I (Toby) still have to come to terms with the fact that I am not "the original". We're all The Original. Compartmentalized parts kept separated by trauma at a very young age. I am not someone who "used to be a single person" because that person was not yet developed by the time I started experiencing traumatic events. I use "I/me/my" as a byproduct of our singlet society and will keep doing so, but WE have always been "we". That's the whole point of the disorder, that "we" didn't have a chance to become a singular "me".
Moreover, it's entirely likely that despite having memory of growing up in a certain way, it's entirely possible that I, as Toby, as a trans man... it's possible that I specifically split from a more cohesive piece that was made of me, Ilo, and Milo. Collectively we were Deadname. After the hospitalization, we split and as the host or core or whatever we prefer using for me, I then had the want to transition.
Because to be very honest, while yes the struggle of intense family expectations and failing to meet them was very traumatic, I don't think we fully wanted to be a man before that point in life. Deadname doesn't exist anymore before we three split and I took up the mantle of Coreโข๏ธ. Or rather, it feels more like I was chosen to do so by the others. Maybe.
My point is that I am tasked with being the main front, the core, because that's my job in this system. NOT because I was ever the "original"
There were some gender feelings when I was young for sure, but likely because there are so many differing genders in our system. If Ilo or Milo were chosen as main front instead, I doubt they would have wanted to medically transition at all. They either align decently with the idea of a cis female body and life (Ilo), or they don't care about gender at all because their entire being is made only of sorrow (Milo). They aren't trans men but I am. They NEVER want to front but I do...mostly.
The way our system is separate people but also all the same person...it's almost like all being siblings (though that's not our actual dynamic for the most passer), very alike in many ways due to upbringing but still very different separate individuals on our own...but with some shared communal memories.
I don't want any form of like final fusion or whatever it's called, and I don't think anyone else in this system does either. We want to be able to live together peacefully and have fulfilling lives in whatever non harmful ways that means. Greyson wants to be more social. Noey does as well to an extent but she's much more introverted. Ilo and Milo DO NOT want any of that, they have the system and each other and for the most part that's seems to be enough for them. Others that have never fronted are largely okay with that, and a couple want just a liiiiittle bit of fronting experience whether out of longing or curiosity or whatever.
It's so strange. Berceuse we were operating on the same assumptions that pretty much all of society does, one shattered into many, but it's actually many never having fused into one. The barriers were created as protection before we even became one singular person. And it's so so wild to think about, almost in the same vein as when I think about how long an eternal afterlife would BE and it starts to set in a sense of existential dread...only this whole system thing is way easier to wrap my head around and so it's getting less and less scary as I navigate what it is to BE a system, to BE plural.
I recently had a convo with Nina about this and I used the wrong analogy as a glass ball that shatters. It's not correct. We've always been separate puzzle pieces were originally supposed to fit together into one cohesive picture, but trauma painted us all different colors and bent some of the connection points. We're still trying to make a singular picture, a life we can all be okay with, but it will never be that original plan for said picture. We just have to learn to accept our bent corners and changed colors.
