and against you

[prismaticbleed]

I made incredible progress with my therapist today, with "incredible" translating to "apparently the things I've always assumed were 'normal' are very abnormal and emotionally unhealthy, but I never knew there were other options, so it's no wonder I've been an absolute mess since last Sunday."
Yeah, the past ten days or so have been... I don't even know. Part of them has been brilliant of course (I'm making absolutely fantastic progress on Dream World), but the other part of them has been excruciating. Ironically, because I've also been emotionally dead for almost the entire time. Then last night happened, and I didn't get to sleep until 3AM.

Which is why I'm updating. When I'm tired and drained and feeling like this, I just start 'waiting' on my computer. Opening files, looking at them, closing them. Listening to the Nier OST on loop for hours. Just biding time, because sleeping doesn't feel right, not right now.
But I'm so tired. I'm so tired it's sad.

I'm re-reading the headspace logs from January 1st and December 23rd, and I'm mentally sobbing my heart out. Downstairs I've got a poker face, as usual. Just barely, though.
About that... Xenophon's wings have been developing and they are completely different than I originally thought they'd be... they're these beautiful turquoise butterfly wings. But they're cathedral-ish, like mine, from what I can tell... and no, I haven't really 'seen' them yet. She activated them once or twice on campus to fly through the parking lot a little, and I remember being in shock that dude, my daughter has wings all of a sudden.
Pretty heartbreaking that I didn't even know, huh.

I haven't been home in so long.
I just want to go home. But I keep turning around and walking away whenever I get to the door.
It's not that I feel unwelcome-- no, they're actually out looking for me, taking me by the hand, leading me home. I'm unconditionally welcomed back home, and I know that. I'm the one who's pulling away. Today's therapy appointment helped me finally understand why, in terms of beliefs I learned as a child that were apparently very malformed, but... I haven't really gone back yet.

I went to buy groceries on Monday and as I was leaving the store, I noticed these huge bouquets of red roses by the exit, and all of a sudden I felt this stupidly strong impulse to buy some. And that's when it hit me.
I can't buy him roses, or cards, or chocolates, or a ring. I can't 'take the easy way out' there. I can't even see him some days, let alone go anywhere 'with' him. And yet there I was, feeling like the world's biggest jerk, and suddenly wanting to buy out the flower shop just to say I was sorry.
But I couldn't. I couldn't say I was sorry unless I went home. And I hadn't been home in over a week, because I couldn't integrate love and intimacy again, because closeness and compassion were antonyms to me at the time, because suddenly being 'in love' felt like the biggest mistake of my life.
He's not even the one I need to apologize to. Not at all.
I know I've been an idiot, and I've made some terrible decisions, and I've hurt several people by doing this.
Yet I can't work up the nerve to go back and face them again, not after Sunday night. Somehow. Even after what I've learned.
The past is the past is the past. I still love you. Don't I? And there's that awful doubt again, always following the thought of that night. Only that night. Why?

I haven't been home in almost two weeks and it's been months since I last really spoke to anyone and this feels wrong.
With every succeeding day of classes I get more and more careless. When the semester ends next month it's going to be like learning to walk again. The thought is somewhat frightening but I'm tired of feeling spiritually disabled. At this point I honestly don't care if I pass my classes or not, even if I do love the work... at this point all that truly matters is seeing my 'family' again, really seeing them, and... fixing this, somehow, please.

I'm going in circles. I'm sorry.

He was just as involved as they were and yet I see no fault in him. I miss him more than my heart can take and I didn't even push him away.
But, he was faultless in February and now he seems irredeemable. From day to day it wavers; please forgive me, please leave me alone. All because of something that he didn't even do!
And she... I can't even wrap my mind around her. I feel like a hypocrite, a two-faced liar. Who is she? And yet she loves me? And I love her, I loved her, now I wish we had never met, now I still think about her, now I can't stand the thought of her. No emotion. Remembering how wrong it felt, and why. Wondering if this was really happening, should it even be happening, not being able to tell either way. She feels split in half. Here, her face is beautiful, here, horrendous. I can't reconcile any of it.
And always, always, that deplorable, damnable thing taints it all. Without it we are perfect. With it we are lost. But only that one night? It makes no sense.

I'm projecting. My memories don't match any experiences I've ever had. They're all fears, ego-shadows, paranoid imagery. They're lingering figments from the days when Julie was trapped as well. I remember that much. But I never experienced this. The hacks... so many of them didn't happen to me. So many of them were projected, and yet those were the worst, the most scarring, the ones that kept me awake, wishing I could claw out my eyes and ears and bones and screaming with shaking hands.
Now my memories of last weekend are the same. False. Utterly untrue but horrifying. I can't figure out how to let them go, they keep sticking to my hands like maggots. Go away and stop hurting the people I loved because they love me. Stop turning caring into malevolence, stop twisting purity into sin. Stop it.
But I can't forget the looks on the skeletal faces, the horrible puppeteering gestures, the canned words and lives and emotions. I don't even know where they came from, and I don't know how to get rid of them. Until I do, this will never be solved, for he and she will remain strangers beneath that suffocating haze of deceit.

Maybe Julie can help me with this. Maybe Natalie! He works with reflections, doesn't he? Didn't he?

Why was I born into a world where this is even a concern?? Why???
Dear God I can see exactly what this should be but those awful painted-doll devils, those plastic corpses, they are what I see in my nightmares.
How did this even happen? How did I get so scarred? Why in heaven's name am I still letting myself be misused by this?


Last run, last purge, last clearing out.
Things are changing, crashing, burning, dying, being reborn.
This is every regret I've ever known being dragged to the surface of the murk.
Clear it out, boys, there's an ocean in here somewhere.


I still feel like crying without tears; I feel lost. I'm tired of throwing up in sinks and not remembering what actual voices sound like.
The desensitization backfired, doctor, what do we do now?
I'm not morbid. I'm not dark. This is Captain Johnny Kovacs speaking, forget the bloody inkblot pills, I wanted my redemption and here it is.
My past is full of knives and broken teeth and my future is so comically colorful I'm laughing, where did all this glitter come from.
Why are there still chains on my feet? How am I supposed to walk on rainbows with these shackles tearing through to my bones?
The answer is: I can't. They need to come off.
I need a key. Two keys. New ones.
I'm terrified and it's so ridiculously heartbreaking it's funny.

God I feel like crying, this feels like the ending to a Disney movie, I'm such a jerk but I'm smiling for some stupid reason.
Yet another reason why I need to keep writing Dream World. How blind am I!
The mindless one, the fearful one, open your eyes, you're in love. The bleeding one, the broken one, don't be afraid, you have love!
Here I am, trying to deny what we had, what we have. But I cannot do it. I can't.
I'm scared but I can't forget you, not a single one of you.
You said you would never hurt me. And you never did. But I was in so much pain I thought it was you. I thought it was you, and it broke my heart, and in pain I pushed you away, blaming you through my tears.
Still, at the end of the day, I always forgive you, and you're the one I run to. All of you.

Chaos, Laurie, Ryman, Markus, Genesis, Celebi.
I love you guys. There, I said it!

Maybe I do want a happy ending. For all of us.
That can't be too much to ask. It isn't.
I'll turn my heart into a rose garden and you'll see, it will all work out.

I really need to sleep.