Greetings from a newcomer.
Jun. 19th, 2006 11:02 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png)
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
Hello to you all. I am a member in a (dys)functional multiple system, a term I had not even heard used until this afternoon. Previously I had believed ourself to be some odd combination of schizo and DID, the only thing making me not believe I'm crazy being the fact that I'm not the only multiple I know in person. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
I was going to do a bit of background on myself, but that quickly proved impossible since I have conflicting memories on a number of events, and tring to make them work together is starting to seem pretty much impossible. Suffice to say, there are three of me. The two predominant (by which I mean usually active) personas are called Dan and Pip. Each of them genuinely believes to be the "original", the "host", the what-have-you, and they even remember the same events in different ways that corroborate their views. Nowadays, it is usually Dan that is in control, but that is by no means the case over our whole life - he rarely surfaced during freshman year of college, for example. (Well, my first freshman year. This fall will be our third first semester of freshman year, but that's another story...) I, however, have only recently become aware of my own existance, and Pip and Dan both do not recognize me. I honestly have no idea how long I've been around, and the reason is straightforward but far from simple - I remember everything Pip remembers as if I have lived it. I remember everything Dan remembers as if I have lived it. I do not just mean whoever is in control... I mean I remember the four months Pip spent "blacked out", completely cut off from all sensory perceptions. It is really fucking scary being locked up for that long in the dark, I don't mind saying. I also remember, as Dan, that that never happened, and in fact a good portion of that period Pip was the active one! Like I said, gets confusing.
On the plus side, at least I get to play the role of detached observer. Perhaps I am in reality the "host" and both of them are "shells" or "fragments" or what-have-you. Perhaps I'm the first step in returning to how I was years ago, two selves only vaguely aware of each other, both in full control at the same time. Or perhaps we're all either crazy or suffering from Fairy Princess Syndrome and I happen to fall in the first category. Either way, I will be the one posting on this community - the outsider point of view lets me try to stay mostly neutral here, and Dan and Pip can't stop bickering long enough to look out for our common good, so I'm choosing not to let them know I'm doing this, at least for now. They are both asleep right now, naturally.
Pardon my rambling and likely mixed pronouns, but I don't have time to sit down and rearrange things until they are more coherent. There's only a few basics left, so I'll touch on those quick before I stop posting. I know one other person who is a legitimate multiple, my best friend's girlfriend. One of my exes may or may not have been a legitimate twin personality, but she had several others that have since been proven to be ficticious - essentially, she claimed to be a lot of people, I think only one was a legit switch, and know the others were not. And since I hung around the "mystic" crowd a lot in high school, I met a lot of the people who were hollywood-MPD (aka attention whores), but never told any of them about myself. There's actually some kind of interesting social drama between us all (the legits, not the hollywoods - I don't talk to them any more), which I'll share later if anyone cares.
And I'll admit openly right now that I am very biased. I used to subscribe to the otherkin theory, but my time spent among that community has made me decide for sure that I don't accept that or any of the other otherworldly forms of multiple. Personally, I've never seen one who didn't have Fairy Princess Syndrome, so while I will respect you on this community, I do not believe you. Nothing will change this, so I suggest those who are, naturally, offended by this ("He's saying I don't exist!") choose not to discuss it with me rather than start a fight neither of us will like. Similarly, I will choose to stay out of any discussions about such forms of multiple, as I am biased and cannot add anything productive to the discussion. We can agree to disagree, I hope.
It's funny, really - I remember most of what Dan and Pip do more clearly then they themselves, but I can't remember the beginning of this post, what I said and what I deleted, so hopefully I made some measure of sense. If I ever remember making this post (I haven't used LJ for a LONG time, part of what makes it so easy to do this without them knowing) then I look forward to speaking to you all. If not, then let my hello also be a goodbye.
If anyone wants to contact me over AIM for whatever reason, my handle is diminishedunison. Please just send a message with the word "bluetooth", I'll set that up as a trigger for them to sleep again, so that you can speak to me instead of them. If you get no response, I'm either AFK without warning (happens a lot) or the trigger didn't work right and Dan/Pip went "WTF?" and closed the IM. Or something. *shrug*
Right, so I can't think of a good way to close this so.......FLYING PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS!
