Don't Take Advantage Of Our Good Will

Just a heads-up here, folks.

If you email us trying to get information about our viewpoint on some aspect of multiplicity, or about our system, we're going to take your honest intents at face value and answer you. That said, do not take advantage of our good will, either. If you decide that you're going to ignore everything we told you, because you think the disorder/splitting view of plurality is 'more interesting' or you want to write a novel about yet another serial killer multiple, don't expect we won't be at least a little ticked off at you for having wasted our time.

Don't come to us because you have a hidden agenda. Don't use us as your 'meal ticket' and abuse the explanations we took time and effort to type up for you (probably starting from the assumption that you didn't know much of ANYTHING about how we work) by quoting us out of context, rewriting our words for us, or otherwise denying us our voices. If you want clarification on something, ask. Don't assume.

Don't take what we call the "postcards from the asylum" approach-- that is, taking everything we say about ourselves skeptically, and rewriting our words and putting words into our mouths, because somewhere inside you think we're loonies who can't be trusted to give reliable accounts of how we experience the world, and you see yourself as being the 'normal' interpreter making sense of our rantings. If you think we're loonies, do us a favor and don't waste our time by pretending otherwise when you write to us. However, if you think we're loonies merely for not viewing ourselves as a disorder, we do suggest you look around on our page and some other people's pages and seeing if you don't find something which shakes the foundations of that conclusion.

If you ask us for advice because you want to write about multiples, in a fictional context or otherwise, everything we've said goes double. It pisses us off to have our honest efforts at communicating our reality ignored because someone thinks yet another serial killer plot or psychic toastermaster plot would be more interesting. To paraphrase a system mate, be careful, because we've lived all our lives in a singlet world, having to pass as one and even believe we ourselves were one, so we're familiar with YOUR reality. But you probably aren't as familiar with ours, and the gaps in your knowledge will be exposed.

And finally, don't be a hypocrite. Don't ingratiate yourselves to us and then run off and kiss up to some victimwhiner, telling us just what you think we'd want to hear. If you want to get to know us just for the sake of getting to know a plural, any plural, we're not interested (especially if you want to try to exploit us-- been there done that). If you want to get to know us as individual persons, then we'll talk.


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