#and while I want to steer people away from syscourse in general

[kyofsonder]

That's one of my favorite things about Tumblr and similar social blogging sites, too. It's a chance to broaden my worldview, and try to understand other people no matter how similar or different we might be. I think you being interested in learning about other ways of existing makes you a good fit for this place. We could use more non-judgmental curiosity on the internet, after all.

As for plurality, while you're looking up information and forming your own opinions about it, I do have a metaphor I like that I think might be helpful. It's a long one that I'm having trouble summarizing like I did with my username information, but there's no pressure to read it now or any time soon if you don't want to.

I often think of my own and others' minds like housing. Every mind, every brain, is a different type of house or shelter. This is a useful framing for me in terms of neurodivergence. An autistic person's house is going to look different from a non-autistic person's house, for example.

I think of plurality as house sharing. Not everyone does it, not everyone needs or wants to do it, but some housing types are suited to it and some get specifically built for it when the need arises.

Plural systems can form because someone's house was broken into, and living alone is no longer safe. So a "roommates wanted" ad is put out (within the brain itself, in this metaphor) and whoever responds to the ad is usually signed onto the lease agreement or deed or however someone's ownership of their home is organized in their mind. Sometimes only one person responds to the ad. Sometimes just enough people respond to fill up each available room. Sometimes so many people respond that a full remodel of the home is necessary. It all depends on the person, their brain, and a million situational factors they can't keep track of in the moment. Either way, the security of their home that was compromised is now a little safer -- or at least covered by more people -- because they have others living in their house. This source of plurality is commonly related to dissociative disorders like DID.

Systems can also form because, even though security is fine and no specific event damaged the house or its furnishings, the general stress of not being able to keep up with household chores or repairs or rent is too much to handle alone. So, again, a "roommates wanted" ad is posted. People also respond, and are also usually signed on right away. This can also be associated with dissociative disorders, but not always. It can be a little more nebulous, since the trauma involved is more gradual and less distinct.

Some systems can form because living alone in the housing that is a person's own mind can be lonely -- lonely enough for some people that they feel the need to post the same kind of "roommates wanted" ad. Some do this consciously, others suddenly realize they live with someone now. This can be associated with both dissociative disorders and maladaptive daydreaming, but sometimes it's completely separate.

Among the many other ways systems can form, including spiritual plurality, some housing is just built as apartments or duplexes or other shared homes from the start and people arrive because it's assumed that more than one person will be living there. The roommates are there from the beginning, and it's just how things are for that home. This is almost never associated with dissociative disorders, and seems to just be another way brains can exist.

There are a lot of theories, scientific and cultural and social and other, about plurality and a lot of discussion within our own community about what being plural does and does not include, but I think envisioning it as housing helps to sort through all that. You can form opinions about what's scientifically and medically provable, about where spirituality and personal autonomy and medicine all interact, and at the same time remember that a house will not stop being a shelter to the person or people living in it regardless of how they got there or what their housing is called. A duplex is as much a multi-person home as an apartment complex, and a single-story home can belong to a single person alone as easily as a two-story.

Homes are homes, people are people, and sometimes we need or want or involuntarily end up with roommates in our homes.

Also, in the case of my system, there's a mix of reasons why we're all sharing a home but we have a decent ability to communicate with each other and we try our best to respect each other as residents of the same house. It's ultimately in my name, it's my house (sometimes I feel a little guilty about being a sort of landlord, but I'm assured no Sonders resent that), but we all live here and the least we can do is not make the headmate experience unnecessarily difficult.

Hey I'll support practically anybody with "sonder" in their username, but what does "Ky" mean?

Thank you for the supportive ask, and the appreciation of sonder as a concept. It's always good to see other people understanding and liking sonder.

I rambled a little, as usual, but the TL;DR is that Ky doesn't stand for anything and is just the name of the guy running the blog. The whole username is a set of chosen names, actually.

For the rambling version, it's a combination of my own chosen name and my system's chosen group name. I picked the name "Ky" for myself because every name I put into every video game and book as a kid that wasn't my deadname would invariably start with "ky" and in games that had limited letter slots it would often just be those two letters on their own. I've considered changing the spelling to "Kai" because it's more recognizable in most places, but the history of "Ky" as a thing I picked for myself still has a lot of meaning to me.

The "Sonder" part of my username is actually also a chosen name. It refers to my tendency to experience sonder on a daily basis and my admiration of the concept itself, of course, but it also functions as a reference to my system. While I don't talk about it very often, and typically keep it to tags when I do, I do have it in my bio that I'm plural. Most systems choose collective names to help differentiate between when it's the host/usual person speaking, another named system member speaking, someone who doesn't know their name speaking, or the system as a whole speaking together.

Our chosen system name is "Sonder" because it not only references what I just mentioned about my experience of Sonder, but also acts as a reminder that even when I'm the only one speaking to my followers on this blog or even when it's quiet for us internally and we're not speaking much to each other as a system, we all are and deserve to be treated as people with lives and stories of our own -- to whatever extent makes each of us feel most comfortable and respected. It's been a nice reminder for us to have.

The "of" part of my username is also a reminder. It means this blog belongs mainly to me, Ky, but I'm inevitably Ky of the Sonder System. Most posts and tags are mine, but there's inevitable bleeding through of other Sonders -- and some posts are entirely theirs. All original writing tagged #sonder stories is mine, I write it, but we know there's influence from Sonders whether we plan it or talk about it amongst ourselves or not. This blog contains reblogs, posts, replies, and writing by Ky. Ky of Sonder. The username reflects that.