I want to talk about one way that a singlet might mistake different aspects of their personality for headmates.

If you're part of a system and think this might cause you to doubt your reality, proceed with caution.

We often struggle to identify where thoughts and feelings come from in this system. We can't just ask, "Was that you, [name]?" because they would not necessarily know the answer or be able to communicate it.

So in lieu of that, we tend to make guesses based on past experience.

Sometimes we catch ourselves over-relying on such guesswork. Just because a thought sounded like something so-and-so would say, doesn't mean it was actually them.

In moments like that, we can imagine quite easily how a singlet might erroneously conclude they're a system.

You have a grumpy thought and assume that must have been The Grumpy One.

You have an overly giddy thought and assume that must have been The Giddy One.

We do the same thing with our system members, except it's based on previous interactions or times when they fronted.

Everyone will occasionally have a feeling, thought, or impulse that they'd rather not acknowledge as part of "their real self."

Intrusive thoughts are the most extreme example, but this happens with very mundane things, too.

If you don't mind being reminded of Sigmund Freud's existence (whoops, too late), you can look up the term "egodystonic" and you'll see what I mean.

As individual system members, we experience this as well! We get confused when we don't conform to our own expectations.

That way, we can easily fall into the trap of writing off feelings as passive influence from someone else, or thoughts as comments from them.

Even when we're fairly sure a thought/feeling wasn't our own, it's not fair to automatically attribute them to the most likely suspect.

In our system, the only way to retroactively verify if we attributed a thought to the right person is to wait until the next time that person fronts, and have them check whether they agree with the thought.

This is obviously unreliable because more than one person might agree.

A much better solution is to simply accept that we won't always know and, in fact, there is no need to identify the source of every thought.

If we want to know a headmate's opinion on a specific topic, we can ask. Everything else is irrelevant.

It makes us uncomfortable when we have thoughts and feelings that *almost all of us* experience as egodystonic, though. What outlier is hiding in the back of our brain, having such ugly thoughts?

In our case, since we're a system either way, there are several possible answers.

A singlet OTOH would only have themselves to blame, and they might dislike that possibility so vehemently that hearing about systems would provide a convenient "out" - it's not them, you see, it's an alter.

But the thing is, a mistake like that doesn't always have to be harmful.

Even singlets who never doubt they're singlets can benefit from e.g. addressing their intrusive thoughts like a separate entity - but an annoying entity, not a scary one. To develop an attitude where you roll your eyes at the edgy teenager in the back of your head and move on.

Singlets also benefit from the "internal family systems" concept used by many therapists.

The trick is to use these metaphors as tools for eventual healing, rather than to push away problems and refuse to address them.

If someone mistakes a part of their personality for a headmate, but practises system responsibility and helps this "headmate" take steps towards healing, that's just regular healing with a perhaps unnecessary extra step. Who cares?

They don't need to *know* it's just a metaphor.

Everything that happens in the mind is at least partially metaphorical anyway.

On the flip side, if you *are* part of a system and treat your headmates as metaphorical representations of certain emotions or concepts, that will not go over well.

Even if someone started out as just that: system members, unlike metaphors, have autonomy and can evolve in ways that may seem incongruent.

They can grow and change and become as complex as any other person, full of contradictions.

Our current challenge is to untangle each system member's idea of their ideal self, the person they actually are, and the image of them that the whole system has become accustomed to expecting.

This is important work because making too many assumptions has caused harm before.

I think if a singlet who mistakenly thought they were a system did the same, it would probably help them figure out their mistake eventually. An actual system OTOH would go the other way, shedding doubts.

But that's just a little theory based on our unique experiences.

I don't know who I am and I don't think I expressed myself very articulately in this thread but oh well here it is now.

We may revisit it some other day when we feel more coherent.