#alterisa.txt

[the-indigo-symphony]

This has been in our drafts for ages, but a recent poll we reblogged got us thinking about it again, so here's a tip for other systems (especially newly discovered systems) that we consider very helpful

Sometimes, being a system can feel dehumanizing or like you've lost control of your life. You have to share everything with the other people in your body – where's your privacy? Where's your individuality? What can you do to carve out something of your own in the world? These kinds of questions, even if said with other sentiments, can be a struggle to answer as a system.

However, my system – inspired by other systems we've seen doing this – have a solution! Or at least, part of one. You'll still likely have to go through some emotional work to answer the above questions and find what's most comfortable for you. But for us, when one of us is feeling insecure or needs some individuality, there's something simple we do...

... We give each other gifts!

Or, more accurately, we choose something we want or have to be a certain system member's possession. It could be a project, a shirt, a toy, whatever works for them! Then they get to establish rules about the other system members touching Their Thing™, and have the most important say in anything regarding it. This isn't to say that other members would necessarily never get to touch or use that thing again, but rather, that the system member who it belongs to would get to choose on what terms others are allowed to touch it, the same way you might set a rule with a roommate about touching your things.

For example, Chara's Thing™ is a green cardigan. When we're going somewhere and they're going to be fronting for at least a majority of the time, they decide if we're going to pack it, and if they want to leave it at home or wear it out on bad days when they could use the comfort. They're alright with the rest of us wearing it if we want, but would prefer we be extra careful about not staining or losing it. If there was a situation where we'd have to negotiate on the cardigan, like if we needed space in a suitcase that the cardigan was taking up, we would have a discussion on how to compromise in the situation so that everyone is happy, such as what other things we could take out of the suitcase instead of the cardigan, or if we could wear the cardigan on our trip instead of packing it. Chara would get the final say in this discussion, but it's unlikely that we'd all end up unhappy.

We have other examples of this, too. Alterisa has a writing project she doesn't mind if we work on as long as we check with her before publishing, Kitten has a plushie she likes to bring when we travel, and Tempo's looking into getting a blue and green shirt to be more comfortable with our wardrobe. All of these things make them feel more secure in our system, and more comfortable with sharing most of our life since they always have something they can call their own.

If you're struggling with your individuality as part of a system, try starting with one small thing as your own! Choose something for yourself, establish some boundaries for others interacting with it, and enjoy having something to call your own. It doesn't have to be anything big – it could be as simple as a music playlist or a cool rock you found. Hang in there; life can be tough, but you can be tough, too.

[the-indigo-symphony]

(For the sake of not clogging up anyone's dash, we have removed the reblogs before this point. We were tagged by @adventsys)

Man, alrighty then! Here we go.

Relationship status: outwardly we're kinda non-partnering as of rn, but some of us are dating others in our system in queerplatonic or romantic ways. Maybe in the future we'll consider finding a partner system.

Favorite Color: orange

Favorite Food: we usually just say perogies, so that ig

Song in Our Head: Hot Chocolate from The Polar Express

Last Thing We Googled: "glasses" (we wanted an art reference)

Time: nighttime. No, you don't get specifics

Dream Trip: road trip. To where, you may ask? Yes.

Something We Want: a life plan, please

We're supposed to tag people so uhhh @ignisuada if you haven't already done this? We don't really know people on this blog well enough to know who to tag.

Rules: Tag 10 people you want to get to know better.

Thanks for the tag @fangirl-couch-potato and @quakeismyhero!

Relationship status: single.

Favourite colour: cornflower blue.

Favourite food: lasagna,

Song stuck in my head: Beat It by Michael Jackson.

Last thing I googled: lattice structures chemistry.

Time: 12:58 am.

Dream trip: India and China.

Something I want: to get good grades on my finals.

No pressure tagging: @brekker-by-brekkerr, @bigbendyhorns, @likea-black-widow-baby, @thezegendofzelda, @maybeimart, @fentasticallyconfuddled, @antoinetriplettsupremacy, @melina-melinda, @just-a-latina-fangirl and @rejectofsociety!

[the-indigo-symphony]

Small Annoyances as a Polyfragmented System

There are certain patterns and events that we see in our life (mainly in system spaces) that get under our skin as a polyfrag system that smaller systems don't seem to be able to relate to. In an attempt to spread information on what it's like to be a polyfrag system – because goodness knows it's hard to find that – we've created this list of those annoyances, along with examples and explanations of why we find them annoying. Although, this turned into a vent post by the end, so... you have been warned!

