“Having DID Is Rare-“

Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation

As promised, Anon, here’s a VERY quick and dirty rundown of disorganized attachment and the role it plays in the development of dissociation. Sorry it took so long ;–; This doesn’t even begin to cover it, but I hope it at least gives people a basic understanding.

Please remember, this is so incredibly brief and barely scratches the surface. It’s a really interesting field of research, and it has a lot of important (and good!) implications to therapy techniques and models. I highly encourage people that are interested to look through some of the below resources, or make a request for any specific aspects you want discussed further. Apparently, left to my own devices with a broad topic, I fail to be coherent.

What is disorganized attachment (DA)?

There are technically 4 types of attachment between a child and caregiver, differentiated by response patterns. The first 3 types (secure, insecure-avoidant, and insecure-ambivalent) are considered forms of “organized attachment”, despite the negative behaviours associated with it, because even if they’re not “secure”, the behaviour patterns are still organized and, more importantly, consistent. In other words, in all 3 types of organized attachment, the child knows exactly what they need to do to meet their emotional needs, and the patterns in their behaviour are considered organized.

In DA, though, the child is confused, and there’s no pattern to their behaviour. They’re torn between wanting to flee to, and flee from the caregiver. When a caregiver is unpredictable and traumatizing, the child has a difficult time establishing a consistent view of the caregiver, and of themselves. In other words, the caregiver is both needed, and someone to be avoided, and the child may not understand what makes them a “good” or “bad” child, as the caregiver’s behavior is often confusing and unpredictable.

It’s summed up quite well in this image:

What causes disorganized attachment?

All the same standard things you would already know about. Abuse, neglect, behaviour that’s frightening, intrusive or insensitive, and disrupted affective communication, but it really boils down to, “A parent’s consistent failure to respond appropriately to their child’s distress, or by a parent’s inconsistent response to their child’s feelings of fear or distress.” And this happens in childhood. The way a baby or very young child form attachments are the base building blocks that a child will use to build their relationships with people in the future. 

It’s important to note that it’s not just abuse that can cause a child to form DA. Sometimes loving caregivers who have experienced trauma themselves can behave in confusing ways toward the child, especially if they are suffering untreated PTSD or DID themselves. This happens because of the caregiver’s own inability to control their emotions. Traumatized parents can have a difficult time managing their emotions and providing a sense of security for the child even though they are not abusive or neglectful. Anger or fear can erupt unexpectedly and traumatize the child. 

As well, “Disorganized attachment is often the result of intergenerational parenting patterns. This means parents are responding to their children in the same unhealthy ways their own parents responded to them when they were children.”

What role does disorganized attachment play in dissociation?

This one is… A bit tough. There’s a lot of factors in play and so much ground to cover.

First, when discussing dissociation, it’s talking about it in a general sense. Everyone is capable of dissociating, and it’s simply when you become detached from reality in response to trauma– at any age, for any kind of traumatic event.  It’s also important to note that without a secure attachment style, an overwhelming event is more likely to be perceived as trauma. Basically, though, dissociation is a general symptom in this regard, not specific to any single disorder. DA is linked to dissociation, and from there, combined with other symptoms someone may be experiencing, it can become problematic and be assigned to specific mental disorders. 

So, the child needs to maintain a relationship with the caregiver– they have no one else to turn to, so the child can develop dissociation as a way to make sense of themselves, and to maintain a child-caregiver relationship. They may “forget” the abuse, or deny it. “It is an adaptive and defensive strategy that enables the child to function within the relationship, but it often leads to the development of a fragmented sense of self.” This fragmented sense of self may or may not develop into something worse– namely, BPD and DID based on severity, frequency, and whether there was any sense of reprieve (i.e. a child can avoid the worst of dissociative symptoms if one of their parents was more supportive, because it helps them build some positive attachments).

Children with DA and suffering from abuse “are likely to generate two or more dissociated self states, with contradictory working models of attachment,” in order to handle their confusing relationship with the caregiver. From there, “It is proposed that the propensity to react to traumatic events with dissociation is related to disorganization of early attachment and its developmental sequelae.” This is fundamentally the basis of why DID can’t form once the child creates an integrated sense of self. It is theorized that DA and dissociative disorders are inexplicably linked together. You can have DA and not develop DID/OSDD, but you can’t have DID/OSDD without DA. 

