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Who Am I Right Now?

February 04, 2014

You know you're multiple. You're used to having a gaggle of voices in your head at all times, to the sometimes-comforting presences and multitude of opinions on everything from which toothpaste to use today to whether to reach out for a doorknob with the right or left hand. When you've been living with the voices since childhood, it can be nerve-wracking when they disappear suddenly, leaving you uncertain of anything, even who you are.

Depersonalization is actually written down in the psych literature. That's what you've got at these times. We're used to having many identities, a sometimes chaotic, sometimes harmonious chorus in our minds. On paper it might look like losing this chorus is a blessing, but it's not. Depersonalization is not alter integration or unification New. It's not being a singleton. It's not being a multiple. It's this haunting sense of being nobody at all.

It's alarming. It can induce panic. "Where did everyone go!?" and "Who am I right now?" are the signs that depersonalization has taken hold.

Multiples who don't know what's going on try to describe it. I've called it "Criss-ing out" -- which means that rather than us all blending behind the Criss-mask just to the people outside, we can't even tell who we are on the inside anymore. I've also called it "Mashed Potatoes". Someone called it greying-out, another calls it "purpling". The idea is that everyone is still there, but rather than being one distinct identity (the goal of unification), you're very indistinct, there's no way to tell who is who, where one person ends and another begins, or even to hear each other over the blandness of fog going on inside.

You don't have to be a multiple to depersonalize -- this happens to singletons, too, because there are people who are singletons who also are dissociative. It's a dissociation issue, you lose yourself, your identity gets grayed out, you feel like you don't belong here, or anywhere, like you don't know who you are anymore. Similar to most other mental crises, it's a product of anxiety and/or depression, both of which are at their root products of fear.

So suffice to say, all the usual fear-controlling suspects can help. Grounding, mindfulness meditation, presence New, etc. But I have one particular cure that you can work on at any time, and keep pretty easily on-hand for those times when you "lose yourselves."

Content notice: Music (as a positive trigger - see also Switching)

Music is a powerful mood-altering agent. Nowadays almost everyone carries a hand-picked cadre of songs called a "playlist" and it's easy to tweak, change, etc. No more mix tapes and cd compilations -- our music can be shuffled, carried everywhere, etc.

So make a playlist. It's your system's playlist. The order doesn't matter much, but you can customize it at your whim. We have a playlist that starts with a system song (we like "Are We Ourselves" by the Fixx), and then 1-2 songs per major-front in our head. This could be a privilege you extend only to people who actively participate in your system's governance, your choice. The main point is to have some power-songs that people in your head associate strongly with. What makes this person dance? What makes that person sing? What power song motivates them so strongly that they want to front?

Songs are powerful mood-changers. In terms of "state-dependent-memory", they can act as a wonderful purposeful trigger. I'll have to rant on state-dependent-memory some time (note to self :) ).

Once you put this new playlist on your device-of-choice -- iPod, phone, android tablet, whatever -- you're now carrying around a tool to use at any time to encourage differentiation (the polar opposite of depersonalization). You know yourselves best, and who should or shouldn't be on your playlist. You can have a full playlist, a "trigger a safe front" playlist, a driving playlist (triggering responsible adult drivers), etc.

One thing we like is to sing while driving. It's really neat when a song with a deep voice comes on and one of the guys fronts and takes our voice as low as it can go, which is pretty impressive. We like to mimic the voices in the songs on our playlists or on the radio. We play with switchery when we're alone by using the power of music to trigger switches on-purpose, playing male-female duets, songs with many layers of harmony (so whomever's got the voice can pick the harmonic line that appeals to them).

When we remember the power of music and use it purposefully to create inner harmony and differentiation, we're far far happier with our multiplicity. When you're happy, you aren't stressed and anxious, so you depersonalize even less.

Share some ideas for your own playlist here, and start making yours today! Try it out, and let us know if you find it helpful, or share a tale of woeful depersonalization with us -- what did you do to get out of it, if you can remember? Did you just wait it out?

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Comments:

I found myself feeling a deep sadness, a stabbing at my heart, in the beginning of reading this. However, it's only because you "hit the nail on the head". I too have felt this way many times, but have too few people I can explain it to. Thanks for being able to put it in words, as well as offering what I believe to be a great tool for overcoming it!

Comment by Cathie on February 04, 2014, at 12:04 PM

Hi, Cathie,

Thanks for the comment. Since we multis are on the far side of the dissociative spectrum, we can experience nearly all dissociative symptoms. Depersonalization is just one of them. PTSD is also being considered dissociative. Today, while writing another article for the blog, I was falling asleep at the keyboard. Not due to tiredness, but due to some sleepiness defense mechanism in my head getting triggered -- dissociation again. Makes it harder to write about sensitive topics!