Disclaimer: this post mainly applies to our personal experiences. We're sure that other polyfrag systems (and probably other large systems) may be able to relate to some of the things here, but you don't have to relate to any or all of them to be a real polyfrag system.

Polyfragmented Annoyances:

Most system tips do not work with our system because they're based in having a small member count. Anything that starts with "Have every system member..." is a no-go, because it is impossible for us to include every system member in system activities. There's a bunch of people in dormancy, whole sidesystems that we've barely explored, and even counting only the members we know could potentially participate, that's still hundreds of people to go through. It's not gonna work out. "Every system member" is not an achievable goal.

Blurring and other identity confusion happens a lot more often than you'd think, since a lot of us are fragments or otherwise not "full" headmates. When you don't check all the boxes to be a fully independent system member and constantly need at least one other member around to get even basic stuff done, it can be easy to lose track of where the line between you and another system member is.

On that note, co-fronting is a necessity and people outside the system (whether system or singlet) don't seem to understand that very often. We need to have multiple people in front – our system is not designed to have only one person alone controlling the body and aware of what's going on. Whereas most other systems experience negative side effects if they have too many headmates fronting, we more often experience negative side effects if not enough headmates front, and that can create a lot of estrangement when the former is usually the only example of fronting arrangement issues you can find. In addition, people outside the system (mostly singlets, but some systems too) don't seem to understand the implications of "We usually/almost always have a crowded front." Any interactions you have with one of us are going to be overseen, filtered through, and influenced by everyone else in front; if you're building a relationship* with one of us, you're probably building a relationship with several others, too.

Having to do so much more work to keep track of everyone. Organizing headmates by sidesystem, subsystem, etc can be a hassle, and system mapping becomes a lot more difficult when you've got a lot of people to include in your map. You not only have to frequently register new members in things such as Pluralkit and SimplyPlural, but you have to update that data as they learn more about themselves and the system develops, so we end up taking hours to just sit down and go through as many headmates as we can. Simply put, keeping any records of our system is so much more complicated because we're polyfragmented, even if it's just something basic like writing down everyone's names.

Introjects often face a name struggle that they wouldn't if we were a smaller system. Because of how often we get multiple introjects of the same character or person, every introject is expected to take up some kind of nickname so they can be more easily identified and identity issues aren't too frequent, which is its own troublesome process. Especially when we see small systems who don't need to do this... it can make us a bit jealous at times.

It's difficult to find anything about systems of our size. Most systems on platforms like TikTok and YouTube are small, so it's hard to find videos about larger systems. Most systems in fiction, whether they're positive representation or the usual stock-horror serial killer stereotype, have a small number of members so audiences don't get lost or confused. Even within the system community in settings like on Tumblr, it can be hard to find other large systems talking about their own experiences and how they differ from smaller systems – in fact, the experiences of small systems are seen as the "right" experiences in some cases, so if a large system goes outside of that, they are seen as "faking," "promoting unhealthy behavior," etc. We just want to find posts about us that go beyond one-sentence shout-outs, c'mon.

Related to that second-to-last bit, common polyfrag experiences are treated as automatic signs of "faking." Oh, you have a lot of headmates? Faker! You have more than one introject of or from the same source? Faker! You gain new members easily? Faker! Your headmates have highly specific roles? Faker! Some headmates don't have roles because others already handle those jobs? Faker! You often have multiple people in co-front or co-con? Faker! JFC, why is my existence automatically seen as a lie?! A lot of these fakeclaimers supposedly "support" polyfrag systems, too, but then the second a polyfrag system is, y'know, polyfrag, oooohhhh noooo, time to write a call-out about how they're "obviously faking it."

*"Relationship" is used as a general term here and does not refer solely to romantic relationships.

In conclusion, being polyfragmented comes with a lot of small annoyances that aren't helped by how, even in system spaces, we're often misunderstood, mocked, and fakeclaimed. It'd be nice to find more content or resources about/for polyfrag systems, but I'm not holding my breath.

