the spectrum heart cathedral system

Well. We woke up this morning and it suddenly hit me as I looked at & felt this new body, that it's FEMALE. it has parts. And it might start bleeding again. And I can't cope with that. This is destroying me. THIS is the BIGGEST PROBLEM that we've been AVOIDING & SUPPRESSING this ENTIRE TIME but now it's UNAVOIDABLE and I'm... they asked if I felt like hurting myself and it took EVERYTHING in me NOT to say YES. The immediate instinct was to effectively "REROUTE THE BLOOD." But that wouldn't fix the actual nightmare. I DON'T WANT TO BE A WOMAN. I DON'T IDENTIFY AS FEMALE. I'M NOT A GIRL!! That's the bottom line. I've/ we've been saying that for ALMOST 25 YEARS at LEAST. And we CAN'T SHAKE IT. The body has become a living hell AGAIN and we're losing our will to live. The "only hope" is to... well. "Starve it again." That's the kneejerk response. Starve it so it stops. OR, "exercise until you become MASCULINE." I'm so angry/ scared/ sad. I feel BETRAYED. I WANT to feel safe in this body BUT THIS WILL NEVER BE SAFE and MY RELIGION SAYS I CAN'T DO A BLOODY THING ABOUT IT. This is the HEAVIEST POSSIBLE CROSS for me and it's LITERALLY KILLING ME and I'm afraid it's SUPPOSED TO DO and that is TERRIFYING. This feels like it's MURDERING ALL MY DREAMS.
✳ WE CANNOT SEE A FUTURE FOR OURSELF IN THIS BODY. We NEVER COULD, even as a child. That's ALWAYS been the death sentences. And now we "can't run." So what do we do? Honestly I don't want to revert to cruelly self-abusive behavior SOLELY because I DON'T WANT TO BE AN ABUSIVE PERSON. But I have to admit, I DO WANT TO "PUNISH" THIS FAT FEMALE FORM BY STARVING IT. It's genuinely a violent rage. Maybe it's symbolic. I WANT the femininity to EAT ITSELF ALIVE so it STOPS DEVOURING ME. I want to CUT OFF ALL ITS PARTS. You remember how CANNON was in college? How ANGRY & AGGRESSIVE she was? THIS IS WHY. AND WE'RE FEELING IT ALL OVER AGAIN. Except right now we're "TRAPPED." We're FORCED to keep eating and FOOD IS MAKING US FEMININE. I literally "HATE myself" for having been drinking so much m*lk, because it's SEX FOOD. WHY DIDN'T WE REALIZE THAT??? Was it a survival skill, to blind ourselves to the reality & its consequences? Just like Iscah. WELL HERE WE ARE AGAIN, FACING THE TRAUMATIC CONSEQUENCES, with NO CHOICE but to "RELAPSE" IN ORDER TO LIVE. God I hate this. WE HAVE TO LOSE THE FAT GIRLINESS ASAP. If we BULK UP & TONE UP it should KILL THE CURVES and if we DROP BACK DOWN TO ~105 we SHOULD... no, even I know that's too low. The ONLY reason we're still idealizing low body weight is because it GIVES US FLAT EDGES. It gives us SHARP CORNERS. BUT now we can either have THAT, or SOLID MUSCLE, and I'd MUCH RATHER HAVE THE LATTER. So we MUST BEGIN HEAVY DUTY WEIGHTLIFTING IMMEDIATELY. If we CAN'T join the gym YET, then GET THOSE APPS FOR HOME WORKOUTS & DO THEM EVERY SINGLE DAY. Yes it'll hurt & be difficult at first: we're weak & bloated & stiff from EIGHT WEEKS in an inpatient setting. BUT we'll have about SIX WEEKS UNTIL CHRISTMAS and BY 2025 we MIGHT HAVE HOPE AT LAST. We just have to WORK OUR ASS OFF. So this means SCHEDULE SHIFTS. If we're going to be FOCUSING ON EXERCISE, then we have to GET A VOICE RECORDER to take notes WHILE walking/ hiking, GET WIRELESS HEADPHONES for the gym, and PUT THE LEAGUEFILES ON OUR PHONE so we can READ (LISTEN?) TO THEM CONSTANTLY & refresh our memory & inspiration AT LAST. And of COURSE we have SPOTIFY PLAYLISTS for not only workouts in general, but for EACH LEAGUEWORLD. So THERE'S YOUR HOPE. FIX THIS CURSED BODY & PLEASE DON'T LET IT KILL YOUR DREAMS. IT CAN CHANGE and we WILL CHANGE IT and the BAD PARTS WILL SHRINK and IT WON'T EVER BLEED AGAIN GOD PLEASE HAVE MERCY ON US.

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✳ Talking about food/ planning meals/ etc. STILL MAKES US AGGRESSIVELY ANGRY??? "We don't want to think about it." We're SO TIRED OF FOOD. And we HATE LUXURY/ OVERCOMPLICATING THINGS. We want to get a BASIC, SIMPLE, EASY PREP, NUTRITIOUS grocery list and just do the SAME for meals. NO FUSS. We have a LIFE TI LIVE. Food is just fuel, NOT focus. SIMPLIFY. I think THAT'S why we "hate being asked"-- because we DON'T plan meals. We just eat simple food. What is there to talk about? ALSO I think it STILL FEELS INVASIVE-- like WHY do you want to know what I'm eating? That registers as "personal information" for some reason. Is it because "eating" still feels disturbingly sexual in too many contexts? Food becomes part of this body; someone wanting to know WHAT food literally feels like molestation somehow. God I'm so tired of this. Eating STILL HURTS, too; it makes us feel ill & nauseous & wrong. Feeling THINGS INSIDE OUR BODY is scary. Feeling our own skin suffocating itself is terrifying. It all feels like rape. I'm so tired. I want to only eat SIMPLE, SMALL MEALS. BUT I DO NOT WANT TO BE A "PRETTY, PETITE, THIN WOMAN"!!! THAT'S ABHORRENT TO ME. I'm so sorry. I'll never be able to stop being so prejudiced until I stop condemning myself for being biologically female. And I have to stop hating femininity in order to stop hating FOOD, I think, because I ASSOCIATE THE TWO. It's ALL CONNECTED.

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Morning headspace experience notes for the sake of not forgetting this.

✳ Julie COLOR REVERTING. "I don't want to go back to how I was either" (BODY association)
✳ LYNNE "BLOODLINE?" holding the "ideal" adult expectation BUT NOT PHYSICALLY!!
✳ BRIDGET & MISSY = the REASON Blue & Green are STILL EMPTY? Julie affecting YELLOW?
✳ Realizing INFI held a LOT of this female-body fear, ESPECIALLY with that SEWED-UP WOUND & THE "SPHERE"
✳ Tar attack = "adult woman" yellow? beehive hair? exaggerated parts. Laurie took an axe to her neck but it STUCK; she turned her axe-blade GOLD & it cut through.
✳ ↑ Tar-woman's body melted into Tar; Laurie has GOLD in her boots too?? I think Julie pointed this out. (This means that Laurie can now do critical "stomp damage" if it tries to evade her attacks on ground level)
✳ Tar "flood" stopped by LEON who was up on a ledge; he shot several gold bullets down into it. Scalpel was with him. Leon warped to ground floor, asked what is happening? Solemn, shaken.
✳ Laurie asked Scalpel about his weapons? He has "flat razors," BIG ones that "fold out." (This was a bit surprising-- wouldn't he have an actual scalpel? or a scalping knife?-- but actually we think he's holding "residue" from CNC; he's still deeply unstable from that time period as he was born in it; he hasn't fully "separated his identity" from who he "had to be" back then)
✳ Tar flood return, WRECKAGE appeared and GRABBED it?? Actually "rolled it up" into a ball & crushed it, flung it aside. (HER WHOLE BODY HOLDS GOLD??)
✳ ↑ Tarburn lingering on her hands. Knife showed up instantly & kissed her palms, cleared it up. We were worried about him now; but Julie marched over & purposefully kissed him & that cleared it. Knife was concerned for her in return but Julie said "if anyone is going to have Tar on (in?) them, it's me." (??)
✳ WE REALLY FELT INFINITII'S ABSENCE. NO ONE ELSE CAN "TRANSMUTE" BLACK ENERGY.
✳ ↑ Is/ was Infi's daemon role ALSO TIED TO THIS ISSUE??? (GENDER + OUR BODY)
✳ ↑ CERISE CANNOT HOLD THIS. "Sensuality" MUST BE KEPT PURE/ NONSEXUAL OR IT WILL DIE.
✳ WHAT IS YELLOW. WHY DOES THE TAR USE IT SO MUCH. Is Josephina able to return?? OR is s/he actually VIOLET/ PURPLE anchored (as s/he almost was in the beginning)? DUOTONE POSSIBILITY?
✳ Missy = "accessories/ fashion" & light blue = MIRROR vibe! "Cute/ pretty" obsession; "prissy pettiness"
✳ Bridget = GIRL BULLY. "Bad Katie" introject root?? "Pretty & mean"; DIFFERENT from Missy; more "mature" vibe
✳ Julie was SEXUAL but ABUSIVELY. She MANIFESTED the "cheerleader" stereotype sexual look (busty/ curvy/ tan; emphasis on chest/ bottom/ stomach; feels SO WRONG) (the "lollipop chainsaw" girl is SUCH a dead ringer for the original Julie it's SCARY)
✳ JEZEBEL WAS THE "WHORE." BLACK VS. PINK IS VERY DIFFERENT in terms of sexual abuse/ distortion.
✳ THERE ARE SO MANY FACELESS 'FONI WITH THIS ISSUE.
✳ Jewel was cheering me up by reading the first letters of the emotion lists as words
✳ Laurie said my "internal form" is still a mess. It's only feeling "resonant" with PRISM right now??
✳ HOW DOES THE JAY BLOODLINE PLAY INTO ALL THIS.
✳ Btw THIS ISSUE IS CRUSHING OUR ATTEMPTS TO "OWN/ IDENTIFY WITH" THE BODY. WHEN WE SHARE THE EFFORT & LIVE FROM OUR HEART, WE CAN HANDLE THE CHALLENGES TOGETHER. THE BODY ISN'T A "CONSTANT" IN FORM SO DON'T GET ATTACHED TO IT OR ANCHOR TO IT THAT WAY. LET THE BLEPOFONI & SOCIALS DO THEIR JOBS TOO! GOD MADE YOU MULTIPLE SO LET US BE OUR IDENTITY ACROSS THE BOARD!!

They have "yacht rock" on the TV this morning (Bobby Coldwell atm) and I'm SHOCKED to realize that I'm STILL GETTING A FEAR RESPONSE to certain musical sounds like brass/ rhodes piano/ "island" music/ flutes/ etc. And ALL these sounds ALSO give "CHILDHOOD ATMOSPHERE FLASHBACKS," with the INEXPLICABLY CONCURRENT "EXISTENTIAL DREAD" that feels like "mom's bedroom at night" & "George Winston music" & "80s synths" etc. WTF HAPPENED TO/ IN OUR CHILDBRAIN THAT HARD ASSOCIATED THIS (now Spyro Gyra) GENRE OF MUSIC WITH FEAR?? It's the sense that "something scary is going to happen/ I'm IN IT NOW"?? I feel TRAPPED & LOST, like I "can't be safe/ go home/ rest" with this music on. So I WONDER. This is MOM'S MUSIC. Did she PLAY this music CONSISTENTLY at CERTAIN TIMES in which we felt that way? (BTW I got the guts to ASK TO STOP THE MUSIC as it WAS INCREASING THAT "SLOW PANIC" FEELING. That was very brave & wise of us. NOW we need to THINK ABOUT OUR FAVE TUNES to REPLACE the music data in our head-- MAKE A LIST TO REFER TO IN A PINCH & GIVE IT TO AUDREY ♥) I'm sure therapy/ MOM TALKS will reveal more of this, so bookmark it mentally for analysis & journaling later.

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AUDREY'S MINI-JUKEBOX for COPING SKILL ACCESS
(tunes we TRULY LOVE & can CALL TO MIND IN A PINCH/ CRISIS to INSPIRE POSITIVITY (LOVE!!))

1. BLACK LIGHT MACHINE by FROST*
2. SUPER SONIC RACING by RICHARD JACQUES
3. BEFORE by EMPIRE OF THE SUN
4. SHOW SOME RESPECT by SALLY ANN TRIPLETT
5. I'M A BETTER MAN by ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK
6. SONG OF THE ANCIENTS by KEIICHI OKABE
7. DIE WITH A SMILE by LADA GAGA & BRUNO MARS

(continue this!)

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✳ "IMPROVE" skills/ COOPERATIVE WILLINGNESS today: (meet challenges/ changes with OPENNESS/ CURIOUS WONDER, HOPEFUL GRATITUDE, COURAGEOUS OPTIMISM)
1) Staff woke me up LATE (7am) for meds. I had to RUSH shower/ hygiene. This gave me the OPPORTUNITY to PROVE that I CAN-- I STILL FINISHED BY ~720! I was grateful for the challenge to improve/ streamline my timing; I found that I CAN wash faster AND dry my hair faster too. AND it DIDN'T AFFECT MY MED EFFICIENCY; I kept thinking that taking them later than usual would "stop them working."
2) New patient girl ANGRY VIOLENT. I actually GENTLY BUT FIRMLY spoke up to guide her a little. Proved that I CAN be GENTLY ASSERTIVE, and SHE DIDN'T GET OFFENDED! I didn't get thrown off or disturbed either; I internally DECIDED to STAND MY GROUND AND HELP/ BEFRIEND HER if possible. I WILLED to meet her where she was.
3) Hall yoga. Childlike wonder at ground level perspective. Singing bowl & COLOR REALMS (pink/ indigo/ violet). Angel card of AUTHENTICITY. Focused on movements, letting go of trauma fear bit by bit with "hip openers" (felt ORANGE?). Entered entirely into the experience, trusting, no judgment, open to the beauty in it. Gentle with body's new limits, encouraging it still.
4) Breakfast alterations: minimal eggs, asked for a bit more cereal (brave!). Forgot syrup, so put CRANBERRIES & CREAM CHEESE on the pancakes! Let myself enjoy it. Too much brownsugar in the cereal made me a bit ill; now I know I can try LESS in the future/ NOT "compelled" to get it OR use every bit of what they give me. Also tried yogurt IN the hot cereal to emulate home plans. Let Leon eat the blueberries. Thanked God for the unexpected little joys.
5) LUNCH RUSH! But PROVED I CAN. Learning HOW to be MINDFUL in a HURRY; keep practicing this, & thank God for the opportunities! More delays/ edits; late juice, bread instead of bun, styrofoam box salad, no cheese. Accepted it all happily & with curious fluidity; "how interesting! how new!" Openness/ flexibility allowing for adventure & joy. And the unexpected uniqueness itself is to be treasured.
6) DINNER EDITS.The catfish was MASSIVE! And the nutritionist CANCELED the cottage cheese, which was actually SUCH A RELIEF because I would've had NO TIME TO EAT IT, AND IT SHOWED THAT IF I DO GO OVER EXCHANGES STUPIDLY, SHE WILL FIX IT. So I can RELAX and TRUST her judgment. I also learned that 2 DRESSINGS ARE TOO MANY in the salad! And I DIDN'T RUSH THE FISH. It was LOVELY.
7) I'm so frustrated & disappointed in myself over my weekend mealplan choices. I KEEP MAKING COMPULSIVE CHOICES. But here's what I must do: ENTER INTO THE CONSEQUENCES WILLINGLY, & SINCERELY/ WHOLEHEARTEDLY, TRUSTING THAT GOD WILL HELP ME IF I PLACE IT IN HIS WISE HANDS. Imagine it ALL GOING WELL. LEARN what works & what doesn't. RELAX INTO GRACE. STAY HOPEFUL. FOCUS. YOU CAN DO IT REGARDLESS, BY GRACE!! YOU SURVIVED PANERA BREAD, BRO. THIS IS A BREEZE. (OF THE HOLY SPIRIT!) Don't panic. Go kiss Anxi. You'll survive & God will use even this to help you grow in VIRTUE/ CHARACTER!

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✳ The eating disorder/ mental illness "WANTS TO BE SPECIAL" = "BETTER THAN/ SEPARATE FROM" = PRIDE
("CONTAMINATION FEAR" BLEEDING INTO SOCIAL RELATIONS??? "I CAN'T BE LIKE THEM" ("DANGEROUS" PEOPLE)

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✳ We NEED to ERR ON THE SIDE OF CAUTION because we're learning that apparently CAFETERIA PORTIONS WILL ALWAYS VARY (we didn't realize that huge portions are apparently "NORMAL" in the "real world"; we have NO EXPERIENCE with eating in public so it was a bad shock), so we MUST STOP DOUBLING SIDES AND ENTREES!!! Choose the SMALLEST VOLUME OPTIONS from now on, and DO NOT GO OVER EXCHANGES ANYMORE. This HURTS and it's SCARY. Our meals are NOT ENJOYABLE ANYMORE. They're OVERWHELMING & HEAVY & PAINFUL and I HAVE TO CHOKE THEM DOWN SO FAST and there's SO MUCH. This is WORSE than bingeing because it's FORCED & INESCAPABLE. I HAVE TO DO 100% AND I CANNOT SAY "NO" OR "THAT'S TOO MUCH, PLEASE STOP." ...it's abuse. I'm abusing MYSELF. God I NEED TO STOP. God PLEASE HELP. I'm begging You PLEASE get me safely to Tuesday so we can STOP THIS FOR GOOD.

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poem exercise/ challenge

"I AM A DANGEROUS PERSON"

driven to remove the backstabber's dagger,
deftly I manipulate the blade to prevent mindblowing bleed
and restore the whole.
would such a wound weep
if i were heartless?

Slept until 9
Woke up in time for Lauds & Terce, said them

Knock mass! Healing sacrament too
Homily line, about changing focus from anxious petition to trusting gratitude = "use prayer to tell God how much you love Him, and how much you love others."

BK prep took a while but it was good today

Bumping all religious bits to after dividers, to cut into our monthly bulk entries; we're starting to obsess and it's deeply unhealthy.
We're getting obsessive over this just like Tumblr, and we're not eating and we're making ourselves a legalistic nervous wreck. Prayer & devotionals should NOT make us feel so anxiously rushed, and "trapped" that we want to cry and throw up.
Our worship is never restful. We're doing SOMETHING wrong.
...Laurie just nailed it. We're doing Tatiana's thing. We're obsessed with DOING, and we're not BEING.



