r/plural

Just jotting down a quick thought here; but like, you'll see philosophers discussing whether memory is what makes you you; and there'll be these thought experiments where they say things like "oh, if another person suddenly woke up with your memories would they suddenly be you". Then you'll see people start talking about how freaky and existentially horrifying it would be to suddenly wake up and be a different person, and all I can think is "bitch you're describing Thursday it's really not that bad"

-Laura of the Eco System

Okay so sorry if I get my terminology wrong, I'm new to all this 😅

So I am a woman named blair but yesterday with my boyfriend I started feeling like things weren't right, like I wasn't blair. I felt like I was a boy named paisley (yes ik thats a feminine name but thats just how it is).

I feel like who I am as a person can be pretty cold, unemotional, and isolated from the rest of the world, but I get 'bursts' of emotion, vulnerability, etc. and I think those bursts are paisley coming out.

I think this 'second me' might be born from some trauma of being forced to live as a male for over 20 years even though I am a woman, maybe in a way acknowledging and finding a way to express that more open, emotional 'male' side of me that was forced to be cold and isolated.

I don't really think I have DID though, I'm certainly not diagnosed, and I also don't feel like I'm necessarily switching 'people', I have all my memories and there is a clear continuity between switches. But it is a noticeable 'switch' not a gradual change. I can feel when I become paisley and when I become blair. Being able to be paisley with my boyfriend has resulted in a lot of inner healing too and has made blair a better person too.

Idk, has anyone else had this experience? Is there a specific name for this besides DID or system? Sorry this is mostly just me putting this into words because I'm kind of new to this.

Blair (she/her) and Paisley (he/they) are my alters. Paisley does not mind being called she/her and you can call me either of my alters' names

Thank you for reading ~Blair

Well, all is in the title.

When we haven't yet the diag, and my only headmate here talked with my hubby, this one was okay. They talked sometimes, just asking what was Kronos exactly.

And with the diag, my brain poped more headmates. So we're 16 headmates today and... one time, hubby said to me "I'm married with you [name], not with your system !" And an other time, after I taked my courage to talk with him about my DID in game (Sims4) bc I wanted just relax and doesn't see this as a prob, juste learn to live with it... he said : "Don't give them so much importance, it's bad for you. If you give them importance, your disorder will be worst."

...

I cried so much. Then today we decided to not talk again about us with him... He even not know we're 16 headmates now...

These online quizzes lowkey bother me, like you’re just letting a bunch of random questions decide who you are and your origin without really knowing you. Like if you’re taking it just for personal fun, just take it and don’t bother listening to the results. But actually taking it seriously isn‘t the best idea. Posting it here is just clutter that doesn’t tell us anything about yourself or contribute to the community in any way.

Hello everyone, this might be a long post as its kind of my first post documenting this side of me and this might not be the proper sub for this so do forgive me if its a bit off topic.

I was thinking, I've been thinking and I came to the conclusion half of me is trans, now this might sound weird so let me try to explain this.

I've struggled with conflicting emotions on things for around 16 years now, over half my life. On a topic I can have 2 wildly different opinions on it and both are true in a certain frame of mind, for the longest time this drove me completely crazy, not when I was like super young and first dealing with this but like all my high school years and my first few years working it was especially bad (I'm only 24 now) its only been this past year I stopped fighting it.

Now I never really understood what this was, it just drove me crazy, I didn't understand how I could have 2 disagreeable opinions on topics and both be correct at certain times of the day. It was especially painful when it came to my sexuality, now I'm bisexual but there was a part inside myself that was just like, insanely gay, like INSANELY gay. I know this might sound like repressed feelings or something but believe me when I say it is different, I am bisexual, I know that, I like women and I also like feminine men there is absolutely a line where my attraction ends, but there was that part inside that was absolutely no line, didn't like women and that plus other disagreeable things drove me into spirals of depression and suicidal thoughts.

Now this leads up to maybe like mid last year, I gave up, I stopped caring about these differing thoughts, I stopped fighting them. Somewhere in that clarity where I wasn't in constant turmoil I found like two parts of myself. (I feel like you all may know a lot more about what I'm about to say a lot more then I will) I figured out the wildly conflicting thoughts would happen all at once, all the things I had disagreements about all at once would all change not just one here and there. Then I kind of found out that the disagreeable voice I was fighting with at times became friendlier and slowly I started to notice there were 2 very discernible parts of myself. One was me (the person writing this, I am the one that wasn't meant to be writing this but its who is here now so oh well) I am the bisexual man very happy with everything, very happy with myself and my gender. The other is Ally, she's the part of me who is trans. Originally this morning when she came up with this she was meant to be writing it so do forgive me as I am probably not mentioning a lot of things she would have wanted to include but I'm trying my best lol.

