Pronoun distinctions.

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

Forgive me if this has been covered before or if it's just common sense, but I was curious.

I know there are people who refer to their systems as "we" and "us," choosing the third person so that they can incorporate all of their bonds and voices together, and then there are others who use "me" and "I."

It crosses my mind that it might depend on how the host body is used. Those that refer to themselves in the third person, do you do so because your body is shared amongst your people? And those that use the first person, are you primarily a front and basically "renting out" to the others inside your head?

I always refer to myself in the first person because I am the front. If you see the body then you see me. I am quite firmly rooted down (I can't even astral travel if that's any indication :/), and as far as I am aware I have never given up the pilot's seat either willingly or unconsciously. I do get seepage though- I am now- I know who from as well and he thinks he's clever for it- this isn't my own writing style. It's too "pretty." XD

Hmm. Now that brings me to another question though. If there is enough personality seepage from one of the others, could that be a form of co-fronting? I've never quite understood how my people can influence me so strongly at times but never truly take control of the front, even though I really wouldn't mind letting them.

And to babble further, I picked up the habit of referring to my headspace cohabitants as "my people" because of Riathe and Eyn. They are both royalty and always refer to other people as "their people." It sounds so weird when I write it though.

I think that's enough aimless mental wandering for the moment. I'm going to make a valiant attempt to sleep right now. And since Riathe is poking at my brain, I'll use his pretty icon for this post.

Comments

[phen0type.livejournal.com]

We use varying pronouns depending on the situation. If we are 'playing the singlet', we obviously use 'I' and 'me'. To those who are aware of our plurality, we generally say 'I' or 'me' to refer to the speaker only, rather than the rest of the group. There are a few of us who occasionally (and erroneously) use 'I' to refer to the rest of the group, yavari does this the most often, because we used to think that he was the 'host', which was later proved to be false.

We are equal in this group: there is no 'host' or 'main person'. I was elected its Prime Minister, but it really is a case of being primus inter pares for me.

Richard
Fen Group

[rabbitsystem.livejournal.com]

Just so you know, I think you are awesome.
-Seb.

[liedownlovely.livejournal.com]

Seconded.

-Muses Anonymous

[cold-ataraxy.livejournal.com]

Thirded.

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

That makes sense, I hadn't thought of it that way.

Hmm, for myself, I'm not sure I would use we/us, I can't think of an instance that I would. I don't generally consults anyone when I do things, so there's little chance of something like "we decided."

On the other hand, they have sometimes watched movies with me. That was amusing. XD

[freakshownia.livejournal.com]

I use both - I say "I/me" when speaking only for myself, and "we/us" when I'm speaking for the group. I think all of us use pronouns in this way.

[kyouketsusha.livejournal.com]

Pretty much the same here.

[ex-casteylan314.livejournal.com]

It's the same here too.

[lion-azure.livejournal.com]

Same here.

[hold-me-coldly.livejournal.com]

It really depends on the context, situation, and which of us is fronting. *I*, personally, tend to use the singular most frequently. I tend to assume (perhaps wrongly, however) that this is because I am the original host and have only known about everyone else here since last December. I spoke in the plural tense for some reason as a teenager until someone called me on it and made incredible fun of me, and I have since made a habit of not doing so. (I should not that I have D.I.D., and this is a common "trait/symptom".) However, since becoming selves-aware, if I am talking to someone who knows about everyone, if the subject at hand involves all of us, then I do use the plural. Otherwise, it generally remains the singular. The others, most frequently, use the plural unless they are referring to something that they, personally, own. (i.e. a stuffed animal, a toy car, a book, etc.)

[hold-me-coldly.livejournal.com]

I should not that I meant to say "I should note that..."

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

I've never spoken in plural pronouns about myself, though I have experienced the voices for a long time.

From the responses and the more I read, it looks like a lot of people approach multiplicity in a slightly different way, but there does seem to be a general trend in there as well.

I suppose that if I and one of my people did decide on something together, we'd have to use we/us because it wouldn't make much since otherwise.

[netdancer.livejournal.com]

For us the body is a vehicle, a vessel like a car. A shared resource.

We *seriously* have to watch it because day to day we say 'we' in self-reference, and there are places we don't want to do so. (Work, a good example. What's in our skull is no concern of the boss, so long as we do our job.)

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

Makes sense.

I just realised that I don't think I've ever overheard anyone else saying we/us in reference to what appears to be just themselves. Random observation... But I also don't personally know any multiples outside of the internet either.

