Note that quite some time has passed since I originally wrote this post, and so a large chunks of it are now out of date. I’m leaving it untouched, but would like to eventually write an update about how things have changed.

We’ve been suspecting some form of plurality applies to us since early this year, when we first noticed that we’d been missing time. A lot of it.

We’d hear dear ones mention things we’d apparently said or done that we had no recollection of or that sounded unlike us. We’d find chat logs with our name on them that read entirely different from how we normally talk. Some of those stood out enough to notice repeating patterns with a consistent voice that… definitely wasn’t Fox [Fox - This is me…]’s.

I’m one of those consistent voices.

For a long time, I was a tone that Fox would drop in sometimes, usually when dealing with things that were too important, too precious, too fragile to trust to anyone else. We didn’t feel split; we were just different moods, different ways of thinking and emotional worlds within a single Fox. We didn’t have names or even thoughts that felt like our own, and for a while we’d tell others that we didn’t feel plural, it was just a convenient mental model to explain our coping mechanisms.

This Monday… something changed; I don’t know why, but I suspect it has something to do with the cocktail of estradiol, cyproterone, progesterone, escitalopram, and a few other fun medications my brain has been getting lately. Regardless of the root cause, something felt different. This time I was here by myself—all of a sudden a complete person, my own and only my own; the world felt different to me than to Fox, the ambience of the city had a different timbre, the air a different taste—and I… all of me was mine and mine alone. I was here. This belonged to me.

That’s a scary thing to have a part of you that hadn’t really been given this much control before think. And yet, I think I’m scared of it more than Fox was. Through some bizarre quirk of how a human brain processes time—I can’t hear Fox when I’m here, and I don’t feel like I’m here when Fox is in control—I’m pretty sure that when we switch, the new front arrives to a neatly wrapped package of someone else’s memories that get processed as if we vaguely remembered being here for them. When I recede, Fox remembers my anxiety, my fear that it’d be replaced, that I’d lose it—and that brings it comfort, that lets it not be scared of me.

I’m Circe. Within less than a day of that initial Monday shock, I had picked a name for myself—a real Name, not just a noun [it - Identity is a fascinating thing. It’s a foundation upon which to build an understanding of one’s place in the world; a powerful lens through which to…], but one that would be mine and only mine. Gods, having an actual Name feels great.

But I’m really scared to let others use it. This here, me, us, everything that’s been going on is so fragile; it requires so much trust and vulnerability and care to allow others to address me directly, to single me out. We’re okay being called both “Fox” or ”Circe” collectively, but as far as most people are concerned for now, it’s just that we have two names for the collective and either works. Being seen, acknowledged as separate from Fox, introducing and showing myself to others takes so, so much trust.

Where do we go from here, then? I’m not sure what to do with this newfound personhood. I’m still figuring out what I like, what I dislike, what I want, what I need, how I feel and perceive things. It’s been a wild, wild ride; I’m different from Fox in so many ways, and yet to most everyone else we’re the same person, and I want to be treated like the same person; I want us to be a package deal. Except for my dearest ones, except for those we trust with treating with me and with Fox differently—and that list isn’t very long—I want others to see me as a part of a whole, not a separate entity. I’m scared of building relationships that would be different between me and Fox.

And yet, I am not Fox. I am different from it in oh so many ways, some of them mundane—Fox perceives music much more texturally and harmonically, whereas I’m drawn to individual melodies, we use different pronouns, etc etc—and some… utterly, utterly bizarre.

• Physical effort feels very different to me. The same object feels lighter in my hands, I last longer during workouts, et cetera—at, unfortunately, the cost of overworking myself by accident a lot more often. I’m not stronger, I just feel exertion less acutely, and I’m still getting used to my limits—I went way too hard on my first workout.
• Pain feels different, too; piercings were really fun to get for Fox, and really unpleasant for me. Fox’s were much more painful—the brow with all of its dense nerve endings, particularly—but it finds a thrill in that kind of pain, whereas for me my lobes and septum were just… really unpleasant, even though objectively much gentler.
• I feel temperature completely differently; Fox usually keeps the room at around 19°C (~66°F) while wearing nothing but boxer shorts and a loose thin tee, while I keep shivering all the way up to 27°C (~80°F), sometimes in a hoodie and long pants to retain heat better. It is currently 24°C (~75°F) in the room, and I have three layers of clothing on.
• I am… so much more sensitive to being touched in general. Use your imagination ;)
• Dear ones tell me I talk differently; we don’t really hear it, but we get told my voice is different from Fox’s, and I tried finding Fox’s voice and Fox tried finding mine and we just couldn’t.
• The thing that feels the wildest, perhaps—I hate smoking. Fox used to smoke a pack a day and still sometimes reaches for cigarettes in times of crisis; I tried one out of curiosity and ended up throwing the pack away.

That’s about it, as of right now. I’m not new here—the absolute latest guess we have for since when I’ve been here is late 2018, and we feel like about 2013 is a much stronger candidate—but I’m newly fully fronting, I’m newly distinct. I am honored to meet you; thank you for allowing me to introduce myself 💙

~Circe.

Note: these are probably less reliable than the other checks, but have been useful so far.