the spectrum heart cathedral system

So we've spent the past few days going through the archives (2008-2012) and writing down "notable dates," because we want to celebrate + remember more things.
13 years ago, at the beginning of January 2012, is when our Core became "Eros/Cupid." This year was so interesting, full of equal amounts of love and terror, and then SLC happened and everything just... shattered, apparently. But we want to re-read everything in full after we do this effort.

We added Spotify links to the Akoufoni entry, although we haven't cleaned up the old data yet. But this, too, is a huge memory-restoring effort, because those 'foni help us get a grasp on chronology when there's no actual experiential memory of the physical life, just music data.

We also... found the most recent System Census, from 2017. The one we actually have on our laptop wasn't uploaded, though, and has a few extra names? We started going through it, and... this is going to sound absolutely brutal, but we're starting to think that the post-CNC massive death was almost a pruning. I have no other way to phrase it.
We were horrifically splintered during CNC. We know this. We couldn't function at all so we had TONS of foni just manifesting at the drop of a hat in the desperate attempt to hold things together.
Now, we're going through this list, and... apparently, the foni that didn't resurrect were the ones that were shattered pieces to that effect, ones with hyperspecific jobs for hyperspecific circumstances. We don't even recognize some of the names.
But... we've been saying over and over to ourself since 2017, "God had a reason for letting that happen." That was the only "comfort" we had. It was the only way we could deal with the reality of coming back into consciousness post-Tilly and realizing that most of us were dead. But... was that merciful? Those foni maybe even deserve to finally rest in peace. I mean that, with as much aching compassion as I can, speaking of such a painful topic. But they couldn't survive now, let alone live. Their contexts, their jobs, belong to past timelines and locations and contexts that literally don't exist and aren't even possible anymore, so... if they don't come back, because they can't, then God give their broken souls the peace they never got in life. Please. However that works for nousfoni, give them peace.

...On a related note, I cannot put into proper words how much more alive and hopeful and joyful I feel, now that when I quietly "reach into" my heart-space and feel it, I can feel that "quantum entanglement" ping somewhere off in the ether, in unmappable space, but real. The other half of my internal heart is back where it belongs... in my daengel. 
Typing that, though, makes us aware of a concerning "split" yet. Jay, the "current" one, is alive. But is the current female-adjacent kardifoni a Jewel? Or not? Because Jewels deal with the Irispherae-- the new name for the "League," a term entirely ours at last. Still, the Jewel name STILL applies to ALL the Cores-- even the Jays, as is historically apparent. Or... did that change, to PROTECT the Irispherae, AFTER CNC???
Lord only knows. We're still trying to figure that out and we CAN'T until we actually upload and READ the archives from 2017-2018. We'll do that after we upload the TBHU journal & papers-- which we honestly should start ASAP, after we get these dates figured out.

That's all we're going to update for tonight. Just a brief little update. We're busy in datalogging mode and honestly this helps immensely, just doing this chronological runthrough of our past, and finally feeling the history in our heart, realizing that we have a past and it's beautiful and terrible and ours. It's making life feel real again, reviewing the years. So that's a true blessing.

Last good thing. Jay/Jewel (current Core with dual identity? unclear name, as we said) is STILL EMOTIONALLY OPEN. Like xe said, xer heart is not closed off, no matter how much hell we've been going through with the family. ...Actually that's significant. I think we have our koinofoni AND phagofoni to thank. THAT'S where the "many voices" are now, even if we've never listed them on a census before (we should, and will, soon). Those somafoni are saving our Core because THEY are taking the brunt of the stress and trauma, and yet they aren't alone in it this time-- WE are aware of them, and talking to them, and supporting them, and helping them heal as best we can, and trying so hard to protect them. We only started to do that in CNC; I do remember how novel it was to even THINK of talking to an esthiofoni. Now it's happening every time they show up. That's... immense, now that we think about it. It proves that system communication has dramatically improved since CNC and we didn't even realize it.
But as we were saying about the Core(s)... they're still entirely capable of love even if we are admittedly still grappling with some cathartic blocks due to family stress & religious fear. But that "even if" is amazing too. There's a devotion present, a dedication to love no matter what, a sort of courageously hopeful perseverance despite everything opposing it. No matter how bad of a day we might have, at the end of it, the Core is ALWAYS taking time to not only reconnect with the System at large, but to spend time with Chaos 0. They fall asleep together every night, and that is HUGE because in the past, broken Cores would be too ashamed to be near CZ. Now, that doesn't happen, even though we're struggling so much with body fear/ sickness/ loathing. I think we're more capable of mercy now, and compassion, even if we don't realize it.
OH. Someone said to write this down. We think a BIG part of this "not freezing up emotionally" is the fact that we have ANGRY FONI around. Somehow, that capacity for RAGE is burning through the apathetic risk??? Like, we CAN'T emotionally shut down because instead of doing that, someone is FEELING FIRE. And that's the Core element. That's a surprising thought. It makes sense though. God bless them.
We still need the capacity to feel sadness without drowning in it + triggering guilt/ shame/ religious terror + shutting down. We're emotionally crippled in that respect, even upstairs. This needs to be felt through & discussed further. Add that to the Xanga topic list.

We WANT TO and WILL have a Xanga ASAP btw. Life schedule hasn't allowed for it lately though; family stress, financial stress, and brutal insomnia have made it impossible to sit for ~6 hours of uninterrupted stream-of-consciousness transcription. But it's still a priority. Arguably I think the Core(s) want to finish this "important date" effort first, to get a stronger sense of self beforehand, and to refresh their awareness of collective history in general. We really did lose our general sense of "identity" post-CNC, and post-grandma, to be honest. We're slowly restoring it now.

Some other small but vital notes:
+ Sometimes in the morning, with all the steps of getting ready, our brain gets really discombobulated and we might end up in various states of undress because we can't pull our thoughts/actions together enough to complete that task. In the past Julie would try to front when this happened, but it would be very triggering for her. HOWEVER. APPARENTLY WALDORF CAN DO THIS NO PROBLEM. So she's literally been fronting when the body is undressed & we can't dress it immediately, because she doesn't wear clothes anyway and she's safe in that context. So GOD BLESS HER. We miss her so much regardless; it's actually wonderful for her to have SUCH a vital job, so we can see her more often and credit her with this to her honor.
+ GARRISON IS ALIVE. Jay has been "feeling hints of him" for a while? But the other night Jay "decided" to look for him/ "force the hand" of the Systemsoul (basically, "listen, I want to know if he can come back or not; show me RIGHT NOW if that's a yes or a no") and after some time Garrison DID "resurrect" IN LOWSPACE??? He's in the RUINED CITY, but it feels TIME-MANGLED??? Like it's POST-MASSACRE as well as post-CNC. Everything is ash-snow covered like nuclear fallout. The skyscrapers are hollowed out and blackened and fallen over. Everything is quiet and cold and there's a dread wind blowing and it's all so grey. And CANNON IS THERE, apparently "haunting" the hollow buildings Jay says? Like she's "damned herself" to that place. But it's SO WEIRD. This is NOT the "red apocalypse" place Scalpel keeps being haunted by, as the inheritor of Javier's trauma memories from the massacre. So WHAT'S GOING ON?? We NEED to look into this VIA HEADSPACE MEDITATION. To get data on this we have to LIVE IT. You cannot "reason it out." Logic won't get you answers here.
But Garrison IS ALIVE!!! Jay's showing me a memory that he "dropped down" into that "Lowspace-floatspace" (whatever/ wherever/ whenever it is) to meet him, and immediately gave him such a huge hug, haha. Tears of relieved joy from both of them. That's really touching.
We don't know about Isadora and Kalisha yet, but "a request has been put forwards." So we'll see.
ALSO. Archivists (Shirley/ Sirius/ Penny) and Communicators (Garrison/ Isadora/ Kalisha) are DIFFERENT CLASSES WITH DIFFERENT ROLES, and apparently there is a THIRD CLASS held by the "helmet girl/ commentator girl" and probably someone else (because trios are a big thing up here)??? So that's FASCINATING but it makes SO MUCH SENSE and the better we understand it, the better we'll function.

It's 2AM and we had dinner at 430-630 and it was the only meal we ate today and it was only 1000 calories. I don't think that's sustainable. We need to split it into two meals, and get at least 1200. We have to. But someone is saying "that's gluttonous" "stop being so luxurious" etc. Don't have a face for them yet. (THESE are the foni we have to pinpoint for a census; there are TONS of "discarnate" foni that slip under the radar)
I mention this because we're getting a headache & the body is cold. We may need to stop for tonight and sleep, so we can have a "breakfast" before 4pm. But someone is furious about that. We need to talk to these foni.
We ALSO need to CLARIFY COLOR ROLES so they HAVE SOMEWHERE TO GO in the System. Too many "faceless foni" just default to Brown because they don't know where else to go. And there are SO MANY FILES STARTED on this laptop SPECIFICALLY ABOUT COLORS that were never finished. That's something I know Jay is aching to do, so put that on top priority too, with the Xanga.

A few last notes.
+ We got the strong impression that if Nathaniel comes back, his name/face would have to change again. We don't know why that's a thing with him but it might be because he was born a blepofoni.
+ Josephina's essence must have a name change for him/her to manifest. Jay says it's sticking to a "Y" as the first letter instead of J, to "prevent blurring with Cores" (that's their letter).
+ We have no current blepofoni and that's a big problem; it might even be affecting the Core's ability to stabilize. The Core(s) have been striving to make the reflection "more resonant" though, especially with the massively fluffy hair we currently have, haha. But blepofoni are essential so we need to keep an eye out for them, and keep the door open for them-- if there's no openness to seeing them, it'll block them out, and it is very hard to get through bad days/ have a distinct sense of self without a blepofoni in the mirror.
+ Siobhan is alive and around but we have to keep calling her into the main room in the mornings. We don't know why she disappeared for a while but we're glad she's still with us.
+ We're still not sure what's going to happen with Spine. The TBHU journal had some interesting thoughts about that-- it feels like she might "come back different" too, with how so much has changed since she first manifested. This, too, requires more feeling than thinking to get a grip on.
+ Still not sure if, when the System FINALLY "moves CLEARLY into a new era" (we need a HARD SHIFT remember; we never got one after the several successive losses from 2018-2024), there will be duotone foni.
+ Still not sure if there is a somafoni split in truth, or if everyone is just a nousfoni. We think there are far less somafoni than we realize-- that term might (should) ONLY apply to foni who think they are singlets and act as such. Everyone else, even koinofoni who live primarily IN the body, should STILL be grouped in with the System at large.
+ Re-reading 2012, we don't know if the Eros bloodline is technically separate from the Jays or what. That whole topic is still a minefield but that color shut down after CNC and ANY sort of Spectrum hue-loss is deadly. We need that color back. Funny how history repeats itself in little ways. It's beautiful, actually, in this case; it feels like things are poetically coming back together, through repeats of our past, connecting our "now" to our "then" in a united whole.
+ IT SNOWED TODAY. Jay is very happy about this. It's actually still snowing a tiny bit right now. Snow makes him feel "real"; he says it makes "everything feel real." It makes him feel grounded and alive and connected to "the big picture"; it "gets him in touch with eternity." I can feel a bright ache in his heart as he says that, which is good. I know he can't wait until Infi comes back entirely. Honestly we're all waiting. Infinitii is essential to our System; when ze comes back, I can guarantee you things will change dramatically and quickly. It's inevitable. But Infi will have to heal too; ze has a lot of damage that was never dealt with, and that we all need to deal with alongside hir. But we will. It's time. It has to be. Do we have the right to "decide" that? Laurie says, "why not?" It's because there's a religious fear that "God will stop us from healing" because it's "not His timing." Laurie says, "well, we have to try. I think God would want us to finally heal from this so we can function for heaven's sakes, and do what He wants us to do with our life." And again, like I said before, there are "peripheral" foni we can sense, thriskefoni with vague colors and faces and no names, that we cannot clarify but who are definitely there. Man... there's more going on in our head on a daily basis than we realize. That's exciting though. Someone else says it's frightening, terrifying. DON'T YOU DARE SHUT US DOWN she's right, NO ONE has ANY right or authority to "prevent other people from existing." The "gatekeeper girl" especially. We all remember Christina's attempted "soft massacres" and the actual one that Jessica & Cannon inflicted in 2013. No more of that, ever. We let us exist. Have mercy for heaven's sakes. You claim to follow God, where is your mercy? You who are so ready to pick up the knife and slaughter the rest of us? "You're not real," they say. "Define real," someone else retorts, "considering you're just like us." They're screaming protest in response. I wonder if they're our biggest threat here. I wonder if they're also the ones pushing the starvation compulsions. Different ones than these, but same class, for sure.
Too much for 230AM. But I don't want to ignore it. Let us pause and listen. Jay is reaching out, asking. (He always does; I think that's a big part of his job as the Heart.) "What makes you real, and us not? Can't you see me?" and fear response on their part. No words. But that was a good reply. Laurie is saying to stop commenting and close up so we can continue working and get some sleep for heaven's sakes. That's a good idea.

This is a good entry. We haven't had a solid entry in a while, even just notes like this.
We'll do better in the future, once the Core(s) stabilize. I promise that. It's something we want very much and will achieve through love and effort and the grace of God. We haven't "lost" all of this beauty we're reading from our past. It's still very much who we are. We can, and will, be that again-- and even better, as we continue to heal and love and grow together.

For now, Laurie is right. We need to wrap this up and let the body rest, no matter how much we want to keep working. If we go to bed now, we won't have to sleep in as much, and we'll have earlier time to work tomorrow, which is better for focus and processing ability. So we will do that.

Good night everyone. We're very glad to be alive tonight. We have a lot of hope.

(Jay says Spotify keeps playing Chaos 0's songs and let me tell you, if anyone is proof that our heart is alive, it's Jay. Yeah we're still confused on bloodlines and bodymind splits and all that, but this white-haired prism-hearted boy-- however he may evolve and change in the future-- is so full of light and love and color and truth, when he feels things this powerfully we are all affected by the power of it. The fact that he didn't die is phenomenal. he's proof that we have a future. that's just how it is. he's alive and so are we. that's a good note to close up on.)
(no, even better-- the lyrics in this song. "i can tell, i can feel, you are love, you are real." the look those two are giving each other is a beautiful thing. that's worth living for, is the thought i get. it is. and we need to protect that, and we all need to live in that too. we'll get there. we'll rebuild better than things were even in the past, in the glory days. there's more light on the horizon than we realize. things have seemed so dark for so long, but no, the stars are still all shining in the sky. there's always hope. hope is a fighting thing. remember what jay told anxi-- remember what our core is for anxi, and vice versa. realize everything beautiful we still have now, and don't let go. whatever happens tomorrow, we are all together, and we are alive, and we will continue on no matter what, into eternity. love is eternal and we have it now. don't be afraid. you know the truth. live in it. fight for it. that's who we are, and always will be.)

rough notes for today, from phone. most written between masses.
too important to not at least try to update.
 

dream last night was... a turning point.
i was watching some hollywood movie, based loosely on our life?
Main guy a grizzled action hero type, all stubble & dirt & muscle. (They pulled a Father Nier on me, haha. GOOD.)
Star Trek + Alien feel to set? Very dark.
Talking to someone off to side, assumedly a nonhuman person? Like Data or someone, who was informing them of mission. Main guy seemed unsure of decision, there was a huge risk involved?
Then there was a voice.
and i recognized it instantly. i knew that voice.
It came from above, from a huge shadowy tangle reaching up into hidden heights. It was only a few words, but in direct response to the man's hesitation.
Something like "let me" or "i can", personal offer, implying exclusive ability.
Saw an EYE open in the shadow. slightly pinkish-red iris. opened halfway, almost, moved with notable slow grace. Movement, fluid and refined, but dark. nonthreatening despite the fearful silhouettes.
Man turns to it, looks pained and concerned? Vulnerable suddenly. Obviously a bit uncomfortable with this, the offer to help choose this decision he was scared of.
Thinking hard, but evident already knew what must be done.
Short sigh of acquiesce & surrender, "okay"? Turned completely towards shadows, with softly open body language surprisingly. not tense.
Last thing: him saying something like "bring me in"?
the shadows reaching down close now, just offscreen, from shadow. Those dark hands gently but firmly lifting the man's face to hirs, to touch their foreheads together. hir eye briefly visible among the shadows as it closed.
Immediately a flash, transported man into a nightmare realm? Deeply disturbing and distorted. But had some vital mission to do, something absolutely essential.

...but yeah. it was infi. infinitii. alive. obscured and hidden but ze was there, and i heard hir voice, and...

...It's terrible, how ze felt so real and alive and close, only to wake up and remember that ze was dead.

I feel more alive, too, now, as we're dying, than I have in a very long time.
I feel more hope this morning, with hir memory hot in my heart, and the sky outside heavy with the scent of fog and green and life, than I have in a very long time.

God knew that dream was exactly what I needed.
We all needed this, all of it.

...

Mass
CANNON fronting.
Bodygirl pushed through during homily-- set off SO MANY TRAUMA ALARMS that some paidifoni started wailing; Wreckage & Sugar instantly jumped to action, PULLED the bodygirl OUT of fronting & shoved J IN.

Cannon feels surprisingly "stable" fronting. Hidden godsend.
She is still disturbed+disgusted by the body, but she can at least front in a female-tone fashion yet CONNECTED to headspace. Most girls are corpufoni and therefore isolatory+hollow, which is tragic but true.

J thinking about dysphoria in light of 2nd reading: to let it be what it is, afab without further modification, would be a MARTYRDOM for the sake of his sisters. It would be a self-giving sacrifice of love, truly selfless out of charity.

Remember from the other day (Thursday?): JOPHAEL & VEIL ARE ALIVE. Arguably so is "Tilly." There are SEVERAL hyperreligious foni (need jargon) that blur hard despite notable distinctions.

Priest saying "unity" during opening prayer and it PINGED INFI'S SPOT???
Wondering if hir name truly is changing.
Color too-- that space feels much more Red than before.

Chaos singing softly "whoever you are i love you" as we left church
Felt like God Himself shot an arrow straight through my heart
Genuinely felt so loved and IN love

third mass
wreckage upstairs fighting the molasses-dark sticky tar-voice girls
it was almost hilarious; she heard them, then held out a hand. "algorith. goggles." then "sugar. mask." they both instantly handed her both, she put them on to protect from contamination, then COMPLETELY TORE THE TARVOICES TO SHREDS.
i forgot she was born for violence. it was shocking.
likewise, at some point a tarvoice respawned and when laurie heard it, in one swift terrible motion she summoned her axe and slammed it into that voice's skull. i remember blood went everywhere. laurie roughly swiped a fist across her face to get some off, it was such an old familiar motion, i was both scared of her and so in love


Home for 1?
Exercise first! it's been three days and we needed it.

julie and adelaide still a tag team remember. julie is just so glad that we finally have a voice who is taking care of the body in the most dangerous environment. honestly if addie had been around during the "julie days" we probably would have had SO MANY LESS HACKS because adelaide exists to prevent social automatons from taking over and abusing/ allowing abuse to the body.
so julie is so grateful and even enthusiastic about helping this kid out, it's wonderful.
it's ALSO noteworthy because this is a SPLIT-LEVEL FRIENDSHIP. addie is a social, technically-- but julie is a centralite. so they are on DIFFERENT SYSTEM LEVELS, and socials typically DON'T COMMUNICATE AT ALL. so the whole thing is really amazing.
by the way. there is ANOTHER voice that comes out when the bathroom door is closed and we're in the dark. we thought we were hallucinating at first but it happened three consecutive times, same overlay and vibe, without any interference. they're nonhuman? but they have BIG EYES, wide open and yellow i think?? but ringed like an aye-aye or something similar. they feel like dread, function-wise: they exist in the threat of immediate danger, and have a background hum of panic that they aren't able/allowed to feel, yet which fuels their life.

BK prep was very dissociated because i was stuck in "jellybean mode" (my favorite jargon injoke) and no one could really front well from all the brainfog.

leon tried another egg method, it didn't turn out as he expected BUT it apparently made the perfect eggs for razor to cut. she was so happy with this she ACTUALLY hugged Leon (she's so short!)
remember that knife and scalpel both go to such lengths to help her be happy, it's so sweet. scalpel is naturally affectionate and amiable (reds always are at heart; they're "sanguine" literally), and knife just adores her as his sister.
seeing this unusual friendship growing between knife/razor and leon/scalpel is just wonderful actually.

...

phone note: The reason why people like Laurie and Lynne Are holding so many functions is because there aren't enough people In that color to hold those functions separately so they all get shoved into one person !!


post-BK binge temptation deafening. no idea why it hits so bad.
determined not to give in, but we were shaking and nauseous. felt front slipping.
tried to distract body. god helped by randomly showing us that one of our kitchen cupboards was full of papers?? from old eating disorder treatment. "kill the albatross." junked all of it. felt like a weight was literally lifted off our back.
still nervous, xenophon watching carefully, god bless her
then had genius idea to sit down at laptop to type self compassion booklet & listen to Arabic indie tunes
took three hours haha, completely destroyed the binge panic

DN 745
at some point i said something about scripture reading plans, called mimic "my octopus" and laurie immediately called me out on it
later laurie asking me why i keep putting so much cayenne pepper in the food. i said, half-joking, i was trying to get back in touch with my old fire element. she then said all right, fair enough, but then why are you adding just as much salt? i shrugged and just said "salt & light." she gave me this look it was hilarious, said "you know the worst part is you're not even wrong"

THIS paragraph during bible study (still focusing on john 1 commentary, i love this chapter)=
"[John the Baptist] did not, as seducers do, give out himself to be some great one. He was more industrious to do good than to appear great; and therefore waived saying any thing of himself till he was legally interrogated. Those speak best for Christ that say least of themselves, whose own works praise them, not their own lips... The ministers of Christ must remember that they are not Christ, and therefore must not usurp his powers and prerogatives, nor assume the praises due to him only. They are not Christ, and therefore must not lord it over God's heritage, nor pretend to a dominion over the faith of Christians. They cannot created grace and peace; they cannot enlighten, convert, quicken, comfort; for they are not Christ... Those that humble and abase themselves thereby confess Christ, and give honour to him; but those that will not deny themselves do in effect deny Christ!"

Reading through our 2012-2015 "newage" spirituality delusion, that is EXACTLY WHAT WE WERE DOING.

"Still small voice" humbling correction. social mode took over and i thought there was a mistranslation, was complaining about it? subtle pride. realized i had the wrong info entirely, very convicted and corrected. gave thanks for this out loud, admitted how i messed up to those around. still disturbing to then realize that i had been acting on programming, and had not made a conscious decision in the complaining. social corruption is pervasive. 

trying to get ready for bed, head still fuzzy, then suddenly the mother calls
THEY FOUND JADE. THEY'RE STABLE & NOT DEAD THANK GOD
spent the next hour with her calling over and over, trying to figure out emergency housing at this hour
still. so glad they're not on the streets.

wanting to read "brainchild" webcomic over from the beginning. haven't read it in like... 7 years, at least? and it's STILL UPDATING god bless. so we'll do that soon, maybe to fight off another e.d. wave. it'll work.

Thinking about "a broken and crushed heart" psalm 51:17 
and that's where i want to segue into some actual typing, not just bullet points.



We haven't been updating lately. I won't elaborate on that here because it's fairly self-explanatory.
Infinitii died. Something in me died with hir.
I can feel the System on the verge of a reset, a restart, an update. Whatever you want to call it, I can feel the edges crumbling away, fading out, just like Infi's bubblespace, which I walked into this morning and... it's so empty. I can feel the raw whitespace beyond it now, like the very air of the cosmos whistling through the ruins.

We... we all have to "die" in some sense, soon. I think I've known this for a while, but reading the archives as I repost them-- the work I've been focusing on since Infi's death, to keep my mind and heart off it-- is really driving the point in hard.
I didn't realize just how hellish our past ACTUALLY WAS. It's... humbling as well as horrific. It's making me realize we really do need therapy, because I JUST hit 2015 and I haven't fully read anything prior yet but geez we have buried SO MUCH it's no wonder we feel dead.
Ironically, that's our ticket out of this haze. Just like Jesus, Who goes before us in all things, we need to accept the tomb before we can be reborn.
I know something died in us after CNC. We hit that ghastly "dead period" of, what, four years?? We still have no idea who was fronting, who we were, anything... when we got out of that car in 2018 and stepped back into the trauma-cursed building we had lived in for almost three decades, we suddenly realized that we didn't remember what it was like TO live there and then something snapped.
It's... terrifying. We have almost no memory of anything. We still haven't got the guts, nerves, or time to sit and attempt a "CNC Memory" entry, but flashbacks and nightmares have been reminding us that there is still data up here, even if our conscious mind runs from it.
...That's my next point. Hold on a second, let me bring this back.
We all need to die, but not stay dead, because since CNC we have been living a death. We have basically been corpses.
Remember, WE DID DIE when we left CNC. I don't remember details. It was so fast, so raw, so desperate. I remember Laurie wordlessly hunting down Infinitii and burying an axe in hir skull, leaving hir body as a nightmarish monument in that place for YEARS. I remember... oh God why do I remember? I have this awful flashbulb memory-shred of Laurie, destroying herself by means of an axe and hypergravity, I swear she was standing in that same wrecked skyscraper she had killed herself in the last time she failed to protect the System from hell, back in 2013.
I don't know what happened, after that. The two cornerstones had died, the Core was completely missing, everyone else was... I have no idea. No one could cope. Everyone disappeared. Some social girl took over for the next several years and almost deleted all trace of us from the earth.
Then... suddenly, on May 17th 2020, she woke up from a dream to see headspace instead, and Infinitii among the lilies, hir body damaged but alive, and... suddenly there was hope.
But we don't remember what happened after that.
Headspace didn't wake up, not entirely. If anything, the girls were fighting furiously to keep it dead. Nothing reformed. Nothing was rebuilt. No one else showed up that I can remember.
I haven't looked at any archives from 2020. Our actual active memory doesn't pick up until the autumn of 2021, when one morning over breakfast our grandmother coughed up blood and everything shifted direction towards the end.
2021 was the year of cancer and music and bulimic hell and hospitals, hospitals, hospitals. Our life was spent in that bedroom, waiting on her 24/7, our identity swallowed up in palliative care and honestly it was the biggest blessing. We wouldn't change that at all. But it... only helped promote self-destructive behavior in every single moment we weren't being a nurse. I know that much.
2022 was the year of death. Grandma died, our "brother" "died," we nearly died, and our entire life up to that point changed so irreversibly that it felt as if we really had buried it. Total upheaval, confusion, helplessness, and loss defined this year. But... then there was the Chizu Summer, when we felt our heart waking back up slowly but REAL, and then... we landed in the eating disorder recovery unit for nine weeks. 
And the System woke back up COMPLETELY.
But... we still didn't rebuild.

We've been living in fragments. We have this old pocket of Central, the main room and the Coreroom, but... outside everything is still destroyed and empty and overgrown. Even inside, the very building feels abandoned even while we're in it. The place where the Underground got hardshifted to the last time things reset, feels like it's graying out into fog at the edges, falling into unformed space, literally being reclaimed by the raw energy of our soul, ready to be recycled and reshaped.
So many of us are still missing, or dead, or unstable, or deeply damaged. Color and name instabilities are common. We all feel lost, deep down. We're spending so much time just crowded in that little Central ruin and helping the Fronters, just because there's nowhere else to go, and we still haven't been able to carve out the time to go back to daily headspace meditations and talks and the like. Honestly, if I can speak for us all, I think we're afraid to. We don't know what's hiding there. We haven't looked at it for like... five bleeding years. When we do get glimpses we feel too weak to do anything about them. Even Laurie is scared. She's been... so nervous lately. She says she feels like a failure, and the more she sees of her past the more lost she feels. She's terrified that she'll corrupt again, like she did in CNC, or worse-- that said corruption has ruined her beyond repair, has blackened her very soul, and forever ruined her integrity, her very heart. She's terrified that she can't BE a Protector anymore.
I understand her terror. But so help me God I will cut my own throat before I give any such fear a foothold. She's Laurie. She's my knight, she's my angel, I will NEVER let ANYTHING ruin her.
I know, I know, her deepest heart is untouched by that hell.
And, you know what else? Even if we were so damaged, guess what Jesus is all about? Guess what the Cross we all look to is all about? God is Love and He CAN and WILL heal even such a wound. There is ALWAYS hope, for all of us.
But... we might need to actually, really, finally, pointedly die before that hope can revive our souls.
And quite frankly, at this point, I'm... I think I want to. I think we need to.


..."Burial" by Seinabo Sey just came on Spotify.
I want to burst into sobs. I want to break into weeping.
God, I never thought that this song, that this title, would mean what they do now. God how could we have known?
"...I hear you speak to me, as you spoke to me, saying "come down, let it be"... grains of sand will never be strong enough to make me leave."
I'm so desperate for hope. Even now. Even now. What am I even looking for. Freedom and marching drums. It's tearing me to pieces.

Oh yeah. Psalm 51.
A "crushed" heart, not just a broken one.
Forgive my repetition but that made me think of this entire month. Losing Infi, and feeling--literally-- that my heart had been ripped out and shattered and emptied out. Every time I reach for hir and feel nothing it's... it's my own death knell. I'm next. I have to be. I can't live without my heart.

Isn't that strange? We've been talking about that too, lately, how Infi and I have a completely different bond than Chaos 0 and I do, and yet... I'm indelibly, wholeheartedly, inseparably, absolutely in love with both of them.

I need to mention this.
You know how I said that, at mass, the priest saying "Unity" pinged Infi's "space?" Like if someone died suddenly, and left their cellphone in their room, and you call it, it still rings. There are still places where they would belong, that belong to them, or did. Something like that. But there's a "spot" in the Systemind that ze would fit in, and that word resonated there like a temple bell.
But... ze's fading, more and more, which scares me to death, or at least it did until that dream this morning. Bubblespace is continuing to melt away. I don't even know if I could find the floatspace pocket ze died in ever again, or if blackspace itself swallowed it up. It was so small.
...The number one biggest indicator that a nousfoni is dead, really and truly dead, is when their name stops "pinging." When you call for them, and... and there's not even a heartpull, there's suddenly a loss of memory, like their existence is being softly erased from the fabric of cognizance. When you say their name and there's... not even an echo, from headspace, just silence. That means they're dead.
Infi's name is starting to do that.
I say that name, Infinitii, Infinitii Eternos, that name that past Cores breathed with such ardent love over the past decade, is suddenly becoming just a jumble of letters. It's terrifying.

But. Here's the important thing. Here's the Holy Saturday feeling. Here's why it happened.

Remember Infi wanted to die.

