040219

[prismaticbleed]

I am so sick, and I am such a fool.

We're reading TBAS entries from March as we promised God we wouldn't read them until April 1st at least.
And I want to weep and sob forever.
I miss them so much. They were always so kind to us and yet what we did to them, in cutting them off from our life so suddenly, was horrifically cruel.

…

My grandmother says they were "evil" because they were transgender, didn't mind not wearing clothes, had unprotected premarital sex, were queer, did witchcraft, etc. All of those things make her insist that TBAS are "satan" and we should not only forget about them forever, but hate them.
I can't. My heart just can't hate anything anymore. I don't think it ever did. Even back in NC when I was still acting as a plural system, and entries were written in agony that claimed that alter "hated Oliver"… did they really? No. They hated feeling stuck and stagnant and sick, and seeing nowhere to place the blame, it sadly landed on TBAS. And that was awfully unjust and unkind.
I don't hate them. I can't. I never will and never did.
I love them dearly and I sincerely want them to be happy and healthy and flourishing and I sent them $100 and years of love with tears and sincerity in the mail and they received it as such and thank God, thank God for that.

I can't ever go back. I can't. I cannot live their lifestyle and I burnt my bridges permanently with what I did last year. I will weep over this forever possibly. But I can't fix things. There is no fixing the harm I did. But I still love them. I do.

I can't stop crying. That's my life now. TBAS was right; I guess I really am a lot like Justice.


I'm sorry for deadnaming you. I firmly believed it was the right thing even if it hurt me, and you, to do so. You were given a name at birth that was beautiful and then people stained it for you with cruel words and insults. You learned to hate that name, and honestly in using it I wasn't trying to reopen those wounds-- I was genuinely hoping that I could purify it, even if only in my own mouth, using it with affection and love, using it as the name given to the newborn you nearly three decades ago, heralding the beginning of such a beautiful life.
But nothing I can do will change what others do with that name, or how you feel about it. And I'm sorry for my foolish pride. I should respect your decisions far above my own feelings. You said not to use it, and I need to treat you with compassion and respect, and that means not using your birth name, full stop.

I'm just… so confused. I don't know what to think about this whole gender thing.
My brother also identifies as transgender, uses a different name outside of the house, etc. And he spits and screams at me that I hate him and want him dead because I won't use that name for him, let alone feminine pronouns.
But I can't. To me that is affirming a delusion and I see that as profoundly unhealthy and so out of respect I use his birth-given name and genetically-given pronouns.

…



I need therapy but all the therapists I've been seeing have made things worse, ironically.
JD told me flat-out that she saw "nothing wrong" with sexual sins, and that she furthermore felt my religious upbringing was "wrong and traumatic" and I disagree with that. We just could not see eye to eye and her goals were not my goals and so I had to quit.
CP retired, and although she did give me some good pointers, I just… felt really uncomfortable with how "self-centered" her treatment vibe was? Her office was full of references to "magic" and "love yourself" and although I'm sure that helps some people, it just made me really uncomfortable, as a Catholic. Is that wrong? I need to think about that more deeply.
AM flat-out dropped me because she didn't have enough experience and I respect that.
SE was a brand-new student and she kept apologizing because she, too, didn't know what to do, and kept having to refer me elsewhere. I liked her but I knew she wouldn't be able to handle the brunt of this trauma, especially not with having to wait once a week to do so, and then six days of aftershock, with a therapist who could not give me experienced advice in the first place. Honestly it was unfair to her. So I stepped out.

There is only one other therapist in the two neighboring counties who will take my insurance and treat the disorders I suffer from, and I need to call them again. I did before, but it took weeks to fit in an appointment, and then I had to cancel anyway as I had no transportation. But I have to use this last option. It's only right.

But I need therapy. Do I? I don't know. What for?
Maybe I just want to see what they say at this point. Am I traumatized? Am I depressed, or anxious, or manic? Am I dissociated?
I have no idea. I really don't. I don't want to make any assumptions or excuses, so let them make a decision. Please. I'm too tired.



Something TBAS wrote about me/"us."
"…we couldn’t ever quite trust them again the same. Was that we’d probably have to make them leave us again sometime, because what they had cost us was too much to offer again."

I… what did I cost you?


...


I just... keep thinking about how our grandmother responded to learning about the events of NC with absolute hatred of the evil of it. At first it seems foreign, as I don't hate TBAS and cannot and don't want to, but I do have to admit that I am bitter about it, and that is because I hate MYSELF for having participated IN those things, however dissociatedly, however passively.
God I lived like an absolute devil out there and I had to dissociate SO HARD to do it so I wouldn't hate MYSELF to death WHILE living there.
I should have stayed here back in April of last year. I should have turned off that bloody phone like I did in October. I should have burned those bridges back in December of 2017 like I wanted to. But I didn't. And that is why I am bitter, that is why anger and hate were being projected outwards for so long-- because in truth, all that vicious agony was directed towards myself. It is sheer regret, unbearable and inescapable.



(left unfinished)