Multiplicity

Sounds like me about 17 years ago. Like, "I can't be multiple because I'm not like in the books". I listed all the reasons time and again. But the sense of other people being present, and the things "I" said, did and wrote that were different from my usual, had always been there, had been there since birth, and did not go away.

So you got stuck at the front, and it might take a bit of doing to push you back from it. This happened with me, and happens in a lot of systems. Having a front-runner who is always there, no matter who else is there, is a damn good thing to have in this world that doesn't accept people who talk or act differently.

There is also this lost time and memory business. Multiplicity has nothing to do with memory or amnesia. Many systems have some form of continuous awareness or common knowledge resource that anyone in the group can access. Ours seems to have come about naturally, but others set one up consciously and improve it through practice.

We've been able to co-run and be co-present from the beginning; and it isn't always such a marvellous thing, as you've found out. Being able to have two or more people at front at once was something the books didn't talk about, and so made me think I was not multiple. That's one thing I thank Truddi Chase for; her description of co-running (although she didn't call it that).

Plus that damn common knowledge thing makes it really hard to, like, buy presents for someone else in the group and hide them as a surprise. We have to practice not being aware. Some systems really do lack continuity though; we know of two systems that fit that description, and they do very well in life and work by leaving notes for each other.

And never mind the dissociation jazz; thanks to Cornelia Wilbur, that word now has an entirely different meaning from its original one, and it is now mostly irrelevant to the multiple experience, although they'd like you to believe it does. It's an example of how psychology is a soft science... things aren't carved in stone, but they'd like you to believe they are.

My advice would be, get to know and respect the other people. The books don't tell it like it really is. And I know this may be hard, but like elenbarathi said, don't scratch out or tear up things that other people wrote. Read it carefully and don't discount it as things like "just my own mind playing tricks on me." Respect it as written by someone else ... respect that person.

Good luck!