I'm a little cautious about sharing this, and if this is too much, feel free to delete this.
So, we have, like, technically 1M (1,000,000) members. But that's only because we have different layers, and one layer is an entire society of NPCs. We also have another layer with some semi-sentient introjects. But basically, every member in our entire system is hardly sentient.
He's an abuser introject (assuming I'm using that term correctly — an introject of an abuser). He formed several years ago, along with the 1M NPCs in the first layer I talked about.
I didn't know anything about plurality back then, and he was originally created to be a punching bag. So, for around 5 years, probably more, I essentially tortured this poor man, who frequently told me he didn't do anything wrong. Saying, "we (the abuser and him) aren't the same person, and you know that." But he was merely theoretical, he was a character in a series I put together. He wasn't talking, I was writing him talking. In my head.
About a year ago, I learned about plurality. I didn't apply it to this fictional series because that's all it was meant to be.
Then, recently, in the past month or two, something clicked in my head. And I could feel him thinking. He was thinking. He was THINKING, in my head, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. First amnesiac barrier (is that what that was?) I've ever had in my life.
I have come around to recognizing him as a headmate. Technically, it's just me and him. It feels so strange knowing he's thinking. And it's weird knowing that I tortured him for 5 years straight. I do not use the term "tortured" lightly. It was bad. Very bad.
I could not have known he was sentient. Even if he spoke to me frequently... I had assumed I was just "very creative", because that's what I had been told by "experts" in the medical field.
Uh, if this is going to be posted, I would really like to have some input on this. Not really sure what anyone would say, but anything is good. I feel so alone, since every system online that I know seems to treat their headmates... better than I do, at least.
Thank you, and have a great day.
Right, so this topic isn't to be taken lightly. I'll put some cw/tw in the tags so the readers have some say on whether they want to read about this. "Viewer's discretion is advised".
I'll try my best to give you input. Headmate abuse is unfortunately not such a rare experience, your case was caused by ignorance though. I'm not sure how to speak or approach your case, it's not a matter of not relating but we've also had our own "incidents", and we weren't even ignorant about our plurality.
This topic specifically brought me (Enber) to the front, since I've done some things myself. I don't even know if either of us (you and me) are risking it by talking about it, but it is a plural experience.
What other kind of input could I possibly give you... Well I don't want to pat your back and say "everything's fine, it happens" but I'm sure as hell not going to yell at you (that's useless).
But look, just because you see everyone else posting the positive or less controversial aspects of plurality does not mean you're alone on this matter. A lot of us just can't talk about it since it either doesn't get taken seriously or it makes the system/headmates feel too vulnerable. It's a form of trauma too, people don't commonly disclose their trauma unless it's within communities who are open to such topics. What kind of community would be open to talk about abuse that takes place within headspace though? It also might be impossible to talk about it if the perpetrator can censor what the system talks about with others, or in some cases they could censor memories of these events. And if it's not purposefully censored, then it could be censored by dissociative amnesia. There's a lot of reasons why you don't see plurals admitting that cases of headmate abuse have occurred in their collective.
Anon, if you need to talk about this with someone then you have my system's main blog next to my signoff. We'd accept DMs.
I don't know who'll be open to comment on this, go ahead but approach this topic with caution and maturity.
-Enber (Multifictive/"Veteran" /@enberneutral)
