A metaphor for consciousness: The Van
(Posting here as r/DID doesn't allow images)
I think a lot about metaphors to explain my system and this is one that I've been considering a lot lately. I think about the 'body' as a nice big van.
Most people have just like, a little tiny one person car, but we like to be environmentally friendly, so we have a bunch of folks in the car all together. (Or more accurately, we had ✨Trauma✨, but the environmental carpooling is funnier).
A lot of people think of 'fronting' as a binary yes/no thing. The equivalent of someone either being in the drivers seat, or being shoved in the trunk. That's not quite how it works for us.
Theirs the person in the drivers seat, the one actually driving and making choices. Sometimes it's two people in the drivers seat (that gets weird).
Then their is the front seat, where someone might have directions pulled up, like Blue saying, "Oh hey Pink, I think you might want to turn at this next intersection" (Once again, the metaphor falls apart a bit as their are often multiple in the front seat)
Then there are the back seats. This is where people can still see what is going on out the windows. They might occasionally chime in, like Orange saying "I want to go to Burger King!" or Brown saying "Hang on wait can I be the one to do that homework?" Not all of them are paying attention all the time--some are listening to music or reading books or doing their own things, but they still get a vague sense of where the van is going.
Then you have folks in the trunk. We don't need to put people in the trunk very often, but it still does happen. This is the 'no memory of what happened' area. However, for us at least, we still sometimes get a 'synopsis' like coming out of the dark trunk and getting told "We went to Burger King and are now at this and this cross section". Not the same as actually having experienced or watched what was happening, but still aware of the gist of things.
So sometimes, someone might be like, "Yes, I (Pink), am driving, but Blue is helping me out and Orange and Brown keep making comments even though they're in the back. Red is still here but pretty checked out."
Feel free to use this metaphor to explain stuff with your own system if you want!
-- Pink (and some others)