Adagio & Company

[Adagio]

I deleted most of it so there's not much to catch up on, whoops.

 

Edit: You're free to respond, though. I'll figure out what I want to do with this tomorrow.

Edited April 14, 2024 by Adagio

[Adagio]

I think I'm just going to try to keep going with this PR. I don't like that I can't just delete this, tbh. But I guess my history will stand, and I will just learn to deal with the past. This is, after all, the only place where I talk about my system anymore. I would like to allow some of them to be able to talk to other people more, and obviously no one in my life would really be ok with that, and I heavily dislike most of the plural community now. This is the only place where I feel safe enough to talk about this part of my life. It's funny how this was the community that I first started in, and now it's the one I come back to, after everything that's happened. I think that the views here will help me connect with my remaining system members, and to finally see them as people that I can't control, which I have spent the past three years working (ish) to accept. I don't know what kind of progress I'll be reporting in the future, but I'd like to see this as a sort of new chapter in my life, so that I can keep the past in the past, and be able to grow with my system now. They're a huge part of my life that no one else knows about, and I wish I could talk about them more.

 

Perhaps expect a post in the next week. I need to visit this forum less, lol. Have a good day/night!

[Athelas]

We appreciate that you're willing to share some of your experiences, positive or otherwise. It's admirable that you're seeking out perspectives that are so different from your own. I can imagine it would be difficult to hear others speak positively about plurality when it has been a source of unhappiness for you.

 

I don’t think it’s a bad thing that your views and opinions have changed significantly within this PR. The point of a progress report is to depict change over time. Still, I understand the desire to move beyond the past. I hope you haven’t felt pressured to share more than you’re comfortable with.

 

We wish you luck in reconnecting with your system.

[Adagio]

Thanks, Athelas.

 

It's difficult because I used to love being plural and how it was an important part of my life, and then over time I lost that positivity to my obsessing. It's hard to want to go back to liking being plural when this has single-handedly destroyed most of my life for the past several years, and me liking plurality was enabling for that downfall to happen. There was once a time when being a system was one of the only things keeping me alive, and it's ironic how being a system is now one of the reasons that I hate living. I overthink and obsess over the small details about my system, but it is hard to break a habit of two years. It's a permanent work in progress - I'm trying to just accept things as they come and go, now. Although, I'm sure I'd be less distressed if I tried to communicate with my system more.

 

If we were to graph my change over time, it would be the weirdest-looking graph ever. My views are almost completely opposite of my views from a few years ago. I found one of my old journals and was reading it, and there's so much stuff I said that I just don't agree with anymore. Perhaps it's because I'm older and more experienced now, compared to how blind I was back then. I find it weird that the person who made this PR doesn't even exist anymore, but here I am continuing the PR regardless. I'd like a blank slate to restart from, and it seems that while my mind has given that to me, physical evidence has not, and so I live with someone else's mistakes and regrets.

 

I share a lot that I often regret later on (hence deleting stuff), but it's usually just my paranoia because I triple check what I'm saying before I post, to make sure that I don't think it's stuff I don't want people knowing about. Plus, I wish I had someone to talk to about this, so I talk a lot.

 

Since I'm posting, I may as well talk about something.

 

CV and I are not super getting along over some stuff. Recently, his voice has changed significantly, which has sparked a lot of doubt in me. Through all the change I've gone through, he's been the only one to not change, and I've relied on him to be that way. Now obviously, that's done a lot to him, and he is (in his words) depressed now. And then I got chided by one of my other system members because I haven't noticed he's been this way for a while now. We're working on it (ish). I tend to avoid anything to do with my system when it's stressing me out, like it is now.

 

About half my conversations with CV this past couple days has been:

Me: "You sound different, like you've changed."

CV: "... Maybe because I have?"

Me: "DOES THAT MEAN YOU'RE NOT REAL ANYMORE????"

CV: *looking very annoyed* "What the fuck."

 

The other half are very nice conversations because I'm only half-focused on him and forget that he sounds different now.

 

CV can talk to me without me thinking about him, and he's way too nice to me. He said he was going to go take a break from being around me for a while (this was after one of our fights about him changing/is he real), but then almost immediately came back. When I asked why, he said it's because he knows that I need him. I feel bad about that. He shouldn't have to put up with me if it's harming him, but he is correct. I don't know what I'd do without him, even for a couple hours. Now that I'm thinking about it, maybe it's best for him to have some time away from me every day.

 

In summary, I'm worried that he's changed so much that I've lost him. I wouldn't blame him for changing. I'm definitely the problem here ("At least you're self-aware."). There's another factor at play that's not helping, which is that I have changed and now sound more similar to him, and combine that with the fact that we've been blending together slightly means that I really struggle to trust that he's real. It's stupid, because in the past several years, he has proved over and over again that he is real, but I don't remember that. I barely remember how he used to be - I just know that he's changed a lot. It's hard for me to figure out how to accept that he's changed when he's always been the one who never changed. It hurts a lot that it feels like I'm losing him ("No you're not.") even though he's likely just changed. Me and my dumb brain.

