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[prismaticbleed]

a quick update for the sake of updating.
it seems that whenever i slack off the daily updates, even for like three days, my mood and mental state absolutely hit the deck.

therapy was today. she actually wants us to come in tomorrow morning too, at 11am. so i'm taking advantage of that and staying up a little later and then sleeping in. i have not been sleeping well at all lately. we've been averaging 4-6 hours, tops.
today... she wanted to know what our "top 5 most triggered trauma memories were" and we ended up going on a tangent, explaining that we had a massive memory break post-NC, in that the INSTANT we got into the family car, to go home after almost sixteen months of hell masquerading as paradise, our state of mind COMPLETELY SHIFTED. that fast. barely five minutes out of tbas's driveway, we were struggling to remember what they even looked like. it was a hard shift. but what was even worse was that, when we did get home, we didn't remember anything about THAT, either.
so. our childhood, up until approximately age 11 (jewel's debut), is 99.9% gone from memory. we have virtually no first-person childhood memories; most everything we "know" is from mom showing us family movies.
still. what we do remember from our own eyes is traumatic. it's ironic and tragic; even today, our memory only seems to "kick in" when something scary is happening. (i wonder if that ties into the self-abusive efforts when we're feeling super empty? is our brain trying to jumpstart some sense of existence in time through bloodshed and terror? probably)
there are a handful of traumatic events in childhood we regularly get flashbacks of: the time(s) we had to kneel on rice and say the rosary, the time they tried to lock us in the coal cellar, the time grandma locked us out of our bedroom and we slept on the hall carpet, the time they threw us out of the house and locked the doors and we legit thought we were disowned, the time our grandmother faked her own death over dinner and we ran into the bathroom and screamed. a few smaller events, like hiding "the stick" and hiding ourself behind the piano and grandma laughing maniacally during thunderstorms saying "we're all going to die" etc. all shook us greatly but the emotions are so detached from the events?? it's bizarre. and i know there's a lot missing. like whatever happened in the dressing rooms at the ymca. and at the county fairs. things at school i'm sure. lots of shredded, fragmented memories.
but. we didn't discuss those. she wanted to know what was the most frequent one now.
and... there are some that always come up.
the livingroom rape. the porch hell. the bed.
yes, there are others. halloween. the birthday. the power outage. the renfaire. the band rehearsals. and so much with that bloody kitchen. and of course slc, with the car crash, and the bedroom, and the highway, and the shower, and the livingroom too.
but... those first three from nc keep plaguing us. we're in a state of near-constant hypervigilant horror five bloody years later.
so we told her that. and we talked a bit about... what? i forget. i think symptoms. oh! no, it was about the memory gaps, and the personality shifts-- notably how we were a different person in EVERY NEW ENVIRONMENT. mentioning how the day we left our old house to fly out to NC, we were watching ourself move and speak like it was a horror film. we still don't know who the heck was fronting back then. who always got brainwashed by these western kids telling us "your family is abusive and they are going to kill you BUT I CAN SAVE YOU" etc etc etc. always someone trying to "fix us" because we were "broken" in some way or another. that's exactly why and how the julie days started.

anyway. afterwards we stayed in the commonroom for a halfhour because she gave us two assessments to complete? short but important. a beck depression inventory, and a dissociative one, the des-ii.
well, we were honest, but we were kind of pessimistic-- "just watch," i thought, "we won't have any symptoms at all, we're just fakes and liars, we won't be able to continue therapy," etc.
...
our beck score was 51.
our des score was frickin' 87.

...I never realized just how unhealthy our daily life is, in light of those questionnaires.
i remember talking over the questions with people. laurie, lynne, julie, scalpel, chaos 0, infi, the whole regular gang. being as honest as i could, making sure they all agreed. still shocked to see the "3" next to so many of my daily, even hourly, thoughts. shocked to have to put "100" for so many experiences that are my consistent "normal".
so. no idea what she will say about this, but that's what tomorrow is about.

