eide

the Littles generally call my partners "Aunty" (yes, even the very blokey one) and obviously the partners call them back by their name (occasionally they aren't clear which Little it is and have to ask but it's usually reasonably obvious*)
But i hadn't thought, until just now when i needed to write something, of what's the right descriptive word for their relationship. In-System-neicelings was my not-very-satisfactory temporary solution but it doesn't really sound right.
Any suggestions?

We use Meta-baby/meta-Small for the poly-molecule (chronological) children so that isn't usable for this


*this is why we are slightly obsessive about signing texts because you can't always be obvious i that few charterers - though dwoucke and judiff both have fairly idiosyncratic spelling and phraseology

the problem with a system member choosing a family nickname as their personal name us that any time a family member uses that name for us that system member will come out.
And sometimes it's just not appropriate having an 8 year old talking to people or answering emails when we're supposed to be a singular grown-up...

Locket came out for a minute or two at Brighton Pride which was odd - she's not been around much lately and hasn't been out in ages(it was potentially predictable because she came out when she saw some "little gay doggys" - she loves little gay doggys and it's helped the us get her to be slightly more accepting/less worried she'll go to hell because of us being queer. Because God obviously loves the little gay doggys so just maybe it's possible that God doesn't totally hate gay etc humans too*)
Only softfruit and plumsbitch where around which was good because it meant our switching didn't freak out any stall goers. But softfruit had never met Locket before and plumsbitch had only seen her very very briefly once (do other plurals have nervousness about when their special-outside-people are going to meet all their system members? Specially the more challenging ones?).
And we'd forgotten to mention that Locket doesn't/finds it very difficult to use the bodies left arm so they were a bit worried we'd hurt ourselves somehow. Do other people know that already? I don't know why she doesn't but it's a very good marker for her being out. She came outs suddenly once when we were ice-skating and we ended up swerving abruptly!


* Locket's understanding of God is almost plural - here's the scary judgemental thunderbolt-throwing beard in the sky (judiff says what else do you expect from someone with a beard!) and the nice rather lonely old man who makes soup - which is the universe, and sits her on his lap to tell stories, loves cats and is sad rather than angry when he humans ignore what he tells them about being good to each other

Today was slightly odd (and interesting) because someone who we thought already knew that we're multiple and in the same system as judiff just worked it out. (I'm not planning to identify them in a public post but they are someone i feel entirely comfortable being out to)
It's made me think about whether i should be more out about it. The obvious worry is that people will think i/we are mad because we're plural (or as a lot of people will say because we "feel like/think" we're plural*). But we are mad - the full signed of work indefinitely/on DLA/having a lots of interesting diagnosis etc mental and it's hardly a secret. So does it mater what people think?
As far as any of us can tell being multiple is one of the least mad things about us. It's just a thing that is - like having straight hair or needing glasses. I think (for us if not for other systems) it has something to do with the spectrumness and central coherence etc but i'm not sure it matters where it comes from so much as that it's part where we are now.

A lot of people get plurality wrong. A lot of people prolly would discount us because of it. It's different somehow to more respectable types of mad like depression or PTSD. And it's not like we yet another reason to not fit in/be seen as weird.
Even people who say they get it don't always actually seem to.

Having to hide any part of your life is always spoon-depleting and difficult.

I'd like a safe way to test the waters a bit around people's attitudes but i can't think of a workable way to do that.


* like people have said about our PVFS/chronic fatigue and way back even about our dyslexia

judiff wrote a little in her DeadJournal about ageplay. We all find it incredibly squicky. And she was upset about ageplayers using words like "littles" which we think of as plurality words.
I'm really not wanting to know about ageplay either but i'm worried this could turn into one of those warms like between multiples and soul-bonders. Or the one between Trans people and Cross Dresers (which i only see from the outside but which impacts on people i care about). So maybe there needs to be some communication between the two communitys?

So i'm noddling some possible questions

Are there people who do both? Are the differences as clear as they seem to be in my head
Do we mean the same things by words like "littles" and "bigs"?
How can we not offend or insult each other?
How can we clear up any confusion from people within either community or outside it about which we are?

What else do we need to be asking each other?

I'm not really expecting anyone tcome up with any answers - at least not yet but where can we start with this?

i've just had a bit of a "friends" adding spree - but only of people who are already on at least one of our other freindslists. I don't acatully write here much but i thoughts you might like to be seeing the bigger picture. If you're confused there's a locked who's who post here
We've acatully been quite mid-continum and blended lateley. And i've proly been out a bit more than the othes when we have been being seperate - i don't know why that it because we've already extablised that although it's best i do the "grown-up things" it isn't good if i end up trying to run everything - i need the others.
I think we've also been very obvoiusly outwardly "autistic" lately - particuliary at bicon which was a bit of a flap-fest. I don't know if there's any connection between the two.

i'm somewhat worried we are going to get seriously mad again. But it hasn't happend yet which is good. There's even been happyness happening which is quite unusal really (big thankyous to the-happynes-making-people, hopefuly you know who you are).

Right now i feel like i need to piont out that our plurality is prolly one of the most functional things about us. We do a lot better as a team than any of us would seperately.
It's annoying sometimes to be both mad and plural because people assume they must be linked. I think our tendancey to dissosiate is linked to the PTSD but it's also to do with our autistic spectrum stuff (there's a side rant here about how growing up in the NT world and being forced to be as NT as possible is inherently traumatic for a spectrum person even if they don't experence the regular varitey of abusive stuff). And our pluraility does have soemthing to do with disosation even if it doesn't for other systems. But even allowing for that it's still the least mad thing about us (and anyway disatation is often quite sensible it's only madness if it gets out of control and habitual).
I couldn't do the stuff that i do on my own. I couldn't manage without judiff - she's got so much more motivation and determination than me. And i love the other kids too - so i can do looking after them far better than i can do looking after myeslf. And looking after them means doing some looking after myself stuff which is a bonus (i don't know how to do loving myself, i don't think i'm particularly loveable, and i can end up not doing any looking after myself stuff which tends to get messy in the long run).
I really hope the others never disapear like maisiemousie etc did.
I know judiff find me very annoying at times and it's quite difficult for me to out up with her stompyness. But i love her and i need her (it's ok to be co-dependant on system-mates isn't it?) and i think she's great (and i would say she was extreamly cool only me calling someone/thing cool prolly makes them uncool!). And the other kids are just lovely.

in my singlular persepctive journal i've started a sex and relationships strand/filter but of course with it being in my singular perspective journal i can never write about how being part of a multiple system effects (affects? i always get confused about which of those two words to use when) sex and relationships. And of course it does a big lot. I don't have the time or the engergy to write about it now rither but i just wanted to flag up that is was something i'm thinking about and need to disscuss with (outside) people (we're already discussing it internally quite a lot!).

i don't write here enough. Actually i don't write in my main suingular persepctive journal enough either). But i wanted to say something postive about being multiple.
I'm feel rather flat at the momnet. I'm not sure why, theres nothing i'm partiuclary uspet about although the cold weather and being glandy certainly doesn't help. I could very easly have stayed in bed all day today and done nothing. But that wouldn't be fair on the others, there are all kids and rely on me doing "the grown up stuff" that enables us to get by. And so i did get up and do a few things for their sake - i really don't think i would have been motivated enough without them.

there's going to be a documentry about mulitplicty tonight on channel 4. But it sounds like it's totally about the trauma model (and in a very extreme way). So it may not be very helpful and possibley counter-productive in explaing to people what we are like.

I supose we'll just have to wacth it and see