Internal Conflicts.

Using conflict resolution tools with headmates can lead to effective, eye-opening introspective meditation.

Elizabeth Dubowski
Nov 4 · 6 min read

Recently I was involved with a lot of drama, and its sunken me into a deep pit of loneliness. Two specific events come to mind; in one case I’ve lost a friend whom I met a year ago, and in an unrelated situation I found myself pushed out of a Discord server for a video game. Both happened in rapid succession, and both imposed upon me the same question: Was I simply standing up for my convictions, or was I blinded by faults in my personality? Rather than taking a few moments to reflect and moving on, these two events inspired a sense that I needed to think much harder about why I was acting in the ways that I acted.

The first situation was a perfect storm of terrible circumstances all around. In one hand my friend was dealing with dissatisfaction in the landscape of the social platform she used to generate an income. She felt as though there were better uses of her time than developing content for a platform that seemed to be actively fighting against her. On my end, I had begun talking with friends about the possibility that I might have Dissociative Identity Disorder. I’ve spent 50% of my life worried about my mental health; my grades began slipping in Grade 5 and only got worse as time went on, but I couldn’t pinpoint why. My ability to get motivated was fading with each year to the extent where, in Grade 11, I flunked English 20 with a 36%.

If you know me well, you know how absurd that sounds. I take pride in my writing capabilities and exercise those abilities rigorously on my Twitter account as well as right here on Medium. Even so, I failed English and the only excuse I could think of at the time was my deteriorating motivation, which in turn eroded my will to live. The only reason I haven’t committed suicide, in fact, is because I lack the motivation to carry it all out. Learning to tie a noose is too hard, my fathers’ guns are locked away and I don’t know where the key is, and I’m too scared of feeling pain while dying to explore any other avenue.

With all this in mind, the conclusion I’ve come to with regards to my mental health is, “something is seriously wrong, but I don’t know what it is, and while I know how to get help, I don’t know how to assist whoever helps me.” It’s hard to phone up a therapist in the first place, but what am I supposed to tell them if the phone call is successful? Is it possible to know what information is useful to the diagnosis and what information is irrelevant junk that could lead to a misdiagnosis?

What if the therapist tells me this is all normal?

Obviously, this isn’t a very stable mental state to be in. Questioning my sanity while suffering from an unknown mental condition is leading me down a lot of different avenues of self-discovery. In spite of my fears about misdiagnosis from a therapist, I’m trying to diagnose myself instead. It’s like a character flaw from a movie coming to life. I don’t trust myself enough to know the right information to help a professional treat my ailments, so why do I think I could do a better job than them?

The most recent self-diagnosis I’ve come to is, as I mentioned, DID. I’ve come across multiple people on the internet who identify themselves as “plural,” so I talked to them about how they found out. Most of them say it was a revelation after learning what dissociation was. I’ve had my own experience with dissociation, and it’s the least amount of fun I’ve ever had in my life. About a year ago I was struck with an intense anxiety attack that lasted more than a day, during which I dissociated multiple times. It felt almost as though my body was a starship and somebody had yanked me away from the controls; my body went on autopilot while my pilot was locked in a cage, watching my life happen beyond their control. On the outside I was completely fine, no one suspected a thing. On the inside I felt like I was in a horror film.

About a month ago I talked to two people I knew who were plural. I held so many of my assumptions about plurality were shaped by Hollywood and cable television, and it showed. With their permission, I spoke freely of the assumptions and fears I held:

  • Plurality is synonymous with insanity.
  • Plurality means I’ll start talking to myself in public.
  • Plurality could be just an imagination running too wild.
  • Plurality would open me up to more neglect from my family.

With some helpful guidance from other plural people, I think I’ve started learning how to cope with it. It hasn’t been the final piece to a complicated puzzle that will suddenly allow me to function normally, but that’s an entirely different story that likely involves a lot of different conversations and therapies.


Noticing the cycles I go through makes processing all of this difficult. I stopped playing Forza and started playing The Outer Worlds. I tried to force myself to take another job as a freelance editor and it just didn’t work, I got burned out and anxious. That’s what happens if I try and fight against these cycles. So if I’m in one of those swings, what of plurality? Is this also on a cycle?

I typically just let things happen on their own so since I stopped feeling like indulging my headmates, I just did other things. Stuff festered. It got bad.

Luckily, I recently joined a community that utilizes an interesting form of conflict resolution that pushes the causes of conflicts to the forefront. Rather than letting issues bubble up to the surface and explode without control, an environment is provided for people to present their problems in a controlled space, without worrying about dogpiling from the other members of the server. After a bit of thought, I realized I could use their conflict resolution system to try and resolve some of the issues me and my headmates have.

It was fucking eye-opening.

The first problem I addressed between me and my headmates was finding the opportunity to share fronting time. I started feeling incredibly tired and wanted desperately to avoid acknowledging my plurality, but my headmates were sick of being ignored and pushed away. It blew up until eventually my headmates began identifying themselves to the server, like a final stand to try and make a point. They wanted to be more present, I wanted to return to normalcy. I didn’t move, so they gave up. They ended the session and went away. I was all alone in my head, left to process what I did.

After the conflict comes aftercare. Some of the people observing us came to ask us for more information, specifically concerning one specific problem that kept coming up: my inability to cry.

At the time, it made no sense to any of us. No matter how hard we tried, the only time we could make tears fall across our cheeks was if I was either yawning or laughing. Crying was a thing I just never did. As discussion continued, a couple possible explanations arose:

  • I was very emotional as a Catholic school student, and was punished for it,
  • The last time I cried was when my Nana was dying from cancer,
  • My parents were neglectful, and
  • I’ve had numerous head injuries.

After listing all these problems out as a probable cause to my emotional stunting, it occurred to me that the one thing I’ve always turned to is video games. When I feel overcome with any certain emotion, I just play video games. As a result, I’ve accumulated an addiction.

Yep, this girl’s addicted to video games. Still, fixing this addiction won’t solve my problems; I’ll just find something else to be addicted to, and the problems I’m avoiding will still fester until I explode again. It just so happens that my explosions can now happen in a controlled environment without hurting anyone else, and I can get help from other people suffering from similar problems until I find professional help. I just need to remind myself that I’m not alone.

I don’t just have my friends anymore, I have my headmates too.

Elizabeth Dubowski

Written by

I’m also known as Hootwheelz or PLUSH on the internet.

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade