prismaticbleed | Entries tagged with fanatifoni

Placeholder post.

We haven't been updating much lately because our life schedule has suddenly changed very dramatically.

At the end of July, our sister was, tragically once again, booted from her rented room because the renter refused to put her on the lease. She had barely been there a month.
This time, thank God, our mother took her up the homestead to at least stay on the porch, although our brother (the only person who lives there currently) was not happy with it at all, due to past trauma with our sister (when she was terrifyingly abusive; we remember too). Nevertheless there was no other option.

Anyhow. Since they now were at a very rural address, but still had to keep their job in order to save up money to get a new place, they needed to use our grandmother's old car, which we have been using up to this point.

So. As of... July 29th, it looks like, we have no car.

This is devastating for one huge reason:
We cannot get to daily Mass now.

Oh, technically we "could," but to do so would require a 15m run at 7am through a strange town wearing heaven knows what, probably sleep-deprived and in pain, the whole time panicking over health concerns (the heat is killing us) and the risk of getting mugged and/or assaulted again during the journey.
I kid you not, the very first night we had no car, we sat on the couch for two hours and just shook with terror at the very thought of going outside among people in town.
We never realized just how apparently agoraphobic we were.

So. Moral panic has been suffocating. This feels, in a very real way, like a punishment, or even a sentence of damnation. "You didn't revere the Eucharist enough, so now you have been banned from it" BUT ALSO, "if you REALLY loved God, you would forget your panic attacks and other risk factors and risk your life to get to Mass every morning! Since you're NOT, then you actually hate God, you are a moral coward, and God will abandon you like you are abandoning Him."
We can't function. Our conscience screams at us all day as a result of this.

Our schedule has changed dramatically as well.
It's booked solid and it is exhausting. It's made us realize, disturbingly, that we STILL have some demented bent to our personality that makes us want to assign every second to a plan, like that horrid life-board in The Little Prince, and why? Is it because we were raised that way? Or is it because we're terrified of what will happen if we have unassigned time?
It all seems to boil down to religious fear.
Right now, our schedule is roughly this:

- Wake up & drag poor body out of bed (~10m)
- Wake up house, wash up, small morning prayer (~30m)
- Get on exercise bike; say rosary, St. Bridget prayers, DVM chaplet, watch Mass (~90m)
- Prep breakfast & clean, say wall prayers if able (~60m)
- Eat and do Bible study (~150m)
- Clean up (~30m)
- Cope with postprandial hell by saying altar prayers & phone psalms (~60m)
- Say wall prayers if missed earlier (15m)
- Get on exercise bike & say prayer cards, eternal rests, & small chaplet (40m)
- Prep dinner & clean (30m)
- Eat & do Bible study (~60m)
- Night cleanup (~60m)
- Say any extra prayers needed (~20m)
- Divine Office prayers during day (~30m)
- ACTUAL FREE TIME ;____; (~180m to 240m depending on how exhausted we are)
- SLEEP (8h ideal, may be shrunk to 6 depending on schedule overflow)

By the time we hit that free-time window it's always 9-10pm, and we are so exhausted that, like tonight, we really just want to collapse in bed, but then that means we get NO MENTAL REST and when we wake up the cycle starts all over again.

But you see the problem. I know the minutes are approximate but I assure you, when we're living it, we do NOT stop moving until we sit down at this computer at night.
Our body feels so sick. We're so tired. We're getting heart palpitations and muscle spasms and tingly limbs & brainfog. We don't know if it's the heat, or the biking, or our diet, or what. All we know is that it's honestly scary to feel this unwell and to also feel like we can't rest, ever.

This is exactly how we were living with the eating disorder in full swing.

We would spend ALL our time either prepping food, or eating food, or purging food, BUT the WHOLE TIME we were ALSO PRAYING. We did like 6 hours of Bible Study a day. We always had Universalis or EWTN or Bishop Barron playing on our phone, so the apartment was never quiet, and we would never be able to think.
When everything was done and we had feebly tried to restabilize our body, we would collapse in bed only to repeat the entire cursed schedule the next day. And so it went for months.

...
What are we doing?
We don't even have time to do laundry because "we can't spare those two hours, we won't be able to fit our prayers into the schedule right!!" and then we'll end up staying up two hours later just to say them, no matter how tired we are, or how badly we want to cry from sheer fatigue, or how hard it is to form a coherent thought at that hour.
But the moral panic won't let us. It screams at us for not doing that mile run every morning, although the very thought of going out in public makes us want to vomit, and we're already dizzy & trembling from Lord knows what. We feel so sick all the time. We're staying hydrated, right? What are we doing wrong?

Everyone in the System is so angry. It's an awful sort of anger, something bitter and raw, and the person expressing it the most is Chaos 0 which speaks VOLUMES as to its cause and reach.
I have been talking to him. Despite all the pain & confusion & frustrated tears, neither of us has walked out or denied anything. We're talking, we're being honest, we're bringing it all out into the open.
But everything hurts.

We're getting a headache now. Nausea won't go away. Body still twitchy, dizzy, weak. Why?

I just wanted to update. Sorry I can't say much more tonight. We really don't feel good at all.

Oh, we're almost out of food too. That's the other worry with the car. We need it for Friday or we're going to run out, literally. Food stamps just came in so that's why we didn't buy anything yet. If we do one big order we can get 2 weeks worth in one trip. That'll work.

Honestly we're afraid of ending up in the hospital, or rather, the emergency room. 9-hour wait times when you're feeling this woozy are a nightmare in and of themselves. That's what we're scared of. We also no longer have transportation, because Astra used to be our drive home but now she's across the country. So we'd have to take a 2-hour bus ride home, which again is going to trigger the panic, especially if we're in E.R. clothes. I can't think about that risk right now.

All we can do right now is try to calm down, and pray, and sleep. Maybe we won't bike as long tomorrow. Maybe our body is too tired, maybe it needs a break. We've been doing 2 hours of biking a day for... nine days in a row now? It keeps our body & brain stable enough TO say the prayers. We're afraid that if we try to sit down and pray, the fatigue will crash into us so hard we'll just want to rest, both our mind and our body, and praying will become almost impossible. We'll fall asleep instead. We'll start crying like a child and begging for rest, please I need a break, I know I have two hours of prayers to say yet but please, everything hurts. My brain is a tangled mess. I can't wait until 9pm to breathe. Please, I need to just exist in quiet for a while.
But no. The moral panic screams. "IF YOU REFUSE TO PRAY, GOD WILL REFUSE TO LISTEN TO YOU WHEN YOU CRY FOR HELP. JUST WATCH. IF YOU DON'T PRAY, YOU'LL FALL INTO SIN, AND GOD WILL LET YOU FACE THOSE CONSEQUENCES." etc etc.

Our mother... has said some very very scary things lately. I don't want to slander her by writing them here, like we used to. Is that slander? I don't want to hurt her.
Maybe I can list one. She called yesterday, asking about whether or not we still had this one crochet dollbox she made for us as a kid. I said yeah, we kept it, we keep our few jewelry items in it. She said oh thank goodness, I thought you kids threw out everything I made you. There was a lot of bitter hurt veiled in that statement. Then she said, effectively, "I don't know what's wrong with you kids. I bought you ALL these things that you could hand down to your kids, or have as collections, and you just don't care! You either sell them or throw them out. I don't get it!" and then, I quote, "I would have KILLED to have the things you kids have! My parents never bought me ANYTHING."
...And suddenly I realized, oh my gosh, that's why we don't get along.
Her "language of love" is THINGS.
I never realized just how high a priority she put on material possessions. I always wondered why she can't resist buying things, or telling me to buy things, or buying things and forcing them on me. She hoards so much and refuses to get rid of it, even when it causes her distress. She wants things so badly. She constantly complains about how "she never got what she wanted" as a child. I never realized she meant things.
...And here I am, not caring a jot about most material things, and she probably sees that as hatred towards her. She shoves all this stuff at me and, to me, it feels like assault, or some strange torture, even spitework... but for her, it might actually be an expression of love.
...
We had this same problem in CNC, of course. Our "love languages," both in the "relationship" and in daily life, were completely opposed. We kept trying to learn their language but it was such a farce, it was so forced, it was poisoning us but we never let on. But we tried, God knows we tried. We regret it catastrophically, we still haven't forgiven ourself for it-- and God knows we're trying to do that too-- but at the time, it was programming. We automatically tried to mold ourselves into their shape.

The reason I bring this up is, in part, because this is weirdly affecting our perception of prayer.
We have this bizarre and disturbing idea that, "you can't ask God to help you, because the TRUTH is that NOT helping you IS the best "help" for you!!" Basically, if I say "God, I feel really sick and scared, can you help me out?" I fear, "Well, you being sick and scared is what you need. So that IS helping." etc. It hit me today that we see God as treating us like our parental figures did as a child. Always watching, always calling me out on what I did wrong, always critical, always "a catch" or "a consequence" that they were ready to slam down on me, smiling all the while. Shouting orders at me then calling me a "good girl." etc. It's not God. It can't be God. Can it? If I don't follow every little order I hear in my head, it's my funeral, because I'm "refusing to obey God." It keeps me so scared, all the time. I'm so afraid of accidentally committing a mortal sin by doubting a command, or worse, by choosing not to because I'm too tired, or "I wasn't sure I heard properly," or something equally stupid. Really it's because I'm scared. Kiss the feet on the picture when you walk by, or you don't really love Him. Say that prayer three more times, or you're cheating the souls in Purgatory. Say that prayer over, you messed up a word and if you don't correct it, you're snubbing the Lord. etc.

I still feel so far away from God.

I'm so far away from the System.

We don't talk anymore. We can't. We're so bloody tired. We're all falling to pieces, we're all so hurt and angry and I don't know WHY, it's just this ubiquitous heartache and none of us know how to handle it.

There's so much guilt and shame over doing anything that's NOT explicitly "worship." If I listen to music while on the bike, I feel Mary shaking her head at me, sadly, disappointed in me. But she KNOWS that music helps us FEEL the prayers, and it keeps the intrusive thoughts quiet, but no, "it's secular music," it's what pagans do, you need for everything to be QUIET, so it's JUST GOD.
No music. No movies. No books. No internet. No System. Nothing but God. Pray more. Add another hour. And run to church already, if you get harrassed or faint on the way, that's martyrdom! Isn't that what you want??

Honestly I'm going to be brutally honest and Lord forgive me but I

I want to live with the System again. I want us to be ALIVE TOGETHER again. I want to talk to everyone and love them and learn with them. I want us all to pray TOGETHER but also to go upstairs and BE, to learn about ourself and heal and grow and forgive and dream... I want to work on the LEAGUE, I miss them so much, I feel so ashamed of them now, after they were almost robbed from me I felt like God was saying "you don't deserve them" but ALSO "they're with the pagans where they belong, YOU focus on GOD" BUT I ONLY KNEW GOD THROUGH THE LEAGUE, MY CHILDHOOD UPBRINGING SURE DIDN'T TEACH ME ABOUT GOD'S CHARACTER AS MUCH AS ALL THE LOVE IN THE LEAGUE DID.
Catechesis is one thing. Life is another. You CANNOT separate the two.
Praying for 7 hours a day is making me miserable. Yes I love God and I love what I'm learning and I do love praying, but... it still feels... something is wrong. Something is missing. I dread waking up and doing it all again tomorrow. I'm so tired.
I still want to pray. I still want to worship. But I don't exist right now. I still don't know who I am.
"You're a Christian," I hear that curt female voice say. "You don't need any other identity than that."
They smirk and sneer at Jewel. "Martyr yourself," they say. "Burn everything for God. Nothing matters but him."

NO STOP THAT'S WHAT THE KAKOFONI DID IN THE PAST THAT'S HOW WE ALMOST LOST EVERYTHING

It deserves to be lost. It's hollow, empty, nothing. It's worthless. The only thing you need is your Bible and your Rosary. Everything else can go to hell where it belongs.

What about the talents God gave us???

Those aren't "talents," those are delusions.

...
That's... that's our biggest fear, on Jewel's level, isn't it.
God "blessed" us with all those ideas, with the penchant for words and music, but... it all rotted away, or was stolen, or lost. So was it all just an illusion? Was it all just... some stupid fake game? Did any of it mean anything?

YES IT DID, YES IT DID YOU KNOW THAT'S THE ONLY TIME YOU CAN FEEL THINGS IS IN THE LEAGUE, YOU KNOW THE LOVE AND LIGHT AND COLOR THAT IS IN THERE, GOD IS SPEAKING TO YOU IN IT

I hope so, God Himself knows I hope so, that's all we've ever wanted the League to be, is a signpost and a mouthpiece for Him, for the beauty of our faith, that's what we knit into it even as a child--

what are we even talking about.

i am so, so, so tired.

i'm tired of being sick. i'm tired of being scared. i'm tired of being alone. i'm tired of being numb.

we have a therapist on friday. maybe that'll wake something up.

until then i give up. i'm going to give this body some sleep

i can feel we would be crying right now if we weren't so burnt down to ashes inside
we don't even remember what crying feels like
all we know is that there's an abyss of grief in our ribcage that won't go away

why is the body so sick.

i'm so tired

wow this entry is a mess i apologize.

okay we're dissocitating to madb abdbadly to type anymore bye

+ Today we're focusing on DBT AND Bible study-- because without God's wisdom, graciously given to us through His Word, nothing is wise. Secular psychology CAN be VERY TOXIC, because it REJECTS MORALITY & RELIGION, and disparages the TRUE spiritual/ supernatural reality-- it uses terms like "wisdom" & "mindfulness" frequently, but they just feel empty & wrong, honestly because they don't acknowledge GOD. So I MUST make sure I DO, in this recovery process, or it WILL IRONICALLY DISORDER MY SOUL, craftily leading me astray with "empowering" and "nonjudgmental" language, darkly enticing me to rely on my "own strength & skill" instead of GOD'S GRACE & POWER-- to become a humanist instead of a Christian. The subtlety is terrifying. A lot of it IS good, healthy advice. Emotion regulation & distress tolerance skills are useful, IF used prudently-- again, I'm just honestly disgusted by the blatant lack of faith in all of it. Even the "radical acceptance" skills are hollow-- they DON'T acknowledge GOD'S WILL, and so they AREN'T GRATEFUL TO GOD; furthermore, the stance of "acceptance" they promote is void of virtue, because ONLY A CHRISTIAN CAN CHOOSE TO SUFFER, and doing so is BY THE POWER OF GOD! Not "your wise mind" or ANYTHING of human nature. By CHOOSING to suffer, AS CHRIST DID, we UNITE our pain to His and it BECOMES REDEMPTIVE-- AND NONTOXIC!! Disorder CANNOT EXIST when the LORD of ALL CREATED ORDER makes His Presence known. So yes, DBT helps, but the Holy Spirit CAN & DOES ACCOMPLISH the SAME beneficial ends, and INFINITELY MORESO. ...But I can't be an extremist even in this. I can't bash this program "because it's not explicitly Christian." Being so disdainful is ANTIChristian!! AND it's disgustingly hypercritical, because I AM benefiting from DBT, as are so many others. GOD GUIDED THE INVENTORS OF DBT, TOO, YOU KNOW!! The goal of DBT is LIFE, HEALTH, RECOVERY, COMPASSION, WISDOM, HONESTY, RESPECT... ALL VIRTUES OF GOD! The program IS FULLY COMPATIBLE WITH CHRISTIANITY; IT CAN ONLY BE ENRICHED BY IT. STOP BEING SO BLOODY JUDGMENTAL.
Ironically that way of thinking IS a distortion (DBT)-- "black or white" thinking! It's ALSO STUBBORNNESS AND PROUD ARROGANCE. It's POISON and you NEED TO STOP. Just because something exists "OUTSIDE" of religion DOESN'T MEAN IT'S "SATANIC." Geez honestly I'd be MORE afraid that YOUR "GATEKEEPING" of what is "morally proper" / "irreligious" / "RIGHT" IS "SATANIC," because it's FOCUSED ON EXALTING YOU. You're SO DAMN OBSESSIVE over "keeping yourself pure/ holy/ separate" that you FORGET that the REAL EVIL comes from YOU and YOUR dumbass choices-- MATTHEW 15:17-20-- and your STUBBORN-ASS RESISTANCE TO ADMITTING YOUR OWN SH*TTY CHOICES AND THOUGHTS AND BLATANT SINS IS WHAT CAN AND WILL SEND YOU TO HELL FOR BOTH IDOLATRY AND BLASPHEMY. GET OVER YOUR DAMN SELF BEFORE YOU ARE DAMNED, DAMN IT!!!
STOP MICROMANAGING REALITY AND STUPIDLY "TRYING TO BE PERFECT." YOU'RE NOT AND YOU CAN'T BE AND YOU SHOULDN'T BE. YOU'RE NOT GOD. ...AND I KNOW YOU KNOW A CERTAIN BLUE SOMEONE WHO CAN DRIVE THIS LESSON HOME BETTER THAN I EVER COULD. SO LISTEN. PLEASE. IF YOU DON'T OPEN YOUR HEART, WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE.

pre-snack//

+ Quick note-- Marisa just walked over to apologetically tell me we're TOTALLY out of flavored chips-- but with her broad stance, strong walk, and heavy eyebrows, I swear she LOOKED SO MUCH LIKE LAURIE. It went straight to my heart. So remember that. AND remember that SHE WAS IN MY DREAM LAST NIGHT, TOO!!! She's always there to protect me, LITERALLY from death/ being killed, in such dreams. God bless her, I love her so much.

+ I keep mentally obsessing over NEEDING to reorganize/ properly space & structure my apartment, and it's making me a nervous wreck because (1) I can't realistically "plan" any remodeling WITHOUT direct spatial awareness, and (2) There's "TOO MUCH STUFF" and yet I'm LACKING several essentials, making me feel TRAPPED & STUCK & MISERABLE. There's this persistent drive to "mortify the senses" & live monastically, but I've BEEN forcing that, and ALL it did was PREVENT me from using my GIFTS & TALENTS for God, therefore giving the eating disorder WAY TOO MUCH POWER & SPACE TO GROW. And I CANNOT let that happen again. I NEED to MAKE ACCESSIBLE, DEDICATED SPACE in my apartment for MUSIC, ART, TYPING, READING, AND TV-- because like it or not, we ALL know how much we've been SINCERELY MOVED & INSPIRED FOR THE BETTER by video games & movies. GOD CAN AND DOES USE THOSE, TOO, Y'KNOW. See, THAT'S my problem-- for years now, I've been cutting out EVERYTHING in my life "BUT GOD," including my "self," desperate to "be holy" and instead just... becoming Pharaisical and utterly collapsing in every regard. I ended up outright disparaging & disowning EVERYTHING that wasn't EXPLICITLY RELIGIOUS. Every "little joy" of life, every pastime and interest and creative work, was condemned as "secular" and "stupid" and "BAD." I wouldn't play the cello because "I should pray instead." I wouldn't do art because "it was a form of pride & idolatry." I wouldn't listen to any music but hymns & chants. I wouldn't do ANYTHING creative because it felt as if I was "usurping God's territory" and effectively "trying to rewrite reality" and "tempt people away from total devotion to God". And I WOULDN'T LOVE ANYONE because "I'm only supposed to love Jesus." But I never felt like I knew Him, not personally; I could repeat His teachings & tell about His miracles and I COULD love Him for all that and I DID love Him, I DO, I recognize the love & mercy of the Cross, but... somehow, I still feel terrifyingly distant. No matter HOW many hours a day I would pray, no mater HOW many times I went to Mass, no matter HOW much I read the Bible... there was always this awful degree of separation. I DO love Him, I cannot deny that, but... I'm afraid, still; I'm scared of the focus He puts on me. That's all I can figure. I get in the way, no matter HOW much I hollow out my life. EVEN HERE!! Mass is this evening BUT I'm "RELUCTANT" TO GO, ONLY because I'd be going WITH OTHER PEOPLE?? And so I'd "have to be a SOCIALLY EXTANT PERSON"??? If I went ALONE, I'd be fine? But when I'm in a group, it feels wrong. I can only guess it's because, in EVERY social situation, EVERYTHING that has to do with the TRUE "ME" feels utterly shameful, because it's NOT SUPPOSED TO BE OUT IN PUBLIC!!! Worship feels like shallow performance. Interest feels like obtrusive arrogance. Love feels like voyeurism. "Exposing" my inner self and ALL related to it is actually TRAUMATIC and feels ACTIVELY SELF-DESTRUCTIVE-- and when that gutted openness coincides with CONVERSATION, those words and interactions are INVASIVE & VIOLATING. EVERY DAMN TIME. ...Unless I shut down & dissociate, that is. It makes me sick. It's MAKING me sick! I'm miserable just writing about it!! I'M SO TIRED OF PRAYER BEING USED AS PUNISHMENT. I am SO TIRED OF MY RELIGION FEELING LIKE AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP. I'M SO TIRED OF "NOT BEING ALLOWED" TO EXIST IN LIGHT & COLOR, INSTEAD BEING CONDEMNED TO THE BLANK CELL OF SELF-DESTRUCTION. Is that really the "way of the saints"? Is that really going to "get me to heaven"? Is that-- no, HAS that EVER really "brought me closer to God"? ...but now I'm REALLY scared because I want to say YES. The less there was of me, the more there WAS of "God"... and paradoxically, bizarrely, terrifyingly, that perpetuated the eating disorder too. Honestly, the more I "tried" to "be normal," to stop the restriction, the rituals, the bingeing, and the purging-- the less time I had for God??? And that TERRIFIED ME. When I "ate normally" and "tried to learn/ do new things" it MADE ME EVEN MORE MISERABLE because then I felt TRULY HOLLOW, with the focus on my empty rotten husk of a "self." BUT, with the eating disorder, SOMEHOW I had more time for GOD??? At least, AT HOME-- whenever I would go out to BUY food, I would become a MANIC DISASTER, "forced" inescapably into that mode AUTOMATICALLY whenever I was in public-- UNLESS I WAS STARVING!!! The hunger often prevented mania in a kind of kind of mutual suppression; when you're weak & dizzy from hunger, you CAN'T socialize or entertain or perform or anything like that. It was protective. The INSTANT I dared to "eat something," I became a monster... at least, IF I WASN'T ALONE & DISSOCIATED!!! Starvation panic forced a sort of internal focus; without it, my "self" was FALSE, an EXTERNALLY-DICTATED MASK that ONLY EVER HURT THE REAL ME!!! And "becoming normal" felt like damning myself TO that mask, forever. But I digress, slightly. "Being normal" ALSO meant "losing my faith," which was "PROVEN" by how HORRIBLY the social focus destroyed my prayer life, and BIZARRELY sustained BY the agony AND structured DISSOCIATION of the eating disorder??? And that had been CONSTANT. At least... the majority of it was. As I prepared food, I would pray the Divine Office & listen to Catholic Daily Reflections. As I microwaved that insane amount of broccoli, I would kneel and pray at the prayer wall. As I ate, I would study the Bible. Even as I purged, I would be praying frantically and begging God for help the entire time. Yes, I was STILL preoccupied with "disordered time management," ALWAYS trying to decide what I should/ shouldn't eat, BUT I would FIGHT the compulsive obsessions, PRAYING for forgiveness & help the WHOLE TIME. My constant suffering was BASED ON FOOD & SELF, and so it drove me to CLING TO GOD ALL THE MORE, desperately wanting to abandon BOTH food & self and just lose myself in religion. It was such a mess. But...
...I'm afraid NOT to suffer. My constant hunger only made me hungrier for God. My constant misery made HIS joy all the more vital. Being "healthy" and "fed"-- what a DISGUSTING word-- wouldn't I forget God? Without suffering, could I still be truly religious??
I CANNOT BOTH EAT AND BE GOOD. I CANNOT "FEED" ON BOTH THE WORLD & GOD. I CANNOT BE "NORMAL" AND "HOLY" AT ONCE.
God I'm a mess
but the eating disorder IS A LIAR
IT'S STILL FOCUSED ON FOOD AND THAT DAMN BODY
stop
STOP
EVERYTHING ↑ YOU WROTE IS GARBAGE. YOU'RE SO DAMN BLIND.
EVEN I KNOW THE F*KING TRUTH. SO SHUT UP, LIAR!!
STOP "MAKING EXCUSES" FOR THE EATING DISORDER.
IT DIDN'T HELP! IT JUST TOOK OVER THE THINGS THAT DID!!
SHUT UP ALL OF YOU
AM I THE ONLY "PERSON" WHO CAN "TALK SENSE" ON THIS GODDAMNED TOPIC
STOP MAKING EVERYTHING SO "CEREBRAL"
WHO THE HELL ARE YOU TRYING TO IMPRESS
IT SURE AS HELL ISN'T ME!!!
I'M FED UP WITH YOUR COWARDLY HYPER-"REASONING" BULLSH*T. ALL YOU EVER DO IS TALK BUT YOU NEVER ACTUALLY SAY ANYTHING. YOU NEVER GET TO THE POINT.
WELL GUESS WHAT
I'M ALL F*KING POINTS

