We are a system with a member count of either 15+ or 21+, depending on whether you count daemons and facets.
We are bodily in our late 20's, but ages and species vary. A few of our members are therians or extranthropes.
We are autistic and collectively experience and are disabled by a wide range of mental health symptoms unrelated to our plurality.
We don't have a trauma disorder-- we were born with a predisposition for plurality as a neurodivergence, and our dissociation and splitting are now heavily rooted in a schizo-spectrum disorder (schizogenic). That said, we don't consider our plurality itself to be a mental illness. We are happy living as plural.
*We aim to avoid petty infighting.* If we get deliberately cruel asks we will not respond. That said, good faith questions about anything regarding our system or our individual identities is welcome. We just prefer for our blogs to not be full of negativity.
We'll be tagging our original posts as "primsys", and clarifying who is posting with "soliloquy by [member name]" tags, for example "soliloquy by Blue".
Instead of a DNI we'll just clarify that we're strongly left-leaning, pro-inclusivity for essentially all (good faith and harmless) identities, and pro all system origins.
List of the system members who may use this blog (optional reading):
Blue
Host
Late 20's (same as body), transmasc/nonbinary man (he/him), queer, asexual-biromantic, and polyamorous.
Alterhuman, a therian (wolf, border collie, domestic cat, fox, hawk, African civet, and moth), an endel (vampire and werewolf), a furry, and a daemian.
In relationships with Bxxxy and an exo-sys partner.
Been the host for about a decade.
Prime
Adult, ancient but no numerical age. Extranthrope - demon, not associated with any specific religion. A nonhuman approximation of male (he/him).
Formed because a song was playing while we were in a psychotic state (Right in Two by Tool).
In a relationship with Ék and Ren-Kai.
Ék
Adult, ageless, genderless (they/them or it/its). Extranthrope - cryptid shapeshifter.
Formed during a 1 to 2 week long acute psychotic episode, during which we were fixated on cryptids.
Ren-Kai
White cisgender man (he/him). Human, but has unusual red eyes. 28 years old.
Was initially assumed to be "evil" due to his eyes and his interest in horror, but is actually a pretty regular guy.
Bxxxy
Name censored according to his preference.
Bigender: man and woman (he/him or she/her). 35 years old. Human and draconic - dragon kintype.
A fictive still figuring out his connection to his source. Experiences his identity as a "previous life" that he was removed from before being stuck in this reality.
June
Bigender - woman and man, transfem (she/her or he/him). 19 years old. Human, but with white hair and unusual pink irises.
Post-fictive - was originally a fictive but separated from her source so much that she's not one now.
Ezey
Adult in his 40's, cisgender man (he/him). Not quite human: human-like body with a nonhuman-looking head.
Formed when caffeine abuse triggered a brief psychotic state.
Lucas
Teen trans boy (he/him), 16/17 years old. Just human.
An ex-host - was in control of our body/life during our late teen years, pre-syscovery.
Emo kid - has an emo aesthetic and taste in music.
me holding a gun to a mushroom: tell me the name of god you fungal piece of shit
mushroom: can you feel your heart burning? can you feel the struggle within? the fear within me is beyond anything your soul can make. you cannot kill me in a way that matters
me cocking the gun, tears streaming down my face: I’M NOT FUCKING SCARED OF YOU
Im not really sure how to say this but we can't rely on understanding as a pillar of acceptance.
It's a matter of practicality. You will meet people you don't understand and you gotta be able to navigate that without being a bigot about it.
There is also just too much out there to know. You could spend your entire life studying and you will not achieve universal understanding. You will always find things you don't understand, things that might even be uncomfortable or upsetting for you. You gotta learn how to not make that other people's problem.
But it is entirely possible to get like 95% there on general principles alone.
This was originally a response to this post, but it derailed a little so I've split it off into its own and expanded it.
