Day 2: Talk about a surprise that made you happy. (NaBloPoMo), When did you work out you were plural, and what were some of the adjustments you had to make after finding it out? (Plures^K, December Blogging Meme)
This is one of those weird things where it's our discovery of our own neurodivergence that was a happy surprise.
I identify as plural, meaning that there's more than one person sharing this physical body. It's actually a kind of relief. I'm never alone and I never have to be the only one doing something -- there's always someone who's good at something that needs to be done!
I'm not sure when exactly we worked out we were plural. We started off in the soulbonding communities not long after we first came over to LJ back in 2004 (we made our first account in 2003, but didn't end up using it until 2004).
At some point in, I think, 2004 or 2005, we had a huge over-the-phone fight with a suicidal classmate/"friend" named Casey, and Ryou (Bakura Ryou, YuGiOh!; on our website and on plural sites, he usually goes by Nathan) kind-of projected himself as comfort. That story's
here on Deviantart.
During high school we were a fairly small system (I think there were 6 of us at the largest point).
In college, we just kept picking up more and more headmates. Most of them with trauma experiences that didn't match the body's experience. Learning to manage triggers and related dissociation without any previous knowledge of how to do this was probably the biggest adjustment.
Nowadays the biggest adjustments are still similar: managing triggers, managing related dissociation, also finding low-cost workarounds for the headmates that need additional accommodations, and dealing with the fact that a few of us bypass the voice-filtering system, which can get annoying when our parents don't really understand plurality, particularly when younger parts/headmates [we have both] are fronting and sound childish.
