Headspace Discovery and Defense
Aug. 30th, 2019 04:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_lee Title: Headspace Discovery and Defense
Series: Essay
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Dealing with a living, volatile, or aggressive headspace. Probably the start of what will be series.
Notes: This essay was the winner of this month's writing poll, and as always was funded by the Patreon crew! This is kind of a weird essay on a weird subject, and it will likely come off as metaphysical and abstract, but we'll see if this is something that's useful to folks not us!
There are a good few guides for building your own headspace out there. (We link a few at healthymultiplicity.com, and ATW has a section devoted to it in their DID self-help book, got parts?, which you can find at www.gotparts.org.) However, all treat headspace as an inert object, a resource to be molded and mined at will: “It’s imaginary! It has to do what you say!”
But even in our early days, we knew folks for whom these guides failed. Their headspaces were violent, volatile, or just plain unpredictable. Our own headspace, though well-meaning and mostly benign, would lash out periodically or do strange things such as pour rubber duckies onto our heads, and conventional guides had no real explanation or guidance asides from, “will harder! It’s your mind, and you can make it obey!”
But what if there was more to it? What if will wasn’t the end-all be-all of headspace management? What if the problem was not our will, but our attitude?
If this is a problem you have faced, then this essay is for you.
Different plurals have radically different ideas about their headspaces. We ourself take the philosophy that our headspace is a representative of our subconscious mind, while we headmates are representatives of our conscious mind, and by interacting, we are able to communicate our desires and needs to each other. So what we describe as, for instance, building a house to defend against ghostly invasion, is a narrative personification of how our mind as a whole attempts to regulate memory work. All of the bells and whistles are just our mind’s attempt to understand and express things it has no words or concepts for.
As a result, our headspace is a huge player in our memory work, and we would be sunk without it. However, our tactics may be completely unusable for plurals whose headspaces don’t play this same subconscious role. Because discussions of memory work and headspaces are so light on the ground, it’s hard to tell, so we hope this essay spurs some discussion to help gather more data.
Also, we’ve always been highly co-conscious. We have no idea what this stuff would look like for plurals lacking that, and welcome suggestions or adaptations.
And with that out of the way, let’s get going!
White American culture has a terrible history of “manifest destiny,” the selfish, small-minded idea that our environment is here for us to use and abuse as we will. As we treat our macrocosmic, material environment, so we treat our own individual microcosms. Our minds, our bodies, our feelings and headspaces and headmates, all are resources to be exploited, and asking their opinion or input is treated as absurd, like talking to a tree before chopping it down.
This attitude is horseshit, and it bit us in the ass for decades. By trying to dominate our headspace through brute force of will, treating it as a thing not worthy of respect or care, we built an environment of mutual fear, anger, and distrust. Our headspace could not always trust us to act in its best interest, only our own, and eventually it tried to drown us all out of sheer frustration. And who could blame it?
Our headspace isn’t some inert, inanimate stage on which we perform our internal life dramas. It is the belly of a huge whale in which we find ourself living. It is a living space, with its own desires, emotions, and prerogatives, all of which can be at a cross-purpose to our own, and really, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Our minds have minds of their own.
Better, then, in our opinion, to learn to work with our headspace, becoming its friend and ally rather than its would-be slave driver. Slaves obey only when they must, out of fear; a friend helps because they care. It is this non-coercive, mutually trusting relationship that we work to create with our own mind, and perhaps others might find our techniques helpful too.
Our first headspace was not nearly as active or organic as our current one, and that was probably because it was built, and by only one of our headmates at that. It was an extension of her alone, and thus, when she died, it burned down. It was like a highly-domesticated, overbred toy dog, and while that made it much more under our control, and thus superficially more pleasant and “safer,” it was unable to survive without its “owner.”
In contrast, the black ocean was never built; it grew around and with us over the years. It is a wild whale, less predictable and less controllable, but also more robust and independent. When it gets in a fight with us, it’s far more dangerous… but it’s also far more effective when it acts on our behalf. And it has weathered and survived all sorts of horrors without dying.
But if a living space can’t be built, how does one go about finding it? And if it’s like a wild animal, how to do so safely?
Before you start, it’s best to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and get yourselves a spotter. We use each other; other people might choose a trusted corporeal friend or therapist. Whoever you pick, their job is not to guide the experience, only to bail you out if things go off the rails and help re-ground you using gentle conversation, cuddles, or a glass of water. (See DreamWriters' Body Focus, Communication, and Memory for ideas.) Ideally, they won’t need to do anything at all!
It’s also good to prepare by building your psychological pain scale, if you haven’t already. Here is ours. We highly recommend making one with your own personal metrics, because whatever ends up happening, it's imperative you have a way to differentiate between manageable discomfort (however intense) and crisis. It’s also good to go over this with your spotter, so they have a better idea when it’s time to intervene.
It’s best to only do headspace work on a good day, when you’re feeling strong, steady, and aware. This is not work you want to do when in crisis—it’s like going on tiger safari when you have the flu.
Once you’re prepped and ready, time to build a threshold, a neutral safe ground where you and your headspace can meet. (And if the headspace doesn’t appear, well, building a safe internal space is handy all on its own!)
