as a monster or crazy, we were the hero.
I’m not a system but I do dissociate a lot and oof I relate to, too many things
No fear no judge, we do goods
Mow
I know someone who has a fictive-heavy system and now has these two. Credits them for keeping this person/system alive!!
@EndWarrior sometimes unless and alter is a twin brother or very closely related brother
The plottwist was amazing. The whole time you think, that Stephen is the "original" and Mark is there for protect him, because Mark does all this crazy fightning stuff. So it was really suprising to see, that Stephen emerged to protect Mark. And he does that with his kidness, hope and positivity. And that is just a super beautiful message. Because you not just helping people on the physical side, you also can help and save people on a emotional side
Mr. Robot was so much better
@Rezigo bro I couldn't even keep it a secret,at that part in ep.3 I was like "It's JAKE-" 😂
After that point I try so hard to not spoil anything.
@Flaming_ Water Haha same,I was like "Oh yeah,some people don't read the comics so this is supposed to be a plot twist.....bruh."
@Werewolf I read marvel hero reborn and I was like man they are doing there justice league joke character better then the of now adays they actually respect there Wonderwoman
@Werewolf in recent times I have preferred him over batman because recently DC has been writtinh batman and even Superman like gods falling from the moon beating dr Manhattan with no real explanation
I'm glad you guys brought up Jake Lockley as the third personality, because he does serve a similar purpose for Mark, but in a different way. Jake acts a shield for Mark's guilt over the terrible things he's done, where as Steven is a shield for the terrible things being done to *Mark.* Both Jake and Steven are there to keep Mark from feeling the full force of his suffering.
@Anastasia Barth Thank you for the spelling correction. I think the bolding was just to emphasize the different ways that Steven and Jake are shields for Marc, not related to the spelling.
While marc struggles to manage both of them 💀🙏
Good observation, this explains it for me so well
This is rlly sad :(
@Anastasia Barth oh my god.
Oscar's body double was his actual brother, Mike, which I think allowed for a much deeper connection to the emotional relationship between Marc and Steven. In a way, Marc and Steven are brothers inside the same body, so who better to play opposite you than your own brother.
Also, as an Egyptology nerd, the significance of the Duat manifesting as a psychiatric hospital is often overlooked. The appearance of the Duat changes to fit the soul passing through, but it's usually out of comfort, as a way to ease the soul into their afterlife after their heart is weighed. Marc has always had issues with his DID and his guilt and self-deprecation over the death of his brother and the life he's led ever since didn't allow the Duat to offer comfort, it offered the same judgement Marc's felt his entire life. The Duat didn't appear as a psychiatric hospital because Marc perceived it as one, it appeared as a psychiatric hospital because Marc truly believes he deserved to be locked away in one. He never thought he deserved the peace and rest he so desperately wanted, so when he got to Aaru (The Field of Reeds) without Steven, he realized he was missing a piece of himself. He finally recognized Steven as a part of him, a part of his soul, and went back to be with him, just like how Steven had always been with him, too.
@Amanda Snider why not both?
aw i didn’t know that. reminds me of how i want to be an actor and my little brother wants to be a stunt double (because he heard they do all the fun stuff)
As an Egyptology nerd myself I remember the cut to the psychiatric hospital and immediately thought "is this the boat?! Did the boat take the form of a hospital?!" then the creaking and rocking happened and I geeked out further. Good times...
That's actually adorable to know about his brother. That was either a very wholesome experience or an opportunity for brothers to mess with each other lol
Hearing Steven tell Marc “You were just a child. It wasn’t your fault.” really hit hard and I think it was an important line for anyone dealing with childhood trauma. Especially for those who may never have heard those words out loud or had been triggered by what was shown earlier in the episode.
Mr. Robot was better.
@smileyeagle1021 this is the first time ever I hear about survivors guilt but it describes me so well
Well it’s interesting how in healing, the different parts need to help see and hear and speak to one another. Mark accept Steven and S speak to mark
As a child abuse survivor, this show was intense.
i literally just needed this comment to realize that it also applies to me and that it really wasn't my fault. i realized that just now. wtf thank u
The mirror thing. The closest I've come to having a mirror situation as someone with DID was when I was looking in the mirror putting on my makeup getting ready to go to a party I didn't want to go to, and suddenly didn't recognize my face. I was having a depersonalization event and didn't really realize it until after it happened. My younger alter was coming into consciousness with me (co-con) and questioning "why does my face looks like that?" So, I heard her voice, but answered her with my own logic without fully understanding what was going on saying to myself -- "I guess I'm getting older. I guess this is what being 40 does to your face." And then the worst WORST bit of confusion I've ever felt came over me and I heard her again say something like "I'm 26. I'm not 40" Then derealization set in and I had no idea how old I was. I struggled to remember even turning 40 and had to pull myself away from the mirror entirely never probably finishing putting on my makeup, thinking holy shit I'm having a midlife crisis. haha The rest of the day was blank to me but I hear she drank and had a lot of fun. I don't tend to look in mirrors anymore because for some reason it's a trigger for the young one and she has body image issues. So yeah....the mirror thing . . .
when i see my reflection in my phone screen, i don’t even think about it. when our little alter sees our reflection in the phone screen the dissociation kicks in and she gets real upset :(
@Saitoshiba Pleased do not fake-claim people, you never know and you can do a lot of harm to systems, not just Kya and co.
That sounds really freaky and I am so glad I don't have to go through that. However, I'm glad you all can live your best lives no matter how old you all are
Thank you for sharing your story. Even as someone without DID, it sounds super scary! Sorry the young one has body image issues, it's such a common thing for folks, especially younger folks. ❤
@Meuthianabila Pratiwi sometimes yeah .... I have more than one alter ... So yeah .. but it's easier if I am co-con with my protector .. she has a lot of access to the inner world more than I do
as a person who does not experience DID and has little knowledge on it, i want to say a huge thank you to those of you in the comments for sharing your stories. this show was hands down one of my favorite marvel series, and it helped me realize i had a lot of unconscious bias against systems due to movies like split, like assuming that alters fought for dominance to “steal” the body from the “original” and other nonsense. this video and your stories inspired me to open my mind up to the fact that i had no idea what i was truly believing, and to actually educate myself instead of relying on the few examples i’d been presented. i wish you all the best, and hope it gives some comfort that you’ve enlightened a lot of us
Mr. Robot was better
Thank you for this, it's so good to see people taking us seriously, and hey if you ever have any questions about life with DID I am always willing to talk about it!
I completely agree, I'm glad that cinema is taking the right steps to keep teaching us about topics the correct and thoughtful way. I've started to learn about many things just because it was brought up in media. I truly enjoy learning about new topics especially from people who experience some of the topics we discus.
Same. While I have never seen Split I did watch stuff like Total Drama (season 4 and 5 had a DID character) and stuff that would make alters just evil or a joke.
But Moon Knight has helped me understand DID much better.
One thing this show brought up that people don't tend to mention about DID, is that romance can get weird! For some people, they're dating the whole system. For some people, they're dating one person in the system, and the other alters are roommates. Thankfully, romantic love is a strong trigger, so either way the lovers can spend a lot of time together. There have been times when our ex went to hug me and her husband, one of our alters, shoved me out of the way like "IM GONNA HUG MY WIFE, MOVE IT OR LOSE IT NERD". Thankfully she got along well enough with the whole system.
lol "MY WIFE, OUT THE WAY"
@Connor Barkington For me personally, I do want to learn but I'm afraid of asking because I do not want to offend anyone about it. But I'm happy to see that you're open to talking and answering questions! I appreciate that so much. :) So thank you!
Ahhhh, I felt like I had to leave a thank you for everything you’ve provided in here, it always makes me feel grateful when others take their time to share their insights, even when it’s not their responsibility. I’ve read all your answers and learned from it. Highly appreciated 🙇🏻♀️
@Amanda Snider Connor Barkington said it best below: "honestly you REALLY should hire someone with DID as a consultant both for realism and avoiding ableism". I say this as gently as I can: right now, from here, it feels like you're on the path of taking advantage of other people's therapy, and it doesn't feel right to me.
That is beautiful
I was watching a video by DisassociaDID and they talked about how alters/identities can develop from fictional characters, but they become their own person the moment they develop because now they are experiencing things that the character didn't experience and I think Steven grant is an example of that.
I've heard of those too, most systems i know or know of (all online) typically call them fictives or factives depending on the source (fictives being fictional characters and factives being real people). I know several fictives and a few factives in this fan discord I'm in, most of the systems have a single discord account and use a certain bot to proxy and show who's talking. There's a system on twitter i know that has several twitter accounts and they all have a link to something in the bio explaining their system and saying who typically fronts
I've actually learned a lot about systems from the ones I follow on twitter and the ones in that discord server. A lot of them fairly young (or at least the body is) bc I'm young (19) and fandoms tend to attract similarly aged people most of the time, and i use twitter and discord to interact with my fandoms. Like the fandoms I'm currently in have a mostly gen z fanbase, at least in the spaces I'm in. Tho some previous fandoms I've been in have far more mixed sets of ages, marvel spans generations and i used to be a diehard for those movies and shows
Lol my ADHD decided i hadn't rambled enough today and your comment set off an infodump, sorry about that
As someone with DID who's 7 years into being in therapy and taking meds, I can safely say that Moon Knight is literally the best media involving DID. And harmony is 100% the end goal. Finding common goals with my head mates for our life was the first step in truly healing. And since then? I've been doing so much better. Day by day, it gets better. It's truly amazing to finally see media that portrays DID in such a positive light.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
"You were just a child and it wasn´t your fault" is so important to hear 😭
Mr. Robot was much better
As someone with DID I literally sobbed at that part.
When I first saw Oscar Isaac in Ex Machina, I thought, "Wow, this guy is a really talented and captivating actor. I hope he gets a lot more big roles." Apparently the rest of the world felt the same way.
YEP!
As a teen we always thought we were a freak and broken, but the first ever comic we got to personally own was Moon knight because our therapist gave it to us in hope that we would be more comfortable in our body, our new world. And it worked so well. When I heard moonknight was getting a tv series I was more than thrilled that, not only is a great story being told, but that we were being heard as real people and not monsters.
As a system I can say that it's not only more common to stay in one state/person/mode for days, but also that you can stay in that one for years or be in that one 90% of the time for decades.
Also, finding out Stephan was the protector was a huge and beautiful twist. I FELT this scene so hard, because my own experience was a LOT like Stephan's. I thought I remembered everything and was the "real" or "main" one, but I'm the host who was born to handle life as if everything was fine and normal.
And our gatekeeper had to take me aside when I was digging too much into trauma memories (after learning we were a system and I didn't have all the memories after all) to make it clear I wasn't supposed to remember everything, because that wasn't my job and the trauma would make me incapable of doing my job right.