We accidentally found a way to do FLUFFY EGGS!! We have to stir it up with a chopstick as soon as we put it in, then pop the bubbles that appear before we let it sit. The final texture is SO NICE.

Praying in fear = "God, I don't understand."
Reply= "Maybe I'm keeping that understanding from you in order to strengthen your FAITH."
Humble trust versus proud knowledge. We struggle daily. It's humiliating just to admit such a shameful sin.

Pasting this up here so you don't forget.
"...even though we are unable to penetrate through the letter to the spirit, through the outward and symbolic form to the real and eternal meaning of the sacrifice of Christ, we are yet on the road to truth, and hold the germ of it which will one day develop into the actual and perfect truth. Impatience is at the root of much unbelief and misconception and discontent; the inability to reconcile ourselves to the fact that in our present stage there is much we must hold provisionally, much we must be content to see through a glass darkly, much we can only know by picture and shadow. It is quite true the reality has come in the death of Christ, and symbol has passed away; but there is such a depth of Divine love, and so various a fulfilment of Divine purpose in the death of Christ, that we cannot be surprised that it baffles comprehension... it is not likely that we should be able to gauge its significance and explain its rationale of operation. And therefore, if, without any sluggish indifference to further knowledge, or merely worldly contentment to know of spiritual things only so much as is absolutely necessary, we yet are able to use what we do know and to await with confidence further knowledge, we probably act wisely and well."

Praying None, psalm 88, uniting my heart with all in the world who are in torment & pain. Felt global connection with the mystical suffering Body of Christ. If i cannot physically suffer LIKE them-- if God has not willed that I do; forcing myself to suffer is abuse, a sin-- then I can suffer WITH them LIKE MARY. In fact that's MORE edifying for me because then it REQUIRES ACTIVE VOLUNTARY COMPASSION, and it's NOT ABOUT ME. Making myself suffer more quickly becomes an OCD high, that bloody "challenge addiction." It loses all redemptive quality because ultimately it only SUFFERS FOR SELF.



"Whoever has known the love of God loves the whole world and never murmurs against his fate, for the burden of sorrow for the sake of God gains eternal joy."
- St. Silouan the Athonite


...my heart hurts over this restitution thing in our scripture study though.
"If your child has through carelessness broken or spoiled something you value, but seeing your displeasure is at pains to replace it, and does after long industry put into your hands an article of greater value than was lost to you, you are satisfied, and more than forgive your child... The satisfaction has far more than atoned for it."
...TBAS has said that nothing we ever do will atone for what we did to them.
But WHAT DID WE DO that was so malevolent??? I don't doubt them, I just... it's terrifying. I cannot see it. Are we that blind to our own capacity for evil? Is our skin toxic to touch and we don't realize? Do we draw blood with every brush-against and not notice it? What did we do?
And we TRIED to make amends. We just failed miserably. We actually made things WORSE. 
We're so haunted. We can't stop thinking about it. Five years later the blind guilt & paranoid fear have become cancerous.
...
...What would it take, for them to "atone for" our pain?
That's the most brutal question. It reveals all the hidden lingering poisonous grudges & regrets & wounds.
What losses have we pinned on them? What responsibilities for events do we impose on them?




Too guilty & ashamed to watch ghibli
Stupidly browsed Tumblr for like two hours
Looking up selfship affection art & self-denial saint quotes, talk about dichotomy
Saint quotes feeding selfhatred fire. Worried. Don't want to go back to that life of constant WAR with body. Always miserable, no joy, no peace.
THEN realized with horror that WE'RE ALSO MASOCHISTIC. I'm being as blunt as possible. Why do you think the war lasted so long? WE'RE PAIN ADDICTS on some sick level. Even now, when we're cowards & weaklings after CNC for some inane reason, we STILL unconsciously but really push for self-abuse. We can't vomit or bleed anymore so we do other things. We don't turn on air conditioning. We over exercise. We fast too long. We don't treat our mental illness symptoms. We won't let ourself sleep. We don't take pain medication or drink enough water. We pray for 2+ hours a day and read the Bible for 4+. We refuse to do anything recreational. BUT, because we AREN'T STARVING OR FLAGELLATING OURSELF ANYMORE, WE'RE BEING A DAMNED COWARD MORON EVIL SINNER SCUMBAG AND GOD IS SO DISGUSTED HE WON'T EVEN LOOK AT US. "We don't really love God if we aren't willing to KILL OURSELF for Him." BUT THAT'S OBSCENELY WRONG.

So depressed over this. Moral OCD hell.

Don't know if we should deprive ourselves of sleep or not. Might make this mindset worse. Is that the right thing though? Is that saintly suffering? Or is it just hatred finding a new costume?
I'm so tired. I miss the bright loving light of the System life.

God help us stop being such a waste of breath.

010718.
sunday.

We finally realized why Tobiko hasn't been the one purging anymore.

Food does not register as food.
We've been using food as a stim.

We've been using a LOT of things as stims, actually.
This explains the bathroom rituals.
We brush our teeth, floss, brush again, floss some more, use mouthwash, brush our teeth again, wash our face, wash our body, wash our hands, wash our face again… over and over and over and over. We do this for an hour, sometimes, just scrubbing at our gums and our flesh, scrubbing until we are red and raw sometimes. We do this in the shower, too-- we obsessively wash over and over and over, not even thinking that much about "being" clean as we are thinking about feeling clean. It's why we cut our nails down to the nubs and shave every hair off that we can reach. It's never about the end result, not literally. It's about how it feels. It's about purging everything that hurts in the most literal way we can think of.

We eat when we don't want to because it NEVER registers as eating. It registers as stimming.
This is why preparing food used to take, what, six hours back in PA? Because it was never about food. It was, again, a matter of stimming. Of sensory soothing.

Remember that one night in SLC where we sat on the floor of our bedroom, rocking violently back and forth and flapping our hands so hard our wrists ached, blasting Serph at high volume on our headphones and stretching our legs against that rubber band until they, too, were sore from exertion? Pure stimming. Pure mindless stimming. THAT'S the key here.

We've lost all our old methods. We can no longer walk in circles in the living room, or the kitchen, or the driveway. We can no longer go hide downstairs by the furnace, or lock ourselves in the bathroom-- although the latter was always a horrific trauma trigger, as was the attic, even moreso (which is why we didn't even bother to list it here.)
We can't even self-abuse in the "traditional" way anymore. We don't have razors. We don't have knives. We don't have blades. (and oh, how our heart aches at those words-- no, those names, beloved and tender as a wound) We can't bite our arms anymore, can't slap our face, can't yank at our hair, can't claw at our skin or punch our legs or stomp our feet. All our old stimming methods, as violent as we need them, are gone, are forbidden. And our brain is boiling over.

It's been shutting down a lot lately and that terrifies us, to be honest. OV has it easy. He can stim with an adorable little squishy macaron or peach or donut, can play with fidget spinners or kaleidoscopes or even just a piece of jewelry. That's enough for him, it seems, and that makes us super happy. We love him, we love allof them, and the fact that they can use such mild methods to soothe their addled brain is deeply soothing to ours-- in a different sense. We would never inflict this aggressive need of ours on them, not for the world. And yet, here we are, needing it, and terrified because we can't explain it to him, terrified because he thinks we're doing it out of hatred, out of rage, out of suicidal ideation. It's exactly the opposite. When we don't do it, the stress and pressure gets so intense that we wantto die, and we stop caring whether or not we do. That is what's lethal. Not the stims.

The problem is, though, that the stims are dangerous in and of themselves. All of Cannon and Gamboge's old methods drew blood, marked bruises, left scars. All of them beautiful and beloved, true, but still risky to our health… and yet what we wouldn't give to be able to flay this flesh wide open again, even though I can feel Scalpel shaking his head at that thought even now. Why so?
"It's dangerous," he says. "You're right. Even though it is effective, and beautiful, it's also just as addictive. You know just as well as I do that once we start that, we can't stop. We want to bleed and scar forever. And that will kill us."
So will this "eating disorder." But I suppose that's the point of this whole entry.

Food is the simplest, easiest, most "socially acceptible" form of stimming and self-abuse that we have left at our disposal. It's all we have left on days like this.
Except, now, we can't, not without risk of condemnation and distrust, not without hurting someone else more than we ever could before or would ever want to. OV knows we have a problem, but he doesn't know why-- heck, even we didn't know that until this afternoon!
But it's why we go absolutely bonkers in the kitchen once he goes to work and MC goes to sleep. We racked our brains over that for weeks, for months even. We don't want to abuse ourselves, we don't want to suffer or humiliate ourselves anymore, so why this? Why can't we stop this? Why do all of the nousfoni tied to this have such shockingly, irresistibly powerful anchors? Why can't even Laurie stop them? Why does NO ONE, deep down, even want to? Why does it feel like we're being "betrayed" by the System itself in these nousfoni being given free reign and full power over our body and actions in the middle of the night?
We know why, now. It's because they're trying to save our life.
They're STIMMING. They're desperately attempting to soothe our hurting brain, to ease our aching heart, to comfort the poor screaming ones inside. The ONLY way we've EVER known how is to somehow "burn it off" outside. Even now, right now, although we're enjoying typing, our brain is too high-strung and our body is immediately defaulting to the urge of "eating." We aren't hungry. We never are. But that's the point. This isn't about physical hunger. This is about spiritual hunger-- psychological starvation. This is about us needing something we still can't seem to get and scrabbling at the scraps of it wherever we can find it.
Truthfully, we just want to isolate ourselves completely, close our eyes, rock back and forth like a lunatic punching bag and just let our brain turn off as completely as possible. But the key, again, is isolation-- that terribly dear thing we have NEVER been allowed to truly get, not since childhood, and which we have been aching for for longer than we can remember lately. There are no locked doors here. There's no cellar, no attic, no closet to sit in. God how we miss it now, how we miss being a child, ignored and alone in that dearly forsaken house, feeling like we were the only soul(s) existing in the entire world. Just us, and the quiet, and the sunlight, and our heart. We need that like the air we breathe, and we don't know how to get it anymore, because we never realized until we moved out here how we need love like the blood in our veins, pun entirely intended.
That's the killer. That's the real awful thing here.
God I want to cry. Our body is desperate right now, we want to just… scream and punch things and stomp the floor until our knees hurt and throw things and bite things and just let ALL the steam out. There's no malice in it, ever. But it scares people. It terrifies them. We're a monster, and we love what we are, but… we're still a monster. We're a scary, terrible, incomprehensible thing sometimes, and it hurts when our sharp edges cut even the people who try to love us regardless.

Our body wants to food-stim because that's the only thing it can think of to do right now, and yet it KNOWS that it doesn't want to. The very thought of "eating" is making Overload want to scream and throw the plate across the room, is making The Destroyer want to set the entire freaking refrigerator on fire. We HATE food; we hate it for being the only accessible way we were able to dissociate and heal for years, without being hacked.

Yeah. Isn't that the bloody cincher.
Hacks. Why the heck do you think they kept happening for so long?? Why the heck do you think people stopped fighting after so many hellish years??
It's because they hurt, they ate hours of our time, and they isolated us from the world. Yeah, they were absolute hell, that's the indisputable truth-- but the other awful truth is that we didn't want to live in the first place.
God. Those poor, poor damaged kids, sacrificing their souls and selves just because the world at large outside was somehow even scarier than blacking out for three hours and waking up in blood and excruciating pain and mental terror. At least then they could shut down. At least then they could hard-reset their memory, splinter a little more, break a little further, forget most of their entire life and pretend nothing was happening. They just wanted to run, God forgive them, they just wanted to hide and sleep and rest and the ONLY way they could was by shutting everything off. God forgive all of us.

Hacks don't happen anymore. They can't. Not since 2016. Not since Infinitii's presence truly registered, not since we realized what we were actually looking for and what was actually happening in contrast. The truth of it, the harsh horrific reality of the situation, was too terrifying to ever allow ever again. And so hacks stopped completely.
And the eating disorder exploded.

We knew that was going to happen, really. Stop one addiction, but leave the reason why it developed in the first place, and a new addiction will return or appear to replace it. The body is just hopelessly wrecked, man, it doesn't know what else to do.
Why do you think we started flirting with EVERYTHING that would detach us from the reality our poor brain couldn't cope with anymore? We started drinking. We started smoking. We started abusing prescription meds. We experimented with asphyxiation and anesthesia and everything we could think of that would detach us from the awful soul-crushing loop of that toxic household, of that dead-end environment, of the unending mental stress.
And somehow, some days, some nights, that still hasn't changed.
Like right now.

We have nothing. No paint, no sewing kit, no exercise bike, no weights, no internet, no Xbox. No isolation, which is the TRUE need behind ALL of those things. We can't do anything if we aren't COMPLETELY alone, and it feels like a kick in the face to the Broken Arrows, but God forgive us it's true.

We want to run. But we can't. Where the heck would we go? Everywhere out there, there are people watching us, there are social contexts "to obey" and our poor terror-hardwired brain keeps kowtowing to ALL of them. Even just now, when OV laughed or sighed or whatever that little dear breath was, we looked up, wondering-- are we needed? Was that a call for attention? What is the proper way to respond?
And then we wonder why people like Quicksilver exist, why that girl who fronts in the early morning exists. The nousfoni that will even flip off the people they love and say "shove off, leave me alone." The ones that seem coldhearted and callous and brutal, when really all they are trying to do is get us alone. They're trying to PROTECT us, bless their monstrous hearts, and we know it.
We're terrified of coming across as a horrible person, like we did to the kids in SLC. This is probably why. But we had no idea this was even happening back then-- we didn’t even know we were multiple, for God's sakes. Now, though, not only do we know, we understand, more and more each day.
So when OV sighs and someone immediately fronts with a middle finger and stony expression, they aren't saying they don't care. They're saying, "we can’t care right now because we are too burnt out TO do so without utterly sacrificing our health and your respect in the process."
So we sit here, miserable and overloaded, yearning for the opportunity to just… be alone.

God we both love and hate the nights when OV works. We love him, we love all of the Broken Arrows, but… it's just like when we started doing too much for church. We adore our faith, we adore its practices, but when you're expected to attend every daily mass, every weekly funeral, every weekend mass, every choir practice, every group meeting, every picnic, every bible study, et cetera… well, something in you starts to hate it, in utter paradoxical spite, in total impossible parallel to the love you still feel, solely because it KNOWS that if you don't stop you are going to burn to the ground.
So it stops it in the most complete, sudden, brutal, total way it knows how.
It scares the bloody wits out of anyone standing in its way.
People don't like monsters. People leave monsters alone.
So we learned to be a monster.

…God. What do we do.
We're thirsty. We want to cry. More than that, we want to scream and punch things, but that'll frighten OV, and we can't… we can't risk that. That's the horrible, horribly irony of this. We have to sacrifice our terrible needs for the sake of terrible love. What do we do?

People stay up all night because we need to be alone because that's the ONLY TIME we can brutally soothe our psyche. It's always violent love with us, did you notice? Always compassion and cruelty, or at least, what others would see as cruel. For us, it's just the rawest, most selflessly pure form of love. Love that doesn't deny you your needs just because they're strange or "socially unacceptable."

We want to run outside and go hide in that stupid McDonald's bathroom because it's the only place in town that feels like an airport-- totally insulated from the outside world, cold metal and echoing tile, quiet as a grave, no time existing in there at all. It always feels like 3 in the morning there, when you're by yourself. But that's the problem. It's a freaking bathroom in a fast food joint. It's not EVER going to be a failsafe place to be safe-- heck, the sheer simple fact that it's a bathroom has ALREADY condemned the poor thing beyond hope, thanks trauma. (God, there's that awful thought process again. Poor hurting kids. I wonder how many of them we've never seen, how many of them are still contributing to this in our sub(terranean)conscious.) But the one time we were in there, we felt-- God have mercy, what a dearly desired feeling-- like we were the only people on earth. Just us, just this body, just this tiny bubblespace of a bathroom, no time or space beyond. Just that single isolated moment. THAT'S what we need. YES, it's a literal NEED. It's why we risk our mental health going out literally EVERYWHERE when we walk in the mornings, exposing ourselves to too many soul-draining social contexts, desperately seeking a place where that won't be the case, desperately seeking some secret quiet corner somewhere that we can privately own, like the study nooks at Marywood, like the tiny pockets of woods.
…I wish there was a church with unlocked doors around here. God, we wish. We're nearly in tears just thinking of that. The ultimate met need. Isolation, but in a soaring wide-open emptiness. The feeling of our dreams. Rolling hills and labyrinthine halls and massive abandoned buildings and no one, NO one but us in them. Not even a gnat for outside company. Nothing. Just us, and the air, and the sun, and the clock ticking second after second, counting down to nothing, looping without an hour hand. That's what we want. Just… infinity. Eternity. God help us, no wonder hacks were a thing, I want to cry so hard we vomit out our entire respiratory system. This is wrenching and it makes so much sense. How did we never NOTICE this before???

…
What do we do.

Where do we go. It's 7pm, it's a Sunday night, we can't stand this social context right now, we KNOW OV is worried about us and that simple passive attention is keeping our brain in overloaded status and we want to weep because we care about them, too-- so much our heart aches from it, but what do we do? We love them, but… what do we do? We'll never stop loving them. We'll love them forever. But… sometimes, we dream of running away, of just sleeping in a field somewhere, of packing a knapsack and walking the railroad tracks for days, of catching a bus and just riding it until the end of the line and wherever we are, we are. We want no roots, and yet we want a home to go home to when the solitude starts to bite. There's nothing wrong with being alone. Just… souls need souls. God split hirself because ze needed to love more. We are made to connect with those other pieces, with every other bit of reality. And humans, sure we don't identify as one but this body is one, and we adore people, we do, we just… need to do this in moderation, I suppose.

Do we have a list? Do we even have options when this happens? When our spoons are so low the entire silverware drawer is missing, what the heck do we do, where do we go? When we're so weak we can't get undressed, is there anywhere we can be that will feel like the world has ceased to exist outside? I don't know.
Maybe we can empty out the bottom of the closet, sit in there.
No, no no no, I can feel the children shrieking at that idea even now.
Idola seems piqued. Maybe we should try. See what happens. I doubt hacks will happen--
They won't, but they'll be threatened--
In isolation hacks are always a threat because we black out,

What do we do.

