Date First Written: July 2020; Date Last Updated: March 2021
A Brief Introduction to Our Multiple State of Being
General Introduction
We are known as House of Chimeras in both the therian community and the plural community.
We were born on the 21st of March in 1989 in the Arkansas River Valley at the foot of the Ozark Mountains, and still live there today. We have a bachelor’s degree with a major in History and a minor in Writing & Rhetoric. We currently work full time at a library.
Our general hobbies include reading (both nonfiction and fiction), writing (essays and stories), arts related stuff (mostly drawing and crafting) participating in various outdoor activities (hiking, amateur-level caving, wild-life watching, and learning wilderness survival skills), and collecting (namely books and animal bones). We read or listen to, on average, 60 books every year.
We label our body and thus ourselves as a whole as being both transgender and non-binary. We have also made several alterations to our body to appear more androgynous. Collectively our pronouns are they/them/their and individually our pronouns are she/her/hers for the female members in our system, he/him/his for the male members of our system, and hie/hem/hir anyone not strictly male or female.
Our overall spiritual beliefs can best be described as pagan. There is an undercurrent of pantheism, hard polytheism, and animism running through the members of our system. However, what is focused on, how much reverence is given, how regularly practices are preformed, and so on varies greatly among us. A majority part of our spiritual practice is heavily inspired historical accounts and academic insights into groups like the Benandanti and Neuri as well as cases like that of Old Thiess. Another major part of our practice is heavily focused on local nature spirits and to an extent aiding the nonhuman dead.
Our Multiplicity in a Nutshell
We describe our plurality as a way of being in and existing in the world. Ours is a state of being where more than one individual share one single body with others. Being a "we" rather than an "I." We perceive ourselves as being a group of distinct individuals in which more than one person can take control of the physical body at any given time. We share both brain space and control of the body. That is a very simple definition of our living conditions anyway. Such a state is referred to as multiplicity or plurality and being multiple or plural. Within the very broad and basic definition of what plurality is, plurality can vary greatly. Many vastly different shapes, sizes, natures, and origins can be at play for every plural system out there. It is because systems can and do vary so much that the experiences of plural systems can vary widely.
In our case, the people in this multiple system happen to be nonhuman, and a majority us are nonhuman animals known to exist or had once existed on Earth. Small portions of our nonhuman members also include people whose species more resemble mythical or folkloric beasts while others more resemble creatures from more modern fiction. Finally, there are a few individuals who identify as Earthly plants. Due to our particular combination of both therianthropy and multiplicity effecting each other so completely, we have come to refer to our state of being as “therianthropic multiplicity” (if we are emphasizing the animalistic nature of our multiplicity) or “multiplistic therianthropy” (if we are emplacing the very pluralistic nature of our animality). Such wording is merely a phrase to describe our unique state of being rather than an attempt at coining yet another word for either community.
We have been aware of our therianthropic multiplicity since childhood (at least age 7 or 8) though it wasn't until late teen and early adult years we learned there was a community for people like us and we learned to accept our plurality. Since accepting our multiplicity, we have become far more functional and at peace in our daily life. Truly, our multiplicity is indeed just a part of our life.
Type of System
Our multiplicity is caused by several factors as far as we have been able to figure out. Because not all of us share the same origin, we are considered mixed-origin. Our origins are complicated to say the least. From what we have been able to gather our existence is best attributed to a combination of neurological factors connected to our atypical brain chemistry, psychological factors born out of life experiences, and spiritual factors brought on by a natural inclination toward spirit work and other animistic experiences. To try to keep it brief we (either know or strongly suspect): we were born already predisposed toward multiplicity due to neurodivergence, were born with more than one soul in one body, had trauma and other negative factors directly messed with our identity development, that trauma also lead to soul-splitting, that other negative childhood events pushed us to use maladaptive daydreaming as a means of coping for much of our life which lead to the creation of tulpas/thoughtforms, and, finally, animistic predispositions and spirit worker proclivities lead to spirit possession. There are a lot of intricacies and explanations left out in such a summation, but for a short summary that is the best we can do without falling into a very long explanation. Many of us either know or strongly suspect where our exact personal origins lay but some of us are not sure what lead us to being here.
