Multiplicity

How old were you when you became multiple? (Or have you been one since birth?)

More median/SBing/gateway system than multiple, but what the hell, I'll answer anyway. I'm pretty sure my earliest childhood memory of talking to others in my head or being aware of the presence of others with me was when I was about 8 years old. At the time I passed them off as imaginary friends, and some of them might have been, but not all of them.

Was there some kind of triggering event, good or bad, that caused it, or was a catalyst for it?

Nope. A least not that I'm aware of. My childhood sucked, we were poor, mom was an alcoholic, etc etc. But it was neither bad nor good enough to cause something like that. Rather boring and uneventful actually. Perhaps it was the boredom that triggered my median state, I have no idea. I was pretty damn lonely growing up. Had very few friends, was always the outcast in school. I went through a period of really bad depression because of the loneliness at one point, but that was long after I was already aware of others with me. So.. I honestly can't say.

Was it a gradual process, or something very sudden?

Little of both actually. When I was a kid it seemed very sudden, but I didn't pay any attention to it because I was a kid. All kids have "imaginary" friends. It wasn't a big deal. Then as I got older I felt a bit weird for still having said "imaginary" friends, so I tried to ignore them and be an "adult". It was more gradual once I got older. They seemed to vanish for a time, either they actually did vanish or I just got good at ignoring them and stopped thinking about it, but eventually they slowly pushed their way back in again.

Were you aware of it right away, or did you become aware later? If you became aware later, what brought it to your awareness?

I knew since I was a kid that I talked to people/characters/etc in my head, that there were others with me. They faded out from time to time, but I was completely aware of it all. It wasn't until I found a site on SBing that I actually KNEW anything. Up until that point I had never heard of anyone else experiencing similar things. Had never heard of medians or SBers or multiples. Nothing. I honestly believed I was the only person in the world like that. Feeling like you're the only one who does something really sucks. You feel alone and different from everyone else. Theres no one around for you to relate to. Its lonely.

My initial reaction upon reading about SBing was something along the lines of "OMG! Omgomgomgomg! I do this. Holy shit this is what I've been doing all this time. I'm a SBer!" I was so happy and excited not to be alone, that I had to email the owner of the site I had found and thank her for it. Once I knew I wasn't alone, I felt more at ease with the entire thing, didn't feel like I had to hide anymore. I would be the friend child_recalled mentioned, who brought the concept to the close knit message board. Some people were ok with it, many were not. My bringing the concept up did help quite a few people realize things about themselves though, either that they too were median/SBer or that they were multiple. And really that had been my main goal anyway, to help others that might have been like me - Alone, thinking they were the only ones. I wanted people like that to know that they weren't alone, that there were others like them out there.