essay: coming out
saying it with our whole chest
the tell is usually a yawn.
followed by a somewhat masked eye roll to clear the optic feed so whoever stepped in can plug into it.
that’s about how every single big switch happens for me (read: us).
I debated writing this essay for a long time because I have had to come out too many times in my life, but every time (mostly) has been met with joy, acceptance, and love, and that is a huge privilege. Huge. For some (read: most), coming out in any way alters their way of being and living, putting them at risk physically, emotionally, mentally, and even spiritually. And it is the threat of this safety risk that keeps most people from speaking their authentic selves to the world. Most people with privilege that is.
For others, coming out is something integral to their state of being and they don’t have the luxury (more the desire) of masking or code switching their way out of it. Their simple existence, an existence to be celebrated, is marked from the start as something to be excised. This isn’t even just about identity politics, though I am sure many queer, trans, BIPOC, and other marginalized people know exactly how this feels. It can be about the invisible disabilities that people live with and are forced to explain over and over to the community around them in order to simply exist. To have access to resources that others have marked for only the most severe and visible cases that fit their idea of what disability looks like (and those marginalized int hat way do still deserve those resources and so, so much more).
For those that have been with me for a long time, you know that my mental health journey has been careening wildly, bouncing from diagnosis to diagnosis like a shredded raft in white water, but about two years ago, I landed in an eddy that scooped up all the ragged bits of myself into a space where I could heal and actually deal.
Dissociative Identity Disorder.
The DSM-5 (a western and problematic structure in and of itself) provides criteria to diagnose dissociative identity disorder:
Two or more distinct identities or personality states are present, each with its own relatively enduring pattern of perceiving, relating to, and thinking about the environment and self.
Amnesia must occur, defined as gaps in the recall of everyday events, important personal information, and/or traumatic events.
The person must be distressed by the disorder or have trouble functioning in one or more major life areas because of the disorder.
The disturbance is not part of normal cultural or religious practices.
The symptoms cannot be due to the direct physiological effects of a substance (such as blackouts or chaotic behavior during alcohol intoxication) or a general medical condition (such as complex partial seizures).
Dissociation, a word thrown around pretty wildly and carefree these days, is a condition in which one disconnects from themselves, whether that be mentally, physically, emotionally, etc. The term is used in pop culture and social media to discuss our attempts at disconnection from inundation by the horrors (good morning, USA) but comes from a very real place of people disconnecting for safety. I do not want to say that every day people zoning out aren’t dissociating from the effects of society, but I liken it to people in recovery not loving when someone says something is “like crack.” We all have ways of disconnecting, or breaking away from being present, but for some, it has larger implications and impacts on our lives.
Dissociation is something that makes up the entire fabric of my being. Two years ago, I was diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder, and for those in the know, it has been a journey about learning my system, the parts that make it up, and how to live together as one functioning household, rather than trying to cram everyone together by force. We found an excellent therapist (again, read: privilege) and have been able to map the sixteen (though we suspect more) alters that make up babylon. That’s what the many faces of babylon are, our alters.
Notice the shift in pronouns. We. Our.
Part of our coming out is to fundamentally change the language around us. Now, we don’t expect anyone else to use y’all/them pronouns for us, but we respect the people that want to and do. And what we want isn’t what every system wants, even if you know someone is a system. As with many other types of neurodivergence (and we consider DID to be a neurodivergent response rather than a psychiatric disorder necessary to be pathologized), if you have met one system, you have met one system. Each has its own levels of function, its own needs, and its own path to healing. Some choose integration, some, like ourselves, choose healthy multiplicity, and the options go beyond those two poles of the healing binary.
This is usually where someone is asking to get off the ride, not wanting to believe that multiples exist or unwilling to accept that as an explanation. It is where someone questions which parts of us they are friends with, which parts they work with, and it becomes about explaining every piece and part and how they affect the person asking the question. Just know that if we are friends, if you have met any of us, we are all friends with you. We are all working with you. We are roughly the same we have been for the last 30ish years, you are just getting the opportunity to zoom in on individual facets instead of seeing the gemstone as a whole. It is where someone looks and says, no thank you. We know. We have seen the people melt away from our lives that will not and cannot accept the idea that we are made of more than just a singular one. They have sen us function as one thing for so long, they don’t have space for us to be something else. It happened when we came out as gay (Bi first because it was the early 2000’s and that is just the trajectory that we were sold in toxic media), again when we came out as non-binary/transgender, and in various steps along the way.
It can be hard to look at something changing in front of you, especially if you don’t possess the ability to accept your own changes and growth or have committed to stomping out any semblance of that in your self. We firmly believe that if white men would just kiss their friends or share a goddamn emotion sometime, we could stop a lot of shit wrong in this world.
But we have the immense privilege of having a partner and a community that has accepted us without question (okay, maybe a couple of questions, but that is a different essay on how to be a system ally). And this essay is scary for many parts of our system to write (one in particular is actively screaming NOOOOOOOOOO and going to pause us publishing it for a bit), but it is something that we just want out there. Scared for one reason or another, we talk in code about who we are, we mention certain media and art we connect with off-handedly (please watch Sense 8, just do it). We create art that is disorienting and strange for those that don’t share in the experiences we do.
And that is okay.
It is okay for us to be scared. There are fears about safety, about everything falling apart in our hands, but we have survived together for so long as the group of us, survived shitty childhoods and abusive relationships (work, romantic, friends, etc.), that we know we will make it through. Kit will find a way to not turn off all the emotions and still manage to get shit done. Siobhan will find a way to still connect with people, Lenny’s enthusiasm will still be infectious, though his younger sibling antics irk the older brother aspect of our partner. Our status as multiple doesn’t impede our ability to create art or do our job or be a good partner, and that’s because we have learned to do those things together, in concert, and with open communication. A lot of therapy has gotten us to being in co-consciousness and able to share information across the walls separating parts.
We are in a place of privilege (some rapidly shrinking and fading away; again, good morning, USA), and that place allows us to be our authentic selves because that visibility, though sometimes dangerous, is more important to the greater society as a whole. Us being a public system is our version of kissing the homies, crying while holding hands in public, having your skin and ability being visible, demanding your pronouns be used and refusing to be deadnamed. It is using the fucking bathroom and playing sports despite what some shit stain says about you. It is giving language and possibility to someone who the thought never occurred to. It is a chance for someone else to eddy and float and put the raft back together instead of being tossed wildly down the mountain. It gives someone an oar, someone a helmet, someone a flight for life.
It is time that we all dare each other to be who we are. To say things with your whole chest. We use that as a vague threat on social media, to give space to white supremacists and Yahtzee (you know what I mean) to expose themselves. But why does saying something with your whole chest have to only be exposing you as a dangerous monster (and those dangerous monsters should be exposed), why can’t it be about wearing yourself proudly out in the world? If enough of us say the authentic thing with our whole chest, we think we will find that there are more of us wanting love and connection and for the parts of ourselves we were told are unworthy to be loved. There will be space to hear people and to flock together, to become one sea of voices demanding acceptance and change and can beat down the hate. We can excise shame and guilt and crushing marginalization in favor of eradicating toxic, patriarchal bullshit. We can change the world.
All of this is to really say:
We are babylon, and we have many faces.
some great resources to check out for systems or for the systems in your life:
Dissociation Made Simple by Jamie Marich, PhD
The Plural Association’s Free Resource Page and their Instagram