Masking is making me feel fake
I'm forcing myself to front as often as possible this week to try to help with our hosts mental health. I'm hitting a lot of annoyances that keep bothering me even though I shouldn't let them. It makes me feel fake when it happens. I'm putting the blame on masking for now until I can maybe find better reasons for things.
My inner voice fluctuates between the hosts (C) voice and my own voice and anywhere in between. Sometimes it makes it hard for me to understand who thought of something, especially since C has been trying to co-front very often and interjected a lot of thoughts onto me. It only happens when I front, though. Everyone else hears my voice how I want it to be when I'm not fronting. Even I can hear it that way while not fronting.
Sometimes a random memory will pop up and I don't think I should be remembering it or thinking about it as "I did that" rather than "C/we did that". It could be that I was the one fronting during those times with no knowledge of it, but some of the memories don't add up with the timeline of when we suspect I was formed.
I've been trying to just shake it off. Tell myself it's no big deal. I think my biggest issue is that now that we are aware of being plural and better understanding my/our existence, I'm struggling to unmask myself. I am the first alter to have formed. We can't exactly pin point when it happened, but we have a general idea. I suspect that I fronted multiple times before without being aware of it. I've had to accept multiple times that I am C and work with it, not fully understanding what was happening until recently when C discovered the system.
I'm just stuck in this weird feeling of "I am a different person, but am I really?" where I know I am not C, but I can't really find myself different enough in a way to feel like I should call myself an alter at times. In the headspace, yeah I am different, but out front in full control it feels like I shouldn't claim as such. I'm the biggest voice when it comes to reassuring C that we are real, so it feels weird to just have this turn around of feelings.
I'm working on unmasking to a safe extent. I have come out to 2/3 people we can trust with this information. Those two have already given their support. I'm hoping that not having to mask around them will help me and the others with unmasking. At least, masking is what I'm putting all this blame on. Could be an issue of just me though, I seem to have a bit of a depressing personality.
Thanks for reading. Hopefully someone can relate and understand you are not alone with these feelings.
- S