the spectrum heart cathedral system

All right, let’s try to type about this somehow.


Right around Pascha of this year, according to our food diary, specifically the first week of April, our diet changed. We cut out eggs because we tested positive on three different occasions for an allergy, and needed to find a new protein source. We tried cheese, but it triggered migraines and vomiting. Then for some reason we also started eating lettuce, cauliflower, cucumbers, and raisins? I’m assuming we were told to try FODMAP again. Regardless, the food diary is marked with symptoms of intense nausea and confusion and body twitches and vomiting. We ended up in the emergency room on the 6^th. We had to reintroduce eggs for a time but the photos indicate this was the “bean pasta week” which was hell. We could not stop throwing up. Sweet potatoes did the same. We cut both out quickly and went back to the normal pre-April diet, but now the diary is peppered with purgation records. Our calories hovered between 800 and 1100 tops. Then around April 26^th, green beans appear in the record, with the return of cucumbers, and now zucchini as well. I know this was also doctor’s orders. It went well for two days, and then the purging started again-- notably, because I remember getting unbelievably nauseous on a regular basis from the food. By May we had cut out broccoli completely and were now eating just those three other green vegetables, with some attempts at bok choy. It looks like we brought the broccoli back in mid-May and the purging stopped for a while.
May 23^rd was the gastric emptying study with the eggs and toast. After that our diet went completely back to normal again, no more zucchini cucumber hell. It also looks like this is when we definitively quit the Three Wishes cereal, and realized that’s what had been causing our intense abdominal bloating and constipation.
June began and on the 3^rd suddenly BOTH oat bran and hemp hearts reappear in the diet, and eggs disappear for good by the 9th. June 8^th was the MU women’s retreat day. There’s still some on and off purging, almost always after dinner-- we were eating three bags of broccoli for carbs and the sheer volume would set it off. We also started weighing our food by this time. Our daily calories increase to 1100 by July.
July 28^th is the colonoscopy prep period with the rice and green beans and babyfood turkey. This was a very difficult week psychologically and it set the stage for later compulsive binges.
I need to check the calendar to see how many we had over this time period, because sometimes we forget to list them in the food diary. All I know for sure is that there was a terrific spike in August, as I know that over half the days were binge-purge days, even if we just binged on broccoli.

So we’re struggling now. The cycle has gotten a grip around our throat and it is so difficult to stop. Even though our daily calories have gone up from ~900 in April to about 1400 in September-- a HUGE increase-- thanks to eating such a deficit for months, our weight is hovering around 90lbs and we still admittedly want it to drop lower. On good mornings, when we step on the scale, it’s 88lbs.
But the point is this. We want to stop bingeing and purging. We know it’s a sin. We also know it’s an addiction. We want to stop, but God help us we don’t want to stop either. We’re so bloody hungry. It’s nowhere near what it was like in North Carolina, or even up at the old house with grandma, that is true-- we were out of control back then, ravenous and destructive, insatiable and desperate. We didn’t know God back then. That’s what changed.
Now, we’re still starving, but…

It hit me today that we’re constantly angry. We’re miserable and exhausted and terrified. The OCD compulsions we used to have around the time the Julie days began, notably spitting and handwashing due to “contamination fear,” have returned for the first time in over a decade at the least. They’re debilitating. What triggered this? The feelings of shame and guilt and filth and evil are unbearable. It all feels tied to eating. Is it because our conscience is working again now? Is it because we know we’re sinning at least twice a week now, bingeing and purging, starving and stuffing this poor wrecked body, and although God knows we want to quit He also must know we’re so bloody hungry? What do we do?

We have a new nutritionist now, a male, a couple years younger than us. He’s actually accepting of our limitations and is willing to work with them-- when we told him dairy inevitably makes us uncontrollably vomit, he actually said “okay, then we won’t eat dairy,” which shocked us as we’re so used to being told to just eat it regardless and take a Zofran or something, which doesn’t help. The only trouble is this: he’s still giving us dietary recommendations, in order to increase our weight and fix our nutrient macros, and this triggers Iscah’s kneejerk “must be a good girl” food compulsions which means we KEEP forcing ourselves to “try eating normal people foods” even if they hurt, even if they make us sick, in order to be “good” and obedient and self-effacing. It’s just perpetuating the binge-purge hell loops. It feels like there is no end, no way out, until we CAN “do it.” So the forcing keeps happening until “one day we won’t get sick anymore.” But what if that never happens? We forced those bloody eggs for months, knowing we tested positive for an allergy but not taking it seriously until it was double confirmed, in the meantime just taking Benadryl twice a day and “getting used to” the hives and burning eyes and dizziness and runny noses. But the point is it wasn’t going away. No matter how much we forced, it couldn’t change the actual consequences. Same with the green beans, and the cheese, and the bean pasta. No matter how many attempts we made, we kept puking, because the nausea and stomach distress was so bad. We tried so hard, we really did. At what point is it “right” to “accept” the “fact” that maybe we “can’t” eat those foods? Right now we’re “not allowed to” even suggest such a thought. It’s “wrong.” It’s “evil” and “bad” and “disobedient.” You were told to eat that food, so you eat it, no matter how you feel, and one day you won’t feel anything anymore. Isn’t that “how it works”?
I’m typing all this out and it is just… exactly parallel to sexual abuse. No one is surprised.
It must be translating as this. We have no working memory of the abuse so our psyche must be funneling it into the food, because they’re practically the same thing in the end.

We’re not getting very far with most of our therapists with this. We’re seeing four of them right now, plus a psychiatrist and a case manager. Of them all, only one therapist is making real progress and thank God for her-- literally, I think the only reason why we’re getting somewhere there is because she is Christian and makes that an ACTIVE and PROMINENT part of our treatment, which is AMAZING and makes the whole process make so much more sense. But she and we are focusing on childhood trauma, which is hugely significant and deeply disturbing to be honest… you don’t realize how many bad seeds were planted back then, until you start tracing the rotten roots.
But… when will we ever get to discuss and heal from adult trauma? Will we have to one day actually, finally, honestly discuss the Julie Days with a therapist? How?

Right now, we’re haunted by food. That’s blinding us to everything else. The sense of shame and sin is devastating. We cannot escape it. It’s every waking moment. We’re haunted and hungry and horrified and hateful, which is an awful way to live, but honestly “we” despise “ourself” so much right now for this eating disorder, we wish we could just turn it off.
But we’re so hungry.
THAT’S the bizarre obstacle here. Something-- someone for sure-- in our psyche is resisting healing, in a sense refusing to “give up” bingeing because she’s so scared that if she does, she will starve to death. WHY. We’re getting 1400 calories a day now! We’re eating food, even if we don’t want to; we’re being obedient and accountable to the authorities that told us to eat! We’re a “good girl” in that sense, aren’t we? So why are we so miserable? Why do we still feel like no matter what we’re eating, we’re never satisfied? We’re always hollow and empty and want to cry. Even with binges, we hate them-- the only thing “enjoyable” about them is the ridiculously ritualistic and systematic and methodical hours that they involve, all the cooking and sorting and picking and ordering and cleaning. What is this doing for our mind that we “need”? What need is this trying to meet, however disastrously and misguidedly?

Another obstacle to healing is a recent and massive spike in daily anxiety and panic attacks. We weren’t like this back in July, I don’t think. Were we? I don’t know.
Back when Anxiety herself first appeared in June, at long last, I remember we were already promising ourself to “never binge again” after certain dates. We genuinely tried so hard to just cold-turkey quit, over and over and over. But all the travel, all the doctors, the consistent lack of sleep, the recurring financial crises, it just… some nights we would just be so exhausted and hungry and overstressed that we would just give up and give in. 7pm breakfast means you don’t even try to keep it down, so you might as well eat ten bags of broccoli so your body is tricked into thinking it ate something worthwhile. You get the idea.

It’s been so hard to “obey” the “rules” about food too. Someone started arbitrarily breaking them and now we can’t seem to stop again. They got a taste of the forbidden fruit and promptly became addicted, even it it tasted disgusting, even if they didn’t actually want it-- but they “HAD to want it”; they “HAD to try it again” for whatever reason.
I don’t understand it. What are they trying to prove? What answers are they trying to get? What end goal are they pursuing here? What is their actual motivation? Why can’t they just quit eating the foods we aren’t allowed to eat? Why are they so scared to let go again? What is the fear underlying all of this?

There’s so much music we can’t listen to anymore because music is always, always powerfully tied to “life eras”, however brief. We get flashbacks to them immediately and it can be terrifying. So much of this year’s music is tied to small periods of eating disorder wars, certain “food cycles” even if they only lasted for a few days, and even specific days that were psychologically harrowing enough to latch onto whatever music we had heard that day.
We haven’t listened to any new music in weeks, really. I think it’s a desperate coping mechanism. We’re trying so hard to escape from this hell; it’s better if there isn’t any future soundtrack tied to it. That way it won’t be remembered.

Right now, after weeks of grueling battles, the addiction has been pared down to the weirdly specific combination of beans+rice+oats+carrots, and chocolate chip granola bars. It’s so weird. But that’s it. Everything else is lingering around the edges, but the more rules we put up around them, and/or the more fear is tied to them, the easier it is to resist them.
Still. Chocolate is the oldest forbidden food. It’s a “sex food,” an abuse food, with real trauma tied to it. Granola is a “sworn off” food for penitential reasons. So why are “chocolate granola bars” allowed right now? ARE they? Or is someone just spitting hairs, like they do with everything else that’s edible?
In any case, I pray this ends soon. Chocolate is still so frightening it’s making me shake just thinking about it now. Maybe it’s the fact that granola bars have such tiny bits of chocolate in them that it “doesn’t register” as chocolate. But WHY are we “wanting” to eat them anyway? Granola bars themselves are a MASSIVE trauma food! You remember the bathroom events! What the heck are we trying to prove here? How did this even start? I hope it ends soon. It inevitably will, we just need the data and the consequences solid. Once its emptiness is tangible, it’ll stop.

Why are we so “hungry.”
If we just quit this all at once, if we stopped eating oats and beans and rice, why do “we” “fear” that it would “make us miserable”? That’s a blatant untruth. We’re MUCH happier when we’re NOT bingeing and purging. But… there is a fear of some sort of “loss.” So what is being mistranslated? What are we actually afraid of losing?
Additionally, why do we feel like we “HAVE to binge” on stress days? Why can’t we just fast? We WANT to, God knows-- so why won’t we? What is this fear that keeps coming up, this fear of not eating, even though we still really and consciously “hate” eating on any given day?

That’s the root of it, I think. If I had to point my finger at something that really felt like a siren going off, that would be it. We HATE eating. There is actual HATRED towards food. And yet, simultaneously, we are so hungry. We “want” to eat our carrots and hempseed and broccoli. But it’s unfulfilling and empty and frustrating and leaves us anxious and angry and wanting to cry and throw up.
What do we actually “want”? If we hate food, and we hate eating, then what are we actually looking for in our compulsive frightened “I have to eat” panic-- especially since we still want to starve?
The ambivalence is driving us insane. We have no clear answers yet.
Don’t forget all of this is still somehow tied to abuse and violation. We’re going to have to face that knot at
some point. Until we start to untangle that, we probably won’t get anywhere on the surface.

All the ICC lectures lately have been indispensable. They are literally rewiring our brain and our heart. Make sure you remember and study and pray about and reflect upon everything they’ve taught us.
But… don’t get crushed under the weight of guilt they deliver, either. Guilt is a sign that your conscience is working. Don’t shut it off. But don’t despair, either. God is walking you through these steps. You NEED to know WHERE and HOW you’re going wrong before you can fix it, and we COULDN’T know this spiritual side of it on our own, only through this revelation. So treasure it, take it seriously, and act on it with God’s grace. But… realistically we can’t expect to “fix this” overnight, or in one shot. We’re most likely going to struggle still. This is spiritual warfare after all. But do not despair. Don’t give up. Don’t try to pretend this is easy, or that we truly understand, or anything else the thriskefoni like to do. We have to be sober and realistic about this. No sugarcoating, no whitewashing. This is indeed hell we’re stuck in. But Christ keeps reaching down to us and dragging us out every time we fall back into this bloody open grave. Don’t give up. Keep reaching up to Him.
He doesn’t hate you because sometimes you think this grave is your doom. Sometimes we think this is all there is and we don’t fight very well at all. Sometimes we get comfortable and we settle in a little. But Christ never hates you. He never gives up on you. Don’t give up on Him. He’s not trying to crush you with this knowledge, He’s giving you sharp graces that will strengthen you to fight better. Trust Him. You’ve been praying for this.
What I’m trying to say is… we’ve been convicted so powerfully it feels like we’ve been stabbed in the chest. We’re afraid we’re going to die, forever, if we cannot or do not put that knowledge into practice immediately and perfectly. Is that pride? The fear is intense. I don’t want to choose hell. I’m so afraid of damnation because I’m too damn weak to give up eating rice and beans on Tuesday nights. Isn’t that asinine? What the heck is actually going on here?
Christ, please, don’t let me go to hell because I’m currently not strong enough to really, definitively say “no” to these hungry compulsions.

It’s terrifying, to KNOW that I’ve “already decided” to binge on Tuesday night. I don’t want to, but I “want to.” There’s a “have to” in there somewhere, concerning the “practice eating” to “get used to” certain foods and meals that we “have to” eat. Et cetera. Vomiting is inevitable at some point, so might as well force it now and get it over with-- it’s better to control its occasion than to be blindsided by it. Isn’t that sad?
There’s so much fear. It’s enough to make you want to give up on living. It feels like there’s no escape.
But that’s not God’s Spirit. Where is our fortitude? Or rather, what battle do we ACTUALLY need to fight here? What would fortitude look like in practice here? What would REAL justice be in this situation? What is ACTUALLY wise? How can we be prudent in TRUTH?

God I’m exhausted, please forgive me, I want to sleep. Tomorrow is church. I’m so tired. I do want to worship. Help us to do that, no matter what. Don’t ever lose us.
The Eucharist is the key to everything, somehow. Please don’t send us to hell. Help us understand, truly. Help us to not be afraid. Heal us somehow. Help us to let You heal us. Please, don’t give up on us. Get us to heaven one day, no matter what. But please, please don’t kill us in the meantime. Don’t let us end up dead because of our stupidity. Please help us. Open our eyes. Give us the grace to WANT to act healthily. Please. Restore our capacity for joy. I don’t know what I’m trying to ask but You do. Deep down somewhere we feel so dead that it’s hard to even want to be healthy, even though we do, because being healthy means having no broken coping mechanisms which means facing whatever they’re trying to numb and I don’t think we can handle facing that gravestone reality. Heal THAT, Lord, please. There are so many layers here. Still, You can fix it all. I know You can. Please do so, moment by moment, in Your good time, in Your real love. Don’t let us die in our weakness and sins. Please heal us for good, for real, gently but permanently. Please don’t hurt us. Please help us. Help us to love You more completely, and help us to not be afraid of Your love. Amen.

I’ve got to sleep. Thank You God for helping us to have at least typed something tonight. We’ll do more tomorrow hopefully. Until then, please bless and forgive and protect and heal us. May we be transformed day by day into Your likeness. May we be remade new in Your image, and may we never sin again. Amen. Good night.

 

 

Hell morning again.
(Despite that, by the time we went to bed, we felt oddly content? Saying night prayers together as a System, in the quiet dark, we were able to see and treasure little points of light through the day, that completely overpowered the scary and difficult things that had happened. I just want to mention that. Julie and I especially really grew a lot closer today through all of it.)


Rosary thoughts=
We get feelings of anger we look at pictures of jesus or Mary that have blank Faces, Or that look so serene and unruffled no matter how much we're suffering. It doesn't feel right it feels almost spiteful, Like our childhood, We would cry for help but people would just smile at us and do nothing, not even sympathize.
This is why a suffering savior and a sorrowful mother are so important.

Also realizing where we get that same terror reaction looking at holy Pictures during the rosary especially with no music to distract our thoughts, It's a trauma response it's actually looking for every possible threat in the picture.

Dyspnea is returning suddenly?? Yesterday & today. No apparent triggers.
We haven't had it at ALL since May, so this is weird.

Adelaide's role is A NURSE! SHE'S NOT A SOCIAL; SHE'S NOT SUPPOSED TO BE "IN THE BODY" AS IDENTITY!! Her job is to "accompany" the body being seen as a "person in need," like an elder who needs such close care! She TAKES CARE OF IT DIRECTLY ALONGSIDE IT; she is "driving" but NOT "FRONTING."
This is why she was so angry for so long-- she was being FORCED INTO FRONTING ALONE and that anger was a NATURAL ANGER RESPONSE TO DISSONANCE!!

Church at SJE. Made it to confession... and the response was JARRING.
This is almost verbatim as it hit so hard=
"If that was all in one week, you have too much time on your hands." "You're making up sins." "Why are you doing [that strange sin]? You must have some reason for it." "You're doubting God's love? At Christmas?" "Do you think your sins are so powerful that even God can't forgive you?"
And again, "You really need a spiritual director."
Listen, I am DEEPLY GRATEFUL for such a "tell it to you straight" priest (very fitting that he was wearing purple), but I am still VERY CONFUSED?
...


Evening carrots & Bishop Barron
UNEXPECTED ABSOLUTE CHECKMATE TO THE THRISKEFONI????
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Bc3QPnw4ioPZt9P8taAWn?si=bjPHH5-KQ8eJJX47tMWyLw
SERIOUSLY TYPE ABOUT THAT ASAP BECAUSE IT IS IMMENSELY IMPORTANT TO US


8pm JUAN DIEGO DOCUDRAMA WAS ON EWTN!!! That's the one that LITERALLY CHANGED OUR LIFE and made us love BOTH that Saint AND OUR LADY, when prior to that film we had been acridly averse towards BOTH.
We literally sat down on the bedroom rug, in the dark, and just watched it together as a System.
I remember Leon and Scalpel both being so moved by Juan Diego's humble sincerity and emotional purity.
...


Waiting for mom to show up & switch cars for Mass tomorrow. Very anxious about driving at this hour but our brain is numb. Too much at once.
Dreamwidth is down so we can't update or edit or review, and we're panicking about the possibility of losing the archives as a result. We NEED to back up our site uploads ASAP because that's the ONLY PLACE WE HAVE THEM SAVED RIGHT NOW.

Small night drive
CZs Playlist on shuffle, God gave us "Tidal Tempest" (a much needed fond memory rush) & a song by Nick Leng that I had never heard before, but that was so unexpectedly applicable to our life lately it ached.
I'm amazed that you wanted someone like me.



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Universalis today

"...the Lord is a God of judgement, and blessed are all who hope in him. There is first to be a conversion and a cry for help. Only after the Lord has given the bread of suffering will the grace be given. Repentance is necessary before the benefits can flow."
...

"The prophecy of Isaiah promises material plenty... Then in the gospel passage Jesus fulfils the prophetic promises by sending out the disciples urgently to proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom by curing the sick, cleansing the lepers and driving out demons. Is the gospel only a matter of material plenty, of prospering unreservedly and of avoiding unpleasant diseases, as so many [worldly evangelists] proclaim it? They gain followers of short duration in the hope of comfort and prosperity, until the crash comes. This is not the gospel proclaimed in Matthew’s Beatitudes: ‘blessed are the poor in spirit, the meek, the peacemakers, the persecuted’. The blessing of God is upon them, in the sense that the Hand of God hovers over them. This [proclamation by means of healing] is not the same as providing ‘the fat of the land’ of the TV ‘evangelists’ for the followers of Jesus. These actions of the disciples are the symbols of the conquest of evil and distress. In story after story Jesus’ Heart goes out to the unfortunate and distressed, to the despised and the outcast, and He insists that the judgment of His followers will be in accordance with their adherence to the same standards of [His] caring for the poor, the sick, and the afflicted. In the Beatitudes according to Luke this is even more obvious, for there it is ‘you who are hungry now’, ‘you who are weeping now’. But Jesus does not promise that they "will live on the fat of the land"– only that they will have their fill and will laugh. The joy of the followers of Jesus rests in the confidence and firmness of a relationship to God the Father and His Messiah."
Why am I pasting this whole thing? Because it's a daily battle I have to fight, with my family & this society & myself.
How does Jesus fulfill these promises of "plenty?"
1) He sends out His disciples. Already the focus shifts from "things" to "people."
2) He sends them to "proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom." This is the true wealth: the Kingship of God, Who IS our all in all, everything we need forever, our Provider and Father.
3) They proclaim this Kingdom BY HEALING PEOPLE. This shows that God HAS POWER OVER ALL DISEASES & DEVILS. Isn't that true riches? Without a healthy body, the richest man on earth benefits nothing from his wealth... and without a healthy soul, even a healthy body is useless & doomed to death. God is literally transcending all mortal priority & redefining in truth what "plenty" is to man.
4) Specifically, the disciples are to cure lepers & the possessed.
5) THIS "PLENTY" GOES TO THE POOREST OF THE POOR!!
...
Now for the rest of it.
1) A reminder = The CROSS is the Gospel. The Beatitudes are our blessings. Jesus Himself had NO "material plenty," other than what He was given in charity & which He freely shared with all His camaraderie, and donated to those in need. THAT was the true "plenty"-- the generosity, the compassion, the giving & sharing, the active grateful recognition & demonstration that ALL IS GOD'S, and we are but stewards, and this brief life we have been given on earth is meant to be spent, not hoarded, poured out for the love of God & others and thereby investing solidly in ETERNITY. This, too, is real prosperity-- the flourishing of virtue, allowing grace to flow through you to others without selfish hindrance. You will "succeed in all you do" if your ultimate & only goal is to honor & serve God, and to do His Will. Then circumstances cannot ever leave you bereft, for your eternal hope is untouched, your spiritual harvest sure, fixed as they are in God and His Kingdom. Even if you fall deathly ill or are permanently injured, this is no curse if it is united with Christ. When we receive even our sufferings from His Hands, they BECOME blessings.
2) And THAT is my FAVORITE LINE of this-- the humble & meek, the persecuted peacemakers, the hungry & weeping, ALL of these souls are paradoxically BLESSED, BECAUSE THE HAND OF GOD IS UPON THEM. What a grace!! What a grace to RECOGNIZE that truth WITHIN those afflictions!
...
3) When we are genuinely so afflicted, the Heart of Jesus goes out to us.
...
4) Jesus INSISTS that the suffering BE CARED FOR. And isn't that another paradoxical blessing? When we are truly "one of the least of these," we become the recipients of Jesus's mandate of compassion. We become living opportunities for God to use others for Love, and for others to show and share that Love. We, in our very sufferings, are God's canvases to MANIFEST the Kingdom all the more, by His grace.
...
5) The action of curing IS BUT A SYMBOL of something even greater, something that DOESN'T REQUIRE A PHYSICAL CURE TO BE REAL.
...
6) THIS is why our care & compassion for the poor, or lack thereof, is apparently & shockingly our JUDGMENT STANDARD before the very Throne of the Creator. 
...
7) "NOW." Not eternally.
...
8) "Have their fill" vs "live on luxury," really. And LAUGHTER.
...
9) THE REAL & TRUE JOY, THE REAL ABUNDANCE, IS ONLY & ALL FOUND IN A RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER, THROUGH JESUS-- specifically in the "CONFIDENCE & FIRMNESS" of such.
...


