the spectrum heart cathedral system

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 want to stay awake forever.

Why do we lose so much of Ollie's worknights by dissociating and bingeing? Why?

Taureia was out again today, eating grits (with sugar and oil; the body is obviously craving calories but that is a very unwise choice), and Chaos 0 showed up ghosting to ask her to stop, please, telling her that "this has consequences" and that the body was going to get very sick when she was done, as it always does from sugar and oil, as it has been proven time and time again for years now.
Her response?
"I'll never stop. This is all there is. There's nothing after."
APPARENTLY, for socials like her who ONLY come out in certain situations, they LITERALLY CANNOT FATHOM THE CONCEPT OF "CONSEQUENCES" because, as far as their memory and experience says, their current situation is ALL THERE EVER WAS AND ALL THERE EVER WILL BE.
So Taureia will eat enough food to suffocate a body without realizing that it will, solely because she's ONLY ever fronted to EAT. She's NEVER seen or known or felt what her actions DO to the body.

There's still 10 more days in the month until we get paid, and 5 days until Mason & Ollie get paid, so we have like... $100, maximum, for the next week. Which is totally fine, AS LONG AS WE RESPECT THAT.
All our eating-disorder-suffering socials need to realize that their actions are hurting OTHER people OUTSIDE of the System, if they can't realize yet that their actions are and have always hurt the System and our shared body as well.
On that note! Chaos was telling Taureia that, too. "You're eating too much, and you're eating things that make us sick, and that's very unkind/ abusive/ etc. to the rest of us that share this body."
Her response? "You don't share this body, I'm the only one in it."
"Right now, yes, but when you leave, other people live in it, and what you do to it now is going to affect them too."
I think her response was the infamous social reply of "no it won't, because I'm the only one doing this/ They don't have to do what I do/ etc." Not realizing that they don't exist in a vacuum, not realizing that the body EXISTS, and can be AFFECTED by what they do.
However, Chaos told her to stay, and she did-- and suddenly, violently, the body couldn't tolerate her actions anymore. It started hiccuping, our stomach began to hurt, the nausea and pain slammed back into us, and she was NOTABLY confused and scared, "why is this happening, this doesn't make sense," etc. She forced down the rest of the food, while telling Chaos "this shouldn't be happening," visibly shaken. She began to be pushed out of fronting almost immediately, and the next thing I remember is TOBIKO hunched over the toilet, vomiting it up. "Get the poison out." She's so calm about it, in a sad way. Like Ohmiette. Geez. Poor kids. But they've saved our lives so many times before. Tobiko quite literally. E.D. socials don't realize that food can kill us, if eaten wrongly. The ones that used to eat enough sugar to put us into shock, or who used to eat out of the garbage or trash heap, or who used to eat foods that our body straight up could NOT tolerate for medical reasons, or who used to eat enough to cause pain so severe we thought we would die... NONE of them gave ANY thought TO those consequences, because they "DON'T EXIST" IN THOSE CONSEQUENCE SITUATIONS.

I like not having cash though. I LIKE not giving those poor toxic-but-healing-gradually socials (and they ARE) any dangerous wiggle room to make bad choices, when they buy things based on fear or obligation or compulsion or concept or ignorance in any other sense. I know they're trying. I know they're only doing what they think is right, what WAS right for them up to this point, in the sense of "right" meaning "matching their function," and their functions being how they helped us survive at some point, even if both that function and the survived situation were both horrifically toxic as well. But they ARE healing. I've seen it. I know it will continue. But, we have to be prudent. Until they learn and grow more, they cannot be trusted with money. And as long as they keep shoving us out of fronting due to "survival panic," then NONE of us can have more than a minimum amount of cash on hand at all times.
On another note, I like... "relying" on Oliver and Mason for food and care. It's making us less secretive, more trusting, more open and honest, less panicky, less demanding, less compulsive. It's a VERY needed step in our healing process. We just have to continue to be patient and loving, and teach the socials how to do so.
I was telling Oliver that last night. Our socials, for the most part-- which is scary-- DON'T KNOW HOW TO LOVE. I am dead serious. Since they had to survive in environments where love and affection and softness and closeness were downright condemned and rejected and punished and vilified, their functions quite literally warped to NOT be loving. Which, again, is terrifying, but it CAN CHANGE. Look at Julie. Look at the Jessicas. Look at Jason, even. And so many others, too, are learning! I see it every day, even in tiny glimpses. Even today, with Taureia. She, for a moment, LEGITIMATELY realized that her actions ARE affecting others, and that is the first step towards learning empathy, and care, and compassion, and healing. Like Eleanor in The Good Place! She spent her WHOLE LIFE being brutally selfish and once she got to heaven and GRADUALLY started to care for others, to see the good in them, to see them as just as worthy as being cared for as herself, well... then she gradually began to release her toxic behavior and BE the truly good person she ALWAYS had the ability to be at heart. So it is with our socials.
Love is key. Love is ALWAYS the key.
But... you'll notice, Eleanor needed to be cared for first. She had to learn what love felt like, from others, even in tiny ways.
Our socials need to BE LOVED before they can ever truly give love to others. Which means that if we slack off in that, if we let them continue their complex and painful and globally vital healing processes alone, struggling and unsure, they won't get very far. Nor will any of us, as we are all in this together, as literally and intimately as possible. What one does affects the all. What one feels affects the all. This is EVERYONE'S battle, and we ALL know that brute force is useless here. Our toxic homestead proved that. Years of internal wars proved that. Laurie can tell you all about beating swords into plowshares, and this is why. The ONLY way our socials are going to heal, and all of us with them, is if we HELP them, by loving them unconditionally, and guiding and supporting and caring for them through this, IN this, actively, as much as we possibly can.
The signs in the kitchen are helping. Everyone who ghosts is helping. Every little reminder that "hey, you're part of a System!" helps. Every sudden calling to someone inside helps, even Mason saying the name of a different Laurie and immediately catching the attention of ours.
And yes, the socials fight. They fight hard, tooth and nail, driven by anger and indulgence and selfishness and uncaring. They don't see any further than their own faces. They don't love yet. But love is the core of ALL existence, them included, and so it is INEVITABLE that they WILL learn how. We just have to help them in that. We have to TEACH them, by giving an example, by EXPLAINING ourselves. You can't just tell an E.D. social to stop eating, or to eat, or to drink, or to stop drinking, or any other thing, if they genuinely think you are HURTING them. If they exist because their disordered behavior was a SURVIVAL method at some point, however twisted, then trying to stop them cold turkey is going to fail spectacularly. No, you have to show them the big picture, explain the situation, the source and the consequence and the present effects, you have to give them alternatives, you have to listen to their needs, you have to work WITH them. Sometimes you have to let them learn by experience. It's a messy process, it takes time, and it's scary. But it is mandatory for our healing. It is the most important thing we can do right now. And it will ONLY succeed if we do it with love.
I cannot emphasize that enough.

Now, it's almost 4am and we only have 3 hours until Oliver comes home but we're wide awake and I just... I miss this, desperately. I miss this so much. I miss typing, and reading, and existing in these early hours. Listening to music and forgetting about daily life when the sun rises.
I've discovered an album called "A Trip to Soda Island" and it is utter perfection. It predominantly has that chill-sweet vibe that we adore, perfect for reflective typing and deep mental relaxing, and it's so nice. It feels like early morning sunlight, or late night starlight. Both at once.
And then of course, there's a few tracks with sheer black buzzing synths and that just makes that phrase even more applicable, haha.

