Mental Pluralism [From the Archives]

My “Day I Left Pennsylvania” led me to some archived website posts (before blogs were invented) I had written many years ago. I’m re-posting them now. Bear in mind that most of the content in this series is over 5 years old. I have left the content more or less intact. I have removed some links and added some others — but that’s it. Enjoy!


Hollywood has used the idea of “multiple personality disorder” as a plot device in movies such as “Cape Fear” and “Identity.” MPD  is a general term for, I believe, a form of schizophrenia with amnesiatic barriers. Carl Jung did a lot of work with schizophrenia and also a lot of work within himself with respect to his own inner multiplicity.

At it’s core, mental pluralism (or pluralism of the mind, whatever you want to call it) essentially says that we have an assortment of different personality “shards” or “voices” in our mind. Each individual shard is a different aspect of ourselves, and represents a different way we view the world. Think of it as an inner republic — each voice would be a separate advisor on a different aspect of your life. It lacks the amnesiatic barriers of the sensationalized  ”Multiple Personality Disorder”, though, so this is not considered a pathology.

Part of utilizing mental pluralism in treatment is acknowledging and even personifying these voices — that is, giving each of them their own identity and granting them their sovereignty within your mindscape. While it sounds a little crazy, think about this: An unnamed voice in your personality will “sound” and appear to be exactly the same as any other unnamed voice; But if you can somehow identify those voices separately from one another, then you can profit from being able to hear them individually. Continue reading

2005: Best Year Ever?

Yes, I’m jumping on the year-end review bandwagon.

And yes, I just ate the remains of two tubes of cake decorating icing.

2005 has arguably been the best year of my life, ever. I really feel like this year I finally “came alive.” I have made a lot of progress defining who I am, what I’m about, and I’ve become more assertive about that. I’ve made a lot of friends, had a ridiculous amount of fun, and for the most part I’ve had a pretty consistent positive outlook on life. Continue reading

Crashing like (the late) Princess Di

Get your razors ready kid, it’s time for another late-night blog session!

It’s another one of those “I’m dead tired but my head is going to explode from all the thoughts bouncing off the walls” nights. You know, the nights when you lay down and it sounds like there’s a full-scale party going on in your head. Someone just pulled the velvet rope and let all the 18 year olds in with fake IDs and plastic cups of beer, and now they’re doing kegstands and bumping & grinding in the center of my head.

My thermostat reads about 73 degrees, but I definitely have it set at 75 and the heat hasn’t kicked on yet… LAME.
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Glutton for Mental Punishment

Last night was BOOze (6th year)! Hot times to be had by all. My friend Jon H. got pics posted on his blog… I didn’t have a costume so I just wore a dog leash. I know that makes no sense at all, but oh well :)

I hate Daylight Savings Time. It’s the stupidest thing ever, and for a while I thought Indiana and Arizona were the only sane states left since they (for the most part) don’t change…but the odd time-anomaly (by comparison) was keeping big business out of the state, so Mitch (the gov) is changing Indiana as of next year. Kind of sad to see that, but hopefully it helps the greater good. Americans can be some stubborn and dumb about some things. Continue reading

Adventures of a Narcoleptic Student

I’ve determined I kick ass. It’s official. We had a Chem quiz in..well….Chem today, and I kicked its ass, I think. I was first done, again, as usual. Of course, life will probably try to put me in my place by having me end up getting a shitty score, but that doesn’t matter because you, faithful reader, will never be the wiser. >: ) Anyways… Monday was really funny too. I was kind of nodding off in class and at one point, I woke up to a state of semi-lucidity right as the Prof was asking some question that no one knew; I answered it and nodded back off. It may have been something to do with Hess’s law or something, I forget.
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Stay out of my way

I’m an irritable little shit today. I want everyone to leave me alone so I can just do my work, go home, and go to bed.

I’m having one of those days where it seems like every little thing that goes wrong is a conspiracy to make my life miserable. I’m liable to snap here if I’m met with too much resistance on anything; I don’t have the energy to keep doing something over and over. I’m glad we’re not gaming tonight because right now I am uber-sensitive and my friends have a tendency to joke around a bit coarsely at times — I’d probably flip out and throw something heavy at them. That’s never happened before, but I wouldn’t rule it out today.

My eyes are dry, a little sore, I’m really warm because I wore a sweater (chilly outside) and they have the fucking heat on in here. My boss had the lights off because he had a headache — in my head I was complaining about the lights being off, and then when he turned ‘em on a little bit ago I complained (again, in my head) about them being turned on. I’ve spent the morning dealing with ridiculous software suites, Dell’s idiotic and absolutely horrible tech support (outsourced to India), and the usual barrage of class. Thank fuck I don’t have class or tutoring today, I’d probably explode.

I feel like a test subject in an psychological anger experiment.