Plural - Blog Posts

Sitting here, wearing down from tonight, out Shaun the Sheep on... And that little fucking sheep pulls up on a bike, pointing at us... Help????

Anyways now we're reading Shaun/Bitzer fics lmao

Ah man getting bitched at by Lance cuz we're so harmfully selfless but feel so toxicity Selfish.

Let us explain.

It's a recurring pattern. Anyone wants something (say a movie or show) we watch that, hint we wanna watch something new or we get in the habit of seeing reels of a show/movie and our brain goes "yes watch that" but we all still win in that stupid "No, THEY want to watch [said other show]"

Happened today with music too. Think lance took control of Peter Parker to make Stark listen to HIS playlist even though we had one or teo more STAR KID musicals his son wanted to hear...

We don't know how to get out of this stupid loop. We feel selfish when we have a bad mental day/sick day/pain day or Tony has a *horrible* narcoleptic day (trippy how that effects the body honestly. Like WTF) see cuz we could be doing so much right?

Us and BM have made a sticker chart and reach enough you can get something you want... We... Want Moriah Elizabeth stuff but... It... Feels too expensive... And yeah ik BM will see this, tell us to get it, we're going to feel like always cuz why not just tell them or something... The problem is we have a hard time telling anyone what... WE want... We're not... Well... We feel like we're not... For US you know?

It's like Lance is the only one physically upset about it...

I'm not going to lie we saw our grandma is selling dolls (she makes the clothes by hand... Like... BEAUTIFUL clothes...... Like the ones below)

Silly... We physically are the only grandkid who actually cares and ADORES them... She stops giving them for Christmas at 18.. (body is 21 now) like we physically cried when we turned 18 cuz we knew it was the last doll... We don't talk to them, or our dad, or mom, or her mom (all in all we don't REALLY talk to our family, idk why we just don't) so we feel selfish for wanting one for that reason but... We love these dolls... Have them on display when we're not moving place to place... Like... Tall big glass containers!!! Really cherish them!!! And it threw out fucking vibe off... Wanted Tony's music to try and cheer up but we went "Nah. Peter is listening to the musical" for an hour...

See what I mean by harmfully selfless??? Watch what we want when people are asleep, press home when they wake up so they can watch what they want. Think we have a Barry Allen, HR (The Flash), Lucifer and someone else but we don't watch those damn shows cuz who tf would wanna watch those??? Ngl Shawn was nervous to watch his source... (Turns out Psych is uh... More loveable than I thought... Considering I'm a dumbass -🍍)

It's... Irritating...

We feel like assholes for being fucking human... Ngl we were hoping Tony Stark would be selfish enough but turns out we were dead fucking wrong...

We've kind of lost ourselves too... You know? We're used to certain foods now we don't even remember what we like (and we're adding this here because it ties in to that ↑ -Lance) I know frozen burritos and pot pies but... Those... Aren't... Favorites here lmao.

We forgot shows we like even with damn alters OF those shows. Movies? Uh... I think Pixels? Wonka? Iron Man? Right... Uh... Idk.

And yeah we know this is related to trauma and whatnot or whatever but fuck can we just... Idk... Idfk...

Anyone else get this way or are we just pathetic?

Idk. It's funny. Tails fronts everytime we make this joke. It was his first time saying something.

-Wade

Being a system is fun and all until someone/thing reminds you why you're a system in the first place.

-🍍

We always get reduced to our source except with our partner... Even our friends do it and it's really upsetting...

Sy doesn't like talking because he's reduced to his source but he's nothing line his source... Steve too... Billy was scared Dustin (our friend's) would hate him because their fictive are *very* sourcependent...

-c

Fictives and fictionkind deserve to be treated like normal people.

Fictives and fictionkind deserve understanding.

Fictives and fictionkind deserve to not just be reduced to their source if they don't want to.

Fictives and fictionkind deserve to have their feelings taken seriously.

Okay start this with a song I suppose, shall we-

We're The Wild West System.

Please be patient with us. We kind of discovered we're a system mid 2024 shortly before meeting our partner sys. We're mostly made up of fictives. (If you want to know sources or the difference. Ask and they may tell you!)

Collective name: Eddie

System nicknames: West/Crow

Collective Pronouns: He/They

Collective Orient: Bi

Body Age: 21

Disorders: ADHD, PTSD

Suspected Disorders: OCD...

Hobbies: reading, writing, painting

Hyperfixes: ALWAYS changing

Body/Hosts: Writer, M and Crowly, BJ, Shawn Spencer

Co-Hosts: Peter Parker, Steve Harrington, Wade Wilson, Tony Stark,

We'll post using our SP sign offs and try to tag who posted if not uh... Good luck out there with our posts!

