multiplicity_archives | riding a high wind

Entry tags:

riding a high wind

Hi. We just discovered this community and have really enjoyed reading the dialogues so far... so...

Recently We read "The Tao of Physics" and drew an analogy between Our experience of reality and research into quantum physics. In quantum physics, they cannot directly observe the phenomena they are studying. All they can do is create situations where "particles" will react to each other and observe the trails in the "bubble chamber" and decipher what happened from there.

Sometimes so much of this being aware of the "others" sharing my life is like that. They (my parts) are like the most intimate relationships in my life, yet I cannot directly observe them as separate from me. I do not know what they are thinking.

#That one really drove her crazy, when she realized she has no idea what we actually THINK.#

I can only infer their existence by the "trails" they leave in my life. The words they write, the perspectives they overlay on mine when we "co-front", the things they say and do...
Sometimes it is hard to really accept that they are real. That they are really separate and thinking their own thoughts and pursuing their own agendas and I AM NOT AWARE OF ALL THAT. Someone else posted in here the question (roughly paraphrased) "how does it feel to be the voice in the back of someone else's head?"
That really sums it up...the feeling of strangeness at being the stranger in a shared mind.

So many of my girls value their anonymity... their ability to move in and out of "present life" mode without being detected. How important do you think it is to be AWARE of who is doing what, as long as We know what is being done?
Hmmm....

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

They (my parts) are like the most intimate relationships in my life, yet I cannot directly observe them as separate from me. I do not know what they are thinking.

Maybe they are not parts of you, then, as you've had some indication that they exist more independently than that.

We're not always aware of who is doing what -- as long as what needs to be done gets done. That's the important part. Bill paying, attending classes, etc.

Uh huh! I understand that and so do the rest of us. Just take it all one day at a time and the rest will fall into place.

Thanks! It was really kind of rhetorical question... I know that in the end my comprehension or miscomprehension about my system doesn't matter so much as the fact that We ARE functioning. Yet... the questions remain.

("The less I seek my source for some definitive, the closer I am to fine." -Indigo Girls. I should remember that...)

That's what Gabe always says. :)

What do you mean, maybe they are not parts of me? I guess that question begs a definition of the term "me"... what are your thoughts?

Also, I really value Our functionality and ability to do what needs to be done... I'm actually awed and amazed sometimes at how much We accomplish even though I remain in the dark about the mechanisms involved in accomplishing it...

But, in thinking in terms of consiousness and healing, it seems that there is a value in gaining insight and understanding to the process of which I am able to observe but not necessarily participate. I think that part of the work for anyone, whether multiple or not, is getting a clearer sense of their deeper motivations and healing their misconceptions about reality.

=Based on the concept that no one behaves inconsistently with their beliefs about reality. Even the darkest sociopath is behaving consistently with his/her beliefs about reality.=

I guess it would be nice to have more to go on than just the inferences I must make from their behaviors and some of the enigmatic messages they send me.

But maybe that is MY control issue and there is someone else here keeping track of all that. Even keeping track of me.

Thus the wierdness when trying to understand my identity in relationship to the whole system.

'nuff said... thanks for your comments. :)

Well, you call the other persons in your group "my parts", yet you have also observed that they operate independently, often keeping you in the dark. That's why I wondered if they were really parts of you, or separate individuals who just shared your body. 'Course, even in groups that start out as one person who split, the others can become very separate entities, according to some of our friends. So I could be full of prunes ;) (But then I wouldn't call'em parts anymore, just people)

In terms of gaining psychological insight, yes, it's helpful to be able to communicate with the others, but their experiences and motivations may not be at all the same as yours -- which might mean their input on issues like misperceptions of reality might be helpful, but not in the way you'd think!

"I guess it would be nice to have more to go on than just the inferences I must make from their behaviors and some of the enigmatic messages they send me."

What do they say when you ask'em? Chances are that since you're running that smoothly in the earth world, there is something or someone keeping track of probably most (not necessarily all) things that go on, you included. (In our system it isn't a person.)

