The Differences Between C-DID And HC-DID

TW: DISCUSSION OF PROGRAMMING, CULT MENTION (RAMCOA), AND TBMC MENTION. STAY SAFE!!!

Being polyfrag and having programmed parts is so weird. Like one example, having layers is super weird because I don’t even who know the host or co-host are. I don’t know who most of the system is, as our area only has around 22 parts (small for us). Though, I suppose it’s probably for protection as most are programmed and all but one (I think???) has nothing directly to do with any trauma.

Speaking of programming, our host is in huge denial of it!! In our journal xe’re like “yeah we have parts that literally follow a mysterious religious figure nobody has ever heard of and we have parts that are like practicing extremely loyal sex cult followers and parts for enduring TBMC as well as all the symptoms of programmed aka HC-DID but I can’t remember any of it so it must be quirkiness” like ??????? It’s almost as if you’re a supposed to be like that XD

And that’s not even mentioning how large our system is!!! We have exactly 90 logged parts, a little over 3/4s of which are fragments. I know Ellie and probably some others are also questioning if they’re a subsystem (in the alter with alters way) because of slight amnesia and slightly differing roles. And I know that the 90 known, even if nobody known is a subsystem, are not all of us.

We have times where we black out and we don’t know who fronted, but it appears to be somebody who hasn’t been logged. There have been times where we are doing one thing and all of a sudden we’re somewhere doing something we didn’t know we would do, and nobody knows who it was.

There’s so much to us, it’s like an iceberg except the parts of the iceberg don’t know the other parts, and the pieces of the iceberg above and below the surface don’t know the other exists. So strange!!!

I lost the posts we wanted to respond to, but I think I remember what we were gonna say

🗝️🏷️ RAMCOA with vague examples, syscourse?

Highly Complex DID

What “Complex” Means:

From what we’ve read, it seems like Complex refers to the specific disorder’s criteria. C-PTSD is PTSD with a different presentation; in this case, multiple/prolonged trauma causes difficulty tracing symptoms in the same ways as other PTSD cases. C-DID is DID with a different presentation; here it’s more intricate mechanisms that lead treatment down another path. Even CDD, which is dissociation into self-states instead of one dissociating self-state. The C just means that thing, plus some extra. There are going to be cases where a Complex patient is actually more simple to care for than a non-Complex patient — it’s just a matter of narrowing it down with more criteria.

Highly Complex:

As far as I know, there are no other communities that use Highly Complex as a label. It’s a specific word to whittle down the topic even further; C-DID but with more specifiers. For HC-DID, the specifiers are programming and structuring. Every human who experienced programming and lived is a RAMCOA survivor. Not every RAMCOA survivor considers themself a HC-DID system. Some survivors didn’t form systems at all. Others don’t think their system qualifies. Maybe people just don’t want to identify themselves this way. Even if it were a medical diagnosis — it’s not — forcing people to use labels they don’t want is rude at best.

What RAMCOA Is:

RAMCOA stands for Ritual Abuse, Mind Control, Organized Abuse. Surviving any of those is enough to belong in the community.

Ritual Abuse - maltreatment (of anyone) including ceremonies or traditions. It can be anything from religious sacrifice to underage marriage.

Mind Control - manipulation of psychological processes. I genuinely don’t know if there has to be negative intent or a specific plan from the abuser to qualify, but even targeted McDonald’s ads make use of mind control (probably not abusively, I’ve never looked into that).

Organized Abuse - maltreatment that involves multiple perpetrators collaborating in their perpetration. If two people meet at a bar and then hurt a child together, that’s enough. It can be elaborate groups like churches or criminal groups, but the only requirement is more than one perp.

It can be one or a mix of any, but it’s still RAMCOA. Usually, the DID community uses RAMCOA to talk about surviving programming (Trauma-Based Mind Control for the purpose of creating a system), and we label our systems Highly Complex.

Extra Criteria:

To be Highly Complex, survivors are usually closest to C-DID. But wait, there’s more!

HC-DID systems also receive:

Programming - I only know of TBMC being used to split off dissociative alters, but I’d budge on that if someone knew otherwise. Abusers control the child (body) by causing calculated suffering until they get the results they want. Perps split off alters with goals in mind for them, and continue to break them until they fit the desires of the abusers. This control extends to every other aspect of HC-DID, and is the reason another label exists at all.

Layers - different dimensions of innerworld. Sometimes this looks like literal other realms inside, but it could also be like floors of a building or planets or other separate worlds. Layers are often assigned a name or cue that allows outsiders to maneuver a system’s landscape from the external world. Perps don’t go in as much as they bring out, by assigned alter or other cued manipulations.