EDIT: MuC N---^ [m] S.H+ A(b--/- r--) On?/s? W# Cc+ OF(r- o+) P# Fa+^ T(+/--) Jc Do R(+/++) C+++ So(/+)
I was going to do a bit of background on myself, but that quickly proved impossible since I have conflicting memories on a number of events, and tring to make them work together is starting to seem pretty much impossible. Suffice to say, there are three of me. The two predominant (by which I mean usually active) personas are called Dan and Pip. Each of them genuinely believes to be the "original", the "host", the what-have-you, and they even remember the same events in different ways that corroborate their views. Nowadays, it is usually Dan that is in control, but that is by no means the case over our whole life - he rarely surfaced during freshman year of college, for example. (Well, my first freshman year. This fall will be our third first semester of freshman year, but that's another story...) I, however, have only recently become aware of my own existance, and Pip and Dan both do not recognize me. I honestly have no idea how long I've been around, and the reason is straightforward but far from simple - I remember everything Pip remembers as if I have lived it. I remember everything Dan remembers as if I have lived it. I do not just mean whoever is in control... I mean I remember the four months Pip spent "blacked out", completely cut off from all sensory perceptions. It is really fucking scary being locked up for that long in the dark, I don't mind saying. I also remember, as Dan, that that never happened, and in fact a good portion of that period Pip was the active one! Like I said, gets confusing.
On the plus side, at least I get to play the role of detached observer. Perhaps I am in reality the "host" and both of them are "shells" or "fragments" or what-have-you. Perhaps I'm the first step in returning to how I was years ago, two selves only vaguely aware of each other, both in full control at the same time. Or perhaps we're all either crazy or suffering from Fairy Princess Syndrome and I happen to fall in the first category. Either way, I will be the one posting on this community - the outsider point of view lets me try to stay mostly neutral here, and Dan and Pip can't stop bickering long enough to look out for our common good, so I'm choosing not to let them know I'm doing this, at least for now. They are both asleep right now, naturally.
Pardon my rambling and likely mixed pronouns, but I don't have time to sit down and rearrange things until they are more coherent. There's only a few basics left, so I'll touch on those quick before I stop posting. I know one other person who is a legitimate multiple, my best friend's girlfriend. One of my exes may or may not have been a legitimate twin personality, but she had several others that have since been proven to be ficticious - essentially, she claimed to be a lot of people, I think only one was a legit switch, and know the others were not. And since I hung around the "mystic" crowd a lot in high school, I met a lot of the people who were hollywood-MPD (aka attention whores), but never told any of them about myself. There's actually some kind of interesting social drama between us all (the legits, not the hollywoods - I don't talk to them any more), which I'll share later if anyone cares.
And I'll admit openly right now that I am very biased. I used to subscribe to the otherkin theory, but my time spent among that community has made me decide for sure that I don't accept that or any of the other otherworldly forms of multiple. Personally, I've never seen one who didn't have Fairy Princess Syndrome, so while I will respect you on this community, I do not believe you. Nothing will change this, so I suggest those who are, naturally, offended by this ("He's saying I don't exist!") choose not to discuss it with me rather than start a fight neither of us will like. Similarly, I will choose to stay out of any discussions about such forms of multiple, as I am biased and cannot add anything productive to the discussion. We can agree to disagree, I hope.
It's funny, really - I remember most of what Dan and Pip do more clearly then they themselves, but I can't remember the beginning of this post, what I said and what I deleted, so hopefully I made some measure of sense. If I ever remember making this post (I haven't used LJ for a LONG time, part of what makes it so easy to do this without them knowing) then I look forward to speaking to you all. If not, then let my hello also be a goodbye.
If anyone wants to contact me over AIM for whatever reason, my handle is diminishedunison. Please just send a message with the word "bluetooth", I'll set that up as a trigger for them to sleep again, so that you can speak to me instead of them. If you get no response, I'm either AFK without warning (happens a lot) or the trigger didn't work right and Dan/Pip went "WTF?" and closed the IM. Or something. *shrug*
Right, so I can't think of a good way to close this so.......FLYING PURPLE PEOPLE EATERS!
