On plural inclusivity and “plural they”

In the Gender Census feedback box and elsewhere I have frequently been asked:

1. to make the annual Gender Census survey more inclusive of plural participants, and
2. to add “plural they” to the checkbox pronouns list alongside “singular they” in order to be inclusive of plural participants.

It’s a rambling topic, so I’ll address them in sections in that order.

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INCLUSIVITY RE: PLURAL PARTICIPANTS

I’ve been inviting plural people to take part in a short survey about the Gender Census, asking questions that help me get a feel for the issues involved and asking about whether people feel included in the survey (and why or why not). At the time of writing there have been 139 responses, I will leave it open for ongoing feedback, and I’m unlikely to be publishing the spreadsheet of results in full because the responses are off-topic and very personal. However, I will refer to some individual responses as well as my personal experience discussing inclusion with plural systems.

Here’s a graph based on the responses so far:

I’m asking for direct feedback about this issue because over the past few years plural folks have been one of the more consistently vocal groups in the feedback box of the survey and elsewhere, which would usually be fine, but I’ve been finding it very overwhelming and confusing. I think that’s because the advice/demands/questions have been unusually inconsistent, often to the point of being in direct opposition to each other, and the result is that I have no idea what to do.

Before now, most plural people have understood that it’s quite a nuanced issue. When asked I would explain that if they felt that filling it in once for the whole system made more sense they should do that, and if individual system members felt strongly that they should participate alone then they could do so.

This year it got to the point where I had to make a decision and write unambiguous, easy-to-follow guidance about how plural people should fill in the survey, because I had one system submitting dozens of responses and giving the exact same three points of feedback, paraphrased, over and over - making it look like many unconnected people felt strongly about these particular issues, when in reality it was all this one system. I decided that, to be as fair as possible, plural people should fill in the survey once per body.

When I posted about the “once per body” policy on social media I received very little direct feedback, which leaves me in the position of not knowing whether that’s because I did it right and you have no complaints or because you’ve all jumped ship! The statistics and comments from the plural feedback survey are very helpful in this regard:

It seems that plural participants, on the whole, are fairly understanding about it all, often supportive, and are still able to participate. (“Unknown” and “no strong feelings” together are a much higher proportion than I expected.) Some positive feedback included appreciation for the ability to select as many gender identities and pronouns as one wants. Common arguments against the policy include feeling that system members are not treated as people in their own right, which is understandable; the Gender Census is designed to present practicable data about nonbinary people for use within a system that assigns one identity per body, socially and bureaucratically. A “once per body” policy makes sense when prioritising nonbinary people, but adds to the list of crap that only plural people have to struggle through when they’re not the main focus of the research.

I was surprised that only a couple of people pointed out that some systems have amnesia between members, and so some systems may participate more than once per body unintentionally. (I understand that this is unavoidable, and I certainly wouldn’t be upset about it. Sometimes non-plural people participate more than once by accident, too! On the scale we’re talking about, I’m unlikely to even notice it happening.)

Back when I first started to get requests to make the Gender Census more plural-inclusive, my first move was to ask people what exactly they felt excluded by. Responses to this have been continuously nebulous, to the extent that I don’t think I have ever made any design changes to the annual survey at all as a result. I also asked what they would do to improve the survey and help them to feel included, but this has yielded very few viable ideas for how to move forward, just because so many of the ideas that people suggest are mutually exclusive.

As an example, I spoke to one member of a system who expressed, understandably, that their experience of themselves as plural inextricably affected their experience of their gender(s), and after some discussion they concluded that the two were so intertwined that it made the most sense for it to be included in the identity question, e.g. a checkbox called “plural” alongside nonbinary, genderqueer, trans, etc. I explained that I don’t arbitrarily add things to the checkbox list, but it would be counted if it was typed into a textbox underneath, and if it went over 1% I would consider adding it to the checkbox list. They became increasingly angry. The only way this situation would make sense for them moving forward was if I added “plural” as an identity checkbox option immediately. Conversely, just a couple of weeks previously I had spoken with a member of a system who was very vocally distressed at the idea of plurality being conflated with gender, and wanted to make sure that I never added “plural” as an identity checkbox option.

