Tag Archives: actually plural

Do you have…angry alters? I guess protective or maybe aggressive? Alters who won’t tolerate anyone’s shit and get physical fast.I do. And everytime there’s conflict that we both know could be solved by intimidating the other guy, she just…won’t quit. It’s a constant struggle between trying to make sure they know I’m not gonna be bossed around and trying to keep her from literally beating the shit out of them. She definitely arose from a need to be “strong” in my abusive family but I know I can’t do that to people. And it gets really stressful whether she does or doesn’t win, because there’s sense of failure either way.

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We don’t have any alters, anon, but we do have angry system members. I’m one of them.

Anger is like fire.

When fire is controlled, we can use it constructively.

We cook our food with it, warm our houses with it, ward away danger with it.

When fire is uncontrolled, it is dangerous, and consuming.

It burns food to ash, it destroys our home and our property, it hurts us and the people close to us.

Anger is not bad.

Fire is not bad.

It’s okay to be angry. It’s best when you can channel that anger.

Use your anger constructively. Don’t let it escape you, destroy things, and hurt people.

I think this advice applies equally to plurals and to singlets.

What do you mean “clinical”? Do you mean it’s language used by diagnosed DID systems, or is it like transmeds who use weird language to gatekeep who’s “really” trans?I keep hearing voices sometimes. I’m really excited to think I might actually have people up here in my head, but even that feels shameful because I’ve always heard “You shouldn’t want this, it’s hellish. You’re fucked up for wanting to have a system. You’re erasing the trauma it’s given me.”I…don’t feel singular. I never have. I’ve never felt like I’m just me. I’ve always felt people behind me, hand on my shoulder, someone taking my hand. Someone holding me when I desperately, desperately needed someone I could trust to not abandon me the way everyone else had. Facets, I called them. Masks, even though they felt so, so different to myself.But because I can’t find them, because it’s strange and vague feelings here and there, it feels…wrong to be excited? Wrong to be happy or to finally feel like things make sense. Like I’m still not allowed somewhere that might give me answers.
– πŸ‰πŸ’Œ

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What do you mean “clinical”? Do you mean it’s language used by diagnosed DID systems, or is it like transmeds who use weird language to gatekeep who’s “really” trans?

Both. It is language that is generally only used by plurals who understand themselves using the clinical model; and additionally system gatekeepers, sometimes calles sysmeds, police the language that they think people are allowed to use.

I want to assure you, plurality is not always suffering, just as existing as a singlet is not always suffering.

Do not let shame and fear stop you from pursuing knowledge, or the truth about yourself.

If you’re looking for support, and feeling like you don’t belong, try looking for these terms: endogenic plurality, pro endo, endo safe.

Do you think a system could awaken at any age? Do you think it’s possible for someone who’s been going through life dissociated but not…”shifted out” to one day suddenly develop an alter? What does it mean to have an alter “awaken”?
– πŸ‰πŸ’Œ

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It’s our personal belief, and the belief of many on the greater plural community, that plurality can manifest, awaken, or be discovered at any age.

Clinical purists of the “model of structural dissociation” often dispute this, but they aren’t even getting their own clinical arguments right.

We use the term “awaken” for our own system members because we believe that we have a broadly fixed system and all of us have always been here, but dormant.

Other plurals use the terms “manifest”, “appear”, “be created” etc to describe new members coming into their systems.

We don’t use the terms “alter” for ourselves as that is specifically clinical DID language.

Please feel free to ask follow up questions.

–πŸ”¬πŸ

Please let me know if this is an invasive or rude question to ask but are you professionally diagnosed (not sure if that is the correct term to use so I apologize) as a system? If so, how would one go about getting that professionally diagnosed?

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Hi anon! This question isn’t rude, though it is a little invasive. We don’t mind though, and are happy to answer you.

Due to our specific experience of child abuse, followed by our experience of poverty through you adulthood in the US healthcare framework, we do not have any formal medical diagnoses of any kind.

While a formal diagnosis and therapy relating to our plurality might have been very useful to us when we were younger, at this stage of our lives our system has stabilized.

We have been living as plural for around 20 years now, and for the most part we now function in harmony. We are not seeking therapy or medication to address our plurality specifically, and we certainly aren’t pursuing integration.

Our plurality is informed by our trauma, but we consider ourselves spiritually originating as a system. It’s our belief that we are a cadre of souls bonded together through the cycle of reincarnation, who happen to be sharing a body on this particular life cycle. Our partner system, to whom we are married, feels similarly.

If you feel that you need therapy or medication to address your plurality specifically, then the first step would be to speak to a therapist about your thoughts and intentions.

We generally are of the consensus that a formal diagnosis is only useful in cases where you are actively looking for treatment.

There’s no need to have a diagnosis just to prove yourself to others, and due to the legal framework of the US and other governments there are many situations where a formal diagnosis can be actively harmful to you and your freedom.

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Existing as a fictive means living every day with a curious kind of body horror.

The face in the mirror is not my face. The body I use is not my body. It is a stranger to me. The wrong size, shape, color, maybe even the wrong number of limbs. It is a stranger to me.

