you are in your mid forties, and have this friend who's your age that you've known for decades
except you two sort of lost touch a few years ago. he's been busy with work, and now he's kinda famous? good for him!
but now your friend has this... buddy - a man half your age (about twenty years your junior)
your friend tells you he's written a will that says all his estate goes to this buddy. like, your friend is a childless bachelor, so its not like he has a clear heir, but like. this doesn't add up. your friend always was... eccentric, queer if you will, but you didn't expect him to do something like this
and when you finally meet this buddy, you hate him. everyone you know hates him. the buddy is an asshole, and just being around him is enough to unsettle you. something's deeply wrong with him, but you might also just be biased
and also its really vague where this buddy even comes from? neither the buddy nor your friend will tell you. they've asked you to stop asking, and you aren't going to break the law to violate their privacy
also. you keep hearing these weird rumors. your bestie says the buddy is satanic. your friend's staff say that the buddy is nocturnal and doesn't eat. the buddy also seems to be able to travel completely undetected in the city and disappears randomly
what do you assume your friend and his buddy are?
buddy is your friend's bastard son ONLY
buddy is your friend's lover ONLY
buddy is your friend's apprentice ONLY
buddy is your friend's apprentice and lover
buddy is your friend's apprentice and bastard son
buddy is a demon your friend summoned for success faust-style
buddy is a vampire and your friend is a thrall
buddy is a random ne'erdowell blackmailing your friend
something else??? (please tell me what you'd assume without context)
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Wait, I don't get it, what's the difference between dissociative disorders and IFS? I thought it wasn't normal for presences that are not you to have their own beliefs and voice and emotions and sometimes take control of you but if I understand it correctly isn't that just what IFS is? So if I'm getting it right having parts that want to do their own thing that contradicts all the things you want to do and be is something instinctual that people force themselves to unlearn, in which case I don't think I quite get the difference between singlets and systems? Like aren't all systems just...people who are good at IFS?
ding ding ding, we have a winner
prefacing this with - i am not a therapist. i am a DID diagnosed system who has been undergoing IFS therapy
IFS is a therapy style that originated with a therapist trying to treat a singlet with an eating disorder. it wasn't a case of this being an entirely separate personality, or a case of her blacking out and this part piloting the body. the therapist had tried everything he could think of to help her remain mindful and not give in to the eating disorder
the man mainly worked in family therapy, which is about mediating conversations between different people and helping them find a solution that works for everyone present. out of curiosity, he started treating the situation like family therapy, and started talking to the part of that patient who needed the eating disorder. by identifying that there is some part of the patient who liked some of the effects of the eating disorder, speaking to that part directly allowed the therapist, the patient, and the part to find a way to give that part a better outlet for those concerns
IFS is a tool specifically designed to help singlets who have other disorders identify that they have parts who are trying to protect them
a part with an eating disorder might see itself as protecting the Self from other people's judgements
a part with an anger disorder might be trying to defend the Self from betrayal
a part with extreme depression might be bottled up emotions Self won't let itself touch so it can function in society
a part with a substance abuse disorder is trying to help Self avoid pain
its normal for singlets to behave in ways they know aren't the way they want to behave ideally. a singlet is someone who, most of the time, can function as one singular identity. IFS steps in when that singlet finds themself with some behavior they dislike and can't shake, and helps them narrow down why they're doing what they're doing
according to the IFS model, everyone starts out as a system, many fragments of identities and thought patterns and behavioral patterns. a baby has no concept of a singular identity. throughout childhood, the kid learns more about themself and most thought patterns fuse together into a singular identity
a dissociative system is a single body that experienced circumstances that didn't allow those parts to fuse together, or circumstances to force those parts back apart. the way that somebody lived was too disruptive and fluctuating for that somebody to handle as a single person, so multiple identities grew up alongside one another and became a system
the only difference between a singlet and a dissociative system is that the singlet believes it only has one set of thought patterns and beliefs. for a vast majority of the population, that's all someone needs
however, IFS therapy has been given to scores of singlets, and they come out of it as endogenic systems. there are no memory gaps for them, but these singlets in IFS generally become endogenic systems. they don't seem to come into plural communities, probably because they don't really consider themselves to be proper systems. however, ive read transcripts of singlets' sessions in IFS, and i believe they undergo endogenic syscovery
i don't believe in clinging to disorders and their definitions. a disorder is a type of behavior that researchers have encountered frequently enough that they want to warn therapists that these behaviors exist and guide them in how to help somebodies with those disorders
imagine you have people exploring a jungle. you have a group that's been walking thru the jungle for years, and a group that is preparing to go into the jungle for the first time. the experienced group made a book for the new people, and it identified broad categories of animals they will see. "this is a frog, its a small slimy animal that jumps around and has a long tongue" "this is a panther, it is a large furry animal with sharp teeth and roars", etc etc. the new people go into the jungle and encounter a salamander and a tiger. the salamander is similar to the frog, but it isnt a frog. the tiger is similar to the panther, but it isnt a panther. however, because those animals are similar enough to what the experienced group described, the new people know how to interact with the salamander and the tiger
this is what the DSM is. it's not a definitive list of every type of disorder a person will ever encounter, its guidelines for therapists to identify what their patients are experiencing, or similar things to what that patient experiences, and to guide therapists on types of treatments that might help the patient
when i started IFS therapy, my therapist told me that because i had already identified that i am part of a system, we can skip step one of IFS, which is learning what a system is. the second step is identifying parts, which went a lot faster for us because we had already started to track altera. the later steps of IFS are focused on getting these parts to talk to one another, which is different for dissociative systems, because cofronting might not be easy
the post that sparked that rant was saying that "because hyde was created by a potion, jekyll and hyde can't be a system". however, i believe a system is about what the end result looks like, not about the circumstances under which the system syscovered. jekyll in the book says he identified a long time ago that he had multiple parts of himself, and that the potion helped him give hyde an easier time coming to front. that sounds like a system to me
