State of the Union.
Jan. 25th, 2019 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bladesparkNo relationship to anything to do with current politics. :D (I mostly leave them out of this space, there are other people covering those topics better than I could.)
So I am relatively open about being plural. I sometimes get a little skittish about it, since I have had bad reactions from people in the past, but mostly folks at least try to be understanding, and I'm really not fond of closets.
By "plural" I mean something like multiple personalities, DID, etc. although it's quite different from how that's portrayed in pop culture and media. We're definitely not Sybil.
There are currently either seven or eight of us, depending on how you want to count. I myself, SPark, Steph, whatever, am essentially a gestalt of everyone. I'm the Voltron, the Megazord, the by-our-powers-combined Captain Planet. There are seven others.
Guardian. Our non-verbal, not-sure-if-sentient-exactly watchdog. It is as it always is, about and doing its job. It's been with us since we were about 14? It is something like an accidental tulpa, we created it by meditating on the image of an eastern dragon as a way to deal with certain traumas. (I have always been kind of annoyed that our first plurality was because of trauma, I hate to conform to stupid stereotypes. Though we had lots of imaginary friends before that, so perhaps not, Guardian was just the first to stick around.)
Aidan. Our has-five-million-versions-of-himself winged and/or feline vampire boy. He's been with us since 1999, which yikes that was a long time ago! He's pleased to be going to therapy again. Last time we went it was basically just for him, and he got to know the therapist pretty well. A therapist who's open to the way we are and not either dismissive of it or insistent on integration is good to find. Though not as hard as some people seem to think? We're 2/3 on therapists so far on that front, and the outlier was just kinda not getting it. Anyway, he's been struggling a lot lately with dysphoria (we are AFAB) and the frustrations of being unable to transition, and we're doing the best we can to be supportive, but there's really only so much one can do, you know? He's our main writer, though, and has been channeling frustration into fiction at an honestly astonishing pace lately. We more or less did NaNo three months in a row? It was a little crazy. So he's having a very hard time right now, but muddling on through.
Yin. Shi is our cyborg, genetically engineered, bi-gendered wolf bitch. Yes, bitch is an important part of hir identity. With us since somewhere around 2003-4. Shi's doing fine, honestly. Give hir a little bit of drama to laugh at or somebody to be snarky at on reddit now and again to get the bitchiness out and shi's content. (We try to channel that usefully, hir last good snark was at a racist Trump voter, so...)
Angela/Angelcat. Pretty much what the name says, a winged feline, and something of a paladin. She is still in mourning, I think. I'm not sure how long that will be going on for. We left our church recently. Well, we cut the final tie recently, the leaving process started long ago, but it's been hard on her. That was a big part of her identity, and while she's been very proactive in building our current spiritual beliefs, she's still deeply wounded by the realization that the organization she trusted and put literal faith in betrayed her. She's not around much just now, understandably.
Serapha. Serapha is the writing muse, so she's out and about, given how much of that we've been doing. She is another semi-sentient, though, who is a functional construct as much as a person, so she doesn't really get happy or sad, exactly. She is content to fulfill her function. Though I suppose she does seem to enjoy being mildly sadistic as far as what she insists we write.
Andrew. He's the other muse, and is mostly "asleep" lately. He is a kirin/deer anthro type, and is in charge of drawing, painting, etc. We just haven't been doing much with that of late, so he hasn't been around. He is Yin's mate, and they're quite an interesting couple. Though the last time he was "out" it was to talk to Oni, there's something or other going on there. (We're internally polyamorous to a high degree, especially Yin, who also has an ongoing relationship with Aidan and a bit of a love/hatefuck thing with Oni as well.)
Oni. He's a part-elven demigod, and the only one of us that "comes" from outside my own head in any way. I do not believe in fictionkin/soulbond walk-ins, exactly. (I do no doubt they are real in some sense for others, but it's just not how we function.) But somehow a particular game/fanfic character just clicked in my head and sort of moved in. That was about six years ago. He's the most recent arrival, though we've lost a couple since he came. There were nine for a bit after he moved in, but seven seems to be some kind of upper bound, nine felt absurdly crowded. Seven still feels awfully "full" to me. Anyhow. He's Aidan's partner, and so he's ridiculously protective of him, and feeling very upset and frustrated that he can't do more to help Aidan deal with his current problems. He's also very pleased, though, that he's gotten out more and actually talked to some people and has something of a friend. He's always been fairly introverted, and for various reasons finds communicating with people outside my head difficult, so it's been nice for him to have a little bit of an outlet other than bothering Aidan or being sadistic to Yin.
So yeah, that's everyone and where they're at, currently. We do not experience questions about this as annoying or intrusive, we actually quite like discussing how things work for us, so questions about any of the above are totally welcome if anybody has any. Or sharing similar experiences/headmates of your own, etc. :3
So I am relatively open about being plural. I sometimes get a little skittish about it, since I have had bad reactions from people in the past, but mostly folks at least try to be understanding, and I'm really not fond of closets.
By "plural" I mean something like multiple personalities, DID, etc. although it's quite different from how that's portrayed in pop culture and media. We're definitely not Sybil.
There are currently either seven or eight of us, depending on how you want to count. I myself, SPark, Steph, whatever, am essentially a gestalt of everyone. I'm the Voltron, the Megazord, the by-our-powers-combined Captain Planet. There are seven others.
