Multiplicity

Actually it's not the best ever worded question we have made. I have my own definition for what makes someone multiple, very basically for us it is if there is more than one person that does or can have some sort of executive control over the body. it might not be everyone's definition but it works for us.

See what happened was in the recent post by golovelovekitty there was some discussion about symptoms and it got us talking amongst ourselves what those symptoms would be. I remember when we first came online there were these sort of checklists, most of the symptoms I think are debatable, things like, do you lose time, do you have stuffed toys, do you have items of clothes you don't remember buying and the like. There was a non-multiple woman on a list who was writing a book to "help the poor multiples" (*blah*) and she had a strange list, in her opinion anyone that had a shirt with a disney character on it must be multiple (or just have really bad taste in clothing). So being incredibly bored, and the kids couldn't be bothered watching their tv programmes we got into a discussion about what would be the checklist for functional/healthy or just plain old every day multiplicity would be, whether there would or could be a list of characteristics symptoms that would point to multiplicity in people's lives.

So I don't know if that made any more sense than my original question

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linnai.livejournal.com

It might be hard to come up with any sort of checklist about something that is NOT a disorder, because for a disorder, there are certain things that happen... The major one being that whatever it is interrupts daily living.

But for healthy, functional multiplicity, at least what we've seen/experienced, it seems like there are almost as many takes on it as there are people experiencing it. Yes, there are shared experiences, but the overall experience gets largely defined by the individuals/groups experiencing it...

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Yes and I think that's why all we ended up doign was arguing amongst ourselves, because multiplicity (removed from disordered view) is far too individualistic and well.. mundane

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"Do you have stuffed toys." *snort* I remember that checklist. At the time, I worked in an office where men kept a stuffy or two on their desk -- they were parents. And the women, I won't even go into what they had.

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We don't have any stuffed toys - I gave all my old ones to my daughter when she was little. We don't have any clothing with cartoon characters on them either, and never have had, not even in childhood - I never liked them; I don't even really like prints. Crist-Erui doesn't seem to care at all what his clothes look like; just how they feel. He never went shopping in his life - heh, he wouldn't set foot in a mall; all those lights and noises and strangers. I'm the one who buys all our clothing; it's like pulling hen's teeth to get Kír to even express an opinion about what he likes or doesn't like.

What's up with this idea that every multiple House has to have children? We don't, and I know other Houses that don't - that sounds like another of those "DID Model" fallacies, based on the erroneous notion that the only way multiplicity occurs is through severe trauma in early childhood.

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Oh, all those things we won out of claw-catcher machines at restaraunts because we were bored? Dead giveaway, I guess. :p

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But do you have a winnie the pooh t-shirt??

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LOL, no-- I don't recall that we ever really liked Winnie the Pooh that much, even when the body was younger.

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spookshow-girl.livejournal.com

I suppose that's supposed to imply having littles in the system? That's just steriotyping all around. It reminds me of the Hollow Men sketch where an marketing group was trying to associate ham with being gay. Not all systems have children, not all system children have or want plushes, and there are plenty of adults who have plushes.

It's been my experience that legos, and erector sets aren't nearly as immediately associated with system children, and it's something that kind of bothers me, because these toys could be both fun and educational.

Other possibilities to consider:

You're a pack rat and never threw out your toys.

You've never outgrown collecting memorabilia.

You have kids.

You are susceptible to nostalgia induced impulse purchases.

You are secure enough in your adulthood to purchase childish things.

The plush is just that cool.

Anyway, I have toys, some of them are plush, some aren't. Sometimes it's because of pure dorkdom. The plush Venom is mine dammit, and I'll be first in line for an Omega Red plush.

--Me

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Legos, Diskit, and other building toys are what our system children really like! They were never into stuffed toys that much, except for a lovely white cat when we were about six. In college, we got something that looked like a stoned little green alien that said "Blorp" on the tag, just 'cause it was cute, but a young adult bought that. The kids think of it as her mascot.

Anything where you build or create something, or that involves music. Our enormous collection of vinyl records -- everything, classical, rock, religious, not just children's -- actually belongs to them. They love compact discs and love making their own records from the massive mp3 collection which they also helped on. Shadow, who's 3, assisted with the setup for our computer audio recording, so we could make mp3s from vinyl records. Then they had to get every color of Sharpie there was to write titles and decor on the CDs they made. (But jade, who slides between nineteen and twenty-one, also does this.)

