So if you go through trauma repeatedly when you’re a kid (a kid as in under 10) your brain may split your personality to make it easier to cope with
So then sometimes it just becomes your brains automatic coping mechanism to split your personality when you go through something stressful again
It might also add amnesia inbetween (theres probably a reason but I can’t remember rn)
There’s also endognic systems but I don’t have the mental energy to explain that all
In my experience a lot of stuff happened when I was younger that basically made my brain go “NOPE CANT DO THIS NEED SOMEONE TO HELP” when there wasnt help available which kinda went “no help ok then *creates help using pieces of existing personality* see all good”
And then I didn’t realise for like a year that having people living in your head that use your body sometimes wasnt normal
(When I did realise I thought I was schizo or sumt because I didn’t know anything about plurality at the time other than “multiple personalities”)
Systems (the name for the personalities in one body) can get really big so keep that in mind before fakeclaiming a plural for having a lot of alters/headmates/whatev you wanna call them
Into the slang part of the community we go!
Theres a buncha terms that plurals use relatively often:
Host - Personality that fronts the most
Alter - Short for alternate personality, also called headmate, sysmate, whatever you wanna call it basically
Core - the original personality
Fronting - when an alter/personality takes control of the body
Switching - When an alter stops fronting and lets a different alter front
Co-con/co-fronting - when an alter is partially fronting with someone else fully fronting/ 2 alters being consicious at the same time
Ageslider - An alter thats age changes
Traumagenic - a system caused by trauma
Endognic - a system not caused by trauma. (Not D.I.D/OSDD though)(Not always Willogenic)
Innerworld - basically a place where alters go when not fronting. (Not all systems have these btw)
Fakeclaim - claiming a system is fake for any reason.
Willogenic - a system that was purposefully created
Tulpa/tulpamancy - creating a headmate. Also sometimes known as forcing. A headmate created through tulpamancy is called a tulpa, a person who creates a tulpa is a tulpamancer.
I think that’s most(?) of the terms but then again my memory sucks
Here’s some of the role names or whatever you call them
Protector - an alter whose role is to protect members of the system from internal or external harm
Host - I explained this one earlier
Little - An alter who’s (I think) 2-8(?)
Middle - An alter who is 9-12
Non-human - exactly what it sounds like. An alter that is not human. (Robot, Angel, demon, etc)
trauma holder - Alter that holds traumatic memories. Trauma can be replaced with other words, similar meaning. (hallucination holder, etc etc)
Persecutor - i can’t really explain this well on here, basically an alter whose role causes harm internally (to the system) or externally (to other people).
Fictive - not really a role but I’ll put it here anyway. An alter who is a fictional character. Kind of like fictionkin but a personality.
Factive - also not rlly a role but adding it too. An alter that is a real person. Might be someone who helped you during trauma that’s no longer in your life.
OCtive - The past 2 definitions but with an OC.
I think I got most of the common terms? But I’m not sure.
Thank you for your time.
-Chris (he/they) + Orion (he/him)