Making the audience attached to Stephan as the "real" one and then turning this around also did SO MUCH to help my husband (a singlet) understand what it's like and how we're all "real" or equally valid. I hope to have the same moment with a couple friends next, because they still treat me as somehow more real or original than any of the others.
THANK YOU for thanking them, YES! It means so much to have an movie that helps to educate and accurately represent! At long last we have something we can point people to who don't understand and don't wanna ready psychology studies or theories to get some understanding.
@char Just to jump in here after the fact, i'm the exact opposite. Due to childhood trauma, my brain developed the defense mechanism of simply locking the memories away. The more stressed or traumatic the event are, the worse the memory loss is. I have maybe a handful of memories until I was 10 years old, and the rest I describe to people as 'corrupted VHS tape. that white static snow where nothing is visible' so much so that I didn't know that my parents were by biological grandparents and that I had been adopted by them when I was 5. I wasn't aware of my biological father's existence until I was 18 because I had no memories of him and he contacted me out of the blue. Even now during stressful times, my memories just become vague recollections of events (the gist of it) or just completely are missing at 34. I'm not part of a system (or if I am, damn, cause I have zero recollection of any switches), its just all locked away permanently to the point that a previous psychologist I was working with suggested that I needed to start regression/hypnotherapy to unlock them and work through those traumas.
@natman2939 conversations between alter happen sometimes. It depends a lot on the kind of relationship the alters have and what role they have in the system but mainly, interactions have been described as either talking to yourself (but it's like... You + your alter) or kind of feeling them in the back of your head talking/whispering to you. Some people also have kinda of a corner of their brain dedicated to their alters where they can have conversations inside their heads but since I don't have one of those i can't be very specific about it.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@natman2939 We dont have a gate keeper in this system as we act autonomous but also we dont remember everything else also. We have read through some of our therapy papper work together but the mind wants to forget it.
@char no because i have heard about somethings about the incidents that i don't know and they are so horrible so terrible that after hearing about them i am grateful that i don't remember because if i did i would have took my life although i tried but if i remembered those incidents i would not be able to survive
15:17 what i love about this scene is that it's a subtle nod to steven's psychology. steven believes that he talks to his mother daily, even though we only see him talk to a voicemail. steven was 'born' out of marc's desire to have a healthy, loving relationship with his mum, and he is still immersed in that illusion even though he hasn't talked to his mother in an unknown time, he thinks that they're still talking
I didn't think I knew anyone with DID until I started talking about how great this video was and how people with DID deserve better representation. Turns out a family member has been recently diagnosed with DID and was having a hard time figuring out how to tell me about it. I'm kinda floored by the coincidence. Thanks for helping us start the conversation!
@ConceptVoid7 thanks for the advice and support! Definitely will follow it. We are good friends on top of being family and we're going to start family therapy in the new year to help us navigate any challenges we might face in our relationship (they have their own therapist for the DID, this is in addition to that). I want to be as accepting and supportive as possible. I'm also trying to educate myself on it. Waiting for their therapist to send me a book list right now.
Just sth I want to point out: Jonathan, I love that you say "not to my knowledge".
Your professionalism and credibility skyrocket everytime you admit that you a) don't know sth, b) have made a mistake or c) are aware that some things might not be discovered yet/could be different in the future. Props to you for using your rolemodel-status to point out that even experts aren't perfect.
@Cimmerian Chaos you're experience is interesting to me as I am someone highly interested in learning all the different ways there are to be human. I'm autistic so neurodivergent in a different way, so please forgive and feel free to correct any incorrect assumptions at I want most to understand.
Your experience reminds me some of the clusters in the Netflix show "Sense8". If you are unfamiliar, that show depicted groups of eight people around the world who are connected mentally my ways they can communicate and experience things together as if they are in the same place and can even mentally exchange positions in case one person might need the skills of someone else in the cluster. These sharing and visiting can take place with any number of the members of the cluster.
I fully understand this is not the same as your plural experience. But is this a rather close visual analogy to help someone understand?
Zeta: Exactly this, we appreciate this so much. When it comes to being plural, there's also the fact that therapists and therefore the medical profession overall, deal with systems who come from trauma. Where that's only just a part of plurality, there's a lot of different kinds of systems out there and we'd like to have the ability to contribute too, for everyone's benefit. But even within plural communities there's a stigma of "Oh if you don't have DID then you're not a real system" We're a temagenic system, our history is complicated. But when we explain that we don't get blackouts, or anything else to where we don't meet some textbook definition of DID, or match some other system's expirience, we get told things like, "I don't know why you'd choose to have this." Like we didn't choose anything, we are the way that we are. And even if we did, does it matter in the end if we're helping eachother and not doing harm? The divide and stigma within the plural community is it's own thing, but we feel that the more there come to be therapists who aren't afraid to admit that they don't know everything, but are willing to learn and are compassionate, then the more we can break down all of these stigmas and fears. Maybe the stigmatization and anger that we've seen twoards systems that don't have DID or the like is a sort of byproduct of the way those systems are being treated by some therapists, since that sort of misdirection can happen in other things, we don't know. What we do know is that therapists and finding one and finding the right one is very anxiety inducing when you're plural. You never know when you're going to get a therapist who seems nice enough, only for you to come ot as plural and to be given the "this is the real one" treatment, or who knows what. And for some, you can't just go off and find another therapist. Or maybe you try and all of your options turn out to be bad. We can only speak for ourselves, but while ideally we'd like to just be like, "Oh yeah, we're plural btw" and therefore allow all of us equal access to the benefits of therapy, but oftentimes we're carefully evaluating whether or not opening that can of worms is worth it or not, while the systemmate in question can only really get support from the rest of us. Hell, tbh we need to find a new therapist but haven't due to the anxiety a lot of us have over the idea. We need a lot more compassion and understanding from therapists in this respect. Because here we are, revealing to someone what at least for us is the most important aspect of our lives and then to have everyone but whoever they happen to think is "the real one" dismissed is insulting to all of us, and for us is an immediate trust breaker and puts us in a place of fear.
Yessss this is why I love these guys 💗
@Ideas in the Gord oh okay that makes sense. Thank you!
@HouseMDaddict pretty sure it means "something"
As a part of a system, the idea of watching Moon Knight fills me with so much anxiety. Partly because I don't want to see another terrible, twisted interpretation of DID like in Split... but also because I'm terrified of it being too relatable and too spot on, and how uncomfortable that would be to see a bit of ourselves in Steven and Mark. Seeing this video makes me want to try to watch it, just to see what happens though. It gives me faith at least that it won't be like Split.
As a system, we had the same reservations and took quite a while to finally watch, but we loved it. Can’t say I personally cried or got too triggered since big emotions aren’t really my MO, but it’s definitely an emotional show and would affect a lot of people more than it did me. Oscar’s acting is incredible, and it’s hard not to connect with the vulnerable moments the Moon Knight system has.
I think it’s wise to take it in smaller chunks if your emotions are more easily influenced by media you connect to. But I do think it’s worth watching and generally does a really good job with representation (outside of the parts they had to dramatize or represent in new ways for it to work on film and make more sense to singlet viewers-but you can’t really hold that against them because it’s necessary).
As someone with DID (diagnosed ~3 years ago) I cried through all six hours. It was really raw, and by the end a part of me kind of felt like I'd been scraped open for the whole world to see. It made me do a lot of introspection. It also triggered me a lot though, so I would say DON'T binge it, do take breaks.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
heeeeeey! took the words right out of our mouth, the hive of anxiety (and excitement) around this show has been nearly impossible to describe. thanks for the concise wrap on why I haven't touched it yet, despite being medium hyped up since it was announced.
Not trying to catch any extra pain from another terrible, monster-style representation, I so dearly just want to see it be "right" or even just "okay" to see, just once. but also, we're all desperately afraid of the real emotions on the table, confronting them in someone else's story. If they get it "right," it means someone's having the misery of their life, I don't want THAT. -I- want to enjoy this media, but we know we're not ...ready yet?
Fun fact, in a lot of scenes, the body double is oscar issacs brother! so he was doing those performances opposite someone he loved deeply the way steven and marc would have loved each other. i think that is part of what made it so powerful. In a lot of ways Steven and Marc are brothers, so Oscar getting to have those moments with his own brother must have been really emotional.
Reading and seeing all these comments about people with DID who watched the show and the video and how much it means to them, makes all this feel so wholesome. I know there is a stigma about people with DID and it's so wholesome and heartwarming to hear that this has made them all feel welcome
I'm extremely close to a DID system. We lived together for a while and I remember the first time when one personality was emotionally overwhelmed (the "original") and so another emerged. It was my first time witnessing an emergence vs coming home to a different personality from whom was present that morning. The feeling of energetic change was profound and the physical transformation was exactly what Moon Light showed with adult Marce switching to Steven outside of the funeral.
As an outsider of DID, I appreciated this series and the compassion they give.
I don't have DID, but there was something oddly cathartic about this series and watching you discuss it. I have high functioning social anxiety. It's not a "new identity" but sometimes it does feel like another part of me is controlling my body and mind. Even now that I'm very personable and make friends easily I can feel it whispering in the back of my head. I used to hate it and myself for it. I thought it was holding me back, and once I realized it was still there despite how many friends I've made and things I've tried I felt like I failed.
What's helped me heal (outside of learning to address distortions) is realizing I didn't need to and COULDN'T hate myself into being better. I had to realize the anxiety wasn't bad; it was just too loud, screaming because it wanted me to listen, to make sure I was paying attention to others, holding myself accountable, and not embodying some of the things others did that caused me to develop my condition. So now when she's loud, instead of fighting her or telling her to shut up, I pause and ask "What are you trying to tell me?" and now she's a lot quieter. When I do have bad flareups, I can catch and recover from it sooner.
From reading the comments it seems this show's ability to portray learning to validate and live in HARMONY with different parts of yourself resonates with folks with DID too.
The phrase "I can't hate myself into being better" is something I seriously needed to hear today. Thank you so much
That part about it feeling like your anxiety can control your mind and body feels familiar to me. I have anxiety too, at least to some degree. I’ve had experiences where something sets the anxiety/fear response off and it feels like the fear is a backseat driver trying to grab at me (the mind) and the wheel (the body). It’s trying to protect me by having me fall back into what is, for me, a mix of the freeze and fawn response.
Does that sound similar? There might be information that I’m missing
This is a very useful perspective. Thanks for putting this out there.
What I loved the most about this show, is how they validate every single alter.
The body died. And BOTH Mark and Stephen had a spirit and a chance at an afterlife. Stephen wasn't made up. Stephen is as real as Mark in every possible way.
I'm not a system, but I love that messaging so much
@Boo Bies makes sense
@Krucible jake was inside another sarcophagus but wasnt released, because both marc and steven seemed to not know he even existed, unlike how marc seemed to always know of steven
Fine fair enough 🤷🏼♀️ please stop @ing me y'all. I was just not expecting any spoilers that weren't already in the vid.
