Weird moments in child-rearing: normal childhood recreational multiplicity (the imaginary friend)

[azurelunatic]

Backstory for the new kids: I don't talk about it too much these days, and while I did talk about it at the time, most often I had other things to talk about or I was very selective with how much detail I gave people, but from approximately 1994 to 2005, I identified as being multiple-personalitied, in my specific implementation of it, having multiple and distinct internal and external facets of myself all sharing the same body and memories and heritage.

While I'm comfortable being singular at the moment (although I will always have various imaginary characters flitting about in my head with voices and opinions of their own), I'm also comfortable in the knowledge that one of my tried and true coping strategies for stressful or wildly disparate situations is to revert to a plural identity in order to manage each situation in my head. This is why I will say "we" occasionally when talking about any applicable era, or revert to "we" when exceptionally tired. (And in cases where it does start to seem like it's a party rather than a single person, there's no problem if you care to explicitly address whoever happens to be chattering, or explicitly address the Collective ("you" and "y'all" and "guys" all work) -- also no problem if you don't happen to pick up on it and address us as normal. When things are plural there's sort of a switchboard/hub effect so external parties never have to worry about routing.)

Second portion of backstory for the new kids: From 2001 to 2005, I lived with a college friend and her small son (known as the Little Fayoumis). For many of those years, I shared child-rearing responsibilities, having approximately the authority of an aunt. A strict aunt. This was his ages four to eight.


Inevitably, the LF started making reference to an imaginary friend. That was all well and good, until he started misbehaving and blaming it on his imaginary friend.

I was about to take him to task for just that, doing stuff and blaming it on his imaginary friend, when I ran smack into a contradiction in my chain of logic. How could I be internally consistent if I had multiple personalities myself while scolding the LF for doing something himself and blaming it on his imaginary friend when he might either merely have an imaginary friend or he might have an additional self-facet or other form of multiple inside his head? I had no way of knowing for sure without having way too deep and possibly leading of a conversation with him, and in any case I was presenting myself to him with once face only (no matter which facet was operating at the time). I was fairly convinced that he just had an imaginary friend who was the product of a lively imagination, but I couldn't be an ethical multiple myself without considering the possibility.

I had to sit down with myself and think about it for a while before I came up with a solution that I found acceptable. In the end, I couldn't fault him for having and talking about an imaginary friend, whether it was solely an imaginary friend or something more integral to his own identity. That was not the problem. The problem was that no matter whose idea it was, he was physically carrying out actions that he had been instructed not to do.

So that's what I addressed. I can't remember the details of how I did it, but I made it pretty clear that when anyone told the LF to not do something, or that he must do something, that any and all of his invisible friends were included in that directive. Furthermore, as the party in charge of body operation, the LF was responsible for making sure that nothing was done that was not supposed to be done, by anybody; if he failed to keep his friends in check and they did something that he wasn't supposed to do, they would all be in the time-out together.

Things worked out after that.

Comments

[princessofgeeks]

i think it's so cool that you addressed it on his terms, without demolishing his inner life. you found the win win.

my boys are 9 and 11 now and they never, that i remember, came up with an imaginary friend. don't know if this is good or bad, but it wasn't something i had to deal with. i can see how challenging it would be to figure out a way to handle it well.

[azurelunatic]

It may well be more typical for kids who don't have siblings. I don't remember whether my sister and I had them, other than ascribing personalities to our dolls and stuffed animals and all.

[princessofgeeks]

no siblings: that makes sense. the only kid i knew up close who had an imaginary friend was the youngest of four and there was about nine years between her and her next oldest sister.

[azurelunatic]

The LF wanted a brother, so he wound up with an imaginary one.

[athos]

I agree that it might be an only child thing, to your comment below. I was one, and had imaginary friends galore - though I did grow out of it.

Anyways. I really liked how you handled the situation. ♥

[azurelunatic]

Thanks.

[not_a_sniglet]

As a multiple ourselves, we think that was the most awesome thing eeeever. You win a chocolate cookie with extra winsauce.

[azurelunatic]

Now that he's older, I'm fairly sure that it was just an imaginary friend. But in case it wasn't, I wasn't about to contribute to the ranks of parental-types misunderstanding and squishing.

