I’ve met several other systems who didn’t think they were plural, because they didn’t meet various checkboxes.
The same happened to us.
Every blog post and article we found had a name for each member of the system. We don’t have names, so we spent a long time wondering if we were plural. In retrospect, talking to each other about whether we’re plural was a tad silly, but without representation it was difficult to see how we belonged.
I worry that other systems will fail to see themselves as “plural enough” and closet themselves away. I want to help these systems better understand themselves and their legitimacy within the plural community. Their experiences may differ from mine, but they are still more than welcome to use the term anonymous system.
What is an anonymous system?
We are made up of seven conscious fragments, none of which have identities. What do we mean by identities? We do not have names, bodies or even accents to our voices. Although we regularly chat, joke or argue amongst ourselves we rarely know who we are talking to.
We’re equivalent to an anonymous messaging forum. You log on a few times a week and strike up conversations with whoever is around. You might recognise regular voices when chatting, based on their interests or behaviour, but for the most part you don’t care.
How does work practically? Surprisingly well! We share a personality that combines our beliefs and interests in a way we’re each willing to maintain when fronting. Switching occurs many times a day, but it’s usually easy to pick up seamlessly from where another left off. While we prefer to be addressed as a whole, most partners are aware of our plurality and some are even plural themselves. People will occasionally refer to specific fragments, most often the organiser*, but we’re usually uncomfortable being deanonymized.
Decisions can be difficult, especially when there are no existing policies. The fronter might worry about acting “unbecoming of the system” by deviating from the shared personality. We often take days or months to come to decisions, especially any that involve recurring time/money commitments or body modifications. Anonymity definitely doesn’t help with gauging agreement. We’ve found a consultation period helps ensure every fragment gets a say.
Why remain anonymous?
We’re not entirely sure. Most systems have named parts, so we assumed something was blocking us from choosing our names.
Perhaps we didn’t feel safe enough to expose ourselves externally and needed the shared personality as a firewall.
Perhaps we’d internalised prejudices and had become the plural equivalent of a straight-acting gay**.
Perhaps we were afraid of each other?
Some of us tried choosing names but it was a lacklustre effort and they never stuck. We built a room in headspace but it remained empty. At first we were demotivated but now it’s obvious: who needs a room when you don’t have bodies? Naming ourselves is unnecessary as we know each other by innate sense. We’ve known we were plural for over a year now and despite accepting ourselves we still have no interest in separating. While we have our own interests and beliefs, none of us have our own identities. I like our fuzzy soup of thought and I don’t want to draw up boundaries between us. Our shared personality is just a means for us to each achieve our own interests.
We might eventually differentiate and choose names, but for now we are an anonymous system.
*We’re aware that typecasting a fragment by labelling them (e.g. the grumpy one) can be constraining and risks Flanderization. She just really likes organising. It’s also useful for partners to understand why we swing between Spreadsheet Nirvana and pure chaos each week.
**Singlet-acting system? Actually I hate it please never use that.