(no subject)
Nov. 22nd, 2006 03:56 pm![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
dacnomaniac.livejournal.com posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
multiplicity_archivesI ... don't know if I should be here. I'm not sure I belong here, that is. I don't know if what I'm experiencing is multiplicity, or what. But the userinfo of another multiplicity community whose name I can't recall convinced me that, if nothing else, I should research this and seek input from people who do understand their internal phenomena in this context (I'm not sure that's how I mean to phrase it... oh well.) I'm a little frightened by this, for no reason I can discern, but I've finally worked up the nerve to bring it up.
Of course, now I'm not sure where to begin.
First of all, this isn't my 'real' journal. I created this journal a few weeks ago as a place to vent the consequences of my personality disorders (Schizotypal with strong Antisocial traits; the latter diagnosis is not made officially because I have a well-known excessive-guilt complex and a powerful instinctive empathy, neither of which a true APD type is capable of.) I don't know if it's thanks to frustrations of daily life building up, the pull of the moon, or what, but my violent impulses and sadistic leanings have become much more powerful lately, though always still in intermittent bursts rather than a perpetual state of mind. (Though at the time of this writing, it's more like an ebb and flow than a change.) But that's not what this is about. I'm just noting that so you all don't go look at my journal and freak out.
And because I see it coming, just to get it out of the way, in that respect, I know who and what I am. I don't need to hear about it and I don't need input, one way or the other, about it. (My pack-sister and I are always interested in meeting others like us, mind, but I'm not here for condemnation -- or support -- regarding my predatory nature. I am what I am.)
What I'm here about is...
Well, damn it. This is extremely difficult to phrase.
For a long time I've had a very fluid self-image and sense of self. It depended mainly on my current emotional baseline state, as far as I can tell, but sometimes it was more esoteric than that. It's always 'me' -- I never have a sense of having other, actual people in here with me (not counting my characters, who are fully self-actualised and such, but they're my characters, not me or 'other', plural mes, not 'alternate personalities' in any normal sense of the concept.) But what constitutes 'me' changed somewhat. I've always understood this as simply feeling different levels of connection to different parts of myself at a given time. No big deal.
At some point I started referring to these versions of myself as 'aspects', and defining them more specifically. There were initially three; one an extreme spiritual-animalistic aspect, one a purely 'human' aspect, and one that was somewhat a compromise between them but also with unique traits in itself. Again, all still me, just different... well, aspects of me.
As time's gone on, my aspects have become more and more complicated... and then recently, they've begun... splitting, I guess the term is. I've gotten to the point where I can't really divide things simply into three main aspects with little sub-varients anymore because... well, the whole paradigm has changed, it seems. I have no idea what the catalyst for this was, or if it's always been like this and I just wasn't aware of it so much before, or what, but I have basically no idea what's going on with myself and I have the confusing sensation of knowing exactly who and what I am on a whole, but incapable of defining my identity at any given moment. I have lots of 'me's.
Also, my aspects have been developing new boundaries and distances between them which never really existed before. The three 'primary' aspects are now... well, no, it doesn't really work like that anymore. I'll just try to explain this the best I can. *grunt* This is frustrating.
The most seperate, autonomous aspect is what I call the Watcher. I've had this one forever but only recently have I begun thinking of it as a personality aspect. The Watcher is kind of like the internal editor writers have, except it works on every aspect of my life. It's still my thoughts about things, mind you, it's not a voice I hear or anything, but this aspect of me is *always* seperate and distinct from whatever the rest of me is doing. When I'm drunk, it's sober and watching. When I'm angry, it's emotionless and watching. It has its own emotionless, practical, and frankly selfish/antisocial view of things. It's like I have two basic thoughtstreams at any given time... whatever I'm actively thinking, and the less conscious train of thought driven by that sober, pure-logic aspect of me. The Watcher is always a seperate background aspect; I'm never 'in Watcher mode' like what happens with the others.
The rest are... not masks I wear, but that's the best analogy I can think of. When I'm in a given aspect, I *am* that aspect. It is me. An aspect is a mode of identity, basically. Why I have more than one, I can't tell you. Most people, as far as I can tell, have one basic self-aspect with variants that come out based on social/emotional context. I have two, right now, with several variants that manifest both with social/emotional context but also, and almost more, they seem to *set* my baseline emotional state as much as respond to it, and... ugh. I have no idea how to put this.
The best way I can put this is that I always have a sense of being 'me', but what constitutes me varies in predictable ways which I have organised into 'aspects' in order to comprehend and explain them. Or that's how I'd like to think it is. In reality... I don't know. I really don't know.
It's relevant that I have recently been experiencing what I suppose might be either an exacerbation of my Schizotypal tendencies (I've never been officially diagnosed but only because my psychologist is very open in terms of spiritual/intellectual ideas and the like, and because I don't always tell her everything because I want her to respect me) or the beginnings of the manifestation of some inherent psychotic disorder. I don't know what effect one of those has on the other, but I can tell you that this internal weirdness with my identity began before the psychotic stuff and neither seem really related to the other. Except that I almost always go into an animalistic aspect when the psychotic symptoms are strong.