Our Diagnosis And Our Lack of A Diagnosis
It wasn’t until we were nearing adulthood in the late 2000s that we finally accepted we were multiple that each of us wasn’t just a figment of each other’s imagination, and thus we finally began to deal with our internal struggles and troubles between us all. Roughly a year later, we finally gathered the courage to reach out for professional help for the first time. By the time we saw our first psychiatrist, we had put an end to our issues with black outs between us and had archived some level of co-conscious all on our own. This first therapist at first thought of diagnosing us with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) based on our description of our experiences in the past; however, when we got to the point of describing our achievements within the past few years we were only given a Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) diagnosis under the DSM-IV-TR because a criterion was having dissociative amnesia which we lacked at the time of seeing her. (Though she did note we would have been diagnosed with DID if we had come in before we managed to deal with blackout on our own.)
A few years rolled by and around the same time the DSM-5 came out as around the time got a new therapist due to an insurance change. She affirmed our multiplicity but was unable to re-diagnose us with either the new criteria for DID or any form of Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) based on our current state of being due no longer having any blackouts and the fact the updated criteria now required “significant distress” which we haven’t experienced for some years. Nevertheless, our multiplicity was noted and accepted as being a part of our way of experiencing ourselves and the world around us. So, she did not re-diagnose us with anything in relation to our multiplicity. A little over a year later and we had to find a new therapist due to needing be prescribed antidepressants and the clinic I went to not having anyone who was a psychiatrist. Thus, we met with our third mental health professional who ended up going through the same discovery of accepting our multiplicity but not being able to diagnose us with DID or OSDD. Since then, this acceptance but lack of being re-diagnose has repeated two more times as of 2021. So, while we are a multiple system we do not have DID or OSDD anymore.
Our Perspective on Our Multiplicity
Our nonhuman multiplicity is a part of our daily life, our daily existence. It took years for us to even acknowledge our multiplicity, let alone accept each other, let alone learn to work together, before finally finding tranquility in our multiplicity. Every step has been a work in progress and how far we have come on our journey is something we hold with great pride. We found a way to live with our circumstances. Life isn't perfect, but we are together making the best of it.
We are a we. We have grown and become who we are today because we chose to accept what we are and grow with it rather than deny ourselves and suffer for it. We can now safely say that can function in our adult life and we owe it to our multiplicity, not in spite of it. We feel whole in our “many-ness.” We feel united in our multiplicity, not fragmented due to it. This state of being of ours has made us who we are. Who we are is deviant from the norm, but it is our norm. This is how we live. We are betweeners who are many and yet we are one, existing in both the world inside of us and the world outside of us.
Disclaimers About Our Personal Essays
Unless stated otherwise, usage of the terms "we" and "us" should not be taken to mean anyone other than those within the House of Chimeras. Unless otherwise cited or stated, our writings reflect only our own understanding and interpretation of our own plurality. Other plurals can and do hold different truths to be the case in their own existence and experience. These are our personal experiences, but perhaps some might relate to some of it in their own experiences. What we say across not only this entire site, but also in conversations with others, are only what we have experienced and what we found to be true for ourselves to the best of our abilities. We do not pretend to think that is said in our writings describes all plurals; our writings do not even fully explain the entirely of our own experiences as a single multiple. This is simply what we have been able to put into words and organize into something hopefully coherent that is based on our own personal multiplicity. These series of essays are about our own state of being many nonhumans non-physically in one human body. Other people’s mileage may vary to some extent or another on how relatable our personal experiences are due to any number of factors that complicate our existence that might not be at play for others. We cannot claim our experiences will be what to expect from others. We are no guru of absolute knowledge of any aspect of plurality save of perhaps our own personal multiplicity. Our only hope is that in putting our state of being into words readers might at least come away with some of a better understanding about us, if not also the complexity and diversity of plurality.