So the best way to describe it I feel would be like two different versions of myself in the same body, I don't really know what makes us swap who is like in control but it just happens, I struggle to describe what it feels like. But when she was in control she realized she doesn't feel right as a man, she is a woman. We also have differing taste in music, games, hobbies. I like more metal, edm, she likes hyperpop, classical. I like competitive games like CS2, Valorant, she likes minecraft, terraria. I like bush walking, kayaking, she likes reading, doomscrolling. There is a LOT more things that we don't fully agree on and differences between us but we've worked out how to live together. I think a lot of the reason we struggled so much was my fault, I refused to acknowledge her existence, I was trying to refuse her, an entire part of myself, and stop her from actually existing. I honestly feel terrible.

Shes sweet, shes like me but unique, shes herself. I honestly forgot the reason she wanted to make this, I feel it was to share our story, shes better at stuff like this so maybe tomorrow she will update this (This was meant to be like her account but its just been only me since I got home and was able to make this).

I don't know, I hope you all find my story a little interesting, if you have any questions or if this was the wrong sub to post this please let me know and ill correct my error. But yeah, this is how half of me is Trans, im not but Ally is. (This post would have made so much more sense if she wrote it)

I will think I am or feel that I am that specific fictional character, my personality changes, my behaviour. But this time it wasn't "forced" it came out of nowhere.Is otherkin involuntary or is that plurality?

And if not, does that mean that is actually a fictive? Its been a long time since ive felt so strongly like a fictional character.

I feel fake because I dont have textbook DID symptoms ngl even though I know I dont have it so I dont say I have it, its just, it makes me feel I'm faking being plural. I may be what some say "median" so it sucks not completely feeling like another person, it doesnt help with the imposter syndrome.

And for some reason as I'm writing this I "hear" but not hear, I mean that I dont actually hear a person talking out loud like auditory hallucinations, its just that the voice from my thoughts is very different from how I actually sound like, and my writing feels different. Fucking hell, is this another "headmate" or something??? 💀 and its not only one voice, it sometimes changes a different one, does that mean something? or do singlets also experience this?

Maybe the writing thing could be that anyone in the internet talks and behaves different, like another self when you go inside the internet, you know? Idk if thats a thing.

edit: now i had a "conversation" with them but it feels like I'm making it all myself, like I'm talking only with myself and this voices I'm just changing them voluntarily, and yes, they all have different ones, idk wtf is going on in my head rn. it feels fake. and yes I'm still "hearing" this specific voice as I'm writing this.

Rant/vent I guess.

Over the years I’ve had doctors, family, and friends all tell me my plurality isn’t real and I’m making it up. Especially since I’m endogenic.

People say it’s “cringe” or “a tiktok trend”. I’ve seen diagnosed systems get hate just because they support endos!

I genuinely can’t fathom WHY society has this “systems aren’t real” mentality (I’ve even seen it towards diagnosed DID systems). I believe I’ve been plural since the day I was born so how tf could I be making it up. It feels like I’ll never be accepted by anyone, not even my closest friends, because everyone believes my alter isn’t real and I made her up. It’s like I’m forced to keep this big part of my life a secret and hide it 24/7. Honestly just writing this makes me want to cry man.

When my egg cracked, and I started transitioning gender, I immediately conceived of my experience in plural terms, even though I had no idea I was plural at the time.

Pretty much immediately after my egg cracked, I experienced a separation. I described myself as "suddenly having 40 years worth of a total stranger's memories in my head."

The emotional amnesia of these memories, made me refer to everything Pre-Transition as "The Before Times." I had a personal mythology about how I was a girl who had "clawed my way to the surface, murdered my jailer, and took over his body."

2 years later, I found out about my plurality.

Some of my headmates have since discovered actual emotions linked to certain memories that I had already considered "dead" - part of the Void - the Before Times.

This, unfortunately complicates my *clean break* gender narrative.

My headmates are mostly women, but gender under the shell is opaque. We're lucky any of us can touch any old memories at all.

Touching any memories of my boy self - even utterly mundane ones - feels absolutely horrible.

Life was so much simpler when I could say "fuck yeah, my boy self was one guy and I killed him.". But truth be told, I don't have any idea what the fuck was going on under the surface. I only know that my headmates can now touch memories of his that I cannot. Those memories feel horrible and familiar.

I feel really gross knowing that any part of him is still with me. It's fucking with my collective narrative, and it's utterly confused my relationship to my past.

I don't know my headmates' genders Pre-Transition either.

