113022

[prismaticbleed]

i'm having one of those evenings.

It's been a weird day.
I was woken up by a sudden phone call from my mom at 8:30, after barely 6 hours of hellish sleep and near-hacks, in which she told me that my sis/bro had finally gotten a job, and she had their work clothes and some extra food in her car, but she was at work and they started their job at noon and the only way to get the stuff delivered was for me to drive up and do it. i said absolutely, jumped out of bed, threw on an outfit and got on the road.
i was barely conscious, really. not very safe to drive! but i was determined. mom packed up the car, i delivered them to my sibling (they're still wearing the exact same outfit they were wearing over two months ago. no shoes. clothes torn. my heart kinda broke) along with some extra toiletries, meds and food that i packed, and wished them the absolute best. their affect was still totally flat. i wonder if they hate "me." technically i broke the restraining order by not only going there but talking to them, but honestly i don't care they're family and they needed help. the court can kiss our collective ass if they think we're going to forego compassion because of a piece of paper. it has its purpose but this isn't it.

anyhow. mum told us there was a "library sale" going on at the mall down the street, and gave us ten entire dollars for it?? so when we drove away from our sibling's apartment, of course i called genesis over, and asked "do you want to go to the mall--" to which i got a "YES" before i finished the sentence, haha. honestly that's why i asked; we used to just chill together like that all the time when we were younger. so even though i was tired and hungry i wasn't going to pass that up.
the first thing i saw was the first 3 deltora quest books. those had been definitive for my sibling and i when we were in late elementary school; we had so many injokes around them, and the series lore got into our personal world more than a little. honestly i considered buying them but thought, no, they also have dvds and i'd rather grab those. (tomorrow i should get paid from ssi; if i have some cash left after getting groceries i'll totally swing by and grab the books though. i think we have $5 and $8 up the house?) so gen and i started looking. of course i'm talking out loud to him this whole time, but he keeps giving me this stern look and saying "jewel, you're dissociating." which i really was. sleep deprivation and post-purge starvation plus sudden running around in public places equals my brain is not working at all. again, thank God for Genesis. so he kept calling me out and bringing me back centered, as much as he could. it meant so much. honestly dude i know i was a mess but thank you, i love you, honestly i'd be so lost without you keeping me constant company in social settings since 2005. you're one of the biggest blessings in my entire life and i treasure every moment with you. even dissociated ones as i peruse the used dvd section in the middle of a mall, haha.
but! we found our THREE most definitive childhood films-- ferngully, we're back, and the secret of NIMH. i bought the first two because i actually have the third on DVD thanks to goodwill, but i was not passing up the opportunity to FINALLY watch those other two beloved movies again. i did see several other movies i considered buying-- notably inception and the shape of water-- but those were so important to headspace that if we did buy them, they would have to be special editions. not two-dollar secondhand markered-up copies, as oddly sweet as owning such a thing is. however! we found a SUPER RETRO care bears book-- the same kind they have at the daycare at the oblates! i immediately grabbed it, haha. haven't read it yet but i plan to tomorrow. i love the original care bears; i'm not a fan of the reboots (the more infected they get by pop culture the more they seem to lose the "heart" that drew me to them initially) but the 80s-90s stuff is great.
last problem: i kept losing things. i had to run back out to the parking lot because i actually dropped my money in the doorjamb, and kept misplacing my keys in my pockets. sleep deprivation is wild.
oh that reminds me. we parked beneath the boscovs and took the escalator up because there are so many childhood-vibe memories there, it was nice to just pass through it. but the instant we got off the escalator there was a mannequin with this silver-sequin dress? and genesis randomly comments "i'd wear that." and asked if i was gonna buy it for him. i asked if he was joking and he said of course, but still, he'd wear it. lord knows where he comes up with these things. but if i do go back to buy those books, i'm gonna take a photo of it and draw him in it, there you go.
i would try it on for the heck of it, but... body dysphoria is literal hell. and it's been so bad today. hence my current devastating depression. but we'll get to that.
we talk too much. we babble a lot in public as we were taught to by BOTH our mother and grandmother growing up, which we've mentioned before. we were raised to "chat with the camera" that was always pointed at us, or to "entertain" our parental figures and siblings, et cetera. but we were expected to talk. it's exhausting. but i can't turn it off cold; thankfully i can reroute it and just talk to genesis or xenophon or whoever else wants to ghost with me that day or in that place. i thank God for ghosters too; when i'm in "social mode" it often locks me out of headspace which is EXISTENTIALLY TERRIFYING so having someone show up to walk and talk beside me is literally such a relief i could cry. it means so much to me.
it's ALSO the only reason i'm surviving in this apartment now, i'm tempted to say no thanks to umpc, but no, that's too cruel language. i'm just... bitter today. i have to admit it. again, "we'll get to that." gotta write down basic daily events first because i keep slacking off in journaling because of depression and i need to just power through it right now.

