Switching is the process of changing who controls your system's body, mind, or other central resources. A switch can be voluntary or involuntary, and controlling and managing switching is a learnable skill.
Switching isn't a universal plural experience, but when systems do switch, they might experience it in a variety of different ways. It doesn't always feel like "changing places"!
This chart can't cover all possible experiences of switching, but it does talk about some of the more common switching experiences that we've had.
Image ID below the cut; there's also a spliced copy of the image for folks who need a different aspect ratio for comfortable viewing.
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Some (but not all!) systems experience switching. Switching is when the system member in control of your body changes.
There are a lot of different ways that switching can be experienced. It doesn't always feel like "changing places"!
Many nicknamed examples of switching experiences are given:
The light switch, which is the stereotypical idea of switching. One person is immediately and cleanly replaced by another.
The becoming, which is more of a gradient or slider than changing places. One person slowly shifts until they become someone else.
The "two hours later"- sometimes switching can take a long time.
The "when did that happen? Apparently we switched?", where someone has been in control for an extended period of time but only realizes much later.
The possession ("mine now!"), where one system member shoves another out of control to take it for themselves.
The trigger, where a trauma trigger causes one system member to freak out. This prompts someone less affected by that trigger to switch in to handle it.
The vacuum filler, where one person ditches front and someone else is pulled forward to take their place.
"Pikachu, I choose you!", where one system member pulls someone else into control.
The revolving door ("Hello! Goodbye! Hello!"), where system members rapidly trade control of your body in quick succession. If you experience amnesia between system members, then this can be pretty disorienting.
The ensoupening- sometimes, you switch and it's not really clear who you are anymore.
The "what the fuck? What were you even doing???" where you suddenly find yourself in a very unexpected, disorienting, or bizarre situation that you weren't entirely aware was happening a few seconds ago- for example, finding yourself sitting at a desk while your headphones play incredibly chaotic music that you wouldn't pick personally.
At the bottom, the image is credited to semiplural.tumblr.com and na.beepbird.net/comics.html. The image is dated July 2026.
shoutout to the words "overmorrow" and "ereyesterday". english losing these words was stupid. "the day after tomorrow" "the day before yesterday" clunky-ass constructions. revolting. i'm bringing overmorrow and ereyesterday back in my idiolect and there is nothing you can do about it
"endos are faking having did and osdd!!" if an endo wanted to fake having osddid... they would just say they have it. why would they use a seperate term. be for real š.
Come to think of it, it really is insane that my entire country is burning alive and literally no one in the rest of the world cares. Thousands of Indians are dying every day from the heat, it's 45+ degrees in multiple areas, the government couldn't give two fucks, we're getting severe warnings and red alerts, and not a soul outside of South Asia is speaking about it because why would you ever care about brown people
USA folks, that is a consistent temperature range hitting 113°. Death Valley temperatures. In Banda, it hovered between 116°-118° (47°-48° C) for a week straight.
This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:
Letās all acknowledge that while we shouldnāt judge people for habits they may not control, we also shouldnāt judge people for having low tolerance of those things, because that also is something people canāt control well.
Example: itās not always someoneās fault if they are loud in public, but itās also not someoneās fault if the noise bothers them.
Itās not someoneās fault if they walk slow in a narrow walkway, itās also not someoneās fault if being stuck behind that person angers them.
Itās not someoneās fault if they have poor hygiene, itās also not someoneās fault if they are sensitive to smell.
We can be mad at situations without blaming anyone in particular, like when youāre stuck in traffic.
Youāre not a bad person for being annoyed IF youāre annoyed without judgement.
Still, It can feel really degrading when someone is visibly bothered by you for something you canāt help, so everyone should still keep general politeness in mind.
All Iām getting at is we gotta stop making ābad habits vs bad toleranceā a battle of ableism. And just acknowledge that sometimes peoples āquirksā donāt mix, but as long as they donāt blame each other for that, then no hard feelingsš like:
āIām prone to emotional outburstsā āoh, well Iām very sensitive to seeing emotional outburstsā ādang, letās keep that in mind for each other while also limiting our interactionsā āsounds good! See ya rarelyā
Yeah, it's a sense of conflicting things, and I really like this take.
And fuck the jigsaw puzzle imagery advanced by the eugenicists at Autism Speaks. Weāre not a āpuzzleā to be āsolvedā
Half of all people killed by cops have a disability, because cops arenāt trained to recognize or deal with people with disabilities and very few places have people who are trained for those situations easily accessible during emergencies. So the cops come in and do what theyāre paid to do - murder anyone whoās inconvenient to the state
"I am not a vessel for your good intent" goes hard as a line from a disabled perspective. Abled people care so much more about being their idea of a good ally than they do actually being a good ally. They shove their good intent right down your throat and then act surprised when you tell them they're suffocating you.
[ID: An image of a sign with a blue background and with a graphic of a stick figure in a wheelchair at the beginning, resembling disabled parking space signs. The text below the stick figure reads "I am not a vessel for your good intent." /ID]