got home for... 11 i think? body was actually painfully hungry.
breakfast prep took a while. listening to Alişan on loop the whole time, forgot how much i love turkish pop.
today was the feast day for saint john the evangelist! so we read 1 john 1 over breakfast.
i'll have to take notes on that later; my brain's too fuzzy right now... but we were comparing footnotes between the NET & TPT and there were some truly beautiful comments & expounded notes. it's also very convicting, but with deep love-- it tells you straight that love is the most important thing, that love is divine and that Christians must be defined by it. emphasizing the divine nature of Jesus in light of that love. emphasizing fellowship with God, which was translated in one version as "intimacy" with Him. lots to meditate on and pray about.
as usual, mimic and i were discussing this the most, sometimes just with each other really. mimic always pushing me to check the etymology, look up some explanations for this phrase, etc. never taking anything at face value. it's honestly moved me to be less "casual" about my studies, too, which I am prone to do when tired or overstimulated. but with him instigating the extra work, it's not tiring at all. now it's a friend I'm answering to and explaining for, and that makes the entire effort a joy, really.

i haven't mentioned online yet, i don't think, but mimic has absolutely decided to move into the league. there are at least three options open. he's too separate from his canon-self now, and has become so strongly anchored in the innerworld, that he has literally become a "different person" with only the deepest roots hearkening back to his native self. he's been blooming into a new life here, and thank God for that, it's all i wanted for him and i don't know if he will get that in canon-- certainly not to the focused extent he can and has gotten here.
but yeah. he's ours now, in a very real way. i don't think any outspacer moved in this fast or completely. he gets all the awards, haha. i do know that galadia & phlegmoni have been inspired by him though, and are now trying to be more involved in our community as well, so we'll see how that helps them grow further. admittedly phleg does have significant anchorage and he is absolutely not his canonself anymore; he had barely anything there to begin with and with all the hospital admissions around the time i met him, a real bond developed very quickly. as for gal, she's so new, and pokemon are always so free-fluid in terms of "background," they take special time and investment to anchor. but they're also the easiest, arguably, because they're meant to grow so freely within the lives of their partners.
i want to bring gleam into this. celebi is getting more involved, like she was in the early 2000s. i know ventrium can come back, i can feel his soul, just a tiny flicker but it's there. and i'm determined to see him again, so that's helping. intention is powerful in headspace, as is focus-- for good or ill.

but i can't talk about that more right now. i'm so tired. yes i do love everyone but... i'm still struggling with the suicidal ideation of yesterday.

i can't remember what we did after breakfast. time gaps. i know we got slammed by depression again.
oh geez yeah now i remember. mom gave us a bunch of dvds to watch, and she wanted to take us & the sibs to see avatar today, but... honestly we hate pop culture and movies. i can't pretend we don't. the very thought of "having to watch" these movies and thus infect our brain with them was making me so depressed i wanted to just lie down on the floor. i remember standing and staring out the window for several minutes, blankly, unable to move.
we went on a few christian movie-review websites, including one called "for the kids" or something that was disturbing because yeah, it told you what was not "kid-friendly" in a movie, like violence & language & sexuality, but it gave EXPLICIT DETAILS. so here we are, looking up the movies mom gave us, and we wanted to throw up. instead we threw all the movies back in a bag and refused to even look at them.
dear God. how can people even THINK like that. WHO puts horrible stuff like that in a movie and thinks its OKAY. i don't understand.
i got up and tried to distract myself by doing busywork in the kitchen. prepping breakfast for tomorrow already. updating the restock-date postits. washing the dishes because i forgot with how disheveled i was mentally (and that's notable-- usually headspace scolds me for doing too much cleaning).
well mom called at 330 when we were in the kitchen-- and she said that our siblings, as usual, stayed up till 5 and had just woken up, and their personal care rituals are so extensive there was no way they could do that and eat and get ready for a movie today. so it was postponed. honestly i was glad-- i was crushingly tired and couldn't handle a movie right now, let alone all the insane stress of mom picking us up and blasting music and chatting with everyone at once and being forced into blackout social mode for several hours straight. no thank you.