Hmmm... maybe the needed definitions are to words like "parts" and "people" and "alters" and such. Having been living and healing outside of the context of a community of other multiples I may be using terminology that isn't consistent with what you are all used to using. Language is important and I'd like to get clearer. Please help me to use the words as you understand them...

Well, the terminology and definitions aren't uniform across the entire online multiple community, and in fact there isn't just one such community, there are many. We have a glossary on our website, but it mainly contains pragmatic terms like co-running. Perhaps it should include things like parts and alters, for while many healthy multiples dislike such terms as demeaning, others find them useful. After all, plurality has many origins and natures. Terminology can be empowering in giving one the words to express one's experience; it can also be frustrating, and a good deal of patience is required.

Parts: I think of this as referring to situations in which one or more members of a multiple group feel that they are actually fragments of a single individual. They don't each have their own separate sets of feelings, ideas, beliefs, likes and dislikes -- those things we usually think of as comprising what is generally termed personality --, but rather specialise in one area (e.g., "my angry part," "my compassionate part".) Perhaps they seek to integrate back into what they perceive to be a unified whole, or stay separate and work as a gestalt.

Alters: This is a slippery term at best and derives from alter egoes, Latin for other selves. As such, it could be applied to a single person who simply has aspects or masks, as well as to members of a plural group. New-wave or multiple liberationists have expressed the sentiment that they don't care for alters as a term because they perceive it as making the people in the group seem less than some real or imagined main person, true self, etc. It also provides a way for the singlet population (including many therapists) to distance themselves from the reality that persons in a multiple group can be, and often are, persons in their own right.

In addition, both parts and alters are terms used by the mental health industry, and in my opinion, we'd do well to disconnect multiplicity as much as possible from the therapy culture in the public mind. I want to emphasise again that this does not mean I don't believe in therapy if it's actually helpful. I do think the culture at large should be guided away from associating multiplicity always with psychiatry, therapy, hospitals &c., as if it were impossible to be multiple (or self-recognise as multiple) without such things.

As for people, I generally assume that persons in a multiple group are people -- that is, complex, fully formed persons in their own right -- unless they tell me differently.

Hope this helps.
Anthony Temple, Astraea

Coolness... yes that helps. I haven't seemed to place much value on the semantics involved with my system. Yet, in another conversation I was having, I had an Ah-Ha moment about the importance of getting our words as close as possible to the concept we are trying to describe. Itsa all com'n togetha now.

So, it seems to me that my system is made of both people and parts - and I'll futher define parts to mean consciousnesses that are separate unto themselves but have not experienced enough to be fully functioning people. (IE: a fragment or splinter that was awake and in time for a 10 minute moment and that is his or her entire experience of reality.)

You mentioned a difference between inside people that come from splits off a core identity and other people. Please elaborate.... Most of my people are pieces that split off and then became fully functional in their own right. There are "others" in the system, but they really serve in the function as guides or guardians and I don't consider them to be sharing the body or the life in the same sense as my people.

Whew!

And... it appears that you have a separate icon for each voice that speaks, yet your user name remains the same. Is that an easy trick to explain?

(Not that it would do any good in a practical for Us at this time... while I can usually tell when the voice changes, identifying the speaker is impossible 9 times out of 10.)

Danke for your patience und help...

Mirth!

You mentioned a difference between inside people that come from splits off a core identity and other people. Please elaborate....

Hey, just a word from us. The way we run, is that Ruth is the main front most of the time, but Amariyah and Anachronis post sometimes.

We feel that Ruth and Amariyah have always been in this system. Amariyah hasn't often been the active fronter for any long period of time, but she has always been around, for as long as memory stretches back. Ruth wasn't aware of her for a long time, not consciously(we think this was a protective set-up, to avoid persecution at home or school for 'unusual' behaviour), but when Amariyah evidenced to her, she was able to remember and connect many incidences of Marie being there and helping her. Marie isn't a split, but a seperate being that has been there since the beginningtime.