I'm looking forward to the morning though.
I know Mason is cooking. We won't touch anything on our own; we're tired of fighting after today. We're going to relax and not worry and enjoy everything we're blessed to be able to participate in. Practice letting go of control-panic, the fear that if we aren't directing the situation, someone's going to hurt us. Not anymore! Ironically, it's currently the opposite. We need to let go and let love in. Just learn to relax, to live life without feeling like there's a countdown timer on every minute. We don't get that at night, which is why we need to get locked into this computer earlier than midnight for heavens sakes.
But there's another time that time becomes blissful, and that's when we're just lying together with the Broken Arrows. Either late at night, or early in the morning. And-- what a profound blessing-- we get to experience the latter every single morning. EVERY morning. No matter what, we get to lie in sheer perfect sunlit peace with a fellow System who adores us, not needing to go anywhere or do anything, not needing to be anything or say anything. All we have to do is be love, be ourselves. All we need to do is lie there tangled up in each others arms and legs and hearts and just rest. Just breathe, and sleep, and be. Life, pure and simple. We need it like the very blood in our veins.

Our body still feels somewhat sick. We know it's half from poor food choices, half from stress. But this too shall pass, a phrase which we adore and forgot about, but which we need to remember always, in good and bad times. Everything is both finite and infinite. Death makes life precious. Life makes death precious. Dear Lord I miss typing like this. But I need to stay myself, too. The old "LJ typer" girl keeps wanting to front instead, but she unfortunately is infamous for never truly feeling the depth of things. She, like Ahrima, will talk up a storm with pretty words and "what you're supposed to say," fooling everyone but those who can feel their motivations. And I will not condemn them, either. That's their function. But they, too, need to learn how to feel true empathy and love and care for others. So many of us don't, it's honestly frightening to realize. But that's my job. I'm the Core; my literal function is to love.
We have so many entries due to be written, honestly. They need to happen, inbetween archiving nights. Even if we just type on our phone. We need to continue to entwine headspace with bodyspace. The two need to become united, wed, harmonized. That's the only way any of us will ever be able to truly live here or anywhere. THAT'S how we'll ALL learn how to truly love-- by learning to truly love this physical form and world as well as our inner universe. They were never mutually exclusive, and my heart breaks to realize how we would have sworn they were for years, due to being lied to.
But we know the truth. We feel it deeper than any falsehood can ever reach.

That's all I have to say for tonight. Ollie will be home in about a half hour, and we don't want to waste any time in joining them.
See you all later today. We love you.

 

 

 

First off, massive apologies for the last entry. I'm learning to use the vitriol for the vitriol, as it were.
In the past I would never express that stuff because I was ashamed of it, and still am to an extent. It's tarry-black stuff, it hurts, and I'm sorry that it's in me to feel in the first place. But I need to let it out, look at it, understand it, forgive it, let it go. It's a process. I miss doing that sort of work, actually. So that mindset is directly in my awareness now and my current main goal is to heal it entirely. It's one of the oldest ones, evidently, so it'll likely be our main therapy topic too for a while.

Synchronicity is everywhere. Still a lot of deer everywhere, fittingly, as that message is still relevant. LOTS of alchemy, lots of quotes, everything in church as usual... I saw 11:11 for the first time in days today, "pay attention to your thoughts." There's been a lack of nasty floating voices lately, thank God. And the guidance is nonstop, quiet but always there, if my ears are open. I'm following it. I'm being brave, it's tricky, but I've been told VERY loudly lately that our System IS NEEDED, that it is rather VITAL to the evolution of my consciousness, no matter how bitter I may feel towards it on my worst days. So therapy is tomorrow and I am glad.
There ARE at least 3 people in the System that feel "new" (they were triggered, I've seen them) but they're all currently 'unreachable' as a result of the distance. We'll see if we can find them in the near future.

I went over my bro's apartment today, it was lovely. Walking in the door was when it hit me that I didn't hate either him or his girlfriend at all, and it hurt to think I had thought so negatively of them the day before.
My bro is still working on his incredible theories for this story he's reading (we were chatting quantum physics in light of this for a while) and his gf was giving me healthcare advice for after my surgery, which was a big help.
They have a cat now, did I tell you? She's a Maine Coon, lovely little thing with gorgeous eyes like jade orbs. Her name is Mooka McGonagall which is fantastic.

I'm a little stressed today because surgery is on Wednesday, and I really dislike those antibacterial wipe things they have you use the night before, and I'm still a bit shaken up because why did the mesh move, etc. I'm meditating whenever I think of it as a result, accepting this and reminding myself that this has its purpose too, I'll live, it'll all work out.

I've been listening to this song on loop for three days because it sounds like Infinitii and it is all too fitting.
I'm designing a plush pattern for hir too, it's in the development/testing phase right now. I've never done this before so it's experimental. It's also rather frustrating, solely because my hands are so rough that they fray the thread whenever I touch it. So I have to use gloves to stitch!
But I love hir, I love hir so much, every time I go on hir blog I end up laughing and crying, it hits me right between the ribs and it rings like a bell. Ze has never left me, not once. Ze is protecting me a lot lately. We're talking again, I don't hate hir. There's so much to say but words aren't working at this hour.

Speaking of love... Chaos 0 found me today. Synchronicity is back full-blast for him again as a result; it usually is (it's shocking how much of it he's always brought with him really). He's been angry with me for a while now, and I've been feeling negatively towards him for a while now, and I didn't even understand why. Again, the previous entry helped me get a better grip on that. (We discussed it briefly and he clearly understands that I feel smothered and we're working on it. He doesn't demand anything, he's just a very sentimental individual and we're not sure how to balance our unique emotional expression styles yet.) But I never give up, that's my blessed curse, never losing hope. I kept looking for him again, as I felt nothing saying "no" to that action... on the contrary I was feeling nudged to do just that, to look, to reach. Like it our not I feel almost indebted to him, not as an obligation, but as a choice almost. It's like an honest but strange devotion, a promise, a commitment... fittingly so, I daresay. So I bit my tongue and I did reach out to him again, deliberately, genuinely. And this afternoon he responded, as bluntly honest and emotionally loud as ever. I can't paraphrase because the data isn't stored literally, but he was highly upset that I was avoiding him, abusing myself, and generally slacking off big-time on my spiritual health because of doubt and self-rejection. Of everyone upstairs, he is probably the most opposed to my behavior in that respect-- even moreso than Laurie and Infi. And it is because, unlike them both, CZ has seen me struggle up to this point. He's known me longer than either of them, he knows how I was starting from the ground up and he knows just how much work has brought us to where we are now. He knows the true me, as a result. He knows just how bright I can be, and am, now. And he loves me, whether I accept/understand that or not. So he refuses to let me hold myself to any standard lower than that.
Again, that's part of why I've been avoiding both him and the System. They love me too much. They love me so damn much that they will not tolerate my lingering self-hatred. But it's old and sticky and black and it's hard to let go of as a result, even though I am legitimately trying to. Problem is, I haven't realized until now that maybe I need someone else to help me get this off of me. All my life I felt I had to be absolutely self-sufficient, invincible, omniscient, et cetera. I was not allowed to be weak, or wrong, or ask for help. Except I am. And accepting that is a fragile dance, small steps, with someone else supporting me lest I trip on these legs not used to walking in this way. Maybe that's another big lesson of this surgery! It feels like it, actually. Which is good, we're learning.

I got two new typecode symbols done (Cloud and Edible). It's nervewracking though because digital art programs are tricky and I keep having to re-do whole steps, and also because of eyestrain. I'll have to work smarter.