THE POINT IS
ADMIT WE ALL F*KED UP.
ALL OF US

WE TRIED TO ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING WITH THAT DISORDER AND WE FAILED.

GET THAT INTO YOUR INFLATED HEAD

IT DIDN'T EVER F*KING "WORK"!!!

LISTEN I'VE GOT ONE MORE THING TO SAY.
THE POINT.

YOU ASSHOLES KEEP PROUDLY TRYING TO JUSTIFY THE EATING DISORDER AS "SOMETHING THAT WORKED"
BUT FOR WHAT???
WHAT "MADE IT WORK"
CAN YOU EVEN KNOW???

NO
BECAUSE YOU'RE ALONE.
THAT'S WHY YOU SAY IT "WORKED"
BECAUSE IT SHUT YOU DOWN

BECAUSE "DISSOCIATION" FORCED THE FOCUS BACK INSIDE WHERE I LIVE

WHERE ALL OF US LIVE

THE MOMENT YOU REJECTED OUR LIFE IS WHEN THE E.D. TOOK OVER "YOURS."

I GUARANTEE YOU
IF YOU STOP SHUTTING US DOWN,
THAT DAMNED DISORDER WILL DISAPPEAR INSTEAD

During the hell of the eating disorder, AND up until now in recovery, I've been struggling with one awful, essential, persistent, existential question: "Who AM I, really?" Is my past "real," or "right"? Can I still love? SHOULD I still love? All my imaginative work, all my creativity, all my hopes & dreams & joys & goals-- are any of them valid? Does any of it matter? Should I leave EVERYTHING in my past-- notably my INNER LIFE-- in the past, to be effectively rejected, disowned, & forgotten? And if/ when I DO abandon it, WHO am I then? Who "SHOULD" I be? When ALL of the things I "USED" to treasure & value & live for are GONE... what is left of me? And to be totally blunt with you, I've been struggling with this BLATANTLY SELF-ANNIHILATORY MINDSET SINCE 2010, when Dad shamed me into junking my childhood possessions as "ridiculous garbage" AND I was nevertheless FORCED to actively and traumatically DESTROY most of MY ART & WRITING in order to "minimize my possessions" & "live out of a suitcase" in order to MOVE OUT TO SLC WITH MEL-- who, disturbingly, LIKE TBAS, made my life effectively revolve around THEM. So I couldn't have "too much of "ME" getting in the way." Even more damaging was the FACT that BOTH Mel & Q CLAIMED to be "the ONLY ONES who KNEW THE "REAL ME,"" that I had "lost my spark" and "ONLY they could "help me" get it back," and that "my TRUE, "GOD-GIVEN" DESTINY was IN SLC," with them, NOT my family, AND that if I DIDN'T leave my roots behind & attach to them instead, "I WOULD REGRET IT FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE," AND I would allegedly be "REJECTING GOD'S PLAN FOR MY LIFE." I feel for it, tragically & entirely-- which made Mel's ultimate rejection of ME-- "I thought you were a good person; I guess I was wrong" / "I sacrificed myself to help you & you just spat in my face" / "I regret ever having met you" / "You are a black hole, devouring everyone around you & giving nothing back" / etc.-- all the more devastating, cruel AND bitterly ironic. BUT. That "bitterness" was because I BELIEVED THEM. Every word they said, good or bad, I took as fact. After that letter, almost 10 YEARS AGO this month (!!!), I literally tried to kill myself. Burn it all down, I decided, in total despair-- if MEL says that's WHO I AM, then that DEFINES me "by their authority," and I'm damned.
...And yet, hope refused to abandon me. Fahrenheit 451. Laurie saved my life, and somehow I kept going, until the TBAS deathtrap hit ~5 years later-- a tragedy of the EXACT SAME PATTERN: destroy, uproot, reprogram, reject, annihilate, etc. I threw out or gave away almost everything I owned. My family history had been brutally chopped out of my timeline. My sense of EXISTENCE was crushed to a bloody pulp. For years I was hollow. I threw what remained into religion, but without a real "self" TO worship WITH, even that ended up being far too shallow & Pharasaical. I stockpiled prayers & sacramentals, I went to church up to SEVENTEEN TIMES A WEEK, even moreso if I could drive fast enough in the mornings to chain FIVE MASSES into ONE WEEKDAY. I'm dead serious. I'd hit 7, 730, 8, 830, & 1130 services, never feeling "holy enough," never feeling "close enough" to God. I was starving spiritually, needing the Eucharist more than air, refusing to eat anything BUT that Bread of Angels. And yet, my disorders persisted. I'd ultimately give in to physical hunger and, despairing, would just binge & purge & pray for mercy & forgiveness & help, begging God for a swift, soon, & holy death, despite my wretchedness. I had no will to live. I only wanted God, but... I couldn't see that my ravenous spiritual hunger was ALSO a problem, an addiction, a disordered mutation of something good. I was STILL trying to be "religious" in the SAME way I was trying to be "thin"-- by destroying myself, and running away from all sense of unique identity. I was burying, numbing, & rejecting EVERYTHING that wasn't "pure" and "right," ultimately disowning LIFE in favor of death, wanting only to lose ALL "selfhood" in God, forever. There's just one problem I kept ignoring: God IS relationship, and you CAN'T be in a relationship at ALL if there's no "YOU" to love AND be loved WITH. In my desperate attempts to annihilate "ME" in favor of others, I had destroyed my very goal of self-sacrifice & symbiosis. In order to LOVE at ALL, "I" NEEDED TO ACTUALLY EXIST.
Hope cannot die, though, and neither could my REAL self, the SOUL that GOD HIMSELF uniquely fashioned & breathed into existence & anchored into BOTH my heart AND HIS-- when Jesus died for me, He died for a PERSON, a REAL PERSON that He KNEW and LOVED in their ENTIRETY and TRUTH-- seeing and embracing their scars and uniting them to His own, even as He joyfully proclaimed IN that very agony that humanity is NOT defined by failure, but by GRACE, freely & generously offered to ALL who met Him on that Cross of TOTAL, TRUE Self-giving-- a sacrifice of PURE LOVE, possibly ONLY BECAUSE HE LOVED US. If Jesus had refused to exist AS a unique Person in time, ABLE to enter into PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP with each & all, ABLE to share intimately in our struggles & pains & tears, our joys & hopes & dreams, then... He couldn't have GIVEN His unique Personhood FOR us IN that same Love, BY & THROUGH that same relationship!! So I was doomed to both futility AND emptiness, starving despite all instinctive attempts to "fill the void," EVEN WITH GOD, because I did not & WOULD not let "MYSELF" exist as a unique individual that COULD love & BE loved. I had thrown out all my past in guilty hateful shame, not realizing that such a loveless, merciless, heartless act of destruction WAS not and COULD NOT be of GOD. Jesus never erased our pasts-- He ACCEPTED them as they were, FORGAVE them in the utmost compassion for our weaknesses & pain, AND IN DOING SO, by His Cross & Resurrection HE TRANSFORMED them, AND CONTINUES to do so, in EVERY MOMENT, if/ when we give our pasts TO Him-- ALL WITH LOVE!!! We CANNOT be forgiven OR redeemed IF WE DENY OUR TOTAL HUMANITY, painful past and all. And, again, we can't gave a past OR a present OR a future, UNLESS we ADMIT & ACCEPT OUR PERSONHOOD & CONTINUED EXISTENCE IN TIME. God made us individuals. God BECAME an individual for our sakes, out of pure Love!! God AND heaven, His very Kingdom, are ANCHORED IN LOVE & RELATIONSHIP & COMMUNITY & TOGETHERNESS-- on WHOLENESS, a unity of COOPERATION & HARMONY, NOT of faceless parts, or mindless pieces! The "hivemind" concept is SATANIC. In the devil's world of lies, "people" are stripped of individuality, seen as numbers or statistics or animals, cogs in a machine, pawns on a gameboard, disposable and of no difference. THAT'S ALL A LIE!!! GOD KNOWS OUR NAMES AND HE SPEAKS TO US AS A FRIEND, in all tender care & intimacy & LOVE!! We are HIS CREATIONS, HIS ART, HIS CHILDREN! WE MATTER TO GOD. I MATTER TO GOD!! HE CALLS ME BY MY NAME AND HE KNOWS ME. Me!! Not some hollow mask or empty shell-- He knows a PERSON, a person HE CREATED TO LOVE AND BE LOVED.
Honestly this is so clear & important to me today, and I cannot emphasize or elaborate on this enough. It's the key to my LIFE. It's the CORE of my ENTIRE recovery effort, or at least it MUST be, because recovery CANNOT HAPPEN if all the reading & obeying & writing & planning I'm doing is STILL neglecting the "I" that it's ALL MEANT TO HELP HEAL!!! Facts & figures MUST BE APPLIED to have any worth or effect. And honestly? IF I DON'T/ WON'T ACCEPT THE "I" OF RECOVERY, OUT OF FEAR OF BEING AN "I," THEN THE DISORDER WILL RETURN TO TAKE "MY" PLACE AS "SELF"!!!! THAT is why this disorder has been self-perpetuating for so long: it is fueled by REJECTION OF SELF! It IS the "INVADING/ VIOLATING" FORCE I FEARED, as it ONLY exists TO OVERRIDE "ME," BOTH OUTSIDE & INSIDE-- JUST LIKE THE SXTRAUMA IT EXPLODED FROM. Honestly it's so OBVIOUS and yet it has HIDDEN its ultimate motives for so long, ironically BECAUSE it was smothering "me"-- that way "I" COULDN'T REALIZE IT. It devoured all my time & money & attention, so I COULDN'T use them to "find myself again"-- couldn't write, couldn't paint, couldn't compose, couldn't dream. Just like SLC & CNC, I had enslaved myself to an outside "taskmaster" and lost ALL freedom of choice, in essence... a sick but surrendered alternative to facing the terror of my past, and somehow salvaging myself from it-- a past that ONLY WAS so terrible BECAUSE I had CONTINUALLY been crushing myself & "trying to become who OTHERS want/ tell me to be"... typically through objectification, shame, and loveless force. I let Julie ruin me because "I SHOULD want that" and "I SHOULD be like other people," although I WASN'T & COULDN'T BE!! GOD MADE ME DIFFERENT, but I never saw that as VALID; saying "NO" to outside shaping forces was met with punishment & rejection-- I "HAD" to be "NORMAL," even if "normal" was toxic. But you know what? I STILL FOUGHT. I treasured my "weirdness" during high school, cranking it up to extremes & socially isolating in order to distinguish & preserve MY self... but the older I got, and the more I was forced to interact with the world-- through jobs, college, and the internet-- the less of a grip I could maintain on that core, overwhelmed by the SURVIVAL NEED to perform. It had always been there, but in the end it virtually took over. That cemented the roots of the eating disorder, somehow, just as strongly as it created our Socials. AND YET I STILL FOUGHT! Look at the journals "I" used to keep-- look at the Scribblds, for heaven's sakes! It may have been desperate & shaky but I STILL HAD A GRIP ON WHO "I" WAS... and then came Mel. God knows why, but around 2009, when they entered my life's story, I fell to pieces. I cannot delve into that now-- I need to SET THAT ASIDE for now & focus on RECOVERY in the PRESENT; I cannot safely touch the past yet, not without restored nutritive mental health AND new solid coping skills, and NOT without re-reading the Archives (thank You GOD for never letting me delete them!!)-- but the main thing I need to remember from that is that, until 2009, I KNEW "ME" and GOD KNOWS, I STILL DO. Yeah, things DID fracture a LOT from 2004-2008, and there were a TON of Core shifts, BUT!! Deep down in my heart THE "CORE" of EVERY CORE STAYED THE SAME, and I KNEW it by instinct. I recognized me. I COULD distinguish "me" from a fragment or a splinter, no matter how broken "I" was even so. My heart stayed the same, and that COULD NOT change, OR be lost or forgotten or ruined, NO MATTER WHAT happened in our life. Deep down, I know who Jewel is. I know who I AM, when you get down to the blood of it... and so does God. He preserves and sustains and reminds me-- He holds my soul in His Heart and will never let it be lost. I must ALWAYS rest in that faithfulness, that eternal hope, when I do feel lost. But... it's not just God, Who knows me for sure, when I'm shattered & shaken. There are others, blessed beloved others, who KNOW ME, who have seen & felt my true heart SO strongly & clearly & sincerely, with SO MUCH LOVE, that they CANNOT forget it... they cannot forget me-- even when I do. They recognize me. They KNOW my name, AND my heart. God has put them in my life as extensions of His OWN gorgeous Love for me, as living manifestations of that devoted knowledge, yet HE PRESERVES THEIR SELVES, TOO!! They aren't "mere messengers"-- they are FREE INDIVIDUALS, who love me with their OWN hearts, which-- like mine-- have been ENABLED to love and BE in a relationship through grace, yet AS THEIR OWN UNIQUE SELVES. They know me BECAUSE of grace, the LOVE that CREATED me, the ULTIMATE knowledge of me, and I only know MYSELF by that same grace!! I am convinced of this. I need to remember this. If, and when, I EVER lose sight of myself, it's ONLY because I have LOST SIGHT OF THAT LOVE, both IN MY HEART and IN GOD'S HEART, FOR ME, ALWAYS & UNCONDITIONALLY.
...And that's what led me to even start writing this entry today. Yes, I've been lost & distanced from my past, disowning & rejecting my "self" in time AND in heart, for many months now. Yes, I've been feeling unlovable & incapable of love & AFRAID of love. In that state, I was DOOMED to the self-destruction of the eating disorder, AND inherently UNABLE TO remember-- OR even ACCEPT, let alone ADMIT-- the core of myself. Alone, I could never find it, not like that, with my closed heart...
...So. This morning, God sent someone to open it.
...I dreamed last night. The eating disorder destroyed my ability TO dream, and it's only returning now that I'm in recovery. (My boss will be so happy to see me again, too!!) I'm no longer having chronic "flat nightmares" and trauma flashbacks-- now, I'm dreaming of childhood, of color, of music, of adventure, of new places and new horizons; I'm singing, I'm flying, I'm able to use dream powers, I'm able to visit familiar dreamscapes... it's as if I've literally come back to life after death. Dreams are a KEY piece of my heart, an intrinsic & vital aspect of my entire existence. They are vivid, beautiful, complex, inspiring, deep, and REAL-- without a rich dreamlife, my waking life is hollow & half-dead. So this blissful return of such an ESSENTIAL and HUGE part of my life is nothing short of a miracle, and it is rekindling SO much hope & joy in my soul. That alone makes the fact of my dreaming at ALL into a source of deepest gratitude... but, this morning, I dreamed of someone. And suddenly, seeing them again, an even deeper, truer, more essential & blessed piece of my heart came back to life-- the core of my core, the key to ALL that I am, the defining aspect of ME, that burns as red as blood and white as light, indelibly, forever.
...I'm in love.
I'm in love.
God I FORGOT what this FEELS like, for SO LONG-- I even tried to DENY it!! I tried to insist it NEVER EVEN HAPPENED, tried to deny and disown EIGHTEEN SOLID YEARS of it, the SAME EIGHTEEN YEARS this damned eating disorder tried to claim as its own-- both it and the hellish abuse that triggered it. BUT I COULDN'T FORGET, not in my heart of hearts, not in the TRUTH of me, EVER. I was just blinded & numbed & disturbed & gutted & hollowed out for SO LONG that I couldn't remember. But he did. He KNEW me at the very beginning of it all, BEFORE I got lost, and he never lost me despite it all. Through every crisis, every disaster, every destruction I survived, he stayed true, unwavering, knowing me, seeing me always. My heart was so closely united to his that he couldn't forget what it felt like. And so, whenever I would, his mere existence testified to the truth, the bond between us that no brutalities could ever break. Tragically, if I was lost enough, taken over by despair and tangled up in disorder-- how ironic-- I would try to run from him. I'd even try to reject him-- to reject us. But I couldn't. My heart wouldn't tear itself so in half, even though I tried, pretending it wasn't a risk, too ashamed of my own sickness to be sincere. So I'd just hide, and push him away, and bury the light he inevitably began to reveal in me, even though I KNEW I didn't want to-- I, too, ultimately knew it was impossible. And I clung to hope. I held that spark anyway, unable to tear it out of my own hands and honestly unwilling to. But I digress. The point is... when, in the waking, I wouldn't let him get close for fear & shame... God would send him straight to my heart. God would send him to me in a dream. And... every time, EVERY SINGLE TIME, miraculously & gorgeously breaking through EVERY doubt and EVERY wall, the moment I see him there, no matter HOW lost or damaged or confused I am, EVEN in the dream... my heart knows him. And I... I fall in love. All over again. Every time. And my heart opens up like the sky and I remember who I AM, too... with him.
...When I wake up, everything is different. When I woke up this morning, seafoam in my blood, riverwater on my lips, I felt alive for the first time in forever. My heart was alive, aching with love, blissful in the dark of the morning, blessed rain against the window. I drifted like a boat on the sea of serenity, in and out of dreams, and every time I would meet him again, just as much in love. When the day finally called me from sleep and into the waking, I was almost drunk with gratitude and ardor. How in the world did I ever live without remembering this-- without feeling my heart singing like this from the pure truth of what I now knew once more? I know LOVE again, and simultaneously, I KNOW WHO I AM because of it-- within it, for it. I cannot exist without Love. Nothing can, but... God keeps reminding me just HOW essential it is, especially to me, who has ALWAYS been defined by the heart.
So... that's what happened today, to say the least. God sent me my blue angel, to bring my soul back home to heaven. And by that grace, that is where I will stay.

post-breakfast//

+ hard morning; lingering filthy feeling & depression/ despair? after last night. STILL sick. exhausted in every sense.
+ hot shower. thank You God. talking about loss of consolation (worldly) in little things; no more mouthwash = no mint "cleanness" = feel even filthier. Knowing God only removed it so I can seek UNWAVERING consolation IN HIM regardless of any circumstance: a greater & better end goal. but the process, if resisted (even unconsciously, through fear & weakness & sorrow), is disturbing: you grasp at an old, "effective" coping mechanism but it's gone. So now, DESPITE the lingering terror & distress, your ONLY viable option is to surrender & turn ENTIRELY to God. and I'll be honest with Him, I can be a petulant child about it and I am grieved over that reality. my mouth tastes like a breakfast muffin because Jesus said to eat IT last, not the eggs, and I don't understand WHY, especially since the muffin/ bread aftertaste is "DIRTY" and low-key a trauma trigger (apple cinnamon). so it's fueling the misery, adding weight to this cross. oh God, please, help me carry it, with You; alone I will be crushed quickly and die. help me.
+ no "formal" morning prayer; couldn't focus on recitation due to distress & grief. INSTEAD, strongly moved to read Saint Bridget; dual account (herself & Mary) of the Passion of Jesus Christ. Wept my eyes out. It BROKE MY ENTIRE HEART. Oh my sweet Jesus, what horrors You willingly & meekly suffered for my sins!! Oh my dearest Mother, what inconsolable anguish you bore so faithfully with Him!! I can feel it resonating painfully deep in my heart even now, an immeasurable grief endured and even embraced only through charity. Strangely, blessedly, it also gives me comfort, against all sense-- knowing Christ bears my minuscule crosses with me, and all of mine are but splinters of His. Communion.
★ A prayer card about that fell out of the book when I picked it up, like a calling card. "Splinters of the Cross." I cried. THERE, at last, is my consolation. Each little offering of every little pain is a blessed grace, a PARTICIPATION in that Work of Salvation, UNITED TO ITS PURPOSE AND POWER IN REALTIME. The Cross-- the crowning Work of Christ-- is eternally Real. Your negative thoughts AREN'T. There IS hope & healing, even IN AND THROUGH THE SUFFERING OF SIN.

post-breakfast meal data//

Fresh fruit cup (melons & pineapple), scrambled eggs, apple cinnamon muffin, soymilk, cinnamon tea, 2 creamer, 2 s&p, ketchup

FRUIT)
Real cut fruit! That's not scary. We LIKE honeydew actually ("moon melons"), and cantaloupe is neutral because of dear grandma. ♥ There is an underneath "fear" possibly from spoilage memories, but no "fear." Just not our central vibe. HOWEVER, the pineapple is STILL so strongly evocative of that ONE morning in SLC when we binged on pineapple with Q and I don't even know why; but we were SO SCARED & DISSOCIATED. In any case, SLC IS STILL SCARY and SO IS Q. Apparently those wounds AREN'T healed as we assumed.