Subsystems - alters with alters, except also programmed. Cues are assigned to each subsystem alter as well, usually related to the subsystem as a collective. Just like programmed singlet alters, subsystems can be arranged by outsiders for memories, tasks, etc.

Sidesystems - kind of multiple systems within the metasystem. Groups might be contained in a separate innerworld pocket, unwilling to communicate with other alters, or otherwise unreachable in the same way other groups are. These sidesystems usually have a collective task, or function as a whole other system in the body. Details of what they do and why are also conditioned.

Programs - conditioning attached to cues. Programs might force amnesia, give body memories, set off chains of tasks, or any other typical or atypical system capability. Programs might be perceived as wires and buttons, or files, or whatever else programmers decide.

Not all HC-DID systems will have the same level of programming. Not all programmed systems will be more “complex” that other systems. Having a term to describe our unique experiences helps a lot of survivors to feel understood, especially if they’re already open about their past.

RAMCOA survivors are kept in a strange position online and irl. We’re used as examples of “unimaginable trauma” and “extreme abuse”, but are largely told to sit down and shut up; we’re too dangerous to speak up about what was done to us, too unbelievable, or too much at all. Finding help is a nightmare, sucks butt for everyone involved, and is fairly necessary for long term recovery. Like many systems, we beat the odds time and time again to call ourselves “survivors” instead of “victims”. Like many systems, we are rejected by most of society. Unlike most systems, we are a secret within system communities.

Being Complex is not being special, it’s just a haughty way to say there are extra requirements. Recovery for many systems is already a stretch. For HC-DID systems, we are healing the impossible.

Unless you’re uncomfortable with them having number names continue let them using their number name. It’s not disrespectful and they’re not exclusive. It’s not like a close practice. How many singlets do you know with the name zero, I know, at least three. Unlike close practises number names are just something that happens. There’s lots of reasons for them to exist, yes RAMCOA is one but there is many more. Our Ramcoa support group had talked about this and basically everybody there and a lot of other people I’ve talk to have a greed that it’s not exclusive, so unless you’re uncomfortable continue using them. If people are giving you shit about this redirect them to like people like me or switch case. 

i have a bit of a question regarding using number names as a non-RAMCOA survivor.

we have alters and many fragments who have numbers for/instead of names. we’ve been questioning being RAMCOA survivors for a while, but ultimately decided to simply drop it as it was damaging us and our mental health more than anything, and it really isn’t something we should’ve been looking into at all in the first place without the help of a therapist. i personally (jay) don’t believe we’re a RAMCOA survivor, but many others in the system genuinely do and it’s not exactly a debate we can settle easily.

my question is, what do we do about these alters and fragments? we don’t actually know whether we’re a survivor or not. do we just not let them front, or force them to pick names (something we have tried, but made them extremely upset/uncomfortable because according to them they had names, which were their numbers)? none of them front very often anyways, but right now anytime any of them have fronted they’ve essentially just been told they can’t talk anywhere publicly. we’re really stuck on what to do. we know it’s disrespectful, but we also don’t have any idea for sure if we can use them or not, and like i said we’ve completely dropped trying to figure it out because of how both damaging and potentially dangerous it was. what do we do?

Thank you for running this blog. I was held in troubled teen industry facilities for all of my teenagerhood, and am severely traumatized as a result, and it's been extremely hard to find words to describe what I went through to other systems or to trauma therapists.

It feels "too much", like there's no way this could all have happened to me, and I've been accused of lying about the organized abuse that went on there. Sometimes it feels almost like i AM lying, though I know I'm not.

Although feeling like I have "too much" trauma is something that I have to continue working on personally, I want to say thank you for pointing me in the direction of a framework that I can research and use that fits me more than any other one I've seen before.

I wish that none of us went through the horrors we went through, but I'm glad that there's a community out there and people talking about the things that have affected me. Thank you again for what you do running this blog.

Before anything else — thank you. This is an incredibly kind message and I'm really glad that you could find solace in this blog. I aim to provide resources that may not be (physically or emotionally) acessible otherwise, and highlight lesser-discussed aspects of RAMCOA.

The troubled teen industry is definitely part of the wider picture of organized abuse, and I wish it was put in that context more. Unfortunately, most discussions of RAMCOA focus on early childhood manifestations, and situations primarily focused on adolescents, adults, seniors aren't as referenced. Basically, the older the victim, the less likely it is to be included in definitions of RAMCOA; which is a shame, because those perspectives are crucial. Abusive care homes & inpatient facilities, prisons, and yes, troubled teen facilities are all forms of organized abuse in my mind, but the strong correlation with pedophile rings and cults has... Alienated? Many people from describing their experiences as OA.

