multiplicity-positivity

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi can we request some advice and support for closeted systems at school trying to choose a career path?

please consider:

- practically no adults know about our plurality and for safety reasons it should stay this way. getting proper acommodations at school is impossible since we're selves-diagnosed and closeted.

- we are median, monoconscious and traumagenic (OSDD-1a) with parts that tend to come and go. that last part means making big life decisions without some form of regret hard

- the most common standpoints we have are "i don't want to work" (reasoning depends on the part), "space + the humanities somehow", "famous YouTuber or author".

- we have a factive who has an interest in his source's career, but feels like being a factive is cheating (this is linked to allegations that his source takes credit for others' work.) also the industry is highly toxic

- the whole "consider your interests/values/ikigai" feels very singlet-centric to us sadly

sorry if this sounds blunt; i am trying to get a lot of info across. i hope others in the same situation can find help and comfor here as we have

Hi! We went through a very similar problem when we were in school, and we’re sure there are lots of systems out there who are going through something similar! Choosing a career can be incredibly daunting, especially when you have multiple headmates who each want something different for your lives. We want to try and address each of your considerations specifically:

- You can express your worries about choosing the right career to an adult in your life without ever mentioning your plurality or your disorder! Even singlets can be indecisive, nervous, wishy washy, or uncertain when it comes to choosing a career, and you could absolutely come to a teacher, career planner, or guidance counselor with these concerns without ever mentioning your own multiplicity.

- We get this! But learning to live with the choices made by your system is an important lesson! We can’t change the past, so trying to take a deep breath, accept what you can’t change, and make adjustments for the things you can may help dealing with regret a bit easier.

- It’s really unfortunate that most people do in fact have to work for the majority of their lives in order to support themselves! If you’re interested in something that combines outer space and humanities, maybe look into scientific journalism, space journalism, or maybe even double majoring in physics/astronomy and literature/art in order to create some opportunities for your collective to combine these interests for a career down the line!

As far as YouTuber goes, it’s never too early to start drafting potential video essays and start planning out what life as a YouTuber may realistically look like for y’all. And as for being an author, you can start looking into what realistically goes into publishing a piece, working with editors, publishing companies, deadlines, and marketing teams, and what comes with being an author outside of just writing.

- It is not cheating at all for an introject to take inspiration or passion from their source in their system’s real life!! If the career choice this factive is interested in is something that seems appealing to the rest of your system, it is absolutely okay to seriously consider and look into it.

- We understand what you mean with ��consider your interests” being singlet-centric, so we’d like to pitch you a different question to ask yourselves: Is there a job which your system members could each see themselves doing? What’s something that you don’t necessarily love, but that you certainly don’t hate? You don’t have to love your job - in fact, most people probably don’t. But finding a job that you A. Can each do comfortably, and B. Don’t hate, can make life easier for your whole collective!

Some other things we feel are worth mentioning:

- If you’re in high school, it is OKAY to take a few years of a break between high school and college while you all figure out a bit more about yourselves and what sort of education you’ll need to get a career you could really excel in. In the meantime, working an entry level job in food service or retail is fine! Our system was pressured into attending college right after high school, and that’s left us with a degree that we’ll never really use because we didn’t know what we wanted to do with our life at that point.

- Any job you can do that supports your system is good enough. It’s okay to not have any sort of big career aspirations! It’s okay to just work a job at the end of the day. Besides, chances are, you may not keep your very first job for the rest of your lives!

- Your career does NOT have to be your whole life/lives! It’s okay for your job to not mean all that much to you or make up a key part of your collective identity. You can fill your lives outside of work with things that really do mean a lot to you! You don’t have to live to work - it’s okay to work to live!

We hope this helps! For context, we are 28 years old and have been in the work force for 13 years now. Currently we are a line cook at a Jewish deli. Our dream career is being a librarian. We may never be able to realistically achieve that, so we’ve filled our lives with activities and interests outside of work to help take care of our own mental and emotional well-beings. And we work a job that we don’t hate, that we can physically accomplish, and that pays enough for us to live more or less comfortably.

Sorry this got so long, but this is a huge topic that we have a lot of thoughts on! Ultimately what’s helped us may not help y’all… but we hope that something here will at least be a little bit useful! We’re wishing you all the very best, no matter what your futures hold! 💕

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hello

I’m a potentially a newly discovered system

Idk how to transition into this question, so I’m just gonna get into it:

So, there are two other presences that I can feel in my head that are kind of separate people, but they don’t front or anything.

Is there a way to help them fully develop or something like that?

Hi! It’s totally fine for headmates or system members to not front, we have alters in our own system who front very rarely, if ever! As far as helping these system members develop more, the biggest thing we think you could do to help them is just to spend a lot of time with them! Talk with them, ask questions, let them know what’s been going on in your life and ask for their opinions. Building a headspace together, if you don’t already have one, may be a good way for them to each learn more about their preferences and who they are as individuals 💖

Learning about different types of plurality may in turn help you learn more about these potential headmates and more about your own potential multiplicity! So we’ll go ahead and link our resource post for questioning systems for you, just in case something listed could be helpful:

Genuinely though, we think it’s possible that the more time you spend with these headmates, the more they’ll be able to develop into their own multifaceted, complex individuals! So don’t rush yourself and try to have fun with this process! It may be good to keep an open mind and allow them to experiment and be fluid with their identity and sense of self as they’re still finding their way in life.

