***Editors note: Though currently filed under Abigail, this post was written by Plex. I will be working on changing that, but have been busy. ***

I find it rather unsettling that I’m owning my name right now – I haven’t identified myself as anyone other than an Abigail for years, but it really only makes sense that I write this introduction myself.

My most significant role in life has been bringing our surviving external children into this world and being their Mom. I also am the one who got the many of me into therapy (with my post partum depression), took us to Rapha, and took us to Texas.

I got my beginning when we were 11/12 years old and made the move to the east coast state. Abigail had not liked herself before that move, and saw the move as a chance to reinvent herself. It’s funny, our dad had done the same thing when our family had moved when I was just two years old; but we didn’t find out about that until many years after the move to the east coast.

Anyway, it turned out that the multiplicity mushroomed and took on many significant changes as a result of that move. It’s not hard to figure out why.

The whole dynamic of leaving the mentally retarded girls behind would have done it if there hadn’t been other factors, too. There was also the whole life-change that happens to every girl around that age, which for us was especially hard because of my brother’s secret nighttime rendezvous. Added to those factors was the drastic change in culture, including the new element of biracial relationships in a world dominated by violent prejudice; and a new set of social dynamics at church where the most fun thing for the youth to do was to be abusive to the new pastor’s oldest daughter, and our parents consistent response to that was, “If you wouldn’t react they would stop teasing you.” And their parent’s response was, “It’s a form of compliment. They go to great lengths to come up with new ways to hurt you.” When you add it all up, it’s really no wonder that we split big time.

It was following this move that we really majored in developing separate functional selves that we switched between. We had to function one way at school and had one group of acquaintances that revolved around school. We had a totally separate group of people in our church world (which was separate from our Christian self). When we wanted to be true to ourself we went out into the woods with our dog where we could talk honestly and openly with God. Occasionally, this self would seclude into the bedroom and lock the rest of the world out, but mostly we kept to the woods outside.

Before the move we were pretty aggressive, a boisterous leader of the neighborhood, and a tomboy. We also had a secret self who was very afraid and insecure, but that self never showed up in public. After the move we were 100% committed to a nonviolent, meek, “turn-the-other-cheek” type.

Of course, we can’t forget the new dating relationships self. I, Plex, coordinated all these selves and somehow formed a sense of “self” that encompassed the very many of me.

In future posts I’ll tell more of the details of my life/ our life – about our dating relationships and our parenting and therapy; but for now this is a good start.