Of Other Worldsby RukaI am, on the whole, a rather private person. I willingly confess a certain amount of that to be borne of my personal disposition; I would rather spout off my own attempts at philosophy, than relate in any detail the troubles of my personal life, in a place accessible to the public at large. This is not to say that no such troubles exist, and he who would assume me-- on the basis of none more than my online writings-- to live a carefree existence is a fool. I make no secret of the fact that I think rather poorly of both multiples and single people who insist upon relating the most droll and mundane details of their existence in their web journals; I do not care what you had for lunch today, and I do not expect you to care what I had to eat either. I reserve disdain of equal magnitude for those plural groups whose 'journals' are naught but unending howls of self-pity, of triggers and the illiterate babblings of distressed Lils. I cannot conceive of any reason for bawling out in most intimate detail all the traumas of one's existence, other than to garner the sympathies and attentions of random strangers. And, too, it does naught but reinforce to society the notion that plurals are merely lonely and troubled liars in search of attention. I am apt to be at times unreasonably self-conscious online, which I think to be entirely the result of our group's self-chosen status as a sort of 'ambassador' of plurality. Having pledged to present the message that we can be quite as functional as anyone else, we find ourselves bound to uphold an image of little less than perfection. I know it to be a common complaint of other groups like ourselves-- indeed, we all, if given the chance, will tend to expound upon it most irately and at great length-- that the most ordinary and human of distresses we permit to show, will be held to scrutiny as an example of the 'instability' of multiples, and our presumed 'inability to cope.' Nothing we ever do can be exactly what it seems; a cigar can never be a cigar; no, the mildest of deeds and words must be subject to unflattering interpretations. If we are distressed or unhappy in any way, it must be a new traumatic memory or a new 'alter' attempting to surface; if we indulge in any amount of brooding about the past, it must portend some "undigested trauma." (Pepto-Bismol might help.) If we disagree amongst ourselves, our operating system is clearly in chaos and we cannot be expected to handle things without the divine and sage intervention of our Lord Therapist-- who, as likely as not, is deriving a vicarious thrill from watching us vomit forth childhood horror stories upon demand, whilst assuring themselves that all is necessary and sufficient for the sake of 'healing.' I do not know what constitutes a true state of 'healing' in their estimation, but I suspect it is not achieved until we have confessed in excruciating detail to being the Satan-worshipping, baby-sauteeing, mind-controlled Neo-Nazi offspring of Area 51's resident extraterrestrials. One is given to suppose that our would-be 'helpers' ought to have majored in modern art instead of in psychology, given their propensity towards extravagant interpretations of meaningless details. In their view, no one and nothing is permitted to simply exist in a system, without some grand plan and meaning behind the fact of that existence. No, we must all have a function, some reason for our being. If a person in a system is young, we are told they must 'represent' some childhood trauma or other-- as surely, I suppose, as a few slops of paint upon a blank canvas are a metaphor for the nature of man's existence. If a person is a bit protective of their group on the whole, why, then, they are a 'protector alter,' hell-bent upon blind, irrational defense of the collective. If someone has an ill temper, even if they use it to productive ends, they are a 'persecutor alter,' and deemed detrimental to the group, an undesirable and unwanted presence. If we are a different gender than the body, then we are told our existence is rooted in sexual abuse. If there are too many of us for psychology's liking, we are called 'polyfragmented,' and, as such, most certainly the result of horror beyond the ken of mortal singlets. Of course our say in the matter, if we aver that there was no horror of exceptional circumstance, nothing which does not happen quite commonly in this society, does not matter; being multiple, of course, we surely cannot be trusted to recollect our own past with any degree of accuracy, if what we remember is not lurid enough to stir the therapist's excitement. What of internal landscapes, and of worlds elsewhere? We are not accorded even the dubious dignity of having such things dismissed as mere fantasy; no, nothing can be merely what it is; it must all mean something! Surely, if we perceive ourselves to be journeying elsewhere when we are not up front in the body-- unless it is to a sugary place bursting with cotton-candy trees and romping unicorns, where Lils are free to spout their excruciating babble, in which case it is our 'safe place'-- said place must be some sort of elaborate metaphor for our fragmented wreck of a mind! And by that same token, it likewise indicates the depths of our instability; if we were healthy, we are told, we would not need this place. But perhaps it becomes apparent to the reader why we hesitate to relate personal details of our lives on the Internet. I have no wish to find myself besotten by sympathy-vultures who attempt to tell me my own history and the meanings of my own words. I know many things I do not say, and there are a great many things I withhold saying for a reason. And, too, there looms also above me the spectre of society's disdain for plurality as a whole; as ravenous as the sympathy-vultures are those who would eagerly pounce upon us and inform us that (although we have never been diagnosed) we must have been talked into thinking this by a therapist; that (although we have never been in recovered memory therapy, nor purposely tried to dig up anything which might have been forgotten) our memories were all suggested to us by therapists; that, in short, we are quite incapable of exerting ordinary common sense and reason, and of coping with the world in which we dwell, all upon the basis of our being plural. It is a wonder, I do think, that so many who scorn the ideas of mind-reading and fortunetelling (though I am rather skeptical myself) would deign to know most intimately our motives, history, and capabilities, without having but the slightest cursory contact with us. So whence this ramble, you may wonder? I have alluded to it but in passing before, and more often have reminded myself that one of these days I ought to get around to saying it; and the fact of the matter is that I, Ruka, have an other world. In truth it is a gross misconception to refer to it as 'my' world, for I belong to it and not the converse; I can no more lay claim to it than I may declare the moon or sun my own property. It is neither a sugar-spun safe place nor a fantasy-land of elves and magic, as other worlds are quite often assumed to be; it is simply different from Earth, neither greater nor lesser, possessing shortcomings in sufficient measure to counter-weigh what advantages it has over this world. I had often before thought to mention it, but always found myself hesitating, thinking that if I were to confess the fact of it, it should stain any positive reputation which I had managed to acquire, and forever after would find all that I said, though I may pick over my reasonings with a fine-toothed comb, viewed by all in an unflattering light on account of my 'delusions.' I wonder if I may really be declared any more delusional, than those who profess to know in full the true nature and intents of a Higher Power, to the point of being certain which political party that Power has chosen to back. But perhaps I flatter myself too much in thinking that any besides my friends would give too much attention to my writings. And if any would toss my opinions aside so casually, upon my mere utterance of this aspect of my life, I would promptly deem them judgemental fools, and care not for what they made of my ideas upon other things; that being so, I do not know why I feel so compelled to cover for myself, to present a fact most intimate and dear to my life in a guise nigh-apologetic. Why ought I to feel the slightest remorse for the particulars of my existence? But even so, even so, though at times I may swear myself to have neither interest nor stake in it, I too am fighting for acceptance alongside the rest of my collective, albeit in a rather cynical and standoffish manner. And their concerns over public perception exist, though in lesser degree, in myself as well. Back |