012523

We haven't been updating.
Apparently our brain decided, hey, I know how to cope with the debilitating dyspho/dysmo hell and religious terror! Let's dissociate from EVERYTHING.

So yeah. Nothing has felt real for like... this entire month, really. The derealization has gotten so bad that some days I genuinely am not sure if I am awake or dreaming or hallucinating. Dreams are still as vivid as they are disturbing. Dream hacks continue but I refuse to think about them.
"I've" been refusing to think about a lot, really. Just letting it slip quietly into oblivion. No records means no history means no continuous self means no existential horror. A very unhealthy "fix" but it's all we've got accessible right now. Duct tape for a broken femur.

Deep down I'm still terrified that this is "God punishing me for being queer/ being multiple/ not praying enough/ not being a girl/ not sacrificing everything but my religion."
Today, during dinner, "I" logged back into Tumblr and posted stuff to our religious blog, like whoever fronted last year used to. Dear Lord I FORGOT how hideously dissociative THAT process is. We couldn't remember anything and afterwards we felt hollow, disheveled, lost, and angry. No memory of eating or posting. Feeling like an empty shell. Our faith feeling like a stage-act.
I deleted the app. Again. I do NOT want us going back into that "must evangelize 24/7" robotic compulsion because it was NOT spiritually sane and it sure as heaven isn't helping our relationship with God. We don't internalize what we post. We CAN'T, because posting is SOCIAL MODE.
I miss the daily System Scripture Studies. THAT'S what our faith shines through-- PLURAL worship. NOT "playing the role" of the "good Christian blogger" because that's ultimately JUST A MASK. I don't care how accurate what you post is. YOU'RE still being disingenuous by burying your God-given SELF in order TO post it.

That's the damned dilemma here.
Our psychotherapist hit the typical endpoint much sooner than most. "I don't think I'm the right person to treat you." Honestly we started to suspect this from appointment #2, once we got a better grasp of her personality and treatment style. She's very "conversational" and casual, and her spiritual beliefs do clash with ours on some points that we KNOW we WILL "forcibly internalize" to "appease her" in ways that would KILL US, just like we did in SLC/NC. Our "people-pleasing" programming is still too powerful. It's a survival instinct of the screaming sort.
Plus she's not qualified to treat DID, at all, and although she touches on the topics she's not "specialized" in LGBT+ topics AND she has NO credentials for eating disorders. We're a shambles and it's humiliating but God has not "fixed us" yet no matter how hysterically we pray so... maybe we're misinterpreting what it means to be "fixed." Maybe this is a kintsugi issue.

Xenophon never leaves me.
God I cannot put into words how much I love her. It breaks my heart that she has to see all the terrible mental illness garbage we go through. But she sticks around even then. She cries and yells and sometimes even throws tantrums but she doesn't leave. She's HONEST about what she feels and I LOVE that. She gets that from her other dad, absolutely.
...Infi fronted today, for like three seconds, when our shuffle bkg shifted to Saint Peter's Basilica and ze just said "I would love to be there one day." Just a brief shift-- ze does not go fully into the body anymore, at risk of trauma upheaval-- but it felt transcendent and i felt real and alive to feel hir sharing bodyspace for a split second. like, for an instant, i existed, too.

oh for the record the doc put another mini heart-monitor on me. the coregroup is jealous, haha. unfortunately i have it because we've been getting so much trouble lately in that regard. i had to hit the button like four times last night alone due to the amount of pain, nausea, and lightheadedness we were getting slammed with. not to mention skips. getting like one a day now. it's disturbing. hope this isn't too serious.
still. really giving us a "memento mori" mindset. THAT'S screwing with our ability to do anything, too. "nothing matters except religion." but... you can't isolate religion, dude. we've tried. then it's hollow. "our religion is a relationship," remember? "the kingdom of god is a community?" even when you're one-on-one with God, the body of Christ is PEOPLE. so whoever in our system thinks that religion is "purest" when it chops out everything else but itself has got the wrong idea, son.