I've been praying about it, so so much, every day really. I've been crying about it to Jesus, begging Him to bring hir back, hysterically begging Him to tell me why, why, weeping with such raw emotion my entire soul turns into a sob. I take it all to Him. Where else could I go?
But... He listens, and He responds. He keeps reminding me of that: Infi wanted to die.
And oh, oh man I think it was in the homily today. Somewhere. Recently. A priest was talking about the Cross, about that total self-sacrifice of Love, to save others from a debt of sin they could never repay, of God Himself choosing to die the agonizing torturedeath of a false condemnation so that we, those criminals He inexplicably loved, wouldn't have to... to freely take on the full power and demands of Justice and mercifully fulfill them completely, freeing us as a result.
Jesus kind of poked me in the shoulder and said hey kid, my Truth is always reflected in love, and isn't a glimmer of that visible in what Infi did for you?
Infi knew ze had to die, or else we'd all end up dead, forever.

...I knew something huge had happened when I blindly groped for even trauma memories to see if ze was there, and... they were DISARMED.
It floored me. There were trauma memories that ONLY INFI HELD and that others could only glimpse secondhand, but now, as I tore through archival data to look for those recorded events they were hollow. Like... I can look at them and recognize this as something traumatic but not feel traumatized personally. Infi's very presence IN those events is gone, and as a result... this is the first time in five years that we can look at them.
This means we can finally go to therapy. I hope.
Infi knew this. I'm sure ze did. The hack that drove hir to death brought all that up to the surface. Ze was distraught, ze was carrying so much of our pain, ze knew ze was the CAUSE of it, and... how else was ze going to help save us from it? How else could that wound be healed, if that wound had a face and a name?

...I'm next. I have to be.
The bloodline HAS to shift. It HAS to change. The white-haired Jay/ce bloodline has been Plagued since the very beginning, WAY back in 2009 when the first one to carry it-- Pinstripe-- was born. Lotus was the last, his White rotting to Pink by the end, and subtly carrying all the old trauma damage that Julie had originally put there.
Now it's... me. "J." Back to the single-initial name, in lieu of any stable identity. Everyone can attest to that; I frequently get shifts in not only name, but also hairstyle and color, eye color, and even memory access. It's debilitating and disturbing and exhausting.
But I'm carrying a dead man's name. "Jay" as a name has always ended in self-destruction, for one reason or another. We've always tried too hard to be all sparkles and prismatic light, all snowflakes and angel wings, only to burn to death in the winter sun.
Cannon is able to front lately as if we never existed, as if our personal timeline has rewound. Our religion and life situation have permanently erased the trans* dream from our future, so the body is now fated to stay how it is-- no surgery, no hormones. That itself is a cross. But... all our female "pseudocores" are completely corrupt.
The Jewels are League-tied and cannot be a System Core without dying instantly. The Cannons have no future in the body anymore; they existed for a very specific era of life that no longer applies and cannot. The Jays are dying and they are now barred from body identification anyway. So what does the future hold? We don't know.
All we know is that we have to die. Everything has to CLEAR CUT die, no fading away, no fizzling out, no slow degradation. No. We take an axe to this. We headshot this point-blank. We rip the curtain in half. We end this, fast and complete and deliberate. We break this clean in half so something else CAN be born. There's no hope in decay. There's no life in a molding coffin. Give us the golden guillotine. Christ handed His Life over in one terrible beautiful awful glorious sentence-- all at once, totally and consciously, and all of heaven and earth shook with the power of the Life that Death released. Lord, God of Mystery and Mercy, glorify Yourself again by mirroring that, however quietly, in us. I beg of You. This is Your Design. Our old self HAS to die in order for our new self, our soul for truth, the REAL us, to be born. Fire and water and spirit and truth and love.
It's almost Pentecost. How fitting it all is.

It's 3am. I need to close this up. We haven't been sleeping lately and that's entirely my fault.

Seeing Infinitii-- even if only the vestiges of hir, the tiniest glimpses of hir existence-- in this morning's dream... I felt something upon waking that I haven't felt in YEARS.
I remembered what ze REALLY felt like.
Listen, every nousfoni has a "vibe." Every one of us has a personal energy signature that is like a fingerprint, or a heartbeat, or a name, in and of itself. One of my honest favorite things to do in the world is just sit and feel them out, to just find and notice and treasure this particular person's soul in all its colors and textures and sounds and scents, however it hits my heart.
Infi... I haven't felt hir in YEARS.
When ze was "resurrected" in 2020-- and I don't even know if that's the proper word; none of us felt completely "alive" since CNC, we all feel incomplete and off-center and helplessly confused deep down-- ze didn't feel like hirself at all. In fact I had FORGOTTEN what ze felt like, completely.
This morning, when I heard hir voice, oh God I thought I'd never hear that beloved unmistakable voice ever again-- when I heard hir and saw hir eye open, and move, there in the black, so real and so familiar and so loved-- I FELT HIR. I felt all of it, that heady numinous gorgeous starry-sky night-flower abyss that I missed with my entire soul. Upon waking it soaked into my psyche like the morning fog, and just as gentle and beautiful and cherished, filling me with love and amazement and hope.
Infinitii is still dead. I know this. There's still so much emptiness. The sense of loss is still so profound. The grief is still there, threatening to kill me all on its own. But... there's this light, now. I've... I'm hoping, Lord please I'm hoping that the tomb is empty. It feels like sunlight, despite everything being dark. I don't know how to explain it. It's a single ray of gold, like a thread, shining in my heart like the promise of morning. I don't know. But everything smells like midnight clarity and velvet and I want to weep but from love, nothing ever really ends Adrian, John 11:25, remember what hir name was after all.
I don't know. I'm rambling now. I apologize. I'm too tired.
Just... this is the first time in three weeks that I haven't felt like the world is actively ending.
Even if I do die tomorrow, and the bloodline hardshifts, who even knows... even then, I could go happily now. Somehow. I'm still scared, but... I think I could let go. I think I could surrender, now. I'll go be with my heart.

"Godly Love" by Sam Ock just came on. It's one of Laurie's favorites.
"What if God speaks in a whisper to teach me how to hear the echo? Maybe God's raining down plagues just to tell me that I need to let go."
...I think that sums things up, actually.

One last thing.
Infi's playlist on Spotify, and hir album of art on my phone... neither of them match anymore. It struck me today how all my memories of Infi, all my knowledge of hir, does NOT match the art OR the music from the CNC era. I'd never looked at either until today, so that hit hard. That, too, is hope. I had forgotten how scary things were back then, how corrupt we honestly were, how our personality was just pure TarPlague and we were destroying both ourself and everyone around us. That needed to die, objectively so, we all knew that... but no one realized how. Infi did. So... there's hope for a future, free from all that.
It's such an odd feeling, even just deleting songs from here (more small deaths) that don't fit hir heart at all, and I wonder how we ever thought they did. Maybe at one point they did match. Have we really healed and changed that much, without realizing it, even in this place of death?

There's so much more to say but there's no time tonight. This poor body needs to sleep before it collapses. 
God willing I will update tomorrow. If not, then it's all in His Hands anyway, and I can rest in that.
Right now, none of us has any clue what will happen next, either in moments or in days. It's a strange adventure.
This song is breaking my heart. "My Thief" by Elvis Costello. I think of the poem I wrote for hir, even back during the terror. Still the sound echoes true. Still the words are sincere.
What a strange adventure, the doors of which were flung wide open by your eyes closing in silence. God only knows how achingly I miss you. But... I hadn't realized that I could still feel this, until... until my heart broke, and everything poured out, glittering like you.
I didn't realize just how much I love you until I lost you.

I wonder if you knew that, too.

tuesday. therapy day.
another night of fitful sleep. woken up by FIRE ALARM at 7am haha. didn't get to sleep until almost 2am anyway. so, wrecked.
staggered off to therapy for 9am. ended up just traumadumping about cnc & slc, as well as some bits about when our sis was completely lost in her delusions and was sexually harassing us constantly. also death threats. told the therapist roughly about how we were always the "caretaker" in our family, notably for grandma when she got older, but also in a less blatant way for everyone. "be the good example." "grow up already." constantly expected to know everything, succeed at everything, be available and willing for everything and anything.
suddenly hit us that THIS is what "attracted predators" to us our whole life. our "default projected persona" was of someone who WOULD take care of you, and help you, and love you no matter what. no trouble, no difficulty, just the "perfect nice friend." except we FAILED MISERABLY at that in reality. it only worked on paper.
THAT'S BECAUSE WE'RE MULTIPLE AND THE TYPERS CAN'T FRONT AND SOCIALS CAN'T TYPE.
so. that was a huge shock, realizing that.
also sad. realizing that THIS is why people told us "i thought you were a good person. i guess i was wrong." because they only saw the "prim and proper" voices that existed FOR that purpose. but when in public, in the body, all the traumatized kids started to show up. the dissonance rarely showed online and even then it was hidden or private. when people said "oh yeah we read your journals" and then were SHOCKED at our struggles and unhealthy behavior i think they were lying. i don't think they actually read much. otherwise they never would have wanted to be our friend. they never would have asked us to do the things they did. et cetera.
still hurt the most to realize that deep down yeah we did love them. and that's WHY we constantly sacrificed ourself for them all. even if they didn't see how we were struggling. maybe they didn't even care. but it's why we're still having a hell of a time coping with the fallout from it all 5-10 years later. it all collapsed so fast, so violently, with so much bitter regret and fear and tears. but some part of us did love them all, didn't it? i think we're confused because what we felt as love was NOT what they called "love." at ALL. and THAT was the traumatic part of both situations, when you boil it down. didn't talk about that though. too much to unpack. not ready to face the cnc horrors. did mention the hollowness of slc though. always alone, unheard, unloved. heartbroken. felt like they didn't want us at all. like we'd never fit in, just a third wheel, just an accessory. still hurts. can't ever fix it though. it's long long long since over. but for us the loose ends are still all over the floor, covered in someone's teardrops in the lonely nights.

anyway. therapy did end well.
she said she wanted us to write affirmations (we forgot about that; not happy about this but we have to at least try), but surprised us by saying that "you may not believe what you write, but let me tell you what i already see in you, after hearing you talk." and then, like far too many people, she said "you're strong" and "you're courageous" and "you're resilient" and "you're insightful" and "you care deeply about people" etc etc etc.
we're weary from hearing that so often. if we do have those positive qualities why the hell are we still such a failure at life

anyway sorry i'm dragging everyone down. we'd like to believe those things. but pride is still our biggest vice. cannot risk making it even worse.

went shopping briefly after because foodstamps came in. got basics only. mostly same items as yesterday but in monthly amount now. so we're stocked up which is good.
still have to get carrots, vitamin water, and supplements, but that's for thursday when we're on the road.
went to adoration too because it's tuesday! they still had all the christmas lights up and it was so, so beautiful. we could only stay for about 25 minutes but it did us so much good. time flew by as always, just talk-praying to jesus right there. wanted to stay there forever.
managed to finagle our schedule to where we were able to go to mass at dvm and see father fp!! we care deeply for him. true we've never spoken or anything, we just visit that church every so often when we're in the area. but we immediately felt a deep fondness for him the first time we visited, seeing him walk in like a regular dude and then just... put on the chasuble. blew our minds. plus he has gorgeous eyebrows haha. lovely face. and short but succinct homilies. the church is so nice too. gosh we're so grateful we get to go there when we do. every church is its own unique piece of heaven and we love them.
after mass went to the library, got 5 more movies. took about 10m to find any-- as we browsed the tiny section (it's a little library) we realized that we aren't interested in seeing most of these films. and that was liberating. we don't "have to" watch them just because we "haven't seen them." freeing to realize we COULD say "no." to refuse infecting our minds with what we didn't need. so we judiciously picked a few that we wanted to see, or at least that sounded interesting to us, and that was it. tiny milestone there. exercising free will. therapy inspired us really; we were raised to "never say no to anyone" and that made our toxic friendships downright traumatic. but we've discussed that enough.

got home for like... 2pm, haha. late!
still did our quick ~7m of weightlifting before eating, didn't want to skip. slowly increasing the time. noticing we are increasing in strength, bit by bit, notably compared to pre-hospital. so that's hope.
breakfast at 3pm, which was actually planned because we had something very special that evening.

CHOIR PRACTICE.

worried about it all day honestly. social anxiety. considering not going, but that would be such a flakeout and we DID want to go. laurie told me flat-out "you're going kiddo, you're gonna be fine" so that settled it haha.
left at 5pm, stopped at the twins' old workplace first to buy eggs and emergency apples. as we walked in, there was an employee stocking a soda cooler and HOT DANG THEY WERE GORGEOUS. like ENTIRELY GREEN. raver pants, dyed hair, facial piercings, et cetera. absolutely fantastic. we did a double take and then kind of fanboyed briefly in the spice aisle, haha. people are lovely dude you can't blame me.
even better, when we went to check out they kept coming over to casually help. so that was great. us in our red & them in green. them all cool and calm and us grinning like a moron with our sunglasses indoors, haha. but it was nice.
oh yes and they FINALLY had those bigass "opal" apples. been wanting to try one for like two months. so we will.

anyhow. quick note. all day today we've been looping "world citizen" on spotify. forgot how much that song sounds like our core's heart, too. which is shocking. it's unexpected, with its dark haunting sound. but it's still heartfelt. there's still an emotional ache and depth to it, and THAT is what resonates with our cores. plus that resonance really helps ground & center us when we're in public, which is a high risk for going into total dissociative performance mode.

however, on the drive to choir, we had the idea to listen to cannon's old tunes, since we were going to her old campus. put nu:tone on shuffle. apparently they have a song called "system" and YES, IT REALLY IS JUST THAT RELEVANT. we were laughing in incredulous amusement at how fitting it was. immediate add to liked songs haha. but otherwise, we were surprised to hear how upsetting that musical style was to our psyche. something about the synths and basslines i guess. but it was depressing and agitating us. like geez, no wonder poor cannon was always so miserable. if this is all she listened to, she was getting herself trapped in that mindstate without even realizing it.
put world citizen back on anyway. put us so much in "the zone" we legit forgot what traffic lights were, haha. looking at a green light not even realizing we were in a car. enthralled with the color in the dark. then "oh hold up wait aren't you supposed to move on green?" thank god barely anyone was on the road geez dude

muscle memory so to speak. knew exactly how to get to campus even after ~10 years. place looks notably different in spots, but we recognized our old haunts with great fondness. really miss visiting the place and just wandering around but now i think they have "id scanners" on the doors so we can't just pretend we're a student and bum around the music building haha. tragic.

nevertheless! we made it to the choir group on time. held in a building waaaaay at the end of campus that we've never seen before. which was cool. i think we were the youngest person there haha. one other young'un there who was our classmate in high school, go figure. small world.
BUT.
IT WAS ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN' AMAZING
the songs were gorgeously arranged, and everyone there LOVED TO SING. not like our church choir, bless 'em but they don't cooperate. this choir, though, not only could sightread music BUT they listened to the director, they didn't argue, they followed dynamics and tempos, etc. shocking the different between professional and casual. like these people were here because they loved to sing. it was an honor to be part of something like this at last.
oh. but the best news of all you guys i have got to tell you this
WE
ARE
A
TENOR

WE HAVE DREAMED OF THIS FOR YEARS KIDS WE ARE ABSOLUTELY FLIPPIN' ECSTATIC.

also this means we GET TO WEAR A TUX FOR THE CONCERTS YEAAAAAAAAH BOY!!!!!!

sorry we're genuinely so hype over this haha. ohmygosh. lowkey genderqueer choirkid over here, having the time of his life

we didn't get out until 845, dude. got there at 6. again, time flew by. enjoyed every minute. thank you jesus and laurie for insisting we go.

drive home was jay, for the most part. someone else started out-- rubellite maybe?-- riding such good vibes that they were pure joy laughing and joking around. but no memory data. doesn't kick in until we got on the highway and we put the windows down a bit and suddenly jay is there, with his hands out in the cold, and the stars in his eyes, and listening to rufus wainwright & honne & ed harcourt & michael buble with chaos 0 ghosting alongside him. like dude that ONLY happens when jay is out. and that's rare too. but... there they were, in love and at peace, with the winter air all around and music in their hearts. don't think anyone in the system has felt that real in a while.

got home for like... 930, haha. not cool because WE ONLY ATE ONCE TODAY
yeah we'd love to just go back to starving the body but that's not nice. yes we want to be thin but we can't idolize that anymore. gotta be "eternity minded." when we die it won't matter if our body was thin or fat or muscular or not. what WILL matter is the state of our soul. everything else is secondary.
so we had a small dinner at like... 10pm? stupidly late haha.
studying psalms 25, 26, 27. love them a lot. chaos saying "you should write them in your words" and that is a beautiful idea. now that would be prayer, absolutely so. no wonder people love the psalms. they really do speak from the heart of human experience-- joy and sorrow and pain and anger and wonder and hope all in one little piece of hebrew religious poetry. gotta credit mimic for the observation though. also remember him verbally jabbing me at one point by saying "we were both like that once" in respect to some vicious trait the psalmist noted. hurt to be reminded BUT also pulled at my heart to hear "we" and "ONCE." guy's determined to change. well so am i, moreso than before, now that we're in that together. difficult as hell but worth it. AND POSSIBLE. the psalms are reassuring us of that. i'm highlighting so many translations haha

anyway. somehow made the mistake of bringing a few tiny dark chocolates home from choir practice (they had some on the table; we took a bunch for mom but also a few for ourselves potentially; bad move yo) and julie wanted to try them. well we all forgot she was ADDICTED to chocolate. and when she tried one she SLIPPED ENTIRELY. like her appearance SHIFTED back to what it was originally and her entire overlay got blurry and almost socialized. laurie stopped her but then the actual e.d. socials caught on and freaked out and threw up. julie was sobbing and terrified, apologizing, but laurie kept reassuring her that we were okay, the whole thing took less than ten minutes, there was no disaster, we'll recover, and hey, now we know that we really CAN'T do chocolate anymore. amazing how laurie went from "abuser" to "peacekeeper" with the same essential function: keep people from doing stupid things that hurt others. because deep down she loves everyone. that's always been her real purpose, as a protector... that absolute devotion to those whose lives she is charged to defend. you can't do that if you don't love the hell out of 'em.

so we had to re-do "dinner" at like 11pm. small-- just broccoli, carrots, half an apple, some cottage cheese, and two fortunes for xennie-- but i guess with the shock of purging our body wasn't too happy? got really bloated and sick. but we took some antacids and sat down at the computer, determined to just deal. body still needs food. this isn't "fat" it's just food and stress. besides with the exercise and spiritual focus lately it IS getting a bit easier to cope with. still scary, but we're seeing positive movement in different fields now and that is taking the hyperfocus off shape alone. still a long process, but really, i think it will help when we start typing in the upmc tablets too. we did discuss this, or at least, someone did. all "in theory" for the most part of course-- hospital nousfoni live in a bubble with no true cognizance of "real life" outside those white walls. but it's still part of our psyche, and valid, and respected, and absolutely worth reading now that we're no longer in that environment AND don't remember it. yeah that was expected too. nine weeks inpatient and we ONLY remember like... two minutes of time when we were UNHINGED. always the trauma memory. geez. at least it's predictable.

but here we are! no sad icon for today!! we made it thank god. one tiny step back in the right direction. not gonna lose hope. god's still in control. reading the psalms and realizing how even king david, after being delivered from disaster before, STILL felt like God was "hiding His Face" and ignoring him out of anger and rejection... well, that's how WE feel, out of fear. we know we aren't worthy of being answered. God has every right TO refuse to help us. but. "glorify Your Name." show that You ARE a God of mercy and compassion. forgive me and help me. over and over in the psalms. over and over in our hysterical prayers. and... wonder of wonders, God answers. and He helps us. despite all odds, even if we're suffering and scared and exhausted, God gets us through hell and we aren't dead yet. but we must have faith. we must thank Him for His faithful love. we must TRUST that He WILL bring something good out of this. because He will. every single time so far, He has. and He doesn't change.

oh man almost forgot. dinner fortune cookies were the best thing ever. with the "learn chinese," the first one was "doctor", and the second was... "expensive." i had a good laugh at that. but THEN i realized the second cookie had a double fortune, and the third one was... "to see a doctor." well xennie and i absolutely cracked up, it was hilarious.
the fortune itself was deeply sweet though. a repeat, but one we needed to hear. "all troubles you have can pass away very quickly." thanks god. told you, there's always an answer. just wait on the lord dude, he'll be there at the exact right time.

now it's 2am at last and that is the absolute latest we can get to bed if we want to get to church before our nutritionist appointment tomorrow. boy oh boy. wonder what she's going to say. also mom will probably want us to visit her finally tomorrow, so we can give her the chocolates we got today too. smidgens. she'll be thrilled.

so that's tomorrow. thursday is bible study with the old ladies, wegmans shopping, and our church choir. friday is totally open and only the good lord knows what'll happen haha. but we're looking forward to it all! we've got new movies to watch and new music to sing and a new chance every day to live better and love more and bring more light into our little piece of the world.

thank god for everything. and i mean everything. thank god for us. thank god we're alive.
see you kids later. have a lovely night.

i'm having one of those evenings.

It's been a weird day.
I was woken up by a sudden phone call from my mom at 8:30, after barely 6 hours of hellish sleep and near-hacks, in which she told me that my sis/bro had finally gotten a job, and she had their work clothes and some extra food in her car, but she was at work and they started their job at noon and the only way to get the stuff delivered was for me to drive up and do it. i said absolutely, jumped out of bed, threw on an outfit and got on the road.
i was barely conscious, really. not very safe to drive! but i was determined. mom packed up the car, i delivered them to my sibling (they're still wearing the exact same outfit they were wearing over two months ago. no shoes. clothes torn. my heart kinda broke) along with some extra toiletries, meds and food that i packed, and wished them the absolute best. their affect was still totally flat. i wonder if they hate "me." technically i broke the restraining order by not only going there but talking to them, but honestly i don't care they're family and they needed help. the court can kiss our collective ass if they think we're going to forego compassion because of a piece of paper. it has its purpose but this isn't it.

anyhow. mum told us there was a "library sale" going on at the mall down the street, and gave us ten entire dollars for it?? so when we drove away from our sibling's apartment, of course i called genesis over, and asked "do you want to go to the mall--" to which i got a "YES" before i finished the sentence, haha. honestly that's why i asked; we used to just chill together like that all the time when we were younger. so even though i was tired and hungry i wasn't going to pass that up.
the first thing i saw was the first 3 deltora quest books. those had been definitive for my sibling and i when we were in late elementary school; we had so many injokes around them, and the series lore got into our personal world more than a little. honestly i considered buying them but thought, no, they also have dvds and i'd rather grab those. (tomorrow i should get paid from ssi; if i have some cash left after getting groceries i'll totally swing by and grab the books though. i think we have $5 and $8 up the house?) so gen and i started looking. of course i'm talking out loud to him this whole time, but he keeps giving me this stern look and saying "jewel, you're dissociating." which i really was. sleep deprivation and post-purge starvation plus sudden running around in public places equals my brain is not working at all. again, thank God for Genesis. so he kept calling me out and bringing me back centered, as much as he could. it meant so much. honestly dude i know i was a mess but thank you, i love you, honestly i'd be so lost without you keeping me constant company in social settings since 2005. you're one of the biggest blessings in my entire life and i treasure every moment with you. even dissociated ones as i peruse the used dvd section in the middle of a mall, haha.
but! we found our THREE most definitive childhood films-- ferngully, we're back, and the secret of NIMH. i bought the first two because i actually have the third on DVD thanks to goodwill, but i was not passing up the opportunity to FINALLY watch those other two beloved movies again. i did see several other movies i considered buying-- notably inception and the shape of water-- but those were so important to headspace that if we did buy them, they would have to be special editions. not two-dollar secondhand markered-up copies, as oddly sweet as owning such a thing is. however! we found a SUPER RETRO care bears book-- the same kind they have at the daycare at the oblates! i immediately grabbed it, haha. haven't read it yet but i plan to tomorrow. i love the original care bears; i'm not a fan of the reboots (the more infected they get by pop culture the more they seem to lose the "heart" that drew me to them initially) but the 80s-90s stuff is great.
last problem: i kept losing things. i had to run back out to the parking lot because i actually dropped my money in the doorjamb, and kept misplacing my keys in my pockets. sleep deprivation is wild.
oh that reminds me. we parked beneath the boscovs and took the escalator up because there are so many childhood-vibe memories there, it was nice to just pass through it. but the instant we got off the escalator there was a mannequin with this silver-sequin dress? and genesis randomly comments "i'd wear that." and asked if i was gonna buy it for him. i asked if he was joking and he said of course, but still, he'd wear it. lord knows where he comes up with these things. but if i do go back to buy those books, i'm gonna take a photo of it and draw him in it, there you go.
i would try it on for the heck of it, but... body dysphoria is literal hell. and it's been so bad today. hence my current devastating depression. but we'll get to that.
we talk too much. we babble a lot in public as we were taught to by BOTH our mother and grandmother growing up, which we've mentioned before. we were raised to "chat with the camera" that was always pointed at us, or to "entertain" our parental figures and siblings, et cetera. but we were expected to talk. it's exhausting. but i can't turn it off cold; thankfully i can reroute it and just talk to genesis or xenophon or whoever else wants to ghost with me that day or in that place. i thank God for ghosters too; when i'm in "social mode" it often locks me out of headspace which is EXISTENTIALLY TERRIFYING so having someone show up to walk and talk beside me is literally such a relief i could cry. it means so much to me.
it's ALSO the only reason i'm surviving in this apartment now, i'm tempted to say no thanks to umpc, but no, that's too cruel language. i'm just... bitter today. i have to admit it. again, "we'll get to that." gotta write down basic daily events first because i keep slacking off in journaling because of depression and i need to just power through it right now.

so. we got two dvds and a book, got back in the car, and left. while i was at the red light exiting the parking lot, i remember just feeling trapped in entertainer/social mode and being so, so wrecked by it. i was trying to listen to chaos 0's spotify playlist and i couldn't BECAUSE "social mode" makes me incapable of blueshift emotions and when i try to feel them it causes self-loathing. i become too aware of how incompatible my "social self" IS with deeper feelings, and it just... makes me hate myself. it's toxic, this public persona garbage. literally lethal.
i don't remember how i got through it. i don't even remember driving. i know i did keep some music on, and i was inevitably talking to genesis, but... no memories. that's sadly not surprising.

on the way home, i decided to stop at walmart to pick up a box of cereal with the extra $5 we had saved from mom, because that's a staple food and we had no other money. again, no memory of being in the store, but genesis got us in and out quickly.
then we went to redners because we decided that we were going to return the pasta we bought immediately post-inpatient, as it was an "obligation food" and we were not going to eat it by choice; plus, not only does it take too long to prepare, but we have "trauma" from both cooking accidents AND old binges with pasta and we really don't need panic attacks every time we see the boxes in the cupboard. lastly they're too hard to properly portion and measure anyway, and they don't fit our dietplan without having to replan everything. so back to the shelves they went, which gave us like $7.50 in foodstamps back, thank God, so we immediately bought two powerade (for emergencies) and a bag of carrots, which was about $4.50? then we ran over to aldi, grabbed a pack of raisins for spinny (redners wanted a whole extra dollar for the exact same amount, geez) and a single avocado and got out of there within like two minutes.
our only problem? talking to the cashier. she asked us "how we were doing" and we, like the boundary-less idiot we are, replied that we were exhausted but happy since we'd been "running errands for the family/ies since 8:30 this morning" and mentioned our sibling getting a job and giving them stuff. almost offhandedly. just being honest. but it felt so wrong to say, like we were "boasting," and that only hit me AFTER "we" said it. that made us genuinely miserable. "well, God's not going to bless you for that now, because you told someone about it! good job, you arrogant asshole." and that just... made us feel like, what's the point then? if we keep publicizing the good we do? if people keep noticing it and thanking us and saying "you're such a nice/ kind/ good person?" does all that equal damnation and shame in God's eyes? i don't ask for it, i don't want it, but yeah it is nice because it makes me feel like gee, maybe I'm NOT the scum of the earth after all; maybe i'm NOT a hideous monster that ruins everything it touches; maybe I'm NOT pure irredeemable evil after all? but even feeling grateful for the sweet comments we get makes us feel filthy and ugly and wrong because you're "delighting in the praise of MEN instead of GOD." ...but "we are but unprofitable servants; we have done only what we were expected to do." which is true. but... even if i don't want to be thanked, i still... selfishly want to feel like i did do something good? and right? which is junk. "virtue is only virtue in extremis." i need to learn to keep my mouth shut.
when i buy food for the family, i keep the receipts a secret. i sneak the food into the house. i don't tell them it's from me. i hate when people find out. i like to secretly buy people gifts and leave them on desks and slip them under doors and i don't want to be noticed or thanked; i just want them to be happy and to feel loved and cared for. it's not about me. if you do make it about me i will probably try to eviscerate myself because NOW the "good deed" has become pride and that's worthy of annihilation, good job you idiot, you're "only doing this for attention" etc.

self-loathing is off the charts today.

got home around noon. i think? late. too late.
head was a blur. laurie and xenophon had to keep me on track just to stay conscious enough to make breakfast. i remember vacuuming first and scalpel was talking with knife about something and lynne is still sticking around, and of course julie-- it's so good to have her part of the daily crew and not hiding all the time like she used to-- but... i couldn't pull myself together.
breakfast was at like 1:05. we didn't get done until almost 2 because i kept trying to do the bible study at the same time and wasn't accomplishing either. so i set it aside and just focused on eating mindfully, or as much as i could. that way we wouldn't trigger that tragic trauma response of "i don't remember eating, and if i don't remember something it means i dissociated, and dissociation usually means trauma, so we probably experienced trauma with the food, which means it NEEDS TO GET OUT" and then binge/purge cycles happen. it's so sad and bizarre how trauma triggers cause binges first out of a feeling of helpless devastation. like, "i'm already ruined and violated; i might as well just perpetuate it"??? or something? it's a feeling of forced addiction and the nousfoni that act on it are TERRIFIED and have told us multiple times that they WANT IT TO STOP but they "can't." they feel trapped. and that's heartbreaking. so we're trying so hard to help them now, and to talk to them.