"All that came to be was alive with His Life: may our lives be a light for men. Come today through the Church, Lord Jesus."
Oh this is PROFOUND.
1) Life itself comes from God, Who IS Life. The gravity of that doesn't always sink in as it should: God, the Uncreated and Eternal, Love and Truth Himself, IS LIFE. All existence, all consciousness, all breath and blood, ONLY EXISTS BECAUSE GOD EXISTS. Language fails me. Life, the basic state of everything, IS INHERENTLY GOD'S. But more specifically, even more profoundly, it is CHRIST'S. Literally the principle of BEING that exists and animates every star, every plant, every animal, and especially every human, IS CHRIST'S. It's like a blood transfusion, somewhat-- the life of another now gives you life, and without it you would die. But this is infinitely more. Christ gives Life to EVERYTHING IN THE UNIVERSE BECAUSE HE IS LIFE. IT'S ALL HIM.
I'm sorry, I cannot say what I'm feeling. This is just astounding me. It's beautiful, it's terrific, I am so humbled and joyful that THIS IS OUR GOD, THAT IS WHAT GOD IS LIKE, God has poured His own spark into everything that is in order for it to LIVE.
2) SOLELY BECAUSE OF THIS, our own lives CAN be "a light for others"-- because they can SPECIFICALLY reflect the TRUE AND ONLY LIGHT to them, through our own life, AS HIS LIFE, as from Him. Literally just be existing we are testifying to the glory of God, to the goodness of Christ, but we humans have the unique gift of CONSCIOUSNESS and so we can reflect CHRIST as a Person qin a more "accurate" way than any other created thing-- especially since HE BECAME MAN Himself, TO help us to do just that!
...


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Book devotionals.

ttywpf =
"God does not wait for us to go to him, but it is he who moves toward us, without calculation, without quantification. “That is what God is like. He always takes the first step; He comes toward us... Where is God calling you to be like him and to take the first step toward others? Do you need to reconcile with someone? Do you need to show an act of kindness to someone in your life?"
We literally read this right after we had been thinking (for unrelated & unremembered reasons) about "reconciling" with TAS & TBAS, but feeling sadly like God "won't let us?" Like we're "not meant to be friends anymore," especially not with how abusive "I" was to them both in the past. The greater sacrifice & mercy would be to let them go free of me forever, never reimposing myself on their lives.
Still, God knows I wish that I could make proper restitution for what I did. I want, ideally, to apologize so completely and sincerely that they both have peace in their hearts, no more bitterness, no grudges, everyone is forgiven on all sides. The problem? I have no right nor power to expect such a response, or even to pursue one. There is ONLY ONE THING that I am required to do, the only thing in my power, the only thing I have any right to do-- I MUST COMPLETELY FORGIVE THEM. But for WHAT?? THEY DID NOTHING WRONG. The problem is, I'M PROJECTING MY OWN GUILT & SHAME & SELF-HATRED ONTO THEM. Even now I'm being an abuser. Typical.
...


EGJ was SO HEADSPACE RELEVANT it actually brought us to tears=
"Somehow love perseveres. We discover that compassion, patience, forgiveness, mercy, and humility are layered like mortar between the bricks of joy, laughter, delight, gratitude, and awe. Love is like that, simultaneously giving us everything we want and everything we need.
In the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, love comes to life in defiance of all odds. When all feels lost, when cold darkness holds a tightening grip, love finds a way. The Holy Spirit inspires. Somehow we find everything we need to love one another as Christ loves us.
Today, prayerfully pause and acknowledge that the hardest things you've faced in life stirred something within you that helped you love more deeply. Name them and express gratitude for them."
...I can name them all, and I can look into their eyes as I do so.
Honestly this hit straight to the heart.
The System has, unfailingly, from the very beginning, been a powerful tool of God to help me/us love more deeply in the deepest darknesses of life. Our existence is proof that Love somehow perseveres. Every one of us is a testimony that Love comes to life despite all odds.
Christ reflects Himself in us. He uses us to bring us closer to Himself.
...


"Come, Holy Spirit! Drain from me my arrogance, my stubbornness, and my insecurity, and replace them with the Gifts of your strength, your fortitude, and your wisdom."
This is a simple prayer but I was inspired by the wording.
1) DRAIN it out.
2) The Spirit's strength replaces human arrogance.
3) The Spirit's fortitude replaces human stubbornness.
4) The Spirit's wisdom replaces human insecurity.



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VOTD = 1 Corinthians 13:13 PUNCH TO THE JAW, seriously =
"Three things will last forever: faith, hope, and love... You know what won't last forever? All your stuff... We don't care about all the stuff that people own when we talk about their life. We talk about the way that they made us feel. So how do you make people feel with your Christian life? Do people have more faith in Jesus when they're around you? Are they more hopeful about the future? And do they feel the love of Jesus when they're around you?  These three things are the true mark of a Christian and they should be a greater priority than all the stuff we're searching after: Faith, Hope, and Love. Do you have them?"
...We really don't, not anymore. WHY.
We don't make people "feel good" at all. We whine and complain and gripe and cry and panic. We're a mess. We're a horrible excuse for a Christian. Talking like this is a prime example in and of itself. Where is our hope? Where is our optimism and bright-eyed looking-forwards to an invisible yet promised dawn? What happened to us, that drained all the sparkle out of our soul?
...Most importantly, as far as our morose gut is concerned, we AREN'T living a Christian life. THAT'S the SCARIEST THING. We feel like we are STILL SO MUCH OF A SINNER that we would NEVER "pass" as a Christian, let alone "merit" to use the title at ALL.
...and... we still "don't know Jesus." At all. THAT is the most terrifying bit of it all.
How could we ever help the faith and love of others if we still don't know what that feels like ourselves?


"Advent is a time for reflecting on=
+ our faith in the Biblical promises,
+ our hope in Christ's arrival— past and future,
+ and God's love in sending His Son."
1) God keeps pushing us, more & more often & strongly as we grow in faith, to LEARN what His Promises ARE. Like it's becoming a hunger in our soul, just like that "starving to know Jesus" that keeps aiming us towards our BOOKSHELF and not our phone.
2) This surprised me. First, "ARRIVAL." Singular, referring to TWO events. This means they are ACTUALLY ONE. Christ's Birth in Humility is BOUND UP in His Return in Glory. Because the first arrival HAS happened in time, the second arrival HAS ALSO "HAPPENED" in eternity?? Look at the Book of Revelation! It's not just "guaranteed," in some sense it ALREADY IS.
Second, the actual virtue of hope, in this context. We are hoping IN, NOT "FOR". We're not looking forward to a possibility, or something that "might happen." The ARRIVAL is already present!! So our hope is IN IT. It's a beautiful paradox. We hope for "what we cannot see," and yet, that dual Arrival is the context of our entire lives!!
...
3) "We love because He first loved us." Faith & hope are ours, and will no longer be needed in heaven-- but Love is GOD'S, and it alone is truly ETERNAL.
...

On that note, the written reflection =
"Faith is crucial to Christianity. In fact, “Without faith it is impossible to please God...” (Hebrews 11:16). “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). But one day, faith will give way to sight and what was once foggy will suddenly become clear.
Hope is also essential to those who follow Jesus Christ. And we certainly have a great hope— based on facts, evidence, and witnesses— in the God who created us, gave His life for us, and will return for us once and for all. But one day, the future we hope for will become reality."
1) Faith isn't just "belief." It's TRUST. Christianity is hinged on a PERSONAL CHILDLIKE TRUST IN GOD AS FATHER, THROUGH CHRIST. That makes our religion stupendously unique and beautiful, unlike any other.
2) No matter how much "good" you do, if you don't trust God, you can't please Him. It seems so obvious, but I think we overlook it because of how completely it destroys all self-exaltation and efforts to "achieve", and our fallen tendency for proud autonomy is very scared of that! 
3)


"Spiritual gifts (like prophecy or knowledge) are helpful to the Church but simultaneously meaningless without an undercurrent of love."
THE THRISKEFONI SERIOUSLY NEED TO REALIZE THIS.
I genuinely hate to keep "pointing fingers" at them but they aren't getting the memo, as it were, and we KNOW from accessible memory of their front-echoes that THEY REALLY DON'T LOVE. And that is tragically terrifying.
...


A last reminder, from the prayer=
GOD CREATED FAITH, HOPE, AND LOVE. They all originate in Him and can only come FROM Him. So pray and ask for an INCREASE of them in your heart, AND an increase in the CAPACITY of your heart TO hold them!! Then ask for God to increase your ABILITY TO SHOW those virtues to others, for HIS GLORY.
God has blessed us with such grace in giving us Jesus, Who IS the Source of those virtues for us!
He is The Light that conquers all darkness, as He appears right in the midst of it; He Himself IS Hope for the future. In Jesus we have invincible joy. But we must SHARE the Good News of His Birth with others, because without faith in Him, in His Advent of Love, they cannot experience true joy or hope at all-- because those virtues ARE ONLY REALIZED IN JESUS.
So BE BOLD, and PROCLAIM HIM, with sincerity & zeal, to EVERYONE. Realize the stakes if you DON'T!!
PRAY FOR THE GRACE TO DO THIS.

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An edited quote from an article=
"Jesus was born in Bethlehem so that, thirty-three years later, He could die for our sins on Calvary. Consider the Passion this little babe would undergo, as innocent at His death as He was at His birth. Reflect on His sufferings, and the incredible Love that motivated both His earthly nativity and His death."
1) I actually love pondering this truth: that Jesus was born so that He could die. That was His Intention from the very beginning. Imagine that! How that nobly colors His Life! In every moment, in every encounter, His Heart was fixed on His Death. Why? Because that Death was the point of EVERYTHING. It was to be, in time, the Event on which ALL time would reorient, and in which ALL Creation was to be remade. 
2) This next line hits SO HARD. Jesus is FOREVER PURE & INNOCENT AS A CHILD!! Crucifying Jesus was LITERALLY as heinous and horrific as CRUCIFYING AN INFANT. And yes, there ARE crucifixes that portray this most gutting of revelations.
There's also a line in the Divine Mercy Novena I always wondered about that says exactly this=
"Eternal Father, turn Your merciful gaze upon meek souls, upon humble souls, and upon little children... These souls bear the closest resemblance to [the Heart of] Your Son."
...

3) His BIRTH, too, was suffering!! As God, Jesus didn't "know" pain & suffering & sorrow like we sin-tormented mortals do. So, when in His great Love, He chose to suffer the Passion of His Death, He ALSO chose to suffer the unique Passion of His Birth. This was no "penalty of sin," just as Mary was spared the same. But Jesus was to learn, as a newborn babe, what hunger and cold and pain WERE. He was helpless, unable to even speak or crawl, completely at the mercy of others, and in great essential need-- as all infants are. But He was also born in a manger, outdoors, away from both home & society, in the frigid darkness, smelling of animals... as only the most destitute children are. He refused to be even one step above the lowliest human being; He insisted on being right there in the dirt with them, holding their hand. He chose this natal "Passion" with utmost Love, just as He chose its Paschal fulfillment-- in both, sharing most intimately in the condition of humanity at its most vulnerable & wounded. He became everything God was "not," save for sin. He became as tenderly human as possible, and this was first & foundationally expressed through His infant sufferings.



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A final quote from Catholic Answers =

"So is Advent still a “penitential season”? It is, in the sense that all times are penitential times. The Catholic is called to constant conversion. Conversion is an ongoing aspect of the Christian life. There are times in our life when conversion may have a greater focus and others when it has a lesser focus, but there is no time when attention to conversion can be absent. Jesus calls us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48), a constant task. So, yes, to the degree that we are all affected by sin (and we all are to a greater or lesser degree), in that measure, we also are all called to conversion. But the conversion we are called to in Advent has a distinctive character: one of “joyful hope.” A Catholic living Advent today is in a better position than Messianic prophets like Isaiah and Micah: he knows how the story turned out in Jesus of Nazareth. At the same time, today’s Catholic also knows how the story WILL turn out: the triumph of God and goodness, “when everything is subjected to Him... so that God may be all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). We know that God, Who will come to judge the living and the dead, will prevail. The only thing we do not know is on which side we will be in that judgment: among the sheep or the goats. That is why Advent is a time of preparation and conversion: it is a time to make myself ready “for the coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ,” Judge of the living and the dead, King of the Universe. The way I prepare myself is through conversion of heart, from turning from creatures to the Creator, from sin to grace, [and] there is one, integral Life of Christ that remains the normative measure for every Christian [in this and all regards]. Whether we meditate on [it] in the rosary or observe [its events] through the course of the liturgical year, the motif should be the same: how these elements of His Life shape ours. Advent reminds us of what Jesus did for us so that, “now” (that little word we repeat in every Hail Mary), we may, by the prayers of Mary and all the saints, turn from whatever separates us from God and [turn at last] to God Himself. Advent reminds us that “now” is the only moment we actually have and are promised, as we have no guarantees of our future. So we seize the moment of grace, the kairos that is “now,” to prepare for Him who, by His past coming, made us aware He is coming back and that “My reward is with me, and I will give to each person according to what he has done” (Rev. 22:12). What is our response, for which we prepare during Advent and our entire lives? The very last words of the Bible: “Come Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20). Maranatha!"
1) IT'S ALL PENITENTIAL. Laurie loves that. I do too.
...
2) Conversion NEVER STOPS. That's both strongly sobering & deeply comforting.
...
3) Our "constant task" in this regard is "PERFECTION"-- which CANNOT be achieved by man, nor in this life.
...
4) Advent brings joy and hope to our ongoing conversion. This is essential, because without it, our conversion can become morbid or overwhelming, especially with its perpetually penitential character.
...
5) We ACTUALLY KNOW "how it all turns out." Reflect on that, especially as we read the Biblical warnings & prophecies, AND see the worsening state of the secular world.
And HOW does it turn out? That's the beautiful bit. EVERYTHING will be subjected to God. No more rebellion, no more distortion, no more schism, no more isolation, no more disorder, no more falsehood, etc. Everything will be obedient to Christ the Lord, and Christ to His Father. God will be "ALL IN ALL." I adore that promise. And yes, it IS one! No matter WHAT happens, in all of temporal history, in the absolute end of everything GOD WILL BE ALL IN ALL. That's the last page of every book, as it were-- the complete & perfect & eternal triumph of Goodness and Life and Truth and Love, and the permanent bringing of the entire cosmos under His Holy Rule.
...
6) HOWEVER. We ALSO know that Christ WILL return as JUDGE. Sometimes I think people can forget that, in the focus on His final realized Kingship and our hopeful entrance into heaven-- too often Christians can ASSUME they're going to heaven, perhaps afraid to ponder the very real alternative, which WOULD be the ONLY option for us, if not for Christ's Sacrifice on our behalf. And yet WE'RE STILL NOT "GUARANTEED." Even now, even as Christians, we DON'T KNOW our ultimate judgment. We cannot know; that's the point. We must be vigilant & ardent & dedicated servants, both hopeful & contrite, with holy fear & childlike trust. To assume our salvation, EVEN though we hope in Christ's mercy, would be PRIDE. Furthermore, SALVATION DOES DEMAND "COOPERATION!!" It's all in Scripture! We've been called off the streets into the wedding banquet, absolutely, but are we wearing the wedding garment?
...
7) Advent is a preparation for the Second Coming IN the First Coming. Even as an Infant, Christ was Judge. His entire Life was a Judgment. How do we respond to Him? How do we meet Him in the manger, specifically, in such a scandalously humble state? If God has done this, if our King and Judge has chosen to experience this for Love of us, ALL of us, are we willing to do the same for love of Him, and all our brethren for His sake? THAT is HOW we will be judged, after all.
...
8) We must convert, but not blindly or haphazardly-- our conversion must CONFORM TO CHRIST'S EXAMPLE. That is SO IMPORTANT.
Where do we have this example to refer to? IN THE ROSARY AND THE LITURGY.
It's not automatic, either. We must meditate on it, actively pondering HOW Jesus's Life shapes our own, uniquely & individually, yet in absolute harmony with the Church-- and we must put it into action BY GRACE. That's the vital bit. We CANNOT do this by our own human willpower; it must be the work of the Spirit.
9) WE GAIN THIS GRACE THROUGH THE INTERCESSORY PRAYERS OF THE SAINTS???
...
10) Conversion is a constant turning. That's humbling & fascinating. It's like, somehow, we can always turn to face God a little more. We can always turn towards the Light. But we can also turn away, especially if we aren't paying attention.
Ponder this. Where are we turned to, right now? Where are we truly looking? In what direction are we really facing?
What creatures are we gazing at, moreso than the Creator? What sins are we fixated on, to the neglect of grace?
It's like the dirt or the sky-- you can only look at one at a time. You can either face the sunrise or turn your back to the glow.
What is separating us from God? What is preventing our turning fully to face Him?
...
11) "NOW" IS ALL WE HAVE. That is a life-changing truth.
It's IN the Hail Mary!!
...
12) The litmus test for ALL our preparation-- it must enable us to WELCOME JESUS NOW. If we're still saying, "not just yet, give me a minute, I'm not ready," then we are NOT TRULY LIVING OUR CONVERSION. To be honest about it, it MUST have that quality of FINALITY, that awareness of our mortality, and the immanent reality of Jesus's Presence NOW, which Advent points us to the historical breaking-in of. But that first Christmas CONTINUES in our hearts TODAY, and will until He returns at an unexpected hour, for which we MUST prepare NOW, no exceptions. It's not "okay, I've gotta get ready, but let me finish this first--" NO. RIGHT NOW. And the secret is that you make EVERYTHING into an act of conversion, no matter how mundane. You sanctify EVERYTHING, so that no matter where you are or what you're doing, you CAN say, "COME, LORD JESUS." You're as ready as you can be in this moment, and in that preparation-- in your constant conversion to look towards Him and Him alone-- you are expectantly waiting. You're "not the holdup." You're not distracted looking elsewhere. You've got oil for your lamp. Et cetera. You stay active in service-- you don't neglect your stewardship duties to just stare out the window!-- but you are ready in the work itself, and your deeds speak those same welcoming words in loving silence.
...

 

Adoration
"We're in the same room as God and He's NOT smiting us?" BUT LAUDS GAVE US PSALM 5 IN RESPONSE.
"But I, through the greatness of your love, have access to your house. I bow down before your holy temple, filled with awe."

"Maybe He's giving us cancer"
"If I did, it would be out of love. It would be because you asked for it, out of love for your grandparents, to share in their crosses, and it would be a share in My Own as well. But it would all be for love. Nothing I do is for punishment. Sin is its own punishment, an i want to save you from it."
"Why would I take on all your legal punishment on the Cross if I was just going to throw it back at you?"

Also, asking for "sight," more "proof"
"You're not ready for that yet" "I don't want to give you any occasion of grave sin" concerning my mental state


Home for 930
IMMEDIATE OCD HELL.
Saying JUST the Saint Michael & Divine Mercy chaplets took ALMOST TWO HOURS.

YouTube "antiliberal" channel awful distraction. Saw the devil's number THREE TIMES.
I hate when "both sides" TAKE sides. The war isn't against humans, it's against Satan! Stop ridiculing and mocking each other. You're ironically furthering the devil's work by your pride.

Egg salt HELL PANIC.
We had previously "promised Mary" that since we're forbidden from bread & water fasts on Mondays, we'd at least "not put salt on anything." But we exercised for 2 hours this morning and we were "worried about electrolyte imbalances" so in a moment of very stupid weakness, we put salt into the eggs while they were frying.
INSTANT MORTAL SIN.
We had such a debilitating panic attack, we legit thought we were going straight to hell, it was TERRIFYING.
We ended up throwing away the eggs and doing them over plain, but not before having a shaking and sobbing meltdown in the middle of the kitchen for like a half hour.