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

Yep. This is one of the ways that living with another multiple can put you at a disadvantage-- you get used to being able to say "we," and not having to spend most of your time covering. And... yeah, we've slipped up and made the "we" error a few times, once (embarassingly) in e-mail to a professor. (Although in that context, "we" could have been taken to mean "me and the rest of the class," also.)

[girl-and-muse.livejournal.com]

[coldironkiss.livejournal.com]

We tend to use the third person because we share memories and feel like the experiences are shared too, even if only one person was fronting at the time. We switch Fronts, so most things that go on for a while end up being called "ours" because more than one person participated.

We have a different term for times when someone else's thoughts and feelings well up in the Front's perception. We call that being in the middleground. I guess Middling would be a better word when we talk about it as a way of being, rather than a location. There's a clear difference between that and sharing Front, for us. We might not get as strong an influence from it as what you're describing, though. It's hard to compare without being able to feel what you feel.

-Beaker

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

There's something about the term "Middling" that I like, but I'm not sure why. It gives me the impression of being not quite in the front and not quite in the back.

Plus, it also sounds phonetically close to "meddling" which is what I would say they were doing when they're influencing me. XD I could say that Riathe was "Middling" while I was writing, and "meddling" with my speech patterns.

Yes, I like this word :)

[pengke.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that it's become a trend lately for people to question how different pronouns are used. I think the confusion is arising from the fact that people in this community and associated communities are describing vastly different experiences using the same terminology. As more people conform to the social norms of these communities, it becomes more difficult for people to use dialogue to identify these differences.

I don't remember what my point was with this comment.

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

I've noticed that. I know I have different types of voices in my head- I'd only call one of them a true soulbond, and the rest are walk-ins, some are muses that have gained free will, etc, so it can be a little confusing.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

It's more that lots of people have voices (or people or entities, what-have-you) in their head but very few of them are multiple as defined by this community. For example, do you consider the voices in your head to be the same as you?

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

do you consider the voices in your head to be the same as you?

No, not at all. None of them are "me" in any definition.

[pengke.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to ask if they are you but if they're the same as you, equally real in the exact same way that you are real. I don't like to use the word real though because people have different meanings for it and it tends to cause wank.

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

Ah yeah, I read it the other way.

I think they're real. They have thoughts and wants, they get upset and cry, they get lonely and bored, they want to do things and have fun, and everything else a "real" person would do, they just don't have their own individual body to do it with.

[kyanve.livejournal.com]

I'd consider it sort-of a co-front...some of the people I know refer to it as "blendy" when there's personality-seepage but not a clear "who's speaking" identity-flip.

For my part, while the others've always been here, the usual state for most of my life has been an identity-melt - I gave up a few years ago on figuring out/stressing about what was "Birdy" and what was "the other facets", since I've had a LOT of personality traits and habits from some of the others get appropriated/permanently blurred in. (They -do- have full personalities, tastes/habits, memories of their lives, etc.) Communicating internally/being aware of them as separate entities as it were is a "last year or two" development, and for most of that it was only Alessa...it's just last few months I've been able to talk to some of the others. Most of the time no matter how much "seepage"/shift there is I still get a sort of "I have the last word" override, so between all of that and the amount of "this isn't my proper body" mismatch some of them get, I figure even if things do eventually reach a point of full front-shifts and all it'll still be "my body", even thou they've basically "always been here" so "renting out" doesn't feel like a good word for it.

I'm still figuring out what to do with the pronouns as far as referring to everyone-as-a-whole...thou it might just be adjustment-period and sorting out how things're shifting in-here that I'm still blinking too badly to use first-person-plural "we/us". Outside of that, usual habit is using third-person "he/she/they" for the others/whatever's not "blended forward enough to be partly them", first-person "I/me" for Birdy/the body/whatever's "shifted forward" or when one of them is speaking for themselves. (I've had times it's weighted "More one of them than Birdy", and online it's fairly easy to just let them type even if it's someone who isn't "blurred into front".)

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

I get the final say as well, no matter how much they seep or bleed in to influence me, and they are pretty content with that. For co-fronting, I suppose it would be, but maybe not as strongly as it happens for other people and their systems.

I think for myself, there's still some stigma about using we/us because society would view it as "crazy" and I try to avoid making myself stand out too badly just to try and keep life simpler. I might use it as I get more comfortable, but I've been hiding it for a long time, not just at work and when talking to people face to face, but also online as well.

And yep, letting them type is pretty simple. They don't seem to have any trouble taking control of my hands when I let them, but anything more than that has never happened.