Creating headmates, becoming a system, becoming plural--if these things interest you, absolutely awesome! It's always great to see people interested in plurality, and often making a system can come with a lot of benefits depending on why you do it. It can be a very, very rewarding experience and hopefully if you do decide to be plural, yours will be too! But there's a lot of things related to creating a system that aren't talked about--the parts that might not be so fun, the risks, and the things you should maybe have a think about before committing to it.
As a disclaimer, this isn't to sit on a high horse and tell people when to and when to not be plural. In the end, you decide what happens in your own brain, and this post is our own opinion! But these things are rarely talked about from what we've seen, and we've seen a lot of systems struggle more than they would've otherwise if they thought a bit harder beforehand. We wanted there to be a resource to explain a lot of those common issues from our own perspective, to at least make people think.
This will sound largely negative because of that because we are focusing on risks, and of course not all systems have any internal issues at all either! Though considering what being plural might come with as a package-deal before deciding to become a system yourself is important before making those decisions.
Why do you want to be plural?
The first question to consider is pretty simple: why? There's plenty of reasons, and not many are harmful across the board, but some carry more risks and need a bit more thought than others. Have a think about why this is appealing to you--do you want friends? A partner? For fun? To share your responsibilities with someone? How will being plural contribute to that?
Thinking about these things in-depth can help you figure out weighing the risks to the benefits and making the decision to (or not to) become plural. What do you want to get out of it, what are you willing to give up, is it okay if it doesn't go how you planned?
Becoming plural for romantic/sexual partners?
This is going to be a long section, because it's such a loaded topic. But.. If you want to be plural to get a partner, the most important thing in our opinion to remember is that your headmate will be a fully fledged person, with as much agency and complex emotions as any singlet. They can like you, dislike you, be romantically interested, hate you. Headmates of any kind aren't objects or your personal fantasy. This is important to remember for any reason to become plural.
You cannot create or contact a headmate with the expectation that they will become your partner. You can have hopes, you can form relationships with your headmates if it happens naturally between you, but in the end, you will need to be understanding and okay with the fact that they may not reciprocate. It can be amazing to have in-system relationships, we have a lot personally! They can be great in ways so different and unique from relationships with those in other bodies, but you still need to approach them with the same care you'd approach other relationships with.
This means accepting them as a part of your life and as your headmate even if your relationship doesn't work out, or they never fall for you in the first place. You can't force a singlet to date you, and it's not okay to force a headmate to either. Like singlets, you can't know what direction your relationship may steer in until it happens. You meet someone, you talk, and things develop in one way or another naturally--things just can't be forced. And like with singlets, you need to be aware that you will 1000% need to respect their boundaries, and open to communication about them.
You also need to understand that even if they're a soulbond of your favourite character, or a tulpa you made, or another headmate you made specifically to be what you want... They can change over time, so much so that you might even end up disliking them. You need to be open to that idea and not try to force them to be who you wanted them to be--people change and develop over time, headmates are no different. Even if you do end up not getting along, you are the one who has decided to share your body and life, so you have to make peace with that possibility. Plurality isn't something you can usually ethically undo (unless your whole system agrees, outside of going no-contact with day-trippers) if you don't like the people you made, you have to live with them.
Honestly we'd advise almost entirely against becoming a system for the intent of creating a romantic relationship with your headmate. Historically there's been issues, especially in the tulpa community, where headmates are created for the express purpose of being a partner, and that has huge ethical issues around it and develops into further problems. Creating a sentient being specifically to be a romantic or sexual partner to yourself and holding that as a strict expectation for them is objectifying at absolute best. You can't do that to a singlet, you shouldn't do it to a heamdate. Abuse against headmates is real--if it would be abuse to do to a singlet, it is also abuse to do to a headmate.
But if you are entirely, wholly okay with the possibility that your headmate may just be a friend or not even like you at all, and you're still willing to accommodate them once they exist in your body and treat them with respect and equality... You can get a headmate with those romantic hopes in mind, as long as it doesn't affect any other way you treat them.
Becoming plural for internal friends?
Honestly.. Pretty good reason and pretty common! You still need to keep the above points in mind, but focused around friendship instead. They are people, they might not end up being your friends, and you need to understand that you can't force them to fit your idea of them once you've made them real.