I totally understand the feeling of having "too much trauma", and I feel like many survivors in general, not just ones of RAMCOA, can relate to that sentiment. "It's just too unlikely for all these things to have happened," I'll say to myself, "I must be exaggerating." Something that's helped me is the idea that some predators can smell blood in the water, and if all you know is hardship, it's hard to break out of hardship. Experiencing layers of trauma isn't... Rare, and you're not lying about it.

Once again, thank you. If you need any resources specific to the troubled teen industry, let me know. There's not a ton of research on it in the context of RAMCOA like I said, but I'm sure I'll find something of use.

Wishing you a gentle and fulfilling recovery. Aisling

Citing outdated research is something I've started seeing a lot of lately. This time I will focus on people utilizing Kluft's 1988 Complex MPD paper to state that polyfragmentation can be as low as part counts in the 20s, that polyfragmentation is "poorly defined and debated," and that severe abuse does not need to occur for polyfragmentation to develop. So let's break this down.

Research is considered outdated if it is 10+ years old (and in some fields, anything 5+ years old). This paper was published 34 years ago.

Kluft's sample was 26 people with 26+ parts, 24 of which are AFAB and 2 are AMAB, 94% white. This is extremely small for a research study and not At All representative of any population.

In the abstract of the paper it states this: "48 of the 76 cases reviewed [...] had dual (2) personalities. Another 12 had 3 personalities. Only 1 individual, a patient with 12 personalities, had more than 8." Emergent research at the time was beginning to show higher parts counts--it cites several authors that put the average as 2-10, 6.3, 13.3, 13.9, 15.4, and 15.8. All of these studies had sample sizes less than 100 (mostly sub-50) except for the 15.8 number which had a sample size of 355. Kluft outright states that alter count is being investigated at that point. Note the vast majority of these studies, including the emergent research, output a lower alter count than is considered average today.

Kluft states that "Somewhat arbitrarily, [he] defined extreme complexity as the presence of at least twice as many alters as the upper limit of the modal range of 8-13, ie 26 or more." Key note here is that this Kluft's personal definition of complexity (not a widespread consensus) at a time when alter count was being openly investigated as essentially an unknown (he is using the upper limit as in the extreme end of averages per the previous emergent research indications, not that this was now widely considered the average alter count). Kluft was one of the very few people who even dealt with complex cases, with most of his colleagues opting to pass them onto him (as is noted in the paper), so essentially there was very little besides his own personal opinion to go off of.

Kluft notes that his observed rate of seeing complex MPD cases "constitute approximately 15-20%" of his patients, and that his "experience with very complex cases began in 1975." This means that of the cases he was seeing over the past decade, only 15-20% of his DID cases had 26+ parts. Or, 80-85% of his clients had fewer than 26 parts.

Kluft's phrasing in this paper that "chaotic and unsafe" home environments are a pathway to complex MPD has been used lately as "proof" that polyfragmentation does not need to occur from RAMCOA or severe abuse settings and can come from simply having an unstable home environment. This is a cherry-picked phrase and should not be used as evidence, because of the next point:

His findings for people with 26+ parts: 100% experienced "long-standing severe abuse." 46% had abuse histories that were documented legally in the 70s or corroborated by witnesses. It is nearly impossible to win a court case NOW against your abuser, much less in the 70s, and having witnesses to abuse is also a marker that the abuse was severe as abusers tend to abuse when others aren't around--for them to escalate is heavy. Not to mention the 70s were much stricter about what was considered abuse. 92% were incest survivors. 58% experienced "vicious torment." 35% were RA survivors. The exact percentage isn't listed but Kluft states that in addition to the 35% RA survivors in his sample, another 1/3rd (~33%) stated that others "manipulated their condition"--due to his grouping the two together I am inclined to think that there were likely overlaps in experience with RA and this, though we can't be sure. It's important to keep in mind here that the alter count is 26+.

What this study states is not that polyfragmentation is ill-defined in 2022. What it states is that in the 1980s, researchers were still trying to figure out what the average alter count even was. Much less polyfragmentation.

This study states that among a small group of people with 26+ parts, all of them had severe abuse histories and the overwhelming majority were incest survivors. This is evidence AGAINST the claim that polyfragmentation can occur in merely unstable households, not for it. Its evidence is that severe abuse is needed to develop above average alter counts, quoting Kluft with the phrase "the more traumata, the more alters." The fact that in a study for 26+ parts, over 1/3rd were RA survivors is a significant marker of this.

Not only this, but it is evidence AGAINST the idea that high alter counts in DID are common at all. If 80-85% of Kluft's patients had under 26 parts, it would indicate that above average alter counts in the 26+ count are a minority and that would indicate that having 100+ parts would be even more so.

