What frustrates me is that whenever I make a post that contains an absolute such as  “kin are never X” “fictives are always Y”: then I inevitably get a flood of messages and reblogs from edge cases in a bizarre set of circumstances  where their “fictive is not Y” or “kin is X”. 

These edge cases feel invalidated that my statement has excluded them and basically make a big piss and stink about how their existence as an exception proves whatever statement I have made wrong.

Now of course, when I make a ‘soft’ statement allowing for unusual edge-cases, somebody wings out of the sidelines to tell me I’m wrong for stating it this way too.

I think I made it pretty clear with ‘fictives are almost never singlets’ that fictives=/= singlets. There will ALWAYS be bizarre edge cases who are fictive singlets, or kin with no awakening experience, or whatever. These people are the exception, not the norm. But kinship, multiplicity and related topics are not an exact science. 

We can either accept that edge-cases exist, and be more permissive and inclusive in our definitions (a stance that tumblr has seemed to favor recently), or we can be more exclusive and rigid, and say ‘this is the definition, edge cases are edge cases’. Personally I’ve always erred on the side of rigid definition, but I can only take so many verbal punches to the chin before I start getting softer on my stance.

(as an aside, the original poster is diagnosed with DID professionally, and therefore uses the term ‘alters’. Please do not use the term ‘alter’ for headmates/people in a multiple system unless you are diagnosed DID. Almost all the non-DID multiples I have known including myself consider this term offensive and dismissive/invalidating of their headmates’ personhood.)