not someone else?

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

I'm beginning to wonder if I am a bit strange.. ok stranger than what I thought I was. I have noticed in places I talk with other multiples not just here, that they often say things about how they feel different all the time, or that they never know who they are going to be. It could just be a language thing,but I also wonder if I am a little strange. For us, no one feels like someone else, there is always a strong sense of self, although at times we can also know that someone has control over one part of the body without actually taking executive control, as in therapy yesterday when our therapist called my grandmother a monster, I or at least the body was smiling but I knew the smile was coming from someone else. I have never felt I have become someone else, but rather for me it is like stepping aside to let someone else past, I can if I chose observe the other person's actions, but I still retain my sense of being me, separate from the other person. The confusion of who we are tends for us to be from outsiders, those that know us, and wonder who is around when we are switching a lot, usually that just results in comments about needing flashing neon signs so they can keep up.

Now I also want to make it clear that I am not saying anyone's choice of how they talk about their multiplicity, or how it is for them is wrong, or anything. It just confuses me a little because I hear similar things for a lot of people who identify as multiple and wonder if somehow we are the strange ones.

Isabella

Comments

[faithlessfate.livejournal.com]

My take on it is this: You're not strange, and neither is anyone else. There's no one way to be a plural, as we all know...Everyone's different...

For us, it's a little odd, because if we're not fronting, we're in the honeycomb, and when we're back there, we're "in the subconscious" and we don't really retain a sense of self...I mean, we always know who we are, and we never think we're someone else, but it's sort of, if I go into the back to be with Tara, I can't consciously go in the back, the "focus" shifts to whoever's fronting...I dunno if that makes sense...

the only time it's different, is right now, we've got a visitor, a friend of ours inside with us... and earlier she asked Liz if she could front and go on the computer...Liz said even though she was fronting, Liz was still the one with the "conscious" sense of self, cos our friend isn't one of us...

*shrug* I hope that made sense...

Faith
Pack Collective

[linnai.livejournal.com]

What you describe, this System has that experience sometimes as well. It was a very previlant experience when the previous 'host' was attempting to hold herself together in front and over all others.

Now, in times of extreme stress or confusion, the system does sometimes feel that way again. The sense of self narrows to the person who is most forward, and vision, experience, seems to be channeled through them singularly.

Also, the inside place is sometimes inconsistent. In part due to the defense mechanism of singular sharing perhaps.

Thank you for sharing.

[linnai.livejournal.com]

I think it may be a difference in the inner workings, what you are referring to...

For us, we are all our own persons. I am me and the others are themselves. But there have been times when our sense of self has become really muddied, where we sort of all drift in and out of self-awareness. This doesn't happen often, but is extremely frightening and disconcerting (for us) when it does happen. It's like you're losing yourself...

Outside of those limited times when there is a sort of system-wide issue happening, we're all our own people.

I think it may be prevailent that members of multiple systems, especially systems with hosts that are also co-conscious, may question who they are. When I first came around to the rest of my family, I did that a lot.

I don't recommend it for people, because I spent a lot of time being very depressed and uncertain about myself at first.

Eli

[echthros.livejournal.com]

What you describe makes perfect sense to us.

[garden-keep.livejournal.com]

All of us are very seperate people. For us it is very much like someone stepping aside, to the point where we have to "catch" our physical self from falling if we switch while standing. Occasionally we "shove" each other out of the way when a situation calls for someone else to front immediately.

Oh, and we also have the problem with people outside our system wanting to have some way to tell who is out. Mindy gets very upset if someone mistakes her for the rest of us. I've considered suggesting a finger system to show others who is fronting. I was thinking something similar to holding one finger up for Leesha, two fingers for Meghan, three fingers for Mindy, etc, held at chest level. Perhaps the binary finger system would be appropriate for larger systems, but it wont work with systems over 31 people.

~Janessa

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

but it wont work with systems over 31 people

Damn. Last census count was 32.

