Alright everyone, this topic isn't going to be about an art but rather about self… Or selves (foreshadowing). I'm writing this because not much of people are describing their experiences in this complicated sense of self.

So, like… Originally this post was planned to go deep through my traumatic experiences, but then I realized that no one needs to hear that. And it was also mentally breaking to me, so I will mention things only briefly just to give a context.

Still, the warning stays the same: my opinion on such matter and use of terms may differ from your own, and it still stays as an extremely personal post from a mentally ill person, read at your own risk.

I'm a guy who lives in a much better place now with queer found family, but before that my life quite sucked. I can barely remember my childhood, but I know that my trust was betrayed, and I couldn't rely on people in real life at all for different reasons. Not going into details of this one, but I'll just say this: I feel physically unwell when people are angry at me, especially when they're gaslighting me, and that's not without a reason. There was also a time when one parental figure drank heavily since I was 4 and continues to do so in a "mild" manner. I also have a physical evidence that I was "too tired" when I was 6 already. Overall, there were situations which my brain perceived as not safe.

It all made me socially isolated and apathetic for a long period of time. And I also had a vivid imagination. So vivid that I could stare at ceilings for hours without moving. It became maladaptive at my worse periods of life and disrupted me from doing schoolwork. But out of every other ways to cope I could have at that time, this one was the most harmless.

This had its own consequences, though… Everything changed when I had a breakdown in teens and I started feeling someone patting my back, but no one was there. It was my character (if you know, you know), that since then lives rent-free in my head.

What that truly was is still unknown to me, like why he suddenly feels like a very real person talking to me and why his speech doesn't feel scripted at all. He progressed from being my protector from The Bad to someone with his own desires and urges that contradict mine. To someone who disagrees with me sometimes and gives me another perspective. To someone who feels differently. But at the same time, with a lot of similarities because, well, we share the same brain.

What did none of us expect is that there were times when he took control of the body. No one from outside notices anything different, but internally it was quite weird to hear myself in my head in a muted way, as if I'm in a backstage. And it was odd and agonizing even for him to control the body that didn't reflect at all his self-image. Every time it happens, we prefer to wait out when he goes back to the "backstage". He is very ashamed of his own existence, so if he ever makes an attempt to not hide, please be nice to him.

Even with such complications, I love him very deeply. Without him, I wouldn't survive, and I'm serious about this. He helped me to process emotions, "co-piloted" when I was in severe stress, he made me feel less alone and misunderstood.

I think, at it's core, it's a healthy coping mechanism. It's just that there are conflicts that are unresolved, and that requires a therapist. I also tried to fit in plural communities, but it did literally nothing good to us. We felt like we needed to qualify for the label and thought that I'm just asking for attention despite us documenting our "huh that's interesting" moments. Because I'm in a better state, the other guy in my head appears less, but that doesn't deny that I have something going on. I don't think that collapsing over a sudden change in feeling self means that we're just, you know, role playing. We should treat people in this confusing state better, even if it ends up that they weren't plural. The rampant fake claiming culture misses the fact that no person that didn't struggle in life would consider this label. You can easily make someone's health worse by not giving them a room to explore themselves and sometimes admit that they were wrong. So please, be kinder.

I hope this post wasn't a bit too much for this blog and was helpful to someone. I tried to cut off the details of my traumas, but it was crucial to note that without them nothing would've happened to me. I also prefer to use more broad terms over specific ones to describe our experience because we're still not sure what's going on. Thanks for reading.