BK at 215, finally. Exhausted.


Evening =
Looking at the kitchen snowflakes with Mimic
"They're just dollar-store plastic snowflakes, with cheap glitter."
"Yeah, but they look beautiful in the light, don't they?"
"...yeah, they do."

He quietly said something that BLINDSIDED me and it's been stuck in my heart:
"I could never see beauty until I met you"

No frills, he was that succinct.
I looked at him immediately after he said that, and he was looking up at those stupid beautiful little snowflakes, with the light sparkling off them in so many tiny pinpoints of color, and he had this expression that was just... so unlike anything i'd seen on him before. There was actual wonder, even vulnerability, if i could dare use that word. but he was seeing the beauty, like he said. his eyes had opened up suddenly.
i hope i remember how that moment felt, forever. all the colored light, the shimmering decorations, the soft quiet dark around us, the night silence. it felt like christmas did in 2013 before everything turned to blood.
thank You God for this tonight. it's real, honest, tangible hope.


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Universalis about Advent today.

I'm going to take this first bit apart a little, as follows, because that's the POINT of quoting these bits, not just to "collect data" =
"We... should always observe [Advent] with faith and love, offering praise and thanksgiving to the Father for the mercy and love He has shown us in this mystery. In His infinite love for us, though we were sinners, He sent his only Son..."
+ To free us from the tyranny of Satan, (no one else had such power. Don't forget how scary powerful the devil actually is. Yes, he's still a creature, and an absolute powerless weakling compared to God, but compared to humans? we're screwed. We had no way of fighting back or escaping by our own feeble efforts. But Jesus totally and absolutely crushed ALL the devil's power, because all power comes from God anyway and the time had come for the tables to turn forever, the time promised and unstoppable from the very beginning)
+ to summon us to heaven, (Heaven was effectively LOCKED after the Fall and before Christ. No one could get in until Jesus Himself unlocked the gates with human hands, as it were.)
+ to welcome us into its innermost recesses, (the curtain torn in half! Jesus literally calls us into HIS HEART.)
+ to show us truth itself, (He IS Truth, and He manifested it perfectly & purely in His actions & words)
+ to train us in right conduct, (by His teaching AND example, again. Like children, He knows we learn best by imitating what we see, and He perfectly exemplified the Law and its spirit both, with total Love)
+ to plant within us the seeds of virtue, (THIS IS SO IMPORTANT. we don't have the ability to do this ourselves!! Virtues, ESPECIALLY the Cardinal virtues, are GRACE-GIFTS FROM GOD.)
+ to enrich us with the treasures of His grace, (the generosity of God is astounding. We didn't deserve such gifts, such treasures, as He lavished upon us, but He gave them anyway... because He loves us, AND because the very gifts He gives TRANSFORM us in our receiving them. His gifts are never empty or purposeless; they ALWAYS benefit us for salvation.)
+ and to make us children of God and heirs of eternal life." (no child can birth itself, or adopt itself, or make itself an heir; we had no way of entering the family of God except through THE SON making us PART OF HIMSELF???)


"You know our hearts, Lord, but you are slow to anger and merciful in judging. Come, examine your Church, wash her clean of sin..."
I think actually of someone in a hospital, all bloody & dirty from struggle, and how they NEED to be thoroughly examined before they CAN be properly cleaned & healed!
As to how God can know the terrible state of our hearts, yet still be patient and merciful? That's because He loves us, His creations, who were MADE FOR LOVE, and He refuses to lose or destroy us unless we ourselves adamantly insist upon it BY sin. And even then, our judgment will be perfectly just, because it is decreed by the One Who seeks our highest good, always... even if that true and real good ultimately comes to necessitate the end of our depraved earthly life. For all we know, that might be the only thing possible that would move us to repent, even at the very last instant. But God knows, and THAT is why He does it-- because He never delights in death, only in Life, Which He Is.
...


"Come to us and save us, Lord God almighty. Let Your Face smile on us and we shall be safe."
...That is so deeply, achingly sweet.
It's all tied together. To be safe, we must be saved. To be saved, God must come to us. But how does He come-- in lightning and fire? Or does He come as a little baby, smiling sweetly at us all? It is in that very smile that our souls are safe, safe in the salvation that our God offers us BY His coming to us, closer than we ever dreamed, in the Incarnation. The Lord God Almighty became a tiny child that you can hold in your arms. THAT is how closely He comes to you-- yes, YOU, individually. That simple ineffable fact is, mysteriously entire in itself, absolute confidence of salvation, of the safety of our souls. There's no room for doubt, only faith, in such a pure display of love-- the smile of the Child remakes the whole world. Once you see His Face, your heart is changed forever. There is the hope-- the promise-- of eternal safety, in that precious smile.

This STUNNING translation of Philippians 3:20-21=
"We are waiting for our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, Who will transfigure these wretched bodies of ours into copies of His glorious Body. He will do that by the same power with which He can subdue the whole universe."
...WOW.
1) He WILL do all of this.
2) WE, TOO, WILL BE TRANSFIGURED.
3) COPIES OF HIM?????? What a word!! We won't just be "similar," or "kind of like Him," we will be COPIES, in the most beautiful sense--
4) THE POWER IRRESISTIBLE


From the Gospel =
"The citizens of Capernaum were no doubt waiting with confidence for salvation... but failed to take it when it came. Matthew the Jew is well aware of the position and promises of Israel, and yet he has no hesitation in telling us that in no one in Israel has Jesus found such faith. Are they all missing out on the promises? Well then, are we Christians waiting with a similar complacency, unaware that we are putting our trust elsewhere, so that the joy of Christ is passing us by? Will the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven be a jolly party of fellow-Christians, or will it be puzzlingly full of complete strangers, who have been more faithful to their God-given ideals and beliefs than Christians?"
1) First off-- yes, I am waiting for salvation, but am I waiting with confidence? And why am I waiting at all? Do I not see Christ, right there? He is coming again, even now in Advent-- am I confident enough in His Salvation TO "take Him" into my life when He comes? WHY AM I HESITANT EVEN NOW?
2) Jesus has made promises to YOU, too, baptized child, member of spiritual Israel, part of the Church. But are you missing out? Do you not realize that the requirement for every promise's fulfillment is FAITH? How can you receive if you fail to believe?
3) What are you complacent in? What are you ACTUALLY waiting for, so passively?
4) Where is your trust?
5) You aren't joyful.
6) God had given YOU ideals and beliefs to accept and follow. You know this; they constitute your very religion. Are you being faithful to it? Or are you playing the harlot? What ARE your ideals, really, you vain and distracted fool? What ARE your beliefs, actually, you deluded and stubborn sod?
...

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From a Christian mental health article =

"I spent daily time in the Word, attended Bible study, was careful to practice healthy habits, and was grateful for my sweet family. Yet, somehow I would find myself paralyzed in everyday situations by debilitating fear... despite all my efforts to "capture and replace" these horrible thoughts with God's Word, I was struggling day and night with chronic anxiety... It took years for me to understand this was [the onset of a real illness,] not a sudden inability to love the Lord."
1) "Healthy habits" and a strong faith life DO NOT "PREVENT" MENTAL ILLNESS.
2) GRATITUDE DOES NOT CURE MENTAL ILLNESS. I wish it did, believe me. But there is a BIG DIFFERENCE between ingratitude and an anxiety disorder.
3) That "capture and replace" thing (which I've never heard of until now) absolutely DOES work... normally. It's a way to "reprogram" your common thought focus to Scripture. But when you have intrusive thoughts, looping thoughts, ego-dystonic thoughts, flashbacks even... even if you're able to recite the whole Book of Psalms from memory, sometimes it actually doesn't stop the symptoms. I know it sounds impossible, even blasphemous. But please, believe me, it CAN happen. It doesn't mean I've fallen from grace... does it?
Man, this internalized prejudice really is a killer.
4) Having mental illness DOES NOT "TURN OFF" YOUR ABILITY TO LOVE.
..

"I remember, at the start of all this, trying to share what was going on with my friends and family. They are all believers and love me well. None of them had the language to help me understand that this experience was more than me needing to "capture my thoughts" better, pray more, or improve my spiritual practice (all things they advised and I diligently did). I had never met another believer that struggled like me. I felt wholly alone, ashamed, and completely paralyzed."
1) This is our entire life. It STILL makes us very scared & hesitant to interact with fellow churchgoers, for fear of scandalizing them or pushing them away from the faith, as well as an admitted terror of ourselves being "rejected from the Church" because we're now "revealed" to be "not a real Christian" BECAUSE we're mentally ill.
2)
3)
...

"I once read that those experiencing anxiety and depression need one person to call their "lifeline"-- someone safe that they can confess to that they are struggling. I expressed this idea to my spouse, and because he didn't have any context for mental illness outside of it being a selfish, spiritual failure, he could not understand what I was asking for."
This hurt so much to read.
1) We don't have, and have never had, a "lifeline"... outside. We as a System are this to each other.
Still, sometimes, it does ache, to be isolated from human comfort. Nevertheless it's a cross we will gladly bear.
2) The real trouble here: the somafoni won't admit the struggle.
3) ...PEOPLE LEGIT SEE MENTAL ILLNESS THAT WAY???? WHAT THE SHARK???
4) If a spouse cannot understand that you're asking for a compassionately active listener, that's genuinely distressing.
...


"...the paralyzing sense of shame that can be a common part of those experiencing anxiety or depression can appear to others as selfishness... [those others] feel that the person trapped in their mind is doing so out of a selfish motive. Yet, I think this idea that those trapped in their thoughts are always self-obsessed fails to see the whole picture of what mental illness often is. There are indeed personality disorders, behaviors, and other issues that are born out of self-obsession, but the suffering mostly stays stuck because they don't see a way out. We need God's light and the loving guidance of others to help us see the path to healing. Truth be told, we all are selfish, prideful, and broken. Yet, why say this battle for mental health is an especially "selfish" one, further alienating someone who already feels confused and alone?"
1) I never really realized just how MUCH shame there actually is, with having a mental illness-- especially the OCD and PTSD. You realize that you're abnormal.
2) Normally I'd ask, "how the heck does this register as selfishness??" But... today I saw those "moral high ground conservative" videos on YouTube, where there was NO compassion for those they disagreed with, just shocking mockery & jeers. Instead of feeling pity for those lost souls & speaking out in patient correction, or offering prayers, these video-makers were name-calling & making rude jokes at their expense. And, yes, at least one of their targets was apparently suffering from some sort of mental illness. They did not have proper help or language for it, thanks to our corrupt culture, and obviously had NO social support or help with managing or understanding it properly. But in this "reaction video," that poor person was treated as a laughingstock... and repeatedly damned as utterly selfish & self-absorbed. "Their parents failed," someone said. How cruel.
...
3) BEING "TRAPPED" IS NEVER SOMETHING YOU DECIDE TO DO, ESPECIALLY NOT "SELFISHLY"!!!
4) There is a difference between being trapped & suffering, and being obsessed & isolating.
5) ALL OF US ARE SINNERS.
6) Why ARE those with mental illness alienated?
...

"Part of the church's struggle with this topic stems from an incomplete understanding of the many verses that address our mental battles with fear and anxiety. Yes, God over and over comforts us, telling us that when we are afraid, we can trust Him. [BUT] God knows our minds are weak, and fear will be a part of our human experience. This is why He kindly addresses our fears with words of comfort, but somehow those same words have been a catalyst to point blame at ourselves or other believers as if we are lesser in our faith because we are enduring a battle of the mind."
TRUSTING IN GOD DOES NOT EXEMPT YOU FROM BATTLES.
1) GOD NEVER SAID WE WON'T BE AFRAID, ONLY THAT WE DON'T NEED TO BE. But He doesn't SHAME us for it!
2) Would God give you battles of faith to fight if you didn't have any faith? Don't get proud about that, it's nothing to boast in-- faith is a grace, you didn't earn it, it's not of yourself-- but honestly, let it give you courage and TRUST. God has SPECIFICALLY given you this cross to carry. He KNOWS what He's doing. So why beat YOURSELF up over it? Was this your decision? No. It's GOD'S decision. Let that humble you, and strengthen you, as you continue to fight, for whatever purposes He intends, even if you cannot see them. Trust Him and don't give up.

...

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Saturday. Very lost & confused over unpredictable schedule, & very anxious over having to run to Mass in the dark AND among crowds today. Nevertheless it must be done. It's a great sacrifice.

Dream about dad. House in dupont, as it is in dreams, all flowers in the evening. Beautiful dream, very rare.

Suddenly inspired to FIX THE KITCHEN LIGHTS around 830.
Horrible guilt about not saying Lauds but I promised we WOULD say it later; however this task was something that needed to be done and we had no other ready opportunity TO do it. So instead of shirking responsibility in order to pray, we took the HUGE MORAL RISK of fixing the lights and just praying more afterwards.


JAY CAN PRAY EFFORTLESSLY??????
AND YES APPARENTLY HE STILL EXISTS!!!
We realized the "scrupulous and anxious" thriskefoni are ALL SOMAFONI. Their anchors are OUTSIDE.
When we are anchored INSIDE, we have NO TROUBLE PRAYING AT ALL and also NO TERROR TOWARDS GOD????

ALSO. TO BE A CORE AT ALL, YOU MUST BE IN THE BLOODLINE.
THE BLOOD IS THE ENTIRE POINT.
This is why Kyanos & Javier could never hold the role, despite the System engineering them FOR the position in a pinch. But without the blood, it cannot work.

THE WHITE-HAIRED JEWEL IS REAL. SHE FEELS LIKE SHE TRULY IS MEANT TO BE OUR CURRENT CORE, THE TRUE CONTINUATION OF THE BLOODLINE.
But the somafoni have usurped everything. They won't LET a Core in at ALL.
...

Getting notable flashes of Jesus & Mary as the TRUE "WHITE" HOLDERS in the Spectrum??? Rightfully so, as THEY are the Sources of ALL our Light, as it is all grace from God.
But yeah, the different colors within them would MANIFEST DIFFERENTLY like different apparitions, so to speak= this is EXACTLY what our old "Spectrum Christ" digital painting series idea WAS!!!! (And yes we STILL want to do it)


Evening=
Ran to church. Don't remember it. Dissociated hard from fear.
Run home was unexpectedly erased too because we got SOCIALFORCED from the apparent PARADE HAPPENING. WHAT THE SHARK.
It was scary to have noise & music & crowds & DARK. We got home, got on the bike, put on some liquid funk and BOOKED IT

Church was lovely though.
Lantern "wreath" for Advent. Laurie briefly fronted to pray, moved to pain by it.
Homily about Christ coming to us "in the night." Christmas happens at night. Surprised me, moved me. I saw Infi for a few seconds, perfectly clear, so full of stars xhe looked snowdusted. My heart nearly turned to fire

Night exhaustion. Still won't let ourself rest.
Music feels alien & unsafe lately. Trying too hard to discover, not enjoying anything. Should be revisiting System tunes from the past & remembering what matters.

Constantly want to cry from sheer exhaustion & "pain" all over. Never rested. Never at peace. At least, not unless we go inside.
Remember that. There's love here. We're starving for it.

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THIS ENTIRE SERMON BY SAINT AUGUSTINE=

"Let us sing alleluia here on earth, while we are still anxious and worrying, so that we may one day be able to sing it there in heaven, without any worry or care. Why anxious and worrying here? You must want me to be anxious, Lord, when I read, "Is not man’s life on earth a trial and a temptation?" You must want me to worry when temptation is so plentiful that the Prayer itself tells us to worry, when we say, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us." Every day we are petitioners, every day we are trespassers. Do you want me to throw care to the winds, Lord, when every day I am requesting pardon for sins and assistance against dangers? After all, when I have said, because of past sins, "Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us," I must immediately go on to add, because of future dangers, "Lead us not into temptation." And how can a people be in a good way, when they cry out with me, "Deliver us from evil?" And yet, my brethren, in this time that is still evil, let us sing alleluia to the good God, Who DOES deliver us from evil."
0) ...God knows we're fond of a certain orange critter arriving next June. He sees (and definitely orchestrated) our sudden genuine heart-softening to this topic and He is taking FULL and blessed advantage of it. So we receive these "coincidences" from His Hands with grateful wonder. He is speaking here, purposefully.
1) We MUST "sing alleluia" DURING earthly trials IN ORDER TO sing it in heavenly peace!! That FULLNESS of capacity is ESSENTIAL. Our joy & praise CANNOT be full, CANNOT be perfect, WITHOUT the strange grace of SUFFERING FIRST. It really is the universal principle of the Cross.
2) This insight into "HOLY WORRY" that STILL TRUSTS is ASTOUNDING.
3) What a game-changing insight into the Lord's Prayer in that regard!
4) EVEN SO, THERE IS NO ROOM FOR DOUBT.
...

"Even here, among the dangers, among the trials and temptations of this life, both by others and by ourselves let alleluia be sung. God is faithful, He says, and He will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able to endure. So even here let us sing alleluia. Man is still a defendant on trial, but God is faithful. He did not say “He will not permit you to be tempted” but "He will not permit you to be tempted beyond what you are able to endure;" and with the temptation "He will also make a way out, so that you may be able to endure it." You have entered into temptation; but God will also make a way out so that you do not perish in the temptation; so that like a potter’s jar you may be shaped by the preaching and fired into strength by the tribulation. But when you enter the temptation, bear in mind the way out: because God is faithful, God will watch over you and guard your going in and your coming out."
1) We do NOT sing "in spite of danger," but AMONG the dangers. We do not deny, or scoff at, or trivialize, or ignore the danger.
2) THIS IS A PROMISE, you realize. God "WILL NOT." That means NO EXCEPTIONS.
3) ...God is like a raincoat. Go figure. That's EXACTLY THIS.
4) The shocking assertion that "man is STILL ON TRIAL, BUT..." God is faithful to us, to give us a way out so we won't perish, EVEN DURING OUR TRIAL. The IMMENSITY of LOVE in that is STAGGERING.
5) Every temptation is meant FOR GOOD. It is NEVER God's intent for us to perish, or be lost!!
6) The keyword = God MAKES a way out. He literally CREATES ONE where there may not have been ANY escapep by human means or judgment. This is WHY we FAIL on our own, when we try to fight our temptations alone. WE CAN'T WIN, OR ESCAPE, WITHOUT GOD, because ONLY HE CAN ENABLE EITHER.
7) THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY OUT, and IT IS GOD. He is "our guard and our shade,"
...


"Furthermore, when this body has become immortal and imperishable, when all temptation has been done away with; because the body is dead– why is it dead? –Because of sin. But the spirit is life, because of justice. So do we leave the body dead, then? NO, but listen: But if the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead dwells within you, then HE who raised Christ from the dead WILL give life to your mortal bodies. So you see: now the body receives its life from the soul, but then it will receive it from the Spirit."
I need to break this down. This changes so much.
1) The body becomes immortal BECAUSE temptation has been eliminated.
2) Temptation is eliminated BECAUSE THE BODY IS DEAD.
3) The body is dead BECAUSE OF SIN.
4) The contrast with justice???  That's the reason WHY the Spirit is Life??? PONDER THIS.
5) THE BODY IS NOT MEANT TO STAY DEAD.
...
6) THE HOLY SPIRIT WITHIN US
7) SOURCES OF LIFE?????

"O! what a happy alleluia there, how carefree, how safe from all opposition, where nobody will be an enemy, where no-one will ever cease to be a friend! God’s praises sung there, sung here – here, by the anxious; there, by the carefree – here, by those who will die; there, by those who will live for ever – here, in hope; there, in reality – here, on our journey; there, in our homeland.
So now, my brethren, let us sing, not to delight our leisure, but to ease our toil. In the way that travellers are in the habit of singing, sing, but keep on walking. What does it mean, “keep on walking”? Go onward always – but go onward in goodness, for there are, according to the Apostle, some people who go ever onward from bad to worse. If you are going onward, you are walking; but always go onward in goodness, onward in the right faith, onward in good habits and behaviour. Sing, and walk onwards."

...that last line actually moved me to tears.