Things might be okay for a while, then they might get rocky. Alternatively, things might start out horribly rough but end up with you being close later in life. Be open to all these possibilities. It's just like any friendship with a singlet--there can be ups and downs, there might be breaks, there might be things you disagree on fundamentally... And you need to be aware of those possibilities.
Becoming plural for fun?
Plurality can absolutely be a fun experience! The process of making/contacting your headmates, then getting to know them and going about life together can be so rewarding. Once again though, you need to be open to the idea that it may not always be fun. You might argue, your headmates might have a falling out with you, you might disagree on things all the time.
You need to be aware of those things and be ready to make compromises, respect them, and treat things seriously sometimes too. Some created systems never have any internal issues ever, which is great! But before you start the process, you need to be aware that you might need the skills to compromise, resolve possible conflicts, and make plans that are good for everyone.
Becoming plural to share responsibilities?
Another pretty complicated one, but it all boils down to the same sort of thing: you need to be okay with the idea that your headmates might not help at all, and that you cannot force them to bend to your will. It can be amazing to work as a team to tackle homework, work, socialising, chores, and other daily life struggles! Sometimes, because headmates can be just as complex as singlets, there might be times where no one can cooperate and you have more of a frustrating "my roommate never cleans up after themselves" situation than a nice neat schedule you all follow together.
Another ethical issue that at least used to be common around tulpa communities is creating a headmate to do all your chores, responsibilities and work for you, sometimes to the point of making a headmate just so you never have to front again. This is another thing that is abuse, objectifying, and a reason you shouldn't make a headmate. These things can happen naturally, some headmates love working and cleaning, but you should not create a whole living being with the intent to have them work for you while you just front to have fun, or don't front at all.
Do you understand what a headmate is, and what that really means?
Of course, if you're looking into this, you know the concept of headmates. They're people who share your body/brain who might be able to control the body and hang out with you! But sometimes, even though a lot of people understand as a concept that headmates are alive and can be as complex as singlets, people don't realise what that can mean. Not all of these are always applicable, but some things to think of:
Your headmate might disagree with you on many things.
Your headmate might like and buy different foods, clothes, etc.
Your headmate might have different hobbies and want to have some money to spend on them.
Your headmate might want to front and control the body. Sometimes, they might want more front time than you're comfortable with giving and you'll need to negotiate.
Your headmate might want their own social media accounts, their own social circles, their own friends and partner(s).
Your headmate might use your things in the front--eat your food, play your games, use your makeup, draw in your sketchbooks, take photos on your phone, etc.
You might argue with them.
You might not like each other too much, but you're stuck in the same body and have to navigate that without harming each other.
They might be romantically interested in a person different to someone you like, and you'll have to navigate that together and with the other people involved.
Your headmate might have times where they don't want to be bothered or spoken to.
Your headmate may be unable to give you much or any privacy, for example if you're constantly cofronting or they're stuck being co-conscious.
Your headmate might have boundaries that are hard to accommodate or respect.
Your headmate might have a disability you need to accommodate, or triggers you need to take note of.
Your headmate may do, think, feel and want anything that a singlet you've never met before might. This includes things you don't like, things you want to keep to yourself, and things you do like.
You need to be aware of these possibilities and more, and know that you still want to be plural regardless. The skills to navigate any friendship or social situation apply to headmates too--conflict resolution, how to compromise, how to make decisions as a team, how to accommodate others' needs without sacrificing your own.. Those are all so important when you're sharing your whole foreseeable future with someone. And it likely is your foreseeable future, being plural can often be a lifelong commitment.
As an added note, this isn't always the case, but persecutors are also possibilities in any type of system. Disordered, nondisordered, traumagenic, endogenic--it doesn't matter. Sometimes, you may get a headmate who acts harmfully, toward you or the body or your friends. And even in that case, you need to find ways to cope and deal with the situations that might present. Without resorting to abusing that headmate, as is so common in plural spaces.
