Arlene ' s Essay ; 27 ; 11 ; 25

Hello ! I ' m the host of a plural system , my name is arlene . And this is my , plan to recovery ! Or at least a part of my recovery . So , I ' ve recently been struggling with the development of numerous mental health issues , and I really just want to sort of prepare my mental and brain to be ready to recover . My first step , which unfortunately might take the longest , is to abolish the current part of my mental structure that my brain had created while forming in a traumatic environment . this is a pretty known form of mental structure that is associated with trauma , and it is plurality , or also known as being a system .

if you aren ' t aware of what it is , just to sum it up . it ' s having multiple identities { alters ; alternate identities { while having one body , you obviously don ' t get to choose the identities . Most times , these identities are formed from trauma and are created to help you , and also a part of this mental structure , is dissociation . This can , really happen at any time , it can even be a constant and even include derealization . But it is primarily known to happen while switching alters . Alter ' s can have different memories , personalities , likes , dislikes , and way more . I ' m not going to go more into detail , because this isn ' t something that ' s going to teach you about plurality and being a system , but I am telling you this information just to help you understand what I am going through and experiencing and might explain some of the things i may say .

I also want to clarify , I ' m not diagnosed with anything , nor do I want to be . This is a part of the reason why I ' m saying " plurality " to explain my current mental structure because I don ' t think I need to be diagnosed to know what I ' m going through and what is actively hurting me .

Now , onto , why I want to abolish it . I ' m not in a traumatic time in my life anymore , may traumatic things happen to me again ? Possibly , but I don ' t think it is really necessary to have all these alters and this dissociation and derealization , it isn ' t protecting me at this point , it is actively hurting me and keeping me from being an actual person and achieving things at life . Also , it doesn ' t just hurt me , it hurts a lot of people around me .

So , who is in the system ? Arlene , Sasha , Emmie , Macks , Sean , and Elliot . and one more who is more of a spiritual delema to me , so I ' m not going to bother bringing him into this . I put all the names in the order they were formed , so first is me , the " original part " . Then Sasha , who originally went by Astrid and then Shiloh , she ' s similar to me but she is , an age regressor . She is NOT a little alter , she is aligned with the body ' s age , as so am i . She uses Age regression to cope with trauma and stress , and usually fronts for that reason . Therefor , that ' s her role , and that does mean she does do something that actually helps protects the mind from possible further trauma . Emmie ' s role , is also actually protective . She has always fronted AFTER something traumatic happens , so I would usually stop fronting after experiencing such thing , and she ' d take my place . She is pretty similar to me when it comes to identity and likes and personality , EXCEPT she is a bit more isolated and quiet .

These two actually have a role that does something , which makes me a little bit more inclined to keep them . But , I think I ' d be way better off just gathering all the resources and memories from my alters and then destroying the plurality system and figuring out a BETTER and NEW mental construct . It would provide me more stability than having to pray and hope that none of the alters front at the wrong time , especially the harmful ones .

Now , let ' s jump into the harmful alters . Macks , is , the most destructive one in my opinion . He ruins friendships , commits a LOT of social suicide and literally only fronts to self - harm or to , just mess things up . He has actively destructed my numerous attempts at recovering and coping and has hurt me and a lot of people around me . I almost want to say Sean is less destructive , but he really isn ' t . He ' s just as destructive as Macks and does the same things as him , but he ' s , more self - inflicted with it . Elliot is an alter that I think doesn ' t even realize he ' s destructive . I think he ' s similar to me , where he can have mood swings and they can get really bad , due to these mood swings he ' s very vulnerable to having urges of self - harm and acting on it . He can ' t act right in public or even around friends , and he is just so wildly different from all the other alters with his personality and beliefs and just everything .

While I ' m not sure why Macks formed , I am aware Sean formed from trauma to do with grooming , while Elliot formed after I had lost , a really close friend of mine , or really , a whole social group of mine . And , it really stressed me out and it made me have a similar thought pattern as now . But instead of just destroying the plurality , me , or whoever was fronting , decided to start over . And I think the community I was starting to surround myself with and the stress that was still haunting me kind of caused this almost " meditation " to find my " true " inner - self , to form Elliot . I think through the meditation , I allowed the stress and environment to form him .