Find a place where you won’t be distracted or disturbed; our go-to since the age of ten has been waiting to fall asleep in bed at night. Once you’re settled, look inward. Try to find a still safe feeling inside you, perhaps attached to a memory. Our first headspace had an oak based off one we knew as a kid. It was huge, ancient, awe-inspiring, and it made us feel small in the best way. Do you have something like that? It can be a place, a time, a thing, a feeling; it doesn’t have to be visual, nor does it have to come from real life. Whatever it is, be it our old oak or the Starship Enterprise, try to find that safeness. Don’t be discouraged if you have trouble at first; these are skills that take practice, and you might have to spend a few days or weeks just practicing looking inward. (And if it goes hell-bent on you, skip to the next section.)
Once you find that safe ground, try to get used to finding it again and again. (This is another reason we like using bedtime; it’s a reliable daily occurrence, and easy to build a habit around.) First do it during your pre-arranged quiet time, when you’re feeling calm and strong. When you start being able to do that easily, then work on reaching that safe ground, wherever or whatever it is, at any time. This will likely take some practice; it’s one thing to do it when you’re alone, relaxed, and well, another when you’re stressed and surrounded by chattering coworkers. The key is to get used to doing it, checking in with your mind regularly, getting a sense of its ebb and flow.
(Other people, I think, personify this, rather than place-ify it. Inner children, or Wise Mind, or what have you, rather than a house or an ocean or a room. But we can’t really do that safely, so have nothing of worth to say about it.)
If certain things make your safe ground inaccessible or weird, keep track of them. For example, when we have major surgery, our headspace locks up tight; we don’t know if it’s a result of the shock of surgery itself, or a side-effects of the medications associated with them. When you can’t check in with your mind and your safe ground, that’s a red flag, like wearing an internal blindfold. Be aware!
Up to this point, we haven’t discussed any of the details of the safe ground, merely its security. But maybe some images or sensory details have just come up of their own volition—a sound of running water, the smell of barbecue, whatever. Work with those details, especially if they recur! Hopefully, through use, the safe ground will sort of build itself accordingly, and your headspace will move in of its own accord. (And if it doesn’t, you’ve still built your system a safe ground!)
Some people have huge, elaborate headspaces. Others have small, plain ones. All that matters is that it works for you and that it’s defensible.
Sometimes, even finding safe ground isn’t easy. If things get upsetting or chaotic, it can do so in a few major ways, including:
Don’t take these as failures. All of these apparent setbacks are valuable learning experiences. In all cases, try to keep your mental footing, pay attention, and keep track of what happens, however bizarre or unpleasant; writing it down is handy so you don’t forget later and can keep track over time. The whole point of this exercise is to build communication through various parts of your mind, and get to know your self/s better, and that includes unpleasant things too.
For instance, internal distractions may be your mind’s way of letting you know what needs dealing with before you’re ready to deal with headspace stuff. Important things might need settling first, if they’re weighing on your mind and distracting you. Trivialities can be your mind’s way of stating that it is scared to look at itself too closely, and that it’s desperate for something, anything to do instead. Or it might just be that you’re too frazzled to do it at the moment. Try to take care of the distractions, or sit through them, and if they refuse to settle down after a week or two of trying, take it as a cue that you have some other, deeper work to do on yourself before you can do headspace stuff.
Emotional reactions can also tell you valuable things. Tons of self-judgment and recrimination (“I’m doing this all wrong, I’m never going to succeed”) are just another form of distraction, a sign of what needs dealing with first. Spacing out or dissociating can be a sign of fatigue or general unreadiness, or an act of psychological avoidance; either way, it’s something that needs taking care of before you can progress. And intense crying jags or anger can be signs that you’ve been ignoring things for too long, and that there’ll be an unpleasant storm before things settle down; in such case, it’s best to try and sit with the feelings and let them run their course as long as you can manage safely. When in doubt, refer to your pain scale and spotter!
If the headspace itself becomes hostile, it has a reason. Try not to fall into the reflexive attitude of, “I’m the boss; I’ll make it obey.” If gentle application of willpower only makes things worse, that’s a sign your headspace is trying to say something important to you, however loudly, painfully, or ill-advisedly. Try to treat it as a very upset messenger and calm it down, through whichever means are kind and seem to work. When the black ocean tried to drown us, we managed to slow it down just by shouting, “Hey, hey, this isn’t necessary! Let’s have a conversation about this! What do you want?”
Asking “what do you want?” is never a bad idea. Even if all you get is some self-annihilatory, “I want you to die and suffer!” that’s still at least an attempt to engage with you, and sometimes once it rants all its anger out, it’ll calm down and get down to brass tacks. And if its demand is reasonable (“I hate that music you’re playing! Turn it off!”) then by all means, give it what it wants! Some of our loudest, most emotional headspace phenomenae could be calmed down with gentle music and a stuffed animal. Others just wanted a deck of cards, or a hug, or someone to listen to what they had to say.
(We use quotes, but our headspace can’t communicate in words. It expresses itself through emotions, motion, and action, but that’s certainly clear enough for basic communication. Perhaps yours will have its own means.)
Another thing to be aware of is: is your headspace behaving like this because that’s what you’ve taught it to do? Our headspace tried to drown us because we’d neglected and ignored it for years, and in the process taught it that the only way to get our attention was through crisis. We had thereby insured that it would cause as much havoc as possible, because that was the only way to influence our behavior. Once we started responding to its needs sooner and easier, and kept our agreements and promises, it calmed down a lot, surprisingly quickly.