[the-indigo-symphony]

Pro tip for what may be a very niche audience of systems with mid level internal communication: if you can only internally communicate when trying to do so and you rarely or never hear surprising, random comments from other headmates that some other systems talk about, that is in fact normal. Internal communication is something that almost always takes time and practice to get better at, so it's not unusual for a system to have difficulty hearing each other and need to actively try to talk to each other to achieve internal communication. Hell, there's a reason that learning internal communication is a part of treatment for systems seeking medical support – because it can be difficult and it's unlikely that you've mastered it right off the bat!

Not hearing your headmates most of the time is okay. Needing to focus on talking to a headmate to internally communicate is okay. If you rarely or never get surprised by someone internally talking to you, that probably just means your internal communication has some barriers, difficulties, or quirks that other systems do not have. That does not mean you're faking; that does not mean you're less of a system. Don't fool yourself otherwise just because you see other systems getting caught off-guard by their headmates talking to them, or overhear each other talking while they're focused on something else, or anything else. They are not you, and your system is going to be different from their system. It's okay if your internal communication is different from other systems.

Tl;dr: Don't trap yourself in self-doubt if your system doesn't have perfect internal communication (including if you have internal communication that's "good enough" for your system but lacks in some areas). Internal communication (and communication skill) varies from system to system, and you don't have to have flawless communication to be a real system.

[the-indigo-symphony]

One thing that is a little strange to me is that in the system + plural communities, the idea of "wanting to be something before realizing you are it" is just kinda... forgotten here. And as a result, people who want to be a system/plural are treated as malicious intruders, instead of just people who might have a subconscious pull towards a community that they already fit.

Like... let's set aside the concept of created systems here. Or endogenic systems as a whole, even. Let's focus only on traumagenic systems. Even with only systems that come from trauma, there have been many accounts of people who "wanted to be a system" without realizing that they already are one, the same way that some people "want to be gay" before realizing they're gay, or "want to be trans" before realizing they're trans. This is not an unknown or rare phenomena; this happens in many different communities, including neurodivergent ones. It's not that strange for people to describe their feelings as a "want to be (x)" before they find out why they feel like they fit or belong in a certain community/under a certain identity. The same way a woman can say, "Man, I wish I were a lesbian, that way I'd be able to be with girls," without realizing the truth, someone can say, "Man, I wish I were a system, that way I'd have others to help me with my life," without realizing the truth.

And I know that at first glance, these sentiments can sound insensitive! It feels like they're pushing aside any struggles that comes with being the thing they want to be. But that's not what they're saying when they say they want to be that thing. Often, all they're saying is that something about (x) resonates with them, so they're looking for reasons why that would be, which ends up expressed as, "Something about this speaks to me, so I guess I must want to be this." I mean, if you feel "strange pull towards A Thing" (*cough* subconscious recognition of the self *cough*) and can't figure out why, wouldn't the first thing you do be to compare this strange pull to "pulls towards Things that I have experienced before" (desire, longing, etc)? And wouldn't you probably conclude that this new pull must be one of the natural pulls you've experienced all your life? It's an easy mistake to make.

Of course, there's more to mistaking this "strange pull" as wanting to be plural than just relying on past knowledge and experiences to come to an incorrect conclusion. Return to the idea that someone knows that (x) resonates with them, but the best way they can describe it is "I must want to be (x)." This in turn becomes them looking for reasons why they'd want to be (x) – because why would they want to be (x) without reason? – and end up focusing on the positives about being (x). These sentiments aren't meant to ignore negatives, they're meant to find an answer to their own questioning, with the logic followed of, "Something about this speaks to me, even though I'm not this thing." → "Maybe I want to be this thing?" → "But why would I want to be this thing?" → "It must be because of (list of positives of being that thing)."

Sometimes, "wanting" to be something is just the first step you need to take before finding and accepting that you are that thing. But if "I feel like I want to be this" is only met with scorn, like it often is in the system community, that first step goes nowhere. There is no self-discovery, there is no learning about the complexities about being that thing, there is nothing except a scolding that you do not belong unless you already know why you feel like you should belong. Which does not leave a good impression on any questioning people, even those who aren't saying these things.

Yeah, these sentiments can be a little insensitive at times. Yeah, these sentiments can be tone-deaf to the realities of being a system. And, no, not everyone who says they want to be a system is actually an undiscovered system who just thinks they're a singlet. But maybe take a chill pill the next time you hear someone say something like, "I wish I were a system," and talk to them about the impression their words give off instead of just telling them that they don't actually want to be a system because it's a "horrible way to live". You might just be talking to an egg who needs a little direction, and even if you're not, a little kindness will probably help more than a quick dismissal.