We haven't had the experiences of 'losing time' that many do. Any co-running or co-fronting that happens, Ruth generally still controls motor functions, but Marie or Ana will be relaying their wishes for the body to her, so there's a miniscule lag on reactions.

We're not sure when Ana came to us, as she is mostly amnesiac of her previous life. She's pretty quiet, but when she wishes to talk, she will often 'nudge' Ruth to write her opinions down. The few times she has co-fronted, she has felt the body way too 'big' for her, compared to what she had before.

There are others here, but they rarely talk or come close to the front.

You mentioned a difference between inside people that come from splits off a core identity and other people. Please elaborate...

Some multiples originate with a single person who splits off others from a core identity, perhaps due to childhood trauma, perhaps for other reasons. As you say, these split-off selves can become full persons in their own right.

Other multiples, like ourselves, rather than splitting from a central person, never had such a central or core identity, but existed as a community from the beginning of the body's lifetime. We are a gateway system, that is, one whose actual home base is a quite material world in an alternative dimension, and we use this body to interact with the earth world and the here-and-now. Other gateway systems include Shaytar (http://www.bentspoons.com/Shaytar/) and Bravadai (http://www33.brinkster.com/bravadai/).

atoa and

ladydancerhouse, respectively.

Some systems call or attract people from other dimensions, often (but not always) including environments that have been portrayed, for better or worse, in film, television, books or games. (The process by which this occurs has been called "soulbonding", but it is not always exactly that.) Or they deliberately create people, not always to deal with abuse as in the cliched portrayals, but for any number of reasons; from "I wanted someone to hang out with," to "We needed someone to help out with school."

And... it appears that you have a separate icon for each voice that speaks, yet your user name remains the same. Is that an easy trick to explain?

Certainly. The LJ FAQ explains how to create and upload new user icons. A paid user may have up to fifteen icons; for a bit more money, you can have up to fifty. The named icon is a courtesy described here:

http://www.tanuki.cx/pavilion/policies/pinteract.html

(You can see more of our named icons at
http://www.livejournal.com/allpics.bml?user=ksol1460 )

hmm... i have a question. we originally had a core(or maybe set of cores) identity and our world is largely self-created, but through no planning of ours wound up with gateways to other dimensions "built in" so to speak and have several others in here now who /are/ from other dimensions. would that maybe qualify as a "gateway system"? or is the definition more limited to systems where everyone is from another place?

and i think i need to try to read your website again. i have a hard time deciding where to look first and sometimes get overwhelmed by all the information. malmenel was going to read /all/ of it but he hasn't been out much at all in the last month sadly.

Sure. That doesn't sound too dissimilar to our situation. Our own subjective world is a place we've created ourselves, but we've had other people gate into the system from other places entirely. I think it's valid to call that a gateway system, or you could call yourselves a 'natural/gateway system' or something to imply it's a combination.

What would make our website easier to read? We have that list of the different sections on the left-hand side of the page and then you can go to each page.

Where to look first? You might want to check out and/or contribute suggestions to the glossary at
http://www.astraeasweb.net/plural/glossary.html

eheh... i think my difficulty is i am just overwhelmed by the sheer /ammount/ of information and essays and articles and /everything/ and i can never decide where to start. i'll try the glossary first next time though, thanks.

and if i have any suggestions or anything i'll make sure to mention it if i think there's something i think might be done to make it better somehow. ^_^

The way i look at things here, as long as I can remain functioning, life is good. I can support myself, so if someone else wants to have a social night out and leave me "at home"...happiness is a goal. :)

~cheshire

Yes, thanks for the reminder... "happiness is a goal"

Sometimes I get caught up the intellectualizing of experience to the point where I can't relax and be grateful for the moment, and the fact that We are all here and (mostly) getting what We each need.

:)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

riding a high wind

no subject

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Re:

Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

Re: Regarding terminology

no subject

Re: