#plural history

[hiraethsloft]

Many Voices Google Drive

Hello greater internet, specifically the plural/multiple side. We watched a presentation ages ago (you can find it here) about a brief history of DID and plural experiences by the great LB Lee (if you haven't already, check out their Dreamwidth, it's chalked full of great info and musing from a fellow multi). In it, they mentioned a MPD/DID magazine from the 90s called Many Voices.

So we took a look.

When we say we were floored by the content in this zine, I am understating by a wide margin. These digitized zines are like a plural history gold mine (if you want a real gold mine, lemme know and I'll make a post about The Archive as I affectionately call it). Here's the link to Many Voices' official website - the actual PDFs of the zine are under "Newsletter" (for each zine's specific TWs -> Subject Index - they're highly specific as well, so no need for guesswork). The website covers the entire history of the magazine and its founder, Lynn Wasnak, who was a plural from Ohio, USA. Since Lynn's passing, the site is owned and run by the ISST-D in perpetuity. We would highly recommend surfing through the entire catalog, it is one of the most navigable archive we've come across.

However, we did note that the format for the newsletters aren't formatted in the most accessible way (links to each PDF via month, all in separate documents), so we decided to compile them into one Google Drive Folder! Each PDF is sectioned by year in chronological order (Feb -> April -> June, etc). Please mind that we did all of this in the middle of the night so there may be some errors in the format. If you notice any, feel free to dm us or leave a comment.

We hope that this can introduce y'all to an exceptional piece of plural/multi history. Take care!

(Note: the final PDF, Many Voices 2012, consists of issues from Feb-Jun due to Lynn's deteriorating health and eventual passing in 2013)

[pluraldeepdive]

I want to share this archive of Multiple Personality Gift -- a workbook for people who have or are questioning DID or any sort of trauma-formed system. I believe it was written back in 1991 by Jacklyn M. Pia, a satanic ritual abuse survivor and DID system.

Click here to read it.

It's pretty short but a wonderful read, nonetheless! 😊��� Although the information about DID is somewhat outdated, there's so much love and positivity put into this workbook. Many of the tips they give about system management are things that I also learned in therapy for my DID. It can be very, very helpful. I hope you guys enjoy reading it!

(Disclaimer: This is an archiving blog that posts about plural history. The events and resources in this post are from the past. Please be mindful that language/views especially regarding mental disorders changes over time. Sources on this post may not reflect up-to-date info on dissociative disorders or plurality.)

[sysmedsaresexist]

A not-so-gentle syscourse reminder

"Plural" was created to distance the early versions of the current endogenic communities from more clinical terms.

It was never a CDD term.

Learn your history.

This is one reason our clan encourages use of the word "plural" rather than "multiple". "Multiple", even standing by itself, brings to mind MPD/DID, "multiple personality disorder", "dissociative identity disorder", which are specific diagnoses created by the medical/therapeutic community. "Plural" is a much more neutral word, more commonly heard in the context of grammar than psychiatry. (The other reason, of course, is that plural can be construed to have a broader meaning, applying to anyone(s) anywhere on the continuum who experience themselves as plural in some way. )

[thelunastusco]

We’re sad and horrified that parts of the plural community are at a point where they don’t even know what the term “median” is, or where it came from.

From our reply on twitter to someone asking if it was “new” and “endogenic jargon”:

"Median" ("neither multiple nor singlet") was coined in 2002 by the Blackbirds. It replaced "midcontinuum" ("somewhere on the spectrum between multiple and singlet"), coined in 1997 by an inclusive trauma-formed system named the Vickis.

It was coined in 2002. It’s been 21 years.

We get that that’s “a long time” ago if you’re like, 15 years old, but it’s... not. It’s not that long ago. But younger and newer systems are just, as far as we know, not even looking at resources or even googling things. Some terms are hard to find or trace back, yeah, but “median” isn’t one of them.

It’s disheartening, and frustrating. Especially when you have anti-endogenic/anti-nontraumagenic systems barking about RESEARCH! and SCIENCE! and COMMUNITY HISTORY! when... a good portion of them don’t seem to even have a clue. They don’t know the research. They don’t know the science. They really don’t know the community history.

The only fake thing in the plural community is the confidence of sysmeds...

Genuinely hoping that some day, this changes. Community history is vital.

[sophieinwonderland]

Anti-endos Erasing Alterhuman History:

Ooh! I have some words!

ALTERHUMAN HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN INCLUSIVE LABEL!

See the coining post for alterhuman:

Alterhuman has always included plurals underneath its umbrella. Not all plurals are required to identify as alterhuman, but plurality is covered as an alterhuman identity. As are specifically endogenic forms of plurality, such as soulbonds and walk-ins.

If you don't support that, then you don't support alterhumanity.