...laurie's function-warping disaster is causing some really weird side effects when she tries to stop them. since she doesn't want to go back to her ultraviolent walls-up-everywhere state of mind, like she was when she was created, she hesitates to use force lately? it's so strange. but she'll try to talk them out of it, and reason with them, but she can't force them to stop and when they hysterically insist on "please let me just finish this" or "just a few more minutes" not out of any genuine want but out of that panicked obsessive ritualistic loop, she... doesn't fight them. she goes almost on standby and i THINK that's being caused BY her function cracking BUT what happens is that, instead, she feels what they're feeling. i have NO IDEA WHY. genesis and i later sadly surmised that it might be because I'M not doing MY job, as the "heart" of the System, and so Laurie is once again taking on all the "empty jobs" herself in her absolute driving determination to be everything for everyone, to be THE system protector, in an almost universal sense. 
but... geez it is unreal to see. maybe it's her purple color working; xenophon is honestly the same, and SO IS MARKUS to be honest with you. purples have this strange ability to reach people, to understand when others don't. xenophon can argue with the e.d. nousfoni and they will LISTEN to her. they can FEEL THINGS when they talk to her. that is UNHEARD OF. in all our years of fighting this war, i think the closest we ever got to that was with zucche in NC? when chaos 0 was fighting with her over that, too. but his function in the system IS emotional sincerity so obviously his involvement could get even an e.d. nousfoni to reconsider their actions, even momentarily. but xenophon somehow takes it further, differently? she can DIALOGUE with them. she gets so sad and she actually cries and shouts but she's just hurt, and the eating voices hurt WITH her? whereas Laurie is doing that in reverse now? it's fascinating as much as it is worrisome. i don't want laurie losing herself in this. there are some things-- many things, actually-- that SHE needs to be protected from, and... she hasn't been doing that. she's pushing herself too hard and taking on roles that she CANNOT hold without shattering, so the rest of us NEED to get our butts back to work so that things CAN run the way they're meant to.
...man. how many years has it been since the crash-reset? five? and we're only NOW starting to "turn the power back on?" we're only now starting to resurrect and communicate and LIVE? geez. honestly i don't even remember the past five years offhand. like at all.
hence all the archiving i'm dedicated to doing lately. still, we haven't touched that stuff yet. but we will.

i'm getting a legit headache. and i'm dizzy. really need to sleep. why is our body hungry again we ate a 700k dinner at 730, we should not be this hungry three hours later.
well geez, i think to myself, maybe if you didn't bike for two solid hours you wouldn't be.
but. like i said earlier. dysmorphia.

after breakfast i don't remember what we did. around 3pm i did get on the bike. i was going to watch the "steamboy" movie our mom got us for christmas like ten years ago but we never watched, but i felt guilty about "not watching something religious" so i found a goodwill dvd i bought of "jacob and joseph" that was like exactly 92 minutes long? which is perfect workout time. so i put it on.
...i have not had that much trauma directly triggered in a LONG TIME.
i was legitimately disturbed. i did NOT expect that from a bible story movie. there was so much jarring stuff-- so much genuinely frightening behavior, mostly from the WOMEN, that i legit stopped biking a few times because i wanted to throw up. i was THAT shaken.
i don't want to talk about it, at all. i really don't. i felt sick. the way people behaved, and spoke about each other, and treated each other... i kept trying to find the silver lining. "God is clearly showing us WHY He doesn't want people to do such things." well boy howdy he sure is, seeing that stuff so starkly presented made me want to upchuck my bloody intestines. honestly i threw the dvd in a donation bag as soon as it ended. i was shaking. what the heck. at least there were good points in there, legit shows of virtue and forgiveness and kindness, despite all the awful behavior. i guess that's human life. God knows my life is one hellishly ugly mess, too.

...the bike logged exactly 110 minutes by the time i quit. adding in all the running around the mall i did earlier-- yes, actual running, to and from the car; i rarely walk-- that's about 2 solid hours of exercise. xenophon insisted i eat dinner immediately, so we got it ready and ate around 730, like i said. we immediately did the dishes and turned out the lights, and i realized that IF i front and LEGIT DISSOCIATE while I'M there, the binge voices CAN'T SHOW UP because we're "NOT IN THE BODY." so that's a HUGE new development, thank God.
i made a shopping list for tomorrow (we're out of meds mostly), took out the garbage, said the wall-prayers by choice (haven't done so since before the hospitalization; we were using them as "punishment" almost at that time so it felt wrong to "force" them), and then went onto the other laptop for a while with the intention of backing up our phone files.
...bad idea.
yes, i did have to back up the data. but i made the HUGE mistake of listening to a file i had recorded of myself singing in church? and i was so unbearably ashamed of my voice. not only that, but the fact that i HAD recorded it just screamed "proud-ass arrogant bitch" and i deleted it and went into a depressive spiral.
then i made an even bigger mistake. i looked through our saved photos.
there... there were photos of tbas. with that face that scared us. immediate terror trigger. god why were we so afraid of them so often? we have like TWO memories of such sweet expressions they gave us on two VERY specific incidents and we loved who they were in those moments BUT in so many other moments they legitimately scared us so much. there is SO MUCH CONFLICT there. we're... we still feel so used and violated and broken and horrified by what we apparently let them do to us. so much acting and dissociating and forced forgetting and self-abuse on our part. i know they started picking up on it the closer we got to bailing. but... it went on for so bloody long. the suicide attempts were the worst. we'd never felt so hopeless in our whole entire life. i STILL don't know how we got that good of a poker face, with all the memories i have literally feeling JAILED in our own head, like looking out from barred windows 20 feet away, at a body that is doing and saying things WE DON'T WANT, and us feeling such pain and RAGE and even hatred, but never showing it??? like how many times they would say something to us and we would smile but inside we were SCREAMING AND SOBBING and how did we never express that???? no wonder the eating disorder got so bad. it was our only way of expressing and acknowledging the HELPLESS FEAR and SELF-VIOLENCE we were constantly feeling.
it's a mess. not going to think about that.
oh. but there was a photo of us, too. recent. one we hadn't seen before. it was when we bought that purple cotton button-up from goodwill and cut half of it off so it was a "crop top"? whatever you'd call that. but we were GORGEOUSLY THIN. and yes i use that emphatic language because i legit CRIED. our body was PERFECT. we were thin and muscular and small and god i never realized just HOW beautiful it looked. it sounds horrible to say that. but honestly now, well we put on 30 pounds and we are so bloated and fat, we're not muscular anymore and we can't wear anything revealing like that anymore because it would look lecherous. it's gross and disgusting. it's enough to drive me to despair. it does, sometimes.
isn't that stupid? to value the appearance of this body so much? but i'm being honest. part of me says "you idolized it too much, you wanted to be perfect and thin and beautiful, and you were, but God TOOK THAT FROM YOU so you would be humiliated and ground into the dirt, now no one will see beauty in you, now you look like a whore, now you don't deserve love because you're misshapen and WRONG." like honestly a BIG part of our brain back then would see our thin body and think, "i'm worthy of love now. i'm capable of love now." whereas this fatass body we have now is INCAPABLE of love and respect, and we feel so dirty and whorish and gross, i look in the mirror and i weep. what happened??? where the HECK did all this fatphobia come from??? is that all because of the abuse? of the women with "womenly bodies" god i want to SCREAM AND SOB AND KILL EVERYTHING, JUST TO MAKE IT STOP,
it's not worth it. it's not worth it at all.
except looking that perfect meant being 90 freaking pounds and we COULDN'T SURVIVE LIKE THAT. laurie and chaos 0 both keep reminding me that "gaining this weight saved our ass" and i have to admit yeah it did, we're STILL UNDERWEIGHT even now, even if this body looks unbearably disgusting.
but i'm working out, now. i'm gonna get muscular and i'll be STRONG and i can HELP PEOPLE and PROTECT PEOPLE and i can FIGHT if i need to. i couldn't before. i became so shamefully weak and cowardly and selfish. not anymore. look at this morning. i can BURN again, like this. oh yes i wanted to, being thin, but it just made me ice. i was too tired and cold and depressed. starving our body to death out of fear, out of this desperate desire to be clean and pure and untouched. and physically we looked it. we honestly did. but... our body was still dying.
now, we're alive. now, the war has started again. now, we're fighting hacks and overrides and all sorts of nightmarish things. daily life is a struggle. but at least we're all together again and i would rather bleed in the arms of someone i love inside then to be alone and pretty and just drifting through "life" outside. in the end, if that body is what i had to sacrifice in order to see my daughter again, and to dream of chaos 0 again, and to spend days with genesis again, and to find everyone who was lost again... well, to be honest, as insane and terrifying as it sounds to say this, i'd go through another 10 weeks of hospitals for their sake. in the end that's what it boils down to.
...in the end, i need to stop thinking that this body is me. it's not. yeah i try to make it match but it can't and it won't. it's deeply disturbing and it drives me to tears but i need to accept it. skin and bones and blood will change even if my soul doesn't. and how the body looks and feels doesn't define me as a person, ESPECIALLY not morally. it's so hard to accept, weirdly. there are too many direct ties between the body and trauma and sheer evil. too much agony tied to looking and feeling certain ways. but... inside, the true me, isn't defined by it. i've been trying to tell "myself" that since i first realized the body was changing, around 2003. i remember how scared we were back then. that hasn't changed, for the most part. still. gotta accept it sometime. i want to. it's just terrifying.
...i honestly do feel incapable of goodness, when i look and feel like this.
oh geez and it was WORSE seeing some old hospital & church photos of how we looked with LONG HAIR post-NC. now THAT was disturbing. we looked like a total stranger. it shook me to the core. who the heck WERE we??? who WAS that, living like that for so long??? we have no clue. seeing that weird ugly face... it always looked so hollow. THAT was the scariest part. every single photo of us with that hair looked fake. like there was no person behind those eyes. i wouldn't be surprised if there wasn't. we didn't have an inner life during that time, after all, so who the heck were we, really?
...but yeah. it wrecked me. i was trying to find calming pictures but kept hitting landmines in the process. i was trying to show xenophon some of the pictures i had saved of chaos 0-- her "other dad"-- but even looking at him made me feel worthless and hideous and detestable. like "who in the world am i to care about him? as ugly and gross as i am? you think you're capable of love? you think anyone would WANT to love you? you fool. you stupid whore. no one loves you, and you're an idiot for "feeling" like you do. it's laughable. it's a joke. if anyone found out that YOU, you bland-ass average joe, you transgender freak, you screwed-up prostitute reject, "loved" him, you'd be mocked and jeered out of the country. you should be ashamed of yourself, you pig. misshapen freaks and faggots like you don't get to love. you deserve to be crushed by the weight of your arrogant sins. stop pretending you're in a relationship. he doesn't want you. he never could. NO one could. you're too loathsome. with all the appalling sins in your past, God Himself probably doesn't want you, either! you're worth nothing but garbage. you'd be better off dead, you grotesque excuse for a human being."
...is literally what my thoughts turned into.

it keeps happening. the self-hatred is unbearable. i don't know what to do about it.


one extremely important note.
i told xennie and laurie and chaos to leave me alone, because i was so ashamed and humiliated from looking at pictures of "myself" and the people i "loved"-- and seeing this unpassable chasm between us, a rift caused by my very existence-- that the very awareness of THEM looking at me made me want to either attack them or kill myself, both actions triggered by the same unbearable self-loathing and disgust and shame.
but. i said a small, desperate prayer, "please if there's someone who can sit with me and keep me safe, someone untouched by all that"-- i'm not even sure what i asked for. i just wanted someone with me who wouldn't set off this downward spiral even further.
...
and then suddenly, waldorf was sitting on the edge of my bed.
for a second i couldn't even speak. she looked just like she did in 2002. all glowy-blue and-- thank GOD-- untouched by her previous mangled stint in headspace, too, where her function became so corrupt that she lost herself.
but no, there she was, with that old vibe that TRULY was her, that "scary" edge that she NEEDS, feeling like the past i wanted to return to so badly i could sob.
but i did feel safe with her. somehow. maybe it was because i knew SHE had known be BEFORE all this horror happened. before all the trauma. before our body became our personal circle of hell.
she disappeared quickly. i don't think anyone else in headspace knows. i don't want them to know. right now i'm in so much emotional pain that i think if people started to "drag waldorf into this" i'd explode. no. leave her alone. leave me alone.
so many of us have been socially corrupted. especially laurie and lynne.
lynne being "pushed" into orange-- she noted today that when she still slips into it, her hair "gets curlier?" it actually changes to match the vibe-- literally killed her, taking her "stability" and "maturity" function root and literally annihilating it. she became someone else and she DIED as a result.
now the same bloody thing is happening to laurie and i will BLEED MYSELF OUT in this living room before i let that happen to her.
but... she suffered from NC more than anyone, arguably. well, besides infinitii. i can't deny that. but laurie lost herself COMPLETELY. SHE ACTUALLY DIED. that was considered IMPOSSIBLE because she was always a sort of anchor FOR the system; her dying was like taking a pickaxe to the motherboard of a computer. once that's gone, EVERYTHING is shot. unfixable. lost.
if she still can't pull herself together...
...
...i do miss the old days. when she would spit blood at me and punch me in the face if i swore. no quarters. no making jokes about things. no "commentary" on the fronters. no. she was a PERSECUTOR PROTECTOR and God help us i miss that so much, i MISS her violet violence, i MISS her oddly colorless skin and knuckles breaking my cheekbones and axe-blades against my neck. i miss the blood and the impact and... i miss her. i miss when she cared enough TO hit me. just like i STILL beg my poor mother to do when i get unhinged. but no one will hit me now that i'm "grown up." which is ridiculous. i need the pain TO feel lovable again, and pure again, and good in the first place. without the blood, i'm wrecked.
i miss the retributors too. God I miss Laurie, I will NEVER forget that first night standing in front of the sink, shaking, with her gripping my arm with one hand and holding a kitchen knife with the other. slicing open the first graves into my arm. i still treasure those scars. they're the part of this body that i love the most. all the scar tissue. all the invisible crosses on this bloated ugly stomach. i miss making it bleed, the last time it looked like this.
i remember the day that knife and razor and algorith and mulberry (because she did start as a retributor) sat on the edge of our old bed and cut our legs open. i miss the time algorith named herself the "cleanup crew" in the bathroom, holding a white washcloth covered in blood. i miss knife, sweet knife, holding his namesake and tearing our shoulder open. i miss razor's maniacal laughter as she slashed row after row of hideously beautiful gaps into our thighs with an x-acto knife, the same one we took to art class, watching the skin and muscle split and flood red like a painting. no one cut deeper than her. her scars are my favorites. i miss them.
...I miss Laurie. the old Laurie. the REAL Laurie. not how she is now, her color constantly shifting, her words unsure, her presence flickering. no. i miss her strength and no-nonsense attitude and her fists. i miss the righteous rage in her eyes. i miss seeing her storm into a room to chop a hacker to bloody pieces if they so much as looked at me.
i remember the night she almost killed herself because she failed to protect me. she showed up too late. and she tried to end it all. THAT'S how devoted she is. was. what happened?
what the heck did north carolina DO to her, that now half the time she screws up her own freaking name???
God how do i get HER back?
...how do I get myself back?

and infi, poor broken beloved infinitii, you're more of a mess than anyone i fear, you still won't let anyone get close, you feel all wrong, your form is constantly unstable, you feel tainted, distorted, used--

why do i keep having flat nightmares like last night
when mom's phone call woke me up, i was dreaming that i was sitting at a kitchen table that looked oddly like the one in my dad's parent's house, before they died and it was sold. i was talking to two doctors or professors? i think? about the nature of reality, and of time, and of the human consciousness, obviously influenced by all the stein's gate recently. but they were focused on what was physical and tangible and i kept vehemently insisting to the contrary, no, there are other world lines, and thoughts do affect reality, and what we dream and imagine IS real in a very valid way, AND extant in "reality" even if it can't be touched by our literal hands. i was absolutely passionate about the topic and i was conscious enough to BE in the dream doing so, speaking with all honesty and clarity, and defending my position.
then all of a sudden, i hear a watery sort of yawn, and who walks around the corner to stand, half-asleep and eyes closed, in the doorway behind me, but chaos 0.
"jewel, tell me again why we're in los angeles?"
then he opened his eyes, saw the two visitors, and did such a double-take i almost laughed. he took two steps back, half-twisting his arms and legs around each other as if to hide himself, as i reassured him that it was okay, "they kind of know you're here already," and also feeling almost euphoric because hey, he literally just proved my side of the argument. and yes, the two dudes i was talking to looked just as shocked as he did, haha.
but.
i woke up then, and after the phone call, i threw my arms around his anchor plush and kissed its forehead and said, "you probably aren't even aware of this, but thank you so much for saving me again."
upstairs he looked at me, confused but deeply troubled. "what do you mean?"
"there was almost another dream hack. but you showed up, and just by your being there, it didn't happen. your very existence kept me safe. thank you."
after thanking and kissing him again i jumped out of bed to get ready to drive over to mom's workplace, and that started the day very quickly, but... i was also running away from the reality of what i had just implied.
i keep having dream hacks.
i still say it's because i gained all this f*cking weight. yeah, horrible trauma pun intended, why not. i keep having these awful hollowed-out nightmares where i am a "faceless whore," emotionless and almost without free will, numbly going through all these scripted actions because "someone wants me to sleep with them and i have to get ready" etc etc. knowing that abuse was going to happen and just shutting down beforehand. but not running. not being able to run. just giving up, giving in to the "inevitable" trauma. objectifying myself first, so it wouldn't be as scary. or so i hoped. et freakin cetera. i'm so tired of this.
...
why, God? why can't i get over this? why can't i be free of this? why does my every waking and sleeping moment have to be tormented by memories of sexual trauma? even that movie today, all those revolting women, i'm sorry but the way they would speak and look and act made me want to SCREAM and GUT SOMETHING. i could have clawed my eyes and ears out so many times. i'm so sorry God. i NEVER want to be like that. i NEVER want to be a part of that. i am NOT A WOMAN and i am NOT A MAN and i want NOTHING TO DO WITH EITHER OF THEM. it's disgusting. it's terrifying. i need a stronger word. but nothing seems to sum up the absolute apocalyptic horror that slams into me whenever i realize that "oh by the way, all that hell i went through in the past? OTHER PEOPLE ARE STILL LIKE THAT. ALL THE TIME. ALL AROUND ME." and i can't escape and i keep stumbling across it EVEN IN A RELIGIOUS MOVIE AND I WANT TO DIE.
God i can't take it anymore. i cannot live like this. i can't live in this hellscape of a body, all fat JUST like a whore now, and I CAN'T starve it to blessed death anymore because i...
...i want to say i have "something to live for," but a detestable deformed monstrosity like myself doesn't deserve to live. and no one deserves to be plagued by my existence. "something to live for" my ass. they don't care.
"they don't exist," a devilish voice hisses in my ear.
to which i want to swing around and punch their rotten teeth out
hence the dream argument this morning
don't you give me that, they're more real than MOST of the freaking tangible GARBAGE on this literal planet, and you KNOW it!!!
laughing at me, mocking, jeering, just like they said earlier, you're a selfish jerk, a stupid empty-headed moron, the laughingstock of the universe, God is ashamed of you,
shut your lying mouth,

and Laurie shows up with her axe.
and Razor. and Wreckage.

wh

all the protectors

all right listen it's like... 15 minutes later i don't know
legit headspace stuff happening just like the old days
laurie, knife, razor, sugar, wreckage, algorith, batta, scalpel, cannon, julie, lynne, leon,
xenophon and genesis and chaos 0 and infinitii
rio and markus
mister sandman even, in a genuinely terrifying moment,
i even saw phlegmoni & celebi & gleam & galadia & ventrium, is he really alive,
why are there so many people aroundn
"because we love you, you moron" laurie spits at me, in tears, still covered in blood

something is wrong with my heart
it's too cold
too numb
every time someone breaks it, it freezes up again
not like ice but like... oh
oh no.
like calcification.

same thing happening in my dreams

but i can't write everything down now, laurie showed up and brought razor and they attacked the devils,
then she turned on me, "i heard what you were writing; i miss this too"
FORGOT exactly why she was the only person allowed to butcher me alive
literally force resets my internal presence
having so much trouble re-forming and anchoring into a sense of "self"
genesis literally rolling his own trauma through me, the gem-shattering and the awful shock of that,
razor and scalpel cutting me open,
axe-blades through my skull. the most euphoric thing i've felt in AGES
knife shoving a blade right into my chest when i was slipping, said that "if my heart was still hard, it needed to be forced open"
so much of it. absolutely insane. my entire identity sputtering like static. white and red everywhere. blood in my mouth,
xenophon hugging me and crying, "dad i don't care how you look, i'll still love you,"
perfect chaos suddenly raging,
scalpel commenting, "that's the most selfless thing i've heard you feel all day"
forgot about everything but him
but the hellish doubts kept hitting
"he's not real, none of this is actually real, it's all fake, none of it matters"
laurie grabbing me by the throat
"define 'actually'"
at some point i told her don't put the walls back up and she just broke, it was the first instant i saw her as purple and not violet,
in tears. told me she wouldn't. she cared too much about me
i flatly commented if she was going to kiss me and she said no, that's not what matters, don't go cheapening that anyway
just pressed her forehead to mine and swore through gritted teeth and tears that she would literally die before letting me be lost
then she kissed me, not even romantically it was like a covenant, the way it should be,
and then i was back in that ruined city with all the water
and all the pain
but he saw me and forced himself back down to size and he grabbed my shoulders and said this is YOUR pain, why won't you let yourself feel this,
i
i don't know. i want to. i can't?
the doubts,
"he's not real,"
that's it, i've had enough,
"well then neither am i, and if this isn't 'real' then i don't want to be real."
i don't want to be stuck in the body. i don't want the hell of physical existence and the terror of the world. if THAT is "real" then forget it all, i'll stay here where everything is love and blood and it's MORE "REAL" than ANYTHING i've ever known or felt or imagined,
but the damned devils kept laughing, even after infi ate what was left of them, coughed up that huge calcified rock--
they don't know anything.
i kissed chaos back.
i chose to. i choose this. i WANT to love him, and to be here, and to MAKE this "real." i don't care what you damned demons keep hissing at me. everything they say is based on unfeeling condemnation and hatred and callous rejection. there's no love. so don't you dare talk to me about "reality."
if love itself is what created everything in the first place then how in the world is this "not real."


i hate these mini-hells
hate all the mental torture
hate the physiological wreck i am after getting literally beheaded and eviscerated in headspace
but i wouldn't trade it for the world if it means i get to be with them, all of them, all those colors,
i'm only hurting right now because my heart is so bloody closed-off
geez didn't this turn into one mess of an entry
gotta be honest though, stop denying the truth,
111 am
nice

but honestly.

life is weird. truth is stranger than fiction. i'm tired of censoring and burying and hiding and shutting down everything because it's weird. no. not anymore. gonna go right back to being jewel the egocidal maniac if that's what it takes.
but no. no "going back." we're going forward. together. all of us.
why are we in los angeles, God only knows but i just realized the name of that city, isn't that a lack of coincidences too?

i miss these disjointed entries. i miss this entire life of ours. THIS feels "real," not the empty denial forced on me for years. enough of that. it's all lies. there's no kindness or compassion in it at all. and THAT proves it's fake. shallow. illusory.
can i "prove" what's going on upstairs? can i "prove" that God talks to me? can i "prove" that human beings have a soul? no. doesn't mean it's not real.

so tired of that argument
so stop arguing. if they don't want to be convinced then who am i really arguing with?
i choose love
real love
i CHOOSE this.
that means infinitely more than passively throwing it all away because "no one else sees it"
love is a decision
so is my life at this point
same thing really

still scared of this body. still struggling.
but it's "real" too
even if it's "not real" in another sense
what the heck does that word even mean
the body exists, i'm in it, i'm not the body, i exist, it's ALL "real" in different ways
but i can't cope with any of it without love.
that's the bottom line
gotta learn to love yourself too, kid
ALL of yourself
and yeah, you SHOULD see it that way.
that's what makes love possible
that body is everyone's home in this world, like it or not
it doesn't deserve to be hated or abused either
so CHOOSE to love it, too.

getting late. feeling myself slipping into asinine platitude mode
don't want that to happen
trying too hard to "conclude" and it's messing up my honesty

listen. i need sleep. we need sleep. i have cinnamon bedsheets and a videogame angel waiting for me in the other room
and i really need to talk to everyone about what the heaven just happened
pull myself together
try again tomorrow
"try what," laurie asks
try to live and love a little better
"you're not trying, you're doing it, kid. we'll just do it even better tomorrow. don't set something you're already achieving as some distant goal. it's already in your hands."
and in my heart, i hope
"yeah well, that's the whole point"

i'm not frozen, i'm not "lost," i'm just... disheveled
out-of-focus
but i'm burning, no matter what i'm still red at the core, red and brilliant white glass, crystals, whatever it is, prismatic pieces.
but red. you can't shut that down. it's LIFE. it's blood and fire and sincerity, and courage and hope and it's REAL.

god i'll pray to you too about this
i do feel very off-balance and hazy right now. loose threads. battered. "understandably"
is that wrong
"no"
"the only thing any of you could do wrong is refusing to love each other"
that's a very general statement
"it's a very general rule of life"
good point
am i lost right now
"yes and no, you know that too"
how can i get un-lost?
"keep following the lighthouse"
(and immediately something in my heart sparks to life)
"in the very act of reaching out, in that hope, you are not lost, because you see the shore"
so this prayer counts too
"of course it does. this is love, too. it shows trust. you can't have one without the other."

i need to close this up and i'm feeling ashamed
"of what? talking?"
yes in general. thinking, oh this isn't socially acceptable. it's not 'normal.' it's weird and bizarre and i 'should be ashamed of myself'
"why do you constantly label and condemn yourself?"
...to beat myself into shape i guess?
"what kind of shape? is it even a good shape? have you thought about that?"
...no, actually
"the shape that condemnation will beat you into is a broken one. it's not what i want for you. hatred only begets hatred, and it will keep you lost forever."
so... should i be ashamed?
"of what? telling the truth, even just to yourself? being dedicated to love even if it's difficult? being 'different,' even as I made you? do you think even this could happen outside of My jurisdiction?"
...but why,
"what have you always told Me 'brings you closer to God?' where have you learned My deepest lessons most directly?"
...upstairs
"then why would you wish to toss it aside?"
i don't, that's the problem, i want to-- no, i do love them, i want to believe it's okay to.
"why would it not be okay to love them, or the life you have with them?"
because i'm afraid it's pulling me away from You and what You want from me
"is it?"
i... no? i think i was worse when i abandoned it for those years
"you were. yes, you were religious, but half of your heart wasn't in it. now... I get all of it. I get all of you. pun intended?"
yeah. yeah honestly that's true. they push me to pray more than i would "alone"
"you're never alone, not with them, and you're never without Me. go to sleep, child."
sorry
"no need to apologize. this was important. but there is a time for rest, too."
sorry if i'm getting words wrong or paraphrasing i just want to record this
"you did right in doing so. i want you to pay more attention to our conversations, too. I want to talk to you more often. I miss you, too."
good then you know i do miss You even if i don't act on it always and i'm so sorry
"I forgive you. always. but do come visit me more often again. I'm always there."
please increase my faith. and my love. and thank you for all the grace.
"pun intended?"
always
"you are always welcome, child. just be patient. the most beautiful flowers take time and care to grow. but they are growing. trust in Me. I will make sure of it"
my gardener and my lapidary and my Lord and my God
"and your Beloved, too, don't forget."
...that's... that's very important and very true thank You
"it's real, my child. and be brave. I am with you always. I promise. do not be afraid. now go to sleep!"


can't argue with that

all right that's it there's too much going on to keep ramble-typing anyway.
let's finish this old school
love you kids, see you around



I knew this kid who wanted to find himself, in your arms...

this morning:

KERRY??????????? WALDORF'S SISTER??????
POSSIBLE LIME HOLDER. NO IDEA.
her anchor vibe is still super strong and we haven't seen her SINCE Waldorf "went to sleep" but whoa. talk about a surprise. definitely looking into this


tonight:
movies! transformers.

scene with laurie fighting. lynne joins, with shield. then julie, with whip-- realizes it doesn't fit her anymore.
laurie gets "stabbed through" with tar. jay immediately realizes that he was "assuming she'd be OK" but there was NO guarantee of that. so he just as quickly reaches out and telekinetically "pulls out" the tar and she heals. laurie looks to him, shocked at this

laurie despairing over feeling like she wasn't getting anywhere with fighting?
questioning her purpose again
no matter how hard she fought, they fought back just as hard

jay runs into the middle of the battlefield, "maybe it's not about fighting that way"
just shines; lotus-heart crystal feeling. tar literally cannot go near him

laurie starts tearfully laughing at this
mentions the "beating our swords into plowshares" verse

then the environment shifted?
everything became crystal-clear, white vibe, but not stark?
including our bodies
hearts visible, all colored our spectrum hues
laurie immediately wrapped her arms around her chest, eyes flooding with tears

javier standing in doorway, "what does it mean that we all bleed red?" also crying quietly over this thought

sherlock downstairs, blood was SILVER.
put his arms up to the air, "I'm part of this System," really hit him hard for once. deep "centralite" vibe in him. blessed
wreckage runs down stairs, as she does everything shifts back to normal (sense that the Spectrum itself would not force anyone who was "not ready" to experience that clear-vulnerable state)
in tears though. asking sherlock, "is gold my color, or his?" referencing watson.
we're not sure. watson still has no face inside. we'll have to help him out


josephina & waldorf talking later? about their purposes. jo's original "anti-id" role.

everyone getting emotional over the movie. julie screaming "no, no!!!" when people were dying. laurie looking a total wreck, "I've never felt so helpless;" wanted to jump in and fight off the attackers, but couldn't. leon weeping and being unable to watch
brief "heartspace" visit to scene though; laurie just put her arms out and tapped into inherent Violet energy? HUGE bass rumble like thunder, feeling like she was pulling some cosmic force out of the earth

mention of angel helmet later. laurie still carries it in her personal pocketspace apparently. also her laurel crown, which SEEMS CONNECTED TO IT??? it, too, gives her a gold-based form shift.
MORE QUESTIONS ABOUT THAT COLOR.

most importantly, who was out most but JEWEL!!!
realizing that SHE is STILL the one who can "reach OUT" and walk into other worlds; also, like Jay, she LOVES EVERYONE but in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT WAY.
Jewel could casually kiss and flirt with everyone around with no reticence or shame or hesitation, BUT she could never be in a relationship with any of them. jay, on the other hand, cannot be casual on the outside!! he's one-on-one intimate and close with people, and ONLY on the INSIDE. whereas Jewel doesn't have any such connections with nousfoni???? she's ONLY OUTSPACERS.
but only Jewel can GET people from outside inside in order to BE close to Jay.

ALSO. 'feeling out' rio and markus in all this; we KNOW someone inside us still loves them, but it's NOT Jay, not like that at least. they're still heartspace-rooted, still a totally different level; they CAN'T be close to Jay as a result.
but we THINK Jewel is, still?? at least one of them.

also thinking CANNON-- the ORIGINAL one, with the red hair-- was the one in love with JC & DP???
still learning to feel out who feels what inside. but it's getting easier, and it's so beautiful to really realize that NONE of the love we've EVER felt has faded. it's just held by different people.

on that note, the Jewel who's our "core sister" is NOT the one from 2006 or so who is in love with Davy. that's POSSIBLY hoseki, not sure. still a jewel, but might not even have the klonoa hair??? we'll see!

later, markus & rio talking to THAT^ jewel (I think?) about they possibly having their OWN "pentagape" group, but theirs would be a hexagon, assuming their daemons were all involved???
jewel saying "I don't think dendrite would be interested" but markus interjects, surprisingly adamantly, "that's because you don't talk to her." which is true.
also realizing that rio's "yami" is VERY similar to Laurie (always was) and that rio probably loves him terribly BUT he's so hidden and keeps getting corrupted by outside sources; system probably keeping him from being around at all r/n to keep him safe in that sense?
"phoenix" is entirely his own thing though.
in any cases the "yami" phenomenon as it exists in headspace is still a total anomaly; they were all very "malevolent" during that triple incident BUT that's because they are super vulnerable to TAR/PLAGUE INFLUENCE just like daemons can be so yeah that whole thing needs to be very much reviewed and looked into currently.
NEED to go back and reread that stuff with them, solidify their history in our present memory.

