#forced dormancy

I feel like there is some things I can relate to and that brings some comfort.

I was wondering, the author of the intro post mentioned one of the old hosts integrating most of the then system members or shaping them to their liking. Any tips on how NOT to do that and how to, like, walk that back?

See, the old host died randomly one day in January 2015 and I kinda replaced her. From then on I’ve been pretty much alone to my knowledge until like 2023, which makes sense because I did not really come together as my own person until 2022.

I think my original purpose was mainly just masking and filtering what came out into the world because I keep doing that. I keep accidentally finding my way into embellishing, filtering, curating and modifying what others want to actually say or who they actually are, which is bad, and I want to stop doing that because I think that might be the main reason there’s so few of us and why the others’ grasp on the front, their identity and their choices is so weak.

Could also be that the first permanent resident was born the day before Christmas eve.

But still.

I don’t know.

And I thought maybe one of you would know?

Sorry if this is inappropriate.

- Eddie

Hello, Tulip here. Firstly I'm gonna have to be completely straightforward and say that, since I'm not in your head, any advice I or my headmates give has a chance of not working at all. But, this does give us the opportunity to talk a bit more about the situation I mentioned in the intro post. I hope what we share is helpful to you in some way. :)

(Answer below the break. Contains discussion of forced fusion and willing fusion/unfusion, and references to bullying and forced dormancy)

"I was trying to help –"

"By locking me away? Shoving me to the deepest parts of headspace where nobody can find me? You stored away their memories of me!"

"No! I mean, yes, but – Headmate A, please. You were hurting us."

Now that my pinned post is out of the way, I suppose should post something, yes? Allow me to give short reintroduction for those who haven’t seen my pinned. My name is Memento Mori, or just Mori. I aim to discuss and educate systems on dormancy in the hopes of making it less of a triggering and demonized topic.

So let’s begin, shall we? What is dormancy? In short, and by popular understanding, dormancy is when an alter’s job is finished and it is no longer needed by its system, so it stops fronting even when presented with triggers that would normally bring it to front. It does not appear in headspace nor does it exist in co-con. Dormant alters appear to vanish completely from the system. Some consider this to be ego-death or even genuine alter death, but it’s important to recognize that dormancy is not final. Dormant alters can and sometimes do return, oftentimes when the trauma that formed them also returns.

What about medically? Is dormancy even a medically recognized and used term? Well, in this article (🔗), Natalie Frank appears to recognize dormancy, but this is not all therapists and psychologists. In fact, Frank appears to be the only one to speak on it. Similarly to what was explained in the previous paragraph, Frank believes that alters go dormant because their jobs have finished, though their presences or the lack thereof still hold importance. Kind of like haunting the narrative.

What is important to note here, is that Frank and the general (system) public believe that dormancy is a good thing. What is not good, however, is forced dormancy. Forced dormancy is typically found among persecutors, prosecutors, and other harmful alters. Forced dormancy is, as you can assume, when a system forces its alters to go dormant even when their jobs are not yet done. From what has been observed, it can be concluded that forced dormancy is not real, or at the very least, that is not what it should be called by the general system public. Forcing an alter to “go dormant” should be more widely known as suppression.

Suppression is unlike dormancy in that it is harmful not only to the suppressed alter, but the system as a whole. A suppressed alter is still very much present within the system, so it can still influence front. If a system is suppressing a harmful alter, it has the potential to passively inflict intrusive thoughts and negative emotions onto the rest of the system. Those who claim that they need to suppress their harmful alters or “force them into dormancy” for sake of their mental or physical health do not often consider or realize these repercussions until it is already too late. They also do not often seek out other options, and jump straight to suppression upon hearing of it.

For those considering suppressing any harmful alters, please consider the alternatives as well as the repercussions and side effects of suppression. I’ve made a list of alternatives for suppression containing coping mechanisms for harmful alters that you can find here (🔗).

I have very few regrets in my life. Most of the things I've done wrong were either inevitable, not my fault, or led to even greater things down the line.

And this, too, is something I couldn't really have stopped - plurality as a concept didn't exist for me until I was... 15? 16? But I had a system before that.

I don't know how far back it goes. I don't remember anything past 2012. But I had a Protector. I had a girl who saw how hurt and scared and vulnerable I was and stepped out to defend me because I couldn't defend myself.

And she was horrible at it! We were like twelve! Neither of us could tell friend from foe so anytime I got mildly scared, she would wrestle control from me like a mask possessing my body and then she would hurt my friends! And I didn't know what was happening!

So I pushed her down. I shoved her someplace cold and dark and tried to forget her. Tried to make her stop existing. Tried to make it all stop existing. Because normal people don't talk about their emotions like they're separate people, they don't change their name or role-play as 5 people at once to have a dialogue about "<deadname> is sad".

And the others are gone. There's aq ghost in one of the rooms, but I don't know if she's real or just a feeling. An imprint of what was.

But Vy never stopped fighting. She never stopped moving. Even after everything I put her through, everything she's suffered, even as I saw her at the edges of the Void and tried again and again and again to lock her out, she never stopped.