As another example, in the plural feedback survey when I asked people how they felt about the “once per body” policy, a member of one system was against it and said “it feels like this policy doesn’t recognize us as separate people”, but a member of another system was in favour and said “we’re encouraged by our therapist to think of ourselves as dissociated parts of a whole. So we’re all one person, just not directly connected like a singlet [non-plural person] would be. From that perspective, it makes sense to keep us as one person in the gender census, no matter how many genders we have.” It’s not possible to reconcile these two perspectives.

From the very beginning up until now, the unifying theme for feedback from plural people and their allies is “please be more inclusive of plural people.” That’s a really good start! After that it becomes a plate of tangled spaghetti.

Here are some themes I’ve managed to tease out, and my thoughts.

• “Each system’s alter should be able to participate in the survey individually if they want to.” Some systems have literally hundreds of alters, and several systems have acknowledged in the feedback survey that this is probably both impractical for many plural people and unfair on singlets.
• “We’re okay with taking part once for all of us in the system, but we’re just checking all the boxes that apply to at least one of us, and some of those are explicitly disliked by at least one of us. This is uncomfortable.” I think that’s… probably okay, actually. Other subcategories of participants whose identities fluctuate that strongly (e.g. a genderfluid person who is sometimes very male and sometimes extremely not male) or whose pronouns are context-dependent are also in this predicament. Participants often express a desire to rank their identity terms by importance, accuracy, fluctuation or frequency. The survey aims to collect broad and fuzzy data about a very large group of people, to monitor trends and let people know what language we’re comfortable with on the whole. This survey just isn’t looking for that kind of nuance.
• “We’re okay with taking part in the survey once for everyone in the system, but there should be a way to separate out responses about different alters within that one response.” It’s literally impossible to program the survey to have infinite subsections for each alter, but if it were possible, what would I do with the data? I think the most likely approach would be combining into a list of identities etc. “per body”. The participant would feel better for being able to enter different words for different alters, but it would be more work for them, and it would be more work for me to process responses from plural people just to have them be counted like those from non-plural people.
• “There should be a ‘plural’ checkbox in the identity list so that we can express that our gender is influenced by our plurality.” I consider adding terms to the identity checkbox list when they’re typed into the textboxes by over 1% of participants. There are some situations where I’ll make an exception to that rule, but it’s unusual and this isn’t one of them. Whether you enter a term using a checkbox or a textbox makes no difference to how well-represented you are in the results.
• Maybe just a question that asks if you’re plural, with a checkbox? What would this checkbox do? Plurality is beyond the scope of the survey, along with things like height and eye colour. It would allow curious people to analyse the responses using plurality as a variable, but I wouldn’t include it in any analysis in an annual Gender Census report.

That last one is particularly interesting, because it’s what I actually did in the supplementary survey. I wasn’t 100% sure in advance whether or not I would need that information for the singular vs. plural they issue, so I included an “I am/we are plural” checkbox just to be on the safe side. As far as I could tell, the survey was no more or less materially inclusive than the annual Gender Census survey. There were a couple of interesting patterns to report in the statistics, but the main things I noticed were:

• Feedback saying that the survey wasn’t inclusive of plural people was non-existent.
• Several people thanked me in the feedback box for making the survey plural-inclusive.
• Several people promoted the survey on social media by using its plural-inclusivity as a selling point.

Again, the supplementary survey didn’t take a different approach. There was no particular difference in language, there was no indication that whether or not you’re plural would be integral to the reporting of the results or even used at all, the only difference was the existence of a checkbox that let participants declare their plurality.

That’s all it took to cause a complete U-turn in feedback. A checkbox that doesn’t relate to gender or connect to any of the other questions in any way, and isn’t particularly statistically useful based on the supplementary survey. It doesn’t make the survey more inclusive, it just acknowledges that some participants are plural, and gives them a way to declare it.

Whether or not participants are plural is beyond the scope of the Gender Census, which aims to collect broad data about how we as nonbinary and otherwise genderly-interesting people want the world to see and describe us. It just doesn’t make sense to include questions about plurality in future surveys. But I’m honestly amazed and a little confused, because until the “once per body” policy was added it seems that there wasn’t actually anything about the Gender Census that prevented plural people from participating, at least not more than anyone else whose genders change significantly over time.

~

SHOULD “PLURAL THEY” BE ADDED TO THE CHECKBOX PRONOUN LIST?

