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lb_leeWe doubt we'll ever become singlet again, but other people have, temporarily or permanently, and it's information people should have. So here are some sources we've found of people discussing their experiences with and around it!
That's all the nice, informational stuff. It's more complicated and emotional behind the cut. Because I admit, I have strong, difficult emotions around becoming singlet.
I can't pretend it's a totally free, equal choice. We have met many people who were pressured to become singlet and in one case outright FORCED to attempt the process, which caused total havoc for them. It was a sobering experience for us to meet this multiple, in person, because their therapist bought our comics in a local bookstore and realized that maybe forcing them to become singlet was a shitty thing to do. We only met this multiple because of therapeutic abuse, and that abuser CONNECTED us together. How do you feel about that? How do you deal with that? We were only 22 at the time, and when I think about it, I want to cry and break a window... but I also feel this sick sense of gratitude, that the therapist changed. I hate that I feel that gratitude.
It was around this time that our parents also asked if there were medications to make us singlet, to make us go away, and tried to persuade us to institutionalize ourself. (Note: the nearest appropriate hospital was Colin Ross's. THAT Colin Ross, the dude who got run out of Canada because his patients kept suddenly dying on him under dubious circumstances. Let me tell you, when I went to IGDID and found myself in the same room as him, it was BIZARRE to be like, "that is a man I might've ended up under the care of." I laughed and made jokes about it, because how else can you deal with that?)
Every day, we wake up in a society that doesn't want me to exist, and a lot of my professional persona is based around making my plurality as nonthreatening as possible. We work hard not to switch at in-person events, because even at multi cons, switching weirds people out. We use the first person singular. Our pronouns are going to shit on this entry, and is it to protect ourself? To embrace our own fluidity and ambiguity? Both? We overwhelmingly go by a group name (LB), and we have to put that name on all our work, because otherwise we don't have enough of a catalog to get ourself off the professional ground. We go by "they" pronouns because it's easier on everyone to call us by one name and one set of pronouns, even if none of us actually USE those pronouns individually.
Our life is a compromise. We have made a profession out of being multiple in public... and that profession involves tons of emotional management, not just of ourselves but of others. People who are enraged by our existence, by our refusal to perform shame for it. People who are so ontologically troubled by our existence that they need me to not exist, for their own philosophical comfort. Concern trolls who are truly just so concerned for my mental health, and wouldn't it just be better, stabler, saner if I... you know, stopped existing? But not in a deathly way, no no! People probably think our job is "make comics, write stories." It's really, "make comics, write stories, and control everywhere we go and how we act and how we feel so as to deal with the worst plausible reactions people will have to that, which goes up to threats of violence and professional sabotage." And we feel LUCKY, because at least it's only been threats! (Well, professionally. Personally, violence has indeed happened. But this post isn't about that.)
And yet, despite all my baggage, there's no denying that becoming singlet is the right choice for some people. We know folks who've become singlet and are happier that way! This isn't some abstract hypothetical! People should be free to be themselves, to grow and change, to even (gasp) be wrong, and for some people, being multiple is wrong. They find that they are mistaken about being multi, or they were once but aren't now, and all of that should be fucking okay. How can you destigmatize a way of being if you insist on guarding the border with rifles and barbed wire? Yes, by all means, let people experiment! Let them try out being plural and then change their minds! I want to build a society where that can happen without risk! You CAN'T destigmatize being plural if you only focus on PERMANENT plurality.
But I don't know that I will ever be able to overcome my deep, visceral feelings. I have faced too much pressure telling me to be singlet, that being singlet is healthier, saner, better. I cannot view such a decision for myself as a free choice, because you know, I DID manage to fake singlet for a few years, long enough to have a life that way, and even though it was hell, it was an internal hell. Externally, society made it so much easier on me. One name! One set of pronouns! Finding roommates and jobs so much more easily! If I were singlet (and free of trauma), I could just work in the fucking post office and NEVER EXIST ON THE INTERNET AGAIN. (God, what I'd give to never have to exist on the Internet again.) No matter how shitty plurals can be about people becoming singlet, the fact remains: existing in plural subcultures is optional. Existing in mainstream singlet culture is not. Though both forms of douchebaggery can be equally emotionally hurtful, the power of one of those douchebaggeries is far more far-reaching.
I don't envy the people who become singlet. I just want to build a society where being singlet isn't enviable in the first place. I want to help build a society where it truly is a free choice, not just, "mansion or Dumpster, what'll it be?"
- Integration, by Abigail Collins: One woman describing her experiences becoming singlet, along with tips and advice on dealing with it. Made in 1993 for Mending Ourselves: Expressions of healing & self-integration, which itself contains a lot of people's experiences becoming singlet or trying to.
