Sudden plurality noodle.

[kiya]

I've been manifesting a great deal as discrete aspects rather than gestalt lately. ("Lately" defined approximately as "the last month and a half".)

In roughly the same time period, I have been having significant difficulties producing language: not only have I been losing words more frequently (and a wider variety of parts of speech), but my paragraphs have been significantly more reluctant to allow me to wrestle them into submission than is usual.

Hypothesis: consistent, coherent language production may be a byproduct of synthesis. Situations that keep me out of gestalt for a significant length of time disrupt the channels that enable me to form comprehensible verbalisation.

On the bright side, I'm still much better at generating text than I am at generating spoken language, though that text is punctuated with "thingy" with somewhat distressing frequency. And I can count on Darkhawk for verbiage, so long as it's on a meta-topic and I don't mind polysyllabic ravings.

Comments

[sashajwolf.livejournal.com]

consistent, coherent language production may be a byproduct of synthesis.

When my plurality first started to manifest itself, I started having language and typing problems too. They subsided over time, and I would say my language production is now back to my previous norm, regardless of whether I'm acting as a gestalt or as one member of the collective.

[kiya]

I have three aspects who have strong verbal capabilities, some aspects that are somewhat neutral to the concept of language, and several that are pretty thoroughly nonverbal.

Of the three verbal aspects, one is a "speak when spoken to" type, one is entirely capable of being verbal but doesn't generally want to talk, and the third is my default public front, who will geek happily away at whatever subject is the current shiny thing. (The head post for this thread is a good example of unalloyed Darkhawk.)

Which means if I need to talk about something that isn't a meta-subject or a response, I need to have two aspects able to communicate with each other in order to convey stuff verbally to the outside. E.g., dealing with intimate emotional processing seems to require Silver and usually Darkhawk to work in somewhat tandem.

Very little of my internal communication is actually verbal, so I don't have the everyone-talks-all-at-once problem. :} But I do suspect I need to have smooth internal communications to express a goodly number of things, and one of the reasons I've started processing myself as plural is the tendency to discretise under stress, which makes it hard on the nonverbal aspects, especially since they often have the most direct responses to stressors.

[kiya]

I'm not sure if that would describe how it works internally for me, actually; it's . . . enough not like how I'd describe such that I can't quite visualise, if that makes sense?

Normally, what's in my head is a sort of . . . well, it's a nice seasonal metaphor. That cotton stuff that people can get in packages for Hallowe'en. I can pull on it and stretch it out enough to see the individual threads, but if I don't do that, it's this sort of mass of being, and I don't usually meta enough to do the pulling-out-the-threads unless I take a lot of time on it; the entire processing process runs a lot shorter than any sort of pulling-out-bits might do.

And I see-saw a good bit as to whether I consider my aspects to be incarnations of the aggregate personality, or the aggregate to be an assemblage of more or less independent, coordinating personalities, sort of like one of those mecha cartoons where one person in a zippy little spacecraft becomes MegaLaserTron's left elbow, etc., etc. (Now I have a weird impulse to try making a drawing or something of a giant mecha composed of all my named aspects. Heh!)

Inside my head is like a fugue, many different instruments playing variations on the same theme and tangling up so that it's sometimes hard to pick out which thread begins and ends. . . .

Now I'm pondering the spectrum of personality constructs as represented by various musical structures. If I'm a fugue, what would someone who's penteulli (aka contrefait) process like?

[kiya]

Or a medley. Or . . .

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

We have a little of the same sort of thing -- choosing what to say. We don't have the "constant voices" problem either, never did -- like zaphkiel said we thought we were faking the whole thing for that reason. Mostly what we hear sounds more like radio stations.

One other thing that occurs to me is what about other languages? A lot of groups have a personal language among themselves, and frontrunners may not be familiar with it.

[ginabeena.livejournal.com]

Hello I am sorry for intruding. But I can sort of sympathize with your language problems. Here I will explain, what sort of problems we have with language and what we do about them. Maybe if you have anything similar it will giv eyou ideas!

Ok the biggest thing we have is a guy named Jason. A very calm and composed person who we would force to do front work if it weren't for one problem. When he's around our entire throat locks up, he can't speak unless he makes a humongous physical strain, and even then he only manages to choke three or four words out before he has to stop. We have no idea why this happens, but it stands in the way of course when Jason's out and about and someone taps us on the shoulder and says "Excuse me?" Well anyway here's what we do about it.

Around people who know about Jason's inability to speak, he gets around with scribbling notes on paper, facial expressions, and small hand gestures. Facial expressions and body language can be really expresive and you'd be surprised how much you can get out of them. We keep saying we're going to learn sign language but we haven't found any classes yet. Around the world in general, if Jason is out and we're in a position where we MUST speak, he'll usually track down one of us and shove us up there to talk to them, but it takes a moment for our throat to untwist when he leaves. Sometimes we do a buddy-system sort of thing, for instance Jason and Freddy will hang out together, and if someone asks Jason a question Freddy will jump up as Jason ducks down, and answer for him.

So that's my advice, give people who are nonverbal or have trouble vocalizing alternate ways to express themselves, tell other people if you can about their difficulties so that they know what to expect, and buddy up to minimize difficulties. Hope this helps!

[kiya]

The tricky bit is under stress I can't buddy-up internally; it's one of the things that makes me think it's more useful to consider myself plural than singlet.

On the up side, though, my husband is terrific about parsing my communication-in-gesture; a friend of ours has occasionally bitched us out for being telepathic. I broke down earlier with Silver fronting, and started looking around for tissues, and he immediately started looking for them too. :}

A lot of my trauma lately has been because I've been having Silver front-and-nonverbal in dealing with my boyfriend; given that said boyfriend is three thousand miles from here, my gestures aren't quite broad enough to carry the distance. . . .

[ginabeena.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately I think when you're learning about each other and all that, stuff like this often comes with the territory. At first we could not work together or co-front either, but gradually we worked it out so we could. Not to say that you HAVE to do something like that of course, just saying that if it's something you think would help, it gets easier as things go along. Your husband sounds like a nice guy. Does he make you brownies and stuff? If so he is even nicer!

Now the other situation is differnet of course. Does your boyfriend know about Silver? Naturally it really does help if other people are patient and understanding during times like this, like if they understand that it's someone who CAN'T speak to them, not that you're trying to give them the silent treatment or something. It really does get frustrating doesn't it? But good luck! From all of us!