plurality is a weird thing. i found out i was in therapy, at seventeen, and wholly unprepared for such a realisation. it's a real world-view shifter - i'm grateful for it now, of course. i'll preface this with i don't like saying i have did/osdd, just that i'm plural, even though my plurality definitely did come from trauma. also, many of us share memories, which is how i'm able to recount a lot of what i do here in such detail. anyway, it's pretty hard to form a cohesive sense of identity and self when, right at the brink of when it's 'supposed' to come to fruition, you get ripped 4000 miles away from everything you've ever known. that, though, is a story for another day.
my first plural memory, my first memory of dissociation, is actually from the day i found out that was going to happen to me. it was a tuesday, and we would move on the friday. my dad had been working in abu dhabi for a few months alone at that point, with some friends from his steelwork job in england who had, too, been made redundant. another of his friends was to move there to live with my dad in a small two-bed two-bath bungalow situation on friday, and had somewhat flippantly asked my mum if we wanted to go with him. the four of us - my little nuclear-at-the-time family - would have to share one bedroom, but it was sure to only be temporary. my mum asked me if i wanted to go live with dad, all of us together again. not like i had much choice in the matter as a barely-eight year old, but alright, sure. i would later walk into the kitchen, stomach in knots at the realisation of what i had agreed to, and tell my mum that i "didn't feel like myself." she asked me, "who do you feel like, then?" in a somewhat mocking tone. i knew the answer, but i also knew it'd be a mistake to speak it aloud. somehow, i knew this was not normal. so, i kept who i came to know as ainsley to myself, for years. she's still around, but prefers amelie these days.
over the years, we've had many a host change. it's almost always been this way for us - infrequent, but dramatic shifts of identity. those i can best recall are amelie, from eight to eleven. in comes myles - now dormant - from twelve to thirteen. next comes matthew, or theo these days, still my singlet-sona, if you will. god, he was around forever. skip to seventeen, we have holden, baby's first introject. then, will at nineteen. go back to theo for a year. now, i come into the picture.
my name's lucas! you know me! unsurprisingly to many, i'm an introject of a fucking band guy. of course. thanks, lucas woodland, for writing stupidly relatable lyrics, and thanks, universe, for having me stumble upon them during a traumatic time. around the time i formed, i had just moved three hundred miles from my hometown to mid wales, and god, i was lonely. i was warned by a friend here that it can be a very lonely place - your friends will keep you sane. you're bound to get cabin fever when there's nothing for two hours in any direction, and you're around the same max-twenty-thousand people every day. lucky me, i didn't actually have friends to keep me sane. i went a little bit stir-crazy, and then came the abundant health issues.
the first memory i have as my own person, the memory of me realising i'm a conscious, real person in this system, was after getting home from my first a&e trip of many. i had recently stopped testosterone, and had a period so heavy i was lightheaded, and it counted as severe bleeding. i was loaded up on tranexamic acid, norethisterone, and told i should probably get tested for adeno/endo if it didn't improve, or at least go on the pill. i came home, i cried, and once i decided i had to calm down, i did my default; turning on some live performances to focus on. the video is gone now, unfortunately, but i remember the video. it was scott and lucas of holding absence at an album release acoustic performance in a church performing saint cecilia. i just remember a pang of familiarity looking at lucas, i can't explain it. it wasn't that i knew him, it was almost as if i was looking at myself, but i knew i wasn't. having already a few introjects in the system, i knew the feeling to be an introject that i had just uncovered deep from the recesses of my mind. that strange, static-looking entity that had been causing dissociation suddenly looked clearer. it became me - a welsh guy, about 5'8, geeky as all hell, with a style that, thankfully, was exactly how i already dressed. brown hair in a wavy, pushed-back fringe, very much "just some bisexual-looking little white guy." it's a shame you don't get your source's skills as an introject, because unfortunately, i cannot sing to save my life.