we didn't eat until 3pm today because we had to return ALL the protein yogurt we bought for procedure prep because, as last night proved, our body does NOT like whey protein at ALL. but hey, it worked out weirdly well-- we got cash back to replace our spices; we're out and our payee hasn't gotten back to us about needing funds. and our mom gave us an emergency $50 for christmas which we had to spend today to buy replacement foods for this special diet because, again, no funds and no response. but it worked out.
also we got to drive IN THE SNOW which was GORGEOUS. thank God for that, SO MUCH. i only ever feel like myself when it snows. and it has not done so since christmas, at which time our life was such a wreck I couldn't be in the snow. so even for a moment today, it meant a lot. gotta hang on to that feeling.

anyway. after we ate we were so exhausted and afraid of panic-purging due to late hours & physical flashbacks, that we immediately sat down and spent like three hours trying to clean up links on our phone. we had 98 tabs open in our browser and it was all religious research, haha.
read a few article pieces about religion and gender. we're struggling so much with that. bookmarked the rest. will devote more time to it later. today was mostly cleanup; we couldn't dive into anything or we'd have another several dozen tabs open for sure.

didn't get to bike due to fatigue. DID manage to do the weightlifting briefly, although our body is weak today.
brief dinner at 830pm. xenophon insisted on three fortune cookies, haha. i said yes, i will do that for her, because i know she likes the "fortune stories" and i love her. body got a bit sick after (god knows why) and xennie was terrified that was her fault, but i said no sweetheart, the body does this a lot, and it's not a bad thing tonight. it's good because that extra cookie brought us up to 1400k so we have enough energy for the day. it's good because now i have the courage to face this sick feeling and prove that we can get through it (xennie made us pinky swear not to purge). and it's good because it was a choice i made because i loved her, in the face of fear and social panic, and that meant a great deal. i just talked to her for a bit, joking around, as we took out the garbage and cleaned up the kitchen, so despite the bodyhorror dysphoria (i was dissociating and slipping so badly) we stayed decently stable and were able to help her calm down and smile again. that's what matters.

oh our birthmom got us FIVE MOVIES from the library and they're all ghibli, haha. we requested and she delivered, God bless her honestly. so tomorrow we're going to watch one after all our morning obligations are done & we rest a bit. in any case they'll be good distraction for this gastro diet week, geez.
never forget watching totoro WITH xenophon last sunday. she sat on the floor as we biked. it was so sweet, to share that with her.

the eating disorder has been weird.
I am purposely not recording any incidents. We have had nightly one-off events of purging lately, on stress days & late nights, but they are so quick and easily fixed that they don't even register in longterm, which is NOTABLE. It shows that this hell of a disorder is becoming more of a background hum than a bloodcurdling roar. It's a cross we are still carrying but God has apparently chopped it down to a much smaller size, miraculously, thank You God.
Plus, it's so much easier to deal with when there's love involved. That's the System's job. No wonder we couldn't heal when we were denying us.

We miss the old days.
CNC scarred us. People are afraid to front now. Plus UPMC made the body a fallout zone so nobody even wants to go near it at this point. Yeah I'm still pushing to exercise, but we haven't biked in like... four days? We've either been too busy, objectively so, or our body has been wrecked to the point where exertion causes heart palpitations and nauseous fatigue. BUT we bought another water brick today and were shocked yet again to find how easily we can pick them up and carry them now. When we were ~90lbs we were gorgeously thin, yeah, but we were disgustingly weak. Honestly we want to get back to how we were a decade ago, ironically in SLC-- 105lbs and still tough enough to carry a full water cooler jug an entire mile in Utah late-summer heat, PLUS up the stairs to our 3rd-floor apartment, haha. NEVER FORGET honestly that was one of our best memories, because of the sense of accomplishment it carried. We were alone all the time but dammit we COULD survive, no matter what our family said, or at least... that's what we felt like, that day, after collapsing on our rented bedroom floor and promptly drinking a boatload of said water. We felt like maybe we could make it.
We didn't. At all. But we had hope for a second, maybe the wrong sort of hope entirely, but it was real.
Anyway. We were so much younger though. We'll never be 22 again, we can't even remember WHO we were during that time; I could probably list all of our memories of SLC on one hand and you know what, let me try.

1. The event I just mentioned
2. The car trauma at the Great Salt Lakes and the aftermath
3. Braeden pointing out the "dragon tree" when we hiked up that mountain
4. The "froot-loops hell" night with Josephina
5. Mel's little sister painting our nails blue? and us fighting dysphoria for her sake
6. Sitting at our laptop in Mel's basement, hearing our voice pitch-dropped for the first time and weeping for joy
7. Sitting in Mel's basement and watching Howl's Moving Castle and The Tenth Kingdom; no solid memories of either but the knowledge is there
8. Trying to sing "Under the Streetlights" to Q when in his car but he just wanted to listen to chiptunes
9. The morning with the red beets when we felt utterly disposable in their eyes
10. The Cathedral of the Madeleine, sobbing in their back pew and reading Psalm 42 for the first time
11. Walking home with Mel one night and leaving that handwritten note in a neighbor's flower garden
12. Walking with Genesis up to the train tracks to watch the sun sink solid red behind the mountains
13. Being in the park with Mel? Was there a golf course? We felt SO guilty and scared for some reason
14. The sprig of rosemary someone from the Temple gave us
15. FUTON BUDDY
16. Running to Liberty Heights Fresh to buy purple carrots, purple kale, & purple sweet potatoes for Xenophon
17. Feeling the hemimorphite "speak to us" at Turiya's, and looking around at all the little bells in the main room
18. Walking through 9th & 9th by Coffee Garden with Mel and suddenly they held our hand and everything turned to stars
19. That time we had a "psychic reading" at some store? We only remember all the heavy drapes, and the singing bowls
20. Missing the bus that one morning and just JOGGING SIX MILES to that Goodwill where we got the Chaos Angel top
21. The night we were so overstressed we just listened to Serph & maniacally stimmed for like an hour
22. Laurie SHOVING US OUT OF FRONTING and then just looking at our hands like "holy swords it worked"
23. The one day we tried to make pancakes, set off the smoke alarm, and were standing on the porch laughing from shock
24. The night we ran to Bible Study when Q had friends over? Feeling like that church was the only place in the world we belonged
25. The night that Catholic church choir lady drove us to her house that last week to give us food, God bless her
26. Whenever Q "cornered" us in the kitchen and touched our face
27. The day we were "stuck" in the kitchen and starving (spiritually) and we threw the oats in the sink, terrifying Mel
28. The one time the three of us sat together on the couch and watched the General Conference
29. Going to see the MoTab and feeling totally alien in the theater; BUT being struck to the heart by the beauty of the lobby chandeliers
30. The day we fell off the cliff? We remember hitting the car, the feel of the macadam, the blood on our face in the mirror of the Jewish center, and then the drive home in a convertible, hearing "Every Little Beat" on the stereo and smiling because it sounded like Chaos 0 singing to us despite everything, despite no one else caring for us like we so desperately needed
31. "Racing" Laurie home from Bible Study one night in the dark and laughing
32. Sitting on the couch in agonizing pain after we ate rice, crying to grandma on the cellphone and her just saying "well this was your decision"
33. Markus's 4th *incident* in a trance over the stove
34. After that one Hindu library meeting downtown? standing at the bus stop frantically praying that tulsi mala they gave us out of sheer hollow religious panic, then immediately switching to a rosary; THEN the bus arrived
35. getting lost in some mall that felt abandoned when Mel had a job interview? just snapshots of space. then a vision of us out on the sidewalk far away and mel finding us, furious, we had wandered off? no idea how we had gotten there or why
36. twisting our ankle one morning running to church, Q picked us up and went STRAIGHT to a movie, we were in horrific pain the whole time
37. sitting in that attic room holding Mel for the first time and not knowing what to make of that moment at all
38. one moment in "camp" playing volleyball i think? a snapshot of terror, had to interact. another snapshot walking down some trail and seeing a silver-gray tree of sorts. a last snapshot in the tent at night putting on extra socks with mel, we were sharing the sleeping bag.
39. q's relative's farm? a snapshot of what the living room looked like. seeing cereal boxes in the kitchen and feeling terrified. the bathroom mirror when we accidentally spit mouthwash over it and felt so humiliated & rejected it took us years to recover from the shame
40. that morning we woke up before a bus trip (in that house?) and felt SEETHING BETRAYED RAGE that "we didn't want this life, we were tricked/ coaxed into it" and had no idea how to process that bloodred fury at all
41. sitting outside on the bench in des moines and seeing lighting all over the sky