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shatterstorm.livejournal.com

Have you seen the plush toys from the Unfortunate Animal of the Month Club (http://www.morbidtendencies.com/botmc-details.html)? I think the Gnashers are my favorites!

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No, but it sounds like something we should look into as possibilities, esp. as gifts for like

ihcoyc and others!

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Heh, well, there's "owning far too many books", which is probably the major 'symptom' around here: Kír's the serious scholar, and I collect fantasy and SF, so our combined library is rather vast.

There's "changing clothes a lot" - Crist-Erui takes off anything he finds uncomfortable; a lot of the stuff he does find comfortable would not survive his wearing it outdoors; Kír objects to feminine clothing. So... we may go through several different outfits in a single day. We've all got our own favorite boots, coats, etc.

What else? Well, I never knew I did this, until

jhonathand came to live here and pointed it out: apparently fairly often when I'm talking I'll pause, then totally revise what I was saying. This isn't because we've "switched", though - it's still me; just that Kír's listening to the conversation too, and sometimes - okay, often - makes remarks about what I'm saying. He objects to me being vulgar, bitchy, or "overly forthcoming", and a lot of times I don't realize that I am being so till he mentions it, so then have to back-track.

My kid says she can always tell when Crist-Erui 'flickers in' when I'm performing (I'm a Ren Faire musician) because he gets "that deer-in-the-headlights look" for just an instant. His guitar-technique is more fluid and powerful than mine, so when he 'flickers out' again, a lot of times I'll fumble a little before I catch my flow again. I don't think anyone but another guitarist would notice this, though, and certainly nobody would guess the cause if they didn't already know.

People who do know don't seem to have much trouble telling us apart. Our posture and movement is different enough that we can't "pass" as one another even if we don't talk - this is kind of a problem for Kír at present; he'd like to go do archery with one of my friends who doesn't know him, but doesn't want to reveal himself as a different person. (Kír is generally opposed to revealing himself as a different person; he says that people who don't know or can't tell don't need to know.)

Both my daughter and our housemate

jhonathand say that our scent changes when we 'switch' - that we bring forth different notes of whatever fragrance we're wearing. This would probably only be noticeable to someone who spent a lot of time in close proximity to all three of us, so as to have a basis for comparison.

LOL, if the glasses are off outdoors, that'd be Crist-Erui, because Kír and I can't manage without them. If we're striding happily out the door - without the glasses - an hour before dawn in the midst of a howling January gale, that would be Crist-Erui. He is very shy, though, and Kír is very paranoid about strangers learning of his existence, so unless you're on the 'short list', your chances of seeing him for more than a moment or two are negligible.

We've spent our whole lives learning not to "show symptoms of multiplicity", and I think we're pretty damn good at it. People who know can tell us apart, but I don't think there's any way that someone who didn't know could tell for sure. My daughter says she figured it out when she was 6, because she followed Crist-Erui into the forest and watched him, but I don't think she really *knew*, and she didn't ask directly till she was 14.

LOL,

jhonathand and I got all kinds of hilarious, sitting out on the porch while I tried to imitate Kír's voice and manner of speaking. I thought I did it pretty well the last try, but both he and Kír say no, not convincing. Ohh well - *grins* - I'm a bard, not an actress.

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unknown-tales.livejournal.com

This isn't because we've "switched", though - it's still me; just that Kír's listening to the conversation too, and sometimes - okay, often - makes remarks about what I'm saying. He objects to me being vulgar, bitchy, or "overly forthcoming", and a lot of times I don't realize that I am being so till he mentions it, so then have to back-track.

That happens a lot with me, though I'm on the other end from you. My sister has social problems, and we work together on trying to get better at it by me guiding her in certain situations. There are a lot of times I will make my sister go back and change her words, because I'm more conscientious of how they will be taken. I like to be careful about how we come off to other people. But then again, I do it sometimes just to annoy her. :)

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A few of the people that know about us joke in a good way about the deer in the headlights look that comes over us when there is a switch without prior information gathering. That momentary, oh shit I should have paid more attention before stepping in. Another friend said we sometime look vague, what they knowing enough about how we work recognise as me listening to other people talking, passing along information or just being amusing (or a pain in the butt depending on who you are talking to). The way we work there is often a large "peanut gallery" around, talking amongst themselves, making inappropriate (but often amusing) comments, or if Kate is part of it, correcting my grammar.

I think for someone we have allowed into our lives enough for them to be told about our multiplicity, they can pick up signs of it pretty easily, but most people unaware of what they are seeing don't get shown much.

