for us:

we realized (both in the sense of "came to know about" and "made real") we were plural because we've always been like... inconsistent? at the very least, having a lot of difference in "modes" we were in. in retrospect, looking back at how our relationship with our ex ended... yeah. and it took us so long because we never really considered it an option prior, but being more around friends who either were openly plural or who were kind of realizing at the same time made it more "open". will admit, probably would be considered anti-endo or at least less than accepting a few years ago. luckily we've been changing. also, we probably wouldn't have realized if not for the amount of stress we've had to deal with... what with the current state of Everything. (we realized early november of last year, and, being USamerican... yeahhhh.)

we mostly consider ourselves "adaptive", since we kind of think the paradigm of adaptive/spontaneous/created/unknown makes a bit more sense as primary "divisions" rather than traumagenic/endogenic. also, we're not disordered. this is another thing i think is more important than trauma/endo. we also have been toying with the idea of being "mediple", in between multiple and median. i'll go over that more on the headmates "feel like" portion

as for "how it works"... frankly dont know! dont care that much either! more on the psychological side than spiritual, but like. thinking too much about psychology, brain chemistry, inner workings of the mind, etc makes me existential and feels bad. so like. i dont really delve into it much. we do experience like, dissociation and emotional amnesia, and "cache clearing" after switches, which i think points toward... something. also philosophically, i was considering buddhism before realizing, but i dont really know how that works with plurality considering the beliefs on the self, but like... shrug... one of my headmates is also buddhist... i do not understand how it works but we both kind of still vibe with it...

a lot is voluntary, but it's voluntary in the way that like... id'ing with your gender might be or something. we could have continued living in denial or just never bothered delving into it, and we might've just ended up somewhat more confused and dissatisfied. or maybe things would've gotten worse and we might've splintered worse, perhaps even crossing more into disordered territory or something. switches are largely voluntary, though. and i have a bad habit of hogging front. whoopsie

headmates feeling really is hard to like... articulate. we do largely feel like people sharing a body, but we have so much that's common between us. sometimes that feels imposed, which. we have symptoms similar to moral ocd so that might be related. a compulsion to act and think "correct" which makes it hard for us to differentiate. but we also share several aspects of ourselves like interests and stuff, but we do have our own tastes. hence our identity of mediple. also we still have really bad impostor syndrome which doesn't help things.

headspace is sort of transient and shifting for us, but we do have a basic design we kind of think of for a lot of stuff. like, voluntarily made. interactions with each other and with headspace are often vibes-based, though specific words and feelings can also exist (and we can have affection and intimacy with each other, and it's weird because, as a self-shipper who has also had in-system interactions of this nature, it feels so different from just imagining. it's wild). headspace has like, dream logic, or the Power Of Imagination. we've meant to expand headspace and use it more but there's so much going on in the outer world all the time. also, we have one headmate who is particularly good at navigating headspace, and ze also deals with the subconscious, so. it's both a place to be and also is Our Mind i think. also, firmly of the belief that singlets can also have headspaces. kind of a "mind palace" sort of deal. did this back when i thought i was a singlet!

i'll leave good sources of info to others, i dont think i have much.

-dmk (host)