EGGS)
With ketchup, salt & pepper, they DO remind us of grandpa, BUT ONLY SECONDHAND-- the primary association is "old local veterans" in general; the INSTANT memories are the LOCAL FIREHOUSE BREAKFAST and a smidge of the Thornhurst one, vague but known. The feeling is VERY COZY & SAFE; it's a solid "childhood security" vibe which is RARE. We feel QUITE young, like 7 or so. ALSO. EGGS ARE SO MUCH BETTER PLAIN. Keep them that way! The salt is getting nauseating; ONLY use one packet whenever possible. Same with pepper. Lastly, the TEXTURE is LOVELY. It's like custard! How do they do it! But it has NO data ties either way which is such a relief for our poor anxious brain; we can enjoy it purely & simply. Honestly, thank You God. The little things really are the nicest.

MUFFIN)
Neutral texture, triggering concept, SCARY flavor. Apparently, to our brain, that warm-brown "apple cinnamon" FUSION taste-- inherently so; it's NOT "apple + cinnamon", but its OWN unique thing-- elicits DREAD & shaking anxiety. (The Nutrigrain does it too! We've been wondering!) We cannot find the roots yet, nor can we identify the "apple" flavor (it doesn't match anything apparent in our apple-presentation data roll), BUT we wondered why the flavor = dread, and suddenly realized: APPLE-CINNAMON IS A SEASONAL FLAVOR, TIED TO TIME. When it historically would occur, it would do so ALONG WITH OTHER SEASONAL THINGS THAT WERE TERRIFYING, so over tie, the "appearance" of apple-cinnamon flavor became a WARNING SIREN, TO PREPARE FOR IMPENDING DANGERS THAT ONLY OCCURRED DURING THE SAME SEASONAL TIME PERIOD!!! This concept is ALSO why peppermint is SO safe: when IT appears, apple-cinnamon DISAPPEARS, and therefore the time of threat is OVER. They are like checkpoints or fences? Chronological markers. But apple-cinnamon therefore WARNS of UNAVOIDABLE, ATTACHED DANGER: of county fairs, hay rides, harvest festivals, corn mazes, haunted houses, jumpscares, scary movies, and Halloween. TONS of frightening things to us as a child occurred in the fall; plus THANKSGIVING & pilgrims & that loathsome orange/ yellow/ brown/ vermillion (NOT RED!!) color scheme everywhere that hurts our brain and has scared us SINCE CHILDHOOD, always inexplicably. We WANT to heal it but it's SO ANCIENT, with hidden roots. Nevertheless, we'll keep working on it as autumn (which starts today!! ♥) settles in around us in realtime, and our psyche reacts to the process & presentation. A NOTE: we actually love the "darker" autumn aesthetic that incorporates EVERGREEN & MISTY GRAY & BURGUNDY along with the neutral browns, glowing golds, & rich vermilions. It feels more like the woods, & season kissing season with the blessed promise of winter in the colder crisper silver air. But just straight-up orange/ yellow/ brown feels like hell & floods us with genuine DREAD.
★ Something we realized, with these "time-locked" triggers: SUMMER APPLES ARE SAFE. AUTUMN ONES ARE NOT??? The latter are too closely tied to FARMS and some unidentified terror from picking/ eating apples in the backyard? But yes; this ALSO relates to APPLE PREP/ FLAVORS-- summer apples are fresh, bright, clear, juicy, etc.-- autumn apples are warmed/ cooked and more mellow? And summer apples typically have NO spice. Summer leans GREEN, autumn leans BROWN.

post-lunch//

Ziti with sauce & parmesan, breaded chicken w/ provolone? apple & grape juice, 2 tea 2 creamer, 1 salt 2 pepper

ZITI)
it had the SOFTEST texture AND EVEN TASTED SAFE!!
VFW dinners. Surprisingly, TOTALLY SAFE! Ziti shape is oddly "harmless" & comforting? Possibly from church/ school associations from of old. That actually gives us GREAT HOPE: like the hose-company eggs, this foods reminds us of home & neighbors, that sense of small town community & fondness that our heart honestly craves and wants SO BADLY to be PART of again. Well, tasting AND eating that blessedly "common food" NOW feels like a glowing promise that we CAN be part of that communion now, when we go home to our hometown. ♥

JUICE)
Grape is foamy & surprisingly tart! It's in a weird place, both scary AND positive-- its "good" memories are vague & conceptual (Christmas "wine" as a kid, mainly), but legit? Yet it WAS a binge/ abuse food, too. Still, GRAPES = JESUS so there's GUARANTEED healing whenever we remember that!
Apple didn't register; we CAN'T LOOK AT IT or that INCREASES trauma terror, MORESO THAN THE TASTE!!! There is a LOT of memory-fear there. Pray to Jesus for help with that. Trust Him & remember, TRAUMA & ABUSE ARE ULTIMATELY INCAPABLE OF REAL CORRUPTION. The God-created core is pure.

SAUCE)
The "dried tomato" flavor is DIFFERENT enough from memory to muffle/ allay most trauma responses, BUT it's still a little anxiety-inducing; not as much as it used to be, though? I hope! Pray for that, please. Mom & Lou (and grandpa) really enjoy their tomatoes and honestly it breaks my heart that I've been to terrified to JOIN them in that yet. THAT'S what I hate the MOST about this eating disorder-- it puts WALLS up between me and ALL other people... AND between me & total devotion to GOD, which INCLUDES love of neighbor! So eat the tomatoes and GIVE THANKS for communion!!

CHICKEN)
The best one so far, shockingly, ESPECIALLY since SAUCE IS SAFE WITH CHICKEN PARM, NOT PASTA?? That's fascinating. No particular memory but associated solid longterm & fondly with our dear mom. The breading was so nice. We had a few odd bites BUT avoided actually eating it separately or mincing the chicken. Unfortunately we did mostly eat the sauce off, and "stacked" the cheese bits. Don't do stuff like that, it's silly! And of course, it's apparently disordered. Please, learn to lovingly eat things as a PROPER UNITED WHOLE, just as God presents them to you!!

CHEESE)
Parmesan is, thankfully, still safe to taste, due solely to heavy childhood meal resonance. USING it is scary as we fear a return migraine, but none have happened yet-- it might only occur with actual hard cheese. The slice on the chicken seemed to be provolone, which unfortunately IS still trauma-touched, from TBAS. That trauma is HARD to heal as the roots are so strong, and the fear equally so. TBAS trauma foods feel like eating poison. But, we put that thought bravely aside & reminded ourself, THEIR actions DO NOT define reality! They AREN'T the authority over our life! Lastly... grandpa liked chicken parm. HE liked provolone cheese, so we held to love of him instead and that got us TRULY through, safely. ♥

post-dinner//

grilled cheese! / rosemary potatoes / whole milk / 2 ketchup / 2 salt / 3 pepper / 2 creamers 2 teas

MILK)
( (we don't know who the heck keeps writing these but they are explicitly disturbing. hidden for safety.) )

POTATOES)
Home fries style! Those AREN'T SCARY; both their texture & taste are positively comforting, and with the ketchup we get SOLID MEMORY of the THORNHURST HOSE COMPANY! So the POTATOES have that one, moreso than the eggs! That's cool. But yes, we enjoyed them thoroughly. HOWEVER. Potatoes = OUR LADY OF LA SALETTE, who earnestly implored us to honor the Sabbath, although "taking a day of rest for God" seemed like "a small thing," not matching its momentous true significance. BUT it's the sign of the Covenant, a MANDATE from GOD HIMSELF if "nothing else"; a total conscious visible active sign & sacrament that SEPARATES us from the industry-idolatry of the world and making work a "god," turning us regularly & ever more strongly to the ONE TRUE GOD by prayer & worship & peace. He mandated it FOR US, for our spiritual health, bodily refreshment, and TOTAL JOY! So no, it is NOT small; it is VERY BIG! And it "costs" nothing but CHARITY. So honor it ever more sincerely & totally! Leave the world behind and focus on HEAVEN, our origin and goal and TRUE HOMELAND. If I don't... well. Hence the reminder of the potatoes. I MUST, for God.
★ LASTLY. When God gives you food direction, OBEY HIM, even if it seems "inconsequential" or odd-- that's the purpose of FAITH!! We didn't leave enough ketchup for the grilled cheese (we kept dipping potatoes in it) & took the garbage to shamefully get more. We're truly sorry. Disobedience only hurts!
★ DON'T TAKE ANY ITEMS OUT OF THE GARBAGE PILE TO "GET MORE OUT," like ketchup & creamer. That is SUPER gross and makes us feel like an animal. Respect yourself! Be dignified!

GRILLED CHEESE)
WONDERFUL AS ALWAYS. We can't deny, we do enjoy them so much, even with the odd orange cheese. No complaints! It was truly lovely. It would have been lovelier with ketchup, judging from the one bite we got, but we messed up today ↑ so we lost out. Yet it STILL worked out, by God's grace-- we were humbled & taught a very important correction of behavior, we were given a preview of what we can have next time when we DO obey, and we were given the key initial opportunity to just purely & simply enjoy & experience the sandwich as-is. Grilled cheese will always remind us of grandma. We cut ours into triangles, too, just for her. ♥ ...I've actually been dreaming about her every night since I'm here, and caring for her, loving her, remembering her. I know she's watching over me & praying for me & loving me, too. ♥ I'll continue to do my very best, for her, and for her daughter, my dear mother. All together, with God guiding us in His love, we'll get through this!!

★ A VITAL REALIZATION: WE STILL GET CLOCK-BASED TRAUMA!!!
When the sun goes down around 7PM-8PM, but people are awake & watching TV & talking & "preparing to DO things" instead of sleeping, WE FEEL TOTAL DREAD. THAT WAS THE DANGER-TIME CONTEXT IN CNC, EVERY SINGLE NIGHT!!! So YES we are going to get anxiety attacks & feelings of impending doom & despair & terror at night! It's a learned response to a VERY emphasized & consistent trigger! YES we are shaking & nauseous & scared & want to cry like a lost child BECAUSE NOW WE CAN EXPRESS THAT FEAR WE BURIED AND DENIED AS THE FORMATIVE TRAUMA EVENTS WERE OCCURRING. Honestly though, the fact that we CAN and ARE sharing a FEAR response is a DOOR TO HEALING, because it is NOT IN DENIAL!! It clearly indicates that there IS trauma, and we DIDN'T WANT IT TO HAPPEN. It reveals that there IS a wound, and points to it. So be aware of the chronic, unavoidable trigger, and prudently prepare to face it, with the grace & peace of Christ!!
★ A GREAT way to override that negative association is to instead consciously focus on a super positive one that ALSO has deep, repeated roots-- staying up late & "waiting" awake on HOLY SATURDAY & CHRISTMAS EVE! ♥ So anchor your heart in THOSE, and let God soothe your anxieties.

post-snack//

Cheddar Sun Chips / Bengal spice tea with 2 creamer

Remaining troubles to fix:
★ Ripping open the bag!!
+ Oversqueezing the tea bag
+ Licking our fingers
+ Shoving whole chip in mouth?
+ Obsessive crumb eating
+ ↑ using a SPOON to do so
+ "must ONLY eat crumbs first"

★ Cheese itself feels dirty; negative "spoiled milk" vibe?? Milk = dirty misbelief in any case; healing that straight, but cheese hasn't been affected OR directly tackled (yet!).
We feel like a RAT eating it-- not a little mouse, but a fat sewer rat!!
It's VERY difficult to "stay human" in our mental image as we eat it, because of that intense dirty feeling. The ONLY nousfoni who gets PULLED out is that long-haired messy teen, unwashed & manic, who eats with her fingers & GOBBLES things. SHE'S A BINGER!!! Which PROVES the "I'm out of control = I'm not worthy of humanity = I'm a filthy animal" thought train there, sadly. That poor girl with unwashed hair & pockmarked face (and SCHOOL CLOTHES??) is a vital snapshot of some VERY old & unfortunately powerful toxic core beliefs.

Perhaps try the cheddar chips once more? Not tomorrow; give it a mental break to refresh & try again clearly. But SOON. In the meantime, focus on:
(1) healing CHEESE
(2) investigating the "DIRTY" terror?
(3) DON'T RIP BAGS!!!
(4) FIND someone who CAN eat cheese?

★ THE "FILTHY" FEELING IS ONLY TIED TO ORANGE CHEESE???
White/yellow cheese can be humiliating, & their aftertaste triggers the "baby spit-up" fear, BUT THEY DON'T FEEL "DIRTY!" That's fascinating.
★ do OTHER orange foods do this? does COLOR affect our reactions TO "dirt" labelling of foods?? as opposed to just "WE'RE dirty for dropping/ spilling" in general?

pre-breakfast//

Going to try less structured notes to allow more datalogging despite brain fog/ overwhelm/ illness/ exhaustion:

★ Morning sunrise prayers. Stood at window & talked to God.
+ Out soul is inescapably, undeniably RED, no matter how much we may resist that out of shame/ guilt. God said Red is NOT EVIL, but it is LIFE, the first color of it (BLOOD) and the closest to earth ('adam), SO when Man (earth & blood; bios & zoe) fell, RED carried the brunt of it. BUT IT'S NOT "LOST" OR EVIL, just sick from sin.
★ JESUS'S COLOR IS RED, as He clothed Himself IN physical human life, WITH WHITE, His purifying Divinity!
+ We ARE Fire, "a gift from God,"created TO BLESS! Said fire is NOT "uncontrollable"; that is DISORDER. Fire only destroys in order to FUEL NEW LIFE. Fire gives light & heat & comfort; it purifies metal, melts the frozen, & prepares food. etc. Fire is GOOD, as are ALL God's creatures. But God emphasized "TAMING" fire, via torches & lamps & CANDLES: beeswax for charitable industry, and the wick as PRAYER!! The white wax is GOOD WORKS to channel our power into, and the wick is PRAYER to FOCUS our burning. Then of course the AIR that lets us burn at all is God's Holy Spirit. So BE A CANDLE; be a lamp set on a lampstand for the glory of God! DON'T QUENCH THE FIRE OF GOD'S SPIRIT IN YOU. Do not deny or hide or run from or be ashamed of what GOD created you to be. LIVE AS HE WILLS.
+ Bloodwork lady with BABY JESUS MEDAL! ♥ Talked about our devotion to Him, and our love of our children/ brothers. Discussed gift of Halloween: "put on masks in order to unmask our soul"-- what "costumes" we wear/ choose actually reveal "who/ what we WANT to be" deep within. LOTS of thought-provoking truth there. She also gave me a GEMSTONE SHARK STICKER that her son made! We will treasure it. (ALSO, sharks are a HUGE childhood connection, so admitting and OWNING that fact is helping us re-build that bridge between "now & before," reuniting our adult Self TO our childhood Self, and learning to both recognize & reintegrate our own heart. That process is ESSENTIAL & INDISPENSABLE to our healing AND our wholeness as a person/ human in general!!

post-breakfast//

French toast, green tea & vanilla soy, 2 creamers

FRENCH TOAST)
POSITIVE= grandma making it; childhood breakfasts; mom vacations (stuffed)
NEGATIVE= CNC & inane memes; trying to make it myself; binge-choking
★ We MUST begin our meals with CHOOSING CONSCIOUS HONEST GRATITUDE. We've become too habituated to control/ pleasure, sinfully, and so we kneejerk complain. "No butter? No syrup?" No! Because God said "Not with this meal!" HE KNOWS BEST so TRUST HIM and THANK HIM! We first needed to face it PLAIN and deal with its OWN unique experience, because butter & syrup ADD THEIR OWN!!
+ Jesus guided us in speed & manner the whole time. ♥ He warned us to be mindful of "the appearance of evil" in our eating behavior, avoiding even "neutral" choices that may nevertheless "trigger" or negatively inspire others, or that would embarrass/ inconvenience others if I was SHARING a meal: notably, cutting off the crusts into small pieces & eating them separately. Jesus DID understand AND advise that I still need to take smaller bites, BUT He had me practice taking them AS bites, NOT mincing up the french toast itself! That is normalized behavior and will not arouse suspicion or negatively impact observers. Set a good example, ALWAYS.
+ Texture was dry; next time, SAVE THE SOYMILK to iWITH it. That will also prevent "sugar-seeking" additions; we've been given enough!!
+ "Saving certain bites for last/ always eating certain parts first" is OBSESSIVE and MUST be relaxed. It is NOT REQUIRED to separate textures; in fact that's DISORDERED & DISUNITIVE! Let go of that "pleasure-seeking" habit, and instead treat EVERY bite as a gift from God, so each bite is EQUALLY met with mindful gratitude, instead of "reserving" that attention for the first & last only. We ate at HIS direction, and every bite was lovely in that obedient, thankful trust. Do so always. ♥

SOYMILK)
★ HEALING PROCESS: we did a little more, but couldn't do much "realtime" re-association (that can ONLY occur IN TANDEM with REALTIME sensory data to associate WITH) yet. Imagining Dad laughing with us, arm around our shoulder, happy & close. The more we saturate the chronosphere with hope & positivity "offline," outside of meals & actual direct re-entry, the more effective and ABLE we will be able to heal when we go "online," hopefully tomorrow. The groundwork MUST be built up before/ after, too!!
✖ (show mercy!) WE SPILLED SOME when we went to pour it, AND trying to use the straw. Please, AVOID THE STRAW if possible? It's too humiliating & triggering yet. God we need to heal THAT TOO, though, to prevent complaining & "special treatment." Please help prepare our hearts for such healing, to be able to drink from a carton & straw WHENEVER that is what we must do to obey, and/or to be humble. Until then, ONLY POUR INTO A (MOSTLY) EMPTY CUP; trying to pour tiny bits SPILLS. So now we know, and have been justly humbled BECAUSE we were "mixing" too much, tea & milk & creamer-- a VERY disordered, dissociated behavior! Again, thank God for the loving lesson & chastisement. Now we can act with more propriety, maturity, self-control & humble simplicity.

GREEN TEA + CREAMER)
POSITIVE = different Borders girl: no mania or anxiety, very peaceful, FAITH tangible! Foggy/ rainy peace vibe.
NEGATIVE= tied to Q time period w/ Genesis; old "Parnassus" bad vibes. Feeling of oncoming dread.
✖ We squeezed the bag too hard, trying too hard, & broke the bag. It was a humiliating warning to not be so obsessive over "every last drop."
★ CAFFEINE HIT HARD. Be careful, please, if/ when we drink this again-- don't steep so long! It's SUPPOSED to be mild!

post-lunch//

A veggie burger w/ cheese, whole milk, 2 tea & 2 creamer, 2 s&p, 2 ketchup, 1 relish.