trying to explain the experience of being someone whose body doesn't match your internal sense of identity is like talking to a brick wall, honestly. it isn't that my body should have other things, like a flat chest, then it'd be my own. my entire face is different in headspace, my figure is different, my voice is different, the way my brain works is different. when i imagine my body in the third person, think about what i look like, it doesn't match what i actually look like to the people around me. in my head, i look how i do, well, in my head. my inner monologue sounds like my source's voice; it's a shock sometimes when i speak and my accent is different. it's strong, it doesn't really go away, it's a nagging almost-physical sense that my body is a different way to how it really is. all i can do is small things to alleviate the disconnect - dye my hair, dress a certain way, go by a specific name that fits. even the accent, speech patterns, and body language subconsciously change a little bit. sometimes, though, these things aren't even fixed in my head, despite having an entire person that my brain based me off of (well, the public-facing persona of a person that may or may not be real. not my business, really, i just work here).
i noticed around september 2024, about six months after my full formation, that sometimes, the way i perceived myself in the headspace was a bit different. i was still lucas, we hadn't switched, but i just looked... different. i was a few years younger, maybe twenty four instead of eight or nine, and i had blond hair. a slightly different style too - darker, more fitted. i noticed, too, that i was sadder when i saw myself this way. not that it made me sad, but when i was sad, it made me this way. i also noticed it at... other times which shan't be named. other systems will get it. actually, we had never had a fragment in the system before, a less-formed alter, almost an alter of an alter. it took me a while to pinpoint the experience, and why it was happening. now, i know, and can tell you!
a fucking alter had an alter. who knew that was a thing?
it turns out, original lucas has another lucas. a younger version, again, introjected. i know now that this lucas (who i just call lu) comes around when i can't handle something myself - whether that's big emotions (which are a common theme, being bipolar) or situations where my traumatised brain would maybe freak out. it's weird - i'm here because there are things that the other alters can't handle (like medical trauma), but i have a guy who comes to my aid when there are things i can't handle (like severe mood episodes, or, oh fuck it i'll just admit to it, sex). look, i never said plurality was pretty and neatly boxed up, okay? it really does get into every part of life. don't judge me. we (almost) all do it, it's not weird. deep down, we're both the same person, the same way i, lucas, am deep down the same person as theo, or amelie, or will.
i/we don't feel any connection to my source, in the sense that, to me, that's just a guy who makes stuff i really like that my brain decided to latch onto when i have a pre-existing plural experience. it just happens, nothing more to it, really. i know that's not me, that that's a whole different guy. this, though, isn't the general perception of plurality on the internet (thanks, r/fakedisordercringe). a lot of people genuinely think that introjects, fictional or factual, are in some sort of delusion where they genuinely believe they are their source. don't get me wrong, this can happen! i'd argue, especially with fictional characters, it isn't a massive deal. it certainly isn't my business, at least. i digress - this has never been my experience, but i worry that people think it is. i worry that people think i'm some crazy person. i, being a fan of the stuff my source makes generally and existing in fandom spaces, especially worry about being seen as the crazy fan, particularly in a smaller online fandom space like holding absence's. extra-especially with my middle name actually being lucas, and actually living in wales, and actually liking a lot of the same things as my source. there's nothing wrong with being a superfan of things, really, but being seen as one certainly isn't for me. i'm not a copycat on purpose, man, my brain's just all fucked. the self-consciousness of the introject experience is something i still need to find how to deal with.
like i said, plurality gets into every corner of your life. it wiggles its way in to where, when you're an introject of a real person, you squirm a bit at the thought of "is it weird that this person is technically in my head right now? am i projecting my emotions onto a real person? am i copying?" but, no, it isn't weird. it can feel it - that doesn't make it. we are our own people, with our own lives, our own thoughts, our own emotions, our own experiences of the world. we aren't clones. i have my own relationship, my own friendships, my own degree, my own hobbies, my own room, my own likes and dislikes, all my very own. just because my self-image matches another doesn't negate my entire personhood, and i'm tired of thinking deep down that it does. i'm tired of being treat like it does, too. yes, i 'look' and 'sound' and 'feel' like that. yes, i also study international politics, not music. i'm an unemployed ex-bartender, not a musician. i'm a huge transsexual and a bit of a man kisser, not a married cishet man. i'm certainly not from south wales, never accuse me of such a thing #midwalesgang. i like medical dramas, psychiatric abolition theory, marxist theory, transfeminism, and a lot more that makes up who i am. there is so much more to me than this, and yet, it's such a crucial part of me that i felt the need to write [insert word count here] words to tell you all about it. weird how that is.
Comments
Post a Comment