#we have a very extensive headspace and many. many headmates

[dyketubbo]

theres something so terribly and uniquely lonely about systemhood sometimes

[multiplicity-positivity]

Here’s some positivity for systems who use mobility aids!

This disability pride month, let’s acknowledge, support, uplift, and celebrate all sorts of disabled systems! For those who use mobility aids for any reason, you are a vital and cherished part of both the plural community and the disabled community alike. Regardless of what aids you use, how often you use them, and how long you’ve been using them, here’s to all the systems out there who are mobility aid users!

🦼 Shoutout to systems who have recently obtained their first mobility aid!

💖 Shoutout to systems who need mobility aids, but can’t access one due to financial or insurance difficulties, or challenges from other people in their lives!

🩼 Shoutout to systems who use wheelchairs, power chairs, scooters, canes, crutches, walkers, rollators, and other mobility aids!

💖 Shoutout to ambulatory mobility aid users who have been hurt by others remarking that “you look like you walk just fine” whenever they’re not using their mobility aids!

🦯 Shoutout to systems who have been using mobility aids for most of their lives!

💖 Shoutout to systems with headmates who use different mobility aids, or use their mobility aids in different ways!

🦼 Shoutout to mobility aid users who have difficulties going to the places they want to due to inaccessible buildings, paths, and walkways!

💖 Shoutout to systems who are learning how to properly use and benefit the most from their mobility aids!

🩼 Shoutout to mobility aid users who need help from friends, family, caretakers, or others in order to access the places they want or need to!

💖 Shoutout to systems with headmates who use mobility aids in their inner world or headspace!

🦯 Shoutout to systems who use mobility aids every day, and to those who only use mobility aids on particularly rough or bad days!

💖 Shoutout to systems who love their mobility aids, who name them, treat them as an extension to their body, celebrate them, or cherish them as a loved one!

Mobility aid users, we hope that your future is filled with ease of access to your home and spaces in your community. And we hope that your mobility aid brings you many years of agency, comfort and delight! Whether using your mobility aid comes easily and naturally for you, or using it is often a necessary struggle, we hope that you will always and forever have access to the aids that help you navigate the world around you.

Please know that we care about you, we’re rooting for you, and we’re wishing you the very best in all that you do! If you need a mobility aid but do not have one at this time, we truly wish that you will be able to obtain one soon. Regardless of specific disability, everyone who can benefit from using a mobility aid deserves to have access to these useful, lifesaving tools! And all systems who are mobility aid users have a special and important place in our community. Thank you so much for reading, and have an amazing day!

[blackboxtheatrecrew]

I've been thinking about the concept of headmate lists, and I think I have my 2 cents I want to add into the fray.

I, like many others, can sometimes hyperfixate on my system; my own little internal community. I like to keep things organized and written down about members, headspace, etc-- partially because I have a subpar memory, and partially because it's simply satisfying to have all the information in one place. It makes things less overwhelming and makes me feel more secure.

However... I think when it comes to the topic of headmate lists, I feel as though some share very touchy things (such as whos a trauma holder, persecutor, sexual headmate, making fun of the headmate in the description, etc) that make me wonder if their headmates even consented to having that information out there. I think many, in their eagerness to share experiences, don't stop and think about the harmful effects of labels and just in general how bad it can be to share private information-- especially without permission.

I can also get how people use these lists to keep track of things, though, and how you may be afraid by omitting things, you could forget them.

My personal solution to this conundrum was to have two seperate lists. One that is allowed to be as detailed as we please for our own internal uses to keep track of things, and another that is public.

The one that is public has things that I have either been able to discern or have been outright told was okay to share. It also doesn't list roles or headmate types for safety reasons. Some members are also left out for safety reasons or simply because they want a more private life.

Hell, one of our members keeps going back and forth on if they even want to be listed. And you know what? That's alright. I do my best to show my respect by adding them or removing them from the list when they ask.