- Becoming Median, by Zyfron: About being multiple, becoming singlet, and then becoming median. Made in 2018.
- On Being Integrated, by Ricky of Gossamer&: About becoming singlet temporarily, spontaneously, and unwantedly, written for the Asylum e-zine in 2000.
- Pro-choice? or Anti-Integration? by Lesley Pierce and Larry (of the Anachronic Army): on the stigma of becoming singlet. Written for the Asylum e-zine in 2000.
- An Owl's Guide to Fusion: "Some practical advice on how to fuse based on my own experiences; mostly aimed at unification, but likely useful for smaller fusions as well." Working on reading.
- Fusion (non-GPL): "My experiences with unification and a plea to change how it's regarded in the plural community." Haven't read yet.
That's all the nice, informational stuff. It's more complicated and emotional behind the cut. Because I admit, I have strong, difficult emotions around becoming singlet.
I can't pretend it's a totally free, equal choice. We have met many people who were pressured to become singlet and in one case outright FORCED to attempt the process, which caused total havoc for them. It was a sobering experience for us to meet this multiple, in person, because their therapist bought our comics in a local bookstore and realized that maybe forcing them to become singlet was a shitty thing to do. We only met this multiple because of therapeutic abuse, and that abuser CONNECTED us together. How do you feel about that? How do you deal with that? We were only 22 at the time, and when I think about it, I want to cry and break a window... but I also feel this sick sense of gratitude, that the therapist changed. I hate that I feel that gratitude.
It was around this time that our parents also asked if there were medications to make us singlet, to make us go away, and tried to persuade us to institutionalize ourself. (Note: the nearest appropriate hospital was Colin Ross's. THAT Colin Ross, the dude who got run out of Canada because his patients kept suddenly dying on him under dubious circumstances. Let me tell you, when I went to IGDID and found myself in the same room as him, it was BIZARRE to be like, "that is a man I might've ended up under the care of." I laughed and made jokes about it, because how else can you deal with that?)
Every day, we wake up in a society that doesn't want me to exist, and a lot of my professional persona is based around making my plurality as nonthreatening as possible. We work hard not to switch at in-person events, because even at multi cons, switching weirds people out. We use the first person singular. Our pronouns are going to shit on this entry, and is it to protect ourself? To embrace our own fluidity and ambiguity? Both? We overwhelmingly go by a group name (LB), and we have to put that name on all our work, because otherwise we don't have enough of a catalog to get ourself off the professional ground. We go by "they" pronouns because it's easier on everyone to call us by one name and one set of pronouns, even if none of us actually USE those pronouns individually.
Our life is a compromise. We have made a profession out of being multiple in public... and that profession involves tons of emotional management, not just of ourselves but of others. People who are enraged by our existence, by our refusal to perform shame for it. People who are so ontologically troubled by our existence that they need me to not exist, for their own philosophical comfort. Concern trolls who are truly just so concerned for my mental health, and wouldn't it just be better, stabler, saner if I... you know, stopped existing? But not in a deathly way, no no! People probably think our job is "make comics, write stories." It's really, "make comics, write stories, and control everywhere we go and how we act and how we feel so as to deal with the worst plausible reactions people will have to that, which goes up to threats of violence and professional sabotage." And we feel LUCKY, because at least it's only been threats! (Well, professionally. Personally, violence has indeed happened. But this post isn't about that.)
And yet, despite all my baggage, there's no denying that becoming singlet is the right choice for some people. We know folks who've become singlet and are happier that way! This isn't some abstract hypothetical! People should be free to be themselves, to grow and change, to even (gasp) be wrong, and for some people, being multiple is wrong. They find that they are mistaken about being multi, or they were once but aren't now, and all of that should be fucking okay. How can you destigmatize a way of being if you insist on guarding the border with rifles and barbed wire? Yes, by all means, let people experiment! Let them try out being plural and then change their minds! I want to build a society where that can happen without risk! You CAN'T destigmatize being plural if you only focus on PERMANENT plurality.
But I don't know that I will ever be able to overcome my deep, visceral feelings. I have faced too much pressure telling me to be singlet, that being singlet is healthier, saner, better. I cannot view such a decision for myself as a free choice, because you know, I DID manage to fake singlet for a few years, long enough to have a life that way, and even though it was hell, it was an internal hell. Externally, society made it so much easier on me. One name! One set of pronouns! Finding roommates and jobs so much more easily! If I were singlet (and free of trauma), I could just work in the fucking post office and NEVER EXIST ON THE INTERNET AGAIN. (God, what I'd give to never have to exist on the Internet again.) No matter how shitty plurals can be about people becoming singlet, the fact remains: existing in plural subcultures is optional. Existing in mainstream singlet culture is not. Though both forms of douchebaggery can be equally emotionally hurtful, the power of one of those douchebaggeries is far more far-reaching.
