Multi-Personality = Multi-Tasking (Me)

More from The Flock. A passage from Chapter 31:

"It was clear to me that, despite occasional bouts with depression, the Flock was more effective than many of the other graduate students. This was even more true now that we had our own apartment and could work undisturbed for fourteen or sixteen hours each day.... The Flock required only four or five hours of sleep a night. That left a lot of time for work. And the amnesia that in the past had crippled us became an advantage. Our production multiplied because each personality could focus on a separate task. Jo, for example, worked for many hours researching and writing a paper, unaware of what else needed to be done. When I pushed Jo aside to fulfill my graduate-assistant duties, I didn't worry about the progress of the paper. When Jo came back to work, whe picked up precisely where she had left off, with no concern about her 'lost time'.... Being a multiple apparently created more efficient use of my conscious and semiconscious mind. I didn't want to give up my greater productivity to become just like everyone else."

And I understand what she means. I frequently have friends marvel at my capacity to go, go go. Five hours of sleep a night is usually plenty, as long as I'm switching enough to give myself time to rest. The body needs a few hours, and the rest is for the mind. If Kiara takes over for an evening, for instance, I feel plenty rested with just four or five hours of actual sleep. And we can concentrate on several things at once. As an example, while Jarett's driving me to work, Lynn is often making a list of things to put on our to-do list for the day, Kiara or Sam might be singing with the radio, and I could be thinking of things I want to write here in this blog.

Multi-Level Multiple Personalities (Me)

I just read The Flock, another multiple's autobiography. And I marked a couple of passages to repeat here.

In a section clipped from her therapist's diary, there is something along the lines of what I wrote in my last post here. She groups the personalities, of whom there are dozens, into three groups. The first group are the 'autonomous personalities', "who are truly well defined and complete enough as individuals to be able to function autonomously, without the assistance of the others. Each appears to have as full a range of dispositions and capabilities as any individual person.... Then there are the special-purpose or 'single-motive' personalities, who have clearly defined tasks - such as organizing files, cooking, or cleaning house - and seem to have no interest in holding the outside consciousness after they have completed their tasks...." There is a third group as well, "'past-keepers', personalities who hold some experience or knowledge from the past. They fit into the system... by hiding memories that might prevent the autonomous personalities from functioning."

So for me, Sam, Kiara, and myself are all first-group autonomous personalities. At one time, I would have put Rubi into the second group, but I get a range of emotions from her now, not just hate, so I would call her autonomous as well, I think. Jarett, Cherish, and Lynn seem to be special-purpose personalities, and I don't know of any past-keepers. Or perhaps Silent One is one of those. I think this model has some use. By not expecting the same depth and fullness from each alter, perhaps I can allow each to fill their own niche more comfortably.

It's a Technical Thing (Me)

I'm always looking for a good analogy to explain what being a multiple is like, and last night I came up with one that I'd like to try out. It began when I was reading a book about another multiple, and something struck me that should have been obvious, if only I'd thought of it that way. This multiple had dozens and dozens of alters, and was explaining that all alters are not equal. Some are full-fledged personalities with memories and opinions and plans and dreams and friendships. But some alters are less filled-out. They exist to serve a particular function and then fade back into place until the next time they are needed.

These single-purpose alters are like utility programs on your computer. Like Notepad, or Calculator, they serve some simple function for a short period of time, and then you close them and they go away. Until you need them again. I feel that Jarett may be a 'utility alter' - he drives the car; occasionally he looks at women. But he rarely takes full control and thinks and feels. Lynn could be considered a utility program as well; she rarely operates without another alter co-conscious; she advises and guides.

But what about the others? If the single-purpose alters are utility programs, what are they? And it hit me... they are Operating Systems. And the analogy holds. Most people have one major personality - like a computer that boots to this O/S or another. But some computers can dual-boot, or can run one O/S over the shell of a different one. The computers I support at my job do something like that - they are running a DOS-based program in a Linux shell. From the user's viewpoint, you can't tell any difference between the DOS program and the Linux one.

I can boot to Rubi or Sam or Kiara or Me. Usually, though, I'll run on a shell of Me with Rubi or Sam or Kiara running in the front, where it's in use, but ready to be dropped at need back to just Me. At need, I can pull up the Counselor/Lynn program, or run the Jarett utility. I'm not sure, yet, but for now I guess I'd put Cherish down as a utility program as well.

Does that make Silent One a System Error?

And Now We Are Eight - A Little Redesign (Me)

Another month has passed between blogs. Things aren't feeling quite so bleak as they did before, but my shifting from one personality to another is still under restraint. My daughter goes back to college this weekend, so I expect we'll feel more free to be ourselves in the next few weeks than we have been.

