More Redwoods Articles on Medium.com

We have a few pieces on Medium that aren’t on this site. (It’s a medium-length and long-form blogging/social media site.)

In the future we may cross-post on Medium and our site, but have enjoyed trying out both platforms.

A Quick Introduction

The article We are Distinct People Living in One Body explains how we understand ourselves, and how our internal sensation and experience of each member of our system helps us know we are distinct people, on a somatic level.

A Deeper Reflection

Screen Cap

Our essay Many Authors, One Body describes some challenges we face as writers who are multiple. Looking back we still appreciate how it captures some of the emotional difficulty and resilience involved in expressing yourself authentically.

You can participate

You can see all our Medium Articles here: medium.com/@theredwoods. There aren’t a lot of multiples on there so if you find like the platform, consider joining us and sharing your own experiences. “Claps,” follows and shares really make a difference on there so we appreciate your support.

Key Terms: Multiplicity

Hi and welcome.

If you are just joining, we Redwoods are many people in one body. We identify as multiple. There are millions of others like us. Many are isolated, but what community does exist uses lots of specific terms in circulation. Here are a few key definitions to get you started.

Multiple – many people, parts, alters, and or identities in one body.

adjective – “This is the Redwoods, they are multiple.”

noun – (less common) “She’s a multiple.” Could mean either one member of a system or the entire system.

See also Plural, Dissociative Identity Disorder, and Otherwise Specified Dissociative Disorder.

System – all of the people, parts or alters in one body. The group. The collective.

ie “The Redwoods all share one body. They are a multiple system.”

Parts and Alters and People –

All terms for the different members of a system. Usage is a matter of personal preference. Use the language that a given system or system member tells you they prefer. See also Identities, Headmates

Dissociative Identity Disorder –

Very frequently just DID, occasionally D.I.D.

The clinical disorder most associated with being multiple. 1 to 3% of the general world population is estimated to meet the criteria for dissociative identity disorder, according to the ISST-D.

What about multiple personality disorder (MPD)?

MPD was last listed in the DSM III. In the DSM IV it was replaced by DID.

Fronting

Describes which system member is “forward” in the body’s presence. “In the Redwoods, J is fronting right now, Z hasn’t been here in a while.” Fronting can describe who is speaking, or primarily experiencing the senses or active use of thinking or feeling. Co-fronting can describe two or more system members sharing some of these forms of presence simultaneously.

Co-consciousness

The ability of two or more members of a multiple system to communicate with each other by sharing thoughts, memories, sensations, or speaking out loud or writing and being able to simultaneously have another hear or see what the other is communicating.

Note: not all system members can front, and not all systems have co-consciousness. Co-consciousness is also on a spectrum, and can increase or decrease for a given system overtime.

Little, Littles

Describes the child-aged members of a multiple system. Many system members have distinct identities, including their own names and ages. The Redwoods include two young ones. The presence of littles is very common in multiple systems.

Plural

1. An umbrella term that includes all who are many elements of consciousness in one body. Some people specify that multiple features distinct recurring individual system members, like in the case of the Redwoods, and many well-known representations of multiples. Yet for a lot of systems there are so many parts (sometimes hundreds) that they don’t necessarily have distinct individuals, as much as patterns of clusters of parts. (See also polyfragmented). Plural acknowledges and unites the diverse ways of being “more than one” and can in theory include: DID, OSDD, multiples who experience themselves as post-DID or non-DID, tulpas, medians, and likely other experiences the public and Redwoods have not yet heard of.

2. An alternate term for multiple, since these are all common words, and there’s no centralized or monolithic community. Sometimes people are simply seeking to describe the fact of being many, multiple, plural, and use such terms interchangeably.

Multiplicity

The topic and general phenomenon at-large of multiples existing.

“Wow! I didn’t even know multiplicity was a thing? It’s so interesting!”

See Also Plurality

What other terms have you seen that you’d like defined?

If you are familiar with this topic, what are key terms that people need to know?

Multiplicity: Adventures on Twitter

It’s always uncertain whether to mention when something is going well. Twitter is infamous for raining cats and dogs on even the most modest parade. But for now, for us, the platform has been a useful tool with a low ratio of junk.

