It's really dangerous and limiting to assume that other people's experiences lining up with yours means that you should assume that you have the same problems that can be solved with the same solutions. Empathy doesn't have to come from a place of having been there yourself.
BUT,
assuming that your experiences not lining up 100% means that you can't possibly be like that person, that you'd be appropriating from that person by thinking you are… that is a vortex that can suck you down, down, down into the depths and away from hope and healing.
I see the tension between these poles constantly in all sorts of contexts — about autism and ADHD, about being trans and/or nonbinary, and, seemingly especially, about being plural and/or having DID/OSDD.
On the one hand, you have people so focused on trying to spread awareness and open the eyes of so-called "eggs" that they'll say that a fairly widespread experience is "evidence" of their identity just because they themselves have been through it.
On the other hand, you have people so intent on keeping out malingerers and the confused that any experience not exactly like theirs becomes apparently worthy of such alienating scrutiny, criticism, scorn, and patronization.
So much of our mind has spent the past two years absolutely fucking terrified of accepting ourselves because of the latter, and absolutely fucking terrified of sharing too many of our experiences because of the former.
There's a simple balance to be struck between "if you have this experience, it obviously comes from this source and this identity label applies to you!" and "if your experience isn't exactly like mine, get the fuck away from my identity label". I dunno why striking it's so scary.
We've been living as plural for two years as of today, and along the way we've seen and internalized so many confusing and alienating things in both directions.
If there's anything I'd like to take today to say, it's…
only you can know yourself, and you can only know yourself.
Thanks for reading. —🎀
