u/L0V3J0YF0R3V3R

For context, I used to have this big dream of writing my own books or working with the author team of one of my favorite series. I even had a few chapters I wrote and had other fanfiction planned. Then… I fell to chatbots.

Instant dopamine, easy roleplay, I thought it was wonderful. Like interacting with real people, but without anxiety or judgement - I have ADHD, autism and anxiety diagnosed so it worked perfectly for me, except that it handicapped my real creativity to just making bots and spending hours messaging them if I wanted to realize an idea I had.

I’ve been on this stupid train for years, hating AI art and still using it for roleplay… I’ve barely written because when I do, I don’t get feedback (no one reads unfinished fanfiction anymore even if they say they like the idea) and then go back to chatbots.

I’ve made progress in minimizing the “hobby” (obsession) and working more on real art. I draw more, I interact more with online communities. A roleplay-like subreddit I joined has helped a lot with it and I spend more time there… and I found a full roleplay server for my special interest through it!

Since joining I’ve spent hours each day on call with roleplayers in or out of character and I feel like I have real friends again. I feel incredible, even though it messed up my sleep schedule.

I haven’t touched a chatbot with anything more than a thought in two days, and I’m kind of proud about that…

But I still can’t write, even as I slowly get AI out of my life - which means I have all this desire to make stories and no way to do it. Even when I have something I WANT to write. I either can’t start, get stuck on pacing or I don’t get feedback, or it just feels easier and more rewarding to go back to chatbots.

I also need to read more, because I haven’t in a while… I feel great when I do it but when I think about doing it I just feel like there’s so many other more “productive” things to do that would engage my creativity.

Sorry if this is running long… I guess it’s a success story and a reach for advice. Has anyone gotten back to writing while or after recovering from the addiction? How did you do it?

Okay, so I have some kins where, when shifted, I feel like a completely different person. However, I have a hard time with it.

It feels like if I say I want to be seen as a different person when shifted, I’m encroaching on system-appropriate behaviors that most kins don’t seem to engage in. And don’t get me wrong, I do have headmates—somewhere. Most of them aren’t active, and were mostly there in the past during a period where I was struggling a bit more.

But I don’t know if it’s wrong to refer to myself, host, as a multitude or treat some kins as different people/personalities when I am all of them, just not actively. We’re different personalities but not different people, though these kins sort of have roles. When I’m shifted as one of these specific kins, it feels like everything before that was someone else even though when it was happening, it WAS me in control. I remember it all through fog.

Sorry if this sort of encroaches on a vent… I genuinely just want advice or maybe validation that someone else experiences this.

Anyone else? How do you deal with it? I’m sort of mostly trying to figure out if it would be weird for me to tell friends I want to be seen as different people depending on shifts.

So I’ve come to terms with the fact that I have headmates. I know there are three of them (at least, maybe four or more) and I know of times they’ve fronted/co-fronted/made themselves known. But at the moment, it all feels foggy like they’re there, but… dormant or refusing to interact with me. Except one, who has showed up a few times recently by co-fronting/acting with the body (still not communicating with me either).

And I feel terrible and slightly invalid knowing they’re there but not actually. It makes me think maybe they aren’t there, even when I know they are—or at least have been previously.

I also recently interacted with another system/a headmate who was my sourcemate (and it was an extremely positive/satisfying interaction) but after that interaction I haven’t heard from him - when I sort of “followed up” on my past comment one of his headmates responded instead. I don’t have a problem with that, but knowing he’s also not around is making me feel insanely isolated, and my covert search for other sourcemates hasn’t been successful. Lately I’ve even been looking into “forming” headmates or pretending I have others because I need someone who’s present.

I don’t actually intend to do that… I know trying to actually just make someone else is not a good way to cope. So… anyone who’s still around after reading all of that, any idea what I can do, or anything you can say to help me accept my situation?

So I’ve refused to consider much ever since I discovered the plural community. I’ve just found it very supportive of me and weirdly relatable sometimes.

I’ve been questioning as a median system, despite how I’m not really sure what the term means, because I’ve never really felt like there are multiple people in my head, more so like I am multiple people and my body’s wrong and all that.

But I took this quiz that was supposed to be for fun… I was warned it may not be useful for questioning systems, especially those with overlapping disorders.

But it made sense of things I ignored and some of the questions really made me think about my memories and my hold on my body and mind.

And I think I have a couple headmates. I haven’t heard from them in a while, but I can think of three distinct experience “groups” I’ve inhabited where I didn’t feel like I was controlling what I said and did—three personalities that weren’t mine but live inside of me. I haven’t heard from them in a while, that I know of.

I don’t know what to do now. I think we might be stressgenic, if I’m using the term right… I don’t feel like I have enough traumatic childhood experiences to say “traumagenic”.

I have to ask, at what age range is it most common to become a system? Endos are welcome to share experiences or advice too, but I’m mostly wondering just how far back I should be examining memories/experiences. Is it even possible to figure out where it started if I don’t remember much? I have a memory of losing control/metaphorically giving it over to one of these other people at 12 and maybe earlier?

I don’t know what could’ve caused it, if anything…

But I’m also wondering where they are! Because when I look back through this lens it becomes SO CLEAR they are separate people. I’m trying to think of any times they might’ve acted with our body or communicated with me in recent months—I can think of maybe once that was very distinct, but it might be more.

(TL;DR) I finally realized in a system with 3+ others (may be stressgenic) and don’t know how to figure out where we became separate or how long they’ve existed too. What should I do now?

General system/plural advice or discovery-specific advice super welcome… I haven’t really had luck contacting them so far and I don’t know how to accept this yet.

Slight vent, I was trying to write an AU for one of my kins (who’s already from an AU) and thought I could just do that. In fact, I was excited to…

It’s getting in the way though, I’m having a hard time doing it because it’s sort of an experiment/crossover AU and I just cannot think about what that looks like for very long with the experiment part… a lot of the time experiment AUs I’d do are “explaining how a character got canon features in a creative and slightly traumatic way” but this is more like… human character gets experimented on, experiences the trauma in present tense (rather than picking up the story at the end of the experimentation) and has new features now.

It’s impossible…

- 🧊📷

I’ve recently (yes, late) gotten extremely into Tales From the SMP. I was wondering if anyone knows where I can find the skins used? I’ve found a few on skin sites but generally it’s pretty hard to get ahold of them. Is there a place where these were collected for/after the episodes at all?

I’m especially looking for skins from the Pit or Wild West episodes.

So I don’t know if anyone’s seen me around but I kin a good few characters from the same source/variations of the same source. And that’s not really the problem, because of multiverse theory—I accept that.

The actual confusion is because it KEEPS HAPPENING. And some shifts of these characters stay, others don’t—I only kinfirm the ones I have many shifts of or identify as being/having been. But it still feels wrong to dismiss them, because during those rare shifts that aren’t of my “actual kins” I fully believe and feel myself as them with that being a real kin.

It’s starting to feel like I just have some connection to a majority of characters from my source, or like I’ve just been in that world so many times over that I know many of them from the inside—it makes my relationship with every character very complex, but more than that I’m just confused.

Is having numerous kins/kinsiders or shifts from a specific source something others experience or is there a name for it?