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]

Really. Grow up.

[luwana.livejournal.com]

One could say the same to you.

Stop throwing a hissy fit when one of us posts a comment, eg in reply to you. Stop spewing rubbish about us masquerading as each other. I really don't think we're the ones with the issues here.

It's hardly our fault you make your distaste for us and others so blatantly obvious.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

You're the one running around whining about me. We commented to you calling bullshit on your super-melodramatic "This is why I left this community." statement. You disagreed. You did your bitching about it there. That should be the end of it. We don't go wallowing about and whining to everyone in subsequent posts when you jump to conclusions and have hysterics about something one of us has said.

[luwana.livejournal.com]

Y'know, you really are one to talk about jumping to conclusions etc.

Like I said, your personal bias is showing. I must have missed the memo that said rolling one's eyes and saying "I knew I left for a reason" and then just moving on normally was 'super-melodramatic'. If she wanted to be melodramatic, she could be. We've certainly never had hysterics over something you've said.

Honestly, nobody is running around whining about you either. ... Ok well that's not exactly true. *We* haven't been whining. And technically what others do is more correctly classed as snarking, or perhaps bitching.

*We* just get on with life. Having a brief giggle in reply to a person does not qualify as running around whining. At least not to most rational people.


I don't know if you feel you have to justify yourself by acting like other people are somehow less than you, or whatever, but Christ will you just stop doing it, at least here. You don't like us, ok, that's nice. So ignore us. Or learn to take a joke, whatever, move on in your life. If that means you have to put us on mental block out, fine.


There *are* alternatives to posting snide smarter than thou comments. Ignoring us is but one, and a very effective one.

[spare-parts.livejournal.com]

Really. Grow up. is about as "melodramatic" and useful to general discussion as I knew there was a reason I left this community. Possibly moreso.