TLDR: Don't forget that many people "want to be a system" before they realize they are one. Not everyone who "wants to be a system" is intentionally trying to dismiss the hard parts of being a system, nor do they mean any offense.

[the-indigo-symphony]

We've got two main things for this:

The way our amnesia works means that we can usually recall things easily the first or second time we need a specific piece or information, but after that we just kinda have to guess, hope we wrote it down, or wait for the memory to become available again. It's kind of like a cool-down system for memories, almost, but it's caused a lot of self-doubt in the past because we felt like we should always be able to remember things we were once able to recall clearly.

We use co-fronting as a way to combat amnesia between headmates. The way it works is that whenever someone new comes to the front and doesn't understand what's going on, we share memories of recent events with them or give them time (by taking care of fronting duties) to sort through recent memories to figure out what's going on. If we mono-fronted/sole-fronted instead, our amnesiac barriers would be a lot more obvious, but the way we operate, we mostly come off as a singlet who just has very bad memory.

Tell me about your unique experiences of plurality? The ways you differ from "what's expected", the things that make specific labels not quite fit, the stuff you're scared to talk about off anon for fear of gatekeeping.

I will be tagging these as 'uniquely plural'

[the-indigo-symphony]

Might be edging close to syscourse with this post, but I find it rather unfortunate that feeling positive or just not feeling much of anything at all when it comes to gaining new headmates is seen as "unhealthy" at best and "fetishizing DID" at worst. Like, my dude, this is just my way of making my new system members feel welcome; I wouldn't say it's "unhealthy" of me to take steps and hold viewpoints that help me achieve functional multiplicity. And I think it's rather rude to say the way I accept my polyfragmented DID – and the fact that it comes with having/gaining lots of system members – is "fetishizing DID." What's next? You gonna tell me that because I've accepted my ADHD and the way I'm easily distracted/forgetful, I'm "fetishizing ADHD"? Must I publicly languish and declare my hatred for myself and my life every time I lose track of time for you to not see me as a faker?

It's just ridiculous, in my opinion. "Unhealthy" my ass – refusing to hate myself for parts of my life that aren't going away any time soon is the healthiest thing I've ever done.

[the-indigo-symphony]

One of the weirdest things of co-fronting is not the sharing [of] moving a body – you get used to that after a while. It's when you forget something, like what to write or where an item you need is, so your other is like "here let me do it for you" and you're just dragged along as they do whatever it is you needed. Like, thanks, but also being shown in real time that you guys can remember stuff I can't throws me for a loop sometimes, no matter how much I've come to expect and understand it

[the-indigo-symphony]

Out of all the experiences we've had as a system, the funniest has got to be when we were talking about being a system with our therapist and switched in the middle of a sentence. Why was this funny? Well, not two minutes before, we had been talking about switching in particular, and our therapist asked if it was noticable to the people around us, to which we said no. Which was then proven when she didn't notice our switch, lol.

Makes me think of how ridiculous those people who are like "I would notice if you were switching" are. You think you would notice if we were switching?? Our psychologist didn't notice a switch even though we were just talking about switching!! /lh

[the-indigo-symphony]

We wanted to chime in as a system with DID and say that we happened to figure out communication and switching pretty early on, too. The way we see it is this – at the end of the day, these sorts of things are just skills like any other, and that means some people are going to be naturally talented at them. Having a talent for a skill like these doesn't automatically rule out a disorder or mean you're not a system, it just means that if you are a disordered system, you have a leg up on learning the skills that you were probably gonna have to learn anyway. Some people seem to forget that you can have a talent for something that doesn't leave clear physical evidence (that is to say, mental health skills), so here's your reminder – just as people can be naturally gifted at art, or math, or Rubix cubes, so too can people be naturally gifted at grounding techniques, or mindfulness, or switching. It's just that unlike in the former areas, people don't talk about being talented in the latter areas so much; doesn't mean it never happens.

We only kind of recently realized we are a system (within the past 6 months) and a friend who is also a system said it's weird that we have very little in the way of amnesia. (Usually we can remember what happened when others are fronting, particularly if we switch intentionally) The way it said it made it sound like it disbelieved us and it kinda made us feel bad/weird. Is this actually unusual? (This friend has also said that it's weird we figured out controlled switching and communucation so quickly :/)

It's not unusual at all.