I don't envy the people who become singlet. I just want to build a society where being singlet isn't enviable in the first place. I want to help build a society where it truly is a free choice, not just, "mansion or Dumpster, what'll it be?"
no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 06:44 pm (UTC)People have a right to do what they want and to integrate if that helps them, but its something that there is huge societal pressure to do so its not *really* a fully free choice for most people.
Simply existing is an uphill struggle against society, so anything that people see as an out is kind of already coercion a bit because of that.
We try so hard to be objective about integration when we write things about it or try to give advice, but in the end being objective IS to talk of the baggage of coercion and pressure and force integration comes with at the very least. There is no true equal choice when one is a minority that is very heavily squashed, and the other is celebrated.
Its something wed never consider ourselves, and personally most of us find it very upsetting to contemplate going through, to the point that its very hard to read things that promote it heavily and talk about it. We can't view it to be like anything but a kind of death for us, its so antithetical to how we exist. Having this kind of view and *holding it* in a society that hates that you exist, that doesnt want you to exist as your own person is so hard. The pressure on those who have never heard of the plural community -who have never heard of other options or frameworks- would be much moreso.
Fighting past our own kneejerk revulsion for the integration topic is hard. We recognize the community has a right to access that treatment and should have a safe place to discuss it, but its just something we fundamentally cannot relate to either.
Its terrible, because we recognize that its healing for many people who undergo it and NOT what it is, but the kneejerk response to someone asserting they've integrated and we should try too its the best and the things the therapists say are totally true they really were all one person unable to see that is 'oh my god a talking mutilated frankenstien corpse! Run!'.
We dont *want* to have that response, but we do.
Just our existences are so antithetical to integrating that in the same way as many singlets look at a plural person and get acute existential dread from us existing, we get it at bit in return to those who have fused fully. We do our best to not let it affect interacting with folks who have, but its something that is for sure there- likely because that end is an active threat to us. Society doesnt want us to exist and here is proof they can make it happen with enough elbow grease- make us not exist in a way that doesnt even leave us our selfhood in death. Its not the integrated person's fault AT ALL, mind, but that kneejerk fear is always present and will be till society doesnt loathe us existing.
Also REALLY feel the minimizing ones plurality to interact with singlets in the know (and even other plural folks sometimes). We help mod a fandom discord server and we are out in it and no one there has been anything less than accepting about it, but we still are so careful to barely mention it, to not say 'we' in most circumstances, to be as palatable as possible and not weird anyone out too much. We are hyperaware that we are probably the first and only system any of them have really met and thus are an ambassador of sorts. We have to have all the answers, be a 'good example'. Not do anything weird like have fictives who talk about that in that space or mention the spiritual aspects of our system or talk about the identity fuckery too much or a thousand other things. This is the case everywhere we are out that isnt plural specific. We are Happy To Answer Questions, even when we are not actually happy to answer questions.
Unmasking this sort of 'for ease of singlets' gestalt persona that is as nonthreatening and reasonable to singlet sensibilities as possible is hard even in plural spaces because we have spent so long hiding to avoid danger.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-19 09:48 pm (UTC)"Society doesnt want us to exist and here is proof they can make it happen with enough elbow grease- make us not exist in a way that doesnt even leave us our selfhood in death."
Yes! This! At least when Lolly merged with Miranda, it was completely spontaneous and not done under pressure; I don't know that we had even TOLD anyone of our existence back then! And arguably our memory work is just integrating shitloads of memory fragments, but we've found far more comfort treating it as laying the dead to rest, relieving them of their burdens.
The painful part that twedges me seems to be more the social, complete nature of the transition: not just a roster change, but the permanent removal of the roster at all.
Though having those singletizing resources also makes me think about how I also don't feel comfortable having resources on making a headmate (that is, a singlet becoming plural on purpose). In fact, it bothers me even more deeply that the "becoming singlet" resources do, and I'm not sure why? Maybe because splitting new headmates for us is always soul-shatteringly painful? Fears that folks will treat their new headmate like a dollar-store goldfish or a punching bag? (And such headmate would have no recourse?) Am I in the end just policing the boundary as much as anyone else?
I totally know why becoming singlet makes me feel weird. I don't quite get why I feel weird about the reverse.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-20 08:54 pm (UTC)The first inclusive plural spaces online that didnt try to chase us off for not being Textbook Perfect Dissociative Disorder that we found were mixed-tulpa spaces and daemonism, so people going from singlet to plural doesnt twedge us out nearly as much as it does yall- we have positive associations with tulpamancy as a FAR more welcoming space to learn system skills.