This is something that participants often ask me to do in order to make the survey more plural-inclusive, so I decided to seriously consider it.

The first draft of the supplementary survey asked over 1,000 participants about this issue, but I had to scrap those responses and then redesign and restart it because, even though dictionaries are fairly clear on what exactly “singular they” is, a lot of survey participants who are not dictionaries seemed to be in disagreement (or confusion) about what singular they and plural they actually are. I have been unable to find any academic or reference articles online using the phrase “plural they” at all.

Here are some of the things people have told me recently:

• “Singular they” is when you use “they” with singular verbs, e.g. they is a teacher.
• I can’t say that I use “singular they” pronouns because I always say “they are”. “They is” just sounds wrong to me.
• “Plural they” is when you use “singular they” pronouns to refer to a system/someone who is plural.
• “Singular they” and “plural they” are grammatically identical except for the name.
• “Singular they” and “plural they” are functionally the same and should be combined into one option called “they” in the annual survey.

Let’s start by stating what we do know for sure.

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THEY VS. SINGULAR THEY

For the record, “singular they” is defined by its purpose and context, not the specific words used.

Wiktionarysays:

they(third-person, nominative case, usually plural, sometimes singular, objective case them, possessive their, possessive noun theirs, reflexive themselves, or, singular, themself)

It then goes on to specify three use-cases:

• third-person plural, referring to two or more people
• third-person singular, referring to one person
• “indefinite pronoun” - people; some people; people in general; someone, excluding the speaker. E.g. “they didn’t have computers in the old days.”

So we’ve got “they” (groups), “singular they” (individuals), and “indefinite they” (an “other” that is ambiguous in number).

Again, I have never found anything academic or, er, dictionarical (lexicographical?) that calls any of the forms “plural they”, so my first job is to find out whether what Gender Census participants are calling “plural they” is the same as what the dictionary just calls “they”, which is defined as the set used to refer to two or more people. For the purposes of this article I will call it regular “they”.

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WHICH WORDS MAKE UP SINGULAR THEY?

Even though most dictionaries will state which words make up singular they, and it’s usually they/them/their/theirs/themself, if you change individual words within the set or even around the set it is still called “singular they” if it is used to refer to only one person. This might happen due to regional or cultural variations. So whether you say “they is a writer” or “they are a writer”, whether you say “themself” or “themselves”, if you’re talking about only one person, it’s still singular they.

In the annual survey, singular they is consistently chosen in the checkbox pronoun options by the most participants, usually more than twice as popular as the next most popular option. (I use the dictionary-provided set, and I’ve checked it’s still the most commonly used in several polls and surveys along the way.) In the annual survey, singular they is presented as:

singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself (e.g. “they are a writer”)

~

WHICH WORDS MAKE UP PLURAL THEY?

I had never heard of “plural they” before people started asking me to add it to the checkbox list in the feedback box of the annual Gender Census survey, but it seemed clear from the name that it is meant to be contrasted with singularthey, and I wondered if perhaps everyone else had been calling regular “they” (for referring to two or more people) “plural they” this entire time and I just hadn’t noticed.

It was specifically presented to me by participants as a pronoun that a plural system could claim, and that a plural system might prefer over singular they. This tallied with my initial assumption that “plural they” may just be regular “they” referring to groups, since a system is a body containing two or more distinct individuals, so if they wanted to be referred to as a group then singular they would be inappropriate and regular “they” would fit.

I went to the pronouns spreadsheet of the 2021 Gender Census, and took every pronoun set that was named and copied it into a new spreadsheet. I ran a query to list all sets that contained both the words “plural” and “they” in the name field. There were 71 results, out of ~44,500 total responses. I ran another query to find out what these people were entering in the reflexive field, and here’s what I got:

• themselves - 61 (85.9%)
• theirselves - 3
• them - 2
• themself - 2
• themself (plural) - 2
• theirself - 1

So I think it’s safe to say that the set that people are calling “plural they” uses “themselves” as the reflexive, which is consistent with dictionaries’ reporting of regular “they”.

I conclude that most people do mean regular “they” when they refer to “plural they”. “Plural they” seems to be they/them when used to refer to two or more people, including the plural reflexive “themselves”.

