Well, another pathetic case of a psychotic hallucinating multiple on nationwide TV, and more indications that the only time the general public ever sees information on plurality is when it's linked to a sensational court case. Wanna help us change that? You can do a lot with an email address that doesn't out you.

Doves
Personal Correspondence

We need to hear from people with web pages. Who writes to you? Who signs your guest books? What do they say? Do they have thoughtful observations or ask questions, or do they just want to find out when Sybil is going to be on television again?

On the other hand, that woman with the child who terrified her by coming out multiple to her responded to our mail and was much comforted by our reassurance that there were advantages to having such a "family" and that there were lots of other multiples out there. She even reported her suspicion that she herself might be multiple because she fogs out on the Interstate. Understanding is possible, once people (and, I might add, ^people) calm down.

Pennies
World and National News

CBS' "48 Hours Investigates" launched its 2002 season with a sensational trial account in which a woman with multiple personalities charged her psychiatrist with inappropriate sexual conduct.

His guilt or innocence are beside the point - we didn't see enough evidence on the program to judge intelligently one way or the other, likely due to the fact that having been cleared of criminal charges, Dr. Malave is now facing a lawsuit from his former client. find more articles about the case here.

CBS dressed the story up as a remake of "Sybil", They described the woman as suffering from "psychotic hallucinations" and featured a number of bizarre camera angles, sound effects, and shots of her different selves being upset or speaking in a loud, aggressive manner.

We wrote to CBS and encourage others to do so - the link to the feedback form is at the bottom of the CBS News web page. But we need more than that. All that tells them is that some people are watching their show. We need numbers, and we're not getting them.

Weathervane
Multiplicity on the internet

I have a slight correction on that woman last week who took her daughter to a psychiatrist to 'correct' inappropriate behavior due to her being plural. The plurality, she now says, wasn't the problem. The four-year-old girl was actively suicidal. This was apparently blamed on something called the "depression gene", and not on personal feelings or on behavior modeled by parents or other siblings. She's been in a number of correctional programs and is now a perfect child. Her mother does suspect that she is still plural, but she is not as worried about that as she was about the other things. I had no idea they had a DNA test for a depression gene. Let alone that there was such a thing as a perfect child.

Now that we've got that out of the way...
Are you a multiple or plural person who is active on a Usenet newsgroup or a web forum not related to multiplicity or mental health? A fan group for a movie, TV show, graphic novel series or something on public radio? Would you consider coming out multiple on that list if appropriate? Part of the reason people don't do it more often on such forums is that it just doesn't come up. You could just happen to casually mention ^someone and use the little ^ sign, and someone said "what are the ^ signs for" and you said "I am a multiple, and those are people in my group".

^Jason used to be on two high-traffic elists for men and women who do beadwork. Off-topic chat was within reason allowed, and constant. 400 messages a day was not unusual. Since jason had an address that was his own and did not out us as the legal person, he spoke about his ^sister and ^friends (he didn't use ^'s - this was years ago), had a link to his personal web page, and if he had been asked flat out "are you multiple" he would have said yes. It wasn't until jason encountered another member of the lists in a group for multiples that she told him she was also plural and had spotted jason as "yous" immediately on the other list, saying nothing only because she was shy. Imagine what they'd have been able to accomplish if they'd both been out plural on that high-traffic list full of chatty ladies (and some gentlemen) who zoomed around the country attending bead shows and pow-wows and running shops. Those gals were in contact with thousands of other people. Some of them were probably plural themselves...