It's too cold outside to go hide in the woods, or to even go find spots where we can hide. But Jewel is so excited at the thought. She has ideas.
Maybe we should try anyway? Get a blanket or sleeping bag or something, bundle up good, find somewhere in the woods where it's just us and just… keep that in our heart if nothing else, if we can't go there. Find at least one place in this new local world where we can be ironically cut off from it for a while, without risk of sudden jarring intrusion. Walking distance. Where can we go?
Buses.
Buses aren't cheap, kid, we need somewhere we can go on a dime without spending a dime, that's the problem.
I'm sure there's somewhere. Let's check Google Maps, find something out. I'm sure we can. Right? Are we done writing?
For now, maybe. I… the other topics we want to write about are huge. The hacks, for one, and the eating disorder in light of this.
But we have been writing about it. Both of them. Haven't we?
Not in as brutal excruciating detail and honesty as we need to, no.
Should we start, then?
Maybe. Hold on a minute.


Food stimming.
Back in PA, we had a soup pot, huge and solid metal, and every day, we'd start the morning by blacking out over a cutting board.
I don't know what we did. All I know is that the smell of wilted lettuce is one of the biggest triggers in the world, and we still can't put spices on our food without shivering in dread. Indian food makes us dissociate immediately, as do potato chips, and ice cream, especially Klondike bars… avocados are still terrifying, so are carrots, so is mayonnaise.
All of those foods were used for blatantly self-abusive purposes in the past and you know what? I'm going to say EXACTLY why.
There was a phase, in 2016, where all we ate for about a week was namkeen. Indian snack food. Just bags of (name). It made us horrifically sick but hey, snack food is an easy time-consuming stim, right? Even if it makes you vomit nonstop for hours-- even especially because it does! Because purging makes you even more dissociative, makes you able to sleep for hours because your body is so wrecked from the past several hours to even consider staying conscious for another second. The last day we bought Indian food, someone filled at least six entire cereal bins with the stuff, separating them methodically by ingredient, then going outside (thanks Destroyer) and flinging them all into the woods… and then hours later, even days later, someone else went outside in a scavenger-desperate mess and picked the pieces off the ground and ate them. We still cannot look at that memory without feeling instantly, unbearably sick. I assume it was all purged seconds after, but memory is black, punctuated only by tiny shattered snapshots of fingers wrestling bits of chickpea flour away from bugs and brambles and rain-muddled dirt.
Remember why P&R became the devil's household?? Remember how many actual HUNDREDS of dollars were spent there over several months, because the food there was dirt cheap AND typically already was garbage? Remember the granola bags with mouse holes chewed through them? Remember the instant noodles with mold growing inside? Remember the hummus that landed us in the hospital due to food poisoning? I know you do. We ALL do.
Oh, but THAT'S the most important thing, something we've probably mentioned in the past before but NEED to reiterate today-- the MAIN reason food was our main stim for YEARS was because, if no one is watching, you don't have to eat it.
We would buy starchy, heavy, crunchy foods, time-consuming foods, chips and cookies and cereals and granola and things, and we'd chew them up, ingredient by ingredient, piece by single piece, and we'd spit them out. Organize, chew, spit. Over and voer and over. And then, when the bag or box was done, we'd chew up the chewed stuff, over and over, until it was too saliva-riddled to chew anymore, and then we'd eat that and purge it immediately, too racked by family-instilled guilt at the thought of "wasting it" by throwing it away (no matter how moldy or rotten or inedible it was) to do so, even at the risk of our own health. That went on for years.
Then we couldn't isolate anymore, then we started losing too much weight, then our body forced us to start bingeing instead in a desperate gamble to get some calories out of it.
The worst chew-spit binges were in that one autumn that we re-read A Wrinkle In Time, with whoever decided that raw oatmeal mixed with molasses was the best texture for doing so-- probably because it took ages to mix up, causing our arms to scream with exertion from doing so, eliciting the same response from our jaws once it reached those. Pain, once sharps were forbidden. A horrific rerouting. And we did that for weeks, if not longer, until the passive sugar-exposure made us SO sick we ended up bedridden with a trashed immune system and too much nausea and chronic pain and hideous gastric distress to leave the bed. But to this day, anxiety-eaten nousfoni in this system, poor desperate kids, always look to the oatmeal boxes in the grocery stores even if the sight of them triggers immediate massive panic. Part of them also remembers a time when that food was the only way they could numb themselves to the world. So they hesitate. They're afraid, but they don't know what other options they even have. And every once in a while, we'll find a box stashed in a drawer or a closet, inevitably doomed to be in the garbage within hours, either thanks to the Destroyer or some poor purgative kid who just wanted to feel like they were throwing up the pain along with the carbs.

God. No wonder so many of our Daemons are tied to food. I wonder what Rupture knows, if anything. She's mainly the fear of dying in the process, of blood in our nose and throat, of our stomach screaming at us to stop. I don't know who holds this, this stimming nightmare… no one except Chocoloco, at least, and he only catches the frayed-end dregs of it, nothing serious, nothing traumatic. He's just that initial desperate programmed seeking of comfort in places where everyone who claimed they loved you claimed it would always be, and yet never was. Chocolate and coffee. Our family's "soothing staples," both of them doing nothing but putting us through hell since childhood. Still, desperate, we never gave up trying. Choco is pretty pissed as that, although nowhere near as much as he is heartbroken. His heart-host is angry almost all the time but it's for the same exact reason that any of us are angry right now-- because we're burning up inside, ripped apart and overwhelmed and sad, and we just want to hole ourselves up in the corner of a coffeeshop somewhere, in the evening when it's dark and softly raining outside and no one knows we're here and we have nowhere else to be, just us and this warm quiet soft place, and we can weep and cry and ache inside and this tiny childlike part of us remembers the days when a muffin and a latte made us feel real, made us feel like we could exist as ourselves apart from society and our family and anyone, like this little rite of passage was proof that we could survive alone, and were, in that moment. THAT'S what our hurt ones keep seeking, in that sort of archetypal memory, but Chocoloco knows it's ultimately heartbreakingly empty, that it's not food or drink or chocolate or coffee or caffeine or sugar or anything edible that we're seeking-- we're seeking his heart, we're seeking love, we're seeking the love that only we can give each other-- we're seeking ourselves.
We can't find each other if we're suffocating in the outside world.

So. Trigger foods.
Someone once wrote about this, too-- probably Iscah-- the science of "combined" and "fused" foods (she says yes, it's in her journal in detail). Well I won't steal her thunder, but the principle of it was this: if you want to make a food inedible but still ingestible, in other words, if you're trying to make a "stim food" instead of a meal, you need to make it as easily palatable as possible in the most blatant way possible. Which means, usually, you liquefy it. You blend things. You cut things into miniscule pieces. You take things like spices, and condiments, and sauces, and drinks, and you soak every stupid thing you have with them until your stomach heaves at the very sight of it, and when it's a slurry from hell you eat that as quickly as possible so your body rejects it just as quickly. Ideally, the whole prep process will take hours, as will the purging process afterwards, in a desperate blacked-out state, trying to get every last crumb out of our system. This is how we spent our days for years, inbetween church activities and family demands.
And isn't that the irony?
We were left alone. We were ignored. And yet, we were never isolated. The grandparents were ALWAYS there, always a few feet or a room away, watching, waiting, vigilant. If we disappeared from their radar for a few minutes, they freaked out. The only time we could "get away with it" was by being in the bathroom, behind a locked door, pretending we were taking a bath, when in reality we were slumped over a toilet wishing we were dead already, sobbing because we really just wanted to be alive already.
But we were never alone. We wanted to be alone, God knew. We wanted a place where nothing could touch us but ourselves.
That's how hacks happened.
I can't talk about that right now.

Potato chips. Cookies. Trail mix. Things like that. Our grandfather would hoard them in his closet, and when we weren't allowed to prepare or eat food in the kitchen anymore without being perpetually critiqued by our grandmother or psychologically terrorized by our brother, we would sneak into his room and sneak into the closet and gorge down a whole bag, not even wanting to, just desperate to stim away the constant fear and pain by crunching something sharp and salty until our mouth bled. But potatoes and flour don't purge easy. They stick like glue in your stomach, and they WILL make the next few hours feel like the central circle of hell. We know. We made that mistake one too many times. We thought we were dead, a few times. But somehow we survived. 85 pounds and throwing up junk food for 8.5 hours a night and we still somehow survived.
There was a time when we first discovered P&R and someone bought cheese curls and chips by the cartful, but they were bean-based, and when our body loudly let us know that it did NOT like beans, we threw them ALL out on the crudpile.
It rained that night. It was cold that night. The next morning, the food was somehow soggy but preserved by the temperature, and whoever the heck was fronting was starving and "couldn’t stand the thought of wasting that poor food" (why the pity on the FOOD being unloved and rejected?? why NEVER pity on ourself being the same???) and snuck out to that horrid garbage heap and ate them right off the dirt, brushing bits of soot and soil and ants off them in the process. Good God. How did we even survive.
They/we threw everything up in a panic shortly after. That was Tobiko's doing. She remembers that more clearly than anyone.
It wasn't the last time that happened. Someone grew fond of the process at one point, of the act of scavenging, of "finding food in the wild" and the time-consuming, stimming process of that fused with a broken sense of accomplishment and achievement. It never lasted long, but God knows they tried, over and over and over, until that last day with the Indian food. Thank God that hell is over forever.

The bloody Klondike bars and avocados. That was the WORST of it, shortly before UPMC. We realized that our body hated dairy, hated fat, hated chocolate, but we ALSO realized that the consistency of those foods was ideal for bingeing and purging, plus our body was seeking sweets out of childhood comfort desperation AND everyone we knew was INSISTING we "eat as much fat as possible."
So guess who binged on like eighteen entire avocados and ten packs of Klondike bars one night.
It was forced. It was forced so hard we thought we were possessed. We thought we were going to die. There's no memory of anything outside one hysterical moment when someone was shoving more chocolate into our mouth and thinking, why?? I don't want this, NOBODY wants this, I'm scared and sick and I just want to sleep, why can't I stop???
I don't know how that ended. All we know is that the family KNEW and they WATCHED IT HAPPEN and then afterwards they asked if we had "learned our lesson."
SHUT UP. YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE HECK WAS GOING ON, DON'T ASK IF WE "LEARNED OUR LESSON" BECAUSE THERE WASN'T EVEN A LESSON IN IT WE WERE JUST SO DESPERATE TO NOT BE IN PAIN ANYMORE YOU IGNORANT TROLLOP
Triple, watch your language. Be angry, but don't be so brusquely inconsiderate about it, please.
IT'S WHAT VOCAB WE HAVE FOR THIS KIND OF INTENSE PAIN. i'm sorry. i have no other words besides screaming.

Let's continue.

Coconut oil. the NIGHTMARE that is coconut oil. HOW much money was blown on that??
It was the best stim food and it was the SCARIEST one BY FAR, and that is SAYING something.
Our body does NOT like oil, and when you're literally buying PACKS of it because this kind FREEZES and becomes not only biteable and sharp, but chewy if you mix it with protein powder, and your poor malnourished body is craving both those things so it's a recipe for disaster already. We… I don't even remember. Literally NO ONE we can find even remembers, nothing beyond one snapshot of lying on the bathroom floor with that unmistakable special nauseating agony that comes from eating too much oil, literally begging God to not let them die, screaming in rage and determination that they'd NEVER do this again, someone (a Protector, Wreckage maybe, the Destroyer maybe, Laurie maybe) going outside in the 10pm dark and rain and throwing all of that garbage into the woods where it couldn't be salvaged (although we all knew someone would try).


…OV just came over and kissed us and someone actually wanted to give him a double flipoff in response. Not out of hatred, just out of "what the heck do you want us to do. We're tired and angry and can't do a SINGLE THING without your permission because we DON'T KNOW what we actually want and don't trust ourselves TO know right now. But we're overstimulated and overwhelmed and heartbroken and furiously distraught and you're kissing us like we're supposed to ignore all this agony and kiss you back. And God knows we WANT to. That's the problem. We WANT to, but then you'll call it self-sacrifice, and what the heck do we do??? We love you, we WANT to be with you, but our body wants something else and until we figure out what the heck it is, we CAN'T be with you because we won't be able to pay attention To you past this screaming discomfort and unsoothed pain. We don't know what the heck to do, and we hate that we have to snub and ignore you in the process of finding out simply because our brain cannot handle the stress of having to factor in another human being's presence and needs into our decisions and thoughts right now. We can't freaking multitask. Please don't force us to context shift so shockingly suddenly or we Will hit you, or bite you, like the monster and rabid dog we are at the moment. But we won't mean it, and we hope you know it, but we still can't take that risk of hurting you, so we completely shut down. We do nothing, we say nothing, we boil over like a kettle fit to explode, and we just want to get this problem figured out so we can safely let this scalding steam out so you can touch us without getting burned. That's all."

…

Do we eat? Do we drink?
This body has to use the bathroom. These clothes are too warm and soft and do you know what that's overstimulating? Because they make us WANT to sit and rest and relax and we CAN'T.
Iscah LOVES these clothes because that's ALL SHE DID. She rested, and relaxed, and took care of our body. When we wear these clothes, the body remembers that, and wants it just as badly. But in this context, no. No, here we're too afraid of ignoring people, of rejecting them, of the fact that OV just went and lay down on the freaking bed because he probably thinks we hate him when really WE JUST WANT TO DO THAT SAME BLOODY THING BUT WE WON'T BECAUSE WE LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO LEAVE YOU.

what do we do. god. I don't know.

Is our body hungry?
It's thirsty. We haven't drank in over 3 hours and someone purged most of breakfast out of sheer dissociative panicked guilt, so that's even worse. Go use the bathroom, get a drink, then figure out what to do.
We can't eat without OV anyway, and he's hiding away from us. Did we hurt him?
…I don't know. I don't even know. I just hope he's okay. If he didn't, and he wanted to be alone, but was happy, would that be okay with you?
Of course it would be, but he's obviously not happy right now and that's the problem.
…Oh. Should we go talk to him, or…?
Maybe. I don't know. Maybe.
I think we should. Apologize for not being able to respond earlier, apologize for snubbing him on purpose because we were unable to respond in honesty to him.
All or nothing, huh.
Yeah. A curse and a blessing.
Are we done with this file for now, for the record?
Maybe? I think so. The big unanswered question is still: how do we eat food without turning it into a dissociatively abusive stim?
Eat it like we do in the mornings with him. Paying attention, letting everyone share it, not being stressed the heck out in the process. Stimming beforehand, even. Really, that's probably the smartest thing to do. Gotta find what works on short notice that won't hurt us or magnify negative emotions and do that.
Sounds good.
Body does need some self-care, though, so let's call it quits for now. Everyone good? Anyone got any last thing to say before we stop?
Just that Wegmans was a living hell, too, and we never want to go back there.
Then get over that place and every other place in our memory, kid. Forget them. Live here and now, and please, learn from that experience and stop thinking about it. Okay?
…Okay.
Just… let it go. Walk into memory and burn it to the ground if you have to. Whatever works. Just don't let it suck the joy out of our present life anymore. All right? We'll help you. We're safe now, all things considered. Just confused and hurting is all. But we're safe.
I know.
Then let's go talk to OV. He's the reason we can say that, after all.
We love him, even now. Does he know that?
That's what we're going to go make sure of, kid. Give me a minute.



Oh, wait!! One last vitally important thing.
The key to a successful stim is that it HAS to let our BRAIN shut down. Low-impact, low-speed, "mindless" activity so that we can DEEPLY relax, INSIDE. Books don't work, nor does TV, because they're too mentally stimulating. Food prep is too, actually-- that's why we keep hurting ourselves when we try! Same with the garage job. We try to dissociate with repetitive motion and forget that those motions have an end, both in result and process. That doesn't work for stimming!! However, THIS DOES. Weirdly, this typing REALLY helps, at least, in a different way-- it helps us untangle what hurts, and really See it. It doesn't alleviate the stress, just lets us know what we're looking at. What DOES help in a pinch is TUMBLR, on the phone, IF we do it safely. Yes, it Does work!! Because it's "mindless browsing" and you can link-hop FOREVER and find poetry and pretty pictures and just let our mind wander for HOURS if you have to. Spotify is almost this kind of stim but not really, because music demands Attention, but we can use that to a BETTER advantage because it draws us into our mind ENTIRELY. THAT'S an ideal stim, hence the old beloved walks in circles for hours, just imagining and thinking. My thing!! We've gotta find a way to do that again if we can. Maybe in the playroom, who knows. But we will. Anyway, yeah. When in doubt, grab Nelumbo, our beloved Samsung Galaxy S8 who we saved up for a year for and now had better use to show respect and gratitude for that!! Okay? We've got this. Now go tell the Arrows that we love them because they need us just as much as we need them even if they need space too!! Bye guys!!

-J.W.L. and the Lightraye aka Lotus Cathedral System ♥

saturday morning.

The very word "relationship" is a programming/ objectification trigger.
THAT'S why I say I can "only love strangers." It's a misunderstanding of this.
In actuality, I can love ANYONE as long as I am NOT "in a relationship" with them, no matter HOW close we are.
This is probably the real reason why I still am on the fence about the whole "marriage" concept. I like the concept, of course-- unity of opposites, two working as one, etc.-- but I do not like the fact that "now you're a legal couple!" "now you're tied to each other in a social/ cultural sense!" et cetera, plus the whole mess with sexuality and domestication that comes with it. It makes me very uncomfortable. It is not for me.
But the point is, that's a trigger word. "Relationship." It ties DIRECTLY into our biggest problem of "we see ourself (the physical self) as an object to be used."



later.


All right, I need help.
I have been self-abusing nonstop for FOUR WEEKS now. I've been marking the calendar and it has not abated.
This is bad. I don't think we've ever been this bad before, and that is scary.
I haven't had a full meal or a full night's sleep in a month, just about. Maybe three days of good sleep, but only as a result of exhaustion, and then I still wake up feeling sick.
In short, I'm scared. I can't remember not being sick at this point. I don't know how to stop.
That's the scariest part. I don't know how to stop anymore.

This isn't Jay. This is one of the long brown-haired brown-eyed girls. I'm guessing I'm about 17. I'm tied to the "Jess" bloodline thing.


