i'm afraid it will hurt

So. Today was proof that, when I am in a trauma-reminiscent situation OR when I am dissociating to prevent further trauma, my brain does not store memories at ALL, even when I actively try to focus on the situation. Nothing doing. Once it's over, I can look back all I want, there is not going to be anything there to look back on.
As for why I'm bringing that up, it's more emphasis on why I have "relationship problems" with anyone who isn't mostly platonic, so to speak. I have a very hard time "remembering" Infinitii and CZ as of late, even when I'm perfectly happy, because if someone starts acting "romantic" or similarly-- i.e. in a way that would be out of place in a more casual context-- immediately, that memory-failure starts up. It's that generalized now. That worries me.
I'm more healed now than I have ever been, I am free of so many of those old pains, entirely... so why this?
Strangely, I'm mostly okay with Genesis recently, even in the exact same situations, because he's infamously exuberant and when you have that much energy overflow it is actually difficult to level out enough to hit the "late night" sort of mindset CZ has when we're together, that sort of silent intimacy. Gen doesn't do that, ever, and he never did. Yes, he can get close, but it never quite loses that golden "buzz" of his. So I'll get some memories when I'm with him, even if he's feeling more amorous than usual, because, again, he doesn't ever act like a "lover." And, again, CZ and Infi do. Infi less so, oddly, as ze has a subtle sort of "total openness" to hir where, no matter how close you are to hir, you know that you're not the only one ze wants to be with and you never will be the only one. Infinitii's heart is wide open to anyone who wants to walk in, at any time. CZ is more focused, in an almost traditional way: he finds one person, first and foremost, to love with total ardor, but when he wants to love other people as well they will never measure up entirely to that one. Does that make sense? And Genesis is like Infi but casual; he just "dates" everyone but he's never heavy or serious, and he never settles down... whereas Infi wants to live with everyone, and CZ wants to live with one person.

 

Sorry. This is awkward to talk about. But I have to write it down for my own records if nothing else, because otherwise I will either shove it under the rug or deny it. Gotta be honest.
So. This is the same old thing I remember mentioning way back when... and probably a million times over since then, you ever realize how I literally write the same entries over and over again, essentially? You find someone who's badly dissociative enough and you will literally repeat the same conversation with them, multiple times, and they will not realize it. That's me. I've been called out on that by family and friends, I've noticed it in my own work-- I go in circles because I learn something, forget it, learn it again, forget it again, et cetera... it's frightening sometimes, it really is. But I think I end up revisiting this points so many times because I need to, in one way or another. So let that be some sort of reassurance.

I just... I keep looking back on 2012, and 2011, and how "I" acted around him back then... fearlessly open, almost embarrassingly so, with all this romantic and playful and "over the top" dialogue... the same sort of behavior I later labeled as the "Jacob thing" because I was too internally disheveled to realize that love can act that way, why the hell would the context distort the core, it doesn't, but I was so terribly shaken-up by seeing my own past behavior mirrored in others that I shut right down.
I don't understand how I could act like that. Same with Jewel, the older one, back from 2003 to 2008 or so. How in the world were they not constantly ashamed to act so theatrically? Was that honest? How? I cannot fathom how someone can act like a romance novel or piece of poetry or song lyric, and still be honest about it. It feels so utterly fake and manipulative and shallow to me. Why?
I know CZ acts like that at times, he gets carried away like a river, we all know how emotional he is as a person. I know Rio was like that as a young teenager, to an extent. I know Genesis jumps right in too, when he's driven to the edge, when he lacks any other way to say what he needs to. And apparently, I've been guilty of the same. But... I can't fathom it. If I acted that way, it would be so completely false... it would be completely artificial, it would be a mockery of love.
But I still end up in poet mode, sometimes, and then I mean every word. And yet when I look back on those words I'm humiliated. God knows why though. I don't know why I still feel like those things, like those thoughts, are so shameful.

