Make Love Not Babies
I saw someone today wearing a shirt that proudly proclaimed:
"MAKE LOVE NOT BABIES" (mirroring the same sort of shirt that says "make love not war")
And I couldn't help but laugh. I suppose I am a twisted sort of person.
I recently joined a few communities on LJ, one is focused on multiples, another on otherkin, and another on headmates/soulbonds/daemons/spirit guides/'imaginary friends'.
If you don't know what any of that means, I'll give a (very) brief explanation:
-A 'multiple' is a group of people who live all in the same body. I suppose the public would know them as a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or (the old term) Multiple Personality Disorder, but these 'disorders' are misleading. Many psychologists will tell you that a multiple is caused by childhood abuse, but that is not the case with many multiples, and many get along perfectly fine. Many of the multiples I know are 'working systems', meaning that all the people in their body have a system that works for them and they live perfectly healthy lives.
-Otherkin is a broad term used to describe a great number of people and every definition I've seen about it has been vague at best. The best I can come up with is to say that many otherkin are people who have been strongly affected by a pastlife in which they were something other then human. Not all 'kin believe in reincarnation though, so that definition doesn't describe all of them. 'Kin tend to describe themselves as 'something else' inside a human body. Therians are the group of 'kin who are normal earth animals inside human bodies, but the other groups of 'kin are dragons, elves, fae, vampires, to name a few.
-Headmates/soulbonds/daemons/spirit guides/'imaginary friends' are typically anything that range from a voice in the back of your head, to an imaginary friend that just never went away. In general, there are two groups of them that is easiest to separate them into, but also the least important. There is the 'imaginary' group, which includes imaginary friends that never went away, characters from books that 'decided' to take up residence in someone's head even after they finished the book, among various other things. The 'real' group includes spirit guides, guardians, sometimes daemons, etc. and generally are spirits/souls that 'talk' to someone inside their head, but aren't always bound there. In the end, it tends to mean very little who is 'real' and who is 'imaginary' because both end up residing side by side and it's hard to tell the difference. Everyone has all of these to a degree, simply because the human mind is two separate parts that 'talk' to one another and that is mirrored in the thoughts humans have. It's perfectly natural to talk to 'yourself', so naming the 'voices' in your mind makes very little difference in your sanity. The problem with insanity comes when those 'voices' start making the person do things that are detrimental to their health. Unless that happens, headmates/etc. are perfectly normal and natural.
Now that definitions are out of the way...
Well I haven't really talked to fellow 'kin in a while about things that only other 'kin would understand, so it's rather nice that the werelist is back up. It's been nice chatting with other therians and reminding myself why it's so nice to talk to people going through similar things to you.
Of course, it's a new/rare thing for me to be in a community of multiples, as I'm not exactly one myself. I have many friends who are multiples, so it's not like I'm new to talking to them, or even to understanding them, but it's a new thing to me to see so many healthy systems in one place and all interacting seamlessly. It makes me rather proud of the people and systems strong enough to overcome things that typical singletons don't have to deal with and still make headway in their lives in a world made for people who are 1soul:1body.
I'm honestly surprised to see a headmate/etc. community on LJ, as it's hard enough to find anything on them at all online. Most people are unwilling to tell anyone on the outside that they have 'voices in their head' and even less call it all the same thing. I have seen about six different definitions of what a 'soulbond' is since I started searching online for a solution to what exactly I should call what I had been previously been terming my 'spirit guide', but even that is lacking when talking about her. Cu has never been one to fit into 'normal' terms. Of course, with Rufu's Mara being the same as Cu, I figured that there must be others like us.. but I have yet to find any. I had hope in a certain daemon forum I had come across before, but they were still too heavily tied to definitions that didn't make sense outside of books... But, this LJ community may be one step closer to finding others like us. Maybe then I'll be able to get Cu to be social or do anything that involves anyone outside my head.
....I realize that if anyone (yay non-existent readers!) reads this who doesn't know me, they probably won't understand much of it... but well, sorry, you're starting from the middle of the book. To hear the beginning you'll have to attempt asking me.
