Mid-continuum.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Okay, another debate we've been having in this system is over mid-continuum. We should mention off the bat that one or more of us (and most assuredly Tristan, aka "the core") may have something called Asperger Syndrome, which makes it hard for us to read people and understand them. Kind of like social dyslexia. Takes so much effort to us to mostly comprehend outsiders that too much and we get burned out.

Anyway, so the debate is: Are we mid-continuum? After trying to figure out before what the term even meant (check the archives, a post about "median") we were thinking we weren't. But then another system (dunno who) referred to mid-continuum as being like Ancient Egyptian Gods, where they could combine, ie Amun and Ra becoming Amun-Ra, and then split again.

We tried defining our state by calling ourselves a "society of telepaths" but we think that metaphor was incorrect. With all the thinking time we have at work, we've been ruminating over it and now we want to try to understand "mid-continuum" more. Please be aware that we need things explained as simply as possible, preferably with metaphors that most humans in this western society know, because common ground is very important in both understanding input from outsiders and explaining things to outsiders. Which is why we use metaphor and similie so much.

We want to understand this topic once and for all, so we can settle this internal debate about mid-continuum. Because Alexander and a couple others are holding out on saying "Yes we are" until we're sure we have it understood properly.

Blessings;
---The Fayanora System

Comments

[fadingtogrey.livejournal.com]

Mid-contiuum, I think, refers to there being one person who has created/grown/splintered into sub-personalities that are totally dependent on the "core", or "real" person. This core sees the others in the system as parts of him- or herself; each system member is somewhat independent, but ultimately there is only one true person or soul in the body.

That's my understanding of it, which mostly comes from when the former main frontrunner considered herself to be median. In our case, it was a control issue, as well as a spiritual one. She did not think it could be possible for everyone else in the system to be distinct and individual people, and the idea was frightening. The "mid-continuum" idea did not last long for us at all, since the rest of us felt very much like Real People in our own right, and not just parts of a single person.

Hopefully someone who actually is mid-continuum can give better insight about it.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

Sympathies on the "social dyslexia". ♥

I do like the "society of telepaths" metaphor. To someone in the common memory bank, that's what mid-cont and median have always pretty much equaled; guess we're just as in the dark as y'all. I liked "possessiform multiplicity" for the sense of being one and many at once, but I've only ever seen the term in one article, so...

I hope you find answers one way or another.

Cat

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Glad I could give you a metaphor you like. :-)

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

"Midcontinuum" was invented in 1995 by the Vicki(s) to illustrate their observation that there is a lot of grey area in what is generally called multiplicity -- that it wasn't all black and white, you're either multiple or a singlet.

The Vicki(s) based their whole premise on the idea that multiplicity is a form of dissociation, with multiplicity at the far end of a continuum, not unlike the "we've all had highway hypnosis" bromide that you still occasionally hear from singlet therapists trying to explain multiplicity on late-night talk-radio. That was their theory. In practice, they had scores of people writing in to their website to share their experiences as follows: "I must be midcontinuum, because we communicate well and we don't blackout or lose time." "I've always felt I was multiple, but I was never abused as a child, so I must be midcontinuum." And so on.

The later definition of midcontinuum as median, and the concept that it signified not simply a communicating multiple system, but one in which the group does not operate as a set of individuals but rather is intrinsically linked to a single, central individual, was invented mostly by zaphkiel with help from several other systems, one of whom kept defining himself as median, but wasn't sure exactly why or what that meant -- so he kept changing his definition of median, and the group he was working with changed theirs accordingly. If you think this created a huge muddle, you are correct.

The most cogent description of what it is to be median came from lilairen, and you can find it here:
http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/articles/m_median_kiya0405.html

Hope this helps.

[kasiya-system.livejournal.com]

This is a good definition. Is this on your website?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Thank you. This is not on astraeasweb.net and perhaps it should be. A version of it, which I may rewrite, is on Pavilion at
http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/articles/m_midconthistory_temple0902.html

[pthalo]

I believe this is the first definition of median/midcontinuum that I understand.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

You mean, what I wrote, or lilairen's? I am so glad she gave us permission to host that at Pavilion. I should put an additional copy of it on astraeasweb.

[pthalo]

What you just wrote here in this entry.

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

Thanks, everyone! This is very helpful. Now we must go and ruminate on this further.