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

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Why do you feel soulbonding is the same as multiplicity?

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

When were you told that?

Soulbond is just a word people can choose to apply to themselves. People can also choose to call themselves alters or personalities or fragments or whatever. If there's an actual person there, the fact of what they are called does not change their personhood.

If you feel you need a specific word for people who are magical in some way or who seem to come from an outside source, you can use an existing one or make one up, but if they're people, there's no intrinsic reason except personal preference why they should need to be called anything else.
There has never been a standard definition of soulbonding, not even in the community itself. Most people use it to mean a character (from your own stories or others') who has some kind of 'separate existence' in your head. Obviously some people apply it to different things, and it has a much older meaning in Theosophy, which is why I'm not sure if redefining it was a good idea, but it seems to be popular.

[laurenthemself]

I wouldn't say it was the same. Perhaps a form of, or at least that they both fall under the umbrella of pluraliry.

[laurenthemself]

*plurality, even.

Gotta love those typos.