Your Biggest Surprise?

[MakersDozn]

We're all seen how multiplicity is misunderstood by by the non-multiple world. We're familiar with the stereotypes and the myths and how frustrating it is to see these myths perpetuated. Uninformed non-multiples may be surprised to learn how hard multiples work to fit into mainstream society and hide what makes us different. They may be surprised to learn that many of us hold down full-time jobs, raise families, and have relationships and friends just like everybody else.

It's easy to think about what would surprise non-multiples if they knew the truth about what we experience. But here's another thought: What surprises us most about our own experience? What is it about our journey that's been different from what we expected when we started out?

In our case, we had a pretty clear idea of what our system was (or should be) like. Everybody had a role, and each of us had a uniqueness that made him or her distinct from everyone else inside. Our system would be our family of choice, and we would strive for an ideal that would bring us the happiness that the outside world had never brought.

We've learned that life isn't like that for us. In some basic ways our system is as we envisioned, with priorities being safety, respect for each other, nurturing internal relationships, and fostering collective responsibility as well as individual and system growth.

But it's not perfect. We're not perfect, although some of us wish we were. Our system is three and a half times larger than it was in its early days, and we often struggle to balance everyone's well-being. We know everyone who's inside, but we still struggle with different insiders' thoughts and feelings overlapping each other, leaking onto each other. We still struggle with discovering and accepting who we are as individuals, and what we need to do to better our life.

And the biggest surprise of all is that the more we move forward in our healing, the farther away our inner world seems. Many of us can't retreat there in the same way that we used to do. It's still our safe place, and it's still an ideal in some ways, but we can't hide there any more. We have to face the life that we've been creating in the outside world, just as we've gotten to know the inside.

What's the biggest surprise that you've experienced in your journey as a multiple? What's been different from what you envisioned or expected?

MDs