impulsively created, not likely to be very active. sideblog. for plurality / multiplicity stuff. unwilling to deal with discriminatory bullshit. dont expect much engagement, but replying with decency is fine. you dont get to decide shit for other people. hopefully you get the gist without me having to stick buzzwords in my bio.
As bio says: We made this on impulse. We were thinking about plural shit in terms of management, problem-solving, perspectives, different experiences, and generally just trying to understand and work smoothly together. Our main social network is chill with plurality but most folk there seem to barely have (or share about) in-system issues, let alone issues like ours, and there ain’t very much of some of the other shit we want. Decided to go here, despite all the flamewars. Blog seems to be turning a bit more into a “mental wellbeing with a plural focus” blog, rather than multiplicity-only as was intended.
Not mentally ill, just odd.
We care about experiences and management and support, not origins or divisive labels. Disordered vs non-disordered is a false binary, our experiences are far too ambiguous for that.
Link: This post isn’t ours but basically sums up our views on pathologisation of subjective experiences.
We don’t expect to be super interactive here.
Us:
We’re a bigger system. Seem to be a mix of parts and people. A part made this blog, but many of us use it. Stopped tracking members ages ago, and we don’t typically sign off here.
If you experience any changes in body control (switching, possession, etc.), then establish some form of consistent, asynchronous external communication with your system. External communication has a major benefit: you can still talk to each other across switches (asynchronously) even if the inside of your mind is a mess.
You might set up a journal, whiteboard, calendar, a "single user, multi-account" app like Mytter or Antar, sticky notes, etc. Anything goes as long as your system knows to check it occasionally (or at the least, in an emergency).
We recommend choosing an analog method for your fallback communication method if possible, as a power outage could take out a lot of digital methods. A spur-of-the-moment piece of paper left on a table is better than nothing, but it's less likely to work than a pocket notebook or bulletin board that every system member knows to use for communication if needed. You can always add an app or program once everyone knows where to go for your analog fallback.
Discuss how you want to treat each other. Keep it loose and informal for now- don't make any absolute Laws just yet. Think of it more like the quick agreements that roommates make with each other for practical reasons: "I'll do the dishes if you do the laundry".
A few classics: "try not to die, don't kill anyone else, don't get any tattoos as an impulse decision, and don't throw out things that don't belong to you."
Don't force agreements on anyone. If someone disagrees, then stop and discuss their concerns to find a better agreement. See: Consensus Decision Making.
Map your system, if it feels right. This can help you learn about each other, but it can also be soothing to feel like you have some understanding of who's in your head when you're being flooded with new system members.
Again, keep it simple. What do you actually need to know? What would help you in a practical sense? Start there, then branch out if you'd like to get to know each other better.
Consider making a simple guide to your life. If someone had to handle a day in your life with little to no prior knowledge of it, then what would they need to know?
Where should they check to see if you have any appointments? Are they responsible for feeding any pets? Where can they find money if they need it, and how do they know how much to spend? Do you have a job, and do they need to work it? Etc.
Hopefully you never need this guide, but it's a lifesaver for any unexpectedly amnesiac system members.
Focus on building bridges and trust. Get to know the folks in your head. Find ways to talk and just get to know them. Listen as much as you talk, if not more.
Learn to lean on each other for support, if you can. Trust is one of the most valuable things that you can have in a system. Trust gets you through a lot of tough situations. Give your system members every reason to trust you, and try to learn to trust them in turn.
If someone is hostile, then ask what's driving the hostility. Do they feel under-represented in your life? Does peace make them feel unsafe because they don't know where the threats are? Are they bored, scared, frustrated, or routinely unhappy?
What can you do to support them? What do they need to feel comfortable?
Don't worry about knowing everything. You're just figuring this out- give yourselves some grace for not knowing as much as everyone else seems to. (Besides, they know less than you think. I've yet to meet a system without a single mystery left in it, including folks who've known for decades, and many systems are forever figuring things out in one way or another.)
Ask for information when you need it and let your system explain itself over time; let your system set the pace. You'll get better information that way, and your system will learn that they can trust you to respect them when they say "no, don't touch that yet."