Our biggest obstacles:
(1) COMPLAINING: "I don't like/ enjoy the veggie burger's taste."
(2) COMPULSIVE, IMPROPER CONDIMENT USE: "must get salt & pepper" but NO ONE puts those on a burger!!
(3) PRIMARY GOAL AS "EGOCENTRIC EXPERIENCE": focusing too much on finding/ processing memories & emotions VIA FOOD, seeing food as a TOOL or CONCEPT instead of as GOD'S NOURISHMENT.
(4) ANXIETY AS LACK OF FAITH: triggers disordered behaviors to return, causes dissociation, & blocks grace. Our body WILL get sick & our mood WILL drop, making the meal a "void" UNTIL WE RETURN TO PRAYER!!

+ Immediate guilt/ shame panic response after taking condiments.
(1) "I don't really like/ want these; I shouldn't have taken any"
(2) "I sinned by taking them so selfishly/ sensuously; I didn't ask Jesus first"
(3) "BUT they're on my tray so now I HAVE to eat them"
★(4) IMMEDIATE disordered "exit door" behavior: attempting to eat the condiments solo to get rid of them
ALSO, (5) "but I HAVE to eat them to find our what memories/ associations are attached to them!" OR, "grandpa liked ketchup/ relish SO since I love him I MUST also eat those foods" (AND/OR relive those memories)

BURGER)
Burnt taste? Mushroomy. Not a "fan" of the flavor, so we felt mentally "grumbly"??? WHY DOES THE TASTE MATTER TO YOU. BE GRATEFUL & STOP BEING SO ENTITLED. // In kinder words: not every food will match our personal taste. THAT IS OKAY! They DON'T HAVE TO. Not "liking" a flavor is NOT "rejecting God's Creation." BUT complaining about it IS!! I am SURE we can learn to be sincerely grateful for a food EVEN IF it's "not our favorite" so to speak. God knows best; our opinion is humbly unimportant.
★ PLEASE take advantage of plurality for this! Like the morning bagel guy, I am SURE we can "find" someone inside whose personal resonance DOES match the food, and so WILL like it, and therefore DIRECTLY & CONCRETELY replace the very grumbling with TRUE gratitude. This will ALSO greatly increase our capacity for human empathy, communion, & relatability. ALL human beings eat, and have unique experiences & opinions & tastes. That IS NOT MORALLY WONG! It's a part of the kaleidoscopic wonder of God's bounteous Creativity & human individuality! And the more we can connect with that as a starting point, the more completely we can connect with PEOPLE, in genuine compassion & understanding & loving community!
+ There, admittedly, WAS a "snapshot" of a potential somebody, in a woodsy farmhouse setting (like the homestead), sitting outside in a pasture beneath the trees & beside an old barn, a cow grazing beside them. They RESONATED with the pale-neutral burger flavor, touching subtly on pale green like Sergei's? But no personal appearance data, other than the slight resonance with old grass-kissed overalls & a warm straw sunhat & maybe garden gloves & old gardening boots (brown) like grandma's-- outfits tend to manifest sooner than hair & faces do-- it's FAR too early & lacking in anchorage for that to occur. But! There's sincere potential! The only issue is that it cannot strengthen WITHOUT the direct association function anchor data input. So! Remember them for next time!

KETCHUP & RELISH)
✖ We licked ONE ketchup packet and were SO ashamed; we were also sorely tempted to eat the relish packet but didn't. Still, we felt SUCH regret when we put them on the burger. It felt SO compulsory; we felt like we "ruined it" as well. Only Christ got us through that.
✖ The ketchup overload squeezed out onto our hand, a DEEPLY HUMILIATING chastisement. We felt SO dirty & piggish; self-respect dropped. It felt like a direct consequence of "compromising our moral values"; compulsion/ greed/ ego instead of temperate simplicity.
✖ Likewise, the relish not only LOOKS like vomit, we were so disgusted with ourselves for it AND nauseated by it that we were trying to scrape it off the burger with our teeth in shame, like hiding evidence of sin. MORE profoundly humiliating chastisement for our choice! Yet EVEN NOW I feel like I have to apologize to grandpa because pickles are HIS food-- but NOT pickles on burgers!! REMEMBER THAT so we don't force datamashes accidentally like this OR trigger compulsive deconstruction/ disordered condiment consumption anymore!!
★ SIMILARLY, ketchup is ONLY tied to Grandpa because of Farmer's Market fries & Hose Company Breakfast eggs, NOT as straight ketchup!! And we KNOW that data already. We're not obligated to re-live it every chance we get because we miss him. Those memories CAN be re-lived OUTSIDE of meals, too!! BUT the sensory data brings it "into the Now," making it TANGIBLE and REAL, helping to repair our whole historical Self by VALIDATING the experiences OF those memories AS OURS, NOW. So that IS important, we must admit. STILL. THERE ARE PROPER CIRCUMSTANCES. You CANNOT eat relish packets as a sign of mourning. When God gives you a LEGIT pickle, though? THAT is something Grandpa ate, AS he would eat it! THAT way the EXPERIENCE IS REALISTIC!!
★ THAT'S our key to healing this! Grandpa NEVER ate relish OR ketchup packets, OR put them on burgers! STACKING HIS ASSOCIATED FOODS CANNOT BRING US CLOSER TO HIM, because it is FORCED, DISORDERED, & ARTIFICIAL. Literally the ONLY way to truly visit his chronospheres is to do so IN LIKE MANNER WITH HIM. THAT'S part of the empathy, too, that we talked about with the burger-- it MUST come through COMMON SHARED EXPERIENCE, and NATURALLY so!!!
★ PARTICULAR food combos and preparations yield PARTICULAR memories/ associations, and due to the vividness of that data, they RARELY overlap!! SO DON'T FORCE ARTIFICIAL COMBOS, ESPECIALLY IF THEY ARE DISORDERED OR COMPULSIVE. Eat what you're given AS it is given, as PURE & SIMPLE AS POSSIBLE!

Some final important notes on our lunch lessons:

SALT & PEPPER)
✖ We should NOT have taken salt & pepper, BUT we acted in ignorance: at the time, we assumed that they were "UNIVERSAL CONDIMENTS" and therefore COULD be added to anything-- and in our habituated compulsiveness, we incorrectly & impulsively concluded that we therefore MUST add them to everything. B&W thinking, again. We were SO ashamed, putting them on the burger. We FELT how dis-ordered it was, and wanted to hide in humiliation.
★ Jesus SPECIFICALLY told us we DIDN'T HAVE TO EAT THEM, BUT He let us put them on the burger anyway-- yet ONLY half, at His direction-- so we could have DIRECT experience AS to why s&p don't go on burgers: "rational data" to oppose compulsions with. And oh boy, did that work! It was DISGUSTING, haha. So NOW WE KNOW. And DON'T feel guilty for that "judgment"!!! We LIKE salt and pepper both, BUT DISORDERED USE DISTORTS THEM, to the point where you "morally" SHOULDN'T "like" them IN THAT DISTORTED STATE because it is then, essentially, NOT "TRULY ITSELF." So yeah, when they're abused, they're gross, BECAUSE ABUSE/ DISORDER IS GROSS. Remember this!!!

TEA)
Pure & simple, no trouble; only association is mom/ Astra and surprisingly non-anxious "kitchen memory" vibes? Maybe explore that, actually-- try one w/o creamer & just see if that elicits anything. If not, that's fine; now we know.
+ Actually, TRY to stop drinking half of both & pouring one into the other; that is OBVIOUS disordered behavior too. Really, in general, STOP MIXING. God's Creation was all about HOLY SEPARATION, ALL such "distinction" being INHERENTLY GOOD & TRUE!!! Go re-read Genesis, & Haim Shore's commentary on it! This forced hypercombining we keep doing (for yet-unknown reasons!!), this mashing up data & destroying unique individuality & mangling proper harmonizations... honestly it's demonic. It's going from order to destruction. It is, I repeat, DISORDERED both physically & morally and it MUST STOP! So pray about it, please. God WILL help us, as long as we admit our great need, contritely confess our sins, admit our helplessness and run to Him like the clumsy yet trusting child we are.

WHOLE MILK)
( this paragraph is explicitly triggering. hidden for safety. )

post-dinner//

Apple, chicken tenders, butter, mashed potatoes // 2 tea, 2 creamer, 3 s&p, 1 ketchup, 1 relish

+ We DISLIKE ketchup & it's EMPTY DATA. Relish is NOT just pickle; also cabbage & pepper. So ditch it. Too much LOUD vinegar in both, too. (That infogain is WHY Jesus let us try it just once more. Now we can INFORMEDLY stop.)
+ Salt overload; allowed here only to teach that & help blood pressure. TEMPERANCE. Practice cutting down to 1. Overuse is DISORDERED too!
+ 2 creamers in one tea, other plain. Same data as always, both are neutral good, so no worries there. No combining this way, too!
+ Chicken tenders ARE tender! Easy to chew & tasty; they have immediate SHS lunch memories (positive). A happy food. We resisted the compulsion to eat the breading off! And we cut them into medium pieces, NO mincing or hyperchewing. Some breaded bits made us think of mom's chicken parmesan, & also echoed the breading on fish at restaurants; family fondness with each.
★ We imagined eating this, or a similar meal, WITH mom, thinking: "If I did this (behavior) while she was there (watching & associated with me), would she be ashamed or embarrassed? Would such a behavior reflect badly on her, or make people raise their eyebrows at me (as it was abnormal)?" And I'm telling you, now THAT is a supereffective "behavior compass" to follow!! It's anchored in LOVE & RESPECT, not ego! So DO THAT at EVERY meal!! ♥
+ Mashed potatoes looked "threatening" (WHY? just "potato allergy/ panic" symptom fear? "Carb terror"?) BUT they were straight-up KFC flavor. INSTANT childhood association, positively! But again, that odd anxious/ nervous ambience. (Fear of misbehaving/ discipline?) Imagined family smiling, saying grace together, GIVING me the potatoes ("we know you like them, so help yourself"), and telling little us, "We're glad you're here." Relief. ♥ (So far, the kids in these memories are SHOCKED to be treated with compassion & inclusion.)

post-snack//

quick snack notes: NO MORE FRUIT TEA ATTEMPTS. we want to puke. they ALL have bloody hibiscus which tastes SHARP and LOUD and it's so acidic it CURDLES THE CREAMER. so we're legitimately sick right now, and nauseous, and angry? we feel oddly disgusted with ourself. we forgot to taste it plain so NOW we feel FORCED to "try it again" because we have this panicked compulsion that we MUST know what it tastes like and we MUST LIKE IT or we are an ignorant, closed-hearted, selfish and pompous ass. WHY. We DON'T like fruit tea and we DON'T want to have to try everything but we feel FORCED & COMPELLED TO and we want to cry like a sick child. Our stomach hurts. We're miserable. Oh and EVEN WORSE, we got the Cheddar Sun Chips to "bravely tackle TWO fear foods" because oddly cheese FLAVOR is terrifying? And chips are DIRTY food, sticky & crumby & staining your fingers wrong and gross. We feel SO DIRTY when we eat chips. It's humiliating. It's such a horrible trauma trigger. So the chips made our outside scary, and the tea made our inside scary. WHY CAN'T WE FREELY SAY NO??? I DON'T WANT TO DRINK FRUIT TEA PLEASE. But this internal cruel voice replies, "Tough sh*t! You don't GET to decide. You do what you're told! And stop being such a rebellious brat!!!" WHY. Saying "no" to the tea that SOMEONE ELSE LIKES-- especially our dear grandma; didn't SHE like orange tea? We want to weep-- means REJECTING THEM. I feel so helpless.
What do we do. We DON'T LIKE FRUIT TEA and now we're gonna be SCARED too, remembering tonight and how SICK & NAUSEOUS our poor body feels!! God, dear Jesus our Savior, please make something good result from this. Help us stop complaining and carry this cross with You. Help us to FORGIVE ourself, too, and not be angry or hateful at the food either. Help us not to throw up please because we REALLY want to. But... not giving in to that terrified urge will help our recovery SO MUCH. We have learned to "run away" from this sort of suffering instead of enduring it for Christ. Wow. I guess THAT'S the Good that can come out of this. God I hope so. Please help us. I just noticed we got a TINY spot of cheese on our clean shirt and we want to die. We feel SO DIRTY. like our soul is gross & filthy. stupid ugly stinky disgusting cheese. I hate it. it's evil. God help and forgive me.
I need help. I can't forgive myself for being so PIGGISH and GROSS and STINKY and DIRTY!!!
I want to cry
i want to sleep
im so humiliated
so ashamed
im SO stupid
i try to act so smart & mature
im just an idiot

im sorry God

please

let me just sleep ok

i love You

im sorry im so dumb

im sorry my body and soul are
so dirty
wrong
disgusting

please

make me pure and clean again

im so sorry

good night i guess

↑ ✳LET YOURSELF FEEL YOUR EMOTIONS!!!! BURYING, DENYING, INVALIDATING, &/OR SUPPRESSING THEM CAUSES THIS-- AN IMPLOSION & EXPLOSION BOTH!!!

admission //

5½ years later, I'm back at UPMC. New floor, new crowd, same essential structure. However this time my mind is different-- damaged. My heart is, disturbingly, harder. I'm plagued by impatience, despair, frustration, & numbness. I refuse to associate with the other patients so far out of terror towards conversation and socializing. I keep 'kissing up' to nurses & therapists, trying to be the "model patient," but I'm a hypocrite and I will justly crash & burn for it. I don't want to be like this. It's a literal hell.
What happened to me? Why am I so wicked and evil? God, how can I change? How can I heal?
I'm reading the Book of Job and it hits far too close to home. The only key difference is that I'm choking on my guilt & shame; I deserve to suffer all these torments and more. My self-loathing is so intense, so crushingly heavy, I can barely breathe. God, what do I do? Will You help me please?
The other problem is, I realize I am convinced that God is so fed up with me, and all my desires & requests are SO corrupt, that God CAN only refuse me totally. The only morally upright response to me is "NO." It's miserable but it's just. And yet I sob, desperate, when all I want is to die to this life and become good, kind, holy, pure-- but I fear God just laughs, and says, "you don't deserve that." That's not God. My inherent, basic grasp of Who God Is-- despite all my Scripture study-- is, fatally and shockingly, corrupt. My earthly experience has discolored & stained my spiritual one. I find it impossible to even imagine that someone could, or even would, help me, have compassion on me, forgive me, or love me.
Ever since the Spectrum shattered my soul has been rotting. And yet I "refuse" to try and seek them out because "you don't need anyone but God" and "you aren't allowed/ supposed to love anyone but God!" and "you treasured your inner life with them too much; it became an idol; it has to go!" Except we all prayed together & served God together & our collective existence was founded on faith & hope & love. Except now that they're gone I have more time to pray & read the Bible and I never have to think about myself. What hypocrisy. I'm a whitewashed tomb. The more "pious" I try to be, the more I seem to cut myself off from the world. But I love people. Don't I? I want to serve & help people. Except I don't, because the insurmountable obstacle is "I". I avoid true service because I don't want people to see me or talk to me because then I have to exist & be aware of myself and honestly I hate myself so much, so much. How did this happen? I love practicing my religion because I never have to think about "me"... except when I pray, which drives me to tears, except in church, which demands my total participation-- except in heaven itself, you wretched moron, how can you ever be in a relationship with Christ if you won't let yourself be beloved? How can you ever be united with Christ if you won't let your own existence continue? You idiot, you absolute fool; reading the Bible for hours won't save you! Studying does not equal faith! Christianity is about LOVE, about BOTH loving others AND letting yourself BE loved by others. Except that latter bit is impossible. I don't deserve love. No one wants to love me. I'm too ugly, too filthy, too evil, too broken, too wrong. "But God loves me anyway." I want to believe that. Oh God please help me I want to believe that You can & do love me anyway. Is it true? Is it true?

Okay, subject switch so I don't murder myself. I already feel sick & dirty wearing this sweater; NOW they just asked me about food choices and I want to die. I have to drink milk & juice. The problem: both are trauma foods. I'm still convinced I'm allergic to soymilk & I picked whole milk, but that just makes me think of sex. Except babies & pure little children drink milk. Except I'm not pure or a child or lovable like them.

Well dammit maybe you SHOULD TRY TO BE because it's a WORTHWHILE THING TO BE!!
Kids drink juice. Kids drink milk. Cows & fruit!! God created 'em both, PURE & SIMPLE & GOOD. So drink 'em LIKE A TRUSTING PURE CHILD OF GOD. Stop being such a damn cynical grown-up you moron!! I'm sorry but you're really being a moron. Stop "growing up" because you're growing cold & hard. BE A CHILD or you'll NEVER enter the Kingdom of Heaven and that IS the LITERAL Gospel truth!!!

( (this foni's speech is triggering; click to read) )

what about the apple juice
and now PEANUT BUTTER TOO
why are you angry about peanut butter
I fEEL HELPLESS, TRAPPED, AFRAID BY IT. WHy
Chris
ALSO THE #F*CKING APPLE JUICE HE CORRUPTED IT ALL
well then, we just have to forgive him.
AND PURIFY IT WE NEED BOTH
That's absolutely true. Thank you, and I apologize for my blindness to your pain. We do need purification on our end, too. That's the ENTIRE Cross. That's the Blood AND the Water. We must show mercy & forgive, absolutely, but then we ALSO MUST expunge the horrible fingerprints of sin from our soul & memory. That's mercy, too, as well as justice. We need both.

So. Thoughts on "purifying" apples? Go back to childhood-- for us, literally, too! I know we balk & grimace at thoughts of our wild teenage years now, but can that be a starting point?
NO IT'S TOO CORRUPT & DANGEROUS, THERE'S NO GOD THERE
dude nevermind they had a shortage it's cranapple now
THAT'S MOM SHE'S SAFE
So how about the peanut butter?
I can't think of a single positive association for that.
GRANDMA
oh
oh you're right
And kid foods!! "Frogs on logs" & stuff from when we were little!!
yeah but Chris ate it
FORGIVE HIM
LISTEN I'M SICK OF THIS PAIN & FEAR I WANT TO FORGIVE HIM

(A note from upstairs: that "orange" voice is neutrally-oriented; be careful. his role seems to be a foil; the "clever comment" given from a bystander, to push a conversation. Do not expect to have moral or in-depth discussions with him; that's not his function.)

A prayer:
God, Christ Jesus, my guide & Protector & Friend, You know-- and have orchestrated as a gift & blessing!!-- EVERYTHING that is to happen to us today. You have ordained it ALL for the highest good of our soul. Please help us to trust in that completely, especially when we are frightened by not understanding, or not knowing what to expect in the future. In those situations of helplessness, may You be our help-- the only Help we will ever need!! You hold our life in Your knowing, loving Hands-- our past, our present, AND our future-- and You care about us, genuinely & sincerely so. You only want what is truly best for us, and can only do what is best for us, so You are completely trustworthy. Help us to throw ourselves without reserve into Your protecting Arms, and rest there next to Your Sacred Heart, Which loves us so much, unconditionally and eternally. May we never fear anything except separation from You. Draw us back swiftly but gently whenever we wander, and never let us go. Amen.
Jesus, we love you!!

post-breakfast//

A vital reminder: frame ALL your thoughts with gratitude! Look at every circumstance through the lens of joy & thanks, for "this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus"!! NO EXCEPTIONS!! Literally every single thing that happens to us comes from the Hand of God. NOTHING can happen apart from His Will & permission. So be grateful for ALL of it, ESPECIALLY for the things you are tempted to complain about or angry over or afraid of! I'm serious. TRUST HIM. You're studying Job for heaven's sakes! "Even if He slay me, all my hope is in Him!" God is ALL-sovereign AND ALL-GOOD, and He is faithful. Don't be disheartened and don't despair. Your Creator cares deeply for you.