As in “singular they”, if you change individual words within the set or even around the set it is still called regular “they” if it is used to refer to two or more people. This might happen due to regional or cultural variations. So whether you say “they is writers” or “they are writers”, whether you say “themself” or “themselves”, if you’re talking about two or more people, it’s still regular “they” (or plural they).

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IS PLURAL THEY GETTING SMUSHED INTO ANOTHER PRONOUN/GROUP?

I recently explored the (apparently unintentional) overlap of Spivak (e/em) and Elverson (ey/em). In case you’ve not read it, here’s a brief overview: I found that it might be that Elverson (not on the checkbox list) is many times more popular than Spivak (on the checkbox list), even though it isn’t being written into the pronouns textboxes often enough for it to reach the 1% threshold. Since the two sets are identical except for that one letter in the subject form, it is very likely that many of the people who use Elverson (ey/em) pronouns are choosing the Spivak checkbox option in the annual survey because they don’t realise the spelling is different, or they think that they are minor spelling variants of the same set. I concluded that in order to get a fair count of both sets I will need to list both in the checkbox options next year, even though Elverson hasn’t been typed in by over 1% of participants yet.

It’s possible that the same thing is happening with singular and plural they. I ran a couple of Twitter polls, asking people whose pronouns are they/them which set they prefer, and presented answers like this:

• a) Singular they, referring to only 1 person: they are themSELF
• b) Singular they, referring to only 1 person: they are themSELVES
• c) Plural they, referring to 2+ people: they are themSELVES

Here’s the results, with 927 usable responses:

The results of this poll are really useful, because it allowed people to choose between singular and plural they AND themself and themselves, in combination. We can see that of the people who call their pronouns “singular they” (referring to only one person), the majority prefer “themself” as the reflexive, but a respectable proportion prefer singular they with “themselves”, even when presented with the option of “plural they” (referring to two or more people).

(I have a policy of providing the most popular word choices in checkboxes, so I will continue to provide a they/them checkbox option that says “singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself”, but since singular they is consistently the most popular pronoun this is something I like to keep checking in on.)

If we apply these proportions to the 2021 Gender Census responses and imagine that everyone whose pronouns are they/them chose “singular they - they/them/their/theirs/themself” regardless of how accurate that is, this would mean that 3.7% of all respondents would check a “plural they” box, which is well above the 1% threshold for adding something to the checkbox list. Why not add it to the list, the way I’ll also be adding Elverson to the list? This graph may help:

I generally consider it unwise to make big decisions based on Twitter polls, because the sample is much smaller and more biased than a standalone survey. Twitter requires membership, Twitter membership is skewed younger, and younger members are more likely to use Twitter often and see polls when they appear.

However, even I can’t deny that there is a very clear mandate here for Elverson to be added to the checkbox list. When given a straight choice between the Spivak, Elverson, both, and neither/something else, participants were over six times more likely to choose Elverson over Spivak. (For context, Spivak got 4.3% in the 2021 Gender Census as a checkbox option.) Even if this poll were somehow put to the entire Gender Census participant group, it’s hard to imagine a scenario where the results shift enough that Elverson gets a lower percentage than Spivak.

4.7% of a smaller sample of younger Twitter members just isn’t enough to push me to add something to the checkbox options. I really hope that everyone whose pronouns are “plural they” takes the time to type it into next year’s survey as a pronoun distinct from “singular they”, so that if they do end up being over 1% of participants I can add “plural they” to the checkbox options.

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IN CONCLUSION

As far as I can tell, the Gender Census doesn’t particularly exclude plural participants. Systems are still able to take part, so it is at least as inclusive as any other survey of a similar nature, maybe even more so thanks to the ability to choose multiple gender identities and pronouns “per body”.

There isn’t sufficient evidence to support adding “plural they” to the list of checkbox pronouns at this time, and systems can be represented in results by typing any plural-inclusive terms and pronouns that are not on checkbox lists into some of the many textboxes provided, as any other participant would be expected to do.

The “once per body” participation policy is uncomfortable for a significant number of plural people. However, due to the intensely varied experiences of plural people, any policy on that issue that I impose would make some plural people uncomfortable - and it turns out that I chose the “side” that plural people are more likely to agree with. The survey isn’t intending to collect or convey the more nuanced information that plural people (and others) have said that they would like to provide.

A separate question that specifically asks participants whether they’re plural makes systems feel seen and acknowledged, but is beyond the scope of the project and doesn’t add value to the data or analysis.