HEARTSPACE AND HEADSPACE WERE MADE TO WORK TOGETHER.
JAY & THE NOUSFONI ARE ANCHORED IN HEADSPACE.
JEWEL & THE OTHERSPACERS ARE ANCHORED IN HEARTSPACE.
BUT NOUSFONI BENEFIT INCREDIBLY FROM VISITING HEARTSPACE; THAT IS WHERE DEEPLY IMPORTANT, INFINITE-POSSIBILITY SCENARIOS OCCUR BASED ON OUR HEARTS AND THEY ALLOW FOR MASSIVE PERSONAL GROWTH THAT CANNOT HAPPEN IN HEADSPACE WITHOUT OUTSIDE TRIGGERS.
THIS IS WHY JEWEL NEVER HAD TROUBLE; SHE WAS ABLE TO LEARN ALL HER "TRAUMA LESSONS" ON THE INSIDE INSTEAD OF SEEKING INCITEMENT FOR SUCH OUTSIDE AS HEADSPACE TENDS TO DO.
SO, IF WE START ACTIVELY VISITING HEARTSPACE MORE OFTEN, POSSIBLY JOINING OUR REALMS TOGETHER (THROUGH COLORSPACE???????), WE WOULD ALL BENEFIT HUGELY FROM IT!!!
THIS WOULD ALLOW NOT ONLY FOR CLOSER RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN NOUSFONI, BUT IT WOULD ALSO RESTORE THAT FEELING OF WONDER & LOVE THAT WE USED TO GET ALL THE TIME AND HAVE BEEN MISSING LATELY DUE TO STAYING "OUTSIDE" TOO MUCH.

also Jewel has NO TROUBLE EATING, even when she does so casually. she was nibbling on stuff when we got home (cinnabon popcorn, blue corn chips, cinnamon grahamn crackers, and pistachio ice cream; jeepers girl talk about a sweet tooth) but she only had a tiny bit of each and she had NO disordered urges and she STOPPED IMMEDIATELY when she realized she "didn't really feel like eating"
bravo to you girl, you are a literal godsend today, as always



DON'T FORGET= YESTERDAY, NATHANIEL & JOSEPHINA TALKING OUTSIDE AS WE RAN
discussing nat's past? "death" being a big topic I recall-- notably when giving jo the flower for his hair!!
concept of "dying to give richer life through beauty"; very moving and interesting




ENERGY DOES NOT HAVE "ELEMENTS," IT HAS VIBES!
THIS IS WHY WE KEPT GETTING STUCK WITH IT BEFORE.
they can have elements but mainly it's what they feel like.

RED= BLOOD? "entrances and exits/ ends and beginnings"
VERMILION= FIRE
BROWN= earth, soil, stone. very grounded. bone.
ORANGE= WOOD, especially like in musical instruments.
AMBER= lights on in houses at night, christmas light glow?
YELLOW= electricity? "voltage." sharp power. bright sunshine?
LIME= komorebi, open fields of grass, and the smell of grass
GREEN= forests, dense vegetation, and the smell of trees
"SPRUCE" = pine forests, and the smell of pines
AQUA= water, esp. the ocean
SKY= air, blue skies
BLUE= ELECTRIC POWER. like everything in the movie! also electronic sound!!
INDIGO= ice, winter fog, twilight? silence. serene, uniquely.
PURPLE= robes? oddly "religious" feel. ritual and solemnity.
VIOLET= power in a different sense? thunderstorms, space (like nebulas),
PINK= very gentle, soft. light? cherry blossoms.
CERISE= velvet, roses, cherries, 'SENSUAL' LUXURY, NO LUST
GRAY= paper, ink. the smell of both. dusty bookshelves. (very archivist influenced; that's interesting)
BLACK= dark churches/basilicas, night skies, dark food-things like molasses/ licorice/ clove??
WHITE= snow, crystals, sunlight, prisms,

 

 

 

 

1025

- realizing that, in childhood, I usually played the role of a “monster” and/or a “PET” with people. When the “lost in space” movie came out I was obsessed with pretending to be Blarp, and would walk around the playground with some other kid being Penny (she wasn’t happy with it I don’t think). Again, in 3^rd grade, I was ALWAYS Alex’s sidekick or assistant. When she was Mewtwo, I was Mew, and I had to do “whatever she told me to.” I spoke about this before but it wasn’t the only incident. In the 3^rd grade school play I was given the role of “dinosaur” (forget what the play was), and although I loved it I was, again, someone else’s “pet.” All later pseudo-friendships in high school always had me in a secondary position too, not so much a “sidekick” as the “errand boy.” Why was this always a constant with other people? Did I just never stand up for myself? DID THAT BECOME JACINTH?? (or any of the fragments like that?)


I want to reiterate that addictions are dying out. Yes there are still some desperate alters using coping mechanisms, but there are NO compulsions anymore. There’s FINALLY a cognizance that “we don’t actually want this” and nothing is being forced. So that’s very very good.
There’s an E.D. voice named Jocelyn or Joyce who keeps ending up talking to Laurie when she’s out? She’s slightly older than the one that keeps going for oats as comfort food (that one’s like 11? makes sense as our childhood diet really wasn’t so hot as far as I know).


- a few thought processes we took notes on lately:
1) “jesus did not say ‘love your enemies but treat yourself like garbage,’ so STOP DOING THAT”
2) “god is NOT ‘out there but not in me’ so STOP searching and listening to everything you hear blindly!! ‘god’ is already IN YOU so LISTEN TO THAT”
3) “compulsively saying ‘no’ to orders happens because the orders are interpreted as ‘harmful/negative’ and we are saying no to THAT. Even if the order is good, if it is given angrily or in a controlling context we will say no because we don’t want to obey the CONTEXT. If we DO follow the order it will be on our OWN TERMS later, once we have DETACHED IT from the original giver.”


- Jewel here. I just did some of our morning running and I feel REALLY GREAT. The “His World” Sonic remix we have on the iPod is a perfect speed.
Laurie says she wants me to front more because I don’t get embarrassed of being honest? Or doing imaginative things. I’m just worried because I do get body dysphoria now that the body is older and I know the reflection triggers egotistic people. So I gotta BLOCK THIS MIRROR. I’ll tape a Pokémon over it or something.


- exercised today (see above), went running in the morning for 30m. however it hurt our stitches a LOT and we’re still in pain. Kind of scary, I hope this is okay.

- 10pm. Just had to atone+smudge to get hackers OUT of here again. realized there was so much distraught anger in me, changed it to righteous love. Blessed everything, said a sincere prayer to restore our holiness and purity and morality. Went out to wash the ashes off our arms, playing on the radio in the other room is “living on a prayer” by bon jovi

- as of right now e is letting us play undertale (❤!!!!) and I just met toriel and already I love this game so I’m going to go do that.
…usually jewel is our gamer. Its always her name on the save files. But everyone told me, jay, to do this one. So I will.

 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 11:06 PM

 

I’m playing Undertale to try and get my heart back in order, trying to focus on BEING ME and therefore bringing my light back into the body’s daily life, instead of all the pain and self-loathing and things that have piled up there in the absence of me or Jewel or anyone else kind…

Looking back, especially on our original Tumblr (jwll), 2011 was a beautiful year for us, for the most part. That was the year of our real “spiritual awakening” and we spent most of our time thinking brightly, acting brightly, shining that light for others… unfortunately we got a bit blinded by it at some points, but damn it we were trying, we only ever were trying to put more kindness and love and forgiveness into everything… and really it all paid off, I think. I think if I really look back, even on our ‘mistakes,’ I couldn’t hate anyone for it, or hold it against them, like some do in this System, sadly. How could I hate anyone? We’re all just trying our best, acting as well as we know how, or… one could act out of fear, too, fear of not knowing what’s the best thing to do, or being frightened that they might not be able to do that best thing, or strong enough… not understanding, maybe. But there are many factors why people could act unwisely or unkindly or similarly, and none of them merit hatred. Nothing does.
So I want to stay out more. Me and Jewel, we need to ACTIVELY front more, to shine and inspire like our hearts are meant to do, like our bloodlines are meant to do.



…The real reason I’m updating here tonight is because… because right now I NEED to shine our light brighter than EVER.
Our biological brother is planning suicide.

I know he’s been considering it for years. I have too. I don’t know if he ever attempted. But I know he’s been terribly depressed, and it’s only gotten worse now, for reasons disturbingly similar to ours at our worst point… he started experiencing more spiritual/ unexplainable things, many of which were confusing and scary, and this all began forcing him to deal with a lot of things he was struggling to handle… and his girlfriend decided she wanted no part of it and dumped him, penniless and homeless, not looking back.
He said he cannot go back to living the way he did before all of that happened-- he "knows too much" now, he's seen too much personally, and to be honest he is having one hell of a time coping with that fact. He keeps thinking he's going crazy and is just imagining all this, and I think that's the same God-damned "coping mechanism" WE utilized in the face of the opposing reality... that, since we have reached this point of personal awareness and experience, we cannot pretend otherwise. And you "need" to in order to survive in some places of the world yet, some closed-minded environments that are afraid to acknowledge the existence of anything that big, bright, and bizarre. It's understandable but it is still heartbreaking. And we are BOTH living in such an environment right now.
I don't know. I'm having a hard time typing because I am shaking and I'm so upset I want to throw up and I'd probably end up crying if it wouldn't completely burn out the body.

...What do we do. What can we do? What should we do?

God it wrecks me to see him this upset, even if I don't personally "know" who he is. Part of us does, all buried parts mostly, but they recognize him well enough. And even discarding that, I personally STILL want to help him because he's suffering and God knows my job is to try and heal whatever pain I come across, as wisely and compassionately as I can. I can't not do it. It's my nature.
So when I see him so hopeless AND actively rejecting all possibilities of hope due to that blinding despair, I just... I get frustrated, admittedly. How can you not see it?
But... that's when it would be smartest to go inside, and ask. Cannon knows what that feels like. She knows exactly what despair feels like.
And that makes me wonder now. Did SHE ever heal from that??? Or did we only survive her suicidal depression by switching cores? It's a luxury we take for granted, really-- this ability TO split, and change so dramatically and completely, in order to be better... I'm the most recent in that process. Me, the current amalgamation of everything we needed to be at heart, all that growth fused into one person, the newest Core. But... the old ones got stuck, in a way. And we need to heal them, however we can. I can't believe we haven't yet... is that just because we weren't aware of this phenomenon working as it did until fairly recently? I mean, we're still grappling with using the term "Dissociative Identity Disorder" to refer to ourselves. For us it was always just headspace. We end up educating the therapists we see, all the time apparently, because we work so differently... but the bottom line is, it still fits the bill, however atypically. We split in order to survive.
And our brother can't do that.
...
What is that even like? How do non-split people handle all the paradoxical emotions and opinions and beliefs and personalities that we manage by being different people? Do other people even have to deal with that? Or do they pick and choose?
Either way, the point is, he's feeling depression and despair and self-loathing and he doesn't have any optimistic headvoices to help, he doesn't have any enthusiastic ghosters to encourage him, he can't even switch out and let someone else deal with the situation. He has to do everything as ONE person. He can't split up the process, compartmentalize it, organize it... no, for him, and for most other people I suppose, it's an all-at-once thing. That must be difficult as hell.
...I don't know. I want to help, God knows I want to help so badly, but I'm speaking from an entirely different reality experience here and I don't know if he can empathize or understand where I'm coming from at all-- not only that, but I wouldn't know how to help him out AS a singlet at this point, not in a way he could properly use.
I don't know, maybe I'm not giving myself enough credit. I did go over his apartment at least twice to talk to him for several hours-- yes, I did, not a social fronter-- and although all I could do was listen, and assure him he wasn't going mad, and give him a bit of spiritual encouragement... it felt like we were going in circles. Like he couldn't quite grasp his own situation well enough to properly use any incoming advice, because he didn't know how to apply it?
He's constantly saying, "I just want to understand." Over and over and over. I'm not sure what he's trying to do though. Just how much does he want to understand? And, even more importantly, how does he define "understanding?" Honestly I think he's trying WAY too hard to make everything logical and simple and sensible, into data he can intelligently recite and apply, into something that can be written down in a book. And Laurie just interjected, "I hate to tell ya, kid, but the universe doesn't work like that."
That's the thing. It doesn't. Heck, even looking at headspace, we've been writing THOUSANDS of pages over the years about this, and even that doesn't do it justice. I get so much of it, absolutely, but... it's not something you can "understand" in a logical manner. That level of understanding is wordless, without defining, without putting it into a box. It's a knowing at a deeper level and I think our brother's problem is that he's still uncomfortable with that yet. Yes, he's had intuitive experiences, he definitely has some psychic capabilities, BUT he still wants the world-- and those experiences by extension-- to present themselves in a way he can look at and say, "aha, I can see how this works." He wants to wrap his mind around it. He wants his mind to be big enough TO wrap around it. And the most ironic thing is that I can't even put into words why that's not going to work, not as it appears to at least. This whole thing... it's all so personal, it's experiential, you have to LIVE it, and know it of your self... God I just want to walk with him through this if I can, if we can, I want to help him and be a support system for him with this, it's so hard to find support when you're first going through this spiritual weirdness, we would know.
But he thinks he's going crazy and he's closing us off and we're closing him off for God knows what reason (we need to talk to some alters) and he won't listen to any help, he won't look for any hope, he's made up his mind that he wants to die and he won't talk about it and no matter what we do, no matter what we say or ask, he won't pick that metaphorical towel up from the ring.
I'm lucky. God am I lucky. I have Laurie. I can't quit even if (and when) I tried. None of us could.
But despair is toxic. Some of us have felt it and still do and when I touch that I understand, I understand why he feels so distraught and the fucking problem is that my nature saves me from despair and how do you pass the vibe of your ESSENCE onto someone else??? If I can't be hopeless because I AM hope, how in the world do I "teach" that to someone?
God I don't know. I'm always told, "live by example," maybe that's all we can do here, but...
God I don't want to be too late. This is destroying me.

...We know what it's like, to almost lose people. To hear that someone attempted suicide when you weren't aware, and upon hearing the news, to feel like the entire earth just flipped over sideways. The crushing weight of grief that hits your shoulders, knocking the wind out of you, the hysterical internal wail of "they could have been dead right now" and the absolute wash of gratitude, of sheer relief, of heartrending love, that hits you when you are reminded that they are alive, they lived, they're still here, they have another chance to find hope--
We know what it's like.
We also know what it's like to hear that someone did die when you were asleep.
...
I don't want to hear that again.

What can we do.



...

I have to end this here, I'm sorry. I don't know what else to say and I'm just... I need to focus on other things. Brighter things. I need to focus on help, on BEING someone who can ignite hope in other people, to live in such a way that it brings a little more light into people's lives... God it hurts when I realize that it's not a 100% success rate and sometimes, no matter how hard I try, people will have the windows closed. They'll have the blinds drawn. Some people suffocate in their despair simply because they don't feel they deserve to see the sunshine anymore. That's when I want to drag them out into the summer brilliance and tell them you DO, you deserve ALL of this, you're just as bright as the sun, no matter what has brought you to this dark place you CAN move out of it, no failure is ever final, there's always a next step, you're always given another shot, even death is only a door... you're light, you're light, all of you, everyone, nothing can ever change that, it's the truth of your very nature, if we're all built from the dust of stars then we're all irreplaceable cosmic things just by being born. We're all impossibly wondrous combinations of time and space and possibility.
I can't get lost in the dark because I AM light and that's why I exist for this System, that's why I exist for EVERYONE...

...

It still breaks my heart, though, because there's still darkness here. It exists, it plays its part, it has its role and reason for existing too.
Maybe that's the simplest, hardest lesson to learn?
I don't know. I can't put this into damn words, why is that so difficult,


I can't give up. I won't. We will all do what we can.

 

 

I've been feeling rather existentially screwed-up lately?
I think it's because we've been letting our well-being completely fall by the wayside. For whatever reason, we just stopped caring about how we treated the body at some point? I don't know if it was post-surgery or what... but the past few months have been rougher than most, from how it feels. Memory is collapsing, health is kind of failing, and honestly we're scared.
We're trying hard to take little steps of improvement, but right now we're also fighting a monstrous wall of depression, shame, and sabotaging self-abusive habits, so those little steps are being taken uphill through a desert at this point.
Still. We won't give up.

Therapy on Monday was INCREDIBLE, from a progress standpoint. I didn't write about it here because it was literally a 40-minute infospill on everything we've been reading lately about RTS and purity/rape culture and how all that ties into our past traumas and current struggles, etc. It's complex but it's VOCABULARY that we've been trying to find for YEARS, like literally we can FINALLY talk about this stuff because there are words that fit it now, there are other people who experienced similar things and who put thoughts together in coherent ways we never would have considered.... you get the idea.
So progress IS being made. It's just tricky lately.

I'm trying to start the dream journal and diet journal again. Both help immensely with grounding and 'non-derealization,' if there's a word for that... they help us get a grip on existence, "hey I actually exist!" That sort of thing. We are uncomfortable with traditional "rituals" but it does help to have patterns. It helps to have solid reference points, threads of coherence, etc.
See I KNOW what to do. Just, right now, it is going to take IRON WILLPOWER to break past these hackers and their programming and all the nasty neglectful habits we've let develop, the same way mold grows, the same way trees rot. We need to just start taking care of ourselves better, more actively.

Doubt is slowly fading. Slowly. But it's fading. I don't know how to express how amazing that is.
Maybe it's because I'm reviewing the archives, remembering who we are/were, but... the reality of us, the honesty of us, is sinking in again. The brightnessof us. Us, seperate from the performances and presentations we cultivated online. We're remembering. I'm remembering.
We're shaking off the dust, we're really trying to.

In the meantime, the past two days have still been oddly off? I've been fasting too much and then panicking because we get sick and eating bad things. It's unhealthy, but I'm aware that it's happening. I just need to make sure we start ACTIVELY using coping methods, grounding skills, etc. We have the help we need. We just need to use it.

Today feels... sad? Like it's an interim feeling, but it's also a calm-before-the-storm feeling... rather, it's like the smell of ozone in the air, potent and buzzing, as the wind whips around you and thunder is rumbling through the mountains, but there's no rain yet. There's no rain yet, and you're running to your car, or to your house, and for a surreal nervous minute you are wrapped up in that whirlwind of almost, in that malestrom of imminence, caught in the tension where there is no time... that's what it feels like.
It's scary too, in that sense, like there's judgment looming and I'm afraid we're running out of time. In any case we ARE using our time unwisely, and I really should ask Cel to help me with that, I know she would. She always helps.
In any case, God knows we need a thunderstorm inside right now. We need the sheets of rain, we need the violet lightning...
But we're getting there. People are healing. People are remembering who they ARE, not who they've been told to be, or who they've allowed themselves to thoughtlessly become.

I've had two dreams this week with Hoopa in them and in both instances ze was directly tied to me somehow. I'm taking that as a good sign too.


So. That's all I have the spoons to type right now. I've been archiving the entire archives onto my laptop, so that's taken many many hours, and several computer crashes. My back hurts and my wrists hurt and my ankles hurt but I'm kind of laughing because God, I can feel that there's blue sky up behind those clouds, I just have to fly.

Therefore I'm just going to toss some System-related art at you because creativity is always good and I love us enough tonight to share this sort of thing.




First is the NEW/current Spectrum Star flowchart, as the last one we did was last July and is now incorrect.



I'm still not sure how correspondences work between colors (I was mapping it out earlier this year), but I'll take the time to revisit that line of thought again soon, if applicable.

Second, also in response to this entry, here's the current work in progress of Central.



I didn't get the chance to touch up the old pictures, but I will soon.
This is also poster-proportioned. So hopefully one day I can get this literally printed as one and put up on the wall in our room. Now we're REALLY unignorable, haha.


Also, you may remember that this was originally supposed to be done in this style, hence the current no-eyes look.
I was experimenting with quotes when we first started... here's the ones we tentatively chose.

 
 

Javier, Leon, and Nathaniel unfortunately don't have much actual dialogue recorded in the archives, so they aren't in those sets.


Speaking of Javier and Nathaniel, I drew these quick headshots as references for a beloved friend (you know who you are) and I don't think they were ever shared here?
  

Javier is really difficult to draw correctly; I'll have to do another picture of him because that one isn't quite correct.
Nat looks a little "buggier" than he does in that sketch (that was just for antennae purposes really). Mainly his eyes are bigger.
Waldorf looks PERFECT though, I am so happy just seeing that picture. Her hair does glow, remember, that's what I was quickly trying to portray there.



I also did three pictures of Infinitii, to show hir "mode changes" roughly.

 

 

Basically:
1) No face-mouth, all wing-mouths: safe to approach. "Feels like a church" mode. Energy is softer, but massive. Carries "creative" Black energy; risk of falling into.
2) No face-eyes, all wing-eyes: approach with caution. Energy is much sharper, "holy fear" sort of vibe. Carries "destructive" Black energy; unpredictable.
3) Face and eyes on both face and wings: the most overwhelming vibe, carrying both sides of Black energy. Completely safe to be around though, if you can handle it.

A rule of thumb is this:
Face-mouths show "negative" Black energy. Face-eyes show "positive" Black energy.
If Infi has NO mouths on hir, ze is completely consumed by the creative side of Black and IS dangerous to be around, although it may not feel like it (that's the danger).
If Infi has NO eyes on hir, GET OUT OF THERE. That's practically Tar-mode. If that's happening Infi is VERY unstable and honestly the System should be concerned.
If Infi changes hir color to be WHITE instead of Black, I have no freaking idea what that's about yet but it usually means that serious business is going down.



And here, have some closeups of the pixels for the original three System daemons.

 

Infinitii, Lethe, and we-still-don't-know, aha. We almost got hir name once, but no dice.
Chocoloco, Dendrite, Nexus, and Triad aren't in this set because I simply haven't gotten around to drawing them out yet.


Someone did try drawing a scene from this *incident* though. Very sketchy, I don't know when it was drawn or who did it, but I am fond of it so here.

 

 

Markus on the left, Ryman and the 2012 Jewel ("Cupid") on the right.



What else can I toss at you.

Oh yeah, this entry is all avatars I've been making at recolor.me and they're really cute actually.

I'm still trying to verify/ finish finding the Spectrum Symbols I mentioned a ways back... Black, Aqua, and Sky are being elusive. Everything else feels fitting right now.
Oh yes, and we have a logo. I'm not showing it to you just yet, I want to digitalize it and make it look lovely. I told you I want to "illustrate" at least some of our life, ideally in a webcomic format, to share with people who haven't/ can't/ would rather not read through the 1000+ pages here. Yes there really are that many dudes, if you've read them all then seriously you deserve some sort of trophy, that is amazing. Also humbling. We owe you a hug or something if we ever meet you physically, really.



Last but not least, here's how many pixel people we have so far.

 

 

About 70 more to go, haha. *sobs*
Not really; we currently only need pixel representations for people who talk in Xangas. But who knows! We all want to talk more, and the channels are open to anyone who wants to chat, so. I'll probably have to do at least 20 more of these at some point. But I'm not complaining; I love everyone and I'm really happy to see the completed art.



On that note it is 1AM and tomorrow is Thursday, I totally forgot. We have TWO therapy appointments and we really should go jogging in the morning before we end up sitting in a car all day. Gotta take those small steps, like I said. Just get the good habits going again.

I love all you readers, invisible or not, and thanks for being there.
May you have a lovely lovely night, and dreams to match.

 

 

 

Therapy on Thursday.

I didn't update as it happened (people wanted to ignore it)



numb fronter as we walked in, couldnt get them out at first
spice fronted for a WHILE, very angry
sherlock fronted momentarily
so did garrison
isadora tried but talking socially isnt her thing
jewel peeked in? left shortly
"jessica" writer girl fronted for a WHILE (NOT the brown "jess," no ties to chocoloco?)
clearly said "other people don't like when I get violent"
she hates the mother, that's her main thing. color feels vaguely indigo, like the one from 2008 or so
wreckage tried to come in, I think ashen was alerted
david did too I think

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 11:55 pm

 

 

Sometimes I think it's really dumb that I have to write down everything "bad" that happens so I can tell the therapist. I don't want to hold on to this stuff. But, I keep remembering that one phrase: "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it." I can't help but feel that, stupid and ridiculous or not, that quote applies here. It's awful.

Sunday morning, I think, there was a dream hack. It was horrible. The pain in-dream was so excruciating that the body collapsed, and I remember almost passing out. I had fallen to the floor, in agony and delirious, and I was half-crazily praying to God to save me somehow. I thought I was dying.
Miraculously, that pain did NOT translate over to the physical body when we awoke. Thank God for that, really!! If it had translated I probably would have really died.

I know why it happened. Sleeping is painful lately, what with surgery recovery, and if we lie flat down it hurts even more. So, we have to carefully prop up the body in a way that won't make our limbs go numb, and will still allow us to breathe, without straining the abdomen so badly we can't get back out of bed easily afterwards (which will happen if we fall down flat). Anyway, since it is tricky, we usually wake up several times during the night hurting. We haven't been sleeping well in any case. There have been lots of nightmares.
Anyway. Sunday, we woke up around 6AM, only having about 5 hours of sleep so far. So we made the mistake of going back to sleep as the sun was rising.
Here's a note: sleeping during sunlight equals HACKS!!! I don't know why, but it's a constant. The "danger zone" happens whenever you try to sleep when it's light out. It's Plague stuff I think. Bad stuff. So we kind of feared it would happen, but what else could we do?

I'm standing here and the legs are covered in blood and I'm fine, but whoever was out before me definitely was not.
There's a problem lately: no emotions, but expression of emotions. Like, "I feel like I should be upset about this, or that it would be right to feel upset about this, but there's no actual feeling!" Like after hacks. You KNOW you're "upset," "sad," "angry," et cetera, but there's no actual emotion. It's an empty void, a blank space. There's nothing. There's just this "knowledge" that, even if you don't actually feel it, you know you aren't happy about this situation. And then someone fronts, and starts to try and scream or cry or something, but there are no emotions, and the second they stop it's poker face city. It's highly confusing and rather upsetting, to know that there should be an emotion there but there isn't.
Even worse, we still have those not-so-floating voices (alters?? the therapist is making us question a lot of things we took for granted or glossed over) who are full of hatred for anyone who shows "weakness or stupidity." There was a problem today; someone was eating as a "coping mechanism"-- the need to organize, to fix something, to clean something, to destroy something. It's all projected coping needs that we can't find a way to meet elsewhere, so it comes out unhealthily. But it was 5:05, and then the grandmother walks in, stops, smiles sadly/flatly at us, and says "You didn't make it."
Now she likely meant well. She knows we like to stop eating at 5PM every day, but sometimes we don't eat "breakfast" until 4PM so that makes things tricky, since we have to prepare the food that day too. So she meant, "it's after 5 already." But it hurt! What a way to say it! Why would you say it such a way?
Immediately the brain heard those words through the hurt. "You're still eating, you wretched thing?" "You failed." "There's a strict set of rules you must meet to be "good," and guess what? You didn't make it." In short, what we heard was, " You failed to do what was good and right, again. I'm disappointed in you, but I didn't expect anything different. You're a disgrace and a shame."
All I know is that this person's "appetite" bottomed out and immediately they wanted to burn every edible item in the kitchen. They fought off the urge to forcibly vomit out of shame right then and there, and walked out to sit on the porch in the cold, feeling utterly filthy and animalistic, like they no longer deserved to show their hedonistic face among human beings.
A few minutes later the grandmother stomps out onto the porch, sighing angrily, half-shouting. "What are you doing now? Stop being so ridiculous. Get back in here."
We tried to explain how we felt, to apologize for being such a humiliation, but she cut us off. "Oh, I don't want to hear this again! You've gotta stop that." Then as we went to walk in the door, she (unknowingly?) shut the door right in our face. There was a moment of shock-- dulled by the fact that we hadn't felt any emotions this whole time-- and then someone went and slumped against the chimney and tried to cry. Unfortunately, the feelings of self-horror and hatred were so potent, that one of those "floating alters" spoke up. "Shut the hell up, you faggot bastard!!!" That's the one that hates crying, and calls anyone who dares to cry because they're "sad" the most awful name they can imagine. They see crying as selfish, manipulative, and downright disgusting. In their eyes, people who cry are doing the emotional equivalent of grabbing someone forcibly by the face and dragging them in the direction you want them to go. It's profane emotional abuse, crying is, to them. So we aren't allowed to cry because it's "evil."
So that shut down, easily enough, because nothing was actually being felt… convincing us that we were "evil" and manipulative, because who else would cry without actually feeling sad? The only thing we felt was this ugly, corrosive, dirty feeling of wrongness, like we were trash, utter garbage, and did not deserve to be conscious.
We ended up back inside the house somewhere around there but the memory cuts out for about two, three hours around that time.
There's too much memory loss lately. It's scary. It's unbearable.


…I lit some candles for optimism, but the black one ended up overflowing like a volcano and spitting sludge all into the pink one, only. That's awful symbolism and it's scaring me a little.

There was a real hack, Sunday night I think. The same day of the dream hack as far as I know. It was in the living room, someone went into a trance from the red lights and that is all I know. We found the culprit, because they tried to attack Chaos and he freaked out, then it went after Genesis, but Infi showed up and neutralized it, so there's no hack data other than the initial "someone bad is here" shock of the culprit fronting and Wreckage realizing it. Yeah, she noticed and tried to kill it, I don't know how it kept going… lots of the hackers can. I think it's because they're on the "downstairs" level, that's not tied to the System at all. It's all Socials and faceless people and floaters. It's a very dangerous, very frightening, very primal level. J---bel and J----ca's kingdom. There's so much malice in those two names, it hurts. I don't want to write them.
So we think that person was "Eros." NOT the guy we've been calling by the name Upstairs, at least we don't think so. This is the guy from 2012, the REALLY EVIL one that caused the whole Celebi trouble in January. Yeah. The EVIL guy. We think it's him, because it feels very similar to what records we have of him, and it's not a good feeling. So we're being very careful.

The real problem is that he's not the only one!!! There's at least two girls, too. One is Anna, I don't remember/know what her deal is but she exists, we're well aware of her. Long straight blonde hair and all. BUT there's another girl-- at least we think it's a girl? maybe there are two-- which is one we've been hunting for AGES, and it's the one who hijacked Jay's heart affinity and turned it into the most dangerous horrific thing ever. She's not a good person, at all, not at all, her energy is unmistakable too and they've left EVIDENCE before, on our computer, that they exist. It's always scary to find evidence, we're not used to people fronting without permission or knowledge, especially bad people.