There has been a lot of self-searching and internal conversation the last week or two, and it has resulted in some restructuring internally. We have found a new alter. Her name is Cherish. We tried to talk her into a more 'name-like' name, but Cherish is it. She's very submissive and sweet and quiet, which may be why we haven't noticed her up to now. None of us are submissive or quiet; though Kiara can be very sweet, at least. At least so far, Cherish exists only for interactions with one person - a gentleman that we expect will, at some point, be in a Dom/sub relationship with us. Other people have noted that, in his presence, we've displayed a different behavior set and attitude, but for some reason we never looked at another alter being the reason for that. Until I recognized her thoughts as separate from mine one evening while spending time with him. Since then, I've followed her thoughts to reach her and asked her to participate in our 'mental group talks'.

When one of the alters comes out to chat on IM or by phone, they'll usually sign off with /K for Kiara, /R for Rubi, /S for Sam, etc. Now I have two /C's - Cherish and Counselor. In light of this, Counselor has let us know that she will be happy to use the name Lynn, instead. A slight restructure, here. So the full roster of personalities is thus:
/M - Me
/K - Kiara
/S - Sam
/R - Rubi
/C - Cherish
/L - Lynn (formerly Counselor)
/J - Jarett
and the Silent One

Well, We Thought It Was Funny (Me)

Yes, my daughter is a cool person. Still haven't discussed the multiple personality situation with her, and I'm thinking I probably won't at this point. It just doesn't appear to be necessary. However, if it comes up, I'm less worried about how she'll take it.

So we (internally) had a good laugh the other day I want to share. My daughter, my guy, and I all went to the sub shop for sandwiches. The kid ordered first, then ran to the bathroom while hers was being made. My guy ordered two sandwiches - different bread, different meat, different toppings - and I ordered my usual. As the toppings are being put on all four sandwiches, my daughter comes back from the bathroom.

I could see her counting sandwiches - one, two, three, four - and noting that they were four different sandwiches - for the three of us. Then she looks questioningly at me and asks, "Are we getting a sandwich for someone else?"

Before I can answer, my guy pipes up with, "No, the extra one is for my multiple personality."

And without missing a beat, she couters with, "Oh, well tell Juan I said hello."

Beat. Beat. I can almost audibly hear the conversation inside my head - /Did you hear what he said? And what she said?/ And I/we burst out laughing in the sub shop. My daughter was halfway to the door by the time the guffaw hit. And my guy was just looking at me with an evil grin, waiting to see if I would react.

So, yeah, we thought it was funny. I've told the story to a few other people who thought it mildly amusing at best. But trust me, it was hilarious.

Whining Alert [Me]

I've been unhappy inside my head lately. That's why there's been no posts for nearly a month. I find that I'm perfectly content to run my mouth when things are going well, but we tend to close up shop when things aren't going so well, and stew in our/my unhappiness. And right now, I think I can point to relationships as being the root of my issues.

Several of the men that I have some tight friendships/relationships with are going through various things that are making them unavailable to me right now. I understand each of those situations, and it's perfectly reasonable that we can't get together lately. But with several of those situations added up, it leaves me feeling a little abandoned, even when rationally it's all reasonable. The answer to almost all these situations is time and patience - not my strong suit.

On the flip side of that, one of my guys has basically moved in with me. It wasn't an intentional decision; he's just started being at my house all the time. And that has its wonderful points - I always have someone to spend some time with, and get snuggles every night, and he goes with me to all the social events. However, I feel responsible to him and for him, and our living styles aren't quite that wonderful a match. And he's got his down moods that he's going through.

My daughter's still home, and she's found a job. I'm not spending much time with her; not that we didn't expect that. She's an adult, and wants to spend time with her friends, and has to arrange rides to and from work. But her presence in the house does mean one more person's schedule and needs to consider.

And lastly, I need a girlfriend. A girl friend. I usually prefer to spend most or all my energy with the guys, but I find a need a female friend to vent to and gripe with and make fun of the guys and just get some non-sexual comfort from. My roomate has been that girl friend since she moved in, but she's not been home much for several weeks, between staying with her boyfriend or just working a busy schedule that seems to be opposite of mine.

So yeah, I'm either spending way too much time or way too little time with the people that are important to me. And it's getting to me. I'm cranky and moody and depressed. I've been crying, and taking naps to avoid dealing with the situation. I've got to break out of this.

So how does this affect the multiplicity stuff, you might ask? Not doing so well there, either. With the kid home for the summer, I'm still not switching much around her. More, I'm not switching much when not around her either. Everyone's kind of hibernating, it seems like. It's lonely in my head lately. Rubi and Kiara have both come out for brief moments a bit, but not often, and not for long. I've seen little of anyone else, at least that I've noticed.