↑-I've realized we have a lot of "peptalk" nousfoni who, although genuinely speaking truth with helpful intentions, are INCOMPREHENSIVE OF EXPERIENTIAL SUFFERING and can ONLY speak of crosses conceptually. Their functions are therefore INCOMPLETE BY DESIGN and their input must be considered only rightly ALONGSIDE their aching brethren, their spiritual complements & counterparts.
↑ON THAT NOTE. Breakfast arrived with an admitted protest against God's given reality: "Is that all we get?" Milk, juice, 2 butter pats, & an english muffin. Black tea requested. 400Ⓚ. Yes, that's it!! So BE GRATEFUL for it! That's the salvific reframing I was talking about-- there is ALWAYS a blessed perspective to take, by the grace of God. "That's all we get" BECAUSE right now, in God's perfect judgment, that's all we NEED. We're just starting treatment, so for everyone's safety, newbies start small. (It's teaching our bulimic ass to eat less.) Yes, that too, she's right! AND it is teaching us TO be genuinely grateful FOR less, so that we may be more readily & joyfully & genuinely able to freely & immediately & lovingly give thanks to God in & for ALL circumstances, no matter how difficult or trying or unexpected, therefore offering ever-more perfect praise to, and giving ever-more total glory to God. So! Beloved, we turned our heart in trust to Him and exclaimed, "Wow! Look at the blessings God has showered upon us! We get a warm, fresh breakfast! We get two whole butter pats! We get an ENTIRE english muffin!" We even got juice that reminded us so much of our dear mother, AND!!! Unexpectedly and Providencially, they nixed the peanut butter PERMANENTLY (so no flashbacks, guys!!), AND since we forgot our Lactase pills, they swapped the milk for soymilk. So, trauma risk averted (we weren't ready I guess & God knew!), and we were able to feel out some shockingly relevant high school sensory memories-- that poor bedraggled dark-green teen who would eat cornflakes & vanilla soymilk and was miserable. (God bless her, poor child.) But!! That's the POINT of this whole food-recovery-thing. Yes we have to heal this poor body & restore both proper weight & nourishment to it as God intended. But far more importantly, and absolutely heart-centrally, we are here to HELP PEOPLE HEAL. Including, inevitably and explicitly, that poor hurting girl with the vanilla soymilk. We cannot avoid her aching pain whenever we taste it. The two are linked: context & experience. So how do we heal that wound? We heal the wounded. We heal her. "But how?" you ask. "She's stuck in 2007, 2008. Her existence is anchored into that time-bubble, and inherently so. How do we heal the past?" Easy!! It never was healed, so her wounds are STILL open and affecting us all in the present! Healing happens NOW. Time is not linear, and besides, we're a Celebi; this whole time thing is in our very soul. She exists NOW, even with roots 14 years old, and we can walk right into that chronosphere of hers as if we were physically there now-- maybe paradoxically even morseo, as we are there with her in heart, with her very heart.
So. Gratitude, so much gratitude, for that especially, that opened door & hope planted & compassion enkindled. But it will take time to heal. Once we have truly reached her, we must SIT witih her and TALK with her and CARE for her because NO ONE DID BACK THEN and her hurt never healed so we MUST do it now. Oh-- and honestly? There WILL be, and must be, less "talking" with her and more FEELING WITH HER. Like united. Heart to heart. Your wounds are my wounds, just like Christ Jesus Himself did for us, not as consequence but as CHOICE; not as shame but as SALVATION; not as loss but as LOVE. God Himself knows we all still kiss the scars on our body not because they are scars but because we SHARE them. THAT is our hope. So this girl-- is this "Hoban"? Or is she a sister in soul?-- has her hope, too, in sharing her personal pain with us, so those hurts CAN finally scar. Step one? Pray we get cornflakes for breakfast, haha. Seriously though, while we're here, EVERY serving of soymilk is an opportunity now to reach in and reach out and BE with her. But it will be brief, at first, AND terribly painful. At that first safe & sacred contact, the weeping eyes and hurting heart can't help but overflow in the sheer shock of overwhelming hope. So we MUST prepare our heart for that, both for our sake & for hers. We need to be strong enough to bear her cross with her, and soft enough to bleed for her, with her. We must stay with her in her passion, our heart and arms both open to her. We cannot flinch or hide or run. When her world of agony hits-- all her memories and terrors-- we must be not only ready and willing to bear it, but also ABLE. Luke 14:27-33 comes to mind, with being bluntly honest about the cost of discipleship. ALL must be sacrificed for Christ, and to follow Him is to love Him, and to love Him is to serve Him, and to serve Him is to keep His Commandments, which simultaneously mandate love of God and neighbor. In short, love costs us, but it's worth it. Love WILL demand a price-- our willingness TO pour ourselves out for others, ESPECIALLY when it's difficult. Remember King David! "I will not offer a sacrifice that costs me nothing!" That destroys the whole concept of sacrifice-- the etymology of which is SACREDNESS. True holiness, real Christian living, MUST cost us our time & comfort & money & desires & possessions & very selves. We, with Christ, must nail EVERYTHING to His Cross out of love, absolutely, entirely. We must be aware of this, and we MUST be prepared for it, and with God's grace & much sincerely fervent prayer we MUST DO IT. Anything less is death, not life. Mark 8:34-38. The blessed paradox. THAT'S the royal road to true joy, and true healing, for ALL of us, promised.

↑Remember all that; it's vital! But if I may add a few closing notes about breakfast. We had English Breakfast tea, which ALSO reminded us of mom, with the bergamot she loves. We mixed some of the cranapple juice with it, and a spot of soymilk for creamer, and it was really lovely. Thank You God. Everything fit together perfectly, which our own choices would have failed to do. But see! Don't be afraid! God can change or transmute ANYTHING to fit His Will, IF HE NEEDS TO. If He leaves something as-is, that's His Will too! So don't be afraid. Your free choices of food, however clumsy or confused, CANNOT foil His plans. That is the GREATEST reassurance & relief, so rest in that. Lastly... oh man we enjoyed that english muffin. Just soft malted bread and butter, simple & pure, and it was lovely. Simple joys are the best, & prayerful gratitude makes them even better. Thank You, God!!♡

post-lunch//

We were humbled by our experience at this meal. Proud, we started too slow, and let our mind get distracted by silly trivia & vapid music, AND-- just like that-- we KEPT BEING JUDGMENTAL. How horrible and hypocritical, God forgive us. I'll be brutally honest and confess: we heard the other patients squeeing over Broadway and rattling off celebrity names and reciting pagan mythology, and-- so proud!-- we were so disgusted & disappointed. AND YET we KEPT trying to answer the SAME damn trivial questions, in hopes of "impressing" them and/or "fitting in." Being aware of all that sinful filth in us is dreadful. And it's such an automated response!! Jesus help me, I don't want to think or act like that. I know it's wrong and it utterly nauseates me to admit. But I WILL admit it and confess it to God, to Jesus my Savior and my Redeemer, Who alone can forgive those sins AND cleanse my soul from them. On that note my WORST sin is my judgmental attitude, those intrusive, proud, condemning, contemptuous, ugly, selfish, EVIL thoughts that I DO NOT WANT and am unbearably ashamed of and miserable over. The one male nurse, with the tattoo, my stupidass wicked brain keeps calling a "milquetoast" and a "wimp" because he is SO gentle and kind, he struggles to say ANYTHING that might be interpreted as offensive or confrontational, or even self-promoting. Like with the trivia, if someone guessed wrong, he WOULDN'T even say "no," let alone "that's incorrect," or the very word "wrong." He would say, "they have a different answer listed"!! Or he would say, "let's Google it," and read whatever IT said-- not the card, and not himself, rejecting all semblance of authority or judgment! Even talking to me about unit protocols & information, he is always stumbling over words & smiling sheepishly so that nothing he says has sharp edges. He tries SO HARD to be utterly nonthreatening and safe and faithful and trustworthy, someone that everyone feels safe to approach for help or advice, and yes dammit he is clumsy and a little awkward in the process but HIS HEART IS PURE. And honestly I admire and honor that in him SO MUCH. So WHY THE HELL is my disgusting demonic brain spitting its asinine judgments at him?? I would much rather be overly soft like him than a BITCH like me. And honestly? If you call someone like that nurse "coward" or "wimp" or "weak," YOU ARE A BLIND & STUPID IDIOT who has NO idea what true strength and courage is. To be THAT meticulously meek requires a power of heart greater than you can ever fathom!!! So SHUT YOUR FILTHY MOUTH and don't you DARE mock all the good people on this unit!!! Those girls who love Broadway? That shows their appreciation of the joy of music & the wonder of imaginative storytelling, at the intricate beauty of stage & choreography, of the celebration of human creativity-- THE GIFT & BLESSING OF GOD'S OWN CREATIVE SPIRIT!!! You laugh at them why?? Because they are CAPABLE of such resonant joy & gratitude? Are you envious that they still cherish and kindle that sense of beauty & wonder & community? Do you have such hatred for the imaginative powers of God's children? "But musicals are vapid & empty, without meaning, about stupid things! Just like movies! If they're not explicitly about God they are purposeless and a sinful waste of effort, time, resources, AND human souls!!" You hypocrite, don't you DARE pretend to be on God's side!!! You think He approves of your proud hatred? Of your desire to destroy? Listen. Yes, sometimes movies & musicals are silly. Most of them do not directly acknowledge God. BUT do you think God cannot USE such creations for His Glory-- especially since they ONLY exist THROUGH the creative talents & energy GOD gave them?? Do you think He couldn't have stopped or frustrated any & all people involved if He wanted to prevent their work? Did Babel not fall? Did David not play? Listen. Even in a "vapid" movie or musical, EVERY one, there is truth, BECAUSE there is HUMANITY, the precious creative work of God. Whether that truth be positive or negative, it cannot help but exist & be discerned, because humankind pours its very soul into its own creative works, a soul breathed into him by the Almighty One!! Do you forget, WE TOO have been touched? Do you so easily forget The Last Ship? Razia's Shadow? Take Flight? Phantom? What about the Studio Chizu marathon we did? Oh yes, I REMEMBER how pissed and judgmental YOU were, because "they're pagans!!" and "they're so immature and immoral!!" I hate to tell you, miss, but those "immoral, immature pagans" STILL showed INFINITELY more compassion & kindness & integrity & charity than YOU!!! That beautiful family, that strong and beloved grandmother, the self-sacrifice for one's fellow man, the hope and courage and love in Summer Wars! You scoff and spit at me, but you know I'm right. That young mother in Wolf Children-- yes! A young unwed pagan teratophile mother!!-- she has more pure love in a single hair than you do in your whole damn being!!! You saw her incredible tenacity and sacrificial selflessness, her unfailing hope & sweetness & gentleness, her superhuman courage, ALL for the sake of her family!! And are you going to tell me "movies are vapid!! Secular media is godless!!" AS IF GOD DOES NOT BREATHE LIFE INTO EVERY MAN? AS IF GOD DOES NOT CALL OUT INCESSANTLY TO EACH HEART HE LOVINGLY CREATED?? You're going to tell me a human can AVOID telling of God if he tells of life?? WHAT DO YOU THINK THE PURPOSE AND POINT OF LIFE IS?? Yes it's God, but YOUR definition of "God" is missing the mark entirely if He won't eat with pagans and prostitutes and tax collectors. You hypocrite. Shame on you. Oh yeah, and the kid who knew the pagan mythology offhand? Guess what that tells me? HE APPRECIATES DIVINITY. His mind is drawn to & fascinated by the concept, which is a VERY USEFUL DOOR for the One TRUE God to knock on!!! YOU CANNOT JUDGE. Pointing fingers, wagging your head, scoffing & spitting & mocking, make you a FALLEN angel, you ass. You are CHASING people AWAY from God with your condemnations. JESUS CHRIST CAME INTO THE WORLD TO SAVE SINNERS, to seek the lost, heal the sick, bind up the broken, give sight to the blind, instruct the ignorant, counsel the doubtful, and yes admonish sinners, but WITH LOVE FOR THEM!! And AS CHRIST DID, SO MUST WE. You are NOT a Christian if you don't, no matter how often and angrily you insist you "are doing God's will." Who is your "God," really?? Whose will are you REALLY forcing on the struggling and the lost? It's NOT GOD'S. He never forces, ESPECIALLY not with such pompous windbag cruelty as YOU.

post-dinner//

Back on the meal topic-- God is showing us, through our mistakes & poor judgments & shortcomings, two very important things: one, that we, too, are weak & imperfect & in need of loving correction & instruction in order to grow in health & holiness; and two, that the humbling process of that revelation & discipline not only teaches us to REJOICE in our weaknesses as proof that we are NOT GOD, but that He loves us & we need Him as a Father, and also brings us closer to Him in the process-- AND to all of weak clumsy suffering humanity, through our common struggle, by compassion birthed from that very sharing. In short: God chastises those He loves. That is an HONOR, beyond all comprehension. He disciplines us AS CHILDREN-- but! He can ONLY do so successfully if WE admit we messed up and NEED His correction! Only then can we become holy; only then can we truly be patient & forgiving & gentle & kind & merciful towards others in THEIR mistakes & imperfections, because by our humble openness to receive those very virtues from God, admitting our great need & childlike weakness, we become able to give those gifts to the rest of His children, our brethren. Am I making sense? I feel like I'm babbling, but that's all so important. NOT beating the shortening out of ourselves for every failure is a MUST for recovery, otherwise shame & self-loathing take over & destroy you, because hatred CANNOT cause a good result. It's of death. God is Love & Life & He ONLY hates sin-- NOT PEOPLE! So to imitate God as His children, we must be compassionate like Him, and to give it we must receive it and we can ONLY receive it if our hearts are gracefully open TO it... meaning, we MUST have compassion towards OURSELVES first, and the only way to learn THAT is by seeing & knowing & feeling the compassion Christ has for us, unconditionally.

^ BACK on the meal topic, so we can record this struggle/ goal & take concrete steps toward it: our timing is off. As I mentioned briefly earlier, we start too slowly, underestimating how much time it takes for us to eat one ingredient at a time with little bites, ESPECIALLY when now we are regularly dealing with WILDLY unpredictable textures! That's where we messed up today. We had green beans, turkey, & stuffing. We started with the beans & ate them one by one, enjoying them (they had spices added which was nice), then hit the turkey. Well! We forgot that meat is DRY and sticks to your teeth, taking longer to chew, ESPECIALLY since we have to CUT IT UP into smaller pieces first to avoid choking-- small bites are a must, or we WILL have a problem, with too much of that cloying texture. So that threw us for a loop. We panicked when we only had like 10 minutes left for the stuffing, but we figured we'd be fine as it looked soft. WELL. WE ARE NOT FAMILIAR WITH STUFFING!! It was soft inside, but hard outside, and SO DENSE & STICKY. We tried to cut it up like the turkey, but it began to wetly crumble and we had no time for bits. We ended up forced to take big bites with gulps of tea to get it down, which not only meant we couldn't taste or comprehend it, but the large heavy bites were borderline traumatic, honestly. We made it right on time and felt pretty awful & ashamed, but. We learned. God was telling us, "stop judging," "focus on Me & My help," and "let Me reveal to you some important information you need in order to eat better & more properly." We never expected the texture obstacle! But now we know, so thank You God. We can apportion our time better, and eat more safely too. Every meal we must pray for deeper guidance; trust that He will give it, then readily obey!

^ Dinner was a new chance, and a good one. We had mixed vegetables & a chicken/ broccoli/ rice mini casserole stew thingamabob that was SO nice. Unfortunately, again, we had to rush it, because 1) chicken is MUCH drier & stickier than turkey, and 2) corn (!) takes a VERY LONG TIME to chew!! We did move faster on the other vegetables, because not only did we know their textures already (soft & starchy & good), we ALSO wisely recognized that chewing one pea at a time would be ludicrously imprudent as far as timing was concerned. But yes!! We ate peas, for the first time since grandma (♥) passed on... and they played "her" song on the computer, the one I keep hearing since her funeral. It felt like a kiss of encouragement. Thank you, grandma!! I know you're watching over me & praying for me up there. I still want to get better for you, too. I want you to be "proud of me," in a sense-- but really? I want God to be glorified THROUGH His healing me & my cooperation with His grace, in humble obedient submissive faith, and I want you to rejoice in THAT, grandma. Soli Deo Gloria. God willing, when I-- by His Mercy & Christ's Blood alone-- get to heaven & see you again at last, I want it to be with JOY, for that victory of Christ's Power in my life over all sin & addiction. So thank you for your blessing over the peas & lima beans, honestly. I've been avoiding them-- even cursing them-- since you died, and I can't heal like that. But today? I ate them all with genuine gratitude & joy, and I didn't even think about self-hatred. I know your prayers were a big part of that. Thank you, grandma. I love you so much, forever. I promise, I will continue to let God heal me, inside and out.

^ Snack was full of tension & distractions! BUT! I refused to let those intrusive judgments take root!! Yes the chaperone was upset but it's late and she's tired & overwhelmed & wants to go home. Pray for her to have peace & consolation & comfort & hope & happiness! Focus on her good qualities & look at her through eyes of love! BE COMPASSIONATE!! Let that absolutely DEFINE your heart. I did have trouble with my own nerves, though. They were doing history trivia but the questions were very complex & the one kid answering was having trouble & the nurse was exasperated or just sounded like it, God bless them both I care for them truly, but my nerves went into danger mode. "I'm in trouble/ I did something wrong and there is impending punishment/ imminent scary consequences." Subconscious misinterpretation of stimuli as triggers, really. So it was hard to truly calm down & focus, but I tried. Tonight I actually had assigned snack choices, which was a blessed exercise in submission, meekness, trust, & gratitude in all circumstances. I got a strawberry Nutrigrain & a surprise lemon meringue greek yogurt! Plus red zinger tea (for mom, who got a spider bite WHILE I was on the phone with her; I love her so much). The nutrigrains still burn my throat & I couldn't really register the strawberry taste, but it was nice & soft. HOWEVER. Apparently they are now TRAUMA FOOD due to both CNC & grandpa's closet; maybe even poverty food drives. So more unexpected healing to do! I'm oddly excited. Really though, can you imagine, finally HEALING from that? Finally removing those fears, through God's gracious compassion given to us? What joy!! What a blessed adventure we have ahead of us, to take with Jesus at every step!! Because that is KEY-- HE is the sole guarantor of success; without Christ, we cannot hope to recover. With Him, all Good things are possible. Like actually enjoying the yogurt with no fear! At home it was a panic binge food, a form of self-abuse. But God gave us some today-- lemon flavor, no less! (a trigger potential we must watch)-- and we were actively thanking Him for it, for the wonder of its existence, for the gift of eating it, and it was totally safe & good. All thanks & praise be to God!! ♥ Now we are legit EXHAUSTED and need to say our night prayers so we can SLEEP. Treatment starts for real tomorrow! God be with us every moment!!

I DESERVE to be brutally murdered for my sins. BUT!! Although that would satisfy justice in "making me pay the price for my sins", it would NOT RESTITUTE ANYTHING. I can't restore what I stole, I can't correct my lies and my slander, I can't regain my purity. It's all broken and gone, EVEN if I die as penalty. Plus, in my death there would be profound HATRED & RAGE for what I did and who i became as a result. It would heal nothing, help no one. All it has done is remove me from existence so I don't hurt anyone anymore.

BUT JESUS TOOK MY PLACE. He died FOR ME, so that IN HIM, my sinful self CAN DIE, but I can BE BORN INTO A NEW LIFE. It's like a new identity, but literal. HOWEVER. NO ONE BUT CHRIST HAS RISEN FROM THE DEAD. No one else CAN. So NEITHER CAN WE UNLESS OUR NEW LIFE IS IN HIM, LITERALLY.

Jesus is INFINITE INNOCENCE who suffered INFINITE SUFFERING by OUR UNITING OUR SUFFERINGS WITH HIS ON THE CROSS. By suffering this much, with NO deservance whatsoever on His part of it, He CAN justly atone for INFINITE SIN-- but thank God, sin is FINITE. Only God is endless, and THANKS BE TO GOD FOR THAT!!!

Christ's sacrifice on the Cross is the DEEPEST COMFORT because it is the UNSHAKABLE HOPE that we all actually desperately grasp for in our darkest suicidal moments: the hope that this hellhole of a fallen life Can and Will end... but, truly, that we can LIVE beyond it. No suicidal man truly wants to kill himself; he only wants to DIE. And he only wants to die because he sees no possibility of LIVING in either his current circumstances, OR his foreseeable future. THE ONLY HOPE ANY OF US HAS OF REBIRTH AND RESTORATION IN THIS LIFE IS THE HOPE OF CHRIST'S CROSS!!! And, blessedly, that sacred death and resurrection in our lives is not only ETERNAL, but also INFINITE, and if we need to die and rise with Him fifty times today, WE CAN. With contrite faith and repentance, surrender and humility, if we unite our lives and efforts and sufferings with His Passion, then no matter HOW difficult things get, we have, in Jesus, the holy joyful ASSURANCE of sharing in His Easter Sunday after our own crucifixion with Him. WE CAN'T HAVE ANY OF IT ALONE!!!

No matter how scared I am of the world, the Cross is my refuge, my reassurance that the world is finite, and my true life is in God, IN HIS KINGDOM, NOT THIS WORLD.

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Jesus had NO PAST, as it were; His life is ETERNALLY PRESENT

Eucharist, Cross, Abel, Passover, Isaac = LAMB OF GOD

Assumption vs Ascension!! HUGE PARALLELS

DID THE ISRAELITE DRINK OFFERINGS OF WINE HELP TO SANITIZE THE ALTAR???? God is resourceful like that!

God chose people to be the race that they're in and he loves all the different races. And cherishes each one. He loves the cultures that are produced by different communities. And he cherishes the search for truth that shows up in the differences of religion. And we have to be a people who do everything possible so that what is right it's done for all citizens.

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The death of Christ is comforting because THROUGH it, we too can DIE TO THE WORLD. It is a paradoxical testament to eternity.

Discerning "am I suffering for sin or for faith" = is your suffering something that JESUS WOULD HAVE SUFFERED? And ONLY JESUS??? If it's a suffering of pagans, but NOT of Christ, then it's NOT HOLY SUFFERING.

"What virtue fruits am I bearing today?"

Remember CHRIST IS THE WATER, FOOD, & LIGHT

⭐THE PURPOSE OF FRUIT IS TO BE PICKED AND EATEN BY OTHERS!!! Does your fruit nourish them or hurt them? Is it sweet to taste but upsets the stomach? THINK UPON THIS.

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James 1:6 synchronicity

Bible is ALWAYS APPLICABLE AND RELEVANT

Justice REQUIRES Mercy and Mercy REQUIRES Justice!

You won't GET mercy if you don't GIVE mercy.