So, I will not be making any changes to the Gender Census at this time, based on the information I’ve gathered so far. However, I welcome further feedback in the plural participants’ feedback form, which will remain open, anonymous and private.

~

Edit:Follow-up.

DID things

When someone asks if you’re okay and you answer:

yes, no, maybe, i dunno

cause everyone is feeling different things so you have no idea

For Protector Alters

You’re amazing! we love you so much. We wouldn’t be where we are without you. You are vital to you’re system!!! You’re doing an amazing job! Keep going, we need you. We know that it can be quite frustrating, but we are all grateful for you, even if it sometimes doesn’t seem like it. We love you!!

Having DID is having to always check all of your social media because who said what to your friends when you weren’t around?

trustmeimadoctor:

I just made a promise to Dante that I wouldn’t make another suicide attempt until we try the lsd route first. He heard me and acknowledged it. I have to remember. 

It’s been over a year since We started psychedelic therapy. Started with lsd and ketamine. Saved us. It’s time to wake up Dante. I think he would like things much better now with the new level of self awareness. I think he would like to front.

*Listening to Alestorm*

Headspace Chatter:

“Rum! Beer! Sex and Weed! These are the things that a Pirate needs!”

osdd-1bitch:

osdd-1bitch:

The best thing abt doing actual research into the plural community is that its literally never been like the medicalists say it was. I have a book from a 60+ year old diagnosed did system who can and has rejected/expelled alters entirely. another with an interject of a religious figure whos a gatekeeper. Another who can control switches, one who has known since they were kids ect ect ect. Plurality has always been weird and different my guy, to say otherwise is to erase our history and ignore basically all aspects of plurality

Also this goes for nontraumagenic plurals and headmates we have been a part of the community since the start. Stay mad

Headspace Chatter:

“Son of a hot pocket!”

Everyone in front, who is high as fuck btw:

Headspace Chatter:

Watching a recorded stream, “He’s a stick man!”

??? : “He’s SEVERAL stick men!…. Respect his pronouns!”

???

We hate everything Mean people dick bags! We are having PTSD stuff happening. We were having bad dreams for a little while now. And now Teen dissociates hard and often. He can’t handle the stress. He is trying but even some of us think that Teen may be experiencing a bit of psychosis. We will try and help him keep it together.

Watching a video:

“… And it glows blue.”

Malice fronting (once again.. Or… Still???):

“Blows goo. ”

Animal and Teen:

Uncovered some real fucked up shit, this morning!… Found an old external hard drive and a few flash drives. A bunch of stories, pictures and videos from 2010 - 2015. I don’t know what to think. My brain is automatically trying to find a rational explanation for what We’ve uncovered… We knew We should not have been digging but We felt that it was necessary. We thought… I don’t know what We thought. But it… Wasn’t what We found. We found a VIDEO of MALICE. 2011-ish??? So she wasn’t lying or mistaken. She did exist before me, Teen. Anyway, what is strange is that she was crying throughout the entire video. Why? Because she was showing her badly bruised thigh. How did she get that bruise? Our old roommate who used to beat the fuck out of us! She hid the video. I didn’t find it with the other videos. She tucked it away in another folder titled something different. Like she was afraid someone would find it… Also found two videos that the fucking roommate was in… I liked those videos! We helped create those videos! And now they just upset us… I honestly can’t even describe how I feel about this. Why now? Why did We have to go digging now? Why did We find that shit now? We have an exam in a couple days and a project due by the end of the week. We don’t have time to relive trauma!

Making posts on social media: “I’M UNAPOLOGETICALLY (insert Autistic, Mentally ill, queer etc.)!!! ”

Actual social encounters: “I’m so sorry for… existing… ”

Been trying to sleep for a couple hours now. Lots of shit happening. Found out what the Eddie Money reference was all about. Saw Henry as an angel. Don’t know what the fuck that means. Slow danced with Rio. Someone was controlling the vessel and dancing to Die Antwoord. Dante, Animal, Rio, Teen. We were all together. Not really. It was showing us what could be. Needed to take notes.

Teen: “Imagine if I was my age.”

Animal: “Thaaat sentence doesn’t make any fucking sense! ”

cigaretteblues:

Harold in an interview for ‘Multiplicity’, 1996.