so we got on the bike.
it took a bit. we were so tired i could barely put on our exercise clothes. tired and cold and depressed. wanted to go back to bed. but knew that would just exacerbate this.
so we started slow. said the divine mercy chaplet. read a little bit more religious tabs. then decided since it was tuesday we'd say our favorite sorrowful mysteries, because we sure were feeling sorrowful too.
had a great idea though. opened spotify. made playlists for the "rainbow rosary project" we started planning a year ago or so. different mysteries and a color for each day of the week, meaning four sets of mysteries we personally were putting together for personal devotion. all in chronological order. taking the entire history of salvation into account. but yeah we decided that since we can NEVER listen to youtube or podcast or radio recitations of the rosary because they go super slow (which promotes dissociation), often play really creepy new-agey music (trauma trigger) AND often have "trancelike" vocals by WOMEN with whispery voices which is TERRIFYING. so we cannot do it. we can't.
so we put our new idea into practice today. test run. said the rosary while looking at our saved pictures of each mystery, listening to alfonso peduto on loop. time flew by. didn't "suck us in" to the events like adoration-hour rosaries do (we forgot about adoration today; totally lost track of time and our body was so distracted & sick it didn't even cross our mind. I'm sorry Jesus) but slammed us emotionally nevertheless. so, a success. now we just need to build musical playlists in our spare time. it's a devotional effort. we always say how fervently we want to "personalize our religious practice" so it HONESTLY involves our ENTIRE soul and this is a huge step towards that.

biked for two hours and ten minutes. felt awesome. at least until our body realized it needed food, haha. started to get nauseous and dizzy.
xenophon was scolding me about adding too much salt & drinking too much tea but i told her sweetheart, i probably sweated out all my electrolytes, this will help. and it did, thank God. we never want to accidentally trigger bulimia-grade body sickness again; that was literal hell and that becomes ever clearer the further we get from it.
normal dinner, except we swapped the english muffin for a slice of the whole wheat bread we had frozen. trying to use some of that up, and it's less calories so it fits different meal schedule edits which is nice as an option.
got a new fortune too. very very relevant to today-- both the bible study and all the cbt talk in therapy & inpatient.
"all personal breakthroughs begin with a change in beliefs."
thinking of how important that is.

body crashed hard after dinner. 1030 i wanted to go straight to bed. said no, can't, need to have some integrity of reliability and update for once. even just a bit. so here i am.
it's 1230 now. at this rate we will be asleep for 1, and awake at 10, so 9 hours. good. much better than four good heavens
we're having fun setting alarm songs. today was the live version of "hyperventilate" by FROST* which opens with Jem shouting "WHAT-HO" before the keyboard kicks in and we always laugh at the sheer energy of it all. God i want to see them live in concert so badly but i'd have to get a passport first, haha. still a man can dream. tomorrow's alarm is "cutie cutie" by fusq. it opens up with such happy bouncy sounds; we need that little boost of optimism before therapy.

tomorrow is going to be tricky, again.
i spent almost two hours today trying to draft a solid mealplan for "travel schedule days" which are currently four days a week but sunday is a wildcard. but the other three i have to be up at 7, leave the house by 730, get home around 11am. have to immediately eat breakfast because i have to eat lunch by 430 as i have to leave again at 530pm, and won't get home until 830. so then i have to schedule in a small snack for the instant i walk in the door to make sure our body doesn't crash during the night what with all the fasting we'd otherwise be doing.
but yeah. i got it figured out, thanks be to God. now we just have to fine-tune sunday-- we have the "church breakfast" down solid but the evenings are unplanned? typically because mom likes to do things on sundays (can't we just have a day of rest please) and besides we're at church from 8am until 12pm, 1pm if we're lucky. so we don't get to eat lunch until 2pm, which pushes dinner to 630 or 7? HOWEVER eating that early and then typically waiting until 11 the next day for breakfast means ~16 hours fasting. which our body doesn't always like. oh we love to fast, absolutely, but when the brain fog and shakes and confusion and low glucose hit, we need to eat whether we like it or not. so... i'm wondering about sunday schedules. maybe doing a 10-2-6 plan and a 9pm tiny snack. because we cannot eat early in the mornings, nothing before 945 (which is forced on sunday to fit between masses & still have an hour of mandatory Eucharistic fasting) and usually not until 11 or noon. we need that morning time pure and untouched so we can think and dream and pray. but we'll figure it out. i'll pray about it. gotta get into that habit. learning a lot from protestants, actually. they have wonderful prayer habits. so do old church ladies in general, haha. but my personal experience with catholic prayer has been too recitatory and repetitive. i'm really starting to like the spontaneous, no-wrong-time-to-pray attitude of our protestant brothers & sisters. it brings all of life into God, which I need. which we need. that's the whole point. i want our life to be a prayer. so we've gotta pray about our life.
lastly. why i brought up this topic.
tomorrow we have our 11am therapy but then the church we have bible study at on thursday invited us to wednesday night mass?? i didn't know they had one. but they say the seven sorrows rosary before it and she means so much to me, and especially laurie. so we're gonna go. only thing is, it starts at 630 i think? and assumedly will go until 745. so, we have to do a weird mealplan because we aren't going to get to eat breakfast until almost noon and have to shove another meal in before church. but we figured it out. only problem is, since it requires superfast prep, tomorrow needs to be a no-egg day. it's going to be daring; it's a "break in ritual" and predictable structure which can set off our anxiety. but xennie said we'll be daring, it'll make the egg days even more special, besides it's not forever. we'll try it and see how it works! God bless her she's such a ray of sunshine in my life. i love her so much.

