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Alter, Personality - Terms for people in a multiple
system. These terms are often considered derogatory or inaccurate
because they stem from an implication that there is one "real" person
who has lots of "personalities." Try "person" instead.
Being Out - Both a term for not hiding the fact that you're
queer/multiple, and a term meaning that someone is the person or people
who are currently "out in the body" doing regular outside stuff like
getting ready for bed or talking to friends.
Co-conscious - A state where two or more people are out at
the same time, each aware to some extent of what the other is thinking.
DSM-IV - Stands for Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th
edition. It
is within this manual that the diagnoses of Dissociative Identity
Disorder/Multiple Personality Disorder and Gender Identity Disorder can
be found.
Fronter - Someone who spends a lot of time out, taking
responsibility
for the body and the outside life. There are often many fronters in one
system. Sometimes they are called "hosts," but that can also be a
derogatory term if it's used to imply that the "host" is the only "real"
or valuable person in the system.
Integration - Presented by many therapists as the "cure" for
multiplicity, where the ultimate goal is to make everyone merge into one
person somehow. Multiplicity has been very little understood and
explored so far, partly because of the reliance of therapists on
integration. This in turn means that integration often does not work,
resulting in the deaths of people within a system or in a re-emergence
of the supposedly integrated members. In other cases, integration just
ends up meaning that everyone becomes co-conscious. It is a
controversial act and issue in the multiple community. Ultimately, it
can (or at least should) only be up to the people within a particular
system whether to integrate or stay separate, and to figure out what
that means for them.
*Losing Time - The experience of being inside while someone
else was out, and missing the chunk of time that they were there. Losing
time can also occur when a person in the system is out, but cannot
retain memories of events.
Mid-Continuum - Mid-continuum is to multiple as genderqueer
is to transgendered: completely different but totally the same and not
yet fully explored even by people within its community. Also known as
identityqueer.
*Switching - The act of one person in a multiple system
going
inside the system, while another one comes to the front.
System - A group of people sharing the same body. Many
systems find a collective name for themselves, like DarkSouls or
Kaleidoscope House, so that people can refer to the group more easily.
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