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werewolfbarista
@werewolfbarista

i have questions about plurality . how do y'all like. know?? that you're plural? is it something that some people make a conscious choice to be? i saw one person describe talking to someone about possibly being plural as similar to talking to an egg about maybe being trans, and i remember another person mentioning that one can just Be Plural if that makes things easier which is all fascinating i think and!!! i just wanna understand more especially since there's so many super cool plural people around


werewolfbarista
@werewolfbarista

thanks everybody for sharing their experiences and stuff!!!!! i don't think i can respond to everybody (especially not this late!) but this has been Very Enlightening and i really appreciate the help!!!! everybody's been so nice!!!!

it actually all has reminded me of some plurality i experienced in high school with an alter id ended up assigning to my depressive episodes......... i just kinda saw it as roleplaying (because he started as an oc) but after reading all of this stuff it seems like the way id gone about it was better described as my own form of plurality i had (have?) going on. ive always had select ocs i see more or less as extensions of myself and i wonder if maybe i should look a little deeper into those


werewolfbarista
@werewolfbarista

ive been doing some more thinking (and reading and REreading all the lovely comments ive gotten!) and i think im reaching a tentative conclusion of being plural somehow? but more in the way of my alters being segmented off parts of me as an individual. i still puppet them around but even so, they still feel separate from me

im finding it something akin to rp if that makes sense. in which i just kind of sit back and go into my head and talk with whoever happens to be there. and it's usually phobos, who's the one i talked about in my last addition to this post. i don't know if there's truly someone there, or even someone else entirely that im not totally aware of, but seeing these characters that ive put so much of myself into as other people up there i can reach out to for counsel or company is nice.

i don't know if this means anyone up there is available for real, non RP conversations. maybe in the same way as if i were to put on a mask and start talking as them, but i don't know. it's gonna take a lot more introspection i think, but for now im happy knowing that ive got support from y'all here. ^__^ i may talk more about this off and on as i dive more into it


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in reply to @werewolfbarista's post:

The way that I see this is: plurality is first and foremost a framework.

  • Everyone has an inherent manyness of self (see: whenever people talk about their "work self" as opposed to their "home self"), but this manyness is more pronounced for some folks than others.
  • For some of those folks, that manyness is pronounced enough that it makes more sense for them to approach their internal workings as a collection of selves/beings/people, rather than a singular self/being/person.
  • "Plurality" is one of several words that these folks may use to describe this experience, and "plural" the corresponding self-label.

If you find that it is more helpful and useful to think of yourself as several selves/beings/people instead of one self/being/person, if it makes things make sense and gives you tools for managing your life that you didn't have before, then you are welcome to call yourself plural.

There is no clear dividing line between singlethood (singularity of self) and plurality, as it's fundamentally based in subjective internal experiences, and which framework is helpful and useful is going to be different for each brain.

Hello! I'm going to reply to this by breaking it into the three "points" you're asking because that's easier for me and my brain/way of thinking.

how do y'all like. know?? that you're plural?

Our syscovery required our then-host to get puppetted around physically while someone else fronted and manuvered our body and basically screamed at him "I'm here!! I'm here too!!" because he was super dense, lol. Something sort of dramatic like this is fairly common among systems but some systems also just slowly figure it out less dramatically by realizing there's aspects of plurality experiences they relate to in some way and taking the time to explore that.

is it something that some people make a conscious choice to be?

Yes. Some systems are parogenic which basically means that their members are consciously created. The tulpa community is, by definition, also parogenic, although 'parogenic' as a word was coined to distance itself from the tulpa community due to concerns of appropriating a religious word/practice. (There is a lot of heated debate about this, and I'm not imparting any opinion about it, just being impartial). Also this is probably more like 303 info and you're looking for 101 so don't worry about it.

One of my opinions that maybe some of my systemmates share is that we think sometimes systems who are parogenic might have already been a bit pluralesque but concentrating on their pluralness consciously helps bring everything together more solidly. And that's okay and that's valid. It's up to each system how they define and identify, after all.

i saw one person describe talking to someone about possibly being plural as similar to talking to an egg about maybe being trans

This is true! In fact, "egg carton" is a joke we see used by some plural communities referring to how baby systems or self-closeted systems or systems-in-denial don't know or are uncertain and might need their eggs cracked. In as healthy and supportive way as possible. If at all. Sometimes it's best to just let people do that themselves in their own time.

