#Multiple System

[genderqueerdykes]

btw 'syscourse' and plural infighting isn't accomplishing anything. back in the late 90s and early 2000s, the only communities and resources for plurals that were widely available were for and by non-traumagenic systems. the only people who were advocating for normalizing and accepting plurality on a large scale were non-traumagenic systems. if you did research into plurality 10 - 15 years ago, most of the results that came up would have been experiences written by spiritual and natural plurals.

many people at the time were expressing their dislike of forcing every single plural to identify as if they had trauma- many found this insulting to themselves, and rightfully so! no one should be forced to identify in a way they don't agree with just to rightfully be a part of a community they already occupy. this obsession with "you can only be plural if you have trauma" has only come about extremely recently. i found out about plurality through the otherkin community. i was actually told about DID by someone in the spiritual plurality community. people don't seem to understand that most non-traumagenic systems have respect for traumagenic systems and don't gatekeep their spaces to prevent us from entering.

older plural spaces on the web like healthymultiplicity accepted all plurals. the goal of the community was to show that you can live as plural and not have it be a tragedy or something to "fix". if anything, folks with dissociative disorders owe a LOT to non-traumagenic systems for pushing to normalize plurality without implying that we HAVE to integrate our headmates and try to stop being plural. a huge part of the early online plural community was there to push that plurals can and do live happy lives and shouldn't view their plurality as a bad thing

it's not going to make singlet society see us in a better light. it's not going to get people to understand plurality better. it's not going to get us better mental health resources. it's not going to improve the quality of care for dissociative and traumagenic systems. all you're doing is bullying someone else that you don't understand simply because you don't agree with them.

you're not going to recover from your trauma or understand your own plurality better by denying the existence of other types of plurality. you're not "making the community safer" by gatekeeping. telling other people how their brains work is policing their identities. whether or not you want to accept it, if you forcefully kick endos out of plural spaces, you are the cop you claim to hate.

fighting with people on your own team will never net you a victory. to every other dissociative and traumagenic system: endos are on your side. you are wearing the same jersey. you are made of the same flesh and blood. enough. come together to share your similarities instead of fighting over differences. celebrate the diversity that plurality offers. don't take someone else's identity personally. someone can share the space with you without having to match exactly how you identify. diversity is what makes a community thrive.

[stxrsys]

And maybe this is a cold take but you guys need to really stop checking things that upset you/insult you/make you feel not real. Stop checking r/syscringe. Stop checking syscourse tags. Stop interacting with things that hurt your mental health more. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. And it won’t get better just because you keep checking back on it.

[anomalymon]

tween headmate pointed this out the other day and. you know what yeah she's right

[frameacloud]

(Image description in alt text.) I found this comic by Sue K. on the front page of a very old newsletter for multiples, Many Voices: Words of Hope for Clients with MPD and Dissocative Disorders, Vol. Ill, No. 1, February 1991, ISSN 1042-2277. That was before MPD was renamed to DID.

[neonspectrumdreams]

Systems with hundreds or thousands of alters are valid.

Nonhuman alters are valid.

Fictives are valid.

Even the research literature on DID has documented these things. But even if you're not traumagenic - YOU ARE STILL VALID.

[interstellarsystem]

Just a little reminder that being a soulbonder and somehow anti-endogenic at the same time is ridiculous. This is something we've encountered a few times now and it makes literally no sense.

If you join a soulbonding community and get mad that there's endogenic plurals there, maybe read what's on the tin before you open it. Not all soulbonders consider themselves plural (valid and real experience), and some might feel closer to the traumagenic label (also valid and real experience), sure, but... That's like reading a sign that says "dog park" and getting mad that there's dogs in there.

That's our space. If you're a soulbonder, you're experiencing something that many do describe as endogenic plurality. For a lot of em, it's even voluntary endogenic plurality. A type of being more than one entity in a body that doesn't originate from trauma. You don't have to describe it that way for yourself! But at least understand that you are a sibling to the endogenic plural community. You can't go around saying you can't be a system or more-than-one without trauma and that CDDs are the only way to be plural... and then be more-than-one without trauma yourself. Your community is included in the group you're claiming doesn't exist.

[osdd-1bitch]

switches don’t have to be sudden, complete or quick. Switches can happen without notice, take long times, or happen in quick successions. Switching between members is not a cut and dry process between all plurals—we are all different and experience things differently. Some switching tools may not work for you, or for others, please avoid pressuring others to use things like proxies or sign offs.

[ancientpersacom]

Plurality isn’t always scary

Made with childhood pictures taken when we were co conscious.

Even if the world will never be normal about plurality, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn to work with it and achieve functionality. Even though I don’t think we’ll ever be fully functional, we’re at a point where most days are calm and everyone gets along. Sure, I can’t remember three whole years of my life. Sure, I can’t control who switches and when. But we communicate well enough to trust each other no matter what happens.

No, plurality isn’t always easy. But I’d not trade the system for the world.

Happiness with your system is possible.

[ohana-system]

When we got our job and started making some money we started going to a certain coffee shop all the time to charge battery packs so that we could have a way to charge our phones and other devices while we're homeless. So we just became a regular who bought coffee twice a week, almost every week.

That's all we did. We bought coffee and we were polite about it. We were patient when they were in the middle of a rush. We said please and thank you whenever we asked for something. We were understanding when they made a mistake on our order and asked them to kindly fix it. Once, we had handed one dollar too many to the barista, and when they tried to hand it back, we shrugged and dropped it in the tip jar. That's it.