So. If your safe ground is getting unsafe, is it because you have taught it to do that? Has it been neglected or mistreated for so long that it’s hurt and angry? Can you calm it down, through talking, offerings, ritual, or negotiation? And can you follow through on the promises you make? Because if you promise the moon and deliver nothing, then you’re going to be even worse off. It is vital that you keep to your word, even if the only thing you’re able to say in good faith is, “I’m sorry. I’m trying to learn how to do better, even though I’m not sure how.”
Another solution, of course, is to try and find other safe ground inside yourself. But if you can’t find any anywhere and all forms of negotiating and attempts at quieting fail, it’s time to play defense. (That or admit that for whatever reason, maybe having a headspace isn’t right for you. Just because it’s vital to us doesn’t mean you should beat your brains out trying to force yourself into our mold.)
No, not offense. When you fight yourself, you lose. There are precious few headspace things that were improved by us going on the offensive; we can think of exactly one. Defense, on the other hand, is vital.
There are three forms of headspace defense: defenses created by headspace and headmates together, defenses created by headmates together, and defenses created by headmates individually. (There are also probably headspace defenses done by headspace alone, but we know very little about them, and thus have nothing useful to say.)
Each of these have their own merits and weaknesses. A defense created by headspace and headmates together is pretty unshakable, because everyone’s in agreement and putting their backs into it… but you have to get everyone to agree, and that can be challenging and time-consuming. (It’s also advanced study, so won’t be covered in this essay.) A defense created by headmates together can stave off a hostile headspace, at least for a while, but has a smaller sphere of influence. And a defense created by one headmate alone has a smaller range still, but can be put up and torn down as quick as will can be summoned.
We have used all of these defenses to various effects. For instance, one of our first acts of negotiation with our headspace, back in 2007, was a request to lock it to all newcomers. The black ocean agreed and did so, and since then, we have had nobody new, only returns of the old guard. This has proved to the best for everybody; some plurals handle changing rosters great, but we’re not one of them.
The building of our house was a group headmate endeavor, and it has been enough to regulate memory work (though never stop it completely) and protect us when the black ocean was enraged and lashing out. It was good to know that our wills could hold out, at least for a while, against the rest of our mind, and sometimes it has to happen—sometimes our ocean makes demands that just can’t be satisfied, not right away anyway.
And then, finally, our individual wills can create small tools of defense. Even one will can be powerful, in its limited domain. The black ocean might be able to destroy the house and wash us all away, given enough time and effort, but it can’t drown Rogan no matter how hard it tries. An individual’s willpower may only manage to do one small thing, but it can be really good at that one small thing!
We’ll start with the small stuff first.
It’s easiest to start with individual will, since that requires the least cooperation. Each headmate can see what they’re best at, and what suits their temperament. So: using the subjective rules of your headspace (which may not follow the rules of conventional reality), how would you prefer to protect yourself?
There are as many ways to do this as there are people. Do you prefer to conjure up headspace armor? Build magical wards or force-fields? Change your shape into something more adapted for whatever’s coming? Be creative, and see what feels right to you.
Sneak, for instance, is fond of creating wards and bindings, using a fictional magic system we created for a story. The system has clearly communicated rules, and thus can clearly express zer intent. Gigi, however, has put all her skills to sneaking around, skittering up walls and ceilings like a spider, and getting in and out of all sorts of places without people noticing. And most of us (except Biff, Mac, and Gigi) have the skill to build basic walls and fortifications.
Note that what might work for some systems may not work for yours; we can’t do any sort of internal shapeshifting, while other systems seem to handle it fine. Also, different headmates may have different levels of power; note that just because one headmate builds a wall doesn’t mean it’ll hold up against another’s bulldozer.
Find out how you can adapt to your headspace’s hostility, protecting yourself without harming it. Be creative, and be kind. Learn from your successes and failures, and take breaks when necessary.
Practice these for a good while, and try to have a good grasp on your individual skills before trying to move forward.
This requires multiple headmates simultaneously working together, and it’s best to attempt this after you guys have an idea of what you’re individually good at. Pooling your skills will provide extra oomph and durability!
For this exercise, we’ll go with an obvious and quite common first group headmate defense: building a house! ATW describes a building of a “safe space,” the Dome, in got parts as a safety measure, covering anything from force-fields, surveillance cameras and speakers, to benign protective monsters. We ourself can’t create life safely, but hey, other folks can. The key is finding the symbols, rituals, or things that not only make you feel safe, but have a way to communicate the following:
In our opinion, the key is not to make a hermetically sealed bubble of always-safeness; that just isn’t practical, anymore than buying a car that never breaks down or requires maintenance. The best you can do is learn to recognize when something needs to be fixed, and then do it.
As an example, say you build your headspace house and choose to use as your defense a smoke alarm. When fine, it is quiet. When something is off, it chirps. In disaster, it wails. And if it’s broken, it falls apart. Whatever you end up using, the aesthetics matter less than its clarity and that you mentally find it trustworthy and thus will listen to it. A smoke alarm, a guard dog, a magical ward, any will do the job.
The building of trust is vital. If your smoke alarm goes off, will you listen, or just presume it’s malfunctioning? What if it goes off but it’s not clear why? Will you just grumble and turn it off, or will you investigate, and if so, how? Because there will be uncertainty and confusion some of the time, especially at the start. Sometimes we feel physically under the weather but don’t know why; sometimes our brain cries out that something’s wrong, but not what. You are building a relationship between yourself and your mind, and there’s no rushing that understanding or trust. Still, some pointers:
You might build and rebuild your house many times. We ourself have done major renovations and repairs multiple times, as needed. The purpose of the house isn’t to be impregnable; it’s just to hold firm long enough to solve the problem. At that, it’s been a huge success.