EDIT: MuC N---^ [m] S.H+ A(b--/- r--) On?/s? W# Cc+ OF(r- o+) P# Fa+^ T(+/--) Jc Do R(+/++) C+++ So(/+)
mod note
Date: 2006-06-20 03:08 am (UTC)Re: mod note
Date: 2006-06-20 03:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 11:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 04:37 am (UTC)"I'm not like all those boring, mundane people! I'm a beautiful butterfly! An individual snowflake! A magical fairy princess that everybody loves and adores!"
Alternately, "I may be a depressed lonely teenager in THIS life, but in my LAST life I was IMPORTANT! I was DIFFERENT! I was a FAIRY PRINCESS!"
And so on.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 05:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 08:07 am (UTC)We've personally been accused of "wanting to be special and/or different" and "thinking we were special and better than everyone else" for everything from not wanting to go to the prom to not conforming to popular gender stereotypes. It became rather transparent to us that in at least a lot of cases, when the "difference" involved was something that physically and emotionally harmed no one, "You just do that because you need to be special and different!" actually translated to "Why can't you conform and be like everyone else?"
Granted, there are some cases where people will claim specialness and/or difference for actively harmful reasons, to evade responsibility for their own actions or claim the right to hurt or exploit others. This to me, is where the essential problem lies. Not in whether what a person claims about themselves is silly or unbelievable. Not in whether they seem to be trying too hard to find a difference that isn't there. Not in whether they overestimate their own abilities or think they deserve to be better liked than they actually are, since to be perfectly truthful, the vast majority of human beings decide at one point or another in their lives that they deserve better than what they have. And much of the time they're right.
It becomes problematic only when someone's belief that they are special or different in a certain manner causes them to behave in ways that are detrimental to others around them in the 3-D earth world. "Because I am special in this way, I should be allowed to (pick one): a) abuse other people around me and intimidate them into giving me what I want, b) neglect my own responsibilities and force others to pick up the slack for me, c) live off of someone else's money or force them to buy things for me even though I could easily get a job or have one already, d) demand their time and attention and help in solving my problems constantly while not allowing them to take any time for themselves or ask for my help."
And yes, we've known people who did all of the above, for reasons that ranged from past lives to claimed mental disorders to going through a divorce. One of the worst "I am special and so I must be allowed to do certain things" manipulators we've known was a woman who was not otherkin or "fairy princess"-ish in any way. She was divorcing her husband and demanded that everyone around her see her as a suffering martyr who had been subjected to terrible emotional abuse (although there was more abuse coming from her end from everything I saw of it). She claimed the right, due to her supposed martyrdom, to do a wide variety of things, ranging from leaving 10-15 abusive voicemails per day for her ex-husband and stalking him at his job, to demanding money from everyone who lived with her, to subjecting everyone around her to frequent criticism and emotional and verbal abuse, to having childish temper tantrums and destroying things and demanding everyone's sympathy, and all of this was supposed to be immediately forgiven and forgotten, because she had "suffered so much."
To me, this is the point when claiming to be special becomes dangerous and destructive. It isn't so much about the claim itself as what people use it as a prerogative to do. If she had just been claiming to be a suffering martyr whom everyone should revere, and done none of the other things, it would have been annoying, but done no real damage. If nothing of that nature is going on, I could really care less about who someone says they were in a past life or whatever.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 07:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 07:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 11:08 am (UTC)- Quincy
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Date: 2006-06-20 09:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:55 pm (UTC)Luv's and Hug's to you and yours,.............~M~
P.S. Sad to think that being gay in this life didn't automatically grant me the Status in the first place. *pouts* I'm now going to go down to my Local Coffee house and dress all in black and write Angst-ridden poetry until teh rest of the world recognizes me!
*hugs you and punches your card*
Date: 2006-06-22 09:08 pm (UTC)(I am actually not being sarcastic; the way these Gothic matters are approached on Laura is somewhat different from Earth's. ;) )
Re: *hugs you and punches your card*
Date: 2006-06-22 09:52 pm (UTC)Luv's and Hug's,.......................~M~
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Date: 2006-06-20 09:13 am (UTC)So yeah, whatever you say.
