What's it feel like to front?

[sagittaoftime]

Assuming it's a meaningful question, what's it feel like to front? Do you have a strong sense of you-ness, or do you just notice yourself/ves behaving differently, or does it depend? How is it different from not-front (if it is)?

Comments

[glitterpigeon]

hmm. it feels like a big shift in perception and experience. I was feeling angry and afraid, now, like a switch was flipped, Ewan feels calm and confident. activities that felt like hollow imitations of someone else now feel whole and embodied. things that came second-nature now feel clumsy and unpractised. that isn't your mother, this isn't your partner, you are lying in bed with a stranger you only know from borrowed memories.

someone pushes you out of your form and you see your body in third-person, and they move you and carry you and you feel none of the effort. it takes them a minute to get their bearings. memories are not theirs anymore. sometimes you sit talking, working to remember them all. other times they let them go, allowing them to live with their rightful owner, accepting what is not yours and will not be.

some of us have strong connections to other bodies, other lives. Ewan, for example, forgets that he is not in his old life, forgets about our disabilities, forgets that he is shorter, appears more feminine and is read as a woman. some of us really struggle. our primordial nature-spirit Hertha struggles to remember to breathe when fronting. she doesn't need to in her body, and seems to live in an older, more vestigial part of us. she has trouble remembering just how much has changed in the billions of years since she bubbled through the waters of a developing planet. without supervision she makes us sit in one place with no desire to move. it's kinda scary but she doesn't front much so it's never been a huge issue.

[galewings]

[joltik] so for my subsystem, i think it kind of depends? we've kind of got a sliding scale of "sense of self" going on here, like some of us have a Very Strong sense of that (to the point where i immediately notice when they're around) and others are extremely good at blending themselves in and making it near-impossible for me to realize they're around. on top of that, we don't always completely switch out with each other, sometimes they sort of.. take over my sense of self? so i kind of turn into them or something idk

sometimes i do completely fall out of front and lose any grip on my sense of self, and then someone ends up picking it up and then they're in front and i'm out in the void somewhere. i think maybe my sense of self is wired to the front so maybe that's why all of this works how it does (<- i'm coming up with this theory in real time)

so for actually telling who's around, depending on the person, i've noticed some people have more tells than others. sometimes it's a physical thing (ishmael tends to hold a pencil or pen in between his index and middle finger to fidget with when he's at front. nobody else in here does this). sometimes it's more of a mental self image-y thing (a few people here have different hairstyles as part of their self-image, so if i start imagining myself with that hair, they might be around or i might be them). sometimes people intentionally minimize their tells so that i can't tell they're around (i'm specifically talking about kokoro)