#i don't talk a lot abt like. personal identity stuff etc. but sometimes i have Feeeeeeelings. about things.

[equalseleventhirds]

bcos of Reasons (yes ani u have started me on a brain spiral, not ur fault just me thinking too much) i am thinking abt what i, as an aromantic, like to see in media

(and yes i do enjoy a good romantic arc also, this is not exclusive, i do not require to see aromanticism in order to enjoy something, just. like. what am i looking for when i am in a mood to see stuff i can relate to as an aro.)

and i was perusing lists of media with confirmed aro characters, right, and contemplating how many of those characters make me feel..... seen? represented? positive??? w/e.

and a... not even trend, bcos there's not enough for it to be a trend, but a storyline i see a chunk of the time is like, character comes out as aro/not interested in romance, and then has a 'so don't hit on me/don't expect me to date or get married/stop trying to set me up on dates/etc' conversation with another character

with ofc the good end there being the other character is like, oh, of course, i understand, i will do this to make u comfortable and i do not think you are a freak for this

which! don't get me wrong, not a bad story. visibility & affirmation & so on. part of the time it is a side character this happens to but also sometimes a main character! u kno. it's not bad.

but it's not really something i find....... super relatable, or desirable in media? like, it's fine, it's nice, it's not something i am actively seeking out or what i really want when i am looking for 'aro media', exactly.

and that may just be about where i am in my personal life journey, right. i am fine with who i am and how i live and have moved on past needing people to acknowledge my basic existence.

what i'm usually wanting is... well, platonic relationships. strong platonic relationships that have actual screen time, are shown to be emotionally resonant, and have just as much if not more importance placed on them as romantic relationships.

bcos that's what i really want, you know--not to be told 'yeah you can exist and Not Do Romance and that's fine :)' but to have the kinds of emotional connections i make be. yknow. important. to be told yeah, you don't do romance, but that doesn't mean you can't be the most important person in someone's life (even if right now as i am i am not emotionally stable enough to be that important to someone.......... but that's another story).

to..... not be defined by a lack, even tho i know that's. what aromanticism is, u kno, lack of romantic attraction. but having that lack not be the end. of a character, a conversation, a relationship.

it's why i like things like wolf 359, where like, we know jacobi and maxwell aren't romantic, but she's his person. he'll burn down everything for her. in her memory. so even tho neither character is 'canon aromantic', i feel seen & valued by their story.

right? yeah.

(also sometimes to have friendships shown in media that are just as fucked up and toxic and hand-in-unlovable-hand as some of the ships ppl love lmao. yes i'm aromantic but that doesn't mean all my love is sweet and nice. fun to see that shown sometimes. not always but u know. (jazz hands) variety)

[boy-above]

on this pride month i've decided that the current closest descriptor for my gender is...

i'm gonna do a whole lot of talking abt my gender and stuff, honestly it's mostly for myself to organize my thoughts but i do like talking abt myself sometimes so if you read, thank you i guess

before i figured out i was a boy i ID'd as nonbinary for several years, i was hesitant to ID as masculine because at the time the community was so drenched with radfem ideology that myself and a lot of other transmascs were afraid to come out / even think about exploring masculinity because we were constantly being told how evil men were all the time. so instead i went through like, so many nonbinary labels, but none of them really suited me, i discovered. agender, bigender, genderfluid, i tried a lot of them. the thing is that i knew i didn't want to be a Girl, but was very hesitant to consider i was a Boy because of the previously mentioned radfem rhetoric being spread. this isn't a post to talk about that though, you've heard a lot about that from me already lmao. it's just an important component of the struggles with gender i had growing up.

anyway, once i finally accepted i was a boy, i was excited. i checked the boxes for a trans man, i wanted a dick (and am still mad i don't have one), i wanted he/him pronouns, i was comfortable being called a boy, etc. and i still want all of those things, so why am i starting to question the trans man label?