Screw plural community labels for now. Seriously. Screw figuring out origins or consciousness or whatever the linguistic dividing line of the month is. Don't worry about it. These words come and go. Get to know yourselves first.
Why am I suggesting this? Community labels will still be there when you've figured out how to work with each other in a practical sense, and your stronger understanding of each other will make it much easier to find whatever words you wind up needing. Hunting for words now is likely to get you stuck trying to cram a bunch of shifting unknowns into someone else's categorization system, and it might cloud your situation more than it clears it.
Given that you're still settling into the idea of sharing a head at all, getting into the nitty-gritty of labels is probably going to be less helpful than figuring out how to handle doubt and denial issues (or getting communication going, or learning to manage switching, or...), hence the recommendation not to worry about it.
That said: do use labels if you need them. Just remember that labels are tools. Don't let the tools use you.
Also, screw the discourse. If you listen to any one item on this list, make it this one.
Plural community discourse tends to be a little bit rancid in the "debating whether your experiences exist meaningfully in our spaces" way, and it will fuck you up as a new system. Get past the worst of your denial or doubt issues first to avoid worsening the "oh my god, am I faking without knowing it" hell brainworms. Please. I am actually begging you. Avoid the discourse until you've dealt with your own existential doubts.
None of these things are obligations, nor is there any rush to do them. It's just a cluster of things that I tend to suggest to newly discovered systems, and I realized that I don't think we've actually rattled these off on this blog yet.
I may sound a little crazy but genuinely Calvin & Hobbes are a good description of what a system is like internally and what it looks like to those outside (especially with Calvin’s parents). You have ‘the main one’, the one everyone knows, and then there’s someone else with wonderful amounts of interiority, an entire other person, who nobody else knows or can see. Outside people may know on a logical level how much the ‘someone else’ matters to ‘the main one’, but won’t fully understand on an interior level how deep that connection can or will go. Calvin and Hobbes have a pretty good relationship, as far as a system’s cohabitation is concerned, and not everyone will relate to that for that very reason, but genuinely? I think Calvin and Hobbes are a good allegory for a system at the very least, if not a full-fledged system with a unique structure (Hobbes, as a system member, being specifically tied to an outside object).
I have been thinking it might be a good idea to write some personalised wellbeing stuff down
Like this and how getting fixated on a thing is a sign of chronic stress that we tend to not notice
But idk where to put it or how we'd remember to check it or update it
But something like that green/yellow/red 'doing well - mildly stressed - nearing crisis' chart on the wall could work
Maybe 3 bits of paper one for each colour?
Then i could handwrite things on it. And it's easily accessible.
We have shit to do today though that's more important.
Maybe we can dig out coloured paper and put it in our room.
---
So we have dug out coloured paper and also a white piece to scribble notes on.
The thing we were thinking of was The Stress Continuum and it has 4 sections. It's also aimed at ppl with PTSD (which we don't have) and feels a weird amount of less directly helpful for our purposes now to actually look at. But it is basically the foundation for what we're aiming for.
I think it might be useful to have both a "signs that we are in [state]" and "what to do to get out of [less-good state] / maintain thriving" but that's slow going to work out. Also idk, might be good to have a "things that worsen our state"? Like staying up too late will throw us out of whack. Which also tends to lead to repeatedly staying up too late.
We also don't tend to end up in like, crisis or anything, so honestly 2 papers would be enough, blue & red, to describe two states and how to maintain/get back to thriving. Maybe the yellow paper can be the "this will throw you into red"? But half of the "this is what red looks like" is also the "this will get you into red," so. Idk.
(But actually the blue & yellow are both card and the red is paper. But also the Blue & Red are similar, idk the proper term, darknesses? Yellow is much brighter.)
