On the Concept of Natural Plurality/Multiplicity
Rather late to this conversation (by three weeks!), but this is the problem that I have with the concept of "natural plurality" or "natural multiplicity":
It's when it is used to mean anything other than plurality/etc. that the hypothetical user of the term considers to be natural in some form—That is, when it is used as a synonym for non-created endogenicity.
Now, why do I have an objection to this? Well, sometimes when thinking about my/our plurality, I'll casually talk about my headmates who formed naturally... through trauma.
I don't refer to them as "natural" intentionally—It is just something that happens without me thinking about it. It's not even a reference to "natural plurality" at all. I think of them as natural, not because of them being non-traumagenic (because they are actually 100% traumagenic), but because of them being non-created. They're forming whether I want them to or not, I'm just along for the ride (in the washing machine of trauma).
For me, headmates forming through trauma is just an intensely natural process that my mind goes through when faced with overwhelming trauma over the course of months. I mean, it's not like my traumatised states should have to become people, instead of just being symptoms, like the other stuff I experience due to trauma, and it's not as if someone else forced them to become people.
I see it as natural as an extension of my autism and of my general Weirdness, when they intersect with being traumatised. I see things as separate more than other people, and maybe I have a higher sense of personification, too. (...And maybe I see it as natural as an extension of potentially being fragmented from earlier trauma, where it did its job to the point that it never felt like trauma, and happened so smoothly that it never felt anything but completely natural.)
The problem with "natural plurality" is that it is often treated as opposed to traumagenic plurality/etc., and not as two things that may or may not overlap, or as something that may even be the same thing for some rather than two different things, let alone opposites.
And, really, there were even people in the Natural Multiples Movement who did not consider them to be opposed. And that's not to say that the Natural Multiples Movement was free of problems, but it might be an error or even a regression to treat the concept of "natural plurality" in a more restrictive manner.
I do not use "natural plural" or the like as a label for what we are, but I do object to the implication that my traumagenic plurality is inherently not natural, without my input, or the input of others who may feel the same way or similar. I would very much like to have the autonomy to decide for myselves how "natural" or "unnatural" (or a third option) this form of existence is, especially after being forged this way from lack of autonomy in the first place.