42. listening to "black burning heart" on the bus on the way to oklahoma? seeing the rock all around, no trees. feeling utterly dead inside and empty. feeling justice & revenge's emotions with the song and empathizing with them both so much we wanted to die from the pain
43. a snapshot from the bus layover somewhere. sitting against a wall. still blind & numb with anger & fear. "liminal space" feeling
44. waking up that one morning to "reach lines" by chad valley, in the top bunk bed, holding our chaos 0 plush and seeing sunlight split into rainbows around our room. strings of bells hanging by our head, inkblots on the wall. everything was quiet and peaceful for one perfect moment
45. being in the top bunk and seeing q & mel looking disgustedly up at us and telling us we had been fired from our potential job or something? not sure. but they were both upset. felt like angry parents, not friends. we felt a sick gratitude, almost rebellious security, as we really did not feel safe at that job. remember feeling like they were strangers to us, we were the "bad kid" all over again, curled back up in bed miserable and wanting to cry and scream
46. the lunabar night when we starved ourselves for the entire day then crashed hard and ate like ten of them around 2am. the look of shocked disgust on q's face when he saw us throwing the wrappers out. i remember feeling someone else front for a moment
47. being in the local temple, being so thrown off by the lack of formality in the celebration? catholic dissonance. a snapshot of trying to join their choir, our self-image being TOTALLY different than how the body looked. someone else fronting possibly. notable
48. being at the big temple, some sort of exhibit? the staff girl said she "liked our shirt," it was the black one with a cross that said "atonement"
49. myssa looking at us before she walked out the door of q's family house and saying our "aura" was "gold"
50. being scared to death at using the shower in q's family's house, knowing his sister was nearby, thought we were going to die
51. q's family's kitchen? doing something with his mom? remembering seeing those little silver-ball decorative sprinkle things, wanting to eat them
52. crying on q's family's couch? his mom saw us, promptly turned around and left. the coldness of it was utterly jarring
53. reading all the goats comics in q's family's living room? for like... hours, it felt like. remember feeling like we belonged nowhere in the world.
54. in the main city, walking across the road to the library? listening to "ink" by cubbiebear and psychotically repeating "i forgot to breathe" over and over and over again, feeling like we were losing our mind
55. in the library, at that poetry reading? the man telling a poem about his child, crying with emotion, and suddenly JAY fronting and just weeping with him from empathy and love
56. driving through cottonwood heights with mel, hanging up signs on telephone poles? listening to "anna sun" in the car. seeing the alien landscape and feeling such dread in the pit of our stomach, like "is this our life now"
57. that weird cookout on a lawn somewhere?? people singing? and us wanting so badly to be part of it, but feeling like it would gut us to put such an intimate part of ourselves out in THAT context
58. at that river in the woods somewhere? sitting on a rock with a sketchbook, looking at mel with their cheshire cat hat and feeling such fierce affection for them
59. the view of the sunset from q's house's roof. just a split second
60. a snapshot of dinner with mel's family one day? the smell of their garage. their little brother sitting next to us i think.
61. being in mel's bed. wanting so badly to read all their journals and poetry. drawing them that gold cherubell charm that they pinned to their wall. their little dog sleeping at the foot of the bed. the exact smell of their bedsheets. waking up and seeing them in a nightmare and just holding them until they calmed down. brushing their hair from their face. not having words to describe any of it
62. the sudden dysphoria crash that nearly killed us as we sat on their bed and tried on their clothes. only remember the black calla lily in the box
63. waking up, exiting the room, and immediately seeing braeden sitting on the stairs with his hat dramatically shading his eyes, his other hand on his cane. then he swooshed the hat off and introduced himself. felt like we had been waiting to meet this dude for a thousand years, we clicked instantly
64. discussing vezerai and pink floyd in the back seat of q's car. stunned by how well he and i were able to communicate
65. at some thrift store with mel and myssa? lots of costumes. being so dissociated and social-pushed we didn't know who we were
66. sitting in a burger joint with q and mel? just a snapshot. the greywhale store almost next door i think. snapshot of that too, looking through old games almost compulsively. everything felt like a performance. we had no hope of a future, our life was just moment-to-moment "what do they want me to do next"
67. in that park with all the pine trees? and people playing with dogs? just a snapshot. the gravel on the ground. remembering how artificial it felt, compared to the state parks back home