*lol*

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

For a long time we used to say we are so subtle in our differences that no one can tell us apart. That seemed to be confirmed by the people in our life, but lately we have had that belief broken. The people we have in our life now, the ones we are really close to have a good (at first scary)ability to tell when we have switched and who it is, if they have gotten to know them. There are times when they get it wrong, or its someone they don't know well. I remember asking one friend how he could tell so much, and his answer was about it being important enough, that he was invested in his relationship with me, so he paid attention, and purposedly got to know us as individuals. Which sort of told me that in the past the types of friends (and I use that word loosely) we had weren't really that interested in us as people. It had a lot ot do with how we were in our mental health, still following the belief we had to give everything to others, so we attracted people that just wanted to get from us.... Anyway, no idea why I am writing all this lol.

I know it sounds really simply,and I am not meaning to sound patronising, but if someone, Mindy in this case, wants people to know it is her, then she can say so. I always find that hard, one reason when in the conversation do you say "oh and it's so and so" without breaking the stream of conversation. But Sorrel who everyone now recognises really quickly decided she was going to introduce herself when she first started dwelling, and it seems to have worked because now people know her really easily

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

In here, we're thinking that there's a whole lot of different ways of experiencing being plural. It gets complicated because people seem to use the same phrases to mean several states. Co-presence, sharing the front, etc...

Some of us have very distinct feeling of self. Sometimes when we share the front it is like your body's smile - what comes from who is very obvious. When words get blurted out we know who's saying them.

Othertimes some of us are in a state where our thoughts and feelings and sense of self can blur.

[eridanusus.livejournal.com]

hear hear! always thought that here.. don't really understand how people get confused, but I get that it's a different way of being.

[shandra.livejournal.com]

Our experience is closer to yours... the few times that I've personally experienced anything like that have been really rare, and usually at times of massive upheaval where maybe even a singletype would have similar feelings.

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

I have dissociation problems. derealisation and depersonalisation. When my life gets extremely stressful, or upsetting I get these episodes when I can't connect with myself, it doesn't seem to be switching or mushing with others, it is like I put down my self somewhere I can't remember where. Other people lose their keys, I tend to lose my self.

[labclock.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting, I didn't realise other people did this sort of thing - there's often somebody else comes out and smiles while I'm talking to my therapist, or sometimes others, and it is like that - I let her past sometimes, often I struggle with her. But I can't say I'm entirely sure of the identity of anybody.

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

With us there isn't anyone that can control the comings and goings of others. The person that smiled didn't really want to talk to Sean, just found what he said very amusing. With us there can be a lot of people around at one time, cofronting, well actually not so much co fronting, I really wish I could find some terminology that I felt worked with us.. anyway.. when that is going around there can be a sharing of the body, not the whole body, just parts of it. It used to be really disorganised but we all got together to make sure that we all weren't tryign to do too many things at once.

[ranuial.livejournal.com]

My group is like what you said, but there are times when I go through the questioning of who I am. Everyone else in my group has a very strong sense of self, and we've never been confused about who we are. I tend to say things like "I don't know who I really am" all the time, but not because I've blended with someone in my system, but just because I'm wondering about myself. I'd say things like that even without my system, I'm sure. Everyone in our system is a distinct individual. I just question things a lot.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

What you describe is why Jay went all years thinking he was NOT multiple. We never feel that we become one another.

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

We have used nearly every..umm.. symptom isn't really the right word but you know what I mean, to prove we weren't really multiple over the years. It's one of the reasons when we talk to other multiples we make sure that they know there isn't one way to be multiple, that the only requirement (in our opinion) to be multiple is to have other people that can take executive control over the body they reside in.

[amusedinsanity.livejournal.com]

it's not so much we don't know who we're going to be, we all have a very strong sense of self, Onyx could NEVER be Ghost, or Lynaas be Vahn. They are far too different. It's just that at times we feel... lost. Often when alone, not co-fronting, a feeling of disorientation, where identity becomes blurry and emotions take over. It's in those moments we wonder if we might be splitting again :/ It's a very raw emotional and mental state.