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LOL, I'm pretty sure Crist-Erui can see and hear what's going on with us physically when he's not corporeal, the same as Kír and I can. What I think is that he gets drawn in by the music - he loves music, and he's fast enough at 'switching' to sing duets with me - but then he gets stage fright about all those strangers looking at him. After all, he's lived most of his life with the ironclad rule of No One Must Know; it's only a year and a half since that rule was changed to allow him to make contact with a few close friends.

Looking vague... LOL, I suspect I look kinda vague a lot of the time. It was funny, this past June Faire (http://www.dragonslaire.org/Events/junefaire.htm), my dear friend had told her visiting cousin (who takes an interest in multiplicity) about my brothers, and the lady thought she'd seen one of them. Well, no, in fact she hadn't - Kír didn't take form once that whole weekend, and while Crist-Erui was corporeal a lot, he spent all his time with the dogs; the only non-canine person he spoke to was my kid. My friend's cousin thought I was 'somebody else' because I didn't seem to recognize her... LOL, I'm prosopagnosic (http://www.spidernet.nl/~martijn_dekker/otsp/prosopagnosia.html), June Faire is a huge event, and the lady in question is kinda short, kinda plump, kinda middle-aged, has kinda neutral-colored medium-short medium-curly hair, just like thousands of other women at the event. So my not-recognizing her had nothing to do with my brothers; t'was all just me.

*grins* Actually, I'm sure she did see Crist-Erui at some point - everybody must've seen him, but only as a laughing blur in green as he raced past with either the adorable golden puppy or the big black wolflike critter. He's too fast to catch, though, both in his physical running and in his ability to "flicker out" of situations he can't cope with, like having to talk to someone.

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Owing to the presence of Gabriel Ragland, Soriya Ruka, Various and Sundry, Paralegals at Large, and the Children, just don't even get us started on the book situation around here. This apartment is exploding. This has been a plural service announcement.

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tir-nan-og.livejournal.com

We do have stuffed toys- we have some nice teddy bears, and it ain't no damned symptom! It's who we are! It's amazing how just about anything can get pathologized by some people..

From: (Anonymous)

I think most people have stuffed toys. After all, most children have stuffed toys, and what's one supposed to do when one grows up - just throw them away or give them to Goodwill? Some, yeah, but not the ones that are Real - I doubt there are many people in the world with hearts that stony.

I still love my Real ones as much as ever, and I'll be kind of sad when the time comes (soon) to pack 'em away safely until such time as I have a grandchild. I'm still attached to my kid's father's Mister Mousie, and surreptitiously hug him a little sometimes when I'm over there picking the girl up. LOL, yeah, big tough guy that he is, with all his air of don't-mess-with-me and his manly pursuits, he's got this cute little pink mouse... because even big tough guys were once children.

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[Sorry; that above post is mine; forgot I wasn't logged in yet.)

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singingwolf.livejournal.com

I had to chime in on this, I hope I'm not overstepping the boundaries.

I'm not a multiple... but from what it sounds like, that list would have had me dead center as one. (Yeah, I've got Disney t-shirts from vacations, stuffed critters, tons of Disney movies, cartoons, etc.)

Some, yeah, but not the ones that are Real

Every year, my husband buys me a stuffed critter. The wolf in my icon was from our very first Christmas together. There is also a super floppy stuffed tiger that I just can't sleep without.

The others? Just aren't Real enough. If I were to ever reclaim my vanity from the stuffed critter over-flow, I wouldn't miss most of them, other than for sentimental reasons.

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Maybe "sign" instead of "symptom"?

We have had emails from people every now and then who are essentially asking us to diagnose them. They tend to describe one or two of the "classic", Sybil-like events like blackouts, or say that they get angry now and then and don't know why. Many of them just describe their abuse histories in very graphic terms.

Sometimes they don't leave their email addresses -- I don't know how they expect us to get in touch -- but when they do, we reply and ask them if they've ever sensed presences, or had any evidence that there were other people around. Most of the time, they don't write back.

The only sign of multiplicity we know of is presences. We don't know of any other way to tell, because all the other things on the checklists could have other natural causes, either psychological or physical.

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changelyng14.livejournal.com

I don't know so much about multiplicity symptoms in general, but I've caught on to a number of 'common tendencies' among face personalities. which is probabaly what one would be dealing with if an inquiring individual was in front of you.

i get these somewhat from research, followed by trying them out on some of the systems i know irl in my area.

-faces are the last to know of their system, and are designed (may i use that word without offending? i happen to be a face so...) to pass for normal.

