Plurality in Sketches

Inner Critics

There’s an episode of Jane the Virgin I absolutely adore wherein the title character works on her relationship with her inner critic. Her inner critic is a separate character, played by the same actress as Jane but with wildly different mannerisms and style. She observes and comments on the world around them, but only Jane can see or hear her.

Throughout most of the episode, Jane struggles with writer’s block and expressing herself in her relationships, and she blames her inner critic—after all, she criticizes everything! At first, Jane tries to ignore her inner critic, who in turn just gets louder and more obnoxious, and all the while, Jane’s ability to create and communicate continues to flounder.

Finally, Jane decides to actually listen to her inner critic. She writes a bio about and performs as her inner critic at an improv show, which makes her inner critic beam with the pleasure and delight of feeling known. Only then do Jane and her inner critic sit down to start working again on their novel, together.

I wouldn’t say that Jane is neurodivergent, but the way the show portrays characters like her inner critic is the best depiction I have yet seen of one particular aspect of my neurodivergence—specifically, of being a plural system.

I Am Many

A collage self-portrait featuring five distinct characters

When I say I am a plural system, what I mean is that I articulate my concept of self in terms of many people. Speaking in terms of “me” and “I” is accurate enough, for most interactions, but it’s a simplification. What’s actually happening from my(our) point of view, is that a whole team of people confer about what to say and agree on how to say it. “I” am a collaboration.

I believe that most people do in fact think this way to some extent, though my guess is it’s probably more common to work as a relay team rather than a committee—switching between “work self” and “home self,” for instance. I’ve also had countless conversations in which someone else, at first skeptical, will suddenly start gushing about how actually, they do have this character they call so-and-so who comes out in such-and-such situations.

I think where I differ from most people, including Jane—and why I even bother to identify as plural—is that my characters yearn to be known outside of my system. Where Jane’s characters seem content to make commentary from the sidelines, my characters crave their own experiences and relationships. I as a system feel most known, understood, and accepted when the people around me learn about and interact directly with individual parts of myself.

Embodiment

The other day, my partner whimsically started tickling me in the kitchen, and I squealed in utter delight. Multiple characters in my system enjoyed being fully present in the body for the interaction. Others, less excited about being tickled, were somewhere off in Wonderland, blissfully unaware of what was happening in the body. They’d remember it later as something the system experienced without them; no need to pull them into something they don’t want to be a part of.

After a moment, I managed to straighten myself up and meet my partner’s eyes, and was struck with strong conflicting desires: to kiss or not to kiss. You see, some characters in my system adore kissing, some are neutral, and some are actively repulsed by the idea. There was a brief flash of a subverbal negotiation, in which everyone agreed that the characters who wanted that kiss really wanted it, much more than the characters who didn’t want it wanted to remain present. So, the nay-sayers amicably left the body, and the rest enthusiastically kissed our partner.

It might sound bad, that parts of me need to leave for me to enjoy kissing, but the alternative is that I never get to enjoy kissing. In such moments of conflicting desires, if I always go with the lowest common denominator—only doing the thing that no part of me objects to—then my breadth of experience is extremely limited, and sometimes I’d be paralyzed with indecision. Since coming out as plural and fully embracing being a multitude of people, I have dramatically broadened my horizons, and my whole being is happier for it.

My Path

Silhouettes in Wonderland

Though I only started identifying as plural in the past year or two, I have been wild about role-playing since I was ten. It was a context where I could introduce parts of myself to friends that I couldn’t yet express in any other way. By college, I was closest with people who were curious to learn more about my characters: what are their philosophies, what movies do they like, what do they think of this life? Sure, I could talk about those things as just “me,” but then I would only tell one story, and no one story felt sufficiently true.

When I moved across the country five years ago, I was predictably lonely as I started over making friends in a new city. What I didn’t predict was how lonely and misunderstood I would still feel a year later even after finding a vibrant community and establishing multiple friendships and partnerships. When an old partner from my previous life visited, it finally hit me how sorely I missed interacting with people who were curious about individual parts of me.

Three years ago, one of my dearest friends tentatively divulged to me that they were sometimes different people. I giddily told them that I was the same way and would love to get to know their other characters. We began a flurry of discussion about our individual parts, trading stories and anecdotes and pictures. Finally, we started to fully be our characters in person. 

Nowadays, that dear friend is my partner, multiples of our characters have their own unique relationships with each other, and two of our characters are even engaged. We’re still figuring out what “engaged” means to individual characters as opposed to whole systems, but whatever our emerging relationships become, they represent something precious we couldn’t have if we didn’t treat each other as plurals.

The Multiplicity of Plurality

Some of you might be thinking to yourself, “Isn’t this some kind of dissociative disorder?” and, while my answer is a confident “no,” I understand and even want to validate the connection.  Dissociative Identity Disorder is one of many lived experiences that fall under the umbrella of plurality; Tulpamancy is another. 

It’s important to understand that even if a plural system is suffering from a disorder or struggling with trauma, their individual parts are not to blame. Remember that Jane worked through her writer’s block and relationship difficulties by embracing her inner critic, not wishing her away. In fact, many therapists encourage clients to practice similar “parts” work using Internal Family Systems.

Like any neurodivergence, plurality is a multi-faceted spectrum, and you might find that you have more overlap with it than you think. Learning about individual parts of yourself is a strategy that anyone can use to help resolve inner conflict, be present in the moment, understand different perspectives, and explore broader ways of experiencing life.

This blog post delves into some ways to explore plurality in yourself. Or, if you’re interested in a more philosophical understanding of plurality, I highly recommend this article: Neurons Gone Wild.