#functional multiplicity

[kaboom--bitch]

Treating your headmates like separate people isn't worsening your condition by default by the way. Treating them with respect isn't making you dissociate more. Final fusion is a fine thing to try and achieve, but people need to understand that functional multiplicity is a thing you can work to achieve in therapy too. Please stop pushing the idea that you need to treat your headmates like a disorder or curse in order to heal. You can be happily multiple if you want that.

[reimeichan]

Stages of DID recovery

Stage 1: my brain is so quiet. I feel nothing. hear nothing. remember nothing. it's just... nothing.

Stage 2: HOLY FUCK THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE HERE SHUT SHUT UP SHUT UP STOP THINKING THERE'S TOO MUCH THINKING

Stage 3: we're now in sync, everything is in peace, we understand each other, sometimes we need to talk but it's fine it's not as chaotic-

Stage 4: HOLY FUCK I'M FEELING AND THINKING EVERYTHING FROM EVERYONE THERE IS NOTHING STOPPING THESE THOUGHTS AND FEELINGS FROM EXISTING THIS IS TOO MUCH SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UPPPPP

Stage 5: actually this is normal and fine. we're good.

[multiplicity-positivity]

hello, I have a weird question maybe? were a traumagenic system and we’ve spent the last couple years growing and healing and all that good stuff, but we keep getting this feeling. We all really value our individuality, but at times we feel like we need to give all that up and live as a singular person, and it’s pretty upsetting. So I’m wondering like… what do we do with that feeling?

hey, we can view this issue from two different angles, so we’ll talk a bit about both of them.

if you feel like you need to fuse or live as one person because that is what’s expected of traumagenic systems in clinical, societal, or plural spaces:

honestly, you do you. functional multiplicity is a valid recovery goal and it’s one that most systems online are actively pursuing. you don’t have to fuse if you don’t want to or feel like it’s not right for your system. it is entirely possible to live happily and safely as a system. your trauma may be what caused your system to form, but that doesn’t mean that once you’ve healed from your trauma, you can’t be plural anymore. lots of systems out there have worked to heal from their trauma while maintaining their multiplicity.

if you feel like you need to fuse or live as one person because that’s a genuine recovery goal that feels necessary for your health and well-being:

we get it. there are some parts in our own system who feel like fusion is necessary for us to fully recover. it can be really hard coming to terms with a massive change like that. plurality is all we know, really. we can’t even begin to conceptualize what singlet life might look like. but just because it’s scary or we have grown comfortable living our lives as multiple doesn’t mean we will never be able to achieve final fusion in the future. if you feel like fusion is what y’all need in order to live your best lives… it’s okay to be upset by it. that doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to achieve it in your futures, though.

in the end, regardless of why y’all feel like you need to live as a single person, remember that you are not obligated to do anything that you don’t want or aren’t ready to do. it’s okay to take your time and relish your plurality, even if you feel that final fusion is necessary for your recovery. and if you feel like you need to fuse because it’s what others expect of you… fuck that. you don’t have to organize your system and orient your recovery around the expectations of others.

live your lives in ways that are empowering and affirming for your system. and if that means eventual fusion, great! if it means pursuing functional multiplicity, that’s great, too! if it means pursuing some recovery goal that’s unique to y’all and doesn’t involve either of those options, that is also great. what’s great is the fact that y’all have done the work, that you’re healing and growing and learning what’s best for your own system.

we’re wishing y’all the very best of luck with whatever your future holds :)

[hiiragi7]

Fully Fused Multiplicity - Simultaneously One and Many

I refer to myself nowadays as a fully fused multiple - an identity that may seem somewhat contradictory, given how often functional multiplicity and final fusion are talked about as one-or-the-other.

Upon reaching final fusion, I came to the realization that the difference between functional multiplicity and final fusion is not and never was this unfathomable gap, that final fusion was not a bridge you crossed once and could never go back to multiple except through force (further traumatization, recovery falling apart, an inability to cope), but rather they are two sides of the same coin, fluid and overlapping and even inseperable from one another. The terms themselves quite honestly don't feel adequate to describe quite how this feels, and I fear they give people a rather binary view on the endless possibilities for recovery, seeing as I had this view before myself.

In my years in plural and system spaces, it was always "are you aiming for functional multiplicity or final fusion?", and so despite my own thoughts on plurality as a framework (if you view yourself as plural/multiple, you're plural/multiple), I somehow found myself surprised to learn the options for recovery as a multiple were never actually this narrow to begin with, and that the two are nowhere near mutually exclusive.

I am functionally multiple and fully fused; I am both, simultaneously, always. I have come to know each as a shift in view, both of which are needed. My parts are perspectives with which to explore life from many different angles. ( @reimeichan 's "Different Readers of the Same Book" frames this elegantly, and this idea has embedded itself in me ever since.)