Last thing as it's getting late. Eating disorder stuff. I was admittedly stress-eating today (just vegetables, but still) and I paused, feeling that stress entirely and searching for the roots. I remembered how stress goes to the teeth, then I remembered how my teeth were the only "weapon" I had in traumatic situations that was never taken from me. Even with my arms and legs bound, I never had my teeth suppressed. I could bite, I could fight back. It seems that is why they became the stress reaction. And I think that's why the ED happened, because for us food and fullness have been tied to sexual trauma, or at least the energy of it, and maybe the fact that we don't want to eat anything, just bite, shows that we are projecting. I think I've said this before. I'll check tomorrow. But it's the thought that the biting and "destroying" of food is lingering trauma residue, a need to express our anger and rage and sorrow and confusion at not having been able to prevent the initial traumatic event. So until we work through that on its own, we will seek relief through the teeth in this way. Does that make sense? It's not just the purgation drive.
Oh. We almost lost Tobiko, her anchor slipped massively and I had to find her today. Wreckage thanked me for it. All those damaged alters need new healthy anchors, we need to start doing that one on one ASAP.

Today (tomorrow, until I sleep and reset) is going to be hectic. I have therapy, I have to shop for food to store because I won't be able to drive now for at least a month, I might drop in to get bloodwork done, I have to stop at a library, and my old violin teacher passed away today so I need to attend her wake. I don't remember her, but I remember what she allowed to bring into my life-- the warmth, the joy, the inspiration-- and I will never forget it. I send her all my prayers, and thank her for her life.


I need sleep. I had to sleep an extra 3 hours this morning, this body's been so tired. Little steps.
If I don't see you before surgery, do wish me well!

 

 

Anonymous asked: When you meet someone for the first time, how do you go about explaining to them what D.I.D. is and about the other alters? Would you do this right off the bat to get it out of the way?

This is something we’ve actually never done before, actually. For most of our collective life, safety and psychological survival depended on not telling anyone. So we ended up with a lot of “disconnected splinter alters,” basically robots who didn’t know or care about the rest of us, and functioned only to be the expected smile-and-nod.
In recent weeks life has become too overwhelming to stay hidden anymore, for various reasons. We’ve currently told two people outright that we have D.I.D., one being a doctor and the other being a family member (the latter having been unexpected, the result of an unannounced and undeniable alter fronting).

Also we don’t meet people very often, if at all. Social contact is extremely difficult and often triggering for us, so leaving the house is tough enough without having to converse with someone, sadly. Nevertheless, in an optimal situation, we would definitely say we had D.I.D. right off the bat— not to “get it out of the way,” per se, but because withholding that truth automatically forces us to lie about 95% of our entire life. We’re sick and tired of having to do that, to be blunt.

 

Still, even if we cannot answer this question, it is very valuable food for thought and we thank you for that.

 

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

 

@ 11:58 pm

 

 

Last night was really interesting. (Dating this entry for that, not today-- I tried to type last night but the laptop kept crashing.)
Yesterday we unexpectedly ran into a few more things we cannot eat without terrible pain-- sadly that's what often happens when Emmett doesn't front.

(VERY sick, all day. don't remember much as a result.)
(got to the point where at midnight i had to get up and walk, just to relax. head was a mess, fuzzy and loud and bad. so i tried to calm down. laurie showed up, asked if i was okay. i noticed she was incredibly clear visually, told her so, then decided i'd go upstairs too. i sat down to her left and i remember i wasn't looking at her at first, i was struggling to figure out how to express emotions. she put an arm around my shoulders as i did, i remember actually leaning against her shoulder as i continued trying to talk, didn't think anything of that action at the time as it was just a natural expression of both emotional exhaustion and trust.)
(lynne walked in a few minutes in, she was wearing her flowy nightgown-pajama getup as usual. she sat on another couch slightly across from us, angled to the right. i'm glad she showed up; she's been around just as regularly as laurie lately which is great)
(anyway i ended up talking to headspace people for a solid hour, first time we've done that in a few weeks)