They got to know us by the name we were using at the time. They're always so accommodating whenever we ask for something. They tell us it's nice to see us. Last week, they accidentally made an extra lunch item that none of them wanted, so they offered it to us before the other customer that was in the shop. When we came in after we lost our job, the barista asked us how we were like usual. actually asked what was wrong when we were honest and said we weren't having a good day. They bought our coffee that day. Next time we came in, we had two interviews lined up. We paid for our coffee and the barista offered us congratulations and encouragement. Two weeks later, we came in again, and we were struggling not to be teary because we got rejected from those interviews. The barista bought our coffee again and offered us reassurance that something would work out.

We just had another interview yesterday. Today, we sat down at the coffee shop and plugged our battery packs in while we sat there on our phone for a bit to nervously check our notifications before we went to the counter. A random customer noticed us and offered to buy us a coffee.

None of these people know who we are. None of them know us as a person. They know our face and that we're well mannered to them, but they don't know anything about us or our values otherwise. We could be someone with opinions and beliefs that go against their morals. We could even be someone they wouldn't normally want to be nice to. Yet, they don't seem to consider any of that.

People are nice sometimes.

People

Are

Nice sometimes.

And that is a big development for me.

I hate people. I am the kind of man who would gladly see the majority of the world burn. I have experienced so much pain at the hands of human beings. In fact, I feel as though we encounter more bad than good.

Lately, however, when I think about burning down everyone and everything, I stop for a moment. I stop, and I think: Well, maybe I don't want that barista to burn. Maybe the person at the gas station, who offered to help us put a new bulb in our tail light simply because they see us all the time and noticed, doesn't quite deserve that either.

Do I now think people might be wonderful after all? Am I going to start trusting people over that? Absolutely not. Buying me coffee doesn't make them trustworthy. It certainly doesn't automatically make them a good person.

Though maybe, just perhaps, it also doesn't mean they should burn either.

- Rue

[cybergothvox]

Everybody talks like fictives just show up fully formed as the guy when that's not my experience at all. For us alters already exist, not like fully yet, but they are a sort of a loose bundle of trauma and experiences and alter stuff that is defiantly still an alter but has little to no sense of identity yet and therefore has an extremely difficult time speaking or letting their existence be known. Characters are like hermit crab shells these alters try on and when they find one that fits them well enough they inhabit it and introject the character and become a fictive.

And I know several others who experience it this way too, but often feel invalid because the community tends to only talk about it as if you walk in from another world. Even those who have psychological origins seem to talk about it this way? Which might be because the prominance of spiritual beliefs in the space sort of pioneering that language.

Anyways, just wanted to mention that there are different ways of doing it!

[genderqueerdykes]

endogenic systems are still people- i don't care if you disagree on whether or not that plurality exist without trauma, they're literally still people. you don't have any excuse or reason to treat another person/s like shit or dehumanize them because you disagree with them. non-dissociative plurals are still people and you should treat them with respect.

[singletofadown]

a theory of mine as to why the children in the did community gravitate so hard towards making pk tmeplates, alter packs and etc is they want to feel useful, want praise and appreciation from people online that they lack in real life, without having to acknowledge their disorder as something negative.

Writing about symptom management or help requires acknowledgement that having alters is a symptom, that you can't just let your system "run wild" and that new alters are often not a good sign, while a lot of younger systems like to obsess over their alters, either to cope with the rest of the disorders being horrible by focusing on the thing they see as "positive", or simply because they're faking and having alters is the one overly glorified part of did. just my thoughts though

[anomalymon]

The Plural Community Needs to Write More Essays and Make More Resources

This has been a pretty big push in the alterhuman community, but hasn't quite reached the plural community yet. So

Systems: Write about your experiences! Post them!

It doesn't have to be good or coherent, but we want to see more experiences that aren't just bland, blanket positivity posts or term coining with zero substance. Some of our favorite writings we've read have had poor grammar and disjointed paragraphs!

Reasons to write about your experiences:

It can make people who have that experience both realize they're not alone and learn ways they can explore that experience

It can be education for people who don't experience that so they can learn what it's like

It gives more potential for citation for those who are making more comprehensive resources

They can be used several years down the line to track trends and events within the plural community

Also want to combat anti-endos? Write about your experiences. Humanize yourself (for lack of a better term). Create solidarity with others and encourage them to be out about themselves. Don't let psychiatric texts, syscourse rants, and simple definitions be the only information about your group!

We'll tack on what we're interested in seeing, but feel free to reblog and add anything too:

Guides! Guides on how your system does things, or guides that can help other systems

How plurality intersects with other disabilities or neurodivergence

Headspace tours, art about your headspace, collages

The effects drugs or medication has on your system

Non-traditional roles, or even how traditional roles do their day to day tasks

Different types of plurality intersecting (i.e. systems who fit more than one of DID, endogenic multiplicity, medianhood, soulbonding, etc)

Spirituality and religion intersecting with plurality

Seriously, whatever you want to talk about

[leafstem]

whats the funniest way to come out as plural

[neonspectrumdreams]

Any other plural system, traumagenic or endogenic or any other type (we are diagnosed with DID but are mixed origin), who is also a furry? Especially if they are a furry artist. Would love to find more furry artists and furries to follow. Follow me and I'll follow back. :3

Alternatively, recommend me some awesome furry artists in the comments if you know any whose art inspires you. ❤️🧡💛💚💙💜