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Guided prayer is a SNIPER SHOT TO SCRUPULOSITY =

"God, thank You for being Someone I can trust at all times! You are always worthy of my praise and worship. Before continuing, I just want to spend a few moments telling You how much I adore You. When I think of all that You've done, how could I not love You? Thank You for being faithful at all times. Today, I want to worship You."
1) God CAN be trusted AT ALL TIMES. "But trusted to do WHAT," you ask fearfully? I say, stop being so contrary and rebellious. You are unwilling TO trust, so you mangle the term. Think like a child. Do you "trust someone" to hurt you? That's abuse of the word. When you say, "I trust you"-- and Charis can back me up on this one all the way to heaven-- I am saying, "I trust you to be trustworthy. I trust you to be good, and faithful, and true." It's a psychospiritual "trust fall"! I can RELY on you being there to catch me, because you care. You wouldn't be there if you didn't. You get it? GOD CAN BE TRUSTED. You can "surrender yourself to Him" like a child in its Father's arms, even if you stubbornly insist "you can't understand that." Conceptually you can. In the League you can. You have no excuse.
2) EVERYTHING God does is worthy of praise, even His chastisements and punishments, even His redirections & refusals, even His silences & delays. God is worthy of praise when He hands you a heavier cross. God is worthy of worship when you're doubtful, when you're panicked, when you're spiritually dry, when you're empty inside. God is worthy of worship when He gives you no sensible consolation or comfort, when He withholds your physical & mental rest, when He takes away your health & possessions & job & family, when He throws you into danger and when He delivers you to death. God is worthy of praise when He leaves you in the prison of addiction for years. God is worthy of worship when He allows you to be abused repeatedly. I could go on. But this is the reality that guts us, that confuses mankind throughout the ages. "How can I trust God, if He allows such horrors?" That's the thing. You HAVE to trust Him, even in the horrors, because He IS trustworthy DESPITE the horrors. It's what Job clung to, it's what Christ personified. God IS, by permanent definition, in His unchanging character, trustworthy. He IS Goodness and Love, Mercy and Justice, Truth and Wisdom. All these terrible things that happen to us because of sin, through sin, have nothing to do with God. But He allows them. Why? Look at the Cross. There is the silent answer to all man's pain. There is the perfect response to all mortal struggle, the divine reply to every cry of human pain. There are mysteries we may never know in this world, but we CAN trust Him... and that trust will transmute it all.
3) There's a flipside. You must remember this. Yes, God has permitted man's sin, the devil's schemes, the effects of death. But what has God done? What are the Works OF God, those things ONLY He can do?
...
4) Love is the natural response to Love Himself. When we recognize God AS Love, we "can't help but love Him"-- not out of fear or compulsion, not even out of resignation or obligation, but out of sheer overwhelming relief & joy & gratitude. When we realize God IS LOVE, no matter what unlove and antilove is in our world and in our lives, then our souls can breathe and laugh and sing, invincible in the infinite Heart of the Trinity.
This transcendent Truth of Love is what every martyr witnessed to.
5) Faithfulness motivates worship.
...
6) Lastly... how does one truly adore God?
That word is tainted for us, corrupted by sexual terror. It blinds us. We need to clarify and rewrite the definition.
...


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Some more scrupulosity articles before Mass, because we're making vital progress and we mustn't slack off or chicken out.


"If you always feel anxious, disturbed, and compulsive about your prayer life, there’s something wrong. It’s not a virtue to be anxious about prayer. If you pray consistently and from your heart but you always feel like it’s not enough or it’s not the right quality, really there’s something wrong."
Putting it plainly like this does help us admit that, okay, maybe there IS a problem.
But then our brain says, "the problem is you're EVIL. You have a devil in you, you're rotten to the core, that's WHY prayer makes you anxious, just like Holy water burns demons! The prayer aggravates your evil soul so you want an excuse to stop with this OCD fake diagnosis! You're just looking for an easy way out of prayer, so you don't have to be exorcised!!"
I beg your pardon, brain, but I WANT to pray. I just recognize that this literally "disturbingly compulsive" thing I'm doing ISN'T "real" prayer somehow, and I want to find out.
It ISN'T normal to be so panicked over prayer, or to cry from helpless frustration whenever I have to pray more. Is that really proof that I'm evil? Is it OCD? I'm afraid to ask. It feels blasphemous.
And yeah, whenever we DO pray, and try really hard TO do so, it's NEVER "done right"-- in fact, assuming we COULD "do it right" is SINFUL PRIDE!!! So EVERY PRAYER MUST BE REPEATED NOW, as an "act of humility," an "admission that we cannot praise God as He deserves." But it's NEVER GOOD ENOUGH. We will compulsively repeat prayers 3 times, 7 times, 12 times. Prayers have to be said in specific orders, in specific postures, at specific times. Otherwise Mary will yell at you, or God will punish you in offended rage. Et cetera.
This isn't prayer. It can't be.

"For people with faulty doctrinal views about salvation, excessive prayer and other devotional rituals can be viewed as a “work” that "earns points towards salvation". There is no joy or depth to such prayer, only a feeling of self-preservation and self-responsibility. These people need to take care not to allow prayer to become a form of legalism."
"Earning points" with prayer becomes a LEGIT CONCERN when you're dealing with INDULGENCES and "PROMISES", like the ones attached to the Seven Swords Rosary and many Raccolta prayers. You're told flat-out that you MUST say them EVERY DAY-- and often warned that if you DON'T, it's a sign of unbelief & spiritual sloth. WHICH IS TRUE.
...
But that bolded line is like a knife to the gut.
THERE'S NO JOY. THERE'S NO DEPTH.
...


"For a scrupulous person who is praying for six hours per day and can’t stop, or for the person who takes 30 minutes to pray before eating or has to repeat prayers multiple times because of making a minor mistake, you need to know that God does not require that of you. You do not need to repeat your prayers when you make a mistake. After you have opened your heart to God and have earnestly asked for your requests, it’s ok to stop. Jesus actually told us not to pray repetitively "like the heathen," who think they will be heard for their “many words” (Matthew 6:7). God is not interested in repetitive speech and “many words.” He is interested in hearing our heart."
1) There are countless stories of saints who WOULD spend HOURS at a time in prayer and Adoration DAILY, doing vigils & severe mortifications & keeping fasts as well. It's a VERY HIGH BAR that is set. EVEN NOW there are religious orders who pray six hours every day!!
2) We've actually timed our meal prep stages. At least 30m is indeed spent on notably compulsive prayer, interspersed with distressing cleanliness rituals that we repeat uncontrollably.
3) THE "CORRECTIVE REPETITION" IS THE WORST. We sound like a skipping CD sometimes, helplessly restarting the same sentence over and over because we "can't get it right", sometimes for SEVERAL MINUTES. And if we try to move on anyway, we FEEL the panicked moral terror of sin, of CHOOSING to be CARELESS with prayer. We FEEL God staring hard at us in dire warning, silently ordering us to rethink our poor decision, or else. The fear is choking.
4) INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS ARE WORSE. They cause a LOT of the repetitive correction.
5) How can you say God doesn't require it? Everything else requires repetition when a mistake is made! Music, cleaning, exercise, speeches, et cetera. Prayer is NOT exempt, especially because it is MORE IMPORTANT THAN ALL.
6) Protestant prayer is apparently VERY DIFFERENT from Catholic prayer. I'M NOT MAKING REQUESTS.
7) ...but have I opened my heart to God in my prayer? Has He heard my heart speaking, or just my anxious mind?
...I think that depends on who's fronting.
...

 

So exhausted and confused sick. Body crashing i think

Mom call about Jade
Drop-off around 1130
Forgot OJ. Guilt crushing

BK at 230.

So burnt out dead, can barely think. Want to cry from sheer fatigue

Evening =
We are legit addicted to high-resistance biking. It must be another trauma-coping response. It's emulating the terrified hyperarousal and "run for your life" reaction.
But I've noticed something else, something very interesting and alarming.
Since we started doing this high-resistance biking, we've become distressingly emotional. We're having angry-helpless crying paroxysms, having mini tantrums from sheer frustrated despair. It's like we're a teakettle screaming all the time, unable to release anything but pressurized steam.
WHY IS THE BIKING DOING THIS????
Not only that, but IT DOESN'T EXHAUST US ANYMORE. We get hungry for MORE effort, and we don't want to physically eat at ALL, although our body does. We're constantly angry and weeping, wanting to destroy everything violently and then sob so hard it tends the very rocks. What on earth is going on.


Mom called the INSTANT we sat down to eat. AGAIN. Honestly it is uncanny how her phone calls LINE UP with our mealtimes, and that's not a good thing because then we get DELAYED by like 20 entire minutes and that's a HUGE chunk of time. Then we can't sleep, can't bike, etc. Why is our schedule so watertight that the slightest "interruption" throws us into an absolute panicked fit? Our poor mother has to deal with that from us CONSTANTLY because she always wants to do stuff and take us along, and we just want to stay home and have everything be controlled & predictable & tidy & efficient & ordered properly. No room for variables. No unexpected events tolerated. No spare time allowed, everything must have an assignment. I repeat: WHY ARE WE SUDDENLY LIKE THIS?
But... we don't want to snub mom. We need to spend time with her and we want to, both as her child and as a Christian. But our bloody schedule keeps getting in the way.
We have to go to mass. We have to say 2 hours of morning prayers. We have to exercise. We have to prep our meals all at once. We have to eat all at once, alone and quiet and uninterrupted. Et cetera. Remove a "have to" from our routine and we quickly nosedive into a nervous wreck, desperate to flee and quickly "catch up" to time lost.
We cannot cooperate or compromise like this. We have no real flexibility. We can't be spontaneous. We cannot even leave the house except for church functions.
I don't know what to do about this yet. We can't solve this problem from a mindset entrenched in it. Still... God keeps having our mother invite us to things. We'll have to say yes, and just... surrender the details to God.
We need to involve God more. How ironic. We never think of asking Him for help or direction or advice with our schedule stress. It's because we're afraid He'll say, "well you SHOULD be spending another two hours in prayer, you know," or "you don't need to exercise, you could be reading the Bible," etc. We're terrified that He WILL "make it worse," because God NEVER gives "relief from suffering"; He WANTS us to suffer & struggle so we have something to "offer up". To seek ease & relief from tribulation is to reject the Cross. So if we DO dare to ask, then He will justly respond with a chastisement. If we whine about the weight, He will make it heavier, to humble us. That's how it works.
...It's so sad though. Sometimes I really wish I could talk to God about this, without being humiliated & ashamed & guilty for feeling frightened & overwhelmed & confused in the first place. I'm so afraid of being sternly scolded & then "marked" as the "problem child," the one who will take a mile if you give her an inch, so give her extra discipline to keep her in line. It's for her own good. She's too weak; she mustn't be coddled or given reprieve.
And you know what? I DON'T WANT TO BE, DARN IT. I'M SO BLOODY TIRED OF FEELING TYPECAST AS LITTLE MISS MILKSOP. THAT IS NEVER WHO I WAS AND YOU KNOW IT. I was always the tomboy, the firecracker, the jester, the spitfire-- I never wanted a princess life, I rejected everything dainty, why the hell are you writing me as a pretty pansy now??? Why is THIS what happened when they killed all the "man" in me, because "good Christian girls" must be TOTALLY dependent on and subservient to men???
THIS IS THE EXACT SAME DAMN THING THAT CAUSED ALL THE ORIGINAL SEXUAL TRAUMA BACK IN ELEMENTARY SCHOOL YOU HEATHEN!!!!

ALSO DON'T FORGET "YOU'RE" MULTIPLE AND HAVE BEEN SINCE CHILDHOOD YOU IDIOT


Night =
Noticing snowflakes, "glitter in the dark". Made me think of Mimic. Accidentally pinged him so strongly he actually looked in, half asleep, asked what is reminding me of him now? I pointed to the snowflakes, he gives me the look and says "why."
I said its because you wouldn't think they would catch the light at all in the dark, it was surprising to notice, and only visible way up close. But it was beautiful to see.
Mimic said nothing for a moment, then generally stated "well, you said it, so I won't argue" and walked back out with the subtlest smile
I then added, basically, "Laurie, i would say that you're like that too, but that's not actually true. You're not so dark anymore. Now you're like the daylight."
Her expression in response was just... gold. Thank God we still feel this.


BTW don't forget Spotify wrapped today, and the unexpected sword-to-the-heart chronological snapshot it gave us

We get 20 MINUTES TO SIT DOWN THANK YOU GOD because tomorrow is First Friday and family is also busy so we're gonna be crushed with exhaustion. Lord get us through it. You always do.


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Universalis today.

"After Andrew had stayed with Jesus and had learned much from Him, he did not keep this treasure to himself, but hastened to share it with his brother. Notice what Andrew said to [Peter]: "We have found the Messiah, that is to say, the Christ". Notice how his words reveal what he has learned in so short a time. They show the power of the Master Who has convinced them of this Truth. They reveal the zeal and concern of men preoccupied with this question from the very beginning. Andrew’s words reveal a soul waiting with the utmost longing for the coming of the Messiah, looking forward to His appearing from heaven, rejoicing when He does appear, and hastening to announce so great an event to others. To support one another in the things of the spirit is the true sign of good will between brothers, of loving kinship and sincere affection."
1) The life of a Christian is one of fellowship & sharing from the very beginning. Nothing about our faith is meant to be "kept to ourselves-- and especially not Jesus Himself!
2) We must hasten to share what we learn from Christ. This should be an instinct for us, a drive, yet freely & willingly done, with all eagerness. We must love God so much, and our neighbor so much for His sake, that the very thought of depriving our fellow man of the joy we have received is intolerable. We must evangelize because we love. It is like a fire in us, seeking to give light and warmth to all it can. My point is: if we receive this treasure of faith and don't feel any impetus to share it, but cling to it privately, then our 'faith' is a selfish & impure & cowardly thing. It is a lamp under a bushel.
3) "FOUND." He had been looking for the Messiah, with the ardent hope and goal OF finding Him. He hadn't been looking "just to look," out of curiosity, like so many modern "seekers" do. 
4) Andrew was convinced of the Truth by Christ Himself, long before He had any public influence or status or testimony. All he had were John's direction, and the Lamb of God. That was all he needed-- no philosophical arguments, no stories of repute, no political acclaim-- just Jesus alone, Himself the only Witness required to His Own Truth. And how? By BEING. That's the Power Christ alone has. All His Words and actions, however good & true in themselves, are but expressions and emanations of Who He IS, beyond all language or human deduction. Andrew was convinced because his heart had been sincerely seeking God, and suddenly God was there in flesh before him. His very soul recognized Him, inevitably so. He knew he had found Him. He was convinced by grace, because he was open to receive it when it came. And how?
5) Zeal, concern, & preoccupation!
I think it's safe to say that, on a very real level, Andrew's daily life was constantly focused on seeking God. It would have to be, for him to "find" Christ at all-- you don't ever stop searching for your heart's treasure, even for a moment, if it is truly your treasure; you will always be preoccupied with it, however quietly. So was Andrew, searching for Christ.
...
6) Waiting with utmost longing, Looking forward, rejoicing, and announcing
7) Spiritual support is TRUE goodwill & brotherhood!!
...


"Immediately Andrew heard the Lord preaching, he left the nets by which he earned his living* and followed the giver of eternal life. ℣. Andrew endured his suffering for love of Christ and his law,* and followed the giver of eternal life."
1) the nets. Nets are meant to catch things, things get tangled up in them. The world is a net. But Andrew "earned his living" by them. So do most of us. Our jobs, our careers, our life pursuits become "nets" that just tangle us up, and keep us trapped in the world, even if they "put food on the table" they are eating us alive at the same time. That's what's so important about Andrew's reaction-- he left the nets. He abandoned his "daily bread" to obtain the True Bread. He left the world to follow its Creator. He untangled himself in the very act of choosing Jesus instead. He gave up his earthly way of life and found the Way of eternal Life.
2) giver vs earning. Andrew labored with his nets day and night, "earning" his living by the sweat of his brow, the very curse of Adam. But Jesus gives life. He removes the curse. Andrew no longer has to "earn the means & right to live," as it were, in a cutthroat world. He no longer has to worry about how he's going to survive. Christ now gives life entire, imperishable, free of charge, bought with His Own Blood, and the Life He gives is His very Self-- it is not money, it is not privilege, it is not anything earthly. Life is a Person, a relationship, that lasts forever, and Andrew does not have to do anything but follow Him in trust.
3) Andrew's endurance was his following. the keyword is "love." This is how we follow God, only love, and love is proved the most clearly and powerfully in suffering.


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Books

MDE is beautiful =
"To be able to become bread! To be able to nourish the whole world with His Flesh and Blood! I am terribly selfish and fearful when faced with suffering, but if I could become bread to save all humanity, I would do it. If I could become bread to feed all the poor, I should throw myself into the fire at once.
No, the Eucharist is not something strange: It is the most logical thing in the world, it is the story of the greatest love ever lived in this world, by a man called Jesus.
When I gaze on this bread, when I take up this bread into my hands, I gaze on and take up the passion and death of Christ for humanity. This bread is the memorial of His death for us. This bread is the trumpet call of the Resurrection, through which we, too, shall one day be able to rise.
This bread is the living summary of all God’s love for man. From Genesis to the prophets, from Exodus to the Apocalypse, everything is yearning towards this terrible mystery of God's tragic love for man. God, who made Himself present in the first covenant and yet more present in the Incarnation, becomes still more present in this mystery of the bread of life."
1) I love how simply yet profoundly the first line is phrased; it puts into shockingly clear perspective just what the Eucharist is and does. Jesus becomes bread. He becomes food for the whole world.
2) It's a true sign of the spark of God in all of us that we have this instinct, despite all our selfishness, to want to become bread too. Ask any parent. Ask any lover. Ask any child, even. If we could "become bread" to save even one soul from starvation forever, we would do it in a heartbeat. This is the impulse of God. This is what the Eucharist is, to infinite perfection.
3) "It is the most logical thing in the world." It really is. People talk about "love languages" and half-joke about "peeling oranges" for others but it's true. Look at a matron cooking meals for her extended family for hours on end, day after day, with a smile on her face. It's such a basic need, such a primal gesture of care. "I will feed you because I care about you, and I want you to live, and I love you." Of course God would become food for His people. But for Jesus to do this so literally, so perfectly, to become bread-- it's the most beautiful thing in the universe. It's the purest and profoundest love.
4) PRIESTS GET TO HOLD HIM LIKE THIS.
5) The Eucharist is a sign of the resurrection. That shocked me. Of course, it is a sign of His Death, and that is inseparable from His Resurrection-- but how we forget that so easily!
6) "this terrible mystery of God's tragic love for man." What a gorgeously aching sentence.
7) The Eucharist is covenantal. It is the most perfect Presence of God to man, even moreso than the Incarnation. Think about that!
...


"St. Irenaeus asks, “How can anyone say that our bodies, which are nourished on the flesh and blood of Christ, are brought to perdition? Our bodies, tasting of the Eucharist, are no longer corruptible, but have the hope of resurrection.”"
That's astounding. THEY ARE NO LONGER CAPABLE OF CORRUPTION. This is "common sense" when you realize WHY-- it's because THEY HAVE FED ON CHRIST. The literal atoms of the Eucharist, the Real Presence of GOD, have nourished these bodies and become an actual physical part of them. The Flesh & Blood of Christ, inseparable from His Soul & Divinity, have been our Bread. He CANNOT decay or corrupt or fade away, ever. He IS eternity, He IS Life, He IS salvation. He IS the Resurrection! And when we receive Him in this most blessed Sacrament, WE TAKE ALL THAT INTO OUR BODIES. It's amazing. It's on purpose. God WANTS that to happen. This is how He saves and transforms us most directly, most astonishingly. He changes us from the inside out, by the power of His Love, embodied in His Son, Present in this Sacrament, and now in us.


