Well... first-off, we're not 'personalities'; we're people. There are three of us: me (female), Kír (male) and his twin (male) who's called Crist-Erui because he's got no name of his own as far as we know. (The names elenbarathi, duathir and Crist-Erui are from a long and rambling fantasy-adventure saga based very, very loosely on the three of us.)
According to my older sisters, and to things my mother wrote in the baby-book, there were notable 'differences' which could have indicated switching by the time we were 12 months old. I didn't consciously realize Crist-Erui was separate from me until we were about 3 - I remember him crying inconsolably over a spider my mother killed, that I'd been shrieking in terror over, and again, this little kiddie-amusement-park that I loved, but that sent him into an absolute panic. (LOL, in the past 45 years, I've mellowed out about spiders to some extent, and he's no longer quite so freaked-out by machinery, but that's still one of the notable differences between us.)
"Imaginary friend", my parents said, and I accepted that, but... is it common for a kid's 'imaginary friend' to take control of the body and do things that one doesn't want to do, like pick up big scary bugs with bare hands and play with them, or refuse to even taste ice cream or other sweets?
Then there was Kír. I remember distinctly the first time I heard him speak - it was in nursery school, and I was very angry with my teacher. I said "I wish I was in college!" and the teacher asked me why? I was all set to say "Because it's the farthest away from this place I could get!", when I heard Kír's voice: "Do not say that." He sounded just like he does now; not a kid, but grown up. So I said to the teacher, "Because I'd be older", and didn't think a whole lot more about it.
Crist-Erui got stranger and shyer over the years - by our 6th birthday, he'd no longer take corporeal form in front of other people, except occasionally my (physical) younger brother John, whom he's always loved. He'd also started his attempts to run away, which continued for decades (getting more serious and prolonged all the time) and what we now think were efforts to 'pull Kír through' from wherever-he-was to wherever-we-were. He didn't speak English at all then - didn't start speaking English till we were 43, and still doesn't answer questions - so there was no way to ask him anything about what exactly he was doing.
As for Kír, he was around in a sort of intermittent ghostly fashion, mostly after his brother had been doing his mirror-workings - he doesn't remember that period too clearly; he says it was like a dream, but I remember. He'd talk to me, but it often seemed like he wasn't really talking to me-here-and-now, but to me-elsewhere. It was all very odd, and I was at some pains to conceal the oddness - around second or third grade, trying to talk to my mother, she'd gotten visibly uneasy and started asking what sounded like 'leading questions', y'know, so I'd figured I had best shut up before I got into trouble.
I happened on a copy of The Three Faces of Eve when I was about 10, and it made me think, but also I thought it was pretty hokey. Anyway, isn't "personality" what one uses to deal with other people? Crist-Erui was like the tree that falls in a forest with no human person there to hear; I didn't see how he could be a 'personality' when nobody ever saw him.
Well. When we were 14, Kír finally 'woke up' or 'came through' or whatever, to the utter terror and horror and bewilderment of both of us - what I thought at the time was that he was a demon; what he thought was that 'all this' was a nightmare. Crist-Erui smoothed things out some, but then circumstances led to a terrible power-struggle between him and his brother, which was years in resolving. Things are peaceful now, though.
Crist-Erui talks a little when he wants to, these days - he's got about half a dozen friends he likes to see, and seems to understand English well enough. He still doesn't speak it much to us, though. We're not sure what caused him to start talking - maybe he just decided it was time.
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According to my older sisters, and to things my mother wrote in the baby-book, there were notable 'differences' which could have indicated switching by the time we were 12 months old. I didn't consciously realize Crist-Erui was separate from me until we were about 3 - I remember him crying inconsolably over a spider my mother killed, that I'd been shrieking in terror over, and again, this little kiddie-amusement-park that I loved, but that sent him into an absolute panic. (LOL, in the past 45 years, I've mellowed out about spiders to some extent, and he's no longer quite so freaked-out by machinery, but that's still one of the notable differences between us.)
"Imaginary friend", my parents said, and I accepted that, but... is it common for a kid's 'imaginary friend' to take control of the body and do things that one doesn't want to do, like pick up big scary bugs with bare hands and play with them, or refuse to even taste ice cream or other sweets?
Then there was Kír. I remember distinctly the first time I heard him speak - it was in nursery school, and I was very angry with my teacher. I said "I wish I was in college!" and the teacher asked me why? I was all set to say "Because it's the farthest away from this place I could get!", when I heard Kír's voice: "Do not say that." He sounded just like he does now; not a kid, but grown up. So I said to the teacher, "Because I'd be older", and didn't think a whole lot more about it.
Crist-Erui got stranger and shyer over the years - by our 6th birthday, he'd no longer take corporeal form in front of other people, except occasionally my (physical) younger brother John, whom he's always loved. He'd also started his attempts to run away, which continued for decades (getting more serious and prolonged all the time) and what we now think were efforts to 'pull Kír through' from wherever-he-was to wherever-we-were. He didn't speak English at all then - didn't start speaking English till we were 43, and still doesn't answer questions - so there was no way to ask him anything about what exactly he was doing.
As for Kír, he was around in a sort of intermittent ghostly fashion, mostly after his brother had been doing his mirror-workings - he doesn't remember that period too clearly; he says it was like a dream, but I remember. He'd talk to me, but it often seemed like he wasn't really talking to me-here-and-now, but to me-elsewhere. It was all very odd, and I was at some pains to conceal the oddness - around second or third grade, trying to talk to my mother, she'd gotten visibly uneasy and started asking what sounded like 'leading questions', y'know, so I'd figured I had best shut up before I got into trouble.
I happened on a copy of The Three Faces of Eve when I was about 10, and it made me think, but also I thought it was pretty hokey. Anyway, isn't "personality" what one uses to deal with other people? Crist-Erui was like the tree that falls in a forest with no human person there to hear; I didn't see how he could be a 'personality' when nobody ever saw him.
Well. When we were 14, Kír finally 'woke up' or 'came through' or whatever, to the utter terror and horror and bewilderment of both of us - what I thought at the time was that he was a demon; what he thought was that 'all this' was a nightmare. Crist-Erui smoothed things out some, but then circumstances led to a terrible power-struggle between him and his brother, which was years in resolving. Things are peaceful now, though.
Crist-Erui talks a little when he wants to, these days - he's got about half a dozen friends he likes to see, and seems to understand English well enough. He still doesn't speak it much to us, though. We're not sure what caused him to start talking - maybe he just decided it was time.