011023

tuesday. therapy day.
another night of fitful sleep. woken up by FIRE ALARM at 7am haha. didn't get to sleep until almost 2am anyway. so, wrecked.
staggered off to therapy for 9am. ended up just traumadumping about cnc & slc, as well as some bits about when our sis was completely lost in her delusions and was sexually harassing us constantly. also death threats. told the therapist roughly about how we were always the "caretaker" in our family, notably for grandma when she got older, but also in a less blatant way for everyone. "be the good example." "grow up already." constantly expected to know everything, succeed at everything, be available and willing for everything and anything.
suddenly hit us that THIS is what "attracted predators" to us our whole life. our "default projected persona" was of someone who WOULD take care of you, and help you, and love you no matter what. no trouble, no difficulty, just the "perfect nice friend." except we FAILED MISERABLY at that in reality. it only worked on paper.
THAT'S BECAUSE WE'RE MULTIPLE AND THE TYPERS CAN'T FRONT AND SOCIALS CAN'T TYPE.
so. that was a huge shock, realizing that.
also sad. realizing that THIS is why people told us "i thought you were a good person. i guess i was wrong." because they only saw the "prim and proper" voices that existed FOR that purpose. but when in public, in the body, all the traumatized kids started to show up. the dissonance rarely showed online and even then it was hidden or private. when people said "oh yeah we read your journals" and then were SHOCKED at our struggles and unhealthy behavior i think they were lying. i don't think they actually read much. otherwise they never would have wanted to be our friend. they never would have asked us to do the things they did. et cetera.
still hurt the most to realize that deep down yeah we did love them. and that's WHY we constantly sacrificed ourself for them all. even if they didn't see how we were struggling. maybe they didn't even care. but it's why we're still having a hell of a time coping with the fallout from it all 5-10 years later. it all collapsed so fast, so violently, with so much bitter regret and fear and tears. but some part of us did love them all, didn't it? i think we're confused because what we felt as love was NOT what they called "love." at ALL. and THAT was the traumatic part of both situations, when you boil it down. didn't talk about that though. too much to unpack. not ready to face the cnc horrors. did mention the hollowness of slc though. always alone, unheard, unloved. heartbroken. felt like they didn't want us at all. like we'd never fit in, just a third wheel, just an accessory. still hurts. can't ever fix it though. it's long long long since over. but for us the loose ends are still all over the floor, covered in someone's teardrops in the lonely nights.

anyway. therapy did end well.
she said she wanted us to write affirmations (we forgot about that; not happy about this but we have to at least try), but surprised us by saying that "you may not believe what you write, but let me tell you what i already see in you, after hearing you talk." and then, like far too many people, she said "you're strong" and "you're courageous" and "you're resilient" and "you're insightful" and "you care deeply about people" etc etc etc.
we're weary from hearing that so often. if we do have those positive qualities why the hell are we still such a failure at life

anyway sorry i'm dragging everyone down. we'd like to believe those things. but pride is still our biggest vice. cannot risk making it even worse.

went shopping briefly after because foodstamps came in. got basics only. mostly same items as yesterday but in monthly amount now. so we're stocked up which is good.
still have to get carrots, vitamin water, and supplements, but that's for thursday when we're on the road.
went to adoration too because it's tuesday! they still had all the christmas lights up and it was so, so beautiful. we could only stay for about 25 minutes but it did us so much good. time flew by as always, just talk-praying to jesus right there. wanted to stay there forever.
managed to finagle our schedule to where we were able to go to mass at dvm and see father fp!! we care deeply for him. true we've never spoken or anything, we just visit that church every so often when we're in the area. but we immediately felt a deep fondness for him the first time we visited, seeing him walk in like a regular dude and then just... put on the chasuble. blew our minds. plus he has gorgeous eyebrows haha. lovely face. and short but succinct homilies. the church is so nice too. gosh we're so grateful we get to go there when we do. every church is its own unique piece of heaven and we love them.
after mass went to the library, got 5 more movies. took about 10m to find any-- as we browsed the tiny section (it's a little library) we realized that we aren't interested in seeing most of these films. and that was liberating. we don't "have to" watch them just because we "haven't seen them." freeing to realize we COULD say "no." to refuse infecting our minds with what we didn't need. so we judiciously picked a few that we wanted to see, or at least that sounded interesting to us, and that was it. tiny milestone there. exercising free will. therapy inspired us really; we were raised to "never say no to anyone" and that made our toxic friendships downright traumatic. but we've discussed that enough.

got home for like... 2pm, haha. late!
still did our quick ~7m of weightlifting before eating, didn't want to skip. slowly increasing the time. noticing we are increasing in strength, bit by bit, notably compared to pre-hospital. so that's hope.
breakfast at 3pm, which was actually planned because we had something very special that evening.

