022623

[prismaticbleed]

I find it concerning that, when our body doesn't feel sick, our immediate lurching terror is "something is very wrong."
Considering that we spend last evening puking our guts out, then listening to experimental music until 2am, the fact that we feel almost maniacally okay" this morning is legit disturbing.
Still... having energy, not being in pain or fatigued, feeling awake... it feels wrong. It SCARES us. The socials are out humming and carefree but inside we're all on pins & needles, waiting for the facade to crack somewhere, wondering why the heck AREN'T we suffering right now???
This mindset is vital to notice though. It helps further explain WHY for YEARS we kept perpetuating self-abuse cycles-- that was the only thing that felt RIGHT. Arguably I'd say that "suffering" meant "healthy" for us. When we were in pain, everything was okay and normal and good. When we were weak and tired and aching, we felt real and honest and clear-headed. But when we felt "normal," that was hell. That was the gateway to disaster. It was almost like our crash-and-burn triggers were salvific. Not even "almost"-- I know we even do that now, on rough days. We seek out opportunities to disrupt comfort, because ONLY THEN does life make any sense.
It's... it's at the heart of our System, in a very real way. We lost sight of that in CNC, with the "live for pleasure" mindset TBAS focused on, and it was KILLING us. Hence the eruption of eating-disorder symptoms every night. We were trying to stay alive, ironically. Being "happy" and "comfortable" and "calm" during the day might have been their ideal, but... it was terrifying to us, somehow. We would go through the entire day in a haze, in a trance, wearing our social mask. And yes I can say that with regrettable sincerity because, after that SLC entry the other week, I tried to look through our accessible CNC memories real quick... and we have VIRTUALLY NO FIRST-PERSON DATA. AT ALL. Most of what we have are flashbulb glimpses in situations where we were alone and bloody scared. Existential dread kicks in the recall. But there's like... nothing positive. Everything is marked by apprehensive fear, bone-deep dread, and/or legit deathpanic. And there are NO MEMORIES OF OV. There is literally one memory of their face, and it's from a very specific moment where we WEREN'T wearing a mask, a sudden honest action of ours that elicited an equally unexpected and candid look from them. We remember that, because in that moment we realized that what we really wanted was NOT what we had, and could not. And yet, there was that polaroid moment, taped to the wall of our mind for good. Nothing else. That's scary. We lived with them for over a YEAR and we CAN'T REMEMBER LOOKING AT THEM, EVER????? Same thing with their partner, MC-- we have a vague recollection of their appearance as we always saw them in third person, but they looked so much like Q that I'm sure that helped the memory. But it's also because they were around at night when we were in crisis. So our "survival memory" has them on the fringes, hence the recall. Nevertheless that whole situation is sad and disturbing and we are NOT in any state of mind to inch any closer to those memories right now.
The point is: we're deeply regretful that for so long, our "addiction to unease" destroyed so many friendships and family relationships. We were so desperate for distress in order to "feel right and real," that we didn't realize how it was hurting and scaring other people.
I wonder why now we're less self-abusive? Is it because we're alone? Is it because we ARE legit chronically ill now with the damage both malnutrition and COVID dealt to us, so feeling "off" IS normal now? Still, that doesn't explain the terror of "feeling normal." Like something is wrong with that state. Huh.
Maybe there's some clues in the archives about that. Lord knows I want to go through them more; we've been so disconnected from ourselves lately, not updating or even talking upstairs, and life is starting to feel very empty and numb and distracted and upsetting. We're deeply shaken and sad and disturbed inside, like a kid that can only cry and scream and hit things because something is WRONG but they have no words to describe it. They're scared at this hollow ache like a vacuum in their gut. How do you express that? How do you fix it?
"Religion" only does so much, and honestly I think that's supposed to be how it is, because I can do as much external religious stuff as I want, but if there's no relationship-- if there's no love-- then it's all as hollow as that feeling I'm trying to use it as a bandage for.
I still know, very keenly and bittersweetly, that God shows His love to me very clearly and honestly through the System. I cannot deny that. And, it works in the other direction too-- when "I" push them away, bury and deny them, I become very cold and dead. I cannot properly be a Christian if I'm not also multiple, like it or not. They're my heart, and I'm theirs. We need each other. Such is the very nature of the Trinity, after all. We are profoundly blessed to be able to glimpse even the tiniest part of that, in this.


