Mutually Emergent Association<\/a>.)<\/p>\nWhy? When we\u2019re dissociated, especially when we\u2019re stuck in a flashback, we become less<\/em> distinct. We don\u2019t know where Yavari ends and Jack begins. Dissociation is a haze that affects everyone. Anyone who comes to front while we are dissociated is going to feel disconnected, split, and hazy. We are fragmented, scattered, blurry, foggy. Our thoughts are denuded of their usual colour and vibrancy. When written words appear in our mind\u2019s eye\u2014we\u2019re ticker-tape synaesthetes and think in complete written sentences when thinking verbally\u2014they appear in a flat, bland typeface on a white background. When we\u2019re smashed together in a dissociative haze, we feel like a trauma receptacle full of painful memories, nothing more.<\/p>\nWe run on autopilot when we\u2019re in situations where we can\u2019t be open about ourselves, which is most of them outside in-person hangouts with good friends. This is a lightweight kind of dissociation; though we are more aware of who we are and what we\u2019re doing, there\u2019s still a disconnection between who we are in our fullness and the mashed-together version of us that we present for the general public. We\u2019ve historically been able to get through work because we\u2019re usually alone at our desk and can get into a flow state if it\u2019s work we care about. (It\u2019s harder when it\u2019s work we don\u2019t care about and find difficult, since there\u2019s nothing to distract us from the flood of memories that comes in.)<\/p>\n
When we\u2019re happy and feel safe, we feel more individualised, and our distinct thinking styles become apparent. For example, Jack\u2019s thoughts are shot through with colour, textures, diagrams, vivid typography (he and Jamie can recognise hundreds of fonts by memory), artwork, photography, graphic design, music videos. Vova, on the other hand, has sharply photorealistic thoughts, often with film-style titles appearing over a mental scene, like \u0421\u0430\u043d\u043a\u0442-\u041f\u0435\u0442\u0435\u0440\u0431\u0443\u0440\u0433, \u0420\u043e\u0441\u0441\u0438\u044f, 2023 \u0433.<\/strong> (St Petersburg, Russia, 2023) in a white font that looks like DIN Condensed.<\/p>\nWe also want to distinguish between dissociation and the flow state. Although you lose your ego awareness in a flow state, this is different. Individuals<\/em> enter flow states, not the system in its entirety. Co-fronters\u2014whether blended or distinct\u2014can feel flow states alongside each other, but this is still an individual phenomenon connected to each person\u2019s self-expression, not an indistinct dissociative blob. When Jack sits down and gets engrossed in an art project, he is still creating as Jack, even if he\u2019s not consciously thinking about himself. His art will still look different from Vova\u2019s or Fiona\u2019s.<\/p>\nWe suspect that our dissociation looks more like this because we were born plural, trauma notwithstanding. Dissociation wipes our distinctiveness away and turns up into a singular blob. When we feel like one, our integrity has been compromised. It feels like a kind of “reverse DID.”<\/p>\n
<\/span>Integration is not fusion<\/span><\/h2>\nIntegration isn\u2019t fusion either. Some therapists, though not all, think that turning a plural system singlet will make them more functional and allow them to integrate their traumatic memories. But this rests on the idea that multiples are composed of fragmented trauma buckets with no room for growth, self-awareness, or metacognition. This makes sense for systems that were formed through traumatic splitting that resulted in undeveloped fragmented selves. But this model doesn\u2019t work for everyone, including many trauma-split systems with self-aware headmates who can grow and change over time.<\/p>\n
We have and have had headmates who haven\u2019t fully processed our trauma. They\u2019re the ones who are the most likely to self-harm or unintentionally sabotage us when we\u2019re trying to get things done. Less-integrated headmates act alone and don\u2019t spend much time talking to the rest of us. They don\u2019t introduce themselves to people outside the system, or if they do, it\u2019s a one-off introduction. We don\u2019t know their stories, even though nearly all are walk-ins (we have two types of system member here, walk-in and alter; walk-ins have detailed backgrounds and often have independent lives)