One day after going through so much self doubt an ex-host decided to just start trying to talk to a headmate, and he responded. At that point it was clear it wasn't just nothing and we tried taking it seriously

After lots of digging and undoing most of our biases we came to accept the plural label

That we were different and felt like more than just one person, but we didn't want to think we had the ""evil alter disorder"" like media made us feel. So we thought it was just us "being weird".

Eventually we found the plural community, and learned a lot about plurality outside of the demonisation

Frequently "zoning out", or just not being "fully there." That plus a lot of disagreements on names/pronouns and how we presented ourself.

As for really how we put all that together: unfortunately we only knew of DID through a couple bad representations, so for a while we had started to notice

We had signs since we were young that just slowly built up over time.

Often feeling like actions we had done were done by someone else if we even remembered it at all.

On lots of occasions one of us would hear someone else talking, in ways that would contradict ourselves or be obviously sentient.

Not really a set amount you're supposed to but we're probably on the opposite end of the spectrum lol. We keep ours the same for as long as we can and have the same pfp across all socials. Keeps a little bit of consistency and we don't end up fighting over what our pfp is as much

This likely doesn't just apply to anti -masking groups, or even just to more radical/extreme groups.

it's just a common tactic among really any type of group or movement to get the fear factors going, plus, insure hope & happy soldiers, and get actionable thoughts racing

Example being if you look back at some anti-masking groups you'll see things like "they're going to make this permanent and they'll take over"

With mandates being lifted inevitably then it can be seen as a "win" for them because they "prevented" this hypothetical forever-mandates