How to help/react to a median system

Ok so I finally worked out that some one close to me is a median system. They themselves acknowledge that they suffer from amnesia, deralisation and depersonalisation, they have trauma in their lives but not early enough for did so they arnt did. They insist they are a single person but I have experienced them as 4 different people. What's more the areas/chunks of amnesia are different depending on who I talk to. They have different preferences in drinks, hold the body differently and emotionally react to a situation differently. I'm pritty certain it's a core based median system with the core of the identity (routines name ...) Staying the same but periferal (individual experiences preferences) split.
Eg. They know that they have done the chores have to attend appointment just finished work have a fantastically accurate body clock. But if they are drinking tea and you ask them about a conversation they had while drinking coffee they will deny point blank that the conversation ever happened.
Friends have also noticed the amnesia so it's not me projecting (an accusation one of the side/facet identities have thrown at me when I tried to bring this up)

My question is now that I think I know what is going on how do I approach this. Willfully ignoring the differences seems cruel. Some of the sides/facets are very different from each other and I have unintendedly upset them when getting them mixed up . On the other hand I'm worried that treeting them as entirely different people could push this from median system into osdd3.

And ideas?

First of all, diagnoses of dissociative disorders are not made on the basis of when trauma occurred. They are made based on symptoms and whether or not those symptoms meet the criteria in the DSM. So if someone has amnesia and alters, and that either causes them distress or causes some dysfunction in their lives, that meets criteria for DID/OSDD1 (and sounds more like DID with a lot of co-consciousness since you're describing a lot of distinctions among alters).

You also can't know for sure that they didn't experience emotional neglect and disorganized attachment in early childhood, causing DID/OSDD and a dissociative response to all further traumas in their life.

I think you approach this by responding to who they are at different times. You can't create more separation among alters than is already there by treating them as who they are. If the separations become more obvious, that would just be them becoming less covert.

Oh. I thought trauma had to occur in early childhood for did to form because it has to interrupt the development of a single personality. Though point about the unknown.

And thanks.

Eliseahorse wrote:Oh. I thought trauma had to occur in early childhood for did to form because it has to interrupt the development of a single personality.

It does--that's the theory of how it forms. But that's not relevant to making the diagnosis, because people often don't remember or are unaware of their trauma. Or it just seemed like a "normal" childhood to them. Basically the logic statement goes in the other direction: If someone has DID/OSDD1, then trauma happened early enough for it to form.

Ok but what about median and Osdd1b systems? as far as I understand they form because trauma before the cut off stage was insufficient to prevent identity forming (or occured between 9-12) but was sufficient to cause a tendency to derealisation/depersonalisation which if triggered too often in adulthood/teen years causes "identity alterations" that result in altered facets of personality unable to function totally independently of the core identity but are autonomous to different digrees.

Yes being did meens you must have childhood trauma but being a system doesn't meen you are did (if that was the case you wouldn't have Osdd 1, 2 & 3)

"Median" is not a term that is recognized or used by the professionals who study and treat dissociative disorders. It was coined by the "plural community," and as far as I'm concerned, should remain there, along with all the other sh*t they make up. (Sorry, but that's how I feel. There is so much misinformation and nonsense spread by them.)

Other OSDDs besides 1 are not really relevant to DID. They are closer to DP/DR, but have other symptoms beyond only DP/DR. They DON'T have alters, and are not "systems." (System is a term I use sometimes for clarity, but I'm not really fond of it.) Only OSDD1 and DID have actual distinct alters (but not all OSDD1 has distinct alters--"1a" does not), and can be called systems.

A facet of personality with their own consciousness is an alter, whether or not they ever front or ever act independently.

Eliseahorse wrote:altered facets of personality unable to function totally independently of the core identity but are autonomous to different digrees.

Someone with this would probably be diagnosed with OSDD1. But remember it's really not important to distinguish between OSDD1 and DID because the cause and treatment are the same. There is nothing meaningful to be gained in spending a lot of time trying to make the distinction.

Ok thanks for all this.
It's so hard to seperate the misinformation from the genuine stuff. Like some of it is obviously folk not realising the difference between escapism/spiritual exercise and what we actually go through (tulpas, system hopping, willogenic gah!) But other stuff like the median that profess traumagenic oragins seems to make sense....

And don't get me started on system hopping. Abusive as ###$ idea, let's convince did kids that we can get into their brains that way they will have an introject of us perminently ensuring "we" can keep an eye on them and they do what we want them to do.

I used to understand "median system" as meaning "OSSD 1" as in, the identity difference is enough to be seen as separate "selves" yet the different "selves" understand themselves as being different versions of the same person.

Though, DID people can also meet this criteria of understanding the different alters as "different versions of me", no matter how different they are from each-other, no matter the level of dissociation and amnesia - because they have advanced in their understanding of their state, and through their therapy work.

Meaning that from a dissociative point of view and symptoms treatment point of view, it is in my opinion safer to go with the structural dissociation theory in order to understand how much the person is dissociated, and follow the treatment plan that is adapted for their level of dissociation.

Moreover, a lot of dissociative people can need time to realize and accept that they are dissociative to the point of meeting the criteria for DID. This might be why some people label themselves as "median systems" the way some people label themselves as "endogenic" because they have so much trauma amnesia and denial that they think and want to believe, it is possible to dissociate without experiencing a single drop of stress.

By the way, disorganized attachment and emotional neglect during early childhood are sometimes understood as "hidden trauma" because it does have a traumatic consequence upon the brain, even if there is no obvious physical violence. They prevent the person to integrate, leading to dissociation, the same way that a physical violence later in life can cause the consciousness to actively dissociate.
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David.