We are avoiding a phone call we really really should make today. It's almost 5pm. It's relevant to our volunteer role, we told a client we saw a week ago we would check in "next week" so waiting over 7 days strikes me as too long to be professional. Mostly it's just checking in, with the possibility of "whoops we accidentally said we would look into a thing that's technically outside our scope, so if client remembers and brings it up, we'll have to say so but probably phrase it like 'but if you need me there anyway i'm sure i can quietly set the thing up on the side'." Which i think is also making us anxious about like, some combo of "doing something Against The Rules" + "Letting Someone Down if we don't"
We are avoiding a phone call we really really should make today. It's almost 5pm. It's relevant to our volunteer role, we told a client we saw a week ago we would check in "next week" so waiting over 7 days strikes me as too long to be professional. Mostly it's just checking in, with the possibility of "whoops we accidentally said we would look into a thing that's technically outside our scope, so if client remembers and brings it up, we'll have to say so but probably phrase it like 'but if you need me there anyway i'm sure i can quietly set the thing up on the side'." Which i think is also making us anxious about like, some combo of "doing something Against The Rules" + "Letting Someone Down if we don't"
Former host speaks on stupid origin discourse bullshit, something that caused real tangible conflict and damage both within our system and in our physical outward life
(Also the iPod thing is only half accurate, that was just our first outwardly noticeable host exchange)
Being around singlets will have you asking yourself questions such as “is it too much to ask them to use my name” and “do I have any self respect left”
For any newly discovered systems feeling self-doubt because you struggle to hear your headmates, or rarely hear from them: don't worry, that's really common when you're new to all this. Being able to hear your headmates is a skill you can build up with time and practice. Give yourself some slack; you didn't even know there was something you should be listening for! You've gotta train yourself to pick it out! Don't strain yourself, but don't close yourself off either, and you'll find it becoming easier over time. A couple years ago, We also had a lot of trouble communicating, but now I can get interrupted by someone saying "sandwiches" out of the blue just to mess with me.
As a tip: you can build yourself up to internal communication through external communication. You'll train yourself into accepting + expecting their commentary, and start dismantling walls that impede communication. When internal communication feels fuzzy and hard to hold onto, external communication can be your best friend, especially if you're doing both at the same time (e.g. your headmate writes down what they're saying as they're saying it).
distractions , distractions all day long , take half dozen courtiers to get this done - try to neaten up some of silliness , but might still see some . hopefully bearable !
do not think this will end up as some kind of formal series , but figure if no words even seem to be out there ... maybe need to take plunge on discuss !
It's really nice to see something about spiritual experiences of plurality that aren't just Many Worlds theory (which is a perfectly okay way to understand yourselves- it's just not the only way to be spiritual as a system!). It's doubly nice to see animism being talked about as a potentially plural or plural-adjacent experience.
While none of our group consider ourselves to be animism-based entities (unless you include the stuff we're made of- is considering neurons and cells to have autonomy in some sense a form of animism? Is considering awareness to be a property of matter a form of animism?), we do sometimes perceive presence, awareness, or selfhood from things not typically considered to have it. That perceived entity could be anything from a grain of sand to a planet- it's not limited by scale, though things tend to get weirder at very large or small scales.
We also sometimes interact with these beings as part of our spiritual practice. Once or twice, we've let them look through our eyes. I don't think we've experimented with any sort of full or partial body control with them yet, but talking to them can be interesting or surprising, and it's certainly felt plural-adjacent to us.
It's also led us to wonder about the border between inside and outside in the past, particularly after reading about the concept of the "porous self" in Robert Falconer's book on spiritual possession's intersections with IFS therapy. At this point, I don't think it's a harsh border between the world inside our head and the world outside, at least not inherently. I think it's more of a gradient.
I've been thinking a LOT about humans' species specific social needs lately, and have this half formed idea about transness as an expression of autonomy in a society which does not meet our autonomy needs. like, everything we do is about a different thing, and I am really starting to think that the different thing is usually unmet species specific needs. and you can see this in many different communities, I was just talking abt this with some friends who converted to judaism and expressed that they felt similarly about that. bc like, really crucially like... trans and queer stuff, as well as conversion to a minority religion, ideally puts you in a community of people who are seeking autonomy in the same way. they are usually motivated by a wide range of more superificial things, but underlying that ... the actual rejection of societal expectations can meet a need, regardless of how that rejection is expressed, and because rejecting societal expectations is punished, it is important for us to have supportive communities to help us protect each other from that punishment and rejection.