Now, current evidence does not support the idea of a tit-for-tat "every trauma = another alter" idea that Kluft put forth. Current evidence shows that 50% of people with DID have 10 or fewer parts, which doesn't discount Kluft's experience of 80-85% of cases having fewer than 26, but does make it more unlikely given our higher average alter count now (as in, it is likely a higher number of people have 26+ parts than Kluft thought). Currently there is a stable definition of polyfragmentation as 100+ parts (with implied complexities), for the past ~15+ years, through the training provided by OEA SIG of the ISSTD and various texts including Christiane Sanderson's Counseling Adult Survivors of CSA. But this is why we should not use decades old research as if it wholly relevant--we can use it as a reference point but it is not accurate or up to date. It's also why cherry-picking phrases in research can lead one to wildly different conclusions than what it actually stated.

One of my favourite bits of media history trivia is that back in the Elizabethan period, people used to publish unauthorised copies of plays by sending someone who was good with shorthand to discretely write down all of the play's dialogue while they watched it, then reconstructing the play by combining those notes with audience interviews to recover the stage directions; in some cases, these unauthorised copies are the only record of a given play that survives to the present day. It's one of my favourites for two reasons:

It demonstrates that piracy has always lay at the heart of media preservation; and

Imagine being the 1603 equivalent of the guy with the cell phone camera in the movie theatre, furtively scribbling down notes in a little book and hoping Shakespeare himself doesn't catch you.

[source] [source]

I just wanted to share some information that I discovered through some MedCircle videos, presented by clinical psychologist and professor, Dr. Ramani Durvasula, who sources Theodore Millon, leading researcher and theorist on personality disorders.

Trauma Bonding

Imagine you’re 5’5” standing in a pool that is 3 foot deep. It’s comfortable. The water is the perfect temperature, you can freely roam about playing or relaxing. Imagine that once a month, that pool deepens by 2 centimeters. A centimeter is tiny.. you probably aren’t even aware that your body adjusted to the change. You may have had a moment where things felt odd, but you acclimated.

After a year however, your 9 1/2 inches deeper than when you started. It’s still comfortable. You’re still adequately above water. What about two years? Three? Suddenly you realize your 2 inches over your head. You stand on your toes for a while, you can allow your body to float for a while, but your feet always return to try to find its footing. Now you aren’t focused on carefree frolicking.. now you’re focused on survival. You’re tired. You don’t have the strength anymore to signal for help. Why didn’t you get out of the water sooner? Maybe you deserve being in this water. Wouldn’t a normal person have gotten out long before now? The water use to be so amazing though! It felt like everything you ever wanted. It felt safe and peaceful, sure there were storms, but the waters always calmed eventually. You love this pool.. don’t you? You use to. You needed it. Your body felt like it couldn’t survive without it. Your mind was convinced you would never be the same without it.

Trauma bonding is a lot like this. It is a chemical reaction that occurs just like in any other addiction. Your body craves the relationship just like an alcoholic craves alcohol. Just like someone who suffers from a cutting or eating disorder. Just like anyone addicted to gambling, porn, gaming etc.

If you have ever reached subspace, think about that feeling of euphoria, as well as that crash when it’s over. The crash isn’t fun, but that high feels amazing. The only real difference is that D/s is a healthy relationship where both partners support and care about each other. A narcissist loves seeing you crash and knows the higher they take you, the harder you’ll crash. They know the more highs they give you, the more addicted you’ll become. You aren’t being dramatic when you say you feel like you can’t live without this.. your body believes that based on the chemicals regularly created and depleted in your body. It isn’t your fault. But it doesn’t mean you have to stay in the pool. I know it’s hard. I know you’re tired and I know it feels hopeless. I know you just want to breathe. There is help. There are people nearby with life boats, even if you can’t see them. Please check my tags for advice on how to get out.

Trans Ramcoa

I dont want to make this a habit however, when looking for terms to reclaim, I came across a post that made me recoil in disgust. @ cincinique made a post defending the not reclaimed term Trans Ramcoa and I would like to bring this to people attention so they can block the people interacting with this post and defending this term. I would like this to be perfectly clear, if you use the term Trans-Ramcoa or similar Trans-id terms, you are:

Defending Child pornography

Romanticizing Child Prostitution

Romanticizing the torture of Children

Defending Child rapists

YOU. ARE. BORDERLINE. PEDOPHILIC.

Not in a million years will these people understand what we went through as a child, all the abuse and torture we experienced at the hands of the people who were supposed to love us. To call this a kink, to say its just you being "kinky" is you getting off to the idea of child torture. You calling this a kink is you pushing people into dangerous situations were they will be abused and tortured. What you post matters. What you do matters. Do not make your legacy online supporting child rape and child torture.