And sadly, I’m afraid we will have to cut off here, because this essay became much bigger than planned, and more advanced forms of headspace communication and defense will have to come later, in their own essay.
Series: Essay
Word Count: 4000
Summary: Dealing with a living, volatile, or aggressive headspace. Probably the start of what will be series.
Notes: This essay was the winner of this month's writing poll, and as always was funded by the Patreon crew! This is kind of a weird essay on a weird subject, and it will likely come off as metaphysical and abstract, but we'll see if this is something that's useful to folks not us!
There are a good few guides for building your own headspace out there. (We link a few at healthymultiplicity.com, and ATW has a section devoted to it in their DID self-help book, got parts?, which you can find at www.gotparts.org.) However, all treat headspace as an inert object, a resource to be molded and mined at will: “It’s imaginary! It has to do what you say!”
But even in our early days, we knew folks for whom these guides failed. Their headspaces were violent, volatile, or just plain unpredictable. Our own headspace, though well-meaning and mostly benign, would lash out periodically or do strange things such as pour rubber duckies onto our heads, and conventional guides had no real explanation or guidance asides from, “will harder! It’s your mind, and you can make it obey!”
But what if there was more to it? What if will wasn’t the end-all be-all of headspace management? What if the problem was not our will, but our attitude?
If this is a problem you have faced, then this essay is for you.
Before We Get Started: A Disclaimer
Different plurals have radically different ideas about their headspaces. We ourself take the philosophy that our headspace is a representative of our subconscious mind, while we headmates are representatives of our conscious mind, and by interacting, we are able to communicate our desires and needs to each other. So what we describe as, for instance, building a house to defend against ghostly invasion, is a narrative personification of how our mind as a whole attempts to regulate memory work. All of the bells and whistles are just our mind’s attempt to understand and express things it has no words or concepts for.
As a result, our headspace is a huge player in our memory work, and we would be sunk without it. However, our tactics may be completely unusable for plurals whose headspaces don’t play this same subconscious role. Because discussions of memory work and headspaces are so light on the ground, it’s hard to tell, so we hope this essay spurs some discussion to help gather more data.
Also, we’ve always been highly co-conscious. We have no idea what this stuff would look like for plurals lacking that, and welcome suggestions or adaptations.
And with that out of the way, let’s get going!
The Belly of the Whale
White American culture has a terrible history of “manifest destiny,” the selfish, small-minded idea that our environment is here for us to use and abuse as we will. As we treat our macrocosmic, material environment, so we treat our own individual microcosms. Our minds, our bodies, our feelings and headspaces and headmates, all are resources to be exploited, and asking their opinion or input is treated as absurd, like talking to a tree before chopping it down.
This attitude is horseshit, and it bit us in the ass for decades. By trying to dominate our headspace through brute force of will, treating it as a thing not worthy of respect or care, we built an environment of mutual fear, anger, and distrust. Our headspace could not always trust us to act in its best interest, only our own, and eventually it tried to drown us all out of sheer frustration. And who could blame it?
Our headspace isn’t some inert, inanimate stage on which we perform our internal life dramas. It is the belly of a huge whale in which we find ourself living. It is a living space, with its own desires, emotions, and prerogatives, all of which can be at a cross-purpose to our own, and really, this shouldn’t be much of a surprise. Our minds have minds of their own.
Better, then, in our opinion, to learn to work with our headspace, becoming its friend and ally rather than its would-be slave driver. Slaves obey only when they must, out of fear; a friend helps because they care. It is this non-coercive, mutually trusting relationship that we work to create with our own mind, and perhaps others might find our techniques helpful too.
Headspace Discovery vs. Construction
Our first headspace was not nearly as active or organic as our current one, and that was probably because it was built, and by only one of our headmates at that. It was an extension of her alone, and thus, when she died, it burned down. It was like a highly-domesticated, overbred toy dog, and while that made it much more under our control, and thus superficially more pleasant and “safer,” it was unable to survive without its “owner.”
In contrast, the black ocean was never built; it grew around and with us over the years. It is a wild whale, less predictable and less controllable, but also more robust and independent. When it gets in a fight with us, it’s far more dangerous… but it’s also far more effective when it acts on our behalf. And it has weathered and survived all sorts of horrors without dying.
But if a living space can’t be built, how does one go about finding it? And if it’s like a wild animal, how to do so safely?
Prep Work
Before you start, it’s best to hope for the best and prepare for the worst and get yourselves a spotter. We use each other; other people might choose a trusted corporeal friend or therapist. Whoever you pick, their job is not to guide the experience, only to bail you out if things go off the rails and help re-ground you using gentle conversation, cuddles, or a glass of water. (See DreamWriters' Body Focus, Communication, and Memory for ideas.) Ideally, they won’t need to do anything at all!
It’s also good to prepare by building your psychological pain scale, if you haven’t already. Here is ours. We highly recommend making one with your own personal metrics, because whatever ends up happening, it's imperative you have a way to differentiate between manageable discomfort (however intense) and crisis. It’s also good to go over this with your spotter, so they have a better idea when it’s time to intervene.
It’s best to only do headspace work on a good day, when you’re feeling strong, steady, and aware. This is not work you want to do when in crisis—it’s like going on tiger safari when you have the flu.
