alright, read a few posts and THINK this hasn't been asked, but who knows, may have been idk.
so a lot of the tips i've gotten for discovering if you're plural are very akin to the "look back at your past experiences" thing. but like... what if you can't really do that?
like, just for a bit of context, i'm homeschooled in a small town filled with mostly right wing christian conservatives, so already not good for me, the aroace person, who is also one of the only autistic people in my towns "age group" so to say.
i saw some of your tips being "have a plural friend help" or just "have a trusted friend help" but like... i don't have either. and ive shown some of the obvious and common symptoms for being plural, but honestly? the showing symptoms of it was likely almost exclusively due to a defense mechanism. now that i'm not in regular school, aka not being constantly bullied for things i can't change about myself, i can't really do it anymore. even if i try. which is weird considering i was subconsciously doing it just a few months ago, like i would wake up as "normal anon" and when i got to school i would suddenly just be "quiet and bullied anon", and then go back to "normal anon" as soon as i got back home.
and yeah, that's almost textbook definition plurality, except for the part where i can't do it anymore. do you have any ideas?
like is this just a weird defense mechanism i've done because of being bullied, or is it just me being plural and not realizing? or could it be both?
and if the answer is that i'm just plural, how would i even do the stuff like "having headmates" like everyone else? i've tried everything i can think of, which is honestly not much, only like 2 things, and neither worked.
and before you say anything about just being plural for a day, i've got an issue with that as well. it's like... i TRY to try it out, but like i just feel guilty about doing so. like as if im just pretending to make up an excuse for past experiences. and it just stops me from doing anything cause it genuinely feels horrible.
i've also been told "look at your past experiences with a different lens, like trying to see what could be different people fronting subconsciously" (not exact wording) but that also doesn't work because almost everything i've done is almost fully explainable with me not being plural. and those other parts that aren't explainable with me not being plural are explainable if you just look at it through the lens of "yeah that's probably just a defense mechanism"
and honestly i just don't know what to do.
like i showed very obvious signs before, just not anymore. like now i just don't show any sign at all, except for wanting to, according to some people. and for the being unable to try it out, i honestly can't think of anything to describe it. like the closest word i know of would be victim complex, and calling it that is just fundamentally wrong, because it's not even close to the definition of the word. it's like say an external sort of victim complex (i honestly have no better word) where i just feel bad about it for no reason at all.
please, if you read this entire thing, suggest something. anything really. anything that i haven't said i've tried might be helpful at this point.
we kept hesitating on responding to this one and we eventually realised it's because we have no plurality advice because it's not a plurality problem!
honestly anon, you gotta (for lack of better phrasing) get out of your own head and get out there! fight that guilty feeling! go make friends on the internet! plural or not!
you're isolated, and judging yourself way too hard, and totally weighed down with guilt - you gotta grab hold of something real! you need another voice in the game! you can't do this kinda self exploration in this state, you gotta find somewhere to breathe first!