#dormancy

Hello all! I made this post explaining about what this survey is, but I'll restate it again for anybody who may be new to this.

What I aimed to do was create a survey that focused on the phenomenon of in-system death and dormancy, and what that looks like in systems. I opened the survey in December 2024 and left it open for a whole year to allow as many systems as possible to contribute. This garnered 121 unique participants who shared their experiences! An amazing turnout. Below, I'm going to give a brief overview of what I learned from this study, and then I will include a link to the document with the full results, which is 26 pages long. (Link to the full document here.)

[Image Description: The title "System Death Experiences" with the subtitle "the results" over a photo with moody or gloomy composition featuring a bouquet of pale pink and light red flowers and green leaves/stems.]

Image credit.

Fronting Frequency Term ; Dormant

ID - Left: Domant (Pink) , Right: Dormant (Red)

A flag for alters who are currently dormant for whatever reason.

identity confusion / blurriness

Identity confusion is a pretty common state. Blurry, or foggy, is sometimes how we refer to it. It will pass in time. It's not fun, I know, but it will pass. Rest, recover. You will be okay again.

We've been there for a few weeks at a time sometimes. Usually the best way out of it is to make sure you sort out anything in your environment that might be making y'all feel unsafe or otherwise pressured beyond your current ability to tolerate.

Focus mainly on the essentials, on self care routines, on the immediate things that need sorted out, and making sure you eat and sleep enough. Look after your body. And if there's sources of stress, do what you can to either avoid, escape, or disarm them, or else push through them and solve what can be solved.

internal reorganisation

Sometimes, this kind of state can be a sign of the system internally reorganising or restructuring, that does happen from time to time. Not the most fun, but… it is sometimes necessary. As far as we know, it's not something you can control. It's just something that happens as needed, and we weather it as best we can.

What happens exactly depends on the system, and it might not be noticeable at all. Usually it's pretty minor, sometimes a few traits get shuffled around, sometimes roles. Sometimes memory ownership changes.

Some systems do have larger / more extensive reorganisations and it can involve fusions, splits, or just… new headmates showing up. That might sound scary, but it's pretty normal, honestly. It'll be alright; it just takes time for things to settle.

what if my headmates disappear?

Solid "it's complicated" on that one. It's something we've worried about a lot in the past, and there are definitely some headmates that aren't as active for us at present as they used to be. But… I don't know, we've never felt like they're gone, either.

I would say, definitely make efforts to remember them, regardless. We like to collect little bits of info in headmate profile pages, memories, drawings, preferences, things they've written, whatever. If they stick around, great, you have some good anchors and things they can work on. If they happen to not, they're still remembered and a part of you all the same, just in a different way.

Not every headmate is necessarily always going to be around front is a thing, too; lots of systems have a lot more mainly-internal or internal-only members, those which operate more invisibly and seamlessly, or just prefer to take a back seat rather than be dealing with things in front.

Personally our tendency is to never assume parts of our system are gone, we don't think anyone truly disappears. Is no longer in front, sure. Is maybe not in the same form they were in, or the same function and role and interaction patterns… sure. But... they were part of us once and they always will be, even if the exact way they interacted with the system has changed or grown less overt in some way.

To exist is to change, and that's true for systems too. Headmates change, the system dynamics shift, but generally nothing is gone… just changed. Sometimes it bears grieving, for many possible reasons, but often… we're all still here, still together, still ourselves, all the same. Even if it's not quite how we'd have liked to be in perfect circumstances.

Additional Resources

Handling the "Silent Periods" by Phosphor of the Hungry Ghosts

question for systems in general, sort of two in one: do you experience grief in relation to headmates going dormant, dying etc? if yes, how do you deal with it?

This question is for all systems, regarding grief and dormancy.