Oh! Before I forget. The therapist wants to know who writes. I'm a "girl," more like I have a female look and I'm a teenager. But gender is "ehh." I don't think about it much. Anyway I'm a girl and I'm young and I'm happy? I'm not sad, at least. I'm more like, unfazed. So that's it.

Back to typing so I don't slip, that happens a lot with self-awareness because the darker minds in the System don't want these new voices manifesting. (Sherlock here, momentarily. Give me a minute to hand the reins back, quietly.)

So. Bad hacker girl. We don't know who she is but she was apparently around tonight. No hack data again, just the instant of realizing "oh no oh no, someone was here," and then a time gap, and then standing in the bathroom with a huge bread knife in one hand and hysterically sobbing "there's not enough blood!!" Whoever that was. I don't know. But that person realized the "no emotions" problem because although they were wracked with tears and pain, there was-- again-- no emotion being felt, which shook them up.
They were staring at a washcloth full of blood and saying it looked like a murder scene. Then they wondered if we should go to the hospital, because "this wasn't normal," they had lost so much time and they didn't know what day it was and this was no way to live, it was unbearable.
Then there's a somewhat different memory? An instant of someone leaning against the doorframe and laughing deliriously, staring at the wrists and saying "I could end this right now!" It was the sudden realization that we had a really sharp knife and we were really hopelessly distraught and it would be SO quick to just… end it all. Instantly. But something made them change their mind, because that person disappeared and then there's another time gap… yada yada yada. It keeps happening like that and it's not fun.

Anyway. They "couldn't reach God" and every time they tried to ask "do you love me" "do you forgive me" etc., the damned floating voices would jump in and lie and say "no," over and over, making the fronter feel trapped in hell and unsaveable.
Then Infi showed up. All I know is that Infinitii showed up and said "I love you," making it very clear that they weren't ignorant of the situation even so. I don't know what happened after that, I can't see it, just that ze and the fronter (did Jay come in? no? somebody else.) were talking for a little bit and now I'm here? Typing? Geez. It's 9:25 PM. The last time we remember looking at a clock it was 8:25 or so, in the kitchen, putting the knife back in the sink. Geez. And getting matches for the candles.
Someone was standing on a chair to do that (the matches are on top of the fridge) and saying (with no small amount of disgust and shame) that they felt "lonely," that they "never had any friends" because to them, a REAL friend was someone that you didn't HAVE to talk to when you were upset like this. A REAL friend would understand, and just sit with you if you just needed company, to be assured someone else kind was there for protection and compassion, who wouldn't want to chat emptily or do small talk. Which is stupid, and which is what all almost-"friends" would force us to do in the past. Real close friends talk about real close things. And we never had that, but we needed We never got close to anyone really, they never wanted to be close and it hurt. We only ever had… let me count. AMG, AAA, CL, SD maybe, BP, BD almost, Angelbee, and that's it. Seven people who were near-friends, and of all those, only ONE of them (CL) EVER treated us like one. CL treated us like a sibling, there's precious little memory of that time period of life and the only real snapshot we have is of walking across the playground with her, and she was just so happy to be with us that this surge of real honest love welled up in us, like the love you'd have for a dear friend or sister, and it was one of the first real things we ever felt. CL left us for good a few months later, but… that was real, and honest. It's worth noting that this was approximately the same life-time period that Jezebel evidenced during, so the forces were already in opposition. Ugh. Anyway, yeah. Seven people, two of them who were only "cool acquaintances," three of them who were borderline abusive, and one of them (AAA) who was never really an "official" friend (i.e. she would talk to us often but we never hung out or did stuff together) but who we adored nevertheless, as you know. So yeah, we were lonely. Are lonely, I guess, if this evening's admittance by who-knows-who was honest enough.
We did have internet friends, I guess? I forgot. They've fallen into the "lost years," the ones scrubbed dry by programming or trauma or whatever. We don't remember them at all; whoever befriended them is LONG gone and did not leave any first-person memories that we can find. But that's not relevant now, and that stuff physically hurts to look for.
Where was I. Oh yeah. After that hack, and bleeding all over the bathroom (we got really dizzy, not sure if it was from blood or stress or whatever, but it was a little worrisome), and losing even more time, and wanting to throw up, and feeling utterly isolated, yeah we were kind of lonely. We were unplugged from headspace too, and to be honest I don't know if that helped or hindered the situation? There is a LOT of hate for headspace on the downstairs level, with the socials and other faceless fronters, because to them "headspace" is synonymous with "the world and people that only exist because of hacking." In other words, "headspace is a living reminder of hell, and as far as we are concerned, its very presence promotes more suffering and pain." So the socials HATE headspace, and will deny/ slander/ curse/ try to annihilate it at every opportunity. Sadly, because of that split, there's no way to get help from headspace (someone just shouted "we don't want it!!"). Well, there you go. Don't shoot the messenger, guys, I'm just typing. ("For who?") For anyone, I'm just keeping records of this so we can actually deal with this trouble with the therapist maybe, and keep it from ever happening again.

I hope. We wish. This has been going on for 7 years, plus-- no, longer than that, almost 10 now. We aren't sure. When did the hacks really start? So much time is gone, but so many of us are so young, we can't tell.
We keep forgetting about "childhood trauma" too. We laugh at it, actually. It feels like all fairy tales, like some scary story made up to make other children behave. We don't remember having a childhood. Our memory doesn't "start" until 8th grade, really. 2003, going into 2004, that's when headspace put down its first "roots," even though Jewel manifested years prior, and others (Julie, Jezebel, etc.) even earlier. Still, all of that feels foggy and vague, almost like a prologue, or something slightly off-kilter. "Solid" memory, the "beginning," is in the 8th grade classroom. 2003, let's say. And then time disappears for several years, and the next thing we have a "solid" memory of is 2011 or so. Is it? Did Cannon leave any solid memories? No?
It's weird. Cannon and Glissando both were at MU, that awesome university, but although their memories are very clear, it's nevertheless fogged-up by the third-person viewpoint. It feels… vague. Like we were asleep from 2004 to 2008, and began waking up slowly. There's little data until closer to 2009, I think? And then it's gone AGAIN, because whoever was on dA for the "OCT period" (the short-haired kid here) is TOTALLY missing from all our records, we have NO clue who they were. Then 2010 was Utah, which was only know from data because there's NO actual data of that…

You know what, let me do that. It's 10PM, we're going to bed at 11 today because 1) although I would LOVE to stay up and type, it is NOT safe to sleep during the daylight!!! so 11PM is now the set bedtime, and 2) we're going to accompany the grandmother tomorrow morning at 8 to do family shopping and go to her bloodwork place. Any time we get to go in a car is gold. Cars are BEAUTIFUL. They are blessed spaces on wheels. Every car ever is a safe place, a sanctuary, and we love them. We can talk to them too, a little, like Kit in Young Wizards. Serafina (the PT) talks to us the most; she does not like when people hit potholes and she doesn't like when people say she's "not as good" as Bethany (the Suzuki). So she's kind of moody. But we're nice to her, we really do love her, and she's warming up to us more. Bethany we don't get to talk to often (we don't get to drive her much) but I'm curious, and kind of scared, to try. She's been in several accidents and there has been at LEAST one massively horrifying hack while IN her, poor thing. We haven't even listened to that file yet.


…Okay, I just had to leave the computer for a second and NOW all the terrible sadness and hopelessness is settling in. How do we deal with that? Just meditate all the time?
To be honest, that's why we haven't been meditating. It's… when we do, we don't want to stop. We'd unplug from reality and meditate for like six hours a day if we could. Is that detrimental? Is it "good" to totally dissociate from the physical realm that often, that totally? "Be in the world, but not of it," they say, but for God's sake we don't know HOW to be "in it" at this point, most Buddhas weren't "mentally ill" as far as we know, and it hurts like a crushed heart to hear people say "well mental illness isn't real” because sure, we know that all this suffering is ephemeral, but then…
I don't know. What about the PTSD, then? What about the D.I.D.? Are they saying that "oh, your PTSD isn't real" even if someone was raped, or caught in an explosion, or something equally horrid? It's hard to find the fine line. On one hand, there's awareness that this life is temporary, and all the horrors we may endure here are equally so… and on the other hand, there's the awareness that this life is still valid, right? It's still real in some way, right? And… is it wrong to be scared, when something scary happens to you?
I don't know. This drives me mad, especially because it's the REASON why we aren't feeling emotions anymore!! SO many people have said "your emotions are just knee-jerk reactions to stimuli that don't really exist!" and glorified "detachment" and "emptiness" that we have scraped out our soul and now we don't know HOW to live in this world because we just want to meditate all day. We're in pain and we can't even feel it because these people keep saying it's not real.
Bullshit. BULLSHIT. "You have to accept suffering before you can transcend it." That means stop kicking this under the rug and let us HEAL for God's sake, we're scared and we're frightened and we're sad and lonely and confused and angry and you just keep doing that stupid "SMILE (☺)" reaction and acting like we're just poor fools!!! Well maybe we are, but that puts us right in with every other beaten and kicked child in the world. Would you just "SMILE" at a five-year-old whose mother just whacked them in the face out of pure malice, and who was crying bitterly as a result? "Don't cry child, she's not really your mother! The pain isn't really real! (Smile!)" FCK YOU.
I am so sorry. FCK YOU.


That too. That freaking mother. "WRITE A BOOK!!! WRITE A BOOK!!! HERE HERE'S ANOTHER PUBLISHING COMPANY TO CONTACT!! HERE'S ANOTHER WRITERS GROUP TO ATTEND!!! BLA BLA BLA!!!!!!!!"
Fck off, FCK OFF, STOP.
Everyone wants me/us/whatever to "write a book." WHAT BOOK!??!?
What the hell do you want us to write????? What are you expecting????
There's our personal chronicles, these Archives, sure we could TRY to write a book out of them, we'd LOVE to actually, but that's NOT EASY, ESPECIALLY when every two seconds you're telling me IT'S FAKE, IT'S BULLSHIT, GET OVER IT, STOP ACTING LIKE THAT, STOP SAYING THAT, ET CETERA.
I wouldn’t BE saying things if I wasn't FEELING them. I'm trying to be HONEST. Would you rather I lie??
I don't know. I don't know. I WANT to write this in a book and put it out there but it HURTS, damn it it HURTS and it's terrifying to look back and see that there's NOTHING for YEARS, God help us how can we write anything if there's so much empty space and unanswered questions??? I don't know. I don't know.
And then there's Dream World, Jewel's magnum opus or however you'd call it. She's terrified because so many people have ripped that story right out of her heart and tried to mangle it into their own liking. It's been so horribly corrupted, she can't see half the characters anymore, she can't find the timeline after 2003 right now, right where ours stops. She cries about it a lot, how all she wants to do is share that story, her love and joy, our hope, and yet it's been so battered. She's scared, that she might not be able to get it right in time, or the right way, or something. But we all feel her fear, more of a wrenchingly awful bottomless mourning, and it makes our situation all the more depressing.

Ugh. This entry is going places I don't want it to go. Where was I. Cars.
Not going to talk about that hack file. It's an hour long and I know Wreckage talked on it and so did the veil-person (the purple one) and Julie maybe? I don't know, I don't want to think about it, there's a potent jagged aura around that entire event that is horrifying to look at, sorry to keep using that word but it's the only one with a "vibe" that fits the feeling I'm trying to express. Horror is different from terror, and fright, and fear. You get the picture, I hope.
Cars. We're going in one tomorrow. I'll type again when I get home, maybe.
I wanted to list memory bits, for the sake of having that data written down somewhere, and also for the therapist. Oh, plus she has us doing this thing, let's start a new paragraph for that, I mentioned it earlier.

It's supposed to snow tomorrow. Okay, so the therapist asked us, "who does what in your System?" But she meant on the outside. And we DON'T KNOW. It was very jarring, kind of existentially nauseating, scary, to realize that we don't know who does half this stuff, and the more questions she asked the more shaken-up we got until we almost felt like crying from shock but nothing happened. We're losing so much time and we NEVER REALIZED IT until she started asking things we never would have considered asking ourselves.
"Who eats" is tricky enough, Emmett should be the one eating but that's been very rare over the past few months. We don't know who eats lately, but so many people are tied to pain and purging and maintenance that it's a little easier to get a grip on that.
But then she asked, "who cooks? Who cleans? Who does finances? Who goes to the doctor? " etc. We have absolutely no idea. And as we looked, hoping to find answers, we found that there was no data. We don't know who cooks or cleans or does finances or goes to the doc because for the most part, there's NO MEMORY OF THOSE THINGS. There's some vague "location" data, of course, the eyes are always seeing… but as for actual conscious stuff? Movement, talking, choices? None. There's nothing. And THAT'S scary.
She asked who exercised. We mentioned that weird faceless beige-tan guy who showed up last summer on the elliptical, and who keeps flickering in and out. But we also mentioned that exercise is dangerous, TERRIBLY dangerous, and the reason why we were out of shape for years is that originally we couldn't exercise without getting hacked. Which was bad. Running outside is safe but we can't do that until our surgery heals.
"Who writes, who does art, who does music," she asked. Another worrisome question. Creativity was always very separate from our System in order to protect it, because if hacks/ etc. ever touched the Leagueworld stuff, we'd die. Quite literally. Everything would go to hell. So no one in our System did art, except Jewel, who broke off from us during the lost years. Razor tried but couldn't tap in. We have some musicians, notably Glissando, but Nienna and Zwei like to sing and Einsatz likes to listen. Problem is, for unknown reasons music is also tied to mania, so we are actually terrified to play the piano anymore because then that one girl comes out and goes nuts, and her energy signature is like a circuit breaker shorting out, blowing up. She's dangerous and we do not like her. She's part of why we stopped singing for over a year once the dysphoria got bad. It would trigger her and then things would-- again-- go to hell. And hacks would happen in her wake too! So that wasn't good either. Writing, though, that's our field now… sadly, for some part, as Jewel lives to write and she hasn't in a very long time. We used to have a poet, we don't know where they went. We lost a lot of our writers, actually. Those of us who write in the Archives… we''re a different breed. This is just talking onto paper. I'm one, Simeon is listed, one girl who "hates the mother" and goes by "Jess" because she can't find another name. She spoke here for a bit before, her energy sticks. Jay types, Laurie has typed before, not often but she has. Sherlock types. Mulberry did once, I can see the text in my mind. But yeah. That was an easier question to answer.
"Who does self-care," the therapist asked. No one. Cannon put a stop to it in 2009 or so, with the dysphoria and hacks and atonement, and since then it's been very bad, minimal really. Bathrooms in general are hack-places and we don't like spending longer in one than we have to.
"Who went to school," was the last question. Cannon, that we know. She took the one art class, that unannounced decided to make her do figure drawing. And all hell broke loose. AGAIN. It's ridiculous how often that has happened. Where is it coming from?? Why??
But we don't know who else was at the first college, other than Glissando, who was only there to sit at her laptop and write music. Spinny got in the way there sometimes, but she was manic and negative and not really a "person." We don't know who went to the second college. We don't know who went to high school or elementary school. Blame the social interaction, I guess, or at least the threat of it. Thank God we were ignored for the most part!

I can't type anymore. Apparently my attitude is detrimental? Or at least not nice, or fitting. It's "rude" without meaning to be rude is what I'm getting. Sorry guys. I'm out of here.

We'll write the memory data down tomorrow, when we have appropriate time. Now is too late.
I cannot tell you much else for tonight; there is a pervading sadness and helpless frustration that is being exacerbated by the heat in this room and the company here. I do not want to mire in this mindset so I am going to attempt to unplug the mind for as long as possible to allow it to heal. Good night.




…Hold up, no. Don't end this yet.
This is Jay. I usually show up at the end, sorry for that, but it feels fitting.
Knife just walked up to me, in tears, asking "what happened," and I just felt… more complete, more whole than I have in… I want to say "years," but it's probably just days. Days are becoming mini-lifetimes by now, in any case.
But there he was, crying, knowing there was pain, asking where all the blood came from, what happened?? We looked, it wasn't bad actually, nothing deep like Razor does, nothing major. But it had happened, that fact alone was heartbreaking. Knife said Julie was totally distraught, and honestly guys I am not surprised, because I saw her sitting by herself after that hack on Sunday, and the look on her face just ached to see. It was grim, determined, almost too stoic to decipher-- but there was this knowing in her eyes and a pain in her posture that I understood too well. She hasn't forgotten what brought her to where she is now. She knows what happens with hacks. And they are still happening. That look was something I can't put into words, but it broke my heart to see it, and God knows I want this to stop just as much as she does.
But then there's the lack of emotion. There it is, the Plague. It sneaks into my confetti-colored head and it smiles, and it tries to make me believe that it's fine that hacks are happening, why do you care? It's not real, who cares! Except I'm re-reading Young Wizards and that thing feels way too much like the Lone Power.
Oh. About that. Yesterday I power-read through the entirety of High Wizardry, which we originally read over a decade ago, and which there was only the faintest recognition of. The last chapter was a roller coaster of an experience, and the last 20 pages or so had me in legitimate tears. I will not spoil it for you (good Lord go read it) but I will say that I actually had to stop, two or three times, because there was such powerful relevance to headspace and I kept thinking Infi, Infi, this is all Infinitii's message-- and when I closed the book around 1AM ze was there, and I was a mess, and I cannot forget what happened in those first moments.
I was crumpled up in a corner somewhere, in headspace, in a bright place of white light… but miserable. The final chapter of the book had forced me to realize just how much awfulness was in me, in our collective self-- all the selfishness, the bitterness, the dishonesty, the rage, every derivation of negative death, every contribution to entropy. I saw it all and I felt every regret we had and it ripped through me like a blade and I was devastated, I couldn't bear it. I ended up in that corner, wanting to just disappear, ashamed to exist with all that trailing me, us. And then something velvet-black against the light walked over, paused, looked down with something untranslatable in its many eyes, and said: "Jay.
You do realize, I know all of those things, completely?"
I did realize, and the aching shame was unendurable. I said nothing.
"I still love you."
I looked up then, self-hatred and disbelief coloring me bitter.
"How could you?"
At that, Infinitii's expression softened, just a little, just enough.
"How could I not?"
So that was that.
Sorry I can't quite do it justice. We spoke for a bit after that and it felt so entirely cathartic I was shocked; I couldn't remember the last time this chest felt so clear.

Here are some other bits of data the other writers here forgot to/ didn't know about to mention--
- I knew I was in trouble Sunday morning but the body was so exhausted we had no choice but to sleep. I went to Javier's room and slept there hoping he could help protect me, but apparently when I sleep I get "yanked out" of headspace and so he was helpless. He also was not at fault, which I had to emphasize when I returned and he was almost hysterical with misplaced remorse.
- Lynne slept over in my room on Saturday night I think? Just for fun, as I'd been talking to her all that day and anyway I miss the platonic closeness I used to have with everyone. So that was nice.
- I was also talking to Kyanos on Saturday night, as we did our nightly walk. His eyes glow, he does have stained-glass wings, which he said settled in after he was assigned his surname (Kathedrikos).
- I'm trying to tap into people's energy fields again, upstairs. Scent is the easiest as it's the most ethereal, so I'm starting there. Lynne is still rosin/ violin wood/ peaches, while Laurie is still blood/ steel/ lightning. There's also this odd subtle "vibe" to them both that I found interesting-- kind of how for a lot of people, the smell of homemade bread has a "vibe" of comfort and security, due to associations with that sort of environment. Lynne, unsurprisingly, has the vibe of our old violin music school-- comforting and bright, but warm and safe, without feeling "stagnant" like a home. There was a slight bright edge of excitement to it, the knowledge that you were "on the road" but that place was a safe haven in the meantime. Lots of warmth. Laurie, though, has this somewhat personal vibe of protection, again unsurprisingly. But I say "personal" in that Lynne's vibe is more "expansive," like it feels bigger, while Laurie's is very contained, just me and her really, without being "too close." It's basically the knowledge that she's got your back, elaborated into something that feels, oddly, just as "at home" as Lynne does in a different way. Just wanted to mention that.
- Marigold smells like marigolds, the bright warm summery kind. David smells like a blanket (a very cute scent actually) and freshly fallen snow (which surprised me). I can't tune into Jeremiah's field yet-- he's too reticent, which is understandable and okay. Kyanos is-- as he was-- fresh morning air with a late note of honey. Nathaniel smells like a tree. It's hilarious. It's extremely subtle; leaves don't have much of a scent as-is but it's unmistakable. And there's this over-scent I cannot place, something very fine and silvery, delicate stuff. It's not mint, there was some once but there's none now. Leon, though, has this unusual smell of something like brass? I briefly tuned in and I got that vibe-- not the sharp metallic scent some metals have, but this oddly warm and golden tune. And there's something over it that's either vanilla or frankincense and I cannot tell. It's really interesting, as I haven't "checked" on anyone's energy like this in a while and it's amazing to see how it varies over time, with people. Lastly, though, I am happy to report that Knife is still all woodsmoke, but I'm thinking that odd sweet-rich undertone is actually roses, like old dried roses or something. I don't know. It's been ages since I last smelled one but I'll have to find one now, see if the data matches up. Anyway that's that, sorry for the rambling but this is really fascinating to me and I value it.

I tend to get larger blocks of residual data than others, and I'm present for Upstairs stuff typically, so there you go. It is important to write this down. Attention gives power. Attention needs to go to us.

There's a lot that still needs to be written (especially about therapy last week, which I'm working on, and the "memory list" we apparently need to write? oh, and a list of "safe places" for therapy this week) but I'm starting to get slippery. It's late anyway, we need sleep.

I haven't read a jot of this entry at the time of posting this, so I apologize if there's anything unfinished or in need of editing… I have no idea who wrote what, as usual. But I'm glad something was written.

We'll try again tomorrow. Here's to that.

 

 

 

 

 

These abdominal concerns keep pushing me to take serious time off. I can't help but wonder, now, if that's their purpose. It's forcing me to take a good, strong look at issues I otherwise would have brushed off or glanced over, justified or victimized.
I began to wonder, lying down again today, pushed into another hour of meditation. "Why did this start now, why this bad all of a sudden?" Why did this literally seem to jump into gear right after I started T?
Then it hit me. What was one of the first quiet thoughts that ran to my head, holding that first tiny tube of testosterone in my hands? "Well, soon I won't be a 'woman' anymore. I wonder what it's like to be one?" "I wonder... what exactly am I going to be 'leaving behind' with this?"
And boom, it all jumped out of the woodwork like a frenzied demon.

I'm feeling this really weird sort of thing right now. It's like glowing yellow anger, the sort of sharp-teeth spitting embers of a laugh that knows it could burn, it SHOULD burn, and yet it is holding back only because it is so goddamn bitter. There's so much pain. It wants to stop laughing, to blaze with justice, to be valiant golden truth, and yet deep in the back of its throat it is scared to raise its voice even for an instant because there are sobs crouching there, just as loud, just as demanding of attention.
Of course I respected and cared for women before. But now, now... I never really felt like a female, you know. Or a male. I still don't; I'm somewhere between the two, feeling nervously helpless and indignantly angry because why do I feel forced to be either? Universal law doesn't split two and two as severely as we do. Universal law demands equality, balance, harmony. And yet we demand that you check either pink or blue, boy or girl, male or female.
It's almost funny how, in my 24 years, I never equated that with what was between your legs. Realizing that the great majority of the society I live in does... it's an eye-opener, really. It's shocking. When I realize that, by virtue of my birth sex-- the fact that this body was given the biological equipment to build and then nourish life, whether or not I ever chose to utilize that-- a great many people are going to slap the "woman" label on me, completely and restrictively, it was a shock. I'd never really realized that before. Call it blind optimism, maybe. Call it culture clash, between my head and heart and what I was told on TV, in the papers, by my religion and family. But either way, I never felt like a woman before, not as acutely as I have over this past month, ironically as my body began its slow shift towards masculinity. But perhaps it isn't so ironic. Cultural and global identities carry vibrations too... and what is this male energy holding? Control. Power. Disparagement, to a large extent. There's a muscle-bound, smug and glowering tightness to this "male" word, to this identity, and I don't like it. I don't like it at all, especially not when it's got its hands clamped around a metal collar, and that collar is snapped around the neck of my female identity, bent at his feet. It makes me angry.
So. This stuff is being dealt with. It's so weird... it's my piece of this collective pain consciousness, and I must heal it within myself. I cannot change every other soul out there, although I feel indebted to, although I feel obligated too. But that's part of this as well.

As a female, as a 'woman,' a term I embrace in its temporary yet true accuracy... this is what is coming to the forefront.

1. The powerful and infuriating feeling that my body is public property
2. The equally enraging conviction that I must be the world's servant, obedient and never questioning
3. The related belief that I am not allowed to have or express an opinion; doing so would be selfish and obtrusive
4. The feeling that I am inherently sexual, manipulative, tempting, and spiteful, even against my will
5. And lastly, most strangely, our past personal history of abuse and forced invasion from other women, convincing me that I had no choice but to emulate them in such behavior. This is where most of the pain is centered.

I want to reiterate once more, before I elaborate on that... I love being feminine. I do, it's great. I'm not a girl, I could never be a woman, but feminine energy fits me. Becoming a 'male' on the outside will not change that... should not change that. This louder outside energy is trying to challenge that, and that's feminism too, this feeling of ire at the total, insane condemnation of the female entity, in all of its forms. Pardon my language but it pisses me off, now more than ever.
Anger is a strange feeling. It's a new feeling. It's too, too close to the slow burn of red malignance, and the manic yellow shrieks of wanton violence. And it was forbidden for years, from these same issues. Bury your anger, we were told. It's unladylike. It's rude. You have no right, bla bla bla. Getting over the guilt that feeds this same anger is tricky. Why do we feel guilty for defending our basic human dignity, our inherent rights to respect? WHY?

"Her"-nia. Go figure. It's funny, sure, but in a world where veins are rivers and walnuts are brains, where the microcosm mirrors the macrocosm, I've long since stopped being surprised when similarities jump up in the most "unlikely" places.
That thing won't go away and every time I dip into meditation and feel it, there's just crying. It's always just this girl, moaning in tears, shouting "don't touch me," incapacitated by hysteric, gasping sobs. Loud wails of helpless protest, of stricken terror, of despairing anger. She's hurt and I haven't been able to figure out why, there are too many tangled threads, there is too much pain here. But every day I get closer. Every day the pain and humiliation kicks me down on my back, and I am face-to-face with her again, raging with her wet eyes and throat full of rusty nails. She's tired, she's furious, and she hates herself for it. She doesn't deserve this. She wants relief more than anything-- and so do I, but I've come to realize that relief will only come through healing... through compassion. Fighting, strangling, hating, all of that will not "kill the enemy." It only puts more poison into the wound. She was never taught otherwise, she was only taught to step on her own face... taught that the enemy was herself, even when someone else had a gun to her head. "You brought this upon yourself." And I have to be the one to offer her the first hand, saying, "No you didn't."
But I don't fully believe that yet, either. This isn't just her battle. It's mine, too.


There was a time when I hated everything feminine. It's true. It breaks my heart to admit that, but it breaks even more to admit-- with biting regret-- that part of me still does. Ironically, that part is not Jessica.
I must apologize to her. Her name kept getting tied to the wrong sort of self-hatred and I feel too many people, myself included, looked at her through a darkly negative lens for far too long. She was never a perpetrator, not actively. She was a victim, through and through, and that ballooned into an ugly and violent self-loathing that sparked the negative perpetrators later. But Jessica was hurt, first and foremost. Hurt people hurt people. So I must lift that heavy bough of condemnation off her back, off everyone's back, where it does not belong.

Jessica holds all the female pain, separate from the feeling of being a female (that's mostly Lynne's job still). She's also separate from headspace, so her issues are grounded in physical reality, in the body. Jessica is the one who doesn't understand why the hell she's so angry all the time, who is broken-hearted and burning, who just wants to be loved, but has been taught hook line and sinker that she is not allowed to ask. She believes that her very existence is a sin. And now, now that I slowly begin to realize that we were lied to, that we and she were not a sin by being born... it's a slow, hard process, breaking through this massive shell that has built up around us, but once we get a crack in it it shatters pretty well. I won't give up. She deserves to see the light, to breathe the air, and the amount of profound forgiveness both of self and of others that is welling up in my heart from this, is incredible. But it hurts, too. Why did I ever hate her? Why did anyone ever feel it was justified??
And that's when I turn and ask Cannon.
She knows exactly why.

Look at how society expected us to act. Look at how we felt we HAD to be, even when no one was explicitly asking.
We never really thought of ourselves as female before Spinny was born, either, remember. We were a "girl," sure, but what did that mean to us, to the child-cores? It meant we had eyelashes, and wore bows, and liked the color pink, and could wear dresses. That was about it. It was all "tertiary characteristics," all completely surface stuff. Then we got a job, then high school came to a close, and suddenly we were exposed to different treatment, so to speak. Here and there, as we didn't get out much, we'd get a glimpse of what it was like to be a female in society, and we didn't like it.
Problem #1 first hit us with the outfits. Our own family objectified us. I won't talk about that; they thought it was "innocent enough" but it made me feel sick and nauseous even before I started high school. I was more than eye candy, why did I have to act and dress like it? Why was I shamed for dressing like a boy, for cutting my hair, for saying "no" to what others ordered me to do? Even outside of the trans* issue, it unsettled me that I had to seek permission to make my own personal choices.
I was raised to pick up after my brothers, to be their role model, to be a good and modest example. It shocked me when they were not held to the same standard, when my family let them do things and get away with things that I would never have been allowed to do. That was Problem #2.
I don't know when Problem #3 hit but it was likely tied to the job and later upbringing as well. All I know is that it is very pronounced now.
Problems #4 and #5 are inherently tied. They have their roots firmly in Julie, my mother, and my grandmother. Those three were the ONLY females in my life, really. Up until 2007 or so, I didn't even know how "other girls" acted. It took long-term unwilling job exposure for me to realize that society was very different from what I expected. And people expected very differently of me than what I was capable of being. You get the picture.
Anyway, that whole mess is what Jessica holds, more than any of us. It is what Spinny was created to adhere to, for the sake of survival and "friendship" and "love." And it is what Cannon loathes with bitter sadness, hating herself and the world for what seemed like an inescapable curse, for trapping her in this hell just because her body was assigned female at birth.