@Krucible jake also had a spirit, he was in the sarcophagus, steven and marc just didn't let him out. I also think the scales didn't balance until steven was off the boat because there were 3 people and only 2 hearts, so once steven was gone then it was just jake and marc which is why it balanced.
@Grounded Gravity why would you click on this video at all if you weren't okay with spoilers? this entire page is a spoiler zone.
I don't have D.I.D. but I relate HARD to Marc. My sister died and my mom blamed me. I ended up with PTSD instead. I think this is also good representation for mental health in general because while other heros clearly have mental health concerns...this show centers it. This is a superhero who openly has a mental health condition.
I don't have DID but my brain blocked out a lot of harmful memories for a long time until a therapist was able to help me re-open memories from that time in my life. I was an absolute mess for a while realizing all the stuff I'd forgotten and dealing with that pain, and around that same time this show came out. That scene where steven is looking through the house seeing the reality of his life while mark tries to stop him had me absolutely sobbing.
I also don't have DID, but my therapist and I have unlocked some hardcore trauma memories that I had blocked out, and it's been real rough. Sending you love ❤
I was diagnosed with DID in ~2016 and moon knight did so well. It almost made me cry seeing it depicted so realistically and with such.... nuance and love. Moon Knight was my favourite comic character even before my diagnosis, and seeing the episode with the psych ward excited me as a fan because there ARE whole moon knight comics that turn out to be entirely in Mark's head. I was absolutely convinced that in the last scene where he wakes up chained to the bed and asks "Are you there?" that we would not get a response, leaving us to wonder if any of it had happened after all.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
Moon Knight has influenced my system so so so much! The amount that we've related to it and have strived to improve because of it is notable. It's really touching to see such a beautiful portrayal of such a misunderstood disorder. My experience with system discovery was very much like Steven's, in that I thought I was the "original" for a long time, only to realize I've actually only existed as a consciousness for 3 or 4 years. Being the current host of your system like Steven and I, and the host that figures it out for that matter, can cause you to want to 'defend your title' in a way. You see yourself as the "real one" or the "core identity" that everyone else split off of (there's about 8 of us total), only to realize that the actual person/people (it's usually more than one,) that've been around the longest are chilling somewhere in headspace.
When I met one of those type of people for my system, they tried to get rid of me. So, already off to an amazing start.
They, and I quote, "Wanted the body back so that they could be normal again." whatever that meant. And as bogus and Hollywood as it sounds, it's a genuine thing that a ton of systems go through. We all want to be "normal" like everyone else, whatever normal means. So, when I, the current host, spoke to our primary protector, one of the first alters to form, she wanted me out so that she could live her life. I obviously fought her, and we fought for over a year. But it wasn't until recently that we had our little Steven and Marc moment. We had to work together to get through the bad parts of having DID and I went through some really horrible things. Bad enough to cause another alter to emerge fully. Someone who is very dear to me, very much like a brother.
Anyways, me and my primary protector had our moment where she realized her trying to get rid of me was hurting the system (which is the opposite of her job btw,) and she apologized for what she did. Now she's like my cool wine aunt who sneaks me out of school to go shopping or whatever cool wine aunts do. We love each other and it's awesome. We are far from perfect though and there are still things we need to work on and other relationships to heal, but with this, we've come a bit closer and now we can all fight like badasses :))
@DeluxeTux5249
(1/2)
Yes yes yes. I'd be happy to and sorry for assuming everyone knew what the terms meant!
Ok so alter roles are kind of bs in some cases (my opinion) and just cause unnecessary confusion. depending on how many alters the system has, alters can take on 2 or 3 different roles the smaller the system is. For example, Marc, Steven, and Jake all take on so many roles that I can barely pinpoint them. At this point, having roles would be kind of pointless. That being said, I can speak to how we use the terms to figure out who might front when and what the words mean. You can predict a lot about who might be fronting based on situation alone!
Imma give a basic definition of each role and what they do:
Host:
the alter that fronts most often. If there's more than one alter that fits that description, they would both be co-hosts. Hosts usually Identify with the name the body goes by and how the body looks but depending on how many different hosts there are this could stop being the case for one reason or another, which I will get to later on.
Protector:
pretty self-explanatory. they protect other alters from various things and usually don't hold trauma.
A primary protector is one that kinda does it all like a general protector and a first line of defense, at least for my system.
Physical protectors specialize in keeping the body safe from physical harm and may even fight back to defend the body in some cases.
Emotional protectors take over the body when emotions get too strong and may even act as soothers for alters in emotional distress or will just front when in a highly emotional situation if an alter can't handle it.
Sexual protectors are exclusive to systems that have experienced sexual assault and take over when the body is being sexually assaulted or in sexual distress to either perform for the abuser and not show fear to keep the body safe or just endure the assault in place of another alter. These kinds of alters may be hypersexual and may even harm the body because of their hypersexuality or they may be asexual and have a bad relationship with sex, or they fit into neither of those boxes, but sexual protectors do vary like that to the point that it's notable.
Some systems may also have internal protectors to keep alters safe from internal abuse.
Jake, Imo feels like a physical protector for both Marc and Steven, since he takes over when physical fighting and abuse becomes too much for Marc or Steven to handle.
Persecutors:
these are alters that actively seek to harm other alters in the system. although they may seem counterproductive on the surface, persecutors act as a sort of misguided protector or a protector who holds trauma. they are alters with good intentions but bad ways of fulfilling their role as a protector. Most of the time, the logic is "if I hurt the others enough, they'll be stronger the next time someone hurts us." they'll gladly be the bad guy if it means the system can handle more abuse when (if) it comes. With therapy, persecutors usually realize what they're doing isn't helping and they may become a protector or just a trauma holder. (oh, hoho perfect segway)
Trauma holder:
another self-explanatory one but this one is the first of the roles that can double and make things complicated. trauma holders hold trauma. They're the ones that remember so others don't have to. They may only front during trauma and act as a punching bag, or they serve as protectors that may or may not turn into persecutors. in our case, our emotional protector who takes over when things get too much is also a trauma holder. he protects from and holds on to the trauma, but trauma holders can also just take the suppressed memories from protectors so that protectors can do their job without the weight of trauma.
I would probably consider Marc a trauma holder as well as a host because he's the one who held on to the bad memories so steven didn't have to. but at the same time, he could also be considered a physical protector for Steven because he endured the physical abuse. Smaller systems like in Moon Knight and definitely much more confusing lmao.
Gatekeeper:
these are alters that see all and know all. they can sometimes stop alters from feeling certain emotions/put them in a dissociative state, deny access to certain memories, and most importantly, they can push and pull alters to and from the front. they are the big person in charge, the brains of the operation, if you will. These alters are rare to front and usually keep in headspace to have better control of everything. Most people think hosts are the ones in charge because you see them outside the most, but more often than not hosts answer to gatekeepers and often don't remember much or feel much because of the influence of gate keepers and this could cause a rift between the two. It sure has for me and my gatekeeper, I've never even met or heard from the guy and he literally yoinks all my memories.
littles:
child alters. this is less of a role and more an age range. littles have the mannerisms cognitive behavior and thinking skills of a child. they highly resemble children in their interests, the way they speak, the way they act, etc. A big misconception though is that littles cannot access adult parts of the brain. Littles are capable of doing adult chores, they understand things at the educational level as someone the body's age and have the same capacity for though as a person the body's age. they are not, however, capable of adult decision making, are usually quite naive, and do not have an understanding of things to be able to consent like an adult. littles should be taken care of as if they were children because, usually, their purpose is to be the child the body never got to be. littles are not really their own role because littles can be protectors, ex-hosts, trauma holders, gatekeepers, and persecutors. usually, the goal of a system with littles is to relieve them of their role so that they can just be kids.
As for an example of a little having a role, in our system we have a little who was about 8 and was a hypersexual sexual protector. she didn't necessarily enjoy sex but felt as though she needed to keep performing her role and would take over even when the body wasn't in sexual danger. It was very sad and I'm glad she no longer feels she needs to do that.
Thanks for sharing something personal like this; It's nice to hear that you and your primary protector were able to come to an understanding. Wine aunt ftw lol.
That said, just the image of a bunch of identities fighting over who "the original" is, while the actual first is just chilling in a corner is kinda funny to me.
Question though: There are a lot of terms here that I think I vaguely get, but not completely. Would you care to explain what terms like "little", "gatekeeper", and "host" mean/entail? How are these roles typically defined specifically?
@Saturn Batista it helps a lot! And don't worry about the extension, I think that even that is long, it was necessary to understand it right, specially the last 2 or 3 pharagraphs. I'm someone that had never experienced that (not more than "a talk with yourself"), so more information helps to understand something that only know for fictions (and maybe in a wrong way, like the video suggests)
Thanks for sharing so much of your life!! Specially to an unknown. 😁
@Camilo Lehnebach Bravo I’d love to answer that! So we as a system have very thick amnesia walls. Thick enough that the way we found out we were a system was when our little fronted for the first time in years.
We’ve noticed it’s harder for some people to communicate with each other than others so we’ve assumed it’s because we have subsystems. Subsystems are basically just alters that are separate from others. Kinda like cliques in school where everyone goes to the same school but we just have people it’s easier to talk to. it doesn’t have to do with how well we get along tho, it mainly occurs because of how the brain compartmentalizes certain alters by role.
so, for example, my caretaker/ primary protector, my emotional protector, and our little are all in a subsystem with me. We all work in tandem to be able to live our life as one unit so we all are able to talk to each other much easier than people in the other subsystem, which includes one of the old hosts, their sexual protector, and their caretaker/the systems gatekeeper.
Our primary protector (Bett) is sort of like the bridge between all of us bc she’s the old hosts physical protector and can talk to mostly everyone in the system.
Now, thanks to therapy, it’s much easier to talk to my subsystem of alters in headspace (it sorta sounds like thoughts but not my thoughts, like they’re in a different voice but a thought voice not an actual voice; i don’t actually hear anything when they talk to me.) but before, i couldn’t talk to them at all.
Before, we mainly communicated through writing in our journal, sticky notes, or our notes app. That, and the fact that Bett can talk to them, is the only reason I know about the alters in the other subsystem. I’ve read their journal entries, i’ve read their notes, i’ve heard my therapist mention their names, but i’ve never actually spoken to them.
I think i might have co-fronted with one (Harley is her name) once while Bett was there, but that was because Harley was doing their sexual protector duties and Bett was stopping her bc we weren’t in any danger and she has some self destructive tendencies. That’s probably the most contact I’ve had with anyone outside of my subsystem. I do have a pen-pal type relationship with the old host tho, we have the same music and book tastes so we share control of the Spotify and audible account.