"But I don't want people to overlook my sins!" True, but MERCY DOESNT DO THAT. It is HONEST from love of justice BUT it is also COMPASSIONATE in administering it!! ⭐requires HUMILITY!! "There but for the grace of God go I" + HELP THEM LIKE CHRIST WOULD IN GRACE THROUGH YOU!!

Gigi and the vase; CHRIST ON THE CROSS

Buddha vs Christ response to suffering = SYMPATHY VS EMPATHY somehow? A cleverly veiled false teaching; keyword WITH

Dismas was the LAST DISCIPLE converted through PURE FAITH -- before any Resurrection proof of divinity-- AND the FIRST of billions converted through the CROSS.

Saint Longinus is ALSO important; FIRST POSTHUMOUS DISCIPLE

⭐BOTH CONFESSED HIS LORDSHIP!!!

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With mom: "In a house full of constant chatter, You learn to not think before you speak or even to speak with integrity and honesty. Instead I or only priority becomes, How can I keep this noise going, How can I add to the narrative that has been created here?"

My family's total disregard of privacy is a direct result of their LACK OF INTIMACY. This sneaking and snooping and stealing was the ONLY WAY to feel close to people.

Loving God isn't about hating everything else!! Choosing Him over Created things DOESN'T MEAN labeling those things as BAD, just because God is Good!! He is just the ULTIMATE GOOD-- but HIS CREATION IS ALSO GOOD!!

Loving Him is about LOVING ALL THINGS FOR HIS SAKE, BUT LOVING GOD EVEN MORE. Then it becomes real, sincere, free, honest virtue.

We can ONLY DO THIS IF WE ACTIVELY SEE GOD IN ALL THINGS, but paradoxically, we can only do THAT if we ALREADY LOVE GOD-- just like a lover sees his beloveds face in the moon Without hating the moon! He loves WHAT HE SEES OF HIS BELOVED IN THE MOON. But he loves her more, rightly. He doesn't start to love the moon instead, just because it shares some reflection of her attributes!

⭐This principle can easily be misquoted and abused though. I need to write about it in depth. My heart feels it powerfully.

The more we love God, the more able we are TO love everything else. Again, though, THAT love is ultimately directed towards God too, WITHOUT FORSAKING HIS CREATED THING THAT WE ALSO LOVE.

God KNOWS we love Him-- that's WHY He gives us tests and trials of that love: to deepen, refine, and strengthen it! REMEMBER SAINT PETER!!

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SEEK CHILDHOOD COMFORT IN FAITH, NOT FOOD!!!

Wanting to drink the ocean, eat the forest, etc.= That's WHAT THE EUCHARIST IS ABOUT!!!

Different forms exist to SPECIFICALLY MANIFEST DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF GOD?? Like this is on PURPOSE. "Different bottles for different drinks"

SELF DENIAL FOR CHRIST BECAUSE WHEN YOU ARE REBORN IN HIM, YOUR OLD SELF IS DEAD! AND MUST BE LEFT BEHIND! YOUR NEW LIFE MUST BE IN CHRIST OR YOU CANNOT BE REBORN AT ALL FOR ONLY HE HAS RESURRECTED.

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God must be BORN in our hearts IN A MANGER because He can ONLY be born in humility and poverty of spirit! He CANNOT be born in a proud castle mansion of a heart.

BUT!! Once He is born in humility, He LIVES in humility, INCLUDING THE CROSS, and THEN HIS RESURRECTED GLORY DEMANDS EARTHLY HONOR TOO-- BUT HE MAKES NO HOME THERE NOW!!! So He STILL cannot dwell in a proud heart, in a mansion, because He is now DEAD TO THE WORLD and still desires only a "humble, contrite heart"

Isaiah 53:2 Christ is UNDESIRABLE BY THE WORLD. This will cause inner war in a person who DOES DESIRE CHRIST BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. We see in Him all we ever need and want, BUT THIS IS A HEART SIGHT. In worldly sight, He appears utterly banal. Compare this especially to the extravagance of Hindu gods. We Christians DO create beautiful tributes of art depicting Christ, BUT THIS IS ALL CREATED BY BELIEVERS, who see in Him a beauty that ONLY loving eyes can see. BUT! This was even MORE pronounced during His Incarnation!!!

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The cross we carry must Always remind us that 1. IT IS A PENAL PUNISHMENT FOR SIN, 2. WE ARE GONNA DIE ON IT, 3. JESUS IS OUR ONLY HOPE, AND 4. THROUGH SHARING HIS DEATH-- AND HIS DEATH ALONE-- WE HAVE THE JOYOUS HOPE OF RESURRECTION.

Mary COMPLETELY REPLACED LUCIFER as the TRUE "LIGHT-BEARER"

If we are reborn IN CHRIST, then yes, Mary VERY LITERALLY becomes OUR MOTHER!!

A thought: the angels rejoice EVERY TIME A SINNER REPENTS AND RETURNS because, in their experience, someone who falls NEVER COMES BACK.

My desire to "go back to UPMC/HAVEN" is ACTUALLY A MISROUTING of my deeper desire to "eat what is set before you" [Luke 10:8] and therefore spend ALL MY MENTAL AND PHYSICAL STRENGTH AND TIME IN SERVING GOD!!! Right now my fear of "getting sick by eating the wrong thing" is MAKING ME BINGE/PURGE because, in doing that, I DON'T HAVE TO WORRY BECAUSE NOTHING IS STAYING IN ANYWAY. That's the REAL BOTTOM LINE. Whereas in the hospitals, I DIDN'T CARE IF I GOT SICK BECAUSE I TRUSTED THE PEOPLE WHO WERE FEEDING ME. And so every ounce of my mental energy went towards BIBLE STUDY. And THAT is what I both desperately miss, AND try to imitate even now through my phone.

Interestingly, if I ever DO stop doing Bible work while I eat, its ONLY BECAUSE IVE GONE INTO BINGE MODE AND HAVE TEMPORARILY LOST CONNECTION. This is why it's IMPERATIVE to keep my mind fixed on God!!

⭐The REASON WHY I unconditionally trusted the hospital people and ate EVERYTHING without fear or complaint, is because by being GIVEN the food, I TRUSTED THAT GOD GAVE IT TO ME. THAT CIRCUMSTANCE WAS ULTIMATELY AND TOTALLY ORDAINED BY HIS GOOD WILL. Therefore, even if I DID get sick, i didn't complain, and just SURRENDERED IT TO GOD.

And this is ALSO why, if I MYSELF chose the Exact Same Meal FOR MYSELF, I would instead be TERRIFIED, BECAUSE NOW MY CORRUPT WILL HAS TAINTED IT.

⭐JOYOUSLY, THE SOLUTION TO HAVING BOTH PLANNED MEALS AND GOD IS JOINING A CONVENT

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"Sorry God, for hurting you, by not fully washing this pot."

"You didn't hurt me with that."

"Yeah, but what if it was because of carelessness?"

"Then THAT is what hurt me."

When I was 'bashing' perfumery in a misguided attempt to stop being fascinated by the science:

"Yes, I created all scents, but I also created perfumery. I also gave those men and women their olfactory gifts, for My pleasure and glory. And so, as with all talents, The sin is when it is used to worship Man instead of Me."

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Christ as the BRIDEGROOM OF THE SOUL vs polyamory false attempt at loving everyone in BODY.

True love is SPIRITUAL and as Christians we CAN & DO LOVE EVERYONE ALREADY in a way that is essentially more intimate than any fleeting carnality. Heaven is a COMMUNION WITH GOD, but as the Body of Christ!! We are ALL UNITED IN THAT EVEN NOW.

So rest joyfully in that truth. Even if you cannot even physically hug someone you love here, in heaven, your hearts will be together with God for all eternity, and that is INFINITELY BETTER than anything here, however sweet our earthly friendships truly are. Heaven is far sweeter.

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• Crown of thorns reflections: crowned by enemies, raw vs refined, etc.
• modesty only makes sense in the sense that OUR BODY IS NOT OUR OWN it belongs to God and honoring it honors Him. I don't want people to direspectfully view this body which He made and which is made TO honor Him. The "my body my choice" heresy disregards modesty for this reason
• Women being out of their proper homemaking place, doing mens jobs and such, inevitably feeds vicious moral confusion? vice begets vice.
• PRIEST MARRIAGE TO CHURCH, chaste union, love of Christ, MARY IS THE BRIDE OF THE SPIRIT ALONE. the "feminine" unity for a consecrated man is to be poured into CHRIST'S BRIDE which is the church on earth. love her with all his heart AS CHRIST DOES. also chastity for this effect! devil attacks this a lot with the sodomy. wonering why it gets funneled into masculine attraction? do the men not realize the feminine completion is in the church?

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I KEEP BEING "CONTRARY" WHEN WATCHING TV AND THIS IS DEEPLY SINFUL. Pride, judgment condemnation.

LOVE HOPES ALL THINGS.

My talking so much, ESP "authoritarively", is GROSSLY UNBECOMING FOR A WOMAN. I should be meek, submissive, gentle, patient, hopeful, compassionate!!

Plus I am actually STILL unconsciously so focused on "saving face" etc. Fearing my morality is BASED ON HOW OTHERS SEE ME. But ultimately this BREEDS VICE, which will lie, manipulate, etc. To LOOK GOOD without BEING GOOD. BUT!!! TRUE VIRTUE WILL BE OPPOSED BY THE DEVIL. And this is a VITAL LITMUS TEST.

Virtue is only virtue IN EXTREMIS!!!

Difference between spiritual hunger & thirst?

COMMON PRIESTHOOD (vs ministerial) & PROPHETIC GIFT!!!! Totally underrecognized in the church. But we MUST LIVE THIS WAY AS CATHOLICS.

King= reign OVER OURSELVES.

MEDITATE ON THIS TRIPLE ROLE!!!

"Without God we cannot survive" = many meanings.

God is our Provider

Eternal life is ONLY POSSIBLE with God

Forsaking God plunges us into sin, which IS DEATH

But ultimately? Without God, I DON'T WANT TO SURVIVE. And THAT is a huge humility root, holy morbidity. I WOULD RATHER DIE THAN FORSAKE GOD, and if I ever DID forsake Him, I WOULD die-- that's the core of hell!!! Spiritual death!

So REMEMBER THIS as a check on all your actions.

The Holy Spirit will "tell you what to speak" ONLY in the capacity that your heart IS PREPARED FOR HIM. The more we pray and study, the more grace we CAN hold, and the more accustomed our hearts will be TO recieving it. Elaborate on this; give analogies

Lilith myth: would not humble self to be wife or mother therefore her children are DEMONS

👆Where do you get YOUR spiritual milk? From Our Mother Mary, or from a COW???

Falling into sin & losing connection with God-- He lets us "REIGN IN HELL" if we refuse, or neglect, to SERVE IN HEAVEN. Essentially this is the bottom line of all sin.

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I'm tired of trying to figure things out on my own, without proper direction. I'm tired of the pride that goes with "self sufficiency" and clumsy assumption of authority. I miss Learning, I miss being a humble and obedient student.

I want a Teacher. I'm tired of trying to live by myself.

"Where did you go to medical school, O Aspiring Doctor of your Church?" How can you heal when you have not been properly taught the means of treating a disease or injury? Do you think you can guess and fumble your way through such critical care? No. You will fail, and you WILL hurt others worse by not understanding proper medical procedures. Christ is THE Physician. He is THE Doctor of Souls. Have you truly studied Him? Do you follow His protocol and His warnings? You are just a student; you have NO knowledge or authority on your own. Everything you have is GIVEN to you BY Christ, FROM Him, FOR Him. When you act as a doctor it is AS HIS STUDENT. To act otherwise, as if YOU were the one "figuring out how to heal people," is not only offensively proud, but FATALLY STUPID.

Pointing out evil to people who are blind to it, innocently-- am I committing Eve's sin of sharing wicked knowledge??

Where is the proper distinction between warning and corrupting??? (IN THE INNOCENCE)

Jesus singing "Hosea" to me breaks my heart

I need to type.

I have been so miserable lately. It's stupid.
I know I need to trust in God with this but the problem is, all my problems are MY FAULT. It's all self-abusive idiocy and I know God doesn't want me treating myself this way and why do I always become this 'personality' when I type

There are parts of my consciousness that are locked into negative or otherwise harmful thought patterns, and she is one of them. She's the one that wrote most of the old Livejournal stuff, back in the late 2000s or so, and possibly later (I don't remember). She has that upsetting "proud" edge that hurts to even think about.

What needs to be said:
Lately, we have been miserable and exhausted.
We're tired. We're struggling with food but only because we keep doubting when God tells us "don't buy coconut," "don't buy oats," etc. because we keep falsely and foolishly thinking "but I'm supposed to eat it" for unknown reasons. As of late we have realized that those thought processes are obligatory and we do NOT agree with them; they simply feel "forced" and the parts of our mind like Jessica/Cecelia, Jezebel, etc. just give in and become enslaved.
The real issue is that we're just… scared? Tired, to the point of uncontrollable weeping whenever we get a free minute.
Food is war. Every time we have to eat, it's war. It shouldn't be. We're just so frightened of food, and of eating in general, that the very thought of it makes us start to cry and shake, BUT when we do eat, the abusive-proud-blasphemous girls take over and start to swallow everything in sight. That's probably why we're terrified; we still haven't figured out how to stay conscious when eating, enough to let Emmett out again, enough to actually treat food as a caretaking function and not as an abuse method.

We're so tired, though, all the time. No amount of sleep is enough. We have no free time lately. Most of that is because of the eating disorder, but the other half is that we still ironically feel that "we're not suffering enough" so we push until we break. I use "we" very loosely here, as "we" haven't been conscious in weeks either. It's all the anxious teenage girls who are both hyperreligious and convinced that God hates them and they will never be good.

We had like 60 tabs open to religious articles open in Chrome again, and then we wonder why we're mentally exhausted and start running from our faith. It feels suffocating, all logic and noise, and really all we want to do is turn everything off and PRAY in a way that doesn't feel like hell, but again we feel obligated to spend 4+ hours every night shoving reams of text into our already addled brains. Yes, it's good to have this information, but where's the quiet time to FEEL God's presence?
We're terrified of saying no to the reading. We're terrified that if we don't spend every free second reading the Bible or stockpiling saint quotes or struggling through a Rosary that we can "never say well enough," tormented by voices the whole time, that we're unforgivably evil-- a blasphemer, someone who rejects God, a soul damned to hell.

We live in constant shaking fear and maybe that's where the crying comes from too.
"Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness," Jesus said, and I still think that's at the heart of our eating disorder. We're starved for God, we have been since 2012, we're STILL mentally-temporally stuck in that summer, and we still feel like we're starving to death from a lack of God, even with mass every day and hours of religious reading and prayers every moment of the day we can manage. Even with near-constant communication with voices that claim to be God and Mary and the saints, even when we carry a rosary and crucifix and Miraculous Medal and small Bible everywhere, even then, even now, we're starving, and we're exhausted, and I just want to collapse on the floor and weep for hours and clear my head and just rest, but I can't. That's blasphemous. I have to suffer more, is the fearful reaction. "I have to suffer more, I'm not allowed comfort or relief, I have to pray until I pass out, I can never stop, I can never rest until I am dead, and even then it's only by God's judgment that I may get to heaven."
Deep down, it's frightening to realize that our "core human self" doesn't believe she will ever, ever get to heaven. Deep down she SOLIDLY believes that she is such sheer pure evil, that nothing will ever redeem her, that she cannot be virtuous, that she cannot overcome her sins because she IS a sinner by her very definition, and that no matter how she cries and begs and panics and prays, at the end of the day, she believes that God will abandon her to her sinfulness and she will go to hell forever and heaven will rejoice in the "loving, just decision to damn her for all eternity."
That's why we can't recover yet. THAT girl holds all the mental power in this. She's the one that keeps fronting, and keeps messing up, and keeps refusing to NOT mess up, because she cannot fathom being anything but a moral failure.

…

I miss existing.
I miss the days when we COULD go into headspace, without that girl hurriedly yanking the steering wheel away from us, saying that "anything that isn't God is blasphemy."
In her eyes, everything but constant hysteric prayer and studying is blasphemy. We're not allowed to laugh, or draw, or write music, or go outside and walk through the woods, or sleep, or love ANYTHING, because "it's not God, therefore it is evil and you will go to hell for it."
And that disturbs me, because if she cannot see God in anything BUT pure undiluted religion, what does she think the created universe is? Hell? I know we live in a damaged, lost world, but… I'm afraid too, I'll admit it. I'm so terribly afraid that by daring to suggest that all of it isn't evil, I'm committing heresy.
I want to say that, deep down, I still love Infinitii. I still love Chaos 0, somewhere way buried where I can't feel it anymore. I still want us to type, I still want us to compose music. I still think it's beautiful to go out and look at the stars at night, or the flowers during the day. But no, this girl will get a glimpse of it, then close her eyes and start praying fervently, afraid that by appreciating nature she will "become a pagan," and that it is "worshipping the creation and not the Creator." She will not (cannot?) love anything but God, but she can't love God either, not genuinely, not when she's ruled by fear, and cannot even comprehend that God could exist in created things, even if only as breath or reflection.
I don't know. Like I said, I'm scared too.
I'm scared because she says my very existence is heretical and she stomps me out whenever she sees me.

I'm in love, okay? I adore people in headspace, I love life, but I love That which created it all more than it all, of course. She doesn't understand that. She says loving anything but God is blasphemous and will "lead you away from heaven into hell." She says that ALL human relationships are sinful as a result.

I'm so exhausted. This can't be how a Christian is supposed to live, is it?
Why are we so miserable? Are we not praying enough? SHOULD we join a convent like she wants to, pray for 12+ hours a day, never seeing the outside world again? Would we feel peace at heart then? Would we finally feel like God was close enough to sense? Or is wanting that blasphemous too?

Is wanting to take a day off from constant religious study blasphemous? Is it a sin?
If I want to take ONE DAY to actually sleep, and then write some music, or maybe read, is that sinful? Will Jesus weep because I am not dedicating every waking moment to Him? But who said I wasn't???? If I am CONSTANTLY TRYING to live rightly, and to further God's plan in my actions, promoting virtues like honesty and humility and compassion and gentleness, am I ignoring God? I don't think so.
But… I'm scared. I'm so tired, and I'm so scared.
I'm also FURIOUS because this same girl keeps giving in to eating disorders, to wasting all our money on food that she will debate with God for hours every day over, "is this right," "I want to eat it, is it a sin," "if I cannot eat it what do I do," and then eventually giving in to bullshit and buying garbage that WE ALL KNOW IS GARBAGE but she won't listen to us because "we're not God," well she won't listen to God either in those situations because He's telling her "stop treating yourself like garbage" but she believes she is garbage and she's so tired and frazzled and self-loathing that her free will is shot and she just gives in to every screaming caustic temptation that gets shoved down her throat, even if she is literally weeping from fear, repeating constantly that she "doesn't want to do it," even as she does it. It's slavery to sin, and I don't know why she won't stop, I don't know why she thinks letting US drive, we who try to act on love, is such a horrific sin.

…

You see why we haven't updated lately. This is hell, as far as I'm concerned. This girl cannot feel God and she keeps weeping, she keeps abusing herself, we were in the E.R. for 6 bloody hours yesterday with 6 preceding hours slumped over the kitchen table in awful disorienting pain and fatigue while we waited for the doctors to call us back. And she still isn't fazed. She still went home and VOMITED, then refused to sleep until 2AM.
God, what do we do here????
You know I love You, even if I show it differently than her, but I am so terrified that if I go back to the largely bookless way of living we used to do, I'll go to hell.
I want to read the Bible like I do, I don't ever want to give that up. I want to keep praying, I want to read these saintly quotes and things, but the only difference is that God, my brain is exhausted and I'm too frightened to ask for a rest. There's so much reading, so much studying, so much recitation of prayers, and no introspection. With this girl, for the past several months, there has been nonstop busywork and NO ACTUAL INTERNAL PRESENCE. God, how are we supposed to grow in virtue as a child of Yours if we're being forbidden from self-examination and actual spiritual corrective work? If she won't let us exist on the inside, how are we supposed to untangle our bad habits and addictions and forced vices? How are we supposed to grow in virtue and love, how are we supposed to BE if she refuses to let ANY of us exist as people?
…
I don't get the constant "Jesus dialogue" that she does and that is scary, to not have the constant speech in my head in light of hers… but… what's even scarier is that so many times, she hears so many voices, and if she asks an alleged Mary or Jesus or saint if they love and adore and serve the One True God… they won't reply. They can't. And then I realize that they're not good voices at all.
…
Every single bad voice and demon she has ever heard runs away immediately when Laurie shows up. It never fails.
…what does that mean, in light of everything lately?
If headspace holds more love than the floating voices, if Laurie is willing to give me better and more helpful advice than any alleged angel that "Jess" (?) hears, if Infinitii's very presence can remind me of the presence and reality and love of God more than several hours of studying ever can or will, what does that mean?
…
That girl, the one who is so hyperreligious, cannot feel love or joy. I don't know why. I don't know how in the world that's even possible when she proclaims such dedication to God, and always looks to Him, and praises Him incessantly, but even then her smiles and exultations are at the edge of hysteria, all the obligatory "I mean this somehow but I don't understand or feel any of it" actions of someone who hates themselves so bitterly that loving anything is an alien concept, even when they want to, even when they know they should.