CHOIR PRACTICE.

worried about it all day honestly. social anxiety. considering not going, but that would be such a flakeout and we DID want to go. laurie told me flat-out "you're going kiddo, you're gonna be fine" so that settled it haha.
left at 5pm, stopped at the twins' old workplace first to buy eggs and emergency apples. as we walked in, there was an employee stocking a soda cooler and HOT DANG THEY WERE GORGEOUS. like ENTIRELY GREEN. raver pants, dyed hair, facial piercings, et cetera. absolutely fantastic. we did a double take and then kind of fanboyed briefly in the spice aisle, haha. people are lovely dude you can't blame me.
even better, when we went to check out they kept coming over to casually help. so that was great. us in our red & them in green. them all cool and calm and us grinning like a moron with our sunglasses indoors, haha. but it was nice.
oh yes and they FINALLY had those bigass "opal" apples. been wanting to try one for like two months. so we will.

anyhow. quick note. all day today we've been looping "world citizen" on spotify. forgot how much that song sounds like our core's heart, too. which is shocking. it's unexpected, with its dark haunting sound. but it's still heartfelt. there's still an emotional ache and depth to it, and THAT is what resonates with our cores. plus that resonance really helps ground & center us when we're in public, which is a high risk for going into total dissociative performance mode.

however, on the drive to choir, we had the idea to listen to cannon's old tunes, since we were going to her old campus. put nu:tone on shuffle. apparently they have a song called "system" and YES, IT REALLY IS JUST THAT RELEVANT. we were laughing in incredulous amusement at how fitting it was. immediate add to liked songs haha. but otherwise, we were surprised to hear how upsetting that musical style was to our psyche. something about the synths and basslines i guess. but it was depressing and agitating us. like geez, no wonder poor cannon was always so miserable. if this is all she listened to, she was getting herself trapped in that mindstate without even realizing it.
put world citizen back on anyway. put us so much in "the zone" we legit forgot what traffic lights were, haha. looking at a green light not even realizing we were in a car. enthralled with the color in the dark. then "oh hold up wait aren't you supposed to move on green?" thank god barely anyone was on the road geez dude

muscle memory so to speak. knew exactly how to get to campus even after ~10 years. place looks notably different in spots, but we recognized our old haunts with great fondness. really miss visiting the place and just wandering around but now i think they have "id scanners" on the doors so we can't just pretend we're a student and bum around the music building haha. tragic.

nevertheless! we made it to the choir group on time. held in a building waaaaay at the end of campus that we've never seen before. which was cool. i think we were the youngest person there haha. one other young'un there who was our classmate in high school, go figure. small world.
BUT.
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN' AMAZING
the songs were gorgeously arranged, and everyone there LOVED TO SING. not like our church choir, bless 'em but they don't cooperate. this choir, though, not only could sightread music BUT they listened to the director, they didn't argue, they followed dynamics and tempos, etc. shocking the different between professional and casual. like these people were here because they loved to sing. it was an honor to be part of something like this at last.
oh. but the best news of all you guys i have got to tell you this
WE
ARE
A
TENOR

WE HAVE DREAMED OF THIS FOR YEARS KIDS WE ARE ABSOLUTELY FLIPPIN' ECSTATIC.

also this means we GET TO WEAR A TUX FOR THE CONCERTS YEAAAAAAAAH BOY!!!!!!

sorry we're genuinely so hype over this haha. ohmygosh. lowkey genderqueer choirkid over here, having the time of his life

we didn't get out until 845, dude. got there at 6. again, time flew by. enjoyed every minute. thank you jesus and laurie for insisting we go.

drive home was jay, for the most part. someone else started out-- rubellite maybe?-- riding such good vibes that they were pure joy laughing and joking around. but no memory data. doesn't kick in until we got on the highway and we put the windows down a bit and suddenly jay is there, with his hands out in the cold, and the stars in his eyes, and listening to rufus wainwright & honne & ed harcourt & michael buble with chaos 0 ghosting alongside him. like dude that ONLY happens when jay is out. and that's rare too. but... there they were, in love and at peace, with the winter air all around and music in their hearts. don't think anyone in the system has felt that real in a while.