There are people I don’t know anything about, like our gatekeeper, our little, and an introject i’ve never met. Our little is in my subsystem but she doesn’t really like to talk to anyone other than Bett. Our gatekeeper on the other hand is in the other subsystem and doesn’t talk to Bett much so she doesn’t have much to tell me about him.
The introject isn’t in either subsystem and might be dormant. The only reason I know he exists is because my therapist met him once and never again. I’m sorry this got really long but I hope this answers your question!
Something i really liked is the relationship to Konchu and how Systems aren't dangerous to others, but actually *more vulnerable* to being used and abused *again.* How he takes advantage of them, how Mark suffered, and then *lies* to them and takes advantage of another alter in the system (they dont know about and therefore can't shield against. and the implication they cannot be sure how often he could try to do this). that thought is terrifying but strikes me as sadly realistic. a system as a victim and the bad influence coming from an outsider i havent seen before and was also done with such compassion. you just want them to heal and be happy and konchu to get the hell out
DID system here: I think that the portrayal of DID in Moon Knight was incredibly respectful. It sounds like everyone working on the show tried their hardest to avoid the stigma and stereotypes around the disorder, and I'm so glad that the main character, who has DID, is the hero, not the monster.
Not a system myself, but I'm curious if anyone here plays Smash Bros, especially with Challenger Pack 9 for... certain reasons. ;)
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Harmless Horrors DID system here and fellow writer. In order to avoid the connotation that this is "the bad alter" or that DID leads to dangerous, deviant behavior, I'd try a few things:
1. Have the alter committing the crimes consider the ethical implications at length. Do the crimes actually harm someone? Is it punching up or down? Does the result justify the means? If the crimes are, for example primarily against powerful people who can absorb the damage, I'd dig into how our society conflates "crime" with "unethical" and pick that apart.
2. Make sure that the alter that commits the crimes does other things too rather than being defined as "the criminal one." Give them a full range of values, goals, interests relationships, and using crime to protect the system fits into that larger persona.
3. Consider contrasting the alter that commits crimes with a non-DID character who either also commits crimes but does so out of selfish greed, not necessity, or who doesn't commit crimes but uses existing systems to exploit, harm, etc.
@Harmless Horrors Hi, I'm NOT a system and have no insights on that front, but an idea did occur to me. Not sure about your other story ideas, but what if it wasn't that one of the alters is breaking the law. Instead, it slowly comes out that the laws they are breaking are totally unrelated to DID. They all agree that the law is unjust, or the acts are necessary, and it's not a matter of "shifting into criminal alter mode - HENSHIN!".
Instead the differences between alters are mostly unrelated to "criminal vs not criminal", and the assumption of the reader or perhaps characters in the story that it does work that way being wrong is a bit of a twist. Not sure if that would work with your concept, and obviously "The Big Twist" can be overplayed, but it could be an interesting way to work with the character.
I loved this so much, especially the realisation Stephen is not just an alter, but a fictive, a kind of alter that's so easily, so often looked down upon as fake and childish and pretend and we see just how real a person he is. Because all alters are fully real in terms of having memories, making choices, having goals, in terms of their self awareness and conscious thought.
This series really proves how good and compassionate of an actor Oscar Isaac is
I have a couple friends with DID and learning how to interact with their alters as unique and special individuals has been such a positive experience. I don’t have knowledge other than that which I’ve learned from my friends, but seeing the compassion from y’all and on screen that my friends never got from their families and seeing DID portrayed this way made me cry. It takes a huge amount of trust for people to share that part of themselves.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
Absolutely love how the show makes you get used to the dynamic of "Steven is the kind & innocent coward, and Marc is the rough & brave protector". And then episode 5 hits you with the "When danger is near, Steven Grant has no fear" line kinda implying that to Marc, Steven is the brave one. (Dynamics like this, where the one that is more outwardly confident secretly looks up to/respects the more timid one just really get to me).
Also, love the seen with Steven telling Marc that it's not his fault and that he shouldn't blame himself for what happened to his brother. Self forgiveness is something a lot of people struggle with and I feel like a lot of people wish they could just give the more damaged parts of themselves a hug and say "it's okay"/"it's not your fault".
Watching this with my mom, was actually a really powerful way for her to understand what goes on in my head, as a person with DID. And at the end of the series, she actually understood for the first time why there were different alters and why the protector personality was established. It was a really amazing moment. And thank you for taking the time to not only review this, and show some of the incredibly powerful moments, but acknowledge that a system is an alternative way of existing, rather than something that needs to be fixed.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
The fact that Issac wasn't just handed every possible award for this performance is a crime
@Michael Simpson that is true
Mr. Robot was better
Performances*
I detect no lies
@InsideJoke I couldn't have said it better myself. Awards are such a self-suck that somehow still boost a recipient's career. "We're gonna make up rules about what we think good movies are, then give awards to people who do things the way we like them!" Such an insulting joke.
Btw if anyone wants to read a moon knight book that also focuses on the DID aspect, I really recommend the jeff lemire run. The asylum episode is directly based off it, and the book itself spends a lot more time there and on marc's relationship with his mental health. It also features his alters heavily in the 2nd half and is just a beautiful depiction of the system as a whole working together to reclaim their lives for the themselves.
I've always thought that people with DID were injured to the point that they needed a safe place, and the only safe place was to splinter. I have my own issues, but to hurt that badly, that the only place you can go is another place you've created in your mind. I'm so sorry for anyone that has been through that kind of pain and turmoil. May you know peace, may you heal if that is the path you wish, and may you make that place of safety for yourself in the outside world.
As someone with OSDD, the length of time between switches can vary immensely. One alter may come out to respond to a situation or do a task that only takes a few minutes and they go back in. If our body is physically sick, one alter may take the brunt of suffering through it for the entire duration. It could be a single person for multiple days or a dozen switches in a single day. And I actually do have mirror conversations some times. Where the alter out needs to talk to someone inside (the ability for alters to communicate with each other depends entirely on how the individual system functions) and while only the one "in the front" at the time is speaking out loud, the other half of the conversation is happening inside the mind. Much like hearing someone on the phone.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
As someone with D.I.D. I cannot tell you how therapeutic it was to see this portrayed as a disorder that stems from childhood trauma and not as an evil thing where every system has a murderer. We similarly lived with an abusive mother and a father who stood by in that abuse, and it was amazing to see a system portrayed this well. Thanks for the amazing review
i happened across a system on discord some months back. i had no idea that any of this was "real" and thought they were just looking for attention or playing a character to be interesting. thanks for videos like this guys. this is like the clearest cut example of spreading awareness when it comes to mental health
The fact that when we are getting the backstory and Steven is wearing the black because he is in the dark and Mark is wearing the white because he is the vulnerable one, the innocent or victim, in that moment. So much though put behind it. The acting is phenomenal. The amount times I've cried during this show. Amazing. Amazing. Amazing.
Whoa!! I never thought of that! That makes it even deeper. Wow
I had always thought that costume choice strange and wondered why it wasn't swapped--that's the best explanation I've heard! Thanks!
@Raven Artist that too
I mainly thought it was so we could tell them apart. Y’know, color coding.
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The package is yours!!!🔝🎁,.
"Steven. Look at me. You're not going to die. Let me save us."
Damn, that makes me cry every single time.
I also saw the moment between Marc and Steven as my adult self reparenting and talking to my inner child with our abandonment trauma. “You were always there, full of hope… You didn’t abandon me and there’s no way in hell I’m ever going to abandon you”.
Even without DID, it's been very healing for me to see my sad memories and past mistakes as a child to be soothed, rather than criticized and blamed.
As someone with DID, i actually cried. Thank you so much for having compassion for us and listening to us. So often, we are told our experiences are fake and manipulative, and despite how much we protest, we are seen as maligerers and abusive people. Thank you, really. I appreciate this.
You said at the beginning of the episode, if any systems wanted to comment on your critique, they should... I just wanted to personally thank you for spreading this series as an accurate portrayal. I'm too afraid to watch Split, as many of my parts already hate its existence, but Moon Knight has been so nice to watch and relate to. Also, coming from a protector part, I LOVED getting to see Steven as a whole. So many people in our life, once they find out I'm not the "original", treat me differently. Thank you for advocating for all the parts as whole people. We are, and I wish more people would understand this. I also LOVED how the series depicted their "inner world" (as we and our therapist call ours) as a safe place that houses different aspects of your life and past. I'm now sure how to word that last part better. You did a great review and critique. I look forward to seeing more.
My favourite part of the DID representation is that Marc specifically acknowledges that them being able to talk like that is explicitly unusual and implies that it’s a recent development.
@Edward Callisto "YOU are acting like a defender of the internet yourself" and then doesn't even argument the accusation. This is just like kids saying "no, YOU are stupid" without even knowing what "argumenting" means. Spreading rumors and trying to convince someone are to different things, if you feel personally attacked because I shat on your favorite youtuber, that's a you problem and shouldn't blame me for just writing a comment. There are many more reliable sources about DID than DissociaDID. Do I think they're up to something? I don't know, couldn't care less. I firmly believe in the power of knowledge and the capability of humans to do their own research without being so dull and gullible every time they hear a public figure say something. So you want to actually give people actual knowledge and valid hope? Study, get a degree or a PhD, get a job or be a researcher and make actual progress to help people instead of saying random folks on the internet "you don't need to disparage people, blah blah blah".
@Riley Okami Anyone has their own unique ways about it.
Some report this kind of behaviour, others report not having them. We do not for example have them, closest we get to this kind of stuff is a kind of subtle influence by one another, like an emotion or sensation pushed by one to the other to convey something basic.
I am happy to hear though you have one of the more unique and effectively working systems going on without such a direct communication. That seems like it would be useful, though personally, also likely very annoying.
@Breezy The first contact is always bizarre. Up to that point, you'll know "weird things are happening" but you'll have no clue it's DID... Is it Possession? Hallucination? Schizophrenia? Imaginary friends? Paranoia? Drugs? Sleep deprivation? Memory issues? Sleepwalking? Suggestibility? Spirituality? A medical disorder? A stress-induced breakdown? GHOSTS????
Maybe you'll feel like someone's always watching you. Maybe you're nervous when you see yourself in the mirror. Maybe you have blackouts. Maybe you have short-term memory issues. Maybe people call you by the wrong name. The first episode of Moon Knight is pretty realistic, it's a bunch of little stuff that doesn't add up.
You figure it out when you start playing detective. Depending on your symptoms and how you interpret them, you'll come to it from different angles. Setting up cameras is normal for sleepwalkers. Interrogating people about why they called you a certain name. Trying to call out to the creeping presence you feel behind you. Trying to look into the eyes in the mirror and talk. Finding someone else's stuff in your house... food, soap, clothes... sometimes notes! Sometimes computer files! Sometimes a journal with unfamiliar handwriting! Sometimes you realize that the "internal narrator" who voices your thoughts, is actually unpredictable and seems to have separate opinions from you...