or that show severence, where people undergo brain surgery to become a system. those parts of themselves, the happy leader, the zealot, the diligent worker, the rebel, they existed in those people before the surgery. they just didn't need or couldn't find those parts because of the life they lead. they became systems and those other parts of themselves became people in and of themselves. an outie choosing not to let that innie have the ability to front anymore feels like murder to an innie
the only difference between a singlet and someone with a disorder is when the system with a disorder isn't able to function well in the environment they are in, because the circumstances that caused them to form borders between these parts are no longer present in their lives. a person who experiences abuse and develops alters to cope with that abuse only becomes disorderly when that person is removed from the abusive situation
disorder means "the current setup isnt working". dissociation is a disorder when it prevents the person from living a life they and the people around them enjoy. its the same thing with OCD or narcissism or low-empathy, etc. its only a disorder when the behaviors keep that person from experiencing a life they can enjoy, or cause them to directly impact others
being a system isnt necessarily a disorder. being a system isnt some magical prexisting thing that we discovered that a person only experiences when they go through a specific set of circumstances. the world we live in is extremely complex, and many people find it comforting to have multiple parts who each excel in navigating the world in different ways
the game disco elysium did an excellent job representing this. the main character is a system with 26 parts and a Self (host). the Self is able to converse with different parts to decide how the body will interact with the outside world. harry is much closer to the type of system people become under IFS, than the type of system i am part of. the difference is that harry has a concept of Self. he has one singular identity that he uses to make decisions on which parts can be listened to at any given point. we don't have a host. we don't have a singular identity
im not going to police other systems and how they structure things. i am, however, going to defend everybody's capacity to contain multitudes. i think a lot of issues come up when people are too afraid to let themselves be contradictory or have multiple ways they want to be. i think a lot of people would be happier if they could admit that
hi, i'm putting together a hydeverse rp server. we've already got some members, but we'd love to see you there
premise: hyde has basically no description in the novella. how do you see hyde? did you make an AU? hell yeah! what if those hydes could meet? what shenanigans might occur if we set them loose in a world of dream-logic and shifting settings?
just wanna check it out without playing? totally fine! lurkers are welcome. its supposed to be a very low stakes project. just wanna ramble about your hyde in our hyde-lore channel? go for it. just wanna see the different hydes? hell yeah!
i've seen a lot of you saying you're throwing your hyde into the hydeverse. come do that for real!
Check out the hydeverse community on Discord - hang out with 34 other members and enjoy free voice and text chat.
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Hence it came about that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a profound duplicity of life (two identities). Many a man would have even blazoned such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost morbid sense of shame (exile alter as host). It was thus rather the exacting nature of my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill which divide and compound man’s dual nature (severed. he is severed. there are two guys). In this case, I was driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most plentiful springs of distress. Though so profound a double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me were in dead earnest; I was no more myself (equally him and not him. being jekyll is being himself AND FEELS WRONG TO HYDE. being hyde is being himself AND FEELS WRONG TO JEKYLL. both alters are equally dysphoric) when I laid aside restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye of day, at the furtherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and suffering. And it chanced that the direction of my scientific studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this consciousness of the perennial war among my members (SINGLETS DON'T TALK LIKE THIS). With every day, and from both sides of my intelligence (he is a system), the moral and the intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: that man is not truly one, but truly two (he's so plural he can't imagine what being a singlet is). I say two, because the state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point. Others will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens. ("plural culture is coming. plurality will be a thing. i swear it") I, for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in one direction and in one direction only. It was on the moral side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two natures that contended in the field of my consciousness (HE WAS A SYSTEM LONG BEFORE THE POTION), even if I could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was radically both (SYSTEM); and from an early date, even before the course of my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation of these elements. If each, I told myself, could be housed in separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was unbearable (SINGLETS DON'T TALK LIKE THIS); the unjust might go his way, delivered from the aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil. It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were thus bound together—that in the agonised womb of consciousness, these polar twins should be continuously struggling. How, then were they dissociated? (DISSOCIATED. IDENTITIES.)
i am GENUINELY BAFFLED at how you motherfuckers read this passage and don't see how fucking plural jekyll was, long before the potion. this is him talking about how he felt DECADES before the potion was created
he's not a singlet who developed a potion to become a "fake system"
he is a system who created a potion to try to help balance life as a system. he explicitly thinks everyone is a system. he says that. do you see where he says that i highlighted it in red for you
friendly reminder that jekyll and hyde are a system
hyde is a different guy. they share a body, but there are two guys in there
people who say that they can't be a system are perhaps uninformed about systems
"ooh hyde is just a manifestation of (repressed homosexuality) (rage) (whatever) and is still jekyll"
hi. welcome to IFS. that's what we call a firefighter part or protective alter. its a different guy. that's a system. im going to block you if i see this take again please thanks
its completely normal to be shown again something you couldnt verbalize how you wanted as a kid and to feel that eternal gap between what you are and what you wanted to be and to dig your feet a little deeper on your lonely side of the canyon. even though the hawks have gone and you could attempt a leap, the gap is far and you've watched that densely populated side grow without you. another piece of ledge crumbles into the canyon. this side of the gap grows smaller. the wind picks up. you crouch, pressing your head to your knees, holding onto the ground lest this gust force you over the edge
by the time the gust is gone, you look up and see that the dream has faded again into that fog. its easy to forget that it, too, can lie on the other side
its normal to brush the dirt off your knees and stand up once more, eternally watching from your side of the canyon
its normal to admit that there is nothing but the dirt you stand upon