~just another fairy princess to you
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Date: 2006-06-20 11:46 am (UTC)It's this last group that is most interesting. I used to be part of it myself, until we were able to convince Pip that he wasn't a cat in a past life, he's just a furry with an overactive imagination. I make no claims about any specific people other than my own, and fully admit that I'm probably wrong here...this is just how I see things.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 11:26 am (UTC)One could just as equally accuse teenagers wearing black eyeliner and mohawks of having an unhealthy need to be different and/or special, especially since they advertise their presumed difference in a way that's visible to everyone, whereas you usually can't tell by looking at someone who they (supposedly) were in a past incarnation.
There are absoultely some mallgoths/mallpunks/etc who are like that, though at least around here that tends to be the minority. I hate conformity because it crushes the individual, it's not "I'm different" but "I'm different and special" that bothers me.
You know, i always wondered why i was otherkin-wolf. So glad someone finally told me *lmao*. The fact that it comes from a close minded multiple/furry really blows my mind in some ways but everyone has a right to their opinions i suppose. :/
Glad I could help!(j/k). Yes, I'm well aware of the irony. Kudos on the observation though, or did I mention the furry bit somewhere in that rant? Don't see it, but I don't have time to really re-read it now (getting ready for work).
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Date: 2006-06-20 11:43 am (UTC)- Quincy
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Date: 2006-06-20 11:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 09:53 pm (UTC)Thought so. You're the second one in here this year. "Well, I knew this person that said they were a dragon, and they messed up my life, so therefore everybody that says they aren't human is a fairy princess attention whore..." "I knew one once" or even "I knew six or eight people who..."
This isn't about people that say they aren't human; it's about yr ex-girlfriend's abuse. You're blaming her "dragon" claims for her abusiveness, possibly because she blamed it on & wanted special privileges for same. We know people like that. We've had family and so-called "friends" excuse their own abusive behavior on everything from migraines and fibromyalgia to "that was a shapeshifting person in my group, he turns into a demon and hurts people I love". It is all abuse. The rest is window dressing smoke and mirrors. They'll use any excuse to make it something or someone else's fault.
no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 06:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-20 11:33 pm (UTC)I really didn't want to start a fight, I fully admit that my views are biased and probably wrong, so let's drop that debate for now, please? Hindsight is 20/20, I shouldn't have said anything at all but meh, what's done is done.
The real reasons I came here were to learn about other multiples, find some comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one like this, and maybe make some slight progress towards becoming a healthy multiple - right now, Dan and Pip are pretty damn hostile towards each other, and it's not doing well for us. Maybe later I'll make another post with the detail I left out here, try to give some background, if I can make it coherent...the social web between us and my friend D, the only other real multiple I know, is really screwed up but would probably be kind of interesting, if you were an outsider.
Hrn. I need to learn how to stop mixing pronouns. Is it bad that I use the singular to refer to both myself AND the whole system? I blame shared memories.
One last note, I didn't think to clear this page from my browser cache and Dan found it trying to find old porn ("WTF? When did I go to LJ?") so it's not really secret any more to them ^^; If they decide to post, we won't do any of those little things to differentiate between ourselves, because I know them and they will ABSOLUTELY use them to make each other look bad (ie Pip: (pretending to be Dan) I like to sleep with prepubescent boys! or Dan: (pretending ot be Pip) Right, so where can I get more of that futa vore yiff? It's HAWTNESS.) ^^;;;
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Date: 2006-06-22 05:44 pm (UTC)We are a multiple system with some otherkin members, some of us remembering past lives, and a fair number of people (or kins) with active to overactive imagination that we're aware of being just an imagination. Just wanted to tadd it's not that important whether anybody soo-soo distant from us believes about us, in all way, we're glad to see'ya around *smiles welcomingly*
Really, if smbdy's not abusive and a real attention whore, 'tis okay. Sorry for your not soo good past experiences, though. we just wanted to say you hello and that we hope your troubles from the past experiences will cease soon and comfortable new memories arrive!
Hehe- we're not a twins, but two people here consider themselves the mains, where one says she was hidden behind the other during childhood when we functioned as a gate-system, so basically undecided about the core of us. Hope your "twin"personalities don't get messy that much at times ^_^
and yeah- thanks for respectful manners, even tho disagree with some of the views presented. ya seem like an interesting person. unluckilly the body here doesn't have a MSN I'd know of, but if we happen to have one, some of us would like to get to know ya ; )
for the system,
Chibi
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 08:50 pm (UTC)"I, however, have only recently become aware of my own existance, and Pip and Dan both do not recognize me."