Both as one and as many, it is a way of knowing myself on the deepest and most intimate level. Final fusion is a radical form of self-love, an absolute acceptance and celebration of everything that I am, and this has dramatically altered the way in which my parts express and how we come together into an overall self. Simultaneously, my parts are a relationship, one that can only be recognized as uniquely multiple in nature and yet has evolved in such a way that becomes difficult to describe using the language I had used before as an unfused multiple. I am undeniably a multiple and I am fully and completely fused.

The fluidity in which I find myself in is incredibly freeing, my self-expression made up of love letters to my parts. My parts are gradients of watercolor on a canvas flowing in and out of each other, only subjective distinction remains between any one of us, myself is the larger painting encompassing everything. All parts of me create a self so unapologetically full of color, the love found there as necessary as breathing. I have come to view even the painful parts as an expression of love.

I find my headcount these days to be infinitely shifting, all at once I am one and I am many. How I visualize myself, how many I am, it all moves with me. Alongside subtle changes in my emotions, my thoughts, my perspective, myself shifts from moment to moment in a way that just feels right. This is me, all of me. This is the love we have created.

[69constellationsinatrenchcoat]

Asking the system whether they want to use parts language (each alter is part of a greater whole), or person language (we're multiple people sharing a body) is always so funny because this happens

fronter, talking to someone else: yeah, we're all part of a greater whole, don't worry, we're all the same person :)

alter: [screams as if the devil just bit their earlobe] how dare you!!?!??!?! I'm a person!! aND I'M NOTHING LIKE YOU

vs

fronter, talking to someone else: so it's like- we're all individuals- sharing a body, and we all have names and feelings and-

alter A: . . . what are feelings?

alter B: ??? what is a name . . . . ?????

alter C: wdym I'm sharing a body with these imbeciles, ew

alter D: ..aren't we parts of a greater whole, cus the brain split to deal with traum-

alter C: shut up, Jessica.

[system-of-a-feather]

Visualizing Different Forms of Late Stage Recovery DID / Full Integration

[Note: This is a repost from this post without the long essay attached to it for rebloggability]

We were thinking about it and kind of came to think of a potential visual for Functional Multiplicity VS Final Fusion and the kind of inbetween within the two

We are middle right.

Top Left:

DID prior to any significant amount of processing and recovery; parts are pretty separate from one another with little permeability between parts; some parts are made up of multiple colors

Top Right:

DID during recovery; some parts fuse and meld together to make new parts, others develop some permeability between parts while still maintaining their separation, communication and co-fronting is easy for these parts and they may have a temporary fused state where the areas overlap

Middle Left:

One form of Full Integration; Functional Multiplicity; All parts are connected through permeable barriers and parts are mostly functioning independently of one another. Some parts may be semi-fused or have temporary fused states for parts they are well integrated with, but they also can retain in their individual states as well.

Middle Right:

One form of Full Integration; Functional Multiplicity and Final Fusion Simultaenously; there is a central and overarching “fused whole” that exists in the center of the system where all parts are blended together to the point it is impractical to label which is which; some parts are not fully blended in with the fused whole and thus it is possible to go into areas of the whole where each part is operating independently; its important to note though that a lot of the time, these parts are still holding parts of their adjacent parts and each section tends to have colors from more than their “original” self

Bottom Left:

One form of Full Integration; Full and Final Fusion; what some consider ideal and a more traditional idea of “final fusion” where all parts are fully and perfectly balanced and integrated with one another to create a solid singular identity

[greens-spilled-tea]

Good lord I saw a post along the lines of "if you've hit final fusion you're still disordered because you can still potentially split" and while I understand what they're trying to say it's just such a bad argument, especially since it was said within the context of how "non-disordered systems don't exist".

When the disorder is no longer causing distress or impairment, is it a disorder anymore? Yes, I still have a DID brain. My brain is likely never going to be the same as that of someone who has never developed DID. There is no "cure" for this. At the same time, saying that I'm still "disordered" feels wrong in the grand scheme of things. I've heard of people who have achieved final fusion or functional multiplicity who had their diagnosis removed from their chart because they no longer fit the diagnostic criteria for said disorder.

Also, saying I can still split even after reaching final fusion and using THAT as some sort of a gotcha to prove that I'm still disordered is so harmful. Yes I still split sometimes, in fact I still split quite a bit! But those of us who have reached final fusion have learned how to cope and manage our symptoms enough to be able to handle that without them necessarily fucking up our lives. Also, *gestures towards functional multiplicity* when you reach a level of symptom management even with dissociated parts where you can thrive and the symptoms are causing little to no issues in your life anymore, you literally don't fit the criteria for the disorder anymore and that doesn't mean you're cured, it just means you're no longer disordered. There is a difference between the two! This is why I love using the phrase "in remission" because that's very much what's going on here.

