sideblog for plurality and alterhumanity posting. kind of a mess but y'all seem to like it anyway. extremely psych-critical and stalwartly opposed to the DSM, fair warning. here be criticisms of neuroconforming hegemony and the creation of psychiatrized populations.
this blog is run by the Strangers Collective, also referred to as “the strangers.” it is mostly just somewhere for us to dump our thoughts, memes, and informational posts about plurality. hopefully it’s useful to some of you as well.
we are a system formed as a trauma response who does not have DID/OSDD. yes, we partially formed as a response to severe childhood trauma, but we do not fit any of the other qualifiers for a diagnosis. (we did previously state on this blog that we had DID, and we did experience some dissociative symptoms for a brief period of time, but that no longer applies because the symptoms we used to display we absolutely do not anymore. also, our dissociation was never related to switching or the formation of system members.) additionally, part of our system is not here as a trauma response, and was born into this body for a reason he believes is religious in nature.
the point of this blog is kind of a mess these days but generally speaking we just dump a lot of plurality and alterhumanity posting here. submissions and asks are welcome, just don't be a dick, and we may or may not reply. we have limited energy overall.
our intros (under a cut for accessibility’s sake):
Vic(s):
current primary fronter
amalgam of several facets (informally referred to as: dave strider, taako, dove/salem, cupid/princess, bean/baby, and kitty/cat)
cat therian
he/they pronouns
age regressor/little (in the form of bean)
amalgamation of two former hosts
likes hyperpop and folk punk
July:
she/it pronouns
co-primary
transhumanist
outwardly a hot girl, secretly made of clockwork
Drama:
it/its pronouns
dollkin
former primary/current co-primary
pastel goth
wlw/lesbian
really into the mid-2010s emo trinity
likes writing poetry and fic
Caleb:
he/him pronouns
dormant
doesn’t identify as human
religious
enjoys gore/blood/etc
experiences a fair amount of amnesia about our past
he’s very religious; his existence in this body is predicated on his belief that he is a separate soul from the rest of us
"imagine a version of yourself or even just a character you really like that is more assertive and like say aloud what you think they might say! its all make believe, of course. no risk of anything weird happening. just a good exercise in um uh imagination. anyways keep doing that and also make her do a twirl"
"have you given her a name yet? you should! its a fun activity with no side effects! another fun activity you can do afterwards is to respond to that name with what you think she would say! just for fun of course!"
the thing about insisting that plurality (that is, a multiplicity of identity within one body) is an experience exclusive to that of "dissociative disorders" is that it is a fundamentally anti-plural position.
if you believe "normal" or "healthy" psychological development necessarily involves the development of a singular identity, and that all deviations from this are disordered, it naturally follows that the cure to such a disorder would entail the creation of a singular identity (fusion) in its place.
it is not a mistake when psychiatrists start with the assumption that plurality itself is the disorder, and come to the conclusion that integration/fusion must be a part of the treatment process. instead it is a natural conclusion of their premises.
and the vision of this worldview, its ideal future, is one in which plurality does not exist. a world in which every system formation is prevented, or eventually reverted.
thus to deny the possibility that some people may simply be plural or become so over time, that it may even be a desirable state, is to reject the possibility of a neurodiversity approach for plurality.
i imagine some may disagree with this view. those who jump to explain all plural phenomena in a framework of traumatic dissociation, yet claim their personal goals do not involve fusion. these systems might turn to me, declaring their condition as a symptom, yes, but one they are happy to live with. an incurable chronic condition.
i think this is a profoundly sad way to think about the one's systemhood.
to look at a part of me that jumps out at conflict, ready to argue and assert themself, and declare them an "emotional part", a "protector", something that exists entirely as a symptom of trauma, rather than these behaviours as learned trauma responses - expressed across a plural identity yet separate from it. this remains profoundly reductive, objectifying, and wrongheaded.
even more, to assume "psychological integration" necessarily means "fusion" - that a singular identity is preferable to a multiple identity, even with strong internal cooperation, strikes me as wildly misguided. every system i've known who've tried to suppress their plurality, to act as one person, have found marked improvements as soon as they actually acknowledged these differing attitudes within them for what they were. i see no reason to believe a return to a singular identity is actually necessary or preferable to this state.
it is necessary then, as plural advocates, to reject the pressures of singlet-normativity, and to reject the theories that rely upon it. i choose to believe in a plural future. one where we are free to introspect and identify the multitudes within us, without this being taken as a definite sign of unspoken trauma we must then heal from and return to singularity.
