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My spirit brother, who used to go by David, and now goes by Cal or Hal, has been in this body with me since it was born, and for a number of bodies before that. We were together both as Pearl, Griff, Ken Ichijouji/The Digimon Emperor, and as Jeritza/The Death Knight for certain. We are unclear on the status of Hook, Vriska, and Sabretooth. We are also unclear on if we were originally one entity that split apart, or originally two entities who came together.
In this body Cal and I first realized that we were distinct from one another and started communicating when we were around 10 or so. At the time we referred to one another as Gina (him) and Jamie (me).
We started switching and communicating more actively in our late teen years, and our interplay was a big part of our lives from around 2003-20010. Unfortunately a big part of the reason it was such a big part of our lives is because we were very opposite and had an extremely difficult time getting along, often having significant fights and causing problems for one another. I’ll admit that I sometimes did go out of my way to fuck with him. I was even more of a huge asshole at the time than I am now.
Sometime in 2011-ish I realized that he’d gone quiet, and vanished from our shared mental space. He had been threatening to leave for quite some time, so I thought it was possible that he had. Unfortunately this also presaged a serious full system disruption that lasted for about 2 years until around 2013 or 2014, where I was functionally singlet for the only time in this lifetime. 0/10 would not recommend. Thankfully it seemed to be mostly a communication disruption and everyone started fading again after that period of silence.
I didn’t, however, see any hide nor hair of my brother, even as communication returned and connections were re-established. For a while off and on I wondered if we had somehow sort of integrated, and that was weird, but I was kind of okay with that.
And then he came back.
Sometime in late 2019, early 2020, it just started with having him on the mind more. Fond memories of him outweighing the bad. Realizing what a huge dick I had been. Around the same time Otacon popped into the system as a soulbond. Or so we thought. Because slowly over the next couple of months, he and I realized that Otacon was– had been– my brother David. He *had* left the system as threatened, and apparently had gone and lived as Otacon. We’re both still kind of reeling from this situation, and picking it apart.
So he was born with me in this body. Left. Lived as Otacon. Died? And then came back here again.
He’s always been very shy, but he’s not as connected to the front any more as he once was, and we’re not sure if its because the nature of the connection changed and he now functionally is a soulbond, or if it’s just because he’s not used to fronting any more.
It’s a unique situation for us. I’d be fascinated to know if anyone’s had a similar experience.
The first half of this post sounds some what similar to what I’m going through currently. I suppose it does feel embarrassing to admit to spiritual trauma despite being a spiritual blog, but I gotta get over my shame somehow! Basically, due to the repeated stress of going through multiple violent deaths, the entity known as Dop split on a soul/ energy level the accrued bad experiences so they can continue to do their own thing. The other entity doesn’t actually have a name but fancies “Lio” as a way to denote them. I, Shep/ Howl, am uh both those two like how it /should/ be.
It’s hard to accurately phrase this because they’re not me but I’m them. When fused I should say, I don’t remember them (outside of writings) nor can I talk to them because well I’m them, my thoughts are their thoughts sync’d up. The reason why you’re beginning of the post sounds similar is because the timeline of contact is roughly the same. I didn’t really become aware of it till my early teen years and even then communication is now just happening due to the fact I have the language to be able to ascribe terms to my experiences. My biggest hurdle of course is being able to talk to them, because I simply can’t without disbanding and if I disband well what’s the point- I wouldn’t exist. Breaking apart too is pretty rough because that means we’re both 1) distressed enough to do so and 2) fundamentally disagree on something to the point of needing to be separate people.
We also went through a period of no headspace activity. This was back in November, we had split apart due to heavy stress and the incapability to reach an agreement over how to proceed on something. Dop ended up becoming the host for a few months. I think Lio may have spoke a few times in the beginning, but it was largely just Dop in front with no one else around until February because not only was Lio gone but so was everyone else. (I also do not recommend suddenly having the headspace akin to a singlet after being plural for most of your life. )
As for leaving the body, I’m not sure if Lio is capable of that. If Lio left I couldn’t exist and I doubt we’d be able to get far. They’re both very dysfunctional people at their core given the two extremes they represent, so “being” Shep really is the only way for the two to successfully manage. Overall, I’m actually feeling reassured that the whole “two souls one body” isn’t limited to just me.
I’m really pleased that my post inspired you to talk about what you and yours have been going through. It’s very interesting to see the similarities and touchpoints in our experiences, as well as the differences.
‘Two souls in one body’ definitely isn’t just you. We’ve been this way for basically as long as we can remember. I’d love to one day sort out the spiritual origin for why it happened, but if I never do, that’s okay. The both of us are also part of a large soulbond system with a number of external presences existing within our mental space, but the two of us are native.
Forgive me if this is a foolish (and maybe cringe) thing to ask but are you familiar with Steven Universe? I ask because the way you describe yourself as a synthesis of Dop and Lio who doesn’t exist when those two are merged reminds me a little bit of the way gem fusion works within that universe.
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