Re: Weird moments in child-rearing: normal childhood recreational multiplicity (the imaginary friend

[piranha]

well done, indeed. one less child crushed is an awesomely good thing.

i didn't tell anyone about my "imaginary friends" after a first attempt that ended in ridicule and sharp admonishments to not make things up because god would surely punish me. i don't wonder what would have been the result if i had mentioned that i didn't think they were all that imaginary.

Re: Weird moments in child-rearing: normal childhood recreational multiplicity (the imaginary friend

[azurelunatic]

... ugh. Scary.

[pne.livejournal.com]

How could I be internally consistent if I had multiple personalities myself while scolding the LF for doing something himself and blaming it on his imaginary friend when he might either merely have an imaginary friend or he might have an additional self-facet or other form of multiple inside his head?

An interesting point, and one I had never considered when thinking about multiplicity. (Which, to be fair, is not all that often since I don't identify as multiple nor do I know anyone IRL who does.)

(Though there has been at least one time when I did something without thinking and suffered consequences for that, where I realised that I had to bear the consequences but wished they had, at least, been the consequences of a conscious decision. Which possibly happens to multiples as well when they are affected by the consequence of a decision that was not made by them but by one of their siblings/neighbours/whatever-you-call-them. Seems a bit unfair but then, so is life.)

the party in charge of body operation

That seems to be pretty explicitly "multiple" rather than "imaginary friend". I expect you phrased it differently when actually talking to him?

Things worked out after that.

Well that's good, then.

[azurelunatic]

One of the lines that's generally drawn in multiples-counseling is to make sure that all parties involved have an agreement about what may and may not be done that affects the whole system, and physical actions taken is included in that. For example, one member may not blow all of the whole system's cash on, say, movies that only they like. One member may not go and do something that gets everybody arrested. If assorted members are crazy enough to do very stupid shit, and the rest of the system cannot ride herd on them, it is no longer a situation that can be worked out internally, and professionals may have to get involved.


I didn't phrase it too much differently, actually. His mother was big on education about body/mind/spirit philosophy, so he had a pretty clear definition of the difference between his mind and his body at that point, and I phrased it in terms of that.

[pne.livejournal.com]

I didn't phrase it too much differently, actually. His mother was big on education about body/mind/spirit philosophy, so he had a pretty clear definition of the difference between his mind and his body at that point, and I phrased it in terms of that.

Did he say "my imaginary friend made me do it" or "my imaginary friend did it"?

I thought it was the latter, in which case who has control of the LF's body is irrelevant, at least assuming that the imaginary friend exists (for the LF's purposes) outside of his body. It would be like saying that I was responsible for what my little sister did, which is semi-reasonable if she's young and I was given the task of watching her for a specific period of time, but seems a bit unfair to me if she did it while I was in a completely different room and was not (or did not feel) responsible for watching her at the time.

If it was the former, then an appeal to mind-over-body makes sense to me.

[azurelunatic]

I don't recall the exact phrasing, sadly. However, the LF's mouth did all of the talking for both of them, so it was abundantly clear that the LF was not trying to claim poltergeist activity.

[manifestress.livejournal.com]

I remember LF posts!

How is he now?

[azurelunatic]

He's doing pretty well! He's had some jackass friends at school, and got suspended from the bus for a week once because of them (homophobic jokes actually don't go over all that well, and it turns out that actually the Mosh-cat is gay, so it went over even less well with his mom) but other than that he's enjoying himself.

[nalidoll.livejournal.com]

Once upon a time, in a land before Tejas, I was dealing with some medical issues that led to brain chemical imbalances of Much Annoyance.

Some of them made it hard for me, sometimes, to connect what I did with remembering I did it, later. They also made it hard for me to explain anything clearly, so when confronted by my Mum about something I did that was Irresponsible, the best I could come up with was "Sometimes I do things and don't tell myself I did them."

My mother, not batting an eyelash (I have mentioned that she is pragmatic to the point of near surrealism) at hearing what sounded like a declaration of multiples, said "I don't care how many of you there are; you are all responsible for your actions."

My first response was "Mum... did you just threaten to ground Sybil?" and she replied, "If that is what it takes."

That was the moment any chance of Excuses truly died for me, as did the last of my patience for them. Heh.

[azurelunatic]

Makes perfect sense to me!