i think mostly it comes down to how my gender has been shaped by societal and environmental expectations. i have gender dysphoria but not in an entirely "traditional" way. i want a dick, i want a flat chest, i want a deeper voice. but im also gender nonconforming, and have no interest trying to do traditionally masculine things to "fit in" with cis men. i don't think femininity is some horrible thing to be avoided, i like a lot of feminine things and don't think so many things should be gendered in the first place. i don't think trying hormones would fix me because there's other ways i Don't want to look like a man. if anything i would say Nothing can truly fix my dysphoria because i don't want to look like Anything. there is no perfect me i can envision in my head, if anything i don't even want to look human; i don't even want to be perceived. there's also parts of me that no amount of surgery to fix, im only 4'9 for example, and even cis men get berated for being short let alone trans men.

that's why i've only told my immediate family, my friends, and my doctor that i'm a boy. i never plan of publicly coming out. on the rare occasion i do, i settle with they/them instead of my preferred he/him because it's just easier that way. you get a lot of laughing and eyerolling as a feminine looking person if you try to use he/him. ive been trans for so many years but i can never truly escape the chance that people might perceive me as a "trender" (hate that word, gag) because i simply don't pass. and then of course there's my parents who refuse to use he/him and will only use they/them. they know i want he/him but they won't even try. they're just like "you can't really expect us to call you a boy."

i have so much sympathy for fellow closeted people. the community never considers you and it ends up being a lonely place. you don't fit in with cis people but other trans people don't want you. once i read a piece called "i am a trans woman, i am in the closet, i am not coming out." and i can't even tell you how important that writing was to me. i read it at just the right time, years ago when i think i really needed it. it's one of the only things that made me feel like staying in the closet was an option. that i can only be out where i feel safe.

i've questioned before if my gender nonconformity and the way people treat non-passing individuals is the true reason i've become skeptical of my trans man identity. i think most likely it is, i think that if we lived in a world where it was perfectly socially exceptable to be a feminine trans man and people in public would accept me and treat me like a boy, i'd have no problem saying "i'm a trans man", but we don't live in that world. the world we're in right now has no room for people like me, and it's something i've had to accept. another thing worth mentioning is that i don't even really like the word 'man' being applied to me, i just felt like i had to use it because some people treat trans boys badly if they prefer 'boy' over 'man'. but i like being a boy. the word boy suits me better. the word man just doesn't seem applicable to me. i'm not masculine enough and the word just feels kinda wrong in my brain, the same way being called "handsome" does. i want to be cute, and calling me handsome would just be inaccurate. do you get what im saying?

but anyway, i think demiboy suits me because its more 'loose' than trans man for lack of a better word. its less specific and i think thats what i need right now. im a boy, but calling myself binary doesnt quite feel right. calling myself nonbinary also doesnt feel right though. like i said i ID'd as nonbinary for several years so i have no problem with the label in general, it just doesnt feel right when applied to me personally. it's kinda weird to describe, i know demiboy is not a binary identity, therefore is by definition nonbinary, but the word nonbinary itself just doesnt vibe with me, so i guess i would prefer not to call myself nonbinary??? i dont know how to describe it, it's just a labels thing. because like i said, i feel like trans boy isnt an entirely wrong way to describe me Either. im rambling now because i know my labels problem doesnt make sense. anyway uh yeah. i'm a demiboy. and for anyone who didn't see the post i made a while back, i use he/him and sometimes it/its. unenthusiastically throws a handful of confetti

[ezradogteeth]

heyo james, I've got a question for ya :) (pls feel free to not answer if it's too personal!)

So, I've finally started making calls to get top surgery, and I was really excited! like wow this thing I've been looking forward to for years is finally gonna happen, i'll get to wear shirts without having to constantly think about how i look, etc.

but then I started thinking more about it (i guess because its becoming more Real?), and I'm more conflicted about getting rid of my chest. like, hairy tits go kinda hard actually, and like sensory wise they are fun for stimming. plus i feel INFINITE BUTCH SWAG with them. if it was just me by myself forever, I feel like I could be happy with them, but I also find myself yearning for like, being able to be shirtless in public and also having a smooth surface to run my hands down. stuff like that. (also especially the "not worrying about how I look when i put on a t-shirt thing)

so here's my question: I remember you making a comic about how happy you were to have had top surgery, even if u still missed your old chest sometimes, or felt conflicted about it. what do u miss about your old chest? do you ever feel dyphoric with ur current chest? if u have any other insights or things to say, pls do

