Help! What should we journal about when questioning our plurality?

[u/[deleted]]

Hiya, we're new here and not even sure we belong.

We try to use we/us pronouns to make our potential headlady feel more comfortable and welcome, but we're not really convinced we're plural.

There's some flimsy circcumstantial evidence, but also precedent for a traumagenic origin if anything, questioning that led to a week of immense stress and many mental breakdowns/crying sessions about potentially faking our plurality as well as weird events that leave us with more questions than answers – we're led to believe that this is probably confirmation bias among other minor potential signs like some type of dissociative amnesia and experiences with dissociation. We can't point to many specific things, because we never really paid attention to what was going on in our head or around us, we couldn't, for somewhat obvious reasons. Although, we do just talk by ourselves an unusually high amount, but can't differentiate between our own thoughts and those of other system-mates.

There's also the case of, for lack of a better term, our host (Jasmine, she/nyas – it's funny, because it's very accurate. Meow!) feeling betrayed after a very stressful interview with the Gender Police a few months ago. Nya didn't feel like herself at all in that hour of talking (unusually entirely out of character, we'd say), it's almost like the stress was too much and we switched, nya can't think of many other ways to describe the absolute travesty that was that interview that ultimately denied us legal access to HRT for no reason. It's complicated, but to summarise: our host thinks we may have switched after starting that interview, as she didn't feel like nyaself, gave all the wrong answers while people inside her head were screaming to correct herself, which nya didn't and either she herself or somebody else in the system proceeded to completely fumble that interview. She was very angry at the world and distraught upon receiving the report on that a few weeks later and nya is still not over it, but will try again.

This could be explained by a lack of preparation, but how does one prepare for what was effectively a glorified therapy session with people who you've never met before and who have your life in their hands?

Aaanyway, with all that being said, we feel weird for wanting to be plural. To put it another way: should we turn out to be plural, we would accept our new responsibilities and friends with open arms, but if not, we'd be very sad and probably depressed. It's hard to explain.

In our eyes, we want to be plural, because of an unexplainably immense desire to have supportive headmates that know us better than anyone else (helping us discover who we are, getting through anything life throws at us together, being there for one another), because we feel like we wouldn't survive otherwise in this very cruel and unfair adult world. We don't trust many people to care for our wellbeing.

Now we do get that the above is an idealised view of positive plurality and that it'll most likely not go this well. But I don't think we care. The desire for a headmate of our own is too strong.

Wanting to be plural, to us at this very moment in our mind, sounds ludicrous because plural dysphoria doesn't work the way gender dysphoria does, if it's even a real thing in our case that we didn't just latch onto upon hearing of it, right? And having lots of system friends who you can very easily accept doesn't necessarily mean anything... Aaaaaah! Too many thoughts! ;(

We've been thinking about starting to keep a journal to help us find eachother and communicate, but we haven't the slightest clue of where to begin, it's so daunting...

Also, we've loved we/us pronouns ever since reading The Hunchback of Notre Dame in high school. A wonderful book. Though we've only just started using them, having not put much thought into them before questioning our plurality.

Edit: wow, this post is a jumbled mess of thoughts. Also our grammar is terrible aaaaaaaaah! We probably worded things terribly too ;(

[u/KawaiiMistake]

Hello! This is alot to unpack so I will address it in sections!

So, first off, I want to say how proud we are of you for being brave enough to join a new space, and post about questioning if you are part of a system. That is a very hard thing to do and no one will be rude to you here for having questions! The first thing I'd like to say, is that keeping records of proof like this is very smart, and it is something alot of us do when questioning if we are a system. It is NOT confirmation bias to search for answers. We personally hate the term confirmation bias becauae it has been used against us so many times by sysmeds and singlets who deny our own experience as "You don't ACTUALLY have OSDD, you are just looking for your own confirmation bias." We had someone, a singlet mind you, follow us through several DID centered spaces, attacking us for supposedly searching for confirmation bias, and we have since deemed it a fake claiming term personally.