Laurie is spotless. Still, somehow, even after the kintsugi incident. I think that shook her up too. But she's held on to her graciously vicious edge, as I prayed she would, even when she acts in a way that brutality cannot possibly bleed over into.
I'm just genuinely distressed over this whole thing. Yes, Laurie has kissed me, but it's never been romantic, not like with CZ, not like with Genesis. And I love that. That's what I WANT in relationships, is that total platonic ardent affection, untainted by the label or mindset of a "relationship" or a "couple" or any of those words that leave bitter blackened tastes in my mouth. There's nothing wrong with them, but they are not for me, they make me dizzy and disoriented. I lose my coherence, I lose my sincerity, my genuine expression, when I find myself trapped in that sort of box.
This morning I was with Infi and CZ and Genesis and then when I thought about being with Laurie I burst into tears, it felt so wrong to even consider something of the sort, and yet I loved her just as much as I loved those other three.
But I couldn't remember a moment of being with Infi. I only remembered a few fractured, fleeting impressions of CZ. I can see Genesis' face clearly, in the sunrise light, glinting off the gems in his headdress. And I knew that if I had been with Laurie and it wasn't business I would forget her completely. That terrified me. She's uncorrupted by this, she doesn't want this either, nor do I, not like this, why am I so confused.
She kissed Knife's forehead yesterday and despite the total chaste affection I know those two are only capable of feeling, I was secretly terrified, because for an instant I feared she would suddenly mirror all those things that still dig up ugly corroded insects from below my ribcage. There's all this horrible sobbing-heavy angry static, this sharp frantic black burn, stuck right in the place where they tore Infinitii out of me one year ago tomorrow. It's terrible. It's heartbreakingly agonizing, and what do I do?
Some part of me is still afraid. The children still cry at the slightest triggers. Jeremiah is slowly going over the deep end like I did once and that frightens me too, I can see in both him and Javier the pained rage that preceded the self-abuse. We kept wondering why it took so long for Sugar to move anchors, that's because that job was still needed and only once Wreckage appeared was she able to soften. Would you believe I keep forgetting about the chthonic voices? They stay down so deep, that I cannot feel them at all. They are buried, beyond perception, just like the things they hold, just as the previous cores had subconsciously wanted. Bury all the pain. Except they failed to realize that without some sort of drainage system-- without the later Retributors-- that awful black tar was going to fester, and take root, and grow.
But Infi's been healing it, turning the mold spores into flowers. I can see the truth of things now. So why does everything feel irrelevant? Why is such a huge part of me so cold and apathetic when personal love becomes the topic? Why am I still tangled up like this?

I love CZ, I love Infinitii, I love Genesis. I truly do. But I cannot do this relationship thing anymore. Not like that.
I'm not turning tail and walking out the door, I know I used to do that at some point, I would never do that. I can't, not as long as I'm aware of the love that remains. I can't leave them. But I can't stay either, not if staying is just going to exacerbate this damage, and keep tearing this old wound back open. It has to heal correctly, I know, but how???

Circles, we're going in circles... I'm practically tearing my hair out here, as well as my heart. What do I do.
I already told the therapist we're effectively on suicide watch, what with this dangerous apathy and the creeping cellar-deep fears and everything else I still don't understand and might not be able to.
I can't consume anything without being slammed by guilt and fear and deep shame and self-loathing. I can't accept anything either, even as a gift, without hiding it from myself. Material things like money, artwork, clothing, etc., all end up hidden or given away or sold, because I'm "afraid of what I will do with it" if it stays in my possession. I effectively destroy entire paychecks because I don't trust myself with abundance. Why? What am I so afraid that I will do? And I can't seem to accept love either, from anyone, for the same reason... is that the root of this? "Don't give that boy anything, or he will destroy it?" When did that become my subconscious belief? WHEN in the world did I somehow become convinced that anything, once placed in my hands, would immediately end up on a fast track to doomsday? Give something to me, anything, and I will be terrified of ruining it. It's become a self-fulfilling prophecy actually. I feel so unworthy of things that if I don't outright give them away I will destroy them instead of owning them. Why??
They say that, if you think a person is "dirty" after you've touched them, maybe you should look at your hands.
I never did that. I didn't have the luxury of thinking that way. I was haunted by that stupid thought of a "secret filthiness" in me that earned such treatment from others. Maybe their hands were filthy, to make me feel so permanently corroded. But I somehow believed that I had put the dirt on their hands first.
I don't know what I'm talking about.