A lot of new research is suggesting that it’s not so much trauma as we know it (physical and sexual abuse) that is linked to dissociation, but that trauma is something that is far more discrete and insidious (longterm inconsistent and confusing parenting styles linked to DA) and that it’s only part of “a complex web of environmental, societal, familial, and genetic factors that are all likely to interact in ways that we have only begun to understand.” This is something I firmly believe in and attribute to a lot of the endogenic claims of having no trauma (and under this theory, “overwhelming events” also constitute trauma). 

Interestingly, it’s theorized that different types of attachment are linked to different mental disorders. “Attachment insecurity can therefore be viewed as a general vulnerability to mental disorders, with the particular symptomatology depending on genetic, developmental, and environmental factors.” Going back to the 4 types of attachment, the 3 insecure types can be linked to basically all types of disorders. They are all linked to depression, anxiety, OCD, PTSD, eating disorders and suicidal tendencies, but those with anxious attachment are more likely to develop things like DPD, HPD and BPD and are drawn to co-dependent relationships. Those with avoidant attachment are more likely to develop things like SPD and APD and form addictive habits, and those with disorganized attachment are more likely to develop DID/OSDD. 

Sources:

Identifying Attachment Problems

How Disorganized Attachment Can Lead to Dissociation

Disorganized Attachment

Disorganized Attachment, Development of Dissociated Self States, and a Relational Approach to Treatment

Trauma, Dissociation, and Disorganized Attachment: Three Strands of a Single Braid

From Infant Attachment Disorganization to Adult Dissociation: Relational Adaptations or Traumatic Experiences?

An attachment perspective on psychopathology

Fragmented Child: Disorganized Attachment and Dissociation

hey there! if you dont mind me asking, what does programmed mean coming from a traumagenic system? ive only ever seen endos use that one so im curious what it means to someone who Legitimately has DID. /gen thank you! :-)

Hi, I'll answer this the best I can.

Programmed means that someone has undergone trauma programming. It's not exclusive to dissociative systems either - a singlet can also be programmed.

If you've been trauma programmed it just means that somebody has purposely used a more "organised" form of abuse to change or control you, and it leaves an imprint on who you are.

In systems this can mean having alters who behave in a way / have an identity that suits an abuser's preference, but it can also be done to singlets in small ways such as an abuser programming you to have a phobia of something.

But essentially, it's when an abuser has purposely used abuse and/or stressors to change the way you think or behave.

Honestly I don't know how an endo could claim to be trauma programmed bc that would mean they're not endogenic. To be programmed you literally have to undergo immense trauma that's how it works. But that's what it means anyway.

- Leo

As a RAMCOA survivor I don't feel safe in the CDD community or the plural community. Both sides villainize us while also doing performative allyship and pretending to care about survivors. We're evil if we come forward and save our childhood friends and loved ones. We're evil if we share information to help survivors know why they're experiencing what they're experiencing. Our therapist is supposed to magically figure out what exact symptoms were experiencing without us ever voicing anything because we don't have the language to explain it. We're always told to shut up and be quiet and then non-survivors get to walk all over us and speak for us without ever considering that maybe it's not their place to EVER get involved in any form of discourse around what we can do or not. Quite literally this is a case of oppressors speaking for those they oppress. Broader society also wants us to be silent because we're seen as too depressing. Too much. It's seen as normal and okay to encourage survivors to let their programming fully take them other as long as it's not the ones that hurt others or dares to make people see scars on you. Then that's a problem but people like us should just disappear and stay silent like our programmers wanted. That's the message that is given so often when people talk about us. The other message is we would be better off dead than dare speak.

Would you be willing to explain what sigma programming is? (Sorry if you've already answered this and I just couldn't find it)

TW: IN DEPTH PROGRAMMING (SIGMA) TALK

Sigma is a bit tricky because lots of people don’t know what it actually is. This is because it’s not really talked about and it had a crude, conspiracy-esque definition when it was first coined. However, now people who have actually suffered from MC have reformed and reclaimed the term to be less conspiratorial.

Sigma is survival/tough it out programming. It trains the victims to be mindless in all senses besides how do I survive. This benefits the programmers because it not only gives trauma holders more initiative to live and keep being their victim, but it also causes the victim to not question the abuse and only think about how to get through it.

With that in mind, here are the criterion for sigma programming.

Cannot believe anything about abuse besides complete neutrality and objectivity. Only thunks about the logistics of what to do (fight, flight, freeze, etc.) with no emotions involved. Does not consider it abuse however doesn’t consider it to be beneficial.

One of the few programs that has defense of the self as well as the program. Sigma causes no opposition to the programmers abuse and therefore they might defend it. However, the victims focus is on defending themselves.

