and not in the way of wanting more people to have a dissociative disorder, but in the way of plurality being more accepted and known about.
and not just traumagenic plurality; all types of plurality.
everyone deserves a safe place to be themselves, which includes plurals of all kinds, no matter the origin.
we've known about our system for over 5 years now, and we've only managed to muster the courage to tell 2 people in our life about our plurality. we'd like it to be more, but we don't out of fear. fear of more abuse, fear of rejection, fear of abandonment, etc. Those fears are such common experiences throughout the system community that it's become a known problem, but by working to make the stigma around plurality disappear, we get closer and closer each day to a plural future. ♡
“My daughter is completely fine” Your child shares a body with an alien, a ghost, a spell construct, a drone, a sentient AI, and a rabbit, and she isn’t even the original host
This would have had me crucified on tumblr 10 years ago but maybe we are ready for this conversation now:
If you are a socially anxious person, you have to socialize. Your panic/anxiety attacks will only get worse and trigger more frequently if you constantly avoid contact with The Public. Not saying that you need to be a social butterfly- but there is a genuine problem with not being able to order your own meal at a restaurant. And it cannot be solved by always having someone else do it for you.
This is a PSA to about 3/4s of the Portland Youth populace
everyone who reblogs this and is like "I ordered my own tea this week" or "I only barfed once when I had to give a presentation'- you are doing amazing sweetie. Have patience with yourself, you are relearning a skill so difficult that people get 4 year degrees to do it professionally.
That reminds me of that one time an, let's say work acquaintance, told us about her son (I think in his last year of high school or something at the time) who was generally old and capable enough to do his own thing and handle his own affairs but this one time he messed up and forgot about a school assignment and for some reason reacted very strongly, had what I'd recognise as an anxiety / panic attack, physical symptoms, you know.
Important note that she knew from experience that it actually wasn't that big of a deal and that her son would just get to finish the assignment later, probably not even get a deduction of points or what's it called.
And she was there for him, calmed him down, offered to drive him to school in her car - but she refused to write a sick note or any of the sort.
He begged her to let him stay absent for this day but she refused, saying that running from the problem won't solve it and facing it tomorrow or next week wouldn't be easier, in fact it would get harder every time.
And I wholeheartedly agreed, speaking from experience, some in the audience were like "but that poor boy, if he wanted to stay home so badly ..."
And I'm like nuh-uh, you'd only teach the nervous system to act up a little more every time in order to avoid the uncomfortable thing, much better strategy is to face it ASAP before it gets worse.
I got a lot of reasons to be afraid of the world, but I still push myself, I still challenge my system to make progress, to get back to what we were capable of,
We will get back that, it's not something with a deadline or an amount of time to complete, but we will work forwards to the goal as much, and when we able.
Do you think it's possible to fake being plural even to yourself?
One or two genuine questions to you, anon, before I give my usual spiel on "I think I'm somehow faking it unconsciously and I think I should be ashamed because the fact that I can't stop faking it makes me morally bad":
What would it actually mean to fake plurality?
What does it mean to fake anything, in plain language (and ideally without moral weight attached)?
What makes a thing fake?
The usual spiel on secretly faking it:
First, if this is about you: try to turn it off for one week. Or a day, whichever feels better. All of it. I don't mean pretend that it doesn't exist, I mean stop doing it altogether. Just stop. Snap of the fingers, cold turkey, stop.
You are actively doing it, aren't you? Like, intentionally? You know you absolutely do not identify with the plural label or any plural experiences, that none of this has any possible application or interest to you, that plurality is completely and utterly irrelevant to your life... but you're putting in a large amount of intentional effort to appear as though you're plural for reasons that you don't understand whatsoever? Even if you really want to stop sometimes?
Why are you faking that instead of, I don't know, faking your way into a massive celebrity party or something? You must be talented, and this sounds like it would be exhausting to juggle. Compared to seeing the inside of a nuclear reactor or getting into a festival for free, this is pretty boring as far as pretending goes. Why keep it up? What are you gaining for all that work, especially when you'd be socially fucked if someone called it out?
It's not intentional? You keep trying to stop and you can't? It's not going away no matter how hard you try to change it?
You're probably not faking It. Sorry.
"fake", verb:
- tamper, with the purpose of deception (source)
- "counterfeit", to imitate or feign especially with intent to deceive (source, source)
- one does not fake without intent.
If someone is faking something, then by definition, they know. It's an active and intentional effort, something that they have to put energy and work into sustaining, something that's a relief to turn off. They can turn it off, and they know this because they are intentionally choosing to pretend to have an experience they do not actually, "objectively" have.
And here are the two important points:
Faking is an intentional act. If someone is faking something, then they know for absolute certain that they are faking something. Intent is required to fake something.
The concept of "fake" plurality relies on the idea of an objective state of the self/selves: some existential, absolute truth about whether someone is plural or not.
On point two:
We have no metrics to determine an absolute reality of the self for absolute certain. There are some physical characteristics that have been noticed in brain scans comparing DID systems against controls, but regardless of whether you believe in inherent differences in brain structure, most of us can't get a brain scan on a whim, and we don't have much of this kind of data yet for most other plural experiences. (Tulpamancy brain scan study when? Has that come out yet?)
We also have no idea why consciousness exists or where it's located, if anywhere. It's enough of a slippery issue for the concept of the philosophical zombie to exist: how do we know that anyone else is conscious? We don't. How do we know that plurality is an inherent or objective property of a body? We don't.
Do I believe that faking plurality is possible at all?
Sure. I think it could be done and I've seen it confessed to. I don't think that hunting for "fakes" or accusing strangers of faking their experiences is going to help anyone, though.
