symptoms anyone?

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

I have been wondering since a previous post what the symptoms of multiplicity (not the disordered view) actually are. I mean I know what you read on other websites, but they seem more to do with post traumatic stress than multiplicity, or someone that thinks Sybil is the only multiple known in the last 50 years. Now I don’t mean what makes someone multiple, we are fine with our definition of that, the debate here is what would be on a checklist. I hate the word symptom because it does imply illness, maybe characteristics would be a better word. Things like time loss.. which I know a lot of multiples don’t actually have, I suppose we do lose time, although as Tryall said it isn’t so much that we lose time as much as someone’s life/activities/ are so boring no one else pays any attention. We lose time by a conscious choice. We hear voices but in a study we took part in the woman running it said that hearing voices is something a large part of the population does anyway. Maybe there aren’t any clear cut symptoms/characteristics that are relevant to multiples/plurals as a group, and maybe we are all just so bored that the most exciting thing for us to do is argue amongst ourselves on this foggy day… which is more likely

Comments

[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

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

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.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

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.

[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.

[idianshire.livejournal.com]

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.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

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.