I don't remember how we finally started zeroing in on our suspicions, but I remember our first conversation...
I opened a text file on the computer and typed some greeting like "Hello!"
... I'm remembering how scared I was because of how batshit insane it felt...
My own hands, guided by a will that WASN'T mine, hit the enter key a couple times and typed out a response. "Hi, how are you?"
How do you explain that after experiencing it? There's absolutely no logical explanation at all.
Or so I thought, until I learned what DID was.
That's how a lot of us start. Scared, confused, feeling like we are experiencing supernatural, impossible things.
The good news is, once you start taking bricks out of the walls, communication becomes way easier. With practice, you can just call eachother up in the mind and talk directly. But lots of people have to start by passing notes, and we still find that speaking through a chat adds more clarity to the situation.
@Padascos not to sound like an ass, but yes, yes it can work like that. We often talk amongst ourselves out loud, though its only ever two or three. It is usually one of us complimenting another, blowing off steam complaining about something, or asking questions along the lines of "what's next" after a sudden swap, as it makes it really easy to lose track of what we are doing, be it during chores, gaming, or even writing. The wife used to get confused by it, but grew adjusted after a bit. The rest of the inhouse family however is another story, often causing them to think we are trash talking them under our breath when we are just trying to keep track of what we are doing and what needs to be done. Course, none of it is as glorified as it is in the movie. Only short back and forths usually, and it isn't a frequent thing.
as a system thankyou guys for being so compassionate and being so accurate with your comments on life as a system. It's so hard to only have representation of us being evil and being just a horror trope so thankyou so much for your love and support it means the world. honestly, I almost cried because you were both so empathetic and compassionate and that's really all we ask for.
Not gonna lie when i first watched the series I legitimately thought that the actor had a twin and they played the same vessel. But when I realized it was just one guy I was freaking mindblown because not JUST the individuals acting but the way they can interact with each other is so smooth
we stopped watching CT and mended light when those original DID videos were made on mended light then the gollum one, we were too hurt and too triggered by the mistakes made
but i returned to see the Split analysis and this one to be really pleasantly surprised and impressed by jonothans understanding of DID and self-awareness/accountability when it comes to his past mistakes
we wanted to say thank you for your hard work and thank you for educating on DID with much more correct info - also thank you for saying things like "not to my knowledge", not claiming things as correct due to your clincal license. seriously, thank you.
we wanted to say that while moonnight is great representation, we feel the best one out there (as far as we've seen) has to be "What if it works", it's *very* realistic and a really great resentation of DID, also in the fact it examples a few core aspects of systemhood!
such as splitting, 'persecutor' alters acting out in a non-problematic ways (opposite of split), and the big one is that it displays and encourages functional multiplicity, i believe it also touches on fusion
everything you said in this video though was quite spot on, i thought i'd go over a few things though:
- most systems do prefer not to be called "personality" or anything like that - person, alter or part is typically the most preferred wording
- yes, rapid switching can be like that but it is extremely tiring and often induces pain such as a headache and generally the rapid switching happens due to a stressful situation, not any other time
- yes, internal communication is much more common than external, you can talk externally while someone replies internally but it typically isn't as common/helpful
- hallucinations are **not** a part of DID, steven and mark seeing eachother outside of the innerworld is just visual aid for the audience
- similarly, the sort of stiff posture + eyeroll is typically not a "tell" of someone switching, maybe for some system out there sure, but it isn't common at all
more typical tells are pupils dilating, posture shifts, sharp inhale/breathing pattern change, looking around to check environment, seeming dazed or far away, that sort of thing
typically a "tell" of a switch is subtle which is clearly because DID is a covert disorder
@Amanda Snider It would be rather refreshing to see a better portrayal of DID. Moonknight did a better than average job on it, but there are definitely still issues.
We actually have a funny story to share. My (Dawn) husband and I have been together for 10 years this month. But I was diagnosed with DID only 3 years ago. He has been doing his best to try and "keep track" of who is talking to him and actually does really well most of the time. But this wasn't always the case.
Shortly after we were diagnosed he requested that any of the others be willing to come and talk to him so he could get to know everyone. He works as a long haul truck driver so is only home for 5/6 days per month. Normal operations for us was that the others would do their best to keep from fronting when he was home so he and I could spend time together. But once he requested to meet everyone it was a slow process.
I have two male alters (cis female body), the one this happened to, Alex, is a protector and gatekeeper for the system. Well, my husband hadn't met Alex yet and wasn't seeing body language changes. So he did what he sometimes does to me, gives a good Ole smack on the ass. Alex spins around, growls and tells him if he wants to get frisky he should wait for Dawn (me) or Hemi (our other male alter who is gay).
Alex refused to even speak to my husband for about 4 months afterwards lol.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
I was once talking to someone who had DID, but hadn't told anyone. And they switched during the conversation. So, I got to know two people that day. They were very apologetic about it the next day, but they had nothing to be sorry for. While it wasn't a super dramatic change in personality, I could definitely tell I went from talking to a girl, to talking to a boy. A whole different person.
I loved this series and I loved that it FINALLY portrayed someone with DID as empathetic and not as a monster/villain/plot twist device.
The backstory episode was really hard for me. Watching someone's mother blame them for something that's not their fault, and that caused a mental disorder that they battle with into adulthood was waaaay too close to home.
It's literally what happened to me. Just sub in a sister for the brother. That scene destroyed me
@Amit Singh this was the only series or part of the mcu that had me have to take a break. It was too close to home. Way too close.
When Mark switched to Stephen and faked a call to his mother, that scene broke me. That's one of the strongest scene in mcu for me.
heh yeah you too?
Usually only when I'm off my schizophrenia meds, it feels like repressed portions of me swell in the dream of my mind, and seeing that scene even on my meds started to well those emotions up. It's so powerful.
My cousin has DID. I've met several of her alters (she asked me to use that word) in her System. I especially enjoy spending time with the littles. When my cousin and her System watched Moonknight (each one watched it separately I watched with each of them, I love watching the differenting reactions), each one told me they never felt more understood
As someone without DID, I felt this show did the research and really took time to portray mental differences in such a positive and wonderful light. I'm so glad to see that I was right. ❤ Also, I'm loving all the comments from the systems sharing their stories. Thank you for being so vulnerable to share, everyone.
I was diagnosed with DID about 11 months ago and it’s been a lot. The rapid switch can happen it just depends on the system and how they’re triggers occur, for me personally I rapid switch frequently almost as if the alters are having conversations with each other through actions. Like one will go to the store and get groceries and then when we get home another might come out to put them away and clean. And the conversations in the systems happen for me as well but it wasn’t like that in the beginning until I started accepting the other alters. Some people have barriers between their alters that are almost impossible to break down, but I’ve been going to therapy 3 times a week since August of 2021 working on trauma and it’s helped build strength and unity as a system.
I personally have DID and honestly I feel like this video covers a lot of my personal issues and what I go through..
I never thought about it this way but I honestly think that the reason why Mark says to the therapist "You're not really a doctor..." is because he reimagined the therapist as a villian; in his mind, he did that on purpose because he believes his techniques aren't working/helping him. His therapist is hitting home and cutting too deep but Mark doesn't want to admit it due to his protective nature and wanting to protect Steven at all costs so he won't have to experience any more trauma he has already or revert to coexisting trauma that's still embedded in his head.
I do have one question that's been on my mind lately, in regards to how DID is portrayed within Moon Knight: is short/long term memory loss common symptoms for those who have DID?
Thank youuuuuuu!!! After being greatly triggered by episode 5 and not knowing why, I brought it to my therapist and we discussed it. She told me that she had suspicions of me having DID for about two years and I decided to get tested, and.... yes I do have DID. This show literally has saved my life and brought me so much clarity on my life and my alters. Moon Knight literally got me to realize I have DID! It's crazy! Thank you Cinema Therapy for covering this and thank you Moon Knight for saving me!
@A. Wren I would say that overt systems don't start out that way. I think, at least in our experience, all systems are covert and don't become overt until they have found a "safe place".
We were diagnosed about 3 years ago. But my (Dawn) husband started noticing that I sometimes spoke with an Irish accent about 8 years ago (we have been married for 10).
I had never heard anyone tell me about an accent change before my husband started hearing it. Since then I have been Journaling regularly with one of my alters (Fiona) who says she does speak with and Irish accent. But she would fake a US accent when she fronted.
Now I am just one system, and I do know other systems who are only overt when speaking to us or friends who know about their diagnosis but go covert when someone new shows up. So I wonder if no system starts as overt. They only become that way when in a place the system considers safe.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@SomeOnlinePerson Sure, I'll try to explain it. Simply put, DID systems are either covert or overt. Overt meaning that it is very easily noticeable by the people around you (alters with different accents, mannerisms, and different names). Covert meaning that people, even close family members, are unable to tell the difference between alters (no accent, hidden mannerisms, and alters pretending to be the same daily-living alter that usually fronts).
There are ONLY 4% of DID systems that are overt. It is waaaaay more likely to be a covert system (I am a covert system). After all, the point of dissociation and DID is to be hidden. So with coverts, alters won't "change their name" and they will pretend to be one person. And with dissociation, some alters do not know they are pretending. I have an alter who pretends to be me and didn't know they were pretending, but they were always so exhausted after pretending. In order to imagine it, let's say you have SOME social anxiety and you're going to a party, and you have to pretend to be NOT anxious and be all happy and personable. A lot of people might not realize that they are pretending, and that it's an automatic adjustment to your personality. It's kind of like that! My alter is only now trying to STOP pretending and to be themselves. It's really hard for them, because they just go on auto-pilot and forget to NOT pretend.
As for memory loss, me and my family and friends just thought I had bad memory retention. Like someone who is comically forgetful. But with simple reminders, I can "remember", even though I didn't experience it, my alter did. So even though I can "remember" after being reminded, I have no connection to the experience they are talking about. Let's say that my alter cried and got super emotional. And later on after I switched back to me, my sister might say "so what do you think about last night?" I might cock my head and not recall. And she might say "... you were crying...? About this and that." And then I might remember what it was about, but I have no emotional connection to the actual sadness!
And in terms of identity, whenever I looked in the mirror (and it's been this way since I was a teenager), I could not for the life of me fully recognize or identify myself with the person staring back at me. It is super off-putting.
I hope that cleared some things up!
If you (or anyone else) is comfortable sharing, could you share more about what was in the way of realizing you experience DID sooner? When I've seen depictions and even real individuals discussing their experiences, it always seems like something that would quickly become fairly obvious. The loss of time that can be experienced, distinct individuals with their own names and self-perceptions, and so on; it seems like even if someone is unable to detect it in themselves, that other people one spends time with would notice and comment about things.