so. we got two dvds and a book, got back in the car, and left. while i was at the red light exiting the parking lot, i remember just feeling trapped in entertainer/social mode and being so, so wrecked by it. i was trying to listen to chaos 0's spotify playlist and i couldn't BECAUSE "social mode" makes me incapable of blueshift emotions and when i try to feel them it causes self-loathing. i become too aware of how incompatible my "social self" IS with deeper feelings, and it just... makes me hate myself. it's toxic, this public persona garbage. literally lethal.
i don't remember how i got through it. i don't even remember driving. i know i did keep some music on, and i was inevitably talking to genesis, but... no memories. that's sadly not surprising.

on the way home, i decided to stop at walmart to pick up a box of cereal with the extra $5 we had saved from mom, because that's a staple food and we had no other money. again, no memory of being in the store, but genesis got us in and out quickly.
then we went to redners because we decided that we were going to return the pasta we bought immediately post-inpatient, as it was an "obligation food" and we were not going to eat it by choice; plus, not only does it take too long to prepare, but we have "trauma" from both cooking accidents AND old binges with pasta and we really don't need panic attacks every time we see the boxes in the cupboard. lastly they're too hard to properly portion and measure anyway, and they don't fit our dietplan without having to replan everything. so back to the shelves they went, which gave us like $7.50 in foodstamps back, thank God, so we immediately bought two powerade (for emergencies) and a bag of carrots, which was about $4.50? then we ran over to aldi, grabbed a pack of raisins for spinny (redners wanted a whole extra dollar for the exact same amount, geez) and a single avocado and got out of there within like two minutes.
our only problem? talking to the cashier. she asked us "how we were doing" and we, like the boundary-less idiot we are, replied that we were exhausted but happy since we'd been "running errands for the family/ies since 8:30 this morning" and mentioned our sibling getting a job and giving them stuff. almost offhandedly. just being honest. but it felt so wrong to say, like we were "boasting," and that only hit me AFTER "we" said it. that made us genuinely miserable. "well, God's not going to bless you for that now, because you told someone about it! good job, you arrogant asshole." and that just... made us feel like, what's the point then? if we keep publicizing the good we do? if people keep noticing it and thanking us and saying "you're such a nice/ kind/ good person?" does all that equal damnation and shame in God's eyes? i don't ask for it, i don't want it, but yeah it is nice because it makes me feel like gee, maybe I'm NOT the scum of the earth after all; maybe i'm NOT a hideous monster that ruins everything it touches; maybe I'm NOT pure irredeemable evil after all? but even feeling grateful for the sweet comments we get makes us feel filthy and ugly and wrong because you're "delighting in the praise of MEN instead of GOD." ...but "we are but unprofitable servants; we have done only what we were expected to do." which is true. but... even if i don't want to be thanked, i still... selfishly want to feel like i did do something good? and right? which is junk. "virtue is only virtue in extremis." i need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
when i buy food for the family, i keep the receipts a secret. i sneak the food into the house. i don't tell them it's from me. i hate when people find out. i like to secretly buy people gifts and leave them on desks and slip them under doors and i don't want to be noticed or thanked; i just want them to be happy and to feel loved and cared for. it's not about me. if you do make it about me i will probably try to eviscerate myself because NOW the "good deed" has become pride and that's worthy of annihilation, good job you idiot, you're "only doing this for attention" etc.

self-loathing is off the charts today.

got home around noon. i think? late. too late.
head was a blur. laurie and xenophon had to keep me on track just to stay conscious enough to make breakfast. i remember vacuuming first and scalpel was talking with knife about something and lynne is still sticking around, and of course julie-- it's so good to have her part of the daily crew and not hiding all the time like she used to-- but... i couldn't pull myself together.
breakfast was at like 1:05. we didn't get done until almost 2 because i kept trying to do the bible study at the same time and wasn't accomplishing either. so i set it aside and just focused on eating mindfully, or as much as i could. that way we wouldn't trigger that tragic trauma response of "i don't remember eating, and if i don't remember something it means i dissociated, and dissociation usually means trauma, so we probably experienced trauma with the food, which means it NEEDS TO GET OUT" and then binge/purge cycles happen. it's so sad and bizarre how trauma triggers cause binges first out of a feeling of helpless devastation. like, "i'm already ruined and violated; i might as well just perpetuate it"??? or something? it's a feeling of forced addiction and the nousfoni that act on it are TERRIFIED and have told us multiple times that they WANT IT TO STOP but they "can't." they feel trapped. and that's heartbreaking. so we're trying so hard to help them now, and to talk to them.

