Here’s my metaphor for systemhood that I tell my singlet friends.
Imagine you’re playing a first person video game. You have the controller, you control your character. It’s a normal first person game. You are an alter, the character is the body. This is fronting.
Other people live with you. Sometimes, they come into the room and sit and watch while you play. They sometimes try to guide you, give you advice on what to do next. They don’t always agree, and they can argue with each other. Other times they scream at you that you’re doing everything wrong and you suck at this game. This is co-consciousness.
Imagine how distracting it would be for people around you to tell you what to do, or to scream at each other or at you, even if they have good intentions. It wouldn’t be easy to focus on your game, would it?
Then sometimes, something happens in the game that prompts you to hand off the controller to someone else so they can play and you get a break. This is (some types of) switching. This can be good.
Other times, someone rips the controller out of your hand or fights you for it. This is (other types of) switching. And sometimes, six other players hook up their controllers, but there’s only one character to play as. So all of you have your controllers, but you’re all trying to play the same character. This is cofronting.
Imagine how difficult that would be. Imagine how hard it would be to try and play a game while someone is trying to take the controller from you, or while six other people are trying to play too.
There are also times that nobody is playing, or you can’t decide who should play. What’s happening to the character in the game? What are they doing if no one is playing? This is dissociation. The character is doing nothing. They’re stuck.
This is the best metaphor I have come up with for being a system. It’s something a lot of people get because they’ve played games before.