It very well could be possible for them to develop without ever fronting! Our partner system has a member who never front who is quite well rounded and complex! Fronting isn’t a requirement for developing, changing, and becoming your own unique individual ✨

Not sure how much these posts might help, but we’ll go ahead and link a little headmate form one of our parts made a while back along with our other post on individuality and self discovery!

Some of the tips in our “Finding Ourselves” post do involve fronting, but we hope that something in it could be helpful anyways! You could always conduct interviews, ask them questions, and talk to them to help them round out their identities a bit more.

We hope something we’ve said here works for you! Feel free to update us in the future on how it’s been going with these headmates gaining some form of identity for themselves!

P.S. one of my parts wanted me to mention Build a Headmate blogs! These are blogs which put together “packs” with names, genders, likes, aesthetics, and other identifying info to help created systems find inspiration for their own headmates or for established headmates to come into their own a bit more. It may be worth looking into!

[multiplicity-positivity]

Before i begin if this is too discourse-y i deeply apologize and understand if you need to delete this! I don't think it should be but I'm very bad about understanding what is or isn't. /gen

Why, is it so hard for headmates who have "problematic" sources to exist in other plural spaces, whether or not the introject/headmate ids with source or not?

Hazbin hotel/helluva, Harry Potter, etc. I can understand why one may not want to make content for it, but i feel like if i make content myself for us then i feel like I'll have people try to cancel me or bully me. When i already know its problematic and no way do i support the creators.

It just feels like now days people aren't allowed to like/enjoy things that are problematic while KNOWING its problematic because you either get lumped in with Haters Who Watch it and aren't actually critical just, hater bullies, or, people who love it sm they dont see flaws.

i guess tldr version is i hate that at least for ours/us , problematic introjects ( fictional or factives ) are supposed to just.. go into hiding or not use their names.

this did get a bit long and also a bit discoursey. but we really feel you here anon. our response is below the cut.

hey, we’re sorry, we know exactly what you’re talking about, but we do not have a good answer for you. it really is so unfortunate that introjects with problematic sources are so often scorned, cast aside, ignored, or unable to live their lives in ways which are affirming to them.

engaging with ““bad”” or problematic media doesn’t make you a bad person. thought crimes aren’t real. people are capable of consuming media without being like the people within the work and making the same choices. you’re allowed to like hazbin hotel or harry potter or whatever. literally it’s fine. some amount of critical thinking may be necessary (for example, enjoying hp while understanding the author’s bigotry and how that may have influenced the work), but again, consuming problematic media is fine. besides, engaging with media with problematic themes may be cathartic for a lot of people and can even help folks come to terms with their own pasts and trauma histories.

we’re huge proponents of do no harm, take no shit, ie consuming problematic media doesn’t harm anyone. but engaging in harmful or problematic behavior does, so check yourself, and be open to being called out if consuming certain things has influenced you to start acting in harmful ways. as an example of this, our system really loves breaking bad. a character on that show says “bitch” a lot, and that got incorporated into our own lexicon. it was on us though to learn how to curb our language and when it was and wasn’t appropriate to use that word. that doesn’t mean we can no longer enjoy breaking bad. it just means that we have to be cognizant about how the media we love has been influencing us.

but when introjects are involved, people seriously need to understand that these system members are not literally their sources, even if they are extremely source connected. introjects (and we do mean all introjects, not just fictives!) with problematic sources are real. they exist in the real world, and they deserve to be treated as people and respected as equals, not as discourse points or something that exists in theory but not in real life. a hazbin hotel introject making fanart or writing fanfic of their source does not benefit the creator of the original work in any way, and should not be a reflection on that introject or their system’s character. and quite frankly it is no one else’s business how an introject chooses to engage with their source.

we do think that introjects whose source is a real person who committed atrocities or caused grave harm should absolutely keep their source’s victims in mind when they discuss their source in order to be respectful towards other real people who have been harmed. but we believe that just takes cognizance and self awareness with a willingness to center compassion and respect for others and primarily victims of your source in the ways you engage with it publicly.

idk we could go on about this for much longer but in the end:

1. it’s okay to enjoy problematic or flawed media. it’s okay to make fan works for said media. you’re not supporting the original artists or creators by enjoying their flawed work and making fan works of your own.

2. introjects need to be treated as people with rights and agency first and foremost, even if they are incredibly source attached. that means they should have the agency to use their own names or appearances and identifying how they wish. it’s their lives, after all.

3. people in general and especially in the plural community should strive to be more understanding towards introjects, many of which did not get to choose their source, many of which may have complicated relationships with their source, and none of which need to be lectured or preached at about how their source is harmful. like. chances are, they already know.

idk. sorry if this is messy or all over the place, feel free to reach out if you need any clarification or have further questions. introjects with problematic sources will always be welcome on our blog, no questions asked. and we hope to help cultivate a plural community which is kinder and more understanding towards introjects of all stripes.

[multiplicity-positivity]

I found that I mainly talk to my system verbally. I need to use my voice and them answering back with my body. I didn't know talking to yourself is not normal lol.

