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eideToday was slightly odd (and interesting) because someone who we thought already knew that we're multiple and in the same system as ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
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 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
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no subject
Date: January 16th, 2010 12:21 pm (UTC)Well when people are coming out as gay sometimes they will talk abstractly about gay people and see what they get back... although it doesn't always "give accurate readings" because sometimes if people don't think you're gay they will be rude whereas if you say "I'm gay" then they'll be more careful because it's you. sort of thing.
So anyway maybe one way for sounding out people who are online would be to link from the "not out" LJ to a site like this:
http://www.karitas.net/blackbirds/layman/whatis.html
with some kind of open question/statement like "I was looking at this"
and see what comments you got
(but probably best to do a friends-locked post beforehand reminding people that it's a "not out" LJ, so as to warn them to remember and not start talking in public about your people!)
Coming out is tricky though. You never really know what response you're going to get until you're actually out and then you can't go back in!
so I'm not saying this is really the answer, it's just one possibility I thought of.