(no subject)

[linnai.livejournal.com]

I was just curious to know if any of the systems here feel the need to have someone be the more or less full time "front-runner". Maybe not necessarily a host or original or anything like that... but just someone stable who generally has the reins?

I know quite a few of the systems and households on the list don't really work in that way, so I suppose this is more geared for the systems that do, or people who might have an informative opinion on the subject.

Really, the reason I ask is we seem to operate on this very unstable sort of sliding scale. There are times when it seems like we're all locked out of actually FRONTING... we can do things, but it's like sharing with everyone else and no one has true control, and then there are other times when it feels like everyone EXCEPT FOR [fill in the blank] is having the problem. It's usually not the same person though.

Sometimes this feeling lasts a long time, long enough that whoever is up front starts to wonder and question the validity of our seperation as opposed to an actual mental illness or disorder that isn't a part of the dissociative spectrum (such as schizophrenia).

Other times, we're SO seperate and have such a hard time coordinating ourselves that it really feels like we're disordered.

Anyone understand what I'm getting to? Thanks. Tonight's just very stressful (which seems to be something of a precipitator of these kinds of thoughts/situations)...

Comments

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Our experience was that as we went on, our need to have one person spend most of the time up front diminished. Azusa remained the 'main frontrunner' for the first few years after we acknowledged each other, partly because she was a control freak; but she also changed, became much more lenient about who was in control and stopped feeling like she was the only 'trustworthy' one, and began to feel more comfortable with giving equal time to others. (Part of this was that others had proven that they were better at handling certain kinds of situations than she was.)

We do a lot of co-fronting nowadays. Usually there's at least one person looking on or serving as 'backup.' There are four of us who frontrun, and sometimes a fifth; there are others who aren't interested in coming to the front, but will sometimes look on.

We tend to find it difficult to switch at will-- people can be 'drawn out' by specific things or situations, but it's rare for us to be able to call someone forth on demand.

[linnai.livejournal.com]

I don't remember anyone EVER demanding someone come forward... We're all pretty good about it, and we've been working on setting things up so it's simple and more or less "convenient" if there's a need to have someone actual FRONT instead of several of us "co-authoring" as it were.

The only thing that ever happened similarly is that Angel, before she left, used to panic at certain situations and literally run away from the front. Someone else would HAVE to deal with the situation and that was usually Lynne. Wasn't so much demanding a presence but forcing someone else to take over.

Thank you for the input. We're discovering more and more about our own system every day, and just really trying to sort things out, try and identify problems before they become too great...