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VOTD = Psalm 119:2.
"We have a revelation of God's ways when we make His Heart our passion-- when we say, "God, I don't want to just know about You, I want to know You."...There's a lot of us who know God's faithful acts, but take the challenge to press in further, and ask God what is His Heart, so that you would know His ways. When you know His ways, then you know how He will respond-- and you can respond like your Father."
Every time I read something like this I want to cry.
We want this SO BADLY. Honestly I think in a very real but suppressed way we ALREADY HAVE THIS. Deep down, when we stop hiding and running and doubting the truth out of fear of feeling, we must admit that YES, HIS HEART IS OUR TRUEST PASSION. We aren't living that truth as completely as we want to, no. But it is the truth. It's the kernel at the center that cannot be denied.
We're so tired of mechanical praying. We're so tired of spending hours every day just reading articles and "doing the dailies." We're HUNGRY FOR GOD. WE WANT TO KNOW JESUS. We want to TALK TO HIM. We want to sit down and READ ABOUT HIS LIFE. We want to HEAR HIM SPEAK. We want to HAVE A RELATIONSHIP WITH HIM. We're so sick and tired of just this intellectual awareness of Him, this historical education, this ironically heartless datahoarding. The thriskefoni that bury themselves in prayer cards and chaplets and religious emails don't know Jesus as a PERSON. It's so sad. But we never knew Him before, especially not growing up. We never realized you COULD have a relationship with God, let alone that such a thing was ALLOWED, until very very recently-- again, probably the past two years, tops, and with the past year alone being one of the most spiritually potent we've ever had, if not the absolute trophy winner.
But the point is... we're still running circles around the goal. We're still avoiding our heart's desire. WHY.
It's because it's too headspacey.
Read that next line. Press in further. Ask God what His Heart is.
As far as we know, the thriskefoni cannot do that. Their anchor, our religious upbringing and experience, don't include that sort of intimacy. It's banned. It's blasphemous. It's sinful, to even consider-- to them, ANY intimacy, ANY closeness of that sort, is WRONG.
And it's absolutely one hundred percent what the System is ABOUT.
That's why there's this "civil war" going on. The religious voices want to declare a crusade and coldly erase all of us from existence because "we're not God." Whereas all of us inside, although we aren't as "pious" as they are, truly love God AND each other and we WANT TO GET CLOSER TO GOD.
...this is why the Cores keep begging God to give Infinitii "back." It's not something we'd ever do for a human. Headspace is different; people do die, but they die in order to be reborn. Even Laurie reminds us of this constantly-- her axe isn't meant to ruin, but to reset. If she ever does cleave someone's skull in half, it's so it can be put back together better. That's what "death" is for a nousfoni-- it is a hope, in the direct wake of despair. If we die, it is because we have failed to do what we were made to do, or we have committed a grave sin, causing permanent damage, et cetera. Death for us is a swift and direct "penalty" for our loss of light, but it also is, in and of itself, a solid hope of resurrection. ALWAYS. Thanks be to God. We don't die unless there's a real hope that we'll be remade as a result.
So the Cores are asking God to do that to Infi. Why?
Because Infinitii was the one of us who most ardently knew what it was like to love with one's entire heart and soul.
Infinitii COULD TEACH AND ENABLE US HOW TO LOVE GOD LIKE THIS. And believe me, ze DID... Jay still has very clear memories from church, that he clings to constantly, as they are the only way he can feel anything like it. NO ONE ELSE can get that close, without being shut down or pushed away.
It's too much to talk about in depth now, but the important thing is: Infi wasn't scared of opening hir heart, or letting anyone else into it. That was what killed hir, in the end, but it is also hir biggest hope of rebirth, if I can hope the same on hir behalf... because to use that great grace properly, it must first and foremost be directed TOWARDS GOD.
...The last bit up there, resonates with the Jay bloodline. "You will respond like your Father."
We have... weird issues, with fatherhood. We love our biological dad, dearly so, but... we never really knew him growing up. He was always at work, or distant, or uninvolved, or-- as the years dragged on-- out drinking. We had no idea who he was as a person until he moved out and got remarried, and started talking to us from that separate living space. We were no longer "in the same family" in a sense, although we were permanently bound by blood; we no longer shared a roof, my mother was no longer his wife. But that new "distance" brought us closer than ever, and continues to do so, oddly.
The point is: we never had an example of fatherhood in our life until now.
It's still something we glean only in flashes. We're in our 30s; he can't be our "dad" in the way our child-heart still unconsciously yearns for. But now we can recognize that there IS such a yearning, which we NEVER realized before, not until we got old enough to realize that hey, families AREN'T supposed to be terrifying, and by the grace of God started to realize that everything beautiful the Bible says about GOD is what fatherhood truly takes its essence from. God is THE FATHER. And that just... changed everything.
And yet, way back around 2011, Jay wanted to be a father more than anything in the universe and his heart caught that truth long before anyone else could even postulate its existence or semblance. Jay knew what fatherhood meant. He WAS a father. And it was beautiful.
When the bloodline was shattered by the CNC corruption and we lost that entire awareness with the Tilly takeover... it gutted us. We're still not-quite-alive in the wake of that loss. Yes, Jay is still (miraculously) alive, but he's a flickering light now, barely able to front, barely able to hold a form inside. There's "too much of a threat of him becoming a Core again," apparently, and "Cores aren't allowed to be male anymore." But those boys had such good hearts. They understood, somehow, "how God would react" even before we were religious-- long before we were consciously able to trust God, let alone even know Who He was.
...is it possible for the new compulsively-female "Cores" to respond like their Father? Or will the binary-forcing keep them, and therefore our body existence, fatally disconnected from God's Heart?
I don't know. This is something we need to sit and feel and talk about as a System, together, not something the thriskefoni can "reason out" or even truly pray about-- their hearts wouldn't be in it at all; they wouldn't pray for us anyway, sadly. We have to do that ourselves, even if they don't want to admit we can.
I'm sorry, I don't want to sound condemning. It just hurts so much, that they refuse to feel, at least anything but fear and panic that masquerades as obedience and devotion. We want to help them, too. We want ALL of the foni in the Spectrum to be together, like the Church; for heaven's sakes we're all one soul in the first place. We need to be united; we need to be family, we need to be as one, even in our multiplicity. It's possible. That's the beauty of it.
...I guess this is a bit of that Father-feeling, actually. The Prodigal Father, up on that hill, looking out for the lost son. It feels like we're doing that for ourself, in our most fragile and tender moments. God give us the grace to always keep our arms open to ourself, as You always do for us, so that we may all be gathered into Your embrace.



The prayer really stood out to me:
"God, I want to seek You with all my heart. You are my everything— so let my actions match my words. Each day, help me to draw closer to You. Guide me through each decision, and inspire me with new dreams and pursuits. I want to honor You in all that I do."
1)The prayer is admitting, "I confess that I'm not seeking You with all my heart, but I WANT to"... "You are my everything, BUT my actions don't match those words"... and then that striking plea, "LET them match," silently echoing "LET me seek you with all my heart." It's stunning. The focus is on our absolute need of God's gift of grace-- our total dependence on God empowering us in order to do ANYTHING good, because we have NO power on our own.
...
2) Likewise, "HELP me to draw closer to You." It just struck me how unique this is. Unlike between humans, I cannot approach God on my own; I cannot "draw near" physically or mentally, emotionally or spiritually, by my own efforts.
...
3) EACH DAY, and "draw closer." This is gradual, ongoing, and unending. It's never all at once. There is never a finish line.
4) The "guide me" follows the petition for closeness. The very "helping me draw close" IS CONNECTED TO the "guide me through"!
5) Again, "I WANT to honor You in everything I do... but by myself I don't know how." This is why the prayer asks for inspiration and guidance immediately prior.
..
6) INSPIRE ME WITH NEW DREAMS.
. 

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KVOTD = A really sweet thought on Revelation 4:8!
"Imagine your favorite thing to do, and getting to do that every day forever... what if every day was the best day ever? ...Well, [this verse shows us that] in the Throne Room [of heaven], they never stop praising God. It goes on forever and ever and ever and ever. Every day they celebrate and worship Jesus-- they celebrate the God Who loves us forever. Every day is the best day ever. Every day we can praise God here on earth, too, and make it the best day ever! So how will you praise God today, to practice for Eternity?"
1) The simple childlike thought that the Ophanim are having the "best day ever forever" because praising God is their "favorite thing to do" is so, so sweet, and deeply touching. Lord, I pray to be blessed with such grace to feel the same.
2) The angels are worshipping JESUS, not just the Father!
3) When we worship, we echo the joyful songs of eternity here on earth. That's ASTOUNDING.
I love the analogy of "practicing." That hits so strongly and endearingly it hurts.
...

The prayer =
"God, thank You for the hope You've given me. One day, I will get to worship You in Heaven forever! Until then, please help me to be creative and find new ways to show You how much You mean to me. As I worship You, I know it will show everyone who knows me how great You are."
1) Cling to this hope. Make it the undercurrent of your life. Sing in your heart, like your Patroness, at all times, forever echoing this holy refrain. Let this hope anchor your soul to heaven.
2) This entire concept of personal creative worship is not something I ever heard as a Catholic, but it is so beautiful and important to me. It's joyous. It's liberating. It means I CAN worship God in COUNTLESS ways, to countless people! It means my faith and love and joy and hope are not imprisoned, not caged, not bound and muted!
3) Worship SHOWS. It is inherently public, praising and proclaiming. It is naturally evangelistic, an outpouring of inspired zeal, an act of grateful witness to the Breath and Fire and Living Water.
4) Worship changes how people see me-- it shifts the focus TO GOD!! Worship redirects the attention to HIM, not me! It makes me Christ's instrument, and He is the song-- it makes me His canvas, and Him the masterpiece. The Spirit paints, the Spirit performs, and God is all in all. I am nothing; that's the bliss!

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Scrupulosity articles hitting a bullseye over and over again =


"Feeling apathetic, lethargic, or careless about religion is understandable when you struggle with an anxiety disorder that is constantly trying to crush you with toxic spirituality, overthinking, and burnout. The apathy that we experience with OCD is not a true spiritual distaste but is a rejection of the overwrought, overly intense type of spirituality that OCD presses upon us."
THIS IS LITERALLY OUR EXACT PROBLEM. THEY ACTUALLY PUT IT INTO WORDS. Reading this, every lightbulb went on. We've NEVER heard ANYONE sum it up so clearly & bluntly before-- and without having words to express WHAT and WHY you're feeling, that monster remains invisible & intangible &  impossible to deal with. NOT SO ANYMORE!!
...


"Just because I have one bad day doesn’t mean my whole life is going down the tube. It doesn’t mean a relapse is imminent. [That's] absolutist thinking. It tells me that I must never have a relapse... that, if I go back to that dark place that I once was, I will never get out. It will be eternal. I can’t handle it. What black-and-white, absolutist thinking! I can recover if I have a relapse. It’s not the end of the world. I will survive whatever life throws at me because God is beside me and He will help me."
1) In any case, we don't want to risk it. "The dog returns to its vomit." Once the tiniest speck of corruption gets into your brain, you can't get it out. We know this from hellish experience, it's why we avoid the internet & television & radio whenever possible. A relapse might very well be imminent because you LIVED like that before for YEARS, and those well-worn paths of addiction don't disappear overnight. They might never disappear; they might have dug in so deep they left scars. You do have free will, of course, but never overestimate your freedom. How compromised is your state of mind? Don't risk it.
I'm rambling. Bad mindset. Sorry.
2)
3) ...I didn't expect that last line. It stunned me.
That says a fearful lot about where our anxious brain goes.
...
But... that line also feels heretically arrogant?
....


"What about people who struggle with the apathy that they feel after having a blasphemous thought, or apathy about spiritual things? How should they deal with the anxiety that arises in response to the primary disturbance, their apathy? Again, we need to recognize that the black-and-white, absolutist thinking of OCD is trying to get the upper hand. There are NO absolute statements in Scripture that say that Christians must always feel passionate and constantly soaring with lofty flights of ecstatic religious feeling.
And as for the feeling of horror that you might think should always accompany your intrusive thoughts– well, don’t forget that you’re dealing with repetitive, ego-dystonic thoughts that are pestering you every few minutes for months (even years!) on end. It’s natural for the brain to reach a point of emotional shutdown. You can only experience emotions like horror so many times before the mind tries to block out the intense emotion. Just ask traumatized war victims if their emotional response was different the first time they saw a dead body, or the hundredth time.
When you think about it, emotional numbness is actually a fairly reasonable response to the intrusive thoughts we deal with. But that’s not my main point. My main point is that there are many layers in complex situations like scrupulosity. We have to avoid pinning ourselves to the wall with absolute beliefs like, “I should always experience horror at my blasphemous thoughts to validate the fact that I don’t want them.”
THIS BLINDSIDED US.
1) The Psalms especially destroy all absolutism-- and that has actually deeply disturbed me for years.
2) "EGO-DYSTONIC"
3) THAT "SHUTDOWN" IS LITERALLY THE "ESTAR PROBLEM"!!!!!!!
4) validation and trauma
...

I am admittedly very disappointed with the conclusion of this article; it got far too carefree, seeming almost flippant. "Oh well," etc.
"Oh well. If I relapse, I relapse. I’ll get over it again."
THAT'S FATALLY PRESUMPTUOUS.
But... they also say things like,
"Oh well. If I don’t have the disgust against my intrusive thoughts that I think I ought to have, I’ll just need to leave this one with the Lord and trust Him to read my heart rather than me trusting my own validation techniques."
How can you be THAT CASUAL ABOUT THE RISK THOUGH. Maybe that's our OCD talking. Even so, that's where we're at. Feeling apathy where it does not belong-- and where, "outside of OCD," it would be a grave sin & sign of a rotten heart-- and just saying "oh well, let God be the judge" is SUPER DANGEROUS. It's like hearing the fire alarm go off and saying "oh well, if it's a real fire, I'll let the firefighters take care of it." AND WE DO THIS, SO WE KNOW. THAT APATHY IS A HUGE RED FLAG AND IT IS NOT HEALTHY.
...

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"Sometimes, our emotions just shut down, like a safety shutoff valve. This might happen when we’ve been ruminating and obsessing about our faith for too long. Numbness and apathy might actually be the brain’s way of protecting itself from too much anxiety... what most people with Religious OCD are dealing with is not true numbness and apathy towards God, but rather a sense of mental exhaustion and spiritual burnout... it’s a pretty normal thing for people to grow numb when we go through extreme experiences. This is simply our body’s way of protecting ourselves, of shutting down the emotions so that we don’t become too overwhelmed for our own good."
1) I hate this so much. I DON'T WANT A BLOODY SHUTOFF VALVE. I'M SO TIRED OF THIS BUILT-IN COWARDICE. I'M SO BLOODY TIRED OF BEING NUMB.
...


"Elijah was suicidal. He asked God to kill him and let him sleep with his ancestors. But God didn’t do that. God understood that Elijah was experiencing burnout. He was mentally, physically, and spiritually exhausted after his turmoil on Mount Carmel. God did not forsake him in that situation. He understood that the way he feels right now is not the way he really feels. And that’s a beautiful lesson for us. When we’re in the midst of our OCD struggles, and we’re burned out and feeling numbness and apathy towards God, the way we’re feeling is not the way we really feel. And praise the Lord. He understands that."
...
...God understands????

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Allergy panic HELL.
Looked up garlic symptoms, got LUPUS SCARE????
Actually ordered an online intolerance test. Now I'm panicking about the prep. It's ridiculous. But I've decided to do it all on Monday.
Besides now I will have ACTUAL DATA, that I can compare to old tests, to check consistency.
God can still use this for my good and His Glory. I just need to keep putting it into His Hands. I must surrender entirely.
But my thoughts are my worst enemy.

Almost passed out on bike???

Mom call distraction. That's one of my biggest sins I've noticed.

CONVINCED we were going to DIE if we ate the carrots. Literally shaking & panicked sobbing over it.

Accidentally burnt the eggs, again, from dissociatedly messing up the cooking temperature. Ate them anyway as penance. Reminding ourself that our soul could've been burnt instead.


Evening =
Library printed the intolerance test packing slip, now we don't have to worry and can mail it Monday.

Panic setting in DURING MASS. It really has to be the color of the twilight, but there's still that "you are going to die violently and imminently" terror. WHY. What is in our history that caused this??

Holy Spirit pushed us to make a House stop to get old Suzuki books & B's extra sketchbooks
Being there SHOOK US UP?? Our brain ACTUALLY REGRESSED CHRONOLOGICALLY. It was bizarre. We can never stay "conscious" there, our immediate memories of the visits feel as unreal as dreams, and we never know WHO we are there. Worst of all, then we get the "shivering flashbacks" for the rest of the day, and we can't relax or focus.
Which is why it took us 30m to get undressed when we got home, and then we immediately biked at high resistance for 40m to "cauterize" our brain. Biking is the only thing that staves off panic attacks. It's why we used to run laps all the time when we did live at the house, plus night biking. Man. We never realized it was a COPING MECHANISM. Arguably so was the bloody eating disorder,  in its own awful way. But that's not a discussion topic for tonight! Right now we're too darn scared of dying from eating these carrots, seriously WHAT THE HECK.

...
God FINALLY had mercy and LET US SIT DOWN tonight. Our body is DEVASTATINGLY EXHAUSTED.
Lord please get us through tomorrow.

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ttywpf = Read it during intense carrot panic. Hit like a blow. I must paste the whole thing for full impact.
"God thinks like the Samaritan who did not pass by the unfortunate man, [not simply] pitying him or looking at him from the other side of the road, but helped him without asking for anything in return; without asking whether he was a Jew, a pagan, or a Samaritan, whether he was rich or poor: he asked for nothing. He went to help him: God is like this. God thinks like the Shepherd who lays down His life in order to defend and save His sheep."
"How does God exceed our understanding of love and forgiveness? In what ways have you seen Him go above and beyond your expectations to help you? How can you live out this model of mercy?"
I need to break this down bit by bit.
1) God sees us bleeding on the road and He does NOT pass us by. EVER. But even more striking than that, what I STRUGGLE with, is the FACT that God ALSO DOESN'T JUST "STAND THERE AND WATCH." Yes, He sees me. Yes, He stops and doesn't just keep walking. I can grasp that much. But then I feel like God just looks at me from the other side of the road. "I pity your sad state, but there's nothing I should do, because you deserved these injuries," is what I fear He says. But by writing it out I KNOW it's false. God has too tender a Heart to ever just feel a distanced pity. No, God ACTS.
2) God IMMEDIATELY HELPS with "everything at His disposal," like the Good Samaritan, holding nothing back, sparing no expense or effort.
3) GOD ASKS FOR NOTHING IN RETURN. Think about this. Sure, gratitude and honor are just responses, but God does not "ask for them." He leaves it up to our free will. That's not the biggest point, though-- the point is that God SEEKS NO REWARD OR BENEFIT. He needs no recompense, needs no recognition. He seeks only one thing: TO HELP. His motivation is utterly pure and loving, always.
4) GOD DOES NOT "ASK IF YOU DESERVE IT"-- either the beating or the healing!!! He NEVER puts conditions on His compassion. "Sorry, but you're a pagan; I can't help you, it'll be scandalous!" NO. HE NEVER SAYS THAT.
5) I reiterate: God comes to us to help us. Pure and true and simple.
6) THE SHEPHERD EXAMPLE is STAGGERING. I actually never considered how sheep CANNOT "give back" ANYTHING to their Shepherd for saving them!! The Good Shepherd literally DIES to protect them, and they are just "dumb and foolish animals" who may not even realize they HAVE been "died for." They can't say thanks, they can't recompense, they can't eulogize him, nothing. Sheep are just sheep. But the Shepherd loves them and sacrifices Himself for them regardless of their response, because of His love.
...
7) God exceeds my expectations because my expectations are disturbingly unloving. That actually shocks me into asking, "then what the heck IS my understanding of love and forgiveness???"
...
...
8) ...God constantly goes above and beyond my expectations because I expect His "help" to be... punishment, or exacerbation, or just watching from the side of the road. When I ask for help I literally "expect" Him to say, "my NOT doing anything IS helping you!" "NOT comforting or consoling you IS what you need most!" "The best way TO help you is actually to give you MORE suffering!" And those ARE VALID RESPONSES. The problem is, there's no alternative. There's NEVER an option for gentleness, because "I AM being gentle with you; if I wasn't, you'd be in the ER right now."
...
9) How can I model this. Yes, me. How can I live out this mercy I have received?
Step one: recognize that you have received mercy. I mean REAL mercy. Disentangle it from fear & terror that it is "only temporary," or "conditional," or "an exception."
You seem to fail to realize that real mercy requires love. Only through love can mercy admit the undeserving state of the recipient and gently set it aside, because mercy exists to triumph over justice alone. Mercy and love see farther & deeper. They count no cost and keep no score. They both exult in giving themselves liberally, freely, without fine print or conditions. They are the glory of God and God alone, for they flow from His Heart.
...


abbodfer = "Your brain us your greatest weapon. Protect it!"
Immediately my brain thinks of this image, haha.
...

MDE = one about consecrated life, the other about Saint Gemma and her amazing love for Christ in the Eucharist. Both really hit hard, both convicted me of pride & fear, both gave me hope that God can still change me. Both moved me with the absolute beauty and power of REAL LOVE, which CAN ONLY COME FROM GOD and which ALSO CAN ONLY BE FELT FOR GOD!!!

About the nuns=
"One of the most thrilling, beautiful and heroic scenes that I have ever been privileged to witness is that of the consecration of a young lady to Christ— the scene of a nun’s religious profession. The entire consecration is spread between two ceremonies; between the two is interposed the period of her novitiate. She enters the chapel for the first time clothed as a lovely bride, white-robed, veiled, carrying a gorgeous bouquet in her arms. She comes forth for the second time a somber nun, clothed in black, her body entirely garmented except for her face. She has almost lost her identity, even to the extent of changing her name. Now she is called Sister. But the sister of whom? The sister of Him Who is called the First-born of all the brethren, our Brother, Jesus Christ. The human being has suffered a mystical death; there is born of that act of consecration a new being, a spouse and lover of the divine Christ.
This act of consecration of a nun, this transformation, usually takes place during Holy Mass. It is a sacrifice within a sacrifice: a small Calvary erected side by side with the mystic Calvary of Christ. This act of consecration and change, this transformation takes place at Mass because it is through the Mass that each of us can and must be changed into the likeness of Christ. Through the Mass we must "put on Christ" that we may be able to say: “I live, now not I, but Christ lives in me.” And this transformation of us into Christ can be effected only by suffering and by sacrifice."
1) The identity loss is actually a paradox. She still has a name, but it is an echo of a saint and not of herself, utterly detached from her past and no longer even her primary mode of address.
2) This is HEROIC. 
3) She is now a Sister OF CHRIST. I somehow never realized this. But, this means she is also the Sister of EVERY Christian in the Body of Christ, in a special way?
4) The "mystical death" DIRECTLY RESULTS IN A "MYSTICAL BIRTH." Death is NEVER the end for a Christian!
5) Her death IS HER CONSECRATION, just like Christ.
6) She becomes a "SPOUSE & LOVER" THROUGH THIS "DEATH"???? I struggle so much to understand marital language in the church, but this is important.
...
7) The Mass parallel is strikingly beautiful & momentous. Each Mass is an event of "consecration, change, and transformation," and that happens THROUGH "suffering & sacrifice"-- literally through "mystical death," however "small", united with His.
...
8) THIS TRANSFORMATION AT EVERY MASS IS OF US BEING MADE INTO THE LIKENESS OF CHRIST. This is not a replacement or supplanting; this is no newage "Christ consciousness" heresy. There is ONLY ONE CHRIST, in all truth. Adam was not a deity, just because he was "in the likeness of God". This still applies to all humanity, no matter what modern humanism declares. Man is not God, and man cannot be God. But God became Man, in order to lift man up INTO God, through Himself alone. I don't know this well enough to talk about it. But, Christ is Present in every Mass, Present through His Sacrifice that reconciled all humanity to God and made us able TO be reborn, even recreated, in Christ's likeness.
9) Birth requires blood. That's the summary of it. If Christ had to bleed & die in order to redeem us-- if His Passion is an integral part of His Character, as it were-- then to be remade in His Likeness evidently requires that we must share His Passion. Again, I am too uneducated to discuss this further.
10) THIS TRANSFORMATION IS MANDATORY FOR ALL CHRISTIANS!! We cannot do it alone, we can barely fathom it. But we can go to Mass with this intention and offer ourselves wirh Him in a surrendering spirit of love. Christ will do His work in us. We just need to be willing to die as He did, and as this nun did, before we can be resurrected, reborn in His likeness, and able to love Him properly.