got home for like... 930, haha. not cool because WE ONLY ATE ONCE TODAY
yeah we'd love to just go back to starving the body but that's not nice. yes we want to be thin but we can't idolize that anymore. gotta be "eternity minded." when we die it won't matter if our body was thin or fat or muscular or not. what WILL matter is the state of our soul. everything else is secondary.
so we had a small dinner at like... 10pm? stupidly late haha.
studying psalms 25, 26, 27. love them a lot. chaos saying "you should write them in your words" and that is a beautiful idea. now that would be prayer, absolutely so. no wonder people love the psalms. they really do speak from the heart of human experience-- joy and sorrow and pain and anger and wonder and hope all in one little piece of hebrew religious poetry. gotta credit mimic for the observation though. also remember him verbally jabbing me at one point by saying "we were both like that once" in respect to some vicious trait the psalmist noted. hurt to be reminded BUT also pulled at my heart to hear "we" and "ONCE." guy's determined to change. well so am i, moreso than before, now that we're in that together. difficult as hell but worth it. AND POSSIBLE. the psalms are reassuring us of that. i'm highlighting so many translations haha

anyway. somehow made the mistake of bringing a few tiny dark chocolates home from choir practice (they had some on the table; we took a bunch for mom but also a few for ourselves potentially; bad move yo) and julie wanted to try them. well we all forgot she was ADDICTED to chocolate. and when she tried one she SLIPPED ENTIRELY. like her appearance SHIFTED back to what it was originally and her entire overlay got blurry and almost socialized. laurie stopped her but then the actual e.d. socials caught on and freaked out and threw up. julie was sobbing and terrified, apologizing, but laurie kept reassuring her that we were okay, the whole thing took less than ten minutes, there was no disaster, we'll recover, and hey, now we know that we really CAN'T do chocolate anymore. amazing how laurie went from "abuser" to "peacekeeper" with the same essential function: keep people from doing stupid things that hurt others. because deep down she loves everyone. that's always been her real purpose, as a protector... that absolute devotion to those whose lives she is charged to defend. you can't do that if you don't love the hell out of 'em.

so we had to re-do "dinner" at like 11pm. small-- just broccoli, carrots, half an apple, some cottage cheese, and two fortunes for xennie-- but i guess with the shock of purging our body wasn't too happy? got really bloated and sick. but we took some antacids and sat down at the computer, determined to just deal. body still needs food. this isn't "fat" it's just food and stress. besides with the exercise and spiritual focus lately it IS getting a bit easier to cope with. still scary, but we're seeing positive movement in different fields now and that is taking the hyperfocus off shape alone. still a long process, but really, i think it will help when we start typing in the upmc tablets too. we did discuss this, or at least, someone did. all "in theory" for the most part of course-- hospital nousfoni live in a bubble with no true cognizance of "real life" outside those white walls. but it's still part of our psyche, and valid, and respected, and absolutely worth reading now that we're no longer in that environment AND don't remember it. yeah that was expected too. nine weeks inpatient and we ONLY remember like... two minutes of time when we were UNHINGED. always the trauma memory. geez. at least it's predictable.

but here we are! no sad icon for today!! we made it thank god. one tiny step back in the right direction. not gonna lose hope. god's still in control. reading the psalms and realizing how even king david, after being delivered from disaster before, STILL felt like God was "hiding His Face" and ignoring him out of anger and rejection... well, that's how WE feel, out of fear. we know we aren't worthy of being answered. God has every right TO refuse to help us. but. "glorify Your Name." show that You ARE a God of mercy and compassion. forgive me and help me. over and over in the psalms. over and over in our hysterical prayers. and... wonder of wonders, God answers. and He helps us. despite all odds, even if we're suffering and scared and exhausted, God gets us through hell and we aren't dead yet. but we must have faith. we must thank Him for His faithful love. we must TRUST that He WILL bring something good out of this. because He will. every single time so far, He has. and He doesn't change.

oh man almost forgot. dinner fortune cookies were the best thing ever. with the "learn chinese," the first one was "doctor", and the second was... "expensive." i had a good laugh at that. but THEN i realized the second cookie had a double fortune, and the third one was... "to see a doctor." well xennie and i absolutely cracked up, it was hilarious.
the fortune itself was deeply sweet though. a repeat, but one we needed to hear. "all troubles you have can pass away very quickly." thanks god. told you, there's always an answer. just wait on the lord dude, he'll be there at the exact right time.

now it's 2am at last and that is the absolute latest we can get to bed if we want to get to church before our nutritionist appointment tomorrow. boy oh boy. wonder what she's going to say. also mom will probably want us to visit her finally tomorrow, so we can give her the chocolates we got today too. smidgens. she'll be thrilled.

so that's tomorrow. thursday is bible study with the old ladies, wegmans shopping, and our church choir. friday is totally open and only the good lord knows what'll happen haha. but we're looking forward to it all! we've got new movies to watch and new music to sing and a new chance every day to live better and love more and bring more light into our little piece of the world.

thank god for everything. and i mean everything. thank god for us. thank god we're alive.
see you kids later. have a lovely night.