A Disclaimer on Our Writing
One thing to note, we have a learning disability and are on the autistic spectrum. We are cursed with a love of the contents of the written word yet have extreme difficulty in reading and writing perfectly. Our higher education in writing and the use of autocorrect help but they cannot cure a brain that jumbles words. We take great care to try to catch any grammatical errors or words that were mistakenly autocorrected into the wrong word, plus what we write has often been prove read many times. However, we cannot always catch our mistakes though we try to avoid them. For this flaw we give apologies; however, we do not and will not take kindly to ridicule for our disabilities. Jeering at our difficulties and using it as a means of dismissing our thoughts and experiences outright does nothing but prove those committing such acts are, to put in crude terms, dickweeds.
A Final Disclaimer and a Warning
Finally, before anyone decide to play "armchair psychologist" understand that:
(1) We have, at present, talked with five separate psychologists over the span of over a decade. Each have separately concluded:
(a) Our multiplicity as it stands today does not meet criteria for any disorder,
(b) That we once fit the DSM-5's current criteria for DID and later OSDD but have since recovered from some of the symptoms that make up the current criteria for both,
(c) While we are no longer diagnosable today we still have a formal diagnosis from back when we still were diagnosable,
(d) That our state as it is today does not constitute any clinically significant dysfunction to us socially, occupationally, or other important areas of functioning,
(e) That just because our experience is deviant from the norm does not constitute concern on its own, and
(f) Any attempts to put an end to this state of ours would likely cause (and has caused in the past) a great deal of distress and impairment in our ability to function.
(2) You (the reader) are not one of the various mental health professionals we have talked to one-on-one at various points in our life. Thereby,
(a) You do not know all the details of our state of being as it currently stands,
(b) Do you know the details of history related our state of being, nor
(c) Are you in a position to accurately “diagnosis us” over the internet.
All of this means: Your internet opinion does not trump what real-life mental health professionals have said to us in a mental healthcare provider-to-patient capacity. We will not take kindly to anyone trying to undermine our mental healthcare because random people online don’t like their conclusions. Trying to claim you know more than the various therapists and psychiatrists we have had over the years will be ignored as the internet garbage that it is.
We are known as House of Chimeras in both the therian community and the plural community.
We were born on the 21st of March in 1989 in the Arkansas River Valley at the foot of the Ozark Mountains, and still live there today. We have a bachelor’s degree with a major in History and a minor in Writing & Rhetoric. We currently work full time at a library.
Our general hobbies include reading (both nonfiction and fiction), writing (essays and stories), arts related stuff (mostly drawing and crafting) participating in various outdoor activities (hiking, amateur-level caving, wild-life watching, and learning wilderness survival skills), and collecting (namely books and animal bones). We read or listen to, on average, 60 books every year.
We label our body and thus ourselves as a whole as being both transgender and non-binary. We have also made several alterations to our body to appear more androgynous. Collectively our pronouns are they/them/their and individually our pronouns are she/her/hers for the female members in our system, he/him/his for the male members of our system, and hie/hem/hir anyone not strictly male or female.
Our overall spiritual beliefs can best be described as pagan. There is an undercurrent of pantheism, hard polytheism, and animism running through the members of our system. However, what is focused on, how much reverence is given, how regularly practices are preformed, and so on varies greatly among us. A majority part of our spiritual practice is heavily inspired historical accounts and academic insights into groups like the Benandanti and Neuri as well as cases like that of Old Thiess. Another major part of our practice is heavily focused on local nature spirits and to an extent aiding the nonhuman dead.
Our Multiplicity in a Nutshell
We describe our plurality as a way of being in and existing in the world. Ours is a state of being where more than one individual share one single body with others. Being a "we" rather than an "I." We perceive ourselves as being a group of distinct individuals in which more than one person can take control of the physical body at any given time. We share both brain space and control of the body. That is a very simple definition of our living conditions anyway. Such a state is referred to as multiplicity or plurality and being multiple or plural. Within the very broad and basic definition of what plurality is, plurality can vary greatly. Many vastly different shapes, sizes, natures, and origins can be at play for every plural system out there. It is because systems can and do vary so much that the experiences of plural systems can vary widely.