"MAKE LOVE NOT BABIES" (mirroring the same sort of shirt that says "make love not war")
And I couldn't help but laugh. I suppose I am a twisted sort of person.
I recently joined a few communities on LJ, one is focused on multiples, another on otherkin, and another on headmates/soulbonds/daemons/spirit guides/'imaginary friends'.
If you don't know what any of that means, I'll give a (very) brief explanation:
-A 'multiple' is a group of people who live all in the same body. I suppose the public would know them as a person with Dissociative Identity Disorder, or (the old term) Multiple Personality Disorder, but these 'disorders' are misleading. Many psychologists will tell you that a multiple is caused by childhood abuse, but that is not the case with many multiples, and many get along perfectly fine. Many of the multiples I know are 'working systems', meaning that all the people in their body have a system that works for them and they live perfectly healthy lives.
-Otherkin is a broad term used to describe a great number of people and every definition I've seen about it has been vague at best. The best I can come up with is to say that many otherkin are people who have been strongly affected by a pastlife in which they were something other then human. Not all 'kin believe in reincarnation though, so that definition doesn't describe all of them. 'Kin tend to describe themselves as 'something else' inside a human body. Therians are the group of 'kin who are normal earth animals inside human bodies, but the other groups of 'kin are dragons, elves, fae, vampires, to name a few.
-Headmates/soulbonds/daemons/spirit guides/'imaginary friends' are typically anything that range from a voice in the back of your head, to an imaginary friend that just never went away. In general, there are two groups of them that is easiest to separate them into, but also the least important. There is the 'imaginary' group, which includes imaginary friends that never went away, characters from books that 'decided' to take up residence in someone's head even after they finished the book, among various other things. The 'real' group includes spirit guides, guardians, sometimes daemons, etc. and generally are spirits/souls that 'talk' to someone inside their head, but aren't always bound there. In the end, it tends to mean very little who is 'real' and who is 'imaginary' because both end up residing side by side and it's hard to tell the difference. Everyone has all of these to a degree, simply because the human mind is two separate parts that 'talk' to one another and that is mirrored in the thoughts humans have. It's perfectly natural to talk to 'yourself', so naming the 'voices' in your mind makes very little difference in your sanity. The problem with insanity comes when those 'voices' start making the person do things that are detrimental to their health. Unless that happens, headmates/etc. are perfectly normal and natural.
Now that definitions are out of the way...
Well I haven't really talked to fellow 'kin in a while about things that only other 'kin would understand, so it's rather nice that the werelist is back up. It's been nice chatting with other therians and reminding myself why it's so nice to talk to people going through similar things to you.
Of course, it's a new/rare thing for me to be in a community of multiples, as I'm not exactly one myself. I have many friends who are multiples, so it's not like I'm new to talking to them, or even to understanding them, but it's a new thing to me to see so many healthy systems in one place and all interacting seamlessly. It makes me rather proud of the people and systems strong enough to overcome things that typical singletons don't have to deal with and still make headway in their lives in a world made for people who are 1soul:1body.
I'm honestly surprised to see a headmate/etc. community on LJ, as it's hard enough to find anything on them at all online. Most people are unwilling to tell anyone on the outside that they have 'voices in their head' and even less call it all the same thing. I have seen about six different definitions of what a 'soulbond' is since I started searching online for a solution to what exactly I should call what I had been previously been terming my 'spirit guide', but even that is lacking when talking about her. Cu has never been one to fit into 'normal' terms. Of course, with Rufu's Mara being the same as Cu, I figured that there must be others like us.. but I have yet to find any. I had hope in a certain daemon forum I had come across before, but they were still too heavily tied to definitions that didn't make sense outside of books... But, this LJ community may be one step closer to finding others like us. Maybe then I'll be able to get Cu to be social or do anything that involves anyone outside my head.
....I realize that if anyone (yay non-existent readers!) reads this who doesn't know me, they probably won't understand much of it... but well, sorry, you're starting from the middle of the book. To hear the beginning you'll have to attempt asking me.