Anyways I'm just rambling and tired and angry.

[disabled-sysboxes]

[TEXT ID: this system wants functional multiplicity]

[IMG ID: a light blue rectangular box with the OSDDID flag - a flag with four stripes, black, blue, green, and yellow - to the left, and the text 'this system wants functional multiplicity' to the right]

[TEXT ID: this system wants functional multiplicity]

[IMG ID: a light orange rectangular box with the original OSDDID flag - a flag with three stripes, white, orange, and black - to the left, and the text 'this system wants functional multiplicity' to the right]

–

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[granulesofsand]

Dissociative Amnesia with BASK

I would love to hear more about systems without amnesia. I’ve been thinking, lately that emotional amnesia is really similar to any other form except maybe full.

I mean that as in memories being stored by type of information; if it’s BASK style, alters can have barriers between any letter or combination of letters.

BASK

Behavior: what the fronter did/had the urge to do

Affect: what the fronter felt/expressed emotionally

Sensation: what the fronter felt/noticed physically

Knowledge: what the fronter was aware/informed of

I would define ‘full blackouts’ as sharing none of the letters, which is unusual for the systems we know/have read about. Even systems we currently describe as having blackouts tend to start with some leakage.

I’d say the most common leaks are Affective and Sensory; bursts of unexplainable emotion or feelings you can tell aren’t yours and unexplainable pain or flashes of perceptions respectively.

I’ve heard of people, particularly front-facing people, experiencing these without co-consciousness. They aren’t accompanied by ‘the facts’ of what happened, and can leave the receiving alters confused or frightened.

A full sharing of either information might be considered another flashback unless intentional, but only a Sensory barrier is labeled amnesia as it stands.

The other leaks we currently refer to as blackouts is Behavior; either as ‘passive influence’ or as co-fronting and co-consciousness.

Some systems have to work on barriers to get Behavioral transmission, which might be as simple as acknowledging the alters as behind them. Others have it as part of the standard function, or see fluctuations without any particular reason.

‘Grayouts’ are barriers that allow Knowledge through; instead of any experience, alters get descriptions of events. It can be compared to being told about memories, like a book or news report.

Systems tend to encourage the permanent sharing of Sensation and Knowledge when decreasing amnesia, Behavior when attempting co-consciousness, and Affect only when fusing.

A fully assembled memory is taken into long term storage, where they usually go when there is no trauma. I don’t know if endogenic or healed traumagenic systems have that complete lack of barriers or if they learn to dissociate non-traumatic memories for individuality.

So I guess I’d like to hear from systems with no barriers, systems with Affective/emotional barriers, and systems that dissociate memories for non-trauma reasons. The whole system or between some members would also work.

What is it like to experience? How do you perceive the sharing, either in internal worlds or as a construct? What does it mean for system dynamics when the alters to share what they do?

You can answer without those guidelines, if you’d prefer. I’m more just curious about the existence of others unlike us than looking for specific datasets.

[sysmedsaresexist]

Further Reading 📚 &

Clinician Showcase 📣

Multilayered

Adrian A. Fletcher, Psy.D., M.A.

I've mentioned this name before-- Dr Fletcher is a DID system and clinical psychologist

This article is a beautiful little piece about struggling with mental health, with a CDD diagnosis, and how you can still be so successful.

Classifying my experience as a mental illness has been hard for me because my way of living is all that I have ever known, and the symptoms that I have experienced have been a response to experiencing extreme trauma. Although I have been formally diagnosed with dissociative identity disorder, labeling it has served only to validate that I am a resilient human who has survived because my brain fragmented my experiences into parts. I don’t feel like I have a disorder; yet I clearly meet the diagnostic criteria and have been formally diagnosed.

What I want people to understand is that, as with other illnesses, with this “illness” there is a wide range of functioning, and the treatment can take a general medical, alternative, or traditional psychiatric approach.

[many-but-one]

Could we get some positivity for systems who don’t want fusion? Who are fighting to maintain systemhood for their own well-being? Sometimes the trauma is too much for just one person

Hi anon,

Sure, I can do that. With a small caveat.

First of all, fusion is a normal thing that can happen with trauma healing whether the system wants it or not. You very rarely choose to fuse. It’s the brain’s way of saying “we don’t need two or more guys for this anymore, let’s combine them to one.” It’s a normal and natural part of the healing process. Even if striving for functional multiplicity, there will be fusions along the way and you will rarely “end” with the same number you started with.