This morning hurt. This morning hurt so badly.
It was like the Julie days, when I'd wake up hyperventilating on the bathroom floor, or wake up literally from a dream hack, and all I'd know was that someone had violated me and my entire body was in excruciating pain. I couldn't even fathom it as a child, hence the dissociation. But it got worse as I grew older, and now, to suddenly be experiencing the same terrible hurt-- without explanation!!-- when I'm with these people that love me, I just can't... I can't do this.
I believe that everyone else in the world is pure and true and right and holy, even when they harm me. I might be terrified, I might not understand, but I will ALWAYS give them the benefit of the doubt. "This is God's will." "I deserve this somehow." "They are only trying to do the right thing." "I will be a better person for enduring this." You get the picture. It causes me daily turmoil, even now, because I still tend to look to everyone else for guidance and answers, and when I get fifty different answers from fifty different people-- all who swear that their answer is the right one, and it HAS worked for them, perfectly so-- I feel like I'm losing my mind. If they're ALL correct, then who the hell do I follow?? So I try to make everybody happy at once and I crash and burn. Yes, I still do this. Hence the current eating disorder resurgence. One person says, "eat this food," another says "DON'T eat that food," someone else says "don't eat at ALL," and so it goes. I have entire printed lists of these arbitrary guidelines in my kitchen, and I'm frustrated to tears sometimes because, with how many sources that swear they are true, everything is now right and wrong at once. The eating disorder is a MORAL ISSUE.
So is the sexual abuse issue. Obviously. And that's why I'm still in hell over it, even with Infinitii having healed a lot of the direct cancerous trauma. Infi still sees that sexuality can be used in a holy way. But I still have too many scars from the opposite usage. And of course, I still don't like OR want sex, in any respect... buuuut most of my "sources" keep telling me, "you NEED to have/ want/ etc. it" and that gets me so damn scared and angry and sad that I end up collapsing into crisis hotlines and x-acto blades, and ironically THAT will be my salvation, because if I don't hit that suicidal extreme, I'll hit the other one. I'll tell myself it's "God's will" all over again, and I will dissociate beyond all hope, and I will force myself to do whatever they tell me to.
I can't remember the last time I did that though. I hope it was a very long time ago. But I wouldn't know.
I wish it was never.

It's hell. I don't know how in the world this entry became so discombobulated. I'm sorry.
Sometimes I start writing an entry, and then that fails, and something else happens. I was supposed to exercise tonight, but the thought of therapy tomorrow and another phone call to case management and Infinitii's birthday and having to eat again and not wanting to wake up in the first place... it all just crept up I guess, and this happened.

I want to be happy all the time. I'm trying. Even when I'm upset I get out the Dream World folders and I try to read through the original chapters, as they never fail to make me smile and laugh with joy, but... then headspace gets unplugged.
I know everyone upstairs wants to be part of the League. They're all tired of feeling inherently disconnected and separate from that joy and life and creativity. They were born when my imagination hit a dead end with blond pigtails. So there's been a split for a long time, surpassed only in small bleedover ways, that confused me more than anything and ultimately-- I am so sorry to say-- caused me more anguish than anything else. When the hacks started to use them... that is one of the only thoughts in the world that can make me feel something close to blind hatred. That terrifies me. But it makes sense. To take these beautiful, innocent individuals, the very manifestation of love and bliss and hope in my life, and try to corrupt them in the same way you broke me?? Don't you DARE.
But she tried. They all tried. They knew that was the one way they could kill me even when everything else failed. In some ways I fear they may have succeeded, but I refuse to believe that. I refuse. I will build this back up from the ground, from dust and ashes, somehow... if I only had the strength left in me.
Every time I realize that in his insane suicide attempt, J destroyed over 15 years of League work for the sake of headspace... it makes me want to vomit. Literally, it makes me so wretchedly sad that I get physically nauseous. I lost most of my life because of this trauma. I don't know what to do.
I'm disturbed though. I'm starting to sound like Jessica. "You ruined my life." Is this bleedover? I never even touched the League Worlds, not as Jay, not me, I know about them but my anchors are elsewhere... there's this horrible internal war I can't seem to win.
Some part of my core is tied to those other worlds, even as a headvoice, and it drags me completely out of sync sometimes. Where do I belong? Where does the true allegiance of my heart lie? With them, in perpetual childhood grace and innocence and wonder... or with them, the aftermath of the fruit of knowledge, the adult life of different love and victory through struggle?
It breaks my heart in two because I am literally split so drastically and I cannot choose. I'm all or nothing, with both. I fracture just so I can live.
I don't know what my actual name is most days because EVERYONE slips up, I'm BOTH Jay and Jewel to everyone you ask, even in headspace, the names interchange without people even realizing it. I am inherently both, always, as long as I am a core of this soul.
And honestly I keep inching closer and closer to the original side, to the iridescent world of dreams, where trauma doesn't exist and I don't exist and there is nothing but blissful observance of countless shimmering lives and stories. But that damned curse of adulthood has infected even their story, all that intellectual analytic bullshit that happens when you stop channeling and start trying to write. There's a fine line between "figuring things out" and "finding things out," and I only work with the latter. Headspace does the former. I can't stand it anymore.

