Plural Stories

Submitted by erinptah! Thank you, erinptah!

"As B, I felt very grateful to you for treating me as if I were a "real" person and allowing me to express my own personality. With every one else I had to pretend to be A, and my feeling of gratitude and the fact that you asked for my co-operation -- put me on my honor as it were -- was the underlying motive in telling you so much."

Blurb: An account of the various phases of dissociated personality, written by the patient, after recovery and restoration of memory for all the different phases. Such an account could only be given by a person who has had the experience, and who has the introspective and literary capacity to describe them.

Why is it worth your time?: Possibly the earliest medical-multi memoir! Clear and engaging writing, it makes for a quick, fun read. A reader from the 2020s can regularly recognize "hey, if they were around today they'd call that [term that hadn't been coined in 1909]." The first half is written by an integrated "C" who can remember the experiences of both "A" and "B", though those two struggled with severe amnesia barriers for a long time. The second half is by B, who recounts her own experiences, including co-consciousness (in that word!) with both A and C.

The first half is formatted as a series of letters to their psychiatrist, who requested that they write it all up for a scientific journal. The psychiatrist contributes some prefaces and footnotes, but he largely gets out of the way and lets the system tell their story. When he brings in his own perspective, it's usually to say "this is how my observations corroborate the experience my patient has described."

Plural/1+ Tags: abuse not mentioned, cofronting, creator speaks from experience, fusion/integration, relationships: teamwork, type: median, type: medical

Content Warnings: none. The authors talk about difficult experiences in very general terms (e.g. a "shock" of "an intensely emotional nature"), but say plainly that they aren't interested in going into detail.

Accessibility Notes: Digitized on archive.org. Text version was auto-generated from the scanned pages, so it has some errors, but is overall readable/searchable.

Misc. Notes (if any): Fusion/integration was a therapeutic goal for this system, and they were relieved and satisfied with the results. The "median" tag seems appropriate for both their early experiences (where they describe a "B complex", which was identifiably separate, but hadn't yet "flowered" into "a distinct personality"), and their post-integration ones (where B experiences herself as still existing, just fully co-conscious with C).

“Oh, but this was a delightful dream,” Miss Agatha hastened to assure her. "It was a dream of you and a baby. You’ve always had a Madonna look, you know, Emily, but there you were all Madonna. I can see the little thing now with its sensitive wee face—it wasn’t more than six months old—and a patrician dot of a nose and mysterious blue eyes...”

Blurb: Miss Emily and Miss Agatha are two inseparable spinsters and roommates in a Boston marriage. When they were younger, they taught children together, but now they have retired. Then Miss Agatha starts having recurring dreams that she and Emily have a baby together, named Vanderkoep (Agatha's last name), who grows and ages like any other infant. Miss Emily studiously writes down everything that occurs, but he only ever appears to Agatha...

Why is it worth your time?: It's a short, bittersweet story of romantic friendship and a non-traditional family from over a century ago. This is an odd duck, and I can safely say I've never read anything like it. It's a pretty good story, and at least to 2020s sensibility, Miss Emily and Miss Agatha's relationship feels pretty queer. Their devotion to each other and their dream baby is touching, and even though the ending is sad, I don't feel like the story judges them or their relationship.

Plural Tags: dreamfolk, inner children (for lack of a better term), abuse not mentioned, plural family

Content Warnings: contain spoilers; see comments

Access Notes: Available for free online, on account of it being in the public domain, and the text-only transcription was so poor I decided to clean it up and repost it myself.

Misc. Notes: Dunbar, the author, was active in the women's suffrage movement in the USA, and herself only married at 41. Her work had feminist themes, and I think this story is no exception.