#internal communication

[system-of-a-feather]

Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

[pluralprompts]

Prompt #1,029

Demon A hissed as they adjusted to the senses of their new body, shaking their head only to wince when their vertigo worsened. Possessing someone always left them feeling off-kilter for a while, hence why they didn't often do it, but it's not like they had much of a choice in the matter this time. Who knew they'd get shoved into the body of whoever released them from the box they'd been trapped in for... years? Decades? Centuries? What year was it?

Caught up in their thoughts, it took Demon A a few moments to realize they could hear someone speaking.

'Jeez, that was a nasty switch.' The words came with a... sensation? Mental image? of someone shaking themself off, and Demon A blinked. Where did that – 'Everyone okay?'

There was a chorus of noise from inside their head, and Demon A stumbled back, glancing around the crypt for any sign of who or what this was. Was the person they'd possessed some sort of psychic?! Spirit medium?! Wait, no, if they were a spirit medium they'd have known better than to open Demon A's box, but –

'Woah, okay, uh, whoever's in front? You good there?'

A strangled noise left Demon A's throat. Just who was this person?!

[multiplicity-positivity]

Establishing Contact with Headmates

Hello everyone! Not sure if we’ve ever made a post like this before, but I wanted to put together a post with tips on establishing contact with alters for those who suspect they may be a system or have a complex dissociative disorder.

This is written with folks with DID in mind, but this advice may be useful for systems of any sort!

So you think you may be a system. You may have had one-off interactions with an alter, experienced auditory or visual “hallucinations” that manifest from inside, deal with unexplained time loss and memory gaps, lack a solid sense of self, feel disconnected from your body and reality, find yourself spacing out or daydreaming often, understand you have a significant trauma history (even if you can’t remember what the trauma was), or feel like you’re not alone in your own head. You’re not sure if you may be plural, and want to determine whether or not you’re alone in your own mind.

If any of this describes you, we have some advice that may help you learn more about your system and connect with your headmates. Here are some things you can try that may help.

1. Attempt to establish a connection internally.

Explore the possibility of not being the only presence inside your mind. In a calm, safe environment, reach out with messages inside, and see if you get anything in response. Ask internally things like “is there anyone else here?” “Am I alone inside my mind?” Provide reassurance that any potential alters are safe and that you can be trusted.

Accept the fact that you may not hear from anyone straight away. Alters may be scared to come forward or reveal themselves, you may have heavy dissociative barriers, or it may take time to build up trust. Make a habit of reaching out once or twice a day. Try not to be pushy, angry, or quick to become frustrated - if it gets overwhelming, take a step back to cool off. Understand that change does not happen overnight, and if you have alters, it will take some time to build a base of communication between each other.

2. Attempt to establish a connection externally.

In addition to reaching out in your mind, try writing notes to potential alters. This can be in a Google Doc, a journal, post-it notes, the notes app on your phone, or anywhere else. Encourage potential alters to write back, reminding them that they are safe, there’s no pressure to come forward quickly, and that you are trustworthy and capable of creating a comfortable environment for them.

Consider setting up a PluralKit or TupperBox on Discord. These programs allow you to set up multiple profiles that act as bots, allowing one account to share many profiles and post from each one separately. Set up a server for yourself, and post instructions in the server on how to create a PluralKit or TupperBox profile. That way, an alter who fronts later can make their own profile if they wish. This can allow you and your alters to communicate externally and learn more about each other.

3. Ask for help outside.

If you feel like you may be a system, it could be helpful to try broaching the subject with an individual you know well and trust. Be careful who you share this information with! Talking about the system with potential abusers or individuals who have harmed you in the past may cause internal strife and discourage headmates from wanting to get in touch with you.

Ask a friend or loved one if they’ve noticed you acting strange or differently in the past. Have they noticed you spacing out or dissociating, speaking in an unusual tone or accent, or acting in ways that are normally uncharacteristic for you? Can they shed light on your past and reveal aspects of yourself that you had forgotten or never known about? Being able to discuss this with someone else may help shake an alter loose, or could help make it clear whether or not you’re a system.

4. Seek therapy.

Better still than speaking to a friend or loved one is speaking to a therapist. Therapists are trained mental health professionals who are equipped with tools to help struggling individuals with a wide variety of mental illnesses. Even if you are functioning excellently and feel like you don’t suffer from any mental illness, if you’re wondering if you have headmates, it may be a good idea to try talking about it with a therapist.

