Being a Responsible Roommate

July 16, 2011

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Related Podcast (listen before video): Welcome to DID: We Are Not Your Enemy (009) New

Related Video Presentation (listen after podcast): Recruits, Rebels & adventurers: pitch in to have a better life together

Scenario A

You're already one of the people who is up front, coconscious, part of a fronting team, working on improving your system relationships. We strongly suggest you read through this article anyway just for the knowledge you might get from it, but there's not much for you to do here.

Scenario B

Most of the advice here is in case your system is out of your hands. What if you want change, but the people up front are not listening, not approachable, and you aren't sure whether you can work with these materials because you don't have power and control. Read on, this is for you.

Scenario C

There's a middle ground too. It's possible that folk up front are reading through this fully wanting change, and there's some folk in the back also fed up ready for something different. This is the best case scenario. You might even think you're enemies or different warring factions, only to find that meanwhile everyone wants change, and the challenge is how to meet in the middle. That's why Scenario A says keep reading. Because there may be folk back there you don't have great communication with who are drinking this in and nodding along.

Try to read with an open mind, allowing others to read along with you, over your shoulder, or broadcast what you're seeing or reading to the rest of your system.

Maybe you know you're not one of the people "in charge." You're a Johnny come lately to the system in some way, and there's a lot of people who are part of the "in" crowd. You aren't welcomed, or you aren't treated well, or maybe you're never given any say or invited to participate in making decisions. At worst, there are blatantly problematic things going on and you need to take action to have a better life.

How this program is intended and how it might work out in your body could be two different things. Perhaps this particular group skipped the idea of having a welcoming committee, or isn't holding meetings regularly. In some cases you might feel like you're an outsider -- because you technically are. It's not the way I intend this program to work, but now that I'm putting it out there into the universe piecemeal, it's going to be subject to people's fancy and group politics.

So let's say you find this program attractive, but you're not the person in-charge and things aren't being run in any vaguely democratic fashion.

There's no reason to get angry, and only one way to get even. You can read my post about "What are you letting in?" and examine your own boundaries -- make sure you are as healthy as you personally can be. Because once you are, you're like Gandhi -- untouchable stillness in a sea of turmoil. You can be the example of a well-behaved citizen. You can demonstrate. You can speak out, you can effect change within yourself and set an example of what this program really stands for.

Make sure you're impeccably honest and have the best integrity you can muster. Be transparent. And then act on behalf of the changes you want to see.

You can become the welcoming committee that should have greeted you, and start reaching out to others. Once you have a few other responsible citizens helping you to reach out to those in need, you can hold committee meetings.

I'm not asking you to challenge whatever authority is in power. But if they are acting out of integrity, are dishonest, authoritarian, then acting in a democratic, integral, honest manner is going to make a big change and things will get better.

If there's a faulty democratic structure in place, you might try working with the system. If it's dysfunctional, you might work gently counter to it. I'm definitely not advocating for confrontational behavior, but for doing what is right in spite of whatever else is going on.

Work with what is in place whenever possible, because you never want to have two governing bodies/groups. If your governing body is dysfunctional, then you may be working counter to it and cause a period of chaos when the balance of power between the two subsystems pulls you in two directions. It's definitely NOT what I want for you. If whatever is in place works in even the slightest way, try to work with it to effect change.

Let's say that your system is out of control and those in power are being irresponsible. Everything is a total mess. Those in power do not allow any type of democratic resolutions. You are shut out because you are the one who wants to be more responsible. This would be a perfect situation to try the methods I'm talking about in this post. First you try to work with the system. You know the system isn't functional, and the people acting out are running the show. That's when you stand firmly in your own integrity. You fix up your boundaries -- not the system boundaries (that may be out of your control) but your own personal boundaries within the system as a whole -- so that they have little to no chance of mentally or emotionally damaging you -- and you make your stand. You might greet some lost children, or find someone who has run away from the out-of-control system and who needs comfort. You'd act as your own one-person-peace-corps, and make friends.

Your little group works on fixing their individual boundaries, protecting one another from those who are out-of-control in the system. You eventually develop your own codes or rules by which to behave, even if you're a subset of the system-at-large. You clean up your own parts of the internal landscape. You make your group approachable, you constantly recruit, and eventually you may start converting some of those with bigger issues. You forgive them when they slip up but you deal out consequences according to your code. But you are always welcoming, always acting on the side of love and integrity. Eventually you will, perhaps after some turf wars and infights, have more power than the people invested in divisive behavior do and you can have a revolution.

I'm not saying at all that this is an easy path to take, but it may be the ONLY path to take to ensure your total shared health. This is something best done with the support of friends, family, therapists, lovers. If people in your support system are part of the problem, it's doubly important to set up a core group of outside people who can support you through this.

Therapists can also offer this as a potential strategy or solution to multiple systems with severe control issues. However, to offer this is to risk the rapport of those who are in power. It's one thing if the person(s) inside figure this out on their own, or read this post -- that doesn't wreck your rapport or trust with those in power in the multiple's system. But essentially telling people in the system to start a quiet rebellion may not go over very well.

Another possibility is that the people in charge WANT a change of governance, but to do so they can't be the ones in power anymore. Someone else has to be the head honcho or the catalyst member of the system because the current head honcho has way too much work to do to repair their integrity and their boundary system. It is possible to rebuild the internal governance using this idea, and then the old regime voluntarily steps down and the new one takes over. This is a peaceful and voluntary revolution for the sake of the system. Some systems do this unconsciously when the fronting group is burning out and needs to go deep while another group takes over. Even though this is a voluntary coup (on a subconscious level often) it's still a big change and can in itself be disruptive and more conscious gradual shifts of governance are probably less chaotic.

I hope this helps. Please use this information only for good.

Other Posts in July 2011

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