I'm asking in part just because I'm curious and like to try to understand things better. Another part, though, is that my mind is trying to fill in the blanks of how someone could be so unaware of it in themselves and some of those attempts are, frankly, presenting me with reason to wonder about myself. I'm figuring I shouldn't be, though. I already have multiple recognized & diagnosed reasons for my own issues with time weirdness (and it is more of a weirdness than consistently a loss thing); multiple aspects of my identity and even some fundamental views are wobbly, but I'm quite certain I maintain a single, consistent consciousness throughout; and from what I understand, having some of my characters sometimes "talk" at me is a pretty common writer thing (and it's usually not really AT ME so much as just blips of expression or likely response regarding some given context; it's struck a little weirder the rare times it's be actually at me), plus those are, indeed, intentionally created characters. So far as I know, the only ways I experience any kind of dissociation, it's more the sort that's akin to observing oneself on autopilot or, prior to starting HRT (I'm non-binary), I'd often be momentarily startled whenever I'd see my reflection. Pretty sure I'm only in the realm of mood disorders, but the curiosity, at least, remains.
It's crazy how shit like that happens. One of the characters I've made has DID, and I wanted to portray it accurately, so I was discussing it with a good friend of mine who is plural. As we spoke more, I was kind of confused as to how it was different from everyone else -- people talk to themselves all the time, having conversations and arguing with yourself is normal... Right? Apparently not, now I know I have DID. Later my friend told me he was surprised how accurate my character was... It's a self-insert. 🤣 Took my story back to the drawing board after I realized that.
As a person with severe ,anxiety, OCD and DID this show made me cry. It's so, so accurate. Oscar Isaac is a treasure.
The scene that hit me the most is when Marc screamed "Shut up, SHUT UP!!" while destroying the mirror. Oscar Isaac's portrayal of the frustration of being controlled by some entity in your own brain was so accurate! I have severe OCD and I sometimes scream into a pillow or injure myself for my mind to just shut up. I have friends with DID who cried because they were so happy to see it represented like that. Some neurotypical people said he overacted, but in my mind he was absolutely spot on!
18:10 exactly. In that instance Steven had an identity crisis, 'I'm just something that you made up' is what's he's feeling right in that scene. It was a shock for him, it put his whole world upside down and questioning everything he thought he knew. But that doesn't make him less real.
Many people took Steven way too literally here. Taking Steven falling in the sands of the duat as 'oh Steven wasn't the 'real' one so he *had* to disappear' *sigh* as wonderful and detailed and layered as the storytelling was in the show, many people still didn't get it. Thru started off way too ignorant about DID to begin with.
Like most of them completely missed the whole point of the ending of episode 5. The episode brilliantly tricked us, but I was still surprised by how many people still feel for that trick.
As you said, Steven was the main character of season 1. Even if we were in Marc's memories in episode 5, the episode was still about Steven and about Steven's story-arc. It's the episode where the main character - Steven - learns the truth. And it's by the end of that episode that he accepts it, that he accepts who he is, and accepts his role in the system by protecting Marc from the sand-zombies. *That's* why tge scales balanced. Not because Marc got closure or nade peace with his past, he barely even started on that path, but because *Steven* accepted he was part of a system, and that he had to protect Marc directly now, not just indirectly like he's always done.
That was such a great choice to make Steven the pov character and the main character of season 1, for so many different reasons.
This is why I trust them with Jake. This is why they *can't* not make a season 2 to develop Jake as much as they did Steven. They can't leave Jake with the possibility of being interpreted as an 'evil alter' by people who don't know better.
fr,I got annoyed by the misinterpretations.
From 6:00 on is exactly what I had with my best female friend, before she told be about her condition. I knew she had some other psychic illnesses and I interpreted these switches as mood swings based on that. Given the fact that she has a younger personality it explained why she was much more quirky/happy/fooling around sometimes after I left and re entered the room. Pretty fascinating to learn and it really took her some years to open up to me about it, I'm glad she did
I worked in IT for years. I once had a client who almost certainly had DID. He wanted me to secure his computer, which I did, but I was “hacked” within 24hrs. The poor guy was so genuinely concerned that someone was messing with him, drugging him (because he would lose hours or days of his life). When he went to jail after reporting that someone broke into his house and put drugs in his pants pockets, I advocated as hard as I could for the guy. I still think of him often and wish him the best.
As a system, this video... we appreciate this video a lot. Thank you for doing this!
First off: 'They deserve compassion. Not fear and judgement'. Thank you. Really. Whenever a reviewer or a piece of media tackles DID/OSDD1, That is the biggest message we worry they'll miss. There's so much hate and stigma regarding this disorder, and people believe it, and some of those people set out to cause more harm to systems, or they're professionals who have genuine power over the futures of those with the disorder... And honestly, we've all suffered enough. We have alters- mostly little ones- that just cannot comprehend why someone would be scared of us. No alter is evil; but a lot of them are very hurt.
We were super hoping you'd do this episode, and oh gosh you covered it really well. 'Moon Knight' is something so close to our heart as a System; we've heard others say similar in that it's one of the only times they've ever felt 'seen' by the media (for us, it was this and the interrogation scene with Crazy Jane in ep.2 of 'Doom Patrol'). You're absoloutely correct in that Oscar Issac is... utterly incredible in this, and you can tell he did his research (a favourite of ours- as an English system with a couple of off-American-accented alters) is Steven's accent is, if I remember correctly, purposefully wrong; because the body's not English, so why would it suddenly know a perfect English accent? Such great details. The other big one is one we hoped would happen: over time, as they begin to intergrate (which- 'fusion' is the generally accepted word for alters becoming one; intergration is just breaking down walls and communication, etc) with eachother, their switching becomes less intense and quite easy; it's a thing we and other systems have personally experienced, and it single-handedly proved to us they'd done their research.
Notes watching the video:
• Talking to eachother in a mirror IS something you can do, but- at least for us- it's more of a focuser so you can hone in on communication (feelings, psychoverbally, sometimes yelling 'you idiot' at eachother verbally, etc. /hj). We definitely- unless there's something comorbid- don't see them move in a mirror or anything though; just sometimes a feeling like it's not You looking back at you, which can be discomforting even when you're used to it (it's in the eyes I find; they never feel like My eyes).
• Episode 5 broke us. Having witnessed so many little ones in our own system who are traumatized, who witnessed our childhood, vs the ones who front all happy and don't really know what went on because they weren't Meant to... that scene in the bedroom, that hit hard; that was incredibly real, and something we actually have to give a trigger warning to when recommending it to other systems, that's how on-point it was. The response freak-out from Steven- who, an aside, we appreciate So Much is an Introject (an alter that takes their basis personality to some degree from a pre-existing person/character/object), which are also stigmatized heavily even within the DID/OSDD1 community- felt so Familiar also; it can be hard for alters who aren't educated in the matter to come to terms with not 'being the original'*- heck, our own host upon finding out he was multiple freaked out quite similarly and mentally disappeared for a week.
The switch at the end of Ep. 5 was really amusing though, because yeah for some of us, you can be going through a huge breakdown and then- suddenly quite happy. Someone else is mentally having a breakdown, but front's like 'on with the day! :)'. We felt bad laughing at it, but... some moments in this series are a comedy when you live like this on a daily.
*it feels important to note: it's generally accepted that there isn't actually an 'Original'. The currently accepted theory of structural dissociation suggests we actually All start in a fractured form, but systems fail to fuse and integrate at a young age due to trauma barriers.
• 'The self is a collective'. Yes yes yes! Even systems struggle to come to terms with this: self-love in a system is loving eachother. 'It's a love story between members of a system' is the best description of this series I've heard, and it's not one I thought singlets would really get? We often feel this series was a Whole Different Relatable Watch to a lot of systems than it was to those without.
• The scene in the beginning of Episode 6, to this day, will make most of us cry. 'I survived because I knew I wasn't alone' will take so long for any piece of DID media to top, in our opinion. It's... That whole speech hurt, in a really good place. A lot of systems didn't actually like 'you're the only real superpower', but we thought it was a fun tongue-in-cheek personally. It isn't a superpower, no, but it sometimes has its silver-linings amongst the utter hell it can be to live with CPTSD, Dissociation, Amnesia, etc. But that scene... damn that scene. We're one of those systems that said 'I've never felt so seen'.
• Rapid switching does happen. Not too often, but it... happens, and it sucks. Headaches galore for us, and a lot of lack of personality. I feel like people think it's super rare, but most of the time it's a switch went to hell and back, a trigger issue, or too many alters trying to front at the same time. There's this important on stating this stuff, because those who dislike DID, or those who are less in the know, will latch onto it and spread that information around.
• I kind of wish you'd covered the earlier episode where Steven acts like he can audibly hear Marc. It was a part that bugged us, because generally that's not a symptom of DID (without co-morbidities that might cause it) as far as we're aware, and it perpetuated the stigma that it's 'outside voices' which unfortunately leads to people conflating- more than usual- Schizospectrum disorders and DID/OSDD1.
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comment came out a bit longer than expected, ha- but really though: incredible series, absolutely fantastic review. Thank you for making this and getting it out there; it's so important that a channel with so many followers reports on it in a non-harmful way, and we've definitely left this video feeling seen!
Thanks for this comment. There is lots of reasons why. Just wanted to say so.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Spec ch. For us, there is no memory loss. We are lucky
@Otherbuttons & the BRB
@Seth Redmond
@Zack Ramirez
Thanks for all your replies! For some reason KZclip didn't notify me.
I see, that's really interesting! Thankfully sharing some memories must make life a bit easier, but it still must be quite a handful to manage. Heck, I struggle to get some things done with just a bit of ADHD 😄
Thank you for taking the time to explain and show examples of what being a system is. I'm not going to lie, it made me cry to hear y'all say you felt seen.
I learned a bit from watching the show but y'all and all the other systems have taught me thousands times more. So, again, thank you.
We watched this when it first came out. There were some moments that were really hard cause it was very close. That being said this was the first time that I feel DID was portrayed accurately -including the seizure episodes - my DID developed into PNES (psychogenic non epileptic seizure disorder) but once we got out of that area life became more manageable. We just want to be safe and loved. Im really happy y’all spoke on this. -Us😊
My lover has DIDu<
Got a question for them if I'm not intruding over this, how much is the switching a conscious/voluntary action?
For example, one of them absolutely cannot tolerate loud music, is it possible they'd get the crap of luck of switching to the noise sensitive personality (I'm not really sure how to refer to an individual in a system in a way that's concise and humanizing, so I apologize if I fuck up with that) in the middle of a very loud rave or something.
Would the enviroment/context prevent/delay the switch from happening if it caused direct distress? essentially.
I used to think i might have DID, after growing up, getting depressed to the point of suicidal tendencies and self harm, i got some therapy and got diagnosed with BPD instead, doin a lot better now that i have clarity.