★ A NOTE: the reason "Tar/Plague food" works is because it CHANGES THE BODY'S VIBRATION.
If you put enough sticky sick gunk INTO the body, it starts CHANGING the internal atmosphere of the body TO MATCH, therefore turning our body into a perfect breeding ground FOR THE TAR & PLAGUE.
THAT IS WHY WE ALWAYS GET HACKED AFTER EATING THAT GARBAGE!!!!!!!!!




the night


FOUND MY HAIR OVERLAY. Thank God. It's the same as my original pixel, go figure.
It's also a different color than the other Jay fragments have been holding. It doesn't have a yellow overcast, it's not pinkish, it's not glaring white. It has a sparkle to it but it's not silvery, it's not "flat" like a holographic page. It's like… I don't know, it's hard to see actually. But it's not stark white and it's not sheer color either. It's a balance like it should be.
Genesis also pointed out that I DON'T have a Pinstripe-style beard, which has been shadowing lately (I have this instead, IRL too). Pinstripe's vibe in general has been showing up a LOT lately as an overlay, which is making me kind of nervous; he wasn't bad, not actively... he was just... selfish? Self-centered? Too much like the mother. He had too much ice to him. I wonder if that's playing into the problem lately. Neither he nor his timeframe would be triggered without a reason. And they're both 2010 locked.
...You know, Laurie and I have been thinking about that stuff lately... the first suicide attempt, the sheer shock and crushing horror that accompanied the graveyard realization. It was a horrid, sickening time. I still can't think about it without wanting to sob and scream and shut down, but that emotion is EXPLICITLY Cannon's, it's not mine at all.
I wonder. I think we'll bring this up to the therapist on Monday.

This feels like me, the REAL me, the TRUE me... like what my inner spaces SHOULD look like. Feeling it, it's absolutely solidly sure, the sort of "perfect fit" resonance that just makes my soul settle into itself with a smile. That color against the holy white... that's all I'm sure of.



wondering if white/ black have DUAL COLOR PEOPLE???
since they are rainbow slots, technically.
i.e. headvoices with black/white hair but COLORED EYES.
one for each color? SPLIT? (7 each? or 6, if brown & gray DON’T count)

black guy out in church again. his name keeps resonating with "joph" as a root but no idea what that extends into. originally though his name was "jaiden/jayden" but that has too sharp an edge; this guy has a very soft edge vibe.
he has black hair and gold eyes currently. still thick dreads with gold crystal threads all through them. very serene. I like him.




I need to stop looping "Eventually" because it's tearing at my heart. I keep thinking of Laurie and wanting to just cry because damn it how did we get to this point.

If only there could be another way to do this
Cause it feels like murder
To put your heart through this
I know I always said that I could never hurt you
Well this is the very very last time I'm ever going to
But I know that I'll be happier
And I know you will too
Said, I know that I'll be happier
And I know you will too
Eventually…

I have so much heartbreaking ardent love for her, it's driving me to tears. And yet look at what I've done, look at the sins I've allowed to happen through tolerance, through hesitation, through inaction. I am so sorry. God I am so sorry, please forgive me for what I didn't do.



I really don’t know how things got this bad, this painful, this scary.
Every day we have the possibility of death standing behind us, hands on our shoulders, warning, waiting. I'm not scared of death itself but I'm scared of dying like this, when everything feels so incomplete and unfinished and tangled and raw, when there's still so much for us to heal and illuminate and put back together.

I can't die yet, we can't die yet, not like this, not in such a shambled state.
But there are lights, as I say. There are colored lights, brighter in the midst of this hell than they've been in half a year or more, and that is absolutely shocking.
But it's hope. It's sheer hope-- not even that. It's faith, in us. It's trust. It's love.

That's all I can say for tonight. Just light a little candle and keep it burning so I don't forget the truth beneath all this surface level pain and worry.

It's taking sheer willpower right now.
A song by U2 was looping in my head the other day… Cel's song.
"Love makes no sense of space and time will disappear; love and logic keep us clear, reason is on our side, love…"
Right now emotions are still largely buried, fogged-out. But logic is solid, strong, true. Sherlock is being pushed to a very prominent position and although that's surprising it's exactly what we all need right now.
I wonder if Markus needs to step back into this. He feels like maybe he should. Poor dude was in the background for years too, but when he shines, he's like the sun.
In any case, right now our heart is running on hope and we're tired. Right now, our mind needs to embrace the fact that it, too, is bright and holy and it, too, is good. We've had too many people tell us "the mind is bad" and that is not true.
Logic, reason, the mind, all that CAN be perfectly good and we WILL use it as such, some of us ARE that, and THEY are the people guiding us through hell right now.
But it takes sheer willpower. It takes strength, and detachment.
It's funny how I only ever understand this spiritual stuff we read when I see its reflection in headspace. I keep remembering how inside, we figured so much out without books anyway… honestly I want to go back to that. All our docs say we should stop reading all these articles but the paranoia, and the misrouting, is getting in the way. Honestly though, the saddest bit is that I KNOW "we" are only madly reading that stuff because it's acting as a placebo, as a replacement, for life inside. And that is heartbreaking.

Self-abuse and self-loathing is keeping us from really connecting as we should.
There are too many low-level alters that are running the show, working for "survival" on the basest level and still managing to fuck everything up. It's blind, identity-less programming.
But we're aware of it. We know it's there, we know what it's doing, and we're wise to it. Every single day, EVERY single day, even if it doesn't seem like it… we make progress. We talk. We look at what happened, or didn't happen, and we try to heal a little more. We talk to other people. We knit things back together, or tear other things back apart. It's fixing, healing, all the time. We don't quit. Maybe that's hope enough.
We just can't lose ourselves. Ever.
This color in my heart is heaven and it is utterly beloved to me. I cannot live without it, I know that.
Every day I try a little harder. One day I know I won't have to try, because we'll all be here all the time, bright and complete and no longer hiding or being buried. One day we'll be endless colored light and that's enough to move towards.

Sometimes I think that's what Death is really about. What ze's really saying.
I do love death, as a concept. Endings, transitions, the promise of something new being able to bloom from the ashes. Phoenixes. Winter.

Autumn is coming and it already feels like it. Summer feels "flat" to me, like an interim. Autumn feels like birth. Winter feels like life. It's so strange. But there it is.
Our autumn-colored people have all been having trouble lately, but they're all trying so hard too… they have such good hearts, I love them all dearly. I can feel the brimming potential in them, like they're almost at the verge of some great change, some luminous shift, but they're not quite there yet. Maybe autumn will bring that for them, when the world itself shines with their hues.

In the meantime we'll do everything we can.

 

 

 

 

"The Addict, a Magician," by Michael Lee.

 

As someone who still struggles with addiction, this slam poem rings far too fatally true. Far too true. My experiences may not have been so dramatic, but nevertheless, at least half of his words could have been taken from my own experiences, and upon realizing that, it shook me.

 

This poem has been running through my mind all day and I'm very thankful for that. I haven't really been forced to look so lucidly at this ugly facet of my condition yet, but it's apparently time.

 

"The difference between the addict and one who is drowning, is: the one who is drowning knows it."

 

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

 

 

@ 03:04 am

 

For Chaos and Infi.
I love you both. I honestly love you both, more than I can ever say in words. But poetry comes close.

I'm sorry for the weird depressive haze that's been fogging up my vision for the past few months. All I can say right now, on the edge of sleep, is that I am so thankful the two of you shine so brightly in my life, because no matter how blurred or dark things get I can always, always find my way home by the grace of those lights.
And in this world of ours, things are quiet and deep and beautiful, forever.

 

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

 

 

@ 05:15 pm

 

 

in a really awful way i want to cry right now.

i’m very lonely. we only get to talk to a therapist for two hours a week. its lonely when two hours eveyr week is the only talk-listen we get.

people inside dont talk much anymore lots are scared of the bad voices. abusive people keep coming back and making it tough to stay together when they keep shoving awful things between us

maybe im just one person but id like to talk? pleaes? maybe a little to somebody. or no see that shte problem talking is hard. i not good at covnersation. i can write things for the system but i cant tak sorry

and that makse smeveyr lonely/ becays eno friends. sorry

does anybody want to talk to us mahbey

its okay if you dont just wondering mabe it give me something to do and make other bad peopole leave me alone.

thank you for listen

now i hae to post they tell me i being a bad boy for asking for attantion but i going to try once.

 

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

 

 

@ 05:18 pm

 

Today hasn't been shaping up so well.
trigger warning for everything

- Already a binging-purging attempt that went awry when the seaweed-girl started crying and said "I don't want to do this anymore; make her stop," etc. it feels like there are spiders and tarmac in the stomach and it is horrible. at least the destroyer threw the rest out so no repeat offenses but, that's how much more money down the drain?
- Actual self-abuse today, and a switchy meltdown in front of the mother. she said, "don't start this sh*t again or i am leaving."
- someone found razorblades that we didnt know we had. they refuse to let us hide them. but the people opposing the cutting are at least keeping things at a standstill.
- body feels filthy all the time. always too heavy or soft or outright disgusting. filthy. there is so much hatred for the claustrophobic sewage of a physical form that we are afraid, we are afraid of ther age and malice it brings out in us, how do we get rid of THAT? we were told all our life that in this carnal crude matter we were "too sinful" to EVER reach "god" or "goodness" or anything, these bones are filthy and we want to get OUT OF THEM
-


the spiritual blog just had a suden message for us

"How often haven you felt something very deeply but told yourself that you shouldn't feel it, or been afraid of dealing with it, or feared the judgments or reactions of others, and stuffed those feelings inside, never expressing them? Then they become pent up pockets of dense energy. Energy comes from somewhere, and it has to go somewhere. It never just ceases to exist. When it completes its reason for showing up, it is willing to move on. You cannot will negativity away by ignoring it if its whole purpose for showing up is to be acknowledged because it intends to bring a message. You can only get it to move on then by acknowledging it, thanking it for doing this for you, getting the message, and releasing it. Your feelings exist for a REASON. Respect yourself enough to SPEAK YOUR TRUTH. Do you know why you feel so much pain?? Negativity is presenting itself in our lives to be RELEASED!! And that is all it ever does!!"

That's why the sewer-water girl exists. To try and release that. But what are we even trying to release anymoer?
There's so much heavy pain and sadness. We wake up and anxiously pace through the day waiting to sleep again. we are so depressed.

there is a forbiddance on "loev" within the system because someone keeps,kEEPS insisting that it is "sluttiness." god forbid you do anything that could even be vaguely considered romantic. notie this tihs the housanth time we said this. over and over. not fixed. how to we let THAT go? what is the messaeg?

 

and there are so many triggers in this huose how daskdsajdh
how sorry
bad
how do we stop those dear god how HOW HOW HOW HOW
I DONTW ANT TO LIVE WITH THATALL AROUND ME.

What in the world do we even say to the therapist at this point.
"hey we stopped taking care of the body sometime in 2012, people are so strivtly forbidden from switching that the default state of mind isa dead depressive numbness, we're not allowed to care for the body because that makes us a slut, we're not allowed to accept caer from others because that makes us a whore, you notie the brain things that everything kind or caring is automatically sexual and disgusting? filthy and carnal and ugly and wrong? bumping into people in the hallway feels like molestation and that is STUPID SUPIT DSUTPI STUPID YOU'RE A FREAKING IDIOT STOP SHUT THE HECK UP.

this is not a good entry. shold i leave it here?
i dont like this. but see we keep shoving this away. go way. bad.
and then they say, "acknowledge it, thank it, let it go."
how?
how do yuo thank a bad think without effectively saying "thank you for hurting me! you can do that again anytime yuo want" NO
THAT IS NOT TRUE
it is, "thank you for allowing me to see this lesson, now GO and leave us in peace you are NOT allowed to hurt us anymoer"
or are they?
are they?
are they allowed to keep hruting us if we keep learning

 

how can i tell if we're learning
numbness makes it hard. "make it stop pelaes." people crying. sad. want to sleep or die. "make it stop please i dont awant to do this anymoer." what are we learning? that we dont want to be hurt anymoer? we know that.
how do we let go of the pain when we are convinced we deserve it
"we are filthy and wrong" we think, someone says "you are a faggot listen to me i know more than you EVER WILL disobey and DIE" and then we are unsure, should we "give our power away" they laugh "FAG YOU ARE POWERLESS YOU ARE A BLASPHEMER" and kick us in the dirst untl we get scared and listen. then after we listen there is pain and bad things and they laugh laugh laugh. "that's what you get for not obeying us without question." WHAT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING

there is no motivation to do anything but sleep, and maybe write like this IF it wasnt so horribly painful to use the cpmputer now my arms hurt real bad

marigold keeps screaming
david is getting older and hes very bitter and angry at the mother we dont want him to turn bad its so sad
there are lots of faceless bad voices i wish they had voices maybe we could run from them then


battery dying sorry bye.
maybe talk more later well see. feeling a bit better after typing thank you bye

 

 

 

 

 

Today has not been fun.
Let's start in the most banal way possible: I've unfortunately had to introduce gluten back into my diet, as I've been literally eating nothing but vegetables for a while and my energy levels are running low. Problem is I either have severe anxiety reactions after I eat it, or I get possibly psychosomatic bodily reactions that leave me shaking and make my vision spin like a top. Either way it's horrible and it ALWAYS happens, God knows why.
Even better? Even AFTER the surgery, it makes me get terrible hernia pain. Nice freaking job.
So yeah, after that disturbingly vivid rape/murder dream this morning, all the pain I've been through with this stupid body today, AND that godforsaken reset-scratch not having worked the way I wanted it to, my suicidal tendencies are back full force.
I would seriously cut off my left arm if it meant I would never have to eat again. You have no idea how much I loathe having to do that "to survive." To heck with that. I would rather starve, but thanks to my bizarre upbringing, I've got this hard-wired predisposition to only eat scraps, and ALWAYS eat scraps. "You're not allowed to waste food," but "you're not supposed to eat that." So now, when I see harmful or unhealthy food, I don't want anyone else to suffer through eating it, so I force myself to IF I can't throw it away in secret (because I hate food and would burn our entire kitchen to the ground if I could, regardless of our financial state).
I HATE being hungry too. No, not "stomach empty and actually hurting as I haven't eaten in over 24 hours" hungry. I LIKE that pain. I HATE when I am forced to eat to avoid passing out, and then my body is all "holy sharks there IS food!" and decides it's starving. SHUT UP, YOU GLUTTON. Eating makes me feel like a complete whore and I hate it vehemently. Emphasis on "hate," seriously. I cannot put into words how much I despise that act.
Ironically it might even be tied into my "orange problem," to use ridiculous shameful jargon again. Eating makes that worse, and that makes eating worse. They are tied together somehow. And, they both cause me the most traumatic pain (the "curl up in the corner screaming and sobbing hysterically" kind) when they force me to take things in. I don't care what the context is. If stuff is going INTO my body, I will feel so horrendously violated and terrified that I will want to die, literally and with mindless fervor-- and, if there is a weapon or harmful object nearby, I WILL IMMEDIATELY ATTEMPT TO DO SO.
So that explains why my worst dissociative/ abusive meltdowns ALWAYS follow eating of some sort, and always have. It demands an immediate retribution, a balance, an atonement.
However. My mother accidentally saw the leg scars from Holy Saturday (because, as they happened in a dissociative state, I forgot they were there and stupidly wore shorts with her around the other day), so now is she not only coming with me to my therapy appointment on Tuesday, but she told me flat-out that if she saw any more scars, I'd be shipped straight back to the psychiatric ward.
To be blunt, that makes me really freaking angry.
I don't know how to make people understand. Maybe it's my lingering in this cursed Red slot, or maybe it's the bad Black energy that Infinitii warned me about... either way, for YEARS upon years, since I was a tiny kid, I have had a dangerous obsession with pain. I clearly remember writing an old entry about that here, but it demands reiteration. I really was smitten with pain and death back then. My parents never knew about the worst of it, as it stayed in my head-- the darker adventures of Zimbo and the Jewel Aliens and so many others. People would bleed, and die, and I would watch with rapt fascination, unmoved by their sufferings. Maybe I was even incapable of empathy back then, who knows. I know I still get that now, on my bad days... the total apathy, the wanting nothing more than to watch those events play out, regardless of who has to pay the price.
Lately, though, I've been the one paying, and I love it. That's what I don't know how to explain to people. I am obsessed with self-destruction. I love the feeling of starving, I love the feeling of blades slicing through my skin. Sharp pain is my favorite. Dull pain, well, that's the kind I don't like as much-- the pain I have now, from my terrible digestive issues and surgery recovery and sleep-deprived muscles. I don't like this pain anywhere near as much, as it doesn't feel like pain; it feels dirty, filthy and wrong. Then why do I keep perpetuating the situations that cause that sort of pain, you ask?
Simple... because, as I mentioned earlier, dull pain must always be cleansed by sharp pain. Overeating means I get to slice myself up with a knife. Getting angry or sick means I get to bite, or punch, or otherwise inflict blunt trauma. There's always a remedy for the filthy pain.
That's what I'm having trouble communicating to other people. When you don't LET me abuse myself in those sharper ways, I will abuse myself WORSE through "duller" alternatives, in the desperate need to "cauterize" the lingering psychological dirt that rubs off everything and sticks. Every hellish trigger catches like a burr, and you can't tear that tar out-- you need to burn it. Taking the matches away is only going to make my hands bleed all the more when I start clawing at the parasites.

When I suffer through mornings like this one, I need every iota of pain in the world to feel clear again.