So , how do I stop that kind of thing from happening ? I definitely think some form of harm reduction is needed to be put in place to start us off on changing my mental structure . One that has been proven to be affective through my own experiences , is simply keeping track of who ' s fronting . It stops me from just letting myself forget and possibly slipping out of front while someone else takes charge of my body and my brain . Stress reduction is also a form of harm reduction in this case , and to reduce stress is to be aware of when you ' re stressed and to recognize what is making you stressed . And if you can avoid it , then that ' s the best option for right now . Coping skills is also a great way to reduce stress and to distract yourself in the moment . Age regression , which I mentioned earlier , is a coping skill ! Lot ' s of people do it and it can definitely help people . Some other coping skills I personally use ; journaling , drawing , praying , collecting or looking at and cleaning my collection , engaging in spiritual activities , and a couple more ! These work just fine for me , I just need to recognize when and how I can utilize them to maximize my recovery .

My next step is to figure out how to gather the resources and information from these alters . No matter if they ' re harmful or not , they have memories , information , and resources that could help me throughout my life , but I would never know because they ' re the only alter with that information . I need to get them to cooperate and somehow talk to them , meditation might be helpful for this BUT Elliot is obviously my warning that I need to be careful when I do that . While my meditation won ' t be as intense , as I will only be trying to communicate with the alters , I still need to keep my mental health in check and as up to par as I can . The cooperation may be the hardest part , as it does require them to listen and to agree to do this .

Now , if they do all agree , then i would have access to those memories and the information they know , I can use these as resources to help me in life ! Then , I would have to , I suppose , force them into dormancy . While that sounds bad , it ' s for the best for me and the body , I don ' t have a purpose for them anymore and I do strongly believe that it is keeping me from recovery and healing . I have a lot of other mental health issues as I ' ve discussed before , some are currently still developing or getting worse , while some I ' ve been having to deal with for a while . If I get the plurality out of the way , then that ' s one issue I have solved and don ' t have to deal with . And it gets rid of the dissociative barriers and will help me actually feel like myself . Which would really help me push through and figure out my other mental issues .

I won ' t lie , I did debate with myself whether or not I really should go through this , as I felt like finally writing down the purpose of my alters and what they do , gave me a reason not to . But it would be for the better if I got rid of them .

To recap ;

- I ' ll start off with recognizing daily stressors and avoiding them or coping with them using coping skills , showing my brain I do NOT need alters or switching to cope with stress .

- Then , I ' ll clean up my environment , both physically and virtually , and even mentally . So then I can figure out my best path and which environment helps me feel the safest and most like myself while also not adding to any possible additional stressors .

- I ' ll try to explore my taste when it comes to art and music , especially dabbling in music my alters liked , it will extend my taste in things while also checking for possible triggers that might make certain alters jump to front , but this time I ' ll be more in control and it ' ll be calculated .

- Then , meditation , I ' ll talk to each alter about my plans , concerns , and feelings and see if they ' d be willing to cooperate .

- If yes , then it should go somewhat smoothly , with co - sharing memories and information .

- If they say no , then I can try again later . Possibly let them look at how not being plural can actually help in the long run , and let them know that their purpose isn ' t needed . If they still say no , then persistence is key at that point .

This may take some time , which means I HAVE to stay focused on it , and also try my best to also help my mental health { and physical health { in general , so then I can adjust easier to not being plural and simply just being me .

if you read this all the way , thank you . : - ) it truly means a lot to me , even though this doesn ' t have much to do with the whole essay , I just wanted to say that I write to have people listen and to gain a new perspective even . While my writing may not be for everyone I do appreciate the few that may read them , you are truly the people I remember when I try to push myself to do something , and help me push through and want to continue being here and being present .

Thank you again for reading .

- Arlene Belle H .