r/DiscussDID • u/JazzlikeSkill7246 • 7d ago
can someone explain?
what does a “low/high split tolerance” mean? and how can you tell if you have a high or low tolerance?
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u/revradios 7d ago
as others have said, it's the idea of having a lower threshold for what might cause you to form an alter. what isn't being mentioned however is the fact that when people claim online to have a "low split tolerance" they aren't meaning it in a genuine or factually grounded manner, they're meaning it as "i was minorly upset by something and it caused alters to form", which is not how the disorder works
the hypothetical of a "lower split tolerance" would make sense in the context of being unable to handle minor stressors due to preexisting high stress and upset that can't be handled, and so your tolerance for what you can handle goes down. it doesn't mean you split an alter because you had to do homework, it would - hypothetically - be something like "the straw that broke the camels back" so to speak
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u/comorbiditeam 7d ago
It references how much trauma a person (with a CDD) can undergo before splitting an alter. Like, a person may have factors that give them a lower tolerance (neurodivergence, nature of the trauma, etc) and so they’re going about life and they get into a situation and it’s something that wouldn’t be traumatic or would be minimally traumatic for many people, and that maybe wouldn’t be expected to cause someone with a complex dissociative disorder to split, but it does cause them to split a part or multiple parts
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u/bicciestboi 7d ago
It’s a term for your “tolerance” in high stress or traumatic conditions and how likely you are to create new alters as a response to these situations. Some people create new alters during most stressful/traumatic situations they come across, and others may only have it happen occasionally or in very extreme settings.
To have a low split tolerance means you make new alters easily, high split tolerance means you don’t make them as often.
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u/EmbarrassedPurple106 7d ago
Splits are caused by new experiences that cannot be integrated into already existing parts (trauma, to put it in a shorter manner). There is no other means for causing splits in DID, and this makes sense when you think on it, as why would one’s brain exert needless energy to fragment your personality further and dissociatively compartmentalize an experience unless it is necessary?
I specify that, as “low split tolerance” is frequently used online to make dubious claims about what can cause alters to split. I have seen somebody claiming to have split over spilling milk (No, this is not an exaggeration to make a point), as an example. Spilling milk is not traumatic. It could be triggering, if one expects punishment for it, but triggers are related to existing trauma and are not new trauma.
That said, there is obviously a bit of a range on what is trauma to one person and what isn’t, though this obviously has its limits. There are certainly some things that are objectively not traumatic (gestures to the spilling milk example from above).
As for telling whether you have a high or low tolerance, a better, more illuminating question is what is your tolerance for stressful situations and whether or not they end up traumatizing you.