(p.s. i am considering non-flat surgery, but i don't know how i feel abt that yet because currently I think it'd be the worst of both worlds for me. i don't think the results would be what i actually want: flat chest that's just slightly rounded across the whole thing so it's soft and kinda andro looking)

hi moth yayyy so exciting!! ty for ur question!! longish answer so its under the cut

first i wanted to say that when i first decided to look into having top surgery, after my consultation, i got wigged out and decided to hold off on it for a while. talking to the surgeon made me Really understand that it is a major surgery and everything that entails. a lot of it freaked me out and i ended up deciding to go for it almost a year after that, and i'm glad i took that time to reconsider.

second, i totally relate to the butch swag thing and sensory thing. since having top surgery i've seen a lot more art and photos and people irl who are transmasc/genderqueer with boobs, much more than i did pre-op, and it makes me feel very happy and i wish i saw more of it back then bc it wouldve made me feel a lot better.

i do think that inherently, i would have been able to make peace with my body as is and not had surgery. i was never super dysphoric about my chest and i liked having partners who found it attractive. like you said, if it was just me by myself, or if i was only ever around people who wouldn't see me having boobs as contradictory to me passing as male, i wouldn'tve minded as much.

but unfortunately it doesn't exist in a vacuum like that. the body is a public form, it's how you engage with the world. similar to what you said, i wanted to be able to be shirtless, not wear a binder, be able to pass sometimes, etc. i also wanted the sensory experience of like, laying down flat on my chest, or running without breasts moving which was always uncomfortable for me esp since i hated wearing bras.

i don't feel dysphoric about my current chest, it's more like a passing wistfulness for how my chest used to be or would've been now if i hadn't had surgery. sometimes it's just the feeling of absentmindedly holding my own boob i miss lol. since i had surgery pretty young there's things i feel like i might've missed out on. i live in a wayyy more transsexual ass place now where it's way more normal for a man to have, and show off, breasts, and for it to be attractive, and not negate his identity at all. and i think i would've slayyed like that. alas! on the day to day though, i've also been working more physical jobs where i want to pass as male, so binding would have been very uncomfortable and i'm glad i don't have to do it. and i get a ton of euphoria from being flat chested, and i'm lucky to be around people who find post-op transmasc chests cool and attractive. as much as i liked having partners be attracted to my chest pre-op, i've also learned that there Are people out there who find flat chests just as attractive, and i love having partners who are attracted to the masculinity of my body, because previously i'd often felt like i had to be feminine to be attractive

and re: a non-flat surgery option, i do think it's something to look into! i never really considered it cuz for me it wasn't really the size of my chest that mattered, more like entirely having breasts or not, and i didn't want to go thru the whole ordeal of surgery just to be dysphoric again or end up wanting to get a flat chest later on - though many people do get a reduction/semi-flat surgery and later have full top surgery and it's totally cool!!!

feel free to send a follow up if i didn't answer something in particular or you want me to elaborate on anything ^_^

[ladychlo]

hi chay, dont mind me just a curious lad with a silly question. if someone is generally very masculine about the way they dress and act like and talk abt themselves, does that mean they can't be genderfluid? like, i as an afab who's very confused abt my gender, i love to dress up in a feminine way, i love dresses i love make up i love long hair and i do "act" like a girly referring to myself as she/her and all of that /sometimes/ more in public tho. i love all of my feminine features. but sometimes i do wanna dress up in a more "masculine" way yk? i wear my dad's or brother's clothes sometimes and act like a lad. and i do sometimes find myself more comfortable in that kind of attire. im not trying to be stereotypical abt this but idk how else to express this im sorry. so i just can't help but wonder that if a man, a queer man to be more specific, who is so "masculine" all the time, wears laddy clothes calls himself a lad and all of that stuff and just is very kinda cis in expressing himself most of the time, and it might not be pretense ok but then why does the idea of him wearing dresses at home so bothersome? there are people who say its disrespectful to assume that every queer guy is flamboyant or genderfluid in some way or the other, that it's stereotypical. but if lgbtq and just gender in general is a spectrum of infinite colors, isnt it just as stereotypical to assume that just bc someone dresses and acts a certain way they can't do other stuff? just bc a laddy lad acts like a typical cis lad with everyone, he can't wear dresses at home just for the mere fact that he finds comfort in it? and if assuming that about someone is rude then assuming the opposite should be to! or should it not?

