thoughts...

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

So I've been thinking of this post by kasiya_system (based on this post from this community) for several days...

My mind keeps coming back to it, like your tongue to a popcorn kernel stuck in your teeth...

Basically, I think it parallels my theory on lesbians. HUH?!? Bear with me...

I believe that all women are lesbians, it's just a matter of how much. Think of a ruler and one end of it is being attracted to women, and the other end is being attracted to men. Women stand on this ruler and slide back and forth depending on a variety of things... some sliding more than others.

I believe that women are this way because it promotes connections between women, so that we'll help each other raise our children and general take care of everything that needs doing while menfolk are off getting themselves killed with hunting or battles or whatever other manly things they do...

So, tell that to some Lesbians, and they get angry. Very, very angry. Why? Because they like the idea of being part of some very exclusive, very different group of people, i.e., gay women.

Well, what if being multiple wasn't as rare or as different as some people believe it is? What if everyone is multiple, and it's just a matter of degrees? A matter of where on the ruler you stand? What if it's just a normal function of the human mind, and not special or exclusive at all?

That would make some people very very angry, I imagine. They might try to insist that only people exactly like them were multiple, and everyone else was lying, or schizophrenic, or something else entirely.

To these people, like some lesbians, being multiple is their total idenity. Make that less rare, less special, less important, and it's as if you are attacking the very fabric of what makes them them.

Anyhoo... that's my take.

~x-posted to princesstoots~

Comments

[shandra.livejournal.com]

Well I think some people do suffer from the super speshul thing, yeah.

And certainly I think something like "most people have the /potential/ to be x (whatever)" can be fair enough to say.

On the other hand I think you may be missing why some people would be annoyed or angry. Taking multiplicity as something I know more about than being gay, the fact is that elements of my life work differently than the average.

And if you say "well everyone's multiple to some extent," I can kind of smile and nod, but this does not really equate to the /utter chaos/ that our system lived through for many years before becoming selves-aware. And to some of the gut-wrenching compromises we have had to fight through and continue to live with. That I don't believe people who (whether they have the potential or not) are not parts of multiple systems have to struggle with.

So, while I don't think this is especially core to my sense of uniqueness-or-not, it is a different experience than the average. And it is a little disturbing if someone tries to negate that.

Shandra

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

... I don't think I 'splained my thoughts exactly right, but let's stay with the lesbian/multiple analogy for a minute...

In junior high and high school, we were shunned, tormented, verbally abused, and in one case attacked because we were attracted to women more than men. And not just by students, but by teachers and our mother (who told us if we ever brought home a girl or black boy she'd kick us out - she's a charming woman).

Anyhoo... Being gay is by and large a very difficult thing. Being multiple is also a very difficult thing. I by no means am saying that everyone on the bus is a multiple, or that people can just slide down the ruler and be *more* multiple...

Just that some people who are lesbians and some people who are multiple share an attitude that *their* brand of those things are the only way you can be those things and if you don't fit their narrow definition, then you're not.

How our system works has no effect whatsoever on how your system works, or how Pat's system works, just like how attracted I am to men has no effect on how attracted Rosie O'Donnel or any other lesbian is to men or women. They are unique regardless of how many other different ways there are to be multiple or lesbian, and it's really sad that they don't get that...

[shandra.livejournal.com]

Oh okay, I get it. Yeah I agree. :)

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

.... being hetero or homo sexual is being attracted to ONE gender. What you sare saying is that all women are bisexual, and they slide between the extremes.

That aside.


I think you can't do that with being multiple, so much. When it comes to DID, yes, there are people at either end, and people who are in between, and some people slide. But with multiple you can't do that. How could we be 'less multiple'? Maybe I could live outside of the body and just take control of it sometimes. But that's not multiple, that's channelling.

It does make sense, in that people don't like something significant to them being challenged and changed. You see it in a lot of communities. But I think you're phrasing it wrong.

The point you are trying to get across is correct though.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

yeah - my thoughts didn't form perfect words :)

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

but to your comment about being "less multiple"...

We are less multiple, in a manner of speaking. I am the main one, Shay used to be, and there are a handful of others. Mostly, no one but me fronts, and mostly, there is a calm order to our inside world. Most live in the Quiet.

Anyhoo... that's just me :)

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

How is that less multiple? Multiplicity is many people in one body. It is not affected by who fronts. Even if I never, ever fronted, we would still be as multiple as any other.

This is what I mean. There are people who experience being multiple differently, but multiplicity itself is not something which can be 'more' or 'less'.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

I mean, others view us as being not as *multiple* as they are because we have a small system, no one but me really fronts, etc.

It's been described to us as if we are a few weeks pregnant in a room with women in their 9th month. We're all pregnant, we're just less pregnant.

That's all I meant :)

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

Anybody who views you as not as multiple as them needs to be hit hard with a clue by four. Ditto to anybody who looks on somebody a few weeks along as less pregnant than somebody nine months.