This led to realizing they've been having fun messing with me by randomly sing loudly or do a tiktok dance (I don't have tiktok) and the feeling of embarrassment I get is because of them oh my goddd

Question, is this called co front or co consciousness? I couldn't tell the difference between them cus I'm new to this plurality stuff.

hey, so we’re pulling these definitions from our glossary (<- link) where we’ve defined these terms and more in our own words.

for us, cofronting is when two or more headmates are fronting at the same time. in our system, this can often result in blending, when we are more or less combined temporarily into a single entity (steven universe style).

coconsciousness, on the other hand, is when a headmate is able to perceive the world and potentially influence decisions, but does not have the agency to interact directly or make concrete choices. for example, being coconscious may be perceived as sitting in the backseat while someone else drives, or otherwise being able to witness the world without interacting with it directly.

there is also passive influence, when a headmate is able to influence fronters or the body without fronting themselves. we don’t think a headmate even needs to be coconscious in order to have a passive influence on other system members.

these experiences are all immensely internal, so ultimately it will be up to y’all to determine whether or not your headmates were cofronting (aka fronting at the same time as you), coconscious (aka being conscious of your actions and environment without having much agency to act) or using passive influence (aka influencing your thoughts or actions without fronting or interacting with you directly).

we hope this helps. also if others read this with their own personal definitions or with some insight they’d like to share, by all means you’re welcome to :) we’re just one system with our own ideas on these sorts of things after all.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hello, it’s been a few months and I’ve felt very connected to an original character I made for roleplaying. But I’ve recently felt as though she is simply a part of me and started to enjoy her presence. Like asking for their opinions etc. And I truly don’t know if I can call her a headmate or not. I don’t want to say “oh yeah I’m a system” because it doesn’t feel right since I essentially “made” them. I guess what I’m asking is I don’t know how to continue from here in terms of what to call her.

you call her whatever term works best for both of you. it is totally valid to create a headmate or system member. if you (collective you) feel multiple, and feel like you are existing as more than one, you absolutely can call yourself a system if you want. you could even try calling yourself plural, referring to this oc as a headmate, and identifying as a system for a while and see how it feels. that’s a normal part of the questioning process, and if it turns out she’s not a headmate and you’re not plural after all, it’s no big deal. you’re not hurting anyone by experimenting with plural labels and trying to figure out whether or not you’re a system.

our partner system is made up of a paromancer and her thoughtform. the host of our partner sys put time and energy into creating nev (the thoughtform in question). they are still a valid system, even though nev was created. created systems are a crucial part of the plural community, and created headmates are not only real, but intrinsic and special members of the systems they belong to.

as far as terms this oc could use, thoughtform could work, as you formed her with your thoughts. also headmate is a classic term used to describe system members of all sorts. and system member in itself is a term she could use. if your imagination played a role in her creation, she could also call herself an imagimate or something similar. there are countless terms out there than can describe a system member, so y’all can work together to find a term that would work well for her.

both of y’all should feel free to experiment and try out labels that seem appealing to you. definitely consult with your oc and see how she feels about all this. hopefully together y’all can come into your own identity in a way that feels natural for both of you :)

[multiplicity-positivity]

Had an experience a week or so ago that made me start questioning if ‘I’ was actually a ‘we’, now im trying to get more resources. At the moment, in incredible amounts of denial and refusal, since I’ve never been someone who thought they experienced dissociation or dissociative amnesia, nor do I feel any trauma I’ve gone through is ‘bad enough’ for smth like this, but from what I’ve seen that’s a fairly common plural experience. So, im really curious about median systems, I think is the right term for it. Was wondering if there were any resources on what it /feels/ like? I don’t think I fit a lot of the symptoms or criteria for this, but the last time I thought that I ended up getting an official diagnosis years down the line for the thing I didn’t think I had simply because it ‘wasn’t bad enough’ etc, and im now very hesitant to brush off a strong feeling like this. I don’t know, anything would help, really. Thank you

(I did also send this ask to uniquely-plural, I hope I’m not overstepping. I’m not trying to scam, im just a little bit scared and looking for direction. Sorry. Thank you)

Hiya! We don’t think sending the same ask to multiple blogs to get different takes and advice is a bad thing at all! We hope the lovely folks at uniquely-plural can have some helpful guidance for y’all! :33 honestly we think it’s a great thing when seeking advice to hear from as many folks as possible!

Our biggest post with resources for questioning systems is our resource post for questioning systems, hehe >w< we’ll go ahead and link it since there’s bound to be something listed which could be helpful for you!

As far as specific advice or experiences regarding median systems… we don’t have any specific advice or experiences for you because we aren’t a median system at all. So sorry!! But the blog @median-culture-is is an active blog for median systems, and they might be willing to share a bit about what their experiences are like! You could also scroll through that blog to see what sorts of experiences folks have sent in as culture asks! Feel free to also check out the “#median system” tag here on tumblr for more personal experiences from median systems! >w<

From what we know about median (aka midcontinuum) systems, they exist somewhere between being a singlet and being fully separated individuals. There’s a huge, probably limitless variety of ways a median system can look! There’s no official symptoms or criteria for what makes a system median, other than the fact that they identify with that term and it works well to describe their multiplicity :3 Here’s the pluralpedia entry for median systems in case you could benefit from it!

Also, we feel like it’s worth mentioning that you totally can be a system even without a history of repeated or extensive childhood trauma! Being plural simply means experiencing life as more than one, and many folks out there identify as plural even without having a dissociative disorder like DID or OSDD! We’ll include a couple more posts for you. One included our personal experiences with dissociative amnesia, and the other is our post on dealing with denial! Hopefully these posts can help answer some of your questions or help put your mind at ease a little bit :3

Also also like… trauma is trauma! If it affects you, it affects you. There’s no, like, trauma scale or certain experiences that are objectively bad enough to cause a system to form!! Every person is unique and some people respond to trauma in unique ways. So, like, please don’t downplay your own trauma history!! Besides, it really is a common occurrence for trauma survivors to believe that their trauma history wasn’t all that traumatic, or that they should be fine because other people have had it worse. Please just spend some time validating your experiences and giving yourself/selves a chance to rest and heal!