im just very confused abt the whole thing and im like very very new to this, all of this, like a baby queer if you can call me that so I'm really sorry if anything i said up there came out sounding offensive or one-dimensional or like idk not ok, i genuinely apologize that was not the intention. im just very confused about a lot of things rn and this is just me trying to make sense of stuff. feel free to ignore this or tell me off if i said anything wrong. also sorry for the rant

Hi love!!

you don't have to apologize you're totally fine!

look between how you identify with gender and how you express it can be lots of intimate and interchangeable links but also these two are at the same time separate realms. you can identify as gender fluid, agender, nonbinary, trans, cis, etc but how you express this identity (meaning your pronouns, your name, your clothes, etc etc) is your art, is whatever you want it to be, whatever makes you feel good, validated, and whatever makes you feel at home with your skin. so if you feel like expressing your gender today in a more feminine way (how you see femininity and how you define it) then perfect, if tomorrow you feel like you wanna express it in a more masculine way (again how you see masculinity and how you define it) then its all so perfect! you can always explore your gender and redefine it the way you want.

for the second part about the ''lad'' thing, everyone has a gender expression whether you're cis or trans/ gender non-conforming, of course, there is systematic discrimination and power balance that comes with reversing gender expectations and also some personal stuff you have to deal with, there is more layers when it comes to that.

however, for example, lad culture is a way for lads to express their gender, very injected by a cultural setting, by a class, by certain things that define what is a lad and they conform to it, however, it does not erase the possibility of exploring your gender while being a lad, you know, a lad can deff wear dresses, can wear makeup, can redefine the ''laddiness'' and reshape their gender expression, regardless of how they identify their gender

and about the stereotypes, look I personally don't like the idea of pushing the argument of ''you cant assume this, this is just a stereotype'' you can say this to cishets who their judgment can be rooted in the system that benefits them but as queer people, our history is linked by the things others say its ''stereotype'', recognizing that a gay man can be effeminate and present as masculine or sometimes be okay with being feminine or whatever they want is not stereotyping is just another complex reality of a queer person.

idk if I answered your questions love, but please do come back if you have more or something wasn't clear <3

[illnessfaker]

do you have any resources on OSDD? like more in depth than just the diagnostic criteria, i'm very familiar with those, i guess more...people talking abt what it feels like? I have cptsd and I've been noticing things very similar to what you described in your post for a long time now. I thought I had DID for sure a while ago, but I was also actively manic/psychotic, so when that calmed down I assumed I had just been delusional. But the identity disturbances and dissociation persist. I don't think it's DID now it's osdd if it's anything but I'm wary of saying that for sure and rly would like some i guess more descriptive accounts of how symptoms are for someone with it. Sorry if this is a lot/you don't have anything of that nature, I'm glad to hear you're figuring out your own multiplicity and hope the understanding helps you in your healing process!

firstly, thank you for your kind words 😊

@/this-is-not-dissociative has a lot of info about did/osdd-1 (and other dissociative stuff) as well as having did/osdd-1 vs. dissociation in bpd/cptsd - though it's possible to have did/osdd-1 and bpd/cptsd of course - and did-research.org talks about osdd-1 a little bit (especially vs. having full-blown did). these are probably the best resources i can point you towards even though they don't contain many personal accounts. the first blog is staunchly against self-dx iirc and there's a lot of "you should speak to a professional about this" but u know how it is (at the very least they provide a lot of info and resources on how to go about doing that, it seems.)

some posts in particular that may be informative/helpful to you (there are probably many reasons to dislike this blog but it's what i've found most informative so yeah):

anp and ep, + an explanation of structural dissociation and how it models ptsd, cptsd, bpd, osdd-1, and did.

anp and avoiding trauma

an example of did vs. osdd-1

parts in bpd/cptsd vs. osdd-1

parts in cptsd vs. osdd-1 (this mod "kevin" has osdd-1, by the way)

parts vs. fragments vs. alters

alters not being easy to recognize

identity confusion vs. identity alteration

( read-more bc this got long despite it being past my bedtime lmao )

the problem w personal accounts of stuff and did/osdd-1 is presentations of these diagnoes will differ from person to person, sometimes greatly. contrary to media depiction they're also covert disorders by nature - they're psychological coping mechanisms for intense distress, and part of those coping mechanisms is being ignorant to the fact that your sense of self is fragmented / there are parts of your sense of self that are attached to trauma. i know of several folks who were initially diagnosed with osdd-1 but then later re-diagnosed as having did because the severity of their situation was very effectively hidden from them by this dissociation.