It's why I love Laurie so much. Yes, she started off as a "personification of pain," hence the superego title she gained almost instantly. Her formation anchor was abuse-- it was sheer pain, of all sorts, but the sharp kind, the kind that stings like lightning and doesn't fade. When that faded from my life, and I needed it to heal, she was born from the ashes, and immediately took out her axe.
It's why I am terrified that I ruined her forever by wearing down her edges. Her brutality made her sacred to me. It literally made her a living force of divine retribution, cutting through the dark threads of sin and despair, freeing me from their tyranny.
When I bleed, I bleed out. THAT'S my native energy flow. It's sacrificial. I have this constant driving need to purge everything, and I mean EVERYTHING. I don't like eating because it's just more stuff that I need to get rid of somehow, eventually, so I force myself to throw it up immediately. I don't like the fact that I can't lose weight because that's more substance that I cannot stand and fervently wish to tear away. I don't even like people touching me for this same reason-- every point of contact is more tangible data being transmitted, quickly overloading until I snap and release it all in brutal physical attacks. Make sense now?
Cutting is the quickest way to purge the overload on any level, because blood carries the weight. Pain helps to "shock out" the foggy sense-oriented stuff (which, incidentally, is why I can't wear certain clothes; the simple feeling of certain fabrics can make me start screaming and clawing at my skin, trying to erase the sensation), especially when it's auditory, as that is some of the WORST lingering filth and I can only erase it through sharp pain. Blood, however, carries out the internal stuff. Bleeding erases the rage and terror and mindless screaming.
Whenever I can't bleed downstairs, and I'm desperate, I run to Laurie upstairs.
To this day, she will take out her axe, and do her job.
People downstairs would think me mad if I admitted that one of the most relieving sensations in the world is having my skull cleaved in two upstairs. It's a direct dump of all the pent-up pain on that level; just crack it open and bleed it out, all at once; it's incredibly cathartic. If that doesn't work quickly I usually get an axe to the face, which is arguably just as helpful-- once my head is gone, my self-identity disappears for a while! That way I don't have to feel or see or hear or do a single thing, I can just be vaguely aware of the bleeding and breaking bones, and relax into the nothingness. At least, until Laurie forces me to respawn, that is.


Anyway. That's enough of that.

 

 

Today I found a knife.
I am so sorry.
Chaos tried to stop me. There was an auditory warning from him that crashed through my splintering and stopped me, for a minute. For a minute I couldn't believe what I had just heard. Then the old retribution drive kicked in, and Laurie showed up, and I don't even remember what happened next.
I forgot what that much blood looked like. Too much red.
Sometimes I wonder what I'm really doing wrong, why I keep getting this lesson over and over, why it won't stop.
I'm actually nauseous right now. This is weird.
I'm afraid Razor is back. She got through for a moment today, screaming. I nearly passed out from shock. That's happening too much lately. There are teeth marks up and down my arms.
What is getting in the way? This is December. There's a lot of light coming in.
But when I go outside I feel like I'm floating away. I have to sit down, under the trees, to keep from collapsing.
When I'm inside, I'm so heavy it tears into me like a serrated saw. My feet are made of lead. My skull is full of dynamite.
I'll go for entire days without eating and then suddenly remember that the body can't run without food. I keep forgetting to take care of my daily needs. Talking is painful. Mirrors are worse.
It's either one extreme or the other. What am I doing wrong? Where's the block? Where is this block??
Is it me? Is my color the one out of sync? What do I do? There's too much red here, all over my hands...

I had a cathartic block last night. Big one. Scared the sense out of us all. It was the awful sort, where I know what I'm trying to feel, to tune into, but there's nothing happening but a big heartless void. I couldn't feel anything. It's why I'm wide open to tar hacks lately, ironically. No emotion = couldn't care less when the klaxons go off. What's that? I'm in existential danger? Don't care. Twenty minutes later I'm wondering where all the blood came from.
God I thought I was done with this. Time is running out. Please, I don't want to be trapped here. Help me. Somehow, please, help me out. I don't know what to do.

Not sure why I'm updating in such a morbid condition. The death drive is silently screaming again. I want to go outside and pick a fight just to get some sensation in these bones. Still wish I had a friend besides Laurie who'd do that for me. Don't know why love needs to go hand in hand with a punch in the face most days, haha. But it comes through clear. It breaks through the fog.

There's a sparkle setting in, despite the scars. Problem is it wants my brain to shut off... and when that happens I fall asleep. I'm not tired of sleeping, I'm tired of feeling like that's all I can do anymore.
Still, I don't want to deal with this sickness anymore. I don't want to spend the next four hours fighting off tar hacks for the fourth day in a row. They always hit when the sun goes down.

I can still love though, even if I can't feel it. That means I'm not dead inside. This is good.
What's not good is the genuine "waking up in a strange place" terror I now get whenever body awareness sinks in. I'm starting to honestly forget that it doesn't match. The only reason that's bad is because... well, fear gets in that way. Reality slips a little, and dark things seep in through the fractures.
I thought I was over this. I really did. Why is it still so terrifying? I really don't think I can do this alone. But I can't afford therapy. I don't want to go back to the psych ward. What steps do I take now? What haven't I tried yet?

I'm not lost, I just tripped and got cut up pretty badly. I can still walk.
I'll figure this out.

 

 

 

 

I really don't know why I bother posting updates on FB.
No one ever takes things seriously.

...Last night, after staying up past midnight to make sure Jesus wasn't Rapture-lagging, I was browsing through my personal art folders and suddenly this awful realization dawned on me.
I've had to bury my children.
I don't care if your kids are biological, emotional, or whatever; if you're a 'parent' or 'guardian' by any standards, that is one of the most horrible things you can feel. And I have lost so many of them.
The problem is that I refused to acknowledge that pain when it happened. I tried to numb myself to it, tried to keep walking and pretend everything was okay, lying to myself.
And then last night, I looked at a picture of them and I realized they were gone.


I just... this is all completely overwhelming me. It hurts so, so much.

Words do no justice. I'm sorry.

 

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

 

@ 08:48 pm

 

 

I really, really need a new way to deal with this. Fast.

I don't know what my thanatos splinter is doing. Do I really need to be destroyed this thoroughly? Am I going too far?
Because really, I am so honestly tired of spending all my days in pain. Pain, all the time. All my fault.
I go to extremes just to make myself suffer, to make myself sick. I take stupid risks for it all the time.
And why? Destroying this body isn't going to create a new one, no matter how badly we wish it would.
And oh God, the nightmares. The nightmares.

But I can't stop. This has been going on for too long, too strongly.
I have a splinter problem and it is literally killing me, bit by bit, every day, consciously, willingly.

To think my therapist asked me about suicide today, and I said no! How ridiculous.
Suicide doesn't have to be planned, it doesn't have to be instantaneous.
This is suicide. This is slow, merciless, painful suicide.
I almost miss the knives. How I wish I could just hand this drive over to Laurie and be done with it.

I can't even sleep now, for heavens sake. I'm in too much pain. I can feel my body convulsing.
I am honestly terrified of what I am doing to us.


How do I stop this?
I can't kill a splinter. But a splinter can't be put back.

I don't want to murder us.

 

 

 

This is a very mature entry.
I just felt I should warn you; I've been wanting to write this stuff down for a while but I've been very nervous about it. It's controversial material, really, but here it is regardless.



So I've found a way to throw my empathy/catharsis through the roof.
Shock sites.
Yes, you heard me. But let's explain some history first.

Nowadays I am forced to spend my day working on computers, standing at a cash register for 7 hours, or researching subject after subject within voiceless pages. I often find myself listening to minimalist music until I lose track of time, getting lost in daydreams and altogether disconnecting myself from the world.
It's frightening, to be honest. I'll wake up some mornings and it'll take a while to realize that I'm actually seeing objects around me. I've been losing the feeling in my body, too. I'll touch things and the sensation is there, yeah, but I don't feel it. It's hard to explain. I'm aware of my sense of touch, but it's so dim that it doesn't register. I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, because of that, I often drift through life in a daze. I don't feel, I can't truly see, I don't eat. I hear things and forget them immediately. The only redeeming factor of my senses is that I talk to myself often, which keeps my auditory recognition from falling through completely.
Long story short, I unconsciously make myself almost immaterial, haha. I exist on sound and mental sight most days.
But... I'll be honest. Sometimes I find myself completely enthralled with the experience of physical sensation. I find it almost alien; something delicately frightening and amazing all the same.
I'll lock myself in the bathroom some days, and I'll just... I don't know. Do things. Not bad things, mind; but weird things. I'll turn off the lights and open the window, and maybe I'll just stretch for an hour. I'll stretch every muscle I can find, sometimes contorting myself so much that I don't know how I'll get out of it. Sometimes I'll find glitter in my mother's drawer and just cover myself with it; methodically, but naively. Sometimes I'll find a comb with a sharp edge, or a new razor blade, or some scissors, and I'll use them against my skin in whatever way I think of. Tiny little cuts, maybe just a thin scraping here or there, just barely enough to leave a little red line. Just a surface scar... it'll be gone in minutes. Then I'll make another one. They originated as a way to quiet Laurie, and that's when I used to bleed.
I don't bleed often; no, not at all. I only bleed when I'm not looking... at work, I'll handle a paper bag a little too carelessly, and suddenly there's a thin line of blood on my arm. I'll tear out a hangnail and watch my nail turn red, wondering in surprise at the sting. I'll drag a razor across my leg too quickly-- which happens often-- and within seconds that familiar red will appear, seemingly out of nowhere. I'll sit and watch it blend with the water, maybe. I never bandage them. I'm proud of my legs; they have the most scars.
Laurie is different. She's not fragile, she's not curious or white. She loves the other end of the spectrum; the sharp points... and she's clever. Almost beautifully, frighteningly clever. Her greatest accomplishment, she laughs, is outsmarting the doctors. You won't find any visible scars on my physical exams, no sir...
I love scars, yes. But Laurie knows about how dangerous they can be, and she won't give them to me; pain works better. That's where the story begins, back when the war started, back in 2008.
Some nights she would become very angry, and at 12AM with only the yellow light above the sink, she'd quietly lock the door and tell me to find that purple comb. That thin comb with the bit of torn plastic at the bottom. She likes that one because no one would ever suspect it... and it doesn't cut; no, it drags. It bites just enough to set nerves ablaze, leaving barely visible crosses that cause me to flinch and bite my lip against the shock. She'd leave one, two, twelve, waiting until I had to stop from the burn, and that would be it. We'd put everything away and quietly walk back out, the skin of my abdomen on fire with those tiny marks. Concentrate on the burn, she'd say. Concentrate on it. It's fire; it's punishment. Think of what you've done that causes such pain, and never do it again.
It didn't work the way we thought it would. At first it was great; I wasn't used to pain and I was scared. Both her and Julie's attacks would leave me shuddering on the floor, crying soundlessly and wishing I could just sleep it all off. But sleep wouldn't erase the past, and Laurie wouldn't let me get away without a lesson or two. It worked, and for several months I remained strong most days, afraid of her retaliation... but as the incidents added up, a sick trend began to appear. I began to force myself to give in to Julie, no matter how much it hurt, because I wanted that other sort of hurt. I wanted to feel physical pain. My daily life was becoming so monotonous, so devoid of the vivid moments I thrived upon, that I was turning to desperate measures. I would willingly torture myself just to feel the bite of that unorthodox razor, just to feel real pain, even if it was fleeting.
Laurie caught on quickly enough, and in a fury, refused to punish me any longer. If I screwed up, if I kept giving in, my guilt would be the only retaliation I would receive. It took me a while to stop; I was still so blind and desperate, and I kept pitifully looking for the pain, the sick reward I would receive for self-destruction. It never came.
It took a long time to stabilize, and then when we thought we had finally made progress, the attacks became mental... severe. They began to hit from the outside. I had no way of fighting it; attacks would ravage me in the form of unexpected art classes, in my mother's words, in every corner of the internet, in the pregnant women that would appear at work. In some instances I could quickly turn away, heaving, shaking, my arms wrapped tightly about my stomach... but most times I would be trapped in a classroom for two hours with a promiscuous professor, forced to stand by a woman whose stomach bore the result of an act I had nightmares about. I was no longer able to escape, and it was slowly driving me to the edge.
I began to abuse myself again... mentally, physically, emotionally. Most nights I would be locked in the bathroom again, where no one could see me, where no one would interrupt. I'd kneel on the floor and quietly sob, uncontrollably, terrified of the mirror, terrified of the body I was in, of the thoughts and words and pictures and expectations that went with it. That's when I started having the nightmares and the breakdowns. I couldn't escape. Everywhere I looked there was danger, danger, danger. I refused to give in or give up... so what could I do?
Then one day Laurie took me aside and looked at me with tired, solemn eyes. She only said a few words.
If you can't escape... you need to desensitize yourself.
That started it all.
It was hell; pure hell. I only wanted to run, but now I found myself with my legs chained to the wall, the horrors of the world directly before my eyes, and the only way to stay sane was to simply become blind to it.
Or so I thought.
I don't even want to talk about it here... but... I guess I have to.
It started very slowly; get used to mirrors. It made me so sick at first, but I trusted it would eventually change. What I didn't know is that in order to get through hell, I couldn't just turn around... I had to walk straight through the center of it first.
Julie saw her chance and became almost murderous. Her idea was that desensitization involved 'giving in.' She was wrong, but I was scared. I began to look at the dangers and wonder if maybe I was the one who was wrong. I was so painfully naive. I was too frightened to stand up for myself or fight back. I was so broken and had so little faith in myself that I figured that I deserved to suffer... so I did.
I began to force myself into the mindsets of others. It was so horrible... I began forgetting hours, days, sometimes weeks at a time just to save myself from the trauma. My self-image and mood hit an all-time low. I was almost chronically depressed, and for the first time in my life, began to honestly wonder if suicide was an option for me.
The most frightening thing about that entire time period for me, though, was that not only was I lost, but Laurie had no idea what to do. She'd scream at me, mentally tear me limb from limb, leave me crying and begging for another chance. Some times she'd ignore me, and leave me there to drown in guilt and desperation... but some times she'd listen. Those were the times that shook me.
Yes, I was hurting myself horribly. Yes, I was practically overriding my own moral code and personality. Yes, I was only doing it for the sake of 'fitting in to society' and doing what my family said was 'right' and 'normal.' But the fact that it hurt so damn much was scaring me to the point where I swore I'd never do such things again. Laurie would be silent, and then she'd uncertainly reply, well maybe that's a good thing. Maybe if you show yourself just how awful this is you won't have to worry about it getting to you? But there was no guarantee, and we were both at a loss.
It went on like that for a while, until the one night when I got so bad that I started sobbing again, asking myself why I was doing this. That's when Laurie showed up and told me she had seen enough. I wasn't desensitizing anything; I was causing myself horrid amounts of pain and compromising who I was. She then offered a different tactic: if I found myself trying to do that to myself again, I should run to her, and she'd take care of it. I wasn't sure if it would work, as I had turned pain into positive reinforcement, but... it did. Surprisingly enough, if I overloaded myself with the sharp physical pain I was addicted to, my sick need for the torturous mental and emotional pain would almost entirely disappear. I hit middle ground for a while, a sort of interim... I dulled my nights with pain until I couldn't take anymore, and I'd go to sleep dreading the morning.
I couldn't run forever, though, and I was still too weak to fight, so Julie took the most horrible route she could find... art. No, I had already run from the figure drawing classes, but she had a different idea. What if I should take them? What if my teachers were right? I should just bite the bullet and 'get used to it...' besides, that's what everyone else is doing. Everywhere you look, that's what people are drawing. So you should too.
I couldn't see how painfully wrong that was. You forget, I wasn't standing up for anything at this point. I was so confused that I was simply following whatever orders were given to me, because 'maybe they know better than I do.' I didn't realize that some people are corrupt, that some people would send me into hell for fun, that 'everyone else' didn't have the right idea after all. I didn't know that then... so I forced myself into it.
This is going to be very hard for me to talk about.
Trying to get used to what I saw in the mirror was one thing. Now I was forcing myself to see things I would never, ever have wanted to see. I began trying to figure draw... but it made me horribly sick. I kept doing it. It was at this point that I began to think I was a lesbian, because although I was horrified of men, I wasn't so disturbed by women. I didn't realize that this was because I was 'technically' used to that already (not to mention that women couldn't hurt my current form in the same ways men could, if you get my drift), and began to warp my personality further. Eventually, though, there was one 'good' aspect... I did become desensitized, but in the wrong way. I became 'used to it.'
I didn't want to be used to it.
I don't know what happened then... like I said, my memory would regularly 'purge' itself so there are literally frighteningly huge gaps in my recall of the past two years. I do know what's happened recently, though.
A month ago, I tried 'traditionally' cutting myself... got a razor and tried that. Unfortunately I couldn't get it to do anything unless I literally 'shaved off' a layer of skin. That would result in a painless, bleeding line, about 2mm wide and almost 3cm long. I gave myself two on my right arm, and was sorely disappointed by the lack of pain (other than the vague 'sting' when the blade cut deep enough to bleed; I recognize it instantly) until I tried to wash them out. It was almost euphoric, I'll sadly admit, and they bled like mad. I watched them for about 10 minutes before throwing a large bandage over them for three straight days (it took them that long to stop bleeding on and off).
I didn't want to go through the whole bandage ordeal just for a good painshock whenever I was near water, so I gave up on that immediately... and I haven't cut my stomach in quite some time too. However, although I've been going for long stretches of time lately without feeling the directionless need to hurt myself mentally, some days I still force myself to give in. It's become so awful though that I rarely go all the way through with it... and almost every time, intriguingly enough, I am interrupted. I'll be forcefully abusing myself and suddenly someone will knock, or the doorbell will ring, or a bug will smash into the window, or I'll simply come to my senses for a moment and think 'wait, why the heck am I still doing this to myself?!'
See, at this point you might be asking yourself 'if you're suffering so badly, and hate doing that to yourself so much, then why don't you just stop??'
I wish it were that easy; I truly do. However, for some sick reason, whenever I get that destructive 'urge,' I go into a sort of locked-up mindset. All I can think about is what I'll do to myself, and often times I disassociate. I'll be destroying my body or my mind and the entire time, I'll be cut off from all my immediate senses, and imagining that this is happening to someone else, maybe in a completely different way. It's scary. I honestly won't see, hear, or otherwise notice anything that's going on around me unless it strongly catches me off guard, hence why it's hard to break out of those bad states, those 'Julie hacks.' Maybe I'll imagine some poor child being mangled by an attacker, who's telling him that unless he lets them hurt him, they'll kill his family. Maybe it'll be one of my characters, caught up in some nightmare they can't escape from. Maybe it'll even be me in another form, me as a Celebi, being ravaged by some brutal Pokemon-catcher group. God only knows... but either way, once I finish up whatever I'm doing, I invariably end up in one of three situations... 1, curled up in the corner and sobbing hysterically, 2, standing in front of the mirror and screaming at it... maybe picking up another 'weapon' and 'punishing' myself in a vicious cycle (sometimes I turn on the faucet until the water is scalding, then burn my hands several times... one time I even hid a knife on the towel rack so I could saw at my chest with it)... or 3, silently walking out into the living room, lying down on the couch, and blankly staring at the wall. Thoughtless, numb. Unwilling to even remember. When I wake up tomorrow I won't recall the evening at all.
If I could turn off this horrid drive, I would have done so years ago. It's a day-by-day war for me.
However, two days ago, on Wednesday night, something happened. I 'lost' that night... I don't remember how, as usual, but I knew something had happened. Laurie confronted me later, she always does, but she wasn't screaming this time. She was tired, silently angry, and visibly determined. It's a hard expression to describe... the look you get when you've made a final decision on something, and you know there's no going back on it. Crossing the Rubicon. She told me once again to stop compromising myself, but then quoted FROST* at me.
"You're the one."
It's a new mindset for me lately... it requires a huge amount of faith, not in my 'self' so to speak, but in my purpose as a single individual, as a single soul. I'm the one. Before I wouldn't have even dared think that I could be significant, that I could be important... I was too concerned in meeting the fleeting whims and perversions of every blackheart around me. Now I'm stronger. Now I know who I am, I know what my limits and morals are. But now I can't stop thinking about the lyrics of that song that saved my life... that song that lifted me up, that made me fall in love again, that kept me from ending my life when I had truly hit rock bottom, the worst night and the best night of my entire life.