On the other aspect of this, being plural is actually pretty common! The NCBI has found that approximately 1.5% of the global population has DID. (As of 2019). In other words, in the entire world, approximately 120 million people have diagnosed, diagnosable DID specifically and the funds/accessibility to diagnose it. Which does not account for other forms of medically-recognized plurality (such as OSDD) or any other form of plurality, including but not limited to "natural" plurality, plurality that is somewhat common in BPD, spiritual plurality, and so on. So the actual numbers/chances of plurality is pretty much unknown but we think it's extremely common because it really is just a mode of living and we live in a world that is so immensely singlet-centric that it actively discourages people from thinking in plural terms about themselves.

I hope this all makes sense! And hello! Sorry to be a rando in your comments.

People have commented here more eloquently than I have, but with the majority of these things that tend to be lifestyle-influencing in some way, the short answer is: it depends! Some people decide they are plural due to some conceptual fracturing of the self in various situations, others can hear their system members' voices talking to them or making commentary, others have long spans of dissociative amnesia, and this is only a handful of ways plurality can be realized
For me personally, a lot of my plurality was sort of buried in misidentifying a system member as a singularly experienced unique emotion (long stretches of uncharacteristically intense anger), which is kind of vague but it was also over a decade ago lol so it's hard to remember with clarity how that transitioned from a feeling into a whole system
I personally feel like plurality is something that you kind of realize as you fall into it due to its sort of nebulous nature and the inherent differences felt in all human experience(s). I've not ever really talked to anybody about being plural the way I have spoken to an egg about being trans, but I imagine the method of doing so is quite similar 🤔 I kind of wonder about this because realizing I'm trans happened at almost the same time of realizing I'm part of a system

im def not as eloquent n experienced as other commenters here but. input of a fresh face in a community matters too.
for me it was like. my plural partners kinda suspected i might be plural, similar to an egg yeah, n an inter-polycule joke started up abt that n jokingly lightheartedly trying to coax a headmate out of me. anyways my response to them saying so was me going "dope. thatd be nice i think. if i am someone new will show themself sooner or later".

and then like a number of months later i start having. very briefly. sudden surges of emotions to stimuli, emotions that felt distinctly foreign, and not-me to me. this happens before the new headmate actually properly awakens, basically like shes still cooking i like to say.

the first one made herself properly known now 6 months ago, while doing mushrooms on halloween. after that it took her a month or two to figure out how to communicate with me thru more than emotions and to take front.
the second one, is now a few weeks old, had a much easier time expressing herself, as figuring out communication was kinda a team effort she could piggy back off of.

hi sorry this got kinda long, i just rly love my headmates n im so glad theyre here and i like talking about them, idk i kinda lost track of what i was gonna say originally? this is satisfactory too tho, hope this helps still dgfhgg. but yeah the primary 'proof' that it wasnt just me talking to myself n making stuff up was like, those feelings i kept experiencing that i Knew were not mine.

every system is different tho yeah, noone but you can say what its like for you. it could differing facets of the one you, it could be entirely seperate individuals, it could be any range between or outside of that, or even in multiple ways at once.

i think the best thing if you suspect u identify w this community is like. keep an open mind, literally. dont dismiss any feelings outright, try to identify if theyre impulsive, intrusive, and/or maybe even just wishful thinking. its tricky, but you just gotta like. experiment, i think. if something is not right, you will often feel it in your gut that its not. just dont try to suppress something or someone, ive only seen that lead to hurt or even loss of headmates, work with them instead best u can

christ sorry this got rambly n didnt rly answer ur questions directly i dont think? its late n im tired dgfhg but. i was not so recently ago in ur exact shoes, a non plural purrson thinking its all really cool n interesting and a little relateable. ive only been plural for half a year myself, but ive been closeknit w a bunch of other plural folks for a couple years before that, over half my pawlycule is plural :3c
but yeah if you wanna like, hit me up n talk more or anything please feel free!

[It took us basically a full year to fully realize & come to grips with it, but honestly, there's no real harm in experimenting and trying out a plural framework for yourselves. There's an article linked in morethanone.info that really helped us when we struggle with doubts and insecurity: https://healthymultiplicity.com/loonybrain/Info/VickisDoesItWork.html

Basically, does thinking of yourself as plural work for you? Does it explain some quirks you have, does it spark joy, does it otherwise "click"? Then by all means, consider yourself so.

Besides, you can always make a headmate (whether via soulbond, tulpamancy, or daemonism) just to be sure. (M wants me to clarify: that was mostly a joke)

-Pollux]

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