#astra.post

so for non-cis systems [i know gender can be a silly thing but like. if the body is trans]

pre system discovery, was there ever a time where you felt like you were faking being trans/nonbinary because your feelings on gender and outward presentation would change seemingly at random?

would it feel confusing?

like the leaving notes out for other headmates so they can respond back just. doesn't work for us, because we don't switch that frequently.

we can't just communicate in our head. the person in front is locked out of the rest of the system. and even in the few times someone else manages to break through it's gone after a few words

however i have to sit back and ask myself why i'd be faking something like this when i'm by myself, not around anyone at all and not visible to others.

it's a bit annoying to see people go "there's no harm in getting a diagnosis" over and over again when in fact harm CAN be caused from having one.

but i don't think a lot of people put much thought into it given that communities around mental illnesses tend to be overwhelmingly white with few POC actually existing in those spaces.

i do not doubt the trauma nor do i doubt the level of general dissociation and amnesia we have about our life before we were 13-14

but i'm a bit worried that we've misinterpreted the alters aspect

like i don't think i can say that we've misinterpreted a lot of symptoms just 'cause a lot of them are mostly trauma-based and we do have literal confirmation of that properly now.

but given that we don't switch often, have little to no communication. and mostly experience anything through passive influence

because i feel like us talking about the fact we:

don't switch often [maybe like. twice a year at MOST outside of extremely unusual circumstances]

kiiiinda share memories [there's definitely blankspots and they DO exist but it's relatively cohesive]

rarely if ever hear the others [and when we do it's only a few words]

notes didn't really work out for us because as we're learning the big switches don't happen often and having some shared memories meant we assumed there were no changes ever.

i know a lot of posts tend to talk about switching from the perspective of watching someone else pilot the body, but that's not the case for everyone. for us it tends to manifest as becoming someone else, a relatively slow shift at least for as far as i've notice.

and we're not completely memory-less when we do switch, though recent time periods may be hard to recall sometimes.