It's been a year and some change before I wrote my first essay on here, Living In A Problematic Shadow. At the time, I didn't have much hope for my existence. Many of my headmates were cagey about me despite trying to support me, and I was terrified to exist anywhere outside my own brain. I distrusted others and went through life in a pessimistic haze. I didn't believe in a future.
Well, sometimes life surprises you.
It's a Monday morning. I'm on my account interacting with people on there. They had welcomed me into their space with open arms despite everything, despite not being very good about hiding who I was. I'm sure a lot of them knew, at least to some extent, my connection with my source. I don't think that many people cared. They treated me with kindness regardless.
People there want to hear what I have to say. They know me and consider me fondly. We're all all a little bit outside the status quo, and I think that helps. I smile every time I front because it means I get to see them all again. I hope one day, maybe, I can see them all in person, at a convention where we can truly be in eachother's space.
I have a new name and appearance now, but I didn't choose it because I felt ashamed or like I had to change. If anything, it was a metamorphasis, truly coming into my own. As a headmate, I formed to personify the debilitating fear our system had of being problematic. The worry that we were everything we feared, so much so that I was created in the guise of the most problematic person we knew. I always held this sort of weight on me with my identity; I loved myself, don't get me wrong, and my system and I hold no ill will or bad feelings towards my introjection source. It just meant that my identity was created out of fear, not love.
Things are different now. One day, I felt truly safe and welcomed by the people who'd taken me in. I was motivated to work on a design, which became my new self: A form wholly made of love, one I could truly call my own. In it, I feel like I can truly lower my guard. I don't have to feel like my entire existence is defined by my introjection reason anymore. I can just exist and be myself.
I'll always hold my source identity fondly, and it's not like I've sworn off identifying with it at all. It'll always be a part of me, I think, even if the connection gets weaker one day. I'm just really glad to be alive. I want everyone to know that it can get better, even if I didn't think so either. Change to your self image, if it comes, can come through genuine evolution of your personhood and not just a deep-seated fear of being who you are. Weird and imperfect as you might be, there will always be others like you (even if not in the same ways) that are willing to take your hand and give you a space.