(atrium room? open roof. shiny floors, lynne joked about that. to our left, big glass wall, showed forest outside. there were circular little lights in the ceilings, i turned them down lower, then turned them out entirely, said the bright light didn't feel right at that hour. i was wondering what sort of light would work, said lanterns might. asked lynne to make some. she asked if she could, i said yeah, everyone in headspace post-december had 'creation abilities' or at least the total potential to. so lynne made these big floating paper lanterns-- the spherical kind, all warm orange light. they were like 12 inches across. we had them float up in the air above us. i remember how amazing it was seeing how different they both looked in the lower warm light, images were really clear. laurie also made her own lantern, it was violet of course. oh yeah the three of us also 'manifested' energy differently, like when we called something into tangibility it was a totally different style and vibe for each of us. i'll have to make note of that phenomenon later as i see it happen; i don't quite remember it now)
(we ended up talking, forget about what, but a noteworthy topic was how i kept dissociating, had trouble feelings things and being a direct person, etc. old stuff but still happening. i think i was in tears because i said i felt 'cut off' from the rest of them sometimes, being the only person charged to be in the body as much as possible, what with the core bloodline and all. it got confusing and it was a real struggle some days. at one point lynne moved her seat over in front of me and began talking to me, very sternly but with real compassion, about that-- saying that everyone in the spectrum loved me just as much as i loved them, and as far as they were concerned, i was not 'separate' at all even if i was the core, so to speak. i was just another dude in the system, and i was just as worthy and meaningful and great as everyone else to everyone else. that meant so much to hear. either way lynne actually teared up too? i remember her wiping tears out of her eyes. that struck me because she usually has level enough emotions to not need to cry. i think she also hugged me. that whole conversation with her was very significant)
(I know for a FACT that infinitii showed up at some point around here, i heard hir call me from hir bubble and was going to go into it, when infi noticed i was preoccupied and came down into the room instead. i ended up embracing hir rather ardently when ze first appeared, quietly though, i was overwhelmed and sad by the day's events and infi always brings out that sort of reaction in me, it was cathartic really. i think i spoke to hir by myself for a bit, we made sure the both of us were okay, no threats or anything, and then infi decided ze'd stick around. so ze sat to my left on a bubble-chair sort of thing ze manifested, talked to the three of us for a while, it was really great.)
(there was also some sort of joke on infi's part; i was saying how i just couldn't fully stabilize into a human form, kept trying to look a bit more alien. laurie said that was fine, no one was going to judge me, i could look however i felt. i wondered aloud if i'd end up looking anything like infi. ze laughed at that, said ze wouldn't recommend it, as i'd "have trouble walking with [these] feet," and lifted one leg in an almost pinup-like style to show hir infamous needle feet. i laughed and asked how ze did walk with those then? like i knew ze couldn't figure out walking with human feet, how did hir weight carry normally? infi said ze'd show me, linked me into hir body awareness and then got up and walked a bit. now that was cool, also weird as heck; infi doesn't quite carry weight in the way most physical things do! ze's somewhat 'floaty' in that sense; hir entire makeup is black energy of course, so it has tangible substance, but it doesn't really pay much attention to gravity in and of itself. hard to explain; it feels almost "expectant," like it's this totality of form all just held there, in that space. actually that works! it's like it's in space. it still has weight, but it's floating in that held spot. anyway that's why there's no superdense pressure in infi's feet. geez love why are you so impossible to put into words)
(leon and nat walked in at one point, both also in sleepwear, nat's is so similar to his normal outfit it took me a second to notice which was funny. leon was barefoot too. they only meant to stop in for a minute but they ended up being there for quite a while)
(lynne had them both make lanterns too, leon didn't think he could at first but nat reassured him. leon's looked so pretty (indigo light!) that we temporarily turned all the lanterns in the room indigo for a minute. that made everyone's colors look really weird, haha. also nat laughed at lynne about the lights, and him being a moth, ultimately he actually flew up to them for a minute, they were both cracking up.)
(by this point they figured they'd stick around so they jokingly asked "what's the topic" and lynne mentioned the problems i was having with self-worth and identity in the system. in response i clearly remember leon talking very sincerely to me about that, again words are not available as data but the feeling is there. he said i meant a lot to him, especially since i was the only person to say he deserved another chance at life back in 2010. but he reassured me that no one thought of me any less. nathaniel spoke up when he was finished, i know he didn't say much, but i remember how he was once the body's reflection holder so he was familiar with a lot of the old struggle. the thing i remember him doing is making a heart-shape with his hands, over his own chest, and smiling at me. he said to "remember that." again the impression was to remember self-love as well as love for others, sorry it's hard to put all this into text. but the two of them did help a lot)
(leon and nat were tired and were trying to go to sleep but kept getting caught up in conversation, wondering 'should we just sit down already or not,' then when they finally decided to leave, suddenly jo and wally appeared in the doorway and asked what was going on in there. we thought this was hilarious)
(we jokingly 'telepathically' checked on javier around here, he wasn't asleep yet but it was close. he laughed when he heard what was going on, said he might have to join in. i said he didn't have to if he was tired. somehow he ended up mentally telling leon to go to sleep, as we mentioned that, everyone ended up laughing. but at that nat and leon did leave, we all wished them well)
(jo and wally were hovering around the doorway for a bit (wally also referenced the "princess of chairs" injoke for some reason, laurie laughed out loud at that), we asked why, they said they weren't sure if they were interrupting anything. we said no, but then jo said he'd sit down except that infi was there, and he'd never really dealt with infi's energy in a room before (it forces people to be more open and 'quiet,' instead of brightly energetic). somehow he decided he'd join us anyway, sat down directly across from infi actually, to laurie's right. the conversation was a bit awkward at first because he was really kind of moody and touchy at first? wally was being a bit pushy, but playfully so, except jo reacted angrily to that, they almost ended up bickering. it reminded me of genesis, what with that sort of fiercely independent streak, i mentioned that to jo. said it was kind of a 'yellow' thing, at least in that saturated a hue. however the sort of aggressiveness he was showing felt like more of a tar thing. we figured that was because it was late, and the subconscious gets really powerful late at night, hence the hack threats and slippage. so we just all decided to be extra careful. jo apologized, as did wally, we said that was okay, but we were all a bit shaken then, it's always creepy when people start acting instinctively.)
(somehow that uneasy intro ended up letting jo open up rather quickly, i think it was just the emotional whiplash so to speak. again not sure how it built up to it, but he said he was kind of angry because he and wally were out of the loop again? and he wanted to be, he was tired of getting the tail ends of conversations and things. he continued on this for a bit, then at some point somehow segued into the fact that he hadn't forgiven himself for how he met cannon in 2010. i was surprised, i said i never held that against him, there wasn't even a memory of it for me. my literal first impression of jo was seeing him standing next to laurie after all that, that's the only data i have. i asked him if he remembered the pseudo-hack he was blaming himself for, he said no, that was mutable space so he had no concrete recollection either. but he felt terribly guilty because he knew how that sort of thing felt, and how terrifying hacks were, etc. so having been part of something similar was really eating away at him. i actually felt a sort of visceral rage bubble up at that, not from me but from the people who hold that, not wanting to forgive simply because they were feeling nothing but pain. that scared me, i'm still not sure how to properly deal with them as i get overwhelmed. but i reassured jo that it was okay now, i didn't tie him to that, it was in the past, it was okay. the whole time waldorf was rather surprised too, she had said "you still haven't forgiven yourself for that?" at the start, like they had discussed this on their own.)
(at the end of all that jo was angry-sad and ended up half-demanding where julie and spine were, the other two that were often missing from conversations. lynne looked notably pained upon realizing spine hadn't been around, but i think one of us actually called for julie then? we put the intention out in any case.)
(forgive me if this next bit is blurry; the later it got the tougher it got to keep things stable so memory is off)
(either way, julie did end up walking in, from outside actually (back behind infi there was a door). she seemed really sad? she stopped at the entrance, laurie actually stood up in surprise first, we didn't expect her to show up there. we called her over, i remember laurie hugged her, i think they talked for a bit too. but then julie started talking to lynne and i, i think? she talked a lot, that i can tell you; she was very emotionally upset and wanted to express her thoughts.)
(i remember infi was comforting her at one point, they were talking rather familiarly as they did so, it suddenly hit me that 'wait a minute weren't they technically 'dating' at one point?' but i had to smile, it was a really genuine caring between then which i always love seeing in others. textbook pink energy, the real kind)
(something REALLY WEIRD happened around here?? everyone noticed that i couldn't talk without dissociating, and physical contact even upstairs was pushing me into danger zones. i said it was freaky because i felt people being 'triggered' even then, as anchor resonance, didn't know how to deal with that. laurie and julie wanted to see what happened, for their own individual reasons obviously. i said the kind of contact changed the trigger, so i asked laurie to kind of push me, like it was a joke. she was hesitant to do so, but did. immediately the reaction was matching-- since it was 'a joke,' the person triggered was jezebel, who acts with that sort of attitude (hard to put into words? like when people pull really dangerous pranks, or think hate jokes are funny, pushed up to 11. it's a sort of "i'm better than you, so abusing the shit out of you is fun to me" extreme stance), and who apparently can be triggered through me if we're not careful. shockingly, the second her energy was superimposed over mine, julie tried to grab it. this shocked me back in totally, julie got mad, told laurie to push me again. she did, jezebel snapped right back with the intent to start a brawl (again, with the "legitimately grinning as i strangle you" feeling; just hit me that the word is schaudenfreude), but julie was quick, grabbed her by the shoulders and literally ripped her out of my energy field. that was really strange visually-- her aura was a sort of blackish brown, and really 'unstable' around the edges, like someone layered lines of white ink over each other messily. when julie tossed her out, laurie was in shock that it was her, everyone grabbed their weapons straightaway. she melted into tar almost immediately and reared up huge, i got scared for a second, but then infinitii jumped up just as intimidating with hir wings. there was a second of charged silence and then they both jumped in attack at once, but infi wasn't fighting ze was trying to swallow all the tar energy so 'jezebel' (who is the tar in a physical form) would have to reform elsewhere, leaving us alone. needless to say ze won, but had to go into hir bubble to transmute all that i think? i really don't remember, i'm sorry. ze wasn't in there for too long though)
(there was some reference to jo being the old "id reaper," i think he said it himself, i remember him holding his scythe. julie told him to stick around because she said "we could really use one of those" in light of recent things.)
(anyway we ended up trying a different contact trigger, i forget what though? it was something neutral like a hand on a shoulder. but the reaction was rabid and i couldn't even hold up-- it triggered wreckage and she flat-out SPRANG out of my energy field to face julie, like she literally jumped out of my aura like it was a warpgate and entered the room. she was vicious as hell at first, snarling at julie, then stopped suddenly. she looked really confused and discombobulated. also her physical form wasn't stable, it felt blurry, colors were off. then i noticed she had a tail, that wasn't right. i called her out on it, she noticed and actually quickly apologized. her energy field wavered massively for a second, then split entirely in half. now she was standing there looking fine, but SPINE appeared next to her, looking as if she was about to collapse from exhaustion. lynne jumped up and caught her, eased her over to the couch next to her, we all asked what the heck just happened?? she said she had felt a trigger threat inside, from our level, but in order to 'jump up to it' and go through the body she HAD to move with spine, who was tied to the body still. again i don't know how to put into words. she apologized though, especially to spine. however she ended up "snapping back" to her own chthonic level and practically blinking out of the room, because she had been 'trigger summoned' if you want to call it that; she couldn't stick around unless she really focused to and she hadn't been doing that.)
(as you can guess stuff was very weird around now. jo had been very shaken up by that, also julie, who was in tears shouting at the rest of us after that, "why are triggers still that severe," she was heartbroken that the pink energy was still being mangled even if it wasn't as blatant as it had been before.)
(jo and wally left around here, they were really worn out and headspace was getting fuzzy anyway)
(lynne and spine were talking for a bit? it's so great to hear and see spine talk, she used to be so quiet. lynne was really doing everything to comfort her, it was touching. i know the conversation there was actually partly me apologizing, not realizing how spine was affected by switching and things, i was really sorry as i cared for her a lot too. but that talk ended well, although there was a sort of nervous scared charge in the air, we were holding on to trust in each other though. lynne said she was going to take spine to their room and they were just going to sleep this off, we wished them well.)
(i cannot remember what exactly happened here, just me julie laurie and infi, i know we talked but i cannot tell you about what. however the atmosphere obviously changed entirely, the four of us tend to be more introspective and emotionally charged than the others in central)
(infi also had to enclose hirself in a bubble at this point, ze was getting 'giddy' thanks to the time, but that can easily turn into massive danger zone. so ze was just trying to calm down and keep everyone else safe.)
(do not ask me how, but cz showed up??? and that was bizarre because HE was slipping thanks to the headspace energy, and almost immediately infi actually leapt out of hir bubble and declared that 'that wasn't him' or something? and immediately forced cz to 'split' like julie had done with me earlier. and he DID split into two people-- the one being his 'Perfect' self but in a body close to his normal one. that was so weird and scary, but even worse that total cognitive dissonance almost caused a BLUESCREEN. stuff totally glitched out and tried to 'reset,' the environment collapsed and we ended up in whitespace. we took a minute to regroup, everyone but me & infi had some time lag too. but then we wondered, where do we go, what now, and actually julie was the one to act, sent us into a 'pink realm' which i didn't know was even a thing? i felt our position in space warp and then we ended up in some lovely sunset place, in what was like a big gazebo or pagoda, cherry trees everywhere. and the other pink people were there, knife was standing on the steps near us and turned around, shocked to see us.)
(julie tried to quickly explain what was up, but really i was having a hard time seeing or hearing at all at this point, everything was like a jumbled mess of color and shape. also cz hadn't followed us there, he had gone back to our room in central (or wherever it technically is now), laurie said. no one said anything about him because obviously no one knew what the heck had just happened, really i was shaken up, i didn't realize that was a thing that could happen. unfortunately i haven't looked into that since then, i'll have to tomorrow)
(jeremiah and sugar and mulberry were there, only ashen wasn't. knife said that was because she is still totally chthonic, the people there typically don't leave that space. everyone was mostly talking to julie, infi was staying by me, we were both kind of nervous because we react badly to headspace instability, as we're tied to that energy and so we can slip very badly and honestly we were both close to that point. laurie was kind of shifting her attention between us and everyone else, trying to get a hold on the whole situation. jeremiah spoke to me briefly? and i remember sugar doing something like lightly tapping me on the head with one of her cane swords, like a kind admonishment of sorts. she looked stern but concerned.)
(i remember telling laurie i felt a mess, after julie finished talking i think we either went back to the room from before, or i had to unplug from headspace (the house was getting noisy around then, yes at 1am). either way headspace was really a mess at that time i had no idea what was happening or why. i was sad i couldn't stick around more-- even if the night had been shaky at the end i really loved seeing everyone and the sincerity of the whole hour had stayed with my heart very strongly.)
(minty checked on me before i went to sleep, the bear was fighting off shadows momentarily? he insisted he was fine though, it literally took him about five seconds then he walked over closer to say a few words to me personally.)

