"I may not be multiple , but I'm certainly
plural
!
"- Jaye
Welcome to the Wonderful World of the MidContinuum!
The dissociative continuum, that is.
While there is a small but growing collection of resources on the net
devoted to MP (both orthodox and otherwise
, there seems to be very little that discusses the experience of being
"neither fish nor fowl", neither clearly multiple nor clearly singleton.
This makes it even harder for those of us who find ourselves in the
midcontinuum to accept and understand our own experience. We hope with
this page to provide validation for those people in this situation, as
well as a chance to discuss similarities and differences in experience
along the whole continuum.
What is the Dissociative Continuum?
Caveat: We have no training in the theory of dissociation.
What follows is our understanding based on what we have learned from reading,
discussion, and experience.
Everyone dissociates. At one end of the dissociative continuum is "normal"
or "common" dissociation that nearly everyone engages in, such as daydreaming,
highway hypnosis or other forms of spacing out, or getting lost in a book.
At the other end are the behaviors that characterize "classical" multiples,
who may have large numbers of very distinct insiders with little internal
communication, serious difficulties with time loss, amnesia, and so on.
Between these two extremes, there is a lot of gray. Ranging from
having different "roles" that you live out in different situations, to
having an "inner child" or "inner children" with varying degrees of separateness,
to having "ego states", "parts" or "fragments" that don't seem to be whole
people, to having some but not all of the diagnostic criteria for
what is now known as DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder (formerly MPD,
Multiple Personality Disorder).
Some things about being in the midcontinuum
Spoiler warning! In this section, we talk about some of the forms
of denial that are especially hard to deal with in the midcontinuum. Sometimes
it is helpful to hear that other people have struggled with the same forms
of denial. At other times, however, even hearing about it, even when it
is discussed in a supportive context, can be upsetting.
Please be safe. If you are feeling fragile about believing in yourself(ves),
or just feeling fragile generally, please consider whether you want to
skip this section for the moment. You can either jump to the following
section on this page, or jump to an essay that
might be helpful in dealing with this issue.
End spoiler warning. Now back to our regularly scheduled topic.
-
It's hard, sometimes, to not have a label. Even tho there are a lot of
negative stereotypes about MP, at least the average person has heard
of
MP. It is harder to explain the experience to people.
-
It is slightly reassuring not to have a label. If someone "outed" us as
multiple, we could stand there and truthfully say, "We've never been diagnosed
multiple, we don't fit the diagnostic criteria for DID." It would be very
painful to do it, because we do see ourselves as plural, and to
deny it like that would feel like denying the integrity of our experience...
but in a society that has as much discrimination and prejudice as ours
does, it is reassuring to know that we could if we had to.
-
It's really easy to slip into the forms of denial that come with
messages like "I'm just making this up", "I'm just doing this to get attention",
"It's not real", "I'm just exaggerating this". Our culture tends to divide
things in either/or categories, so "if we are _not_ MP, then we _must_
be singleton." Wrong. It's a continuum!
-
It's easy, very easy, to minimize the reality of our experiences and our
very selves, compared to a "real multiple". Thanks to the wonderful MP
friends we've had through this process, we have finally learned not to
do that (because every time we did, we heard from them that we were just
as "real" as they were...). But it took a long time.
Share your experience here
We would like to add other people's descriptions of their experience of
the mid-continuum to this page. This is one way we can validate each other,
and get a little bit more information "out there". If you would be willing
to share your experience here, please email us (
vickis@asarian.org ). You can be as anonymous as you like in what you
share; we can either link to your web site, or post what you send us on
ours. And our thanks to those who've allowed us to link them to this page!!
-
The Vicki(s) - that's us!
-
"I Am A Camera"
-
On Being "Singtiple" , by Maia Q. Survivor
-
"I know I'm not multiple, though I can see it
from here" - Firedrake has recently updated her writing here - very
interesting.
-
A more recent update from Firedrake
-
Pam in SC
-
"Something not quite right, Something not quite wrong"
-
We Are Not of One
Mind - Inanna's Page
-
All the World's a Movie Set, by The Actor
-
My Internal Community
-
The Black Menagerie
-
Constellations
-
about usses - contributed by lilglow, who are
part of the family described in Constellations, above !
-
About our names
-
Liv
-
People in my head...