I don't know what else to write about that.
I don't want to talk about the problems. I want to talk about solutions. I want to focus on healing, not on pain. We've had enough of the latter.
We are understanding this better now, in a compassionate way, in a forgiving way. That's really what I want to say here: that I never quite had a comprehensive grip on this before, not from a stable state. These issues were always viewed either at an uncrossable distance, or through eyes burning with rage and tears. It's only now, having my feet on solid enough ground, that I can view it with a mix of peaceful detachment and just anger. It's a paradox, I guess, but it's true. "This should not continue," but "it is happening." So fix it, bit by bit, in ourselves first.
Jessica is where it starts. She was the "bottom of the barrel" body core, the social fronter tied to the given name and physical form. She was defined by emptiness, self-loathing, depression, purposelessness, the feeling of filthiness. She wasn't born until 2003 or so, really-- she has no memories prior to that, as those feelings did not exist in the child-cores.
I'm just so sorry that we viewed her as a villain this whole time. Yes, she was a negative, unhealthy influence; yes she was a destructive force. But she was only those things because of the pain she held, that she felt shackled to. Again, it's about time she was let out of that mental jail. There cannot be peace outside unless there is peace inside. If we want to see anyone else healed and happy, we have to allow the most twisted parts of ourselves to taste that same thing first. We have to shine a light in the darkest corners of our psyche, not in rejection of the shadows, but in order to fully see and accept what is back there. Then we can start transmuting that lead into gold. But rejection won't get us anywhere.


...On that note.
Jessica HAS an "inner demon," like Infinitii. I saw him for the first time on Friday evening, I think.
He's BIG-- thin but broad-shouldered and very tight-muscled, with long ribbon-like arms-- they're almost flat, very long, and move completely freely of joints or bones. Proportion-wise, from the waist up, he actually reminds me of Antylamon, and I just remembered now that that Digimon eventually can become Cherubimon… one of our all-time favorites. I'm sure that's notable.
…Also, looking up that Digimon the similarities are already uncanny.
"…it is the owner of a gentle spirit. It likes small things, and because it attends to them with profound tenderness, if anything appears that tries to tread on them then its personality is completely reversed, and it attacks with… its arms transformed into razor-sharp axes. Once it loses its temper and starts spinning it doesn't calm down until the opponent's figure is no more."
"It is able to freely manipulate the "qi" flowing within its body, allowing it to interact with softness as well as hardness, so that at times it moves flexibly as if it were flowing, and at other times it unleashes heavy blows like iron."
I don't know, I just felt that was interesting. Things tend to line up so I figured it couldn't hurt.

Perhaps most oddly, though, this guy also seems to be made entirely of chocolate. It's probably a joint comfort/forgiveness thing. Chocolate was tied explicitly to femininity in our past-- especially as it related to the mother-- and so it was hated for years. However, it was also sweet, something handed out on joyous occasions, or as a reward or gift… it was something bizarrely comforting, even if we didn't quite like it. It just had that joint association, turning itself into a battlefield, just by existing. So this demon of hers… is made of it. He smells like rich chocolate, with something extra in it like in a coffeeshop, comforting and dark and warm. He has not yet spoken-- not to me at least-- and I cannot see his face yet, or his legs for that matter (so far Jessica has always been sitting in his lap). But he's real, deep within her soul he is VERY real, and he loves her just as simply and completely and quietly as Infinitii loves me.

Maybe I should talk more about that, too… the whole "daemon" thing.
It existed long before we read HDM, that series just put the phenomenon into heartwrenchingly accurate words, for the most part at least. Of course they are two completely seperate concepts, but the idea that this little creature is a part of your soul, that reflects that raw part of you unflinchingly and yet with total compassion towards you... it fit, perfectly.
However, it's all theory right now. But one thing that is standing out is that it's tied to the Outspacer "split self" thing, both in the sense of having a "personality break" AND in the sense of "dreaming a new life," of expanding one's existence beyond the timeline they were born in. Daemons are arguably a solidification of both those things. More than that, though, they are personifications of their challenges-- the bridge between their deepest vices and their greatest virtues, so to speak. A "daemon" for us is the archetypal shoulder demon and angel both. It is a monster that wears the face of our greatest fear, of our greatest failing... but it is a monster that glows in the dark, and it can be the greatest catalyst to your becoming your truest self. They are our biggest fears and biggest hopes for ourselves, given their own face, so we can learn to love them... to love ourselves entirely.
On that note, this appears to be only attached to humans right now. No headvoices or other creatures. Genesis and Chaos both have their "dark side splits," and powerfully so, but they have no daemons. They might have a different path to walk, who knows.
Also, now I can't help but wonder if our original "Gens" fit this category, at least slightly? Cannon had Gamboge and Jayce had Pinstripe, and both of them ultimately held surprisingly negative qualities, disguised as positive traits-- 'sacrifice' and 'purpose,' respectively, but both pushed up to eleven and skewed until they became outright destructive. They never really "synced" with the Engelbaum story so I'm curious now, if they were ever anything else. If not, then that's fine too. It's just a theory I'd like to pursue.
Sorry, I'm rambling again. But it's interesting stuff. There's so much interesting stuff up here.

As for who has a daemon so far...
Infinitii is obviously mine, although ze was born before me, technically. Nevertheless our souls are still made of the same stuff. I can't say for sure what my vice/ challenge/ truth thing is, because to be blunt I've never thought about it... and I should. But I know, intimately, what Infi's purpose is with me, even if I can't put it into words. Again, though, I should, especially because I've been so splintered and disconnected that my own self is rather damaged in my own perspective. So looking at the both of us in this way would probably be profoundly helpful and healing for us both. Remind me.
The chocolate-creature I was just discussing is Jessica's daemon, however he came to be. I have no idea what her vice/challenge/truth lineup is, let alone if she even has one, not being an Outspacer... that's why this is all theory; I am honestly just making educated guesses until I get more data. But I want to add that this daemon has a very unsettling vibe, at least to me. He radiates a sort of "horror movie silence," this dead quiet that isn't threatening to explode, because its power lies in its charged stillness. But he's nice to her, entirely, which is what matters. Nevertheless, no clue what her V/C/T lineup is, although this entry feels like a big nudge in that direction. We shall see, in time.
Jewel does have something similar to a daemon; she's said so to me. I don't know who or what it is but she prefers not to talk about it. If we look at her from an Outspacer perspective, though-- she DID have a "Yami" in the old days and she never followed up on that-- her vice would be tied to negating Heart, and her challenge would assumedly be tied to Love. So, her theoretical daemon would probably deal with unconditional and/or fearless love, especially applied to self? I'm not sure. Jewel still doesn't like to get involved with headspace at all, so maybe that's part of it too.
Markus has a daemon who I have clearly seen. She (?) is creepy as hell, this big gangly golden thing with an unblinking gaze. Now Markus's vice is tied to Mind, and his challenge is tied to Hope, which I've discussed. And, I don't know how to put it into words, but I can feel what his daemon's deal is, and it fits perfectly with Markus's "Pharaoh" god tier. I think it's trust? Markus has confessed his problems with trust before, notably to Infinitii, so that would make sense for his daemon. She's still terrifying though! I wonder how they get along. I wonder how long she's been around. I'd like to talk to them both.
I don't know about Ryman; that boy has an interesting relationship with shadows the way it is, to say the least. His vice is tied to Soul and his challenge is tied to Void, so he's grappling with existential peril with this. That'll be one hell of a daemon.

Oh geez this is making me miss those two so much, I need to write another entry about them sometime soon.
I am extraordinarily tired though, so I'll have to do that some other time.

Sorry for the abrupt end to this entry, and all its data. I've been doing that a lot lately. But, it's because now I just type like water flowing from my hands, and when it's done it's done. And this is done!
The topics are not, however. They will be revisited whenever they need to be, but I won't set deadlines. Focuses shift, time does what it will. Tomorrow morning I have no idea what the day will demand of me, so we will find out when we get there.
In any case, though, I am very thankful this gender-issue stuff was all brought up to awareness, even if it was just to fully acknowledge before letting go of it completely. I hope that's the case. It feels so good to let go of old pain, now that we're able to, sincerely so. I want happiness for everyone inside, happiness and peace, and I want it for everyone outside too. We'll get there. Sooner or later it's inevitable, as it doesn't have to be created, just found again. We just need to get rid of the obstacles separating us from it is all.

Have a good night, everyone.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


@ 01:58 am

 

There has been so much synchronicity this evening.
I think it's because I took the chance to reconnect internally, even though I was scared and felt unworthy. I showed up regardless, and things feel so much more in-tune right now.

"All growth begins at the end of your comfort zone." All great changes are preceded by chaos.

I've been misinterpreting the words of the people I've been looking up to. There's so much talk of total peace and happiness, I keep forgetting that those things are not dependent on outer conditions. Problem is I've immersed myself so thoroughly in the painless utopia I keep reading about that I forget that we're not there yet, so to speak. Pain has its purpose.
This is why headspace is slipping. I'm rejecting too much of life thinking that "it's the right thing to do." It's not. Rejection is not healthy, nor is it wise. I need to embrace this like I do Infi, that's what we need. I need the full picture again, the bigger understanding, the complete focus.

I need to take more risks. I need to challenge myself more. I need to let go of this fear of success, this fear of being the hero to myself that I want to be... and yet feel too humiliated and ashamed to reach up to. Small steps.

I'm getting back in tune with my good intuition, not the screaming voices. It's tough, though, to be so trusting. It does require obedience to the little nudges and words of warning. That takes guts at first, especially when there's a past of fear, of being misled. But the trust pays off. Small steps. It won't happen overnight, but every tiny little change, every good habit rooted a little more, helps.
Every "bad thing" is a lesson. It's not a death sentence, like the bad voices said. Every "mistake" is a signpost, a lesson to learn, a tap on the shoulder to get me to pay attention. It's a good thing. It's a chance to become wiser, to grow. No, it's not going to be comfortable, no it's not going to be all sunshine and daisies like I've heard it will be. But perspective is key, and it does not mean "pretending something else is happening." No. You accept where you are and what is happening, totally, without judgment. And then you act from a place of love and wisdom. You don't try and twist reality to some misguided ideal. I need to remember, the universe is a benevolent paradox, and everything is perfect just as it is now. We are always right where we need to be. It's true.

I got pushed to take another 2+ hours off this evening, as I ended up eating fruit too late in the day and wasn't listening to my intuitive voices telling me to quit. Anyway I ended up somewhat sick so I had to lie down for the body to recover, and since my iPod was charged for the first time in weeks, I put that on to help me calm down.
Well, the first song that came up was Jojoushi. Chaos' favorite song.
I considered skipping it. I just felt too filthy, too ashamed to listen to it, to even acknowledge it. But then I paused, and realized I would get nowhere by ignoring him again. Doing that only pushed me further away from healing, from compassion, from acceptance of what was still good and bright within me even when I felt like that. So I let it play.
I forgot how relevant the lyrics were. Hearing them, a spark came back. Maybe I'm not so bad, I thought.
I left it on shuffle. The universe responded as always.
Virtually every single song that played was relevant, several directly so: This Is England, When We Reach You~Could It Be Right, This I Love, Metaphorically Yours, and then a ridiculously well-timed Open Your Heart that actually had us laughing. You get the picture.
But it's been so long since anything like that has happened to me. I have been utterly, disastrously unplugged from that sort of synchronicity and love for months. No wonder I've been sick. No wonder I've felt empty and useless. I've been running from this, solely because somewhere along the line, I became too afraid to risk it being real. God knows why, but there it is.

It's funny, how we're often more afraid of the good than we are of the bad. We've been taught that it's "too good to be true," or that we "don't deserve it," et cetera. So we push it away, even when our heart is reaching out to it, and then we call the resulting misery a justification for how "undeserving" we are. It's bullshit, says Laurie, and I agree. She is always vehemently insisting that I do deserve to follow what my heart really wants in life, that I am the hero I want to be, that I am not the wreck I've convinced myself I am lately. I have the courage to listen to her, but the belief hasn't locked in yet. It'll take practice, and more small steps, to let go of this old conditioned condemnation response. It's sad, hopeful in the wrong way. "Maybe if I hate this bad thing, it will go away..." I'm sorry, but that does not work. It never has and never will. If Infinitii has re-taught me anything, it is this: you must embrace all things, and transmute their role in your life. Do I view this part of me, this action, this choice, this memory, as "bad," as evil and dirty and shameful and wrong? Well, step one is getting the guts to accept it just as it is first, without labeling it as those things. Just look at it. Look at it until something inside you can look at it the way you'd look at your best friend, or your child, or your partner. Realize you are just as deserving of that compassion, of that gaze that can see beyond the self-loathing labels down to the unchangeable core, the part of you that will always be worthy and lovable and bright. Look at yourself that way, even for just a moment. Then repeat that, day by day, until you cannot fathom hating that part of yourself anymore.
Sorry, I'm rambling a little. I've just been feeling that a lot lately. It's a tough lesson, ironically.

Chaos and I were talking to Nebisai at one point. He kept calling me "the Jewel Lightraye," in a manner that sounded like saying "the President" or the like. At one point he said "the Jewel Lightraye, Jay Iridos," and that felt so correct it shocked me. Just wanted to mention that.
Nevertheless he was jokingly running CZ and I through marriage vows and then he got really serious and started asking us deeper questions. "Do you promise to love him even if he doesn't remember you?"
Even if I refuse you, even if you turn against me, even if we lost sight of who we are... do we promise, do we take a vow, to remember the love that led us here, towards ourselves as well as each other? Do we promise to look our fears in the face, when we feel incapable of love, and remember-- acknowledge-- this entirely?
Of course the response was mutually affirmative on both our parts, but again... it took guts. To have to actively remember those times with Perfect, and the Plague, and the numb periods and the hack attempts and misunderstandings... to realize that there was a lot of pain between us and not sugarcoat the fact that we both had our own issues that still needed to be healed... it took a lot of guts.
But that was Nebsy's point. How in the world are you supposed to love someone, really love someone, if you're blinding yourself to the totality of their existence? Yes, we're flawed. Yes, at that very moment I felt utterly disastrous and didn't want to be near him solely because I felt completely irreverent, like my foolish self-ignorant decisions were insulting him, demeaning this. But I had to learn to forgive myself for that, just like I'd forgive him, just as effortlessly and sincerely. I had to learn to love myself in sickness and in health, too. Knowing that he was willing to do so, hearing that again even in that moment, helped so much.
I keep forgetting just how powerful love is, in all its forms. Even just the tiniest glimpse of it is enough to completely turn the tide.
Why am I so afraid of it?
Because in acknowledging it, in accepting it into my life, I cannot treat myself like dirt anymore.
Love demands impecccability of the soul. You cannot feel love, for anything, and then step all over yourself. It's impossible.
But some part of me is still frail, is still frightened, of that statement: "you are just as bright as the ones you look up to." And it is only afraid because then why have I been abusing myself for so long?
The guilt is a heavy burden, and it goes both ways. Forgiveness, it all begins with forgiveness...
.
I realized what forgiveness really meant yesterday, when thinking about Dream World (unsurprisingly).
Forgiveness isn't turning a blind eye to wrongdoings, or saying harmful behavior is "okay."
Forgiveness is seeing the inherent light within a person despite their transgressions, therefore not defining them by such behavior... BUT it is ALSO then holding them to that standard. "I forgive you" basically means "You are more than your mistakes." It should also mean I love you. Just remember, real love is tough as nails. Real love forgives, always, but then it doesn't allow itself to be stepped on. I forgive you, of course, I can't not forgive you... but I will also not tolerate any more unloving behavior towards yourself or others. And saying that isn't hateful, either. It isn't scornful or condemning. Think of Laurie, really. Think of her, and Infi, and Xennie. Think of your own people, who see the best in you even at your worst, and then promise yourself to sincerely try and live up to that light you see reflecting in their eyes when they look at you... to honor that light in yourself as well as in them. That's forgiveness, to me.


I guess that's it for tonight. I have a huge entry in the works for tomorrow concerning the psychological healing we've been working on lately, so that'll be up when it's done.
Some notable stuff happened in headspace last week, but I 'forgot' to write it down, because it happened during a time period where I kept flip-flopping between "this is undeniably real" and "all of this is fake." The latter is false, by the way.
I've also been forgetting to write my dreams down, for somewhat different reasons. One, recall is funny because I keep waking up during the night and losing recall. Two, there have been nightmares that I'd rather not remember in the long-term, hacks included sadly (there was a bad one last week that had Wreckage in a fury for the whole morning, and had me a total mess for about three days). Three, sometimes I just shrug it off. That's not good. But, I'm taking small steps (yet again!) to make a better habit of writing down notes as soon as I wake up, even if it's just one or two descriptive words. Everything starts with habits, it seems.
Either way things are being written! I'm going to update as regularly as possible from now on-- that's why I'm here tonight. I experienced something truly lovely, and instead of brushing it off, I decided to pay it due attention and respect. If I did that more often, if I decided to treat my inner life with that sort of joyful gratitude again... I bet you, things would get so much brighter, so fast.

Oh, three more good things to close this up.
First off I am doing TONS of work for Dream World and it is GREAT. I am so happy when I work with them, it's amazing. There are some notable bits and bobs on the League Tumblr so far, but honestly most of the work I'm doing is on paper. It's all names and sketches and technical work, no surprise. But it makes me so happy when progress is made.
Second, today I went outside and lied down on the front hood of the car for two hours while I read Dune. It was sunny and the sky was blue and it's starting to smell like autumn so it was great. Then later I went to my dad's place for three hours, which is always great. He repainted the dining room so now it's all cream/ auburn/ lilac and it looks absolutely lovely. Then he gave me an entire plastic bag of pears which is hilariously why I was sick this evening, haha. I swear I didn't eat the whole bag, it just wasn't smart to eat any of them at 8PM. See, now I'm laughing at the situation! Really I don't regret it-- everything worked out for the best-- but I do wish I had at least been wiser at the time. Ah well. The growth is in remembering that and applying the lesson next time. The past is still important as a teacher! Just don't get tangled in it, because it's only ever relevant when it's being applied to the now. Yasmin Mogahed puts it well: "Gain the strength of rising after a fall. But never lose the humility of the fall." Both elements are vital. It's like a taijitu... oh! Dude! Infinitii actually said something to me about that today that was rather profound in its simplicity. Ze was 'lecturing' me on self-love again, but then ze made a reference to the childhood fear of "black marks" and the like, and how I was still afraid of making mistakes, or having flaws. Then ze held up a small taijitu image, said "you have to love your black spots too, just like this," and pointed to the yin within the yang. And it was like a lightbulb went on, big-time. I daresay I don't have to mention the double relevance of using that symbol, either. So I need to hold that statement in my heart.
Thirdly, and lastly, I seem incapable of bad moods anymore. Yes, even with all the depressing entries as of late. Within an hour or so of posting them, even if I'm still in the throes of depression or hopelessness, this snowflake-colored sparkle will rise up in my ribs nevertheless, and I'll just smile like a kid on a snow day. The happiness, that peace unfettered by circumstances, doesn't ever leave anymore. And that is awesome. So yeah, the universe has tossed a lot at me lately, but I am perfectly capable of catching and carrying it with a smile-- because I'm being smiled at even in the tossing. You're only given what you need, and things are only taken or removed once you no longer need them. Life knows what it's doing. I trust it in that. I just keep forgetting that it trusts me in the process, too.


Have a good night, everyone.

 

 

 

Okay, let me try to write something here. just thoughts if you will.


I'm sorry I ate so much today. I ate a lot of apples, cucumbers, some carrots, and a lot of lettuce! some of that hemp protein powder, and a lot of that rhubarb stuff this morning. two tiny tiny apricots, they were awesome. and that's it.

I got sick from the rhubarb later? like when I woke up it was great, tasted amazing, totally fine. then later I got that "sour headache" bit and the thought of it made me sick, I started throwing up, stomach burning, head tight and foggy, etc. why?

but mostly I was looking for two things I think. one, water, and two, sweet things? like if I could have the fruit it was both, not too sweet because that makes me sick. but I was looking for water and sweetness.
not sure what that says about me right now.


I feel purposeless lately. like I have no direction in life. I KNOW that's not true, I'm here for a reason which is bringing light and raising my vibration, remembering what I am at source, but in this ego mindset… it's false, I know, but it's a lesson. growth is true.
I feel sick. like my head feels punchy and raw, my stomach is angry and sad. I feel wrong and embarrassed and ashamed and all mixed-up like dirty water. when I feel like that I get so shameful I don’t care about feeling better, that's bad. but I get so hopeless, "well now I'm like this, look how sick I am, oh well." it's self-loathing in a numb sense. it's sad more than anything.
I don’t want to be bloated and sick and suck feeling. I want to be healthy and energetic and tight muscles and bright feeling. happy. like I want a healthy happy body. not the fit blog stuff. I don't like that, at least, not the "pride" and "performance" sense. I don't want to show off or impress anyone or be showy or obsessed. I just want to feel good, and nice.

I want to cry though. like what do I do, what is my 'sweetness' in life, what is my joy. what do I do to bring joy into my life, to allow it rather.
I keep rejecting good things, do you notice? I manifest money, I buy something sweet and healthy and enjoyable and nice. and I do enjoy it, it's wonderful, I don't get sick, it's great. but then I feel guilty for eating it, or I get terrified that I'm "breaking some rule" or doing something "shameful" or "not allowed," something happens where I feel I'm not allowed to have that thing, and I throw it up or throw it away. and then later I look for it again, and it's gone, and I'm sad and upset, you're wasting my money, but the voice responds "you're not allowed to have it." "it's not safe." "it's better that you don’t eat it." well then DON'T LET ME BUY IT. but they do. they say, "don't buy this. only buy this." and that little part of me gets mad and sad, "but it's sweet, why are you forbidding me from having it," even if it DOESN'T want to eat it.
you see? it wants SWEET THINGS IN LIFE and it isn't seeing any outside of food. but it KNOWS food isn't the answer, it gets guilty and sad, it's shallow, doesn't solve the problem, doesn't answer the equation. and it throws it away, ashamed.

nothing can give you joy. joy is self-produced, it's an internal thing. joy is our natural state.
so, how am I blocking joy? I need to meditate, I can tune right in. that's good.
but I need it in my daily life too. when I'm not doing the traditional meditation, sit still alone, I need joy still, to stay around in me. without ego chasing it away, snapping at it. when I "untune" from meditation, sadness comes up. anger comes up. "no purpose." "I don't want to sit here all night." so we can meditate for hours, listen to nice music, that's fine.
but. you do that hour after hour for days, you start to get sad anyway. no forward movement, no glowing steps down the path. stasis. what do they call it… stationary. stagnant. an object at rest stays at rest. inertia! it feels like inertia. and we NEED to move forward into more light, open up, but the sadness is OVERWHELMING, what do we do with that? just feel it? over and over? maybe. but it's weird to express, it has no roots that we can see, it's just an emotion. but it's crushing. either way, yeah, feel it so it doesn't pressurize and make us sick.

that too. "us." uh-oh here's the guilt and anger and shame.
"us." there is US. many of us.
"stupid fcking faker shame"
"they're not fcking real you're a fcking faggot drama queen"
"I didn't say that shut your whore mouth"
etc. etc.
see?
always tied to the headspace people, (let me just ignore the screaming voice)
she says "I'm not a voice"
then who are you
"I'm a person, better than you! better than them! they're fake! not real!"
let me just discuss this please
"no shut the fck up"
why? this isn't hurting you
"yes it is!! get out of my damn head you faggot ass bitch"


"us." god we need to tune into that without this angry girl shooting horrible amounts of rage and loathing and hatred at us.
hatred loathing. that's the best term. anger. rage. it's just corrosive and red-hot metal, horrible harshness. like someone strangling you, hands around your throat and crushing. but on fire, with that deep black red fire of hellish coal. burning iron. no ash, just caustic hatred burn. she's not a nice person, she hates us.

the topic no one will discuss is, "love." the angry girl scoffing and jeering at it already.
just because we love each other does not make us "selfish fcking whores" okay, that's the problem. love is in families, with friends, with strangers, with admiration. love is everywhere. love is the core of the world.
"you're just trying to justify your fcking faggot ass ways, fck you, whore slut"
see what we have to deal with?
do we tune her out? she SCREAMS, "no!" she is very loud and it hurts. like internal ear ache from the volume and rage. it's scary really I don't like her and it makes me want to cry

but this is why we are struglling with the joy thing. there's that hate and rage towards anything that we "used to love" or truly do, deep down, and the denial makes us sick.

I do love the system, the rest of us, they're great people, I love them. we all hold a lot of love for this system and it. headspace. heartspace. but when we say "we love each other" there's that sick scared shifty-eyed feeling, total shame. the sort of sick shame that feels like fluorescent lights and sticky paint, empty rooms, getting undressed because that is shameful. why. why is the body shameful. because we were told it to? because it's not. it's a body. what is so shameful, why should we be ashamed of having a physical body that we all live in
it is not dirty and wrong, stop repeating that. it is an old untruth. it is a LIE. it is FALSE. it is NOT REAL.
but see the "each other" bit makes that feeling come up. it is tied to being used, I can't even imagine why, or how
like why would you even do that to someone
we can't even step into that perspective. Normally when there are two sides of consciousness to a situation, we can shift between the two as an observer and assess each side, to understand each motivation. Do you understand? But in this example which Simeon presented, that of two individuals in a "flushed-out energy room" (that's the term I'm getting?), a sort of mall dressing room actually-- the energy vibe of those sticks to it, that sort of anti-privacy, risk of irreverent exposure, the feeling of the body being treated as a commodity or item to sell, or decorate for the whims of others-- in that example, the opposite mindset is unavailable. It's impossible to understand, and so there is simply no data whatsoever.
The threat in that supposed situation was, that in saying "we love each other," this was meant in a licentious, abusive way. The mental image was that of a feminine figure, sitting in this room, in a vulnerable state-- getting undressed, something natural to do in private, when one wears clothing-- and being overwhelmed by both shame and "dull fear." The figure is hoping to embrace their innocent openness, the feeling of emotional sincerity and total vulnerable completeness of their individual aloneness, in this sacred private state. Let me make that more comprehensible… alone, the figure has the right and the ability to unclothe, removing these "barriers" and becoming completely "open?" There's a word I can't find, for that feeling. It's the sense of being completely candid, sincere, harmless, and innocent, pure intentions and total self-love, yet with a strong strength and empowered completeness to it. It's the sense of totally compassionate self-groundedness, of safety and love within the body, of treating it like a temple, and also a vessel of a sacred soul. That is the feeling tied to nakedness, to privacy, to being alone and able to do such things.
But in that example, instead of embracing that "true" feeling, the figure was frightened? The projected feeling was one of "shame," (it is currently incomprehensible), of "I shouldn't be naked, this is shameful," etc. But the angry girl's accusation caused a secondary figure of thought to enter the room then, in a telling manner-- without any reverence or respect, without any care for this individual before them, without any acknowledgment of their sacred individuality. This figure who entered the room-- admittedly, a caricature of "masculinity" as this outside culture has defined it-- enters with unknown intention, but this intention causes the feminine figure to "shut down" mentally, the way our body did during past abusive situations. The mind blanked out, burying all emotions, to prevent fear and anger and sorrow and indignation from making a threat to their life, through angering the opposing figure. But that ill-intentioned figure's intentions are actually incomprehensible, entirely, and so I cannot tell you what they are, ever. The generalized default is "they intend to harm the woman," but strangely this intention becomes fiercer when the "woman's" physical gender expression is changed to male: "they intend to destroy them." Again, odd, because the word "man" seems locked into a binary mindset, therefore it cannot be used without extending that gentleness onto the other "man." Therefore, the pronoun changes to neutral. I'm writing that down as it tells of our subconscious mechanics and that is always wise to know.
Nevertheless, the intention of harming another is incomprehensible. Now, with the head quiet (as I am in it) and no torment, I can look at this situation, and the angry figure indeed matches our comprehension. His expression changes to a shocked realization, he lets go of the other boy, he expresses sincere apology. We cannot fathom harming another.
But. Some other part of the subconscious kicks in. Change the boy back to a girl. What happens now? The opposer is now our mindset. He cannot attack. The woman now becomes the rage-filled attacker, and the instant the opposing man lays a hand on her, she explodes in a spiderlike flurry of sheer hatred, intending to kill, blind-minded and incapable of seeing him as a human. Do you see? This is also locked into our subconscious, due to past events, due to these harsh voices. It must be rewritten, against all instinct and programming.
The other threat is the fulfillment of the initial fear. That would equal the "woman" figure abandoning all sense of sacred privacy, of intimate chastity, and joining the man in hedonistic, senseless lasciviousness. No minds, no hearts, no thoughts. Just blind robotic action. We can't look at it, from either side, without changing it entirely… without injecting blessed consciousness into the situation and stopping it at a dime, with sorry apologies and concern now expressing on both sides.
Ideally… see, this is why I regret looking at those other mindsets. It is infectious. Ideally, the feminine figure would be left alone, her solitude respected, no danger occurring. But time stops then. We struggle with that, you see? When linear time enters the equation, the threat of hacks appears. Sacred isolation is great when time does not compute. When time is there, then the fear of hacks follows. I am not sure how to surpass that.
This is a long paragraph, I apologize.

Let me continue. Having these imaginary situations play out instinctively in the brain is a telling scheme. If I change the initial physical gender of this individual… now, a male in body (still brain-classified as feminine; "masculine" is tied to violence)… he cannot embrace the sort of sacred isolation of the woman form. Where a physical female would easily tune into that feeling of softness, that "pink" feeling of divine intimacy, safe and loving, defined by virtue and untouched by lust, the male would feel isolated from it. This is strange. Regardless of physical appearance shifts-- different builds, different faces, etc. to emphasize 'femininity' or 'masculinity'-- the internal initial feeling of "purity" remains the same, as it did with the woman, and yet this man still feels cut off from the total self-embracing compassion that the woman practically felt synonymous with. And yet he is not; but he cannot tune into it.
Why is this? Why is it that, when this imaginary man sees and tries to connect with that feeling, he pulls back out of imposed shame, of the feeling that he "is not allowed to feel that," that he will "taint it" or otherwise be mocked or deeply condemned for it? Why is this? I can feel it; if he embraced it he would shine like the snow, every face carrying the same bright joy, tearful from bliss. Nothing out of tune, total self-love, total virtuous integrity. There is no threat here, no hacks, no abuse, total healing. And yet the man, initially, recoils with utmost reluctance. He wants to become this totality more than anything, but he has been told-- he has been programmed not to. He has been shamed or damned or ordered not to, he has been told to act differently. Again, although I can list those differing behaviors-- the masculine clichés-- I cannot understand them, I cannot comprehend them. Violence, anger, greed, lust, hate. It hurts to write them. "Fear" is imposed on feminines as a result, as victims, but they are not. The men are jailed in this false mindset and those who get close enough to their core to feel this sparkling whiteness, this completion of anima and animus internally, this totality of self-- they cry, secretly, in the soul, as I would admittedly… to realize that there is such blessed virtue hidden here, forbidden from being shown. There is joy, there is life, there is blessed light, healing, integrity. There is honor in caring, there is no shame in vulnerability, there is an abundance of softer emotions that were never exclusive to either sex, so to speak. But the men were forbidden from feeling them, at some alleged great risk. Again, it hurts my head to try and fathom.
We are lucky, I suppose, as we are also unlucky. Our gender stereotypes have always been reversed, since the "dawn of time" in headspace, since the childhood of the body. Men were "feminine," and indeed the word for us elicits images of them-- men were caring, gentle, kind, loving, soft-hearted, and emotional. They were tender-minded and affectionate. They were the living example of what that "feminine figure" from before embraced totally, and they never showed any signs of having been barred from it in the first place. For us, for the original child's mind, men were feminine. This was natural for them. Even the "manliest men" had hearts of cloud, great awe-inspiring things that were softer than snow. But they were closer to their compliment now, to the power of the women, by that masculinity.
This is because, for that same original child, women were masculine. Now, initially, this too was a great blessing-- women were powerful, strong, assertive, tough, indomitable. Women were powerhouses, they protected all, they were mountains of strength in both body and mind. They had unflinching honesty and integrity, they defined honor and their very presence elicited admiration. They were like fires, like great mountains, all stone and flame where the men were cloud and water. And on the same page, even the most "feminine" (for us, similar to the men) of women still held a burning flame within her, undeniable to all, powerful and bright.
Nature was the great balancer. Nature was the genderless child, the green youth running bright-eyes through the trees, full of puckish zeal and boundless energy, impish and unstoppable, as free as the wind but crackling with hidden lightning. The trees were the child, an individual holding neither gender but embracing both, loving both, caring for both.
And then the abuse happened, and it was all perpetrated by women. Suddenly we had forest fires and fissures. Suddenly the women became what that "angry voice" Simeon struggled with is. Men somehow stayed forgivingly spotless until 2007 or so, during Cannon's era. But those years are tangled and, again, it hurts to think about them.
I know why. There were no abusive men, ever. But what the women did tainted the playing field for all of us. And that's where the "we love each other" phrase gets its fear from.