Often persecutors are treated as some sort of public spectacle to harass and abuse, but this quite literally makes it worse for everyone involved. "Hurting them back" often results in more aggravation and further issues. You need to have the skills to navigate and manage potential severe conflicts internally.
In a lot of cases, headmates tend to become persecutors because they've been mistreated and neglected or treated as if they're inherently lesser than the host in the first place. You need to treat your headmates like full, real people, no matter what.
Headmates can be kind and loving, and they also might be rude, cruel or aggressive, and you won’t know what they’re like until you meet them–just like any singlet. You need to know before you make a system that you can't always just "get rid of" them, walk away or block them if things go wrong, because you literally share a body and brain (and in the cases of day-trippers who you can cut contact with, you need to be willing to do so). You will need ways and supports in place to manage in case things go badly.
Are you okay with sharing your life?
This was touched on in the last part, but we're expanding upon it here. You, someone who has brought a person into reality to share your life, need to at least be understanding of the concept that your headmate might have differing life goals than you. It's hard to navigate and complicated when it happens, but at least finding a compromise is key.
It's likely to feel unfair to your headmate if you make all the life decisions, don't involve them in the process, without a chance to have their own goals and life path. And this can lead to a lot of conflict! After all, you created this person and they're likely to want something at some point. We've known many systems who have created headmates just to "talk to occasionally when I'm bored", and those headmates often get frustrated and feel isolated and objectified because they aren't allowed any say and aren't allowed to live their own lives.
Letting your headmates have their own hobbies, letting them have input or coming to decisions together about your career or education, helping them with their own life goals while still aiming for yours--these can all be good compromises to not being able to lead fully separate lives! Though this is a lot to compromise on for a lot of people, so it needs to be taken into account that sometimes, your goals won't line up and you'll need a middleground.
Do you understand the stigma?
There's a lot of weight that being plural can hold. Movies like Split affect primarily CDD systems, but these things that portray being more-than-one as something dangerous like that can and do affect people's idea of plurality as a whole. People around you might not understand, including those close to you. Particularly being a created system can come with extra infighting from syscourse as a whole.
Do you know who you'll be comfortable telling? Would you be able to cope with not being accepted? Do you want to share? What if your headmate wants to share, maybe because they don't want to pretend to be you? Those are some things to think about regarding the stigma of it all.
Letting your whole life be dictated by avoiding being anywhere close to something stigmatised plays into a lot of ways people get negative biases against certain groups, so we encourage you to avoid getting too deep into "avoid at all costs" as a mindset. It's not often very helpful to think that way either. But at least considering that there is stigma that exists, what it is, what it means, and how you'll navigate it before committing to being plural is a good idea.
So, In The End...
Hopefully this provides at least a little insight into potential struggles with plurality. Truly we've seen enough headmates be harmed in our time by people who wanted to make a system and weren't ready to accept what headmates being full, other people means. Hopefully, thinking about these things can prepare some potential to-be systems for what plurality might mean for them. Hopefully you can think about ways you'd solve problems beforehand, or learn a little about how to cooperate with people you might not like, or learn ways to compromise on things that may be important for multiple people.
If you read through this and are having second thoughts, that's okay. If you still want to be plural but are worried, think on it a little more, maybe brainstorm ways you could cope with potential issues, think about solutions, ask the community for ideas even! You can still prepare yourself to become plural if you don't feel you have the capacity as you are right now, it's perfectly okay to be unsure. Take your time, you have plenty of it.
As stated in the beginning, this isn't meant to be a "don't become plural ever" post, it's a disclaimer, a thing to consider before committing. Headmates and originals/cores alike are hurt by quick decisions all too often and we want to encourage people to just think a little bit more, to hopefully minimize harm and make plurality overall a more enjoyable experience for those looking to become systems.
Our internal communication feels like thoughts coming from various different system members. The thoughts don't usually have pitch, tone, raspiness, or any other distinctive quality to them, they're just "words in our head". Thankfully we can naturally *feel* which systemmate is speaking, despite not "sounding different". Each thought is vaguely tagged with the member saying it in a way we automatically sense, but we can't really adequately explain how that works or feels, unfortunately. And no, while we may say we "hear" each other, we mean it more metaphorically-- we don't *hear* sounds out loud like someone might hear external speech.