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VOTD = Numbers 6:24-26.
"For God’s Face to shine upon someone is for the grace & favor of God to be on them. But for this to happen, we need to be in relationship with God. We ought to spend time with God each day, learning from Him and receiving His grace through His Spirit... through a relationship with Jesus Christ, which is the primary way that God blesses us today. When we have faith in Jesus, we begin such a relationship with Him, and the Holy Spirit lives within us and empowers our new life."
1) Jesus Christ IS the "Face of God."
2) RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD IS ALWAYS BY COVENANT. This is the ONLY WAY we mortal creatures CAN be on such unique & close terms with Him. GOD MUST TAKE THE INITIATIVE.
3) We cannot keep the original covenant, due to sin. So now we can ONLY be "in a relationship" with God THROUGH JESUS? He IS the New and Eternal Covenant, IN HIMSELF, AS RELATIONSHIP?? He alone fulfills the Old in Himself and thereby sublimates it in His Person? THROUGH Him we enter into real relationship with the Father AND the Spirit!!
4) Also, not only IS Jesus God, as the Son, He is also HUMAN, and therefore CAN be in close relationship with humans???
5) We "spend time with God" through prayer, Scripture, Mass, and devotions such as Eucharistic Adoration. These are all literally direct ways to contact God,
6) RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS IS THE SOURCE AND MEANS OF BLESSINGS!!!!! This changes EVERYTHING and it annihilates the "prosperity gospel". When we seek and receive mercy, peace, comfort, justice, wisdom, truth, purpose, guidance, clarity, hope, love... ALL those SPIRITUAL blessings, which are REAL & ETERNAL, unlike temporary gifts, EXIST AND ARE BESTOWED WITHIN OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH JESUS, and will ALWAYS NECESSARILY BE REALIZED AND RECEIVED both THROUGH AND AS HIM. I cannot emphasize this enough.


The guided prayer is EXACTLY what the Ttywpf was talking about =
"God, thank You for blessing me and always keeping me near You. Thank You for looking upon me with delight and love. Thank You for showing me mercy. Thank You for seeing me through every challenge and bringing me peace."
1) Blessing= Count them. This is your gratitude list.
2) Keeping near= As Laurie always says to me... "Kid, I never leave." That's what God is like, infinitely moreso.
3) Delight in= This is SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND.
4) Look with Love= ...This is so beautiful it seems impossible.
5) Mercy shown= note the ACTIVE VERB. God doesn't just "talk mercy," He SHOWS IT. 
6) Seeing through challenges= You're not dead yet, right? Seriously, that is PROOF of God's faithful protection.
7) Peace= I love the verb "bringing" with this. It gives the feeling of unexpected generosity, of a surprise gift. It's like bringing flowers or a meal to someone sick. The very word "bring" suggests an anticipated yet unvoiced need graciously met.
...


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The KVOTD today was Psalm 136, simply yet strongly emphasizing GRATITUDE, notably that "thankfulness is a COMMAND, not a recommendation!" That's because our thankfulness DIRECTLY REFLECTS OUR TRUST IN GOD'S GOODNESS-- whether we have such trust or not. God doesn't change. He cannot change.
"We must be thankful at all times, not because of what we have or don't have, but simply because GOD IS GOOD."
That COMPLETELY shifts our focus OF gratitude, away from things & circumstances and onto GOD... JUST GOD. THAT'S the duty of a Christian!!
...actually oh my goodness I JUST REALIZED what Psalm this is!! We pray it in the Divine Office sometimes and it always strikes me as so interesting, worthy of meditation, because EVERY SINGLE LINE ends with "for His mercy endures forever," EVEN if the preceding line doesn't seem merciful to the mortal mind. BUT THAT'S THE DEPTH. THAT'S THE POINT! GOD NEVER CHANGES. No matter how we may debate or argue or question or doubt, HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER, and that mercy is therefore JUST AS OMNIPRESENT A PART OF GOD'S CHARACTER AS HIS JUSTICE.

The prayer today had some powerful insights =
"God, thank You for challenging me with Your Word today. Thankfulness isn't a feeling I experience-- it is a continuous choice I make every day! Please help me to choose to be thankful to You no matter what is going on around me. I know You deserve it."
1) What a beautiful opener. "Thank You for challenging me." THAT'S recognition of God's Character! But this recognition is deepened by the MODE of challenge-- GOD'S WORD. Truthfully, that's the ONLY WAY God will challenge us, because IT APPLIES TO EVERYTHING.
1.5) A challenge is etymologically an accusation, a charge of wrongdoing, a rebuke, a legal complaint. It is a calling-out of sin. That is EXACTLY what Scripture does, and for Christians that IS something to be grateful for-- because we have an ADVOCATE, a Great High Priest, a Redeemer, Who is ALSO our Just Judge. "He wounds, but He also heals." His Word which challenges us in our evil also points us to deliverance from the same. Note: a challenge is also, by definition, always difficult. A challenge also "calls us to fight"; it "calls us to account", forcing us to choose our ground and stand there. But where we plant our feet and flag depends on where our gratitude lies. If we thank God FOR challenging us, we will surrender to HIS side, and fight against our own sin, even at the expense of pride and comfort. But if we are ungrateful... then we will die on our molehill, claiming we are a mountain, and we will lose everything. God challenges us in order to PREVENT such doom.
2) GRATITUDE ISN'T A FEELING!! IT'S A CHOICE!! Oh man this is a GAME-CHANGER and it's PROFOUNDLY CONSOLING. It completely disarms emotion as a false standard of truth. It absolves struggling hearts from moral panic. It frees us from the prison of waiting on whims. Gratitude doesn't "just happen," it isn't inherently "warm and fuzzy," it's not "lost", and it IS POSSIBLE EVEN NOW. It's a posture of the heart. I finally understand that phrase! Real thankfulness is oriented SOLELY AND TOTALLY TOWARDS GOD, and when it is, then its INVINCIBLE.
3) We still need God's grace to do this. It isn't "humanly possible" otherwise.
4) God is always, perfectly, eternally, entirely Good. Therefore HE DESERVES OUR GRATITUDE. It's basic justice. If you need more "reason" as to why God deserves all our thanks, read the Bible. Go to Church. Look at nature. Hug your family. Take a deep breath. Et cetera. God gave you ALL OF THAT freely because He IS Good. Be humble, be joyful, and be grateful.


...There's been such a heavy and unignorable focus on relationship and gratitude lately, in our daily devotionals. The Holy Spirit is absolutely trying to get His point across. The two are mutually inclusive. I cannot have a true relationship with God if I'm too selfish, scared, or stupid to be actively grateful FOR HIM, not just what He does!! ALL of God's actions are a DIRECT EXPRESSION OF HIS CHARACTER. And if I'm still afraid He's waiting to crush me... then I don't properly know Him. I cannot properly thank Him, if I'm only thanking Him for "not killing me today." And if I cannot thank Him, because I don't truly know Him, then I cannot be in relationship with Him.
THIS IS A DEADLY WARNING. PAY ATTENTION.

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Finishing up that Catholic Answers article tonight.

"...we [ought] to care for the bodies of those we love, which they wore far more closely and intimately than any clothing! For the body is not an extraneous ornament or aid, but a part of man’s very nature."
I still am so new to this truth. Because yes, it's a TRUTH, not an idea or concept. The human body is SACRED and DESTINED FOR IMMORTALITY. It's not just junk flesh, it's not a prison, it's not "someone else who i happen to be trapped in." My soul is apparently BOUND to this thing BY DESIGN.
...Death does not turn the body into trash. It doesn't. That body may decompose but it is still marked forever as a Temple of God.
...

"Why do we worship the incarnate Jesus? After all, “the King of ages” is “immortal, invisible, the only God” (1 Tim. 1:17).  The people of the first century could no more see Jesus’ divine nature than we can see it today. They saw his humanity, and those who believed saw, through his humanity (so to speak), to his divinity... Jesus’ humanity is therefore both an image of his divinity and associated with his divinity. Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus “is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all creation.” That’s the first reason we worship him in his humanity: his humanity is imprinted with divinity. But the second reason is that Jesus’ humanity is perfectly united to his divinity and that “we have been sanctified through the offering of the BODY of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. 10:10). In other words, his humanity is the instrument of our salvation. In that sense, it's... why we worship the Eucharist AS the Body of Christ. [Remember, ] we don’t worship... the Body of Christ as flesh. Rather, we worship God in (or through) [it]."
...DUDE WHAT
This is making me dizzy. It never ever even occurred to me that we DO worship His "Body", BECAUSE HE IS GOD INCARNATE.
1) ONLY God is worthy of worship.
2) Jesus is God. Jesus is ALSO a man.
3) Jesus "took on flesh," uniting His human soul & body TO HIS DIVINE PERSONHOOD.
4) Therefore, by this unity, Jesus's human Body is worthy of worship, but NOT AS just a body-- it is worthy ONLY because it is literally "made part of God," in the Person of the Son?? And so when we worship His Body we are directing that worship not to the Body as "flesh" but TO GOD, as through HIS Body of flesh BECAUSE IT'S UNITED WITH HIS DIVINITY???
Man this is rewiring my entire brain. This is amazing.
5) BUT THE EUCHARIST!!!!! Suddenly that gains even DEEPER meaning, as it IS JESUS'S BODY, and if the body is not extraneous but essential to one's being, if the body is made FOR the soul and CANNOT be separated from it even in death... then yes, suddenly the words "BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, AND DIVINITY" gain profounder depths-- that my mind cannot fully grasp at all, not yet. But now I can FEEL them. Now I know there IS MORE to it. Now I can meditate on it, pray about it, open my heart to learn more.
This is perfect timing, too, as we have Adoration off & on all day tomorrow for Christ the King.
6) Jesus's HUMANITY is the instrument of our salvation. That has me reeling. Even if I can only comprehend the bare surface of it yet, its true. His BODY was intrinsic to the Plan of Salvation. That same Body is inevitably eternal, permanently part of God, if only for the fact of the Cross. Our Redemption wasn't accomplished by the mere abstracted will of God. It wasn't won by Jesus's Soul alone. It REQUIRED HIS BODY, UNITED TO HIS SOUL, UNITED TO HIS DIVINITY. It was ALL essential, TOGETHER!
After all, don't forget the achingly important bit-- Jesus needed a Body in order to have a HEART, and in order to BLEED. He needed a Body so He could sacrifice it.
There's so much terrific beauty in that. I want to just contemplate it for a while.


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Last =

"Mary lived in the presence of Jesus. She paid attention to him. She contemplated him. She found a focus and a center in him. It is the same for us who come before the Eucharistic Lord [especially in Adoration], as we simply stay with him, watch him, focus ourselves on him and find in him a center for our lives. This form of Eucharistic adoration both stems from the Mass and leads us back to the Mass."
This helps me so much, to understand Adoration better in light of Mary's perfect example, as I admittedly never really knew "how to adore properly".
This is... touchingly simple, but very weighty. It's demanding, as all honest love is, like a mother for a child. But it's not tedious. It's only so demanding because real love requires of itself a total giving of self, because anything less wouldn't be love. And here it's absolutely reciprocal. The Eucharist IS Love Itself. Adoration "demands" such love by justice alone, but never forces it. Love must be given freely, willingly, completely. In Adoration, Love Himself will enable us to do so in return. 

 

another quick update, faster than a phone, because it's almost 1am and life has been a trip

dyspnea tonight. not sure why. it was gone for weeks and then within the past few days it's been back. not sure if it's because of the smoke outside or what, or if it's our body struggling to readjust to exertion after the jademonth, but either way it's back and it makes us twice as tired and dissociated because hey, feeling like you're slowly suffocating will do that.

anyway. important notes for today.

first, the "misdreavus effect."
remember there was this one day, way back in 2001, where jewel was playing silver version and was in mount silver, for like two solid hours, trying to find a misdreavus because she loved them... and then she suddenly realized, wait a second. they only come out at night.
well.
apparently there are nousfoni that do the same.
it completely shocked us. it was one of those lineups of circumstance that could not be planned or even expected, because it's not something we ever would have guessed could do something. like a really bizarre easter egg in a game.
we were moved by grace and penance to say ALL our night prayers tonight, the full hour. we'll talk more about that in a bit. but when we went over to the prayer rugs to say the wall set, it was too dark to see without putting a light on, and someone had the idea to grab that little sticky-button light from the drawer and use that as illumination. the thing is, that light has four color settings, and white was too bright, so we switched it to green.
and INSTANTLY we had 2009 SPATIAL FLASHBACKS.
we had forgotten that we used a green lightbulb during that time. and the literal life-feeling of that SLAMMED into us. we had to change the light color because it was messing with our temporal awareness that bad.
the blue light setting didn't do the same, because it was just slightly leaning indigo and that made it a different hue from the bulb we had during that same jayce-house period.
anyway. that's one note. there's very little memory for it because it shook us up so bad, triggering dissociation and memory failure.
HOWEVER. because of its disorientating effects, when we "came back" and still had to pray, the only way to override the inevitable worsening of flashbacks would be to have someone unrelated to that era front.
that's when it got interesting.
we didn't realize that foni can be illumilocked, as it were. trying to invent jargon on the fly. timelocked foni are well-known, those whose anchors are fused to actual chronological spans, to specific years or months or eras. but for a foni to only be able to front, or exist, AT a certain time of day-- or rather, as it even more shockingly seems, in certain contexts of luminosity-- is a new revelation, although unsurprising in principle. dark and light feel SO different, and in trauma history, certain things ONLY happen in the dark, or in the light. and day/night cycles don't necessarily affect this: you have all heard of the redlight lemur-foni in the bathroom that adelaide found. same with ashen only being triggered with the fluorescent light and closed doors. it's all about the context of the light source. it's fascinating. change that, even a little bit, and you completely shift the resonance, and therefore whether or not any foni will resonate with it at all. the specificity of triggers never ceases to amaze me, both in their existence and their effects. they can't be falsified or even guessed at. when they hit, they hit like a bomb to the brain.
anyway, this isn't the time to ramble and theorize, we're too tired. point is, it happened.
i know a few of us in the "day crew" were trying to front, but it was unusually difficult. maybe it was the green light doing it, because we turned it back on out of morbid curiosity, as it was putting that background hum of historical fear into our brain. we've prayed at night before, with white light, and nothing happened. but this green... it shook things up.
julie tried to front, i remember, and that was the turning point. when she moved into the body, but felt that old fearbuzz, she couldn't front, because she was afraid HERSELF, not in sympathetic response. she was scared of whatever in herself that green-dark was triggering. so she bailed.
and freakin' LEANNE SHOWED UP.
listen. she hasn't been seen in years. but when she moved in, not only did i KNOW it was her-- you never forget a foni's vibe once you've felt it, and her magenta hue is unmistakable-- but in such quick succession of fronting, in tangible space, i could FEEL the difference between julie, who is apparently lightlocked, and leanne, who is darklocked. there is a completely different base note to their energy which is AMAZING to suddenly have the experiential knowledge to distinguish. couldn't do that if i didn't know there WAS a feeling-shift to discern.
no sign of the jabberwock by the way. they might have died with most of the other daemons.
on that note we still don't know WHY chocoloco has survived. perhaps he was never a daengel to begin with, which honestly wouldn't surprise me. he just got lumped in with them because he's so freakin' bizarre. maybe he's a 'prototype' in some way. but i won't theorize so emptily. that only causes false ideas. i have to sit and feel things out with knowledge and memory to back it up, and now is not the time, nor am i equipped at all what with all the memory loss and locks we're still grappling with.
anyway. illumilocking. julie can't front in the dark?? actually could she EVER??? all the memories we have of the julie days-- and they are few, but horrifying-- involve her abusing us IN LIT ROOMS, either daylight or fluorescence.
when the night hacks began, the era had shifted, remember? she was still the hacker queen, but there was so much else going on, so many others working in her stead. we need to review those memories now that we know there's stuff to look for.
but. when julie fled from fronting today, that significant action "lit up a key note" in our head-- again, scrabbling at makeshift jargon here based on feeling; it's like a "new message" light on a phone, but also push-pinning something to the staff bulletin board, or hearing a single "ding" note like a code being called in a hospital; something calling a THOUGHT to attention, "attend to this, do not let this slip by, do not shove it under the rug, pursue this if possible"-- and the unstated order was, run this course. push the envelope. keep poking it with a stick. see what happens.
we continued praying, not commenting on the event or realization, but it was held by that pseudojewel "watcher" and it was a tickertape in our subconscious. so we watched too. sugar tried to front next, BUT although she felt like she could if she wanted, that garish green light (the key!!) was unnerving, and reminded HER of those old days, that awful 2015 era, so SHE left too. there was a bit of front-jostling here, as the prayer was being automated inbetween which was equally disorienting, but people couldn't say their typical prayers in this weird environment so it was defaulting. all i remember is laurie trying to come out for hers, BUT her resonance caught the light and LANCIFOLIEL SHOWED UP.
that was enlightening, pun intended. it hit 'me' that what seemed to be happening with her and julie, was that the systemind was yanking out foni with similar resonances or anchors to "substitute" for whoever had just been bounced or bailed thanks to the green. it was a kneejerk, almost instinctive action on our mind's part, something triggered by FEAR, almost a survival response. "this person left but someone NEEDS to front or we're in danger, so someone else NEEDS to take their place NOW." and it kicks out whoever is immediately accessible, which in such a context, would apparently be 1) someone with a close enough resonance TO be shoved out so fast and 2) someone who is darklocked. at least, in this situation.
might change that jargon if it proves incorrect btw. "locked" may not be true. IF people like lancifoliel & leanne CAN front in daylight situations, then we'll change the term to match.
but back to the update. lancifoliel hasn't fronted in years either, from what i can remember. and she's NEVER fronted this clearly. again, no idea why this vague terror-haze mental environment was ALLOWING these longlost foni TO be there, other than the fact that they have darker anchors and potentially NEED such environments in order to front, or even be found. again, we're going to investigate this further in the future.
but lanci was out. her hair is reminiscent of laurie's, but with much wider and smoother "spikes," all that dark vermilion, with black streaks. oddly it feels like awareness data was behind her head, and outside for the most part. same with leanne. we can't "get into their heads" even when they're in ours, not yet at least. again, it's understandable, but fascinating. so we can see the back of their heads, and get a bit of "innersensory" data on their hair (always an anchorpoint), and their vibe, but... not much else. no kinesthetic data. no eyes. no voice memory. all of that would require stronger fronting, more time, and deeper familiarity.
interestingly too, both lanci and leanne felt like they weren't choosing to front. they were being put there. they weren't really aware, either, of themselves or us, not heavily so-- there was a notable lack of "selfness" in their recorded fronting data. like they were half asleep. but they were there!

last bit, adding this later as we forgot...
after lanci left, razor moved in for her prayer (the "if we die today" one). after her was wreckage. after her was knife. after him was siobhan. all of them fronted with no problem. honestly i would say they almost felt more comfortable, in a sad way, in that context? like not a "soft" comfortable, nothing relaxing or resting, but instead a feeling of "ah yes, this is familiar. this is what i am used to. this is what i am meant for." it had an edge, even a bit of sadness, but there was an odd smile, too. "this is where i belong," at least in terms of where and how they were born. it was very bittersweet. but they ALL had it, and the foni like julie & laurie DIDN'T. but leanne & lancifoliel did. different, just slightly, but that "base note" was there again. the similar resonance. the traumabuzz in the back of the skull, echoed in that green light.
so that's important too. there are little distinctions we never knew before, because we never were aware of the contrasting data. we only saw, or felt, one side, if any.
thank You God for this, actually. this is what makes us feel alive. even frightening things. if it brings our hearts into clearer vision, into stronger feeling, into deeper unity and awareness, then we will take it gladly from Your Hands and embrace it totally.
we just want to live together, all of us, again. there is so much love here. even in the scary days. even when we feel lost and angry and afraid and empty and confused. at the very bones of it, in the very blood of us, deep down at the absolute core of everything we are, there is love. only love. always love. and thank God for that. thank God for us. no matter what. 



okay, we're starting to get dissociated and sick from... something. up too late? no idea. weird emotions moving in. feeling front slipping. simeon at the ready, hello! moving into a different space of headspace. different place in the head.
gotta hard shift here
still things to type can we get autopilot on this, is that possible, do we still have one, him, someone conscious?
no too detached. won't work for data like this. stored in different places

who was typing

second point. let's get this done quickly but importantly
BEFORE all that, actually, we were praying at the altar. memory picks up when we were saying the prayer cards, because they usually take ~20m and part of our brain was exhausted and wanting to skip them (there's always a ton of emotional interference around prayer, due to mental exhaustion). that "watching" nonself-awareness saw/felt this and the wordless thought was put out, "we need people who can pray." and it reached in to clumsily nudge JOPHAEL out. "can he do this" basically.
surprisingly, he could NOT???? apparently his job is more tied to church?? so the "watcher" instead called VEIL out to front.
two things.
one, i have NO IDEA how the "watcher awareness" can do this. "she" has a minimal sense of self, with no ability to front or exist as a person, but she acts as a sort of databank with exorbitant privileges concerning them. we need to investigate her at some point too.
two, apparently there are a LOT more foni than we thought, but just as much as we NEED, because remember back in 2015 although things were literal hell we were paradoxically learning how to FUNCTION in the midst of it all, arguably better than ever in some cases, and that was because we were LIVING FULLTIME AS A SYSTEM, and EVERYONE HAD A JOB.
and watcher-girl is apparently able to feel the "job vibe" needed, and almost blindly reach in to fish out somebody close to it.
so veil was pushed out. again, her sense of selfhood is very different from that of a centralite. i think this has to do with what level of "headspace" they exist on; foni on the body level tend to have far less of a solid self-awareness than those on the heart or head level. even so, with enough time spent fronting, it can increase-- but if you really want a lower-level foni to gain self-awareness in a pinch, get them talking to the upstairs gang. nothing boosts consciousness moreso than communication. unfortunately this can backfire with some foni, such as lotophagoi and "damaged ones"-- we need jargon here too-- solely because the more trauma they hold, or exist to live within, the more forbidden selfhood is, and any spark of such awareness can kill them. it has happened before.
anyhow. veil is still a solid violet hue, still the same physical appearance too-- lovely arabic nose, dark almond skin, surprisingly heavy eyelashes. BUT there was a surprise with her function: as she was praying, she felt a strange dissonance between praying to jesus or asking for mary's intercession? she was getting pushed into the former at the expense of the latter. like something in our subconscious was hyperfeminizing her, to the point of misandric tendencies. which is bizarre and very unlike us. however this upset her and she felt genuinely distressed-- again, selfhood!!-- and ASKED God to fix that. "fix me," she prayed. something like, "make me someone who isn't like that." and instantly, almost imperceptibly, there was a shift??? her appearance changed from just a feminine foni wearing a veil to that of a nun. like now she had a habit! but still violet of course. anyway with this appearance shift, she now felt no dissonance with prayer. so that was notable. had to write that down.
jophael, for the record, seems to be more oriented towards church than private prayer? his entire vibe data feels broader, more outward. also still unsure if he vibes yellow or amber, technically. feels hovering at the moment. we'll check it better soon when we're not so fuzzybrained from being up this late.
last important note. as we prayed the cards, we were getting "colors" from some of them? like subtle synaesthesia. not sure why. but it pushed veil out as it "no longer matched her." and as the systemind fumbled to find someone who could pray, it found two people. first was a completely new monk foni, like saint francis, wearing a simple soft-brown habit with warm brown eyes and a scrap of beard, but with such a loving heart; oh my goodness his vibe was so lovely, and he prayed with such simple ardent sincerity. second was PATRICIA???? i think??? not christina; they're sisters but chrissy has that "prissy" vibe unfortunately, or at least she used to. it's been so long since we've seen either of them, the only immediate distinguishing note is their color-- patricia leans purple, christina leans violet, and that distinction is tangible. unfortunately i can't catch any data on that from tonight, as it was such a sudden and shallow switch, i don't even know if they were able to stay to pray, but the point is one of them was pinged. is that the proper jargon? they were pushed out to front, but only because their resonance was pinged, like "ah yes, there you are, someone that matches, out you go." like a "match found!" light going on when searching data keys. something along those lines.