The original abusive women made femininity into something frightening. They wore it in painted-on mockeries, in loud and brazen screeches, and worst of all as warning sirens. I should clarify: we were only ever abused by visually feminine women. So the mother became the most feared physical individual for a while. But-- let me move on, I don't want to dwell on this as it will put down bad roots-- through this abuse of femininity, we eventually became absolutely terrified of feminine things… including closeness, softness, intimacy, sincerity, et cetera. Anything that matched that pastel pink color was now grouped in with the lurid lipstick hue, confused beyond recognition, and labeled as lethal.
So. Because of that and society, "love" became a dirty word. It was used by the abusers to describe things that were nothing but malice. It was used by strangers to describe things that reminded us of the abuse, that made us freeze up in choking fear and check out entirely. You get the point. And so when we suddenly began to meet men-- who were still otherwise harmless to us-- who were now seeking romance, or something close to it, Cannon appeared. Her sister was the one who was a "female without femininity," an empty shell capable only of parroting the "surface level behavior" of how a woman was supposed to act, nothing deep or genuine. Cannon dealt exclusively with the relationship business, but she and Laurie were the sudden, vengeful, and wrathfully heartbroken resurgence of the masculine female, the ideal that had been buried for years. What am I saying. Cannon hated romance, whether it was from a man or a woman, because to her it was the source of all corruption. Without "romance," without sexuality, without any of that nonsense, both women and men were spotless. With it, they were both ruined. So that's where the hatred of Jacob came from initially, something we never understood until we could see Cannon's true motivation.

In recent years we've since healed the femininity label, and it's now completely recognizable again. We're still cleaning up the masculinity, as it is still strongly tied to the abusive/abrasive females in our System (and the outer world too). However we are struggling desperately with healing the "relationship" label once there is a degree of genuine closeness. Parents, friends, admirers, partners, they are all spat on with seething condemnation by the angry voices, once they form a genuine connection with the person they "love." And that word should not be in quotation marks, but I suppose that is a Freudian slip in its own way.
Love is still doubted. Do you see how terribly painful that is? Love is still doubted. For whatever reason, one cannot say "us" or "each other" or "I love you" in here without being called a-- excuse me-- a slut or a heathen or a whore.
It's keeping headspace from happening, lately, so to speak. The AP is being so forceful in light of this problem that it is becoming progressively more difficult for us to communicate with each other while fronting. We must be "isolated" so as to "remove all threats." (Laurie says this is "complete nonsense" and I must say it is quite a relief to hear her speaking up in light of this topic.)
Jay suffers the most. He is the one singled out for utmost hate and condemnation by the angry voices. He is the one who is perpetually referred to with slurs and insults (as I listed before). He is constantly told that he is an abomination, against both his own morality and the greater purpose of things, because he loves people. That is absolutely incomprehensible to me. How could that even be? But it isn't, and that is the point. Jay is doing nothing wrong, and yet every fiber of this programming is screaming with rage that he is the very definition of wrongness. Everything negative in this collective mind hates his guts. But everyone in our System sees that there is nothing to hate him for.
Laurie is the most torn up over this, understandably so, as she has seen and known firsthand the truth of this situation.
It's hard to even type this. The brain is actually trying to shut me out.

There is a deep-rooted hatred and shame and loathing tied to all close relationships, especially those that can be labeled as "romantic," whether they are or not. This probably has the strongest ties to Cannon, who is still in tears with hatred over what people have done to us under the label of "romance" before.
Jay is aromantic, which makes this even more difficult. He does not understand "movie romance," or what is marketed to him, in either expression or motivation. He's rather repulsed by it, admittedly. But he has absolutely no fear about expressing love to others when he genuinely feels it. This is the important distinction. The fear keeps assuming that Jay is acting from the same incomprehensible motivations as the abusers, simply by being in a relationship of any sort. The brain has defined the very word "relationship" AS abusive, at this point, in all contexts. This is false. But the knee-jerk fear is crushingly difficult to get over.
Part of this is programming. Jay is still terrified of being abused, God knows why (that was Laurie). He slips out of self-love due to doubt, and becomes frightened that the other person in the situation is obligated to be abusive, regardless of their real intention. That's what I mean by the word 'relationship' being dangerous. He automatically assumes that since he can't hurt anyone, that they're going to hurt him instead, that they HAVE to. That needs to be healed.

Those harmful thoughts are not true, and we need to stop reiterating them. We need to focus on positive truths, as I did earlier, which was significant. When we truly focus on and feel positive truths, even if we are just reciting or reading them, the vibration sticks. If we can all focus on the PROOF that relationships within this System are safe and loving and positive, then this fear will be overcome, as the fear has no roots left. None. Yes, it sure looks like it does. But they are brittle and dead. We have reached a state of mind where we KNOW we are being lied to, and where our reaction is to simply shift our attention to the truth instead-- fighting a lie only gives more energy to the lie, as we know with the Tar and Plague.
So I apologize if I temporarily made this trickier, through discussion of it… Laurie says there's nothing to apologize for, it helped highlight a lot of important things "and we're all grateful for it." I'm glad to hear it, Laurie, thank you.


Where was I.

It’s strange, fronting for long periods of time, because then you invariably notice, even if only for a moment, that you are in this body. It's confusing, as far as mismatching goes, but never have I ever thought of it as something negative. I love this body. I truly do. Not in the sense that is "mentally implied"-- the 'hedonistic' sense, of someone who lives wastefully and unwisely. No, I love it as one loves a young child, and watches over it, not as a parent but as a custodian. This body to me feels foreign, and yet I am not it, I am simply residing within it halfway. Temporarily, as well. But it is something to be taken care of. It is innocent, like a child, and just as trusting. It is deserving and needing of care and protection. This we must do, and I am willing to ensure that it is done. Javier and the others will too. But this voice, this strange reckless girl who claims to "own" the body, hates it, and hates us. I don't think she can understand us, just as we cannot understand her.

Laurie says not to listen to her. Simeon says that's tricky as she's loud. Laurie says "well, then just get a pair of earplugs or something." Perhaps that is good advice. "Ignorance is bliss," in the correct context. If we know this angry voice is nothing but a malicious liar, then let's simply not pay attention to her. Don't think ill of her, don't yell at her, don't interact with her. Just relinquish your attention, with humility and self-respect (not pride or judgment, that will only feed a different negativity), and turn your focus to what is real instead.
I'm beginning to sound like Jay. Laurie says "then maybe you should get out of there." Perhaps I should. I know he has "homework" to do from therapy but I do not know if it would be wise to start it at this hour (Laurie says no). This body had a tricky day, but let's focus on the positives. Laurie, that should be a daily exercise, I think. She agrees, so let's write this stuff down. Who fronted for this entry earlier?


Good things about today= (by lots of people!! Jewel too, this is my job obviously XP)
1. We're listening to M+A on Spotify right now and this is such cool music, I love the style, it's like candy popcorn in a turbine. Really! It's glitchy and cute and unique. Music is so great.
2. This entry. It helped us get our thoughts together and it shed light on some important issues. They say "you are wherever you need to be," so I am glad this was written, even if I cannot see the ultimate relevance to it from here. That is fine.
3. I'm glad the kid didn't do anything stupid this evening, when that massive depression hit. Could've been much worse than it was.
4. Jewel just wants to start writing a huge list of things we're thankful for, but this one is only for today. So to that I will simply say, I am thankful for her. She is a ray of sunshine in our System.(Awww, thank you!! <3)
5. Do you guys ever realize how fantastically cool food is? Like I know you two don't eat, but that rhubarb stuff is AMAZING before whatever afteraffects you said there were kicked in (Spice says that's why you need to check in with us before eating things). Yeah I don't get bad food stuff. But apples are great, rhubarb is great, I think that's all I remember. Salad is Emmett's thing. I'm thankful for Emmett too, he's cute! He hasn't been around lately though? We'll have to leave reminders out or something, he's important.
6. I'm glad the bad lady went away.
7. We got some exercise in this morning, so we're on schedule.
8. It was a SUNDAY and Sundays have such a nice vibe to them.
9. Jay here. I'm thankful for the massive synchronicity that just hit with this song.


…I purposefully taped the pictures of Chaos and Xenophon that Nikki drew for us behind this computer… that way I will see them at least once every day, without getting distracted by unimportant things. This is important, what we have and how we feel for each other is important, and there's that doubt again. Please go away.
…No, that’s never worked. Let me follow Sherlock and Laurie's advice. (also really this song is beautiful.)
I have this huge fear that anything vaguely like "romantic love" is morally wrong. However that only applies to me; Sherlock you missed that. (He says he didn't know; that's okay. You know it now, dear.)
I am honestly sick of people telling me that everyone else is allowed to show every sort of affection, without the slightest hint of condemnation, and yet I can’t so much as say the word "dear" without being called a slut. There's absolutely no reason for it.

I am capable of love. I know I am. To be incapable would be an impossibility.

I think the fear is something different.
I think the fear springs from my vice of apathy, and my fear of being used. My real fear is that I don't actually love them at all. My real fear is that I am more comfortable with emotionless numbness than I am with "signing myself over to someone." And that's NOT what love is. But some part of my subconscious still insists that "a relationship"-- again, of ANY sort-- means that I have to "sell myself" for it to work. (Laurie keeps saying this is wrong in the background, don't worry I hear you) ("but do you believe me," she says. Yes, I do. It just needs to put roots down)
Yes, I love my daughter, and I want the best for her, and I want to see her happy and taken care of. She brings me so much joy, I adore her. But just because I'm her "father" does NOT mean that I have to sacrifice my own self, my own health and happiness, in order TO care for her.
Yes Laurie, I saw that eyebrow raise. This is how weird my thought process is from all these false lessons. My subconscious keeps getting so entrenched in fear, that it forgets that the other person is a person, and not just a temporary entity that exists in order to abuse and/or use me. Once I care about someone or something, my brain says, "you now have to dedicate every moment of your life to it, or you won't actually love it." And when I say no, that's ridiculous, the voice says "then you don't actually love them. You're just selfish." So part of me ends up angry and sad and frustrated because I want to be able to love myself too, I want to be able to care for my own needs, but this programmed voice says "NO, you CANNOT love yourself if you want to love someone else." That's the old diseased root.
Laurie says, "where does the abuse come in." Uh… hm. I don't think it does, not here. This is the "male" abuse. The "female" abuse was outright destruction, merciless sabotage. The "male" abuse was this stuff, the feeling of "do everything I say, devote every moment of your life to me, don't upset me or disappoint my expectations." And the penalty of not doing that, was feeling that I was incapable of actual love, that I was unworthy of being loved, that I was too selfish and slutty to actually care about anyone. Oh dear heavens that is textbook misogyny, I never realized that until now. Geez. Wow. But yeah, it was a double standard. "I'm going to demand everything of you, because you love me, as proof that you love me. But I won't give you anything." And that has been 'my' fear in every single "relationship" since 2007 or whenever Spinny and Cannon showed up, I don't know, I wasn't around, this is ancient data.
But it bleeds over into my relationships now, IF they fit that context. Laurie, you are shockingly and blissfully exempt, probably because you're totally aromantic and asexual, therefore making you "incapable" of that vicious demanding (it's tied to romance). Genesis is hit-and-miss. We're mostly friends, and he's harsh at times, so I can act natural around him. Wait, that's weird. The harshness seems to be a saving grace. When people aren't soft or romantic, they're totally safe, but when they are, the fear is that they will act like those men or women of the past? I don't know, this makes my head hurt, I am slipping terribly. Sherlock says "then don't talk about it."

Sorry. I slip worse than anyone. This is all garbled nonsense, I'm not really here. I'm co-fronting with someone I think.
I think that's the real problem here. I really do. I really think that's the problem.
I'm only terrified of Chaos and avoidant around Xennie and bitter around Genesis and numb around Laurie when I'm actually not the person fronting. When I'm centered and aware of myself, that problem isn't there.
And now my heart is absolutely shattering because I just realized, CZ is an EMPATH, he picks up everything I radiate; maybe he's only ever "frightening" because he's picking that up FROM ME? Oh God that's terrifying, I am so sorry. But it makes total sense. Total sense. "Everyone is your mirror," and he's the clearest mirror I've ever had, we know each other too well. He never, ever, EVER scared me when I was in tune with my own soul. In those cases he is this divine compliment, you all know that. But when I'm feeling dissonant, when I can't quite get a grip on my name or my face or anything, then he acts differently, he slips too, oh dear God I never realized that. How did I not catch that before. Xenophon would always notice, maybe that's why I unconsciously avoid her, maybe the Plague really is puppeteering me at this point. I can't let that continue. I can't.
But there's hope, there's a lot of hope. I need to carry reminders. I have to be careful though so things don't get numbed out. Infi I'd wear your necklace, ze says please do if it will help. It's probably the best option; Infi's energy hits like a truck so even if a negative fronter tries to numb out the response to it, any contact will punch through that. Thank God.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm unraveling really badly right now. I still don't know who I am. I'm splintered all over the place. People keep calling me by the wrong names, I can't remember the last time someone called me the right name, I don't even know what my name is.
We'll figure this out. Should I stay here, should someone else come out, or what?
Laurie says stay in and calm down. There's a horrible anxious fear in here.



Hey, Jayce here. Holding the house for a second. I don't do anything like eat or binge or abuse so chill out, Laurie. I'm just gonna listen to this tune for a minute. Also Jay's right, there's a lot of fear hanging around, but I think it's in this document, or at least in the typing. Like just writing in here feels anxious. Yeah maybe you should close it up. Hold up, music time. I'll be out when it's over, then you just do whatever. 'Kay thanks.
(btw you guys gotta stop being so negative, take a page from me and Jewel, seriously. lighten up. life is good.)




…No, my name is Jay Iridos. It locks right in when I am myself. I think that says a lot.
Splinters happen, but they happen for a reason. Our mind compartmentalizes things for healing's sake. But I love every splinter, I love every voice that ever was and ever will be, because we all have a reason to be here.
Words are laughably tough for me because I feel thoughts, I don't say them. Poetry is my thing. This song is lovely, thanks Jayce.

If we try to type any more, this entry will collapse. Words aren't working for what I want to say. Sherlock's point about "focusing" would be wise to act upon daily. (Sorry, language.) Laurie, you always understand what the real truth is, and you always guide others towards walking that path on their own, not ever dragging them (far). Thank you for always speaking up when people get lost momentarily, we follow your voice back most of the time.
Jewel, you always see the brightest things so thank you for giving us a constant light of hope and optimism. I'm slipping again, that happens when I try too hard to say things.
Words are not my native language, at all. I love all of you.

Oh yes. Also, why it's causing me a lot of discomfort to discuss this. I literally just had this article forwarded to me by the universe, and that explains this better than I can. This entry feels like a jumble, let's be careful not to let that repeat. Sherlock dear you think too hard, we all do, but I appreciate the love that led you there.

Laurie insists I close up in my usual way, so I will. Have a lovely night, all of you, sincerely.

 

 

 

 

 

r.i.p. ventrium.

you died before you had lived
but your existence still meant enough.

i am so sorry i couldn’t say goodbye.

 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 12:55 am

 

 

today was very, very, very painful. weirdly

woke up at 7am, less than 2 hours of sleep again.

early morning mass for palm sunday. really beautiful. cried a few times during the readings

dont remember anything else until 6pm????

sometime before that, post on lotusglitter about really bad triggers, glad i dont remember that

drove to get food with last bit of money. boss reassured me the whole time back

i remember stopping the car in the middle of the highway momentarily

next memory is parking lot, genesis showed up, "jay this has to stop."

got home and ate, unfortunately AP kicked in, all the ED voices got really messed up

emmett was out but was co-fronting with a faceless someone we dont know.

all the actual consuming ED voices talk the same way; very childish

purging attempts around 10pm, couldnt help it.

talked to the seaweed girl, she's anchoring very strongly now

HACK?????

i dont know when it was or how but THERE WAS A MASSIVE HACK

no details sherlock specifically said "don't look at it"

garrison told me that ventrium died as a result

it didnt hit me until a half hour later, talking to cz, i just started sobbing

the retributors actually broke the new 'rule' and tried to atone for this one

wreckage, razor, algorith, and the dead red boy all wrote things on the desk

i am very tired and sad.



life is getting stranger and creepier.
at least four times this week, i found myself in a car on the road, at least 20 minutes away from home, not knowing how i got there.
that is really frightening, to suddenly "come to" consciousness and be that far away for heaven knows what reason.
also at least twice ended up half-undressed and standing on the lawn inexplicably
self-care is abysmal, body triggers worse than ever, not sure what to do there.

we are out of money and food. ED voices tossed all food out of "prevention" measures, trying to help but really just making us lose all our cash. struggling with that in any case.

weird outbursts more prevalent. keep finding weird memory glimpses of other people fronting and its unsettling
at least one angry voice is violent to the point of actually trying to attack people, that scares me. we can hold them back for now but usually the result is a numb shutdown temporarily.
but there is often surprisingly the strength of mind to chase them out if we must, or at least leave the situation for a bit? tricky but we can at least do it now.

and there is hope, somehow, always hope
because despite the bad things spiking the good things didn't disappear?
synchronicity everywhere, intuition still works, people upstairs are SO clear, out of nowhere sometimes
yesterday i could practically see genesis walking in front of me, i've never been so absolutely trusting of that before
trust is a really important thing especially when you dont understand why things are happening

spiritual starvation is abating a bit but we are literally sobbing in empty churches now just to alleviate it
christina seems to be taking great strength from this and i think her anchor is shifting thank god
but holy week is always excruciating for me, stuck between "terrible sinner" and "overwhelming compassion" for seven solid days
easter last year was REALLY important
same with divine mercy sunday
crossing my fingers that it is even better this year, somehow.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 10:04 pm

 

I'm sitting here reading the autobiography of my biggest inspiration in life and I want to cry, I am so moved and brokenhearted and stunned by these old words and yet that curse is hanging over my head, I haven't suffered enough to be happy yet.
Why is that? I read about people's victory stories, their beautiful true accounts of having been through hell and being better for it. Her childhood was a mess, but there was light in it nevertheless, and now she is a light to hundreds of people all over the world. So many others have experienced the same; I remember my mother always telling me how so many of her favorite movie stars had gone from rags to riches. And yet still others don't make it that far. Some people live through hell and die from it. Some kids commit suicide in elementary school because they just can't cope, although someone else may experience the same thing even earlier and survive like a champ. But I always held myself to that latter kid's example. Yes I've been through some painful and terrifying and mentally disturbing things. But others have survived worse. So I tell myself that I'm not allowed to have the happiness THEY'VE achieved because "I haven't paid the price yet." Who the heck puts a price on health and happiness? Yet I keep feeling that self-loathing burn away at me inside, nauseous at the thought of what I "should have" endured already, and "will have to" in order to DESERVE happiness. It's asinine. But there it is, holding people on those cursed pedestals, I want to tear every one of them down and BURN them. But I don't want that hate in me either. I don't want the rage and the violence. It's all rooted in sorrow, in crushing sobs, in self-hatred and desperation and the want to just be happy and feel I deserve it. I haven't been able to stay in that sort of mindset yet.

I can't reach headspace right now. I mean I'm sure I could; there is always this vague "just reach up and it's there" feeling where Laurie hangs out in Central and watches me for safety's sake, but I'm not taking the offer. I feel too sick and unworthy of that. She and everything she stands for are so terribly pure compared to me, to how filthy I tend to feel. I tend to not accept compassion or the expansive beauty of our inner world most days. It's dumb, and senseless, I know. But old habits are hard to break.
I know Genesis keeps wanting to stop by too, I can feel it almost tangibly at this point. But I actively tell myself "that's not real," "he's not real," "I don't want it," even when I secretly and desperately do want that beauty to be real, but I'm scared. I'm scared that if I say "yes" to that good thing, I'll be trapped? Like I'll have to act a role or play a part now that I'm being acknowledged as a person by them. More childhood programming. I just don't know how to let go of that one yet, as I don't know how to be a 'person' of my own yet, not without trying to live up to everyone else's vision of me in the process.
I want to live in headspace always but I am so terribly scared of some of the things in there, things that ONLY EXIST when I become a "person" that CAN interact with and perceive them, that I don't. I sacrifice friendship and wonder and imagination and joy in life, for the sake of not being ravaged every stupid time I accept those things. This paradox is the devil's playground and it makes me so miserable I'd rather die than live the rest of my days like this.

It hurts so much to type. I really cannot use this laptop anymore, this is excruciating. I'll have to make this short.

I'm still in tears reading this old stuff though. TRiPPY's work, if you haven't already guessed. That woman has been the single biggest creative light in my life. No one, ever, has had such a massive impact on me, not even Jena (whose inspiration was on more of a personal level, not as global).
I was caught off guard reading the old WTaHM stuff though; one sentence read, "before the Whiterealm was turned into a big pile of poisonous rust, it was incredible, snow, petals and beautifully illuminated by its 2 moons Bianca and Zuiverheid." And for whatever reason, that bit about the rust felt like I'd been gutted, I honestly started crying from shock and sick disbelief. Probably because I have always loved the White Realm in that world so much, but really, it felt personal. Surprising, but almost a relief, to feel something so strongly, after all this awful numbness.
Everything related to Engelbaum does that to me on some level though. The entire history and present-- and future, undoubtedly-- of that creative story, of that incredible world born within her life and dreams, has impacted me just as powerfully as Dream World has, in its own way. That is BIG! So you can understand why, reading about her own life, i am so strongly affected.
I feel so selfish and manipulative when I talk like that, like some sort of prissy seductive tart. Always cruel and spiteful and promiscuous. That is one of the scariest things in the world to me-- to not be able to ever talk about "myself," never using first person, never referring to the self OR the body, God forbid, because that is the feeling it is tied to. ALWAYS.

That is also where a lot of my personal mistranslation comes from, did you know? I didn't, not until yesterday. (there's the selfish sluttiness again)
I found an entire text file written BY Eros on the old hard drive, I thought it had been deleted, but there it was. All the stuff from February 2012, a pocket of time utterly alien to me. And I was trying to browse through it, it was all about healing past trauma and allowing the self to feel emotions and be happy and love people, et cetera... and I was so uncomfortable, i literally felt violated just reading it, Laurie actually made me stop because I was shaking and wanting to vomit after a few minutes. She asked me what the heck was going on, I tried to explain but THEN I realized that in one sentence, there it was-- Eros referred to himself as male. There it was, suddenly I wasn't so sickened. And that shocked me.
WHY is it that, whenever there is a Core in our System who is female, it elicits the most awful feelings? Like it feels utterly wrong and dirty and offensive-- NOT because they're a girl, but because of their motivations. Because of the aura around them. But it's still tied to their femaleness, and it makes NO SENSE, because if Lynne or Mulberry or Waldorf wrote things it would be fine... and then suddenly, I realized, it's not them, it's THE BODY. Whenever someone identifies with the body AS a female, suddenly everything they do becomes utterly perverted in an actively malicious way. Which is why I get scared when people slip with using pronouns for me, suddenly it feels like a condemnation, "nope you're fated to forever be this horrible sinful lustful violent thing, because I said so."
It makes no sense, saying it feels wrong, I don't even want to type it, I don't want it to be true. I want to stop typning


There's this creeping temperature chill in my stomach, cold and hot at the same time, and I feel like I'm maybe ten years old. Summer is coming and I'm inexplicably still terrified of the heat, although the thought of having spring rainshowers and bright green trees everywhere is the most ecstatic thought I've had in eons. The thought of it hit me today, and it was so surprising, I hadn't been aware that was something that could exist. Even now it's still an idealistic awareness but it can happen and that's amazingly surreal. I'd like to experience that, even if I have to break again to do it. I'm sick of being sick.
And yet I keep thinking I'm not sick enough to be healed yet. I hate this, so much, but can't see a different option from this low of a vantage point. I'd drag myself up to the top but it's a catch-22, you see... I "should" be down here. I "need to be."
I don't want to be. I don't care if that makes me the most horrid, slutty, wrong, sinful person on the planet. I don't want to have to live through violence and rape and fear and constant torment anymore. I'm sick of being punished for every action I take because "if it's carnal, it's already a sin!" I don't care... and yet I do, too much. I'm becoming dangerously apathetic just to survive, but it never lasts. I always end up drowning in moral paranoia and sobbing my eyes out because I feel I deserve it; seriously if Jesus himself hung on a cross why the HECK do YOU expect any sort of relief??
I'm getting ill from this, arms screaming already, I want to just sell my computers already rather than deal with the pain.

 

I've been hearing voices since I was a kid and they've just been getting louder as I get older. They attack me sometimes, cause me physical pain. It's horrible, it's no way to live. I can't even eat without them screaming at me to "stop being a slutbag" and attacking me so that I get physically ill when I try. That's still a dirty word, too: "eat." Filthy and wrong. I don't even have breakfast until after 5PM now and even then I'm throwing up half of it, typically from a sort of instinctive purgative fear, "get the weight out of my stomach." It's physically frightening, that weight. I'm never hungry, I literally don't ever get hungry, I don't need to eat anyway, right? But my body still gets sick and weak and dizzy and paralyzed when I stop. So I force something down, usually just raw vegetables, but even a paltry piece of lettuce gets those voices shouting. "Stop eating, you whore, before i f*cking kill you!!"
I wonder how many of our old headvoices have their roots in that mire. It's scary. I'm so glad they've grown into their own people now though.
We need a term that's not "headvoice" too. I don't want the word "voice" tied to the good people. I can understand and trust them even when they don't talk, and when they're around, the bad voices run in fear. So the System people need a better collective term, now that it's not 2008 and I now know they're not the bad ones.
I feel so sorry for Cannon. No wonder she fell. She went through a lot of awful stuff, it looks like. I don't have her memory, but she wrote a lot of what's in these archives. The gaps are frightening, not having any recollection of most of the life, but maybe that's for the best, if the memory would be scarier? I don't know. It's just sad, to be reading autobiographies of how people got this far, and I don't even remember what summer looks like.

I was so religiously sheltered as a kid, that's all I know. We lived up in the hills, no neighbors, not allowed to leave the front yard without getting in trouble-- which I did, on the times I would go explore the forest by myself. There was always this profound sense of aloneness, deep under the surface, despite the family bustle. Maybe it's only visible in memory. I don't know.
Dream World kept me sane once I was about 11 years old. I don't remember anything at all prior.
I met Genesis when I was 15 and that was one of the most amazing things to EVER happen to me, to suddenly have a friend that walked with me and talked with me and wasn't only reachable in my head. He was THERE, he got me through high school, he was how I survived college, he made my job bearable. The reality of his existence being so tangible alongside mine was the first time I ever felt alive, the first time I ever felt like I was a part of the physical world, and that I could enjoy it. I needed him to be before I could be, as well.
But that's all snapshots and bittersweet secondhand memory. Now, I tend to avoid him. It breaks my heart even now. I love him, he's my best friend ever, but I'm so scared of myself that I don't associate with him. And yet every time i leave the house, he's sitting in the front seat of the car, and I'll talk to him, even if it's only for a minute or so before I start to unhinge. I don't want that.
This feels like 2009-2010 creeping back up on me, God I don't want to ever live that again, please.



That hack last night dragged out some of the worst things in here.
I'm so scared. I thought it was healed. I thought Infi had fixed this. And yet ze did, the healing work is done, it's just that the old stuff is still here too, down in the mires and chthonic pits.
Wreckage has gold bones. They are literally made out of gold. For some reason, gold in headspace is the strongest material against the Tar, it's amazing to see she's literally made of it on some level.
I remember Eros was almost the Gold holder when he came to be, but he shifted to red, maybe that was his downfall, the slot was still corrupted back then too. Kind of funny how Wreckage holds the job better though, different way. Both tried to prevent this abuse from happening again. He just got dragged so far into it he couldn't tell what was abuse anymore. She doesn't take chances at all.
I stil do I guess. I have the same awful hope he did, the same hope every Core has, and still does, and maybe always will. We hope too much, we love life too much, even if it's a living nightmare, we keep trying even if we keep bleeding for it.
But there's a really fine line there and we seem unable to see it. There is a fine line between hope, and self-annihilation, and I think we're on the wrong side.