...laurie's function-warping disaster is causing some really weird side effects when she tries to stop them. since she doesn't want to go back to her ultraviolent walls-up-everywhere state of mind, like she was when she was created, she hesitates to use force lately? it's so strange. but she'll try to talk them out of it, and reason with them, but she can't force them to stop and when they hysterically insist on "please let me just finish this" or "just a few more minutes" not out of any genuine want but out of that panicked obsessive ritualistic loop, she... doesn't fight them. she goes almost on standby and i THINK that's being caused BY her function cracking BUT what happens is that, instead, she feels what they're feeling. i have NO IDEA WHY. genesis and i later sadly surmised that it might be because I'M not doing MY job, as the "heart" of the System, and so Laurie is once again taking on all the "empty jobs" herself in her absolute driving determination to be everything for everyone, to be THE system protector, in an almost universal sense. 
but... geez it is unreal to see. maybe it's her purple color working; xenophon is honestly the same, and SO IS MARKUS to be honest with you. purples have this strange ability to reach people, to understand when others don't. xenophon can argue with the e.d. nousfoni and they will LISTEN to her. they can FEEL THINGS when they talk to her. that is UNHEARD OF. in all our years of fighting this war, i think the closest we ever got to that was with zucche in NC? when chaos 0 was fighting with her over that, too. but his function in the system IS emotional sincerity so obviously his involvement could get even an e.d. nousfoni to reconsider their actions, even momentarily. but xenophon somehow takes it further, differently? she can DIALOGUE with them. she gets so sad and she actually cries and shouts but she's just hurt, and the eating voices hurt WITH her? whereas Laurie is doing that in reverse now? it's fascinating as much as it is worrisome. i don't want laurie losing herself in this. there are some things-- many things, actually-- that SHE needs to be protected from, and... she hasn't been doing that. she's pushing herself too hard and taking on roles that she CANNOT hold without shattering, so the rest of us NEED to get our butts back to work so that things CAN run the way they're meant to.
...man. how many years has it been since the crash-reset? five? and we're only NOW starting to "turn the power back on?" we're only now starting to resurrect and communicate and LIVE? geez. honestly i don't even remember the past five years offhand. like at all.
hence all the archiving i'm dedicated to doing lately. still, we haven't touched that stuff yet. but we will.

i'm getting a legit headache. and i'm dizzy. really need to sleep. why is our body hungry again we ate a 700k dinner at 730, we should not be this hungry three hours later.
well geez, i think to myself, maybe if you didn't bike for two solid hours you wouldn't be.
but. like i said earlier. dysmorphia.

after breakfast i don't remember what we did. around 3pm i did get on the bike. i was going to watch the "steamboy" movie our mom got us for christmas like ten years ago but we never watched, but i felt guilty about "not watching something religious" so i found a goodwill dvd i bought of "jacob and joseph" that was like exactly 92 minutes long? which is perfect workout time. so i put it on.
...i have not had that much trauma directly triggered in a LONG TIME.
i was legitimately disturbed. i did NOT expect that from a bible story movie. there was so much jarring stuff-- so much genuinely frightening behavior, mostly from the WOMEN, that i legit stopped biking a few times because i wanted to throw up. i was THAT shaken.
i don't want to talk about it, at all. i really don't. i felt sick. the way people behaved, and spoke about each other, and treated each other... i kept trying to find the silver lining. "God is clearly showing us WHY He doesn't want people to do such things." well boy howdy he sure is, seeing that stuff so starkly presented made me want to upchuck my bloody intestines. honestly i threw the dvd in a donation bag as soon as it ended. i was shaking. what the heck. at least there were good points in there, legit shows of virtue and forgiveness and kindness, despite all the awful behavior. i guess that's human life. God knows my life is one hellishly ugly mess, too.

