I want to talk about the assumption of sources and introjects in plural spaces, and new alter help channels. I've been meaning to write on this for a while but a recent post in the syscourse tag talking about a similar topic reminded me to just do it.
So, for my background, I am part of a traumagenic DID system. I've been in plural spaces for years now, and am a moderator for a large pro-endo server.
A lot of systems in the servers I have both been in and moderated have a lot of introjects, especially fictives - This is normal.
However, due to this, many, many people assume everyone else is like them - A fictive.
"Do you have a source?" is the single most common question I see in both casual conversation and in new alter help channels.
People also tend to get very, very excited over source - After all, having an introject must be a sign you really enjoy that source, right?
You're expected to want to talk about source as a fan and not as someone who just so happens to have been sourced from somewhere.
You're expected to talk about your exomemories and feelings fondly as if they're nothing more than part of a show you like.
You're expected to know and be friendly with other introjects who share your source.
There also is no real understanding within the wider community of how introjects work, I find - I was surprised to see just how many people in the server I moderate do not know much about abuser introjects.
For example, it was a surprise for many of them to find out how a system member reflecting/repeating behavior from an abuser may be an abuser introject, or how an abuser introject may look like "The abuser if they were a good person/actually cared about me" (Such as a "replacement parental figure"), in a similar vein to how you may have "non-source-compliant" introjects from media (As in, they do not have to look like source or be named after source or behave exactly like source in order to be an introject).
And yet, despite this, everyone is assumed to be an introject unless proven otherwise.
If you share a name with a fictional character, it's assumed you're an introject.
If you have colored hair, it's assumed you're an introject.
If you have a non-"stereotypical english" name, it's assumed you're an introject.
If you have pseudomemories or exomemories, it's assumed you're an introject.
I find this issue most glaring in channels where people are most vulnerable - New alter help channels.
Often, it's assumed that if you are there, you must be an introject.
The questions start off not as trying to ground you but as pinning down a source - What do you remember? Do you remember your friends' names? Do you remember what school you went to?
Not only is this often not helpful for the newly formed introjects who are less concerned about "figuring out who they are" and more distressed over not knowing where they are or why they are so confused or cannot remember anything - This also quickly becomes dangerous for the non-introject.
A personal example that really harshly outlined this issue for me was when we formed a new part - A very confused, very high-amnesia part.
I cannot remember if they saw the notes we leave around our room to plan for this situation or if they were told to go there by someone outside the system or if something else happened, but they made their way to a new alter help channel regardless.
They were not, however, an introject.
They were asked what they needed help with, and they told others they were, to quote them, "Having a lot of trouble adjusting. Nothing really feels real and I get scared when I think about a lot of things because they're so different and unfamiliar. I miss my friends and just want to go back to having fun with them again."
The next question? "Do you remember what your friends look like?"
For many people in plural spaces, this may seem like a reasonable follow-up question.
For us, however, it put us at risk of accidentally doxxing ourselves when already in a highly confused and vulnerable state.
They were not an introject.
They were a trauma part, who formed only with memories of highschool. They remembered those, but nothing after, and was very confused on how much had changed and found themselves in a very unfamiliar place with things that held no memory to them. They were scared, and lost.
Their friends' names, as well as the name of their school (Which was later asked in this same conversation), would not have been that of a fictional character - It would have been our old real-life friends and school.
In cases like these, the assumption of being an introject is not only unhelpful, it can be actively dangerous for new system members.
This new system member of ours, also, explicitly said, over and over, that they were not as stressed about the identity confusion as they were about not knowing where they were or why things are so different now, yet others continued pushing to try to guess a source from them that did not exist.
New alter help channels, ideally, should be used for helping new system members get grounded - However, instead they are used as "Guess the character" games, at the expense of the newly formed system member.