This all boils down to not wanting to exist as a person, and not wanting to deal with that awful red fruit in the Garden of Eden, which I was so terrified to take but did anyway because God forbid I reject someone else's good intentions in doing so.
But Preludove was sitting beside me the whole time and she never ate the damn thing and God help me maybe that's why I keep vomiting. I don't want to see things in black and white anymore. I don't want to grow up. I don't want my daemon to settle. I don't want to go to China. I want to stay as kaleidoscopic as I feel, without having to settle on one face and one voice and one body, without having to settle down with anyone... I don't want this damned fruit, take it back, God forgive me but I am so sorry, I'd take it for love's sake but it's the wrong sort of love and I can't. Not if that's what it means.
It's not worth getting thrown out of here. Not after what I've seen on those streets.

...Yeah I really owe you guys that His Dark Materials entry. But I cannot think about those things right now, not without sobbing like an idiot from how deeply my soul is split in two.

I grew up too fast, on some level.
I never believed that though. My family told me I "never grew up" in the sense of "you're still an annoying, foolish child." One friend told me how she grew up too fast and I didn't dare look at my own troubles again after hearing that.
But... was it relevant? Was it real? I don't want it to be. I was old enough, I was 12, I was 13, that's old enough, right? That's when children are supposed to start growing up, especially in that way, in that godforsaken way.
Yet my therapists point at earlier dates for "trauma" I accepted as normal life, at the psychological bullying when I was in elementary school, at being beaten by my caretakers, at almost being locked in the coal cellar as punishment. I shrug at it now, "that doesn't affect me." Maybe it doesn't, but at that time, did it leave scratches, if not scars? Did some roots take hold then that only worsened the Julie days?
Hell, would we even have HAD the Julie days IF that second-grade-terror of "God won't forgive you unless you beg" and " didn't linger so strongly that it painted the sixth-grade-terror in awful hues I never would have known about otherwise.
"You know you want this." No, I knew I should want that. And I hated myself for it, I hated myself, because I didn't want it and I STILL don't but everything is so damn confusing when you're grown up and how is this body already 24?? I still feel so small. I don't know.

This entry is a downright mess. I don't know what I'm saying anymore. Consider this a brainspill, please accept my apologies, I'm going to be absolutely mortified about this tomorrow but again, I need to be honest. If Laurie finds out this was written and then deleted she will not be happy, to say the least.
Saying her name is like another anchor-tug in my heart in the opposite direction and I'm really tired.
There's headspace, over there. The Leagueworlds are over there. And I'm standing in the middle, right in the mire of the Downstairs, in the flat empty hollowed-out world that the body lives in, where dreams fade to fog and love feels like sawdust, no matter what color its painted. I don't like it here. But I don't know which direction to walk in. I don't want to choose. God I love them both, when you really get down to it I love them BOTH, even if those mindsets and memories are completely detached from each other yet. When I'm watching the League worlds, I love them with my entire heart. When I'm inside headspace, I love them with my entire heart. It doesn't change, ever... or at least not until I switch focus. Then it's all or nothing again. Always.
What kind of moral quandary is this. What's the damn root of all this. WHY is there a split? WHY can't the two universes meet? Why can't they BOTH be happy?
Is something in the middle, some big obstacle, keeping them apart? Maybe. This sure feels like it.