68. snapshot of kyoto restaurant, sitting in that little booth and biting into a mochi for the first time
69. the one night we tried to share a bed with q & mel? we kept having nightmares about foxes. wondering if that had something to do with jlone.
70. the nights artwork on the wall of their room. kneeling at the side of their bed and doing scripture study together
71. the one evening mel told us all about that story they were writing with the cat people. we were utterly enthralled; we still think about it from time to time.
72. the day we "voice acted" that homestuck game in the apartment. us relating far too strongly to meenah
73. the day inkfletcher visited? we remember sitting on the floor with them. someone talking about our sketchbook.
74. the glimpse we got of one of q's sketchbooks in a bag in the living room. there was a picture he was drawing for us of the coregroup. we never dared to snoop, but oh how desperately our heart wanted to see it. he never showed us. we ache over that to this day
75. when q was sick in bed and eating pop tarts? and had just finished watching pmmm. we wanted to talk about it so badly but he didn't want to? we remember it felt like a punch to the stomach; we were so emotionally invested in it but he just wasn't interested
76. listening to "cold dust girl" while in a minor manic state and taking all the papers off our walls the day our mom told us "get packing you're leaving in the morning"
77. q's grandma driving us through the city. just a snapshot of the buildings all around us, feeling like our life was "picking up where it left off"
78. q driving us to the airport another time? we stopped at a grocery store and bought a single lemon?? he refused to talk to us the whole time??? i remember we tried to sing "northern girl" which was a song we held so close to our heart, he didn't even look at us, it felt like a gunshot wound and after that we couldn't sing for years
79. in q's grandma's house, doing laundry? we ate something from the kitchen, no idea what, was it candy? ended up curled up on her kitchen rug on the floor in so much pain we thought we were going to die
80. another time in that house, lots of people visiting, someone playing the piano? remembering the feeling of camaraderie "just out of reach." like all that family warmth and we never had that and never would. we were not welcome. feeling utterly alone and rejected
81. the "party" in the apartment across the street at like 2am one morning, haha. everyone standing on the balcony and drinking. blasting music. fancyass kitchen visible behind them. us just peeking out through the blinds and feeling so much honest love for all those strangers
82. the one house we always walked by on the way to whole foods with those gorgeous yellow roses in the yard
83. mel moving into the college dorms and wanting to hide us in their closet so we could stay there with them
84. in that college campus library, sitting on a seat by the steps? were we reading "einstein's dreams" then? we just remember feeling oddly non-existent but calmer there, in this nook by the stairs, with a book, like our old campus. bittersweet.
85. sitting on the living room couch sobbing in agony after we got kombucha poisoning and vomiting, alone in the apartment, afraid we were going to die. i think our phone was dead or had no service so we were so isolated. but chaos 0 ghosted and held us as we cried and i just remember saying "i love you" like it was the focal point of the entire world
86. the birthday party for q that we didn't even get to see, standing in the kitchen doing dishes and hearing them sing "happy birthday" and wanting to weep because, again, we knew we weren't wanted and could never be part of that. our arm was in a sling or something? stiff and in pain. aching and alien and alone
87. standing on the stair landing outside and getting a phone call from dad, he was in bermuda or something and had gotten remarried! we remember looking up at the clear blue sky and laughing from joy, but also missing him so much, thinking "he's under this same sky"
88. odd snapshot memory of getting into q's car one day, someone made a comment about a seatbelt or something? and we felt "on the spot" scared as we got in. social trigger. then another snapshot of parking on the side and getting out, someone looking for keys? discussing a wedding or something? evening i think. again social mode, felt like a robot. we were so out-of-body all the time there, it was sad
89. in mel's family's yard, and we broke a water spout or something? i remember mud and water and feeling such intense fear/panic it felt like our chest was full of battery acid.
90. the shower in that same house, all the hacks that happened, feeling like a prison, never able to stay conscious in that house. terrified. sitting on the floor in front of the sink and actively contemplating suicide. looking at all the strange toothbrushes and combs and wondering "what is their life like, i will never belong here, they don't care about me, i will never be part of that" etc.
