We're self-employed and accomplish a lot in our professional and personal life. Like Oxnam we broke the first rule of multiplicity: Don't talk about multiplicity.

If you've never seen the movie Fight Club, watch it. You'll catch on. In a weird way it's more accurate than the amazing-drivel most psychiatrists perpetuate about our species.

Multiplicity is about hiding. We're great at camouflage. We spent most of our lifetime making sure no one knew we were multiple. Only people close enough to observe nuances even suspected the truth.

Unlike "classic" multiples who don't realize they share body space/time with an unspecified number of other people (known in the psych trade as 'alters'), we always knew. As far back as we can remember there were four of us: Baby, a blonde, blue-eyed toddler; el, the center of our little universe, the guy who keeps us on track, on time, and almost sane; Mollie, who actually looks like the female body we all share; and me, Shel, our system protector. I was a sixteen-year old tough guy for 40 years. Then I fell I love with someone who 'didn't date teenagers'. It's amazing how fast I grew up.

All our life we were smug about being different from singletons, different from other multiples. But once we hit mid-life it we discovered we had more in common with other multiples than we'd realized. We woke up with our fingernails painted

flaming red and our money gone. Maybe we should'a suspected someone lurked beyond the perimeter, but we are experts in denial. Instead we blamed each other.

This sort of stuff played right into our trust issues. Did I mention trust issues? You don't get to be multiple without losing trust. It's how you pay your dues.

Being multiple is the ultimate reality show, all day, every day. You never know what's next. Every step you take is potentially explosive unless you've achieved the therapist's nirvana: integration.

Our life may be more like a sitcom.

Our life partner Lisa says, "Didn't we agree you'd get groceries today?"

I shake my head in confusion. I've been working at home all day on web design, exactly what I'm supposed to do since it's how we pay for the freaking groceries.

I glance inside to see who looks guilty about forgetting grocery shopping. No one meets my flinty-eyed gaze. Listening to Lisa splits my attention between inner and outer realities.

"Groceries?" I ask innocently.

"Yes, you said, well, I talked to one of you about it! Can't you guys you share stuff in there?" Lisa usually takes us in stride but it's been a stressful day. "I think it was eliot," she says.

The psycho-drama potential is approaching critical mass. It's not like we can just order pizza, the nearest pizzeria is nine miles away, right next to the grocery store. Neither delivers. And we're hungry. Lisa opens the freezer and

rummages around.

"How 'bout chicken cheesesteaks?"

Saved! Lisa slices onions, steaks sizzle. We set the table. I kiss Lisa's cheek as I pass by carrying ketchup, mayo and mustard containers. The world was a better place when there was one kind of ketchup and two kinds of mustard.

"Do I look like eliot?" I whisper. Lisa swats me with her turner and flips the steaks.

Integration strikes us as an impossible waste of time. Who would we talk to or fight with inside if we all squashed into one person? Whose reality would reign in the end? Mine? els? Baby's?

Many multiples who achieved this supposedly blissful state reveal it took years of therapy and exorbitant amounts of money. A hallmark of integration is silence as the inner voices of alters blend into one. There are whole chapters in books detailing how to deal with the grief of losing alters into a unified whole.

Sounds pretty barbaric.

We like our inner voices. We may have our differences from time to time, but hey, that's life. While we're on the subject of hearing voices I need to point out that the difference between multiples and schizophrenics is where the voices

originate. If you hear voices outside your head, you're schizophrenic. If they're inside, you're multiple. Of course this sort of diagnostic tool only works if your therapist believes in multiples.

I recently attended a lecture by a psychiatrist who said he'd never been within a hundred miles of a multiple. Maybe he hadn't seen the stats indicating if you know a hundred people you know three multiples. I looked around the audience

and guessed I wasn't the only one laughing at him.

Another thing we learned about integration: after years and dollars invested to reach the goal of a unified outlook, quite a few patients, excuse me - nowadays it's clients, backslide. All it takes is a crisis and they're calving new alters like icebergs. Those who learn at an early age to dissociate completely are rarely able to completely stop. It's automatic. Scare me deeply enough and I

won't remember, someone else will.

I spent time with a therapist and was diagnosed with MPD. However, I went to therapy with an experience of having conversations with some of the others, of having my wife suggest I might be "multiple." Like Oxnam, I experienced frightening rages, but only a few "blackouts." (Earlier in my life there were some, I think.)

A metaphor is a way of talking about something otherwise inexpressible. My others can be thought of as metaphors--but their meaning is real experiences and personae. In the theater metaphor, I sometimes experienced my present time life as though sitting high up in a large theater, watching the action on stage without being able to affect it. I found myself saying or doing things that surprised me, that were not "typical" of me.

At the same time, I know that iatrogenic MPD does exist, and I feel sorry for the clients abused by their therapists into believing bizarre things about their lives. Fads come and go, but I suspect their will always be people who have more personae than others.