(no subject)

[terrenepixy.livejournal.com]

so i kinda felt like i should update and post something here. i/we have been kind of lurking, and jack is getting on my case about it.

since my last update, my system and i have been cooperating better.

so i just have a few questions.

i kind of was wondering when people noticed the development of specific personalities, and how often some personalities wander in and out if at all... and i was wondering if anyone could tell me why i feel like there's others that won't talk to me, and how i could get them to do so.

currently my specifics are these :

me, the one typing : noelle. this is my body- i/we started out as noelle. 15, female, type II bipolar, stress ball.

skit : also female. more around 18. i call her my alter ego, because i feel like she formed when i was given the nickname skittles (skit for short) a few years ago. eccentric, hyper, kandy kid type.

jack : male, obviously. empathic? rarely comes out unless i/we're alone. id say he's around 11-13, maybe an age slider. has trouble dealing with people on a large scale - developed in middle school. he was my coping skill. after i left the school where i was having problems he stopped fronting.

aleria : female, 15. she's my darkness- she's a bitch. she likes causing pain. she came out at the beginning of last year and kinda stayed there. she would force me to cycle through which was difficult.

as to the others: they're there. i don't know their names, or their specifics. how can i get them to talk to me?

Comments

[shandra.livejournal.com]

For us it's helped to invite people, by giving them a blank notepad file or paper and a pen or that kind of thing. Mostly the invitation is what's important. :)

We don't consider it "developing" people - that sort of sounds like they are somehow new rather than someone some of us just haven't met yet. Some people in our system are touchy enough that that would make them snotty about communicating. 'Course we have a number of touchy people. :)

Shandra

[terrenepixy.livejournal.com]

hmm, i will have to try that. ^_^

heh, yeah, i just couldn't think of a better word, really. cause it kinda feels like they pop up out of nowhere. heh.

-noelle-

[szczur-system.livejournal.com]

Walk-ins, perhaps? :)

As shandra has already said, much of it is about the invitation. :) Feel free to talk to us about it over any messenger (all listed in our userinfo) if you'd lile. ::smile::

By the way, I really enjoy your defenestration icon. ;)

[terrenepixy.livejournal.com]

entirely possible- my belief system leaves that concept wide-open and very acceptable. ^^

and yeah- maybe i will, sometime soon. it'll be easier to figure things out when im not at work anyways. *o*

and my what now?

[szczur-system.livejournal.com]

Defenestration: the act of throwing someone or something out of a window. :P

Always nice to talk to someone. :)

[terrenepixy.livejournal.com]

oooh! lol. i didn't know that. heh. it's a quote from the new harry potter book...

and yes, it is. ^^

[szczur-system.livejournal.com]

we never read harry potter >.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well... first-off, we're not 'personalities'; we're people. There are three of us: me (female), Kír (male) and his twin (male) who's called Crist-Erui because he's got no name of his own as far as we know. (The names elenbarathi, duathir and Crist-Erui are from a long and rambling fantasy-adventure saga based very, very loosely on the three of us.)

According to my older sisters, and to things my mother wrote in the baby-book, there were notable 'differences' which could have indicated switching by the time we were 12 months old. I didn't consciously realize Crist-Erui was separate from me until we were about 3 - I remember him crying inconsolably over a spider my mother killed, that I'd been shrieking in terror over, and again, this little kiddie-amusement-park that I loved, but that sent him into an absolute panic. (LOL, in the past 45 years, I've mellowed out about spiders to some extent, and he's no longer quite so freaked-out by machinery, but that's still one of the notable differences between us.)

"Imaginary friend", my parents said, and I accepted that, but... is it common for a kid's 'imaginary friend' to take control of the body and do things that one doesn't want to do, like pick up big scary bugs with bare hands and play with them, or refuse to even taste ice cream or other sweets?

Then there was Kír. I remember distinctly the first time I heard him speak - it was in nursery school, and I was very angry with my teacher. I said "I wish I was in college!" and the teacher asked me why? I was all set to say "Because it's the farthest away from this place I could get!", when I heard Kír's voice: "Do not say that." He sounded just like he does now; not a kid, but grown up. So I said to the teacher, "Because I'd be older", and didn't think a whole lot more about it.

Crist-Erui got stranger and shyer over the years - by our 6th birthday, he'd no longer take corporeal form in front of other people, except occasionally my (physical) younger brother John, whom he's always loved. He'd also started his attempts to run away, which continued for decades (getting more serious and prolonged all the time) and what we now think were efforts to 'pull Kír through' from wherever-he-was to wherever-we-were. He didn't speak English at all then - didn't start speaking English till we were 43, and still doesn't answer questions - so there was no way to ask him anything about what exactly he was doing.

As for Kír, he was around in a sort of intermittent ghostly fashion, mostly after his brother had been doing his mirror-workings - he doesn't remember that period too clearly; he says it was like a dream, but I remember. He'd talk to me, but it often seemed like he wasn't really talking to me-here-and-now, but to me-elsewhere. It was all very odd, and I was at some pains to conceal the oddness - around second or third grade, trying to talk to my mother, she'd gotten visibly uneasy and started asking what sounded like 'leading questions', y'know, so I'd figured I had best shut up before I got into trouble.