Let’s talk about full integration / final fusion where the parts are never erased and where being a whole-yet-multifaceted person is the goal of the fusion.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk about this. Then again, I don’t think that there are many systems on Tumblr who are at this point in therapy with this particular goal.

Final fusion is usually thought of as the merging of all parts into one self. Before fusion, there are metaphorical walls of dissociation between you and other parts of your mind. Whichever part of the mind is active is perceived as “Me” while the other parts are perceived as “Not Me”. After fusion, those metaphorical walls disappear, allowing all parts of the mind to become “Me”.

In the past, the westernized approach to self often led to therapists pressuring fully fused systems to stop valuing (or even acknowledging) that they had parts. It makes sense to me why those older systems would often compare fusion to death. In the present day, the plurality of self is being valued more. Especially with therapeutic practices like internal family systems, it’s more normalized to acknowledge that everyone has multiple parts to themselves.

When I fused with all of my parts for the first time, we still felt each other. We were one person with full access to each other, but also somehow still parts. We were connected parts and a single person at the same exact time. I thought that maybe I did it wrong, or maybe I wasn’t fully fused yet, but my therapist (who is from a culture where having parts is more normalized) told me that this is just another way that final fusion can be experienced.

So, full integration / final fusion doesn’t mean that parts have to go away. Maybe that’s how some people want to still do it. If someone wants to recover like that, please let them. But this is a type of final fusion that I have never heard talked about before. 

I often felt alone with this experience. I felt like no one would believe me if I brought this to Tumblr, because people can get so aggressive about fusion. Something that can be so beautiful is often shoved aside and attacked. I think it’s important to talk about this, though. Hearing about this can probably really help some people.

I want to share some statements from former DID patients who have fully fused, from this professional study. These statements helped me feel less alone with my experience.

Rebecca:

“Today I feel I am fully aware and present both as the collective of parts and as any individual part. That is, even when a part of me is present, there is a collective awareness of the experience.”

Irene:

“It gradually dawned on me that I could get some relief if I paid enough attention to the voices and their pain. I understood they needed to be heard… . My integration is about being in control, being aware, being able to understand myself. Whenever I’m anxious and I can’t understand why, I turn inside and I ask: What’s going on? I usually get an answer that either helps me deal better with an external problem or guides me as to how to calm myself down… . There is a clear advantage to my situation: I have better access to my subconscious than most people do. I call this ability Creative Disintegration.”

Loraine:

“I think the best way to describe my integration process is as a progressive one. First, there were brief moments of integration; later on I was integrated during some of the time but wasn’t on other occasions. This developed into a period in which I was integrated most of the time and then, into full integration with only momentary periods of disintegration… . It is a process of forward and backward movement on the dissociation continuum, but the general trend is towards a decrease in dissociation… . once you’re integrated, you don’t feel fragmented anymore, but in emergency situations there is a proclivity to utilize the mechanism for brief periods of time to help with coping.”

Some notes from the study:

“It is noteworthy that integration was not always described in terms of a renunciation of dissociative capabilities. Rebecca, Loraine, and even more so, Irene described occasional post-integrational awareness of the old psychological entities that once formed the personality alters… .  Whereas Sara and Tina talked about their lives as ‘one,’ others were clearly continuing to utilize some of the advantages of the dissociative process. It is probable, though, that rather than representing ‘imperfect’ integrations this variance portrays the naturally occurring distribution of dissociative phenomena in the population. It is, perhaps, not only an unreasonable expectation but also an undesirable outcome to have a useful defense mechanism, naturally occurring in society, completely abolished in this particular population.”

I think maybe it’s important to recognize that the boundary between multiplicity and fusion isn’t as clear cut as social media likes to make it out to be.

hey so can anyone recommend me like a good, factual website to learn about systems? we’re doing a genius hour project and I know most of the stuff already, but I can’t exactly cite headspace as a source lol.

every time I think I find a good one it’s like “and endos exist” but won’t elaborate or anything. and if yall think endos exist bc of religion or something then I can’t say anything about that in school, but scientifically, they can’t exist.

anyway if a website says that, then it’s not a scientific, factual, website. so I need some to cite.

not having enough time for hobbies when you’re a system

I feel like one of the things people don’t talk about as a system is that you can’t get the body to practice your hobby often enough to be good at it?

like m. m is a cheerleader. in headspace she’s incredibly flexible and can do super cool cheerleader shit. but even if she stretched every single time she fronted, it wouldn’t be consistent enough to get the body flexible. she’s tried.

and brynn loves baking. but she doesn’t front enough to bake enough to get good at it.

the only way to have consistent hobbies is when most of the members of the system enjoy it. and even then, it’s iffy.