baseball interviewers will ask "how do you throw the ball so good" and Mariners players will casually drop that they have a headmate who plays the game for them
SEATTLE -- Within the walls of the Mariners’ clubhouse, many have already met “Walter,” the imposing alter ego of Logan Gilbert. But on Tues
After giving up a homer in the first inning, Logan Gilbert unleashed his alter ego "Walter" to shut down the A's the rest of the way as the
Logan Gilbert is making a name for himself as an emerging ace for the Mariners ... all with the help of his alter ego, "Walter," Ben Verland
Logan Gilbert's nickname, "Walter," is a captivating enigma within the world of professional baseball. In a sport where distinct personas a
Some of the links to those articles + extra, if you're interested!
The last article gets extremely repetitive, but here are some favorite quotes I just couldn't leave out..
"The character of Walter, which Gilbert created as an alter ego, is a study in contrast. While Logan Gilbert is known for his kindness, respect, and humility off the field, Walter embodies entirely different traits" (Smith).
"The origin of the name “Walter” is intriguingly random. It is not associated with Gilbert’s middle name, family name, or any personal connections" (Smith).
"Gilbert’s transformation into Walter is the occasional memory loss he experiences during his pitching performances. He has admitted to blacking out and not remembering certain actions or words spoken while he embodies Walter" (Smith).
"When he’s not on the mound, Logan Gilbert prefers to revert to his given name" (Smith).
"Gilbert’s emotional outbursts on the field while in the persona of ‘Walter’" (Smith).
"For Gilbert, ‘Walter’ is not just a nickname; it’s an integral part of his professional identity" (Smith).
"While fans may not fully understand the reasons behind the nickname, they often express respect for the concept of an alter ego in sports" (Smith).
Several weeks later, we finally have a follow-up to this post by @semiplural about distinguishing system folks who are less separate.
Figuring out who's who when you're not that separate
A lot of guides that we've come across for figuring out who's all in a system, or who's there, or who's around, are well tailored for collectives who are more multiple. That is, who have a decent amount of discrete separateness. "Multiple people in one body," full stop. Those guides can exclude folks who don't experience a lot of separation.
One of the reasons it took us so long to realize we are plural is that there isn't a ton of overt division between us. We are distinct, but not divided. "Three headed dog" and other hydra-esque metaphors describe us well.
We're going to make two posts on this topic. This one will be a more general "here's stuff that helped us that may help you." The other one will be more specific and posted to our 18+ site.
Defining "less separation"
For our purposes, we're going to outline what "not a lot of separation" means for us, specifically. This may not be true for you. It's to contextualize our own experiences as you read.
Few to no memory barriers
Unfiltered thought and feeling access to one another
Switching is "passing the I" or "becoming one another." Switching does not feel like "trading places," "becoming possessed," "dissociating," or "losing time."
"I just feel like me, but different."
Life history, relationship with cultural background, relationships to external people, and things of that nature generally feel the same, similar, or agreed upon. Your parents are all of your parents, your cultural background is all of your cultural background, and so on.
Relationship with gender and sexual orientation feel congruous. Examples: same points of gender dysphoria, even for different reasons. This is true for us, even though our genders, sexual orientations, and romantic orientations, themselves are different.
Alternatively: sexual orientation and/or gender changing between us looks enough like singular-normative fluidity that we do not initially notice it as different selves.
Lots of blending and temporary fusing.
In most ways, our values align.
A few ways: the tl;dr
Retrospectives and reflections: can you point out times in your life where you were just different?
Skill and capacity changes: are there certain "eras" in your life when you were very good at some things, but not others? Do the skills change in ways you can't really explain? Or does the explanation you do have, like disability burnout or therapy, feel incomplete? Was there a time you could tolerate some sensory input, but now you can't, and vice versa?
Make a timeline of your life: Map out points of substantial change. Fill in gaps as you find more information. The important part is not "factual accuracy" but how you remember things and how you were impacted.
Track things in the present: Try feeling out vibes about where you're at, what you're drawn to, what values you're prioritizing in the moment. Track them and find patterns.
A central takeaway here: this is not a process of laying out objective, factual evidence that can be externally verified. This is an ongoing process of feeling things out. If you're sighted, here's a metaphor: you know those times when you're feeling around in your bag for something, and you end up just sticking your face in to look because you can't find it with your hands? There's no sticking your face in with this. You're gonna have to trust what you're feeling and your interpretation of what it is, and accept that it will change with time.
