Pearl from S.U. Is a System

Spoiler alert: This post contains massive spoilers for Season 5.

Note: This post will discuss mental health conditions related to dissociative identity disorder. If that inspires you to want to rage-type a snarky comment about how you personally Don’t Believe (TM) in something that really isn’t a matter of belief, but a well-documented mental health condition, kindly scroll away. There are millions of other things you can read on Reddit today that will make you less angry.

A lot of people talk about how Garnet and other fusions are good representatives for the Plural community: the community of those whose bodies contain more than one self/personality. While I agree that fusions a good way to illustrate plurality in general, when it comes to forms of plurality that originate from trauma—such as DID and OSDD-1—I can’t think of a better example in all of media than Pearl, especially in “A Single Pale Rose.”

“A Single Pale Rose” shows Pearl to be not just a single person, but a collection of many Pearls. Many fans refer to the other Pearls as “flashbacks” or “memories,” but memories can’t send texts. I firmly think that all the Pearls are alters, all of whom take turns fronting to make the “Pearl” we see on the outside. A lot of people talk about having “parts of self”: a work self, a home self, a hanging-out-with-friends self, etc. That’s typical, so, if you think of yourself that way, it most likely doesn’t mean you have DID or are plural in any other way. Your work “self” probably doesn’t have a wholly different outlook on the world from your home “self,” and your hanging-out-with-friends “self” probably doesn’t straightup forget details about home and work unless you’re drunk. In plural systems, however, each self truly is a distinct person. It’s not like pulling a bunch of randos off the street and squishing them into one body (which is how horror movies that misrepresent DID portray it), but it’s also not just one person with different sides. In plural systems, each alter acts and thinks and sees the world autonomously from the others. It’s like different branches on the same tree: we share a base, but we grow in different directions in response to different stimuli. For plural systems that came from trauma, it’s extremely common for there to be amnesia (loss of memory) between the alters, so one alter might not remember things that anther alter does.

In “A Single Pale Rose,” the different Pearls act autonomously from one another and don’t share all their memories. When the Pearls’ phone gets lost inside their gem, the Pearl who’s vacuuming doesn’t remember sending the text: “Steven, I didn’t send that. I haven’t used my phone since I put it away this morning.” She is a distinctly different person from the one sending the texts, and the one sending the texts can act autonomously from the one who’s vacuuming. And yet, the two are aware of each other’s existence: once the text with the pink flower triggers the vacuuming Pearl’s memory, she immediately understands that “some other me” (a quote from later) sent the text.

This is exactly what it’s like to be a member of a system that has amnesia. In my system, before we were aware of one another (it’s extremely common for alters in systems to not know one another exist), we would see texts that we didn’t remember sending all the time. Thanks to a lot of work on improving our communication and understanding, when that happens now, we can figure out who sent the texts by looking for certain clues. In the Pearls’ case, seeing the emoji of the pink flower helped the Pearl who was fronting (“fronting” means “being in control of the body at that particular moment”) know which other Pearl had sent the text. When we go inside Pearl’s pearl, we see that the Pearl who sent the text has a pink flower in her hair, so sending the emoji an easy way for the Pearl who’s fronting to know which Peal had sent the text. This, again, is what it’s like to be in a system, too. Now that the other people in my system and I have gotten to know one another much, much better, when one of us comes across something we don’t remember doing and wonders, “Who did that?,” whoever did it can send signals to the person wondering. (Obviously, we don’t have a phone inside our head to text with, so those signals are usually physiological, like feelings or sensations or mental images.)