And you know, you'll always be the first in line.
And you know, it's all about the life divine.
A hero's ending, all the signs... you're the one, and the one you must survive.
And you know, it doesn't matter what you do.
And you know, the luck you feel will pull you through.
The never-ending light you find... you're the one, the one who must survive.

Faith, martyrdom, forgiveness, love, everything. There's no such thing as coincidence. I can't possibly begin to describe the multiple, deep meanings those lyrics hold for me, but the moment I first heard them whispered into my ears, on that black night as I contemplated the end, I knew more than anything that they were speaking to me.
To me. Only me.
I stopped walking then, I did. I stopped and my eyes teared up, and I swore to myself in that moment that I could not give up. It was a prospect I had never dared imagine... but if I must survive, then survive I would.
Laurie spoke those words to me again, as she does so often now, and I found myself swallowed up in guilt again, the guilt that, months ago, I numbly thought I would never feel again. Do you believe them, she asked? Do you believe those words are yours? Yes, I do. Her voice hardened. Then why don't you listen to them? If you're the one, then no one else knows what you should do. No one else's expectations apply to you. No one else can be you, and you know that.
I thought about that for a while. The freedom that would bring to me was almost incomprehensible. I was so used to living by a pre-written script, so to speak, that I hadn't dared to imagine what it would be like to just toss it aside and ad-lib for a while. Would the audience be shocked? Sure. They might even be scared, furious, offended that I would do so... I wasn't supposed to do that, not in their opinion. But I'd stand before them, wearing the wrong outfit for my assigned role, and speaking words that no soul in the auditorium had ever dreamed I would speak. But I knew, despite the rabble and rage, that I was the only one who could do this, and if I didn't have the guts to do what I knew was right, then God help me but then all would be lost. That's the mindset I have now, and as I fell asleep that night, I wondered why I couldn't just live it and to heck with all this pain I was inflicting upon myself.
On Wednesday night I dreamed of hell, and it scared me more than any other nightmare had ever dared. I was safe that day, but only because I was shaking with fear, terrified of what I might inflict upon myself. It was a sort of sick drive... I was so shaken that I wouldn't let myself think of anything else. But I couldn't possibly go on like that forever...
It wasn't until I woke up Friday morning, my Celebi doll in my arms, that I found it... a working solution. See, I needed motivation. Not something fleeting and yet unrefined, like this basic will I had... I needed something else there, something better than scars, something more painful than blood, something I couldn't possibly break. That's what I realized when he spoke to me.
My guardian angel, Chaos Zero. He'd been showing up in almost every one of my recent dreams, always protecting me, always asking me if I was okay. It had struck me as unusual, as he's typically a rare sight, but it seemed this time he had a reason.
I have been thinking about him quite often lately... and always in negative situations. What if he and I were turned against each other? What if one of us forgot who the other was? What if he went Perfect again, and I couldn't figure out how to save him? The only solutions I could possibly imagine all centered around one thing, one final, desperate chance... and it was the same solution, the same final decision he confronted me with in those early morning hours, still reeling from my visions of hell, still desperately looking for a way out.
I know what you've been going through lately. I know how scared you are, he said. He's always known. I know how much you hurt, and I won't let you do this to yourself any longer. But how could he help me? I've tried everything I can think of. That's when he looked at me, and I recognized the same expression Laurie had worn a few days ago. They had been speaking... they had thought of something. I knew it in that instant, and I was simultaneously full of hope and fear. What have you decided?
'If you love me, if you love anyone, you'll stop doing this.'
An ultimatum. One I couldn't possibly break.
I wondered why they hadn't given it to me before, but then I remembered how weak I was, how willing I was to toss everything away. I remembered that day I decided my life was beyond saving, and I remembered waking up the next morning.
Patience is a virtue. It was a matter of waiting, of suffering, of not giving up until that exact moment, that last second when the light suddenly broke through.


Shock sites.
I started visiting them a few months ago, during the 'rebuilding' stage, when I was beginning to find myself again. The first step was coming to terms with what I truly wanted, and what the hidden motive was behind all this pain I was causing myself. It took a good deal of self-introspection and painful analyzation, but I think I've found it. Ironically, it's the exact thing that started all this.
I need pain. Oh yes, I need it. I need moments of extreme, gut-wrenching emotion, that shatter everything around you and force your perspective to change. Pain.
I was getting it confused with other things for so long; awful things that lied, that pretended to be what I needed. I started looking into 'dark' pages during my failed desensitization stage. I tried to force myself to take on the worst and simply get used to that. I stopped at Dramatica a few times, but always ran from there quickly... it was too dangerous. However, I did find Documenting Reality, and that helped more than I realize. It was a site full of blood and horror; awful gory things that I suppose some people get a kick out of looking at. Not me. For me, DR was a place where I could look into the darkest, most painful aspects of life and really think about them. That was not me suffering... that was some other poor soul, someone I had never met and now never would. There were men mangled beyond recognition... young women lying dead with blood pooling around them... suicides, murders, diseases, everything. I slowly began to feel again. No, I was not sickeningly amused, no, I was not looking upon their broken bodies just for kicks. I was actually feeling... empathy, pity, some sick sort of understanding.
Let's cut to the chase. There's no way I can tell you everything that happened to me over the past two years; like I said, most of that is now lost to me, scratched out of my memory in hysteric moments I'm ironically glad I've forgotten. But I can tell you what the end result was.
I was never truly desensitized, and I was never truly 'used to it' either.
Today I found a video of a man beheaded. I told myself to watch it, not to 'numb myself' to it, but to feel it. The exact opposite of my old method. So I watched. I saw the shirtless man bound, blindfolded, seated under a dim light and surrounded by four men... covered in black, holding guns, faceless. I could not understand their speech, but it continued, almost businesslike, for 75 seconds, as I watched anxiously. At 1:15, one of the men pulled out a knife, and suddenly the three others were holding the blindfolded man, pulling his head backwards. That's when the man began to plead. I don't know who this man was, what he did, or why he was about to die, but I could hear every note of fear in his voice, and my heart broke. I waited fearfully for a few more seconds, and at 1:23, there was a sudden movement and a scream. I won't go into details, no, but my entire body was frozen in empathetic horror... my muscles knotted, my knuckles against my lips, eyes wide and fists tight. I've seen many disturbing things at this point in my life, but I have never flinched so hard. I could barely watch the next three minutes, but I forced myself to anyway... not because I was expected to, not because I had been told to, but because this was real, this was wrong, and I knew it.
Catharsis. Extreme emotion. The pain I need.

There's one more thing I want to bring up, because it's what triggered this.
I've been accused of being sexual more than once, and I don't know why. That confusion is what played the largest role in my desensitization attempt, and it was difficult to deal with. Remember I mentioned the figure drawing? Yeah, I literally put myself through that. Art class forced me to deal with unclothed individuals, and I was terrified-- still am-- but at that point, I still thought it would 'help' if I forced myself to look at them regardless. Let me summarize that experience for you: I did not enjoy it at all, and there was no sexual anything. That's right, I'd be looking straight at some gal and I'd be wondering how the heck anyone would be attracted to that in the first place. At first I was fine with that. Then I brought it up to my mom and therapists, and they said something was wrong with me. So I started trying to 'force' myself (again; what was wrong with me??) to see something in it, although the very thought of it made me ill. That was the lesbian stage, yes. But then I discovered Jena, and something weird happened. Yeah, I could just barely handle the figure drawing thing, but I didn't know those people. The art objectified them, which I loathed. But Jen? Forget it; I love her, and she's not taking her shirt off around me. See the difference? Having that direct, intense conflict between what I was feeling and what I was being told to feel forced me out of that stage pretty darn fast. Sure, I'd still have my moments of 'but what if they're right?', I'll admit it, but ultimately it all came down to what I was unwilling to compromise, ironically.
I've discovered one other thing during all that nonsense, which is what played directly into my weird obsession with actual sensation lately. I am still oddly attracted, albeit non-sexually, to certain girls. I don't know why, but it might be that, with guys, it feels 'wrong' because that's the sort of body I wish I had. So it's like a mirror, or something. I really have no idea. It's probably just aesthetics and not a gender thing at all. That sounds more accurate.
Still, I've come to terms with the fact that I'm omniromantic, meaning that I am able to fall in love with anyone in terms of gender/species/what have you, but if you look into other aspects, things start to change a bit.
I am physically attracted to very, very few individuals. Yes, I do think Celebi and metallic cyborgs are amusingly attractive in the physical sense. I'll also be brutally honest and admit that I find Chaos Zero to be one of the most gorgeous beings I've ever seen. However, although I've never felt any sort of physical attraction for men (when I see one I actually think 'I wish I looked like him,' instead), I still have this unusual weakness for boyish girls. Throw in short hair and a bit of boniness in the right places and I am literally hooked. It's really weird.
Personally, I don't know how you guys define physical attraction, but for me it just means I am aesthetically drawn to a certain body shape/ structure/ whatever. That's a given, I suppose, but... well, this is odd for me.
Yes, I am asexual. No matter how much I'm 'attracted' to someone, that will always come into play. I may joke about it, but it's the honest truth when I say that I probably could never realistically 'be with' a curvy woman, aka what I view as a 'typical' female. The whole chest size thing that some guys obsess over? It scares me. I can't handle sexuality, even if one doesn't act upon it. If you're visibly showing something that I perceive as sexual, such as a large chest or a promiscuous outfit or big hips, I will likely act a bit panicky around you. This doesn't mean I can't love people like that, I just... physically I'm going to be frightened. It's just how I run, sadly. Still, that doesn't explain the last bit of a problem I'm having.
I don't like being touched, but I make exceptions for friends. However, as long as I don't perceive a threat, my personal space can get ridiculously tiny. Even at work, if I have to get change at customer service and there's some other person standing there, sometimes I'll find myself three inches away from leaning on him/her, ha. The only way I can explain this is that, although I don't like things like primal instincts and all that, 95% of the time I consciously feel this very deep spiritual connection to all other people. I can't hurt people, nothing like that, no matter what my mind does, which is why I'm very scared of being hurt and tend to be obsessively paranoid about it outside of my 'safe zones.' It makes no sense to me, that a person could want to hurt another person. But I digress...
Here's the list. 1-I'm asexual. 2-I typically like boyish girls. 3-I have a smaller personal space (within reason) around people I trust or don't perceive as dangerous. 4-I tend to be slightly obsessive when it comes to actually perceiving the world around me (there's even an entire entry dedicated to that point in this journal). See all that? Put it together, and I guess you get what I've noticed.
I've seen girls without anything on, unfortunately (but not in real life, heck no). I don't like it. However, you know the andro point I keep bringing up? Well, if I see a girl with a small chest and no visible... um, femininity (in body shape or whatever), I will actually have almost no problem with it, as long as it stays nonsexual. I'm not 'aroused,' but I'm not numb, either. I get this weird thing; that perception thing.
See, I like the deepest elements of things, the most truly personal things. I like bones, I like scars, I like tendons and veins and freckles and eyes and the way people move. I'm asexual, but... I'm addicted to intimacy. Extreme intimacy. You ever wonder what Chaos Zero and I mean when we talk about '2005?' Yeah. That's basically it.
I have this weird addiction to fragility, to things people take for granted, to hidden things, to secrets. I get it for most things, really, and sometimes it'll hit hard and out of nowhere. It's the reason why, when I got Apollo (my Macbook), I first looked through every file I could find on him, learned what everything on his keyboard was, put my nose up to his screen just to see the individual pixels... turned him off, turned him over, took him apart. Looked at every little piece. Put him back together and memorized every different texture on him. Details. I do it to music, too... I'll listen to the same song, over and over, for hours... maybe repeating the same two seconds just to hear a certain chord, or a certain echo, or the way his voice cracks, or the way she breathes in, or the way I can hear the musician's finger touch a string on that one note. Maybe I'll just listen to every instrument individually, maybe I'll just hold my headphones against my ears, close my eyes, and lose myself.
I'm not typically 'logical' or analytical about it. Sometimes I will sit and think about something small and strange until my head spins, yes, but that's an entirely different thing. I don't know what causes this addiction of mine, really, because it encompasses every sense sometimes. Sight, touch, and sound are huge. They overwhelm me most days.
But... that strange need, sometimes I get it with people. I get it with those girls, the ones I feel close to.
I'll want to memorize the exact color of her eyes, the way her hair feels through my fingers. I'll want to run my fingers over her shoulder blades and feel her heart beat and listen to the way her breath catches sometimes. Is that romantic? I don't know what to call it; it's almost a drive. It's like I need to feel that even if I can't explain why.
It gets really bad, almost desperate, if it's with someone I love intensely-- although I do become more scared when I'm around them. I'm just so addicted to fragility, if that's even the right word. It's the same reason I used to hide a stethoscope in my room as a child, and when I was sure the door was locked I'd just listen to my own chest for a few minutes, until I was shaking from the overwhelming being of it. Just the way it was, simply. I don't know how to explain it. To this day my heart is still the most intimate thing about me, ever. It's also an extremely meaningful theme in all my work. Look for it.
I don't know what I'd do if someone here felt that same sort of need with me, that innocent intimacy. It's always one sided. Always one sided.
Maybe it's simply because I don't feel I exist in the physical world, not genuinely. Maybe it's because I don't see myself as a 'lover' or 'partner,' just a compassionate and selfless observer. But I don't want to be seen back.
I only want the other person to know that they are deeply loved, that's all.
Could I make the exception for someone else? Could I ever identify with this form briefly enough to let anyone else near it?
Perhaps I am destined to be forever disconnected by a thin wall of glass.
Something like that. What is it?


There's so much I still haven't said, which is beautifully funny. I've already said so much!
Still, maybe that'll be a topic for next time. Dreams. You never know.

I hope you all have a beautiful night.








Train whistles, a sweet clementine
Blueberries, dancers in line
Cobwebs, a bakery sign

Oh, a sweet clementine
Oh, dancers in line

If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder, I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see

I'm softly walking on air
Halfway to heaven from here
Sunlight unfolds in my hair

Oh, I'm walking on air
Oh, to heaven from here

If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder, I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see


 

 

 

 

 

 

I woke up at 12:30PM thanks to my awful surgery-pain-ridden sleep schedule, and it hasn't improved at all since then.
Darn it. I hate days like this, I really do.


My laptop won't work, as usual... let me tell you; when you sit for ten solid minutes and the screen keeps freezing and glitching out and x-ing things off and all sorts of junk and it does this every time you use it, your patience begins to wear very thin.
I really hope the Mac I have to get for school works... but it would help if the school would actually call me back with what sort of Mac I need.

I need to switch my fall schedule, too. I was supposed to take Psychology, but that's a tough class and I have a very fragile head (unfortunately). All that stress and classwork would drive me mad. My mother and teachers have been talking about sending me to a mental hospital recently, and I'm afraid they'll actually carry through this time. I don't want to go, but I'm such an awful mess upstairs right now... I can't take this.
Days like this I really wish my mind worked. It hurts.

Mom came home from dayshift at 2:30 and immediately started lecturing me...
I can't take her lectures. The reason I can't take them is because she starts talking, talks ridiculously fast, and doesn't stop. She just talks and talks and talks and all that incessant noise and jumbled information throws me into a panic attack. No, I'm not exaggerating, and I'm not kidding either. I have Todd Rundgren blasting on my headphones right now just to block her out. I literally cannot take it. I was in tears and hyperventilating earlier from all this... and she doesn't just talk, she insults and she condemns and she yells and she belittles and... well. You get the point.
I just get so upset because I don't know what to do to change that. I know she's stressed out, so I don't blame her for shouting. I don't know how to make her understand that I really can't take all this talking, but I'm not mad at her or frustrated with her... just the noise.
I don't know how to let her know that I am trying to listen and do what she says; anything to make the stress and anger go away.
I don't know how to tell her because she won't listen when I tell her.
It's so frustrating sometimes.


I spoke to Q on Skype last night. Not out loud, of course: my face still hurts too much from surgery.
Anyway, I had to laugh-- we got back into one of our infamously fun "stop blaming yourself for everything" and "you're doing fine, don't be such a super-perfectionist with yourself" and all that conversations. I need to hear that every once in a while, mainly because I get the exact opposite on a daily basis. Man I love that kid.
"You're not blaming yourself enough" and "you have to be perfect" at home, you know?
I don't know. Life's a paradox.


Hmm.
I was talking to Jim through random notes and comments earlier. I really needed that; Jim's an amazing kid and he always makes me laugh.
Also, I owe him a ton of giftart, fanart, and now a Sonic pic request that I literally asked him to give me, haha.

I'm going to get back into working on Sonic Inversion with my brother soon. We've been busy on that project for almost 7 years now, and I've been spending a lot of time recently polishing up the storyline.
We did an amazingly good job, actually-- and it's shocking at parts. I mean, there are things we wrote in years ago that actually fit in with the newer canon plot. We couldn't have planned that better if we tried!
It really is fantastic. I'm going to draw up a comic explaining the finer points soon, just so I can get my foot in the door of the Sonic fandom in a big way and change it for good, aha!


