While this stuff is floating around in the community....

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

On thing I have become very interested in is the experience of repressed plurality, and how that repression can be unlocked. Also, when that repression is unlocked, how does a system cope? I've posted about my experiences on here and also discussed them in #multiplicity, but I'm very curious as to other people's experiences and ongoing repression that affects groups.

One particular thing that stands out in my mind as a relevant experience is the feeling of 'ghosts'. For most of my life, I was always constantly on edge in dark or quiet places, particularly at night, where I was sure I would catch glimpses or sensations of another person being there. That person was always male-feeling. Over the course of my life, explanations for this paranoia ranged from the fairly logical (that I was simply nervous of the dark, or that I was letting my imagination run away with me) to the esoteric. Around 18, when I first started roleplaying in earnest, I had a particularly frightening night where I brutually repressed that 'ghost' (sorry, Tahl ;_;). After that, I stopped seeing things, but I kept feeling them around.

I now know that the 'ghost' was Tahl. Part of the reason I know that is because, finally, I can walk through a darkened house without feeling wierd or scared. His proximity to me and his continued attempts to reach me seems to have caused the sensations I attributed to spirits or an overactive imagination - it turns out that he is rather good at tactile projection (sensory hallucination?), so that explains the sensations of people touching my hair or back. He agrees with this particular theory, and it makes a lot of sense to us.

So what other signs of repressed plurality is out there? I'm getting more interested in activism and research on plurality, after my own experience of having this locked up as a child, then struggling with depression, night terrors, this 'ghost' effect, and more positive vents (art, rping, writing and music). The notion of repression amongst plurals seems very vague and isn't widely discussed, nor is 'coming out'. Its just as scarey coming out to a community as it is to your family and friends, sometimes, particularly if you have spent the better part of life cowering behind mental barricades put up between you and others. Me and Tahl in struggle with those barricades, which are prone to leaping up between us if I feel anything is wrong, or we are having a blurry day. I have to wonder how many other people go through this or similar experiences, or have unique experiences they would like to report.

Thoughts? :3

Comments

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

For the group I'm in, it wasn't a good experience. Though it was before my time.

Amalah

[othergalaxy.livejournal.com]

My host tried to deny some aspects of my personality as nonexistant, as it scared the hell out of her and was in direct relation to her childhood fears.

[20splinters.livejournal.com]

If your members actually take over physically, you might have odd feelings of watching yourself doing stuff unlike you, but being unable to do anything about it, sometimes from being outside of your body, sometimes like your looking out through your eyes, but kind of farther back.

From other people that we know face to face, there also seems to be a strong tendency towards insomnia.

Joey

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

The insomnia was a definate...I've been an insomniac since I was very young. I think I was ever only hijacked once or twice by Sun, and possibly Rach/Sage, though the others had more subtle expressions.

Formless anxiety seems to be something that seems to happen as well, and seeing the repressed others in dreams or nightmares...

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Hrm. For us, the repressed-but-not-very-well stuff came across in the form of strong attractions to certain things or ideas of people, which couldn't always be explained by "the person" (the one we were trying to be as a singlet, anyway) having an interest in them.

We'd also often mentally flash on "someone else in my place"-- i.e. the image of one of us doing what the body was, wearing the same clothes, etc. I wouldn't say we found it upsetting, but it was defintely interesting. Well, it did get upsetting when we'd try to bash down interests/attractions to things we "weren't supposed to have" and they just wouldn't go away. The worst part was having to rationalize away our gut feelings and to constantly have to pretend that things were other than what they really were.

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's something I used to (and still do) a lot, and I've heard/read of that happening quite a bit. It was wierd that I was so rabidly anti sport and smoking, yet had wierd attractions to these things that would make me very cross. Knowing Tahl now, it makes sense, but I never used to understand, and was often quite frightened by it.

The second one happens more to me these days, I think, but that's probably because we still haven't completely freed up. I completely agree with the last statement.

[hydra-system.livejournal.com]

There was a period of time where I, the main front-runner, was unaware of the presence of three of our members for quite some time. I thought I was simply experiencing odd mood shifts. I don't know if it was repression or more ignorance to the situation. One of the main problems was that they were not vocal at the time. Two of them are still rarely vocal to this day, which continues to cause some problems with know who is who and when.