Once Steven goes inside Pearl’s pearl, he meets the first Pearl. I’m going to call this one Organized Pearl. As she says herself, “I’m very good at compartmentalizing everything. That’s why I get to be surface!—and they [the other Pearls] have to be put away.” She doesn’t want to go where the other Pearls are because “It’s a mess.” This is so, so, sooo common for trauma-based systems. We learned how to compartmentalize the traumatized alters far away from the more functional alters so that we all, holistically, could survive. Organized Pearl’s job is to keep the trauma-holding Pearls far away from the front (the “surface,” as she calls it) so that the Pearl that Steven and the Gems know from the outside looks put together at all times. She doesn’t have to remember the trauma. She’s just there to keep things tidy and neat and normal looking so that the system doesn’t fall apart. These types of “Everything’s fine!” alters often get triggered to the front by stress, since they’re good at making the system seem functional even things are a mess inside. Trauma-based plurality is rooted in PTSD, so having different alters take over is how the system as a whole can look okay even when there’s a raging PTSD storm happening internally. Before Steven went inside Pearl’s pearl, we got to see Organized Pearl come to the surface in real time. When Steven confronted Pearl about shattering Pink Diamond, and she panicked and put her hand over her mouth, the system was heavily stressed. As soon as Amethyst appeared, Organized Pearl suddenly rushed to the front: “Oh, yes, the phone case! Thank you, Amethyst!” Then she started vacuuming. Yeah, the neurotic vacuuming seems super weird, but, when the options are (1) let an alter who’s having a PTSD attack and being scared front or (2) let a hyper organized alter who’s otherwise pretty normal front, a system will usual pick (2). This is especially true when someone who expects the system to act a certain way (the way Amethyst expects Pearl to not be a mute mess) is around. In our system, we can very quickly switch from (1) to (2) when someone who doesn’t know about our trauma walks in on us having a PTSD attack.

(Side note: The fact that Organized Pearl gets freaked out about her phone not being where she put it indicates that Organized Pearl has OCD. OCD is very often bundled in the DID package.)

Next, we meet another Pearl. I’ll call this one Rose-Loving Pearl. I am convinced that this Pearl was fronting during “Rose’s Scabbard.” She’s emotionally volatile, doesn’t care about Steven at all, and is extremely hung up about losing Rose. It doesn’t matter that things have changed: for her, the day she learned of Rose’s decision to become Steven replays on loop forever and ever. This, again, is exactly what being a part of a trauma-based system can be like. An alter whose job within a system is to hold trauma will effectively be stuck at the traumatic event. Watching Rose-Loving Pearl curled up in a ball sobbing was genuinely extremely relatable. When the people in our system who hold trauma front, they do the same thing. Without help from a very highly trained specialist, trauma-holding alters stay stuck at a period of time when the trauma happened and live perpetually in the horrors of the past while more functional alters (like Organized Pearl) move forward and grow and change. Steven says, “This doesn’t look like a mess: it looks like—the past? Oh—that kind of mess.” This is what life is like for a trauma-holding alter: being stuck in a messy past.

Side note: The fact that Steven hugs Rose-Loving Pearl even though she doesn’t even really recognize him made me tear up. In real life, physically touching a trauma holder can be tricky, since many trauma holders have PTSD from being physically abused. But, the gesture in the cartoon is just so sweet. Steven isn’t very familiar with this exact Pearl, but he’s still sweet to her. If you know any trauma-based systems (DID or OSDD systems) and encounter a trauma holder having a PTSD attack, showing them kindness, even when they don’t recognize you, is so important. Probably don’t hug them unless they ask you to, but, for example, sitting next to them while they cry can mean so much.

Next, we meet another trauma holder. I’ll call this one War Trauma Pearl. We don’t know a lot about this Pearl other than that, like Rose-Loving Pearl, she’s stuck in a horrific past. She’s so traumatized that she’s perpetually stuck on the battlefield. She’s not super fleshed out as a person, and I don’t think she’s ever fronted in any S.U. episodes. In my view, War Trauma Pearl is what’s known as a fragment: a member of a system who isn’t a fully-fleshed alter with a 3-D personality, but just a tangle of memories (not necessarily traumatic) trapped in a slice of consciousness. Whether or not you’re part of a system (e.g., even if you’re the only person in your body), if you have PTSD, you can probably relate to this slice of consciousness that contains traumatic memories.