...the bike logged exactly 110 minutes by the time i quit. adding in all the running around the mall i did earlier-- yes, actual running, to and from the car; i rarely walk-- that's about 2 solid hours of exercise. xenophon insisted i eat dinner immediately, so we got it ready and ate around 730, like i said. we immediately did the dishes and turned out the lights, and i realized that IF i front and LEGIT DISSOCIATE while I'M there, the binge voices CAN'T SHOW UP because we're "NOT IN THE BODY." so that's a HUGE new development, thank God.
i made a shopping list for tomorrow (we're out of meds mostly), took out the garbage, said the wall-prayers by choice (haven't done so since before the hospitalization; we were using them as "punishment" almost at that time so it felt wrong to "force" them), and then went onto the other laptop for a while with the intention of backing up our phone files.
...bad idea.
yes, i did have to back up the data. but i made the HUGE mistake of listening to a file i had recorded of myself singing in church? and i was so unbearably ashamed of my voice. not only that, but the fact that i HAD recorded it just screamed "proud-ass arrogant bitch" and i deleted it and went into a depressive spiral.
then i made an even bigger mistake. i looked through our saved photos.
there... there were photos of tbas. with that face that scared us. immediate terror trigger. god why were we so afraid of them so often? we have like TWO memories of such sweet expressions they gave us on two VERY specific incidents and we loved who they were in those moments BUT in so many other moments they legitimately scared us so much. there is SO MUCH CONFLICT there. we're... we still feel so used and violated and broken and horrified by what we apparently let them do to us. so much acting and dissociating and forced forgetting and self-abuse on our part. i know they started picking up on it the closer we got to bailing. but... it went on for so bloody long. the suicide attempts were the worst. we'd never felt so hopeless in our whole entire life. i STILL don't know how we got that good of a poker face, with all the memories i have literally feeling JAILED in our own head, like looking out from barred windows 20 feet away, at a body that is doing and saying things WE DON'T WANT, and us feeling such pain and RAGE and even hatred, but never showing it??? like how many times they would say something to us and we would smile but inside we were SCREAMING AND SOBBING and how did we never express that???? no wonder the eating disorder got so bad. it was our only way of expressing and acknowledging the HELPLESS FEAR and SELF-VIOLENCE we were constantly feeling.
it's a mess. not going to think about that.
oh. but there was a photo of us, too. recent. one we hadn't seen before. it was when we bought that purple cotton button-up from goodwill and cut half of it off so it was a "crop top"? whatever you'd call that. but we were GORGEOUSLY THIN. and yes i use that emphatic language because i legit CRIED. our body was PERFECT. we were thin and muscular and small and god i never realized just HOW beautiful it looked. it sounds horrible to say that. but honestly now, well we put on 30 pounds and we are so bloated and fat, we're not muscular anymore and we can't wear anything revealing like that anymore because it would look lecherous. it's gross and disgusting. it's enough to drive me to despair. it does, sometimes.
isn't that stupid? to value the appearance of this body so much? but i'm being honest. part of me says "you idolized it too much, you wanted to be perfect and thin and beautiful, and you were, but God TOOK THAT FROM YOU so you would be humiliated and ground into the dirt, now no one will see beauty in you, now you look like a whore, now you don't deserve love because you're misshapen and WRONG." like honestly a BIG part of our brain back then would see our thin body and think, "i'm worthy of love now. i'm capable of love now." whereas this fatass body we have now is INCAPABLE of love and respect, and we feel so dirty and whorish and gross, i look in the mirror and i weep. what happened??? where the HECK did all this fatphobia come from??? is that all because of the abuse? of the women with "womenly bodies" god i want to SCREAM AND SOB AND KILL EVERYTHING, JUST TO MAKE IT STOP,
it's not worth it. it's not worth it at all.
except looking that perfect meant being 90 freaking pounds and we COULDN'T SURVIVE LIKE THAT. laurie and chaos 0 both keep reminding me that "gaining this weight saved our ass" and i have to admit yeah it did, we're STILL UNDERWEIGHT even now, even if this body looks unbearably disgusting.
but i'm working out, now. i'm gonna get muscular and i'll be STRONG and i can HELP PEOPLE and PROTECT PEOPLE and i can FIGHT if i need to. i couldn't before. i became so shamefully weak and cowardly and selfish. not anymore. look at this morning. i can BURN again, like this. oh yes i wanted to, being thin, but it just made me ice. i was too tired and cold and depressed. starving our body to death out of fear, out of this desperate desire to be clean and pure and untouched. and physically we looked it. we honestly did. but... our body was still dying.
now, we're alive. now, the war has started again. now, we're fighting hacks and overrides and all sorts of nightmarish things. daily life is a struggle. but at least we're all together again and i would rather bleed in the arms of someone i love inside then to be alone and pretty and just drifting through "life" outside. in the end, if that body is what i had to sacrifice in order to see my daughter again, and to dream of chaos 0 again, and to spend days with genesis again, and to find everyone who was lost again... well, to be honest, as insane and terrifying as it sounds to say this, i'd go through another 10 weeks of hospitals for their sake. in the end that's what it boils down to.
...in the end, i need to stop thinking that this body is me. it's not. yeah i try to make it match but it can't and it won't. it's deeply disturbing and it drives me to tears but i need to accept it. skin and bones and blood will change even if my soul doesn't. and how the body looks and feels doesn't define me as a person, ESPECIALLY not morally. it's so hard to accept, weirdly. there are too many direct ties between the body and trauma and sheer evil. too much agony tied to looking and feeling certain ways. but... inside, the true me, isn't defined by it. i've been trying to tell "myself" that since i first realized the body was changing, around 2003. i remember how scared we were back then. that hasn't changed, for the most part. still. gotta accept it sometime. i want to. it's just terrifying.
...i honestly do feel incapable of goodness, when i look and feel like this.
oh geez and it was WORSE seeing some old hospital & church photos of how we looked with LONG HAIR post-NC. now THAT was disturbing. we looked like a total stranger. it shook me to the core. who the heck WERE we??? who WAS that, living like that for so long??? we have no clue. seeing that weird ugly face... it always looked so hollow. THAT was the scariest part. every single photo of us with that hair looked fake. like there was no person behind those eyes. i wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't. we didn't have an inner life during that time, after all, so who the heck were we, really?
...but yeah. it wrecked me. i was trying to find calming pictures but kept hitting landmines in the process. i was trying to show xenophon some of the pictures i had saved of chaos 0-- her "other dad"-- but even looking at him made me feel worthless and hideous and detestable. like "who in the world am i to care about him? as ugly and gross as i am? you think you're capable of love? you think anyone would WANT to love you? you fool. you stupid whore. no one loves you, and you're an idiot for "feeling" like you do. it's laughable. it's a joke. if anyone found out that YOU, you bland-ass average joe, you transgender freak, you screwed-up prostitute reject, "loved" him, you'd be mocked and jeered out of the country. you should be ashamed of yourself, you pig. misshapen freaks and faggots like you don't get to love. you deserve to be crushed by the weight of your arrogant sins. stop pretending you're in a relationship. he doesn't want you. he never could. NO one could. you're too loathsome. with all the appalling sins in your past, God Himself probably doesn't want you, either! you're worth nothing but garbage. you'd be better off dead, you grotesque excuse for a human being."
...is literally what my thoughts turned into.