Of course, a specialist in trauma and dissociation would be preferred (especially if you exhibit symptoms of dissociation or PTSD), but any therapist should be able to help you make sense of what’s going on in your mind.

If you have faced religious trauma in the past, please avoid seeking help from a faith-based therapist. If you have faced trauma from teachers, guidance counselors, or other school staff, please avoid seeking help from a school-based therapist. This is in order to keep your system safe, and to reassure your headmates that you do not wish to retraumatize them or put them in harm’s way.

Remember that therapists are humans without superpowers. They are capable of malpractice, misdiagnosis, and personal bias. If you do not mesh or click well with your therapist, it’s absolutely okay to leave them and find another one. Trust does not come immediately in therapy, and it may take some time working with a therapist before you feel comfortable enough to bring up the possibility of plurality. That’s perfectly normal and nothing to be concerned about! Take your time, be as open and honest as you can, and trust your instincts.

Hopefully these tips can help you reach out to potential alters, build trust and connection, and learn more about yourself in the process! If it turns out you’re not a system after all, that’s okay, and it means a lot that it’s an experience you’d be open to learning more about and exploring.

Remember to be PUNK to yourself and your potential system - show patience, understanding, neutrality, and kindness to yourself as you go through this process! Thanks so much for reading - we wish you all health and safety in your future and hope you have a lovely day!

[fragmented-light-sys]

does anyone else ever just actually get over the anxiety of trying to talk with your parts and then just... get into the next thing of being afraid that them answering is really just you rping inside your own head as different voices... doesnt help the case that i can kinda *feel* their answers coming (or is it more my head trying to "decrypt" their answer?)...

[sophieinwonderland]

do you have any tips or sources on internal communication? i do use sticky notes and the chat feature in simply plural but i see a lot of people talk about how they can hear their alters and talk to them in their head. i’ve done it a few times but its really difficult.

i have wanted to be good at it for literally years. but every time i ask people they just tell me to get a professional in DID. i understand that but im poor so. LOL /lh

(and btw tysm for just having your blog and spreading positivity as well as insanely helpful recourses, comfort and advice. as a traumagenic DID system, i always feel safest interacting with pro endo blogs. and also, you are very well worded. tysm for your work. <3)

Not too much, unfortunately. The thing about tulpas is that we're largely created through communication, and so as a result, communication difficulty isn't really something we've experienced. This doesn't apply to all tulpamancy systems, but it does for us.

I looked it up, and found this guide that has a whole lot of different communication methods for you to try.

It doesn't focus on the internal communication you want very much though.

If you want to build internal communication, my advice would be to start with meditation. Use earplugs or white noise or whatever you need to block out the outside world. Communication is always harder, even for those experienced with it, when there's noise in the outerworld to act as a distraction.

Close your eyes, and try to imagine yourself with your headmate in your inner world. (If your inner world is just a complete blank void, that's totally okay. It doesn't need to be detailed.) Don't merely visualize their appearance though... Try to find their... essence.

Visualize your headmate, then think about how they acted and felt when they fronted, think about their memories, and try to put the essence of who they are into the imagined body. Now try to talk to them in this form and listen for a response. Their response may be light, like a passing thought. You may be unsure if it's actually them, but if you do get a response, keep talking to them. You can try poking their mindform or otherwise interacting with this form physically (in the mental space you create.)

I can't promise results, but I would at least try exercises like this, tweaking them as needed.

Hope this can help. Good luck! 💖

[orange-orchard-system]

I love writing about plurality (in fiction, I mean), but accurate internal communication (or, at least, how our system experiences it) can be so hard to depict because it's not just words all of the time. How the hell am I supposed to explain – in my fiction writing prose, mind you, so nothing too technical or casual – to an audience how a headmate waves a hand while sending a specific emotion to another headmate and this somehow clarifies who the first headmate is talking about?? I don't blame people for not understanding internal communication; I barely understand it myself, let alone am able to talk about it!

[system-comforts]

Hii! Just wondering if you had any advice for improving system communication inside your head?? We have notes all over our room that help with external communication but we’re just struggling internally right now.