91. mel almost going into anaphylaxis in the living room. scared to death. memory is all broken glass, i remember seeing the "made in a factory that processes tree nuts" on the kitchen package and feeling like the floor dropped out of the world
92. someone else's house? fancy? everything in glass bottles. us in the basement on the computer trying to put together a fancy resume. drew up a logo that we wish we remember, it was fancy and x-shaped, leaflike
93. all these weird snapshots of driving to that house. was this around halloween? or were people discussing horror movies? we just felt like a trapped child and were so so scared. all the time. no idea who was with us, felt like total strangers
94. the jthm poster we had on the wall of our room in the apartment. forgot we even had that.
95. lying on the bottom bunk after we ate sushi and being, again, in so much convulsive pain we thought we were dying. slept for like... three days after that? or were dissociated that bad for that long
96. whole foods job training, remember they had us wiping counters or something but we were so triggered by something in the environment that we were trying not to break down in hysterics, couldn't stop shaking
97. the marigolds on the street corner by whole foods. they always made me think of grandma. standing there with genesis waiting to cross the street
98. just... genesis, in general, god bless him. especially that 12-mile walk day. going to the stella grill and sitting in the booth with him-- i forget what we ordered (a salad i think?)-- and just talking to him. perfectly happy. realizing this is what i wanted in life. us. walking past the little park & gardens on the left and just chatting with him about it all. when i was scared he'd walk next to me, and i would feel laurie right behind me too.
99. the night we came home from church and we were standing in the kitchen talking to jacob when suddenly his face changed. everything blue in the moonlight. then he moved like water and i knew, it was like my heart had woken up from sleep, it was the most important moment in the world
100. mel sitting on the floor in the hallway in some sort of trance and then suddenly hearing someone else's voice speaking through them. it was that little marill-like kid. imaril. she was so sweet.
101. that faun guy in their system. we spoke to them at some point. i remember their vibe more than anything. what was his name. i miss him too. raowul. god i hope he's still alive and happy, with all of them.
102. q showing us his model train set the first time we visited his family house, us being so shocked that we never knew this about him
103. the huge model train set up in wisconsin? us torn between "this is such a waste of time" and "this is such an amazing dedicated labor of love"
104. the foot bathtub in q's family house?? and the bathroom in general. it felt weirdly safe, compared to the terror of most bathrooms for us. especially with the old wood doors & doorknobs the room had. we wanted to just hang out in there.
105. sitting under the tree in front of the apartment and reading "einstein's dreams." feeling very displaced.
106. reading a passage from that book to q, and as i read it i suddenly realized, mortified, how i didn't actually like the passage. it was highly inappropriate and made me sick. but i was so dissociated i kept reading. felt like hell, trapped in a machine.
107. the day we went down to the reservoirs and found driftwood? wearing that green celtic tank top, and tiny shorts. we were reaching into the water, looking at the sky, thinking of chaos 0. q caught it in a photograph. lord i wish we still had that somewhere
108. mel channeling laurie and the INSTANT their voice changed. then that eyebrow raise was so accurate it floored me. but that one sentence... "there's so much love for you up here, kid..."
109. mel channeling chaos 0 and being right up against my face. me feeling both of them in that. remembering how uniquely he translated through their person; so much watery energy. remembering him being so confused by having a nose
110. that red & blue lamp in our room, and how we would put the bulbs together to make a purple glow.
111. "if you were waiting for a sign..."


WOW OKAY that's a lot more than one hand. gosh. i'm honestly shocked. this is good though. wow.

it is after midnight and i do not want to write anything else haha. brain needs to recuperate from that absolute history dive.
but this is good! a legit entry! good data and actual historical recollection, even just fragments. feeling very disheveled and chronologically thrown for a loop right now, but this is important. especially important to FEEL the DIFFERENCES in who holds which memories. like that was impossible to discern in realtime, only in hindsight.

but. it's proof that we're real.
even with all the social hollowness, even with the stupid failure of a human being we were that wrecked two truly beautiful friendships... there was still so much to treasure in that time period. never forget that.

all right gotta sleep. maybe we'll see you tomorrow, God willing.
heck maybe it'll even snow some more overnight, best case scenario kids!!