Childhood trauma can be so jarring, on that note, would love to see y'all cover something BPD related
DID is fascinating to me cuz I had no idea the human brain was capable of having multiple people sharing the same body. I love this series so much. It really is a love story.
System here. We just watched your last video on Split and had to come here. We absolutely love Moon Knight and how it portrays systems in such a beautifully tragic light. No freaky monsters with superhuman abilities, no over the top acting. We feel truly seen here, and it's fantastic; Down to the fronting/switching disputes to the trauma.
Important to note: Jake emerged earlier than thought. As a child, Marc transitioned to Steven as a relief from his abusive mother. But Steven never remembered any actual beatings. This is initially why Jake emerged, to absorb brute force. Later, we see who we think is Marc perform killings in a truck. I challenge that this too was actually Jake. And while we see Jake's sarcophagus in the mental ward seemingly sealed, Jake is actually the person with the injured nose. The accent and attitude change, although we are lead to believe it is Marc. Jake emerged to give and take brute force and to do the work too dirty for the others. Jake actually played a much bigger role in the show.
@Chickadee Stevenson Konshu in this show is a bit more accurate to the original myth,it means he has no jurisdiction or power in the afterlife.Only Osiris and Tawaret does.And possibly Thoth,but he wasn't seen taking notes anywhere here.
I just wanna know if it was Jake or Marc who asked the girl out for steak.
Yees !! I've been theorizing this. Stephen whole point was to be there when his Mom would beat him, but he doesn't remember anything. And in DID is not uncommon to have an alter to deal with someone else's memories of trauma and I think that's what Jake comes in
@KeitieKalopsia and it's further potentially confirmed because Jake fronts at the very end fight when their body is in a massive amount of pain because of the staff being pressed onto their chest. Due to that trigger of a massive amount of pain Jake fronts. So that kind of further points towards Jake being the one to take the beatings. 🤷♀️
This actually answers one of my biggest questions about Mark and Steven’s backstory.
“If we saw their mother walking in to give Steven a beating, why doesn’t Steven remember any beatings?”
You’re right, Jake could’ve taken the front to bear the attack instead. Good thinking!
Was 3 years old when events that lead to MPD/DID occurred. It's always interesting encountering others with DID or seeing it in media in various forms - in part because never have I seen it depicted how it is for me. The closest so far has been the book "This Alien Shore" by C.S. Friedman - though it's still a long way from what we have. We don't swap out and have always referred to ourselves as "A Community of One" with everyone (except our origin) always aware at once - it's our comfortable norm and we're generally content to refer to our selves collectively as I because we are in many ways still functioning as one. Granted that one personality is more of the "driver" than others, but each moves just a little more to the fore as the situation best fits. Well...there are caveats and exceptions galore. Way too complex a dynamic to get into in a youtube comment. The point is that we consider our arrangement to be the closest thing to the ideal for our selves to exist and make our way through life and the major thing that has stopped us from having ever talked to professionals is actually the fear that they'd try to "fix" us. For over 3 decades - over 90% of our life - this is us. The fear of someone trying to destroy what we are and turn us into what they think we should have been is...intense. It was appreciated hearing you mention that integration is moving away from being the goal any more and that honestly makes it more likely we might try talking to a therapist someday. After all, the events that started everything still have lingering effects beyond our little community. There are things that affect our ability to function in some parts of daily life, and we've always recognized that getting help would be wise. Just... the fear, you know? So, thank you for that little comment mixed in among everything. Maybe it's time to look for some help.
On a side note, how common is it for the original personality to be permanently repressed? Ours has never come back out after first fleeing the situation. It was another aspect of the fear of seeking help: what if something happened that killed us and suddenly we reverted to a scared and lost 3 year old with no memory of the past decades?
That is an utterly *terrifying* thought.
Do what you need to do to keep y’all safe.
This video and these comments are teaching me a lot, and I want to be on systems’ side all the way.
The creators made such a good job with this show. I really enjoyed it and although I am not familiar with some with DID compared with split. This portray a humanizing understanding and it gives those like me who didn't understand it. Thank you guys, awesome deep dive into this masterpiece. I personally would love to see a deep dive into Tyler Perry's Acrimony.
As a system, thank you so much for making this video! The show was something we looked forward to IMMENSELY, and ended up getting introjects of all three MK alters after so... you can sorta tell how much we latched onto it. It was so disheartening to see people bash the show for stuff that just... wasn't right. I don't have enough energy to type out a whole message but just. thanks
The idea of 'is this actually real or just in my head' is a huge part of being a system and having DiD. It actually showed what it can be like to experience DiD from the inside perspective when they showed the psychiatrist scene. How disorientating it can be and having to come to terms with it.
I don't have DID but I have read a lot of articles and reddit posts from people who have it talking about their experiences. They're also usually very helpful with making people who disassociated through depersonalization, extreme space outs via loss of time, or maladaptive daydream cope with coming back to reality and talking through the experiences of losing time or touch with reality. But one story I read was the first time some one realized they had DID. They had been trying to avoid a therapist due to bad past experience but as they were getting older and in a healthier environment and better mental state they began noticing things. Odd dreams, loss of time, moments of de ja vu, the sense of not being themselves but not being able to explain who they were either, ect. Their toxic parent tried to reach out to them and even followed them to work one day to try and make a scene and there was just this moment of seeing themselves, like their body but knowing it was some one else, and watching their body turn and look at them and say "let me protect you this time" and just coming to having called the cops and confronted their parents and actually stood up to them for once. So they finally reached out to a psychiatrist and learned they had DID and that the lost time extended far back as child hood when these other alters would take over to protect them from harmful memories and that they were still doing it. They slowly learned how to organize their system and how to meet new alters and which one filled what role and how roles sometimes change and how some alters disappear and new ones form. But they will always have the moment of one of their alters just stepping in and saying they were here to protect them.
My friend sent this video our way and as a system we both sat down to watch the whole series and finish this video and I am so so thankful that they portrayed DID in such a kind and compassionate way.
As someone who was a system and got backlash from others who I thought were close to me when Split came out, this was such a refreshing show and video to watch. I thank you guys for mentioning that integration does not have to be the end goal. Especially if it is rushed or forced, in my case it was EXTREMELY traumatic. It resolved nothing as I am 99% we weren't ready. That trauma was never resolved, and of course everything got chaotic again and a new alter stepped in.
Ironic enough, she and I were very much like Marc and Steven. I found her mildly annoying over small differences, but she has helped me through so much and I love her to pieces. I would not be where I am without her.
I really want to take it upon myself to learn and understand about DID for a character I'm writing. My character actually doesn't have DID but is actually a woman who's possessed by an angel and they share equal control of the " vessel " although normally the human is the one steering simply because she's significantly more extroverted lol. BUT, I want to understand DID because if my character is ever caught switching by someone who doesn't know what they are, I want my character to lie and say they have DID but not write it like a joke but actually use the correct terminology. I'd like to use it as an opportunity to give a little education and also potentially show what kind of crap and ignorance systems face.
Fun fact, the angel character speaks with a British accent but she actually chooses to speak with an accent just so it's easier for people to know who's speaking. Their eyes would change colours depending who's talking and there's different body language as well. I'm writing these characters for a show I'm trying to write a pilot script for so I'm overthinking about every little detail about them and tips to give the actress who'd be playing them. Different accents, different speech patterns, different body language, different behaviors etc. Typically, both characters are completely aware of everything going on with the body, I like to think of them like conjoined twins or like two people have their limbs tied together and they move as one. But, the only time the human (the actual owner of the body) is unaware of what the angel is doing when the angel is I control is when the human is asleep. Angels don't sleep. Typically the angel just uses the night as time to do paperwork and research etc (they are detectives ).
I'd love to hear from systems about their thoughts and ideas and input. I'd love to hear if you have funny DID related stories, how people typically react to seeing a switch or learning about your system and what kind of negative responses you get (to give awareness).
@Emy Seoni "fusion" aka integration is a natural part of life for most systems, ours is no exception. I (Onyx) have had several integrations and seperations over the years I have been here. Sometimes you feel like a new person, sometimes you feel like yourself but having "absorbed" someone elses traits. Though Lexi and Fenix, the ones who spoke about temporary fusion, have never gotten stuck themselves, nor have either had to deal with integrating before.
@Zayne Lewis well, not literally. It doesnt technically exist as a real place. It's more like a "mind palace" if youve heard that term. Something we use as a setpiece in our imagination to facilitate easier interaction with eachother. It is easier to contextualize things in a room than in a blank void. Also, not every system has one or can have one. And the ones that do have them vary depending on their ability to plan and organize and imagine it all. Or some dont control it and just end up with one on accident i guess? I cant speak for them, we made ours on purpose.
@ᗪεɱσηɨςΔηgει Who let’s a HORROR movie change the way they see/treat their friends?? I know this isn’t the case with all horror, but the genre doesn’t have the best track record for portraying mental health disorders fairly or accurately, it can be really stigmatizing sometimes. I love horror, and I know that most of the time, no harm is meant through these portrayals, but it still happens sometimes. I hate that Split had such a stigmatizing affect on people, and I hate that it had a negative impact on some people who struggle with DID. No one deserves that
Scarlett: @Aethra Star did any of you all ever accendenally get stuck fused when you didn't want to be? That was kind of frightening. 😅
This is one thousand percent my top favorite Marvel show. I dont have DID, but they way they tackled the childhood trauma and self love aspects was amazingly accurate. Oscar Isaac just continues to take the cake. Hes so phenomenal
I recently got diagnosed with DID. And I recently found your channel. This timing couldnt be any better! Thank you for making this video! I havent watched moon knight but i definitely plan too because theres hardly any media getting this disorder right
I have DID too, in fact my whole family has it from genetics and just the way we grew up. About different personalities talking to each other it's not very common for a system to *not* communicate amongst the personalities but each one might do it differently. From what I've seen in my own family, when a system is not aware of the other personalities or is unable to communicate to the others it's usually because the "host" (so to say) is traumatized about it or has some malicious intent (Malicious as in faking it to a degree). This is kinda why the movie trope made it seem like when someone has DID the other personalities are evil, it's because to the outsider it seems like the split is being rude or hostile when for the split it looked like some random person handed them a type of chocolate they hate and the random person had the audacity to get mad when they said they don't like that chocolate. Personalities that act in an aggressive way are usually just acting that way because they don't understand why are people saying or doing all these things and blaming them for something they had nothing to do with, and this can also happen if you say that a personality did something good when they were not the ones who did it, personalities can sometimes get really upset if you complement them just because they didn't do it and might not know why you're saying it.
