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God help me I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK ANYMORE.
The mother keeps saying "I'm sick of all these medical bills" but when I tell her I'll just stop therapy she says "no, you need to go, I'm not going to put up with this." She's tired and angry. I remember her telling old therapists, "do you see what I have to deal with? I can't handle this!" The guilt and shame and self-loathing are extreme. I don't want to be sick.
The grandfather is saying, "is therapy even going to help you?" I said I don't know, I hope so, but I was determined NOT to need it, to be strong enough not to care. But I was still struggling with dissociation, and things like that. Said it was making me scared to drive lately, not knowing what year it was, let alone where I was. He replies, "You're going to need a nurse 24/7 for the rest of your life, if you're going to be like this." And I know he cares, they all care. But it hurts, I hate myself, for being "ill." I don't WANT to be a burden on the world anymore, or on myself.
I DON'T WANT TO BE SICK ANYMORE!!!!!!
Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can.
Am I "sick?" Is this all "fake?"
The therapist gave us a xanga session for homework. She did. She specifically wanted us to talk to each other before today. Laurie was ecstatic, people were planning topics, but I secretly stood off to the side, and I said no. I said no. NO.
I DON'T WANT TO TALK BECAUSE I DON'T WANT THIS TO BE REAL OKAY????
God what do I do. What do I even do.
We keep reading books, spiritual books, research books. Jewel's doing a lot of Dream World work lately so she can draw things, which is amazing, the instant she starts to work progress just happens, instantly. Every single day it grows more, which is good, because when this stupid trauma happened in 2003 or so the story got put on hold. Not so anymore.
But there's the thing, that stupid "trauma," in the "old days" with Julie and the first teenage Jewel, and guess what? WE CHOPPED OUT THAT TIMELINE. IT'S GONE. WHAT DO YOU THINK ALL THE RESETS WERE FOR.
Delete the trauma, delete it ALL, right?? Then you never have to worry about this STUPIDITY anymore!!
Except that's not what the book said. Except when we read that line in the book, we couldn't help it, our eyes watered up and we pointed to the page and we exclaimed "that's our mission!" and it felt true. terrible but true.
"When a soul chooses to participate consciously in more inclusive levels of interaction, it becomes capable of participating directly in the liberation of its family, or its group, or its community, or its nation from the negatives that are present and active at those levels. It also runs the risk of contamination by those negatives. In other words, a soul that seeks to bring a higher quality of consciousness to a more inclusive level of human interaction runs the risk of being contaminated by the fear, or the anger, or the selfishness of that level. Great souls... run the risk of great contamination. At the level of soul contact, a great soul deals not only with its own fear, its personal fear, but it also takes on the evolution of the collective fear of the species. The weight of that is where a great soul risks contamination on a great level, but its possibility of releasing the fear from the collective consciousness of the species becomes also possible."
I don't consider us a "great soul" like the great Teachers, heavens no, we're too banged-up for that, we're too troubled. Maybe in time we can heal ourselves to such a point, but who knows. All I know is that in reading that paragraph, I felt a direct reflection of whatever it is we are going through. "Yes, that is exactly what we're doing and experiencing!" It was a recognition.
But God if that's what we're doing, If THAT'S why I'm/we're SICK-- if that's why I have the guts to even admit there's a "we"-- if we took on this trauma to heal the collective fear and pain tied to this sort of experience, on however small a level... then please, GUIDE US.
You're already helping us, we know. But damn it it's scary. And... I keep rejecting help. I keep getting... contaminated.
It's an ugly word. But it's true.
Help us with that. Please. Help us with that. Help us get rid of the contamination. If I have any prayer at all, that is it. That is it.
The daemons help in their own way. So do the floating voices, weird as that is. So do the darker Jewel Monsters that tag along. Problem is, a lot of them-- most of them-- work through the old childhood thing of "learn through fear and doubt and pain."
Isn't there another way? Please, help us open our mind(s) enough to see another way. Please.
We must hold to light. We must hold to light.
And there's so much of it in here, that's why I'm frustrated and heartbroken, because there's SO much LIGHT in here, but that damn contamination, that damn Tar, that damn Plague...
Damning anything won't help anyone though.
god I don't know. I'm sorry. I need to get ready for therapy, I have to leave early, I can't type anymore here now.
Sorry everyone for being a mess. Maybe I'm a contaminant.
But I want to help. I sincerely want to help. I'm scared but I don't want to sabotage this anymore and I DON'T WANT US TO BE SICK ANYMORE.
If there's a way for US to be healthy... if there's...
...
If there's a way for me to be a part of us,
if there's a way for us to exist without trauma, at all,
let it be.