(today genesis was around mostly, trying to keep me stable, i was still recovering and a bit dissociated. body was weak and still a bit sick. spice showed up in the evening to prevent any eating troubles, i know i saw emmett and tobiko too, helping out. that was a huge relief.)
(also laurie ghosted for like a minute earlier, i had to toss something on the compost heap outside so i was running through the woods. the sun through the trees was super lovely, and i guess instead of just viewing it from upstairs laurie decided she'd join me. i literally did not realize until i 'felt' someone running to my left and noticed it was her, that was a shock! but it was nice, i really smiled at that.)
(lastly as you may have noticed, the victorian pink girl has tentatively chosen the name "ashen." every time i thought of her over the past week that name would come up, so we're using it for now. it may change, it may stick. but there it is.)


sorry for the stream-of-consciousness entry but that is the only way i can ever type these things.
now it is late and i am tired so i am going to sleep, good night everyone

 

 

 

 

 

r.i.p. ventrium.

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

i am so sorry i couldn’t say goodbye.

 

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

 

@ 12:55 am

 

 

today was very, very, very painful. weirdly

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

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

dont remember anything else until 6pm????

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

purging attempts around 10pm, couldnt help it.

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

HACK?????

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

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

garrison told me that ventrium died as a result

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

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

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

i am very tired and sad.



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

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

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

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

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

 

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

 

@ 10:04 pm

 

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

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

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

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

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


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

 

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

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



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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

Energy for headspace people!
Sight: What their energy field looks like, literally. (OR: a "realm-like" manifestation of their energy??)
Sound: New perception. Difficult to pick up on; indirect.
Smell: The 'vibe' of their energy; most easily perceived.
Touch: The actual physical 'feel' of their energy-- like touching their 'aura.'
Taste: New perception. Difficult to pick up on; indirect.
Vibe: The overall perceived effect their energy on their personal presence, especially in charged situations.


(UNFINISHED. Will add as I get information.)


SPINE HYPOMONE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Cool stone, a hint of cocoa or something?
Touch: Dry, but smooth; reassuringly solid yet not heavy. Like a bone.
Taste:
Vibe:

AIMEE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like something baking in an oven? Not bread! Comforting,
Touch: Soft but "primal?" Like minky or even chamois, but with a subtle gamey sort of heat to it.
Taste:
Vibe:

SPICE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Strong cinnamon, nutmeg, maybe clove? Very warm yet grounded, no 'pinch.'
Touch: Surprisingly sparked? Like little sharp pricks of heat?
Taste: Think pie spices, then crank it up to eleven. Warm and autumny, but hits like a punch to the mouth!
Vibe:

OVERLOAD
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch: Incredibly volatile base, like if you push a tiny bit too hard it will explode terribly.
Taste:
Vibe:

BRAXTON
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch: A small soft edge, but with a huge power underneath it.
Taste:
Vibe:


JAVIER ANASTASI
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Cloves?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:


PREVIOUS J (SPLINTERED INTO EROS)
Sight: Deep red-velvet waves; flows like heavy satin. Has an 'unseen' glow like an ivory candle. 'Sparkly' thin edge, like a glitter-glass ornament
Sound: Subsonic: a soundless hum that resonates in the chest; almost rhythmic, like heart energy, but unbroken. Has an oddly Nier-like, rich symphonic feel despite this.
Smell: Like fire,
Touch: Intimately warm, has a sort of gentle 'pull' to it
Taste: Rich like warm raspberry sauce, but with a dense 'sorbet' texture? Non-sugary sweetness.
Vibe: Emotionally close, compassionate, soft. Limitless but not oppressive. Powerfully protective yet tranquil; like being embraced by a winter fireplace. Sunlit stained-glass.

RAZOR
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Blood and paper, very specific
Touch: Like the sharp, slick edge of a blade: on the boundary between safe/smooth, and slicing your hand open. Gives you chills.
Taste: Like a wound? Hot with an edge of blood but that's not prevalent. Oddly sweet, but the sensation is unsettling.
Vibe: Oddly neutral, but with a nervous undertone on 'standby.'


