Roots, causes, beginnings.

[bladespark.livejournal.com]

Some recent comments made me wonder about this, so I thought I'd ask all of you a couple of questions. This is just idle curiosity, so feel free to ignore.

How old were you when you became multiple? (Or have you been one since birth?)

Was there some kind of triggering event, good or bad, that caused it, or was a catalyst for it?

Was it a gradual process, or something very sudden?

Were you aware of it right away, or did you become aware later? If you became aware later, what brought it to your awareness?

I'll answer myself, just to start things off.

I had the beginnings of everything when I was thirteen or so, but I didn't actually develop other personas until I was around 19, and none of them were strong enough to actually do much, until I was 23. (I'm currently 28.)

I had two triggers. One was a negative experience, that happened when I was 13. I don't generally go into detail about it without good reason, but I was left with a memory, and a thought, that got stuck in my head, and I hated dwelling on it, it was awful and depressing, and miserable, and I wanted to be happy. So I made a little mental "loop" to help me get rid of the evil thought. I pictured something I thought was pleasant to replace it. A purple oriental dragon, in this case, (I'm crazy about dragons!) which I imaginied flying in and burning up the unpleasant thought, and then settling down in my mind, so I could just visualize how graceful and shiny and beautiful the dragon was, rather than dwelling on something negative. Since I spent a lot of time thinking about this dragon, it started to get a little life, and very gradually evolved into a protective Guardian figure, but it never really gained any independance until the second event happened, which was my discovering the internet! I went off the college, and found computers, and the net, and chatrooms, and specifically fantasy chat rooms, where I could play a character, and let my imagination, and all the various facets of my personality that don't generally see much action out to play. So I made up all these characters, and played, and had fun, but a couple of the characters really took on a life of their own, particularly in chat rooms, where they could speak through me, and I started picturing little dialogues with them, and pretty soon I had these personalities running around my head.

So I developed quite gradually from a total singleton to a more or less median state, (and was, of course, aware of this progression the whole time,) where I have personalities other than me in here, but they're all really sub-sets of me, characters and aspects that I talk to. I've been told I'll inevitably develop further into a full multiple state where I will become just one of many, or vanish entirely, but I don't believe this to be true. While I still sometimes find new personas, The way we work together and interact with each other has very much stabilized, and hasn't changed any since very shortly after the first of them appeared, so I don't anticipate it changing much in the future either. (And so far nobody has ever fronted but me, though some of the others will speak in chat rooms or IMs, which is kind of interesting I think.)

Anyhow, how about you guys? Any thoughts on the subject?

Comments

[vox-vocis-vita.livejournal.com]

How old were you when you became multiple? (Or have you been one since birth?)

More median/SBing/gateway system than multiple, but what the hell, I'll answer anyway. I'm pretty sure my earliest childhood memory of talking to others in my head or being aware of the presence of others with me was when I was about 8 years old. At the time I passed them off as imaginary friends, and some of them might have been, but not all of them.

Was there some kind of triggering event, good or bad, that caused it, or was a catalyst for it?

Nope. A least not that I'm aware of. My childhood sucked, we were poor, mom was an alcoholic, etc etc. But it was neither bad nor good enough to cause something like that. Rather boring and uneventful actually. Perhaps it was the boredom that triggered my median state, I have no idea. I was pretty damn lonely growing up. Had very few friends, was always the outcast in school. I went through a period of really bad depression because of the loneliness at one point, but that was long after I was already aware of others with me. So.. I honestly can't say.

Was it a gradual process, or something very sudden?

Little of both actually. When I was a kid it seemed very sudden, but I didn't pay any attention to it because I was a kid. All kids have "imaginary" friends. It wasn't a big deal. Then as I got older I felt a bit weird for still having said "imaginary" friends, so I tried to ignore them and be an "adult". It was more gradual once I got older. They seemed to vanish for a time, either they actually did vanish or I just got good at ignoring them and stopped thinking about it, but eventually they slowly pushed their way back in again.

Were you aware of it right away, or did you become aware later? If you became aware later, what brought it to your awareness?

I knew since I was a kid that I talked to people/characters/etc in my head, that there were others with me. They faded out from time to time, but I was completely aware of it all. It wasn't until I found a site on SBing that I actually KNEW anything. Up until that point I had never heard of anyone else experiencing similar things. Had never heard of medians or SBers or multiples. Nothing. I honestly believed I was the only person in the world like that. Feeling like you're the only one who does something really sucks. You feel alone and different from everyone else. Theres no one around for you to relate to. Its lonely.

My initial reaction upon reading about SBing was something along the lines of "OMG! Omgomgomgomg! I do this. Holy shit this is what I've been doing all this time. I'm a SBer!" I was so happy and excited not to be alone, that I had to email the owner of the site I had found and thank her for it. Once I knew I wasn't alone, I felt more at ease with the entire thing, didn't feel like I had to hide anymore. I would be the friend child_recalled mentioned, who brought the concept to the close knit message board. Some people were ok with it, many were not. My bringing the concept up did help quite a few people realize things about themselves though, either that they too were median/SBer or that they were multiple. And really that had been my main goal anyway, to help others that might have been like me - Alone, thinking they were the only ones. I wanted people like that to know that they weren't alone, that there were others like them out there.