Werewolf Pack

so... we may have made something.

have YOU ever thought like this?????? i know WE hate the current plural diagnostics!!!! so! WE MADE OUR OWN!!!!!!!

it's 44 questions long, you can receive a total of 50 points!

it's unfortunately hosted through google forms for now unless we find something better...

we are not doctors, do not take your result as medical advice.

feel free to reblog with your result!

the idea behind this quiz is pretty much exactly that. these are all fairly normal symptoms. on their own, none of these are a sign of plurality.

however, they start to become a sign of something more when there's a large percentage answered "yes"! all diagnoses are collections of symptoms, that was the core idea behind this :) we sent this to several singlets to make sure it worked, and every time, singlets got a significantly lower score than systems!

a lot of plural quizzes have confusing, vague questions that are really hard to answer when you have, y'know. a disorder that causes memory issues. so we wanted to help that by making the questions as simple and, like, normal as possible. that's why we say that systems(not all, but many) usually get a score of about 60% ^^

of course, there is overlap with other disorders that cause disassociation, we are 100% aware of that. like we said, this isn't a diagnosis!! 🫶🫶

Add that to the list of "things we never processed as being related to our plurality until years later, it smacked us in the face".

Some non-plural people can keep up with multiple books at once. This is not a sign of plurality on its own. In context, though, it explains a few things we experienced growing up: specifically, the sheer number of books we had to juggle to be able to read at all.

We've each been reading whatever we wanted to read for a long time, and sometimes our tastes in books clashed or contradicted in ways that were very confusing before we figured out that we were plural. There were a lot of moments of "I guess I only like this sometimes" and general frustration at preferences and tolerances shifting unpredictably.

We might bring a book somewhere, only to be unwilling to read it because it seemed boring, poorly-written, or distressing when it was fantastic only an hour beforehand. Other times, we might like the book, but suddenly feel like the past connection and context needed to follow the plot properly was missing. It made deciding what to read both easier and harder. We had plenty of books available to us, but which one would be best to bring along in a given situation, knowing that our feelings around books (and people, and clothes, and activities, and...) might shift while we were out?

Book selection weirdness was one of the many, many things we found ways to work around pre-discovery, all the while wondering why we had to be like this. Reading multiple books at the same time gave us the best shot at one or more books being interesting enough to pick back up and finish. It was easier to find space in a backpack for another book than it was to hunt down one book that could cover all of those "weird moods" of ours.

Nowadays, we like using an e-reader to solve this problem. One book-sized device that's easily portable, doesn't tempt us into other activities like a phone, and holds as many books as we can cram onto it. Your book doesn't work for someone else? They can pick something else without worrying about space constraints.

(If you want a recommendation, we currently use a Kobo Libra. We switched to Kobo when Amazon decided that you couldn't download your purchased ebook files directly anymore, and it's been a solid device.)

Image ID/alt in image, but it's also been duplicated below the cut for those that prefer it.

this is even more true for plural systems, who, with tools like PluralKit (or even just emoji signifying), have to decide for each message who to indicate said a thing, or whether to indicate such information at all.

with an established rapport, a lot of meaning can be conveyed with the use of a proxy. something that would be rude out of one headmates mouth may seem friendly from another (see: calibration). but less positive associations can be built too. "oh god you're in front is everything ok?" is not necessarily a nice association to have with your existence (although perhaps useful for some).

tightly built rapports with other systems can convey a lot. "oh you immediately fronted when i talked about this fantasy, is that good for you~?". "you two are in front together a lot, do you like each other or something~?". there is space to build very intimate understandings of a system's inner workings.

but this creates a dilemma with more distant relationships. if someone doesn't know your system well enough to pick up on the extra information provided by a choice of proxy, how much do they need that? oftentimes systems will end up offering headmate explanations, system diagrams, simplyplural accounts, etc. early on in a relationship to frontload this information and open up those communicative potentials right away, rather than letting someone learn over time. but for large systems this can also be overwhelming, a lot of information for someone to internalise at once.

a tension is created, between plurality as a model for understanding yourself, and as a tool for communicating with other people.

do you show a full system diagram? or only a simplified version with the headmates you think someone is likely to meet. how much do you elide variations between similar headmates to simplify yourself for other people. it's often a terrible plural anxiety, to think you're too big or complicated for many people to care to understand. but these are also decisions made every time someone "lies" about a proxy, choosing to hide the fact a more vulnerable headmate is in front, or when someone chooses a less accurate but more socially appropriate avatar for public spaces.

Your source memories and/or source trauma deserve to be just as respected as memories and/or trauma from this world.

It’s okay if you still hold resentment for the people who hurt you there.

It’s okay if you have people you miss.

It’s okay if you’re still trying to figure out how you feel about people, with all the information avaliable to you in this world.

It’s okay if your source is divergent from the canon most people would expect.

"Introjects need to look at and examine their source to figure out why they formed."

"Introjects need to be exactly like their source."

"Introjects need to be a little different from their source."

"Problematic Introjects should never acknowledge that aspect of themselves."

"Problematic introjects need to be aware of what they did and apologize for it every time they want to speak."

Just. The casualest most natural acceptance 💛

— @werewolf-pack-system

CW for somewhat detailed discussion of self harm

//

We recently had a conversation with someone about Pain, who best as we can figure holds our addiction to self harm. He experiences very extreme urges to do things such as touch hot pans, or to press his finger against sharp points and edges. Sometimes these urges are powerful enough that they force him into front, like if we’re taking something out of the oven.

As harm reduction, he uses a spiky ring (originally a dog toy) and grips it tightly, as well as fronting when we get physically injured such as when we fall and get scraped up or something. We are fine with him doing these things because he’s very upfront and honest about how if he doesn’t, then he will end up doing something far more harmful, and likely not even fully of his own volition.

The person we were talking to was infuriating. Continually saying things like “Harm reduction is actually still bad because it still encourages self harm” and basically saying he needed to stop doing both, no matter how many times we explained that what we was doing was currently the best option for reducing the risk of serious harm/injury. Yes, the methods he does have their own risks, but you know what? We’re an adult, and Pain is quite capable of self reflection and determining what the safest options are for him and the system as a whole. We keep watch in situations where he’s at higher risk of harming himself, and actively works to remove himself from those situations and to redirect or deflect the urges. Occasionally gripping a spiky ring or taking the opportunity to front during physical injury is FINE for our situation. Maybe not everyone’s, but we were talking about US.