median community?

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

Out of curiousity, are there any communities out there specifically for median/mid-continuum discussion? I know there's this community and the plurality community, but the latter seems more focused on healthy/empowered multiplicity while this community seems focused on multiples (despite what the community information says).

maybe having a separate community for medians would be unnecessary, but I do feel like there are certain issues and topics related to being median that could benefit from its own community... I don't know, I welcome everyone's thoughts on this.

Comments

[tepsinnej.livejournal.com]

i'm still not entirely sure what the various terms mean... is there a good reference to explain the distinctions between median, mid-continuum, plural, multiple, and any other commonly used terms in this community?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/glossary.html

[tepsinnej.livejournal.com]

thanks... we'll read it when we get a few minutes. is this community a good place to post questions if we're still confused after reading?

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Of course. Feel free. You may also be interested in these;
http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/articles/m_median_kiya0405.html
http://www.karitas.net/pavilion/library/articles/m_midconthistory_temple0902.html

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

is it possible that there may be some individuals within a group who consider themselves median, but that the entire group isn't a median? like I think that our group would be a gateway, but sometimes some of the others have different experiences.. one of the children somehow "split" themselves.. and I was going through a thing where it felt like my past memories were turning into people I could talk with.. I know that sounds weird.. ^^;; is that sorta what a median is? or are my memories becoming talking fragments or the word "shards" that I've seen..? I wish things would be easier to figure out.. I get so confused sometimes..

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Of course it's possible. You're experiencing it yourselves, are you not? But it's difficult to describe, isn't it, because the words for your feelings and experiences don't seem to exist. The fundamental sign of absence of cultural permission is the lack of words in the language of the dominant culture's languge which would suffice to describe an experience.

In my opinion the experience of plurality in general is nonlinear and cannot be separated out into distinct categories. This is why I used to promote the midcontinuum and/or median concepts. I believe that people who are having a genuine experience that can't be fully described or categorised under any of the existing terminology often come to feel that their experiences are not valid or that they are "weird" or "strange" (i.e., couldn't possibly be understood by others).

I thought using a word like median would solve at least some of these difficulties. When one has had a subjective experience, especially one not approved by the dominant culture, one always seeks validation in the experiences of others (viz. the oft-repeated "Has anyone else had this?"). We take this very seriously, because the dominant culture not only disapproves of many such experiences, it actively seeks to restrain them (viz. elenbarathi's excellent polemic on thought crimes). This is the politicisation of thought; the mind as battleground between the personal and the permitted.

Cultural permission and what I call the dominant culture in themselves have subgroups. I am catholic; if I have a visitation from the Blessed Mother, I can be safely categorised by others. "Catholics always see the Blessed Mother. I saw a movie about it last Easter." Even modern psychiatry is beginning to acknowledge cultural contexts of this sort. Were I of a different faith, I might be judged differently both by my peers and by the culture-at-large.

I know I'm rambling. I hope that what I've said is at least marginally helpful. You know, I am learning, too.

[kasiawhisper.livejournal.com]

Of course it's possible. You're experiencing it yourselves, are you not?

yes.. and I usually try to go by the "if it's true for me, then that's all that matters" belief.. but I forget it sometimes, I think.. sometimes I just want to believe that I'm not losing my mind.. personally I don't know what's going on with me lately.. not the rest of the group as much, even though they also have their things too, but this..

it's like I'm being hit with depression, confused memories, exhaustion, and over-thinking.. all at the same time.. so I say, okay, I'll just trail backwards through my memories and see if I can find one path that makes sense.. if it seems like the memory path breaks off in different directions, then I'll let it, but continue to follow along one path, not worrying about the other one for now..