I have a few hobbies I’ve gotten good at, just because I’m the host, but even little things like video games are hard. yesterday we passed a video game level easily and got more lives and power ups during it. so I decided to do it again, to get more, only to fucking lose all of it, because I had no idea who was cocon and who was doing what.

anyway hobbies are hard and not enough people are complaining about it so I will

-felix

Weavic [Attraction]

A form of attraction exclusive to members of the same system; described as a desire to integrate with another system member(s), or be in a partnership where the end-goal is some form of integration. Some people might consider this a form of plurelic attraction, while others might consider it autonomous.

Those who experience weavic attraction may feel feelings of wanting to be very close with, communicate/switch easily between, share responsibilities and/or struggles with, understand in a way others cannot, and/or be one in the same as another member, and may feel as though integration would make them feel more complete, or be the perfect form of partnership for all involved parties.

This may include partial / non-fusion integration, in which members break down barriers but do not become one in the same (creating smoother communication, switching, etc.), or it may specifically describe wanting to integrate in such a way that the parties involved become the same person.

A weavic “crush” is called a wrush (said like “rush”), and a weavic relationship may be called a weavingorweavingship.

This was made with my own personal experiences as a dissociative system in mind, but non-dissociative systems can also use this if integration of some kind is something they experience. I may not have used the most inclusive language because I don’t know the specific experiences of every system, but rest assured, if you’re a system that experiences integration, you can use this.

(Anti-integration weirdos will be blocked on sight. No, integration is not death, “killing your headmates” or anything like that. Don’t be weird and don’t demonize system functions.)

thearrowteam:

Alter Diversity

When I joined the DID community I thought that people would judge me because my system’s not “diverse enough” or call us fake cause we’re all somewhat alike. And I’m not talking about just “alters of color” and that whole discourse. I’m talking about how most of us have brown or blonde hair and brown eyes with nerdy looking glasses. I’m talking about most of us vaguely have the same fashion sense and hair style and pattern of speech. I’m talking about how most of us listen to the same music, like the same characters, have the same favorite colors.

I thought we weren’t different enough.

The first time I showed someone a picture of all of us they made a comment of lots of brown eyes, blonde hair and glasses. It made me feel weird then. Because I was already self conscious that we were faking because I we were so similar.

But I realized something. The body has dirty blonde hair, brown eyes, and nerdy black thick framed glasses.

It makes sense that most of us take form of that with slight variations. Because all together we make up this boy, I’m going to call him Arrow for convenience sake. Together we make up Arrow.

The differences that we do have in appearance all come from different aspects of our life (this is of course excluding introjects who got their appearance from source). We all need glasses to see so why wouldn’t we have glasses in the innerworld? Those of us with red hair split off more recently because the host died his hair red (with the exception of one alter who has red hair because the host used to be fascinated by red hair). We have blue haired alters because once Arrow died his hair blue. Our alters appearances are a relfection of our reality.

We don’t need to be diverse. We are one boy. Together we are Arrow. We don’t need alters who are diverse. We need alters that reflect our reality, because they are the ones who are best equip for it. After all that’s what alters are. Alters are a reflection of your reality that work together to cope with stress and trauma.

Your system doesn’t have to be diverse. Your system just has to be you.

PS. I’m not saying that having alters that look very different from the body isn’t valid. What your system had to split is what your system had to split to survive. It’s different for every system. This is about our system and why our system is the way it is.

- The Arrow Team

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Dysaltered

Dysaltered,or dysalt for short, is a term for disabled alterhumans, such as those who feel as though their disability impacts their alterhumanity or vice versa, those who are alterhuman due to disability, or otherwise has disability linked with alterhumanity in a sense. You can also spell it as disaltered or disalt.

Dysaltered people do not need to be any specific kind of alterhuman, nor any specific kind of origin or experience, to be dysaltered. Those who are alterhuman and disabled, but that are not impacted by each other, can still use this if they so choose.