Exercise: Safe Ground
Once you’re prepped and ready, time to build a threshold, a neutral safe ground where you and your headspace can meet. (And if the headspace doesn’t appear, well, building a safe internal space is handy all on its own!)
Find a place where you won’t be distracted or disturbed; our go-to since the age of ten has been waiting to fall asleep in bed at night. Once you’re settled, look inward. Try to find a still safe feeling inside you, perhaps attached to a memory. Our first headspace had an oak based off one we knew as a kid. It was huge, ancient, awe-inspiring, and it made us feel small in the best way. Do you have something like that? It can be a place, a time, a thing, a feeling; it doesn’t have to be visual, nor does it have to come from real life. Whatever it is, be it our old oak or the Starship Enterprise, try to find that safeness. Don’t be discouraged if you have trouble at first; these are skills that take practice, and you might have to spend a few days or weeks just practicing looking inward. (And if it goes hell-bent on you, skip to the next section.)
Once you find that safe ground, try to get used to finding it again and again. (This is another reason we like using bedtime; it’s a reliable daily occurrence, and easy to build a habit around.) First do it during your pre-arranged quiet time, when you’re feeling calm and strong. When you start being able to do that easily, then work on reaching that safe ground, wherever or whatever it is, at any time. This will likely take some practice; it’s one thing to do it when you’re alone, relaxed, and well, another when you’re stressed and surrounded by chattering coworkers. The key is to get used to doing it, checking in with your mind regularly, getting a sense of its ebb and flow.
(Other people, I think, personify this, rather than place-ify it. Inner children, or Wise Mind, or what have you, rather than a house or an ocean or a room. But we can’t really do that safely, so have nothing of worth to say about it.)
If certain things make your safe ground inaccessible or weird, keep track of them. For example, when we have major surgery, our headspace locks up tight; we don’t know if it’s a result of the shock of surgery itself, or a side-effects of the medications associated with them. When you can’t check in with your mind and your safe ground, that’s a red flag, like wearing an internal blindfold. Be aware!
Up to this point, we haven’t discussed any of the details of the safe ground, merely its security. But maybe some images or sensory details have just come up of their own volition—a sound of running water, the smell of barbecue, whatever. Work with those details, especially if they recur! Hopefully, through use, the safe ground will sort of build itself accordingly, and your headspace will move in of its own accord. (And if it doesn’t, you’ve still built your system a safe ground!)
Some people have huge, elaborate headspaces. Others have small, plain ones. All that matters is that it works for you and that it’s defensible.
If Things Go Hell-Bent
Sometimes, even finding safe ground isn’t easy. If things get upsetting or chaotic, it can do so in a few major ways, including:
- Sudden floods of internal distractions: “did I leave the oven on? I’m actually really mad at my sister right now. Do I have my clothes washed for tomorrow?” etc. etc.
- Emotional reactions, ranging from intense crying and self-recrimination, to going numb and spacing out.
- Headspace itself growing violent—the awesome oak turning into the Whomping Willow.
Don’t take these as failures. All of these apparent setbacks are valuable learning experiences. In all cases, try to keep your mental footing, pay attention, and keep track of what happens, however bizarre or unpleasant; writing it down is handy so you don’t forget later and can keep track over time. The whole point of this exercise is to build communication through various parts of your mind, and get to know your self/s better, and that includes unpleasant things too.
For instance, internal distractions may be your mind’s way of letting you know what needs dealing with before you’re ready to deal with headspace stuff. Important things might need settling first, if they’re weighing on your mind and distracting you. Trivialities can be your mind’s way of stating that it is scared to look at itself too closely, and that it’s desperate for something, anything to do instead. Or it might just be that you’re too frazzled to do it at the moment. Try to take care of the distractions, or sit through them, and if they refuse to settle down after a week or two of trying, take it as a cue that you have some other, deeper work to do on yourself before you can do headspace stuff.
Emotional reactions can also tell you valuable things. Tons of self-judgment and recrimination (“I’m doing this all wrong, I’m never going to succeed”) are just another form of distraction, a sign of what needs dealing with first. Spacing out or dissociating can be a sign of fatigue or general unreadiness, or an act of psychological avoidance; either way, it’s something that needs taking care of before you can progress. And intense crying jags or anger can be signs that you’ve been ignoring things for too long, and that there’ll be an unpleasant storm before things settle down; in such case, it’s best to try and sit with the feelings and let them run their course as long as you can manage safely. When in doubt, refer to your pain scale and spotter!
If the headspace itself becomes hostile, it has a reason. Try not to fall into the reflexive attitude of, “I’m the boss; I’ll make it obey.” If gentle application of willpower only makes things worse, that’s a sign your headspace is trying to say something important to you, however loudly, painfully, or ill-advisedly. Try to treat it as a very upset messenger and calm it down, through whichever means are kind and seem to work. When the black ocean tried to drown us, we managed to slow it down just by shouting, “Hey, hey, this isn’t necessary! Let’s have a conversation about this! What do you want?”
Asking “what do you want?” is never a bad idea. Even if all you get is some self-annihilatory, “I want you to die and suffer!” that’s still at least an attempt to engage with you, and sometimes once it rants all its anger out, it’ll calm down and get down to brass tacks. And if its demand is reasonable (“I hate that music you’re playing! Turn it off!”) then by all means, give it what it wants! Some of our loudest, most emotional headspace phenomenae could be calmed down with gentle music and a stuffed animal. Others just wanted a deck of cards, or a hug, or someone to listen to what they had to say.