Small system? There's just the two of us in here :P People really need to wake up and smell the coffee. With both the multiplicity and the pregnancy thing, that's people's ignorance rather than an actual clear example/explanation.

But I'm nitpicking. Your point is valid, and that is all that matters.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

:)

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

Who's telling you you're not "Multiple" or "less" Multiple? Wants me to hurts them for you!?!?!! *snugs*

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

*snugs*

Not in so many words, but some comments here and there give that distinct impression. No worries - I think I'm just being overly sensitive about it.

Love you!

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

Someone at home? or online?

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

online.

[etana.livejournal.com]

Right - DID - dissociation - because everyone experiences dissociation to some extent - ie. "road hypnosis" when folks drive and get from point A to point B without really "thinking about it." This is part of the dissociative spectrum. I used to confuse this with Multiplicity when I was first diagnosed five years ago now (wow..) - however Multiplicity signifies many selves contained in one body - and not everyone can have many selves or many folk within their body - if that were the case, well then - we wouldn't be treated like so much shit, eh?
However Multiplicity, I would argue, isn't as rare as folks think. I know of many psychologists (including the instructors I took a few psych courses from in my early undergraduate years) who still teach that Multiplicity is a rare bird often not experienced by most practitioners within their career. How odd to articulate - considering the high rates of abuse (I still use that model of thinking, my apologies to those that do not) and repetitive trauma experienced by young girls AND boys. I've always wondered why psychologists/psychiatrists/therapists/counselors, etc. rarely put two and two together to make four, for fuck's sake!

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

Then again, multiplicity isn't always caused by abuse. Nor does abuse always result in multiplicity.

I think DID, in various degrees, is more common than people realise. Doctors fail to spot it, doctors fail to put two and two together, as you say. Multiplicity wouldn't normally be 'diagnosed' though. *but* it again is more common than people think, because lets face it, how many people even on metaphysical communities are going to admit to hearing voices in their head that sometimes take over, right?

[etana.livejournal.com]

LOL right......and I realize that the "abuse" argument is controversial so I'll stay out of it. I don't agree with you but that's because of my own experiences, not that I negate those who say they are multiple and not abused.
But the nagging voice next to me (haha) would beg to differ. So I'll end this :)
I'm way to much game for a good debate.....

[kangetsuhime.livejournal.com]

It's ok, I'm far too into debate as well. I just get fed up sometimes of people assuming abuse = multiplicity end-of-discussion. Not long ago in an abuse community I'm a member of, somebody believed that because they had DID, they MUST have been abused. Their therapist told them this, and only *then* began investigating the person's past. I think this is ignorant and stupid. If a person has DID, investigate carefully and quietly, do not make assumptions. Same with people who have been abused, investigate, find out if they have DID and have not realised, don't jump to conclusions.

I can't not believe in non-abuse created multis. I was abused, a long time ago, I never became multiple. My host has never been abused in her life to any serious extent.

As far as I can tell the abuse/multiple arguement isn't an arguement. There are people who have been abused who are not multiple. there are people who are multiple who have not been abused. My problem I guess, but I cannot no matter how hard I try, understand any other viewpoint, only the misinformation that may have caused it.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

I think that Sybil-like MPD is extremely rare, although real; and if that's what they're looking for, that is why they think that.

[etana.livejournal.com]

Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm that's pretty controversial as far as lesbianism goes. Technically you are talking not so much about lesbianism - the sexual/physical/spiritual/emotional attraction to women-identified-women by women-identified-women, but rather the spectrum of sexual identity.
There are few who are completely straight or completely "gay" as it were - but the fluidity of sexuality allows for folks to be "queer" - not gay or straight, so to speak.
Just as there is a spectrum of multiplicity. Does this make sense?

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

And *that* is exactly what I'm talking about.

I'm not *really* gay because I fell in love with a man. I'm out of the club, despite the fact that before him, I dated women and only women.

There aren't enough words in the world to catagorize human sexuality. They are all just *words*

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I've actually had a lesbian jump all over my case because I said that her being a lesbian didn't matter. What I meant was that it doesn't matter to me, that I don't think it would matter to any of my friends, and that I think it's friggin' absurd that it matters to anyone whether someone else is attracted to men, women, both or neither - I mean, really, why should anyone care?

She got all pissed off at me, though, because apparently my saying that her being a lesbian didn't matter was invalidating her entire social identity. If this society ever does pull its head out of its (figurative) butt and stop discriminating against people for liking members of their own sex, I think she and her ilk are going to be very disappointed, because there'll be no drama-points for gayness; it'll just be this normal, ordinary thing.

As for multiplicity: so far I have not seen ANY solid evidence to support the premise that multiplicity is caused by trauma. It may well be that all the supposedly trauma-split multiples would have turned out multiple just the same if they'd never been traumatized. Y'know, the psychiatric establishment used to claim that homosexuality and autism were also mental disorders caused by childhood experiences - that wasn't that long ago, either.

