skylar system y'all/they #

Hello, we're skylar system – a collective of headmates sharing the mind and body of Skylar Taylor-Barrick, a 31-year-old nonbinary person.

Please Note: We are not a psychiatrist, clinician, or trauma expert. Our use of language isn't academic, but an effort to describe our experiences. It may be counter-productive to generalize our insights to other systems, plural people, or folks with dissociative disorders. DID is not the only form of plurality, nor is all plurality rooted in trauma.

so, a system? #

We were recently diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), a condition often stemming from repeated, severe trauma during childhood that creates two or more distinct personality states, or alters/headmates. There is typically amnesia of portions of childhood, traumatic events, and times other headmates are present.

This means there's more than one of us sharing one body and life, each with distinct personalities, feelings, orientations, and ways of interacting with the world.

As we learn more about DID and explore our plurality, we’re discovering new headmates — and the ones we already know are becoming clearer and more distinct. If you’re going to be part of our lives, it’s helpful to know who’s around:

system members #

✨ Zari they/it #

Zari fronts most of the time right now, and contains most of what you know our personality to be prior to coming out as plural. They're nonbinary and asexual, but often interested in kink. They love reality TV, documentaries, psychology, and electric cars.

Our "masked" state for public interaction is mostly Zari, though increasingly this is sort of a combination of them and Ethan.

🖤 Ethan he/him #

Ethan's a trans man exploring masculinity after feeling like he couldn't be more than a femboy. He often experiences intense dysphoria from inhabiting a body shaped by someone else’s transition.

Ethan's 19 years old, notably younger than our body's age, and is a bit emotionally immature and prone to anger. He's also the most outwardly flirty and sexual of us.

His gender and sexuality being sharply different than everyone else's has caused a lot of conflict, but we're making progress on making him more comfortable!

💖 Melanie she/her #

Melanie's a binary transsexual woman, and is the most feminine part of us. She loves traditional gender roles and really enjoys masculine men taking care of her. She'll often argue that she's straight, and sometimes makes us wish we had vaginoplasty.

She hasn't come around in a little while, but she fronted for multiple years of our life and feels significant. We're hopeful to see more of her.

🧒🏼 sky she/her #

sky’s a little girl who mostly fronts through involuntary age regression. We often seek her for comfort when we're feeling severe sensory overwhelm, complicated emotions, or trauma.

She tends to retreat when there's conflict between headmates, and we've been doing a lot of work on making a safe place for her to come around more regularly.

We initially discovered sky through DDLG and ABDL kinks, but have realized the sexual aspect of that is not related to sky, and is more an interest of Zari's.

🌀 Flux it/its #

Flux is what we're calling a nebulous idea of a new headmate we haven't identified yet. There's a couple distinct feelings that happen yet that haven't fully revealed themselves, and we want to have a place for that.


how we function #

fronting + switching #

Switching between headmates usually happens spontaneously and involuntarily for us right now. Often, a switch is triggered by changes in emotion, conversations, or specific situations that resonate differently with our headmates. For example, during a conversation, one of us might naturally step forward if the topic aligns more closely with their interests, feelings, experiences, or comfort levels.

We also co-front at times, with (most frequently) both Zari and Ethan fully aware of what's happening, and each other being present. We can also talk internally and decide who speaks up more actively. It's a new skill we're still learning as communication and amnesiac barriers lower between headmates.

You might notice quick shifts in our mood, interests, vocabulary, or style of interaction — this is completely normal for our system. Switches can often take a few seconds, during which we aren't particularly aware and are actively dissociative.

pronouns + identity #

Pronouns will shift depending on who’s fronting and the context of the conversation. Some general rules:

Please don’t refer to the system with singular pronouns like she/he/they unless you know who’s fronting. And we’d prefer not to be called it/its as a system, even though one of our headmates uses that for themself.

In writing, we often preface a message with an emoji to indicate who’s fronting (✨🖤💖🧒🏼🌀) which helps clarify identity and tone in conversation. We're still working on how to signal this verbally without feeling excessively awkward.

internal communication #

Our system regularly communicates — sometimes whoever’s fronting might speak aloud and mentally hear responses from other headmates, other times we have full conversations entirely in our head. These internal conversations feel vivid and real; Ethan and Zari frequently have conversations that are so detailed and lifelike, we genuinely expect to find chat logs of them.

This kind of internal dialogue helps us navigate daily life, process emotions, and coordinate fronting more smoothly. We have been working on building internal structure for further communication and cooperation, though switching remains mostly involuntary right now.

memory + awareness #

Our memory between headmates and switches is often foggy or inconsistent. Ethan and Zari often hand off fronting during a single conversation, but usually don’t remember exactly what the other said and have to read the messages to catch up. It’s not often full blackout amnesia, but it is enough that conversations and experiences can feel disjointed or like someone else lived through them.

We have experienced full amnesia — for example, during some therapy sessions where a headmate has fronted without the others being able to access any memory of it. Later, unpacking the session we realized one headmate was processing the feelings of something our therapist said right after a switch, without the context of what she had said prior. These moments make it clearer how separate our experiences can be.

This also shows up in things like journaling. Ethan often writes at night, and if Zari reads those entries the next day, they don't recognize the words as theirs. These gaps can make things confusing for us too, not just for the people around us.

sharing information #

We've been asked if it’s okay to repeat something one of us said to another part of the system. The honest answer is: only if you really have to.

In rare cases, it’s helpful to let us know what another headmate said, especially if it affects shared plans or our well-being. Increasingly though, it feels intrusive or jarring to hear about something we don’t remember firsthand.

Our internal communication and memory-sharing are getting stronger, and we're feeling more confident in our ability to handle this ourselves.


how to support us #

We don’t expect anyone to have all the right language or understand plurality right away — just be curious! Some helpful things people have done:

what not to do #

We know most people mean well, but a few things that don't feel good:


did this resonate a little too much? #

There's a distinct possibility that reading our experiences here helped you to connect some parts of your own brain you've been struggling to understand. We had a number of experiences like that far before considering we may actually be plural.

We spent a lot of time reading this questionnaire our therapist provided and realizing how much we all related to the described experiences. There is also a therapeutic modality called Internal Family Systems that uses similar concepts to plurality to process trauma and improve daily functioning. We know many people who have benefited from it, both plural and not.

We do want to say that if this feels like how your brain works - that's entirely okay! We felt this way for some time before actually feeling in-touch with a headmate enough to believe it was real. Maybe you are plural, that's okay! Maybe you're not, that's okay too!

resources #

Here are some online resources that have been helpful for us in exploring DID and learning about ourselves:

Disassociative Dictionary - Community sourced definitions for a ton of language used to describe plurality.
Frequently Asked Questions - A bunch of questions from the perspective of both allies and plural folks.
Symptoms in the DSM-V - Clinical guidelines for diagnosis.
For Those In The Life Of Someone With DID - Great article for partners.
DID Validity - Very interesting clinical data on the relation between CPTSD and DID.
Quick'n'Dirty Plural History - Incredible writeup of the history of plural folks and our attempts to organize and understand ourselves. (Also available as a talk on YouTube)
On Dating My Partners - From the partner of a system, so vulnerable and helpful.