Guardian. Our non-verbal, not-sure-if-sentient-exactly watchdog. It is as it always is, about and doing its job. It's been with us since we were about 14? It is something like an accidental tulpa, we created it by meditating on the image of an eastern dragon as a way to deal with certain traumas. (I have always been kind of annoyed that our first plurality was because of trauma, I hate to conform to stupid stereotypes. Though we had lots of imaginary friends before that, so perhaps not, Guardian was just the first to stick around.)
Aidan. Our has-five-million-versions-of-himself winged and/or feline vampire boy. He's been with us since 1999, which yikes that was a long time ago! He's pleased to be going to therapy again. Last time we went it was basically just for him, and he got to know the therapist pretty well. A therapist who's open to the way we are and not either dismissive of it or insistent on integration is good to find. Though not as hard as some people seem to think? We're 2/3 on therapists so far on that front, and the outlier was just kinda not getting it. Anyway, he's been struggling a lot lately with dysphoria (we are AFAB) and the frustrations of being unable to transition, and we're doing the best we can to be supportive, but there's really only so much one can do, you know? He's our main writer, though, and has been channeling frustration into fiction at an honestly astonishing pace lately. We more or less did NaNo three months in a row? It was a little crazy. So he's having a very hard time right now, but muddling on through.
Yin. Shi is our cyborg, genetically engineered, bi-gendered wolf bitch. Yes, bitch is an important part of hir identity. With us since somewhere around 2003-4. Shi's doing fine, honestly. Give hir a little bit of drama to laugh at or somebody to be snarky at on reddit now and again to get the bitchiness out and shi's content. (We try to channel that usefully, hir last good snark was at a racist Trump voter, so...)
Angela/Angelcat. Pretty much what the name says, a winged feline, and something of a paladin. She is still in mourning, I think. I'm not sure how long that will be going on for. We left our church recently. Well, we cut the final tie recently, the leaving process started long ago, but it's been hard on her. That was a big part of her identity, and while she's been very proactive in building our current spiritual beliefs, she's still deeply wounded by the realization that the organization she trusted and put literal faith in betrayed her. She's not around much just now, understandably.
Serapha. Serapha is the writing muse, so she's out and about, given how much of that we've been doing. She is another semi-sentient, though, who is a functional construct as much as a person, so she doesn't really get happy or sad, exactly. She is content to fulfill her function. Though I suppose she does seem to enjoy being mildly sadistic as far as what she insists we write.
Andrew. He's the other muse, and is mostly "asleep" lately. He is a kirin/deer anthro type, and is in charge of drawing, painting, etc. We just haven't been doing much with that of late, so he hasn't been around. He is Yin's mate, and they're quite an interesting couple. Though the last time he was "out" it was to talk to Oni, there's something or other going on there. (We're internally polyamorous to a high degree, especially Yin, who also has an ongoing relationship with Aidan and a bit of a love/hatefuck thing with Oni as well.)
Oni. He's a part-elven demigod, and the only one of us that "comes" from outside my own head in any way. I do not believe in fictionkin/soulbond walk-ins, exactly. (I do no doubt they are real in some sense for others, but it's just not how we function.) But somehow a particular game/fanfic character just clicked in my head and sort of moved in. That was about six years ago. He's the most recent arrival, though we've lost a couple since he came. There were nine for a bit after he moved in, but seven seems to be some kind of upper bound, nine felt absurdly crowded. Seven still feels awfully "full" to me. Anyhow. He's Aidan's partner, and so he's ridiculously protective of him, and feeling very upset and frustrated that he can't do more to help Aidan deal with his current problems. He's also very pleased, though, that he's gotten out more and actually talked to some people and has something of a friend. He's always been fairly introverted, and for various reasons finds communicating with people outside my head difficult, so it's been nice for him to have a little bit of an outlet other than bothering Aidan or being sadistic to Yin.
So yeah, that's everyone and where they're at, currently. We do not experience questions about this as annoying or intrusive, we actually quite like discussing how things work for us, so questions about any of the above are totally welcome if anybody has any. Or sharing similar experiences/headmates of your own, etc. :3
no subject
Date: 2019-01-25 11:28 pm (UTC)Michael Meran is my own winged cat guardian angel who eventually became anthro due to needing someone who could give me a hug. He's the one who I actively chose to take on aspects of, when I was a teen and having trouble dealing with everything. I chose his compassion and quiet strength, and I don't think that was a bad choice to make at all.
...Shad's the one whose name I took, though. Like, I don't think they have a name, but I got fed up with not having anything to call them, and Shad is the thing that stuck best. They're the one who collects pain but are also the one who shows it and survives it, so... they're nice, even if they're also basically nonverbal. Meran's really protective of them, unsurprisingly.
Fox (who definitely has another name he won't tell me) is sadism and laughter and the one who forces me to face things I don't wanna face. He's incredibly frustrating but also the one I wanna kiss sometimes.
The Lady, who has a lot of usenames but mostly is just her inside my head, is probably the only definitively female presence. She's the one who cares about sex, and also tends to only show up when I'm afraid. She's not quiet when she's around, but sometimes she's just an echo of Fox.
no subject
Date: 2019-01-26 12:41 am (UTC)There's something very Jungian about the archetypes and tropes that seem to pop up in people's inner voices. I don't think I fully believe in a collective unconscious, but there are certainly some broad themes going on.
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Date: 2019-01-26 12:45 am (UTC)I think some of it could just be that things like "I need a protector" show up a lot (unsurprisingly), and then there's something to be said for placing things that are often suppressed by society into forms that can be separated and contained so that you can pass as whatever's socially acceptable more easily. So within similar cultural effects, there being similar forms that come up a lot makes sense.
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