( another problem is that ppl are flawed and can give bad/wrong info on how stuff works or trends can give the wrong impression and unfortunately that's very common w did/osdd-1 spaces online. e.g. u don't have to know the name, age, etc. or know who's "fronting" or whatever with elaborate tagging systems and pages on ur blog with said info abt ur parts or "alters" to have did/osdd-1. worrying abt that stuff too much can worsen dissociation. )

it's not common for someone to have did/osdd-1 and for it to be obvious to themselves or others (who don't know what to look for, that is). this is why no small number of folks with did/osdd-1 are seemingly well-functioning on the outside since different dissociated parts often serve "everyday life" purposes such as going to work/school and these parts are the ones disconnected from traumatic "materials" as they're called. part of the reason why i'm wanting to conceptualize my experiences as osdd-1 is due to the fact that my default state (the "host"?) is emotionally dissociated from my trauma - i know it happened, but it seemed like it happened to "this body" rather than "me" and i don't feel anything about it until i get triggered. "apparently normal parts" that handle everyday life are usually trauma-avoidant or separated from the trauma like this in some way.

that being said, i'm still not totally sure if i qualify for an osdd-1 diagnosis or not tbqh. my situation is most like the "some individuals with OSDD-1 lack both amnesia and highly distinct parts" mentioned in the page i above linked (but yesterday and this morning/afternoon i was convinced i did - go figure). i'd been researching did/osdd-1 for a while (not necessarily because i thought it was what i was experiencing) which is part of what helped me come to terms with having experienced dissociation for a long time, and i thought up until like...the other day i definitely didn't have it. i came to believe i had some weird bpd/cptsd/szpd-like situation where emotional states had been "locked away" in boxes that i rarely touched as a defense mechanism against psychological distress. i also had a metaphor for my "emotional part(s)" as it/them being like, (a) ghost(s) that follow me around and aren't evil but occasionally "wrap their hands around my throat" to remind me that they're there.

then i saw someone w an osdd-1 diagnosis talk abt how they have parts whose "job" is to "feel sadness for them" as a defense mechanism against that kinda distress and then i was like...huh. and then i thought about how seeing my parents again felt kinda weird and distant. and that's kinda what tipped me off, despite having a pretty unstable sense of self and dissociation issues for a while. the "seeing my parents" thing is somewhat more major, because it felt different from my "default setting." thinking about it is uncomfortable and weird.

ur gonna have to do a lot of reading, tbh, and doing it in moderation is probably a good idea since thinking too much abt dissociation can trigger it. another thing is that conceptualizing yourself as having did/osdd-1 when you don't actually have that experience can worsen dissociation/identity issues as well so u gotta be careful abt how u approach it. but at the same time, cptsd and did/osdd-1 have mostly the same treatment methods anyway (and technically u gotta have cptsd to have did/osdd-1, not as like a diagnostic requirement really but a "you have to be traumatized from long-term traumatic experiences at a young age" sense) so many resources abt did/osdd-1 may be helpful to u regardless of whether you "have" them or not.

i can't tell u how to differentiate between symptoms of psychosis and did/osdd-1 (the blog i mentioned may have posts about that topic - there's two in their master-posts but neither were particularly helpful i don't think) since afaik i'm not psychotic but i wish you luck!