-faces are generally good at getting along with people, and may generally be capable of fitting into any crowd.

-face's big mission in life may be to be 'normal' and 'like everyone else' as opposed to say, being 'successful' or 'standing above'

-some faces accomplish certain tasks by preparing everything needed to do something, and then 'viola' its done. (i do this with programming) or, possibly you set out to do a task, and you cant do it right away, but if you focus on it long enough, you suddenly become capable/good at it. (apparently it never occurs to faces that this is out of the ordinary)

-its a faces job to not know about their system, and to be sure noone else does.

****

heres some other factors that make me wonder if im dealing with a closet split.

-too many nicknames.
-actual names for themselves when their in modes, ie. angry
-radical shifts in lifestyle/career/whatever (super-femme gothboy who says he used to play college sports, for example)
-looking up, and to the left when being asked questions about past events (dont ask)

dunno if any of these have anything to do with reality, but im experimenting with them for now.

Lovecry

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Those are closer to the "textbook" though -- they could work for some that are closer to the classical model, but we never did any of that nor did most of our friends. The closest we came was the "passing for normal" thing, but people here weren't created to pass for normal, the standards of normality were (and still are to some extent) imposed on anyone who takes the front.

The frontrunner who is the "last to know about the system" is apparently real but not as standard as once believed.

When considering "too many nicknames", you have to take into account that a preponderance of nicknames is cultural. In the southern and southeastern U.S., a person can have a dozen or more. Still not enough to go on. Still need something that'll cover all the bases.

When considering "looking up and to the left," bear in mind that mediums (and those who say they are) often do this, and it has become such a cliche gesture that I've seen it in movies (bad ones). Once it gets into the movies, people will do it as a cultural cue and it'll spread like a meme -- a real one, not one of those Internet quizzes.

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Ack, don't think much of that term "face personalities". I am not a "face"; I'm the Communications Officer for my House. *grins* Opening hailing frequencies...

I've known since early childhood about my 'brothers'; by the time I was in school, I knew enough to not tell anybody about them.

I don't "fit into any crowd" - in fact, I don't feel that I really fit in ANY crowd; I sojourn around the edges of a lot of diverse groups, but my attachments within them are to individuals, not to the group.

LOL, my mission in life is definitely not to "pass for normal", except insofar as I must in order to hold a job, talk to my kid's teachers, etcetera. I think I'm pretty much taken for 'normal enough' (or 'eccentric but harmless' at least) here in my small laid-back Northwest town full of artists, aging hippies and cute lil goth-babies, because there's plenty of people way weirder than me here.

I have a ton of nicknames, but they're all my nick-names, and don't have anything to do with my brothers. My life has changed pretty drastically a number of times - so have the lives of most of my friends; I don't think that's at all unusual for the times we live in, especially among people outside the normal/conventional/mundane culture where everyone's supposed to live like clones or something.

"Looking up and to the left... I don't think we do that; sounds pretty 'stagey' to me. Crist-Erui and I both tilt our heads to the right quite a bit, and I'd say he does it much more than me, but it's not a sign of multiplicity, it's a sign of auditory-processing anomalies.

Crist-Erui actually spends about as much time 'fronting' as I do - he just spends most of it alone, and until fairly recently he spent all of it alone. He can't really pass for anything even close to "normal", though.

"possibly you set out to do a task, and you can't do it right away, but if you focus on it long enough, you suddenly become capable/good at it. (apparently it never occurs to faces that this is out of the ordinary)"

I do that, but again, I don't think it has anything to do with multiplicity. Why would it? And I don't think it's that much out of the ordinary, either - I mean, really, what's learning, if not focusing on a task until you become good at it? Some people just have different styles and rates of learning.

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changelyng14.livejournal.com

up & to the left part.
my ex (25-way) when some of her people were getting aquianted with the front. id notice up&2theleft along with what was odvious to me as then 'getting fed' whatever info they needed to know. then we noticed that we do it a tad when we're digging for that stuff without really noticing it, sort of a very very mild sensation somewhere above our left eye. never caught on as to whether its a multiple thing, or just a people thing though.

as for the task part, if someones more in line with classictraumawhatever, and their in denial/thedark and they have 'functiony-like people' lurking. thats the best i could describe the experience to someone. seriously, i used to be able to write programming. but since we 'liberated', i cant do it. i used to stare at the keyboard and the know-how came to me. now i gotta actually wake up my dude that does it, and switch properly.

but yeah. i have no clue, really, how natural multiples function or if/how their different from splits. aside from what ive learned from ppl on this board.