Topic two.
We're still in "gender hell" and I think that's a devastatingly accurate term. We can't deny that the Biblical accounts all emphasize the sexual binary, especially in the context of reproduction. There are separate, specific, non-overlapping roles and rules for XX and XY people, with any "blurring of the lines" being deemed a legit "abomination" worthy of destruction. It also doesn't help that when you do see such blurring, especially today, it's by people who are blatantly mentally-ill and/or anti-theists, even satanists.
Honestly, it's why I've been avoiding all social-media places online. Tumblr, Youtube, and Twitter are ghastly cesspits of "gender hell" being lived out in people who ARE "like me," in that vague respect. And seeing them, I want nothing to do with them in the slightest.
If THAT is what "queer" and/or "trans" people are like in this culture, by and large, then get me the hell out of here.
The only problem? I cannot "force" myself to be a ciswoman. I have TRIED. I am currently trying RIGHT NOW. It ISN'T WORKING. It honestly feels like psychological murder to even "play the part," and I have known that since high school. I have been OPENLY "queer" SINCE ~2007 and the whole time I have also been hysterically praying about it, begging God not to kill me for it, pleading with Him to "make me a good girl," but then being existentially horrified at the thought OF "being a girl."
Listen. Even as a tyke I was a "tomboy." You all know this. I played with boys, I liked boy things, I didn't dress up like the girls, I didn't play house, etc. I was never interested in makeup, men, babies, fashion, or shopping. Yes that's all stereotypically feminine but it's a stereotype for a reason. Virtually EVERY bio-female I knew as a child WAS LIKE THAT. The only girl I can remember who wasn't later came out as a butch lesbian. She was one of my only three "friends" in elementary school, for the record, because we "didn't fit in" with the other girls. And you all know our infamous "magazine epiphany" story when we realized, suddenly and staggeringly, that we wanted to "grow up" to look like a BOY.
Nevertheless, we aren't a man. Nevertheless, we aren't a woman. We're in this weird midspace, where we respect the binary but also can't shove ourself into it with any honesty. So what do we do?
I've been clinging onto Matthew 19:12 for dear life, really. I know it's not a literal application (deep down we wish it was) but it's something. It's the closest thing we have to a divine "it's okay to not fit the norm" within a religious context. Yes, we still want to serve God with everything we do and are, BUT we CANNOT and ARE NOT CALLED to get married or procreate, which is overwhelmingly considered to be the "ultimate end of human physical life," because doing so would be completely dishonest in terms of both our gender identity and our innate attractions. We are happily celibate, although we admittedly spent FAR TOO LONG trying to "conversion therapy" ourselves with that, which just traumatized us thoroughly. Even so, we're more able to admit and accept our own asexuality now, although that doesn't help when our "romantic" orientation is STILL QUEER and has ALWAYS BEEN.

...Unexpected case in point. We have our PC background on shuffle and right now it's this gorgeous image of Rio (as Ryou) that one of us found on Tumblr, probably. It's so beautiful. If we look at him there, detached from canon, we could fall in puppy love with him all over again, I'm sure.
But Rio is FAMOUSLY FEMININE. In our brain, he's a "boy," but he's not a boy. It's not something we had words for as a kid and we still don't. He's... like us, I guess. As a kid I'm sure we recognized and latched on to that.
It's worthy to note that, in System history and even now, if we DO think of Rio as "male" or a "cis boy" it's actually repugnant. I think we ONLY liked him so much as a kid BECAUSE WE WERE KIDS. We were barely 13 and in our head so was he. We were still very much clinging to that androgyny of childhood.

I'm rambling at this point. What point am I trying to make. What pain am I trying to voice. "We," not "I," the singular is never accurate.