...i really do love the system. all of them, everyone. all of us.
today after that mess with the movies i remember how i got back on track. and what i did. why i was just doing busywork in the kitchen.
i was talking to laurie.
we were just discussing how i felt, really. some general conversation about daily life. but it was just me and her for like an hour. and it lifted me out of hell.
i had hope, talking to her. i had love. i was alive.
listen, the next time someone, anyone, says that "being multiple is a sin" you tell them to hit the road. they don't know what they're talking about. if they could feel love they would know. they would know this is from God.
(btw at one point i was slipping really bad and i forget what happened but laurie picked me up off the floor by grabbing my hair and suddenly i felt this rush of affection for her? tied to the pain. she caught this, said bitterly is that all it takes to get me back in my own head? why is it always the pain? i said because it shows that she cares enough to hurt me when it helps, that her love is real and doesn't flinch at pain, and she cares enough to get that close and personal. then i asked her to clock me one. and she did, haha. straight up punch to the jaw like she used to. i was so unstable i reacted the old-school way too; the "crazy love eyes", bloody nose, cartoon stars around my head. deliriously high for a second. blunt impact pain in headspace tends to translate as that. but it shocked me out of depression. how weird is that. not surprising when it's me haha
but... i guess the point is i am still capable of feeling things. just need a little shove in the right direction, so to speak.

last few notes.
haven't updated about the "christmas triad" yet. suffice to say it was... strange.
sang 5 masses. mom gave up on christmas. actually drew my beloved for the 23rd. xenophon my only present under the tree. ice circles on the river. nearly fainting during midnight mass. terrible food disturbances with family. oversocialization and time gaps and hanging on to God for dear life because i had nothing else and wanted nothing else. chaos 0 grabbing my shoulders and shouting what do you think you're doing in tears. etc.
i'll have entries written soon. if i can't start them tomorrow, then hopefully thursday. unless we have choir practice for the solemnity of mary, haha. we'll see. i can't "take a night off" because then i'm no longer reliable; i've lived so long as a "no-show" that it's honestly marring my ability and willingness to show up; i'm just so unbelievably tired that i want to cancel all the plans on the calendar and just rest. but... i still need to practice the virtues of dependability and loyalty. and tenacity despite difficulty. singing means a lot to me, so why not sacrifice for it? why not put in the extra effort especially when it's a struggle? i want to grow in integrity and strength. i'm so tired of being effeminate and weak and cowardly. no. gotta man up and be strong. gotta be a good father to my daughter. gotta set a good example. God give me strength, I need it, and only You can give it.
"don't go bashing women in the process" good point. too much internalized misogyny, too much fear projecting outwards as mockery. i'm genuinely sorry. it's not fair, it's not kind, and it's not right.

on that note. gender has been a helltopic lately. can't deny that i'm not straight or cis. but can't deny that i feel obligated to be because of my religion. wanting to sob and scream and die whenever i see articles by tradcaths online. "only one way to be a woman" etc etc don't use that word on me. DON'T. so much fear and hatred and rage and agony. i don't want this. i don't like this. it's standing directly in the way of my being a good christian. "love one another." but love cannot coexist with terror.
i guess that's why we're in therapy

speaking of
it's 12:52. time to log off and get some sleep
see you tomorrow i hope