We hope we’ve touched on everything in your ask in our response! Do please get in touch again if there’s anything we missed or if you have any other questions for us at all. We’re wishing you the very best with figuring out more about yourself and your potential multiplicity!! Have a great day! :33

[multiplicity-positivity]

hello :3

uhm. i’m looking for a bit of advice! i don’t know if this is a common experience but we have discovered that while we do have a headspace, we are unable to interact with it of remember any specifics when in front. i figure it’s some sort of mental block causing this, but i’m not sure how to deal with it, other than therapy which is currently not an option for us. do you know if this is a normal occurrence, or how to potentially alleviate it?

Hiya! We have heard of this happening in other systems, though it doesn’t happen for us! I guess what comes to mind is, do y’all have a system manager, gatekeeper, or memory holder who could be performing their role by keeping headspace memories separated from the front?

Our headspace works by us using our imagination to visualize ourselves and each other! So, another thing y’all could do is maybe practice imagining and visualizing your headspace even when you’re fronting to see if that makes it easier for you to access it and the memories of the times y’all have had there?

If there is some sort of dissociative barrier in the way, our best advice would be to just keep working towards building trust and communication within your system!! :3 As y’all get more and more comfortable around each other and difficult memories are shared, that could absolutely help bring down those dissociative barriers. That’s what our system has been doing to decrease barriers between us, anyway! >w<

Other than this um, idk what else we can say! We have known some systems who function the way y’all’s does, and as far as we know, that’s just how things work for their collectives. But we hope that y’all will be able to find a way to change this for yourselves if it’s something y’all want to do! I’m sorry we didn’t have any better ideas for you though >_<”

Oh yeah! And here’s our post we wrote on headspaces in case there’s something here which may be helpful!!

[multiplicity-positivity]

hello there, i'm a newly discovered system. we're suspecting OSDD-1b...

we have 9 alters that we know of so far (all girls, she/her) but there might be more

i do NOT know our origins at all FDJKGHFKJD 😭 i have no clue where everyone came from

you guys seem nice so i decided to send an ask about this! i just felt like it... :)

--- host of this possibly OSDD-1b system (we have no collective name (yet...??))

Hiya! Thanks for reaching out! Best of luck to y’all with everything, we hope that this period of self discovery goes smoothly for y’all and helps you all understand yourselves a bit better! Feel free to send an ask our way if y’all ever want any specific positivity or need some advice or a listening ear! :3

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hi so I have a question

Do you know of any ways we could make it so our system doesn't "cycle" in the way that it does?

Basically, old headmates disappear and new ones show up. All the time. We never truly stick around. We last for a while, sure, but then we're gone. Its very rare for anyone to come back.

None of us want the system to work this way. We'd rather have a large system where we're constantly getting new people to add to the count over old headmates disappearing, likely just to keep our headmate count where it is.

Its the only thing we all dislike about the system. None of us want to disappear.

Do you have any ideas on changing this or is it something were stuck with?

Or do i need to explain it better lol

-💛navia from @cloverstarsys

Hey, no this totally makes sense, and we know of a couple other (circutien) systems who experience their plurality in cycles, though for those we know of, their older headmates do tend to come back after a while. I don’t think we have a perfect answer for how y’all can hold on to your existences and not just vanish forever… but we do have a few ideas y’all could try?

A little preface: every system is unique and some systems will never be able to change some of the fundamental ways their plurality works. If everything y’all try doesn’t work, please don’t be too discouraged. We hope that, in the event that nothing works for y’all in this regard, that you all will be able to learn to accept your multiplicity the way it is and learn how to live with and make the most of the way your system functions.

Okay, so the first thing we can think of, if your system is capable of it, is maybe building a headspace, if you don’t already have one. Many systems have headmates who lead rich, complex inner lives within their system’s headspaces. Having a headspace might help make it easier for your headmates to stick around instead of disappearing or going dormant.

If this sounds like it could be helpful, we have a post on headspaces which we’ll include here:

The next thing that comes to mind is having lots of reminders in the physical world to help keep your headmates tethered to their individual existences. This could be having a playlist or even a specific song assigned to each headmate that can remind y’all of them. Or a physical item that is theirs, like a toy or tool or article of clothing. Or a special note that they wrote or that your collective wrote about them, detailing what they’re like and what they like and who they are as an individual. Chronicling your headmates like this and allowing them to have tangible items and notes in your lives might make it easier for them to hold on to their presence in your system.

We aren’t sure if your system has roles, but if not, maybe assigning roles to headmates may help keep them around for longer? Having a purpose, even if it’s something small or something they can complete internally, could potentially help ground them in the present and keep them from vanishing or going dormant. Though we know not every system uses or benefits from roles - this was just an idea one of us had!

These are the only things that are coming to mind for us… if anyone else sees this and has something to add, please do so by all means! And to you, 💛navia, we’re wishing you and your whole collective the very best with either amending this in the future, or learning to accept it as a part of your system.

