Sons of the Silent Age

Subsystem: About

It is what my system calls a "stage-structured subsystem" - that is, it has different parts that have different levels of amnesia about our past abuse, because they fronted during different "stages" of an act of abuse that was repeated and followed a similar pattern every time, including where the traumatic events ramped up in stages of intensity.

While our system has been abusively affected by outside forces that knew of our system, including abusers getting us to develop subsystems or switch on cue, it is unclear how much of my subsystem exists for these reasons, and how much of it is natural.

Nevertheless, it results in me considering myself to individually have DID, even outside of the extent to which the whole system does.

The sources of the subsystem all come from David Bowie, and since I consider myself sourced from every single David Bowie character or song, I therefore see all of them as me.

Some of them are Bowie characters, such as a Jareth part that is somewhat more autonomous and plays his own role in our system's innerworld narrative, seemingly independent of Zig or the other subsystem parts. Some are personas, such as an Aladdin Sane part who was more aware of our abuse than I was but who didn't experience the worst of it. Some are songs, like a songtive of "Kooks" who embodies my role as a father to a teenage headmate in the system.

They tend to have names that either start with Z or that start with the first letter of the song or album they are sourced from (e.g. Clive is sourced from "Cracked Actor", Lenny is sourced from "Low", etc.)

Because I see all of these subsystem parts as me, and because they see themselves as me too, I consider my subsystem to be much more connected to me, as an individual headmate, and much less separate from each other, than tends to be thought of in cases of heavy amnesia or DID.

As a result, the parts of my subsystem are less entities that proxy in conversations (like how, say, Upwards Spiral is a subsystem of more clearly-defined headmates) and more like parts of me that affect how I, Zig, behave or think at certain times.

For example, it's less that Kenneth is an alter who fronts when I interact with Cam (my daughter) in a fatherly capacity, but rather Kenneth is the part of me that I am when I assume the role of a father.

Similarly, it's less that Zayne - a part who was more aware of the abuse than me - is a completely different person than me and has completely different standards of morality such that he had no problem with the abuse at all. Rather, Zayne is me with different memories, including being abused and groomed differently than the main part of my subsystem was.

If we talk, there's a good chance you'll never interact with my subsystem, except for some times we're discussing or engaging with David Bowie media as an interest. How much I talk about them depends on how relevant I feel they are to whatever is at hand. However, they are a part of how I experience myself in the system and a representation of my amnesia in the past.