it keeps happening. the self-hatred is unbearable. i don't know what to do about it.


one extremely important note.
i told xennie and laurie and chaos to leave me alone, because i was so ashamed and humiliated from looking at pictures of "myself" and the people i "loved"-- and seeing this unpassable chasm between us, a rift caused by my very existence-- that the very awareness of THEM looking at me made me want to either attack them or kill myself, both actions triggered by the same unbearable self-loathing and disgust and shame.
but. i said a small, desperate prayer, "please if there's someone who can sit with me and keep me safe, someone untouched by all that"-- i'm not even sure what i asked for. i just wanted someone with me who wouldn't set off this downward spiral even further.
...
and then suddenly, waldorf was sitting on the edge of my bed.
for a second i couldn't even speak. she looked just like she did in 2002. all glowy-blue and-- thank GOD-- untouched by her previous mangled stint in headspace, too, where her function became so corrupt that she lost herself.
but no, there she was, with that old vibe that TRULY was her, that "scary" edge that she NEEDS, feeling like the past i wanted to return to so badly i could sob.
but i did feel safe with her. somehow. maybe it was because i knew SHE had known be BEFORE all this horror happened. before all the trauma. before our body became our personal circle of hell.
she disappeared quickly. i don't think anyone else in headspace knows. i don't want them to know. right now i'm in so much emotional pain that i think if people started to "drag waldorf into this" i'd explode. no. leave her alone. leave me alone.
so many of us have been socially corrupted. especially laurie and lynne.
lynne being "pushed" into orange-- she noted today that when she still slips into it, her hair "gets curlier?" it actually changes to match the vibe-- literally killed her, taking her "stability" and "maturity" function root and literally annihilating it. she became someone else and she DIED as a result.
now the same bloody thing is happening to laurie and i will BLEED MYSELF OUT in this living room before i let that happen to her.
but... she suffered from NC more than anyone, arguably. well, besides infinitii. i can't deny that. but laurie lost herself COMPLETELY. SHE ACTUALLY DIED. that was considered IMPOSSIBLE because she was always a sort of anchor FOR the system; her dying was like taking a pickaxe to the motherboard of a computer. once that's gone, EVERYTHING is shot. unfixable. lost.
if she still can't pull herself together...
...
...i do miss the old days. when she would spit blood at me and punch me in the face if i swore. no quarters. no making jokes about things. no "commentary" on the fronters. no. she was a PERSECUTOR PROTECTOR and God help us i miss that so much, i MISS her violet violence, i MISS her oddly colorless skin and knuckles breaking my cheekbones and axe-blades against my neck. i miss the blood and the impact and... i miss her. i miss when she cared enough TO hit me. just like i STILL beg my poor mother to do when i get unhinged. but no one will hit me now that i'm "grown up." which is ridiculous. i need the pain TO feel lovable again, and pure again, and good in the first place. without the blood, i'm wrecked.
i miss the retributors too. God I miss Laurie, I will NEVER forget that first night standing in front of the sink, shaking, with her gripping my arm with one hand and holding a kitchen knife with the other. slicing open the first graves into my arm. i still treasure those scars. they're the part of this body that i love the most. all the scar tissue. all the invisible crosses on this bloated ugly stomach. i miss making it bleed, the last time it looked like this.
i remember the day that knife and razor and algorith and mulberry (because she did start as a retributor) sat on the edge of our old bed and cut our legs open. i miss the time algorith named herself the "cleanup crew" in the bathroom, holding a white washcloth covered in blood. i miss knife, sweet knife, holding his namesake and tearing our shoulder open. i miss razor's maniacal laughter as she slashed row after row of hideously beautiful gaps into our thighs with an x-acto knife, the same one we took to art class, watching the skin and muscle split and flood red like a painting. no one cut deeper than her. her scars are my favorites. i miss them.
...I miss Laurie. the old Laurie. the REAL Laurie. not how she is now, her color constantly shifting, her words unsure, her presence flickering. no. i miss her strength and no-nonsense attitude and her fists. i miss the righteous rage in her eyes. i miss seeing her storm into a room to chop a hacker to bloody pieces if they so much as looked at me.
i remember the night she almost killed herself because she failed to protect me. she showed up too late. and she tried to end it all. THAT'S how devoted she is. was. what happened?
what the heck did north carolina DO to her, that now half the time she screws up her own freaking name???
God how do i get HER back?
...how do I get myself back?

