Inspired by comments.

[laurenthemself]

I was reading the comments on this entry about communication within systems, and I had a thought... just a vague one at this stage, but hey, I'll settle for vague, since I rarely have very solid thoughts.

I was thinking, because of the way multiplicity tends to be presented in the media (as a Bad Thing), and how integration is seen as the only way to 'cure' this 'disorder', and also that it's 'always' caused by abuse, what if people here wrote their own stories? I know some people wouldn't be able to manage a whole novel, but even short stories would be good, and maybe (it's a very long shot, I know) we could try and get our work published.

Even if you think this idea's crap, would you ever try writing the story of yourselves?

Comments

[echoesnspectres.livejournal.com]

And would it ever be possible to compile a book with real stories, I mean like the autistic women who made Women From Another Planet? (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1410734315/), without someone's running the risk of being tracked down? Any multiple or multiple-friendly publishers available who could protect people's anonymity?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

What you would have to do is have an editor, that is everybody send their stories in to one person and then that one person puts it together and makes the book and presents it to a publisher and good luck finding a publisher who would be willing to publish a book on multiplicity now days with all the stuff going on. Did you know that many libraries have pulled their books on multiplicity like even Sybil off their shelves, I think they're concerned about lawsuits if one of those people read it and decided they were multiple, then decided differently later.

So it might have to be privately published or a very small press.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

In 1994 or so, I think, there was a book published called MPD from the Inside Out, which was basically an anthology of short writing by therapy patients. The obvious problem was that it focused on the 'disorder' part, on things like trauma, PTSD and integration, with no mention of healthy multiples, or of the regular day-to-day reality of living as a functional multiple. The assumption seemed to be that after one had dealt with trauma issues, integration would naturally proceed from there. There wasn't much about the positive aspects of being plural, either-- mostly just horror stories.

A couple of years ago, we and a few other systems were throwing around ideas for a healthy-multiple version of that book, with contributions from systems who had originated in various ways but were now living functionally and happily as groups. It never got past the brainstorming phase, really. But you can get just about anything published if you have the capital for it-- the problem is getting publicity for it once it's in print.