Fusion is a deeply personal process and not all systems like it or want to do it. Final fusion especially can be terrifying to consider when you have lived as many your whole life. But I do want to note that fusion does not have to be scary and it doesn’t mean you are losing anyone. In most people’s accounts of fusion that I have seen, the fused part still feels both/all parts within them. They often describe it as a wonderful feeling after the initial shock and confusion of the event, especially if sudden. My experience with fusion was wonderful and it massively benefited the system.

From the perspective you are sharing, that all of this trauma is too much for one person, it makes me believe that you are not in a healed enough state to consider it. Of course the trauma is too much for one person, that’s why you’re multiple! Healing that trauma and lowering amnesia barriers/dissociative barriers and integration of memories between alters is necessary for both final fusion AND functional multiplicity. You cannot be functionally multiple if you still experience major amnesia gaps between parts or are still having your everyday life ruled by trauma and triggers. Healing from your trauma is what pushes fusion to occur, because those memories are no longer too much for one person to handle. Once you process those trauma memories completely, they will not affect you like they did before. You will remember them, but not be distressed by them. You will not be triggered by the things within that memory anymore.

So positivity for systems who don’t want to pursue fusion, that’s perfectly fine! It’s a personal choice. But please do not let the fear of the memories being too much for one person to handle to stop you from making that choice. Because fusion won’t occur between parts if the memories aren’t processed anyway. Fusion is a natural part of healing in systemhood and is a good thing! If that’s not the direction you want to go and you want to strive for functional multiplicity, that’s amazing and you can do that! But functional multiplicity also requires a high level of integration of memories too. Which means all parts involved in the system will eventually know all the memories anyway. Wanting to keep memories separate is natural for a system because that’s how you survived, but to actually heal requires less barriers and more memory sharing so that you can live a functional life.

Hope this helps, anon. Please take care!

-Dorian🌹

[mindotaur]

Functional multiplicity doesn’t mean the system works as a perfect well-oiled machine. Sometimes it looks like a caretaker switching in to make a smoothie to make sure you get some nutrition when no one else wants to eat.

[reimeichan]

I know that when people say that DID has no cure, that those of us with DID will always have a DID brain and may even split again in the future, they're trying to be realistic about recovery goals and maybe even acknowledge that those of us who have reached Final Fusion or Functional Multiplicity are still part of the DID community. However, I've recently been finding those kinds of statements to sound.... defeatist, actually. There's oftentimes an underlying feeling of "what's the point of trying so hard if I'm just going to have DID forever?" or "no matter what I do there will always be the possibility for me to relapse", and as such I've started to see these phrases as being almost anti-recovery.

I agree, there is no cure for DID that we know of. We cannot change the fundamental way our brain works. However, that's not the same as saying there's no way to get better with DID, or saying there's no treatment for DID, or there's no way to live a happy, fulfilling life with DID. It takes a lot of work, yes, but it's absolutely possible to learn how to live with both dissociation and trauma to the point they have very little if any negative impact on your life. That's what expanding your coping toolbox is for. And learning emotional regulation. And trauma processing. I may never live the same life as someone who never developed DID or has the same traumas as me, but that doesn't mean I'll be unhappy and miserable and fighting against my own brain every day of my life. Instead, I've learned to work with my brain and with my disorders, and in the process I've learned how to not just survive day to day but thrive. I'm excited to see what tomorrow brings me. I'm hopeful.

And I think that's really what my feelings on those phrases boils down to. They feel like they lack hope and end up making me feel like working on recovery isn't worth it. But I know that's wrong, for myself at least. It's definitely worth it to keep walking forward one step at a time. Where I am now and where I was before are two very different places, even if some days it's hard for me to see those differences and acknowledge that. And there's so much more for me to look forward to as well.

So, here's to healing and recovery and thriving with DID.

[artisticdysfunction]

hey. integration is not fusion. although integration is necessary for fusion, fusion is not the same thing as integration. it's like how all thumbs are fingers, but not all fingers are thumbs.

integration is key to functional multiplicity. and integration is not fusion.

[69constellationsinatrenchcoat]

*Talking with therapist*

"...Who's fronting? shit's all foggy and I keep feeling interruptions"

*noise*

"..guys.."

*more hubbub*

"fine, write your names down"

*gets six names*

"awesome"

[perks of being a protector]

[system-of-a-feather]

BTW for the folks at final fusion, functional multiplicity, full integration or whatever you want to call it. If you end up splitting, fusing, dividing, eating a tomato or take a nap at 8 pm, none of that is a reflection to you failing at recovery nor does it invalidate your stage of recovery.

Additionally, you are of no obligation to announce it to your audience like it was a sin, failure, or form of deception to your place in healing.

There is no genuine strict threshold or rules to your recovery path and where you find yourself.