and infi, poor broken beloved infinitii, you're more of a mess than anyone i fear, you still won't let anyone get close, you feel all wrong, your form is constantly unstable, you feel tainted, distorted, used--

why do i keep having flat nightmares like last night
when mom's phone call woke me up, i was dreaming that i was sitting at a kitchen table that looked oddly like the one in my dad's parent's house, before they died and it was sold. i was talking to two doctors or professors? i think? about the nature of reality, and of time, and of the human consciousness, obviously influenced by all the stein's gate recently. but they were focused on what was physical and tangible and i kept vehemently insisting to the contrary, no, there are other world lines, and thoughts do affect reality, and what we dream and imagine IS real in a very valid way, AND extant in "reality" even if it can't be touched by our literal hands. i was absolutely passionate about the topic and i was conscious enough to BE in the dream doing so, speaking with all honesty and clarity, and defending my position.
then all of a sudden, i hear a watery sort of yawn, and who walks around the corner to stand, half-asleep and eyes closed, in the doorway behind me, but chaos 0.
"jewel, tell me again why we're in los angeles?"
then he opened his eyes, saw the two visitors, and did such a double-take i almost laughed. he took two steps back, half-twisting his arms and legs around each other as if to hide himself, as i reassured him that it was okay, "they kind of know you're here already," and also feeling almost euphoric because hey, he literally just proved my side of the argument. and yes, the two dudes i was talking to looked just as shocked as he did, haha.
but.
i woke up then, and after the phone call, i threw my arms around his anchor plush and kissed its forehead and said, "you probably aren't even aware of this, but thank you so much for saving me again."
upstairs he looked at me, confused but deeply troubled. "what do you mean?"
"there was almost another dream hack. but you showed up, and just by your being there, it didn't happen. your very existence kept me safe. thank you."
after thanking and kissing him again i jumped out of bed to get ready to drive over to mom's workplace, and that started the day very quickly, but... i was also running away from the reality of what i had just implied.
i keep having dream hacks.
i still say it's because i gained all this f*cking weight. yeah, horrible trauma pun intended, why not. i keep having these awful hollowed-out nightmares where i am a "faceless whore," emotionless and almost without free will, numbly going through all these scripted actions because "someone wants me to sleep with them and i have to get ready" etc etc. knowing that abuse was going to happen and just shutting down beforehand. but not running. not being able to run. just giving up, giving in to the "inevitable" trauma. objectifying myself first, so it wouldn't be as scary. or so i hoped. et freakin cetera. i'm so tired of this.
...
why, God? why can't i get over this? why can't i be free of this? why does my every waking and sleeping moment have to be tormented by memories of sexual trauma? even that movie today, all those revolting women, i'm sorry but the way they would speak and look and act made me want to SCREAM and GUT SOMETHING. i could have clawed my eyes and ears out so many times. i'm so sorry God. i NEVER want to be like that. i NEVER want to be a part of that. i am NOT A WOMAN and i am NOT A MAN and i want NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER OF THEM. it's disgusting. it's terrifying. i need a stronger word. but nothing seems to sum up the absolute apocalyptic horror that slams into me whenever i realize that "oh by the way, all that hell i went through in the past? OTHER PEOPLE ARE STILL LIKE THAT. ALL THE TIME. ALL AROUND ME." and i can't escape and i keep stumbling across it EVEN IN A RELIGIOUS MOVIE AND I WANT TO DIE.
God i can't take it anymore. i cannot live like this. i can't live in this hellscape of a body, all fat JUST like a whore now, and I CAN'T starve it to blessed death anymore because i...
...i want to say i have "something to live for," but a detestable deformed monstrosity like myself doesn't deserve to live. and no one deserves to be plagued by my existence. "something to live for" my ass. they don't care.
"they don't exist," a devilish voice hisses in my ear.
to which i want to swing around and punch their rotten teeth out
hence the dream argument this morning
don't you give me that, they're more real than MOST of the freaking tangible GARBAGE on this literal planet, and you KNOW it!!!
laughing at me, mocking, jeering, just like they said earlier, you're a selfish jerk, a stupid empty-headed moron, the laughingstock of the universe, God is ashamed of you,
shut your lying mouth,

and Laurie shows up with her axe.
and Razor. and Wreckage.

