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eideToday was slightly odd (and interesting) because someone who we thought already knew that we're multiple and in the same system as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
judiff just worked it out. (I'm not planning to identify them in a public post but they are someone i feel entirely comfortable being out to)
It's made me think about whether i should be more out about it. The obvious worry is that people will think i/we are mad because we're plural (or as a lot of people will say because we "feel like/think" we're plural*). But we are mad - the full signed of work indefinitely/on DLA/having a lots of interesting diagnosis etc mental and it's hardly a secret. So does it mater what people think?
As far as any of us can tell being multiple is one of the least mad things about us. It's just a thing that is - like having straight hair or needing glasses. I think (for us if not for other systems) it has something to do with the spectrumness and central coherence etc but i'm not sure it matters where it comes from so much as that it's part where we are now.
A lot of people get plurality wrong. A lot of people prolly would discount us because of it. It's different somehow to more respectable types of mad like depression or PTSD. And it's not like we yet another reason to not fit in/be seen as weird.
Even people who say they get it don't always actually seem to.
Having to hide any part of your life is always spoon-depleting and difficult.
I'd like a safe way to test the waters a bit around people's attitudes but i can't think of a workable way to do that.
* like people have said about our PVFS/chronic fatigue and way back even about our dyslexia
judiff just worked it out. (I'm not planning to identify them in a public post but they are someone i feel entirely comfortable being out to)It's made me think about whether i should be more out about it. The obvious worry is that people will think i/we are mad because we're plural (or as a lot of people will say because we "feel like/think" we're plural*). But we are mad - the full signed of work indefinitely/on DLA/having a lots of interesting diagnosis etc mental and it's hardly a secret. So does it mater what people think?
As far as any of us can tell being multiple is one of the least mad things about us. It's just a thing that is - like having straight hair or needing glasses. I think (for us if not for other systems) it has something to do with the spectrumness and central coherence etc but i'm not sure it matters where it comes from so much as that it's part where we are now.
A lot of people get plurality wrong. A lot of people prolly would discount us because of it. It's different somehow to more respectable types of mad like depression or PTSD. And it's not like we yet another reason to not fit in/be seen as weird.
Even people who say they get it don't always actually seem to.
Having to hide any part of your life is always spoon-depleting and difficult.
I'd like a safe way to test the waters a bit around people's attitudes but i can't think of a workable way to do that.
* like people have said about our PVFS/chronic fatigue and way back even about our dyslexia
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no subject
Date: January 15th, 2010 06:37 am (UTC)I don't know how to test the waters, but I do know you'll always be safe talking about it with me, and now I know I'll always be safe talking about it with you, and that's a really amazing thing to me. Even more amazing, there are all these people who read this journal of yours, and some of them are people I know, and thinking they might also not laugh me out of events for how I live my life is just...I don't even have a way to process that yet.
I kind of wish we were all more out about it, because it's one of the most tiring things of all to hide, I think. Anyway, sorry, further rambling~ But I'm so sorry I didn't know, and I'm so glad to now. xxx
no subject
Date: January 15th, 2010 08:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 15th, 2010 12:05 pm (UTC)-B
(One of many, but I've been here the longest.)
no subject
Date: January 16th, 2010 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: January 16th, 2010 06:41 pm (UTC)Most of them are musicians; there's a drummer, two bassists, two singer-songwriters, whatever this is, and the entirety of three Korean boybands or something similar - there are 24 of those in total, so I won't bother talking about them individually unless one of you is particularly curious.
Four wizards (of which I'm one), three vampires, two ghosts (both of sociopathic revolutionary schoolboys, although I think that's just coincidence), three members of US law enforcement, two actors, one superhero, a fire-eater, a librarian, two people from Firefly, and two people from a Japanese manga that's probably best left unexplained.
If we have anything in common with each other it's that we're all survivors, most of us of things that could easily have destroyed us; everyone's story is long, and she worries a great deal about being boring, so I shan't go into anything unless you'd like us to. She helps us by giving us somewhere to go that's safe, and we help her by keeping her safe in return. I don't think it functions too differently from actual multiplicity - it's just that none of us were ever part of her.
-B
no subject
Date: January 16th, 2010 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: January 21st, 2010 12:32 am (UTC)i'm kind of intrigued and confused what you mean by
she's not multiple? Do you consider you as a whole to be multiple or plural in some other way?
Are you SoulBonders? And/or Walk-ins instead?
Or do you just mean that she is some kind of orginal core/host? And do you feel the word multiple implies so kind of splitting and dissociation?
(ignore me if you're not feeling like asking questions - i'm just trying to get more of a feel of how you(all) work rather than trying to pick holes. But i am also just interested in different ways of using language about this stuff)
no subject
Date: January 21st, 2010 12:37 am (UTC)I like talking about how it works for us, so I'm always happy to field questions (Blaise is asleep right now and I'm awake, so figured I'd answer for him)~
no subject
Date: January 16th, 2010 12:21 pm (UTC)Well when people are coming out as gay sometimes they will talk abstractly about gay people and see what they get back... although it doesn't always "give accurate readings" because sometimes if people don't think you're gay they will be rude whereas if you say "I'm gay" then they'll be more careful because it's you. sort of thing.
So anyway maybe one way for sounding out people who are online would be to link from the "not out" LJ to a site like this:
http://www.karitas.net/blackbirds/layman/whatis.html
with some kind of open question/statement like "I was looking at this"
and see what comments you got
(but probably best to do a friends-locked post beforehand reminding people that it's a "not out" LJ, so as to warn them to remember and not start talking in public about your people!)
Coming out is tricky though. You never really know what response you're going to get until you're actually out and then you can't go back in!
so I'm not saying this is really the answer, it's just one possibility I thought of.