hungryghosts | Entries tagged with plurality

(Crossposted from Tumblr.)

In another post I made, I spoke about a relationship I had that felt more like a Secret Third Thing than a "typical" romantic relationship.

[…]make what basically amounts to the opposite of a suicide pact with someone ("despite everything we are going to live the best that we can, and we're taking each other with us") without any particular feelings involved, only for particular feelings to get involved (to this day, despite the feelings, it still feels more like a Secret Third Thing than dating per se. probably because we don't consider the feelings the origin or foundation of our relationship)

Because I feel like rambling about in-system relationships, Secret Third Things, and their overlap today, I'll disclose that that particular relationship is with another person in my system. (The other in that post being my outerworld partners - those relationships are also unconventional in their own ways, but that's a story for another post.)

There's a bit of important context to know about us first. (It involves past trauma, particularly child abuse - I've put it under the cut.)

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(this did severals over on fedi so it's probably worth crossposting here, even if it doesn't quite meet my standards for a "finished" essay)

sometimes while trawling plural spaces, I see folks posting about how they feel "useless" and like they aren't "doing their job," and the framing is always something along the lines of "my role is [protector/caretaker/Some Other Noun], so it's my job to [Do Thing], but I haven't been able to do it for [entirely understandable reasons], so I feel like I'm a bad [protector/caretaker/Some Other Noun] and that my existence in the system is pointless"

and... this is just reminding me of why my headmates and I have a personal vendetta against the concept of system roles as they're so often used in the community. because very often, roles are used in a very prescriptive way, where being a protector/caretaker/Some Other Noun is something that you are rather than something that you do, and thus Doing Your Job is the Reason for your existence.

when, you know, that's kind of a fucked up thing to put on yourself, you know? everyone should be allowed to exist without a Reason and without having to perform some Service to justify their continued existence. (and like, I get that in plurality, so many of us come into existence for some reason, but there's a difference between acknowledging your history and continuing to keep yourself in the box even when it's suffocating you, you know?)

and like. so often the things that folks are expecting themselves to do, 24/7, as their Role In The System are unrealistic and unsustainable. stuff like being The Functional One or The One Who Takes All Of The Pain Away or somesuch while the system is in living situations that are frankly untenable, like living under the thumb of people who tear them down day after day. and like, I get it, sometimes your options are limited because you're just a kid and the abusers who have you under their thumb are your parents and there are no fucking good options anywhere for kids to get out of bad home situations, and you have no choice but to tread water or to take the Devil's boat.

but I think that at the very least, it's worth acknowledging that this is treading water rather than any kind of viable solution, that Being The One Who Takes The Pain Away is an impossible thing to maintain forever, and that when you inevitably are unable to keep up the facade anymore, that is not a problem with you. you did not fail, your existence is not pointless because you couldn't keep up with an impossible demand into perpetuity; it is not you that needs to change, it is your living situation, even if the only change you can make right now is tiny, tiny. even if the only change is forgiving yourself for being a limited being, like all of the rest of us.

We were asked to share our experiences with the intersection of maladaptive daydreaming and DID, and it got us to thinking about the role of therapy. Namely - how little a role it actually played in getting us out of our godawful world.

( Rants and psych-criticalness ahoy! )

[Phosphor]

Yesterday, I remembered that we had an account on Commaful, this site that lets you combine text and images to make visual stories/poems. Going through it has been an interesting experience, though thankfully not as surreal as rediscovering our old primary's writings.

I - the only one who used the site - started out writing about faeries. Typical. After discovering that the site's plural content was mostly Written By Very Clueless Singlets, I got very annoyed and decided to write my own.

https://commaful.com/play/famishing_fae/an-ode-to-a-beast/

https://commaful.com/play/famishing_fae/out-of-one-many/

https://commaful.com/play/famishing_fae/sleeping-in-shadows/

Bonus non-plural-specific MH thing: https://commaful.com/play/famishing_fae/insanity/

I have mixed feelings about them. It's Old Writing, mostly unpolished, and we've identified less with DID narratives over time. There are parts that will always be true for us. But we feel less and less comfortable about putting them at the center of our plural experience.

Still, call me petty, but it's nice to know there's at least *some* by-plurals plural writing on the site. Even if no one can find them because I refused to tag them. Oh well.

There's a group, https://thepluralassociation.org, who's giving out some resources if you sign up for their email newsletter during DID Awareness Week (aka this week). Signed up and took a quick skim, it's legitimate. Same people behind http://powertotheplurals.com. Bit messy, but since English isn't their first language it's understandable.

Stuff included (pulled from their table of contents):

Tool 1 - Weekly chores:
This is a chores list, but can also be used for other tracking purposes, that you can work on together with headmates. Instead of marking a task simply complete, the idea is to mark with an initial. If you like you can also work with a reward system. Littles (or anyone really!) could use stickers to mark chores they did as well. It has a little note section which can also be used to ask for help if the system struggles with internal communication or amnesia.

