multiplicity_archives | hi and pointers wanted :-) (Reply)

I'm more or less singlish myself, and in a longtime relationship with six people in one body. So I'm looking for any resources for partners, and any pointers from others living in/with multiplicity...

1) my fear/stress relating to encounters with aggressive/volatile fragments (increasingly rare, but more likely when my partner-system is under acute stress and the people who handle security get tired out). I don't feel physically endangered, but it is hard to not be a totally guarded person when I sense stress and volatility. My distance at such times grieves a number of the people in there, creating stress... downward spiral.

2) jealousy among my parner-people, my own (inevitable) preferences for some of them at certain times (they vary considerably in kindness and caring skills). This hasn't been major, but it has come up... my response has been "it is natural for you to feel jealous of ___(another person in the system) because he has skills that you want; I think you can learn them too if you choose, and I do love you both". It is interesting that it ~doesn't~ work just to switch who is frontrunning, because different people personally want intimacy, and have different skills and deficits, and are not happy to let someone else run the show while they are passively present.

OK, a third issue. Most of our relationship problems have been related to a state they (my partners) call "liminal". Nobody is really in charge (no frontrunner) and the body's behavior becomes erratic, unpredictable, and unkind... also, memory losses/lack of accountability. I have learned to sense this state, and sense when the system is heading to that state (whoever is frontrunning becomes erratic and increasingly less coherent) and ask that either someone show up or else the system withdraw/journal/meditate until someone gets their act together to come forward. Lapses into this state are a cause for concern for all six people-- they are very motivated to avoid them.

One of my partners wanted me to ask about this, is the struggle with the liminal/nobody-frontrunning state familiar to any of you?? What are some of the factors that make this state worse and is there anything else (besides having me point it out, timeouts and meditation and journal-writing) that helps make it better? (A no-stress lifestyle doesn't seem to be in the cards!)

Thanks for any help--

Halcyon