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Some of the things you listed could apply to us, but for us they have more to do with surviving a traumatic past that shaped who we are as people, rather than the fact we are many to start with. For instance a number of us have spoken a lot about being or wanting to be normal. That has more to do with being normal means or would have meant safety. We learnt it growing up, and now try to realise normal isn't all that safe, and definitely isn't that appealing.
I know in some of the communities/email lists we used to frequent a lot of so called signs of multiplicity had more to do with signs of post trauma. And indeed many were just signs of being a person, that had been pathologised. I think that had probably to do with the large majority (unlike this community it appears) were trauma survivors.

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or, possibly you set out to do a task, and you cant do it right away, but if you focus on it long enough, you suddenly become capable/good at it. (apparently it never occurs to faces that this is out of the ordinary)

Hmmm... but is that really unusual? Especially in math and science, it's common to go along in a fog over something and then suddenly have an "aha" moment where everything becomes clear.

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Hmm... the only good one I've ever been able to think of is 'experiencing the presence of other people in your mind/body.' And depending on what one's beliefs on things like possession are, that's not necessarily a universal constant either. Hm.

As far as people wanting to come up with ways to 'spot' multiples, my usual response is 'good luck'-- a smoothly running system which is actively coordinating to remain in the closet (as we have for fairly long periods) can pretty much remain undetected. The problem with trying to identify multiples using some of the more textbook checklists is that you can't tell if you're dealing with a genuinely unaware system, or a deliberate faker who's read up on all the things they're 'supposed' to show.

(What's interesting is that in the few cases where we started wondering if a friend was plural and they actually turned out to be, it was because they had a "muse" or "roleplaying character" who seemed to be rather too much of an independent separate person. Hm.)

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Yes, basically after we got tired of arguing symptoms/signs with each other.. nothing like a little lively debate... we basically came to the point where there is no way to set out some characteristics for multiplcity. I often think the more someone fits into the stereotypical/disordered checklist the more likely I am to wonder about authencity. With that said, I have freinds up north that are so much like Sybil I joke with them all the time, so I am not saying all that do are faking.

And like you and elenbarathi said (sorry can't work out how to do the whole linky thing) I know for us it is pretty hard to spot we are multiple, at least from people that we haven't informed. At the very most we are thought of as diverse or changable. In a world that views multiplicity as something freakish we aren't exactly into advertising ourselves.

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Substitute wedgies for brackets in the following:

[lj user="username"]

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changelyng14.livejournal.com

unfortunately. im thinking that if an individual is seriously trying to figure out if there are backseaters behind him. and honestly doesnt know. its much more dependant in one of them coming out, then the person/fronter catching them.

as for fakers though, i have no opinion, except perhaps, that they'd get bored of the act a few weeks/months later?

-Lovecry

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"as for fakers though, i have no opinion, except perhaps, that they'd get bored of the act a few weeks/months later?"

The singlets we've talked to say that's their take on it, and how they know the plurals they've met aren't faking it -- come back years later and while it may not always be the same guys, they're still plural.

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shandra.livejournal.com

I think one of the stronger outside signs with us is how different we each are in terms of tastes (as well as body language and demeanour). If someone goes out to dinner with me they'll get "yum! ice cream!" and with Lyria she doesn't eat it.

That goes from the fairly shallow (ice cream) to the fairly deep (sexual orientation) and has been something that people have commented on even when completely oblivious to other things. I think it comes out because people can ignore a lot of things under the "one person" assumption, but if it's commonly shared-with-friends interests, then switching around really impacts on the friendship or relationship.

(This is one reason we don't like the phone, I think. In the past being around a friend was a pull to the front for the "right" person, but on the phone it wasn't so clear, and so we would get situations like my friend saying "Oh! I got tickets to see Rush!" and the person on the phone would be less than enthusiastic, and then we'd have a little muddle. Sigh.)

It is hard to say "diverse interests" is a symptom of anything, because it's such a fuzzy thing (and one can hear the cries of 'fake' from far away), but then so is losing time vs. forgetfulness.

We also display different talents and that kind of thing. As our old music coach said at one time "in competition 9 times out of 10 you play at the top of your ability, but the 10th time it seems like you can barely play at all." (That tenth time would have been me!!) Again, not really a definitive thing, but it's something I have seen in other multiples.

But - we have had the relatively spectacular time loss incidents in the past, so that was even clearer.

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