(We use quotes, but our headspace can’t communicate in words. It expresses itself through emotions, motion, and action, but that’s certainly clear enough for basic communication. Perhaps yours will have its own means.)
Another thing to be aware of is: is your headspace behaving like this because that’s what you’ve taught it to do? Our headspace tried to drown us because we’d neglected and ignored it for years, and in the process taught it that the only way to get our attention was through crisis. We had thereby insured that it would cause as much havoc as possible, because that was the only way to influence our behavior. Once we started responding to its needs sooner and easier, and kept our agreements and promises, it calmed down a lot, surprisingly quickly.
So. If your safe ground is getting unsafe, is it because you have taught it to do that? Has it been neglected or mistreated for so long that it’s hurt and angry? Can you calm it down, through talking, offerings, ritual, or negotiation? And can you follow through on the promises you make? Because if you promise the moon and deliver nothing, then you’re going to be even worse off. It is vital that you keep to your word, even if the only thing you’re able to say in good faith is, “I’m sorry. I’m trying to learn how to do better, even though I’m not sure how.”
Another solution, of course, is to try and find other safe ground inside yourself. But if you can’t find any anywhere and all forms of negotiating and attempts at quieting fail, it’s time to play defense. (That or admit that for whatever reason, maybe having a headspace isn’t right for you. Just because it’s vital to us doesn’t mean you should beat your brains out trying to force yourself into our mold.)
Headspace Defense
No, not offense. When you fight yourself, you lose. There are precious few headspace things that were improved by us going on the offensive; we can think of exactly one. Defense, on the other hand, is vital.
There are three forms of headspace defense: defenses created by headspace and headmates together, defenses created by headmates together, and defenses created by headmates individually. (There are also probably headspace defenses done by headspace alone, but we know very little about them, and thus have nothing useful to say.)
Each of these have their own merits and weaknesses. A defense created by headspace and headmates together is pretty unshakable, because everyone’s in agreement and putting their backs into it… but you have to get everyone to agree, and that can be challenging and time-consuming. (It’s also advanced study, so won’t be covered in this essay.) A defense created by headmates together can stave off a hostile headspace, at least for a while, but has a smaller sphere of influence. And a defense created by one headmate alone has a smaller range still, but can be put up and torn down as quick as will can be summoned.
We have used all of these defenses to various effects. For instance, one of our first acts of negotiation with our headspace, back in 2007, was a request to lock it to all newcomers. The black ocean agreed and did so, and since then, we have had nobody new, only returns of the old guard. This has proved to the best for everybody; some plurals handle changing rosters great, but we’re not one of them.
The building of our house was a group headmate endeavor, and it has been enough to regulate memory work (though never stop it completely) and protect us when the black ocean was enraged and lashing out. It was good to know that our wills could hold out, at least for a while, against the rest of our mind, and sometimes it has to happen—sometimes our ocean makes demands that just can’t be satisfied, not right away anyway.
And then, finally, our individual wills can create small tools of defense. Even one will can be powerful, in its limited domain. The black ocean might be able to destroy the house and wash us all away, given enough time and effort, but it can’t drown Rogan no matter how hard it tries. An individual’s willpower may only manage to do one small thing, but it can be really good at that one small thing!
We’ll start with the small stuff first.
Individual Defenses
It’s easiest to start with individual will, since that requires the least cooperation. Each headmate can see what they’re best at, and what suits their temperament. So: using the subjective rules of your headspace (which may not follow the rules of conventional reality), how would you prefer to protect yourself?
There are as many ways to do this as there are people. Do you prefer to conjure up headspace armor? Build magical wards or force-fields? Change your shape into something more adapted for whatever’s coming? Be creative, and see what feels right to you.
Sneak, for instance, is fond of creating wards and bindings, using a fictional magic system we created for a story. The system has clearly communicated rules, and thus can clearly express zer intent. Gigi, however, has put all her skills to sneaking around, skittering up walls and ceilings like a spider, and getting in and out of all sorts of places without people noticing. And most of us (except Biff, Mac, and Gigi) have the skill to build basic walls and fortifications.
Note that what might work for some systems may not work for yours; we can’t do any sort of internal shapeshifting, while other systems seem to handle it fine. Also, different headmates may have different levels of power; note that just because one headmate builds a wall doesn’t mean it’ll hold up against another’s bulldozer.
Find out how you can adapt to your headspace’s hostility, protecting yourself without harming it. Be creative, and be kind. Learn from your successes and failures, and take breaks when necessary.
Practice these for a good while, and try to have a good grasp on your individual skills before trying to move forward.
Group Headmate Defenses: Build A House!
This requires multiple headmates simultaneously working together, and it’s best to attempt this after you guys have an idea of what you’re individually good at. Pooling your skills will provide extra oomph and durability!
For this exercise, we’ll go with an obvious and quite common first group headmate defense: building a house! ATW describes a building of a “safe space,” the Dome, in got parts as a safety measure, covering anything from force-fields, surveillance cameras and speakers, to benign protective monsters. We ourself can’t create life safely, but hey, other folks can. The key is finding the symbols, rituals, or things that not only make you feel safe, but have a way to communicate the following:
- “I am working fine! No problems here.”
- “Something is off.”
- “I am damaged/injured/malfunctioning.”
- “Something is terribly wrong! Fix ASAP!”
- “I am destroyed/dead/nonfunctional.”