Acts out of pure flight. Freezing, fighting, and fawning is very rare in this program, as they do not-in the sigma programmed persons mind-help you survive. It is also because they do not have the mental capacity to fight or fawn. Therefore they attempt escape.

I hope this helped you in some way.

Trauma-Punk (Coining)

Concept

An aesthetic and social group/movement focused on trauma survivors of any and all kinds. You have gone through hell and back and you are allowed to be loud, angry, aggressive, and selfish. Traumapunk is for all the unsavory survivors who don’t fall into society's ideal victim mold. It’s taking back the power from times you could not before, it’s being independent and self assured, it’s saying fuck you to the system that allowed your traumas to occur, saying fuck you to the abusers you may have had. You don’t have to be quiet or docile, you can be loud and aggressive.

All trauma survivors matter, and the discrimination and biases we face on a daily basis should no longer go ignored. This is a movement for all the cluster-b disordered people, all the people with PTSD, all the people with DID/OSDD, and any other trauma induced disorders. Everyone with the “wrong” reaction to their trauma and everyone who has decided they will no longer take anyone's shit.

All trauma survivors can be a part of this, regardless of disorders or the lack thereof. Your trauma no matter how big, no matter how small, is valid.

Trauma Punk Flag

[Image ID: The trauma-punk flag, consistent of 7 stripes which are reflected horizontally. The stripes go as follows; Dark Sienna, Rosso Corsa, Old Brick, Carousel Pink, Old Brick, Rosso Corsa, and then Dark Sienna. The flag is all tinted towards a redish color. End ID]

The flags colors all have their own meaning

Dark Sienna: All the negative feelings and emotions that comes from having experienced trauma, the feeling of being alone.

Rosso Corsa: Anger towards what happened, having to fight to survive. Not being docile.

Old Brick: Any and all people with socially unacceptable reactions to their traumas- including disorders, temperament shifts, and being untrusting of others. (Separate from anger).

Carousel Pink: Recovery and healing

This flag is free to be used and never requires any credit.

Core Beliefs

Pro/Supports

People with Personality Disorders

People with PTSD/cPTSD

Traumagenic Systems (DID/OSDD)

CDDs (Complex Dissociative Disorders)

People with lesser known disorders like RAD, ASD (acute stress disorder not autism), DSED

People with trauma based adjustment disorders

People with trauma based anxiety disorders

People with “problematic” (trauma induced) OCD themes

Anyone with trauma

Low empathy

Hyper empathy

Well researched self-dx

Sex-workers

Hypersexual survivors

Sex repulsed survivors

Trans People

Gay People

Intersex people

Xenogenders

Self-defense

Angry Survivors

Survivors who want revenge

Survivors who want to see their perps be better people

Anti-Psych/Psych-Critical

Psychology/psychiatry should be available for those in need- however there are massive issues within the field and it needs to be addressed. We personally prefer Psych-Crit, but people recognize Anti-psych more.

Anti/Against

Ableists

“Narcissistic/Histrionic/Borderline/Sociopathic” Abuse 

The abuser made their choice, having a disorder will never make someone be an abuser, that abusive person CHOSE to be evil. Your anger should be at them, not fellow trauma survivors.

Trauma Comparison

All traumas are valid, some may be harder to deal with than others but we are still all survivors.

Sanists

Fakeclaimers

You never know what someone is going through it is not your place to decide if they have a disorder or not

Terfs/Swerfs/Radfems

Transphobes

Homophobes

Transmeds

Intersexists

Our DNI does not apply to this and only this post (unless you are part of one of the groups in the "against" section.)

This label is allowed to be used by trauma survivors regardless of beliefs on syscourse as we post a lot of syscourse stuff and thought this was necessary to add.

Can you describe or explain what an emotional flashback is? I wanna have that level of awareness too. I was listening to sad music and disassociating too.

Emotional Flashbacks are one of the hallmark symptoms of CPTSD and one of the things that differentiates it from PTSD. 

In PTSD and typical flashbacks you flashback to an event and are re-experiencing that event as an explicit memory. In typical flashbacks you are experiencing a specific memory of an event. 

In CPTSD and Emotional Flashbacks you flashback to an emotional state without a clear memory of the event that caused this state. So you are experiencing the emotions tied to the traumatic event without remembering the event itself. 

This makes it harder to recognize that you are experiencing a flashback because you seem to just feel bad for no reason, especially if you don’t realize that you were triggered. People with CPTSD sometimes can’t remember specific traumatic events because trauma was long term and a part of their daily life, and/or because the trauma began at such an early age. 