[multiplicity-positivity]

been feeling a bit lost on this for awhile so id like to ask for advice. i've been a soulbonder for quite awhile but as of recent (the last couple months) my ability to percieve and communicate with them has gone completely dead and its left me confused because previously i was able to do that just fine and i'm wondering if there's something i can do about it? it's been tough without them and i've felt incredibly lonely. anyone who's experienced something like this is free to dm me with their input btw!

Hey, so we are not a soulbond system, and we don’t have advice specifically for a soulbond system dealing with this. There may be soulbond-specific issues at play here which we can’t really confirm or advise on, sorry!

But we do believe that dry spells and times of relative silence are pretty common in lots of systems. Our own system also experiences this from time to time, periods where I (the system’s host) can’t really feel or interact with my headmates. It can be scary and isolating at times, especially when parts who usually front at certain times don’t show up…

For us, this usually happens due to us being stressed, overwhelmed, or having some internal turmoil jamming up the works inside and making it difficult for us to communicate as effectively. Also when we’re triggered, barriers between us might strengthen as a coping mechanism which in turn can make it harder to connect.

What tends to help us the most is for me to do calming exercises like grounding, trying to focus on slowing down, self soothing, and actively trying to avoid thinking about my system for a while.

I ground by starting off with a sharp sensation (sour candy, cold water, a pinch), then I’ll focus on breathing and trying to take note of my physical surroundings. Here’s a post we wrote in the past with a few grounding techniques, all of which we utilize regularly and have worked for us:

Once my head is a bit clearer I can start to take note of stressors in our life. I’ll ask myself: what’s changed or is different since I last had contact with my headmates? Is there something that’s been bothering the system or me as a part lately? Do I have a lot on my plate? How have I been feeling? And like, once I have a pretty good read on what’s going on in our life, I try to shift my focus outwards to doing my best to deal with these stressors on my own. Meeting your needs is one great way to assess and eliminate stressors, so I’ll include our little check up post also in case it could be helpful:

I’ve definitely had times where I’ve been concerned about my parts not showing up again… but they’ve always returned at some point, or our barriers lowered enough for us to have access to each other once again. It’s a lot easier for us to communicate when we’re doing okay in our life and don’t have too much stress or triggers or negative experiences piling up. So learning to how to manage life’s difficult events has in turn helped me to learn how to cope with life on my own when my parts aren’t as accessible.

That’s how I’ve dealt with this sort of thing, anyway. We really think it’s awesome and strengthens our community when other systems share their own experiences, so if anyone else has advice or wants to share what it’s like for their system when things go quiet or they lose contact, please feel free to share.

I hope I didn’t just ramble a bunch at you with stuff that your collective won’t find useful… again, we’re not a soulbond system! But I do think that grounding, slowing down, and managing stressors/meeting your needs could really help any system who’s dealing with a period of stagnation or silence.

[multiplicity-positivity]

Hi I am a (potentially?) newly discovered system. It’s been hard going on and off with denying if I am a system or not and I was opting if you could answer some questions I have in regards to my “proof I am not a system” ideas that I am getting stuck on. Essentially, are these things systems experience, and if you could please elaborate on them if they are.

1. I always feel like me. Who me is might change but it’s always me I also can look back at memories and while I can pinpoint who was probably fronting it still doesn’t feel like less of me that’s still me, even if the person who I believe was fronting in the memory isn’t the person fronting right now.

2. My memory seems very good. The memory issues I have seem to be losing my train of thought mid thought, the experience of a traumatic event as soon as right after it’s over but mostly within an hour or so. Also the memory seems to blur away. It starts becoming foggy before it disappears.

3. I haven’t had any issues with communication. We all have access to the same memories and also I can mostly predict what others would feel about something I know them all well and there is no issues with communication as far as I can find.

4. There is a nonzero chance that the system mostly disappeared for a few years. At the very least it seemed to go into remission(?) that’s the wrong word but I cannot for the life of me think of a better one (as I write this I am litterally realizing the time I don’t think the system was here was when I started being away from one of my sources of trauma so like nvm this but I’m gonna leave it in anyways to look back on for my own sake)

5. My dissociation often feels like brain fog.

6. There doesn’t seem to be any sort of pattern with the fronting that I can find.

Thank you for helping me, I have a therapy appointment scheduled for Friday but it’s my first one and I don’t think we will have time to address everything because of that.

(Copying this from your other ask so we can answer it altogether:)

7. I don’t seem to experience flashbacks. I can pinpoint one time but it only lasted for about a week after the event. (That being said I might be blocking that out)

Hey - we can try to answer this from our experience as a single DID system. We’d venture to say that there is no universal system experience, except the concept of experiencing life as more than one. And even that can be iffy at times. So just because we don’t experience something doesn’t mean that no system out there experiences it.

That being said, here’s how our experiences compare:

1. We do not always feel like “me” or the same person. Even when we share memories, a huge part of our lived experience is feeling like “what happened didn’t happen to me” or “I’m not the same person anymore” or “that was me at one time, but I’m different now or someone else entirely.”

2. We have huge memory gaps and serious memory issues. We don’t always recognize or notice when we can’t remember something, and often feel like we have a complete picture of a certain event when, in reality, we’re lacking a bunch of details. We’ve written on our experience with dissociative amnesia in the past, which I’ll link here (<- hyperlink), but before we learned of our DID, we used to think we had an excellent memory.

