Our system is traumagenic - meaning, it formed from trauma - and fictive-heavy. Over half of our system is fictives, and that half is the more active part of the system, as far as front frequency goes. We have low (but not non-existent) memory barriers that take the form of greyouts and complete emotional amnesia. New members form relatively easily depending on our needs and stress levels. We do have a headspace, and fronters can access it if they focus.
Switching is sometimes a bit tricky for us. We have three main types - sleep switches, voluntary switches, and involuntary switches. Before we figured out we were a system, we only had the first and the third types - a type of switching where we don't know it's happening at all. Involuntary switches often feel like a slow, gradual shift into feeling like another alter, while sleep switches occur when we go to sleep and wake up with another headmate in control of the body. This can happen intentionally or unintentionally. Voluntary switches are switches that we actively choose to do. At first, we had to focus really hard to voluntarily switch, but with practice, we've gotten a lot better at it, and now we can do it pretty easily, espcecially when we are switching with headmates that we have switched with often before.
As we said earlier, we have greyouts and emotional amnesia. This means that while we can recall memories formed by other headmates, it takes a bit more focus and effort than recalling our own memories. Additionally, emotions don't carry over between headmates when we switch! If Headmate A is feeling very very sad, but then Headmate B switches in, they won't feel sad, even though they can still remember what it was that made Headmate A sad in the first place. Viewing another headmate's memories is like watching gameplay footage - we can see that it happened, we just don't feel that it happened to us, so any emotions we get out of it are purely sympathetic. Also, we have poor memory in general! We forget a lot of things, so if we ever tell you the same story twice (or three times or four or a hundred), we're sorry!
Our headspace is a place where our headmates live when they aren't in front. Sadly, we can't really remember anything from outside the point of view of the body, so we don't really remember anything that happens in headspace unless the fronter was personally there to see it. But! It's still our home, and we love it very much. Below is a map of our headspace. There are some innacuracies and things left out, so I'll make some annotations below.