For systems that are healthy or stable the communication has 3 main types from what I've seen in my family: The Memory Baton is when the current split has no way to speak to the others while they are active so instead they hand off all the thoughts and memories to the next personality that comes out. The Voices In The Back is what most people think of when you think of multiple personalities in one brain, it's more common and you'd have no way to tell if they are talking, also asking about it can be seen as being intrusive since it's essentially the same as talking on the phone with your sibling and someone next to you asks you to put the convo on volume. Then there's The Imaginary Friend which is what Moonknight uses to show the split personality, it is something that can happen but again, you wouldn't know it's happening because they won't give any sign unless they are actually freaking out or if you accidintally walked through one of the personalities that aren't taking control at that moment. This can sometimes lead to a System to punch you for getting close because you're basically walking through one of them as if they aren't there (which for you they of course aren't), which if someone did it to you you'd probably be very mad too.
Omg I wanna talk about this because I also was diagnosed with DID like a year or two ago, and it was something I’ve had since I was 8 years old (I’m 20 now). But like, the worst part of it all is that I could never figure out what it was. Lots of therapists misdiagnosed saying “oh its trans” or “oh it’s genderfluidity” and I was like no this isnt it. One person mentioned to me it might be a mental thing like DID and I never believed it because I had seen split and I knew how tv portrayed DID and in my mind I was like “this other person in me is not a crazy psycho killer. I DON’T have DID and I DON’T want to go to a psych ward.” After doing more research and talking to an actual psychologist, I found out “yea it actually is DID, just my previous idea of DID was slanted.” And now I’ve come to terms with my Did and the other person living in me (I don’t say alter or system or anything like that because to me it just feels like two people sharing one body, not like an alternate person or something. I’m not saying people that say “alter” and “system” are wrong or inconsiderate, because I don’t care. That’s just what I personally do). And that’s why when I watched moon knight like over a year after I was diagnosed, it meant so much to me because it felt like they genuinely cared about explaining DID and genuinely portrayed it so well. Like I was so surprised because I was expecting something over the top, especially from marvel/disney. I was expecting another Split. But no, it felt like I was genuinely watching how my own life has been. Even how Steven was created to cope with Mark’s abusive mother, that was one of the many things that led to my other person’s creation. Even the emotional scene where Mark was like “I can’t leave Steven!” I felt so hard because I genuinely don’t think I could continue living without my other person. She means so much to me and is so important to me that it just feels like if she were to disappear one day, it would hurt as much as if a physical friend or family member died.
Moon knight understands. They understand what DID is and how to portray it. And they didn’t do some bullshit to make it like SPLIT. Thank you guys for reviewing this show. It means so much to me.
Watching this video has sparked a curiosity to learn more about DID and helped get me into watching Moon Knight (I was a little iffy about watching it), so thank you guys so much for this! I'm curious about something after watching Moon Knight: I know Khonshu is manipulative, but does he genuinely care about Marc and/or Steven deep down or is it just Jake he's really interested in? Most of this curiosity comes from the line "You are worth protecting" (and the way Khonshu says it) but some of the curiosity does come from some of the other interactions
Konshu is overall just really bad.Even in the comics,it's shown clearly that he doesn't care about the system,just their use to him.I'm not really into the comics but I guess he demands Marc to use violence more often as we can see him often screaming "Is this enough for you,Khonshu?!" everytime he killed his enemy.He show fondness to Steven,but Steven in the comics is basically the money maker that funds Moon Knight's gadgets.I don't know about Jake,but Jake is usually more 'heroic' and he handles Marc when he's in breakdown.
So I think it would be the same with the show.If they're really making Jake the heroic one in MCU too,my guess is Khonshu can persuade him into doing his bidding with the reason so others won't suffer the injustice he went through or he takes advantage of Jake's habit of violence to protect Marc.
To put it simply,he doesn't care about Jake,he just care about his tool for his questionable quest of vengeance and 'justice'.
I love how the alternate personality is the protagonist of the show rather than having it be the original personality, or host, which is how it's usually potrayed in film and TV.
@Spino you couldn't get it, since I assume you’re older than 9. You can only get DID as a kid, at which point (so the current theory goes) a person's mind is still kind of split apart. There used to be parts of you specifically for being happy, sad, hungry, and so on. Your parts all became one as you grew older, forming the person you are now, but for people with DID, this never happened. Thus, there's no "first" alter, since multiple parts have been there from the beginning. Disclaimer: I don’t have DID myself either, though I've done a lot of research on the topic in the past. I hope my information is correct, but if I've made any mistakes I apologize
@Catcolour what about the person who, Y’know was there in the first place before the DID developed.
I don’t have DID, but if I suddenly got it tomorrow. I’d declare myself the original and supreme leader of the system.
I loved that Stephen had a full life and his own interests and personality traits, his own memories and experiences separate from Marc's. I thought it was a great cinematic touch to have us focus on Stephen's life first.
@Pedro Scoponi I would refer to alters like Marc that identify with the body's name and/or appearance simply as alters that identify with the body's name, I don't think they are referred to as anything different because ultimately their name or appearance is the only thing that is fundamentally different. Yes, that alter is usually the "host" or primary fronter but not always. And some systems don't have an alter that identifies with the body/ birth name.
@Lex Hdz yeah, there's not really a core in most systems. In mine, multiple of us share memories of childhood, so who came first? I don't know.
I don’t have DID but I do have Split Self syndrome, and I’ve always felt a little distant because I don’t understand or relate to total DID but I still have alters that still protect me, and hearing the similarities between the two that I never knew before really helps me feel less like an identity crisis that’s “just faking it” (I would be aware of my switching, I would just take the “backseat” and watch from the sidelines as opposed to dissociating entirely, and that awareness mixed with imposter syndrome was just really cruel to my psyche)
I'm so glad you guys are covering D.I.D. (or MPD as it was called when I first heard of it.) My mum was diagnosed when I was only 11. I wasn't living with her at the time, which I believe was a catalist for it finally being diagnosed as it was "safe" for the system to being to let themselves be "seen". When I moved back in when I was 18 (long story...short version - she said she was doing better...) She was only partially co-concious. I got to see the physical changes, hear the speach manerisms, voices, and everything...alter. From what I've been able to gather - some (I can't say all, but some) systems do have a sort of internal "meeting" room where issues can be discussed - but - again from what I've been able to see/experience/read about... only if they're co-concious. (Please let me know if you personally or someone you personally know has a different experience, I'd love to hear.) I had to learn to grow up with my mum's sytem being there. The person I knew as "mom" growing up - doesn't seem to be present any more. The system took on a new legal name, there were distinct personality changes from "Mom" to the new personality being presented. There were some merging of personalities, but they're not all reabsorbed. It's been... 30ish years now. She think's she's completely unified, but I still see occasional glimpses of the system trying to hide ... and that bother's me deeply.
I myself am highly dissociative, though not "multiple" that I know of. I think the proper term is Depersonalization (?)
I recently had the plot twist in real life and that is honestly a really difficult thing to deal with, I think our original is actually dormant cause we can't find them. Seeing a superhero deal with a very similar thing around the time this realization happened for me meant a lot and your analysis honestly helped with processing as well 💙
this whole series always made me cry evrytime i binge watch it
Even if you aren’t able to talk about it on the channel (bc it’s 5 seasons for the fullest possible story) PLEASE watch Mr. Robot, as I’m certain that Moon Knight took a lot of cues from that show. Mild spoilers but it’s another incredibly compassionate portrayal of DID.
One thing I found fascinating is that Marc, the hardened badass mercenary, is very emotionally fragile while Steven, the soft-spoken and nebbish fellow is very stabilising; the latter was meant as a protector, which is highlighted by his being named for an Indiana Jones-inspired action-adventure hero, and while he’s very meek and maybe naive he’s deeply compassionate and really does look after Marc when he sees just how tormented and broken he can be.
@Nothing Ruler Didn't see it that way before.That's beautiful :)
@Borjan Kosarac What I’m thinking (and hoping) is that Jake will be portrayed as a protector also, but in a more extreme/literal sense. I’ve known (still know) a few different systems in my life as well as read/watched other systems sharing that one or more of their alters have this sort of “antagonist” role in their system. These alters are the ones to take over if they feel there is “dirty” work of some kind that needs done that would be psychologically dangerous/further damaging for the other alters. I think that’s what Jake is meant to be.
yes! especially in the scene in ep6 when they talk to Khonshu, Khonshu tries to manipulate Marc again and Marc hides behind, but Steven comes forward and protects them, confronting Khonshu and making a pact to free them
Steven is the protector, while Marc is the avenger, a great dichotomy and embodiment of their different roles. Here's to hoping Jake is handled equally as well.
It's as if he gives up his physicality so he can protect Marc emotionally. And then when they learn to love and communicate with each other with respect, Marc becomes stronger emotionally and Stephen becomes more tough physically. Yet they are still different people. It's really beautiful.
I really hope you're right about a season 2 coming up. We need more of Jake! And I'm dying to know how Marc and Steven are going to react when they find out about him.
YES. the first episode with the mirror. Those conversations have happened internally. And seeing an external representation of it was really special.
23:35 'it's a love story between members of a system'
yes exactly! ☺️
I called it an 'unusual found family story' or a found family...within their own head.
The real treasure was the family they found along the way of their mind ! ❤️
ALSO the portrayal in this movie?? I'm 100% watching this now. It also reframed how I think about writing characters....and ALSO really spoke to me as someone who has gone through childhood trauma myself. This was so beautiful to see and very impactful, even in snippets.
For those confused by the dynamic; Steven was the trauma holder/"stress ball" so Mark wouldn't feel it. Steven's role was to take the abuse then forget all about it. It's why he's so forgetful at his job, why he's cowardly and easy to bully, shown at the beginning of the show. The disorder makes him delusional and forgetful, so you could argue Steven himself has Dissociative Amnesia Disorder which is infinitely more possible when someone already has 1 dissociative disorder. Often it's not just 1 diagnosis; there's a constellation of symptoms from various dissociative disorders, all stemming from trauma.
In case no one's mentioned it, HUGE props also have to go to Oscar's brother Mike - he worked as Oscar's body double, especially in the back half of the season, and he trained just as hard, if not harder, to make those scenes in the hospital and the barge work.
My favourite part of the harrow in the psych office scenes is that we see all three known alters. It's incredibly subtle, but Jake with the New York cab driver accent is there for a bit before Stephen jumps in and in different sections of scenes in that location there's Mark aswell. It's so well done that it's easy to miss Jake entirely. First watch my brain registered it as not quite right to what I'd come to understand of Mark/Stephen but it took a while to sink in and after discussion with a marvel nerd who knew more about Jake who could make sense of my reaction to the scene I was like oh snap I didn't realise that's what I was picking up on!
I recently had a moment like the one where Steven told Mark it wasn’t his fault during IFS therapy and watching it back now in this episode is just…damn. I never had full alters emerge, finding myself more on a spectrum of dissociative disorder, but I have what I call parts and like man this shit is hard. So much empathy to all the systems out there and everything you do to keep each other safe