Curious to know if other systems experience something similar to this or if it's more of an us thing since we're median!
So we, as a system, have a collective nonhuman identity that is primarily spiritual in nature and affects all of us. Some of us are more aligned with certain aspects of our identity than others, but in general experiences related to our "core" stuff are not affected by who's fronting– we can switch and the new fronter will be experiencing the same things, it's essentially stuff that happens to our body as a whole.
However, we've determined that each of us (with the exception of one member who's basically a concentrated version of our collective identity) also have our own unique nonhuman forms, and we occasionally have shifts as those things while fronting that do cease or change when we switch out. Individually we experience these shifts as being ourselves, but to everyone who's co-conscious it feels like when we cameo shift.
We don't currently call these shapes theriotypes because they're somewhat distinct from how our collective identities feel. They're us in a literal "this is what I look like" way, but they're also sort of... Metaphorical, based on emotional and aesthetic associations and not on an innate sense of who we are as a whole. We can have phantom limbs and instincts and whatnot for them, but unlike our "core" shifts they don't tie into anything bigger, they feel like channeling our "default" winged snow leopard shape through a personal lens (most of us are winged felines, just different kinds).
I don't like to use this binary because it's always more complicated than that, but in essence we have a collective spiritual identity and individual psychological identities based on that. It's really interesting.
I need. Someone to explain to me more in depth about what a "collective identity" is when you're a system. I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around existing as a collective- when we're blurry, we're not a headmate, so it's hard to feel a sense of "self" other than masking.
Can't speak for everyone else but I can share our experience. For us personally, it's less that we all individually have [collective identity] in terms of our kintypes/hearttypes. It's not blurring either. It's more like the body itself has those identities, in a way? We're collectively dragonkin, because it's something that comes with the body and brain itself, so we each individually get a sort of "filter" over us that results in all of us being dragons in some way. Some of us are dragonkin separate from the collective identity, and we can kind of just.. tell whether it comes from something we'd experience ourselves otherwise, or whether it comes from the body's "default"? Things that come from the body itself feel different, more malleable and more.. distant, maybe? From the individual's sense of self.
Hard to explain, but essentially it's just that our body seems to have some "default" stuff going on that affects all of us. This is true of our other kintypes and our hearttypes too, as well as our collective special interests, and some other things. They're things that are ingrained into the body itself, thus affect all of us at least a little. You can go against the "default" because at the end of the day we're all individuals, and it sure as hell doesn't cover every (or even most) aspect of our lives, there's just a few things here and there you're much more likely to do/be/experience because the body itself is wired that way. The body is dragonkin, the body has a special interest in birds and plants and those are also the body's hearttypes, not really tied to any individual.
In terms of other identities (us being transmasc and bi, collectively), this is less about a body-default and more about how we've chosen to present the body as. It's less about our identities and moreso what we're doing with the body itself. We have our own queer identities internally! But on the outside, we're transmasc and we're bi, and that's all people who only see us at a surface level need to know. Of course folks in the plural community or friends and such can know our individual identities, but it's just (unfortunately) easier to navigate most spaces with a framework of what the body is presented as.
And in terms of collective opinions and such, sometimes it's affected by the "body default" but really if we refer to something as a collective opinion, it's likely a surface-level general consensus being presented as such because we can't go around with a survey asking 500+ of us every time we want to share something, lol.
So, I guess it means a lot of things for us? But we're a big system, and at the end of the day I don't think you could 100% get all of us to agree perfectly on any one identity or any one thing overall. It's unfortunate that with how singletnormative everything is that we have to sometimes present with collective opinions or identities, but usually there's nuance to "collective identity" under the surface we just don't feel the need or have the energy to specify. Aside from whatever our body has going on, of course--and even then, despite the body having it's own set of identities and ideals going on, there's still people who go against those as well.
