Big System Changes

[cosmicwebofnoodles]

 How do you all approach and work through big system changes?

And, if comfortable sharing, what are some big changes your system has gone through, and what was your experience working through them?

Comments

[lb_lee]

We sit, wait, and try to avoid making any big decisions.

Probably among the biggest changes are massive headspace renovations, done by itself and not us, and an old headmate who was out of her gourd getting horked up and having to deal with her. The headspace renovations were just a matter of bunkering down and waiting it out, headmate we did our best to deal with and ended up exiling in a few months, whereupon she eventually worked things out for herself over the course of years as a wilderness hermit and rejoined the crew.

[lightning_beast]

The biggest change we've had to deal with thus far was actually our syscovery - we considered ourselves plural beforehand but in a different way, just being a dæmian in a way that felt plural enough to us to call it that. And then in late September 2025, we realized we (the Deltas) are median! So that was. A lot. I'd say the best advice we can give in a situation like this is to be patient, don't rush into everything super quick, give it time. And try not to make assumptions if you can.

[foggerss]

We don't usually get hit with big sudden changes, it usually is a gradual thing. But when it does happen (say. A headmate gets put into a crisis orrr an important alter long gone suddenly comes back) we usually ride the wave, try and help wants to be helped and give time to those who needed dit and try not to force anything. Worked decently so far - Cael(?)

[galewings]

TS: i usually just kinda. hunker down mentally and scream about it into our journal in obsidian if i need to. i don't know if i really "work through" some of it as much as i just wait for things to stop changing for a bit tbh :p

a "big system change" i've gone through before includes major (sub)system refactoring (in which the guys in my subsystem (including me) get put in a metaphorical rock tumblr and come out different). when this happens i just kinda give it some time and then eventually figure out how to be me (TS) again

another big change was J showing up (because he's completely separate from my subsystem and so we're still trying to figure out how to give him brainspace to exist)

[pheonix_system]

We mostly try to record the experience and learn as we go, stumbling a bit while we try to figure it out.

The first big change was syscovery, which involved Skye having to adjust from a singlet perspective to a plural perspective, which required some patience from everybody else as she did so.

Another big change was encountering the entities in our headspace and trying to figure out what they wanted and how to work with them. These entities basically can only communicate through sending out vibes and occasionally images, so especially at the beginning it was difficult to tell what they were trying to tell us. Now however, after working to better communication, we seem to be on much better terms with them and they don’t act as hostile towards us.

Gaining Solar System was also a huge change, because we essentially doubled our headcount when they appeared, and Solar is very different from the main system, Werewolf Pack. We fought a lot in the beginning and things are still not completely easy between us, but one of the best things we’ve ever done was set up an exchange program where a member from each system switched which headspace they lived in for a month. It was an incredibly short period of time, yet we learned so much and relations improved quite a bit afterwards.

[seraphikiss]

what we like to do is try to journal about it. leave a random entry on our dreamwidth and tag it as !read and set it to private only, or write in a physical journal. we also have a discord server for just my system, and so we'll make a thread to talk about the change.

i think one of the biggest changes we've gone through is finding a sub-system. not sure how the host handled it, but she's still figuring things out even well beyond our "syscovery".

[beepbird]

Very slowly. Trying to rush adaptation and understanding does not help in the long or short term, so we journal through it and let the change settle if possible. We might also reach out to friends for support or insight, or we might consider what events in our life contributed to the change.

The major changes that I can remember:

• The "headspace incident" early on, which was the result of mistreating someone for long enough that she did her best to hurt or kill us. That took most of the system out of commission for anywhere from a week to several months, and it took at least a year to really change our dynamic with her after that because of how much trust we'd destroyed. Journaling and talking to each other helped. So did seeking out information and talking to friends who had more experience than we did. Changing our social environment helped considerably, as the overly medical attitudes of some of us contributed to the initial problem.


• The identity crisis of 2020/2021, which completely reshaped how we understood ourselves and/or how we are structured. We did quite a lot of journaling through it, some of which was here on Dreamwidth (a continued thank you to those who responded and gave us food for thought), but in retrospect, I wish that we had argued less about whether it was happening at all. We did quite a lot of that at the time. It would have been easier to cope with if we had all been able to accept that something was happening.


• Going through various iterations of ourselves. That has been a "wait and see" sort of change where getting settled is essential before much else can happen. Journaling helps us get our metaphorical feet under us and work out who someone is now.