Hey anon, we understand that difficulty. We find it hard to communicate internally when externally things are chaotic. If we are too busy with work, school, etc, it can be hard to realize when we switch, what people are saying, and what happens at the front.

If you find yourself very busy, try to find some time to relax. For you, relax might mean drawing, listening to music, etc. Anything where you can clear your mind and not have school, work, etc on your mind is good. This gives you mental space to listen.

Sometimes it is helpful to try and learn if there are specific reasons for why communication is hard. Is someone preventing it? Is someone too stressed to speak? There might not always be a cause, but if a person is unfamiliar, untrusting, etc, it can make communication harder. Being open, and expressing that openness can help. "I'm here to listen," "what did you think about..." and similar ideas can foster that environment. This might also mean setting specific time dedicated to talking, so people know that you are and when you are available.

And sometimes, having something to talk about is important. Headmates that don't share hobbies or interests, or who don't have similar personalities- at least in our system- don't tend to talk much. If you want to talk with your headmates more, first try to talk to ones you share common interests, hobbies, activities with. If you're both extroverted, maybe plan to go out somewhere, and ask where they'd like to go. In these cases, it's often important to listen for not just words, but also emotions and actions. If you feel a slight change in mood while mentioning a place, consider if it was the influence of a headmate. Communication can happen in many forms, from feelings to images to even music and bodily movements. These can be some of the best first stepping stones to communicating.

We hope some of these ideas helped! Internal communication is one of the hardest parts about being a system! But you're doing awesome!

-mod moon

[granulesofsand]

It’s fairly easy to acquire an ouija board (it is ‘a’ because the ‘ou’ sounds like ‘w’).

It’s fairly difficult to learn internal communication.

So:

you take the ouija board, possibly with other bodies if you don’t think alters count towards the minimum players

you ask the questions as if it were a spirit on the other end

and let your body move the planchette as they answer

Is this efficient? No.

But it is novel, and that might be enough to convince your body doubles.

[paluimbel]

So in math class today the people in front were super blurry so they tried to call X to switch them out, but it didn't work, so since I was cocon they asked me to go get him instead. It must've worked 'cause I got yeeted to the front 30 seconds later. (Can't remember what happened. Headspace amnesia.)

Anyway, now I'm sort of front stuck, and we have a mild migraine that may or may not be related, but I still count this as a win for our internal communication skills.

[dissociative-memes]

[Image: 18-piece background, alternating between blue & orange with a picture of a young degu in the middle.

Top text reads: “Everyone of us who has tried unseasonable apple sauce hated it” Bottom text reads: “We keep trying it as if every alter has to individually learn that they hate it”]

Bottom text reads: “We keep trying it as if every alter has to individually learn that they hate it”]

[unwelcome-ozian]

Hello Oz, I am just now waking up to the fact that I may be a victim of TBMC. I have two questions.

1- I was thinking about my sexual abuse the other day when I heard a voice in my head say. "I'm a ruby". After some research, I discovered that ruby programming has to do with sexual programming. Do you think this could have been an alter coming forward?

2- I am very new to this. How do I know if an alter is communicating with me? And how do I start to discover the internal system and maps?

I don’t know enough about your history and experiences to answer this question. Hearing voices is a common experience: around one in ten people will experience it at some point in their lives. Research shows that many people hear voices and don't have a mental health problem.

Take your time in sorting things out. If you are able talk with a therapist or mental health provider.

Alters can communicate with each other internally. 

Corresponding in a journal. 

Communicating through another person.

Becoming co-conscious with them. They may block each other if they want.

Here’s a link to an article: Beginning an Inner Dialogue with Alters

Oz

[system-of-a-feather]

Thank you for your answer! This is the anon who asked about front tiredness and your response was incredibly helpful, especially about figuring out our natural rhythm to help us have more control over the switching and more practice being present.

We've been working a lot on trying to let ourselves actually enjoy things, which means needing to be present and try to hold onto a sense of safety enough to relax enough to have fun. It's always been that even when we're doing our hobbies, we felt like a hamster on a wheel (running nonstop but getting nowhere), I guess as a way to dissociate or at least avoid being fully present in the moment.

And somehow, trying to be present in that way and hold onto the internal sense of safety we've been building does feel very taxing on our brain. I guess we're probably creating new neural pathways, and asking our body (brain and nervous system) to do something they aren't used to.