wh

all the protectors

all right listen it's like... 15 minutes later i don't know
legit headspace stuff happening just like the old days
laurie, knife, razor, sugar, wreckage, algorith, batta, scalpel, cannon, julie, lynne, leon,
xenophon and genesis and chaos 0 and infinitii
rio and markus
mister sandman even, in a genuinely terrifying moment,
i even saw phlegmoni & celebi & gleam & galadia & ventrium, is he really alive,
why are there so many people aroundn
"because we love you, you moron" laurie spits at me, in tears, still covered in blood

something is wrong with my heart
it's too cold
too numb
every time someone breaks it, it freezes up again
not like ice but like... oh
oh no.
like calcification.

same thing happening in my dreams

but i can't write everything down now, laurie showed up and brought razor and they attacked the devils,
then she turned on me, "i heard what you were writing; i miss this too"
FORGOT exactly why she was the only person allowed to butcher me alive
literally force resets my internal presence
having so much trouble re-forming and anchoring into a sense of "self"
genesis literally rolling his own trauma through me, the gem-shattering and the awful shock of that,
razor and scalpel cutting me open,
axe-blades through my skull. the most euphoric thing i've felt in AGES
knife shoving a blade right into my chest when i was slipping, said that "if my heart was still hard, it needed to be forced open"
so much of it. absolutely insane. my entire identity sputtering like static. white and red everywhere. blood in my mouth,
xenophon hugging me and crying, "dad i don't care how you look, i'll still love you,"
perfect chaos suddenly raging,
scalpel commenting, "that's the most selfless thing i've heard you feel all day"
forgot about everything but him
but the hellish doubts kept hitting
"he's not real, none of this is actually real, it's all fake, none of it matters"
laurie grabbing me by the throat
"define 'actually'"
at some point i told her don't put the walls back up and she just broke, it was the first instant i saw her as purple and not violet,
in tears. told me she wouldn't. she cared too much about me
i flatly commented if she was going to kiss me and she said no, that's not what matters, don't go cheapening that anyway
just pressed her forehead to mine and swore through gritted teeth and tears that she would literally die before letting me be lost
then she kissed me, not even romantically it was like a covenant, the way it should be,
and then i was back in that ruined city with all the water
and all the pain
but he saw me and forced himself back down to size and he grabbed my shoulders and said this is YOUR pain, why won't you let yourself feel this,
i
i don't know. i want to. i can't?
the doubts,
"he's not real,"
that's it, i've had enough,
"well then neither am i, and if this isn't 'real' then i don't want to be real."
i don't want to be stuck in the body. i don't want the hell of physical existence and the terror of the world. if THAT is "real" then forget it all, i'll stay here where everything is love and blood and it's MORE "REAL" than ANYTHING i've ever known or felt or imagined,
but the damned devils kept laughing, even after infi ate what was left of them, coughed up that huge calcified rock--
they don't know anything.
i kissed chaos back.
i chose to. i choose this. i WANT to love him, and to be here, and to MAKE this "real." i don't care what you damned demons keep hissing at me. everything they say is based on unfeeling condemnation and hatred and callous rejection. there's no love. so don't you dare talk to me about "reality."
if love itself is what created everything in the first place then how in the world is this "not real."


i hate these mini-hells
hate all the mental torture
hate the physiological wreck i am after getting literally beheaded and eviscerated in headspace
but i wouldn't trade it for the world if it means i get to be with them, all of them, all those colors,
i'm only hurting right now because my heart is so bloody closed-off
geez didn't this turn into one mess of an entry
gotta be honest though, stop denying the truth,
111 am
nice

but honestly.

life is weird. truth is stranger than fiction. i'm tired of censoring and burying and hiding and shutting down everything because it's weird. no. not anymore. gonna go right back to being jewel the egocidal maniac if that's what it takes.
but no. no "going back." we're going forward. together. all of us.
why are we in los angeles, God only knows but i just realized the name of that city, isn't that a lack of coincidences too?

i miss these disjointed entries. i miss this entire life of ours. THIS feels "real," not the empty denial forced on me for years. enough of that. it's all lies. there's no kindness or compassion in it at all. and THAT proves it's fake. shallow. illusory.
can i "prove" what's going on upstairs? can i "prove" that God talks to me? can i "prove" that human beings have a soul? no. doesn't mean it's not real.