Any advice?

I'm doing research on plurality and stances, and some people say that the term "system" originated from DID + OSDD, while others say it existed before DID and OSDD were popularized. People say that the term was stolen from either side, and I'm really just looking for sources on where it came from. I don't want to support people if they are using terms that were specifically tailored for people with disorders, but I can't make that judgement unless I have proof that's really where it came from.

We really wanna do the number trend where yall give us a number and we share about that headmate, but frankly we don’t have anything set up where that would work and we don’t have an exact number of headmates (we’re polyplural and the system has thousands of headmates). Instead, we have a picker wheel. So tell us something random, or ask for a specific trait, species, etc, and we’ll see if we have a headmate like that that we can share about!

(posted by Ribbit)

I was looking through Pinterest just for the fun of it, as one would.

I'm not really the most active person on social media because its just not my thing, but It really upset me to see how easy it was to find whole long threads about how "endos aren't valid." This is hurtful.

We are quoigenic but we believe trauma is a huge part of why our mind works the way it does, we just aren't quite sure how this happened either because our brain has functioned this way for as long as I could remember. We believe its a mix of trauma, neurodivergance, and other factors but regardless I know my system is real.

This is the only way I can describe how we function and I feel like I'm finally understanding who we are.

I feel safe in this, and I haven't felt that for years.

I saw many people say endos are romanticizing their disorder— how?

I would love to know how endos romanticize them at all.

I've never seen an endo claim to have DID/OSDD, etc.

Someone said "The just want my disorder without the hard parts."

Who are YOU to tell us how our minds work? I would never tell another how YOU function or how you came to be.

I'm allowed to exist.

Someone straight up claimed plurality was a disorder itself and requires childhood trauma to exist. This is wrong, there's plenty of ways plurality comes to be and we shouldn't gatekeep how brains function.

If you tell me you're anti-endo I'm just going to take it as you're pro-hate.

Ours is an introject of the democratic party. He's a weird mix of a fictive and a conceptive, he's introjected from an oc we made that is the party!

Dear community,

I am studying psychology and am a plural myself. In the future I would like to work with plural people in private practice. As we all know, plurality is not widely understood by therapists and other mental health professionals. It is also experienced differently across systems, my lived experience of it is only one of the many.

I want to support everyone who identfies as a system, regardless of their origin or medical label.

I need books, some youtube channels/podcasts, websites that align with my approach. I want to learn ajd understand more. That is why I am turning to you all for help! :)

I have looked a bit into IFS so far, but I am not sure I like it. What are some other approaches you know about?

Thanks a lot!

(TW suicidal ideation, suicide planning)

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He was planning to commit, if not this week, then at some point soon. He thought of a hypothetical where if a specific weather pattern appeared, which is statistically impossible for this day, he would go on with the attempt.

Then... I dont know what happened. I just started existing (or maybe I have been here for longer), and he thought I was some voice of God he was hearing as a kid. Its...weird. I dont think we have any memories if we have heard voices before. But I simply told him to not try killing himself and try to return from absconding certain servers (such as this subreddit's). I know he's scared, that theyll ignore him or do something worse, but I assured him that he would not be dealt with the same cards that he was given before.

But...I know he would return to this mentality again. I can feel that he's being influenced by someone or something, but I cannot tell because I have only gained a sense of awareness this moment. Can somebody advise me on how to stop a suicidal member?

Just left the server for fear and shame of my own presence. I dont know why the hell am I still alive at all. Im sorry. Am I not sorry? Im not sorry but Im sorry for just existing.

Why wont the brain let me become dormant? I hate everything that I did.

Please degrade me and tell me to [[DATA LOST]]

- Dusk Distron (He/They/It, self-proclaimed disgrace of The Placeholders)

As the title says, are there apps that can be used with just one phone for systems who have couples in them?

I genuinely hate watching an episode that's literally about rape, and I am forced to watch it, and my sister go bitching around that's not an episode and I should not cry or get mad about it because it's fictional.. Like, oh, I didn't knew it, thanks for letting me know that already known fun fact, you know what's also a fun fact? That you say this after molesting me many times when I was a child knowing I am probably neurodivergent, and you still got and harrased me sexually and mocking rape victims! Because that's how assaulters like you think, but yeah, I guess I will tolerate you because you're my sister, right? I'll tolerate you, but until that one day comes, that one very day when I tell you you were the reason why we are a system, then it won't a big deal, right, you disgusting and lustful piece of shit?

Anyway, sorry if I sound mad or stressed, I am literally triggering myself with this BS, and I am trying my best in this, so, sorry about this, and hope you're well in all..