I think War Trauma Pearl is adjacent to another Pearl, one I’ll call Rebel Pearl. She doesn’t appear in “A Single Pale Rose,” but I think she’s one of the main functional alters besides Organized Pearl. In my view, Organized Pearl and Rebel Pearl take turns fronting to present as the “Pearl” we all know, with other Pearls (like Rose-Loving Pearl) only very rarely fronting. Rebel Pearl loves showing off her sword skills, and she talks about The Rebellion as if it were the most exciting time of her life. Rebel Pearl trained Connie how to fight. She’s not neurotic and high strung like Organized Pearl (think of Pearl’s tower of Steven’s items in “Mirror Gem”). Instead, she’s sharp-witted and has a bit of an ego. She’s valiant, show-offy, and a great teacher to Connie and Steven. I think Rebel Pear can talk so happily about her glory days in The Rebellion only because War Trauma Pearl holds the horrific memories far away from Rebel Pearl. Again, this is how real-life systems work. You can ask two members of the same system what they think of a certain life event, and one will say, “It was great! I did so many brave things!” and another will say, “It was horrific and full of trauma.” Those two opposite things can be true at once. Plurality enables a system to separate two opposing feelings into different individuals. Doing so helps make sense of complicated memories.

Then, we get to the next Pearl: again, a trauma holder. I’ll call this one Shatterer Pearl. Her trauma was very short lived, so it might seem strange that a whole alter/fragment could come from such a short moment in time (vs. a whole war or a long-term love for Rose), but this moment was so profoundly life-changing for the whole Pearl system that it’s more than reasonable that an alter or fragment could come from that event. As you undoubtedly know, Shatterer Pearl is the reason that the Pearl we know doesn’t shapeshift. Deep down inside the Pearl system, there is a terrified Shatterer Pearl who is perpetually in shapeshifted form and immensely traumatized because of what happened while she was in that state.

Finally, we meet the last Pearl, whom I’ll call Young Pearl. Even though gems don’t age, Young Pearl looks and acts so naive and child-like that I think of her as a Little: an alter in a system who’s stuck as a child. She’s Pearl before all the painful growing-up happened, the Pearl who was still Pink Diamond’s servant. What’s so important about this scene is that it’s not just a memory. As the memory plays before Steven’s eyes, Young Pearl breaks the fourth wall, hands him the phone, and apologizes for making him come so far. What we, the audience, are seeing on the screen isn’t a cartoon’s representation of a mere memory. We’re seeing a cartoon’s representation of an alter. Yes, she is in many ways stuck in the past, but she knows who Steven is, and she interacts with him both in person and over the phone. She’s real, living, and active. Yeah, she’s young, but she’s very much also an active member of the Pearl system. She’s always there, even if she doesn’t come up to the front. In real-life systems, there can be alters who stay inside and don’t front, but they still watch vicariously and interact with the outside world in their own way (read about passive influence if you’re curious).

It’s also really powerful to me that the Pearl who sent the text sent a flower emoji and that the Pearl who was fronting immediately understood, from that emoji, what was going on. In the episode, Pearl can’t speak nor write about the whole “shattering Pink Diamond” thing because Pink/Rose commanded her to be silent. So, when the Pearl who’s sending the text needs to communicate to the Pearl who’s fronting, she sends a pink flower emoji, knowing that the message will be understood in their own system language. I know that the others in my system exist, and I can get clued into who sent the text by certain triggers, like the pink flower.

As for what type of trauma-based plurality the Pearls have, we obviously can’t really know, but I have my own thoughts based on clues. When the Pearls’ phone gets lost inside their gem, the Pearl who’s fronting doesn’t remember sending the text: “Steven, I didn’t send that. I haven’t used my phone since I put it away this morning.” But, once a new text comes in with a pink flower, seeing the flower triggers Pearl’s hand to cover her mouth, and she remembers what’s going on. So, the system clearly has some amnesia.

The fact that the Pearls all have similar basic identifies and appearances and are differentiated by their having come from different stages in life indicates to me that the Pearls likely have OSDD-1a, but they could also have DID.