so tired of that argument
so stop arguing. if they don't want to be convinced then who am i really arguing with?
i choose love
real love
i CHOOSE this.
that means infinitely more than passively throwing it all away because "no one else sees it"
love is a decision
so is my life at this point
same thing really

still scared of this body. still struggling.
but it's "real" too
even if it's "not real" in another sense
what the heck does that word even mean
the body exists, i'm in it, i'm not the body, i exist, it's ALL "real" in different ways
but i can't cope with any of it without love.
that's the bottom line
gotta learn to love yourself too, kid
ALL of yourself
and yeah, you SHOULD see it that way.
that's what makes love possible
that body is everyone's home in this world, like it or not
it doesn't deserve to be hated or abused either
so CHOOSE to love it, too.

getting late. feeling myself slipping into asinine platitude mode
don't want that to happen
trying too hard to "conclude" and it's messing up my honesty

listen. i need sleep. we need sleep. i have cinnamon bedsheets and a videogame angel waiting for me in the other room
and i really need to talk to everyone about what the heaven just happened
pull myself together
try again tomorrow
"try what," laurie asks
try to live and love a little better
"you're not trying, you're doing it, kid. we'll just do it even better tomorrow. don't set something you're already achieving as some distant goal. it's already in your hands."
and in my heart, i hope
"yeah well, that's the whole point"

i'm not frozen, i'm not "lost," i'm just... disheveled
out-of-focus
but i'm burning, no matter what i'm still red at the core, red and brilliant white glass, crystals, whatever it is, prismatic pieces.
but red. you can't shut that down. it's LIFE. it's blood and fire and sincerity, and courage and hope and it's REAL.

god i'll pray to you too about this
i do feel very off-balance and hazy right now. loose threads. battered. "understandably"
is that wrong
"no"
"the only thing any of you could do wrong is refusing to love each other"
that's a very general statement
"it's a very general rule of life"
good point
am i lost right now
"yes and no, you know that too"
how can i get un-lost?
"keep following the lighthouse"
(and immediately something in my heart sparks to life)
"in the very act of reaching out, in that hope, you are not lost, because you see the shore"
so this prayer counts too
"of course it does. this is love, too. it shows trust. you can't have one without the other."

i need to close this up and i'm feeling ashamed
"of what? talking?"
yes in general. thinking, oh this isn't socially acceptable. it's not 'normal.' it's weird and bizarre and i 'should be ashamed of myself'
"why do you constantly label and condemn yourself?"
...to beat myself into shape i guess?
"what kind of shape? is it even a good shape? have you thought about that?"
...no, actually
"the shape that condemnation will beat you into is a broken one. it's not what i want for you. hatred only begets hatred, and it will keep you lost forever."
so... should i be ashamed?
"of what? telling the truth, even just to yourself? being dedicated to love even if it's difficult? being 'different,' even as I made you? do you think even this could happen outside of My jurisdiction?"
...but why,
"what have you always told Me 'brings you closer to God?' where have you learned My deepest lessons most directly?"
...upstairs
"then why would you wish to toss it aside?"
i don't, that's the problem, i want to-- no, i do love them, i want to believe it's okay to.
"why would it not be okay to love them, or the life you have with them?"
because i'm afraid it's pulling me away from You and what You want from me
"is it?"
i... no? i think i was worse when i abandoned it for those years
"you were. yes, you were religious, but half of your heart wasn't in it. now... I get all of it. I get all of you. pun intended?"
yeah. yeah honestly that's true. they push me to pray more than i would "alone"
"you're never alone, not with them, and you're never without Me. go to sleep, child."
sorry
"no need to apologize. this was important. but there is a time for rest, too."
sorry if i'm getting words wrong or paraphrasing i just want to record this
"you did right in doing so. i want you to pay more attention to our conversations, too. I want to talk to you more often. I miss you, too."
good then you know i do miss You even if i don't act on it always and i'm so sorry
"I forgive you. always. but do come visit me more often again. I'm always there."
please increase my faith. and my love. and thank you for all the grace.
"pun intended?"
always
"you are always welcome, child. just be patient. the most beautiful flowers take time and care to grow. but they are growing. trust in Me. I will make sure of it"
my gardener and my lapidary and my Lord and my God
"and your Beloved, too, don't forget."
...that's... that's very important and very true thank You
"it's real, my child. and be brave. I am with you always. I promise. do not be afraid. now go to sleep!"


can't argue with that

all right that's it there's too much going on to keep ramble-typing anyway.
let's finish this old school
love you kids, see you around

I only want to feel the cold light
Pretending that it's never over
I only wanna smile at your eyes
It doesn't help that I've never thought to go home

Now when something is building inside
Thinks I'm back I have it all the while
I wanna get up and shout

With a little luck we could owe it to ourselves, in the end
The time to finish is the time I need to dwell

I only feel there's something else I should've known, you know
Because I nearly didn't feel it at all, you know, it's so
And how does it feel? Now that I'm real?

I knew this kid who wanted to find himself, in your arms...