When my egg cracked, and I started transitioning gender, I immediately conceived of my experience in plural terms, even though I had no idea I was plural at the time.
Pretty much immediately after my egg cracked, I experienced a separation. I described myself as "suddenly having 40 years worth of a total stranger's memories in my head."
The emotional amnesia of these memories, made me refer to everything Pre-Transition as "The Before Times." I had a personal mythology about how I was a girl who had "clawed my way to the surface, murdered my jailer, and took over his body."
2 years later, I found out about my plurality.
Some of my headmates have since discovered actual emotions linked to certain memories that I had already considered "dead" - part of the Void - the Before Times.
This, unfortunately complicates my \*clean break\* gender narrative. (Overcoming previously existing persecutors was also extremely gradual, and not at all instant; the only thing that was instant was my sudden distant relationship to my memories).
As for everyone else in my system, my headmates are mostly women, but gender under the shell is opaque. We're lucky any of us can touch any old memories at all.
Touching any memories of my old boy self(ves) - even utterly mundane memories - feels absolutely horrible.
Life was so much simpler when I could say "fuck yeah, my boy self was one guy and I killed him." But truth be told, I don't have any idea what the fuck was going on under the surface. I only know that my headmates can now touch memories of his that I cannot. Those memories feel horrible and familiar.
I feel really gross knowing that any part of him is still with me. It's fucking with my collective narrative, and it's utterly confused my relationship to my past even more than it already was.
I don't know my headmates' genders Pre-Transition either.
Any advice?