LYNNE STABELLE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Violin rosin and burnished wood, like the inside of a violin
Touch: Heavy satin? Warm, but in a 'glowing' sense. Like a roll of it too?
Taste:
Vibe:

KALISHA
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Peach brandy?? Light scent but still notable.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

HYAKINTH
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Creamsicle and some sort of strong white flower?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

FIG
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Honey! Very heady, heavy sweet.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

ALGORITH
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Not much, mostly the 'flatness' of technology. Subtle scent of live machinery, like a hot computer tower.
Touch:
Taste: Warm metal with a vague aura of persimmon or something??
Vibe:

JOSEPHINA BELLAMEIRE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Bubblegum and brandy? Can't quite pick it up yet.
Touch:
Taste: Cane sugar with a bunch of either lemon (flavor, not citrus) or ginger? Cookie-sweet, but with a bright heat to it.
Vibe: City night-life lights, but unfocused;

SIMEON
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Something like custard or banana cream, but with nowhere near as much sugar?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:


MAVERICK
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Vague edge of cigarette smoke in fabric, NOT like my dad though. Think straight-up smoke.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

MARIGOLD
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Ragweed and marigold flowers, varies depending on mood?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

KARISSA
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Citrus? Like restaurant lemon???
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe: Sharp? Clean and small but cuttingly so.

NATHANIEL VICTOIRE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Mint (quiet, sweet, no bite) and forest shade. Slight fabric-esque hint?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

SERGEI
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Subtle sage smoke, undertone of something papery like thin tree bark
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

MINTY
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Mint tea and clothesline-aired plushie fluff. Happy and calming.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

EINSATZ
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch: Slight static pop?
Taste:
Vibe:

EMMETT
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a salad???? You silly snake.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

TOBIKO
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like seawater, either bad (brackish, slimy) or good (like a beach, salty with algae) depending on status
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

GARRISON
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a business suit or chair. Dude get some variety in there
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

KYANOS
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like clear cool sky, with a little tint of honey. Very light.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

WALDORF KALLIOPE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Oddly plastic or vinyl-like, but with some sort of happy heady blueberry-juice undertone?? Very 'subtle' despite its strength.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe: I'm getting an impression of a tangled knot of christmas lights, but immersed in jello or something. really odd.


MISSY
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Face powder, chokingly so, and lip gloss (strawberry? very artificial, generically 'sweet')
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

GENT
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a scarf? Odd to explain.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

NIENNA
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a jewelry box?? Not dusty, more like curtain fabric and silver?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

LEON KIASI
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Ice, with a vanilla undertone? Hard to get.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe: A nervous charge?

DAVID
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a kid's air-dried blanket, but also softly sweet? Not a bad smell at all, it's highly comforting.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

"AIRPORT"
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like an airport. Dead serious.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

LAURIE UBERICH
Sight: CHANGED: It's still halo-like, but its this intense condensed light, gold-white? Around her body I keep getting a feeling of flower petals or rose vines? not sure.
(Metallic? Broken into pieces somehow? Somewhat "radial," like a halo)
Sound:
(Somewhat dissonant, like angry church bells. Feels purposeful but pained.)
Smell:
(Blood, cold steel. Something in the background like antiseptic or a thunderstorm?)
Touch:
Sharp static "bite" at first, like barbed wire, but beneath is a solid, deep, "safe" feeling mass of energy? feels huge but reactive, like if you push too hard it'll detonate
Taste: Blood, but
(Blood again, very strong.)
Vibe:
(Overwhelmingly magnetic: black hole-grade intensity. Space 'compresses' to a dense space around her.)


CHRISTINA MARIE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like Sunday church in spring: daffodil-daisy flower bouquets and an afterthought of incense?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

ISADORA
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Grapevines?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

JULIE ENANTIOS
Sight: A layered pinkish-warm glow? Like a light orb shining through blankets. Moves languidly but not lazily. Egg-shaped?
Sound:
Smell: Roses, like the kind in the wild-- not heady at all, but sunlit and flowery light soft. Lovely really.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

SUGAR
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Something that pricks at your nose, like ice needles. Underneath, a light sweetness like
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

ASHEN
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch: Soft but terribly worn and thin, like old velvet curtains or something? Has a sense of pity but lingering loveliness to it.
Taste:
Vibe:

KNIFE
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Woodsmoke, with a deep aura-edge like blackcurrant wine or something
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

MULBERRY DELTA BRANDY
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch:
Taste: Mulberries: not overpoweringly sweet, and rather dry in a vaguely 'crisp' way
Vibe:

JEREMIAH
Sight:
Sound:
Smell:
Touch: Very soft and embracing, but closely small in the way a warm sweater is.
Taste:
Vibe:

EROS
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Cherry pie filling, not artificial. Very rich, not sugary sweet.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

SHERLOCK
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Like a library? Old slightly dusky paper, but with no musty or sweet tone. Also a clean cool metallic edge, but without any coppery 'bite.'
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

JAY IRIDOS
Sight: Vertically limitless? Like the "heaven" in Oneircia. All white and warmly bright, vaguely gold, lit with some gorgeously loving light from above, but not blinding at all. Oddly non-spacial? Despite looking solid it feels like nothing is really there, but the light. Sparkly and quietly iridescent; everything glitters.
Sound:
Smell: Snowy,
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

XENOPHON LEPHISE
Sight: Thick and violet-pink, wavy. Inner light, held within like a neon sign, but 'radiant' in the way heat radiates.
Sound: Like a wind chime or glockenspiel
Smell: Warm, slightly humid night air, with a light and delicate sweetness-- like blackberries or bluet flowers?
Touch: Dense but glowing, warm, gives like heavy water? 'Champagne bubbles' under the surface.
Taste: Blackberries, ice water, japanese ginger? Natural cool sweetness with an almost herbal edge?
Vibe: 'Summer night' humidity, but sparkling, like the stars are pure violet glitter; understated jubilant energy. Not overpowering-- more like thick sunlit crystal

MARKUS BARASHIR
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Dry heat, mocha, ice cubes.
Touch:
Taste: Sand?
Vibe:

RYMAN SAIKARAS
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Marshmallows and dark purple candle fire.
Touch:
Taste: Vanilla?
Vibe:

CHAOS ZERO
Sight: Like the underside of an ocean; glossy, brilliant blue and backlit? Translucent.
Sound: Dare-Gale; emotions played underwater. Highly resonant, like piano keys being dropped into liquid crystal. Echoing, heart-wrenchingly sincere.
Smell: Summer rain, ocean fog. Watery, but not cold or humid.
Touch: Misty, with a bright early-morning 'chill.' Heavy but weightless.
Taste: River water and diamonds
Vibe: Oceanic, flowing, all-encompassing; gentle and 'classy' but powerful. Incredibly deep but not suffocating. Surrounds him like a quiet galaxy. 'Neon glimmer' edge.

CELEBI
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Woodsy, but with a clean edge like fresh cut wet grass?
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

GENESIS APOLYMIS
Sight: 'Thin gold streamers,' moving upwards. Bokeh-like underglow.
Sound: Resonant, warm and deliberate like a golden bell.
Smell: Burnt sugar and ozone? Like butterscotch syrup over an open flame. Rich but not heady.
Touch: Charged like static, but 'sustained' like a plasma globe.
Taste: Warm cotton candy with a strong ginger-like kick? Has a caramelized but clean tint to it.
Vibe: Sharp, almost buzzing, but bright and optimistic.

INFINITII ETERNOS
Sight: A sort of vast shadowy expanse, infinite and star-specked, but with a brilliant light at its heart. The shadows are wispy and soft like clouds, and flow gently around the light. There is a sense of great space and yet incredible closeness; the light is warm and loving like a heart, but although the shadows are colder and thin, giving a feeling of endless vastness, their constant movement around that light keeps the love within them.
Sound: (like "lux aeterna?" choral? sustained, hugely echoic. numinous)
Smell: Cold night air, with a hint of mountain laurel (flowers and incense??)
Touch:
Taste: rich mouthfeel; taste is enigmatic.
Vibe: Like velvet or a silken shadow; limitless but soft and intimate. Embracing. VERY deep; you fall into hir really.

