multiplicity_archives | (no subject)

I’m sure everyone has read someone’s post on this community or read a comment that made you stop and think, “I don’t believe you.” If you haven’t, either you don’t read the threads very closely or you work very hard not to think critically about anything you read here, because there have been some very outrageous claims made here over the years. (But that’s an entirely different discussion.) I want to know what people think when they come across one of these statements that they just can’t believe.

Do you:

A) Think the person is lying.
B) Think the person is knowingly role playing
C) Think the person believes that they are multiple but is probably unintentionally role playing or some other form of imagination
D) Think the system is lying about the experiences
E) Think the system is knowingly or unintentionally role playing the experiences
F) Think the system is adhering to the community’s cultural norms/trying to fit in
G) Think the system probably honestly believes their claims even though another explanation seems more logical to you
H) Think the system probably started out making things up but has since convinced themselves that their claims are true
I) Worry that you might be making things up too or that someone else might think you are
J) Think something else entirely – please share

Also, do your thoughts change depending on why you can’t believe the statement? For example, is there a difference between someone claiming to do/be something that you think is impossible and someone contradicting themselves or claiming that something happened in real life that could not have happened?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

> I find it very annoying when individuals within a 'system' present themselves as speaking for everybody else in it

>use for avoiding taking responsibility for one's words.

We're not the only group who prefers to chat in the plural form. While we've seen that many groups have only one person at the fore at a time, we rarely front alone. Our 'we' is typically a consensus of those here interested in the conversation. When one of us does front alone they usually sign the post or mark a section of the post. Listing names among a system of three would likely be straightforward, but for a system of thirty two where typically a handful of people are present at any one time this rapidly becomes a royal pain in the arse. Gods alone know what it would be like for folks who ID as median.

All that said, saying afterward "that wasn't me, it was JoeBob" sounds like a dodge. If JoeBob never answers, it leaves people wondering if he's just a convienent "blame the dog" sort of thing.

yes, we have a few people in our group who do speak as "we" and meaning taking the best majority opinion on a subject and speaking for most of everyone as a whole.. it doesn't mean that we're all merged together and actually speaking as one person, it's sort of like having an ambassador who speaks for us.. that's alot easier than having everyone coming forward to type their opinion on something..

Ditto. And if a few of us are quite opposed to a point, we do say 'some of us' or the like in regards to an opinion.

-Morgan

exactly.. it'd be near impossible for our entire group to be in complete agreement on everything! lol.. that'd be one of those hell freezing events, I think.. :)

Yes... same here on 'some of us' and so forth. Also the near impossible for complete agreement on everything!

Oh and we LOVE your brilliant blue butterfly in your icon! The kids especially got excited at seeing it!

Julies

thanks! :) I got it at

_lisichka_icons.. there's some great icons there, like this one I'm using..

blue butterflies are one of my symbols.. :) *waves to the kids*

*grins* Kír and I disagree on way too many things for either of us to speak for the other, and neither of us can really speak for Crist-Erui because we don't generally know what he thinks about things. I suppose I could say "we like music", because we all do, but that's so general - there's some music that all three of us like, but there's a lot more that only one of us likes, or that two like but one doesn't like.

"Kír and I disagree on way too many things for either of us to speak for the other"

exactly! that's why we have ambassadors of sorts to help with that.. lol.. if I tried to say something for someone else, I don't think I could say it the exact way they would themselves.. the ambassadors here are in a different kind of "position" than the rest of us, in relation to the group.. like they have the keys and can use them if they need to.. I'm not entirely sure how to explain it, but they are able to gather certain information quickly if it's needed.. Pepper could probably explain it better, since she's one.. but I do understand what you're saying.. :)

I imagine it's a lot different for people in large households, or people who 'blend' with one another, than it is for us. There's only three of us, and we don't blend or overlap mentally any more than three singletons sharing an apartment would. Even where we hold basically the same opinion about something, our reasons for holding it may be quite different, so we're really not in a position to speak for one another most of the time.

We also tend to speak in plural form, primarily because we operate in groups and each group tends to have a general group similarity in perspectives upon issues and the world. There are a lot of us here and so there is always at least one more person that either believes or agrees with something one other person does/says or at least 'backs them up' in it. Although of course this ends up with various groups here having divergent opinions amongst one another and then at times, depending on what it is, a wide range of viewpoints and feelings within a group that normally is in agreement or normally share strong similarities.

We try to sign a group name or identifier, and when someone is fronting alone or it is strongly one-three involved in the conversation, they tend to identify themselves.

Julie
(Julies)

"All that said, saying afterward "that wasn't me, it was JoeBob" sounds like a dodge. If JoeBob never answers, it leaves people wondering if he's just a convienent "blame the dog" sort of thing."

Yes, that's exactly what I meant. Or when JoeBob only ever appears when he's got something nasty to say, then vanishes before he can be called on it. It may be that that's the whole point of DID - to keep the 'nice' aspects of the self separate from the hostile ones - since according to the psychiatric view, people with DID aren't really multiple; they're one person who's separated into fragments in order to cope with 'unacceptable' bad feelings - I dunno. I don't subscribe to the 'psychiatric view' of multiplicity, but it could be correct about certain things.

In any case, I don't wish to associate with people who suddenly change without warning from someone who's my friend to someone who's not. If JoeBob hates me, JoeBob can just stay away from me, and if he won't, sorry, but my friendship with his 'brother' JohnBoy is probably going to end, because I see no point in letting myself be subjected to random abuse.