Jewel sees us in third-person. She sees us bright and colorful and destined for liberation, already redeemed in her timeless sight, never lost or broken at all, just on the road forwards...
She sees us as something complete and good, somehow.
...Other people do too. Somehow. Somehow. They've made me aware of that.
There are people who know our System and I know they're reading this and... thank you?
It sounds ridiculous and whiny but it's all I can say. It's the only thing that crackles out in words.
I can't really see that. I'm stuck in this bad state, currently. I want a different "anchor." But seeing there's still something good in here helps.
I need to stop typing. I'm making myself sick. No wonder the other people in here are suffering. I feel sick, to be around. My vibration is pretty low with all this depression and rage. No wonder people don't like me being out. Problem is I'm stubborn, I don't let other people be around, because I don't want there to be "other people," because I'm scared of not existing.... even though I don't want to exist anyway... it's stupid.
Maybe I'll talk about this with the therapist today.
Goodbye, that's it for me typing right now.
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@ 01:21 am
So, LYNNE FRONTED IN THERAPY TODAY and it was VERY SIGNIFICANT ACTUALLY.
She stuck around for a while, at least five solid minutes. Centralites don't typically front at ALL, let alone for that long without a Social pushing them out, or them being called back Upstairs.
In the process, she realized something that I was reflecting on the whole drive home.
The people inside, those whose roles are almost exclusively for our inner world... are somewhat detached from the physical body as a whole, to the point where they might not understand exactly what's happening with it.
The therapist was asking us if we felt anything while reading this entry, as she knows many of us struggle with understanding/feeling emotions. And there was emotion welling up, at that last paragraph... there was a tangible heartache in the chest, something real and strong and sad. But there was a glass wall between it and the body.
We realized that the "AP" is still a thing, albeit a thing that is somewhat different than we previously thought. It operates almost like a "conglomerate;" it is not a bundle of programming, but it is not a person either. Instead it works like an "empty entity" that takes simultaneous influence from all of us inside, all at once. It's tricky to put into words. But, when faced with that question, it said no-- no, it did not personally feel any emotions, BUT "there were still emotions being felt." It explained that it itself neither felt nor understood emotion. HOWEVER it was clearly aware that inside, other alters were feeling emotion, and there was also that original author's emotional residue. So that emotional feeling existed within, and the AP was aware of it... but it was like it was behind a pane of glass. Recognition, observance, knowledge was there... but no understanding, not personally so. No empathy, not personally so. No feeling. Does that make sense?
Laurie must have tried to front for a minute. There's vague data of her shifting in the chair and thinking, somewhat boggled, "the body is too small for me." But then she was gone, leaving an oddly shaken aura in her wake.
And then... Lynne came out. She said she had come out to spare Laurie the trouble-- "she's secretly the most emotional of all of us, I think." She explained that Laurie had seen more of the downstairs troubles firsthand than anyone else in Central, had worked with the Cores closely enough to understand their pain, to really be able to empathize with that entry's author, to the point of pained tears and anger.
And then Lynne paused, saying... "I can sympathize, but I can't empathize. And that makes me really uncomfortable."
She sat there for a minute, feeling her overlay-- the long curly hair, the difference in her eyes, the difference in her form-- to keep any Socials from pushing her out. I don't recall exactly what she said next, but the sentiment is clear. She wasn't used to this.
It's so important. It's so important, and I cannot BELIEVE we didn't quite grasp this before.
Inside, we've been "slacking off" because most of us DON'T GET IT. We DON'T understand what the Socials and other Downstairs voices are going through. Most Centralites have NEVER eaten, or spoken to the family, or been sick, or felt retribution, or been in the presence of a hacking influence. Most people inside don't even know what it's like to be IN a physical body, let alone a physical life.
Here we are wondering why we haven't been able to help, why the lower-level alters are rejecting us, why we're so confused and at a loss as to how to progress... and that is why.
We always used to wonder at how other Systems functioned, when they were "out" all the time. That was alien to us. Our life... our situation didn't allow it.
But that's new, too. Our life. Our past. Our body. Lynne noticed it too. Those of us inside... we didn't think like that. We called it the body, or the physical family... we always held it at arm's length, always at a distance, like we were watching a film. Always too detached from it.
We forgot, or maybe we never quite learned in the first place, that we are ALL SHARING THIS LIFE. We might pay that fact lip service, but that's about it. Most of us have never FELT that truth before, like Lynne chose to today, and rather courageously held on to.
It's huge. I'm having trouble putting it into words.