We got our prescription for topical testosterone. It's been at least 5 years. It's sitting untouched on our shelf until tomorrow.
We're scared. We're scared that if we use it, it will kill us, because "it's a mortal sin to not want to be feminine and God will give you just deserts." Like if we don't have long hair and dresses and a squeaky voice we're going to hell, because we were born with certain parts.
I can't get into that topic right now. It's old news and it's still so mangled by trauma too. As a kid we didn't identify with what we had, but we didn't think about it either. It was just some random ignorable detail. Not so when we got older, which is when suddenly EVERYBODY is focusing on that horrible bit of flesh and we were both scandalized and scared to death. Suddenly we realized we were trapped. We didn't want this. But we didn't want the only other option, either.
Getting older, and living as multiple, especially with all our sexual trauma, right now I can actually say with honesty that we still don't think about it BUT when we do, it's scarier than ever. We're totally dissociated from it. And right now we might not mind if we DID have the "other option." I know there was a time in our past when we legit WANTED it, when that felt like it would WORK as opposed to this garbled mess we have now. Even so, we're not a man, and we're not a woman. It's exhausting.
The whole "psychic gender inheritance" thing is the scariest bit. Maybe it's our psychosis talking but we really feel like this body has a consciousness of its own, the phenomenon of the "Julie days" when we actively spoke of ourselves as "being stuck in the body of a normal human girl" and not knowing how to cope with it. We felt like this IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL. But the core terror was that we WEREN'T the body, and the body wasn't us. And yet we were in its brain, and it didn't like us. Like sitting here right now, I can FEEL and HEAR all the "feminine programs" running, the fake-faces and wordbanks that would match it, on the periphery. It's vague but it's there. But it would be murder, like I said. And it's all external. Wearing a dress or makeup, using certain body language and vocal tones, pretending to like boys, all of that is just AN ACT and it wouldn't even BE "acting" because WE WOULDN'T BE CONSCIOUS. We COULDN'T be. For it to happen, our sense of self and awareness in general would have to DIE. And that's when we go into the self-abuse spirals behind closed doors, which is when the chthonics break through the floor screaming blood and fire.
So... here we are, KNOWING that if we use that T we'll get more masculinized, but being TERRIFIED at "becoming a man" for the SAME STUPID REASONS WE DON'T WANT TO "BECOME A WOMAN." We see what "men" are like out there. Burly and boorish, rude and loud, with the wrong smells and textures and sounds. SAME AS WOMEN. We couldn't be a "boy" like that. We see these little boys running around in baseball caps and sports outfits with superhero figures and blue jeans and we wince. Is that what it means to be a boy? Growing up, would we have been forced to play with army men and plastic construction vehicles, expected to be firemen and policemen and lawyers and doctors, dressed in those garishly monotonous styles that are marketed to males? Is that what it means to be a "man"?
We're so tired. We are so bloody tired.
But... we look at our body, and we try to be honest. We look at it and we don't hate it if we see it as open to change. We think of a lower voice, angles instead of curves, even body hair and scent changes, and... we look forward to it. It feels like opening a window into a dusty attic. Like we can breathe. It feels comfortable and safe in a GOOD way-- like it's suddenly non-threatening; suddenly it's a place we can live in. But ONLY WITH THAT FEMININE "FOUNDATION"!!! Isn't that bizarre??? Like we don't want to be a cismale. That would require us seeking feminization, because deep down I have to be honest with you our soul IS ANDROGYNOUS. Like the angels, for heavens sakes, like all the angels in the paintings who are beautiful blends of male and female characteristics AND ARE NONSEXUAL.
...And that's our final fear. Humans have sexual characteristics, even secondary ones. Most men have hairy bodies and hefty builds, most women have large busts and hips, and angels don't have ANY OF THAT. They're beautifully nonsexed, sterile and childlike. THAT'S WHAT WE REALLY WANT TO BE. What scares us is that when you see pictures of demons, though... they have sexual characteristics. Good angels DON'T. So when we look in the mirror and we see things about our body that angels don't have, it makes us feel like we're already in hell. Like if we don't both shave and bind, we'll look like the devil. It's existentially horrible.
And yet... there's hope, somehow, somewhere. There's so much we need to read more on, especially with medieval mystics apparently. Apparently Saint Clare had visions of Saint Francis AND JESUS with breasts, which are a physical characteristic we have historically found TERRIFYING and even demonic, so having THAT be associated with CHRIST totally changes things.
On that note we just stumbled across this article, which is shining a small but brilliant light of further hope for us, mainly with the idea that "masc/fem" characteristics are SUPPOSED to be unified in things or they are INCOMPLETE-- "It’s about opposite poles on a continuum which are present in each and every one of us." And the instant I paste that, I look up and its 1111. God is that You. I hope so.
We want to cry with relief and joy, a bit, over this. It means so much to us. We NEED that unity, that HARMONY, between BOTH those "poles" in both our religion and our body, in order for it to feel sincere and heartfelt, and we cannot deny that any longer.
We need to unpack this more and think/ feel/ type about it more, but we do have to get to bed within the hour so not tonight. Even so, leaving this topic "unfinished" will actually help-- it will prompt our obsessive mind into thinking "well how CAN we finish the topic justly? What was left unsaid? What should we have clarified more?" and we will get deeper information than what is readily available to a typist foni.
Last note: we've repeatedly brought this to God in prayer. We don't want to reject our femininity BUT it feels incomplete without this masculine complement? Ironically, in lieu of marriage, I guess. Like this can still be a religious effort for us. God knows we want it to be and intend for it to be. 
For the record, tomorrow is the first day of Julian Lent, which... is fitting in several ways, to begin this again.