LAST BIT. again adding later as i almost forgot.
julie was on bodycare duty tonight, and at one point she suddenly "alarmed" the upstairs for help because there had almost been a HACK?????? apparently she had moved the body a certain way, just a brief moment, and that (again) hyperspecific action almost BLACKED OUT THE BODY and would have caused a HACK.
she was terrified, and both jay and laurie were on immediate call to help her, but julie said it was okay, she was okay, she just felt that huge and horrifying risk and needed to tell us.
...
that is genuinely scary as hell. we didn't think hacks could happen anymore, not since we got out of cnc. but... our stay in upmc reactivated the dream hacks, and we have been having them ever since (curse this weight gain), so... potentially i guess a literal hack could happen, if we were trauma-dissociated enough? i know there ARE still hackers, which is TERRIFYING to realize, but it's true. i've seen them. i don't know how or why they still exist. maybe just because of unprocessed trauma. maybe because they're holding everything infi used to swallow entire, poor wretched thing. but i can't think about that right now.
just... be careful. please. without infi, i have no idea what would happen, if something that bad happened. we haven't had a "new era" in a very very long time, we still don't know what the heck the tar and plague are doing... don't risk anything. please be careful. i still say hacks are impossible, but... when our consciousness is compromised, hell can break loose. and if julie felt a risk THAT strongly... that honestly scares me to death. be careful. please. be careful.



but yes. big takeaways from all this:
1. there are a LOT more religious foni than we realized, again this is not surprising at all but we just never thought to look.
2. we ARE hyperspecific and THANK GOD because this is the ONLY way we're going to be functional again.
3. be very aware of just how specific triggers can be, or have to be, in order to trigger out foni. we cannot predict this.
4. SUBCATEGORIES. when we're apparently this specialized, we need rolebanks for reference.
5. JARGON IS NEEDED BUDDY
6. SPECTRUM HUES. sorry about all the capslock. but we NEED to feel them out, get their vibes solid, find their realms, so any and all "new" foni CAN PROPERLY ANCHOR INTO THEM.
7. we're not as dead as we thought. go through the censuses. find us.


we'll update more tomorrow, god willing. this was imperative for tonight.
there is SO MUCH to type about concerning the jademonth and our coping or lack thereof, but that's going to take several hours if not several days worth of entries. nevertheless, it must be done. we're reeling and now it's JULY which means we're gonna get A LOT OF FLASHBACKS and i can feel them creeping in around the edges already.
considering redoing the chizu + saint ann week, to see what that does to our brain, now that the system has reawakened. gotta have a safety net first though, the last thing we need is to ironically wake up whatever or whoever was wrecking the rest of our life at that point.

archiving has been on pause for obvious schedule death reasons. also trauma avoidance. we're at 2017 and we are NOT READY to face that at all.
"jay" is still mourning infi on a daily basis, and chaos 0 is still an emotional hurricane over everything with them, and today is the 12th anniversary of the pink event, which was a literal hinge date for our history. i don't even know if that entry is public, oh wait yes it is. that xanga where laurie had to talk him out of suicide for like twelve solid hours. i know no one looked at anything for today because no one is ready to do so. man we're tired of averting our eyes from our own life. we need to just sit and read everything and remember that WE EXIST.
good news, we have one appointment with a local counseling center next month, and several phone numbers bookmarked to call for potential therapists. but we need to get help. our symptoms are getting... distressing.
someone had a baby crying in the hall today and we were actively slamming drawers and seething just to abate the misophonic ragefear so we wouldn't hurt ourselves. yeah we forgot misophonia was a thing, we were googling our symptoms the other day and bam, there it was. also apparently we DO have some subtle schizophrenia symptoms??? have to check that again but nothing obsessive, honestly i don't want to know ANYTHING about the dsm-v or whatever, i just want us to get into therapy and see what the professionals say. i want to go in blind, with just us. everything else is infectious and potentially corruptive. i don't want any vocabulary or comprehension but our own. if something is a symptom, i don't want to know! not unless we're sitting in the shrink's office. but yeah. the glimpses we've seen suggest a LOT more going on than we would ever have guessed, so we do want to get thorough help once the pros help us figure out what's actually going on here.

but. final note. most important thing.
in the end, therapy/ counseling/ whatever is only being pursued in order to lessen the "danger" level of our symptoms; less rage, less violence, less compulsions, less delusions if we have them. things like that. we want to be able to function on a daily basis without seething meltdowns and self-abusive paroxysms and numb-state abysses and the like. we want to be able to FEEL EMOTIONS other than terror, wrath, and unbearable flashes of grief. we want to be able to love again. we want to be able to live AS A SYSTEM and i am telling you right now, if ANY therapist so much as hints at nousfoni death or forced reintegration i am going to pointedly give hatchet the steering wheel. just kidding. but she will junk any and all pill bottles you throw at us, so you have been warned.
bottom line is: nothing will come between us and us. we are a system, and we love each other forever, and we will heal AS a system, no exceptions, no excuses, no objections. we do this together. and we will make sure that is respected. i promise.
if we're gonna grow and learn and heal and love, it will only happen together. it can only happen together.
if we're not us, we're nothing.


all right it's 240 good heavens we gotta get this body some sleep, see you kids

(from workbook)

(these memories MIGHT be HISTORICALLY INACCURATE as far as DETAILS go. we are recording this because this was written years later, without any review of original data, and as such this reveals the LONGTERM AFFECTS of those historical events, and therefore, the real psychic impact & impression of them.)

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REMEMBERING UNSTABLE PERIODS

Summer 2015?? AND NORTH CAROLINA. Both were HELL.
'15 was a TRAUMA LOOP and NC was DAILY ABUSE. I was "cut off from family" in different ways-- '15 had me left alone & avoided, while NC was a CONTROLLED "cut off contact." In both cases, I suffered PROLONGED DAILY SXABUSE & SENSORY DEPRIVATION, and I had NO FUTURE HOPE AT ALL.

How were you sleeping? What was your sleep schedule like? How many hours of sleep were you getting?

'15 = I slept tormentedly. I had no regular schedule & would fall asleep miserable. I'd stay up until like 4am typing?? Different bedtime EVERY day. Usually I got 6 hours, tops even? Some SLEEPLESS nights. I'd be "PROUD" of <5 hours.

CNC = I was forced, naked, to sleep like a dog at the edge of a shared bed, using someone else as a pillow. I never dreamed. I had NO regular schedule. Weekdays were all-nighters, then sleep from 7am-2pm?? Days off, bedtime was like 3am. I WOULD WAKE UP ALONE AT 8:30 & RUN TO THE STORE JUST TO ESCAPE!! In general though I got 5-8 hours? But it was VERY BROKEN SLEEP!! I never really felt rested. It was more like a coma every night, never restorative.

When you were unwell, what was your daily routine? What did you do every day? Were the times regular?

'15 = Daily hacks. LOTS of prolonged binges. Running daily?? Laptop work. No regular waketime, it was random & trauma-mangled. CONSCIOUS deprivation concerning bedtimes. Meals were NEVER regular; it was all-day fasting then late binge-crashes. We were isolatory and never socialized. Our exercise times were impulsive & LONG but random. I took no meds.

CNC = Schedule was TOTALLY UNPREDICTABLE; dictated by TBAS. They'd eat, then do TV/ games/ computer, leaving me alone. I wound binge, very slowly, to fill the existential void & acute loneliness/ abandonment feelings. TBAS had a roughly set work time, but NOT schedule. As for me, I was homebound/ isolated due to both social terror & fear of punishment, unless I rashly "borrowed the car" during a manic state/ had a medical appointment. But there was NO pattern or order. Waketimes were determined by abuse cycles. Bedtimes were controlled but insomniac. Mealtimes were an absolute hellish mess. Socializing was "roommates" only, who strictly albeit passively kept me homebound & controlled. Exercise was virtually absent; I was stuck inside & immobile, UNLESS I snuck out to RUN!!! That was arguably my only escape, until that too became shot through with heavy repeated trauma. As for med times, there was daily Benadryl abuse to "dope out" awareness of all other abuse. I took it up to 4x daily. I also hyperdosed on melatonin, and would sneak alcohol & Nyquil (sometimes debating taking them at once) for the same suicidal-sedative reasons.

How did others play a role?

'15 = Family was entirely neglectful. Dad & mom were both gone, living elsewhere with virtually no contact. Brothers isolated in rooms, did not speak to me. I think they were also in COLLEGE so they weren't always there. Grandparents would ALSO GO OUT??? Morning coffee/store trips that would take HOURS. So we were frequently completely alone in the house, and even when we weren't, there was effectively NO communication or dialogue. We have no memory of any dialogue outside of the small explosions of screaming matches & violent fights.

CNC= Family contact was forbidden. Life was DICTATED by "abusers" whims. I literally had NO say & NO power; I HAD to follow their decisions & schedules, however random. I always smiled & agreed & tried to never complain. (for the record, when I DID struggle, especially with health failure & mental health crises, I would hate myself even more for "ruining THEIR day/schedule" and try to act like I was fine)

What have you learned by looking back on this time and thinking about the routine you had?

'15 = NO ROUTINE at large. Everything a void; no goals or hopes or responsibilities? Fueled addictions & obsessive behavior; "no purpose," "no future."

CNC = There WAS a "rough routine" but it was INFLICTED & SUBJECT TO CHANGE OF WHIM. I had NO say & NO control, NO ESCAPE.


PREVENTING FUTURE INSTABILITY

Think of a past episode of depression or mania. How do you think keeping track of changes in your mood might have been helpful in the early stage of the episode?

MANIC: These hit a LOT during college; possibly even high school! But they never occurred in a vacuum. The MAJOR precipitator was not "socializing"-- thank God I was VERY isolatory back then-- it was MEDIA. As a teen, when I first started going online, I was SO HYPER. I'd get a NiGHTS game update, or some Sonic news, or a new issue of a manga, and I'd just go WILD. My emotions were YO-YOS-- either I was invincible & everything was awesome, OR I was desolate & felt worthless & unlovable. I suppose that, if I had NOTED when I got a "media high" or an "incompetency low", I could OBSERVE that from "OUTSIDE" the state?? I'm SURE the System would've helped, even back then. But if I WAS feeling hyper, we could have taken steps to "RECENTER IN OURSELF," as opposed to OUTSIDE, even only on message boards or Freewebs. IT WAS STILL A "SOCIAL" TRIGGER because it STILL OCCURRED WITHIN A COMMUNITY CONTEXT-- ESPECIALLY once I started regularly posting to dA INSTEAD OF LJ, and my very "presence" online BECAME PERFORMATIVE. This got WORSE when Q entered the scene; and that was actually the "trigger" to FLIP it from mania to DEPRESSION?? Now I was FURIOUS because I "HAD TO" perform for this kid, so I COULDN'T BE "ME", the ultimate result of ALL social function in my mind?? Nevertheless I STARTED A PRIVATE JOURNAL & let the pain & sorrow & anger out there. But I STILL just "let it carry me along"; I NEVER just paused & took CONSCIOUS note that "hey, I'm starting to feel really upset/ frustrated/ helpless"-- I would just RANT & VENT. And letting that "take over" fueled depressive crashes; I COULDN'T "cope" if I didn't LOOK AT the emotions AND thoughts AND situation!!
Honestly THANK GOD FOR LAURIE because her gatecrashing the Xanga JUMPSTARTED the development of self-AWARENESS and self-reflection that ALLOWED us to see AND understand (together!) WHEN AND WHY our emotions were going crazy. With her, I COULDN'T be manic OR depressed, because SHE KEPT WATCH & CALLED ME OUT. So... START UP THE XANGA SESSIONS AGAIN, KIDDO! And KEEP NOTES on daily emotion/ thought changes, so you know WHAT to discuss!

Can you think of a few examples when stressors influenced your sleep & routine schedule, and then impacted your mood?

(The E.D. in general was its OWN UNPREDICTABLE "ROUTINE"; wrecking ALL ELSE)
+ The most OBVIOUS example is the binge/purge hell cycles, ESPECIALLY after a day on the road. Some nights I'd be up until 3AM. Then I'd miss morning Mass, I'd be late for afternoon Mass, I'd HAVE to wait until ~3PM to eat at ALL, perpetuating the cycle, & I'd be EXHAUSTED the entire time. I felt chronically hopeless, overwhelmed, trapped, & MISERABLE. This prevented me from making healthy changes-- I was SO wrecked that I kept giving in to the dissociative "refuge" or the E.D. JUST TO "COPE".
+ I ALSO WAS SO STRESSED AT HOME THAT IT DIDN'T FEEL SAFE TO SLEEP THERE.
In college, I'd frequently have Illustration homework that would keep me up ALL NIGHT, resulting in only ~2-3 hours of sleep if I was lucky; most often I WOULDN'T sleep. I'd feel so disheartened & incapable of joy. I began to "hate art." I struggled to focus in class-- a sick relief sometimes, as the trauma of figure drawing was fled from more easily then. I HAD to keep the college schedule, but the lack of sleep plus choking despair made me start sleeping in every study spot and I ended up NOT having the homework done-- so I started SKIPPING. I lost my schedule and I FELT lost as a result.
+ Doctor's appointments & visits to the homestead ALWAYS happened "suddenly" and threw off my routine-- appointments had to be planned AROUND & often impacted Church/ shopping times. Going up the house was ALWAYS unpredictable & HIGHLY stressful. Those days I might not get home until 6PM or later, WRECKED.
+ When I was visiting daily/ weekly to take care of grandma, I COULDN'T have a schedule. I WANTED to STAY with her, but now had "no place there" and had to do everything in a "liminal" state of mind, knowing I had to eventually eat/ sleep/ wash/ travel AFTER. Every day was a disordered jumble; the only routine was grandma's meds.

What are some of the challenges to schedule stability that you are facing in the next month? Danger signs? Possible solutions to consider?

The most obvious challenges are: the loss of COPE's steady & solid schedule, the loss of liberty related to transportation & finances, the mandatory PARTIAL schedule, replacing E.D. cycles with creative work, and STRIVING to schedule in CHURCH & EXERCISE with no car & obligatory mealtimes. Also doctors AND helping mom, which are VARIABLES.
Danger signs for me would be: oversleeping, bingeing from overstimulation &/or anxiety, not letting myself rest, NOT praying or going to church, isolating (refusing ALL contact), refusing to do creative &/or enjoyable things, rage outbursts & crying jags, self-abusive actions, skipping Partial, manic symptoms, not making or adhering to even a rough schedule, neglecting self-care, COLD HEART, dissociation, "lockouts," increased flashbacks? Basically if I start feeling HOPELESS, DISTRAUGHT, ANGRY, OVERWHELMED, VIOLENT, HOLLOW, EXHAUSTED, RESTLESS, EXISTENTIALLY HORRIFIED, &/OR SUICIDAL, we have a problem!!
The most effective & IMMEDIATE solutions would include: immediate journaling/ Xangas (IF NOT IN LOCKOUT/ LOCKDOWN); praying &/or reading Scripture; OR if our brain is TOO SHAKEN to do thoughtwork, to POSITIVELY DISTRACT: play Klonoa, watch TV or a safe movie, listen to music... but DECIDE TO SIT DOWN & STAY THERE!! Pacing & standing makes things MUCH WORSE!! So GET COPING DISTRACTIONS that KEEP YOU CALM & STILL & FOCUSED on something POSITIVE!!

post-breakfast//

Lovely breakfast. Fearless omelet; peeled orange with NO mess OR anxiety; lovely tea; the PERFECT english muffin! Our only troubles: we bit the muffin in a "circle" & that guilt muted the data a bit. Please quit that habit; it does not help, nor does it make it "taste better"-- it has CONSISTENTLY proven to do the EXACT OPPOSITE! (BTW the cream cheese had been stored warm so it softened a LOT and that made it SO much nicer/ easier to eat!) Our second problem ties into yesterday-- I admitted that I LIKED the omelet, orange cheese & all, but THEN my weirdo brain said, "you can't like cheese; you don't match its vibe!!" You don't "match" its flavor/ texture-- YOU'RE no ORANGE!!" Same w/ the eggs: "YOU'RE not YELLOW!! And the "salt/fat" flavors clash COMPLETELY with YOUR vibe!!" THIS IS WHY I'M STRUGGLING WITH SELF-STABILITY. I have this frustrating, bizarre, yet "understandable" CONVICTION that one's personal integrity of individual identity is BETRAYED, VIOLATED, DAMAGED, even REJECTED outright IF/WHEN someone participates in/ CHOOSES to "take onto/ INTO oneself" / associates with something that is in DISHARMONY with their "vibe" OF personal distinct self??? Like, in this situation, I'm "choosing AND liking" an orange/ yellow food, with a salt/fat (heavy) flavor vibe, a "heavy"/ "cheesy" texture, AND a "heated" association? And NONE of those match me, SO, if/when I DO eat/like them, it feels like I'm REDEFINING (FORCIBLY!!) MY OWN IDENTITY/ SELF-INTEGRITY?? And dude that MIGHT ALSO be the ROOT of the PKMN-SV "omelet dread" w/ the Professors-- THEIR vibes CLASH HORRIBLY with omelets, too-- so it's like a crash/ scream of dissonant, PAINFUL mental NOISE inside, over & over, with neither food nor person ACTUALLY changing, but also with NO resolution or harmony, so it just CONTINUES, like trying to hammer a square peg into a round hole. It HURTS. But that explains SO MUCH, AND finally gives us the clarity to HEAL/ CORRECT the situation!! On that note, SADA DOES MATCH BOTH orange cheese AND arguably mushrooms? BECAUSE OF HER AESTHETIC INTEGRITY. So there IS a little resonance! BUT she DOES NOT vibe with the OMELET, and honestly I DON'T WANT HER TO BE THE ASSOCIATED "DEFAULT PERSON" ANYWAY, as she's NOT OURS, NOR does she MATCH US!! So LET IT GO. Pokémon has been "corrupted" by the Internet anyway, and we don't "relate to" the new games either. LET IT GO, PLEASE. I can GUARANTEE you we can find someone SAFE in the LEAGUE who CAN/ DOES match the omelet ENTIRELY. But, again, honestly? EVEN THEN, I'M TIRED OF THESE MENTAL GYMNASTICS IN ORDER TO EAT WITHOUT FEELING VIOLATED, because YES, THAT'S the CORE fear-- it's "an outside influence FORCING itself inside ME and FORCIBLY "CHANGING/ CORRUPTING" OR "DESTROYING/ REPLACING" ME in order to make "me" INTO ITSELF." It's invasive, infectuous, parasitic... a contaminant. I DO like omelets, but WHY??? Does that mean I'm NOT actually RED or WHITE? That can't be true, because although I "appreciate" Orange & Yellow AS lovely colors CONCEPTUALLY, the very THOUGHT of CHOOSING them in relation to MYSELF FEELS like "betrayal" and legit makes me sick to my stomach with existential dread. Yellow can be lovely-- daffodils & lemons & swallowtails-- BUT to choose it feels wrong. It feels like I must REWRITE my entire self-concept TO "choose" it "rightly"= OTHERWISE it's that AGONIZING DISSONANCE inside, for as long as that "violation" lasts!! INTERESTINGLY, I'm wondering if my "LIKES" within Yellow ONLY CAN exist AS "likes" because they ECHO something in MY vibe?? And feeling that out, for Yellow, it's the BRIGHTNESS-- the LUMINOSITY, the JOY, the HOPE of its vibrancy. ORANGE is similar; significantly, I DO "slightly" vibe with it, moreso w/ vermilion. PROBABLY BECAUSE IT HAS RED IN IT, YOU DINGBAT! So I can "like" it with less dissonance, BUT STILL, the thought of being ORANGE is still WRONG. As a side note, BROWN is unusual-- since I DO have brown hair/ eyes there IS some affiliation, BUT I can only really feel "right" with PALE NEUTRALS??? NEVER "orange-browns"-- we ALL know the ANCIENT DREAD I get from clay & terracotta-- and never "chocolates," either, for obvious reasons. BUT, our piano has that deep cherry-brown wood and that feels better? And I do like (I think?) certain scents of both literal "soil" and coffee? BUT NOT leather, or mocha, or caramel? I've gotta investigate more. But you can get the essence of what I'm describing. My "neutral" fondness leans red/ GOLD, actually?? I like cream tints, but NOT "light yellow" OR "light pink," even? ONLY "ROSE"? (That's pastel RED!) Honestly my vibe there is basically COSMIC LATTE, which feels ABSOLUTELY RESONANT for the record.
✳ But as this topic is SO complex it CANNOT be fully expounded/ explored here, let's return to the current applicable distress that I am facing w/ food dissonance. Right now, I am not sure HOW to admit that I DO like something "dissonant" WITHOUT mangling my sense of self/ coherent identity?