CHOCOLOCO
Sight:
Sound:
Smell: Dark chocolate, cacao nibs, dark coffee. Mostly rich and bitter, just a hint of dark sweetness to it.
Touch:
Taste:
Vibe:

 

 

 

 

I think I'm going to get an actual paper journal and start a daily log of sorts. It'll help with memory, for one-- it's very hard for me to keep track of things on my own, and I can't always get on this computer-- my current internet setup involves dragging my laptop into the kitchen (I don't have wifi and the only cable is in there), which then requires me to sit in an excruciatingly painful position at a corner desk until my battery dies. Needless to say I'm tired of it, so I might actually take a break from the internet entirely until April... we'll see.
In any case I need to start keeping more accurate records of our inner life. I love our System, even on its bad days, as you all know... and it's the little things, the details and the fragile moments, that we treasure the most.

Today, Javier let the cats in. He loves animals and randomly decided to come out for the first time in a while to greet them and let them in from the cold.

I forgot to tell you guys, on Thursday Knife actually tried singing a bit of this song (he loves SanteJazz) via channeling, the first time he'd ever attempted to do so, and it was one of the most uplifting things I've seen in a while. Also he hugged Infi at one point. And he wants a permanent Christmas tree somewhere in the new Underground (mostly above ground now!) because-- I don't know if I mentioned-- he spent weeks secretly making one for this past Christmas, as he loved the concept, and eventually didn't ever want to take it down. It's decorated in pink. I swear that man is too adorable for his own good.

I woke up suddenly at 7AM feeling utterly split in half. There was me-- Jay-- and then there was the girl, the cynical uncaring one, who lives in this body. We were both fronting completely, somehow, upon awakening, and I could barely keep my consciousness from slipping under the wheels of hers. I wanted to cry from the paralyzingly spiteful emptiness inside her mind, like old gray paint thrown onto the windowpanes, coloring our room like a storm hovering on the horizon. She felt like life had betrayed her, somehow, and she didn't want to wake up, and she didn't want to sleep, and she was miserable. I couldn't bear it; I couldn't stand the existential carelessness and the fact that it was making me forget who I was apart from it, that I was something apart from it.
All I remember is quietly crying for Infi, and holding hir in my arms as I tossed a robe over my eyes and tried desperately to fall back asleep.

Xennie came to church with me today, halfway through, as it was crowded and she couldn't find a place to sit next to me. Upon leaving she learned that she can't run about on her own when there are moving cars around-- she almost dashed into the path of one leaving the parking lot. I told her to hold my hand so she did, apologizing and shaken. I said it was okay, don't worry, just stay close to me and I'll make sure you're always safe. But it worried me, to see how she has this pent-up enthusiastic energy and wants to talk to me, and wants to run around and have fun with her other father for God's sake... but she only really sees me on Saturday evenings and that breaks my heart.
My biological father has been divorced for almost 7 years. I see him maybe 2, 3 times per month. And here, my baby girl is seeing me barely twice more at worst, and it wasn't until today that I saw how it was affecting her. Who the hell is raising her? I don't give a damn if my genetics aren't literally part of her, I really don't-- I've got a bloodline and if that's all I can see reflected in her then I will embrace that with all my heart because she STILL calls me her father and I will not, I will never deny her that, ever, ever again. But I'm not... I haven't been there for her. I want to be, God knows I want to me, but it is so difficult when I have to split realities to do so. It is so heartbreaking when I have to wear myself out in meditation for hours just to be with her in a way that doesn't subtract from the experience for either of us. And she's growing up, almost without guidance, thank heaven above that she has Laurie and all of headspace but I'm her FATHER, where the hell am I??
I'm sorry. That got unexpectedly emotional. But it's honest and I am leaving it there 100%.

I got a really bad burn on my left hand and arm yesterday after watching Donnie Darko and it was hilarious because I blanked out when I noticed it was burning, and that made it worse obviously. I was just glad at the time that I'm a champ at sensory dissociation so after the initial searing pain I managed to forget it was there for the next few hours despite the ignored signals making my brain feel all funny. Anyway my hand is fine now, but the arm burn is problematic to take care of because the skin is burnt off, and all I can do is wrap it with gauze really. Not sure why I'm telling you about this, maybe just because it's going to leave yet another scar on my arm. That arm is a mess by this point.

