The Empowered:
A New Brand of Multiple.

Sharon of the Anachronic Army

Astraea Note:

This essay was originally written by Sharon of the Anchronic Army (not by members of Astraea) in 1999. It was supposed to describe online multiples who were liberating themselves from the fear that typified most MPD/DID websites and forums in the 1990s. These discussion boards required endless spoiler warnings, trigger warnings, and use of *** (known as "splats") to censor common words. This grew out of the misguided attempts at therapy for MPD in the 1980s-90s. Many actual multiples were recognized and some multiples and abuse survivors did get real help, while other people had their lives ruined by overzealous doctors. Besides prompting to recover memories of trauma which might or might not have happened, Recovered Memory therapy often involved a kind of infantilization, learned helplessness and over-reliance on one's "T" (therapist) to protect and solve everything.

These RM/MPD clients called themselves "survivors" online at that time.

Sharon's essay has been misinterpreted to mean you should never ask for help at all, or that this is something that's only for multiples who were born that way, or who were never abused at all.

The word "survivor" is what threw many people off. They assumed that if you were a survivor (that is, of childhood abuse/trauma) or if your multiplicity came about through the classic trauma-dissociation-splitting experience, you were not and could not be empowered. That was not what the authors intended. "Survivor" was a buzzword at that time, a brand name, a code word that had very little to do with individuals' actual experiences of childhood abuse. "Survivor" was a behavior model which you were expected to follow if you joined any of the various MPD newsgroups, forums or communities on line at that time. The concept of empowerment was originally supposed to be an alternative to the "survivor" behavior model. It had nothing to do with natural or non-trauma multiplicity. I am sorry to say that we played a part in the actions that caused that confusion, and we want to do whatever we can to clear it up.

Arguably, you could say that there are two main kinds of multiples - survivors and empowered. Our site is, of course, one that no survivor would ever want to visit because it goes against all that characterizes the survivor community. We do not use spoilers, trigger warnings, *s in our swear words. We jokingly applied to have our site added to some survivor sites and have been rejected for "unsuitable content".

I think it's important that you understand the difference between an empowered multiple and a survivor multiple. Survivor groups are usually founded on the premise that a person cannot do something on their own... they need help from a higher power, from God. This can be seen in the Twelve Steps of many support and addiction recovery groups. However, stating that you are weak and unable to do it without God or some Higher Power keeps you in that state of weakness and helplessness. There are many people in support groups and survivor groups that are unable to even make simple decisions like eating or going somewhere without someone telling them what to do. Here is a page that talks about how the Alcoholics Anonymous program has not demonstrated itself to be the best way to quit drinking.

Empowered multiples do not depend on Outsiders to keep them safe. We do not require trigger warnings or spoilers or *s in our words... in fact, such things annoy us because they threaten free speech and expression. Survivors expect whomever is running a multiple forum or email list to keep everything safe.

Empowered multiples know that life is not always a safe place, and hence they protect their own people in their own systems, and expect other multiples to do the same!

Do you see the difference? By keeping conversations safe in survivor groups, people are kept "comfortable". They have no reason to grow beyond where they are... they are allowed to stay trapped in a triggery mindset where mere words can send them looking for a knife to slit their wrists, or curled up on the floor whimpering and scared.

I know I have a disillusioned opinion of survivor groups, but I have had enough! I've seen too many multiples kicked off of survivor forums for little things, but then they don't know where to go or what to do because they've never learned how to protect themselves. Survivor groups believe that being a multiple means that you have a mental disorder, you cannot live on your own and you need to integrate in order to be "cured". They often introduce themselves with "I am MPD/DID because I was abused as a kid."

Empowered groups believe that being a multiple means that you have a community or world all sharing one body. They do not believe it means you have any kind of disorder... many multiples have proven themselves capable of living happy, productive lives WITHOUT INTEGRATING. There is no cure for being a multiple...it is a state of being, and just as natural as being left-handed. They often introduce themselves WITHOUT the ridiculous label of MPD/DID (which is outdated and explained from the perspective of people who have never been multiples and will never understand what a multiple can or cannot do.) by saying. "We are a multiple. Plain and simple. It isn't because we were abused as kids... that is a separate issue entirely which some, but not all multiples have experienced. We are people, not identities, alters, fragments or 'parts'. We are not ashamed of who we are, because we are multiple and proud!"

Empowered multiples are new to the community, but growing in numbers. More multiples that are out there proving that we can live healthy, productive lives without giving our power away to some 'higher power' (it's not that we, the Army, do not believe in God. We do... in many forms and by many religious beliefs and practices. However, we believe in a god that does not require we become servants and sheep, but rather thinkers and doers who stand up for ourselves and others so that we stop getting trampled). Many multiples are demonstrating that we do not need to be afraid of anything or anyone anymore, so long as we keep our boundaries and know how to protect ourselves.

Empowered multiples are employed and do well in the marketplace. We are a far cry from victims, for we have taken our power back! Oh sure, empowered multiples have shit to deal with as well. If you haven't been paying attention, just have a look at this site and you'll see that we have our shit. However, if you were to meet us in real time, you probably would not even realize we were a multiple because most people expect multiples to be either psychos or sniffling babies who can't handle anything. We are neither. We dream of a time when multiples will be an accepted part of society. Get ready. It's going to happen, and probably in our lifetime.

Sharon
of the Anachronic Army

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