[patchdotexe]

So, I have a character who is a system, and I wanted to know before I develop them further, how does DID work, from a personal account? I really really really don't want to accidentally create yet another TOXIC misinterpretation of a real condition (because I know how horrible that can feel), and I hope I'm not saying anything wrong even now. (P.S. I love your blog, but I'm too shy to come off anon.)

hey anon!! it means a LOT to me that you sent this message :D theres a lot of really messy-bad potrayals of DID in the media so seeing people actually going to the effort of asking systems abt their experiences is really heartwarming for us. (plus the fact that ppl keep asking us in specific abt system stuff omg,,)

im gonna preface this by saying that, in the end, i can only really talk about my own experiences with full confidence. systems can work pretty differently from each other, but this is how we function and also some details ive noticed from system friends + general discussion over the years

so, to start off: Dissociative Identity Disorder is, at its core, your brain trying to respond to trauma in a pretty severe way. that being said there ARE systems that didnt experience severe trauma and still developed, and im not really sure about the mechanics behind that but i find it really cool and it totally exists. im gonna focus on trauma-based systems bc that’s our ~tragic backstory~ and also tends to be what most people opt for when creating system characters anyway, but the only real difference from what i can tell is, uh, a lack of trauma.

I HOPE YOU’RE READY FOR ME TO SAY THE WORD “TRAUMA” A WHOLE LOT JFC

(system friends are welcome to reblog with corrections or added info!!)

anyway. the way your brain responds to things is really weird. if something happens where you’re just, like, completely unable to handle it, like you dissociate yourself so hard because there’s no way you can manage this, your brain has a chance of going “uh… well, fuck, uh” and generating somebody who can manage it. or it might decide to be a dick and take all of the fucky internalized garbage and turn it into a person whose sole existence is to be an asshole. (they have the potential to get better, i think… ours didnt.) honestly theres a bunch of reasons and a bunch of “roles” that could lead to an alter/headmate* forming.

* we use the terms interchangeably depending on mood and whos fronting. i think its supposed to be “alter” is DID, “headmate” is implication that theyre non-traumatic? we like using “headmate” because it brings this fun mental image of us being a bunch of roommates constantly starting shit with each other and goofing off which is pretty accurate about 75% of the time

i keep getting distracted bc my cat is here. this is gonna be fun to go back and edit.

whatever the original situation is, you’re suddenly not alone in your own brain. and it’s REALLY WEIRD. communication was VERY hard. Icarus, our system original, used to do a very “cliche” thing of sharing a journal with their early headmates, where theyd write a sentence and then theyd write a reply (although back then they didnt realize that was a system-related thing and just thought they were having a fun conversation with their ocs. which… they were, just. Actually Talking.) they didnt have any inward perception of themself or their headmates either, so that kinda built up over time (with some help) along with the appearance of our headspace so that there was… actually a location for people to interact in. once they had a better awareness of things, mental communication got a bit easier– its sort of like background chatter really, when everybody’s awake. sometimes i get weird out of context things from Mae yelling at somebody, or sometimes ill be talking to a friend and someone’ll butt in.

when talking out loud, this usually leads to us suddenly stopping and then laughing or going “no!!!”. when on discord and around people who know who we are… well.

speaking of Mae, she’s pretty much my sister. not like… biologically? because i don’t think thats possible for me, but shes kinda literally my “other half” which ill get into later. headmates can have strong attachments to other alters! friends, best friends, family, dating, whatever. they can also do that with people outside the system, and itll be different for each headmate. there’s like 4 people dating Jorb but i just see him as one of my best friends. we’re people and we have complex social interactions that can get to be kind of a nightmare when you’re around a bunch of people who don’t know that you’re Not Leo and that youre suddenly not super up to existing around people in general.

plus even if like… so Jorb’s dating 4 of us like i said, but his relationship w/ each of them is different? Ica is very clingy and likes rambling to him, Summer’s pretty much just always happy to hang out, Mae makes fun of him a lot but in a loving way, and Leo is… kinda “all of the above” because that’s his gimmick. plus even tho a few other alters have a sibling-ish relationship with Mae like i do, usually its just me and Mae that do the “chaos siblings” bit.

the basic system.. thing… is that there’s “front”, which is being in control of the body– so, like, i’m currently fronting/in front, because im the one currently active and using our computer and staring at our cat.– and then theres the headspace, where everybody hangs out when theyre not in front. the headspace itself can differ in style & functionality for each system, and i think theres some systems that dont really have a location at all? but for us its like a full on location where we have individual rooms, places to visit if we get bored while away from front, etc.