I'm used to chaos and like things.. but not so much when it comes to my own memories.. memories should be constant, at least I wish I could believe so.. they probably aren't.. but my memories are like a foundation to me.. if I can't even tell which memories are my true ones, then what do I have? a shifting foundation..

sometimes I think I picked up the memory-obsession from Suz (main fronter before me).. she would believe certain memories with certainty and then a few words from the bio-mother and it would all fall apart.. she seemed to think that that woman's words were a gospel, as much as she knew the bio-mother only would say things to try and control her.. (yeah, okay different topic there.. ^^;;)

now I forget what I was saying...... but your rambling is fine.. I do it too... ^^;;

[fayanora.livejournal.com]

http://fayanora.23ae.com/midcontinuum.htm

[lgrau.livejournal.com]

Haven't found anything myself, although I find that just pitching your own thoughts to groups like this works in the short-term... All the obvious searches (median/s, median system/s, etc) don't turn up anything of interest, either. I think I could assume that there's not any median-specific communities, then.

(and on an unrelated topic, I see many, many people around this multiplicity idea who I've ran into elsewhere - hooray for having more of a spine than I!)

If you do find such a community, tho', you wouldn't be the only one interested in it.

-L.

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen anything either... I'd be more than willing to make one if there's enough interest and no one else is up to it.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

We were trying to start a median community a few years ago with the Pavilion project. It never took off, for several reasons-- chief among them being that it proved difficult to create a definition of being median, and of how exactly it differed from being multiple, that everyone would be satisfied with. There was, at one point, a Yahoo group called "Not Quite Plural," which was based on the Vicki(s)' original midcontinuum idea, but, as such, was focused primarily on trauma-splitting multiplicity.

One of the problems with the Pavilion project was that most of those arguing over the precise definition of median did not themselves identify as median; in doing so, we committed the gross error of usurping another group's right of self-definition.


Julian

[tigrin.livejournal.com]

I understand how that could be a problem... arguably, there isn't really a definition of multiplicity that everyone is satisfied with, but this community seems to be functioning alright. The community doesn't need to be based on a very concrete definition.

[tepsinnej.livejournal.com]

we do still end up with occasional flamewars (like one recently) over who's a real legitimate multiple, and who's just a nutflake...

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Well, another problem with the Pavilion Median Gathering project was that there was only one self-described median on the Pavilion staff, and he kept changing his definition/ description of his experience and what a median was. A lot of attempts were made to define some soulbonders as a sort of median, but that was a big timewaster. Not all soulbonders have the same kind of experience.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Not Quite Plural was the stupidest group ever. People would say things on there all the time about how they weren't multiple because everyone in their system could talk to each other or never lost time or any other number of things that lots of multiples, even ones in therapy for DID, do.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Urp. Sounds exactly like the Vicki(s) old comment board. This is what made me personally not have much faith in the median/ midcontinuum idea except as a psychological device to help people get used to the idea that they could be sharing a body with other persons.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

There are lots of people who have voices in their head or treat themself as though they were more than one person who could be considered non-singular but definitely aren't multiple.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That is true. (We ought to mention that on our faq, also. thanks.) And Jay always reminds me about lilairen. More ambiguous. There didn't seem to be, though, a lot of people like that on the Vicki(s) discussion. It was much more like you said Not Quite Plural was.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

Not necessarily even cases like hers. More like people who give names to the different sides of their personality or use mental constructs to work out internal conflicts. Or people who have voices in their head that they talk to and make decisions with but the voices don't correspond to people or even parts of themself. Or even the soulbonders whose soulbonds are just aspects of their imagination but they treat the characters as though they were real. None of those people could even remotely be considered multiple but in some cases they might find the label of single inappropriate for them.

[hersexywench.livejournal.com]

sj asked us the other day what is between median and multiple lol i thought it was a funny question but she said she was serious. Is there a name for something or someone who is closer to multiple than median but still has median tendencies at times?
shawna

[lgrau.livejournal.com]

There's always "vaguely-median-maybe-multiple-can't-really-say", but you might want a shorter term, perhaps.

Or you could always just say "plural" and go on to define for yourself. That works out as rather long as well, though...

-L.