Faces of Not Being Out
Date First Written: January 2013
Being in the closet about being multiple takes on many forms. Some people are out to no one at all, some are only ‘out’ to a few very select people, others are out to a number of people in there lives, and perhaps a few are even out to much of the public around them. For ourselves, we are mostly only out to a few very select people in our close social circles and even fewer in our family though we are almost completely out to everyone online. However a fair number of people in our lives do not know we are a we at all and we have chosen to take this route for a verity of personal reasons and slowly come out to certain people when we feel it is proper or wanted. Its all about personal privacy, being comfortable, and being able to come out to any number of people if that is what has been chosen. No one has to come out at all, though at times some multiples have chosen to do so. It’s a very personal matter.
Being out to some people, but not others have its pros and cons of course. Like coming out about any kind of personal information about your life - sometimes its just not anyone’s business or concern but other times coming out seems much more needed to the personal situation. For us personally, just as there are some people we know casually that don’t even know our last name or anything of the sort we feel zero reason for them to know any other amount of personal information. If we only know them casually and they don’t know a lot about us to begin with plus they will likely never know a lot about us - the fact of us actually being multiple is beyond consideration for information they need to know. We are a group of people in one body and we are family, not a fun and curious factoid of the day. Our family and family matters just aren’t anyone’s and everyone’s business most of the time.
However there are some people in our lives who we are closer too and that we do consider people who should know us and we should be honest too. They are either actually part of our family or they have become rather close friends or confidents. It is in these people that we come to even begin to consider possibly coming out to as being multiple. At this time, we are not out to much of our family due to either knowing that they would not take our being multiple well, or because we do not think at this point in time is the best time to come out. However, we are out to a few people in our lives and so far those coming out experiences have been positive to neutral.
Being multiple, or just being plural in general, is not something readily known to the general population. This can cause all sorts of troubles when thinking of even the prospect of coming out to anyone. Plus, due to the stigma of Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder), there can be issues with coming out as a non-disordered or healthy plural system. The fact that DID has become so sensationalized in media, it can easily complicate things if coming out becomes a topic of consideration. Trying to possibly come out to people who might have head of DID/MPD and try to come out as an individual system rather than a media stereotype and oversimplification can be possibly daunting. Especially if you are a natural and healthy multiple trying to basically go against the stereotypes laid down by media portrayals yet alone the dictions between being a functioning system cared to a non-functioning one. Further there is the natural skepticism and confusion over the idea of either multiple souls sharing a single body and/or a brain being able to handle more then one identity and sense of self (depending on how each system considers their group to be set-up and caused). Most people don’t think about that being possible. On the one hand, that makes people figuring out someone is multiple unlikely usually as they aren’t trying to peg someone as such, yet on the other hand it can make coming out and accepted as a multiple much more difficult.
For us, we’ve come to find the hardest and most difficult part of being not out as multiple when it comes to our close friends and family is not hearing our names being called. It’s a rather simple thing - the sound that has been designated as a label for an individual but it makes a lot of difference to us. We’ve never been the kind of people that thinks we need to be out to anyone and everyone, however we would love to be able to be known by our own family and close friends. We do wish at times that we could be out and accepted by our family and have them call us out by name and acknowledge us rather then always collectively have to pretend to be the same person.
Over the years we have gained a lot of practice at keeping our multiplicity hidden when we want too. Each of us has our own tone and style of voice as well as physical mannerisms and ways of holding ourselves among us. That is not to forget to mention our own individual opinions on certain matters as well as certain preferences and dislikes. Just like any group of people we act like we are different people because we are different people. However being in a multiple system that is not out to most of the world has made our keeping our multiplicity from being really noticeable an art. While fronting around people who do not know of us being multiple - we keep to around a certain tone and to certain options and likes/dislike which we have weaved over the years to be what people think this one ‘person.’
Being multiple and not out to everyone can create some confusion on how to talk to be people. In our own case, because of our wide verity of (for example) gender identification, sexual orientation, and religious stances - those became an issue for us on how to outwardly present or label ourselves. In our case, we have ended up deciding to go for sticking with umbrellas that can explain most of our most notable behaviors to avoid confusion for those we are not out too. For example, if people who we are not out to ask our religious beliefs we might state that ‘we’ (though they hear ‘I’) and simply say pagan. If asked further we would state ‘we’ are an “eclectic pagan of a mix of various pagan or neopagan religious.” This wording allows for a lot of what people could potentially read or infer from us. If for example one day Lunatani makes mention of things which are Wiccan-based but another day Pantairin makes mention of more Buddhist practices - people thinking we are an “eclectic pagan” will make the most sense to them and allow us more freedom on what we might say to people without fear of stepping to much off their social labels on us. Not breaching labels or ideas people have set up for us, because they think and see one person whereas in fact we are many, can lessen a lot of confusion. To keep things simple and to not breach what image we have created for us in our everyday life.
Of course, we make mistakes and at times one of us might say ‘we’ rather then ‘I’ on accident or slip into their natural voice rather then our mask tone of voice. It happens on occasion and perhaps more then we even realize. However thankfully usually people don’t notice our mistakes, or if they do notice they make no mention of it. It seems when our mistakes our noticed most people will happy and quickly let it slide off their mind as something not really our of place for being ‘normal’ and will likely never think ‘multiple.’ Actually of all the years, only on a few occasions have people called us out on it, but that happens very rarely and usually these events are laughed off as slips of the tongue.
This is some of the nature of not being out as a multiple system to some people but not others.
