What is DID & Plurality?

Dissociative Identity Disorder, or DID, is a mental health condition defined by a person having two or more defined personalities or identities which control a person's behavior at different times. Once called multiple personality disorder, DID is still being studied and researched in the psychology field. A person with DID is called a system, with the number of alters in each system varying per person.

During the early years of childhood development, a child's personality is fractured, a collection of pieces that haven't fully formed and developed into pieces that can solidify into one solid personality. During childhood, these pieces respond to the environment and circumstances around the child, growing and developing, eventually solidifying into one steady personality that makes that child, well, them. These pieces being separate during childhood is one of the reasons why children's personalities are wildly unpredictable, likes and dislikes changing rapidly, preferences being unreliable. But in some cases, under severe trauma during these formative childhood years, these fragments of personality aren't able to fuse together into one solid personality, developing instead, into their own identities, each identity with a specific reason, a specific task that they perform. Each personality having a set reason, a set responsibility, is how the brain learns to cope with the trauma of the environment. For example, one alter may handle physical abuse, while another alter may simply handle the medical appointments, and another alter altogether may be solely responsible for academic work.

Important Terms & Phrases used by DID Systems

Let's take a look at some important terms and phrases used by DID systems, which should hopefully help you understand what you read in a better way, especially if you're new to the whole premise of plurality.

Dissociative Identity Disorder - a mental condition defined by having two or more distinct personalities or identities which control behaviors at different times, often associated with dissociative states and periods of amnesia in between the dissociative states.

System - The members of a body with dissociative identity disorder.

Dissociation - A period of time in which the mind disconnects from the body, leading to the feeling of a total disconnect from reality. This can look like "zoning", or "staring", and is often accompanied with feeling as though the body isn't real, or doesn't belong to the person, and a complete detachment from reality for any amount of time.

Alter/Member - A member of a DID system.

Switch/Switching - The term used to describe the change in which alter is in control of the body, usually (but not always) accompanied by dissociation before the switch, during the switch, and immediately following the switch.

Fronting/In Front - The term used to describe an alter being in current control of the body (i.e. "Xela is currently fronted for the River System.")

Co-Fronting/In Co - The term used to describe an alter being in front with another alter, but not in current control of the body. Oftentimes, alters will co-front with other alters for stability or simply to experience fronting without being in control.

Blending - The term used to describe two or more members of a system being in front together but in a way that they have blended together into one identity rather than their individual selves. This can be very dissociating and can be painful.

Rapid Switching - The term used to describe a period of a quick succession of switches where alters front and switch out rapidly, with no control over who, and no ability to stay fronted longer than a few seconds. This is incredibly painful and can last anywhere from a few minutes to an hour.

Fictive - A member of a system who is from a cannon universe

Introject - A member of a system who is the internalization of an external person/element/thing

Little - A member of a system who is a child (usually under the age of 13)

Fragment - A member of a system who is undeveloped and doesn't front

Role - The specific task that has been assigned to a member of a system

A Brief Overview of the River System

Naturally, with this entire page being dedicated to the exploring the River System, both in terms of plurality and in terms of pre-system lives, we feel the need to take a moment to introduce our system itself.

Our System Name - Our system name is River, or Riv, a name that was agreed on by all of us.

Our Member Count - We currently have fifty-six members, with one member having their own subsystem as well.

Primary Fronters - Our primary fronters are Xela, Cameron, Prya, Rylør, Hunter and Jax.

How Long Have We Known About Our System? - We're actually still fairly new to being a system, having discovered our system in June, 2023. We're learning more every day though, and loving the adventures that we're finding in this discovery.

We're so excited to walk you through our system!