[moonpool-system]

OP we saw some posts on your dash and, we COULD be wrong here but we are like between 90% ane 98% sure @solipsistful coined quoigenic specifically as a fuck you to the binary of endogenic and traumagenic. We're pretty sure specifically in the way mixed origins systems often use the term mixed origin.

We wanted to send well wishes and say we are very sorry for all of the mixed origin systems who feel they've gotten pushed out of using quoigenic for whatever reason. It's completely bullshit the OG term that was made SPECIFICALLY for systems like mixed origin systems is being lumped under endogenic and that is why people don't use it.

Oh hello! thank u for bringing up terminology history! We often see quoigenic used as a term for uncertain origins and couldn't think up any other terms that don't specifically fall under either for the life of us, so we went and checked out its history in more depth and it's really fascinating!

Pluralpedia defines quoigenic as an origin term used to indicate that the user does not know their origin, does not want to share their origin, does not think their origin is relevant, or thinks it's the wrong question to ask.

the two sources linked in the wiki from the creator are here and here; the first is an archive of the coining post, and the second is elaboration from an ask response. We find these quotes from the second one to be striking;

"I Don’t Know Why I’m This Way And It’s Not Important To Me To Ask, among other rejections of definition and origin story"

"included in this, potentially though not necessarily: frustration/discomfort with a sharp line being drawn between spiritual and psychological otherkin, between traumagenic and endogenic (”natural”) multiple systems [...]"

I have to admit, probably the only reason we ID as traumaendo rather than quoigenic is because we have a fixation on identifying our intricacies and understanding them. We use traumaendo as a defiance of the binary proudly as well ^^ ty again!

[osdd-1bitch]

This week’s interesting read is from the coiner of ‘Empowered Multiple’ on darkpersonalities discussing plurals who don’t fit the medical standard of plurality.

[plurality-resources]

Pinned post in construction~ :

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#mod talk

#original post

#reblogs

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#plural research

#fictive research

#plural history

#terms

#flags

#resources

#community

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#random

#misc

#memes

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#syscourse (we're pro all origins and system types, block the tag if you don't want the occasional negativity)

#cw endophobia (block this tag)

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Partners with @alterhuman-resources

updated the 29/12/23

[daybreaksys]

Seeing other gimmick accounts playing "fantasy" anti-demon racism as a joke and jumping in to defend demons while making it seem like we're playing along and participating in the bit but *really* really there are actual demons in our system who suffer in real life from anti-demon hate which is a real thing especially among religious people and plural systems have a history of being diagnosed with possession and suffering religious abuse and exorcism for millenia.

[tuneford]

Comment from warriorqueen (which is slightly paraphrased, see source for full quote):

“Dark Personalities definitely was an ableist cage match quite often and if I were to run for school trustee I would be glad the Topica archives aren't available anymore.

But. It wasn't a community in opposition just to online "splat" communities (support groups that often were policing triggers, etc.) but to extremely destructive modes of treatment. A lot of multiples had run into therapies designed to work hard towards integration, or worse and sometimes more common, especially if if you were living in non-urban areas in the mid to late 90s, religiously focused therapies.

These are people, both collective and individual, that were not just told that they had to integrate to be healthy. They were people who were deeply struggling with their personal experiences around evil. Not just having experienced, in a lot (but not all) cases of having been abused as children, but having been abused as children and then told that they were the evil ones. The atmosphere wasn't just steeped in SRA/the Satanic Panic, which I will not debate here.

It was that these multiples, who grew up in the 50/60/70s/maaybe early 80s if you were a baby in the group, had been abused and then told they were evil for being sexually impure or whatever, or had been abused by priests or other members of a religious community. But then in therapy they had been told they had literal demons that were literally condemning them to hell if they didn't exorcise them which was an extremely destructive mode of therapy.

There was an entire slew of books, including one by M. Scott Peck, where therapists described their exorcisms of their clients. And I guess if you're Gen Y or whatever, that just looks stupid to you. When LB Lee was like "don't let the medical community define you!" that's great but...consider conversion therapy for a gay teen in 1989, and that's where the vast, Oprah-driven, headline news, convention-holding, actual psych ward lockdown Girl, Interrupted shit was driving at the time.

That treatment modality, that you need to turn all your experience over to the therapist and have them basically sort through your various "alters" (hate this word) in order to find the True Self and then get rid of the bad ones, because maybe they were actual demonic possession and integrate the good ones had caused a lot of people to give up on therapy. Finding alternatives was really, really hard for people.

…

And then if multiples were online looking for -- I would say kinship, like just plain "people like me," including advice and support but really just that question of "are there people like me out in the world living their lives???? Or do I need to lock myself in jail so I don't become Billy Mulligan?" -- that was a real question, because there simply were not alternative viewpoints to find. I mean, I was in an offline support group where voicing the view that maybe you could live without integrating first, like you could go and get a job and a house and a garden was...inexpressable.

