a term for any part that is missed, grieved, or was 'lost' to their system. this may have been through shattering, prolonged dormancy, fusion (particularly negative fusion), drastic fragmentation, or any other occurrence that the system views as loss.
this is one of the few terms that the headmate themselves cannot claim. rather, its intended use is to give those who loved them a term to refer to them by, memorializing their existence and showing that they were cherished by the rest of their system.
more personal info below the cut, surrounding what inspired us to make this.
#OHHHH THIS IS WHAT AMMIE WAS #man i wish she were around to see this
these tags were left under our house host term by @crys-ambivalenttowardrbs . it hit us hard. it made us happy to know that we'd been able to give a recognized name to something others experience, especially when the person in our own system, who coined it for themselves, struggled for so long to define their role in words.
"man, I wish she were around to see this."
we've echoed that sentiment so many times, about so many we've lost; it makes us emotional reading it over trying to write this. they would have loved this, if only they could see it. it's even harder now, because we lost the person who coined that role, split up into multiple for a lot of different reasons. though we love the newcomers dearly, there's still that sense of loss for the person they were.
everyone focuses so much on how, in the typical way, headmates can't die, so they skim past the fact that you can still lose them because it's 'not the same'. we've always hated that. loss is loss, no matter what way. sometimes you can get them back. sometimes you can't. it doesn't change the fact that it hurts when they're gone.
we wanted a way to let others know they're not alone in grieving. a way for those left to show that the ones they lost weren't just forgotten, they're memorialized, whatever that means to them. a way to commemorate the alters that didn't make it through to the other side.
this post is dedicated to ammie. it's dedicated to those in our partner system that we never got the privilege to meet before their collapse. it's dedicated to all the members of our system we've lost over the years, and to those we never got to meet properly before they slipped away. it's dedicated to every single part, alter, headmate, fragment, that every plural has lost in their journey.
we understand that holding on is hard. we know. but your system will love and cherish you, and what you did for them, long after you're gone.
it's so surreal finally setting down after a system reset. like. the old host is dead. it's a weird sort of grief because there's a part of them inside you still, but that doesn't really help with the fact that every day you see their face in the mirror. when you move through the world, you do it in their body. you're cleaning their room (yours now) and throwing out things that must have been important at some point but you no longer remember. at the dinner table nobody else notices they're gone. their friends are yours now and you have to somehow get to know them again without them realising that they don't know you. all you can do is pick up the mess that your ex-self left behind and try to keep living the life they started. you know?
wish there was really any way to grieve for headmates that are dead / gone / left. i cannot cry because NO ONE IS GONE and yet someone i really cared about is? i'm supposed to go about my day when i will never see her again? i can't even talk about it because people will call me insane or whatever. this has to be a sort of torture
Headmate death shouldn’t be a controversial topic. We completely understand that some systems don’t experience that, they only experience dormancy and fusion. That’s great, we’re happy that you don’t have to suffer through one of your headmates being gone forever. However, your experience is not universal and it’s an asshole move to say it is. People who are grieving their headmates are already going through a lot, you don’t need to make it worse.
we're a system that loses a lot of alters. well, depends on how you define losing, exactly. its complicated and the specifics aren't important. but, i wanted to talk about, how difficult it can be to handle that situation. like with most things thay happen internally, you're expected to just move on and put your life back together. we went from 200+ to 30-40. how am i supposed to just move on? i dont know but i have to. im not sure why im writing this.. maybe just to say, if you're going through this, you're not alone. that it matters.
Please. Please we've run out of options. Please help us
Tips on how to force an alter to shatter?
[pt: Tips on how to force an alter to shatter?]
I know this is seen as morally wrong. It is our last resort. Please trust me on this. This alter has done horrible, horrible things and we can't just sit back and let him keep doing this stuff. We have tried being nice, we have tried convincing him to not do this, we have TRIED. Nothing works. Shattering is the only option
If you have no advice please at least try tagging or redirecting us to a plural help/advice blog who we could ask instead, or someone you think might have advice
Please
[Context that we forget to give sometimes, since some people don't know what this means: When we refer to an alter shattering, we mean shattering them into fragments that can be merged or disappear on their own, effectively removing the alter or at least separating the bad part into a fragment]
Hi! While I can understand your point of alters death is meant to simply discuss on what's the truth of the topic, it makes me a bit unsettled to think that it means one could really execute a plan to kill someone within the system.
There are self helping materials for disordered system (Be A Teammate With Yourself), and regarding stuff like someone in your head threatens to kill you they suggest that it's not possible so you don't have to worry. And when thinking about about the definition of "death" like this, it feels unsettling, especially when we have some really aggressive guys here always trying to lure us to just "die" in a philosophy/mental way, could also lead to physically harm/death.
I mean, I'm pretty firmly on the side that irreversible headmate death, if it exists, can't be intentionally caused. At least with developed headmates.
The reason is that, as I see it, headmates are made up of memories. And memories exist, in a sense, within the physical brain. As long as the memories exist, so will the headmates. And the inner world is just mental imagery. I don't believe anything you can do in the inner world would be enough to permanently irreversibly kill a headmate.
Now, in the tulpa community, there's what's called "dissipation" which was a concept created when the tulpa community was new, and it was commonly believed that you could ignore a tulpa for a few weeks or months, "starving them of energy" and they would slowly die never to be able to return again.
It's a horrible practice... and also one that doesn't seem to produce the results people thought it did, with many tulpamancers who had dissipated their tulpas being able to reconnect with them later.
Turns out, most of the so-called dissipations were just forced dormancies. Horrible forced dormancies because the host usually thought they were killing their tulpas, and the tulpas likely believed the same. But they weren't actual irreversible deaths.
I do think... there may be ways for headmates to actually permanently die. I fear brain damage... or when we're older, developing a neurodegenerative disease that could start eroding the very neurons that make up who we are. That's a terrifying thought to me.
But I don't think you have to worry about another headmate actually killing you internally.
