#alter dormancy

[desirplural]

I'm fucking sick of looking at plural communities or plural tags and seeing people talking about forcing their headmates into dormancy. "I want to force my persecutors into dormancy" "we forced our old host into dormancy" "can we force all the non-helpful alters into dormancy" "I don't want to go through the effort of establishing healthy communication with the whole system can I just force some of them into dormancy" "We forced an alter into dormancy and he came back and hates us all, any advice" "If you're dealing with a persecutor and they won't listen to reason you should try forcing them into dormancy" "I forced my alters into dormancy but it didn't make them go away what should I do" " This alter was annoying me and so I forced them into dormancy lol" "We don't bother giving our fragments identities we just force them into dormancy" "This alter triggered another alter's source trauma so we forced them into dormancy" I feel like I'm on the fucking truman show what the fuck are you talking about? What the hell do you mean? Why are you all so fucking obsessed with it? What is wrong with you guys? Don't you understand how fundamentally fucked up that is? Hello? Am I talking to myself right now?

[multiplesillylittleguys]

Being devastated because an alter goes dormant is okay, actually.

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People often tell systems that "It's a good thing, it means you're healing!" And while that might be true for some, alters going dormant can still be a traumatic experience.

About two years ago, my husband James went dormant. It was sudden, he was there and then he wasn't. And you know what I did? I cried. I cried for weeks. I was in a constant state of mental breakdown. I was the most unstable I had ever been, because I lost the love of my life. It was temporary, he has been back for a long while now. But at the time, it felt like he had died. I wasn't sure if he'd ever return. He's the only one who truly understands me, we grew up together and went through the same things together. So when I lost him, I couldn't cope with it.

When I think back to that moment, I still get distressed. I can't imagine my life without him. I care for him so deeply. So often this struggle gets minimized, dismissed because people say it's a sign we're healing. But I just want to say that it doesn't always feel like that. It doesn't always feel good.

And you're allowed to be upset about it.

-Dennis

(Edit: Some people are saying dormancy is neutral, some say it's bad, some say it's good. We believe it's a neutral thing, what we're saying here is just what we've been told over and over again when one of us goes dormant.)

[solarandsystem]

A letter to an old friend.

More personal grief under the cut, nothing will be sensitive or private of course. Just a long rant.

I couldn't really, portray everything I wanted to. Mostly because it's very private, especially the events that lead her to go dormant. I've been through many dormancies of the sysmates around me, but I never got close to anyone. My job was to protect us even if it meant they didn't like me. She was like that too, we could bond in that way.

We both understand each other uniquely being recovered persecutors - protectors. She understood sysmates being wary of her, of doing what was right even if it upset the others. I removed a panel from this, it was too personal, but I hope she knows she didn't fail. And I didn't either

Dormancy isn't something we can prevent, it's not something we could see coming. Maybe she will come back one day, maybe she will not. Either way, I appreciate the time we shared this body and I hope she did too

[weird-plurality-is]

Weird plurality is literally everything that happens to our mental health just... manifesting somehow in the innerworld. This can be through alters "dying" (dormancy that looks like a death), or losing their shit spuradically, or alters changing appearances or ages, the entire innerworld changing, half the damn system just dissapearing, random explosions in alter headcount, alters backstories, ect.

.

[friendlytoallsystems]

[certified-silly-system]

Headmate comes out of dormancy and into front roster

Hey guy-

Even more come out of dormancy/split taking said headmate out of front roster

Well fuck me I guess

[theres-peepol-in-here]

Lillie has been dormant for a pretty long time, by our standards at least- Dormancy isn’t really a common thing for us, and it’s a scary concept- one moment you’re awake and the next… not. No idea when a person return or even if they will. I like thinking of it as a hibernation of sorts. That helps.

I miss her a lot. Evidently. I draw her over and over in hopes she’ll “wake up” again, and it doesn’t happen. I wonder if anyone else experiences this kind of… grief(?) mourning(?) when an alter goes dormant.

I wonder what she would think of our progress. Of Fern’s progress especially.

It’s nice to think she’s proud of us.

Just a bit of a ramble. It’s been on my mind lately

[askthegardensystem]

system administration sounds like it's probably both fun and exhausting - do you have a fun fact about the system youd like to share?

People often are curious about how our system views dormancy. When we started as a system we were surrounded by people who would treat dormancy like a permanent death. We knew other systems who would straight up hold funerals for their dormant headmates and that never sat right with us? (No shade if your system does view it permanently. Not tryna get into any discourse) But for us we more viewed it as "an alter simply fulfilling their duties and getting to rest" SO this manifested in our headspace as what we call a dormancy tree. Basically when an alter is ready to go dormant they simply lay down beside this big great oak tree in the center or the woods and close their eyes and rest. Then roots cover the alters form and absorb them into the tree. They stay their until/if they come back at which point the tree releases them and they wake up again (usually but not always taking on a new role instead of their old one).

It's a really nice.. visual? Moment? It means the dormant alters are never really gone but rather become one with the tree and with all of headspace itself.