In our case, the people in this multiple system happen to be nonhuman, and a majority us are nonhuman animals known to exist or had once existed on Earth. Small portions of our nonhuman members also include people whose species more resemble mythical or folkloric beasts while others more resemble creatures from more modern fiction. Finally, there are a few individuals who identify as Earthly plants. Due to our particular combination of both therianthropy and multiplicity effecting each other so completely, we have come to refer to our state of being as “therianthropic multiplicity” (if we are emphasizing the animalistic nature of our multiplicity) or “multiplistic therianthropy” (if we are emplacing the very pluralistic nature of our animality). Such wording is merely a phrase to describe our unique state of being rather than an attempt at coining yet another word for either community.
We have been aware of our therianthropic multiplicity since childhood (at least age 7 or 8) though it wasn't until late teen and early adult years we learned there was a community for people like us and we learned to accept our plurality. Since accepting our multiplicity, we have become far more functional and at peace in our daily life. Truly, our multiplicity is indeed just a part of our life.
Type of System
Our multiplicity is caused by several factors as far as we have been able to figure out. Because not all of us share the same origin, we are considered mixed-origin. Our origins are complicated to say the least. From what we have been able to gather our existence is best attributed to a combination of neurological factors connected to our atypical brain chemistry, psychological factors born out of life experiences, and spiritual factors brought on by a natural inclination toward spirit work and other animistic experiences. To try to keep it brief we (either know or strongly suspect): we were born already predisposed toward multiplicity due to neurodivergence, were born with more than one soul in one body, had trauma and other negative factors directly messed with our identity development, that trauma also lead to soul-splitting, that other negative childhood events pushed us to use maladaptive daydreaming as a means of coping for much of our life which lead to the creation of tulpas/thoughtforms, and, finally, animistic predispositions and spirit worker proclivities lead to spirit possession. There are a lot of intricacies and explanations left out in such a summation, but for a short summary that is the best we can do without falling into a very long explanation. Many of us either know or strongly suspect where our exact personal origins lay but some of us are not sure what lead us to being here.
Our Diagnosis And Our Lack of A Diagnosis
It wasn’t until we were nearing adulthood in the late 2000s that we finally accepted we were multiple that each of us wasn’t just a figment of each other’s imagination, and thus we finally began to deal with our internal struggles and troubles between us all. Roughly a year later, we finally gathered the courage to reach out for professional help for the first time. By the time we saw our first psychiatrist, we had put an end to our issues with black outs between us and had archived some level of co-conscious all on our own. This first therapist at first thought of diagnosing us with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) based on our description of our experiences in the past; however, when we got to the point of describing our achievements within the past few years we were only given a Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS) diagnosis under the DSM-IV-TR because a criterion was having dissociative amnesia which we lacked at the time of seeing her. (Though she did note we would have been diagnosed with DID if we had come in before we managed to deal with blackout on our own.)
A few years rolled by and around the same time the DSM-5 came out as around the time got a new therapist due to an insurance change. She affirmed our multiplicity but was unable to re-diagnose us with either the new criteria for DID or any form of Other Specified Dissociative Disorder (OSDD) based on our current state of being due no longer having any blackouts and the fact the updated criteria now required “significant distress” which we haven’t experienced for some years. Nevertheless, our multiplicity was noted and accepted as being a part of our way of experiencing ourselves and the world around us. So, she did not re-diagnose us with anything in relation to our multiplicity. A little over a year later and we had to find a new therapist due to needing be prescribed antidepressants and the clinic I went to not having anyone who was a psychiatrist. Thus, we met with our third mental health professional who ended up going through the same discovery of accepting our multiplicity but not being able to diagnose us with DID or OSDD. Since then, this acceptance but lack of being re-diagnose has repeated two more times as of 2021. So, while we are a multiple system we do not have DID or OSDD anymore.
