is anyone else plural?

[squidlifecrisis]

Dear Melonland,

I started doing IFS therapy a few months ago... and while it's been a tremendous help to my mental health, I'm feeling paradoxically more isolated from my usual friend group because I'm scared they won't understand. heck, I barely understand. I'm really new to this and don't have a therapist (just teaching myself from a book), so I'm really curious what other people's experiences are.

I've found about a dozen different voices/parts, and it feels like they've always been there. it's a lot... but they're all really cool and I love them so much. I get really powerful visualizations during meditation. most of them don't have faces, and about a third are shapes or objects rather than humanoid. none are animals so far.

I keep revisiting childhood memories and finding instances of them working even when I wasn't aware of them. they have relationships with each other that go way back! some have even told me they're hiding certain memories that are too painful. I've been working on things every day and making so much progress.

wish i had more plurals to compare experiences with. anyone want to discuss? describe your guys? know any safe hangouts out there? 

ESPECIALLY if you also have ocs... parts =/= ocs and boy have i been Cogitating.

[P.B.C.]

Hello to you, and all of yours, as well! I'm also a member of a plural collective, and while none of us have anything akin to the experience of IFS therapy, it is nice to hear from another group in general. Unfortunately, I can't really recommend any general plural spaces as we're a collective of nothing but nonhumans and fictives- and, even then, don't hang out much in community spaces to begin with- but hopefully somebody else has some advice there. I can lend you the odd resource if you'd like, but as you said you're a bit overwhelmed, I'd rather not just dump such on you unsolicited...

We tend to be more private about ourselves due to the whole 'nonhumans and fictives' deal, unfortunately, but some fun facts in broad strokes: there's about 23 of us, some of us have been around since the body was young, some not, truthfully never had a good run-in with a therapist or therapy- doing it yourself is completely understandable-, and my username up there stands for our collective team name, 'Party Barn Coalition'.