September 2025
Since realizing the vastness of our system's structure, we more or less noticed us having stronger amnesic barriers than what it felt like in the past. There was honestly a point where it did not feel like I had any notable memory issues, and felt there was a sense of unity with no barriers, and I would find myself bewildered when others would bring up their problems with memory. When I ask people I regularly interact with, they recount me being forgetful, but I do not recall instances where it felt this way when compared to now. The way I will find myself completed alienated from what I'm doing or feeling and feel like a helpless passenger in a cage in someone's truck waiting to see the light again. And then raging at the self once alone and able to speak a bit more clearly to who locked me out of the driving seat.
There was a time where every memory this body carried could be recalled with no issue. When we first officially recognized ourselves as a system in 2022, everyone who fronted had the same pool of knowing and grasp of "why". Now, it is very much a "this is not my memory, thoughts or feelings - this is not me" sensation for many of us, especially when the self presented contradicts with another's self.
I've yet to really dip my toes into comprehensive research of what encapsulates the polyfragmented experience to try to better grasp why this is happening and how to better handle it, as I suspect it's due to all of us realizing we have headmates of our own, thus another layer of access we don't know and their headmates fronting when they front alongside us. Dissociation^2. It's been very problematic since we really have only recently started to learn and grow alongside each other, so what was just more predictable is not at all, and it goes to show how much we did not know about each other or ourselves. Its a bit of a fear making me procrastinate on researching further because I really am afraid of having to acknowledge this is how we are structured. That it isn't as simple as we felt, meaning it isn't something we can fully have reign over. Everything that comes with this.
Which is an incredibly funny thing for me to say when even during the time of it just being 4 or 5 of us, we were fighting for control nonstop during the initial stages of discovery. This fighting only lessened when Dizzy got frontstuck alongside the rest of us. For so long, we assumed Dizzy was just our headmate but no, shes an alter that got frontstuck due to the stress as her headmates couldn't handle it and went doormant.
That is the shit we're having happen essentially - headmates headmates's within the main system may get frontstuck or rapid switch, triggering dysregulation with the rest of the system who is already a hot mess. To be a system trying to figure itself out and then suddenly you realize your headmate is a whole set of bitches, and them fronting causes this other set of bitches to pop up, and you find out you yourself is also a set of bitches which means the amount of bitches in total is exponential, is a huge pill to swallow. Because yeah, we really thought we were doing alright for someone plural, but man, it is honestly scary most of the time these days.
I do think there's something useful and to be okay with when it comes with strong amnesiac barriers or being locked out of control and just as a witness and just not knowing, as with the right headmates taking the wheel, we could actually help our quality of life. However, that hasn't been the case lately with the new discovery, which is why its so damn frustrating. We've been spending god knows how much time trying to figure out what roles we play when it was just a few, and well all that research and guiding has gone out the window and is a lot more overwhelming to conduct.
I've been more or less feeling that further investigation and understanding will just distress us more, even if I find it really fascinating knowing we all have headmates and how some headmates in the primary section only appear if certain headmates fronters front. Like, for our wellbeing and already overwhelming sense of alienation, to know that deep down we are this fragmented, yet have to go about life either hiding it or dismissing this reality could well, not make things feel better. It will sting the same way we hide other parts of ourselves as the strength of the feeling of these parts go hand in hand with our plurality.
I do think with time, our ability to communicate with our own headmates and thus communicate with the primary section of headspace as group will improve. Like, to give ourselves grace, we aren't exactly in an environment that makes existing as even a singlet easy. It's just a weird realization we've had and have been trying to sit with.