Retrospectives
There was a clear point in our life when things changed for us completely. We went through a series of traumatic events that required us to change the way we did everything: logistically, practically, socially, health-wise, and more. We changed a lot, as a person, outwardly. In that process, we also lost a lot.
Certain personality things, qualities, tendencies, etc. seemed to have gone away, or been more background, or "easier to manage." Think things like: "oh, that trauma thing isn't as present in my life; I guess therapy is working!"
Since Zahi was in some pretty serious skills-based therapy, we chalked all of this up to our various mental health diagnoses going into remission as a result of our work. That's not to say we were wrong -- of course this is a huge factor. We were also missing another piece of it: Brick was holding a lot of really difficult tendencies of ours. That gave Zahi room to build a life worth living. It also meant that Brick had influence and impact, and was likewise influenced and impacted, over that process, without being able to make as many active choices as Zahi did.
Our gender presentation also leaned heavily in Zahi and Arini's direction during those eight years. Before that, it was quite fluid, and many presentations felt right at any given time. In retrospect, we notice that presenting less femme in many situations got us feeling dysphoric, not just "oh, I am not feeling myself in this."
Do you find yourself saying, "but I thought I was..." about a certain personal quality? "I thought I didn't really care what people thought." "I thought I was good at/bad at social skills." "I thought I was direct and blunt/less direct." Pay attention to those moments. Track them.
Skill and capacity changes
Remember that "clear point in our life when things changed for us completely"? At that point, Zahi was almost fronting by himself, though influenced and impacted by Arini and Brick. In retrospect, there were many points when Arini was co-fronting or at least "watching over their shoulder" over that eight year period.
Sensory input that we were able to tolerate? Not anymore. Certain themes and aesthetics, like gory stuff or violent stuff? Nope. "Oh, I guess I'm just more sensitive after the bad thing." Not entirely wrong, but not complete.
We experienced some serious autism and ADHD burnout. It clicked into place when we noticed this: as Brick started unfolding again, things that we hadn't been able to do for ages were coming back. We could daydream again. Creative writing was getting easier again. Brute-forcing a task that was difficult was possible again (though not recommended, as usual!). Meanwhile, it started getting harder to ask for help; prior to that, Zahi had gotten very good at it!
Are there clear points where certain hobbies, skills, desires, urges, propensities went away or appeared, or increased? These may have been things you attributed to processes of learning or unlearning. That definitely may be true, and, being plural might mean the outward effects of this are more pronounced than they would be for a singular person.
Make a timeline
Literally make a timeline of your life. It can be paper and pencil, digital, whatever. Make sure it's in a place you can easily find it and make changes. You are unlikely to finish this in one sitting and it will likely take many visits. You may start to spot patterns of selfhood, presence, absence, influence, etc. as you do this. Folks may find that they can feel out their own vibes enough to claim certain adjustments on the timeline. For example: so-and-so feels right writing in blue ink, they tend to revisit the timeline when they are feeling sad, and so on.
On this timeline, leave room for varying interpretations of what you remember. One of you may remember things one way; another may remember it differently. One of you may have taken away a set of lessons, and another one, a different one. Leave room for that. Make sure whoever is contributing can maintain a through line of claiming it's their contribution -- if they want. An ink color, a font color, a letter of the alphabet, a symbol, if they don't want to use a name. And if they choose to deliberately not keep a through line of their contribution, honor that. Let things unfold at their pace.
Tracking
Tracking isn't easy. It can be overwhelming, especially if you're trying to get a process down perfectly the first time. Suggestion: plan to change your tracking process with time. You don't have to go back and retroactively adjust old records. Let those old records stand as their own way of tracking how your process changes. That is also information.
What to track, you ask? Here are some ideas. Of course these are things that have perfectly singular-folk explanations, like sleep, food, energy, mood, what happened that day, and so on. Consider folding in that certain folks in your system might also have different feelings about these things.
It doesn't need to be a perfectly comprehensive picture of everything ever. What stands out to you? What feels important? This is not a scientific exploration that needs to be reproducible. Follow your gut. Or your heart. Or whatever symbolic intuition body part you vibe with.
People you see frequently. How do you feel about them? How do they interact with you or vibe with you? What do you find yourself drawn to say to them or do with them?