But again, it feels deep, like it's an ancient obstacle to our growth and healing that only now has been realized. And that makes a lot of sense, because as they say, a house divided against itself cannot stand. That still counts, if you don't realize you're even sharing a house with someone. We're on the second floor and we've somehow been virtually ignorant of the fact that there's a whole damn other world DOWNSTAIRS, too.
It's going to be interesting. I remember reading First Person Plural, how much of an impact that book had on us... how one of the biggest pieces of advice the author got was that he had to learn to trust his alters, to let them out too, to let them be a part of their shared life. The more he ignored them, the more he kept them inside and forbade them from LIVING in the "outside world" as well as the inside... all of them would suffer.
A System is a System. Ours works differently than his, in the book, but at heart it's always close enough. We need to unite our levels better. We need to start using the stairs again, so to speak. We need to bridge yet another gap, haha.
In other news.
Jewel has spent the past two nights solid researching Egyptian myths, religious virtues/vices, and Biblical prophets for the sake of Dream World. Kid goes hardcore, what can I say. But we're making lots of progress there. We're proud of her, for never giving up.
There's SO MUCH to read though, geez. It's exhausting. If there's one thing Jewel needs to learn how to do, it's take a break. The word "moderation" doesn't seem to apply to her creative ethic, and that's a problem, because then she gets burned out and projects collapse halfway through the research phase. Seriously you can't expect to understand everything in one sitting, you can't read five books in one day. It takes time. You're tied to Cel; go talk to her about that maybe. Patience, and prudence. Focus on one bit at once maybe.
There's another bit of bleedover. She's blind to us mostly. She doesn't realize, either, that her overworking the mind is affecting us, too. She reads for hours, and then leaves, and our internal environment gets so wound up from the sheer amount of input that it takes nothing short of immediate meditation to heal. Just "unplug" for a bit and let the head decompress. Problem is we haven't been giving ourselves time for that. We keep getting more and more work piled on us. The desk's a mess right now, it's not helping.
Bottom line here: slow down, Jewel! We know you want to get work done, but it's impossible to get it ALL done AT ONCE. You're in this body with us, and it needs to be taken care of. Let it sleep and rest.
...We're also thinking about the thing that our still-unnamed alter wrote, earlier-- the bit about social contamination.
It's scary, actually, to realize how accurate that is. We spent way too much time "socializing" since college, even if it was just burying ourself online in the misplaced desperate obligation to be "normal," or "good" according to God-knows-what code or creed. We got lost. Very lost.
We need to crack down and re-evaluate our ENTIRE moral code right now. We need to sit down and discuss what we value, what we protect, what we strive for, what we stand against, et cetera. And then we need to focus on that, we need to re-affirm that daily, we need to practice that truth. We need to live our Virtues, so to speak. We need to go back to being US, to being the rainbow-true System we are at heart, and have lost sight of lately. We've lost coherence, but we can heal that. So that's our job. Easter is fast approaching, but we're going to push our personal "Lent" until the body's birthday (a month later), as things have been very rocky since Ash Wednesday and we want to do better.
There's still a lot of psychological resistance in this head that is tied to the Downstairs. It's all fog, it's all steel wool.
There's so much old, internalized shame and pain, it's sabotaging a great many efforts. "We want to be good," one says. "No, we ARE good," Jay steps in. And then the damaged lower ones shout, "no we're not, we're EVIL!"
Why don't they allow healing to happen? Why can't they accept that healing, that they CAN be good, not "evil?" Why do they cling to that self-hatred, to the bitter resignation to the lie that they "can't improve?" Who told them they were irredeemable? Who crushed them under that falsehood?
We have so much virtue in here, so much light, but we also have so much vice and shadow. How much of it is "ours" and how much of it is introjected, taken on out of force, out of shame, out of fear?
Contamination. Spend too much time in the abyss and it begins to leak into your bones. Our socials, the damaged ones, spent too much time mired in what "other people" said and felt, all that bitter blood and hate... they began to forget who THEY were, outside of that, before that, after that.
Solitude is a virtue. It really is. There's nothing wrong with it. We really need to allow ourself(ves) to have it again, paradoxically.
Sorry this is mostly repetition. It just gains extra layers of meaning every time it is re-discussed, I've noticed.
It's late and we're tired and I'm tired of ignoring the sadness that comes up at this hour, the sad soft things in the shadows that want us to pay attention to them. Laurie still wants a Xanga session, and that may be the best thing for us right now. There are too many loose ends around us, too much unfinished business and ignored troubles. We really have been slacking off. That changes now, if I have anything solid to say about it.
It might snow tomorrow. Last snow of winter, maybe. You can bet I'll be outside to enjoy it, no matter what I have to fight to get there.
Good night to all of you.