I tried to make a 'chart' of my aspects, but failed because I'm not clear on which are 'part' of which or which ones are connected to each other, or what. Some of them are poorly realised and/or don't occur often. It doesn't help that my phenotypal self-image (that is, my species identity/phantom-limb sense of self) is a majour component of defining different aspects (my different aspects all have different species/phenotype manifestations, as experienced by me in my sense of self and oftentimes with phantom limbs and the like) and I have both a 'were' aspect (usually werewolf, but sometimes it blends with another aspect; I also have a weretiger aspect that only very rarely manifests) and one that seems to be a shape-shifter 'demon-ghost' (that's the description that comes to mind, though it's not a demon or a ghost in the classic sense of either.)
I have a weird feeling about these other aspects as somehow both separate from me and not. I can't talk to them as if they were seperate, though, for the most part... no, that's a lie. I talk to myself all the time. But that's the sensation -- talking to myself, not talking to someone else who happens to share headspace with me. I can also talk to my characters, but they're not part of this, totally different.
I'm confused and, frankly, feeling rather stressy and frustrated by this. I just want to know what the hell is going on here. Can anyone explain this to me? Give me pointers?
Of course, now I'm not sure where to begin.
First of all, this isn't my 'real' journal. I created this journal a few weeks ago as a place to vent the consequences of my personality disorders (Schizotypal with strong Antisocial traits; the latter diagnosis is not made officially because I have a well-known excessive-guilt complex and a powerful instinctive empathy, neither of which a true APD type is capable of.) I don't know if it's thanks to frustrations of daily life building up, the pull of the moon, or what, but my violent impulses and sadistic leanings have become much more powerful lately, though always still in intermittent bursts rather than a perpetual state of mind. (Though at the time of this writing, it's more like an ebb and flow than a change.) But that's not what this is about. I'm just noting that so you all don't go look at my journal and freak out.
And because I see it coming, just to get it out of the way, in that respect, I know who and what I am. I don't need to hear about it and I don't need input, one way or the other, about it. (My pack-sister and I are always interested in meeting others like us, mind, but I'm not here for condemnation -- or support -- regarding my predatory nature. I am what I am.)
What I'm here about is...
Well, damn it. This is extremely difficult to phrase.
For a long time I've had a very fluid self-image and sense of self. It depended mainly on my current emotional baseline state, as far as I can tell, but sometimes it was more esoteric than that. It's always 'me' -- I never have a sense of having other, actual people in here with me (not counting my characters, who are fully self-actualised and such, but they're my characters, not me or 'other', plural mes, not 'alternate personalities' in any normal sense of the concept.) But what constitutes 'me' changed somewhat. I've always understood this as simply feeling different levels of connection to different parts of myself at a given time. No big deal.
At some point I started referring to these versions of myself as 'aspects', and defining them more specifically. There were initially three; one an extreme spiritual-animalistic aspect, one a purely 'human' aspect, and one that was somewhat a compromise between them but also with unique traits in itself. Again, all still me, just different... well, aspects of me.
As time's gone on, my aspects have become more and more complicated... and then recently, they've begun... splitting, I guess the term is. I've gotten to the point where I can't really divide things simply into three main aspects with little sub-varients anymore because... well, the whole paradigm has changed, it seems. I have no idea what the catalyst for this was, or if it's always been like this and I just wasn't aware of it so much before, or what, but I have basically no idea what's going on with myself and I have the confusing sensation of knowing exactly who and what I am on a whole, but incapable of defining my identity at any given moment. I have lots of 'me's.
Also, my aspects have been developing new boundaries and distances between them which never really existed before. The three 'primary' aspects are now... well, no, it doesn't really work like that anymore. I'll just try to explain this the best I can. *grunt* This is frustrating.
The most seperate, autonomous aspect is what I call the Watcher. I've had this one forever but only recently have I begun thinking of it as a personality aspect. The Watcher is kind of like the internal editor writers have, except it works on every aspect of my life. It's still my thoughts about things, mind you, it's not a voice I hear or anything, but this aspect of me is *always* seperate and distinct from whatever the rest of me is doing. When I'm drunk, it's sober and watching. When I'm angry, it's emotionless and watching. It has its own emotionless, practical, and frankly selfish/antisocial view of things. It's like I have two basic thoughtstreams at any given time... whatever I'm actively thinking, and the less conscious train of thought driven by that sober, pure-logic aspect of me. The Watcher is always a seperate background aspect; I'm never 'in Watcher mode' like what happens with the others.
The rest are... not masks I wear, but that's the best analogy I can think of. When I'm in a given aspect, I *am* that aspect. It is me. An aspect is a mode of identity, basically. Why I have more than one, I can't tell you. Most people, as far as I can tell, have one basic self-aspect with variants that come out based on social/emotional context. I have two, right now, with several variants that manifest both with social/emotional context but also, and almost more, they seem to *set* my baseline emotional state as much as respond to it, and... ugh. I have no idea how to put this.
