UNTEACHiNG MiSINFO 
## rentry by the sss ##
What is DID? ◦ What is Psychosis? ◦ What is Age Regression? ◦ What is DFD?
What is DID?
DID or Dissociative Identity Disorder, and OSDD or Other Specified Dissociative Disorder, are disorders that cause the personality to fragment into multiple states of conciousness, or "alters"/"parts". DID is found in 1% of psychiatric patients. You can read more about these disorders here. If you've ever seen someone calling themself a system, or having BOT at the end of their name despite talking normally, they were probably someone with one of these disorders. Lets get this out of the way first: These disorders are caused by trauma. So "endogenic systems" cannot exist. By definition, these disorders require you to also have C-PTSD, which is caused by severe trauma and is almost always the result of abuse from a child's primary caregivers. It's not a fun or quirky thing, there are other symptoms besides alters, such as severe dissociation. If you are faking or considering faking a disorder as serious as this, please think about why that is and consider roleplaying instead.
Do people with DID hear voices?
Typically, people with DID do not hear voices. People tend to say that a symptom of DID is hearing voices, but that is untrue. If you hear voices, it is either your internal voice which can be mistaken for voices of alters, or hallucinations. In some cases, gatekeepers may hear voices of alters, although how much they hear depends on the system and if they are going through treatment therapy or not.
Is the headspace a real place?
No. Headspace is not a physical place. It is a visualization technique commonly used in therapy and is not system-exclusive, and anyone can have a headspace (for example, roleplayers.) Things that may occur in headspace is just a result of visualization. Many systems do not have or use a headspace, while some do.
What is alter age?
Parts can portray themselves as any age, or as ageless. This does not mean that they actually are that age. An alter could be a child part but act like an adult, or an adult alter could be a trauma holder and act like a child. System "littles" are different from age regression in that child parts are not actually children and do not necessarily have a childlike state of mind. So please do not treat child parts as actual children, it can be harmful and you don't know if they're comfortable with that or not. In addition, please do not treat adult alters as actual adults either. Adult parts in a system that is bodily a minor should not be dating bodily adults. Body age > alter age when it comes to that sort of thing.
What is alter race?
"Alter race" is the idea that alters can be a different race than the body. This is simply untrue. They may look different in the headspace, but as earlier stated the headspace is not real, and therefore alters are not actually a different race. A part in a white system will never experience racism as someone actually of that race would. So it is not okay to use slurs and such that you bodily cannot reclaim.
Can alters have mental illness that the body does not have?
No. Mental illness has to do with the physical way your brain functions, which cannot be altered when another part fronts. For this reason, if one alter has autism, or ADHD, or depression, then the entire system will have it, though some may display more symptoms than others. Systems may have "Symptom holders" and believe that that specific part holds the entire disorder for the system, but that is untrue. Some parts may experience symptoms to a more extreme degree, but will never hold the entire disorder for the entire system. For example, psychosis holders might be in a constant state of psychosis, but other parts will still experience psychosis to a degree.