It feels like the answer I so desperately need is hovering about, almost intangible, but it's catching the light here and there so I can see it, just a shimmer. I can't catch it yet. But I'm at least a little comforted knowing that, by simple virtue of a "problem" existing here and now, its solution also exists to balance it.
This is relevant. This is relevant too. So is this...

Therapy is tomorrow.
Infinitii Eternos turns one year old in the System tomorrow, I want to write about hir but I literally cannot remember who ze is right now. Not directly. I can sift through the archive data but I'm so tired right now. I'd rather wait until therapy forces me to be sincere, then I'll have those memories in my own heart, not on pieces of paper.


It's so weird.
I used to have these times where I'd be completely shut off, you know? Just these endless wastelands of dry ice, unfeeling and devoid of life. I'd get like that for days, for weeks... I don't know what it's like to be that way. I'm thankful at least for that.
But the point is... even now, even now, after having rejected that damn fruit, Preludove is nudging me in the ribs and saying, "go ahead, it won't hurt," and damn it how do you know, it'll hurt enough if it means I have to leave you behind, you're my soul, you're everything to me... but so is he, so is he and so are they and she's just smiling at me, and then I remember that just because Lyra forgot how to read the alethiometer didn't mean she could never learn it again. In fact, after losing it, she regained that gift even stronger and more completely than before. Isn't that the point, she says, all white feathers and blue fur, with eyes as warm and brown as the sunlight in June? "Isn't that kinda the point?" And she just grins, waiting for me to turn around again, to face the blue creature that never thought he'd speak to her, or to me, for the record, and yet there he was as well, the snake and the savior both, the beginning and the end in his own right. And there's red in his hands and red in his heart and his eyes are the color of the garden and damn it I never stopped loving you I just don't know how to reconcile this.
"What is there to reconcile," Preludove says, still casually eating that canonical sandwich like she did in JMUA, and the similarity strikes at my heart. "I don't see any problem with you loving him as well as me."
But realize what it means, dear, I practically beg of her, tears in my eyes. That's a jump from one life into another. I don't know how to bridge the gap.
"What gap?" she laughs, and in a dizzying moment I'm reminded of Mr. Sandman and Dream Portals and D4 and every other blessed thing that saw the gap and laughed as well as they danced across it, back and forth, weaving rainbow threads of light right across that abyss, building a bridge from one kind of love to the other, because there really is no distinction when you boil it down, is there?
"...What's left, when you mix fire and water?"
And I turn, and he has spoken, and he's not looking at me. He's looking down at the grass and the river and his eyes look like they're about to overflow and my heart feels the same. I know what he means.
"Not what's left," Preludove smirks, "...what's created?"
She raises a hand, around which a small lavender cloud appears.
"Energy just shifts is all," she says, looking at that tiny violet shape. "Turns from one thing into another. But you never lose anything really. You just see things change." Our eyes meet once more. "That's kind of what's happening here."
With what, I ask. But no one responds, and I realize on my own.
"Like I said," Preludove repeats, as the cloud fades into mist in the air, "there's no gap. Not between us, not between our worlds. Not really, anyway. Sure distance is weird, and time is weird, and love is weird, I would know."
I nearly laugh at that, before it hits me.
"Yeah," she says, and now her voice is tight, like a violin string, like glass before it breaks into rainbows. "Vez. Your buddy, right? And my boyfriend. I love him a lot. Just like you love him," she says, and nods towards the other creature beside me. They exchange a knowing look. "And I know how difficult it is for him, sometimes, to love me, or to even acknowledge that he loves someone else..." Preludove stops, swallows hard, eyes wet. "I know how hard he struggles with pain, even against his own heart. I know how afraid he is," she whispers, "because he's been so hurt. Just like you. But he never stopped loving people, even when they didn't seem to make sense in his head either, because love doesn't die or go away either. Am I making any sense?"
I smile, suddenly, with genuine affection and gratitude. "Yeah. More in feelings than words though."
And then, at the same time, they both exclaim--
"You spoke!!"
Preludove is laughing. He is too. For a moment it felt like there was never a gap to begin with. Maybe there isn't. Maybe that's the point.
I thought about the cloud and suddenly it hit me.
That is the point.

