"Do You Understand The Violence It Took To Become This Gentle?"

not what I was going to write . but fine

🧟‍♂️ for the ask game!

It's me. Even when I mask, I've been told a couple times that I come off as too intimidating but especially if I'm not masking or if I'm triggered in a certain way. Assuming I'm not triggered, I see it more as assertiveness than aggression, but if I don't tone it down a lot, it can be jarring for people who are used to a different vibe.

I'm definitely not viewed that way within my system. None of my systemmates are scared of me anymore. They know I'm not going to do anything that would harm us. For a while now, I've also been functioning as a caretaker for our body and for anyone in my system who needs emotional support. So I think most of them see me as a source of safety, not fear. Took time to get there though.

in one of your answers you mention “The Four Co’s of Functional Multiplicity”

would you be willing/able to expand on that a little bit? /nf gen

I intend on making a whole post on this tbh!! So ill give you the basics- If you want, you can send in another anon with “hey this is the anon that asked for expansion on the four co’s” and Ill answer it directly with the link for the post when it goes up! Or just ask to be mentioned when it goes up- whatever works for you, works for me!

The Four Co’s of Functional Multiplicity are basically the four skills that you need to use in order to thrive as a system. They are as follows ;

Co-Consciousness

Co-Habitation

Co-Purpose

Co-Support

I’ll go through these in simple terms bc of said long post but basically

Co-Consciousness : this doesn’t necessarily mean everyone fronts at the same time, but refers to the passing of everyday memories that are important to function. Due to our trauma/types of trauma, it can be dangerous to share trauma related memories, so those are usually kept close to each alter and are worked on, in therapy, with said alter. Things we personally share are things like appointments, important dates, plans that are made, important events in our life (such as high school graduation), routine changes (such as getting a job), and self care memories (showering, eating, if we took our meds etc).

Co-Habitation : Quite literally- getting along and conflict resolution. For us that looks like openly communicating between alters, trying not to fight/torture/abuse each other, sharing time when asked or explicitly stated (such as X alter wanted to front to do XYZ activity, so they get to front for that), using polls to make big decisions, roundtable meetings on a weekly basis (which we struggle with, despite knowing how much it helps us), and learning healthy debating techniques (bc there is such a thing as healthy debate). This is one we struggle A LOT with, so I dont have the best outline for it.

Co-Purpose : Coming together to live a life worth living. This means things like a collective identity, working together to try and find a job we all like, deciding how we date, deciding where to live- stuff like that. We also struggle a lot with this one because, well,,,, we all have our own goals, and not all of us are willing to put that aside. So co-purpose also includes properly grieving that you simply dont have multiple bodies so you can’t just have “multiple purposes” if that makes sense. Like you can, hobbies and sharing time exists, but we can’t exactly split up and go to college or work in the fields we individually want. Does that make sense? Idk ill go more in depth in the actual post.

Co-Support : being there for each other EVEN IF you dont all get along. Helping others with coping skills, extending kindness to even the most ““evil”” alters. This one is so self explanatory that I wont even go into it more than this for the sake of the future post.

BUT YEAH!! Those r the four co’s of functional multiplicity!! I hope that answers it good enough until the post, godspeed.

is your system a council or a twitch chat

- 🥀

The thing is. Forcibly drugging someone IS violence. Forcibly restraining someone IS violence. Locking someone up against their will IS violence. Denying people basic bodily autonomy is inherently violent. Psychiatry is a carceral institution that commonly uses violence in the name of "treatment". But we as a society have accepted this violence as "necessary treatment", so instead of talking about the inherent trauma of forced treatment, we just pathologize mentally ill people for reacting to these violent acts with anything but calm acceptance. And while we basically never question whether it's acceptable to forcibly lock up and drug a mentally ill person, their very human attempts to defend their body against this violence will then be seen as "proof" that they deserve it and need it instead of the self defense it is

Dissociative amnesia is most often retrograde! This is why lots of people don't realize that they have more severe amnesia than they think.

What I mean by this is let's say your persecutor part switches in and says some horrible stuff. It's not necessarily that you (whoever was fronting before/the host) weren't there for those actions, but rather after the fact, the brain compartmentalizes those memories to stay with the persecutor part.

And adding onto this it can be localized, selective, or generalized (which is what often clues people in that something is seriously wrong and often only occurs during times of severe stress)

While dissociative amnesia can be anterograde (blocking the formation of new memories) that is seen more in dissociative fugue states or during active trauma.

my biggest advice for (especially but not exclusively new(ly discovered)) systems is... to take everyones advice with a grain of salt. whats good for one system is catestrophically bad for another. a lot of posts frame their advice as perfect and infallible (which i doubt is intentional on the posters part), but it really isnt. just do what works best for your system.

(bleeding from my wound) notice anythiung differebt about me ;)

yoou guys wont be laughing when i suddenly collapse unconscious and have to be taken to the hospital. then youll all see <- normal thought process to have while doing anything i dont want to

being abused or neglected really makes it clear how many things are skills that nobody really treats as. skills. exercising autonomy is a skill. listening to your body is a skill. resting is a skill. being liked and being loved are skills. nobody tells you how to do this shit because nobody even told me I was supposed to have learnt these things when I was a kid. I kind of just have to manually figure out what makes me freak out and work from there. unfair as shit