shadsy 🩷

This is a good question, and I'm glad you asked!

I think it can be broken down first into...

• What is my life like when I treat my experiences as plural?
• What is my life like when I treat my experiences as singular?
• Which of the above two is more helpful to me?

These are still pretty abstract questions, though. If I had to break these down even further, into more concrete, specific ones...

• What are you struggling with? Why do you feel a pull to explore plurality? What do you want to gain from it? Is there anything you're afraid of, whether from exploring it or not exploring it?
• Do experiences that don't make sense under a singular framework start making sense under a plural one? Even if you're still confused, do you feel like you finally have a direction to start moving in?
• Are you able to start organizing what was previously a chaotic life or sense of self? Does stuff finally start getting done, inside and/or out?
• Does it feel helpful and/or meaningful to identify and name various selves, or is it all vague, arbitrary, and frustrating? (Remember that system members are not always individual, distinct people: they can be fragmentary, blurry, fluid, etc. That being said, this bullet point is less about which identifications you make and more about how the process of identification makes you feel.)
• Do you feel like you gained a bunch of new and useful tools? A bunch of additional tedium? Both?
• Do you have clearer insight into what you're feeling/doing and why you're feeling/doing it?
• If there's internal conflict, does approaching it from a plural framework help you reconcile it?
• Do you feel internal pushback against the idea that you're plural? If so, why? Where is it coming from?
• Imagine that an Orb Of Supreme Knowledge or whatever told you that yes, You Are Plural. How would you feel?
• Imagine the kind of life that you want to have. How does plurality tie into that life? (This can mean all sorts of things, from "a collaborative life as a loving internal found family" to "reconciliation and union with previously disparate selves." Remember that both healthy multiplicity and final fusion are valid ends, as long as they are freely chosen by your system.)

These are just examples, mind, and I don't even think all of these questions will be applicable to everyone. Pick what's relevant from the list, add your own, discard what's not relevant!

Also, keep in mind that "more helpful" doesn't have to be like, life-bendingly profound. As far as I'm concerned, "plurality makes my life a lot less lonely" is as valid as "I'm torn in all directions and plurality helped me finally negotiate among myselves."

For those of us who were originally all facets of the original, there were just so many contradictions in core beliefs regarding other people, our gender identity, and so on, and plurality was the only way we could reconcile them. Granted, right after that, each of us decided that we were the "real" one and the other ones were "fake" selves who needed to be gotten rid of or put in their place. (Do NOT recommend.) But it was still a start to be able to name the thing, even if we still had to do a LOT more work in order to engage with it in a way that actually helped us. And for those of us who didn't begin as facets... they just wanted to be thought of and treated as people, and thinking of and treating them as people enriched our life. It was as simple as that.

Finally: it's okay to experiment, and it's okay to be wrong. It's okay to try out plurality (different flavors of it, too!) as a framework and then decide it wasn't the right one after all. You did not lie to anyone. You were not "faking." You did not take anything away from plural folks by doing so, and if anything, you'll be walking away with a better understanding of yourself and a greater familiarity with the community than before. I say it's a win-win.

This was kind of unstructured but I still hope it helped! And in case it isn't clear, my askbox is ALWAYS open to questioning folks. I'll be upfront and say that I cannot diagnose you or determine your identity for you, so anything that's like "I'm experiencing X, Y, and Z, am I plural?" will get a gentle reminder that only you can answer that. However, questions like "would you consider X a type of plurality" or "I'm experiencing Y and can't tell if the plural framework is helpful or not" is something I will do my best to answer!