One of the challenges of being part of a system is to help the structure become one that brings out the best in each part.
Power is an interesting concept to define in regards to how a system works. It can mean different things. Sometimes having the most life skills gives a part power because all other parts will have to allow a switch at some point to be able to manage life. Sometimes it can be having the ability to stay ‘out’ in the body the longest. Sometimes it’s force of personality, or the capacity to be heard by all the other parts as a voice and so influence them, or the ability to chose which parts can come out and when, or being the most frightening part, or being a part most other parts trust and put faith in, or having a lot of environmental triggers that bring a part out often, or getting along the best with the therapist or other people with power in their world, or having been around a long time, and so on. Some forms of power are the same kinds of power we see in any group of people such as the person who knows a great deal and who’s opinions are therefore treated with respect. Some forms of power are quite specific to the way internal communities can work with regards to switching and control over each other.
Sarah K Reece, Power Shifts in a Multiple System, 2013
every so often I see people go “why am I host, there are so many other people in this head who would do a better job—” okay, but would they really? is the problem really that you, specifically, are weak, or is the problem that your life would reduce anyone to a fine paste? what makes you so sure that your headmates wouldn’t also crack under the Ceaseless Onslaught Of Being Embodied?
“I suck at being on fire, there are people other than me who would be better at being on fire—” no one is good at being on fire!!! I get wanting a break from being on fire but please do not put yourself down for not being at your best when you are on fire.
Phosphor [&] (@bazelgeuse-apologist) on Cohost. 2024.
I used it to make myself do more work. It split me into a commander who made the hard decisions beforehand, and commanded who did the suffering but had the comfort of knowing that if I just did the assigned work, the benevolent plans of a higher authority would unfold. As the commanded, responsibility to choose wisely was lifted from my shoulders. I could be a relatively shortsighted animal and things’d work out fine.
It lasted about half a year until I put too much on it with too tight a deadline. Then I was cursed to be making hard decisions all the time.
There are types of adulting that you can’t learn until you have no other recourse, and once learned, are far more powerful than crutches like commitment mechanisms. Learn to dialogue between versions of yourself, and do it well enough that you want to understand other selves’ concerns, or lose access to knowledge that just might be selected to be the thing you most need to know.
When you set your future self up to lose money if they don’t do what you say, you are practicing being blackmailed.
Ra, Self-Blackmail, unknown date.
Kids get scared by their inner adults who are angry, powerful (but not all powerful) figures who feel they are more real, more important, their needs paramount, and their ideas about life decisions the ones that should happen. Kids don’t just get out voted, they often don’t get a vote at all in these systems. Imagine the sense of threat that comes from having other people who don’t like you, don’t care about your pain or needs, and don’t even see you as ‘real’ making choices about your life, your home, your family, and your body. Sound familiar? For some of us, we build our systems on the same dynamics of family or school, the world we grew up in, and sometimes that’s a terrible thing.
Systems that are structured on abusive dynamics, as mine was, deal with the fall out of that. The most powerful might win all the time out and decision making, but the alienated rebel, undermine, sabotage, manipulate, seethe with resentment, or submit and hate themselves. Those who have no choice or overt power protest in passive aggressive ways and behave without dignity. The traumatised stay locked in severe trauma, the isolated express pain and loneliness through symptoms such as phobias, nightmares, flashbacks, tics, and sickness. This is often what we call DID or multiplicity, when in fact it’s a normal response to a really abusive system. Multiplicity with a healthy use of power internally looks very different. It often doesn’t even fit the diagnostic criteria for DID, and we have no alternative framework or language to describe it.
Sarah K Reece, Inner Children: Shame and Threat, 2015
“The idea handed to us by the singular-centric patriarchy is that someone must lord over the masses, police them, shepherd them, bully them, into submission. It gets into popularity contests, politics, etc. Managing people vs leading people are extremely different concepts, and so when we have this fear of being unable to manage the numbers it usually comes down to reframing our position from one of managing to leading. “How do I control them?” is the wrong question. The right question is “How do we inspire each other?” “How can we find activities, projects, goals that inspire everyone?” Or at least as many as is feasible because there are always some reluctant to have buy-in or who aren’t inspired by much of anything.”
The Crisses, Size and Complexity