Being exposed to all those people talking about their experiences in-depth for whom new headmates was always joyous and healing(and not a blurry ball of confusion or a no-emotions 'well ok then' sort of thing as it seems to be for us) helped for sure. The more you understand and read and expose yourself to new stuff unlike your experience the more tolerance you have for it and all that. Its part of why despite being Squicked Out Bad by integration stuff we make an effort to at least try reading some of it. Maybe eventually we will have less of a kneejerk to it.
If you arent familiar with a particular community At All it can feel a lot more strange and threatening. Tulpamancy is one of them for both plural folks and singlets because of how it so casually crosses those borders weve all put up and has a totally different culture and framework around the whole thing. They are pushing the limits of the human brain in new and untested waters and thats Going to be uncomfortable to a lot of people.
They are doing something thoroughly unlike many people's experiences, and it calls into question the nature of plurality itself in a way that fundamentally bothers a lot of people. What *really* causes plurality, what is *really* happening if a tulpamancer's end result is indistinguishable from a trauma-based system thats achieved healthy multiplicity from a 'from birth' endogenic multiple? SO many theories that are popular get toasted when you take into account reports from that community and their material experiences being so similar- when the fact that tulpa techniques WORK for other kinds of systems to learn skills or to help their headmates become more separate. They can be free of the troubles that more dissociative and/or traumatized systems have and still be plural- flying in the face of a hundred 'you have alters so you that is your ENTIRE validation for your trauma and the only way you need to justify your suffering' teachings even more than 'normal' endogenic systems do because 'they might just not remember it' doesnt work when its documented as it is.
Their findings and community can feel like a threat when they upend the status quo like that and then dont give any answers to the questions that they raise.
Theres an MRI study thats happening on tulpa systems (they recently finished putting people in the machines so hopefully it gets published soon) that may further upend the community. If we get solid proof that tulpas function like trauma-formed headmates with the brain patterns, thats going to cause even more questions and upset even as it validates other systems.
We did see a fair but of dodgy stuff go down there though, so we do also squint a bit more than some systems at 100% fully singlet to plural folks crafting a tulpa of the gender the fancy as yeah, there were quite a few tulapmancers who looked like dodgy 'make a spouse that lives in my brain and loves me with no effort on my part' creep stuff might have been going on. Thats less so nowadays as from what we see now the community jumps on people who dont seem to be treating their tulpa right MUCH harder then they used to, but it still makes us pull a face internally when they tick too many boxes.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-21 12:55 am (UTC)What *really* causes plurality, what is *really* happening if a tulpamancer's end result is indistinguishable from a trauma-based system thats achieved healthy multiplicity from a 'from birth' endogenic multiple? SO many theories that are popular get toasted when you take into account reports from that community and their material experiences being so similar
See, that stuff actually makes me happy! It comforts me to think that individual differences trump demographic ones. I hate the idea that all trauma-based systems are like THIS, versus endogenic plurals being like THAT, and tulpamancers and soulbonders are totally different, and none of these demographics have anything to gain by working together or pooling information and resources. I feel like my best escape out of a suffocating plural box was to intentionally go looking for experiences that broke that box, such as religious spirit possession. (I still need to bite the bullet and try to get that Trance Possession in Bali book, even though it costs a bomb. It's in-library-use only, so I'd have to use the bookscanner, but at least I'd have it!)
Also, as someone who got slapped with the diagnosis and had to come to terms with trauma, it comforts me to think that no, actually, I am NOT some totally separate species from non-traumatized multiples!
no subject
Date: 2023-01-22 01:41 am (UTC)Daemonists are odd and interesting in a different way, as they sort of *do* use the splitting method, but also sort of not? They posit the daemon was already there and a part of you and everyone has one, you just need to learn to hear it. They personify a aspect of their conscience('gut thoughts' and such) as a talking animal, essentially, and many daemons VERY rapidly become autonomous. Many daemonists dont consider themselves plural though.
We do also really like hearing about and seeing new science and calling into question what we all thought we knew and all that also, its just something we recognize a lot of systems have Big Existential Dread about.
Its part of why we constantly go looking for people accounts of experiences unlike ours as well- we love seeing things that break the current models and also want to stave off any possible kneejerks about things that challenge the way plurality is thought of.
Yeah, its really comforting to see multiples who have ZERO dissociation reported, its not at all how we experience things, but its nice to see. They have the same experiences we do, they describe the experiences the same way, just without the haze over the world.
Weve heard some system say it feels unfair to see people not having any trouble at all when they struggle so hard with disassociation and trauma, and while there is a wistful sigh that it would be nice if the dissociation was ~30% less of a problem and theres a bit of a twinge they get to not get blurry depersonalization episodes or whatever else, it gives us more hope than anything.