Earnest Thoughts

I front just before we enter the coffee shop. My sudden control over our body unexpected. It’s, not as disorientating as I’m sure an outsider may expect. I’ve not had control for over a month but that doesn’t mean I’ve not been aware. I know what the others have manipulated this body to do. How the limbs move, how our voice sounds. What drinks we give the appearance of favouring. The ones we don’t. You learn as a child that everyone gives the appearance of one person. To fit in you must act like that. No one teaches you that you’re not meant to feel like several or pretend to like coffee because you know the last one here kept ordering it.

It’s a drastic shift in leadership me piloting this vehicle but externally you wouldn’t know. I didn’t break in stride as this body approached the door. I just hold my hand out and push through into the warm interior of this place I’ve never seen yet I know these eyes have. Without my prompt these legs move into the line. A waste of my limited time and yet I have nowhere else to be. I know what’s around, yet I don’t know how I’d like to react to the environment. Reaching the front of the line the lips move of their own volition, “a medium latte please, regular milk,” I add a smile in at the end despite the fact I hate coffee. Yet it’s too scary to break the norm, break past what this body has been saying and doing for years. I am just an observer. Even if it means spending £2.50 on pretending to be someone else in a room full of strangers. Masking is so deeply ingrained into me. I hate it. I want to break free so bad, “and a name for that?”

I can do it, the barista’s pen is poised over the cup, waiting for my instruction. My heart leaps in my chest. I can tell the truth; my answer will never have any repercussions. I manage to let it out, the simple word escapes my lips.

“Baz”.

The sharpie spells out each letter on the cardboard cup. The eyes fall on objects around me, the sorry cake display with edible looking foods, the dirty laminated floor, the barista herself with blue hair hidden behind a hair net and bags under their eyes. The body is tired too. “Just head over to the counter at the end,” they haven’t even looked at me. The first time my name has ever been voiced and it flies below the radar. Just another name on a cup. At least it isnt misspelt.

I head over to the end. Lean against the mahogany counter and watch the barista make the coffee. I know I won’t like it. I’ve never tried it, I just know. “It’s good, you’re just crazy,” a voice emanates from behind the eyelids. Far back within the brain a girl sits next to me on the sofa as our body leans against the counter. I have to stop the body smiling as I speak within the innerworld.

“Hey Amber, good to see you,” I don’t see her a lot when I’m not in control. She prefers to ensure that whoever is steering this thing has someone around in case they need backup, or she can take over if needed. I stat much further back in the innerworld, preferring to be away from the constraints of this life.

The coffee arrives, my name goes unsaid, I was the only one waiting. It’s disappointing. It just, never gets said to this body. Like I was never here. Like my words and actions will have no overall effect on this world. I could freak out; waste precious minutes being upset over how little I actually mean, how I’m just a mask. Then I’d be wasting time. Then I’d be gone having done nothing. There’s no point, emotions are meaningless in the face of inevitability. Amber directs me to the chair. She knows how I feel. There is nothing she can offer as support. She stays silent.

I place my latte on the table and sit, leaning back into my… Backpack? A quick removal and rummage through the bag reveal our laptop and a stack of books. We must have gotten back from a lecture. “Yeah, Aurora decided she needed the pick me up, you know you don’t have to drink it, right? We’re an adult now. No one can tell us off if you chuck the coffee.”

I open the laptop, only getting the pin wrong twice before finding the browser on my taskbar and opening it, “It’s a waste of money, besides, what if someone else fronts? What if they want coffee? I’m sure I’ll be fine; the body is tired maybe it’s tired enough I won’t get an anxiety attack?”

“Anxiety attacks are for drama queens,” Amber agrees. I scoff realising how young she is. Amber is only 16. A kid. Sure 19 isn’t much older but we had just finished our GCSEs at 16 and now at 19 in our second year of university, we’d come miles and it’s a kid who makes sure old men like me don’t have anxiety attacks. I’m 20. Only a year older than the body. A year no one asked for and hardly makes a difference really. Perhaps just a testament to how much I’ll never be this body. “Drama. Queen.” Amber responds to my thoughts, “and shut up about me being a kid. I don’t get anxiety attacks.” She does.

I go through our messages on Discord and, finding none from anyone I recognise check our timetable. There’s university work that needs to be done. Due in a couple of months but there’s a lot of stuff between now and then so I open up word. The assignment brief lights up. Write a non-fiction lyrical piece. That’s something anyone can do, even if they only have the vaguest memory of their lectures. Besides Amber will edit it. I begin writing, despite my fairly straightforward choice of topic I believe it’ll be interesting. Not many people know what it’s like to have DID. What it’s like to not be the host.

So, you may have some questions. As the writer I am displaying a stream of consciousness maybe you haven’t seen before. Something that warrants more explanation. It’s unfair in a way, many people get to just write and I have to explain. Not that it’s your fault. I am Baz, a headmate in a Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) system. I experience the world through being separate people in the same body. We all work toward the same goal, keeping ourselves safe. Unfortunately, we come with names, personalities, genders, and ages. This is just what our brain thought would be best for its purpose. It of course doesn’t deign to tell us what that purpose is.

My name is Baz, I am a part of this system Think of it like slime, you can pull apart slime and make two slimes, these are perfectly respectable separate slimes within their own right, you can even add different properties to them but at the end of the day it’s still slime, and they can still be pulled even further apart or squished back together. As far as I can gather my brain pulled me from the slime as a supporting role. I take care of my headmates inside our head. Rarely do I take control of our body. Instead working internally with headmates who hold the memory of troubling events. Put simply the innerworld is a space where every headmate resides when not in control of our body. We are able to interact, but some are unable to enter certain areas. The brain hasn’t told me why that is either.

Amber is another headmate. The official name for what she does is gatekeeper. She has a level of control over which headmate gets what memory and who is in front. It is possible for her to be in front, but fronting is exhausting and it’s unfair to ask just one of us to be there all the time. Instead, she makes sure that the fronter is okay, or she’s sarcastic at them. I still prefer to have her around than not. This disorder is far from perfect and way too far from the function our brain is always trying to achieve. Amber borders too young for our adult body and the adult situations we find ourselves in.

The disorder is a lot more complicated than my summery, but this isn’t about the disorder it’s about what I did after my lecture one day and how I have left my mark. My name will be seen by people outside this body. Perhaps uttered and remembered by someone I have never met but my body has. It’s strange the euphoria that gives me. Euphoria of having one’s identity seen. Of existence.