multiplicity_archives | Interesting ruminations by our philosopher-selves.

The following is rumination by our Lucifer Davison:
The idea that there could be people born multiple instantly means that for a small minority, the system (no pun intended) is wrong. They are not matching the identity of the common person on the street. They are instead:

A subculture of bodies with multiple inhabitants. The ramifications of this are big, especially where religion is concerned. If people are born with more than one soul, then to them the Biblical proscription of "One soul, one mind, one body" is not accurate. If so, this means that there is a full-fledged option to be different from the common culture. Multiplicity, if divorced from the doctrine of mental disorder would potentially be far more upsetting than Homosexuality. If people can have experiences of living in a body and can be proud of that fact, then there is a consequence for society. The consequence is that simplicity, that panacea of Fundamentalism and Social conservatism, is thrown out with the bath-water. The same is true for the natural multiples that weren't caused by trauma. Psychiatry does not recognize them and tries to suppress them with all the power of the State. Multiplicity, specifically the natural and born versions, is a potential death-blow to the infantilizing notions of mental health and extremist religion. Multiples have the ability to grasp far more of human potential, if only they choose to reach for it. They can reach for their potential in ways denied Singletons. The Singleton seeks relief in religion, in alcohol, in fruitless activities that are harmful to him or her and cannot escape the grim realities of this world. People in systems can, and that is what causes members of systems to be regarded as coping mechanisms and arrested development. We who are united in the simple fact that we are people who reside not in houses of steel or brick but of flesh. If people can be born multiple, then the world is far more complex than the average Fundamentalist of any religion or creed can stomach. That is my view on why the Establishment fights to keep the knowledge of healthy, normal multiplicity from being known. Thanks for playing!

Comments, anyone?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

You're right, all of you; I should have left the word "government" out of it. "Dominant culture," though, is a lot more than just the government.

Still don't see it. Give me examples here, because I'm not seeing what you're seeing, apparently.

What I see is the dominant culture having no idea that we exist at all. And the few that notice us notice the extreme versions, the Sybils and the other media-hyped cases. But they still don't really know anything, and they still don't really CARE.

But that's just it. There are tons of media portrayals of multiplicity (or rather, of MPD and DID), both fictional and "documentary". That's what they know, and it gets repeated, and that's what's in people's heads. First it was a rare disorder experienced only by a few women; then it was a bizarre disorder caused by child abuse; then it became (as it is thought of today) a fake disorder caused by doctors implanting hypnotic suggestions. And always, the emotional underpinnings are "bizarre, nightmarish," horror-movie tropes. That's what I mean by the "dominant culture"; the view that is presented to the general public by the mass media.

You said "The existence of multiples implies that the government and dominant culture don't control as much as they think they do, and that scares them."

Leaving out the government then...

Popular media perception of multiples as being a "bizarre, nightmarish" horror relates to this how? They fear our power? What power? Why? What makes them aware of any "power" at all? And what makes you think that? Or do you?

I still maintain that 99% of the population just don't care. They don't plot about us, they don't fear us or hate us, they don't think of us at all. They may go and see a movie about some psychotic faker, or whatever it is, but that doesn't mean anything to most of them, it's just a story. It's not real, and they don't care.

I find the OP here has a tone of... conspiracy. Of "they're out to get us" and "they're keeping us down." And it sounds to me as though you agree, that somehow the media portrayal and the dominant culture's views are somehow oppressing us and keeping is from... from what, exactly?

I guess I just don't feel oppressed. I've been pretty open about my multiplicity, and I've yet to encounter any oppression or hatred about it. (I have with some other facets of my life!) I've had people go after me over religion, over cultural identity, over fandom even, but never over being multiple.

You're right that a majority of the population doesn't care, I think, because they don't believe it affects them. It's something remote and exotic to them.

However, as soon as it does start to affect them-- say, if someone they know comes out-- if their only exposure to it is through the stereotypical ideas, even if those ideas were presented in the form of fiction, that'll be their mental idea of it that they reach for.

I don't think that any deliberate conspiracy is involved on the part of the general population, so I disagree with the OP's general view of things also-- I think mostly what's going on here is that when people are presented with something that challenges their worldview, they'll often try to deny it, or rationalize it away as something else. This happens with a lot of things, not just multiplicity.

I do believe there have been deliberate attempts to give the stamp of approval to a specific model of multiplicity in the psychiatric community, and to push out all others. Frank Putnam has some studies of non-abused multiples that have never been published, for instance.

Yeah, that I can agree with. The psychiatric community is... well, really from the outside it seems to me as though dealing with unhealthy and abnormal people constantly has skewed a lot of their perceptions of normality, sometimes. Although by and large I support psychiatry, and think that the more we learn about how the human mind functions, the better!

No, we certainly don't agree with the OP on everything, but we do think that the dominant culture has kept multiplicity in the "abnormal" category. Not because we have any "power" -- simply because we are different, and that's something that film studios and book publishers can capitalize on. The fear, the titillation, the True Crime elements.

And it is in fact a type of oppression to have to be in the closet about an important part of your identity. Any time you can't express your true self, religion, or culture for fear of what will happen to you, then oppression is going on. You're extremely fortunate that you haven't been placed in a mental hospital, lost or been denied employment or lost friendships or loved ones after coming out as multiple. These things can and have happened to others, including some on this community. Others cover up very carefully about what they are, for fear the same will happen to them.

I don't feel I'm particularly lucky.

I'm just sane. I'm mentally healthy, and it's quite obvious to anybody that knows me that I don't need to be locked up.

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It was a unique situation, in which I'd been told that the boss already knew a couple of plurals and understood about things like that, and to be discreet about it, and he did. So did the other two people on staff. I don't expect to find work in a place with that much openness again but I'll be very happy if I do.

My employer does not care that we are Multiple. I don't agree with Micha's decision to come out about it when we first started there, but it hasn't caused us any problems.

Hmm. What

bladespark said. But then I live in the UK where we smack people over the head for trying to lock people up who don't really need it. Ie: They aren't an ACTUAL PROVEN danger to themselves and/or others. I'm pretty sure people have sued companies which fired them on the basis of *actual* mental health issues, never mind something that hasn't even been 'diagnosed'.

I don't think an OH NOES THEY'RE OUT TO GET YOU view is going to help counter this experience you speak of. Maybe you don't mean it to come across that way, but that's certainly how it was reading.

Dominant culture keeps a lot fo things in the abnormal catagory. Here, goths are in the abnormal catagory. You risk being turned down for jobs, even fired from jobs, there's a derisive attitude from the majority of the public who think you're "weird" at best, batshit nuts at worst. Bearing in mind that hear multiples do not get locked up, they're pretty comparible, so I can't see the public's view of multiplicity to be a big deal :P

None of us are going to go around telling other people. It's not really any of their business.

Interesting ruminations by our philosopher-selves.

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