3. Communication has always been tricky for us, especially at first. Different parts struggle more with it, but at this point (after 4 years of working together and building communication) we can communicate pretty good with most of the members in our system who front regularly. We still have bumps and hiccups when we’re distressed or triggered, but our communication levels have been pretty stable lately. It definitely hasn’t always been this way for us, though. And there is a term - monoconscious - which refers to systems who all share a collective consciousness and knowledge of each other. It’s just not something that we’ve ever experienced.

4. We haven’t experienced a phase of the system disappearing for years… that we know of. We do have dry or quiet spells on occasion though.

5. Yeah, dissociation and brain fog can feel similar for us, too. In our system, dissociation covers a wide range of symptoms and can feel like anything from just feeling hazy/out of it, feeling completely disconnected from our body/reality, having difficulties understanding things and perceiving the world, and more… sometimes our dissociation is more severe than what we’d describe as brain fog, and sometimes it’s less. It’s hard to specify.

6. We struggled to find a pattern for fronting at first, but have come to accept that there is always a reason for switching out, even if that reason is not readily apparent to us. We used to think our switches were random, but these days we understand that we switch when our body and our traumatized mind deems necessary.

7. We have flashbacks with some regularity. They are mostly emotional or partial flashbacks. We hardly ever have had an experience where 100% of our senses and emotions are stuck in a traumatic event. Our flashbacks can last anywhere from a few seconds to an hour or so. We’ve never experienced a flashback which happened for more than that. Sometimes we experience lasting, lingering paranoia, fear, pain, shame, or other trauma-related emotions and sensations.

Again, just because our experiences aren’t really lining up all that much here doesn’t mean that you’re not actually plural or part of a system. Every system is unique and there are literally infinite ways to experience multiplicity or being more than one. It may be that you are plural, but do not have a dissociative disorder. It may be that your system formed spontaneously or subconsciously. Whatever the case may be, please don’t take our personal experiences as a sign that you cannot possibly be plural. It very well may be that there are other systems out there who share your experiences.

I know we recommend therapy a ton on this blog, but that’s because it’s been incredibly useful for our own system in the past. We’re glad to hear that you have an upcoming appointment with a therapist and hope that, over time, they will be able to help you with this. They could potentially help you make sense of what you’re feeling and come to terms with your experiences, whether or not you end up being plural. Of course, building trust with a therapist will take time, so please try to manage your expectations, especially at first.

Finally, we’d like to leave you with this old post of ours on dealing with denial. In the end, no one knows you better than you know yourself/selves. So whether or not your plural experience is common doesn’t really matter so much as long as the plural framework is useful for you.

Sorry this got so long. If anyone reading this has experiences which align with brosbroke’s in any way, we’d encourage you to share. Plurality is such a vast and diverse spectrum - and just because we experience multiplicity one way does not mean that it is the only way to experience being more than one.

Best of luck to you though with your self-discovery and figuring this stuff out!

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi so. been researching DID. looking back, before an incident in 2023, i was displaying a lot of the symptoms of DID. talking in my head and disassociating and other things i wont list. but after a reallly bad rhing happened in 2023, there was a pwriod of time i cant remember at all, and then my identity like. completely changed. i feel like a specific fictional character. a couple hobbies and interests changed and ive got a different general outlook on life compared to Before. for a while i felt like i took over someones body and was an imposter pretending to be them.

after that incident i havent talked much in my head, havent disassociated as much, and im just really confused. im not showing many symptoms of DID right now but i feel like i cant ignore whatever i experienced beforehand. im also kinda scared of if it could happen again, and the idea of getting replaced or disappearing really scares me. i just dont knkw what to do from here

Hey, we can’t say for sure exactly what happened to you, but it might be worth it for you to look into speaking with a therapist. If you do have a dissociative disorder, it very well could be that “you” switched, and the you who sent this ask is different from the you who was around in 2023.

Memory gaps and dissociation are both common symptoms of dissociative disorders, but they as symptoms could point to something else as well. Hence, why consulting a medical professional may be a good idea, if that is something that’s accessible for you.

I totally get that fear of being replaced - I used to seriously struggle with that as the host of my system. But so far, no part of my own collective has ever disappeared forever. If you eventually are replaced somehow, it very likely won’t be forever. You are a necessary agent in your own life, and even if you leave for a while, you most certainly will come back again.

Besides speaking to a therapist, our best advice for you would be to try and be patient. Journal, practice mindfulness, meditate, do things you enjoy, and try to stay calm. Try and live your life in ways that are fulfilling for you, engage in things that interest you, and be open to the possibility of potential interactions with others if they arise. They may not, but on the off chance that they do, it’ll be good to be prepared, open-minded, and willing to listen.

Ultimately, we can’t confirm or deny whether or not you have a dissociative disorder, and we can’t say for sure whether or not you’ll leave or disappear in the future. But what we can say quite certainly is if you do get replaced at some point, that doesn’t mean you’ll be gone forever. And we feel like grounding yourself in the present, surrounding yourself with things that comfort you, soothe you, and bring you happiness, and trying to be an active participant in your own life are all beneficial things you can do to help ease your fears about potentially leaving in the future. And remember - if you do leave at some point, it’s not the end of the world! You’ll be back before you know it, and your life will still be here ready for you to take part in it.

Sorry if this response seems jumbled or isn’t all that useful for you. I understand you’re in a bit of a difficult situation here, and I really hope things get easier for you soon.