Last note, something we typed in here earlier when it hit us, concerning "gender" in our System:
The "girls" are our HEAD.
The "boys" are our HEART.
I know we've touched on this before, but it struck strongly again today.
Still, in light of this entry, I think we need to have people front and then DOCUMENT how different "gender" foni FEEL in the body and mind. Like how does the binary manifest in us, when "androgyny" is our DEFAULT? It'll be interesting, for sure, and even more important. So we'll work on that, once we get into a mental AND physical space where it is safe AND possible for people to front.
We're really rusty. It's been years. But, when there aren't any social "gatekeepers" (still learning what that term means; need our own jargon) keeping internals out, some people do slide in, and it is CLEAR that that's what's happening. You cannot fake or force a switch. And God knows it feels like heaven, to feel someone else's heart sharing space with yours.


General daily notes: we slept in until 10, as we were up until 2 for heavens sakes. I don't know who woke up, or what our dreams were, and there are no clear memories until I was putting on our purple sunglasses and talking to Laurie as we grabbed the keys to leave. I noticed we were going to run out of carrots within 2 days and since our schedule was going to be very busy this week (everybody is doing everything for Lent and by golly we are JOINING IN) we should really grab some now. Well the only place that sells the 5lb organics for $5 is about 8 minutes away, and a roundtrip plus storetime is ~20m, and it's 11:03. Mass is at 11:30. Immediately hits the moral panic: is it a sin to buy carrots on a Sunday? Is it a sin to shop before church? Is it a sin to be worried about food? etc etc etc. Honestly I don't know why we don't bring this scrupulosity to the confessional; maybe we're afraid of ending up like our mother (she was the same way; she thought every little thing was a sin, and after confessing in that manner so many times, she "gave up on religion" and legit lived as an agnostic moral relativist for a long while; I don't know if she's changing now or not), or maybe we're afraid that the priest will AGREE that YES we ARE "sinning nonstop" as we fear, and we'll nosedive into despair. Even so it's on pixel-paper now, and "the light is on for you" so we HAVE to tell some priest about it sometime during Lent.
Anyhow. I talked/pleaded with God for a while over the carrots, not getting any "answers" (when in such a scared state of mind, you never do-- if He DOES respond it is almost always outside, unanticipated, and uncanny), but I knew that if I didn't go, the obsessive thought would distract us all during Mass. So we hopped in the car and fumbled to get Spotify on, and I was going to shuffle the likes but I was panicking so much I just let it hit play from the top, where we left off last night. The first track was therefore something we had never heard before... "It's Nice To Be Alive" by Vegyn. And barely a minute later, as we are thinking "does God hate us for getting carrots, He's probably so mad at us, He's going to punish us"-- we hear a voice from the speakers, male, colored by static, with surprising affection-- "don't cry, baby, I love you!"
We had barely regained our composure when another voice spoke from the bubble-drop sparkle of the strings, one like a young girl, like a daughter... "don't ever forget, wherever you go, I'm always with you."
Man. Our heart was out on the ocean all of a sudden. A few snowflakes fell outside, as the sun beamed in the blue. For an unexpected instant, we felt actual peace, something close to real joy. We weren't in trouble, we weren't gonna die. All things were well, as it were.
I immediately added the track to our "love letters from God playlist."
When we pulled into the parking lot "Shackles" by Mary Mary came on, haha. We laughed, thanked God aloud, and then ran into the store.
Recall is choppy due to social context but we were out of there within three minutes, and then we went straight to church.
Father JP was the homilist today, which was a nice surprise-- we love his little idiosyncrasies, like the way he looks around at everybody before he starts to speak, his unique Indian accent, the pacing of his sentences. We're fond of all our local priests in similar ways, really; God bless them all. But MAN did he deliver a GUTPUNCH of a homily today!!
(write about it dude-- it was about the temptation in the desert, and he gave EXAMPLES OF TRUTH DISTORTION)

then spent the afternoon FINALLY organizing our chaplets.
WE HAVE THIRTY-SEVEN OF THEM. WHO BOUGHT THESE. THANK YOU BUT STILL GEEZ
(went to store to get organza bags for them to hang on the wall; started dissociating hard in store but got home okay; threw us off mentally though)
(SO EXCITED to say some of these chaplets. like our heart is on fire with the thought. they're gorgeous in appearance and function both and honestly we are so so so grateful to have them. cannot wait to feel them in our hands and in our heart.)