Apparently the current premise of the psychiatric establishment is that There's No Such Thing As Multiplicity - that it's all a "thought disorder", caused (like all other alleged thought disorders) by chemical imbalances in the brain. These imbalances can't actually be demonstrated to exist, but supposedly they can be alleviated by taking psycho-active drugs for the rest of your life... so... if you walk into a psychiatrist's office and say you're multiple, you will walk out with a prescription. If you walk back in next month and say you're still multiple, you'll get a stronger prescription, and probably a recommendation of hospitalization.

That's how it works. Apparently this is a very effective strategy for reducing the reported incidence of multiplicity, because most who've been so "treated" stop reporting it.

*shrugs* I've heard the "well, everyone's multiple to some extent" line a bunch of times, and it just doesn't make any sense. It's like saying "well, everyone's got siblings they share a house with to some extent": a patently absurd statement.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* I've heard the "well, everyone's multiple to some extent" line a bunch of times, and it just doesn't make any sense. It's like saying "well, everyone's got siblings they share a house with to some extent": a patently absurd statement.

I didn't exactly mean it that way, but that every multiple is different, there's no one way to be multiple just like there's no one way to be gay. Poorly articulated on my part. Sorry.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

As I see it, there are two ways that the 'everyone is multiple' argument can be used. In the first sense, it's used to invalidate the existence of multiplicity-- saying 'everyone has different personalities' or 'everyone has different sides of themselves' or 'I'm a different person at home than I am at work.' This kind of comment is frequently tossed out by acquaintances and relatives uncomfortable with the idea of seeing you as multiple. The essential meaning of it is that you don't really have more than one person in your body-- you just think you do; you're naming different aspects of your own self and mistaking them for different people; you're making a big dramatic deal out of a normal thing that everyone does.

The other version of 'everyone is multiple' builds off of the idea of a continuum. While I don't agree with the idea of multiplicity being the extreme end of a dissociative continuum, and I think the idea of a linear progression may be an oversimplification, I definitely agree there are degrees. I've actually seen a good depiction of singlet-to-multiple as a wheel. I do think the tendency to form other minds is inherent in the human psyche to some degree-- I'm thinking of writers who say that characters they've worked on for a long time may seem to become real and have their own will, or people who roleplay a character and find that character developing specific ways of thinking and reacting. (To be fair, this isn't to say all autonomous characters have the same origin, or to negate experiences like walk-ins-- I don't have any kind of Grand Unified Theory of Plurality, but I try to take everyone's experience at face value. I'm just saying it's one way that people can come to exist in a system.) Still, though, there's a big difference between getting a sense of a reaction from someone, and that person being able to use the body at will.

This isn't to say you can't go from one to the other-- we've had it happen a few times in our system-- but the point is, for most non-multiples, it doesn't. That's why they're not multiple, and they don't have a desire to change themselves to be otherwise. Yes, it's true that they could, but there are a lot of things that all or most people could do in potential. Most women could potentially have a dozen children, but if a woman doesn't, if she's only thought about it or imagined it, you wouldn't say that she has a dozen children 'in a way.' Most people can learn to speak another language, but if they only know a few words, you wouldn't say they're bilingual in a way. It's not so much the potential to do so that's important as whether it's been done.

It's not so much about wanting to be thought of as special. It's just about the fact that it's a different experience than having a voice of conscience telling you to brush your hair, and wanting to have it acknowledged as different. Different doesn't have to mean 'better than' or 'deserving of more attention than'-- just less common. I've definitely seen plurals who believed they were special and better, I'll readily admit that, as well as some who claimed not to think of themselves as better but revealed otherwise on some occasions. But I'll be the first to say I don't see multiplicity as a special thing, nor do I see it as desirable to be viewed as special. I don't likw the idea that plurals are more intelligent, more creative, more psychic, more anything. We've sometimes even gone out of the way to emphasize our 'mundanity' to people. Saying 'everyone is multiple' doesn't constitute a threat or attack on our identity, but I believe it misrepresents our reality to others-- obsuring the fact that there are definite differences in our day-to-day living.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

Poorly stated - see my other comments to that effect.

My bad.

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

It actually means being from the Isle of Lesbos. There was a woman who lived there in ancient greek times named Sappho who taught women and wrote poetry. Her poems were the first about love, passion and sex, and were always about young women.

Most of her stuff was burned by Christians around 300AD.

People from Lesbos were called Lesbians, like how people from California are Californians ;)

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

*laughing*

Legend says that all the women on Lesbos liked other women, so if you like other women, you get that name.

It's not a disease.

*gives you some chocolate trail mix*

[jhenii-family.livejournal.com]

No, that's Atlantis. Lesbos is still there and a tourist spot.

http://www.caligo.com/europe/greekislands.html