Evenstar

[Epistemic status: Processing after a long period of work and recovery, which is not yet over] Background Four years ago, I was in university. I was a casual rationalist, having been introduced by HPMOR, been active on rationalist tumblr, and then joined a loosely allied fiction writing community known as Glowfic. Things seemed pretty okay. I had known for a while that I was not neurotypical, having been diagnosed with ADD in high school and also having been in a gifted program. I was also familiar, casually, with weird things happening to me and people around me. I was active in the hypnosis scene recreationally, and was fascinated by how people transformed under the influence of trance. I am also trans, and thus had experienced a major identity shift from my "cis male" self to a transfeminine identity. That feminine identity was based on a female roleplay character that I had played as obsessively for several years - not an uncommon occurrence in trans people. She talked to me in my head - not an uncommon occurrence for authors. Eventually I decided I'd be her because she was cooler than my (dysphoric, beaten-down) self. And so we went on in a new identity, changing from our deadname to our new name. There was an attempt at coming out which... did not go well. I'll spare the details. I ended up closeted and under great stress to finish my degree. I reached out to writing as my source of comfort, as I always had. I poured my hurt out into a newly-turned girl being abused by her vampiric sire. I started getting feelings and emotions from her - a sense of attraction to gothic and old-style clothing, a distinct fondness for lists and checkboxes. It was useful to me to like lists and checkboxes - after all, I was failing my degree from ADD - so I encouraged the persona, using a half-understood concept of Internal Family Systems and my experience with altered states achieved under hypnosis to try and develop the identity. It worked! And we remain plural to this da