Activities you do frequently. How do you feel about this class? This project? This hobby? This client?
Frequent sensory input. Is that crackling of the electricity poles on your walk home more or less irritating on certain days? Is the screeching neighbor's kid tolerable sometimes and unbearable at other times?
Body tension patterns. Where do you hold tension? How does it change? When?
Food preferences and how certain foods feel and taste. Or desire to eat in general.
Perceptions of your memory. Maybe sometimes you forgive that family member for the time they hurt you when you were a kid, and other times you're boiling with rage at them.
As you track these things, try to also notice what else they line up with. Find patterns and correlations.
the ending stuff
Remember:
This will take a long time.
You will likely need to revisit and revise.
This is not scientific; it is intuitive. It requires selves-trust, or at least selves-"whatever message I am getting is somehow true, even if not logically or empirically".
btw 'syscourse' and plural infighting isn't accomplishing anything. back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the only communities and resources for plurals that were widely available were for and by non-traumagenic systems. the only people who were advocating for normalizing and accepting plurality on a large scale were non-traumagenic systems. if you did research into plurality 10 - 15 years ago, most of the results that came up would have been experiences written by spiritual and natural plurals.
many people at the time were expressing their dislike of forcing every single plural to identify as if they had trauma- many found this insulting to themselves, and rightfully so! no one should be forced to identify in a way they don't agree with just to rightfully be a part of a community they already occupy. this obsession with "you can only be plural if you have trauma" has only come about extremely recently. i found out about plurality through the otherkin community. i was actually told about DID by someone in the spiritual plurality community. people don't seem to understand that most non-traumagenic systems have respect for traumagenic systems and don't gatekeep their spaces to prevent us from entering.
older plural spaces on the web like healthymultiplicity accepted all plurals. the goal of the community was to show that you can live as plural and not have it be a tragedy or something to "fix". if anything, folks with dissociative disorders owe a LOT to non-traumagenic systems for pushing to normalize plurality without implying that we HAVE to integrate our headmates and try to stop being plural. a huge part of the early online plural community was there to push that plurals can and do live happy lives and shouldn't view their plurality as a bad thing
it's not going to make singlet society see us in a better light. it's not going to get people to understand plurality better. it's not going to get us better mental health resources. it's not going to improve the quality of care for dissociative and traumagenic systems. all you're doing is bullying someone else that you don't understand simply because you don't agree with them.
you're not going to recover from your trauma or understand your own plurality better by denying the existence of other types of plurality. you're not "making the community safer" by gatekeeping. telling other people how their brains work is policing their identities. whether or not you want to accept it, if you forcefully kick endos out of plural spaces, you are the cop you claim to hate.
fighting with people on your own team will never net you a victory. to every other dissociative and traumagenic system: endos are on your side. you are wearing the same jersey. you are made of the same flesh and blood. enough. come together to share your similarities instead of fighting over differences. celebrate the diversity that plurality offers. don't take someone else's identity personally. someone can share the space with you without having to match exactly how you identify. diversity is what makes a community thrive.
thought im saving to introspect over later when im less tired: some of my de facto host status is self reinforcing bc it is genuinely physically easier (less tiring) to present the parts of our collective self that dont require as much self-assertion or active enforcement of the space we take up. when we're very tired, its hard for anyone else to want to front because they need to assert themselves more than i do.
one of the problems w plurality is that its REALLY easy for us to just accidentally make up a memory because "memory that happened while someone else was in front" and "thing i made up and visualized really hard" feel pretty much the same from the inside for us. if the person who did the thing we're remembering switches in, it's a lot easier for them to determine if its real or not, but otherwise its a crapshoot whether something happened or we can just really realistically imagine someone saying and doing that.
brought to you by: we had two equally vivid memories of where one of us put their ring the other night but could not fucking tell which one was real because that person's not fronting
one of the problems w plurality is that its REALLY easy for us to just accidentally make up a memory because "memory that happened while someone else was in front" and "thing i made up and visualized really hard" feel pretty much the same from the inside for us. if the person who did the thing we're remembering switches in, it's a lot easier for them to determine if its real or not, but otherwise its a crapshoot whether something happened or we can just really realistically imagine someone saying and doing that.
say what you want about fictives/fictionkin but there will never be a more based and correct take about intellectual property than "this is a metaphysical threat to my ability to spiritually engage with the world"