First, amnesia is only a symptom of DID and certain forms of OSDD. It's not common in non-disordered systems, and isn't present in what we call OSDD-1b. (Not an actual clinical term.)

Even in DID though, symptoms fall on a spectrum. Amnesia isn't always omnipresent. It just needs to exist at some point in the disorder to a degree that is greater than ordinary forgetting. Likewise, not every switch is s blackout switch.

As for communication, while most DID systems aren't diagnosed until adulthood, the vast majority report hearing voices as minors. The idea that DID systems can't communicate with alters without therapy is a complete myth and is the opposite of reality in a majority of cases. It's true for some DID systems but definitely not most.

It sounds like your friend has a lot of misconceptions about both DID and plurality as a whole, and is perhaps trying to apply their own experiences to every system.

Your system and your experiences with them are valid, whether you have DID, OSDD or are non-disordered like us. 😁

Personally, I would suggest looking further into DID though since, based on your phrasing, it sounds like you do experience uncontrollable switches and have memory lapses during those type of switches. It doesn't matter if they aren't as severe or as common as your friend's. Those symptoms are real and present.

Most of all though, please never base the validity of your own experiences on the opinions of others. 💖

[the-indigo-symphony]

Yes yes "alt is great" and all that but do you actually mean alt or do you mean punk + goth. And do you respect that alt varies from place to place depending on what mainstream fashion it is alternative to or do you act like alt can only be alternative to the immediate fashion around you.

[the-indigo-symphony]

Endogenic systems are not "playing pretend." They just exist. You do not have to have originated from trauma to be a real system.

[the-indigo-symphony]

I totally get where it's coming from, but it's still a little funny whenever I find the niche trope of "singlet who only knows the host of a system worries over getting to know the rest of their headmates". Not because I find the trope bad or anything – it can be very well done! It's just so foreign to how we in particular live our lives that the dilemma sounds ridiculous if we try to apply it to ourselves.

Setting aside the fact that we don't have a host... It's impossible for anyone to know (as in, have a relationship* with) one of us. We're constantly co-fronting, and even then, we almost always have a few folks in co-con watching our interactions with other people. There's not really any scenario where someone could form a relationship with only one of us, because even if they and we went to extreme lengths to keep their interactions isolated to only one headmate... passive influence and bleedover are bound to affect what goes on. Everything we say and do is filtered through many minds at all times. Can't really have a single relationship with a system like ours.

*any kind of relationship, not just romantic

Which is how we return to the humor of this trope when applied to our system. You're nervous about meeting more headmates besides X? But you've already spoken to A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J... Etcetera, etcetera.

It's just a little funny, you know?

[the-indigo-symphony]

Yeah, we've had a dream once where we were semi-aware of each other and talked to each other in the dream (granted it was for like two sentences, but still)!

anyone else ever experience two separate members having a shared dream at once? like, the same dream from two points of view? (or another system member "spectating" someone else's dream)

or like. switching while in a dream? or, at least, awareness of the system during a dream, where multiple people are talking/at least Seem to be talking (dreams r weird)

[the-indigo-symphony]

Sometimes I can tell when someone in my notifs has just made a blog or just gotten into the plural side of Tumblr, because they'll follow multiple of our system blogs one after the other. Like, thank you for following me. And me. And me. Would you like a gold card as thanks for your sweeping support? We offer no perks and no rewards points because this is not a business, but we value our loyal consumers all the same

[the-indigo-symphony]

can I ask what exactly impostion is? I don't think I've heard of it./gen

Sure thing! Imposition is the practice of visualizing your headmates in the external world, the same way someone might "see" an imaginary friend. You could think of it like imagining your headmate sitting or standing next to you, except they would have control over what their visualized self would do, not you and your imagination. I've heard some impositions can even include senses (i.e. a headmate seeing from their own eyes when imposing themself as opposed to their physical body's eyes), but we're just focusing on basic visualization for now, since trying that kinda overwhelms us. We also know there are other techniques that can be added to imposition, but we're not really knowledgeable on those.

Imposition is a common practice in the tulpamancy community, although other parts of the plural community haven't picked it up as much; if you're interested, we recommend you check out this forum site. We've decided to try practicing it to help our communication and integrate some (as in, lowering the amnesiac and dissociative barriers between headmates, not fusing together), and also just because it's fun!

Hope this answers your question, anon!