As a concept or community, dysaltered focuses specifically on disabled inclusion, accommodation, and discussion within the alterhuman community. It may also focus on experiences only disabled alterhumans have, such as the impact of mobility aids.

This is an all-inclusive label in which many experiences under both the alterhuman and disabled umbrella may fit, and gatekeeping is strictly not okay. Any disabilities (physical, mental, etc.) are welcome, as are any diagnosis status.

This is NOT synonymous with “[origin] caused alterhumanity.” Any kind of alterhuman, spiritual, psychological, or otherwise, may be disabled, and thus may be dysaltered.

Flag, symbol, and description are by me, whereas the name suggestion was by the lovely @sunshinesolaic. Subterms, alternate flags and alternate symbols are welcome!

If you feel like you want to use this, but have a specific alterhuman identity and don’t feel comfortable simply using “alterhuman,” you’re welcome to use dys- as a prefix, like dyskin, dyshearted, dyslink, dystelic, etc.

Couple alternate flags below the cut.

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Me: *Trips, falls and bonks my head* *muffled pain noises come from my mouth*

Caregiver: Oh ouch Claudia are you ok?! *picks me up off the ground* No bleeding but you might bruise, do you want an ice-

Me: *ugly trying not to cry face*

Caregiver: Pfft what’s with that face? Is it cause I called you a crybaby the other day? I was just teasing, you can cry if it hurts.

Me: NUH-UHH I AM A TOUGH GIRL! DOESN’T HURT AT ALL! *bursts into tears*

Lessons Learned from a Year Listening to the Fictional Octopus in My Head

I think this article is relevant to a lot of the very stupid, wanky debate that I keep seeing going around my dash about TEENS SELF-DIAGNOSING WITH DID. It is a funny quirky article written by a literary fiction author about how one of her characters got into her head during the pandemic and started dispensing Wry Life Advice, disappearing as soon as the stressful situation ended.

there’s this bit that I think@pervocracy wrote, about how if your culture only had two words for ‘fear’, and one of them was “mild nervousness about passing a test” and the other was “the bone-chilling horror of being chased by zombies in a graveyard”, that keeps you from talking about a whole range of human experiences. if you have crippling social anxiety, or you have an uncommon phobia, or anykind of fear that isn’t 'mild nerves’ or 'IMPENDING PHYSICAL DOOM’? you’re stuck choosing between two words that do not suit your experience to describe what’s going on.

I think “the experience of having an entity in your head that is Not You” is actually remarkablycommon-waymore than 1%- especially among writers/artists/actors/fandom folks, and especially among anyone who’s going through a severe physical or mental stress. an entity like this can exist in varying degrees of independence-from-you and interest-in-the-outside-world. Sometimes this entity is a comforting presence, other times it’s a malevolent one. some disappear as quickly as they appear, and others stick with you for your whole life.

A lot of historical cultures had a framework to explain this kind of thing. “This is your daemon.” “This is your guardian angel.” “You’re hearing spirits; you’re possessed.” Mainstream Western culture rejected these explanations, and in some cases, rightfully fucking so. But we don’t really have a framework to replacethem.

So if you areexperiencing this phenomenon, because of how our society has decided to handle it, you really only have two words for it- “imaginary friend”, or “DID alter”. in the vast majority of cases neither of these words are appropriate, in the same way that severe social anxiety isn’t Test Jitters or IMMINENT FEAR OF YOUR LIFE.*

there is a widerange of human experiences here being collapsed into 2 points. but people who are having that experience are going to need the words to describe it. if you’re a published litfic author and the experience is over, you can write an article about it and just come off as a Little Quirky. if you’re a teenager on TikTok, the experience is ongoing, and the only word you’re being offered is DID? you’re gonna take that word.

we need more words for this range of experiences. we need more people to be able to talk about this range of experiences- including DID, which is a very differentexperience from Brain Octopus up there- without getting tarred as Bad Psycho Crazy. we need to stop arguing whether or not you can onlyhave this state of being from Severe Enough Trauma; we need to be able to accept it as a natural part of how humans are without judgement or shame.

*(Notsaying that having alters is the same thing as ZOMBIES IN A GRAVEYARD; it’s the Wide Range Of Intensity And Experiences that I’m comparing.)