New member...

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

...with an offbeat question.

I'll post a more complete intro should anyone ask, but what's the ruling in this community on multiples who...aren't? After years of blackouts and trying to figure out what was going on, I (the prime social face) finally put the puzzle pieces together...just in time to discover that everyone else seems to be asleep.

So, I've been in 'what the hell now?' space for...about two years, I think, at this point. No money for therapy; just got turned down for disability; and so far, what I've tried to wake the sleepers on my own has not worked.

I'm a singlet, who started out a multiple, and it's...rather upsetting. But I can also see where someone in my position might not be welcome here.

So I'm leaving it up to you.

Comments

[cheshire-house.livejournal.com]

"Please don't wake me, no don't shake me, leave me where I am: I'm only sleeping." ~Beatles.
Maybe it's a time in your life where you are what needs to be there: a time to venture forth and be You.

You're not rude, you're not demeaning...why should you be turned away? Welcome. :)

~Cheshire House

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

At least they're still there. They haven't died or disappeared. That suggests that Cheshire is right. Some kind of phase.

We know of a few other systems who for lengthy periods a sole frontrunner lost touch with everyone else. One of them even reported to her therapist that she had spontaneously integrated. But she hadn't. It turned out they were there all along.

[& Of course you are welcome here. No question. Like Cheshire said, it's manners and attitude that count, not your status.]

[pink-spot.livejournal.com]

I think you are most welcome here. I've heard of some multiples who have had a large number of people go to sleep in order to free up mental resources for thier host. In order to keep stress levels from getting to high or what ever. Besides, we're all just a large collection of singleminded people. :)

Claire

[teamnoir.livejournal.com]

I'm new here too, but I see no problem.

Thank you

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

I don't see any reason to be rude or demeaning, frankly. Or, well, being the confrontative uberbitch I am, I do, but...not in an intro post, and not in front of people I don't know... :)

Yeah, that's what my partner thinks...

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

...that I've integrated. But, considering I wasn't consciously aware of most of them, for most of my life, and now I have this impression of bodies asleep...if I'd integrated, wouldn't they have...disappeared, or something?

Ah.

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

Tell me, if the frontrunner goes from an okay level of stress to contemplating personal destruction, you think any of them will wake up and take over? I'm not quite there...yet...but considering just about every block has fallen in the way of the upcoming move in the next two weeks that humanly can...it's getting iffy.

Besides, we're all just a large collection of singleminded people. :)

*gryns* Oh, I like that. :)

Re: Yeah, that's what my partner thinks...

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Exactly. The fact that you still sense them, they're just asleep. This is some kind of phase, or as Claire suggested, they're freeing up resources. Could be due to a current life situation. Changes in life situations and stressors often cause changes in the ol'operating system.

Re: Ah.

[pink-spot.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure. No one in my system, not groups anyays, have gone to sleep, other then sleeping at night. there is also the possibility that they weren't able to handle something. which, in my system, is the only time someone will go to sleep for a long period of time. It really is hard to say. Have you tried talking to them or any other type of interaction? I hope I canhelp. Just let me know, okay?

Claire

Re: Ah.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

"Tell me, if the frontrunner goes from an okay level of stress to contemplating personal destruction, you think any of them will wake up and take over?"

Possibly but don't bet money on it. It didn't work that way for us when we separated for several years.

Well, then...

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

...since I wasn't here for that, here's a backhanded welcome to you. :)

Right. I get the feeling I'm going to be reading a looooot of back entries here.

Re: Ah.

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

Have you tried talking to them or any other type of interaction?

*blinks*

Err...they're not awake. Unless this is some very, very complex double-blind system, and they're all off doing many and varied things of which I--and my partner, and my friends--are not aware, then...no. They're not conscious. I've tried meditation, tried talking myself into dreaming, tried retreat, both religious and secular, experimented with a few drugs, drank more alcohol than was good for me, wrote everything out in a journal and...two years. Of nothing.

I mean, if you can think of something that might work that doesn't involve a $60-per-hour fee...I'm really open to suggestions. I've already gotten the definite feeling I wasn't supposed to be here this long.