theres also like, being at/near/away from front? so currently im in front, but Leo is pretty much always lurking nearby if he’s awake (we have individual sleep schedules that dont always sync up to the “irl” one, Trust is almost always sleeping), Ica’s somewhat in the back talking to Rookie so i cant really make out what theyre saying (its probably about either a youtube thing they both like or about a comic they want to do), and everyone else is either asleep (in which case they could be nearby but i cant currently “ping” them, so id have to actually take a sec to ground myself in headspace more) or in a different room. communication is easier if im in front and somebody is nearby, or it can be like with Ica rn where im like “well, theyre talking, but i have no idea what theyre saying and am making a guess based off their usual interactions”, or i could pass off front to go talk to Ica and come back (in which case my memory would be kind of vague and weird because information doesnt always properly translate), oooor i could actually go bug them while still in front. which.. im not gonna do rn bc then id get super distracted.

switching front differs between systems a lot! and even varies from day to day. like there are days where we wake up and we have absolutely no idea who we are bc we went to bed as one person and woke up as another. or we could be talking to somebody and then realize “wait, i stopped being Leo a bit ago, who am i”. or we could pass off front to somebody, like if Summer really wanted to front sie’d run up to me and let me know and we’d swap. or if something critical happens (usually a breakdown), Leo or one of the other headmates that’re more built to handle stressful situations will literally drag somebody out of front to make sure they dont hurt themself. or sometimes we throw front at people unexpectedly, like either mid-breakdown where we go “okay i dont wanna be here anymore, tag youre it” or sometimes because we think its funny because its the metaphysical equivalent of getting clonked in the head with a dodgeball, except the dodgeball is “being in control of our shared physical form”. usually mae’s the one that does that lmao

there’s a couple major categories of how alters come about. there’s “walk-ins”, where they kinda just… appear externally? like they just show up. sometimes we get a feeling of “huh. i think somebody might be here? or somebody might be showing up soon.” and have to rummage around for a while until they approach us or we find them. our walk-ins aren’t like, inherently aware of system stuff at first, so they usually get a crash course before they first front (if they choose to front at all) and it can be kinda entertaining. Rookie’s a walk-in! also Hiro, from a couple years ago. most of our walk-ins are fictives (fictional characters, usually appearing in response to us getting extremely attached to something or somebody) but a couple of our trauma splits are also fictives so that’s not like, a Rule or anything. i think these are mostly associated with non-traumatic systems but we get em fairly often so man idk

theres also… uh, i dunno what theyre actually called? we used to call them “constructs” but that sounds kind of mean. these alters exist to fill a specific role! and we usually dont talk about them on here with the exception of one major one, they just kinda hang out. Dhe exists to keep the system stable and manages the “backend” so to speak. Imp is kind of a mix of our intrusive & impulsive thoughts that came about from us trying to separate ourself from them so that we had an imaginary entity to go “nope!” at, which… stopped being imaginary, and is now a gremlin that lives in my brain. they can show up in response to trauma but arent split off of somebody, they kinda just pop into existence to help manage things.

the more… well-known, i guess? alter origin is “trauma splits”. rather than “just showing up one day with no real connection to the system origins”, trauma splits are formed when somebody in-system, uh, splits. it could be in response to a single situation or something built up over a long time, but somebody just kinda breaks and somebody new that has a bit of the original alter’s identity (if kinda influenced by the situation) shows up.

this can vary. All is a trauma split off of Leo himself, who got saddled with all of our brain hell about our ex and their insystem appearance is influenced more by eir than by leo which is… something they struggle with. Mae has a trauma split from a similar situation that is “Mae but from 2 years ago”, so basically her old identity before she reworked herself after getting put through total hell. and then uh… then there’s me and Mae! Icarus quite literally exploded into several people, with Pat (me) and Mae being the most distinct ones. we’re STILL finding out alters used to originally be a part of them that later evolved into their own people, like Summer and Toby. my identity is shaped pretty heavily not just by who Ica was at time of splitting, but also what they wanted to be jumbled together with trying to rationalize what was happening to them (they’re a pretty big fan of megaman star force, which has a media-typical system in it, so they leaned into hard “its like pat and rey from mmsf! i like pat, i wouldnt mind being like pat, its scary but im like one of my current favourite characters” and so i ended up being like, half-weird shapeshifter, half-green-haired prettyboy. and yeah thats where my name comes from!)