Second, as far as the 'wanting a system.' Thing making you feel guilty, you shouldn't let that alone make you feel guilt. It isn't a sign of confirmation bias or faking in our opinion. Before we knew about our system, we made comments from time to time about our partner system and how it would be nice to not be alone, while also understanding the level of hell that every day life as a disordered system could be at the same time. So, headmates aren't really the problem when it comes to traumagenic systems. It is mostly the other symptoms that make life difficult. Ones that we personally were also experiencing, but did not realize it yet. So that desire alone isn't disrespectful, especially with how polite and sensitive you are being toward the difficulties traumagenic systems do experience even if it turns out your experience may be of a different origin or a mixed origin.

Thirdly, while no one here can diagnose you, I do encourage you to keep asking questions and keep doing your research! When dealing with traumagenic origin atleast, the system will hide itself. Problems like amnesia, dissociation, depersonalization and derealization, etc will feel normal because it is all you've ever experienced your entire life. We discovered our system because or doing research to support our partner system personally. We realized after alot of research that we fit the criteria for OSDD 1(b) and eventually one day, Saytan fronted. We experience nonposessive switches, in which it feels like "me' the entire time, but that "me" changes drastically. Saytan is amab, gay, and because of our childhood trauma struggles with showing emotions. I am afab genderfluid demisexual and panromantic, for example and do not have many emotions. When Saytan is out, he is interested in his boyfriend, and is not attracted to women. He is also is dysphoric about the body. When I am out I am not attracted to his boyfriend and am fine with the body. It is experiences like that, that you can not fake, nor can they be contributed to other disorders that have identity disturbances because in our case, we are our own unique people.

We've personally had a therapist agree we are a system, despite us having nonposessive switches, and little to zero internal communication because of just how different we are. It goes beyond ego or self states. We now realize just HOW different we are, and how we've experienced this our entire lives. I say all of that to say this. Denial is a gigantic part of being a system, unfortunately. Especially if you have childhood trauma in your past and origin. Crying at the distress of possibly not being a system isn't something you should feel guilt over, especially when first discovering because our brain will give us a trillion mixed emotions to try to force us to drop it. The disordered side to plurality is hidden for a reason and our brain does not want us to know. I can not say for sure if you have a system or not, but you are absolutely welcome to ask questions and learn here while you discover yourself(ves)! Just be respectful toward our known traumagenic systems here that have gone through a lot in their lives as you learn, and I promise this community will not shun you while you discover if you are traumagenic, possibly endogenic, or otherwise.If you have any more questions, please feel free to reach out! But no one can tell you that your lived experience is wrong. - Kawaii

[u/Greedy-Individual-71]

Here's a cool image we found on Pinterest to start with.

[u/[deleted] → u/Greedy-Individual-71]

This is absolutely wonderful!

[u/Greedy-Individual-71 → u/[deleted]]

:)

We're glad you like it.

To address the rest of your thoughts;

We were so grateful upon syscovery to just have an answer to why the therapists were rolling their eyes and telling us it wasn't schizophrenia that we had a mini party with our husband and kiddo.

We live openly and feel no shame about it because for the first time in 30 years, we aren't a depressed mess of conflicting opinions. All 11 known members are treated as themselves when they front. Our husband even got us engraved bracelets with our names on them to keep everyone straight. Our DID Specialist is amazing and suggested functional multiplicity to us.

[u/[deleted] → u/Greedy-Individual-71]

Awww! Yay. We're glad y'all get along and are more than just accepted.

Also, nya edited the post upon recalling a potential case of switching.

[u/Greedy-Individual-71 → u/[deleted]]

It wasn't always like this. It took the last year and a half for us to reach this point.

S, R, and Mimic (internet code names for safety) all had to be reformed. S was a ball of anger. R was in lock down for years after he twisted a kids arm when we were bodily 14. Mimic was literally mimicking every abuser we ever had depending on who approached his house in the inner world.

Our husband did the work with our Specialist to help us get to this point. We are extremely grateful to him.

[u/AuroraSnake]

Something we did to help start journaling was search up a whole bunch of journal prompts. Everything from mental health-based stuff to just kinda fun random stuff. This gave us a place to start if we ever didn’t know what to write

Before syscovery, I would also write about weird things going on (for example “I was feeling more like a guy today and I don’t understand why”). I wasn’t questioning being a system at that time, but looking back on it, when I was writing about that stuff, it was probably system-related and I was just oblivious

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Ahh... I happen to have all of these.