post-lunch//

✳ POST-LUNCH, THERE HAS BEEN A DISTURBING REVELATION that ironically answers this ↑ question, albeit in an unfortunate way:
APPARENTLY WE ARE SWITCHING MULTIPLE TIMES DURING MEALS, IN ORDER TO PRESERVE "SELF-DISTINCTION," BUT WE NEVER NOTICED THE SUBTLE YET NOTABLE SHIFTS BECAUSE WE'RE ALWAYS SEVERELY DISSOCIATED. The difference today? We noticed we LACKED BASIC DATA for pepper, turkey, AND stuffing, so when we were mindfully trying to observe it (amidst inevitable automatic memory association intrusion), we had the idea to ask, "do I like this?" And the answer was a MESS. Apparently, "NO" IS STILL UNACCEPTABLE. And SOCIALS SEEM TO EXIST VERY MUCH FOR THAT REASON!!! Because when I tried to ACTUALLY "FEEL" MY INTERNAL RESONANCE IN COMPARISON, CHANGING THE UNDEFINED, MUTABLE "I" TO MY NAME, CONCRETE & SPECIFIC-- "does JEWEL like this?" (THIRD PERSON!!! turns it to DATA, NOT MORAL JUDGMENT??)-- the answer WAS NO!!! BECAUSE IT CLASHES WITH MY SELF-VIBE!! BUT THAT'S NOT ALLOWED, NOT SOCIALLY!!! So IMMEDIATELY the mind desperately, appeasingly protests, "but I DO like it"!! AND I FELT "MYSELF" PUSHED OUT AND A SOCIAL STEP IN. And she matched the turkey's vibe, so we COULD eat it. THAT'S WHY we need to "palate cleanse" between foods, WHY we never "taste anything" at first & take ages to finally get input (which is also WHY we save "good foods" for LAST-- when we CAN experience 'em!), AND the REAL reason WHY WE "NEED" TO EAT INGREDIENTS SEPARATELY!!! Literally ALL OF IT TIES BACK INTO THE SURVIVAL MECHANISM OF IRONICALLY "FRACTURING" OURSELF IN ORDER TO SURVIVE AS A "SELF" WITH DISTINCT PURPOSE/ INTEGRITY AMIDST "INCOMPATIBLE" LIFE CONTEXTS!!!!

✳ In light of the previous two pages, AND the social turmoil of the past week, we need to try & journal about our current trauma symptoms.
(1) One VERY talkative, suffering-focused, religious patient KEEPS interacting with us in ways that are EXHAUSTING all our reserves? And we don't know WHY. She keeps GIVING us gifts, with RELIGIOUS overtones, making us feel SO guilty for NOT WANTING GIFTS, and for NOT wanting TO be "religiously esteemed" as we are an UNWORTHY, FOOLISH, HYPOCRITICAL, STRUGGLING SINNER, AND the "pushing" of religion feels wrong; it's SO intimate for me, that other people "STEPPING IN" and IMPOSING THEIR DIRECTIONS on me is legitimately traumatic; it, too, is a spiritual VIOLATION? Of someone taking hold of the DEEPEST part of me, yanking it out and excitedly shouting, "I love Jesus too! Let's chat about it and sing songs!!" But I... I feel ripped open? I can't "chat about" Jesus, as much as I try-- He's TOO close in some sense? I WANT to worship Him, AND to care for His people, BUT bringing "MY" experience/ feelings into ANY religious context feels BLASPHEMOUSLY WRONG. So people handing me pictures of Jesus covered in poetry and WANTING ME TO SOCIALLY RESPOND TO HIM AS A CONVERSATION TOPIC is morally disgusting to me, and it actually made me SO ANGRY? Like I was being trapped, forced to either reject my Savior OR to treat Him irreverently. Either I "saved face" as being "seen as a Christian" BUT betrayed my actual faith, OR I "am not a real Christian" although I'm just trying to KEEP CHRIST SAFELY OUT OF SOCIALIZATION HELLS. So THAT has me wrecked. THE TRUE "ME," WHO IS A CHRISTIAN AND DOES LOVE JESUS, CANNOT EXIST/ FRONT IN AN INTERACTIVE CONTEXT!!!!! I HAVE TRIED. FOR YEARS. BUT IT'S NOT MY JOB and so EVERY TIME-- IN ORDER TO PRESERVE MY UNIQUE EXISTENCE-- I GET SWITCHED OUT FOR A SOCIAL. BUT BECAUSE THEY'RE SOCIAL, THEY ARE EXTERNALLY ANCHORED, AND SO THEY LITERALLY CANNOT BE RELIGIOUS!! Without a sense OF "inner being," YOU CAN'T EVEN PRAY. They are "OF THE WORLD" in order for us to "survive" in it, AND TO PROTECT ALL OUR INNER PEOPLE FROM BEING CORRUPTED/ VIOLATED BY IT AND DYING, WHICH IS EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED IN NORTH CAROLINE WHEN TBAS DRAGGED EVERYONE OUT INTO LETHAL SOCIAL CONTEXTS!!! So yeah, it's NO WONDER why we become SUICIDALLY DEPRESSED when we're consistently FORCED into interactive/ social situations: not only does it require ANNIHILATION of self-integrity, spiritual sincerity, AND safety needs, IT LITERALLY IS KILLING US to stay in those situations.
(2) ↑ The second big problem with this patient: SO MUCH TALK. She traumadumps AND overshares AND seeks constant validation? Like it tragically feels like her admitted lack of self-worth is driving her to almost demand approval/ acclaim? In groups & during trivia, she CONSTANTLY goes off on long, overly personal & detailed tangents, ALWAYS specifically mentioning "achievements" or "praiseworthy" things she has done, seen, OR endured?? AND we RECOGNIZE this, admittedly, with notable frustration, BECAUSE WE CAN & DO SPEAK LIKE THAT WHEN WE'RE SELF-FOCUSED & FIXATED ON OUR SUFFERING, and are SO swallowed up by self-hatred & unworthiness that our ONLY "way out"-- as far as we can see in that state-- is EXTERNAL DELIVERANCE, via reassurances that we're "NOT hateful," "NOT unworthy," that we "HAVE worth," and "HAVE suffered"!!! And she seems to be seeking EXACTLY THAT. But... there's no real room OR opportunity for that? There's NO direct asking, or revelation of motives-- JUST TALK, and constant emphasizing that she IS fighting, she IS trying, "BUT"... she also reiterates that she's "stuck" and "DOESN'T believe" the validation. So what do you do? I feel like an ass saying it but it's utterly exhausting, emotionally & mentally, trying to PROCESS the sheer amount of quickly-spoken, HEAVY personal info, while ALSO striving to figure out, "what does she WANT by telling me this? What does she NEED? And why ME? What does she see/ assume/ want in ME specifically, and CAN I even meet that need-- WITHOUT hurting my own psyche in the effort?" And the fatal problem here is... no, I can't.
(3) I STILL care about her as a human being. I even got her a gift today. BUT I DON'T want her to know it was me. If I can, I'll sneak it onto her desk. But the point is, I DON'T HATE OR DISLIKE HER. I don't want to "avoid" her or make her feel unwanted/ rejected. BUT I'M COLLAPSING UNDER THIS SOCIAL STRESS & "FORCED" INTERACTION to the point where my emotions are TANKING, I'm isolating and SELF-ABUSING and I constantly want to cry or throw up or hide or die. I can't pull my thoughts together. I cry in the showers. I collapse into bed numb, I have nightmares & fitful sleep, I don't want to wake up. ALL of that from the SIMPLE INESCAPABLE, CONTINUAL, IMMEDIATE THREAT SHE (UNKNOWINGLY) POSES TO MY MENTAL/ EMOTIONAL HEALTH & STABILITY. I'm running on empty and I can't refuel because when I sit down at my table to reflect or read or journal or work or anything,
(4) She CAN and DOES come over and SIT RIGHT NEXT TO ME and my brain just SHUTS DOWN FROM FEAR. it's overwhelming instant trauma panic. I told Staff and I assume they told her BUT she did it AGAIN, and in ANY case her preferred seat now is the "bar" table RIGHT NEXT TO ME. So the hypervigilance & "fight or flight" response prep NEVER TURNS OFF NOW. I am burned out. It's getting intolerable, as selfish as that makes me sound. But realistically, that risk of self-mangling compulsive & extensive interaction IS REAL and it IS CONSTANT as long as we're both in this unit. I pray she finds a DIFFERENT PATIENT to talk to & give stuff to & sit next to, because I AM NOT THE RIGHT CHOICE. I CANNOT MEET HER NEEDS, even though I'VE BEEN TRYING TO. It's just wrecking me and it's NOT going to help her, either. So God, please, redirect her to someone better & kinder & friendlier & STABLE! I'm just the awful disaster that God throws at people to help them realize "they deserve better." It's true. It's happened with multiple people and this is just another stitch in the pattern. I'm just not good for anyone. I'm just... not a good person. i try but I fail miserably, because I'm a hypocrite. I'm self-obsessed and stubborn and impatient and proud and inconsiderate and I hate that, I hate ALL of it, God You KNOW I honestly WANT TO BE GOOD but I CAN'T be, not on my own, not without humility & repentance & surrender, not without grace & mercy, not without Jesus. Not without God. I try too damn hard and I don't pray enough. I'm too damn scared and I don't trust enough. I'm too damn blinded by pain and I'm not grateful enough. I'm a miserable excuse for a Christian, if I even count as one. God help me, I'm so sorry I can't help her, either. All I can do is pray. All I WANT to do is pray. Take "me" out of the equation. I don't want to talk, I don't want to perform, I don't want her to look to me or even think about me. I want her to RELY ON GOD ALONE and please, please God help me to do the same.

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 ♥

 

 

I'm kind of freaking out tonight.

I might be starting my first job in FOUR YEARS next week, and I spent most of today having panic attacks and throwing up and sobbing confusedly, it was ridiculous.



I had a massive religious/existential meltdown on Sunday which left me just as sick as I was today; I was crying so hard I was choking. That's typical, what with religious holidays. Divine Mercy Sunday reduces me to a contrite, paranoid, zealous wreck every single year.



I still find myself thinking awful things.
Part of me is still convinced that having a mental illness, or being "neurodivergent" in some way, means I am morally flawed.
I'm ashamed to admit that I've been diagnosed in the past with schizoaffective disorder and that I'm on the autism spectrum. I hate it. I hate being "broken" and screwed up and abnormal and allegedly "unable" to function like a "normal, healthy, good human being."
It's stupid. I'm sorry for using that word but I'm throwing it at myself here. I really do feel as if I am unintelligent in saying these things, unwise and willfully ignorant.
I don't want to be "mentally ill." Not if it makes life this hellish. But I don't want to be "normal" either, not with what they've told me "normal" is.
I want to be able to accept and love who I am without being utterly ashamed, and feeling useless, and being convinced I have no right to survive, or ask for help or accommodations, or to make mistakes, or to be "different."
No wonder my chakra system is messed up. I'm still struggling with the concept that I have a RIGHT to exist. That very thought feels like blasphemy, to this day.
"Someone like you does not deserve to exist," the programming in my brain says. "You're a freak. You're being selfish, and demanding, and inconvenient, and offensive, and lazy. You're not sacrificing enough for God. " et cetera.



Therapy has been making me pay more attention to myself when in "idle mode," so to speak.
I never realized, I stim a lot. I was always ashamed to even consider the possibility, thinking it was attention-seeking, but… it's not. It's a coping mechanism. When therapy gets frightening, when ugly scary memories come up, I find the vision fading out and my hands moving by themselves. And then my brain says, "is that bad?"


I HAVE to hold this new job for AT LEAST a full month so I can pay back all my debts. After that we'll see how we're coping. I need to take this a day at a time.

 

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@ 11:33 pm

 

 

Please forgive this bitter wordspill but I need to express this somewhere where I’ll be heard. I’m sorry for that but sometimes it helps.

 

I hate, hate, hate being mentally ill.
I feel like such a freak, like I don’t deserve to exist, or live at all, because I’m a “burden” or I’m “lazy” or “too weird” or something similar.
I hate asking for help or accommodations or similar assistance because I’m mortified. I feel that I’ve “brought this illness upon myself” and therefore it is “emotional manipulation of others” when I ask for “special treatment” for it.
I DON’T WANT TO BE SICK but I don’t know what it’s like to be “normal” either, I don’t think I CAN be normal even if we WERE healthy, and that’s scary too. Does that mean I’m being willfully ignorant? Does that mean I’m rejecting the right choice? What am I supposed to be?

 

I hate having these damn sensitivities that make it difficult to function.
I hate the manic phases and depressive hells. I hate the massive dissociation and time loss. I HATE the sensory overload, I HATE hearing voices, I HATE this shit, I hate it, I really do, I am so goddamn tired dealing with this all my life, I’m miserable, I try so hard to be happy but the paranoid zealot child in me is convinced that happiness is selfish and sinful, and the bewildered terrified teenager in me is convinced that happiness is the word abusers use to justify their behavior. I want to say it’s all nonsense, but those parts are still so loud yet.
I hate hearing my therapist tell us that we really did experience some screwed up things, and I hate the gut reaction on my part to defend the people who did those things, even when their memory makes me want to vomit from anxiety and shame.
I hate being sick. I hate being in pain. I hate not being able to shut off the sickness or pain because I feel that not being “invincible” means I’m “not a good enough person.” It terrifies me.

 

I want to be happy for once in my life but the problem is that I feel I don’t DESERVE to be happy, or that the quality/state of life that would be most healthy and beneficial for me is “too weird” or “NOT NORMAL” or otherwise “not allowed,” because I’m SICK IN THE HEAD, and this religious stuff makes it worse, I haven’t found a community anywhere that is willing to help us out with this, all we want is to feel like we’re allowed to live.

 

I don’t want to hate anything.

 

I don’t want to hate anything. This isn’t me, I’m a happy kid, I know I am, I’m too damn bright on the inside to handle so much of this.
But parts of us are so bitter and sad and angry because there’s so much guilt yet, so much shame, so much fear, so much regret.
Then the therapist has to keep reminding us that we have a dissociative disorder so of COURSE we never “ran away,” because we SHUT DOWN. We were trying to survive, however unwisely. The price we paid was just too high, too high, too high to bear.

 

I want to be better. What does it mean to me, to us, to be “better” though? Not what the family says, not what the people outside say. For us, what would be “healthy?”

 

That’s what I want. Somehow. I still want that. I’m trying.

 

I’m just very overwhelmed today and I’m kind of scared about some equally overwhelming changes in the immediate future but we’ll manage. We’ll manage.

 

 

 

 

I feel I have no better option than to try and get therapy again now.

I won't whine again. I'm just having a very hard time admitting that "yes these concerns are severely interfering with my daily life" instead of saying "my experiences aren't real, I'm not really suffering, it's all in my head, stop being a burden." So therapy's been put on hold for a while.

Despite that I am desperate right now. I saw way too much blood today and I am tired of having to face this over and over again, and repeatedly refusing to accept it as a legitimate concern.

I'll try to find a local psychologist tomorrow. I don't know what else to do.

 

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I'm looking for local therapists online and all of a sudden I stumble across the criteria for BPD.
I didn't think much of it until I saw the criteria list.

1. frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment. Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
2. a pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
3. identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
4. impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., spending, sex, substance abuse, reckless driving, binge eating). Note: Do not include suicidal or self-mutilating behavior covered in Criterion 5.
5. recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, or threats, or self-mutilating behavior
6. affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability, or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
7. chronic feelings of emptiness
8. inappropriate, intense anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights)
9. transient, stress-related paranoid ideation or severe dissociative symptoms

Let's go down the list one at a time, shall we?

1. I will vehemently deny this whenever I am asked. As far as I am concerned, I do not care about relationships. However, take a look at that idiotic meltdown I had when my last two friendships were cut off. I don't know, this one I can't be sure on but someone else might have a better view on it.
2. All the freaking time. This drives me up the wall but it happens.
3. YES.
4. Everything except substance abuse solely because I have no access to it, to be blunt.
5. More often than I can deal with.
6. Yes. This one is probably the most annoying, and the biggest factor in "am I really just faking this??" because of its short-lived intensity.
7. OBVIOUSLY.
8. I get this a lot, actually. I've learned to bottle it up, but if it doesn't ultimately externalize as self-abuse, I have been known to break things or attack people. This one causes me a lot of pain.
9. I don't think so? When I was younger I was REALLY paranoid but I think that stopped a few years ago.


I also came across these additional symptoms which are FRIGHTENINGLY accurate, for obvious reasons:

- People with BPD are often bright, witty, funny, life of the party.
- They may have problems with object constancy. When a person leaves (even temporarily), they may have a problem recreating or remembering feelings of love that were present between themselves and the other. Often, BPD patients want to keep something belonging to the loved one around during separations.
- They frequently have difficulty tolerating aloneness, even for short periods of time.
- Their lives may be a chaotic landscape of job losses, interrupted educational pursuits, broken engagements, hospitalizations.
- Many have a background of childhood physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or physical/emotional neglect.
- Splitting: the self and others are viewed as “all good” or “all bad.” Someone with Borderline Personality Disorder said, “One day I would think my doctor was the best and I loved her, but if she challenged me in any way I hated her. There was no middle ground as in like. In my world, people were either the best or the worst. I couldn’t understand the concept of middle ground.”
- Alternating clinging and distancing behaviors (I Hate You, Don’t Leave Me). Sometimes you want to be close to someone. But when you get close it feels TOO close and you feel like you have to get some space. This happens often.
- Great difficulty trusting people and themselves. Early trust may have been shattered by people who were close to you.
- Sensitivity to criticism or rejection.
- Feeling of “needing” someone else to survive
- Heavy need for affection and reassurance

Once again I can't say for sure whether or not I have the non-bolded items there because they all focus around relationships and you know how twisted I get in respect to those. Even if I DO spend a ridiculous amount of time saying how much I'd "like a close friend" or something like that, I spend just as much time saying how much I "can't stand close relationships" and whenever I DO get a close friend, I shove them out of my life and continue whining.
Regardless that "object constancy" bit scared me when I read it. I didn't know that was a thing, I thought it was just another stupid fake problem that I had.

Anyway now I'm feeling like an absolute idiot because those are criteria??? What the heck!! I'm sick of not knowing what diagnosis I actually have because no one can seem to get a clear picture, and my view of reality is apparently so skewed that I can't give a reliable self-report. And I'm sick of HAVING CRITERIA. It actually ticks me off when I show actual diagnostic symptoms. Yes, I definitely need help, but if I won't admit that aloud and repeatedly dismiss even my bloody-murder meltdowns as "fake" and "imaginary," despite the cuts and bruises up and down my body, then I'm not going to get very far in the help department.

I just want to get a SOLID DIAGNOSIS from someone who DOESN'T CONSIDER THIS FAKE (like I do) so that I can finally GET HELP for this absolutely insane life I'm dragging myself through lately.

Why in the world is this getting so much worse?? Is it because I never got treatment for it? Is that what I have to do now? "Kid, you really can't ignore this, it needs to be taken care of, so we're going to make it impossible to ignore until you get off your ass and get help!!" That's what it feels like at least. I hope that's it.
I hope it's not simply that I'm too lost and corrupt to just let go of all this idiocy. Don't know why I still think that, I know it's moronic, but hey, there it is.

I need to stop talking, talking hurts, I don't like being online, I need to sleep.