Feeling angry, frustrated, and alone....

[The Warren]

Well being an introvert, we thrive on downtime and don't really feel isolated in our physical aloneness, because we chose it and enjoy that time, especially where, like you, we are around people all day at work or other activities. We have made sure we had a variety of different types of things and connections outside of our job. So we may choose to be alone or me may choose to be around others.

Over the years we seemed to have integrated nicely into the singlet world and can switch back and forth without much thinking about it. I think as introverts we are happy to quietly be who we are without feeling the need to share all the time, and we have become comfortable with our singlet world persona and knowing that we are who we are always no matter what world we are interfacing with.

It is understood in our system we have one body which has one legal name and birthday and whatever, and how to operate within those confines and understanding that the body we were given does not define who we are, that no matter what we are doing on the outside, that doesn't fundamentally make us singlet, even if other singlet are assuming we are also singlet.

We are also "out", as in we don't closet our multipleness. We don't skip around announcing it, but when a situation presents itself that could out us, we don't sweat it. Worse things have happened, and we feel secure enough in our singlet world roles that it just really is not going to make much difference, and that has been our experience. When people have known us long enough, they are not very likely to change their opinions of us very radically just by finding out we are multiple, or a myriad of other things. We have found people are really much less concerned about it than one might think.

I think as we went out into the working world and made other connections, we expanded our identification to grow beyond "being multiple" and see it only as a small piece of who we are, not the bulk of our identity. We don't consider we see the world in only this way or that way. We have many roles that are the same as anyone else - co-worker, friend, sister, aunt, church member, bunny hugger, home owner, game player, singer, neighbor, etc. In this way I think we are prevented from feeling isolated.

We don't feel like we can't share with people who are not multiple. We find it comforting that whether multiple or singlet we have the same issues. We all have to get up and earn a paycheck. We all have to pay bills. We all struggle with relationships and illnesses and just things, lots and lots of things. Knowing that we have all of those day-to-day mundane things in common gives us a basis on which we can interact with the singlet world on equal footing.

I think you hit the nail on the head though here:

Quote:Being multiple isn't the problem. The problem is feeling different, feeling unaccepted and unacceptable. And we feel stuck.

I think what you are feeling is less related to being multiple and is more a reflection of feeling unaccepted and unacceptable, which is how we felt all of our childhood and into early adulthood. I think to overcome that a person have to look at the why they feel this way. What is the root cause of these feelings? Are they old tapes? Do they reflect current reality? This is a great subject for therapy. A good therapist will have suggestions also about how to reprogram those old tapes and transform old feelings of being unacceptable.