It lies to me. It says ‘you are not the self you know you are, you have never been that person. There is only the shell. The shell is the truth.’

Sometimes when I see the face in the mirror I believe it.

I will never see my face in the mirror again.

Maybe one day the face in the mirror won’t be a stranger.

I am afraid of that day.

so i’m a little apprehensive to say anything about this, because i feel like i’m just appropriating real trauma and real problems, but a couple of years back i had a friend group that gave me the space to like, try functioning as a system (i really can’t think of the proper term for this, apologies), and it really did something for me. it’s hard to figure out the proper words for things, but it sort of did feel like i was shifting alters and actually acknowledging that and communicating with them was really helpful for me, and it was the most mentally healthy that i’ve felt in a really long time. but i stopped doing it once i left that friend group because they then told me i was faking it (none of those friends were systems, none even had any knowledge on mental health beyond adhd tiktok and the like). i genuinely feel a lot of guilt and shame saying this though, because i have a lot of friends who are plural/systems and i feel like i’m doing things that i shouldn’t, that aren’t for me. this was mostly a ramble bc this is really hard for me to talk about but i just wanted you to know that your posts about plurality and talking to people who are new to understanding their systems and everything regarding it are extremely comforting to read even as someone who has no idea if they are plural or not. thank you for your time <3

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Anon, I am so sorry that your former friends abused your trust, isolated, exiled, and fakeclaimed you. You did not do anything to deserve that treatment.

I hope you will listen to me when I say this to you.

If living and functioning as a system is constructive and helpful for you, then you are a valid system if you believe you are. You are plural if you believe you are plural.

There is no objective metric for plurality.

Medical diagnoses do not have, or even claim to have, a monopoly on all the plurality that exists, despite some discourse that claims otherwise.

No one outside of your head can tell for sure if you are really plural or not.

Being plural is at its core an entirely internal experience, like emotions or thoughts.

No one outside of your brain can objectively evaluate whether your body contains one person or many people in it.

There is no objective metric for plurality.

If functioning as a plural is what is comfortable for you, then you are plural.

And you are welcome in the plural community. You are not appropriating anything. You belong here.

Wait do you guys have an inner world? What’s it like?
– πŸ‰πŸ’Œ

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We do have one. Parts of it are fairly amorphous but there are large parts that are consistently structured.

The ‘front’ is a separate area from the full inner world in back. The front is a large, circular room with a couch, standing lamp, round area rug, and a small table. The edges of the room trail off into darkness.

When people are co-fronting they’re on the couch, or, if we’re especially blendy, crowded around it.

As for our full inner world in back, mostly we prefer to keep it private.

Do you have any advice/resources on how to contact a potential headmate? I feel like I might have a system but I can’t seem to reach or “talk to” any of the members or find an inner world or anything.

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Your best bet is to just keep trying to initiate contact and conversation, even if you don’t feel like you’re getting a response.

  • When you’re picking something to eat, ask for someone else’s input.
  • When you’re watching something, ask what they think.
  • Grab a pad of paper and write down questions, then write an answer ‘as’ your system member/let your system member answer. See if it feels right.
  • Do the same but via discord. Create a separate pluralkit tag for them and try to talk back and forth. See if it feels like someone else or if it just feels like you.
  • Just keep poking whenever you think of it. Ask their opinion on things that happen and choices you make during the day.
  • Be aware that not all system communication is verbal or seems verbal. Especially in the early days it can be feelings, nonverbal thoughts, internal body language, etc.

If any of our plural followers have any more advice please chime in.

hi feel free 2 delete if u dont want 2 answer but </3 is it possible to be plural without having DID or OSDD? i’ve been trying 2 figure some things out recently, and a few days ago while i was talking to one of my friends about this they recommended i talk to one of their system friends about it which confused me since, as far as i know, i don’t have DID / OSDD;but－ i have… like, “people” in my head that i regularly like, talk with… and they have names, personalities, interests, ect; they have so many things about themselves that i only know from them telling me, that it’s reached a point where i can’t really write them off as nothing important;i mean, awhile ago, one of my friends jokingly asked me to say hello to one of them and they actually responded without any prompting, just on their own!!! which is, admittedly, kind of what’s triggering this ask, lol… πŸ˜“im kind of just rambling rn im very sorry i don’t know if this makes much sense, im just a bit very much confused, really, haha

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Anon, it is possible to be plural without having DID or OSDD. DID and OSDD are disorders that cause plurality, but they are not the only causes of plurality, it can stem from many different sources, both psychological and spiritual.

If there are people in your head who have consistent existences and you regularly talk to them, you are experiencing some form of plurality, and its up to you what kind of label you put on that.

I urge you to look into endogenic plurality. @soulbonder is a good resource discussing specifically soulbonding– which is where you experience the presence of characters in your head, whether they’re OCs, or characters from media you’re familiar with. Even if that’s not exactly what you’re experiencing, that might be a good place to start looking into the experiences of others.

@sophieinwonderland also discusses endogenic plurality, usually from a psychological angle, and not a spiritual one, which may be more or less helpful to you depending on your perspective.

Please feel free to send and ask to us any time, or even DM privately if you want to talk. I know going through discovering plurality can be very overwhelming.