[multiplicity-positivity]

um. so. constantly forgetting that we’re median n that we’re a system at all until something happens that reminds us “oh this is not just a kinshift” and usually we just kinda live our life with it. like yeah we’re the same person and different people at the same time but that just means our thoughts are a little jumbled and sometimes we’re scared of apples. usually we just let it happen without stressing about it. but. we might have a factive??? of someone’s onstage persona from six years ago??? and now we’re just. confused. like, they’re nice and all, they help us. but. just. where did you come from?? are we that hyperfixated?? how did we get here?? I guess we’re just asking for advice mostly, cause we’re used to fictives n fictionkin, not… introjects based on iterations of real people. n we aren’t exactly sure how to move forward here. thanks!

Hey, we don’t have any answers for y’all with regards to where this factive came from. But our best advice for systems with factives is: treat them like any other member of your system. That’s really the most important thing we think systems with factives should do regarding their headmates who are based on real people. At the end of the day, they are their own individuals living their own lives outside of their source. They will inevitably make choices and decisions that their source would not make. They will incorporate agency into their lives in ways that feel right for them. And all of that is okay.

It’s okay if they want to go by the name of their source. And it’s okay if they visualize themselves as their source. It’s not hurting anyone for them to identify in this way. Just treat them as you would any other headmate and let them express themselves in ways that feel right for them (as long as they’re not harming themselves, other headmates, or your body!).

They may one day reach a point when they want to separate or distance themselves from their source… and if that happens y’all should be encouraging and supportive. But if it never happens, that’s just fine. Especially since the person they’re sourced from is likely not someone you’ll be seeing irl or interacting directly with. Regardless, we wouldn’t recommend pressuring an introject to feel any certain way about their source. Just let them be and explore their identities as they are.

We hope this helps. Send this factive our regards! We wish them the very best with settling in to your collective and system life in general.

One more thing: if any factive reads this, do you have any useful advice for anon? How do you wish your system would treat you? Is there anything about living as a factive which we got wrong or you would want differently? Your voices matter, and your perspectives could provide some keen insight for anon!

[multiplicity-positivity]

we have this subject at our school called "Exploring Identities and Futures", but we're a system with a lot of blurring, passive influence and amnesia.

talking about our interests is easy, our strengths doable, but soon we have to do a timeline of our life. we might have osdd-1a and barely remember anything. i doubt we could put any of those few memories in chronological order.

and we're closeted at school save for a few close friends and one teacher; we dont trust our EIF class or teacher enough to go "hey this is hard because we have Brain: Multiplayer Edition".

one of us coined the word "monocentricism" for this: basically the assumption that everyone is a singlet with no variation in identity whatsoever.

i'm not sure what we can do. our parents can't know we're plural, and i'd prefer that the majority of school also not find out, but every time i try to explain they just think it's A Phase and not a genuinely different way of existing that makes this sort of subject hard.

support of any kind welcome :)

Hey, we’re so sorry to hear you’re struggling with this. Gosh, we wish we had some perfect advice or words of encouragement for you. It sounds like you’re in a really tough situation, and we hope that you’re able to pull through regardless to what your system does in order to deal with this.

I guess our thoughts that come to mind are one: could you try explaining this to the teacher who you trust? and two: could you be incredibly vague or downright lie to your EIF teacher?

Being vague as in: “I have memory issues that make it challenging for me to recall specific memories in my past or make chronological sense of my history. Is there some other task or assignment I could do instead?”

And lying as in: “Here are some memories. These totally happened to me and I’m not making them up for this class in order to get a passing grade…”

Also, we’re wondering if there’s anyone in your life who you trust who has been in your life for a while, who you can ask questions about your history in order to help put something together. Or maybe you can be vague with your parents and ask them questions like “What was I like as a baby?” Or “What are some things I’ve done in the past that you’re proud of/what had you worried/what did you think was funny?” Any details the people in your life can give you you could then use to try and create a timeline, even if specifics and dates are a bit shaky.

Advice aside, please understand that you’re not at fault or to blame for having memory issues, amnesia, or being plural. You deserve to live your lives as you are, collectively as a system. It’s okay to have memory issues, and it sucks that you have to complete this assignment without any genuine accommodations for your very real disability. We really hope things work out for you all and that you can navigate this situation while keeping yourselves safe - feel free to reach out here afterwards to let us know how it went. We’ll be keeping you in our thoughts, and we’re wishing you the very best.

[multiplicity-positivity]

hi so. been researching DID. looking back, before an incident in 2023, i was displaying a lot of the symptoms of DID. talking in my head and disassociating and other things i wont list. but after a reallly bad rhing happened in 2023, there was a pwriod of time i cant remember at all, and then my identity like. completely changed. i feel like a specific fictional character. a couple hobbies and interests changed and ive got a different general outlook on life compared to Before. for a while i felt like i took over someones body and was an imposter pretending to be them.

after that incident i havent talked much in my head, havent disassociated as much, and im just really confused. im not showing many symptoms of DID right now but i feel like i cant ignore whatever i experienced beforehand. im also kinda scared of if it could happen again, and the idea of getting replaced or disappearing really scares me. i just dont knkw what to do from here

Hey, we can’t say for sure exactly what happened to you, but it might be worth it for you to look into speaking with a therapist. If you do have a dissociative disorder, it very well could be that “you” switched, and the you who sent this ask is different from the you who was around in 2023.

Memory gaps and dissociation are both common symptoms of dissociative disorders, but they as symptoms could point to something else as well. Hence, why consulting a medical professional may be a good idea, if that is something that’s accessible for you.

