So, I actually don't know what's happening to our system going forward, buuuut there are some things to report. Lemme see...
Derek posted about his situation a while back. He was a 23-year-old called Cephas, but due to the circumstances of his formation, chose to turn 17 and changed his name back to Derek until he's ready to grow into Cephas.
Two middles from his subsystem, Cyrus and Damon, fused into Caedmon back in October. The Tree Cutters have been reducing the size of their subsystem but they're a lot healthier for it.
Well, we've cut down as well. Kass is once again reintegrated with Khaz. 30-40 of us decided to go dormant until we're able to get out of our house, so we're roughly around 150 awake members now.
This finished up last night right before bed. Remy fronted to sleep. Then every time we woke up during the night, a different headmate was fronting. -Beccs
Anyway that's the update, it seems like we're switching a little easier. Uh, Kai Breach is a new gatekeeper and he's trying his best to learn the ropes. Anyway Beccs decided to do this instead of eating so I'm gonna get us something to eat, see you guys. -Sleet
We were trying to have a chill day today. Listen to music, scroll Tumblr, be silly. And we were also planning on washing the dishes tonight.
But then... the soup struck. :0
Bluefire got into a bit of an argument after being stuck in front a bit longer than he wanted. And afterwards he, an extravert, was trying to take our introvert time like we'd planned. I have no idea if that's what caused it or not, but the moment he was able to switch out, SOUP!
Headspace soupified and everyone was just floating around in our head. Prenzie the clown floated by at one point to remark that it was indeed "get'in a bit soupy, innit?".
So what I'm saying is, when you have a dissociative form of plurality, sometimes you can make really good plans, but sometimes the soup just strikes and you gotta ride the waves until someone floats to the front and sticks. :> (It's me, I'm the one that stuck. We thought of a song I really related to and I actually managed to front.)
I'm not making light of this at all by the way, I'm just... amused by calling it soup. It's accurate, you know? Just feels like a bunch of identities swirling around in liquid, and the bowl is your skull.
(A more serious note below the cut, with some venting. Serves as a system update I suppose. Discussions of dormancy, integration, and fracturing/identity loss. -Beccs)
OK, more serious tone now. Thing is, for us, this usually means there's too many headmates for our brain to keep up with and people are probably gonna start going dormant to compensate. Luc did a headcount today.
We have 178 active members at present. Around 180 was when we started running into trouble last time, when our system entropy multiplied. 54 are dormant, others have integrated, just to keep us functioning smoothly. 231 alters total exist at present in our system.
When we have THIS MANY headmates, new alters form, but they start to affect the system in a way that just isn't good. They tend to be fragments themselves, with varying degrees of distinctness, and when they split from the others, the others start to lose defining traits that make them who they are, which we personally call fracturing.
In these cases reintegration works for both parties. Some people don't want to integrate, so they go dormant for the health of the system. Some go dormant for their own health and reassemble into more complete people while under, a process we call "cooking".
Dormancy manifests in our inner world as stasis pods btw, so we're not too daunted by dormancy. However I become concerned when we put a headmate into stasis to "cook" and they just... don't cook. There's one young woman in particular that split from Derek roughly a year ago, she's been "cooking" for months but she's so fragmented she's basically just a shell, and she's been through some of the most painful memories we have.
It's... hard to talk about Petra. Really frickin hard.
She has people outside of headspace who are concerned for her as well, and as her "Mom" I'm concerned too. I just don't know how to help her short of integrating her but she just won't wake up, so she can't exactly give her input. She can't even work through the trauma she's holding.
I'm not quite sure what to do about her.
Gosh, I wanna get back to talking about lighthearted stuff on this blog so bad, but I detest dishonesty and I do value authenticity over silliness. Thanks for reading this and sticking with us if ya did. ;0;
Drawing older characters is a challenge but I wanted to capture Archie's face, so kept trying until it looked good.
Favorite art of the year definitely. ;0; It's taken so long to get to this point I'm so thrilled to have gotten back on our feet creatively, after all this time. Huge thanks to Evan of course but to everyone else as well. -Beccs
We tend to introcept and adapt to new identities pretty easily. Petra's biggest issue with finding herself, even while she wasn't dormant, was feeling like she didn't know how to differentiate herself from Derek's interests, because they had exactly the same interests.
She's always wanted to separate herself from Derek, and someone, I don't know who, came up with the perfect solution for her while the topic of Steven Universe was being discussed.
Give her a new face.
She's gained a new identity separate from Derek and she's no longer dormant. Now she's Black Pearl. Disoriented right now but the new identity's certainly set in. She should still have her memories and everything, but all of her Derek traits have been returned to him.
Our system seems to do this very easily. Key elements stay in place while the headmate takes on a new physical form, identity, voice, and personality characteristics. Prior to syscovery Sibley has memories of being Leafpool from Warrior Cats, and Sleet and Sidney used to be... multiple characters, as well as the same alter at one point. Hopeful recently took the form of Daisuke. So this is pretty normal for our system and we should really utilize it more often.
Oh hey. Completely forgot to mention but back in November was our syscovery anniversary, and we've come a long way since then. A lot can happen to a system in a year, wow.
Also happy birthday to our headmate Owen and his lovely English accent. :> -Beccs
Hi hi! (waves) I'm gonna vent a little bit if that's chill. :0
We saw a post talking about how all of us here in a headspace are alters who matter. And how people will try to only talk to "the host" or the presumed host and get freaky about talking to "the alters".
Hi, I'm the alter that people assume is "the host" and "the only person that matters" in the system. Which is hilarious because currently I am not a host and I'm barely ever out anymore. Intentionally. Because of stuff like this.
My system has repeatedly tried talking to someone about our system but we voted to stop... because of THIS EXACT THING. I'm actually tempted to legally change the body's name to another alter's name so people will understand that MY SYSTEM IS JUST AS IMPORTANT AS I AM.
Like oh my gosh! I'm one of approximately 200. Go ahead and reject the 199, pastor. See how well that works out for you. I'm the shepherd of my own flock here, and if you won't take care of them, you can be sure I will. I'm not the only person here, and I'm not the only one you should treat as an individual and not just extra bits added on.
How dare you treat my family that way. These are my people. The best way I can take care of them is by keeping the body far away from your attempts to "help". If you won't treat us like people, we don't need your help.