Since we have a far more extensive private database on what we've been able to discern about headmates and what they've chosen to share, we aren't losing any vital information by respecting individual members' privacy and not sharing what they don't want to be known.

Anyways, that's all I have to say on the topic. I was just thinking about it while I was redesigning my public and private google sheets pages that list our system members.

All that being said, I might post the public one soon if you guys would like to see it? Lmk 🤷‍♂️

💣Mark

[aborrt]

it’s time i face the bullshit again, and now that i have a better understanding of how it works, hopefully gatekeepers won’t come after me this time.

i’m a system.

my psych is very new to multiplicity and misdiagnosed me with udd before, but when(if) i’m allowed to go back to therapy, we’re going to look into osdd-1b. but i am a system. i have always been a system and i will always be a system. no amount of hate or gatekeeping is gonna make it disappear. i’ve done extensive amounts of research and spoken to many systems, both osdd and did, who have vouched for the existence of said system.

yes, i’m traumagenic, don’t start. i prefer “headmate” over “alter”, just a personal preference that seems to fit our situation better. there are 8 of us. we never use plural pronounsnin relation to ourselves because it’s dangerous to out ourselves to our family, especially my father.

i’m the core. i still go by max irl, so to avoid confusion, the body goes by gag mostly and my headmates refer to me as max. the “main bunch”, so to speak, is maudie, angelique, aggie, and sloane. they don’t have functions and they’re fully developed. they’re always talking (unless gone dormant for whatever reason) and help me make decisions. my one introject, dedan (from OFF), also helps with decisions, but he considers himself separate as he isn’t humanoid and he has a function in the system as the guardian. then i have two fragments, bit and an unnamed i just refer to as ???. bit oddly enough has a function but it’s more of a placebo effect, it keeps the system “running” like tech, our headspace is like a giant room of computers like at the nsa or something. you know what i mean. it takes care of all of that, but it isn’t real, it just keeps us from having “errors”. i didn’t think it would work but it did. it feels as if we have stability in the system now instead of just a bunch of confused headmates running around. ??? is nothing but kind of static-y? i’ve projected a ball of static as what it looks like, bc its voice is really static-sounding when it speaks. it refuses to form further, bc all it cares to do is whisper intrusive thoughts and paranoid thoughts to me. ironically enough, it’s the source of most of my “you’re faking” paranoid thoughts. imagine, a fragment who constantly tells you you’re faking. sigh.

anyway. that’s us.

i won’t be posting about system discourse. but i am open to anyone who considers themselves a system, bc delusions can be very difficult to break, and regardless of how weird or wild a system is i’m here as a friend, bc most of these systems are young, scared, and without help. i don’t know about endogenic systems, but i do have a friend who is endogenic, and they aren’t faking by a longshot. but in any case, another system’s validity is none of my business as i am not their doctor, i’m their friend. it’s not my place to question, it’s not my place to police. it’s my place to comfort, to educate when asked, and to be a friend.

i think i covered everything there. i’m gonna add this to my system tag. anyway hi, we’re ga(n)g (haha get it), and we’re happy to be here :3

[multiplicity-positivity]

I didn't know we could ask for positivity, could I maybe get some? I'm a newly found system and I'm having a very hard time accepting it. Close friends of mine have seen my switches but it always feels so fake because I can't hear anyone and have no access the inner world. I feel very alone and feel like I'm faking; I feel as if there isn't enough proof, that my trauma wasn't enough, that I'm just mimicking those I'm around

Hey, so this is a bit broad for us to confidently write a positivity post - we’re not sure exactly what you’re requesting here.

Still, hopefully we can provide you some reassurance.

Many, many newly found or discovered systems have a hard time accepting their plurality. Hell, there are many systems who have known about their plurality for years and years, who still doubt themselves from time to time. This is normal. Lots of systems struggle with this.