In our opinion, the key is not to make a hermetically sealed bubble of always-safeness; that just isn’t practical, anymore than buying a car that never breaks down or requires maintenance. The best you can do is learn to recognize when something needs to be fixed, and then do it.
As an example, say you build your headspace house and choose to use as your defense a smoke alarm. When fine, it is quiet. When something is off, it chirps. In disaster, it wails. And if it’s broken, it falls apart. Whatever you end up using, the aesthetics matter less than its clarity and that you mentally find it trustworthy and thus will listen to it. A smoke alarm, a guard dog, a magical ward, any will do the job.
The building of trust is vital. If your smoke alarm goes off, will you listen, or just presume it’s malfunctioning? What if it goes off but it’s not clear why? Will you just grumble and turn it off, or will you investigate, and if so, how? Because there will be uncertainty and confusion some of the time, especially at the start. Sometimes we feel physically under the weather but don’t know why; sometimes our brain cries out that something’s wrong, but not what. You are building a relationship between yourself and your mind, and there’s no rushing that understanding or trust. Still, some pointers:
- Always listen to what your mind is telling you. You don’t have to believe it (and sometimes, you mustn’t!) but even a false alarm will tell you something useful. (Is your alarm responding to something you feel is dangerous, but isn’t really? Is another headmate or your headspace itself interfering with it? Is it just a mystery to come back to later?)
- No ritual or defense measure is perfect; as long as it mostly works and you like it, that’s good enough. Our house is not impregnable, and neither we nor the ocean are infallible, but they’re good enough.
- Keep records of when your alarms go off, preferably in writing. Even if you don’t figure out the problem right away, maybe it’ll come to make sense later on. It can also help you learn what works and what doesn’t, sparing you from reinventing the wheel.
You might build and rebuild your house many times. We ourself have done major renovations and repairs multiple times, as needed. The purpose of the house isn’t to be impregnable; it’s just to hold firm long enough to solve the problem. At that, it’s been a huge success.
And sadly, I’m afraid we will have to cut off here, because this essay became much bigger than planned, and more advanced forms of headspace communication and defense will have to come later, in their own essay.
no subject
Date: 2019-08-30 11:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-09-01 11:02 pm (UTC)Though your comment makes me realize, I forgot to add a very important line, which is to add that sometimes building a headspace isn't for everybody. I admit, I can't imagine getting anywhere without mine, but I'm sure hardcore meditators feel the same way about me!
--Rogan
no subject
Date: 2019-09-02 12:37 pm (UTC)Heh, thanks, we might just do this! We were actually working on a post about the geography of our shared interaction spaces (as opposed to individual worlds), although Istevia has been wanting to write about what happens when your headspace is kind of its own world, for a while, in terms that work for newbies, and dispel some misconceptions a lot of people might have about ours. The last time we honestly took a crack at that, it was during Pavilion and so everything had to be done with Pavilion terminology and standards, so you can imagine how well it... didn't go. Anyway, we worried for a moment that people might think we were copying your post or somesuch, but we felt better when we saw you were encouraging others' discussions.
-Mint
no subject
Date: 2019-09-02 09:07 pm (UTC)And I know y'all's headspace is very different from ours, so that would be a huge boon! We're only one system, and I worry people give our words and experiences way too much weight, just because we're the only voice they hear!
--Rogan/Sneak
no subject
Date: 2019-10-03 08:50 am (UTC)Our experience was massively trial and error too, like... a lot of error. It felt like the old Otherworlds list was a lot of people trying to sound like they had it all figured out because they thought everyone else had it all figured out. And the Anachronic Army, like... I know their page was a blessing to a lot of systems who thought they were too weird, too fantasyish, etc, and didn't realize integration wasn't required, and in the late 90s they did a lot for the online multiple community. But they and Astraea and a few other groups also treated people who didn't think of their world as an alternate reality with disdain. The "real or imaginary" thing reached really stupid levels of wank on some pages and on lj-multiplicity, and we ultimately came to feel that it was the wrong question to ask; the questions to be asking instead were about the roles played by people's worlds, whatever the nature of them or their ideas about how they came to exist. (Kind of like how Istevia tends to say she doesn't care what people believe or disbelieve in nearly as much as what they do with the values they profess. When we started looking at the disparity between what people professed and how they acted in the plural community, like people who swore they saw each other as people in their own right but were fine with abusing their headmates, boy howdy that was a mindfuck.)
One of the major issues we want to address is how potentially destructive it can be to let other people, even (sometimes especially) other multiples, guide your discovery and understanding of your world, and if you have an otherworld-type space, the dangers of hanging around people who claim to regularly travel to other systems' worlds, especially if you're a newbie to the whole thing. I mean, we do allow for some situations where travel can be attempted with everyone's boundaries remaining in place, but our experience is that those are very much the exception rather than the rule, and people who yell at you that they always do fine with it often have the dreaded Conjoined Headspace, which can wreak absolute havoc on your selves-identity and where we've never seen a long-term healthy instance of it. (Ways to make us freak out about the future of a friend's mental health: "Well, we travel to each other's systems all the time now and some of us spend most of our time in Partner's system.")