-
More than an I, Not Enough for a We
-
The Many Mini-Minds
-
Celie for the layers
-
From the Lighter
End
-
Life of a canvas
-
the eye of
the hurricane
-
Singtiple Me, by Yavie
-
Beatrice's Story (slight spoiler)
-
Pushme/Pullyou
-
Meadowlark's Story
-
Observing Anatman
-
how wolfcub sees himself (at this point)
-
The World , by Aightball
-
Being a Mental Mosaic
-
The Sisterhood
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We Being Many Are One Body
-
A List of Us
-
Core Consciousness and Change
Lost links:
We once had links to the following articles but they are
presently not working. If you know where these pages went, please send
us the new links! Thanks!
Some of our writings on living plural
These are essays that we've written that specifically address the topic
of plurality in some way. They're also linked from another section of our
web page, but in this section we will collect only those which pertain
to this topic.
-
The label doesn't matter, what matters is does it
work?
-
The Power of Naming -- ok, so some days the label
*does* matter. Who gets to decide what a "real" multiple is, and why?
-
Building Safety and Trust -- a post by
BigVicki (and a couple of other ASDers) on how to build safety, trust,
and communication within your system/household, especially if you've gotten
off on the wrong foot.
-
A note about age sliders , written mostly
by middle vicki
-
A slightly outdated model of our system, and
how we believe we (nearly) all came to be.
-
A suggested approach for improving cooperation in a couple of "classic"
dysfunctional household situations, based on a concept of "organizing
around".
-
Metaphors and Modalities: thoughts on plurality
as a mode for mindful living.
-
Some comments on undesirable side effects
of the conventional model of multiplicity.
Resources
These are places which we've found to be generally welcoming of midcontinuum
dissociatives. If you know of more, let
us know !
-
alt.support.dissociation
-
Just like it says in the newsgroup name. It's not just for MPs, it's for
supportive discussion of dissociation in all its forms. And there are a
lot more midcontinuum types out there posting than you might think from
a first impression.
-
SANCTUARY, Inc
-
We could say a great many wonderful things about Sanctuary, but instead
we invite you to click
here to
get to the SANCTUARY home page and find out more about it.
-
Amongst Ourselves
-
We were sent mail by the founders of this website and companion email list.
It seems to be a bit heavy on the "disorder" terminology for our taste.
Although it is described as a list and website for DID, the invitation
and front page of the website also do specifically mention DD-NOS, which
is often the category that mid continuum folks would end up in if they
were given a diagnosis, so we decided to include it here. We haven't participated
in it ourselves, so can't recommend it one way or another.
-
Not Quite Plural
-
Someo has formed a "Yahoo Club" specifically dedicated to people in the
mid continuum! Although we'd prefer a name like "Not Quite Multiple", thus
leaving "plural" broad enough to cover the midcontinuum too, we think this
is a great idea. Yahoo clubs have message boards and chat rooms, so this
is a good place to go to find other midcontinuum folk to talk to.
Second thoughts about this whole model
Okay. We suppose this had to happen. We are starting to wonder whether
the "dissociative continuum" is really the best model to use, for us, the
members of the dissociative community, to organize and define ourselves
by.
See, the problem is this. It was made up by doctors and other medical
types, who perceived dissociation as "the problem" and multiplicity as
"a disorder". Well - we don't believe it's a disorder, and we don't believe
dissociation is always a problem. People get classified along this continuum
- see, we noticed this as we were writing this page - what happens is that
instead of _behaviors_ getting classified as more or less dissociative,
_people_ get classified along it. With the presumption, of course, that
the closer you are to the "singleton" end, the "better" or "healthier"
you are.
Furthermore - we don't know about anybody else out there, and
we'd
love to hear other people's opinions on this - but we don't experience
dissociation as a continuum. It looks and feels more like a two dimensional
space, to us. One sort of dissociation feels like distancing, spacing,
numbing. That would be one axis. The other sort feels like barriers, separation,
disconnection, distinctness. That would be the other axis. They are experientially
different sensations for us, and we are not entirely convinced that they
are different points along the same continuum.
So basically, we begin to wonder whether "plurality" and "dissociation"
are actually two different things. And we take as our starting point that
plurality
is
not
the
problem. However, many dissociative behaviors or manifestations
are
problems,
for the people and households that experience them. The solution is to
work on the specific behaviors or manifestations... not to paint dissociation
as "bad".
Several of our readers have sent in comments on this topic - our thanks
to them, this is great! We are always looking for more contributions!
