finding systems to follow and we stumbled upon someone's reblog of @TheRingsSystem's old tweet discussing covert vs overt DID (linked below). it reminded us of an article abt some factors that contribute to overt/covertness of system & symptoms:

--earl

(a thread)

here is their tweet (which we agree with), and the article source is "Dissociative Identity Disorder" by Richard P. Kluft in 1996. i suspect many qualities discussed here will be more applicable to systems in therapy (or not) who... https://twitter.com/TheRingsSystem/status/1124917873959415809

...are not yet aware of their system status, or at least before there is good communication. we also feel like this list is geered more towards clinicians and the outside eye than it is to systems themselves, but we hope this still may be useful to some.

just as the article said, "many alter systems are organized in such a way as to keep themselves secret and may become very skilled in covering over their DID phenomena," it's worth noting that did/osdd are meant to be protective thus covert. only abt 5-6% have overt presentation.

just like adhd is named after observable behaviors to the eyes of neurotypicals instead of through the lens of an adhd person, the fous on overt/covertness of did/osdd is geered towards the comfort of the singlet through the eyes of a singlet.

there are many misinformed people who believe "if you really have did/osdd i would have noticed." we compile this thread not only because we thought it is an interesting dissection of c/overt did/osdd, but because we hope to present some argument...

...in case you ever are forced to defend yourself, or you wish to educate others.

covert or not, overt or not, that should not undermine your system status.

we should also keep in mind that these are not an exhastive list, nor are they supposed to be rigid, binary, & 100% correct. overt/covertness depends on the intersection between these qualities along with enviromental or sitautional factors.

factor 1. if the system is currently faced with an over abundance of stress and trauma and is having a difficult time coping, their did/osdd may take an more overt manifestation, while the more resiliant the host is, the more covert the system may be (especially to an outsider)

but on the other hand not noted in the article, we also found that alters tend to reveal themselves when it is safe to do so, e.g. when the system is out of the primary abusive enviroment. but again, this list is not meant to be black and white, and every system is different.

factor 2. the system tends to be more noticible when they go through more and/or longer switches, while when there are lesser/shorter switches, the system's did/osdd tends to go unnoticed.

factor 3. if the system have good communication, (such as shared memory, different alters are able to pass as the host, smooth switches, etc.), the system tends to be more covert. on the other hand, if there are conflicts between system members...

...and this conflict takes the form of conflicting passive influence, the system may be mislabeled with borderline or psychotic traits. when the conflict presents itself as alters battling for exective control/fronting, however, the system tends to be more overt.

factor 4. influence/communication style, which ties into cooperation: if alters communicate more through inner dialogue (words, pictures, etc), passive influence, and "command hallucination"-like (in this case it means commands from other alters), and have similar alters...

...instead of what feels almost like intrusions (when alters squeeze their way into the front) that clearly doesn't feel like "you" (the host), the system presents more covertly. meanwhile, to a DID system especially, strong amnesia barriers means more overt status.

factor 5. i did not love how the author phrased this part, but essentially, the more differentiated the alters are and the more separated they try to be (i interpreted it as "when systems who know they are a system feels safe enough not to mask or pass as host"), the more overt.

the overt/covertness of a system's did/osdd fluctuates, of course. in response, the author suggested a "windows of diagnosability,"where a system has DID but only occasionally present enough noticible symptoms to be noticed by clinicans.

1. i hate threads are posted in the dashboard/my profile. sorry about the spam

2. i hope everything was phrased well & acceptable. i am kind of in anxiety about whether everything was okay to say ahaha

--earl