Anyway, it's getting late, and I think my mom is going to drag me out to work on Girl Scout projects for the rest of the afternoon. I mean, I don't mind-- I like this project and want to do it-- but I am recovering from surgery, which means that I am in a ton of facial pain, am horribly dizzy, and still fatigued out of my head. Plus you know what I said about the noise and stress. I shatter easily.
You know how people say "take a deep breath, count to ten, and you'll feel better?" No, not for me. I do that and I either feel worse from the suppression or I start to hyperventilate, haha. I am such a screwup.
That is why I run to music when I'm upset! It keeps out the noise, and it makes me think of other things. For example: Keane, who I am now listening to as I type. I always imagine Justice singing their music and I have a lot of good memories for this song (Your Eyes Open) so that helps a ton.
The only thing I don't like about stress + music + surgery pain is that noise of any sort, even good noise, makes the pain worse. So I can't listen to music for very long, but when I take the headphones off all I hear is yammering and a constant stream of words words words and that's not much better.
Geez. I'd dorm but that would be so much worse. I'd have to put up with kids. Well, you know what I mean. It takes a while for some people to grow up, and I'm not comfortable with people in my age group (17-30), to be blunt.
Actually, I'm not comfortable with ages. I'm not comfortable with age or gender at all. Isn't that funny?

Gosh, that's another talk I've never had with my family or psychiatrist... the fact that I'm an FTN and consider myself technically ageless on the inside.
Well, no. I mention here-and-there that I'm FTN, but no one takes me seriously. It's very upsetting.
Huh. One day I'll get my operations, though. Then I'll be happy.
Isn't it terrible how things like that can screw with your daily life so badly that you can't really be yourself unless you get an operation or whatever?
I know a lot of people laugh at that and say, "aw, live with it, and stop being a whiny bitch." Well, sometimes you can't.
Put yourself in that person's shoes-- a guy who grew up in a girl's body, or a girl who grew up in a guy's body. FTMs, MTFs, all that junk. And then there's people like me-- a non-gendered soul who grew up being called a 'girl' and having to live with the physical junk as well.
When everything you are screams that 'these labels, these physical problems, they aren't who I am' then you have a problem. You can't function, and it's a serious concern.
I've been living with this FTN problem since I was a kid, and that's not a lie. I realized my problem 10 years ago, and I still haven't been able to do anything about it.
"Oh, you're still too young to know..." no, I'm not. Things this vital and important: you know. I know what I'm talking about and what I'm doing.

How did I get into this rant again? Gosh.

Oh well. I guess I should have figured something was up back when I was a kid... I was never interested in women or men, and I'm still not... however, I do experience a sort of attraction (not physical, though-- I'm antisexual, remember?) to those who really don't have an age or gender or stuff like that, haha.
That's also why it helps for me to me a little bit mental-- the only people I know who fit that category are Selph and Chaos Zero. Funny little world, isn't it?


Well, that's enough of that. Every once in a while I just get off on a tangent and start raving about that junk. I guess it's because I can't talk about it to anyone and need to vent, you know?

Even so, the talk-talk-talk problem is starting up again and now I have to go out in the sunshine (sunshine + my pain meds = not good) and do heaven knows what for this projects... like I said, bad timing. My mom just tries to do far too much at once, and she also ignores any and all roadblocks or problems that may come up, because "you have to work through it." Well, she had me thinking that same way for years, but... sometimes you can't work through it. Sometimes you have to accept that there is a problem that you can't overcome. It's tough, but...
I don't know. I can't stand saying things like that, because I despise taking the easy way out of anything... so 'accepting that you have an unchangeable problem' is very difficult for me. It just sounds ridiculous.
Like I said, life is hard.


I'll see you kids later. Have a good evening!



Every night you're out there darling
You're always out there running, and I see that lost look in your eyes.
Confusion, I don't know what I should do.
Confusion, I leave it all up to you.
You've lost your love and you just can't carry on
You feel there's no one there for you to lean on.

Dark is the road you wander
And as you stand there under the starry sky, you feel sad inside.
Confusion, you know its driving me wild.
Confusion, it comes as no big surprise.
You've lost your love and you just can't carry on
You feel there's no one there for you to lean on.

 

----------------------------------------------------------
 @ 09:26 pm    What the heck am I supposed to do here?

I can't be self-abusing myself all the time like this. No one likes seeing bitemarks and random scratches all over their kid's arms, but honestly... sometimes, there's no other way to get the stress out.
When you hurt enough on the inside, when your head just hurts so much that you'd do anything to make it stop-- the quickest way is to give yourself some shock of pain and let your attention focus on that instead.

My left arm is a total mess. It's actually bleeding, which I've never done before. I couldn't sleep well last night because of it, but it did keep me from freaking out yesterday, so that helped.
Today? No. Today I had to resort back to biting just to relieve the pressure in my head.

I know it sounds crazy, and I'll even admit that it is.
The only problem is that, most people I tell about this, look at me and say "that's so childish" or "how stupid you're being!" or "try some yoga instead of hurting yourself" or crap like that.
Most of those people have never been in a situation like this, and most of those people probably think that all people work the same.
No, they don't. I work in a completely different way than my mom, she works in a completely different way than my grandmother, and it goes on and on like that. No two people are ever alike, and too few people remember that.

People keep treating Laurie as if she's a problem...
She's not a problem. I need her. I love her. Just because her job is abusing me when I can't doesn't mean she's bad for me, honestly.

I need to learn how to work FL Studio better. I'm listening to all these gorgeous Sonic remixes and I really want to learn how to write them myself...
Heh, that and I need to let the fandom know how freaking much I love Chaos Zero.
Honestly, I want my name to be out there with his. I want people to think of Chaos and I in the same way that they think of TRiPPY and NiGHTS. Synonymous!
Yeah, that's one of my random little dreams. It's nice to have. I just need to work towards it a little more.
*pokes Chaos* Unfortunately, you're very difficult to draw, sweetheart.


But yes. Busy life coming right up.
I'll see you guys later.        

 

 

Well, Abbey just ate my last entry, so I'm going to try and rewrite it the best I can... I swear this laptop is driving me mad.

Woke up this morning with my mother and grandmother screaming at me for God knows what reason... I forget, as usual. However, I don't forget that they made me forget most of my dream... as usual...
I was some sort of Nightmaren guardian angel, wandering alone around this huge and rainy city, protecting random kids from trouble and letting people use my wings as umbrellas. It was lovely, but of course... I forget all but that tiny, tiny bit.
Regardless. Had a compulsive electrolysis appointment at 10 or so, which got me all upset because those appointments always make my face break out terribly. I had severe acne problems as a kid, which killed my complexion, so it's very frustrating when I spend months clearing it up only to have all my efforts eaten within the space of a half hour.
...
Anyway. Got home, and as it's the summer, I had to put up with my mother until 2PM. Which can be a living hell.
Now, don't get me wrong, I love my mom, but... she has this furiously explosive temper which detonates at the drop of a hat... and it always blows up on me. Yes, you heard me.
Apparently, I am not only insane and retarded, but also the cause of EVERY fight, misunderstanding, and problem in this household.

It's very depressing, and as a result my self-esteem is nonexistent. I've been putting up with this since I was a kid.

I got so freaking stressed and frustrated and distraught and panicky during it all that the pressure in my head hit a frenzy point and I got that awful need to let it out and fast.
The only way to let the pressure out is through a combination of pain and extreme physical exertion. So, as I wasn't about to slam my head into a wall (again) or slam my fist so hard into a table it ached for days (again), my mind channeled the distress into my mouth (again), and of course it went straight to biting my arms.
I bit them so freaking hard I actually started to cry. I have pink bloodmarks on both arms, and they hurt like bruises even now.
Eh... God have mercy on me... I wish I didn't have to do that, but what they heck else can I do?
It was either bite my arms to shreds and so be freed from the horrid stressful pressure in my head, or hold it in and collapse into hysteric tears and start hyperventilating and sobbing uncontrollably. It has happened before.
You CANNOT keep this sort of pain inside. I have tried and failed far too many times.

I don't even feel like myself anymore.
I feel as if my soul was painfully torn from my own body and thrown into the physical form of some poor fat wretch, whose own soul is still stuck in here somewhere and is not only making me feel terribly disoriented and sick but is also injecting me full of its negative influences.
If I don't get out of here fast I am dead...

I am so sick, though.
I am sick of failing.
I am sick of giving in to temptation.
I am sick of losing my mind.
I am sick of forgetting everything.
I am sick of being a retarded jerk.
I am sick of being an inconsiderate idiot.
I am sick of being a lazy witch.
I am sick of being me.
Sick, sick, sick...

I was supposed to get my name changed, at long last.
Throw away this cursed birth name and take my true name...
However.
This cursed earth name and life has corrupted me, apparently.
I'm stuck in this house, with its utter lack of healthy food and healthy words, with its disgustingly huge mounds of junk and dust and garbage all over the place, with its choking atmosphere and lack of space, with its horrible memories...
...And until I get out, I cannot change anything. I have no power over this environment, but it is killing me, and until I escape I doubt I'll ever be fit to carry my true name.
I need to get in shape again, I need to get out of this stress, I need to become nicer...

Nicer, you say? You're kidding.
No. I don't lie. I don't kid.

All my friends and acquaintances and teachers etc. tell me that I'm incredibly nice, mature, kind, loving, patient, and all that...
And yes, I am.
On the inside.
The true me.
Jewel Lightraye.

Unfortunately...
At home, I'm stuck with being what my mother tagged me, and that person is a HORRIBLE person.
I DON'T WANT TO BE THIS PERSON ANYMORE.

...

One day, Jewel. One day.
One day I'll get rid of this name for good, and I'll finally be able to succeed in life...

But back to the music.

Can't draw today.
Tried to draw Koburo and Caria today and failed miserably... made me sick...
Can't write music today.
No time. Simple as that. Cruelty.
Can't do much today...
Sick, tired, too much screaming, too many other things I apparently need to do first and can never find the means and time to do.
It's horribly frustrating.

The single good point of today (besides church) had to be randomly logging on to dA and finding Ben was online too. ^^ Which was really fantastic.
I care so much about that kid... he's an incredible artist, and he's always so terribly nice to me. He means a lot to me, and I've been taking the extra time to make sure he knows that.
But, as usual, I'm not sure I'm trying hard enough... or if the message is getting through.
Same with Jim.
Once again, I admire Jim so much it's insane. He's an imaginative GENIUS (I kid you not) in music, art and writing, and is incredibly kind enough to not only include me in 2/3 of his projects, but also to dedicate/credit a good amount of his work TO me.
That has got to be one of the biggest compliments I have ever received from anyone. Ever.
That sure feels good. I needed a burst of joy right about now.
But back to the point.
I RARELY get the time to comment on his stuff, especially with this infernally slow and glitchy laptop of mine, which is terribly cruel because I love every single bit of Jim's work. Every bit. And I don't know if he knows.
...
Well, one day I'll get on my brother's PC and comment for a few hours. I am way behind and I mean to catch up.
Lastly, Q.
I talk to him at least twice a week, come rain or shine, and we talk for hours about absolutely everything.
However. He does most of the talking.
I either get off on a disgustingly selfish tangent or can never word what I want to say correctly.
I get confused, I repeat myself, I stutter like an idiot, I screw up majorly and wish I had never opened my mouth.
And why?
Because I am an infernal PERFECTIONIST with myself.
If I'm not perfect, I get very upset and even deeply depressed...



And it hurts.
I've had some bad experiences with 'perfection...'


Dear God, for as much of an ugly failure as I am, I have so much love in me...


I'm very altruistic and loving, which really isn't that surprising.
I don't like myself much, so everyone else I meet is practically a role model and example of who I want to be.
I have this very high respect level for everyone else, along with an unconditional compassion and admiration for one reason or another.
With myself... it's the exact opposite. But you've heard enough of that.
(Laurie wants to scream but I don't know if I want this entry flooded with swearwords...)

I'm an asexual/antisexual celibate, so I don't feel physical attraction, will never know the meanings of the words 'cute' 'hot' and 'crush', and when I do fall in love (which is ridiculously often and on way too many various levels) it's completely committed and selfless.
Because I don't care about me. I care about them, and although I'm a jerk, my soul still has the potential to be kind and generous and compassionate to everyone else. So I give that to everyone else.

But how I got into this rant in the first place...
Chaos Zero.
You know, that awesome blue alien from Sonic Adventure.

I am so in love with that guy it's insane.

And he's not the only one.

No sir, not by a long shot...

...

You know what, I actually feel kind of good right now. Huh.
Well, thank you God. I know you're looking out for me.

Hm...
Better sleep on this. Hopefully I'll even remember what I dreamed about, huh?



Well... good night, my dears.


Here's hoping...

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Current Mood: shattered
Current Music: "Alcoholic" (Starsailor)/ "Burn It All Down (VHS or Beta)

 

 

...

 

What do you call it when you don't want to commit suicide for the sake of your mission and those that love you... but are so broken and ruined and scared and lost and empty and dead already that living through each day takes all the energy you have?

You call it my life.

...I've developed a vicious temper recently. It scares me. I don't know where it came from.
Maybe impatience with myself. Always giving myself infinite chances, and every time I blow them. I screw up. Even though I try.
I'm just sick of waiting to improve... sick of nothing happening no matter how much effort I put in, sick of not getting any results, sick of running in circles.
So now, when I see that I've failed again, I'm just so freaking frustrated that my temper explodes.
It's scaring me.

I can't draw right now. I've been trying for the past 5 HOURS and I'm not getting anywhere.
And here I am, wanting to make a career out of it. Moron.
I can't play music right now. Tried to earlier, and every time I made a mistake I had to resist the sudden compulsion to slam my fist off something. Eventually I gave in and smashed it into my leg, but that was all. I'm suprised and disgusted with myself that I didn't go farther...
I can't do very much right now. I am such an idiot.

Sure, go on ahead and yell at me. (Shut the hell up and listen to them.)

...

I don't know.

I don't want to meet the people I love. I don't want to see them.
Even though at the exact same time I am dying to.
But I couldn't possibly face them like this.
I do not want them to see me like this.
I do not want to be like this.

God help me, I DO NOT WANT TO BE THIS PERSON.

I feel so dead inside lately.



Oh yeah and I am also dead sick of being physical. Sick.
I mean that I'm sick of everything related to it. Just like Johnny.
Jewel the egocidal maniac, right here.

Name any physical need and I most likely loathe it.

Including the need for physical pain.

Yes, I'm afraid I'm becoming addicted to pain.
I know why, too.
As a kid, my parents and grandparents used physical pain as punishment for misdeeds. Either that or fear.
Well, I'm afraid of a lot already, but I'm not getting the pain anymore.
And now, with my mind needing this self-control and restriction to the point where it's driving me insane (stupid needs!!), it's decided that the quickest way to get it is through the way I did as a kid-- through pain.

My brother cuts himself.
I hurt myself in any way I freaking can.
A while back... around 14, 15? And way before that, as a little kid... I would usually resort to the childish habit of slamming my head off walls.
Possible reason #1 for my current mental freakishness, methinks.
Honest to God, sometimes I would be so angry with myself that I would hurt my head to the point of dizziness, headaches, and disorientation. I wouldn't be surprised if I got a few concussions and never knew.
Add to that the fact that I suffered three semi-severe albeit involuntary head injuries as a kid, and there you go.
Oh, but I also bit.
Bit what, you ask?
My arms
Yeah. Lately, I have this AWFUL need to bite things, constantly. I hate it.
I used to bite my arms until they bled, really. I'd leave these horrid teethmarks up and down my arms, and they'd linger for hours, bright red and sore. I'd get blood blisters from 'em a lot too.
No no no, don't think I enjoyed it!! Dear Lord, I hate it, hate it with a burning passion.
I don't want to self-abuse. It's disrespectful, it's immature, it's stupid, it's impulsive, it's a common teenage habit, and I hate it.
That too!! Why the fish am I using the word "hate" so much?? It is because it's so cruelly strong a word?
Possibly.
But I don't know.
All I know is that my grandmother told me that God wasn't going to listen to any of my prayers because I was so angry with myself.
...
WHO IN THE NAME OF HEAVEN TOOK AWAY GOD'S FORGIVENESS??
ESPECIALLY WHEN I AM SORRY TO THE POINT OF SELF-HATRED??

I don't know. But it hurt so badly that immediately the teeth went to my left arm and now I have one of those loathsome pink circles iin the middle of it. Heaven help me.

I used to yank my hair out, scratch up my arms, legs and stomach... oh, and my face, too... that was horrible, and I try not to do it anymore.
I would take household objects such as combs and mechanical pencils and pen caps and sharp edges of plastic things and anything that bit when you touched it and I would drag them all over myself until I was covered with these horrible red lines.
I would abuse my face whenever I washed it, knowing it was the face of a failure... I would scrub it so hard I would rub the skin right off. Yes, I would rub it raw. I accidentally rubbed my nose raw last week, for the same reason, but I didn't realize I had really done so until afterwards.

See that's another thing that's scary as hell. My tendency for distraction and loss of awareness.
I did some HORRID things as a kid as a result of that.
Honest to God, I wouldn't realize what I was doing, or I would end up doing something literally without thinking, or my mind would fade out to the point where I would be doing things and not even know it until it suddenly snapped back and then I would be scared to death at what I had done.
No details. For some terrifying reason I'm not feeling the guilt from those things recently, just absolute disgust at the nature of them.
I hope it God it's because I've been so sorry for them for so long (and still am) that my mind has finally accepted forgiveness and forgiven itself.
I hope to God it's not because I've lost my capacity for guilt.
I don't think I have, but...

Back to the above subject. Morbid as it is.
I keep few secrets anymore, from anyone. I want to be honest. I want that to be one good quality about me.
Anyway.
I would actually slap myself in the face during ego-fights. Yes, sometimes I let Laurie take over my voice and mind to an extent and let her literally scream back at me while I'm talking to myself. Sometimes she'll hurt me a little, but not much and not badly... just to get my attention.
I'M the one that hurts me.
A few times I was so distraught that I literally pulled my arm back and gave myself such a harsh slap across the face that not only did it leave a huge red mark, but it also knocked the hearing out of that ear and left an awful ringing instead. Also I would sometimes shake up my vision by doing that, and often I'd end up dizzy too.
And every time it happened, I would stop, silently scream "what in heaven am I doing to myself??" and fall on my knees to the floor in a fit of consuming sobs.
Happened again just last month, really.
...
What else have I done...
Oh, I punch myself too. Harsher version of the above. Doesn't hurt as much, but it leaves a lot of afterache.
The afterache helps, though. Keeps me aware, keeps me thinking about why I'm feeling it, keeps me a little more in control as long as I feel it.
That's why I almsot enjoy pain, in a sickening sense. It's a sharp sensation, and it hurts, or course, but it snaps you back to awareness before you can even blink. And I need that.
It's simply the old "pinch me I'm dreaming" concept. You want your mind out of the fog? You want a sudden cure from distraction? There you go.
Pinching really doesn't hurt, though. Just a sensation of the action itself. Maybe I'm just inured to mild pain like that, I think?
Great, now I have pinchmarks, too. Geez. They'd better be gone by tomorrow morning.

