#group effort

Actually how about no.

So something we've been thinking about lately was our syscovery. We speedran communication and acceptance. The first two headmates we knew about went from "What if we're a system?" to making out on the headspace couch in like, 2 days. Doubt died in like, 2 weeks to a month later. We discovered everyone already in the system after maybe 6 months? Maybe less, maybe more (hehe memory issues). Every therapist we've talked to about our system (okay so 3) has commented positively on our communication and system goals.

This isn't a brag (although we are pretty proud of this). No it's something we've on and off been examining to figure out why. Were we lucky? Are our barriers weaker? Did we make it all up and give ourselves DID?

What we keep coming back to is that opening line. We did romanticize it. We did treat it like it was fun and cool. We came at it with excitement and enthusiasm and curiosity. Faye abandoned all claim that the body and life were hers alone, embracing the weirdness and opportunity of being plural. She welcomed the idea of sharing it and having headmate friends. All of those things that "diminish, belittle, and trivialize" people who "really" have a disorder.

And the funny thing is, we don't deny this disorder at all. It's not all sunshine and rainbows. It never was. There's internal abuse. There's memory issues. There's trauma. There's fucked up shit.

But we think we got a head start on all of this work by thinking it's cool! We eagerly listened for our headmates' voices. We reveled in switching. We built headspace for fun and only found "real" uses for it months or more later.

proud mama