- Zedjeb
Being in the closet about being multiple takes on many forms. Some people are out to no one at all, some are only ‘out’ to a few very select people, others are out to a number of people in there lives, and perhaps a few are even out to much of the public around them. For ourselves, we are mostly only out to a few very select people in our close social circles and even fewer in our family though we are almost completely out to everyone online. However a fair number of people in our lives do not know we are a we at all and we have chosen to take this route for a verity of personal reasons and slowly come out to certain people when we feel it is proper or wanted. Its all about personal privacy, being comfortable, and being able to come out to any number of people if that is what has been chosen. No one has to come out at all, though at times some multiples have chosen to do so. It’s a very personal matter.
Being out to some people, but not others have its pros and cons of course. Like coming out about any kind of personal information about your life - sometimes its just not anyone’s business or concern but other times coming out seems much more needed to the personal situation. For us personally, just as there are some people we know casually that don’t even know our last name or anything of the sort we feel zero reason for them to know any other amount of personal information. If we only know them casually and they don’t know a lot about us to begin with plus they will likely never know a lot about us - the fact of us actually being multiple is beyond consideration for information they need to know. We are a group of people in one body and we are family, not a fun and curious factoid of the day. Our family and family matters just aren’t anyone’s and everyone’s business most of the time.
However there are some people in our lives who we are closer too and that we do consider people who should know us and we should be honest too. They are either actually part of our family or they have become rather close friends or confidents. It is in these people that we come to even begin to consider possibly coming out to as being multiple. At this time, we are not out to much of our family due to either knowing that they would not take our being multiple well, or because we do not think at this point in time is the best time to come out. However, we are out to a few people in our lives and so far those coming out experiences have been positive to neutral.
Being multiple, or just being plural in general, is not something readily known to the general population. This can cause all sorts of troubles when thinking of even the prospect of coming out to anyone. Plus, due to the stigma of Dissociative Identity Disorder (once called Multiple Personality Disorder), there can be issues with coming out as a non-disordered or healthy plural system. The fact that DID has become so sensationalized in media, it can easily complicate things if coming out becomes a topic of consideration. Trying to possibly come out to people who might have head of DID/MPD and try to come out as an individual system rather than a media stereotype and oversimplification can be possibly daunting. Especially if you are a natural and healthy multiple trying to basically go against the stereotypes laid down by media portrayals yet alone the dictions between being a functioning system cared to a non-functioning one. Further there is the natural skepticism and confusion over the idea of either multiple souls sharing a single body and/or a brain being able to handle more then one identity and sense of self (depending on how each system considers their group to be set-up and caused). Most people don’t think about that being possible. On the one hand, that makes people figuring out someone is multiple unlikely usually as they aren’t trying to peg someone as such, yet on the other hand it can make coming out and accepted as a multiple much more difficult.
For us, we’ve come to find the hardest and most difficult part of being not out as multiple when it comes to our close friends and family is not hearing our names being called. It’s a rather simple thing - the sound that has been designated as a label for an individual but it makes a lot of difference to us. We’ve never been the kind of people that thinks we need to be out to anyone and everyone, however we would love to be able to be known by our own family and close friends. We do wish at times that we could be out and accepted by our family and have them call us out by name and acknowledge us rather then always collectively have to pretend to be the same person.
Over the years we have gained a lot of practice at keeping our multiplicity hidden when we want too. Each of us has our own tone and style of voice as well as physical mannerisms and ways of holding ourselves among us. That is not to forget to mention our own individual opinions on certain matters as well as certain preferences and dislikes. Just like any group of people we act like we are different people because we are different people. However being in a multiple system that is not out to most of the world has made our keeping our multiplicity from being really noticeable an art. While fronting around people who do not know of us being multiple - we keep to around a certain tone and to certain options and likes/dislike which we have weaved over the years to be what people think this one ‘person.’
Being multiple and not out to everyone can create some confusion on how to talk to be people. In our own case, because of our wide verity of (for example) gender identification, sexual orientation, and religious stances - those became an issue for us on how to outwardly present or label ourselves. In our case, we have ended up deciding to go for sticking with umbrellas that can explain most of our most notable behaviors to avoid confusion for those we are not out too. For example, if people who we are not out to ask our religious beliefs we might state that ‘we’ (though they hear ‘I’) and simply say pagan. If asked further we would state ‘we’ are an “eclectic pagan of a mix of various pagan or neopagan religious.” This wording allows for a lot of what people could potentially read or infer from us. If for example one day Lunatani makes mention of things which are Wiccan-based but another day Pantairin makes mention of more Buddhist practices - people thinking we are an “eclectic pagan” will make the most sense to them and allow us more freedom on what we might say to people without fear of stepping to much off their social labels on us. Not breaching labels or ideas people have set up for us, because they think and see one person whereas in fact we are many, can lessen a lot of confusion. To keep things simple and to not breach what image we have created for us in our everyday life.
Of course, we make mistakes and at times one of us might say ‘we’ rather then ‘I’ on accident or slip into their natural voice rather then our mask tone of voice. It happens on occasion and perhaps more then we even realize. However thankfully usually people don’t notice our mistakes, or if they do notice they make no mention of it. It seems when our mistakes our noticed most people will happy and quickly let it slide off their mind as something not really our of place for being ‘normal’ and will likely never think ‘multiple.’ Actually of all the years, only on a few occasions have people called us out on it, but that happens very rarely and usually these events are laughed off as slips of the tongue.
This is some of the nature of not being out as a multiple system to some people but not others.
- Zedjeb