I totally get that fear of being replaced - I used to seriously struggle with that as the host of my system. But so far, no part of my own collective has ever disappeared forever. If you eventually are replaced somehow, it very likely won’t be forever. You are a necessary agent in your own life, and even if you leave for a while, you most certainly will come back again.

Besides speaking to a therapist, our best advice for you would be to try and be patient. Journal, practice mindfulness, meditate, do things you enjoy, and try to stay calm. Try and live your life in ways that are fulfilling for you, engage in things that interest you, and be open to the possibility of potential interactions with others if they arise. They may not, but on the off chance that they do, it’ll be good to be prepared, open-minded, and willing to listen.

Ultimately, we can’t confirm or deny whether or not you have a dissociative disorder, and we can’t say for sure whether or not you’ll leave or disappear in the future. But what we can say quite certainly is if you do get replaced at some point, that doesn’t mean you’ll be gone forever. And we feel like grounding yourself in the present, surrounding yourself with things that comfort you, soothe you, and bring you happiness, and trying to be an active participant in your own life are all beneficial things you can do to help ease your fears about potentially leaving in the future. And remember - if you do leave at some point, it’s not the end of the world! You’ll be back before you know it, and your life will still be here ready for you to take part in it.

Sorry if this response seems jumbled or isn’t all that useful for you. I understand you’re in a bit of a difficult situation here, and I really hope things get easier for you soon.

[multiplicity-positivity]

so one of our factives comes from a hyperfixation we developed recently. (back in our childhood they were probably the first artist we really liked, but we don't know if they've always been with us and just resurfaced now or if they're just new)

we started listening to their old music again but their new stuff just isn't as good (in our opinion; it feels kind of oversaturated and like. manufactured) and they're also commonly accused of using ghost producers.

because they're a hyperfixative and strongly source-connected this kind of stuff really hurts, so much so that they don't front or talk as much as they'd like to. and source euphoria now comes with free guilt

we don't know what to do here. both advice and comfort are appreciated

sincerely, fermi.sys

Hi! If your hyperfixative’s relationship to their source has been troubling them lately or causing them some distress, our best advice would be to perhaps help them seek some degree of source separation. This doesn’t have to mean fully dropping any sort of connection with their source! It could be as simple as learning to recognize that they are not responsible for the creative decisions their source makes, and learning to let go of any guilt they experience while engaging with their source.

We have a part who wrote a post on source separation, which we’ll link in case something within it might be useful for y’all, bearing in mind that source separation will look different for each individual introject, and it’s possible to separate from a source while maintaining a connection with and enjoying it!

Also, we would encourage this factive in your system to start making music of their own! Music can be a beautiful and cathartic avenue for creative expression. If they don’t really like the direction their source has been taking musically, perhaps they could start making music of their own in order to create something they can be proud of! And honestly this could potentially help them feel closer to their source - our Ralsei fictive always feels a bit closer to fluffs source whenever soft bakes a cake, which is something sweets source likes to do!

And as far as a few words of comfort, we’d like to remind y’all and especially this factive that their life and their presence in your collective is still wanted and they are special just the way they are. It’s okay to not be as interested or invested in the creative output of your source - that doesn’t make you any less of an introject or a system member at all! Their worth as a headmate and as a person is not tied to the creative works of their source in any way. They are still deserving of love, happiness, and respect in their life just the way they are, regardless of how they feel about their source or how the rest of your system feels about it.

We hope this helps, and we sincerely hope that things get better for this hyperfixative in the future! 💖

[multiplicity-positivity]

hiii! uhm, new system here (discovered like a month ago?) and we’re working on individualizing since we used to be really blurry from lack of understanding who each person is. but a major roadblock we’ve been having is none of us seem to have access to source memories, not even our fictive. it’s been pretty hard trying to figure out what sorts of past we are missing. i was wondering if there was any way to maybe like? uncover/retrieve these missing memories? or if we are just. stuck.

Hi! It's totally possible to individualize and learn more about who you are as individuals without having source memories. It's also quite common for introjects and headmates to never have source memories at all, and that's okay! Source memories are not a requirement for being an introject, fictive, headmate, or individual.

We don't know how one could intentionally seek out or access, uncover, or retrieve new exomemories, or memories that their body did not actually experience. If your headmates did not form or arrive in your system with pre-existing exomemories, it may just be that they don’t have any, and that’s definitely okay, and honestly may be beneficial for them in the long run!

We do have a post with some tips on individualizing which have more to do with experiencing the world and making new memories - learning to work with who you are today rather than relying on the past. We'll go ahead and link it in case it will be useful for y'all!

Also, we feel like it’s worth pointing out that amnesia and memory issues are often symptoms of complex dissociative disorders. Dissociative amnesia is a key factor in the experiences of those of us who live with a CDD. We aren’t sure of y’all’s origins, but if you suspect you may have a dissociative disorder, it may be important to ultimately come to terms with the memory gaps and troubles that so often accompany it. We’ve written a post on our experiences with dissociative amnesia, which we’ll also link:

When we were in therapy, our therapist assured us that memory could heal in patients with dissociative disorders as alters and memory holders connect and dissociative barriers come down. So if y’all do suspect you may have a dissociative disorder, making progress towards healing and recovery ultimately may help y’all uncover more memories from your lived past. If not though, know that it’s okay for y’all to exist as you are and discover yourselves in ways that are uplifting and useful for y’all, even without having many memories from your past!

We’re wishing y’all the very best of luck with growth, recovery, and learning more about yourselves, each other, and your histories in the future!