(Ica got put back together w/o anybody needing to integrate, which we were all very scared about, and it’s still kind of surreal to me because… me and Mae used to be able to stick ourself back together and thats how we found out about what happened to Ica in the first place? and we havent tried that since bc we have no idea what would happen. Ica 2: Ica Harder?)

despite their origins, trauma splits can be way more than… being a split. :V;; Toby’s not just a tiny splinter of Ica, he’s a quiet guy that gets stressed out and isn’t totally sure how to interact with people. i’ve existed for like 7 years at minimum and im a totally different person than i was when i thought i was still Ica, ‘cause ive had time to grow and change (and a problem Ica keeps running into now that theyre back is… they kinda Didn’t change because they were MIA for 6 years.) like everything else though this is variable– there can be “temporary” splits that dont develop properly and might get integrated back in, which has only happened to us when we were at the lowest point in our life where we were stuck constantly splitting to try and cope with whatever the hell was going on.

so Ica was gone for 6 years, which meant our system was without an original or main– there wasn’t anybody to be head of the system, basically. for a while i was operating under the assumption that i was Ica, so i filled in that role for a few years before i made the realization. eventually i kinda… stopped being able to, though, bc of stability issues, and then we were back to not really having a proper main anymore. to make up for it, we started going by Leo collectively and kinda… trying to pretend to be a single person? and so that ended up creating a construct to fill the role of “system main and the person we pretend to be when passing as singlet/not a system”: Leo himself! he’s kinda the most prominent traits we all have in common rolled into a single guy, which means that not only is he a pretty good system representative but we can also pretend to be him pretty easily (unless it’s someone like Toby who acts totally different). i dont know how common this situation is, i think normally it’s just “if system original is gone, another alter steps up” like originally happened to us before i had a severe case of problems disorder.

uhhh this is very rambley bc there’s a Lot to cover and now im trying to figure out how much of it i HAVE covered. systems are complicated and weird! OH WAIT okay i have one last bit.

so like, for us, first realizing we were a system was total hell. we fought a lot. as more alters showed up through various means, there were times where Ica felt like they were completely out of control of their own life bc of having to manage everything. there were a lot of panic attacks of people fronting and not being sure they were even REAL, despite… being in front. but we still felt like we were deluding ourself. this was in, like, late 2011, so systems weren’t a THING. they were a very fringe community that everyone hated. we got constantly harassed, which only fed into Ica’s panic hell and our identity issues. interpersonal relationships became a nightmare, especially because we have BPD as well which varies in severity for each of us but… for me it’s pretty bad! there were times early on where every day was another fun new breakdown from us arguing with each other or our friends or not being understood or… etc.

so… how are we holding up ~7 and a half years later? pretty well, actually! we talk to each other. we do things for each other, like buy food or games we know specific headmates like. Ica is back and way happier than they were in 2011, and is thrilled to get to hang out with everybody that’s showed up since. we help each other through problems, because at the end of the day our system ended up being a support network. Ica couldnt function on their own, so we’re like… 10+ people working together to try and be a single functional person. and we feel pretty okay with that! we still fight, and we still start shit, but we’re not in constant crisis anymore. we’re still working through all of our trauma, especially the more “recent” stuff that kinda broke our system for a while until we were able to start rebuilding, but we’re doing it together. :D

so… yeah, it can start out as a stereotypical “nightmare system”, with constant infighting and toxicity and self-sabotage and etc. but we worked through it! it took a while, but we’re overall more stable than we were before. we got out of the bad environment that was fucking us up, we got mental help for our other brain hell (we havent been able to bring up the system to our therapists bc its literally a non-issue now and we focus more on other things like our depression, anxiety, PTSD, etc), we found people that support us for being us, and we were able to like… figure things out. and it was a mess! i still have issues about my own identity because of literally thinking i was someone else for two years. Ica’s still trying to figure out how to adjust to things, especially bc they missed our entire “cringe culture” phase so they came back to find that i’d dismantled a lot of their middle-school settings. and, uh, some of their friendships as well.

systems are fuckin weird