My Death Marionette morph bleeds a lot, you know. Symbolic.
I need to draw myself in it sometime... I've been spontaneously warping into it lately and that kind of scares me.
To think that meeting Q-Lok was what first triggered such a horrific transformation. Thinking about it makes me sick.

Hm. What subject to tackle now?

Oh yes, I signed up for Last.FM yesterday morning, and I love the thing. Introduced me to some lovely new musicians. (That and 99.5 FM, which I love to pieces.)
Boy Kill Boy, Billy Talent, The Hoosiers, Scouting For Girls, Orson... some fantastic stuff.
It just upsets me that Last.FM refuses to play anything by Ima Robot when I'm in the mood for 'em. I am right now, for some odd reason...
*loads up the '12=3' preview in RealPlayer*

"Kiss me goodbye
For the doctors are comin'
We all know why
Because I wasn't born
Here we go again
As time passes by here
We don't live and lie here
We're all going to die
In the end..."

It's an awesome song, and the lyrics seem to sync with me for some reason. Hm.
I ordered the Ima Robot debut CD from Fye today, though, so I should have it by next weekend, wahoo! I love that band.

You know what? I hurt all over.
My stomach hurts, my spine hurts, my arms hurt, my heart hurts.
Nothing seems to help, though, and I'm sick of popping pills...

It's cruel.
Whenever I talk to those who care, I get hit with this sort of thing even worse.
I must have talked to Braeden for three hours last night. He really puts me on a pedestal... says I'm one of the most innocent, loving, kind-hearted people that ever lived...I hope it's true somewhat... but it's really an honor to be told that, although it makes me terribly sad because he's putting himself so far below me and he does not belong there, not ever, not under any circumstances.
He's an incredible person... he's an inspiration, he's a source of hope and wisdom, he's a freaking Sage, for heaven's sakes! He's the sort of person you run to when you need good advice and fast, when you're stuck in a mini-hell and need a hand to get out that you know you can rely on. I am honored and thankful beyond words that I got to speak with him like that for once. It was awesome.
Oh, and I spoke to Ben today, for about an hour, isn't that awesome? I had no idea he was on YIM, and I decided to download and install the program... and he says hello. Lack of coincidence, thank you God.
It was funny... he said that finally talking to me was like meeting the Queen of England. Brilliant! He thinks far too highly of me, I swear... he said I was a really special and kind person, that he was very honored to know me... I said that right back to him, of course, as it's asbolutely true for him as well. I really, truly hope he knows that...
So, anyway, he sent me a brand-new unposted pic of Paranoia, Malevolence and Regret, which is fantastic... I love it muchly. So I'm drawing Paranoia and Regret at the moment, I'm trying my hand at Stern, I'm still working on Kohi, Be, Socks, Guilt, and Doubt, and I just saved a ref pic of Annon so I can try my hand at him later. Three cheers for workloads.
Also I said hello to Jimmy last night (even though he was away) and he showed up on YIM after Ben left, even though he didn't talk to me. That's okay, though. It made me smile to see him on. I freaking love that kid. He's awesome.
Speaking of, I've been positively itching to draw KoH lately... I miss that guy quite a bit. Hm. I'll have to draw him tomorrow evening or something.
I had a brilliant idea today: to draw KoH as the King of Spades, QoJ as the Queen of Diamonds, PoA as the Prince of Clubs, and PoI as the Ace of Hearts. Totally random, I know, but I love it, and I hope Jim will love it too. Yes, I am going to do it!!
Oh yeah... and I also took about two and a half hours to draw FMSR for my little sis. You know, her pink-haired muse? She's adorable, really... I hope Vickie remembers her. I'm having a lot of fun drawing her, despite how many times I keep erasing.
Also found a new J-Monster today! Surprise! I was very happy as a result of that, because very rarely do they just channel through my mind as soon as I pick up a pencil. You know, to just decide to draw and immediately have a full J-Monster drawn in a few minutes without ever having seen them before? Happened all the time in 6th grade, and then they started coming as visions alone, and then I didn't see many for a while... but then the visions came back, I was seeing stuff in wallpaper and floors and ceilings and all that... and now the direct drawing is back. Thank God!
I love the Jewel Monsters so much. I really do. I love them so much. Every one of 'em.
...
It's pretty sad when you have a 0:29 clip of Ima Robot on loop because it's that addictive. Come on, Fye.

Now now now, I hear you all... "if you know that sort of stuff, if you know how much you are worth, then why do you put yourself down and hurt yourself and do such terrible things to yourself etc etc etc??"
Because.
They don't live with me.
They don't see what a damned fool I am sometimes.
They don't see what a horribly corrupted and lost jerk I am over here.
They don't see my bad side, and I don't EVER want them to.
I want it dead. I want it shot dead, I want it dragged right out of my head, this horrid black and glass-edged beast in my mind, this dark side of me, and I want it gone forever before it breaks ALL the way out and I'm lost forever.
I'm so scared of that happening.
Dear God, I am so scared of losing myself to myself.

...
My heart has been feeling so dead lately, I'm afraid I'm losing my love. And if I lose that, I die.
If I lose my ability to love, I will die.
And I don't want to die... for the sake of those I love.
Isn't that just perfectly ironic?

My mind is being shot up with skepticism from some hypodermic needle of hell. I keep yanking it out and throwing it out the window, but when I look back down it's back in my freaking arm, loaded with that bloody doubt and steadily draining, and I'm so terrified and disgusted that I just tear it right back out and fling it and the cycle keeps going and going and meanwhile I am bleeding all over the room.
I can only take so much of this. Too many attacks on my heart and I'll just collapse from blood loss and die pretty freaking quickly.
Speaking of, I have been getting a heck of a lot of knifelike chest pain recently... the kind where it hits and you gasp because you can't breathe and your vision suddenly goes and you get lightheaded and it feels like someone has jabbed a razor between your ribs and is slicing it back and forth and they just won't quit so you have to just hold your breath and pray it stops soon.
Awful stuff. That and my joints are worse than ever. They click every freaking time I move, and even the little snaps are starting to hurt again. My spine is horrid, and my knees are worse. I can't even run a few feet, I can't kneel, I can't even touch them because they feel like they're freaking made of bruises and I end up limping and it's a pain in the neck.
That and every little thing that touches me hurts. I'm getting huge red welts from my watches again, and even now, if something rubs against my legs or arms even slightly chances are it's really going to hurt and it's probably going to leave a mark.
...
What in the name of heaven is going ON with me here???

But now for the Q-Lok subject.
What have I gotten myself into?

...Geez.
What have I gotten myself into?
I can't be all socially anxious here. I can't tell him that I'm having a hard time talking right now, can you come back later when my mind's a little back in order? I can't just block off my mental connections for a little while just to be alone and think and calm down, I can't tell him that I'll come back later and talk when I'm a little more sane.
I only speak with him on Skype, and that's a set time. If I'm feeling totally out of it, then too bad, you've gotta be there for him. So I am.
I only see him on dA, and even when I'm totally screwed up upstairs, I still stop by and say hello if he's on.
If he comes out here, it's not like when Bakura and/or Marik and/or Chaos show up to see how I am and maybe talk for a while or do God knows what and if something comes up I can apologize and say I'll be back later, I promise, and so I simply warp out of my mind and back to this consciousness and whenever whatever came up is over then I go back and apologize again and we continue whatever if we can.
This is physical reality, the accursed thing, I'm not used to it, I'm not comfortable here, even though I love the good places and moments here. This world is so much more beautiful than dreams sometimes... maybe because my dreams frequently reflect the dark places in reality? The clogged and deadly highways and smog-choked cities? The jails and abandoned buildings and buzzing yellow ceiling lights and shadowy corners and silent cold stares from dead eyes and rooms engulfed in searing fire and bombs exploding in the hallway behind you and back alleys full of fear?
Why do I even dream like that?
Even so. Darn this distraction. Get out of my mind.
It scares me because I don't know what to do now. I don't know what to do now that I'm dealing with a human, for the love of God, someone in this physical reality that I never really fit into, someone that I never really fit with. I don't know what to do.
I'm socially anxious to the point of severity, and mostly because I am afraid of hurting and scaring people.
Mostly because I am afraid of people getting tangled up in my puppetstring-drowned mind and feeling the cuts of the tension. Bleeding from the connection.
I am scared to death.
How many times have I said that?
Oh well. Emphasis works.

Psyche is such an awesome Puremaren, I swear. I meant to color him today, but I got distracted, DARN IT, and now it's 11:17 PM EST and I should try to get to sleep before 1AM. I've been going to bed after 2 the past few days. Too much work. Too little time.
I'm becoming nocturnal, the crazy bat that I am.
The daytime is gorgeous, but only when you're outside and not out in public! The public scares me and leaves me with this crippling feeling of loneliness and isolation and terror and vulnerability and I'm never sure if I'm going to get out of it and back to where it's "safe" once I go in. And "home" is poison! There's terrible physical junk there, and horrid talk, horrid words from my parents. Well, parent, but you know what I mean. The only really safe place is outside, in the green air, the beautiful sun-studded air, shining through the countless trees where no one can bother me, usually. That or at my laptop. It's safe here. Here I can type my dreams and thoughts and feelings and I can write history and I can change history and I can change lives and I can discover lives and I can talk to people that love me and I can feel like I'm worth something to someone here. And my mind is safe, when I'm awake. I can hide in there, I can head off to the Dream World or I can just wander through music and colors and words and emotions or I can just remember. The other four that I love dearly can reach me there, and I can forget all my worries for a little while and I can forget everything for a little while and that's why I don't want to sleep... I want to stay awake and dream because when I hand the subconscious control over to the doorways in my mind they explode into realms of confusion and frantic motion and that feeling of being totally lost. I always wander in my dreams, no matter where I am or who I'm with, I never belong anywhere and I'm never where I should be... I always lose my way when I drive, I've been hit by natural disasters several times, I get caught in fires a lot, I've watched bombs explode before my eyes, I've felt guns pressed into me and I've felt them fire.
And yet I still love to dream.
I love getting lost, in a sad and broken way, even though I cry in dreams and always feel so scared, I love getting lost because I see so many beautiful things and frightening things that I would never see otherwise and sometimes God lets me get lucky and I meet someone I love on the way... the original three of my guys banding together and finding me, multiple times, that's always a blessing. Bakura and Marik going Christmas shopping for me and trying to hide the gifts when I walked over so I wouldn't ruin the surprise... and Chaos in a car, do you remember that? Only had a few seconds, but dear heavens it was still one of the best dreams ever. Honestly.
Why does Psyche's pearl always look somewhat pink? Do normal pearls look somewhat pink? I'm not sure. I don't see many pearls on a daily basis, y'know. Hmm. I'll have to look into that. And is Corona's soul gem a diamond or what? I need to try and meet those guys in a dream... hope Corona doesn't strangle me with her horns, uh-oh. Psyche would probably break my back when he hugged me but I can put up with that. Darn thing doesn't work the way it is.

I wonder what the heck Q-Lok is going to want to talk about tomorrow?... I have no idea, really.
What did he talk about Friday night... I don't remember Friday at all.
My crazy mind remembers a mention of a Chaos Zero picture he drew, and that stuck with me because I have seen that exact situation occur, practically. Not Chaos literally screaming at Perfect, as Perfect is part of him, albeit an unnatural part, and Chaos wants him out at almost any cost. Usually I see Chaos screaming at Robotnik. Robotnik can be a real devil. He's caused us a heck of a lot of pain. I need to start drawing and typing stuff up and fast... oh yeah, and there was the one time Perfect just took over during one of Chaos' emotional breakdowns and we couldn't get him out. It was frightening as hell, and Bakura had to end up putting him in a conscious stasis while Marik warped my consciousness directly into Perfect's, so I could talk to Chaos Zero himself instead. Dear God, he had already resigned himself to death by that point... he had already made up his mind that he would rather die than suffer through Perfection again, because he had no control at all. He couldn't stop it, and he couldn't escape. I had been trying to talk to him while he was Perfect, and he explained to me then that he did hear, he heard every word, but he was helpless to do anything but listen, and it was driving him out of his mind with desperation. It was really a terrible incident, then entire thing, but something very good came out of it... that was the battle during which I found my Cathedral wings. Also, at one point, near the end of the battle, I literally broke them off and let them degenerate into fragments of my personality on the street below. Well, Bakura and Marik decided to form their own wings out of said fragments, and thus Bakura got his Sapphire wings and Marik his Rose ones. The other two fragments... Chaos got one of them once I managed to forcibly shock him into his Perfect Angel form, and for the life of me I can't remember what kind of wings he got...they were freaking gorgeous, though. I'll have to ask him to re-dream them sometime. And-- let me think-- the last fragment actually went to Selph, I believe, but I don't remember those either. I think they're simply huge angel wings made of light, but I'm not positive. There was one huge incident late last year with Robotnik again and we all decided to use our Soul wings together, and I think that's what his were... hm... what am I doing ranting about this right now?

Oh yes, we also brought up the fact that my mother apparently let my given name (which I loathe desperately) slip, and now Q-Lok knows, and due to it's connection to a certain headvoice of mine he is very shaken and upset by it. Well, join the club, so am I. That's why I'm getting it changed ASAP, and also why my piano teacher called today (she's awesome) with the legal info we need, so it'll happen soon, God willing.

God ALSO willing, and please please please be willing, God... I will finally live up to that name.

I am trying so hard. I really am. You all know that. I know that.
But, even though I'm trying, I keep screwing up.
And unless I stop that, I'm not going to get anywhere. You also know that.
So hopefully God will give me a little extra help and take away this distraction disease, please? It would help immensely.
Hm. I'll have to look into that and see if the means aren't already within my reach and accessible. Hopefully they are.

Here's another random bit of info I feel like writing down while I'm in the mood to reveal details about my personal life and the people I love.
You know how Delphi broke Selph's soul gem in half, and then stole a good half of his actual being? Well, here's a little something about it.
It can still be opened, you see. Except, now, Selph's systems are so unstable as a result of that initial disruption, and his soul is so unstable because it's missing a good part of itself, that if one was to open his gem again, his dream energy would literally explode out of him. Oh yeah, and any sort of physical contact with his gem hurts, especially if you were to touch that split right down the center, where the gem is shattered. That hurts a ton... but nothing hurts my poor muse more than when his gem actually opens. Yes, it has been opened since... by Selph himself. And why? Because it's a weapon. A suicidal weapon, but a weapon nonetheless.
He's only used it about three times, and all for a very short while, because once I realized what was happening as a result I virtually forbade him from ever doing it again. Chaos, too-- if he's around and Selph is about to pull out his deadly trump card, he'll run right over and will literally fight with him to stop it if he has to. He's terribly protective of Selph, just as he is of me, and oftentimes he's the only immediate reason why Selph will spare himself.
But here's the scary part... the huge energy disharge from Selph's open soul gem isn't just dormant energy that has built up as a result of pain and trauma and all that. It's his actual dream energy... it's part of his soul.
That was the original reason Selph's gem was torn open in the first place, and like I said, he's so unstable inside as a result of being so abused, that when he opens his gem it just explodes from sheer frantic disorder... and as a sort of unconscious biologically suicidal response to "finish the job", or empty out the rest of his being because it's just not working right with only half left. It's scary.
And yet, that's not even the worst of it. I have seen the worst through Link-induced imaginings... they're not reality, just thoughts that I will activate if I want to see a "what if" situation play out or whatever... and one of my morbid "what-if"s was, "what would happen if Selph had his soul gem open for more than a few seconds?" Just out of anxiety. Well, apparently, if Selph left it open long enough, the rainbow-white soul energy would not only surge until it was completely and finally drained, but... the pure stress of that happening would apparently ravage the rest of him, and even before the energy stopped... he would start bleeding out.
You heard me. Nightmaren bleed dreams, remember? Well, with the literal suicidal nature of his soul energy being forcibly exploded out from inside him, it only logically follows that he would start to hemorrhage and quite literally bleed to death. To stop beating around the bush, if Selph let his soul energy completely burn out of him, the energy blast would suddenly become starry-black Nightmaren blood and abrubptly sputter out, leaving him about 98% dead and the final 2% coming up fast. He'd probably be left with 5 minutes, tops, depending on how much willpower he had left at that point. Oh yeah, and he'd start regressing... a word which here means, rapid mental deterioration back to the point of he becoming more or less exactly the being he was when Wizeman originally created him... if Selph didn't fight it as well as he could, that is. He'd become a raving, mindless lunatic before his life finally gave out, both from pain and the loss of near everything inside him.
This is why we're all so freaking terrified when Selph gets caught in a fight, because, like me, he can be quite the suicidal altruist and throw himself into the path of death if it means saving someone else from it. All the actual times he opened his gem in order to completely obliterate some lethal threat, it was indeed a lethal threat that he was obliterating. And even then we all try to convince him not to do anything, because such a retaliation could literally cost him his life and the risk is ALWAYS there.
Hm. So that's it for that. Thought I would get that information out there now. Next time I might talk about Perfect again, go into more detail and explain some of the important and yet-unknown-to-the-public stuff. We'll see. If I have time.

Well, kids, I think I must have jumped back and forth between at least 15 different subjects. Go count and see for yourself, I have no time, it's already 12:30 AM, ohmygoodness! So I'd better get to sleep so I can wander, and I can't wait, honestly.
Oh, hold on one second...
*brings up the Ima Robot song clip again*

Rock science
And people got talk talk science
And people see stars sometimes
And some people raise cadavers
But not me, I see
The sun is made of string
Lights out from the underworld
People talk about God
Are they insane?
I don't think so
I say they're maybe spreading some love
Spreading it around
And it feels good
In your skin

Livin' it up in the atmosphere
Nobody dies if the heart is here...