Tag Archives: soulbonds

One of my former friends used to support me, comfort me when I was down over people harassing me for my F/O, but when they turned their back on me they said I was problematic for loving my F/O, and “forcing them” to do these things for me… Like, manipulating them into comforting and indulging me. I still fear that this is actually what I did without realizing it.

Leave a reply

Anon, the advice I give you depends strongly on an important factor.

Are your F/Os system members, soulbonds, or other real, people with agency of their own that you share your internal experience with in some way?

or are they just fictional characters that you write about and enjoy and play pretend with?

Because if they’re just fictional characters then it is impossible to manipulate them in any meaningful way. It’s like saying you’re manipulating a doll or a teddy bear. It’s ridiculous. There’s no need for you to feel guilty about any of it, because there is no real person for you to harm. Full stop. You’re fine.

If they’re system members, or other internal people with agency then it could be possible that you have been manipulative, or that your actions have caused harm.

Here’s what you should do if your F/O is a real internal person with agency that you worry you have been manipulating.

The same thing you’d do with any other partner you worried that you had caused harm to.

Talk to them about your feelings.

Communicate with them.

Ask them what they want, and if they feel harmed.

And if they do feel harmed, apologize, and ask them how you would like to proceed in the future.

a bit ago you got a (different) anon that was asking about the intersection between plurality and f/os, and you mentioned that the strong connection self-shipping can bring can form/summon (depending on your experience i guess) system members. we had this happen to us recently and honestly i don’t even know if there’s a point to this message i just like… got so excited seeing someone talk about this and say “yeah this is a thing that can happen.”it’s totally new territory for me (we have some fictives sure but he feels like… a different type of fictive i have no idea how to explain it) and i’ve never seen anyone talk about it, maybe because there isn’t a lot of intersection between the two communities, i dunno i’m not super connected so i could be wrong or just not looking in the right spaces but.we’ve basically been navigating blind which has been working but that doesn’t make the experience any less “lonely” i guess when you’ve never heard of it happening before yanno. and i’m also struggling with a weird amount of guilt around it— a lot of overwhelming feelings both positive and negative. i won’t go into detail because i don’t want to feelingsdump in your guys’ ask box lol, but… yeah.sorry i don’t even know what i was trying to convey here, feel free to ignore this, just seeing that ask made me do the metal gear solid “!” thing LOL.

Leave a reply

Anon, we are so glad to meet you, an so glad our posts resonated with you!

This part in your message stood out to me

we have some fictives sure but he feels like… a different type of fictive i have no idea how to explain it)

I think you should check out some posts over at our (very out of date) blog @soulbonder and see if some of the experiences talked about over there resonate with you.

Please feel free to put anything you like in our inbox if you want to talk more about your experiences.

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… 😓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

Leave a reply

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.