and Kuzu said also something really smart about how rejection can also be like... embracing as a positive something people ascribe to you as a negative, e.g. trans women who were bullied for being "too girly" etc. where society is like "these are traits and experiences and ways of moving through the world and identifying with people that you should be ashamed of" and the rejection is then, "no, I won't be ashamed of it, and actually I'm going to build a whole life around honoring and loving the person that I am, with other people who also honor and love this about me and themselves"
and then ALFIE said this other really smart thing where he was contrasting like, transness to his conversion to judaism and he said, "i really think the seeking out community is a huge part of this, and that's why i think especially trans communities that are not intergenerational in the same ways can be sort of crab buckets. like, the interruption of intergenerational queer community & the fact that queerness is randomly distributed across the population is i think very damaging and is part of why it can be very hard to manage all that. there are things that you can learn not just from institutional memory but like, how things like institutional memory works." my friends are so smart. I am often thinking this about forms of marginalization that map onto "ethnicity" type lines and those that do not. this is true also of many types of disability, I think, particularly neurodivergence communities online where people are (often understandably, considering neurotypes) looking for hard and fast Rules and Identities that isolate us generationally. i have a very hard time relating to many younger autists, for example, and I'm only 34. but we allow our very different experiences of neurodivergence and disability to make us suspicious of others whose experiences of those things looks different or has resulted in different life outcomes. often I think this ties into class in a big way but that's another post entirely, probably. but I think that beyond being annoying or toxic or whatever, this is actually quite bad for people because it is bad for people to have to feel they are a Brand New Thing that No One Understands. it is socially beneficial to feel and believe and KNOW that you are part of a community through time, you're a type of person who has always been present in human societies, there have always been people like you, and how they live was and is usually entirely determined by the social attitudes around The Way They Were/Are. being in contact with people who provide cultural continuity between yourself and this history of People Like You is extraordinarily socially beneficial.
anyway. uh. autonomy. very important human need. one that some people suffer from lack of it more than others. I suffer from lack of it EXTREMELY in ways that produce a type of distress that is EXTREMELY punished societally. because autonomy is not considered to be an important need by the society I live in.
i’ll be honest learning about behaviour modification and canine psychology has really helped me process my own feelings and emotional responses
i find so much therapy talk aimed at humans has too much flowery abstract prose about mindfulness or whatever but for myself I really prefer an approach focused on hard science and what biochemical processes are responsible for me feeling this way, especially anxiety. Also why i prefer listening to lectures given by psychologists or counselors made for other fellow psychs and counselors.
But yeah I feel like there’s lessons anxious humans can take home from anxious dogs
reactiveness is usually the product of fear and unconfidence
when something becomes too overwhelming slow down, add more distance
every time you practice an avoidant behaviour it gets more ingrained and will take more effort to beak the habit once it has been well established.
try refocusing on something else when you feel yourself starting to get worked up over something
progress is slow and if you think you can fix things overnight you are setting yourself up for disappointment
don’t only correct mistakes, actively give praise as well
the amount of leftists who uncritically support the DSM-5—wielding it online in battles against random individuals who might be “faking” a disorder—boggles my fucking mind. you guys realize that the DSM-5 isn’t the only diagnostic manual on the planet, right? you realize that we place it at the top of the global hierarchy because it’s american, right? has it occurred to you that the APA shouldn’t have so much authority over what counts as a “real” mental illness? has it occurred to you that perhaps there are other diagnostic manuals? in fact, there are dimensional models that don’t rely on sorting individuals into “disorder/no disorder” boxes in the first place. food for thought, lmao
Wooo we've had some late nights and have to wake up to give our cat her meds. We've been more anxious lately and i think it's because of the lack of sleep. Had the start of a headache/migraine last night so took some sumatriptan about it. Am headachey again this morning. Have many texts from one person to reply to and seems our other friend got triggered last night so we have those texts to deal with. We have some paperwork to fill out today. We have to message someone condolences then start making plans to go to an out of town funeral. Also need to let mum know this person died. Also we have a driving lesson tomorrow.
Ok. Feel less shitty. Still shitty. Haven't really eaten which will be why still overwhelmed. Haven't drunk much which will be why still haven't eaten. Have ten tasks left on list we wrote; both aforementioned messages have been replied to.
Feeling weirdly acutely stressed/anxious still, just as baseline, still very tired. Headache went away with sumatriptan so i guess it was more migrainey than the eyestrain i thought it was?