Mom called during dinner and gave us a decent amount of email busywork to do for her, plus we need to go up the homestead tomorrow to help her finish cataloguing the piano rolls. We're not sure how we're going to get meals in, haha. She'll have us there from 3 until at least 6, but if we eat from 7-8 then we won't be able to sleep until midnight (our body invariably takes 4-5 hours to get tired after dinner, don't know why), and we have to be up at 7 on Tuesday for the new local Bible study OLOTE is having for Lent. So... it's doable? Dinner at 7 with a 5-hour fast means we can eat breakfast at 1, which means we can go to Mass at 1130, which means if we stay up until 1am tonight that's still legit, haha. Sorry, thinking out loud. But this way we have it written down, and if someone else didn't get the memo, it's here! Gotta help each other out.

Last random note. We're trying to "teach" Spotify to ACTUALLY recognize our favorite genres, so our Discover Weekly isn't just the same inexplicable wild jazz & sleepy piano tracks over and over. I think it's picking up on things-- we have it on shuffle currently and it's very beautifully going from glitchdance, to choir, to neoprog, to VGM... man I really must emphasize how much I love the collective System history and preference that is obvious in our library here. We're going from Papik to IMERUAT to Gloria Estefan, from Kimbra to FROST* to Snails House, from Bad Rabbits to Barry Manilow to MIDICRONICA to BBC Film Orchestra. You get the idea. But Spotify needs to recognize that collective eclectic variety! Before it was shuffling the same songs over and over, and what bugs me personally is that there was NO prog representation, which is a genre the Jay-Cores deeply love but in their cataclysm we haven't been listening to much of it lately, so thanks k8 for your deep-prog playlist with the wonderfully disheveled keyboard man. Betcha he's playing it as a Hammond organ!

We considered giving up all "non-religious" music for Lent, because we can deepdive for hours when we could be praying or studying Scripture, but I don't think going "all or nothing" will help us, really. Music is a huge worship aid for us, plus sometimes it is the ONLY WAY WE CAN FEEL EMOTIONS. There's a reason that "catharsis" playlist exists, after all. Being so typically dissociative and trauma-numb means that we legit need help to actually FEEL something other than FEAR on a daily basis. So we just need to be prudent, to be aware of our proclivity to lose ourselves in sound, and to both balance AND UNIFY the all-encompassing experience of audio with the untapped depths of our faith when met properly, and not from obligation or compulsion or, again, fear. The ONLY TIME we've been able to say a Rosary without panic or dissociation is when we put headphones on to do so, and bring up our phone gallery, and say it silently. Then our faith suddenly feels REAL, real enough to touch, not something conceptual and foreign and distant and socially performative. Alone on our couch, weeping over the Sorrowful Mysteries as Jóhann Jóhannsson echoes in our ears, we're a Christian in truth. That's what our religion is at the core. It's something that pierces straight through our heart, and if we don't have this, we'll die. We know that. We've been dying for years. Lent is, paradoxically, spring. This season of sacrifice, of beautiful purple and blood, is the herald of the time when lilies and tulips bloom and bells ring out triumphant with eternal song. It's our favorite liturgical season, honestly, even moreso than Christmas to be honest. Feeling it out in our heart, you can't secularize Lent, and it's 40 ENTIRE DAYS OF HEARTACHING LOVE AND FAITH which is exactly our vibe, haha. And then EASTER SUNDAY. The midnight Mass is legit the most beautiful hour of the entire year, to us, and that's saying something. That fire, those bells, the flowers, the rising from the tomb... that gorgeous Exultet that brings us to our knees in joyful tears every single year. Lent shreds us to pieces, absolutely; those three days before the Resurrection are the most inexpressibly awful days of all time, but I look forward to them, too, with a heart that knows what they bring in the end. So... it's worth it, that royal road of blood, the Cross itself, for the Love that orchestrated it all, perfectly even in its pain.
You can see why we love it so much.

Even so! I hope this entry is publishable because we have no time to edit it, it's late, I still can't believe there haven't been any Core kids out typing, only pseudos and communicators. But we'll hope for that too, and work towards it. I think spending more time together as a System, especially with that fronting practice, will work wonders for all of us. Love tends to do that.

Remind us to post all our recent prayers and poems here, too, soon, and some more archive stuff. It's important.
See you around!