What follows on this page is a post
which I wrote on Sanctuary, in response to another user's
comments about people wanting to, or pretending to be Multiple
(i.e have Multiple Personalities, or Dissociative identity
disorder), and how that in itself could be invalidating and
hurtful to people who really were plural/multiple/dissociated.
The comments sparked off a thought process in me, because I had
been aware of the pull in myself towards wanting to be more
"plural" and "separate" than I in fact am. So
- here's what I came up with. The title of the post was "Confessions
of an MP-Wannabe"
Let me state from the outset that what follows are MY thoughts on MY behaviour. I am not speaking for or about ANYONE else here in Sanctuary or elsewhere.
When I came here, about 2 years ago now, I was in a place in my healing where I was looking at the different parts inside me. I had found a small girl, the classic "inner child" work.. through studying something about Transactional Analysis I became aware of the parental voice inside me. I was also discovering my inner teenager.. and, here in Sanctuary, I found a place where I could create characters for them; give them descriptions, names; find their voices, listen to them, let them speak and be heard.. all of which was incredibly healing and important to me.
However, there was the temptation for me then to take those parts - which I firmly believe are what psychosynthesis therapy calls "subpersonalities", and are in every single person alive, abused or not abused.. (my partner, who has never been abused, has found great help in discovering her own subpersonalities, and when we are together, we often talk in terms of "Little Inanna" or her inner teenager, or so on..) - the temptation was to take those parts and make them even more separate and distinct than they in fact are.
Part of this was because some of these parts I had so thoroughly disowned from myself - Pirate - the flirtatious, sexual part for instance - that I did not want to accept them as part of me.
It was also a wonderful chance to become something special, different, rare, interesting - not just another survivor, but someone who was plural, ... if my distress needed a reason, a label, a diagnosis to justify it.. part of it may well have been being influenced by people around me who I thought were incredibly cool and who were members of households.. wanting to be like them, to fit in, to be part of the cool crowd too.
Let me clarify - I never claimed to lose time, to fit the classic DID diagnostic criteria. But there were times when I wished that I did do so, that I would have some neat explanation for everything I was going through.
What I have come to realise is that I am ok just as I am. Me. Inanna. Containing different aspects/bits/subpersonalities/whatever you want to call them.. That I do not need a reason to justify my pain and my feelings. And that I can choose not to pretend to be something that I am not. I do still like Yavie's term "singtiple".. but then again, I think that everyone alive on this planet is singtiple to some degree or other.
I still come here as lilnannas, or Nan, or Books sometimes.. when I feel the need to get in touch with those parts of me, or I am feeling totally teenager-ish for whatever reasons.. I am sorry if my doing so causes offence to any "true" households or midcontinuum people here. I am also sorry if I have misled people in the past - and say that it was not out of ignorance, not out of a desire to hurt or invalidate what you went through, but was because I was still struggling to understand myself.
I have put some thoughts about this on line - and may add this to it. Thank you for bringing this topic up, for sharing your thoughts as a plural system, and for having the courage to post them.
Inanna
A more detailed essay about the parts of me, and psychosynthesis therapy...