Despite being able to "have" a collective identity to some degree, we much prefer when spaces allow room for us to be wholly individual. Doing things like having different identities, opinions, likes, dislikes, disabilities, queer labels, etc. So we do try to stick to those as much as we can. This is also why some of us have our own entire accounts and emails and such. We're whole, different people, and sometimes it's a pain in the ass to have to act as a group. Sometimes you just want your own space.
Being reverse-Isekai'd via the reincarnation method would fucking suck.
You used to be a magic-wielding adventurer and now you have to go through high school. And you can't tell anybody about your past life or you'll be mocked at best and institutionalized at worst.
One experience that I (host) have had over the years is the delusion that stuffed animals are conscious and can speak to me. A couple years ago I encountered the POSIC (Perception of Object Sentience, Individuality, and Consciousness) community, which encourages the idea of object sentience and forming deep personal relationships with objects - this can be a delusion or a non-disordered belief, and many find these relationships deeply rewarding.
As a result I chose to spend time befriending my stuffed animals and having conversations with them. Their voices weren't hallucinations per se - their words appeared as "thoughts" in my mind, but I believed they were coming directly from the stuffed animals. I learned recently that this is called "thought insertion" - when the psychotic brain mistakes regular internal thinking for alien thoughts being put into one's mind by an outside force.
Well, I recently discovered two previously unknown members... apparently, some of these stuffed animal personalities became "stuck" in my head and never left. I can talk to them without having the objects on hand, as they've fully disconnected from their mental ties to them. They appear to function identically to any other system member, which ironically means they are conscious, just not as Animistic object souls like I previously believed. (No, I don't believe "their souls" entered my body or anything along those lines. Medications are reducing my delusional thinking, for one thing.)
One of the new folk has an appearance that's completely different than the stuffed animal, and chose a new name he prefers better. His personality is roughly the same but his species is no longer frog stuffed animal-related at all. (Strangely, he's human and a mouse.) On the other hand... the second new member is literally a stuffed animal. She looks like one in our mind, identifies as one, is no different from the original. She feels no attachment to the exact object she originated from - she's her own person now, she just happens to be a perfect clone of it.
So... we now have object introjects, something I've never even heard of. Schizogenic object introjects, formed from psychosis. Pretty odd.
We're referring to roles as terms for things you individually do, whether that's something conventional like "protector" or "caretaker", or more niche and personal terms.
If you want to comment some of the roles that are important to your system, it's optional but welcome! :)
no clue what percentage, but some of us use role labels and others don't. we also have "working", which can be used at the same time or independently for the people who don't like roles ("i do emotion work" vs "i work as a social protector")
generally we only label those who wish to be labeled (usually self-initiated anyway), either to affirm an identity, because the language is useful, or just because they want to. we don't give *everyone* a role, and we dropped any kind of "host" label a while ago.
members who "work" (as in: "actively or passively contribute to the system" for a loose definition. it doesn't have to be Helpful to be work, because not every part of living is helpful. it also doesn't have to have material results by any means) are paid with currency that we use in the innerworld to sustain our idealized economy (there's a basic income for everyone, our system benefits those who front the most and contribute the most inside or outside. we also have a constantly shifting front so it's not super unbalanced). it's a little more of an incentive to front and do your job if you can go to the inverted chain restaurant under a cliff after your shift and get some fancy pancakes
We're referring to roles as terms for things you individually do, whether that's something conventional like "protector" or "caretaker", or more niche and personal terms.
If you want to comment some of the roles that are important to your system, it's optional but welcome! :)
practicing radical acceptance about the fact that I'm always gonna be weird and awkward and a little difficult to be around. it's okayyyy to be weird as hell
Maybe it’s because I’m just so used to living a human life, but often I imagine myself as an anthropomorphic animal of my theriotype. I am still an animal, but I go to work and play instruments and do all the human-y things that I still enjoy.
Image from Enid Blyton's Fourth Brer Rabbit Book, 1953
drawn outside the lines of reason @primulasystem - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
