Peer pressure and multiplicity

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

After some comments in a few recent threads, I was thinking about the issue of peer-pressure as it relates to multiple systems, and people feeling that their systems/groups/etc "should" be a certain way simply because other people's are.

Have people felt inadequate for having 'too few' people in their systems, or for not having a world or a place where they go when they're not fronting-- that they're 'not multiple enough'? (Or, conversely, depending on where you go, for having too many people or too large a subjective world?)

I know that during the time when the MPD/DID model was the only game in town, a lot of ideas about "what MPD is" derived from the media or from highly influential cases, and a lot of what seemed to be standard or universal aspects of multiplicity were actually the result of patients being told that "everyone has (x)" or being surrounded by other patients who did. If you're pressured for long enough and told "but every multiple has an ISH," eventually you're going to fabricate one just to end the demands, and even believe in it if you have to, if you're sufficiently invested in the doctor continuing to take you seriously.

I don't believe this is going on to the same degree as it was during that time, but the fact that I see people asking questions like "I think there are more people in my system, how do I find them?" fairly regularly makes me wonder why they think there are undiscovered others, and if they're basing it off their own evidence or on the numbers they see in other systems. Or "where is our internal world"-- same deal. (This also works in reverse-- that is to say, attempting to change your system because you think it's 'too weird'; you might want to be careful who you tell about it if you think that's the case, but we've certainly seen the messes which can be left to clean up if you try to bend someone too far.)

I tend to agree with spookshow_girl's comment that trying to force your system to be something it isn't (as distinct from agreed-upon, cooperative change) is an unwise idea. I know there's still the widespread perception that high numbers mean you're "more multiple" than if there are two or three of you, thanks to ideas about "degrees of fragmentation" (and a way to prove you suffered if more abuse = higher numbers). It's a perception I wish I could erase, and in any case, trying to increase the head count often seems to lead to nothing more than labelling someone's separate moods as new people. Trying to change one's system because you feel it 'should' be a certain way, and not because everyone involved wants to work towards change, rarely produces any good results, if the cases I've seen are any indication.

Comments

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

We've seen other groups here talk about peer pressure. We've been ignoring it, and growling now and then when someone shifts to attacking. Finding people or groups that can understand how things are for you can be a lot of help when you're in a rough spot. Talking about soulbonds or lilspeak or whatever's getting people riled up this week is fine; calling people names and metaphorically spitting on them is either a nasty kind of peer pressure or an attempt to drive them off.

We do find value in learning about other groups - it offers us new ideas to explore within ourselves and sometimes has been very helpful to us. Exposure to new communication tools and viewpoints has done great things for our community.

Mentioning the ISH brings up a good point. We need a tshirt saying "ROLE != IDENTITY". Roles are cardboard cutouts, abstractions helpful for understanding interactions. A person may hold several of the common roles, or none at all.

Undiscovered others... we've gone rattling about inside a couple times when we've seen signs that someone was in here who wasn't a recognized part of our community. We assumed that was what those posters were doing, but you have a point there.

Heard of the numbers thing, though we haven't been really exposed to it much - sounds like a load to us. It may be more of an indicator of what coping tools were available to (or preferred by) the group.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Well, IMO, there's a difference between those kinds of jobs-- we've got those-- and "alters with jobs"; i.e. the ISH, the angry one, the flirtatious one, etc. A person who just happens to fulfil a particular role, is not the same thing as that person existing only for that role-- it can be part of your identity in that sense, but shouldn't be the only thing you have to hold onto.

It's fine to start out using that as a base to make sense of things. When the system is running well, people come into their own with time, like you described. The problem comes in when people aren't allowed to move beyond an initial role. A lot of skeptics and critics of MPD/DID therapy complained about the 'one-dimensional alters'; I think in some cases this was manufacturing people to suit the demands of a therapist, and in other cases, they were real people but weren't allowed to move beyond the role into which they were pigeonholed. Conventional wisdom was that 'certain types of alters' were common to every multiple, and when someone was found who seemed appropriate to fill the stock role, they basically ended up locked into that-- we experienced a little bit of that ourselves.

[shatterstorm.livejournal.com]

Roles can and do help - what we've seen become a problem is when someone thinks their role is all they are.

Rose (one of our people) does a lot of what would be considered Protector role work. But she can also be a teacher, she has her own preferences in clothes, food, music, etc, she draws well, and she has the ability to "drop" one or more of us into the front unexpectedly.

She could be called a Protector, but there's a lot more to her than that role.