I feel better knowing we've got a path forward, in the short term and long term, so that not-dissociating can feel less exhausting eventually.

Hey no problem. Your reply here - particularly the way you talked about "creating new neural pathways" actually got me internally monologuing about a way we've approached system mapping so it's honestly a lot of fun to have these chats.

It's hard engaging in the world when shit's always been so dazed out but its honestly super worth it, even if it takes a lot of time and effort. Just remember to go at your own pace and don't demand more of your brain than it seems to be able to provide and things will get better over time.

[pluralprompts]

Prompt #1,566

"Why are we staying up?"

"Our pajamas are in the dryer. I want to wear them when they're freshly done, so they're still warm."

"That was a surprisingly direct answer."

"You asked a direct question."

[multiplicity-positivity]

hello! i was wondering, is it okay to not be able to hear your headmates 24/7? i have been feeling some guilt lately over not being able to hear my headmates all the time and just wondering if its normal or if there’s anything i can improve. (slight add-on our internal communication isn’t the best but its being worked on, we are also recently discovered aswell.)

Hi! Yes, it’s okay and totally normal to not hear your headmates 24/7. We’ve been aware of our system for about six years now, with three of those years spent making progress in therapy, and even now we still can’t hear all of our alters all the time! We think it’s much more common to go through periods without hearing from your headmates than it is to be in touch with each other 100% of the time.

Of course, communication can absolutely improve with time and regular practice! We’ll go ahead and link our post on establishing contact with headmates, which might have some info that could be useful for you!

We’re not sure what your system origins are, but we think it’s worth mentioning that if you suspect you may have a dissociative disorder, it’s important to take things slowly and not rush yourself! Y’all will have the rest of your lives to get to know each other, so please remember that it’s okay to breathe, take breaks, and not pressure yourself or your headmates to keep up communication constantly.

Quite honestly that advice could probably go for any system, regardless of origins! Pacing yourself and taking your time when getting to know the rest of your system is never a bad thing. And again, it’s okay to not be in constant contact! It doesn’t mean you’re not actually plural by any means and it’s nothing to feel guilty over!

We hope this helps put your mind at ease a bit. We’re wishing you and your system the very best of luck in your future!

[hauntedselves]

What's the difference between having normal conversations with yourself in your head and conversations with alters? I'm questioning OSDD 1 and I've found myself getting into full blown arguments in my head where someone ends up hurt . This has gotten worse since I've started questioning and can't tell if I'm faking it or not.

it's hard to tell, but i think the main thing to try and pin down is if the other thoughts/voices have their own opinions, sense of self, etc.

having "full blown arguments in my head where someone ends up hurt" sounds more indicative of having alters than just arguing with yourself.

a normal ("normal") conversation with yourself would be something like:

"X invited me to a party, I should go but I don't really want to... I want to just stay home. But I'll feel bad if I skip. Maybe I'll just stay for a little while and leave early. Should I bring some food or something? Is anyone there going to have dietary needs? Ugh, so much work for something I don't really want to do! But it will still be fun... I do like it when parties go until early mornings... and I like organising for events!"

while talking with alters would be something like:

"X invited me to a party, I should go. It'll be fun!"

"But I don't want to go. I want to just stay home."

"But I want to go! And I'll feel bad if I skip."

"Maybe I'll just stay for a little while and leave early."

"Where's the fun in that? I love parties that go until the early morning!"

"Should I bring some food or something? Is anyone there going to have dietary needs?"

"Oh yes, I'll need to get food and find out who can eat what! I'll make a list!"

"Ugh, so much work for something I don't really want to do!"

"This is gonna be so much fun! I should be an event organiser..."

in the first example there's two conflicting parts of the person, one part wants to go while the other doesn't. but there's a lot more cohesion between the two parts and the person arrives at a compromise quickly, and can see both perspectives.

in the second example, there are two alters who have opposing views, there's no cohesion between them. there's the potential of a compromise, but it's clearly not going to be resolved when both alters have such different opinions. neither can see each other's perspective because they're dissociated/separate from each other. (they might not even be aware of each other and the overall person is confused as to why there's two perspectives that are so different and equally compelling).

[pluralia-tantum]

Legitimately do people have any advice on internal communication. People are always like "call them by their name!" or something and I'm like they won't even tell me that lmao