I turned around and kissed him and everything was as red as the joy in our hearts.




“In fifteen years I want you to write me a list of every feeling you found after emptiness,
every moment you cried just with being alive,
every hand you held that felt like home.
Tell me how you stitched together the void
without the aid of needles and scissors
but the thread of melodies your best friend hummed
walking home on the last day of sun, poems
you read for no one but felt beat in your heart
until they found the ears of someone
who would hold them and whisper these promises
in the dead of night from their lips to your wrists.
In fifteen years,
show me the atlas of your scars.
Do not let the universe escape you,
vessel of the stars.”

 

 

 

 

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@ 09:51 am

 

 

Things I realized last night:

● If you spend 3+ hours writing an entry, you WILL find the answer by the end of it because your thought processes evolve in real-time.
● Even if you find the answer you need, it takes time to anchor so don't be surprised if Laurie still wants to re-discuss everything the next morning! She has the right idea.
● Poet mode and Xanga conclusions and all that pretty language actually doesn't translate well to text. CZ was talking to me like that last night, and I suddenly realized that if I transcribed it and read it back, it wouldn't sound anywhere NEAR as sincere as it did at the moment. And I realized why-- in text, all you have to go by is the written word. When spoken, there's the emotion and the intention and the non-verbal language (CZ doesn't even use words half the time he speaks) behind it that makes it real, and completely genuine, even if it might not seem so in hindsight. It's a projected bias is all, based on fear and unfortunate physical experiences. But everything here is 100% honest as it's being said, no matter how it's perceived later, and that's one truth up here that I can't forget. These entries, these conversations, none of it is planned. It all happens as it happens, so I have to stop thinking it's "scripted" because honestly, if I tried handing out a script I know full well that it would get tossed to the side just as quickly.
● Dream Guardians still get summoned all over the creation. A Portal actually opened up for Preludove once our conversation had ended, I was already "ghosting" by that time so it wasn't too clear but it was unmistakable! Apparently being both my BFF and the Guardian of Peace practically requires that she show up to help when she's able and allowed to, such as last night. My head is still spinning looking at that though; has anything like that happened before? Not since the early 2000s, at least... that's exciting. There's a lot of hope there.
● Minty cares more than I give her credit for! She checked on me before I fell asleep, asking me if I needed any "extra bears" tomorrow, for protection or hope or anything. I said I should be okay now, but I really appreciated her concern, especially because it never quite hit me just how much she obviously cared until right then. The kid checks on me almost every night! So she gets her due.
● I think too much sometimes and I drown myself in it. Even if my concerns are valid, if I'm only focusing on the rising waters and not on getting air, then I'm in trouble. That's what I've been doing, just suffocating myself under more and more tons of old weight, and forgetting that there's still a way out of it, right over my head too, and there are a lot of people up there just waiting to pull me out if I won't, or can't, do so myself. Bottom line, I'm really thankful that absolute catastrophe of an entry happened, but focusing on only the pain is going to only bring painful conclusions, that's obvious, it's like putting blinders on.
● Out of darkness cometh light. Every single "negative" entry I've ever written has somehow bloomed into something brighter in the end. Every stab of pain I've felt has ultimately been healed and comforted tenfold or more. Every scar carries with it the reality of hope. And every shadow simply means that there's a light shining somewhere behind it.
● Today is Infinitii Eternos' first 'birthday' in the System and I am infinitely grateful that ze is with us, not in spite of the tumultuous changes and often-terrifying shifts ze's heralded by hir very existence, but because of them. Hindsight might be flawed as hell when you're only looking, but when you suddenly see, well... things get a lot brighter no matter how much black paint is in front of you, so to speak. That's what Infi reminds me of, always. So let's all keep that in mind today.

Now we're off to therapy, see you later!