I'm so tired. We're getting bodyaches and the "ice breath" feeling that usually means we are severely lacking in sleep, so even if she is literally screaming in panic right now, I think we should go to bed instead of staying up and reading holy things for another 3 hours.
Is that a sin? Honestly, is it? Is it a sin to want to live as a prayer rather than refusing to live in order to pray? Where does one draw the line?
She does nothing but recite memorized prayers over and over and if I may be honest, even though I'm scared, I don't like to. Yes, they work, but they can become hollow and rushed too easily. If I cannot get the true sentiment into the words after 5+ tries, I am more likely to say an improvised OR wordless prayer instead, because what I really want to do is get that INTENTION up to God, regardless of the words it's packaged in. Is that wrong? Is that pride? I just want to show my honor and gratitude and love and praise for everything we have in a way that actually expresses it. Is it a sin if that doesn't always fit into an Our Father?
The "angry angel" voices scare me so much. They hover around our head, glaring at me, hissing "yes, it IS a sin, and you'll go straight to hell for it," reaching out to shake me brutally by the shoulders or shove me down onto the floor, claiming that "we were sent to glorify Christ by damning you" and "heaven will rejoice when you are sent to hell" and similar frightening things.
…
And they, too, disappear immediately when someone from headspace shows up.
It's because the people from headspace appear with love. Those "angels" don't.

Don't growl and hiss and condemn me. Stop screaming. God is Love, and if you cannot show love towards me, ("You don't deserve it," they shout through clenched teeth) then I'm going to seriously question your true allegiance.

I'm going to bed. I'm going to say night prayers as always but if I may be so daring I want to try to say them a little more "from the heart," less by-the-book, along with the memorized ones Jessica is actually in hysteric tears insisting I pray instead "or else."

She's so scared, and so sad, all the time. Is that a Christian's way of life? When they say the saints have to suffer, is that what they mean?

I have so much more to say about this, but we really should be in bed by 11pm. (Jessica says no, that's selfish, it's "luxury," she insists we should sleep as little as possible "as penance" but really the constant fatigue is not helping us be a better person. "It should," she says; "maybe increasing our suffering will teach us to be more humble and less selfish." Jess have you looked at your mood lately? You're so tired it's making you irritable and self-abusive. But she's so scared of feeling healthy, she's so legitimately terrified of NOT being sick, because she equates illness and weakness with holiness, that she will actively sabotage EVERY effort to make us function better. …No wonder she won't listen to God when He tells her to be kinder to herself. She doesn't believe that God could ask such a thing.)

We really, really need to try and clear our head tonight. Tomorrow is Sunday (which we hope is still the legitimate Sabbath; we've been getting so many conflicting sources over which weekend day it is but the Marian apparitions say Sunday so) which means it HAS to be a day of prayer no matter what, but it's also a day of family dinners and noise and our mom coming over with both, so it's terribly exhausting and we NEED to be able to stay conscious during that or we're going to fall into an automated unconscious cesspit of fatigued frustrated vice and self-abuse.
It's so ironic that the religious voices forbid headspace, when headspace is the only thing that has ever BEEN able to act in constant integrity even in those stressful situations.

I'll see you again soon; I promise I will try. There's a lot to discuss. Love you all.

Day 1 of being Jessica again, as I was originally, as I don't properly remember yet but as I need to be.
God said, we can't "go back" to being who we were before Christ. We need to move forwards. "Remember Lot's wife" is the message I keep getting. Don't look back. Trust in God, let it ALL go, and keep walking forwards along the path He is guiding me on.

I need to be brave. I'm still an awful sinner BUT I do not want to continue in that old, awful lifestyle. I do need to be as a child again, but NOT as the child I was,because back then I was still brazen, and disobedient.

I didn't remember until lately… as a child, I was a liar and a thief, terribly so. I'm ashamed to admit that those bad habits have lingered to a fair extent, and maybe that's why those vices are being so horrendously inflated as of late? Maybe God's trying to get my attention big-time by making those unhealed sins impossible to ignore anymore. I think so. So, now I cannot run from those sins, I cannot deny those sins. I am ashamed and I want to stop acting that way. With God's help and grace, I can. I cannot do anything alone. But God is guiding me by the hand, leading me out of Sodom, and God knows that with ALL MY HEART I do not ever, ever want to look back.
Deep down, in my truest core, I will not look back. I know this. I have no desire for anything but God when you get down to it.
I'm fighting programming and falsehoods is all. I need to begin introspecting again, examining my conscience thoroughly and with unflinching honesty, and healing ALL those vices completely, for good, with God's help, with the help of His angels and His Blessed Mother and His Son and His Holy Spirit and all the words of the Bible he guides me to and all the intercession of the saints should I seek their intercession as well. (I should but I'm scared; mainly it's the terror of seeing my own sinfulness in stark contrast to their achieved goodness through God, and feeling damned to stay bad in comparison?? It's a dangerous, weird, inexplicable habit and it needs to STOP IMMEDIATELY but until I can destroy it, I need to be prudent in praying for anyone's intercession but God's. No "middlemen," even though I love and admire the saints. It's just that, currently, when it comes down to bringing me into it personally, I'm still battling the knee-jerk reaction to paint myself as an irredeemable sinner (false!!! God is calling me OUT of that!!) and so until I can see myself in the light of hope, as someone CAPABLE and ABLE of following The Way, AND DOING SO, I need to be careful in interacting with people.)

…I opened this document really because there's an article I'm reading, about Christians standing up against "Secular Humanism" in its godlessness, and there was a paragraph that hit me like a spear in the chest-- saying we Christians cannot be separatists. We can't just say, "God is all that matters so let the world run itself to hell." That's not LOVE!!!
And that's scary, because it's so tempting to abandon everything. It's been what I've felt CALLED to do for the past several MONTHS now. And that's why I'm scared. I still can't tell, in some cases, whether or not the "messages" I get and the "voices" I hear are truly from God. I think maybe stuff is getting lost in translation, wires are being crossed.
Here's the gist of it. Lately, I've been told to "donate everything I own to the poor and dedicate my life to prayer and thanksgiving and sacrifice and charity." And on one hand, I WANT TO.
Here, let me talk about that a little more disjointedly so things flow out of my head better…

I put all my CDs and movies in a box today, to give away.
I put all my books in a box earlier this week, to give away. This includes my books on writing music and drawing, because "that doesn't matter, only God matters."
I'm putting all my plushies in a bag to donate (not sell, I was told to DONATE even the expensive ones because "you will only use the money on evil desires." Well I DON'T WANT TO, so why do you keep telling me I WILL??? Maybe I'm still battling those blackout-period vices, that is true, but God can't you continue to help me there?? If the cash is going straight into my Paypal, can't you lead me to donate online to a good and worthy Godly cause?? Why do the "voices" tend to feed that kneejerk mindset of "I'm EXPECTED to do wrong" that only makes it harder to persist in virtue because the messages I'm convinced are from ANGELS are telling me I am HELPLESS to do good and WILL persist in sin???? I know human nature is sinful because of the Fall, BUT if I'm trying to be reborn as a Christian here,

…I think I've realized something important. I have to be Jessica, AND Jewel Lightraye. The latter is a title, remember!!
I'm still a kid at heart, too. THAT NEEDS TO STAY. Yeah the body is 26, I know that. But at heart, I need to stay a child. I need to stay pure and innocent and trusting and imaginative.

…This article is saying, "We have to make a difference in society so that we can make a difference for God and for Christianity."
Does that include my creative work? Or is that a waste of time because it's "not God?"
I'm so scared. People keep pointing me towards the parable of the talents, saying "if God gave you this gift, USE IT for His glory," and then the voices in my head say "no, donate ALL your art supplies, stop writing music, stop writing stories, it's blasphemous, it's wasting your time; give it ALL up and dedicate your life to Christ alone."

My question is, yes we are living in a fallen world, but can't I live a life dedicated to Christ and still enjoy the gifts he has given us??

…I guess that's why I'm scared, because my heart is saying no. No, you CAN'T enjoy the things you want to because they're a waste of time.
All those music CDs? Waste of time. I already know the movies are, even if I enjoyed them as a child, because amusement/entertainment is sinful and if there was anything I enjoyed within it, it was because it reflected something OF God, like gentleness or joy, and as I said before, no more middlemen.
All those books? Yeah, they're instructive, but they take weeks to read, and I feel I just don't have the time… and that the effort would be wasted anyway. If I'm going to die in a few days, let's say, why in the world would I waste that time learning painting techniques or orchestral structure, instead of getting closer to God? Pictures and pretty music won't save the world, and they won't save any souls.
…But… but art and music did help to bring me closer to Christ.
"No they didn't," the angry angel voices say.
Yes they did, I meekly and fearfully protest. Look at Punch Brothers. Look at FROST*. Yes, some of that was outside of "my" individual experience, what with the multiplicity thing…

…That's the biggest question, always.
How does the multiplicity I experienced for most of my life fit into Christianity?
"It doesn't," the angry angels growl. "It was a lie. It's only you, and all of that was a falsehood designed to take you away from God."
Really? Really, when that Spectrum was built on virtuousness, and was capable of more love than I have EVER felt personally?? Really, when they would pray together CONSTANTLY, when every gain was attributed TO GOD, when they wanted nothing more but to heal the deepest vices of this soul WITH GENTLENESS, and then to do the same through example and patient humble words to those around them?
Really??? You're going to tell me that in a System where Infinitii and Xenophon and Knife and people like them exist, with someone like Laurie who STILL chases away EVERY DEMON I'VE EVER ENCOUNTERED with her presence alone…

…It's 11:11.

God I don't know what to do.

"Go back to them" was the instant quiet reply. "Go back to them and live virtuously with them. Live in this world but don't be of the world. Guide people back to Me with your work and your words. Don't get lost. I will guide you. Just listen with your Heart."

…

I miss living like that, you know?
Yeah, I do want to donate most of the stuff we own. Honestly I probably will give away my art and music books (if my brother can't use them), because I do not like having possessions the way it is and the clutter disturbs me as well. But I'm not attached to that stuff. I WANT to give it away. The lingering concern is that I want to give it all away partly because I don't want the responsibility of dedicating so much time to developing my creative skills, because I feel it's worthless. "It's not worthless," the quiet voice says again; "I gave you those talents to help people. Help people,” comes the gentle but stern order.
…Do I need the books to do so?
"Not necessarily, but don't abandon the effort needed to grow either. Put the work in, and I will help you."

See, this is better.

Honestly even when I ask about donating everything I own, the answer is essentially "please do give away what you don't need, but if there are one or two items you are truly fond of, you may keep them IF you are clearly aware that they are temporary and you WILL have to leave them someday."

It all boils down to what Jay discovered, really. We love concepts and get tangled up in things, and it's not truth. The only possessions I would LIKE to keep, at least temporarily, are…

- the music CDs dad gave me, and the few I'm fond of, BUT if I got an iPod I could easily toss them all… BUT even then I'd have to accept that if I lost/ donated/ broke the iPod it'd all be gone anyway, AND if I die it can't come with my anyway. I guess all I'm saying is, "am I allowed to enjoy music while I'm alive here?" and the answer is "yes, but don't become attached to it. All the music that brings joy to your heart is but a dim reflection of God's love." And that's true, I know that… it helps keep things in perspective.

Really the only items I'm truly fond of are my three main plushies, which are ALL ANCHORS and so if I'm just aware that they're kind of stand-ins for souls that exist ELSEWHERE, I can leave the plushies as well. But it's nice to have them currently.
Again, "just don't get attached to them."
That's really the key. De-cluttering makes it easier, as does self-analysis, but it's even with vital items like clothing (don't own more than you need, donate the rest, don't be vain!). It's all turning to dust in the end, so be grateful for what you have, share with those who have not (and GIVE to them whenever possible and prudent), and keep your eyes on God above all else no matter what.

And, again, with the concepts versus reality… losing the giftart we have of our beloveds, and all the LeagueWorld work… yes it would sting, BUT it's just material reflection of something that exists BEYOND the material, and even then, everything was created by God's hand so you have to be willing to let go EVEN of those things, not valuing them over their Creator. And I can do that, too… the hard part is not doing so out of rejection. There's an awful knot in my heart that can easily spit on the world and claim it loves God as a result. God created the world, not the fake world of mammon, but the true Earth with its beauty and colors and music… all the little kaleidoscope pieces that I do adore, AND recognize that God is GREATER than ALL of it because HE MADE IT. So that gives me courage. "There are better things ahead of you than anything you may leave behind." I've been getting that message a lot lately, too, along with "Remember Lot's wife." Together, the message is clearer and easier for my heart to follow with joy and love.
Fear of the LORD is the beginning of Wisdom, but I think the true fullness of Wisdom is to be found in the love of the LORD. Keep His Commandments because you love Him, and you WANT to do Good for the sake of Him and His people, for the salvation of souls and the glory of His holy and beautiful and compassionate merciful name… not because you're just terrified out of your bones at the awareness of your sinful nature and the sinful world and every moment of your day is fraught with the horrors of hell.
I mean, it is important to keep the reality of damnation in perspective, but I think there's a problem when that fear swallows up your capacity to love. I know I'd do a LOT better if I focused on love instead of terror. If I just thought, "God is Love and I want to serve that Love with all my heart," and thought that at all times, only choosing actions that were loving towards ALL, INCLUDING MYSELF, choosing to be gentle and kind and honest because my heart was overflowing with those things, and because I WANTED to be like that… if I chose that, which I want to by natural instinct, all these awful sinful habits would just disappear.
…But I'm living lately with the constant thought of "I'm a filthy sinner, I'm a thief, I'm a liar, I'm no good, I used to be an adulteress, I'm impious, I'm unjust, I'm cruel…" and the more I think that the more I ACT that way EVEN IF I DON'T WANT TO, because that's the feedback loop that's keeping me trembling in abject fright every moment of every day. And the more that gets burnt into my head, the less I'm able to love.
It's a filthy trap that the devil set, I think. I need to get out of it.

That's what I'm trying to do with holding on to "headspace" and the LeagueWorlds. There's so much love there, it's a good message, but I'm just terrified that because it's not pure undistilled GOD, it's wrong. I'm very scared about that.
…But I cannot deny the goodness God put into those things.
"God didn't put any goodness into them," the angry angels start to shout, faces contorted with rage. "There is no goodness but GOD and those are a pale reflection of it. Leave them behind."
…
Leaving them behind and turning to God alone still feels like burying my talents.
You all know how that servant was treated, even though he thought he was doing what was right, because he was acting OUT OF FEAR.

Leave me alone. You have never treated me with gentleness or kindness or the softness of love, and in fact you spit at those things as "unneeded" and say I'm "undeserving of them."
Are you even capable of being soft? Are you even capable of the love you claim to express in your scathing judgments and orders?
You might be telling me to do the "right thing," I know. But I still feel that blind fearful obedience pales in comparison to freely given, joyful obedience through love.
And that latter sort of obedience is what I am NATURALLY CAPABLE OF DOING, AND NATURALLY INCLINED TO DO, except you voices keep stepping all over that instinct of mine, claiming I'm awful.
…I find it very frightening (and very relieving) to realize that as soon as I tune into that loving mindset, those angry angels disappear. I can't even find them, I can't even guess at what they would say, when I shake my head at them and just think about how much I DO love God and WANT to do His will.
Yes, I'm still a sinner. Yes, I still have a LOT of work to do. But God loves me, He created me to want to reciprocate that love and I do. I just need to live it more completely, more actively, more consciously. That's what I'm working on through gradually and gently but unrelentingly cleaning up my/our life here. It's easy, that's the ironic part, despite all the work and reading and sheer time and effort that goes into it.
"For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." It really is. Love is effortless, and when all you want to do is follow that, well then obeying the Commandments is just as effortless, because Love is from God and if you live in love, true honest love of God within all things as well as without… I think you'll be okay.

I'm glad I started writing this. I do need to finish reading though; I tend to start too much and not finish, and now I have like fifty tabs open and I'm mentally exhausted. But I know God's only giving me what I need. I just have to be diligent and patient with this.
Even with that, in the end I will die, but this knowledge at least will help my soul. So, again, I must be longsuffering and trusting in the meantime.

I woke up yesterday in the same panicked-anguish state that's been racking our bones for the past month solid, head empty, everything quiet, no feeling.

The entire shift at work was spent fighting back sobs of panic and emptiness, trying to remember what it felt like to care, what it felt like to love something, to love anything. Wondering if God had completely withdrawn.

Then, getting home, there was a message from E in the archive inbox.

…

We have to stay multiple. I'm so sorry, to everyone who demands otherwise, but we have to. Like this, we are love, we have and give love, we have joy and hope and peace… without us, there's nothing. There's nothing at all.

We keep being told by outside voices, claiming to be "so good," that such emptiness, such nothingness, is the highest good.
That's when I pick up the aqua-fabric book on my shelf and flip to a certain page, a certain fight, between a little girl named Meg and a little creature named Sporos and the swirling shrieking powers that threatened to swallow them both.

(unfinished)

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@ 09:25 PM

I just read that "business transactions" (i.e. buying and selling) are forbidden on the Sabbath Day, which it is now (sundown on Friday; I'm going to follow it from now all through tomorrow), and my immediate reaction was a smile and a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness!"
I find that really interesting, that the thought of NOT having to shop for food, or list things on eBay, or do anything like that, is such an instant profound relief. And it's not a "lazy relief" either. It's a sort of spiritual relief. My soul is grateful for this day in which earthly work is FORBIDDEN so that our souls may commune in the LORD and rest in Him. That's what I WANT to do.
There are demons, temptors and nasty lying voices, always screaming at me, trying to put their thoughts into my head, but I know they're liars. I know who I am, and it is different from them. Very different. I want to be VIRTUOUS, and loving, and merciful and compassionate and HONEST and HONORABLE and I want to live with INTEGRITY and JOY IN THE LORD and FAITH AND HOPE AND LOVE. I want to live in such a way that the peace of Jesus Christ (glory be to His name) fills me, NOT through my own works BUT through the grace of the Holy Spirit which he bestows upon us by His mercy, when we align our hearts with His holy, divine Will.
"…so your faces do not blush with shame." I can't remember right now where that verse comes from (Corinthians?) but it always comes into my head when those "old girl" feelings appear.
I know the therapists say I have D.I.D. Whatever I have or not, I cannot deny that there are "individuals" who try to take over my body and mind that are NOT me, and I KNOW that, and I have to not fight them (traditionally), but IGNORE them, and SHINE as brightly as I can to chase them away.
If I stop dwelling on bad things it won't put down any roots in my head. I need to keep my mind focused on the LORD and His Commandments and His Works in the world (because it's HIS WORLD, not the devil's, even if some people say that-- GOD CREATED THE WORLD AND IT IS HIS FOREVER). I need to keep my mind full of Good, of Good Thoughts and Good Intentions and I mean GOOD, not "good," but GOOD. The big kind. And it's tough, living in this spiritual war, but I can do it, with God's Almighty Help. Alone I can't, obviously, but God hasn't left me alone. I'm sure of it. I know I'm a sinner and I've messed up a LOT but I will always, always turn my heart back to Him, no matter WHAT, and I will always keep trying, because I know deep down at my core of self, God made me Good, and I want to BE that Good at ALL TIMES here in this World. I can do it, through His Grace, if I keep his Commandments, and live in His Love.
And that's where the frustration sets in. By myself (meaning without distractions/ affectations) I can do all that effortlessly. BUT, for whatever reason, I'm standing here and those nasty girl "voices" keep elbowing their way into my thoughts and scoffing, saying "I don't care" and wanting to stop writing and go stuff their face with food!! But it's MY FACE!! God gave ME this body to live here and do Good Work for Him on this Earth, but these demons keep trying to TAKE this body from me, and ruin it, and make me "black out" and lose consciousness, and all sorts of dirty work like that.
I'm not ashamed. But I'm ashamed of what I've let them do, through me. The fault is still mine for not being vigilant, for not practicing virtue often and earnestly enough, for not meditating on the Word of God more, for not putting God and His Laws 100% FIRST in my life, over EVERYTHING ELSE, including eating. The body will die no matter what we feed it, but Jesus is the Bread of LIFE, remember, that's what we REALLY NEED.
But that's my point, is that negligence is my vice. I haven't been zealous enough in my dedication to God. I haven't been showing devotion. I've been lazy with my faith, and that's terrifying.
But it is hard. "The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." How true that is, now that I'm older and I have to live in the devil's fake world more often (as a kid I was mostly safeguarded). I am SO willing to do nothing but God's work. But there's that evil, that creeping jeering yelling simpering evil, jabbing its claws into my brain, hissing and spitting in my face, shaking my shoulders and screaming at me like a bellowing cow, always telling me that I'm evil, that God doesn't want me, and all sorts of lies like that.
BUT there's that dirty-haired girl "part of my psyche," one of the ones that uses this body besides me (???? WHY), and she hears them and BELIEVES them and she never feels like she's close to God, and I feel like I want to save her but then I wonder if maybe she's not real???
Like, I'M real. I know I'm real. I know this body isn't me, I'm a spirit and when this body dies I'm gonna go on somewhere. I know that.
But I ALSO know that there are other "entities" USING THIS BODY when I'm "not around" or not awake, and THAT scares and confuses me, because I DON'T WANT TO DO THOSE THINGS, I want them to STOP, I want them all to LEAVE, FOR GOOD, because they're not me, but… they're in my head.
Thinking about them hurts and gives them power. I need to think about the LORD.
Thoughts have certain feelings and when I think about Godly things, about virtue and love and Goodness and obedience to His Holy Will, my thoughts feel like Easter. They're bright and light and colorful and feel like a spring breeze, all fresh and happy and new and clear. It's a NICE feeling and it makes my heart like a cloud and it's TRUTH, it's how I'm SUPPOSED to live, it's how I WANT to live.
But every once in a while some ugly thing will broadside me outside and then the nasty stuff pushes me out of the way… those heavy, dense, sticky thoughts and feelings, they're so nauseating, they're so wrong and bad. The ONLY thing I can do against that is AVOID THOSE SITUATIONS, and if I can't do that, I can push through with thoughts of God and His Goodness. That will chase away the bad stuff, if I hold it long enough with sincerity. You have to chase the demons out, not just make them take a few steps back.
That's tough to do in public, when demons broadside you out of the blue and it's hard to just stop and say a few prayers (especially if you're in a hurry) which is STUPID because I shouldn't care about worldly crap, if I need to stop and pray then I'll STOP AND PRAY, even if I have to wear a rosary right on my wrist so it's always instantly there. I don't care what people think! If they're of God then they won't mind! If they AREN'T following God and they scoff or laugh then WHO CARES!! That's demon work! But those are the people God needs to reach, so it's even MORE important that I not care about their judgments, because something deep in them is Good TOO, and if I'm unafraid and unashamed of my True Being AS that Good from God, then it'll maybe catch a spark inside of them for that same thing. The honesty will wake them up a little, through God's Grace, is my intention. BUT it won't happen if I'm being "ASHAMED" which I say again is STUPID but I shouldn't be using such language either. I'm sorry.
There's no reason to be ashamed of God, that very idea boggles my mind!! But see, that's NOT ME, it's one of those girls,
GOD WHY DID YOU SEE FIT TO TORMENT ME WITH THESE GIRLS ALL THE TIME????
I MEAN I TRUST YOUR JUDGMENT BUT I GET SCARED SOMETIMES AND I WONDER IF I'M GOING TO HELL NO MATTER WHAT JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE IN MY HEAD and I need to stop typing in caps, I'm sorry again.
It's true though. I LOVE God, more than anything. But. If I slip, even for just a second, that one short-haired lustful gluttonous sassy scathing girl comes out, the one who's really loud and who I don't like but everyone in public loves (because she's of the world), and she does HORRIBLE SINS and my sin is that I don't stop her.
I get weak. I… there's no other way to say it, I give in and I let her do evil things, even if I know it's wrong, and THAT'S THE WORST SIN I CAN THINK OF, is moral negligence, because it means knowing God's Law and then STILL breaking it and that sends such chills of fear and panic and guilt up my spine, God I don't EVER want to do that again, please, help me. HELP ME, you know I want to be Good, I want to be ZEALOUS in my faith, I don't EVER want to be so lax in my dedication to being Good!!!
When the bad girl tries to steal food, help me stop her hand and say NO. Stealing is wrong! It is not yours, it is not fair to take it from someone else, you need to ASK or you need to PAY. She always tries to justify her sins, and the "justifications" are nonsense. You can't just take things. "But it's food," she says, "I have a right to it," but yeah so does EVERYONE ELSE EVER, that doesn't give you any right to take what OTHER people are paying for. Stop it, her game is to get me tangled in her lies.
Stealing is WRONG. You can easily pay for your food. BE GRATEFUL FOR THAT. However if you're stealing because you want junk food, to waste, THEN that's a DOUBLE SIN and I know that's WHY you steal in the first place. You're ashamed. You KNOW you're going to sin with that food and that’s why you won't BUY it!! You don't actually WANT it. Buying it would be honorable BUT that food is something you use dishonorably, and paying for it would bright LIGHT into that intention, and you don't want that. That's why you steal. STOP.
But she lies, everything she does is a lie, both of them, there are two of them actually. The dirty-haired one lies because she hides all the time, everything she does, under cover of shadow or secrecy, because the things she does are not virtuous, they are dirty and negligent and self-destructive and yes they ARE sinful.
The short-haired one lies blatantly. Like she'll lie to your face and smile about it. She DOESN'T CARE and that makes her TERRIFYING.