So many, in fact, that we’ve written a post to help folks who are dealing with denial:

If you think you’re struggling with a dissociative disorder, we think it’s worth it to mention that in these disorders many front-facing alters who interact with the world likely can’t recall much of their trauma history at first. This is how disorders like DID function - the trauma is masked, hidden, or blocked off by dissociative barriers from the ones who front day-to-day.

Our own system didn’t think we had an extensive trauma history when we had our syscovery. It’s taken a couple years of parts work and trauma processing in therapy for us to reach the understanding of our trauma history that we have today. As far as we understand, it’s actually quite common for traumatized systems to worry that what they went through “wasn’t bad enough” for them to develop a dissociative disorder as a result.

We think a common misconception about headspaces and inner worlds is that every system automatically has one, whether members can access it or not. This isn’t actually the case… for most systems (and singlets), headspaces are created through imagination and visualization. We wrote on this in the past:

Additionally if you’re questioning whether or not you have a dissociative disorder, it would be good to examine the other symptoms of these disorders besides the alters aspect. DID and OSDD are not alter disorders… they’re dissociative disorders by nature. So struggles with amnesia, depersonalization, derealization, trauma responses, lack of a sense of self, and other symptoms may be able to help clue you in to what’s going on. Our resource post for questioning systems has a bunch of links to information on dissociative disorders, going into further detail than just describing alters:

If you’re worried that you’re mimicking those you’re around, maybe try taking some time for yourself away from these folks to see if your symptoms persist. It’s true that spending time with a certain group may cause individuals to unconsciously align themselves more with the group. So spending some time away from other systems may help you better understand if you actually are a system or not.

Finally, we’ll link our post on establishing contact with headmates. If you do have a dissociative disorder, your alters might be unable to contact you due to dissociative barriers. So spending time slowly and gradually attempting communication might be useful for you:

We think regular therapy sessions with a therapist who helps you feel safe, comfortable, and secure can be immensely beneficial with this process. We owe so much of our healing and progress towards recovery to our therapist. So if you have a therapist who you know and trust, we cannot stress enough the potential benefits of discussing this with them.

Sorry for the long post… we hope this helps you, though. Try not to stress too much about this stuff and take things slowly. No need to rush to conclusions about yourself before you’re ready.

💫 Parker and 🐢 Kip

[multiplicity-positivity]

Do you have any advice about telling a friend about headmates? I would like to. Majority vote in headspace is we should. But it's a kinda new friend, one of my few offline, and I don't know... What to do. If not, that's ok. I would totally understand if it's too much of a variable question to answer. Thank you for all your answers. You all really do so much. Thank you

coming out to a singlet about being plural can definitely be tricky! many singlets aren’t even aware of multiplicity, or ground their beliefs in harmful stereotypes. knowing this, we do have a bit of advice.

1) learn beforehand the right language to describe your experience. be ready to define a system, plurality, headmates, switching, and other words that help describe what you experience. remember that many singlets have little to no knowledge about multiplicity, and things you may take for granted others may not know about at all.

2) be prepared for questions. you shouldn’t feel obligated to answer every question, especially if they make you feel uncomfortable! but recognize that your friend may be confused or curious and may want to ask some questions about what you experience. they may not have many questions at all, but preparing for the possibility can keep you from feeling caught off gaurd in the moment.

3) don’t do it alone. have some resources handy so your friend can do reading on their own. it’s challenging explaining something as complex as plurality to someone without much prior knowledge, and resources can help make it easier!

here’s some links we’ve used in the past to educate singlets in our life. keep in mind that dissociative disorders are the most well-known cause of plurality, and you can educate yourselves and others about these disorders even if your system does not have one! knowing about dissociative disorders can help you identify how your experiences differ, and you can explain this to your friend (if your system is nontraumagenic that is!)

remember that you don’t owe anyone information about yourself or your system. it’s okay to only share as much as you’re comfortable with.

we wish you the very best of luck with this (and apologize for our late response)!

🐢 kip and 🖋 cecil