I happened on a copy of The Three Faces of Eve when I was about 10, and it made me think, but also I thought it was pretty hokey. Anyway, isn't "personality" what one uses to deal with other people? Crist-Erui was like the tree that falls in a forest with no human person there to hear; I didn't see how he could be a 'personality' when nobody ever saw him.

Well. When we were 14, Kír finally 'woke up' or 'came through' or whatever, to the utter terror and horror and bewilderment of both of us - what I thought at the time was that he was a demon; what he thought was that 'all this' was a nightmare. Crist-Erui smoothed things out some, but then circumstances led to a terrible power-struggle between him and his brother, which was years in resolving. Things are peaceful now, though.

Crist-Erui talks a little when he wants to, these days - he's got about half a dozen friends he likes to see, and seems to understand English well enough. He still doesn't speak it much to us, though. We're not sure what caused him to start talking - maybe he just decided it was time.

[terrenepixy.livejournal.com]

yeah- i understand what you're saying, about personalities vs. people. im still trying to come to terms with my others, and so it's easier for my brain to handle the term personality in regards to them/us rather than people.

thank you for sharing that - i think reading other system histories like this will help me a little.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

yeah- i understand what you're saying, about personalities vs. people. im still trying to come to terms with my others, and so it's easier for my brain to handle the term personality in regards to them/us rather than people.

Azu used to refer to others as 'states of mind' and 'personas.' I think it was for the same reason, that it made it psychologically easier on her when she wasn't quite sure what would result from giving others time at the table. She'd spent the last couple years in an ironclad state of "THIS IS ME, THIS IS MY TRUE SELF, NOTHING ELSE IS REAL," because when we had previously tried to explore our plurality, some of our then-'friends' took advantage of it. Azu ended up thinking it was necessary to have One Real Person up front and not change it.

...so, yeah, she didn't want to say that they were people, because for a while it was easier to deal with thinking of the others as being somehow manifestations of her own mind. Also, if it turned out we had been just masks she was trying on during a period where she was unsure of herself, it would've been pretty embarassing to have to backtrack on such an extreme statement as 'there are other people in this body.'

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Anthea:

Hmmm... We weren't communicating with each other properly for a period of several years, and when we started again, it was with a feeling that 'something was missing.' Looking back on it, I think it was because we held some pre-conceived, fairly stereotyped ideas about multiplicity and 'types of alters,' and when we didn't fit that model, we felt as if there must be something we were overlooking.

It may be that there are others in your system who've not contacted you yet, but if so, there may be a reason they're keeping covert for now. There are little things you can do sometimes to encourage people to introduce themselves, have a notebook that anyone can write in or something, although if nobody seems to be forthcoming, it's probably better to wait and not force them.

Shiu:

At least in the beginning, it's usually better to establish a working system with the people you do know about, get to know them well, and make sure you're capable of dealing with difficulties inside and outside the system. At least, I tend to think this is more important than getting a list of everyone who's hanging around; if you have a pre-existing setup or mode of operation, it becomes easier to help out new people and let them know how things work. You could sign the In Essence declaration, which is here (http://www.karitas.net/courts/in_essence.html), and can be edited however you like; I personally like kasiya_system's very streamlined version.

You described one person in your group as a "bitch" and said she causes trouble for you. This could be problematic further down the line if you don't try to work something out with her now. Communication is really the most important thing. We once had someone who frontran, and no longer does, but was perceived by others around us as being 'the bitch' or 'the angry alter.' There was actually more to her than that, but it wasn't seen by those who were labeling her, or by us at first-- she felt initially that she had to be 'mean' in order to protect herself, and that, having established a reputation for it, she couldn't change without others thinking she'd become weak.

It was a little more complicated than I describe, but basically, we've had a few people come through here who could have been interpreted as dark or destructive, even by us. If someone is a person in their own right, though, they've almost always got depths and dimensions to them apart from an unpleasant attitude. I'm inclined to think that if it turns out someone really has no dimensions to their personality other than to want to cause harm to others and can't be reasoned with, they're probably not so much an independent person as the personification of another's desire to cause pain to themselves/others.

There are ways for people to work out aggression or desire to harm or manipulate others, which don't involve actually letting them cause problems for people in or out of the system. Some people find physical activity, especially that which involves some sort of regulated combat/sparring, helps them work out certain impulses. Other people find roleplaying/gaming useful, in that they can participate in these activities in a 'fictional' milieu. One of the things a lot of MPD/DID therapists did get right is that someone with strong aggressive impulses can often become a protector/defender of the system when they've worked through their personal issues. This does not necessarily mean beating people up, although self-defence is a useful thing to know; it can simply mean asserting oneself and one's own rights and preferences in situations where other system members feel they can't, or letting people know in no unspecific terms that you're not to be messed with-- the sort of thing where you don't even have to raise your voice.