GOD, WHY DOES SHE LIVE IN MY HEAD?????
SHE'S NOT ME, WHERE DID SHE COME FROM???
God, how do I get rid of her? Or is that something only You can do, and You are withholding Your hand now for some hidden reason?
Either way, I trust you. But I still earnestly ask, with a disturbed and upset heart, why, why is she always tormenting me,
and the immediate answer was simply "because you aren't standing strong enough."
Effectively? It's always hard to put such answers into words.
But the point was, that girl wouldn't be tormenting me if I was living better, more actively and consciously. Yes that bad girl can currently push me out of driving, so to speak, but ONLY because my feet aren't firmly rooted yet!!! God wants me to STAND STRONG IN GOODNESS because if I do, then through God's grace, NOTHING will be able to shake me. I'll have my strength in loving obedience to Christ and THAT'S ALL I WANT.
That's my top priority. I'm even iffy to work on any Dream World stuff because I KNOW that's been corrupted and I need to fix it, BUT even MORESO, that's personal work mostly. God wants me to give my attention directly to HIM, and to DIRECT service, like helping my family. Dream World will ONLY be something worthy of attention when it brings me closer to Christ.
I am working on that, with the Virtue system, but I think that's why I'm so sick of Typecode stuff and all that. Yeah it's "worldbuilding" but it's spiritually exhausting because it's just STUFF. Until I can use THAT in a way that GLORIFIES GOD, it will remain exhausting. I think that's a sign.

I hope God doesn't mind if I take a break from typing currently to finish this book?
The message I got is, "God doesn't mind what you do if you keep God first and foremost in your heart."
Which makes me smile, because if you do that, then automatically you will only do good and wholesome things, because you're not ashamed or hiding. And your heart will feel SO MUCH BETTER!! You won't be smothering it or covering it in black cloud or black tar which hurts and is terrifying and God doesn't want that either. God wants to save us all, and he offers his mercy to EVERYONE, but we have to LISTEN, and we have to ACCEPT, and we need to LOVE and be BRAVE and all that. But the Choice is ours, to listen and obey.
But I know, I know God reaches out with mind-bogglingly infinite compassion, if we are open to Him and earnestly seek Him. I know, because He has not given up on me, despite the awful things in my past, despite my failings, because I KNOW, I PROMISE, I know by my very nature that I CANNOT and WILL NOT ever let go of God. EVER. So I will always, always turn back towards Him in contrition and love and hope, wanting to just be better, to grow closer to Him, and I REALLY MEAN THAT, that's all I want, ever.
So… it means a lot to me, that I'm always being led in that path, sometimes very sternly and powerfully (which is scary!) but I'm glad for it, because this path is all I want to walk. It's only the fleshly angry voices that get in the way, and yell at God, and try to push me out of the way, but they’re not me. I just need to BE more. I'll ask God for help with that.
"Meditate more," I get, with a sort of wry smile. "Meditate" meaning more of… tuning out of the world and into my heart, where God dwells (YES HE DOES), and coming back into tune. Remembering the TRUTH of my life and ALL life!! The more I do that, the more strongly I'll have my footing, and I'll gradually become unshakable in my obedience. It'll take time, but that's my goal. Total unafraid, zealously loving joyous devotion to God and His Name and His Works and His Word. I want to be an instrument of his mercy and love and justice and peace in the world.

All right now I really need to take that break, sorry, I'll be back.

…(God said for me to go to bed and write again tomorrow, whatever my heart is moved to do then. so good night everybody )

Lots of important stuff today, good heavens. Let me write down the important stuff first.

- First off, THIS HAPPENED last night, it is relevant so there you go.

- There was a "hack" this morning, if you can call it that, since we usually reserve that term for Julie's efforts. However, J REALLY slipped, and Infi is aware of that. However, since everyone was incredibly vigilant this morning, surprisingly, that painful experience triggered a lot of new awareness, since we were actually paying very close attention to every little detail this time.
The most important realization was this: J's very function PREVENTS him from being conscious in those situations! We didn't know that up to this point, but it explains why every attempt to fix or stabilize him fails disastrously-- he doesn't need to be fixed, and we're all getting confused because we're dealing with different people every time. On that note, if you readers didn't know-- yes, in our System he CAN dissociate in headspace. Our System is internally based after all. Only the bloodline fronters seem to do this though; when other voices slip, it's a result of energy confusion or bleedover, not an actual identity split.
So when J suddenly stopped acting like J, Laurie stepped in and took charge. Since J was in a mostly-energetic form at the moment, she literally reached into that, and pulled out whoever this split person was. Well, the person she removed had red hair and eyes, and although he looked different, the first name on our minds was Eros. That guy's been a 50/50 threat since he came into existence last December, and when he disappeared we were all wondering what happened. See, J has to stay separate from the things Eros holds, as they stand in total opposition to his function. So having the two of them unknowingly share a body was just a disaster.
After that, the memory is extremely fuzzy. J cannot access it, and we do not know who stored it. Infi remembers most of it but he won't elaborate. All we know for sure is that, after everything settled down, J "showed up" and said he had no idea what had just happened. That is when Infi declared the second paragraph here (J himself isn't damaged, he's just tangled), but then the body fell asleep so recall is also mangled thanks to that.

- We were right all along; J is NOT the default fronter now, even after the reset attempts, and there are a LOT more than two people who cycle that role during the day. Since we've been paying a lot of attention to it for a while as well, and today there was some notable clarity, our tentative knowledge of the people who typically front is as follows:

J (white hair and eyes). He is the observing inner consciousness, but he is not tied to the body. Ironically, although he is unmistakable when he fronts, it is notoriously difficult to tell when he's not fronting due to everyone assuming he's in charge downstairs as well. A rule of thumb is that he's very childlike; his central tenet is innocence.
Jay (brown hair and eyes?) He is NOT the same as the above guy. We're still trying to pinpoint him actually, but he has no trouble fronting in the body as long as dysphoria does not become an issue-- then he gets kicked. He's eccentric but relaxed, preferring to keep to himself. He seems to be somewhat "cut off" from upstairs, meaning he is likely anchored on the downstairs level. He also appears to be the "default" fronter, instead of J. We are also NOT SURE if he is tied to "Jayce" at all? But we haven't seem him interact with a reflection yet, so.
Jewel (brown hair and eyes). She still wears her backwards baseball cap and Klonoa-styled hair. Her age is still unknown; although she appears around 13-14, she often gives her age as either "12" (her original, most stable age) or "16," possibly because 2006 was the last time she was actively able to front in the body. She's always optimistic and loves life, but she finds it incredibly difficult to interact with other people due to her internal roots.
The Autopilot, who does have a corporeal form: it's a cyborg, all white plating and black wiring, with red accent lights and eyes. It doesn't have a "personality," but it IS self-aware, although it refuses a "self,' if you can grasp that concept. It gained its "overlay" form (the personal physical appearance that a fronter projects "over" the body; they're not necessary but they are helpful, also they do not need to also exist in headspace) when it fronted for several days in early July, during the first massive reset when Infinitii was temporarily dead.
An unnamed female voice, who is only triggered by 'casual' social interaction. She's been around for years, possibly being born at our first job, and she causes us a lot of trouble because she is almost entirely automated, without any "personality." As a result we think she's a splinter, not a headvoice, and we're going to try and either reprogram or dissolve her.

There are likely others, but these are the only ones we are sure of.
Also, it still seems to stand that any Leagueworld fronters have NO "SELF," as that severely interferes with Link function. League work usually occurs with marked dissociation, but no fronter-- meaning the body is running on automated programs during that time. This can be very dangerous, which is why we are trying to fix programming, or at least put ourselves in safe situations where harmful automated functions would not be available.

- It appears that, if two headvoices from different levels are trying to front, they CAN co-front to an extent, since they are operating in different respects (typically downstairs voices stay in the body, upstairs voices stay in headspace). This is interesting and offers new possibilities that we may be able to use to our advantage.

- The "underground" (Tar level) headvoice that has been tormenting David has been revealed. Her name is Sharona. She is an adult woman, which is unusual. She has long black hair and shocking blue eyes, which is noteworthy, as Julie also has blue eyes and this may be playing havoc on the BLUE slot upstairs. In any case, Jeremiah and Mulberry have taken a specific stand against her for the sake of protecting the children.

- I just remembered, we were doing the laundry earlier and Jeremiah suddenly fronted? That was surprising; it's very rare for headvoices to spontaneously front as their functions are mostly internal. Apparently, my grandmother owns this really fuzzy blue sweater, and Jeremiah saw it and showed up immediately, cuddling it up to his face for a while. Apparently it was the "perfect sort of sweater" in his opinion, which is good to hear actually, as he's very picky with clothing due to not feeling "safe" in most of it.

- Knife, Laurie and I (J) were trying to talk to Christina for a while this evening. Laurie was right; she is scared. She was trying to explain the whole "Jesus died for your sins" thing to Knife, due to his 'atonement' role, but he was struggling with that concept apparently? Then at some point he let it slip that he was a vampire and she freaked out. Knife was confused (as usual when that happens), but so was Christina, because Knife wears a cross, and those are usually used to repel vampires down here in the physical world. Anyway I have no idea what else they talked about, all I know is that Laurie was standing further down the hall from where Christina was (she was in some sort of small chapel; it felt like it was underground), and the two started talking. Knife asked Laurie if he should stop wearing a cross, because he didn't want to casually wear a Christian symbol if he didn't identify with that, and that's when I showed up because I clearly heard that line and decided to speak up. So I phased in and told him that Hosea, a character from Hokthai, wears a cross because he sees its ties to the Jesus act as a reminder of "someone who loved humanity so much that they were willing to die to save it." However, we all had a bit of trouble with the idea that humanity was "inherently bad," in the original sin idea, so we were discussing this again when Christina stuck her head out the door and grumpily asked us why we were there. Now that's when we all started talking to her, but you'll have to forgive me because my memory is awful and I don't know most of what we talked about. I do know that she was mad at us because we all have qualities she views as "wrong" somehow: Laurie swears and "isn't a boy or a girl," Knife is a vampire, and I'm apparently a "homosexual" (which is a common but not entirely untrue misconception). Of course Laurie kept trying to get her to explain her views on this, but Christina essentially refused to question things too much, as she viewed us as "devils tempting her," trying to get her to "lose her faith." To that Laurie specifically said that no, she was trying to get her to "expand it." She could have a much more inclusive, open-eyed faith if she would stop refusing to consider other facets of things. But Christina's fear won out and she said no. Again, we talked for a while, but we didn't give up and leave until Laurie somehow ended up mentioning Julie, and Christina got stuck in this bizarre moral complex, saying that it was wrong for Julie to rape people because that was "abusing the gift of sexuality" (which Laurie was actually thankful she said; it meant that I couldn't try to convince myself that being abused was a "good thing" out of my own fears, if Christina of all people disagreed)... but then she said that Julie was doing the better thing in "trying to cure me of my homosexuality," and although she couldn't justify the rape with that, she couldn't completely condemn her either. At this Laurie literally threw her hands in the air and said "that's it, we're done," and left without another word basically. She knows when to stop! Anyway after we left we all agreed that we were going to stop having such spiritual/ religious talks with Christina because, really, we were doing the same thing we wanted her to stop doing: trying to convince people to change their opinions to what we wanted. As a result we all decided to let her do her own thing, unless she started actively harming people, then of course we'd have to step in. But no more controlling, even in indirect ways. That's not good.
Oh, and I almost forgot: at one point Laurie asked her if she was trying to convert everyone because she cared about them, or because she cared about everyone having the same beliefs as her? Would she still care about us if we weren't Christians? I don't remember if she answered that; she seemed really conflicted over it, especially with how "morally corrupt" she saw the three of us as, for different reasons.

- Lastly, most importantly maybe, Waldorf managed to FINALLY anchor back into headspace today! Josephina (who has been unstable but at least he's not dying) was ecstatic to see her of course, so that was great. Wally is seriously considering moving back into the Central BLUE slot if at all possible, since she misses us and really, she could hold that role really well if only we could fix the inherent instability in the Blue slot (same with Pink obviously). So we'll work on it. We missed her a lot.

- No wait, on that note, I forgot to mention why we're so worried about Sugar right now. Besides notable inner instability, the biggest warning sign that a headvoice is slipping into demanifestation is that people tend to forget them. Like they actually "slip" out of awareness. Before Waldorf left Central last year (as she was slipping too badly at the time to stay), we kept "accidentally" leaving her out of headspace lineups, forgetting that the Blue color existed at all, stuff like that. Major warnings that we couldn't believe were happening. And it's happening now, with Sugar. Although we're all aware of her, in therapy she often gets excluded from lineups, which is bizarre, and lately I've been forgetting her color slot. Which, again, is freaky, because I know full well what it is, but it's the present knowledge that falters when someone starts to slip. Thankfully we're at least now able to tell that she IS being "hacked" by faceless people, in that they are literally using her like parasites thanks to her energy being so close to theirs, so we can drag her out when we catch it. And thanks to that, her internal form IS becoming more clear and stable. Turns out there is a faceless voice that took on a temporary form that looked almost IDENTICAL to her, except it was brown in color. I daresay that sounds familiar? (We were vaguely suspecting of such an individual over a month ago). AND that weird faceless voice that seems to be protecting the Spectrum room has latched onto the idea of holding a Pink slot, thanks to us talking to it about it... problem is it has become fond of Sugar's slot, specifically, which isn't good as she's already in it! That needs to be fixed, we don't need it being stolen. So we'll continue to be vigilant about her.

- Oh wait. Forgot to mention this too because it felt too much like "nothing changed at all."
CHAOS IS BACK IN HEADSPACE, AND HIS COLOR CHANGED.
I am dead serious, he's something like this starry dark blue it is CRAZY. Also I think his name changed in headspace at least? Like with Ryman and Markus and Genesis. And that makes me wonder; I think that NEEDED to happen. He was the only one out of our original group who didn't fix their manifestation in that sense, so this was surprising but not unexpected if that makes sense.
Anyway, I didn't get to talk to him yet. Not much, I know I saw him talking to Laurie and I said a few words but I don't remember that sadly. All I recall is being unable to access any memory of him again, and Laurie said maybe we just need to get to know each other again? Like just be friends and spend time together without any preconceived notions. Chaos smiled and said he was perfectly fine with that. So we'll see on that too.

That's it for tonight; battery is about to die again so we need to call it quits for now.
Tomorrow is Sunday, with the NNWM thing that we're honestly not sure if we can pull off: writing books is beyond the abilities of most of us as we don't think that way; plus we have no idea what "normal people" live like... but thankfully we don't write about "normal people" when we do, so that's a slight relief, haha. In any case we did sign up, so we'll have to deal with it the best we can. Here's hoping there's no social fronter interference though; being in a group of people like that usually causes instant dissociation. We might have to rotate people, who knows.
In any case, no use worrying about it. Let's just give it a shot and see how it goes.
See you tomorrow evening, let's hope!

The little crying blue boy, the cool orange guy, and Christina.

The first two actually helped me make their avatars today. (Knife and Mulberry were watching too.)
The blue boy specifically wanted a blanket, so he got one.
Orange dude took forever to decide on his outfit. He might change his mind again later. He's also secretly not human, that's why he wears those weird glasses.
We're trying to find both their names. They've said they'll "know when they find the right one." (EDIT 072213= the blue boy is named David.)

This weird, punky pink voice showed up earlier too. Never saw her before. She was really angry, insisting she was pink because she was "sneaking in and sabotaging" the color. She "hated all the pink people" and the sexuality tied to that color, and wanted to kill anyone who had anything to do with it. She began getting really loud and violent, screaming a lot, the child voices were really scared. Knife warned her a few times, she didn't listen. Razor kept waiting for permission to retaliate. When the pinkish voice continued to ignore Knife's admonishments, he said she was disturbing the peace too much and was too dangerous to keep around. So Razor killed and ate her. It was freaky.

Christina got really different and really disturbing since we last saw her around.
Now she proclaims she's an "angel of the Lord," helping Jessica to "overcome the rest of us," as we "don't really exist" and are only preventing her from living her life. She insists that SHE'S real though because she's allegedly an "angel" all of a sudden. The worst part though is that she has the exact same unyielding, all-condemning, self-righteous, super-innocent moral code that the body had when it was like 10 years old... and I still don't know whether or not she's the one who's right.

Laurie is halfway between pissed-off and existentially-desperate right now, and it hurts to see her like that. I don't blame her though. This is a scary situation.

I need sleep.
The grandmother is mad that we're up late seeking online help (weekends = suicide crisis hotlines), insisting that we "aren't trying" although we've been doing so 24/7 for the past several years.
But it's no use arguing. The downstairs and underground people are flipping out because she's pushing triggers left and right, horrible ones, and they can't deal. Someone started screaming. Someone else started biting the body. Someone else started sobbing and pulling at their hair. I don't know how to protect them from this anymore.
i am so scared so scared so scared so scared god help us i dont wanna go in there.
Ssh, it'll be okay. Please. I'll protect you, somehow. Somehow.

I've gotta run.

As of last night no one exists anymore 
They were only born because they couldn't let go of the past 
So I let go of everything 
Now I'm free 

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the spectrum heart cathedral system

a prism of souls

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