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About Multiplicity by Sarah K Reece, via Dissociative Initiative

I really liked this read for the most part. It's all well written and opened up a few new doors on my perspective of the self. Even if I wasn't a system, I would probably still be 'multiple' in some sense because of it.

The paper isn't saying that certain experiences ARE multiple and that you HAVE to say you're multiple if you experience this. Just that these can fall under being multiple. It also talks about encouraging the voices of people who are multiple, whether they are thriving or struggling with their experience.

Multiplicity is a very broad term meaning any experience of more than ‘self’ in your mind or body. People have very different understandings of what it means to experience this ‘more than one’. In some cultures these experiences are considered sacred and valuable, in others they are seen as extremely negative and dangerous. People’s experiences vary widely from extremely distressing and life threatening through to deeply precious and life saving or enhancing. Some people’s experiences includes both extremes.

Some people may see these selves outside of their body as people they can talk to, but others do not. Multiplicity may be a temporary situation but for some it is enduring – this can be a good or bad thing. It can be confusing to become aware of the many different ways people can understand experiences of multiplicity, but it can also help to broaden our understanding and connect with others with a diversity of meanings and experiences.

(...)

Some people hear voices. Some have different genders on different days. Some connect with angels, ancestors, spirits, or ghosts. Some people experience possession, feel or believe they are haunted or have a connection with the spirit world. People with multiplicity may be shamans, madmen, disordered, Otherkin, disabled, traumatised, Soulbonded, or simply experiencing a natural diversity in humans (such as being gay or left-handed). It would take a large book to describe all the difference ways people understand multiplicity!

(...)

Unfortunately most of the clinical framework and language has been developed on the basis of things learned from the most distressed, overwhelmed, and floridly presenting people who have come into a lot of contact with the mental health system. While these people’s experiences are extremely important they are not the only experiences of multiplicity.

People with ‘lesser degrees’ of multiplicity also suffer when they have no language to talk about their experiences, people with all kinds of multiplicity suffer when they are presented with models that frighten them, don’t fit well, or predict severe suffering and incapacity. Everyone needs a voice, a language, the freedom to explore what works for them, and access to peers and possible role models.