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

[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