Our Perspective on Our Multiplicity
Our nonhuman multiplicity is a part of our daily life, our daily existence. It took years for us to even acknowledge our multiplicity, let alone accept each other, let alone learn to work together, before finally finding tranquility in our multiplicity. Every step has been a work in progress and how far we have come on our journey is something we hold with great pride. We found a way to live with our circumstances. Life isn't perfect, but we are together making the best of it.
We are a we. We have grown and become who we are today because we chose to accept what we are and grow with it rather than deny ourselves and suffer for it. We can now safely say that can function in our adult life and we owe it to our multiplicity, not in spite of it. We feel whole in our “many-ness.” We feel united in our multiplicity, not fragmented due to it. This state of being of ours has made us who we are. Who we are is deviant from the norm, but it is our norm. This is how we live. We are betweeners who are many and yet we are one, existing in both the world inside of us and the world outside of us.
Disclaimers About Our Personal Essays
Unless stated otherwise, usage of the terms "we" and "us" should not be taken to mean anyone other than those within the House of Chimeras. Unless otherwise cited or stated, our writings reflect only our own understanding and interpretation of our own plurality. Other plurals can and do hold different truths to be the case in their own existence and experience. These are our personal experiences, but perhaps some might relate to some of it in their own experiences. What we say across not only this entire site, but also in conversations with others, are only what we have experienced and what we found to be true for ourselves to the best of our abilities. We do not pretend to think that is said in our writings describes all plurals; our writings do not even fully explain the entirely of our own experiences as a single multiple. This is simply what we have been able to put into words and organize into something hopefully coherent that is based on our own personal multiplicity. These series of essays are about our own state of being many nonhumans non-physically in one human body. Other people’s mileage may vary to some extent or another on how relatable our personal experiences are due to any number of factors that complicate our existence that might not be at play for others. We cannot claim our experiences will be what to expect from others. We are no guru of absolute knowledge of any aspect of plurality save of perhaps our own personal multiplicity. Our only hope is that in putting our state of being into words readers might at least come away with some of a better understanding about us, if not also the complexity and diversity of plurality.
A Disclaimer on Our Writing
One thing to note, we have a learning disability and are on the autistic spectrum. We are cursed with a love of the contents of the written word yet have extreme difficulty in reading and writing perfectly. Our higher education in writing and the use of autocorrect help but they cannot cure a brain that jumbles words. We take great care to try to catch any grammatical errors or words that were mistakenly autocorrected into the wrong word, plus what we write has often been prove read many times. However, we cannot always catch our mistakes though we try to avoid them. For this flaw we give apologies; however, we do not and will not take kindly to ridicule for our disabilities. Jeering at our difficulties and using it as a means of dismissing our thoughts and experiences outright does nothing but prove those committing such acts are, to put in crude terms, dickweeds.
A Final Disclaimer and a Warning
Finally, before anyone decide to play "armchair psychologist" understand that:
(1) We have, at present, talked with five separate psychologists over the span of over a decade. Each have separately concluded:
(a) Our multiplicity as it stands today does not meet criteria for any disorder,
(b) That we once fit the DSM-5's current criteria for DID and later OSDD but have since recovered from some of the symptoms that make up the current criteria for both,
(c) While we are no longer diagnosable today we still have a formal diagnosis from back when we still were diagnosable,
(d) That our state as it is today does not constitute any clinically significant dysfunction to us socially, occupationally, or other important areas of functioning,
(e) That just because our experience is deviant from the norm does not constitute concern on its own, and
(f) Any attempts to put an end to this state of ours would likely cause (and has caused in the past) a great deal of distress and impairment in our ability to function.
(2) You (the reader) are not one of the various mental health professionals we have talked to one-on-one at various points in our life. Thereby,
(a) You do not know all the details of our state of being as it currently stands,
(b) Do you know the details of history related our state of being, nor
(c) Are you in a position to accurately “diagnosis us” over the internet.
All of this means: Your internet opinion does not trump what real-life mental health professionals have said to us in a mental healthcare provider-to-patient capacity. We will not take kindly to anyone trying to undermine our mental healthcare because random people online don’t like their conclusions. Trying to claim you know more than the various therapists and psychiatrists we have had over the years will be ignored as the internet garbage that it is.