The best way I can put this is that I always have a sense of being 'me', but what constitutes me varies in predictable ways which I have organised into 'aspects' in order to comprehend and explain them. Or that's how I'd like to think it is. In reality... I don't know. I really don't know.
It's relevant that I have recently been experiencing what I suppose might be either an exacerbation of my Schizotypal tendencies (I've never been officially diagnosed but only because my psychologist is very open in terms of spiritual/intellectual ideas and the like, and because I don't always tell her everything because I want her to respect me) or the beginnings of the manifestation of some inherent psychotic disorder. I don't know what effect one of those has on the other, but I can tell you that this internal weirdness with my identity began before the psychotic stuff and neither seem really related to the other. Except that I almost always go into an animalistic aspect when the psychotic symptoms are strong.
I tried to make a 'chart' of my aspects, but failed because I'm not clear on which are 'part' of which or which ones are connected to each other, or what. Some of them are poorly realised and/or don't occur often. It doesn't help that my phenotypal self-image (that is, my species identity/phantom-limb sense of self) is a majour component of defining different aspects (my different aspects all have different species/phenotype manifestations, as experienced by me in my sense of self and oftentimes with phantom limbs and the like) and I have both a 'were' aspect (usually werewolf, but sometimes it blends with another aspect; I also have a weretiger aspect that only very rarely manifests) and one that seems to be a shape-shifter 'demon-ghost' (that's the description that comes to mind, though it's not a demon or a ghost in the classic sense of either.)
I have a weird feeling about these other aspects as somehow both separate from me and not. I can't talk to them as if they were seperate, though, for the most part... no, that's a lie. I talk to myself all the time. But that's the sensation -- talking to myself, not talking to someone else who happens to share headspace with me. I can also talk to my characters, but they're not part of this, totally different.
I'm confused and, frankly, feeling rather stressy and frustrated by this. I just want to know what the hell is going on here. Can anyone explain this to me? Give me pointers?
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2006-11-22 11:43 pm (UTC)It actually sounds like you're not doing a bad job yourself.
Seriously. I'm reading it, and it sounds like you have a better grasp of it than anyone else is going to.
Having a seperate part of you watching things AFAIK is a normal human trait. Probably one that can even be trained, and it probably has all sorts of fancy names in psychology.
The only thing I might think you could need a second opinion on is if you *genuinely* feel these might be resulting from mental illness, but so far, they sound harmless?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 03:32 am (UTC)If I may ask, what were you diagnosed with schizotypal personality for? Well, ok, frankly, I'm biased because a therapist once decided I had a schizotypal personality, and the only thing I could ever figure out that it meant was that the therapist has decided you're socially awkward and have weird beliefs. Both of which do apply to me. I'm not embarassed of that. I'm not the world's most social person, and I do have very unusual beliefs about myself which are "not consistent with subcultural norms." I mean, if you find it to be a useful label for you, then that's one thing, though in my case, I just felt like I was being pathologized and discriminated against because I had weird beliefs, essentially.
It's relevant that I have recently been experiencing what I suppose might be either an exacerbation of my Schizotypal tendencies (I've never been officially diagnosed but only because my psychologist is very open in terms of spiritual/intellectual ideas and the like, and because I don't always tell her everything because I want her to respect me) or the beginnings of the manifestation of some inherent psychotic disorder.
Oh, okay, so it's not a formal diagnosis. Well, the not telling her everything is probably smart. The worrying about being psychotic, though... Just about everyone who has unusual spiritual experiences/identities worries that at one point, I think. And it doesn't help that some people do have spiritual experiences that manifest themselves in ways that doctors consider symptoms of psychosis. (hell, we know someone who's been in and out of the system her whole life, because she said angels talked to her, though she's totally not 'dangerous to herself or others.')
You actually sound like you're doing an ok job figuring it out on your own-- you're the only one who can decide what is a valid aspect of your identity, or not, in the end. Out of curiosity, do you identify with the therianthropy or otherkin communities in any way? I'm not necessarily recommending that you join any of the relevant groups, necessarily, as the LJ ones at least tend to be filled with... very un-helpful stuff and people playing with the idea, and if you talk about being plural or possibly-plural in some of them, there are some people who are very closed minded and go "OMG you have MPD, get help!" But there are some decent essays out there if you can find them.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 03:21 pm (UTC)Some psychologists actually don't think it's a real disorder. They say that for instance, Einstein could be considered schizotypal. I wonder if one day they'll do away with it.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-23 03:25 pm (UTC)I can't really explain it, but I can say that I feel like I know what you mean. I kind of have a simillar thing going on, but I haven't really worried about it. I have aspects of my self that have developed their own lives, but are still me. I tend to consider them like parallel selves or past lives that still have an identity or something like that, but I know that might not be the case.
I wish I could offer more insight for you since you seem to be distressed by this, but I did want to say that I understand if that helps at all. And that you explained it quite well.