[aquilawolf.livejournal.com]

Interesting topic. Having just become aware of my multiplicity four years ago, I'd say I was a master of repression. Always strong, capable, brave, independent, adventurous, tough. I could repeat tough, three or four times. Anyone more sensitive or not adventurous was shoved back down, and down and down. Plus I have resident children and infants and it takes a bit to relax and let them out to live in this old body. But being old, the energy to repress no longer exists like it used to. My system is also trauma based so some of the people in here are real sensitive. I still haven't figured out how to socialize without presenting a front of 'singleton'.

One form of repression is the 'must look normal and consistent' so if someone who is a little bizarre, or who limps wants to come out and there are other people around it can be tough. I even had someone ask me why I was walking so funny once when a two year old was out, so down, down, down goes the person who just wanted to be up and experience the world here. There are also mute ones in my system, a child that likes to growl, but unless there are no outside people around they usually get repressed and then sometimes even when there are no outside people around, if I have been around outside people for too long it is hard for the others to come up.

Many, many years ago I would have the sensation of someone else looking through my eyes. It clearly was not myself, and they seemed to be simply observing the world though my eyes, and there was a powerful sense to them, a feeling of 'not me', yet they were looking through my eyes or looking with me. Maybe similar to your 'ghost'.

[nancy-nensi.livejournal.com]

I lived in two countries, a few years in one and then a few years in the other, for the first 20 years or so of my life. We switched off when we switched countries, and weren't aware of being separate persons. I did notice that I couldn't seem to write or call my friends from the other country. When I finally stopped moving back and forth between countries, one of us was asleep. She stayed asleep for about 20 years.

My husband noticed that something strange was going on. He used to say that he would have to take me to Italy for a visit in order to get to meet the rest of me. He could tell that something was missing.

She was very far inside, asleep, so she didn't really affect my life very much. There weren't a lot of signs of being more than one.

When she woke up, she had to deal with all the things that had happened while she slept: marriage, children...

I'm not sure how to tell you to unlock repressed plurality. I can tell you that it has been a wonderful gift to find her. Sharing life together is a good thing.

-Nancy

[forever-alone.livejournal.com]

I/we used to get that 'ghost' feeling too! Our previous frontrunner (who is partially merged with me now, so technically it's partly my experience too) used to see/feel things in the dark as a child. Generally it was like feeling that something was just about to reach out and touch you, but it never did, but she got the feeling it was close by. When I took over as frontrunner I got similar feelings, sometimes I still get them.

But before my time, our frontrunner would draw picutres of us without knowing who we were, I guess she thought she was making us up. In general she took ownership for the actions of the others, not sure if she was crazy or making it up, basically ignoring all the signs because she was afraid. This has caused some problems, some of us (particularly me) are not even sure who was doing what back then, the memories have gotten all screwed up over the years.

I too have problems with repressing the others, some days I'm sure I'm faking, others I'm sure I'm not. We're not a very functional system as a whole, but we're trying to work on it... it's very difficult most of the time though. Causes a lot of frustration on both ends.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

In general she took ownership for the actions of the others, not sure if she was crazy or making it up, basically ignoring all the signs because she was afraid. This has caused some problems, some of us (particularly me) are not even sure who was doing what back then, the memories have gotten all screwed up over the years.

Agh. Some people in here have done a lot of claiming ownership for others' actions and memories, and that has interfered a lot with our being able to figure out exactly who was really fronting and when. We just didn't have the right paradigm available to us, for a long time-- believing that you could only be multiple if you had big chunks of your life missing from your memory, we had a pretty continuous memory, although some portions of it were fuzzier or slanted only towards recollection of certain things. But we kept thinking there had to have been one, continous "I" here all along, and trying to reconcile that with the fact that some of our memories involved "me" doing some things that were so different, so alien, to what "me" felt like now that it almost seemed inexplicable-- like remembering being a different person. It didn't all fit together, and yet we felt we had to force it to fit.

[liliana-warsaw.livejournal.com]

My experience was very simillar to yours, actually. I would get that feeling of "something else". One of mine actually *is* a ghost, though. Heh. But still, I get the same feeling about the others. It's hard to describe. It's just a feeling that's a lot like intuition and just *knowing* there's someone else in there that's now their own person.