Well..

[asrai-d.livejournal.com]

unless you were abusing people I wouldn't kick anyone out.

As for the sleepers I'm having a similar thing. SInce I got into our current relationship which is very stable and open and just generally great, everyone has more or less disappeared. They pop up once in a while, but *shrugs* i dunno anymore

Asrai

Re: Well..

[nematoddity.livejournal.com]

So, I'm slowly figuring out, this is a common thing?

I guess the next question would be, why do the sleepers sleep? When do they wake? Is it because you're happy that they submerged? Or perhaps they're on their own system of access and release...

Argh. :)

Re: Well..

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

That's an individual, idiosyncratic thing.. up to each person and the way you guys' operating system works. I mean, I know why we do it, but that wouldn't tell you necessarily why anybody else does it. Or even maybe different people in your system are asleep for different reasons.

When we've had people go into suspension for days or weeks or months, it's usually just to take a break after too much stress. Not the whole population though. Aaack.

The only thing we can think of is -- however you found out they were sleeping, keep doing that, keep investigating and see if you can get any more info.

On 'sleeping'...

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

We have a rotating crew of anywhere from 3 to 5 people who take turns in handling daily life pretty much equally. I do think this helps us spread stress out more, as opposed to how it would be if we just had one main frontrunner. However, on the other hand, sometimes old standbys will just retreat away from the front for reasons unknown, and it can be unnerving sometimes. We don't know whether this is due to stress, biochemistry, or goings-on in their own worlds. (We do know that we have often tried to TELL others in here to take breaks when they're really stressed, but try getting some people to obey that. XD)

However, many of us are firm believers in the cyclical nature of things-- that what goes around comes around, in many ways, and whatever causes someone to retreat from the front, if they have time and space to work out their issues, they'll be back on their own. In our case, bringing some people back had to be orchestrated as a deliberate effort, because the animosity of some of our frontrunners towards them had been a part of why they hadn't returned, and we had to overcome that first.


Anthea and Azu

Re: Ah.

[kaleidescope.livejournal.com]

where do you live? a lot of places have clinics of therapists that have lower or sliding-scale fees available; around the bay area there are places that charge like $5 to $12 for therapy i think, and you work with therapists who are getting their, like, field hours for their certificate or whatever. which i think can potentially be a bonus if you don't want someone with a lot of set ideas about multiple stuff.

[iamshadow.livejournal.com]

We have one sleeper that we know about, but she wakes when there's too much stress and screams....


In Anne Rice's Vampire books, namely, The Vampire Lestat, it describes the fact that most vampires reach a point when they sleep, or go underground for a number of years and hibernate in a kind of suspended animation. They sleep, but they hear the world moving around them through their dreams, hear the progression of humanity and society, filtering down to them from the world above.

Even though your system sleeps, they may well still know and keep some track of the world around them, and may reach a point some day when they choose to awake and emerge again. Don't lose hope that this some day will happen. After all, they are sleeping, not dead.

sleeping

[(Anonymous)]

Dont despair. Two years is not such a very long time. It feels long, agonizingly long, but your people can sleep for even longer than that and wake up refreshed, believe me.
I dont think it is possible to be a multiple and then magically turn into a singlet. You sound like one of us.
Throughout most of my life, i have had the experience of one person doing the 'driving' at a time. This was a very depleted feeling. Wether I was placid or full of rage, or no matter what my mental age and characteristics were at the time, I didnt feel complete, selfs-nurturing. The periods where we were all aware of eachother were creatively dazzling and rich..but terrifying, because we felt so freakish, we were so afraid we would be thought insane and hauled away to some hospital..so all but one went to sleep.
I just had someone I loved wake up after 22 years. I thought he/she was dead. This person held all the creativity, all the wonder and joy. Having this epiphany makes me hold out hope for anyone.
So maybe having your people asleep is where you need to be right now. And believe me, the number of years they slept simply doesnt matter. They have thier own inner seasons, their own sense of what is the right time, and they wait.