Comment by Crisses on February 07, 2014, at 10:20 PM

Interesting idea. We listen to alot of music. What I find that we do is listen to the same song over and over and over. Yesterday it was the same Christian song, today it was Tracy Chapman. Chosen by different alters. Right now I have the mashed potatoes thing going with 3 of us. One of is working on memories and is having pain. May be if I choose songs I can solidify in a way. Trigger in the one who would be the best front for the time. Cool.

Comment by KC on February 01, 2018, at 03:14 PM

Ahh! We LOVE music! We already have alter-specific playlists across multiple venues- youtube, our MP3 player- and find it very helpful when we don't feel too comfortable in the body. The only problem is, some of us don't listen to music, and as music is our only way of controlling who fronts, they're kinda anomalies XD

Comment by The Paracosm on April 05, 2018, at 03:08 PM

Glad you're enjoying the articles : )

Yes, we have some alter-specific playlists, we also have a "System Playlist" where each person picked out specific songs that are poignant for them, we arranged them with 2 intro to our system / system power songs — and then 2 songs for each main front (or those interested).... helps us ground as a group.

Moonlite, who is deaf, doesn't have a song, but she likes signing to some songs.... because she can "hear" what the song "means" through the images it brings up to others in here. She's only dissociative-deaf, our body is not deaf. I guess that makes her technically hearing impaired? Dunno.

Comment by Crisses on April 09, 2018, at 04:53 PM

Dear Crisses, I really love this idea. And I wanted to share with you how our system does something similar but different. It turns out music is very triggering for many in our system...even music some may love. So what helps our system is names of colors. It’s very often the easiest for alters who are experiencing depersonalization to think of a color or colors they like, to visualize or to google. In fact many in our system either have or pick names that are colors. We use different colored markers to write with. Since we have a lot of alters, sometimes we make up color names, google paint chips, look in our crayola box, etc. Thank you for coming up with helpful solutions. Sincerely, Spice

Comment by Spice on August 30, 2018, at 08:41 AM

Spice&,

You're absolutely correct. We're so music-focused we missed the forest for the beautiful tree we were standing in front of :P There's other things to do, other inputs to have, things to touch, colors to see or name, foods to taste, moves to make, that can reinforce our "Self-ness" and "Selves-ness" — a poem, a drawing, a sound, etc. and we should all make a "library" or "list" of them and put it someplace safe and easy for us to use if needed to kick the depersonalization habit!!

So colors! Yes!! We've got elves in here who have true names, we used to use them internally and sometimes, very carefully, give them to externals to use, too. A special secret name that they resonate with (aka a "soul name"). Or maybe dancing, or strawberries, or so on. We try to avoid ice cream — but that's a favorite of some littles. And so on down a list…

Comment by Crisses on September 18, 2018, at 09:05 PM

We enjoyed reading about this again. We forget to play music at home, but always do so when exercising or during car trips (especially long trips). We also appreciate Spice's comment about colors, which may explain part of why we love hiking in the woods -- because there are so many colors in that setting that we don't normally see otherwise when we're in suburban or urban areas. Smells, and certain foods ... there are a number of such things that we already do in order to try to bring forth a "better mood" or trigger someone more fitting to come forth and keep us out of a funk from someone "getting stuck" in the "there and then".

In this case I'm reading this as part of "UF: Search & Rescue" from https://pluralityresource.org. I've read this page before but I'm glad to do so again because we still tend to "forget".

Comment by Chris K& on February 18, 2021

This helped a lot. We often get "blurry" and don't know who the headmate is. We usually like to think of it like white noise on an old TV. It's nice to have a resource like this -Nebula Collective

Comment by Nebula on November 02, 2021

Thank y'all, Nebula! Yeah, we need to just tweak the article a tad and mention that it's about positive triggers (that will also help the site search engine etc.). So yeah, this is about being depersonalized and using positive triggers to help out. : )

Comment by Crisses on November 02, 2021

I think I actually will call it white noise, but the music helps a lot. Especially when (Being an AMAB) a female alter just takes the voice as high as they can. Or just using a bass voice too. I love Oogie Boogie's Song because it's sung by Ken Page who has a deep damn voice

Comment by Nebula Collective on January 27, 2022

Hey,dear Criss System.We write this comment in the purpose of to thank yours' articles which helped us a lot.We are from Chinese and use Japanese as our system language,so please forgive my poor grammar.

Comment by Meiji System on November 20, 2023

Thank you, Meiji System. You have no need to apologize for your English, and it is far better than my Japanese. : ) We are very glad to have helped you. Please continue to take great care of yourselves.

Comment by XES on December 03, 2023

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