I do think sometimes that if someone were to fake this in the long run, then they would have to be very careful that none of it took on a life of its own. I've met a few accidental tulpamancers. It happens.
Do I think it's common to fake plurality?
No. It's a lot of effort for fairly little reward given that some people still think Split is basically a documentary.
Do I think that faking plurality can be done without knowing it?
No. A person might later find that another framework or explanation works better for them, but that doesn't mean they were secretly faking plurality. It means that they have an experience, and they found a different explanation for that experience that worked better for them. Good for them.
Transmasc erasure is the reason I wasn’t able to transition earlier.
I got on T at 20 years old. This is not the first time I tried to transition. When I was 13, I went to a highly respected institution for transgender youth to get on puberty blockers and hormones. My two providers did not know what a trans man was. They offered me a side-clasp binder off amazon in the wrong size that fucked up my ribs because they gave me incorrect guidelines on how to wear it. They refused to put me on any medication until I could prove to them that I wasn’t just confused. They never put me on any medication and always told me that being a girl is hard and I couldn’t just run away.
These things have real consequences for real vulnerable people.
I do think "literally zero evidence indicates that gatekeeping medical transition does anything to prevent regret, but the harm done by gatekeeping is extensively documented" is a much stronger argument than "regret isn't real" cause there's always going to be some anecdote that puts you in a weak-looking rhetorical position for the latter, but the former is pretty unassailable.
This. I reblogged something a while back related to this. Starting transitioning in FL meant that there were certain extra barriers I had to cross. For example, you have to sign an in-person consent form at like 1 of 2 clinics IN THE STATE (pop: 20 million). One was in Orlando and one in Tampa. If you lived in Miami, you were FUCKED and had to drive a minimum 8 hour round trip. None of them made me doubt my decision once. It just made things purposefully harder and is a clear example of state-sponsered repression.
so d-cell has started uploading the unbeatable soundtrack one track at a time to youtube, and this is one of the songs they put out today.
just gonna quote my comment on it:
a young girl plays a song. this moment really set in stone for me just how hard this game was going to hit. i realized pretty early on that this game uses music as, among other things, an allegory for queer expression. what better metaphor to express something so fundamental, so hard to pin down, so beautiful? and seeing this young girl put in so much effort and break the law just for these 30 seconds of raw emotion... only to be accosted by cops for it... it reminds me what we're fighting for. this is what they're trying to take from us. we cannot let them win.
this probably is not unique to us, but we've recently realised how passionate about plural advocacy we are. We want a future where plurals can talk about their experiences and have people respond with curiosity, understanding, or even simple acceptance, not pathologisation or fakeclaiming. Where plurals can casually mention their headmates in conversation, where front checks are normal, where we don't have to hide who we are. Where we can have offline communities. Where people don't feel they need permission to be plural.
We want to be part of the reason that plurality becomes accepted. Even if it's not accepted in our lifetime, we want to push the movement forward. We're not naive enough to think we'll be the main, or even a particularly noteworthy, element of the plural advocacy movement, but we want to do what we can.
And we can't do everything now, and we don't expect anyone to do anything now. We can't safely be out around everyone. But with everyone we come out to, that we exist as plural openly with, that we teach about plurality and normalise the experience, is one step closer to making the world more plural-friendly.
a hastily made comic because I’ve been Having A Time. mostly for people who already know what systems are/what polyfragmented means (cuz I didn’t explain it) but feel free to show anyone who you think needs it
[id: on the top is a large box with text reading: "HOW TO TREAT POLYFRAGMENTED SYSTEMS"
a drawn being is shown in 4 panel boxes with text reading:
"being back in plural spaces has shown me some people... do not know etiquette! Which is fine, we all have gaps in knowledge. That's why I'm here to teach you!"
"1. Don't react with disgust/fear/dread/etc."
"How do you live LIVE like that?"
"That's TERRIFYING!"
"I'd kms if I were like that."
"These are real responses we've gotten. Just. Don't. Especially the kys one. Don't say that to anyone. Don't say any of these to anyone Not just polyfragmented systems, but anyone who is unlike you. It betrays a belief that their life is not worth living, that [thing] is so horrible nothing good could impact you outside it."
"2. Don't fetishize it. Fetishize here is used in a non-sexual way, but definitely don't do in the sexual way either."
"Let me study you!"
"How did you get that big? I wanna do that!"
"You have so many friends :33"
"People sometimes presume high headcounts are willogenic. Willogenic high headcount systems exist, but don't assume! For us in particular, it's just... how we are."
"Plurality isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Headmates are a bunch of people shoved in one body, often we have fights or arguments with each other. It isn't some utopia."
"We're just people. Treat us like a normal person."
"3. Don't expect simplicity."
"The whole POINT of the label 'polyfragmented' is that we're COMPLEX. The things going on inside tend to be very complicated and difficult to explain. You don't get it? Great, the system themselves probably doesn't either. That's just how it goes."
"You want a list of all the headmates? It'll take hours. The relationships between them? Don't get me started. Okay, maybe just frequent fronters? There's 20 of them at the minimum. Who's fronting right now? Hell if I know."
"Polyfragmented systems are often expected to 'boil themselves down'. Become palatable, become understandable. But that usually just... isn't possible. Like at all. Or maybe they try and it's STILL really complex, because that's just how they are."
"the point is: we're people, just like anyone else! treat us that way!"
"This guide is mostly for first interactions/acquaintaces. When getting closer to a polyfrag sys (in whatever relationship you wish), it is important to talk out boundaries and how they wish to be treated. Everyone is different, after all. But if you approach most conversations using this guide, I think the chances of it going well with significantly increase!" end id.]
amandla
origamiaround
prguitarman
areudirty
germansingergirl
theartofmadeline
gummygunk
