Journal #1 (cw: mentions of suicidal ideation, self-harm, fetish art and drug use)

Wow, okay, first "diary entry?" But not really, because it's kind of public haha. Anyways, here's where I'll put my plural thoughts. I'm still not sure I'm not faking it, but making a website where I can code as """myself""" has been so freeing. Some things about me: The collective still likes to be referred to as a single entity. It is mostly Les who codes this site, but the others have input, especially Jack. Jack and Les are almost always blurred or co-piloting. We don't really like the term fronting (switching is more okay). While we dissociate and are plural, we do not have DID. Please don't refer to us as a DID system. For a specific term we prefer "median" (google the definition if you don't know what it means), parts, or the/my/a collective. If I can think of more things, I'll put them here later.

I've been considering calling our collective either "partyroom" or "fishbowl", but it's hard to name something if you don't know it exists. I know I can always go back on it later if it doesn't suit me, but it's hard to not feel like an imposter.

I first realized I had more than one person living in my head after two major crisises in my life. I used to have Monty, and to a lesser-extent Rex, Jay, and Sprig (formally named Sprout). I'm still not sure if those three are just characters or something else more, but they were the first time I compartmentalized my identity as a means of coping with then-undiagnosed BPD. After my breakup and being institutionalized, Monty and the others completely disappeared from my brain and were replaced with Les and Zippo. Les was the only thing I could draw for a while after my breakup, usually talking about how zhe wanting to kill hirself, self-harming, doing drugs or committing suicide. I went from creating cute art and NSFW fetish drawings to illustrating graphically violent outbursts a character in my brain was having. And that character was also me. Les has always been a representation of me, a "secondary sona" who only grew more like me in appearance after Monty, Rex, Jay and Sprig disappeared from my life. Their tuke is a tuke I own in real life, and Les is just a shortened version of my middle name. Once I started going to therapy and taking proper medications these drawings ceased, and ceased even moreso when I began to have conversations with Les/myself and let myself speak as Les to a group of friends. I think having an outlet to speak as Les instead of Jack and code as Les instead of Jack is interestingly freeing.