#something something plural system

[musithical]

having the brain go "nope" when accidentally stumbling across a memory you arent supposed to know about is like the mental equivalent of walking face first into a glass door

[musithical]

i love when a headmate comes to front while i'm mid estrogen injection and reminds me we did it yesterday already

then why didn't anyone write it down

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i have started to adopt the term "fictive affirming care" into my lexicon because it makes me giggle

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i think what people fail to understand about pride is that it's not that i am proud of myself for the thing. i'm proud of myself for facing that and still being happy in myself as this despite everything that sucks about it.

i'm proud of myself for being trans. not because there is inherently something achieved in doing so, but that it is an accomplishment to allow myself to be happy in spite of the torture that is dysphoria, and the constant oppressive force applied to me for something that is simply part of me

this is something that is easy to understand for a lot of people. but i see a lot of people who question specifically pride in being plural when the same logic applies. i'm not proud because i have DID. i'm proud of us because we continue to push forwards and live our life with this reality, acknowledging it as who we are, finding joy in it, making connections, and loving ourself the way we are in spite of all the factors working against us being able to do that.

so often it gets framed as "this is a disorder, you are taking away from that and diminishing the negative impact". i'm not taking away from anything. in fact, i'd argue that i wouldn't be proud of us without the severity of how this weighs on us daily. i don't think it'd be possible for us personally to take pride in being able to be happy with who we are if we didn't acknowledge the constant, persistent struggle that it takes to do so. who is anyone to take away that hard earned joy?

[musithical]

Reminder because some people seem to be unaware.

1. We have DID, a condition that acts as a coping mechanism in response to severe trauma.

2. Different alters act differently, respond to traumatic and stressful situations differently, and will not be as affected by things the same way as others.

3. Some of us have roles specifically to help us not respond as strongly about things such as, oh, I don't know, severely anxiety inducing events. Especially new splits. Boy, I sure do wonder if either of those things happened recently.

So, if we seem inconsistent in how hard we are taking things right now, or our priorities, or whatever. Yeah. We are. That's the point. Some of us are gonna be affected differently than others.

[musithical]

me: "yeah sometimes we get these weird headaches out of nowhere, and then we switch because of it. i wish we knew what caused them"

friend: "havent you told me that switching can cause stuff like headaches?"

me: "...ohhhhhhhhhh"

[musithical]

oh also. i'm new in the body. my name is Lex. hi.

[musithical]

I think this has been said before but it bears repeating. Thank you for being openly plural alongside making amazing music! I think the day before we found your tumblr we had been on a long rant to irl folks about how important it is to have representation of plural people outside of making "What is plurality" edutainment content and how worried our system was that being openly plural would shoehorn us into that space no matter what we wanted to create and I turn around and there you all are, making space and showing that other people will respect systems as diverse people and it means so much. Not just for us but I don't think it can be understated how important it is for younger plural folk to see that they have options in creation outside of edutainment. I remember when I was younger when being openly gay on youtube was reserved for people who centered their videos around it and how impactful it was when people could just, be queer, no coming out video necessary. It's so important to see that change happening in the plural community. Thank y'all for being part of that change. Also again, y'all make amazing music.

really can't put it better ourself (though i am notoriously the Alter Who Is Bad At Words lol). but yeah, i feel that way exactly. and i'll be honest, doing some of what we do is really difficult because. it's kind of unprecedented? there's so few systems out there that make stuff that is not educational or focused on being plural. music is kind of an easy route to take because for a lot of musicians, it's already a process where you can sort of lean into the dissociation. but making videos? minecraft stuff???? it requires an extra layer of organization and communication of ideas externally that there's not really a lot of advice on out there.

and *streaming* as a system? ohohohoho don't get me started. genuinely, we make it look easy. managing the dissociative amnesia and making sure it's safe is already a juggling act. then we have to be entertaining. AND it's one of those things where a huge focus is drawn to your personality and there's kind of this notable aspect of DID where your personality is inconsistent.

but at the same time, i want to show people that you can do it. and a lot of what drives us to figure out how is showing people that it's possible. inspiring others to do the same. it's why i actually love answering the question of "how do you stream as a system? i want to get into doing it" when it comes up because there's always something new we have discovered that helps.

like. ok i feel like i'm talking us up a little much. but it is important work and my main point is that i want more systems to be doing it, and i hope that i can act as a little spark to ignite more systems to talk about themselves and be open and do stuff without having to shrink themselves to make it work or avoid something because they don't see other systems doing it.