...I guess we might as well admit, too, that we've been throwing around the idea of writing something about how to deal with it when you start with partial recall of childhood trauma, but total amnesia for other periods where there's strong proof of something bad having happened. Although yeah, a lot of it still leads back to "sometimes you just have to accept not having an answer," but we've at least been able to nail down more and less likely time periods and locations for certain things happening.
no subject
Date: 2019-10-03 03:14 pm (UTC)And there's so much shit that we don't know and have never experienced! Like low co-consciousness? Never had to deal with it, and that's a HUGE plural issue. Big expansive headspaces, or gateway systems, or polyfragging? Nope. Actually having an in-world so big that there's a culture and groups of people that have to be taken into account? Never. Median stuff, tulpa stuff, new headmates NOT being a total "OH NO" moment? Nuh uh.
There's so much we don't know, stuff that we will NEVER know, and the whole stupid reason I do this stupid, stupid job is because I want multis to have a voice, not just for ME to have a voice. Because that doesn't solve the problem, which is that multiples are squished and told they don't get to define or own their own experiences, only defer to authority handing those definitions down to them.
Yeah, the Conjoined Headspace thing is something I tried to talk about a little in the Body-Hopping and Bookend headmates posts, but I think I'm going to try and cover it in the inner mythos essays too, because it is a major problem... but at the same time, it's something we've only witnessed, never experienced.
--Rogan
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 10:55 am (UTC)This total random stranger has a question for ya if you can spare the time for it
Is travelling to anothers headspace actually possible?
I ... Had a friend a long ti e ago try this, but it was always fuzzy and i felt like I was faking, or they were lying
no subject
Date: 2022-07-23 03:23 pm (UTC)We wrote about that here, in Body-Hopping Headmates: https://lb-lee.dreamwidth.org/1040083.html
EDIT: just saw you were specifically responding to Amorpha. Oops. Hopefully they respond to you too; they are more knowledgeable!
no subject
Date: 2022-07-28 02:55 pm (UTC)That really takes a weight off my shoulders, the feeling someone is 'there' and not knowing if it was some trick was really messing with me. Glad to know its at least common, so i don't freak out over it. Thanks!
no subject
Date: 2019-10-05 06:53 pm (UTC)Lately I've been noticing that these spaces, when I go to them, can tell me things. The hotspings in the orange garden are sometimes clogged from something upstream. The vegetable garden has, a couple times, been in full late November mode. Stuff like that, which in some cases I can track down the source of, others are a bit more opaque. (The fall garden was exhaustion, the clog I'm still not sure of and comes back now and then.) It's amazing to be able to go to these places and get the sense that I'm being asked to pay attention, whether I can track down the problem immediately or not.
"Gardens" has also become somewhat a loose definition -- one is a big, open field; one is a dense forest. The problem is I tend to fall asleep about the time I reach the fourth garden, so I've never consciously been to the rest of them.
Thank you for writing this post -- I think I might try some of that defense-building. Me as just myself, I find that when things go bad internally I go into shutdown rather than chaos, though, so I might try something with a bit of a resource-building bent to it? I'm not sure -- have you guys had cases where the issue was enervation or a freeze-reaction rather than bombardment?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-06 10:01 pm (UTC)have you guys had cases where the issue was enervation or a freeze-reaction rather than bombardment?
Hmm. Corporeally, yes, that's our most common stress reaction, but our headspace seems to sorta react in reverse these days--it WIGS OUT rather than locks up. But now that you mention it, it WAS a frozen wasteland for about a decade... and when we were younger, sometimes cold fog would just sorta... occlude everything and render every place numb.
So yes, we've actually had that quite a bit! I just hadn't thought about that in a while. And I didn't mention it in this essay since I was focused on more of the "your headspace is actively, constantly trying to murder you," rather than being kinda barren, sluggish, or frozen.
--Rogan
no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 05:03 am (UTC)That's legitimate -- the need for triage is much more pressing when there's wigging out happening.
I guess I have the privilege of undertaking headspace building as an interesting journey and a personal tool, rather than a necessary preparation. And, tbh, some of the therapy I'm doing lately has involved intense visualizations which I think would be helped if I got to know my internal world a bit.
How did you find your headspace thawing? Was that something you undertook intentionally, or did it happen naturally over time?
no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 10:32 pm (UTC)How did you find your headspace thawing? Was that something you undertook intentionally, or did it happen naturally over time?
It required years of pretty intense work, honestly, but we had a LOT needing doing. First there was working on triggers and more immediate traumas, building a sense of internal community and communication, and then when we could afford to, embarking on deeper memory work. Fortunately, probably most people don't need quite that much effort. (At least, we HOPE not!)
We didn't set out on THAWING the headspace specifically, but it was a natural consequence of the work we were doing, and certainly appreciated! If you like, we have some of that on our access filters, if you'd like in on that!
no subject
Date: 2019-10-07 11:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-08 01:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 02:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-09 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-10-10 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 03:50 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 08:38 pm (UTC)Y'all make an impact!
Date: 2023-03-08 02:07 am (UTC)Just letting you& know that when we've shared this essay of yours on social media (because we never see any awareness about this topic on social media), we get told it looks amazing.
Thought some of y'all might like to know that. :D
Re: Y'all make an impact!
Date: 2023-09-30 01:58 am (UTC)Re: Y'all make an impact!
Date: 2023-12-24 07:53 am (UTC)No worries! Sorry for the late reply, our life got super hectic too.
no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 06:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 03:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-10-16 11:49 pm (UTC)Plus, even if force did work, it's such a cruel way to go about it. I've had so much better luck just doing a quick litmus test and respecting the answer than trying to force compliance out of a wayward mind, and it's shocking how few people seem to think that way.
no subject
Date: 2025-01-15 11:38 pm (UTC)