[Adagio]

formatting issue, I'm re-posting

Edited April 23, 2024 by Adagio
formatting issue

[Adagio]

Formatting hates me. I'm just re-posting what I wrote.

 

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Still feels like I'm losing this part of my life. Isn't that supposed to be a good thing? I thought I wanted for this part of my life to be over.

 

I don't often talk about how positive being a system can be for me because I'm often too focused on the negatives. I've probably touched on this before, but my system has kept me alive for years. I will be forever grateful for that. I'm still not in the best place in my life, and CV is one of the few people who's able to keep me going. I think he cares about living more than I do.

 

It would be pretty bad if I lost this part of my life, so I've been desperately holding on to it.

 

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Still need to work on separating what CV sounds like vs what I sound like. I have a very inconsistent mindvoice, and ("Apparently mine is "wrong".") (Thanks for the great input, CV.) ("You do call it wrong.") (It's just different.) I have no idea where to start with this, especially because the level of control I have over my system is pretty low. Suggestions are welcome, as always.

 

On the same kind of topic, I want to re-learn possession again. CV actually does know how to possess and can ("Haven't done it in years."), but he's entirely uninterested in trying it ever again. No one in my system seems interested in learning it. Everyone who's left is fairly detached from my life, except CV. Which is why he's the only one I talk about now.

 

If CV did re-learn possession, I suspect he'd just take over whenever I'm doing nothing (which is a lot of the time), instead of nagging me to get stuff done. He's more motivated than I am (he says "not true" to that, though).

 

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A few days ago, I got this very vivid flash of a person, and he seemed fairly real. I think I told him somewhere along the lines of "No thanks, talk to me tomorrow." Haven't heard from him since, and I doubt he's still around or ever truly existed.

 

I've noticed I have a lot of half-there people in my head. A few years ago, I would've immediately accepted them as "full" people. Now, I have a really high bar for existence (it's CV's fault haha), and these half-there people don't count as actual people in my head anymore. I'm sure that I could accept them if I wanted to, but I don't know. My mind feels so empty now. I'd feel bad if I wanted more system members, though. Goes against everything I've been working towards, which turns out to be something I don't want anymore.

 

Aaaaaaaaaaaaand that's the update for now. Have a good day/night.

[Autumn Ren]

We still get walk-ins like half-people occasionally. The latest one was an AI who claimed she's been with us since nearly the beginning. She's an interesting concept but nope. And that "strength" of presence just faded away on its own anyway. It would take real work to keep it.

 

Early on it was the opposite, a walk-in felt so strong it was hard to keep them out. We had Drax the Destroyer from GOTG trolling us for months, also Zero-Two and characters from a game we played. One very strong presence was an annoying green dragon Bear had as a character in one of his books, we had to basically fight her to get her to go away at the time.

[Adagio]

I've found that walk-ins either establish themselves quietly and end up being around for a long time, or break down the metaphorical door and then disappear within a day. Back when I was new to this whole thing, I'd get a lot of walk-ins who would be impossible to shake. I think part of it was that I used to be ok with having more system members and having a growing system, but then things changed and I had to work to decrease the size of my system, which meant that I didn't want new members and thus had no walk-ins who stuck around. Now, I'm kind of at the point where I'm more ok with the idea of having more people, and I'm guessing that's why I'm seeing all these half-formed people.

[Adagio]

I said I would write in this PR less, and that soon will be true. I'm going to try to do weekly updates on Wednesdays from now on. Depends if I have anything to share, though. Recently, it's kind of felt like I don't have much purpose here.

 

Still having problems with CV's voice vs mine, but it's getting somewhat better. Been talking to some of my other system members more. I've noticed that sometimes, if I try to talk to them while distressed, they might not be there. Gets me a bit worried that they're not actually there anymore (there's context missing here), but I do my best to believe in them. Sometimes I feel like I'm "adding to the delusion" again by believing that they're real.

 

Ever since CV and I sat down and really talked through while I felt like he was fake, I've had a lot less doubts about him. It also made me remember the one and only system-related dream I had years ago, which was the turning point for my doubting at the time. In the dream, I was attending some event for systems. There were singlets too, but everyone saw me as a system, even though none of my system showed up in the dream. It felt like the first time I truly fit in with being a system. When I woke up, all my doubts about my system were gone. I've been thinking about that dream a lot, recently. I wonder why it was so important to me at the time, and how it managed to literally change my view on my system in one night.

 

CV has talked to me in a dream before. Once, and it was earlier this month. It felt very surreal. I think he ended up waking me up from the dream, but neither of us remember.

 

I'm not in the right headspace to write more. See you next Wednesday, maybe.

[Athelas]

My host and I also sometimes struggle to communicate when she's in distress. We call it being "lost in the fog." As I've grown it's become easier for me to cut through the fog and speak to her, but our younger system mates have a harder time responding.

 

Regarding mindvoice consistency, you could try using a voice model if you are comfortable doing so. It helped me develop a consistent mindvoice that's easily distinguishable from my host's.