Tool 2 - Fronting chart:
This tool is provided with two different background colors to save you printing ink if needed. The idea is that when someone fronts, they can write their name and possibly the time. This way you can easily observe when you lost time and where the week went. It is not intended to schedule who fronts, although if your system benefits from that, go right ahead.

Tool 3 - goal planner:
The system goal setting planner will help systems to better achieve their goals. It promotes actively working together as headmates and is super versatile. On top of the tool, under the title, is a check box, that can be checked when the task is completed.

Tool 4 - Printable emergency card:
This doc comes with 2 printable emergency cards. One lets you explain what DID is, the other has a prewritten text with an explanation of what DID is. The prefilled explanation has some grounding tips and talks about a protector. The form has the option to fill in a name. If you like, you can put the name there of a protector or carer. If you feel it is safer to write down your legal name, that is of course possible.

Tool 5 - Get to know each other:
A list intended to get to know your system and headmates better. This is intended so you can make a booklet of all the people in your system. It might be useful to share it with your therapist but for your own safety we ask you to not share these lists online. This tool is available for free on the power to the plurals website but in this package it is included as a PDF and so much easier to print and fill in! It also has some bonus questions. This tool is available in different languages for free, but not in PDF format.

Tool 6 - Friends and loved ones:
An extra freeby, an easy to understand infographic that explains plurality to your friends and loved ones!

Tool 7 - Different types of headmates:
An extra freeby, an infographic about different types of headmates, that might give you new insights into your system.

It's mostly stuff geared towards DID, down to the language, but there's some stuff in their pack that could be used for other system types, and they've stated explicitly that they don't do the pissing matches.

In the process of figuring out our personal Weird Shit, we've been spending more time around the kin, plural, and other "fringe" communities. And predictably, we've run into a bunch of stuff that seriously jeeves us out.

( Cynicism and frustration below. )

Finally found the word for it!

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soul_dualism

Soul dualism or multiple souls is a range of beliefs that a person has two or more kinds of souls. In many cases, one of the souls is associated with body functions ("body soul") and the other one can leave the body ("free soul" or "wandering soul"). Sometimes the plethora of soul types can be even more complex. Sometimes, a shaman's "free soul" may be held to be able to undertake a spirit journey.

( Tired thoughts. To hell with plural exclusionists. )

Putting this down partially as a list of ideas for ourselves. Feel free to add to it!

--

Advice on switching, especially:

- getting people unstuck from front
- helping people associate with front
- building fronting endurance
- self-care wrt switching (avoiding fronter burnout, managing memory hecks)
- helping people get more into headspace, or at least fall asleep when not in control
- doing all of the above in a controlled manner.

Advice on helping non-regular fronters find friends and interests outside of the system, ideally outside of plurality as well.

Advice on improving internal communication, for the folks who can't hear each other well.

Advice on setting boundaries and avoiding codependency and enmeshment. Hoo boy. (This is especially true for romantic relationships but tbh can apply to any sort of relationship.)

And, you know, discussions about in-system romance and sexuality that aren't peppered with shame and/or waifu jokes.

Thoughts on creating a healthy system dynamic in general. Thoughts on what "healthy" even constitutes in this scenario? Beyond "everyone is happy and has their needs met," because... let's face it. Especially in larger systems, that's easier said than done.

Advice on managing system growth: distinguishing brain noise from headmates, adjusting fronting schedules, scaling a system government. Advice that isn't "just ignore newcomers and they'll die/go away eventually" or "every single voice you hear is an Entire Person that you must immediately accomodate as if they've been here forever."

Advice on avoiding lotus-eating and the other worst impulses of fictivity (and mythos in general).

Thoughts on how to handle that weird feeling where you're one of the sole surviving fragments of an original who split into pieces and died and everything is half familiar and you've still got to carry on in their place.

More descriptions of how people run their systems. There doesn't need to be a One True Guide. There just needs to be a big enough library of experiences to crib enough ideas from.

You know, more descriptions of people's systems in general that AREN'T a laundry list of identities, diagnoses, or origin terms!

Advice on building your own personal library of red flags and getting the hell away from people that set them off. Not plural-specific; DEFINITELY plural-needed.

Probably more to come later!

Found Souls and us were talking about the invisible rules of gendering, and realized that getting gendered has a LOT of parallels with getting your system type assumed, which naturally led to us shitposting:

Assigner: "are you an endo or a DID"
Assignees: "We're a system."
Assigner: "no I mean like, what's in your head?"
Assignees: >:D "People!"

Current Mood: silly

We made a questionnaire geared towards helping plurals (of any kind!) lay some ground expectations and etiquette for others, especially non-plurals. It is far from comprehensive, but we hope it is still a useful starting point.

https://write.as/i9kkgvg5hp70gauw.md

PLEASE feel welcome to remix, repost, and alter it to fit your needs. Absolutely no credit or linkback is required - just don't be a jerk and claim this was made for X Y and Z systems only.

Dreamwidth mirror under the cut:

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