To give a more clear example, I recognized that I was having an emotional flashback today because I was feeling frozen, helpless, powerless, and as if my actions would have no impact on the world around me. 

Just recognizing that you are having an emotional flashback can be helpful, but grounding techniques that pull you back into the present are especially helpful. Once I realized I was in an emotional flashback I turned off the sad music and tried to reorient myself to the present. 

Writing this reply to you has actually been very grounding. 

the brain is literally so fucking cool

here's some fun facts bc i love reading about neuroscience

- the brain LITERALLY cannot tell the difference between what is real and imagined. this is why self deprecating jokes are so harmful and positive affirmations actually work

- contrary to popular belief, your brain doesn't actually stop growing at 21. this used to be believed but has since been proven false. you can change the LITERAL NEURAL NETWORKS OF YOUR BRAIN at any age. (tho it is true that the younger you are the higher the neuroplasticity of the brain)

- hypnosis isn't mind control. IT'S YOUR BRAIN USING HYPNOSIS AS AN EXUSE TO LET GOT OF IT'S SUBCONCIOUS BELIEFS. your brain basically uses the hypnotist as a means to ignore your beliefs. for example, if you have a fear of snakes. it's very hard for your brain to get over that fear by itself, but when being hypnotized the brain basically lies to itself and uses the hypnotist as an excuse to get over the fear.

- pure thought. PURE THOUGHT by itself, can change the fucking hardwiring of your brain. if you run every day, your brain learns to accommodate this habit and make it easier for you to run. now if you sit and JUST visualized yourself running for a couple minutes every day, your brain will do the exact same fucking thing. the brain is like "oh they seem to be running a lot. lets makes that easier for them" and will change the hardwiring of the neural networks to accommodate.

- everything you see and experience is just an interpretation of reality. technically you aren't actually seeing reality. when you think about it, we're just thought. so what the brain (aka the organizer) does, is take all the information that all the different senses provided, with all the brains previous knowledge, and creates what we experience. think of it like your personal sketch artist. (this is why illusions are weird)

⚠️TW- Talks of Death⚠️

However. However while it's true an alter within headspace cannot truly die and more goes into a "slumber" aka dormancy there are actual ways alters can "die".

•An alter who was front and experienced a near death experience might turn into a ghost alter

•An alter who has been dormant for so long and their amnesia walls are so high up could be considered dead

•For our System we have a Purgatory meaning that alters who no longer wish to be within the System will go into Purgatory where memories are "erased" and essentially are declared "deceased" as they no longer take front nor do they consider themselves to be associated with main Inner World, the Side System or even Subsystems.

•Purgatory Example-

Two of our alters/headmates were once considered to be "mortal" one is an adult trauma holder and another is a Little trauma holder.

The adult holder experienced a near death experience when front and in the Inner World got pushed into Purgatory. This one alter is the only alter that managed to escape from Purgatory with memories in tact.

The other alter to essentially "die" is our Little holder. This Little became a zombie. This Little willingly placed themselves in Purgatory due to the high stress of trauma.

These are just two possible examples plus one special of how an alter within headspace could "die" however an alter dying in the Inner World and no longer being of an existence is not possible as even if they turn into an undead or ghost alter they're still within the head.

The one and only way alters can truly die, cease to exist is when the body dies. With DID alters are created by and from the brain due to trauma. When humans pass, the brain will no longer function along with the rest of the body. This is the only way and how alters can truly die

Being called a conspiracy theorist who believed in a global satanic cult trying and a person that was eradicate trans people for saying that programming exists and isn’t a myth was not in my bingo card but it sure as hell made my day a lot worse!

So friendly reminder I do NOT believe in the satanic panic nor do I believe that Silva or whoever they were and other satanic panic people are credible. When I talk about RAMCOA it is based on both research and my own experience as somebody who was viciously abused to the point it destroyed my life and prevented me from being happy ever again (:

As for the book I cited I did not know that it cited satanic panic people as a source because I don’t have the time to read an over 200 page book cover to cover. Sorry for spreading misinformation by sharing that, but it was a fucking mistake.

Really what you’re doing is making RA systems who aren’t polyfrag less able to access your community

RAMCOA is classified as “extreme abuse” for a reason. And especially MC, which is really why the HC-DID label is a thing at all.

MC quite literally breaks a child down so the abuser can create whatever they want and make the child do whatever they want. The process that abusers use to create MC-based systems is inherently complex and will as such create an extremely complex and multifaceted system structure.

The label “HC-DID” harms no one. Nobody is being forced to use it. It is a label for a smaller group of severely traumatized people to create a community under.