Hi flytrap. I really like your alias, btw! It's capturing. Dena gave me the link to this thread as well.
I'm also a system of two, a guy and a girl, but in an originally female body. The core personality and primary is me, the guy, and I see myself as binary male. I transitioned to male, starting 9 years ago. I see it as my body, but also as that it's "our" body and my alter sees it mostly the same way, but that it's also her body, to a degree. I've had it pretty rough with my alter, Anna (I'm unsure of her age, but it's possible she's ageless, or that her age simply doesn't matter), in the past up until recently, but we're okay now. However that means I did transition against her will... my doctors didn't know about her existence because she doesn't like showing herself around others, and it was a mutual decision to keep her secret. However I don't recommend doing that (in general) but I also know that I did what I had to do. My abusive alter and my extreme gender dysphoria were both very pressing issues for me at the time and to survive either I simply had to choose transition first. If that was the right order, I don't know cause it was very very rough, but ultimately I don't regret that and it turned out fine eventually. But ofc my gender therapists got suspicious which made my transition take longer.
Anna was very abusive and not accepting at all. I gave her dysphoria by relieving my own... which made our already stormy situation even worse. She's done some really bad things to me, and threatened even more. I'd scream at her and threaten back but could never do anything. We used to call that our "wars" and for some time we had what we called a "truce" as well, by which I mean we were passive aggressive and hostile but didn't actively fight after having made a deal about that, until she'd break that "truce" again. It's rare that we shift who's behind the steering wheel, so it's almost always me, but when we do that's usually when she's abused me in the past. She raped me once. I'm still conscious and aware in the background when she's steering the body, and vice versa.
She carried most of my pain growing up, that's why she was so abusive. But also because she took the role of being "the bad one" to relieve me of my extreme remorse, and carry the memory of what I had done, basically taking the fall for me on that, as far as I understand her side now. She's shown little to no emotion, always ice cold, except from showing anger and hate. Sometimes I could notice vague hints of fear, but that's about it. Because our body was originally female and she is female, she's seen herself as a cis girl. But now that our body is more male than female in appearance after my transition, she sees herself as kind of a trans girl, cause now she has dysphoria while I mostly don't. Although I don't entirely agree with her opinion on that making her trans. We have both shared and separate trauma memories, and she has told/shown me some of what she remember but I didn't, on my request.
She appeared, or was split off/created from me, when I was 9, after a series of events of sexual assault and bullying, all only involving kids of around my own age. I remember most of it but not all, as far as I know, but there are reasons to believe there's more that I don't remember, and Anna is hesitant to say if there is. Despite having been so abusive, she's also always been very protective of me. As her and I see it, kind of, is that I was the one who got abused by those who did that but when it was the reverse it was she who did that. But then agreeing with each other hasn't always been our strongest suit. Being a perpetrator at that young age, and the remorse that followed, traumatised me too, and likely more than the abuse I got did. Why I split at such a "high" age, I think was because I was highly sensitive as a child and autistic. That I was that "old" might also be why I always remembered the split. I was also raped at age 17 (by a guy I met online) which might contribute to her sticking around and me getting worse in general, but I feel much more torn up about the childhood stuff.
Transition wise I've been taking testosterone and have had top surgery, changed my name and legal gender marker. The latter two didn't bother Anna, since she's had her own name anyway and said she didn't care about a letter on an ID card that she never used anyway. The surgery only bothered her temporarily, as an initial shock and as fuel to berate me when I was vulnerable. She's opportunistic like that. She's always seen herself as more comfortable with a small or flat chest, but the changes from testo did make her very upset at times... she's said really bad stuff like that I'm destroying her body, and threatened to shave and physically harm me but luckily she never did. Her preferred looks is naturally feminine, which is a stark contrast to mine: alternative masculine, except from that we both prefer to have long hair and neither of us are particularly fond of having very wide hips. I've become increasingly comfortable with my body through transitioning though, and I've treated almost all of my original dysphoria now. So transitioning was always right for me but wrong for her. What that means for us as a unit, I've long thought about but never quite found an answer to.
I don't know really why or how it happened but 1,5 year ago (but I suspect extreme long term stress was the trigger) me and Anna got our separate, distinct personalities jumbled up and we got a lot of each other's traits. That was intense and still feels new and unfamiliar for us both, cause it was a very extreme change, although I adjusted quicker than her. The change was good though, and very helpful cause ever since then we've understood each other for the first time ever, and finally found peace in our shared system, after 20 years of chaos... that was a much needed relief!
Now we're on good terms, I've forgiven her for the bad things she's done and she's promised to not repeat that and I believe her when she says she doesn't want to anymore. She finally felt and showed remorse over what she had done. She got kinder and got just enough empathy, but then I got colder and lost a good portion of my empathy. Or well, I gave it to her, so technically I still have it. We met almost in the middle. I think it was a partial merge cause we're very similar now but still hang around as separate. I think after all that chaos and finally understanding each other, we needed to stay together as two but friendly. I'm okay with that. She's good company now.
We're supportive of each other now and she's accepting of my transition, which is almost complete now, and we both want that last thing hysto. We both don't want kids ever. I think she still feels some dysphoria about the physical changes in general but she has very clearly said that she knows it's mostly me out there facing the world, having friends, a family, boyfriends, etc, so she accepts that me being okay with the body is and should be of higher priority. Btw, on the sexual aspect we've been polar opposites as well. While I'm hypersexual and bordering to sex addiction, into hookups, fallen in love a lot, etc; she's always been sex repulsed, asexual and never attracted to or loved any of my boyfriends. She mostly just hid away and stayed silent when I've been doing some sexual activity, but at times she's lashed out on me for it as well. Now she's not repulsed by it anymore and is okay with it. I've noticed she's gotten a bit of an appetite for it as well. Both of us are only into guys.
I never had therapy for this. Maybe that's why I had 20 years of hell living with it... and I also know I have a lot of other things to deal with that were caused by the trauma, mostly stuff about my sexuality and being self-destructive. I'm sure I will look into therapy when I'm ready for it and/or if it gets worse again, but at this point, me and Anna are getting along much better than we ever have and I've gotten significantly better in general also.
Also I should say... I'm not officially diagnosed with DID. It's just my high suspicion that I have it or some variant of it. Because I had to transition first (and Anna was against that) I couldn't tell my therapists about her or the trauma I went through that caused the split, or I wouldn't have been allowed to transition. It's been a very heavy burden to carry, and tried to find out and learn as much about it by myself as much as I could, to at least be my own therapist. I've researched it a lot and looked into other conditions as well, talked to friends and family about it and as far as I can tell I have most symptoms of DID but not all of them, so perhaps more likely I could have Dissociative Disorder Not Otherwise Specified (DDNOS), but then also I know that I can't possibly actually diagnose myself.