Not only that, if some people -- let's call them the "nice compliant alters" -- were participating in 'zines and online communities and writing about their bunnies, had people (alters) in their systems who were saying "you know what, I am a lusty sex goddess" they would be shunned and banned for being - evil, triggering, abusers.

So Dark Personalities wasn't for like, a regular person who was tired of writing s*x, it was geared towards individuals in multiples systems who were genuinely struggling with the question of who were they and whether they themselves were evil.

…

On the surface, some of it does look silly. Every few weeks a new person would join the list and declare that they were the One True Lucifer, and then Lucifer/Lucivar/Morningstar/Old Jack in some other multiple system would kind of say like "Ohhhhhh you think YOU'RE the Devil, well, let's do this," and then they would have an intellectual/increasingly emotional - yes - cage match - and usually it would end in someone admitting that they had decided they were Lucifer because that was the most powerful image they had in the church where someone had their hand down their pants molesting them in front of a picture of Jesus.

And then everyone would, in fact, let them know that you can be Lucifer in your system, get your shit together and go get a job, which was the ableist part of it. And then there would be 1345782548 [a bajillion] cage matches about that, and terminology, and theology, and pagan perspectives and some seductive dating attempts on the side.

Because...those people, the "angry ones" for lack of a better word, were working through that energy together. And then, inevitably, Fight Club style (I do not love Fight Club but it remains iconic for a reason), it became an ourobos eating its tail and eventually the head caught up with the tail and it died. People in my head may have contributed.”

Additional note from warriorqueen:

“I think one of the issues in having multiple present perspective on other multiples is that it's hard to do that without taking a position for or against what Things Actually Mean, even if it's subtle. That's why the terminology wars are so often a feature, because there's a lack of communal understanding of what it is to be human...because of being outliers in the human experience in some, not always critical, ways.”

[orange-orchard-system]

Sometimes I wonder what life was like for plurals of the past. By that I mean – we know of the history of asylums and social outcasting of anyone who did not fit mental or behavioral norms of the past, yes (trends that have continued, although less common and in new forms, into the modern day), maybe even sometimes of those whose plurality was/is part of their culture (so important, and yet so rarely am I able to learn about them), but what of those who flew under the radar? Those who did not know of their own plurality, or perhaps knew, but kept it secret?

How many philosophers and scientists came up with their ideas by conversing with their headmates?

What of the authors who thought speaking directly to your characters on how their story goes was a universal writing experience?

Did any plural leaders who sought the guidance of their council assume that all the advice given to them was decided upon through an internal meeting of selves, just like how they made decisions?

Were there artists who couldn't find the words to explain their drawings were of their headmates? Storytellers who told tales from their exomemories? Record keepers, secretaries, and scribes who were so good at their jobs because they had practice from having to leave records for themselves?

When and where were the plurals like us?

I see hints of potential plurals of history, sometimes – typically in discussions of the self made by poets or philosophers. And there are a few cases that stand out as evidence that we have always been here. But plurality is so often a personal experience, with any observable behavior often brushed over, shunted away from others' knowledge, or just lost in records muddled by how difficult they are to find, that it's hard to make any theories or guesses about the plurals who might have been. Especially with how we're still barely known to most people; there would have been even fewer opportunities for these plurals of the past to find themselves and words for who they are.

It's... something I think about, when I'm looking at studies or learning about history.

Did plural gentleman living in England during the Victorian era get an unexplained thrill whenever they wrote of themselves in the third person for letters, per proper etiquette? Would they have any idea why referring to themselves in the third person felt right, the same way it can feel right for systems referring to themselves by their bodily name today?

Well. How should I know?

But I hope plurals of the past were able to have moments of plural joy, too.

[pluraldeepdive]

Some adorable soulbonding buttons I found archived in 2003 from this (now deleted) soulbonding webpage.

(Disclaimer: This is an archiving blog that posts about plural history. Links and images in this post are from the past, saved by the wayback machine. Please be mindful that not all soulbonders consider themselves plural or consider their soulbonding to be plurality.)

[sysmedsaresexist]

hey! so i saw in one of your posts that a lot of system terminology that ppl claim is stolen isn't actually stolen, i'd like to know if you have a list or source with terms that aren't stolen? thank you in advance!

This is actually a bit of a hard ask. It would be impossible to list them all, and every time I turn around someone is saying a new term is stolen. Sourcing most of this would be impossible, as the proof is either in the complete lack of use in clinical literature (eg system hopping, with my all access, I've never seen it used, even within RAMCOA literature, and @sophieinwonderland found the coining of it, if you want to drop a link to it), or its extreme overuse in other fields and concepts (eg system).

Obviously system hopping isn't stolen, system reset is one we never wanted and isn't ours, side system is community made.