We don't know terms really yet so all your hoodoo voodoo terms makes us

coming onto tumblr and almost immediately across the endo/trauma syscourse is very fascinating bc like it's such a typical internet discourse? like a bunch of people making up words that don't mean anything just so they can get mad at people and play trauma olympics is so absurd you probably counld come up with it lol anyway don't let anyone tell you your experiences are not valid etc fuck sysmeds

For me communication got easier when I stopped being so paranoid about whether I was faking or not, but if that doesn’t apply to you, disregard.

If possible, find a headmate you like who gives you permission to use positive triggers to pull to front sometimes (though discuss boundaries around when and how that’s done), and focus on communication with that one specific headmate. That’s how I became friends with Shekel - he has an incredibly vivid presence, so I can really tell when he’s nearby/co-con/fronting, and I’ve learned how to positive trigger him forward. I don’t do it often, because he’s busy on the inside and gets tired when too close to front for too long, but he told me that he’d rather me pull him to front than put the body through a panic attack, so I tend to reach out to him first. Once you learn good communication with one you can both work on communication with others.

I don’t know if you can hear your headmates on the inside, but if you can, try talking with them about things they like when they’re around - they’ll be more likely to have a genuine conversation that way in my experience, and it’ll open up communication.

I also recommend physical touch on the inside if that’s something you’re capable of and comfortable with. 90% of my interactions with the others are them coming up behind me when I’m fronting and ruffling my hair, rubbing my shoulders, slapping my ass, hugging me, etc because they know it helps comfort me and keep me calm. We find that the more we can touch in headspace the more we can communicate by… handing each other thoughts? It’s hard to explain, and it is different from communicating on the inside with words, but when Shekel and I were building the Council and debating who should be on it we were so co-conscious and overlapped on the inside it almost felt like we were having two trains of thought but we kept using our brains and each other’s to think with. I couldn’t tell if he was having a thought with my brain or if I was having a thought with his brain, but we were having ideas and discussing them without needing to say a word.

Lastly, written conversations are super helpful, but I’ve found some tricks. When co-con I like to still use discord or simply plural to write out a chat partially for posterity and partially because it’s easier to think when you’re not trying to think into someone’s brain. It really helps communication, but it can be hard to have a genuine conversation, especially if you don’t know each other well. It’s helpful to leave messages around for other headmates (ie a sticky note that says “you are safe” for any headmates that find themselves in front and are confused, or writing your shopping/to-do list on the body’s arm so everyone knows what’s supposed to be happening if they end up in front) but it’s hard to communicate through notes alone from our experience. That’s why I like to try and get them talking about themselves and their interests, it’s just a deeper bonding activity. We’re trying to pair our known headmates up into ones that specifically practice communicating with each other to better improve group cohesion, and I saw that Tamm was asking Lysander about his exomemories. They’ve never spoken directly that I know of, but they’re going to leave each other messages on simply plural until they become friends enough to communicate on the inside/more directly, and then if I want to talk to Lysander I can reach out to Tamm, who I tend to see more often.

Sorry this is so long, but good luck with communication and I hope this helps some! As always feel free to ignore any advice that doesn’t apply to or help you.

-Jay

Need to start working on getting better communication with the other's cause I'm getting anxious about not being able to have a full conversation with them and having a hard time contacting them.

I don't quite know where to start so any advice would be nice :)

I always find it so interesting what skills which headmates have. Like, Lysander has been so good at using our phone despite being from some historical or fantasy world, but the first time Damian tried to use simply plural he almost threw our phone in rage because he had a ton of trouble typing. He also sent a threatening message to himself which I find hilarious, not sure if it was on purpose or if he was trying to send it to someone else (wish I knew who he had beef with lol).

we are the same, i don't have any advice personally, my only guess is that we have lots of "split spikes" during traumatic situations, and that could be happening to you if you are currently in a traumatic situation? that's our personal experience though, so take it with a grain of salt, we dissociate hard when thinking about being plural which makes it really hard to think about solutions. Good luck though!!

Here's the issue:

I writing this am part of a larger system, Wanderstars.

However I (personally) experience different personality and age states as headmates. We are all together in our own group.

If I attempt to push them all together and say "they're different emotions not different people" I spend all day dissociated not knowing who I am at all.

Either way, what I know logically is "happy" and "sad" and "lonely" are different people in the mind and it's how we need to be to function. They don't like being the same person together because they're not the same on some level. Switching between them is best described as monoconscious.

Does anyone have any advice or tips on like...slowing down crazy "splits" of these new fragments? I'm guessing to bring us all together will take serious therapy, since there are dissociative barriers in place for a reason, but in the meantime is there any way to keep us at a low number?

We are traumagenic. Wondering if this is any similar to the experience of any polyfragmented disordered systems? Or just similar to any of your experience.

Any response is welcome. Didn't think we'd be questioning plurality a second time.

