(no subject)

[wolfcubbie.livejournal.com]

Rick and Faith are reading this book called House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. He's the brother of the singer Poe. anyway, some of it sounded to me like it could be a metaphor for multiplicity.

it's not, he's not multiple that I know of, but it still sounds like it to me.

http://www.bookrags.com/shortguide-house_of_leaves/

anyway, basically, inside this house, is a door that shouldn't really lead to anywhere, cos the space doesn't allow for it, but it leads into this hallway anyway. the hallway keeps expanding and changing, sort of reflecting the emotional state of the people who live in the house.

anyone heard of/read it? any thoughts?

cubbie
Pack Collective

(no subject)

[ricktboy.livejournal.com]

We recently got an interesting visitor. A friend of mine who passed on, has come into our honeycomb, and is thinking she'd like to stay.

Has anyone ever experienced this? or something like it?

I'm not opposed(neither is anyone else that I know of)to her being here, or staying(especially since it seems she makes Liz happy), it's just...odd. to have someone I knew in the physical world, all of a sudden be a part of ours.

I may not be making sense, We haven't slept yet.

Existence

[amonite.livejournal.com]

I posted this to my own journal, but with the recent multiple bashing - I thought I would copy it here. And to those who say I am not real - "I will believe in you, if you believe in me"

Is not the core definition of existence to be self aware? And of sentience, to be able to reason and develop?



Hello.

My name is Corda.
Some say - I do not exist.

There will be no stone upon my death,
Or grave to mark my passing.
There were no cheers upon my birth
Or toys and cake and bandaids.

Am I mind without body?
Am I spirit without flesh?
Am I soul without reflection
In the mirror of the world?

I am not seen and yet I watch,
I am not loved and yet I care.
I am not held and yet I touch
I am not heard and yet I speak.

Am I heart without blood?
Am I conscience without face?
Am I thought without semblance
Of the ones who walk alone?

I feel
I scream
I love
I laugh
I cry
I live
I fight
I hope

Why should there be a prison?
A prison in another's eyes?
Why must I be silent?
Must I long but never have?

Am I passion without presence?
Am I torment without wound?
Why is my soul without reflection
In the mirror of the world?

My name is Corda.
I exist.


I exist!

Nametags

[our-haven.livejournal.com]

I'm really excited today. I was at a convention about a month ago, and saw a few people with LED nametags on. It was simple, but effective and awesome. I also made a post on our journal a while ago linking to this story by Nikolai Kingsley, which is set in the future, and where one of the main characters is a multiple who wears a name badge that changes every time ei switches.

I just think that's the coolest thing ever.

So I was talking to a close friend of mine today, who happens to be very good with computers and electronics (she owns her own internet company, for god's sake,) and she offered to make us a nametag like that! Only (unlike the currently-available LED nametags) hers would have a huge number of presets that could be easily switched between, and might even use OLED or a color LCD screen so that graphic-text or colored fonts could be used, instead of single-to-tri-color lettering. It depends on what evolves from her tinkering... but I know the end result will be cool.

I mean, seriously, that would be the greatest thing ever if whoever was front at the time wanted their name recognized by the people around them without having to go out of their way to state it... Either around people the system was open about their multiplicity with or just in an anonymous setting. I bet it would help in multiple support groups and things like that, too... A subtle way to announce a switch.

I just had to share the coolness of that :)
~Jem of Haven

Where did this idea come from?

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Reading through the earlier thread about the 'drama community', I found this from eridanusus, which got me thinking.

"They keep saying people can't talk to each other and stuff obviously they never even read Sybil or When Rabbit Howls or anything! Because they talk to each other in those. And don't they think if someone WAS gonna go "ooh I'm going to fake having multiple personalities" they'd actually do some research so they DIDN'T get it all wrong?"

Maybe I'm giving the wannabe 'experts' too much credit by assuming they've done any reading at all, rather than simply going on hearsay, but it's a good question. Where did the idea come from? 'Mutual unawareness of others' existence' is not and has never been in the diagnostic criteria for either MPD or DID. Even in some of the early 'dual personality' cases described (Mary Reynolds, and Gmelin's patient whose other self spoke fluent French), at least one person was aware of the other's existence, even if the awareness wasn't mutual.

What many of the popular and sensationalistic accounts *do* describe is a 'presenting self' who was unaware of the others and experienced the periods when they were controlling the body as blackouts, while the 'others,' when they were in charge, were not only aware of each other's existence but had varying levels of communication between themselves. Books like "Sybil" and "The Minds of Billy Milligan" give *extremely* clear descriptions of internal communication taking place between selves (i.e. Vicki telling Peggy to "put the dish down" when she wanted to break it). Even if the usual frontrunner knew nothing, that's still a pretty far cry from 'nobody can talk to anyone else.'

In fact, for a while, one of the things some doctors were *specifically* told to ask patients when evaluating for an MPD or DID diagnosis, was whether they 'heard voices.' (Granted, this is an extremely flimsy criterion on which to base the diagnosis-- one has to distinguish between the internal 'voices' that many multiples experience and auditory hallucinations-- but I think I've already made pretty clear my distrust of most professional ideas about multiplicity.)

Virtually every popular account of multiplicity published during the 80s and 90s ends with, if not integration, the attainment of at least some sort of communication between everyone. There were some books published during this time by-- yes, therapists with degrees-- with titles like "Working with the Family Inside" and "Internal Family Systems Therapy," which emphasized communication and awareness as a viable alternative to integration for some multiples. So, even supposing that only a portion of these more sensationalized cases were real, the claim that "in real multiplicity the personalities don't know about each other" still doesn't hang together. I'd take this more seriously if anyone could quote a single source, but no one seems to be able to.

So, where did 'they can't talk to each other' come from? I'm actually curious.