We have connected with many like-minded folks, multiples and allies, and found it useful for sharing our thoughts. Whether or not we go back later, the expression helps unpack and crystallize our thought process, making more room for new ideas, and more opportunity for connection with others. If you want advice on making a meaningful experience on Twitter, feel free to reach out.

If you join, be careful. Discuss with those you care about what the right balance of privacy and disclosure might be for you. But in 6 months with a modestly growing following, 50,000 people and counting have seen or passed by our tweets – some about multiplicity, others covering a range of topics. Our profile has been visited 1,500 times. (You can track your account data using analytics.twitter.com), a profile that mentions being openly multiple. That’s helpful and inspiring to a group of people in one body who just a few years ago were repeatedly warned to tell almost no one about our experience.

Please follow along and say hi @treemunity. Thanks to all the people who have been lovely so far on there. It means so much.

What Is is Okay to Share

"Do more of what makes you awesome"
A notebook we liked at a craft store

Ever wish you would just write already? Make the thing? Start? Create?

We are talking to a close friend right now on the phone. We are talking about action, procrastination, cultivation, and projects. We are discussing this meme:

The Redwoods are full of delight and beauty and activity. And yet it can feel so hard to begin to stream that into writing, into writing that is shared.

So here we are. Breaking the drought with some phone-a-friend support. Thanks, friend.

~~~

I’ve been thinking about the song “Livewire” by Oh Wonder.

“Let me be your livewire

make me feel like I’m set on fire”

That sounds terrible, and so desirable at the same time. Often what we want can be deeply shrouded in contradiction, in a push-pull dynamic that tears at us and makes us immerse ourselves in the work to the point of destruction, or want to run and hide away.

Maybe instead there is a way to trace a gentle path that does not require sprinting or burnout, but also is sensitive to our desire to run and hide. Bowling with bumpers. Guarding ourselves on the path without shame for the need to be protected. What keeps us moving is valuable, but what keeps us happy is even more valuable. We know we will be happier if we are safe, and if we can see action as progress, and not as a test of our validity.

That which already is there is okay to share.

Update: So Much To Capture

So much has happened with us!

We finished our East Coast tour! It was great. Philly Trans Health was a highlight, and there were so many highlights.

We got home September 29 and thought – whoa – we don’t want to stop! So we returned to working at Impact Hub Oakland, a coworking space that is really enlivening. We started debriefing, filling up several whiteboards.

Z: It feels like we have at least 18 more whiteboards of material to release.

And we connected with a social entrepreneur navigator service. They link us to technical support and funding services for free! We are trying to figure out how to scale and sustain the education and activism elements of our speaking tour, because we loved it!

Then we performed at the Moth, a big competitive storytelling event series, in Berkeley. We came in 2nd place!

We  then dashed to the invigorating NorCal Permaculture Convergence up north. It was a pop-up EcoVillage at the already established Solar Living Institute. Permaculture is a movement focused on integrating humans and the rest of nature, but has tended to be pretty homogeneous historically. There were some courageous and loving initiatives to diversify, and we added our own “Missing Movements: Disability Justice, Neurodiversity and Mental Health” session the mix. Phew!

We drove back down through the fires in Santa Rosa. We were safe, but sadly many many were not. You can learn more about the recovery from the fires at sonomacountyrecovers.org.

Then we went to COCAP 2017.  Focused on community capital, social impact investment and entrepreneurship, a response to SOCAP, it bears it’s own handful of paragraphs at least in another post. In short, we were able to come out strong at a conference titled “Building the WE Economy” and make many joyful connections while keeping it real.

We then got really involved in handing out masks to folks in Oakland because the air quality was terrible. We took a break momentarily to go to the first ever Transcend Retreat at groundswell – a multiracial all-trans healing and empowerment weekend in Mendocino.

So that was 3 more conferences from October 5-15! To add to the 5 from our tour. 10 conferences in 2 months.

We feel a lot of mental pileup that we need to unpack and organize, and at the same time are so grateful for the infusion of energy and connections that have come to us from these galloping weeks. We came out as ourselves to thousands of diverse passionate people and brought the gifts of long-hidden experiences in the multiples movement to a lot of places. Our extroverts got to shine. So filling!