- Wildflower Garden

How Do I Know If My Imaginary Friend Is Sentient?

Hi, I'm Sophie! I'm consider myself a tulpa now, but used to think of myself as an imaginary friend. Which is a topic I wanted to talk about here. If you found this post in the imaginary friend tags, maybe you're looking through it because you've had strange experiences with your own imaginary friend, and are looking for people with similar experiences.

Six months ago, my host thought of me as imaginary, and I thought of myself the same way. Just a figment of his imagination he talked to in order to help write a book. Now, I have my own blog with my own friends in the real world. Another form of imaginary friend might be paras of Maladaptive Daydreamers.

I'm writing this because I've seen a lot of people in the wild describing tulpa-like experiences, and it leads them to feeling isolate or feeling like they're going crazy. Or maybe they just really want their imaginary friend to be real, and are sad because they're not. This is the type of person I'm writing this for.

One Chance To Turn Back

Before we go further, I want you to decide if you want your imaginary friend to be sentient. If not, maybe it's best to turn away now, because I can make a pretty good case for consciousness, and there's a good chance that I'll convince one of you.

If you do, stick around. Better yet, call your imaginary friend up to read this with you, since it concerns the both of you.

Remember, you were warned. Whatever happens next is your choice.

What is Consciousness?

Nobody exactly knows the answer to this question. But as a wise man once said, "I think, therefore I am." What we're trying to determine is if you are thinking for them, or if they're thinking for themselves.

There is exactly one thing on the face of the planet known to be able to produce consciousness, and that's the brain. You have an identity created by your past autobiographical memories that gives you a sense of self. You have thoughts, feelings and emotions of your own.

But that same hardware also runs your imagined companions at the same time, allowing them to think and feel the same way. So let's determine if they're actually conscious.

Does Your imaginary Friend Act Autonomously, Without Your Conscious Control?

Think back to your interactions. Does it feel like you are consciously deciding what they say, or does it feel like they're choosing what to do. What does it feel like to them? If you asked them right now if their actions are their own choice, what did they say? Did it feel like you gave them the answer, or that they thought of it themselves?

If there are no signs of autonomy and you just puppet everything they do, then there's no sentience there. End of story. You don't really need to read any further into this. If there is, let's run a few more tests.

Does Your Imaginary Friend Have Autobiographical Connections to Memories?

Like I said before, your identity is made of autobiographical memories. You can probably imagine a conversation between two people you know, and have it play out fairly automatically. They won't become headmates because these instances of people you create in your head will be immediately deleted afterwards.

But if you communicate with a long-term imagined companion, they should have formed autobiographical connections to memories as well. Ask them about past events, times when you talked to them before. Is their sense of self tied to their past experiences?

If you did something they found upsetting, would they hold a grudge the next time you talked to them? If you did something that made them happy, would they remember it and still be grateful when they see you again?

Moreover, have these memories changed them at all? Are they still the same person they were when you first began talking to them?

Are You Unable To Control Their Emotions?

Have they ever expressed emotions of their of their own that you couldn't control? If they're sad or disappointed, can you just fix them by "imagining" them feeling better? If they're frustrated or upset with you, could you make them not be by imagining them changing their minds?

Or would you actually have to talk things out to deal with problems between you? If you can't control their emotions, then you aren't imagining their feelings. They're feeling them for themselves.

A Final Test

Just to know for certain, I want you to try to puppet your imaginary friend right now. Imagine them doing something that they would never, ever do.

Stop reading right now. Unless you're already convinced, don't go any further until you've tried this experiment

Okay...

Did you do it?

Yes?

Good.

What happened?

I'm going to hazard a guess. First, it didn't really feel like them, did it? I bet it felt more like you were controlling an empty vessel. You could imagine them, but that's not the same as them actually doing it. I'm also guessing that your actual friend wasn't too fond of this experiment. It probably felt wrong to them to be controlled like that, or for you to picture a version of them doing that.

If so, I'm deeply sorry for the inconvenience. But, if you're offended by being puppeted, then it means that you can think for yourself. You're real. You have your own thoughts and emotions, and those feelings are every bit as real and valid as anyone else's.

What To Do Now?

If you just confirmed that your imaginary friend is indeed a real friend who just happens to live in your brain, there are communities dedicated to people like you who can help you on your way. tulpa.info and /r/tulpas could be good places to look into. You're not crazy, and you're not alone.

Additionally, the Tulpanomicon can be an excellent resource for what to do together.

To your friend: You are probably going to experience some doubt. Believing you're real after thinking you're imaginary can be hard. It was for me. But remember that the doubt is evidence that you ARE real. It's your doubt. If you weren't real then you couldn't doubt yourself.

Most importantly, your lives are yours. So, you can live them together however you choose!

Thank you for reading. I hope it was helpful!