-Have you chosen a name,.? There's a possibility for aknowledgement. If you want the Other's of your System/House/Family etc. to recognize you, you're going to have to assert yourself.
"I remember everything Pip remembers as if I have lived it. I remember everything Dan remembers as if I have lived it."
-Co-consciousness is a hard thing to manage. Even when My Brother's are "At the Helm." I still retain the Vision/Hearing/Sight Senses; while the rest are Turned off/Not sending/not recieving/ Etc. Yet I can remember the events of what happened,. After the fact, of my Brother's Turn up. I just have to be consciously reminded of what went on.
Also. Memories are sort of a communal domain for Us. Except for those thought's and memories that we don't wish to share. But we remember things from our youth, that Niether of my brother's actually took part in. (I'm a Family of 3. All Males in a Male body.)
"I mean I remember the four months Pip spent "blacked out", completely cut off from all sensory perceptions. It is really fucking scary being locked up for that long in the dark, I don't mind saying."
-We've had several communications "Black-outs" So we can sympathise and understand that.
"the outsider point of view lets me try to stay mostly neutral here, and Dan and Pip can't stop bickering long enough to look out for our common good, so I'm choosing not to let them know I'm doing this, at least for now. They are both asleep right now, naturally."
-Sounds like you've got a good Operational Matrix in place, there's no need to really change that. It also seems that if you're the only one looking out for the Bodies welfare then your Brothers need to defenitly give you the attention and standing that you are due. I am in no way saying that you should stage a Coup or anything to that effect.
It's really intresting that you can stay active when your Brother's are asleep. we can't do that.
"It's funny, really - I remember most of what Dan and Pip do more clearly then they themselves,"
-I get that as well,.........However, My brothers don't seem to really care what they remember or what they don't. But yes, I can see the memories a lot clearer than they can.
Best of Luck to you and yours,
*bows*
~M/F/J~
no subject
Date: 2006-06-22 10:50 pm (UTC)He'll figure it out eventually. We don't really like the idea of choosing your own name, it feels more right to us to either be given one, as I was, or discover it on your own. Makes it more significant.
Also. Memories are sort of a communal domain for Us. Except for those thought's and memories that we don't wish to share. But we remember things from our youth, that Niether of my brother's actually took part in. (I'm a Family of 3. All Males in a Male body.)
Yeah, everything before we became individually self-aware is kind of shared for us, since we were both in control until like 15 or 16, but the details of this are it's own story. After we differentiated, each of our memories are our own. And I think there's 4 of us - ask me a week ago and I'd say 2, but that was before Newbie showed up and I would have never thought that my muse Fanfare counted until I read about soulshards or whatever they're called...but that's, again, part of a bigger story. So 3 males, one female who never has and probably never will front.
Dan and Pip can't stop bickering long enough to look out for our common good
Hey, not my fault he's a dumbass.
Sounds like you've got a good Operational Matrix in place
A what now?
It also seems that if you're the only one looking out for the Bodies welfare then your Brothers need to defenitly give you the attention and standing that you are due.
Hey, I care about our welfare. We just can't agree what constitutes "right" most of the time...his priorities are screwed up like you have NO idea. But I have no problem with Newbie yet, he just needs to asset himself and actually live.
It's really intresting that you can stay active when your Brother's are asleep. we can't do that.
That's because he put us to sleep. Unlike Dan, he actually acknowledges that no matter how hard they try, I'm not letting them shut me off again (he keeps thinking he can do it, it's kind of sad) so he didn't bother with a sensory block.
However, My brothers don't seem to really care what they remember or what they don't
I remember important things.....
Good talking to you
~Pip
no subject
Date: 2006-06-23 10:02 am (UTC)Kír says he is human by his own definition and has no interest in debating the issue. Neither of us know what his twin Crist-Erui is, or how he regards himself, or if the idea of defining himself in comparison to other people would even have any meaning for him.
"Need to be different"... y'know, if one is different, one can't just stop being that; one has to come to terms with the fact, and find some ways of coping with it in a world where non-conformity with 'the norm' is often severely punished. Usually this entails keeping one's mouth shut, especially in the company of those who keep their minds shut.