Can be tough to not let it all fade into the rear view mirror upon returning home. It’s up to each activist and reader and community member to keep it alive. And fortunately the seeds come back around. Like just this weekend!

And we connected with a visual designer who wants to help us map out the different concepts in multiple advocacy, from how the stigma operates, to how systems work, to our vast diversity. Very promising.

Meanwhile we are living life, missing friends new and old who are busy or far away, and contemplating future educational opportunities. We are thinking about grad school for 2018, as well as looking into small business accelerators, writing groups, and more. Please feel free to suggest anything in those categories.

We aim to write more now. It feels important to begin to make more time to shape the ideas we carry around. Talking to Nick and others Saturday was a positive reminder to make time to write. Important even when lonely as we push humanity to new awareness, ourselves included. The added camaraderie of 2 months of community building at home and on the road is a resource we will draw inspiration from time and again.

Thanks for joining the ride!

Boston conference whirlwind complete!

We have been having a wonderful time traveling Boston-New York-Virginia. We are about to head down to the Communities Conference to give our Workshop “Together As One Body.” We’ll be joined by many exciting activists and community leaders from around the country.

After flying from California to Boston and staying with friends, we attended the World Hearing Voices Congress and found it to be way more multiple than expected! We went out of solidarity with what we perceived to be an alternative framing around the schizophrenia diagnosis, an also stigmatized group that is often painted as contrasting with Dissociative Identity Disorder. Turns out the Hearing Voices Network is so much more than that, and includes many multiples. The global network of weekly groups (40+ in the US, 160+ in the UK alone) provides a non-judgmental space for people to share about many different experiences, and appears to have attracted many multiples over time.

As a result, many at the Congress were not only interested in supporting multiples, but identified that way themselves. We expected to meet one or two systems but ended up meeting more than a dozen! (A big deal for a population that in 2017 rarely finds each other without much effort.) This led to many amazing side conversations with people from the US, Canada, UK, Netherlands, and more!

Thanks to everyone we connected with at Hearing Voices. We definitely hope to find a way to take part at the Hearing Voices Congress in September 2018 in The Hague, Netherlands. Europe tour 2018?

We plan to continue to dialogues with leaders and members of the Hearing Voices Network at the local and international levels, and will report any results here.

Z: (<– this means that Z specifically is sharing. If we don’t annotate the author you can assume the Redwoods decided not to specify a speaker, either because the writing is consensus based, or casual and discerning who exactly said what doesn’t feel relevant. At other times, folks understandably want to speak or be recognized individually.)

Thanks for the intro editors. Anyway, On a personal level we found the experience pretty intense.

anon 13 yo (A13): (for safety/privacy, we do not publicly give names of all members of the Redwoods). Yeah it was really exhausting.

J: Basically we were experiencing new levels of exposure and coming out – instead of maybe coming out one or two times a day…

Z: We were coming out several times an hour, and often in great depth, or briefly but to hundreds of people. Fulfilling because we were reaching audiences were strongly connected to our work personally or in solidarity. Yet still counter to the internalized narrative of tell no one.

A13: Breaking through! Yeah, we talked to a lot of people.

The Alternatives Conference immediately followed, where we focused on running two successful sessions regarding multiplicity (details in a later post) and caught as many other sessions as we could, while also taking a break to look at the 63% eclipse.

Next we’ll share about New York and Virginia. Coming up after that is the Philadelphia Trans Health Conference!

We are still looking to make more connections in the Northeast, including presenting in New York. So reach out if you’d like to connect with us while we are still in town.

With joy, care, and appreciation!

the Redwoods

P.S. youngest anon kid: the eclipse was coooool!

 

We are the Redwoods

Hello! It is great to be here! We’ll use these posts to add some nuance to our Frequently Asked Questions answers, offer updates, and share other insights from home and the road. Looking forward to your engagement.

joyfully,

J, Alli, Z et al.
the Redwoods