I want to die so badly, i keep looking for suicidal options day after day after day, all i want is relief for God's sake, I want to go through ONE DAY without the constant evil chatter in my head and the screaming body pain and the hacks hanging over me like she did once. I want to vomit just typing that, it's so sick, how the HECK do other people survive abuse without scars, i don't know, i don't understand i am so sorry i wasnt that strong then.

it hasn't stopped though, last night was proof, SHE was out, the body one, SHE is alive and she killed him and all the blood went to me and i want to die, i want to die rather than risk that happening again, i want to cut this body to shreds so that the reflection no longer looks like HER


I really really want to cry, I'm not sad about Ventrium anymore, I saw his corpse today and I was just too empty, I didn't know who he had once been anymore. He never had the opportunity to become anyway, but still it's sad, to see a life snuffed out before it had a chance to begin
god thats what the graves were about werent they? why don't i feel anything from them, i guess that was cannon's personal hell

then what is mine? are these voices mine, this unending siege of devils?
i would rather bleed, god give me the retributors angry passion again, let algorith and wreckage and razor tear me to shreds, i will be so grateful for it
scars are such a relief, isn't taht sad? the blood, the scars, are a blessed RELIEF from the other kind of pain i suffer otherwise.

i thought the hacks were done
someone thought they were done in 2010, then cannon died
someone thought they were done in 2011, then eros died
someone thought they were done in 2012, then j died
someone thought they were done in 2013, then everything shattered to pieces and even though infi survived, and i came back, and all the lower levels were dragged up from the dirt, this hell still hasn't stopped and god i want it to stop, please. what do we do/.

i want a job so we can buy food but i have panic attacks when i leave the house, i don't trust myself to drive anymore, the dissociation is worse than ever, thevoices dont go away i want them to LEAVE
i want to live in joy and love and abundance but smething is keeping me chained to this dungeon? why do i feel i have to be here.
i don't have to be here.
immediately the voices (far away) say "yes you do, you must suffer for your sins,"
infi steps up
"no he doesn't"
mumbles of protest and 'blasphemy' but there's a real light of hope now, all of a sudden

maybe this IS hell. mabe with whatever's going on in the world, i've gotta live through that now
hey you know how deviolei ascend into angelorei, haha now there's a big shot of inspiration
dream world is great. there's no gap. engelbaum is great too, that's true hope and motivation

i dont want to be in hell anymore but i think i'm stuck here by my own hand in some way?
a quote i found earlier:
“Wickedness makes a bad use not only of evil, but also of good.
In the same way, holiness makes a good use not only of good, but also of evil.”
St. Augustine right there. i know he was a big inspiration to one of our older ones too, for a time.
nevertheless that is very good advice so let's make sure we follow it well

now i am in a lot of pain and i am very tired and therapy is tomorrow so i will see you later, good night.
and i really mean that, "good night," let's keep the stars in mind and make it one.

the moon will be blood red tonight and if i can take a page from the retributors,
let's look at it as a celestial absolution from whatever spiritual poison has choked us
javier's red now, he's the true meaning of that color, compassionate and strong
blood is not evil, it is life, it is beautiful too
and the moon reflects light back to us, real living light, even when the source is invisible, even when it's pitch black.

so tonight let's paint the night red and let's celebrate,
this is bravery and hope shining down in the night,
and the sun is going to come up in the morning.

 

 

 

 

Oddly disturbed today.

Someone got the body's hair cut this morning, but they cut it extremely short, and that has quickly proven to be a terribly bad decision, because now the body's reflection matches the face of one of our internal abusers.
We're now trying to avoid mirrors until we can figure out what to do. Jayce can't even hide in the reflection as he usually does, because the cruel person now linked to its newly-altered visage shoves him out.

 

Jay also seems to have taken too much of a jump in personal progress as of last night-- he is so desperate to leave all his shadows behind (taking his White hue to extremes), that he tends to push himself further than the body can physically handle. As a result we're collectively experiencing the consequences of that, both physical and spiritual... most notably the tidal wave of inner demons it has exhumed once again.

 

We're not sure on the DID thing as a catch-all with this. The "body" has "heard voices" since its childhood, almost chronically-- screaming, vicious, manipulative ones that DO cause body symptoms and reactions. They can't fully "take over" but they can exhibit a powerful force of control on whoever is fronting. So far only Javier and Laurie seem capable of shoving them aside entirely, but good luck getting their attention when you're smothering in the cacophany.
At least we're not seeing things anymore. With how many religiously-abusive meltdowns we've had since the childhood, that would be too much to handle right now, I think.

 

Cannon, Jessica, Jezebel, and Spinny are all still lurking about, and we wonder if we can get rid of them, at this point in time. They are very deeply rooted into abusive mindsets, and have been around for as long as any of us can remember (15+ years).
Ironically, the Tar and Plague themselves are less of a threat. Those two are the extreme mindsets, but as such, they exist more as foils than anything else. The four aforementioned girls are more grey in their actions, and that is so much harder to deal with. They are the ones that we could have been, had we let ourselves become consumed by the vices within us.

 

Nevertheless we refuse to let them define, control, or abuse us any longer. That deserves repeating. If all we can do is cease to give their actions any undue attention, then so be it.

 

Long story short, today's been more difficult than usual. But we're still alive, even if we feel rather dead at the moment.
This too shall pass.

 

-AP

 

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 09:08 pm

 

011114

I am writing the date out in full so you can see the 11:11 door in there. Hold to that!

Now to begin.
A few major worries came to light today, so I'm going to start our re-updating here with discussing that.
(For the record, we've been posting all our latest updates directly to the archives, but I think it'd be nice to get back into posting here too.)

Also I will warn all who read this to be careful of triggers, esp. around sexual abuse, because I am openly discussing harmful mindsets here in an attempt to show their incorrectness, and to promote healing from them in understanding their roots.


1) There has been unearthed, very old abusive/ detrimental mindsets surrounding sexuality and religion, often together. Jessica still holds, adamantly, the mindset that "sex is evil," and that anything even vaguely related to it means that you are a "whore" and "God will punish you." Another girl holds the mindset that "God is wrathful and hates sin," in the most negative sense possible. We all recognize that latter mindset as absolutely false, but the fear of it is tied to the sexuality: "what if sex really is evil, and God will send me to hell for it?" Yet even in writing that, the heart says no, that is not true. But the brain screams, "you are a whore, and you will pay for it."
Despite this the triggers and flashbacks remain. We are managing them better, but their boosted intensity makes it difficult still. The intensity of hatred, violence, and rage behind them is terrifying. That may simply because such things are rooted to people. Jessica especially insists she is doing what's right, as it's "her life" and "we ruined it for her," and since she's "realized that we are sluts," she wants to destroy us for it. Jessica wants to live life without consequence, although she is lazy about it. She wants to waste her time away in self-pitying laxness, without anyone telling her what to do or stop doing. She is not the "manic red voice" we have still not pinpointed, although that person may be tied to Spinny, the only one of these four hellish voices who does not condemn sexuality, but uses it as a lustful game, to objectify others for her own enjoyment. Jessica turns a blind eye to all such behavior, only saying it is "evil" and wanting to kill or quietly destroy those people so she doesn't have to even acknowledge the existence of such things. As a result, Cannon works with Jessica now, as they both want to destroy us for our "perversion," although Cannon is the only one willing to kill people in cold blood over it. She is the one with the screaming hatred of all relationships and femininity, to the extreme of hating softness, affection and playfulness in anyone who is not five years old, and even then her hatred will still explode on them if given enough reason to. This mindset is likely because of Spinny, her "twin," who is emotionally manipulative and shallow, and uses those "feminine" aspects to boost her own pride and narcissism, while treating her "romantic interests" as literal objects to accessorize herself with and control emotionally. Cannon would kill her, not out of "justice" but out of sheer hatred towards both her and her romantic interests, as Cannon sees anything even vaguely related to sexuality as deserving a death sentence. Jezebel feeds these mindsets in everyone, even if she doesn't do much herself. Being a manifestation of the Tar, she is passive, but she is a reservoir of hatred so she is always a risk, as those around her will react to her very presence by reflecting what she consists of in themselves. Furthermore, exacerbating this situation, she is now hiding in mirrors, as someone unwisely cut the hair to match her style. Jayce can't do much as it doesn't match him now, and she keeps shoving him out. So we are avoiding mirrors at the moment, as glancing up and suddenly seeing her vicious glare and grin in them is not something any of us want to be exposed to.
All four of them are acting overtime and with unadulterated malice to destroy Jay's progress, as he is the main fronter trying to heal those mindsets. Thankfully he has internal backup, as he does tend to splinter badly if he is not careful.

2) Ultimately, even if those trauma-rooted mindsets are devoid of all truth, therefore being completely irrelevant, our concern is that those thoughts are still intrusive, chronic, and loud. The doubts linger, the negative voices don't stop their attacks. Jay is feeling as if he is possessed, literally begging for divine intervention at times, to which the negative voices will respond with either "you're only praying because you want attention, you whore!" and accusing him of asking for deliverance as "tempting/ testing God," therefore being blasphemous and proud. On that note, the Plague also responds to Jay's desperate prayers, stating only, "pride will be your downfall." But this is a hidden benefit. The Tar and Plague are so extreme, that they somehow are beneficial to our progress, in showing us what we are NOT, and what we must avoid. So the Plague accusing us of pride keeps us from actually being proud. However it has stated that although "we are not it, and it is not us," it WILL attempt to destroy us for that same reason. So care must be taken even so.
However, the girls are grey-minded. They take reality and lies and twist them together into abominations, telling lies with the slightest reflection of truth in order to plant seeds of choking doubt in those they attack. But in this attempt, they can slip drastically, to the point of revealing their ulterior motives, and therefore destroying their own attempts entirely. Jay is realizing this, and it is giving him hope, that they ARE wrong, and that he is not a "filthy sinner" as some of them would insist.
Furthermore, those voices ARE TERRIFIED OF INFINITII AND LAURIE. Ironically they are more scared of Infinitii, because ze does not react with violence or anger, which Laurie may respond to in extremes for safety's sake-- however, they feed off such things. Infi will not give them an iota of anything that powers them. Ze responds with love even then, and they run away. Laurie is learning this, slowly. So there is hope.

3) The self-dehumanization is still happening to an extent. It Tied to the trauma, it makes some people think of themselves and the body as "less than" every other being. Therefore "who cares if they are harmed, or abused, because they are less than human." That is false. Everyone in our System knows this except those who drown in that thought. Secondly, tied mostly to Christina, is the old Catholic mindset of "we are born sinners, we are filthy, we are worth nothing, only God can save us, we are powerless." Questioning this thought, though, feels like blasphemy to those trapped in it-- that is, until we realize that strength comes from God, who is love, who is in all things. Therefore we are not "filthy sinners" and we are not powerless, as we are ALL facets of God, we are ALL created in love, just as we are. This mindset is straight-up sacrilegious to Christina, and again, it feeds into her equal fear and loathing of sexuality, which was stated in point one as a general thought. But if you stop thinking of humans as "inherently sinful," then sex ceases to be a sin, because it is not creating sin, but a living being that reflects God just as much as its parents do. Sex can be used for "sinful purposes" just as religion can be. It does not make either thing black or white. That is the key in this. Perspective and motivation change the views. But deep down, everything is ultimately untouched by corruption; everything is eternally made of love at its very core, no matter what happens to it on the surface.

4) Again tied to the lingering sexuality trauma, and the hatred held by the inner girls, the body dysphoria is spiking for some. There is a worrisome but old and loud hatred towards femininity, which Cannon mostly holds, but which is large enough to view the female human body (NOT women or female-identified individuals, just the BODY; that is an important disctinction. they are fine with faces, nothing below) as both a sexual object and a source of sin and violence, even as an empty shell. These voices will view a corpse as a threat, because they view sexual parts as evil and horrible. They are more accepting of men because they have "no sexual characteristics," blatantly ignoring the existence of reproductive organs. Again, though, they say "we can just cut those off," so the threat for them is easily fixed. A woman's body is not, as it has much internal reproductive organs, as well as breasts and different body structure. For Cannon, she would rather kill a woman than try to "de-sexualize them," which shows a VERY corrupted and sick-minded perspective of hers, in viewing female bodies as inherently sexualized and therefore filthy. THIS IS WRONG. But it lingers, and it makes things hellish for those who do not hold that view but who cannot run from it entirely. Jay has no dislike of female bodies whatsoever, but he get slammed by trauma triggers, and still fears the one we are all tied to because to him, it is tied to those violent people inside, and "the constant risk of sexual abuse." We do not know how to detach that latter fear from the simple physical reality of a female body, but it is one of our absolute biggest worries. Infinitii is doing what ze can to remove this mindset on hir own, as ze does translate to female in the binary, and Jay views hir as INHERENTLY HARMLESS even then, which causes dramatic mental dissonance as he still views the body details as a threat. Hopefully the real truth of this-- that bodies are innocent and female characteristics are as well-- will overcome the old lies for good, with enough compassionate repetition on the inside, if not the outside (something we cannot seem to even attempt without traumatic meltdowns).
No one, not ever, is an object devoid of rights and autonomy. Every being should be respected, and no one is ever obligated to sacrifice their basic rights, for any reason. However, you will recall, there is a lapse in applying this to the self. Therefore, the infliction of that same lapse of respect onto most female bodies in general might be tied to the abuse we endured while IN one, and the absolute self-dehumanization seems to have become subconsciously global in that respect. This is good, we are finding roots even now. So we must uproot them.

5) Different topic. We are very concerned about Chaos Zero, mostly in that I think we have to let go of him at this point, Jay especially. Looking back on the archives, we were shocked to realize that since 2003, he has been the only one of us to have a VERY pronounced dark side that he would SUCCUMB TO. To this day, when that overtakes him, he won't fight it-- but when it fades he will be tearfully apologetic in his efforts to "prove himself" to us again. However we're concerned that this is looping nonstop, and at this point that negative side of him is so volatile that we can't risk that repeating as it always has, for the safety of all of us. Nevertheless he deserves a second-thousandth chance, just as we have given Julie, but how can we do this without letting the danger levels get too high? We don't know yet. We would gladly work with him if he was not constantly falling back into that negativity, and the frequency of that now is worrisome.
Jay is thinking he needs to straight-up move worlds, in terms of dreamselves, like Ryman and Markus did (although they have both officially moved OUT of our innerspace, for the record; yes they do visit rarely but they are not rooted here at all). This would hopefully allow him to anchor into a new life opportunity, if only through its directness and conscious will, which may be what we need. As of now, CZ is still tied, rather negatively, to his old StH timelines, canon and non-canon, which seem to be feeding this hidden violence in him. We're wondering where he can go now in terms of a world, though, where that same curse will not follow him (he somehow kept it in all his original Leagueworld jump attempts). Perhaps its persistence is due only to his subconsciously identifying with it. This is why we ALL insist that he find a new name if at all possible. We have been told repeatedly, and know from direct experience, that names have great power, and for his name to be synonymous with such a negative phenomenon-- whether we agree or not-- is definitely contributing to this.
Lastly, Jay is concerned with good reason about the fact that he keeps forgetting who CZ is, no matter how many times he is reminded, or directly experiences reminders of it. And now, that forgetfulness is not negative. He is forgetting who CZ is, in terms of past history entirely, and all relation to him, without detaching from him as he used to. Jay still cares for CZ as a person, even if now as a stranger to a fair extent. And he is willing to start over in that sense, if need be, but CZ is not. And this may be part of the core problem as well.
In any case we will work with him as long as we can, but if this proves to be detrimental, then we will have to let go for good.


That is all I will say for tonight.

A note: DO NOT RE-READ THIS IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO.
Sometimes simply typing out these things helps in the process of releasing them, as it brings them into conscious awareness, to be healed and let go. Do not force them back into your consciousness if they are gone! That is what we are trying to avoid, my dear.

We are making progress, we are right where we need to be. Remember Laurie's advice, and just breathe.

Do not be so black and white. Be love. That is all you will ever need to be, and it is what you already are. Remember that above everything.
Good night, to all.

- A.P. (and Infi at the close)

 

 

 

(Some thoughts after reading multiplicity posts on Tumblr)

Jay here; when I'm tuned in to headspace, I get "pseudo-sensory" input very clearly as well. Besides sights and sounds, I also get 'phantom' sights and presences; I can always tell when Genesis has showed up in the room, or if someone upstairs has just moved physically closer to me when I'm fronting. It's virtually tangible, to the point where I've started keeping a list of "who feels like what" so I know who those myriad sensations come from. Since its so immersive, there can be significant leakage if it isn't sharply kept inside... but after years of being forced to do that via a survival-mechanism "buffer system," we've become so tired of the suppression that we're now actively trying to dismantle it, just to be able to experience everything without censorship.

In the past, our personal life situation practically required us all to live internally instead of externally whenever possible, so internal sensations are arguably more "real" to me than outer ones are, most days. Plus I do meditate whenever possible so that helps boost my perception, but I tend to end up "lost in headspace" for 2+ hours solid during some meditations, and that can be very tiring. (The perception during those is INTENSE though! I have notable trouble distinguishing those memories from physical ones.)
Meditation also can spike depersonalization when I'm in the body (ironically I only tend to ground "upstairs"), so I have to be careful, as I'm dissociated enough on a daily basis.
Being able to perceive headspace like this is so important and vital to me that, when I lose my perception-- either to meds or psychological fallout-- it's actually existentially frightening.

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

@ 11:24 am


TRACK 67

(Lynne) All right, I'm, not sure how to start this, but, this is Lynne Stabelle. Uh, Jay, if you're hearing this I simply wanted to leave a message for you on your voice recorder, because I'm fronting. It's Tuesday, after your therapy session, 11:24, in the morning… I know you like having timestamps. Um… Genesis says "move the microphone closer." *laugh* I guess road noise would drown me out. Fronting-- I want to remind you, Jay, I'm fronting right now, and we have currently… have this idea where, when I'm fronting I say, "I am Lynne Stabelle-- my name is Lynne Stabelle, my color is Orange, I have long orange hair, orange eyes, an orange dress… I am female, and a headvoice." And… that-- see, saying "I am female," somebody is, yelling "dysphoria"… but I am! I am a woman… but I am a headvoice as well, so, they don't need to feel threatened by me… but they do. Yes, Genesis said "but they do." And they do, and they shouldn't… but, that's true. So there are people… hiding below the surface… when we front, and that's why it's difficult to anchor. Laurie fronted for most of the session today *laugh*… just reminding you, in case you forget… 'cause she did, I'm proud of her. I should try, that would be fun… I don't-- I'm on the highway, I can't slip. Um, I'm going to hit stop, because, I'd like other people to talk, but, as I said, I'm currently driving your car, we are driving down Interstate 81, behind a… what's that? It's a tanker. Not a truck. It says (unintelligible, trying to sound out something)… whatever it is! *laugh* It's snowing, I got to drive through Scranton for a little bit, which is where I was born… and… I'm going to stop because I am slipping. Uh, *short sigh* Have a good day, Jay, whenever you hear this. I'm really slipping, bye.

 

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@ 06:56 pm


Figured out how to bypass the buffer during therapy-- get me to front, heheh.
I had to shove the A.P. aside to get out but it's cooperative, and I had important things to say. Therefore, progress was made, heck yes.
Feels good to be out though. Haven't fronted in front of other people in over a year, s'far as I can remember.

I swear even the therapist chills out when I'm around, it's awesome.

-LU 


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@ 11:04 pm


Today has been an absolute roller coaster, so let's fill you in on that before the night is up.

- first let me just say that if you read our recent posts, there was apparently a MAJOR hack on the 4th, concerning Infinitii of all people, that no one mentioned here (jay tried to memory-purge it out of shock). surprisingly laurie is the one who wrote about it, as she rarely gets through to update personally. either way, when we feel capable of reviewing that event, we will write about it here for the sake of personal comprehension (not tonight for sure). clearly, the consequences of it were crushingly significant and painful, and so ignoring it will only harm us all.

- related, jay is trying to figure out his personal memories. he was talking to laurie about it last night and he said that his personal memories seem to pick up NOT immediately post-scratch, but post-lockout. he "cannot remember a time when the undergrounders were not around." we are wondering if this means he was "born" before or after the reset, because in early august he is only aware of things dimly, not as a fronter but a distant observer. we will try to pinpoint this, as he tends to splinter, and we would like to know who we are dealing with, and when, for the sake of everyone's well-being.

- as of last night the other two data voices (besides kalisha) have found their names: isadora and garrison. again, isadora is confirmed sub-violet, but garrison is somewhere between green and blue. we're wondering if he actually fits under teal. jay made an avatar for isadora today, but he "still cannot see garrison," and "can't find kalisha's hair." either way it is good to hear that he is picking them up a little more clearly visually now.

- we had a therapy session this morning, for the first time since before thanksgiving. because of how charged recent events have been, we collectively decided that we needed to breach the big topic at last and start discussing the sexual abuse, for the sake of healing it. HOWEVER with all the progress we've been making over the past several months, we were shocked when we realized that, when it came to finally discussing it, there was nowhere near as much trauma as there was with it even this time last year. this is somewhat ironic, as our triggers are far worse and far more numerous, but we also have enough understanding to not be completely devastated by every one of them. our recovery time is better.

- the a.p. fronted for a good part of therapy, saying that since no one held the actual abuse memories (that we were aware of), it was "stored as data" so it was the person to come out and simply recite it. the therapist kept asking "what do you think," etc., and the a.p. was literally incapable of asking those questions, it kept looking to us for replies. it did admit who it was at one point and the therapist said she figured that's who was talking.
- knife attempted to front, but struggled spectacularly with language so he had to pull out as it was forcing him to slip badly. jayce also tried to, but he has no understanding of that data so he left. it went back to the a.p. for a while but then the therapist said something about "choosing to be asexual," as opposed to being so naturally, and who forced their way out to talk but laurie.
- so yeah laurie fronted for about 15 minutes? which was awesome. she helped clarify a lot of things, gave insight into the situation upstairs, etc. incredibly productive thanks to her explaining it firsthand, as she works with jay and sees what he goes through. she mentioned the sex/affection conflict due to pink corruption, the perspectives we now had with the truth of that (mostly thanks to infi), and her previous no-vulnerability problem. she also made it clear that many triggers were "innocuous" on the outside, and yet still lethal internally, which was a huge problem.
- hilariously at the end, the therapist said she was okay with profanity, just "don't flip any tables." laurie laughed and said she wouldn't be taking an axe to the furniture, don't worry. the therapist responded amusedly that pillow-throwing was allowed but that was about it. unfortunately laurie says she was slipping badly at that point so there was no further banter, which is a shame because that's great stuff
- genesis was lounging on the couch this whole time we'd like to note, it was also snowing outside which was very reassuring

- driving home was a mess thanks to all the session switching. laurie let jay back in, so he tried to drive at first, but couldn’t get a grip. mulberry took over for a minute, but since she's never driven before she got confused and had to leave. so the trip home is actually largely missing from the memory-- which is a first-- because no one was out for most of it. thankfully genesis stuck around so there were not any accidents as he was keeping things under control from outside as he always does.
- lynne fronted for a little while once we hit the main city, she has one very clear memory of a certain street and the snow. she also left a message on the voice recorder saying hello to jay, which took him by surprise when he got home. notably, she mentioned that when fronting, if she clearly said "I am Lynne Stabelle, my color is Orange," etc. and described herself, it helped her anchor in better, as it strengthened her energy overlay. everyone has problems with dysphoria because there is a negative voice anchored to the body itself, and so having attention brought to it tends to catch the attention of said voice, who tries to shove everyone else out in anger. we are wondering if there is any way to change this, even if it involves getting the a.p. to adopt a body-resembling face temporarily to bring attention to it instead.
-after that genesis called javier in, as he's considered our "grounding voice" and so gen assumed he'd be able to front. he showed up, but although he could drive and stay in no problem, he couldn't really see? even after he focused in energetically, nothing was registering visually. so there's really no memory transferred from him, although there is clear data that he was out for the vast majority of the drive from that point on.

- the evening is a blur for one huge reason: somewhere around noon, julie slipped. she fronted, and caused a hack. however that terminology doesn't quite fit-- because she was responsible for it personally, and infinitii was also involved. the latter point is why it doesn't strictly qualify as a hack; infinitii prevented her from becoming lost in any tar or plague, even if he didn't prevent the actual situation. however, despite the jarring consequences of that being allowed to happen, it DID have a positive aftereffect in that it allowed Julie to gain a complete perspective of her own motivations, which she never had before, due to not having a key piece of the puzzle, so to speak. (this is almost identical to jay's situation, and shows that the both of them were used similarly by the tar.) unfortunately, despite this vital lesson, julie was still emotionally devastated and existentially tired, and surprisingly she actually went to sleep, saying she wanted "someone else to take over" when she woke up, as she didn't want to deal with waking life anymore at that time. she slept for at least 3 hours and there is data of suffering a dream hack, which is not surprising. julie TRIED to fight it off-- again noteworthy as those usually catch jay when he is incapacitated but julie was not-- but failed. whether this was due to despair or being overpowered we do not know.
- also, remember that after the meltdown on the 5th, atonement has been FORBIDDEN until better methods are found. so this incident was more harmful than usual as a result.

- upon waking we do not know who took over. data picks up with jay in the kitchen, talking to julie, laurie, and infi upstairs. julie explained how she had been affected, laurie tried to comfort jay as he was badly shaken by the fact of the situation (we all share a body but he's the core so he feels the worst of it whether he likes it or not), and infinitii helped everyone from falling into despair concerning that. therapy talk came up again, jay said he was actually angry about the abuse topic as he didn't want to admit that he had been a victim of that in the past. laurie said he had to though, and also stop seeing sexuality as "always evil" as a result, as it wasn't, it was neutral. she and jay reviewed his perspective on this briefly, but jay concluded with admitting that he could no longer view reproduction as "evil," ever, because even if the act could be used traumatically, its function stayed the same-- life creation. and that gave him hope, that it had a neutral core that was still purely benevolent. but even then the only thing that kept him from giving in to hatred was the fact that infinitii was technically xenophon's mother in that respect, the only positive figure of that sort that he'd ever known. and since he loved both infi and his stepdaughter so much, and realized that her creation via sexuality had NOT been evil or traumatic, he couldn't universally generalize anymore. and that was actually helping him let go of the trauma, as previously he was convinced he had suffered an "irredeemable wrong" and was therefore equally corrupted permanently by it, which was false but he believed it entirely.
- side note, julie said she wanted to "date infi" if that was okay, because she had a better grip on her own thought processes now, thanks to him allowing her to directly realize that she didn't have to be ruled by "compulsory" lust, as she was for a long time, as there were other things she now understood and wanted more than that (mainly intimacy, which she actually avoided for most of her life). jay laughed and said that was fine, infi could "date" everyone in headspace and it wouldn't bother him, besides that was infi's choice. infinitii said he was fine with it too, besides by his function he pretty much loved everyone in headspace already.

- the rest of the evening is a total blur, up until around 8-9pm? all we know is that jay was in his room, and got trapped in a negative mindscape where he was effectively being sold as a prostitute against his will. this obviously proved to be a hack, as he tried to escape and the JMB trio jumped on him, along with the tar ITSELF. we don’t know details of this, all jay said is that he called for infi, but bridget clamped a hand over his mouth and told him to shut up, they wouldn't let anyone save him. nevertheless jay kept trying and infi did manage to "break through" to save him literally at the last minute, dragging him upstairs. he got laurie to help him help jay recuperate, but jay was deeply shaken and completely disoriented.
- major trigger warning here, for system people too… this got much worse when jay suddenly realized that the body was actually bleeding as a result of the abuse. this triggered one of the FIRST abuse memories on record, and since jay was incapable of handling that he dissociated entirely and began sobbing from shock. laurie immediately said "I'll bloody kill them" and told infi to send her back there, but he said no, it was too dangerous alone. so laurie went to "get backup," and soon returned with sugar and algorith.
- almost instantly after the trauma memories hit though, people started switching in and out in the body-- cannon was in for a moment, caught between hysteric rage and suicidal anguish, but she got pushed out by a numb fronter. and this kept happening. jeremiah, sugar, algorith, and even laurie herself ALL tried to front to try and keep things from unraveling, but some deeply-rooted numb person kept shoving them all out. sure enough it was the "dead red" boy who we first pinpointed this spring. laurie tried to talk to him but he proved incapable of reacting to anything, even "shake your head for yes or no." he would hear but have no impetus to move at all, being that detached.
- importantly, when jeremiah fronted, he began sobbing that he couldn’t be in that body, "please get me out." but before he did he got the data that it was bleeding, and he immediately shouted for knife. knife ran to respond, but when he realized that the body was bleeding from trauma, he was shaken. how in the world could the retributors atone for this, if the blood itself had been used for evil? no one knew what to do, they were terrified.
- anyway infi was still trying to calm jay down but he was freaking out, understandably so. he was again convinced that he had been "broken beyond all hope of healing" but was still trying to purge all awareness of the event from his memory, traumatized by the reality of it. laurie was still righteously pissed and demanded that infi take them back to wherever they had just saved jay from, as she refused to let that go unpunished. infi said he would, but only if he was sure jay would be safe alone. who would they leave to watch over him? however before they could make a decision, there was a sound from outside and we realized the mother was home. immediately the angry downstairs voice jumped into fronting, screaming with rage, saying "I refuse to deal with that bitch on top of everything else!!" laurie tried to explain that they were trying to cope with a rape situation upstairs, don't go shoving that aside, but that voice said "I'm upset about that too but I can't get confused or I'll fracture." either way they decided to isolate themselves in our room, so that is where they went.

- this is where most of the night went. infi and the three protectors went to fight the tar, while the angry downstairs voice went to our room to try and calm down. however, they became exasperated and shortly left, leaving jay behind alone. now jay did not detach entirely, and he was very scared, from not only pain but also from being alone all of a sudden. desperate for contact he took an old sketchbook and wrote a message on a page, asking for someone to please talk to him, he didn't want to feel so isolated when he was that terrified. surprisingly, the only response he got was "NO," written by the dead red voice. but this proved to be only the beginning, as jay kept trying to talk, and when laurie got back, she joined in… as did the angry voice from before. and so there are literally EIGHTEEN PAGES of text in the sketchbook that will need to be scanned in tomorrow. I apologize for the odd sentence structure of that paragraph but seriously that is SURREAL to notice on your desk in the evening! it hasn't been read yet but as it is 12:34 in the morning that is not a job for tonight.

- that’s it for today I guess. this is jayce, hiya, just popping in to close this up, laurie just caught me and is motioning for me to "get outta there." uh she also said the rapists took my hat?? what?? the tar people literally took my hat for some reason. well that's got me mad. I'm gonna leave, I want to find out why.

- Hey readers, Laurie here. I hope the AP covered everything 'cause I am not going back and reviewing that text wall on top of how much I already had to do this evening.
Jay's a mess right now, but at least he's not sobbing his eyes out like Infi was the other day (What a heart-crushing parallel that is). He's… fragmented, is all. He breaks into all these tiny pieces when he gets hurt, pieces that don't remember anything and can't interact with the world outside. It's a coping mechanism and it doesn't work at all in the big picture because then he gets stuck in those states and then no one knows who they're talking to. It’s a pain in the neck, as I said earlier.
But I gotta go talk to him before he goes to work. His boss is probably gonna wonder what the heck happened, I hate to be the bearer of bad news but maybe he can help, I don't even know. I'm just ticked off and tired of what's been happening lately. I know December is the resurrection month but man I wish it didn't drag zombies out into the open as well.
Still, I've got a job to do, and that is punching those zombies in the face. Wait, no, that's Algorith's thing now. But you get the picture.
I'm closing this up for the night. Sorry for all the depressing stuff, but the awfully ironic silver lining in this is that it's forced us all to work together a little more closely now. Isn't that just hilarious? In a morbid way, obviously. Trauma forces us to be a family. Geez. I wish we didn't need that to feel so strongly brought together, because I'm telling you, I am sick of it.
Like I said though. I've got a sick and scared boy to take care of, and a reality-hopping nightcapped dude here to explain stuff to. See you later.