#But I'm a bit too scared to tag this with sysconvo

[circular-jerkular]

If One Alter Believes It... Adult Edition(TM)

Way back in the day, I made a post about system accountability. Here's a link to that post, in all it's clickbaity glory, for those curious. I still believe this post holds true for myself (though, obviously, not every system works like mine, and not everyone will find this framework helpful; I just find it incredibly helpful for myself, as I hope others will too).

But I want to talk about the 18+ side of things now, particularly as I see more discussions about paraphilias and problematic alters in system spaces. Consider this a continuation of that post, but with more severe triggers and discussion of mature topics.

The TL;DR: If one part (or whatever you call yourselves, headmates/alters/people/brainmates/buddies/pals, etc) believes it, then as a collective whole, you need to work together to overcome it -- if one part believes it, you all do. And yes, this applies to the harmful things as well.

Let's dive in.

If one of your parts is a pedophile, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is a pedophile. Part of YOU would have that paraphilia.

If one of your parts is torturing other system members, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is torturing yourself. Part of YOU believes you deserve to be tortured.

If one of your parts is an abuser, then to some degree, you have a part of you (collectively) that is abusive. Part of YOU is abusive.

I want to say, out of the gate, the most important part: this does not and will never mean that you are evil. You are not somehow tarnished for hurting yourself or others. You are a person worthy of love, respect, and care, regardless of the things that you feel make you unworthy in some way. There is nothing wrong with abusive, hurtful, "problematic" parts, and anyone who says otherwise is not supportive of recovery, in my opinion.

But, inherently, being a system means you are part of a team. Regardless of what language you use, you are working together -- and since you are all part of one body, you have got to mitigate those problems together, regardless of if you fully agree. Simply put, their beliefs must be taken on as part of YOUR beliefs. And treating them as entirely separate beliefs can often lead to lack of communication, compromise, or structure, and can lead to a rise of conflict. By thinking of specific part's problematic "issues" as collective beliefs instead, we better understood how to work together to solve them.

This is how we combated our grief about murdering a part of ours. This is how we mitigated our distress over our own paraphilic thoughts and how they impacted us. It's how we came to accept that, yes, we are abusive in many ways, even when we try not to be, and that does not make us evil.

These traits are inherent to who we are. They were baked into our parts. For instance, Debra was split specifically to abuse us. And she did! She tortured us relentlessly because she believed, wholeheartedly, that she was stronger than us; that we deserved to be abused, because it would teach us our place. This was a belief inherent to her formation.

And we formed her, collectively, due to our trauma. Part of us believed so strongly that we deserved to be abused that she then appeared in order to abuse us. She's even a part of ours that we understand to be willfully created, rather than split solely from trauma; we remember thinking of her, talking to her, and purposefully telling ourselves that we deserved to be hurt. And she was there to torture us, to the extent that we split more parts due to what she did to us.

But that does not make her unworthy of love, or evil, or forever scorned and abandoned. In fact, the idea that she was evil and could never change -- that something inherent could not also be changed -- was what led to us murdering her. The fear that we were evil, horrible people for what she did to us led to us killing her, thus setting off further guilt, fear, shame, etc. It led to further breakdowns, pain, suffering... and when she came back, she doubled down, because we were not working together.

Regardless of your feelings, as a part, on matters of 18+ material, you must work together to solve problems. You must work together to find compromises. (And, well, that goes for everything -- not just problematic stuff.)

Viewing Debra's beliefs as collective instead of just her own... that's what led us to understanding why she was there. It made us realize the connections she had to us: how Wade believed so firmly that she was teaching him a lesson, or how Numb believed someone needed to be hurting us for him to protect us. Her beliefs were part of our beliefs, as a whole. And only once we started understanding that did we begin to dismantle the beliefs entirely.

Because it was far harder to say, in isolation, "Debra, you are wrong, and YOU are hurting us" than it was to say, collectively, "This line of thinking we share is hurting us all."

And those beliefs are still inherent for her, even if she has changed! She still deals with those thoughts that she is better than the rest of us, that we deserve to be punished, and that she is the one who has to do that. But, now that we are working together -- now that we take on her beliefs as ALL of our beliefs -- we can help her when it is distressing to have those thoughts. And, through that support, she has those thoughts less, and less, and less.

Everything in this post is a personal example. We have to deal with all of these things. But it applies to others as well. If one of your alters, or headmates, or brain buddies, or pals, or chums, or whatever have you, has a problematic belief -- then it may be helpful to view that belief as a collective, team belief. Collective, system-wide, whatever phrasing you want.

This may not help you. But I really, really hope it does. It helped me greatly.

Good luck out there, y'all.