Endogenic, traumagenic, and dissociation don't belong to us.

System itself is better said to have started in clinical literature for early DID but has expanded to so much more. Fighting this point is a losing battle, and that has nothing to do with endos and more to do with IFS therapy and it being such a generic word with so many uses. So long as people stop lying and saying it was never used for DID before IFS therapy in the 80s, I don't care about this one. It's like fighting with a programmer over computer system because its use in that respect is implying people with CDDs aren't human. I have issues with shared language and I wish there were different terms, but you have to just accept this one.

Most endos are pretty respectful about system roles, and they're not too interested in using them, much like introject, dormancy, and alter. Most endos burst into flames if you so much as even think those words in their direction. This falls into the same problem as system, and it was more IFS that fucked it, not endos, so while I'm extremely protective over some terms, like introject, persecutor and protector, you can't really help it. Look at the word little, it's not only endos using it. Even the very IDEA of system roles exists in IFS. Like, if you ask me, I think IFS might be what a number of endogenic systems are experiencing, but that's a topic for another time.

Plural was never for people with DID, multiple was the typical/preferred term for the longest time for medicalized systems, but I've actually seen the opposite happening and CDD systems are saying multiple is the endo term and plural is ours. Weird, but okay.

Fictive started in the soulbonding community.

Alter and subsystem are both so convoluted in psychiatry that the most you can say is that they're general clinical terms. I don't know why any endo would want to use them, but I do see subsystem used a bit (and my wording was that most words aren't stolen).

I'm sure people can think of a thousand others, but I think that covers the major ones.

Thanks to @pluraldeepdive for the help with this one, give them a follow if you're not already, their blog is wonderful.

[thelunastusco]

Also like, for the record, we didn’t “restrict the use of endogenic”. Lmao. When we coined it as an origin term, it was meant to be a specific thing-- systems that didn’t form from trauma. Simple. It doesn’t, and was never meant to mean “a system that USUALLY doesn’t form from trauma”. It was already “restricted” from concept, as much as any word describing a thing ever is.

There are dozens of terms! If you don’t like this one, or don’t like us clarifying what it’s always meant, pick another one!

It’s less than ten years old. Like if this was a term that had been around for like 50+ years and we were dead and gone, okay, whatever. But it’s a young term, we’re still here to clarify the history and intent, and like... to us, it’s pointless to throw “usually” in there, as it would be pointless to say that traumagenic means “usually formed from trauma”.

The entire point of a term that has a single, specific meaning... is so there’s no additional confusion when people use it. If someone says “endogenic” then we want it to be clear what it means. If someone sees the term and then has to further clarify “well wait did your system form from trauma or not”, that defeats the entire purpose of a straightforward term.

It’d be like someone saying “I have three cats!” and then you see a picture of the cats and... there’s two cats and a raccoon.

If you want terms that are more ambiguous, there’s a lot of them, and we wish you the best of luck finding one that serves your purpose!

[navelgazed]

You're not entirely wrong, though let me tell you what I remember.

Back in the day (ie about a decade ago) plurality wasn't really divided the way it is now, endogenic/traumagenic labels had yet to be invented and the lines were drawn much differently. Plural as a label came about to be inclusive of both multiples (ie, those with fully separate headmates/alters/etc) and medians (those between singlet and multiple). Whether or not you were (at the time called) a 'natural' multiple (more or less meaning endogenic) or not--there was no real corollary for traumagenic at the time--didn't really matter so much.

So the plural label has always more or less been an umbrella term meaning everyone who was multiple or median, regardless of origin, but as the distinction between multiple and median (and both words falling out of fashion) became less and less important, the term has shifted to meaning 'more than one in some way'. This does include traumagenic folks and those with CDDs (as long as they also identify as such).

... how can you use the term plural while being antiendo/gq

I genuinely thought the plural community was built by endogenics

I literally thought that the plural community was made for traumagenics and endogenics, heck specifically thought it was for other origins??

/gq

-Valentino

[loupgaroualejardin]

Yk, We always thought the double talk was weird that people were like "If you don't want to talk to doubles you're comparing them to their source!!!" And, like??

I personally do like doubles, but, we have quite a bit in system who doesn't and we always thought was that not wanting to see doubles is not wanting to see a carbon copy of yourself? And, I don't mean personality wise.

I mean, like, You walk out on the street one day and see basically a clone to yourself in appearance, because that's how we visualize doubles in our head, as someone who looks exactly like us, and, like, can understand how that'd be a bit creepy to people.

Also, I feel like, also, saying that not wanting to meet a double is comparing them to source, and, like, what? Idk. Can you not like the idea of not wanting to meet someone who's like you? Like, there are people that aren't even introjects or kins that don't like that idea. So, I don't know. I feel like it's a weird thing to be upset abt tbh.