Donnie Darko. Geez. I've wanted to see that movie since high school and I finally did. No regrets, but here are some thoughts because I want to write about this before I forget (spoiler warning!):
■ The attitudes of everyone in the movie were actually painful for me to watch. I still have a hard time imagining that some high schools are apparently like that? So I blanked out quite a bit during the movie which was upsetting.
■ FRANK THE RABBIT ACTUALLY SOUNDS A LOT LIKE INFI AND IT MADE ME VERY FLUSTERED AT FIRST. (It's obviously not exact, but the unusual soft tone and that slightly dissonant echo are really close)
■ "Destruction is a form of creation." Hello CZ. I do like Donnie's response though: "They just want to see what happens when they tear the world apart. They want to change things." It sounded almost contradictory to me at first, but then I thought about my own life, and realized it's very true. You cannot build something new upon old rotted ruins. The foundation will crumble. Sometimes, to change things, you really need to tear things down to the ground-- to get every last scrap out of the dirt, to "destroy" the old and allow for something new, something better, to bloom. Again, that whole thing keeps making me think of Chaos and who he's been to both me and the System since 2003... even if I don't 'remember' most of it, there's this vibe about him that is basically a hurricane and a summer rain at the same time. He's water. He's simultaneously a source of life, soft and receptive and flowing and deep, and this force of total destruction... powerful, wild, and crashing down with unstoppable force, washing away everything in its path. But then comes the rain, and in that place where previously nothing could grow, now in the upturned mud and ashes there are flowers beginning to sprout. It's so strange, how he is perfectly both, but there it is, and I love that about him. I'll likely write more about this once I re-read the script, because when it's in front of me all at once I can find threads and parallels and things, and I'm curious to revisit how this theme plays out in the film... it basically defines the entire time-travel phenomenon with the tangent universe. To ensure creation, something is destroyed. It's really fascinating.
■ Also, actually, if you get to the heart of it, the whole spectrum of human emotion really does narrow down to Fear vs Love. But it does take a lot of narrowing-down (and too many people think "love" means "romance" which isn't true) so Donnie wasn't entirely incorrect. Fear and Love manifest in tons of different ways, and those ways can become so convoluted and so distant from their source that, in many cases, it's near-impossible to tell which is which on the surface. And I didn't like how Kitty didn't explain anything about that, just assumed everything was that black-and-white. Fear and Love are the deepest motivations, but they aren't that cut-and-dry, and Fear is very good at masquerading if you aren't looking carefully. Even so, I really, really liked how the Fear/Love thing ended up subtly being another massive undercurrent of the movie, at least from my perspective.
■ Major props to Donnie for standing up to Kitty (and everyone else really); I can't stand seeing teachers close their own minds, and/or abuse their authority over their students for the sake of defending their own pride and/or comfortable beliefs about life. Although Karen was a little distressing for me for personal reasons, I liked the way she asked questions, pushed limits, and made the kids think. I wish I'd had more teachers like that, haha.
■ In any case Kitty's class made me very uncomfortable (and not just because of the 80s aesthetics), as did Kitty herself, but I can't truly dislike the woman because she's trying to be a genuinely good person, she's just so single-minded about the process that she can't see outside of it and I just feel bad that she's forbidding herself from that broader vision. But really she reminds me a lot of some psychologically abusive people in my life so I can't defend her that much. Let's just leave her as-is.
■ In the director's cut, there's one bit when they're watching the Cunningham videotape and Donnie is getting distracted, but Frank says something along the lines of "watch closely; you might miss something important." I had to smile because that was just like what happens with me and headspace reminders. And I love the weird poem Donnie gives later, for the same reason... "A storm is coming, Frank says; a storm that will swallow the children, and I will deliver them from the kingdom of pain. I will deliver the children back to their doorsteps, and send the monsters back to the underground. I'll send them back to a place where no one else can see them, except for me... because I am Donnie Darko." I know it's relevant to the movie, but again, to me it was another massive reflection of headspace, and loudly so (just capitalize "Underground" for example). And I just treasure when things like that happen, both negative and positive, because the synchronicity speaks for all of us and it helps us grow, and being able to see reflections of us in everything else, despite all the self-doubt from past years, is really amazing.
■ The scene with Jim Cunningham also gave me a lot of mixed feelings. Again, I know what he was trying to say. But it was far, far too simplified, and I honestly doubt the man's understanding of love, what with what he was apparently doing behind the scenes. Regardless, his advice still had truth in it. "Violence is a product of fear; learn to truly love yourself." That is a truth I've had to learn the hard way, over many years, so believe me when I say that in this society it is MUCH easier said than done. Plus, we hear "love yourself" so often as a stock inspirational phrase-- one that has lost its actual meaning through repetition and incorrect context-- that I do not blame Donnie for getting pissed. He saw the practical side of things, which I commend him for bringing up, but he was also so pessimistic about the whole thing that he failed to see that Jim's advice, when looked at correctly, was still valid. It was just one half of the whole answer. But in the situation that was beyond his sight so again, I just thank the film for allowing the whole picture to still be visible there.
■ Also, some kid asks Jim "how do I figure out what I want to be when I grow up?" Again, Donnie is right in saying that no one knows that at their age, especially not all at once; it takes exploration and time... but in the director's cut, Jim replied to the kid first, and said something along the lines of, "find out what it is that makes you feel real unconditional love, and do that." And this light just went on in my head when he said that. Yeah, it's going to take time and trial and error, but honestly if your heart is singing to the tune of something then for heaven's sake, let it! It's damn scary sometimes, because maybe you don't know the words, or maybe you're too ashamed or frightened or proud or doubtful to join in, or maybe you've never been able to carry a tune before. All I can tell you is that if you trust that, even just a little, genuinely, and follow it... it will lead you in the right direction. Whatever it is. If Infi's taught me anything, it's that in surrendering to the music you become it, and that is such a transcendental feeling that once you actually touch it, even if only for a split second, you can't imagine ever turning your back on it again. And believe me, I've been there, and I've tried to run. I've gotten scared and I've tried to block my ears simply because I didn't believe I could sing at all, I didn't believe I had the right to hear this music, let alone become it. But my soul is made of sheet music and I always end up trying again. In fewer words, follow Jim's advice for this one, as well as Donnie's.
■ TIME TRAVEL. That whole bit was very interesting, but I didn't grasp it entirely the first time. I will have to review it again later if I feel inspired to. Even so I am fascinated by the entire causality scheme and the "Living Receiver" and all that, and I'm curious as to know how it works as a whole. I do like seeing other people's concepts and ideas about time and space and the like, especially in such creative formats.
■ Last reiterated thought for now. Even on a personally symbolic level, there was so much in this movie that paralleled headspace, or events that I've experienced as a result of it. So even if a lot of the movie was somewhat unsettling to me-- really I cannot handle violence or the way Donnie's classmates behaved and it was hard to watch at times-- it felt like another relevant thing, in this falling-back-together of things the System is experiencing now. Sorry I've fallen out of well-structured language with this rambling. Give me a moment.

I owe you guys a text wall like that about His Dark Materials but I'd need to either buy a copy, or take it back out of the library first, as I marked all the pages that had ideas or lines I wanted to revisit. Either way, I won't forget to write, if only for one reason.... I finished the last 100 pages around 1AM in my room, but it took a while to finish specifically because Chaos kept seeing parallels that I was missing and really he made some very significant insights about our situation especially... honestly I have a lot of emotions surrounding him specifically in light of the trilogy's ending, and an equal amount surrounding Infi in light of the dæmons (a concept he's now very fond of). I just adore that trilogy now, I really do, and I owe it it's own entry. You'll get one.

This evening, we finally figured out what the unknown voice in this entry was trying to say about The Destroyer's bizarre ED habits (the only part I admittedly read; I'll have to read the rest of the entry tomorrow). It hit me in a sudden burst of realization when I snapped into awareness for one moment today, as some seaweed-haired girl was curled up with her hands down her throat, dripping and choking like the ocean ruptured and not an ounce of malice in it.
That's when it hit me. The purgation was a positive coping mechanism, risen up after the loss of all other ablutions. And it was damn effective.
I don't know how I never noticed before. They only ever do that with heavy foods. They spend all our money on heavy, poisonous food, the kind of stuff Spice and Emmett scream and protest over, the sort of substances that feel and look and taste like the Tar used to. They buy things that we know we cannot eat without excruciating pain, without emotional meltdowns, without finding ourselves literally holding back our hands from the knife drawer... and then they destroy it. They destroy it. They feign the act of eating, for long enough to be sick and filthy and humiliated and crushed by self-loathing, feeling like an animal, biting into things that bleed and stain their throats. They shred these heavy things, feeling obligated to eat them but refusing to choke it down, boiling with rage and hatred and fury and the desperate need to get rid of it, to utterly annihilate this awful thing that they are forcing into their own body, against their will and yet without fighting back... until eventually, hours later, they've won. They've held out long enough. This awful lethal weight has worn itself down into an inedible mess, into something so profoundly disgusting, so blackened and mangled and wrecked, that its only fate is oblivion. That it deserves oblivion.
And then they throw it out.
And then they throw it up.
But I had no idea of the relief, the total grateful liberation the brackish-green girl lived for until I suddenly found myself in her position, if only for a moment. I had no idea that they only reason they put themselves through hell in the first place was so that they could experience the utter deliverance from it.
They are actively, willingly acting out the fulfillment of a desperate need we never had met. They are forcibly, tearfully, angrily taking in all the heaviness-- the lies, the blood, the nightmares, the panic, the shock, the shame, the things we tried to bury alive-- they are reliving that horrific consumption, in every sense of the word, and then they are doing what we are still struggling to accomplish as a whole... they are spitting it out. They are forcing it back out into the abyss it came from. They are forbidding that sludge from rotting our insides. For them, it is worth repeating the entire symbolic process just for the few excruciating minutes where they can control the outcome, where they can CHANGE the way things played out, where they can stop the pain before it digs in its claws. They are trying to destroy what was destroying us. And that is the root of this disorder.


Lastly, the two big nights of February (the 13th and the 26th) are getting their own entry. I can't remember much of them data-wise, but what I do is still relevant. I guess that's to be expected when the heart is doing most of the experiencing, and not the mind, therefore things don't get stored or perceived the same way. But... the 26th was one of the absolute loveliest evenings I've had in months, on many levels. It gave us all a lot of hope, and it marked some massive progress for us, although there are still things that need to be worked out (as therapy the next day showed us clearly). Nevertheless, as I will say countless times, there is so much love and support and determination in this System that I have total, unwavering faith in our ability as a community to get through this, in the best possible way for all of us. I just have this total faith in the universe really, in that force of love and light that I used to call God and still do in a different way. And that's in us, odd as it may seem to some. Macrocosms and microcosms. It's lovely really, and I love everyone I've been blessed enough to share this life with, despite the bloody circumstances that allowed for it. Nights like this I'm just... reduced to silence from the awe of it. There's so much. There's always so much I just want to express from the heartbreaking joy of it but it doesn't translate into words.

I'm getting close to poet mode on an emotional level so I'm going to close this up and get to sleep... it is really late and boss is probably wondering where I am, to say the least!

 

See you soon.