[kyanve.livejournal.com]

I...don't hide it very much - I've found that people really don't think about it that much usually apparently, esp. if some of it's going on when they meet you. My last job people noticed I was "odd", and I did some tests around the more open-minded ones flipping back and forth to see if their reactions changed/they noticed anything more than "Birdy being odd-and-Birdyish"...the only one that caught anything was unusual was an Otherkin who was aware of Multiples and thought there was an outright front-shift going on. I have times where I'll sort of voluntarily "not bother thinking about" the override...mostly just when I'm stressed out/tired and "letting one of them handle it". (hanging around role-players and theater-nerds helps too, circles where it's relatively normal to do "fall in and out of character" stuff and whatnot.)

I also play "Hide in plain sight" thou - dress/act in such a way that I register as "a little odd" so people're more likely to lump behavior-shifts in with that. (Or shifts in how I dress, I travelled so that gets to be excuse for speech pattern/accent shifts...thou I get questioned about it less often than I'd expect, really.)

And yeaaaah...still have some "stigmas" here thou they angle differently...I probably do need to at least get used to it around the multiple-aware comms and whatnot, if only to avoid confusing people. >.>;

[shadowsgroup.livejournal.com]

We use "I/me" whenever we're referring to ourselves indiviually and "we/us" whenever we're referring to the system as a whole. It's basically what anyone would do if they were working in a group despite the fact that we are in one body.

However, we do use "I/me" whenever we are with people we aren't out to, but we occasionally slip.

-The Shadows

[tej-agni.livejournal.com]

dude I have no idea. when I'm talking about me I'll say ME. When I'm talking about The Clique or the rest of the Epitome I'll say US. Or if I'm talking about some of the others and they aren't fronting with me I'll say THEM! oooh attack of the THEMS!! i iz haz multiplez!!!!
LeAnne

[soulspiritdebv.livejournal.com]

When I'm discussing myself (since other than a few instances, I've always fronted), it's singular pronouns. However, if there is an opinion that Deb and I share (or Deb, Fyr, and Stef and me), then I'll use 'we'. And if the boys hold an opinion that I don't share or two of the boys disagree with the third, then it's third person.

-Bev

[changelyng14.livejournal.com]

we go back and forth between two languages which we call 'singlese' and 'multiplese'. singlese is when i say 'I' under all circumstances, regardless of who actually did whatever. in company in which im 'out' to, we'll use 'we', and 'my person' etc, but honestly, sometimes it just gets burdensome to identify people when youre on a different subject, so I'll speak in the single often for simplicity.

sometimes its fun to refer to 'the royal we', like brittish royalty apparently does. :)

we call 'seepage' 'bleed'. if bob is pissy, I'll be mildly irritated until he deals with it. i hate that. i've never considered that copresencing, but I don't know why you couldn't.

:)

~Tia

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

Bleed was another term I'd heard for it but I couldn't remember it until you mentioned it.

My people tend to be pretty happy and peppy, so letting that bleed in is actually pretty nice when I'm in a bad mood XD

[crystalseraph.livejournal.com]

We use I and We pretty indiscrimately these days. Those who have remarked on it either get told the truth, or we say that I am a princess and therefore use the royal 'we', which almost always gets laughs out of others xD.

[pyoska.livejournal.com]

Well, really, each memeber of my system uses 'me' and 'I' if we are speaking stricktly for ourselves. But, if we are speaking for the group (like I am now), we'll use 'we' and 'us.' We are of vastly differing opinions sometimes, so its just easier to use 'me' and 'I' if I'm the only one who thinks a certain way.

-Heather, of the SightlessLight System

[sethrenn.livejournal.com]

About the "seepage," that certainly happens to us. (I've heard it called "bleed," also, but that sounds almost... painful. *g*) What we've called it, when someone is so near to the front but not right-at-it, but enough to be influencing the fronter's body language, ways of thinking, speech patterns, etc, is "sitting in the image of (whoever's seeping through." I can't take credit for that expression, actually; it was invented by a non-plural we know who would occasionally try to "sit in the image" of people he admired, if he thought thinking like them would be helpful for a given task.

-J

[styggian-nights.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I caught that the next morning but didn't want to edit the post and confuse people. My brain failed me late at night.

[cold-ataraxy.livejournal.com]

We speak predominantly in the first person plural, and we catch ourselves doing so around people who don't know that we're multiple as well. Sometimes they just put it off to a quirky speech habit or something though, so it isn't too troublesome.

Some of us will never use the singular, lacking too much of an identity from having been assigned to Internal Affairs too long, and some of us, Council Department of External Affairs, can use I without any trouble.

Personally, I think that I dislike the singular pronoun. Aloneness isn't the greatest feeling.

We think this is interesting, and it has actually caused all of Council to meet and sit down, so Thank You.

- Madghad of Fences Collective, Exile's Camp appointment to Council.