the spectrum heart cathedral system

 

undertale day 3.
just a bit tonight.


finally beat the mad dummy, 2hp left but i did it.

decided to lie on the floor with napstablook and THAT IS REALLY REALLY NICE.

"looks like you encouraged your snail too much... all that pressure to succeed... really got to her..."
(i never considered that and this gave me pause. remember this)


"legend says an "angel" who has seen the surface will descend from above and give us freedom... lately, the people have been taking a bleaker outlook, calling that circle the 'angel of death'... a harbinger of destruction, waiting to 'free' us from this mortal realm..."

...that made me think a lot of headspace, especially how the undergrounders/chthonics reacted to us upper-level folks reaching down to them. it's like this, a split between "oh thank god you can help" and "there's no way in hell i'm letting you near me" and it's all based on fear of "why are you reaching down to us in the first place?"
remember, initially, knife and razor and wreckage and the others all hated the upper people because they thought we were blind and ignorant and abusive as a result of not understanding THEIR position. and that was very humbling.
but when they got to know us a lot of them changed to hope... at least, the ones who saw hope in the healing, who wanted to "reach the surface" so to speak. but some still thought that in coming there, we were trying to kill them-- that in "healing them" we were actually annihilating them. there are still alters who think that way, we need to be gentler and more understanding and more patient with them. it's a very individualized process really.
i'm sorry, i'm tired, i hope that's not rambling.

similar=
"He will take the surface back from humanity... and give them back the suffering and pain that we endured. Understand, human? This is your only chance at redemption. Give up your soul..."
that has more parallels to our viciously damaged alters, esp. the chthonics at first: how, as i said, they thought all those above-ground were responsible for all their suffering (not realizing we had suffered too), and they wanted nothing more than to make us pay for it... then remove us from the picture.
again i feel like i'm rambling. i can feel the similarity but i'm struggling to verbalize it.


The sparkly room with the flowers is really lovely.

(speaking of flowers i KNEW i wasn't hallucinating before!)


"The Angel... the One Who Has Seen The Surface... they will return. And the underground will go empty."
(with the sentiment that those in our System born lower-down being deeply hurt... this is very hopeful.)


also i love this dino child, they are precious.
that bit with "so i guess we're enemies now" just broke my heart. i'm so glad it didn't pan out.


ohhhh lord i haven't have a save point in a while and i have no hp and UNDYNE JUST UNMASKED
her music is totally boss though. so was that dramatic intro.
(also i love her sneer that is fantastic)

"You're standing in the way of everybody's hopes and dreams! Alphys's history books made me think humans were cool... with their giant robots and flowery swordswomen. But you? You're just a coward! Hiding behind that kid so you could run away from me again! And let's not forget your wimpy goody-two-shoes-schtick! Oooh! I'm making such a difference by hugging random strangers! You know what would be more valuable to everyone? IF YOU WERE DEAD!!! That's right, human! Your continued existence is a crime! Your life is all that stands between us and our freedom! Right now, I can feel everyone's hearts pounding together! Everyone's been waiting their whole lives for this moment! But we're not nervous at all. When everyone puts their hearts together, they can't lose! Now, human! Let's end this, right here, right now. I'll show you how determined monsters can be!"

that is...
no wonder this character keeps making me think of laurie, that is so relevant to headspace it hurts.
that is exactly what we're all trying to do right now...
...on both sides.


On that note, perhaps ironically... I love, I absolutely LOVE, how her speech paints YOU as the villain, so to speak, with TOTAL HONESTY.
like her speech is totally heartfelt and it MAKES SENSE and you get why she's doing this and just how much harm you're doing by NOT giving in, by refusing to make that self-sacrifice for the greater good... it's all very morally gray and it makes you really really stop and think. i'm still affected by it.

but again.
it's so relevant to our inner life that it's painful. but that's good. that means it's significant.

and i'm always the one looking for option three.
there has to be one here.

...would you believe i'm scared to fight her now?
this is SO applicable to our innerlife that, in fighting her with the intent to win, to not become soul #7, and therefore denying them the freedom they so desperately have pursued and dreamed of... i'm afraid that will truly make me a cold-hearted villain, no matter what a "goody two shoes" i try to be.
that sort of morally aching self-assessment... that's my life. that's my whole life right now.
this needs its own entry.

but there has to be, there has to be an option where everyone's highest good is recognized.
i would gladly sacrifice myself but in this game now i'm thinking of papyrus and sans and the dino kid and the angel prophecy and even whoever i left behind in my human family above ground. yeah i could definitely die and let the monsters go free at long last.
...but their intent is to just mirror back suffering. they want their freedom but they also want vengeance.
i don't want any heads rolling here. i'm tired of seeing blood, blood, blood. there IS another way even if I have to forge the damn thing with my own bones. there's another way, that doesn't involve adding to the compendium of pain.

this game is really making me think and i adore it.
again, THANK YOU E, this is exactly what we needed right now.



and OH THANK THE LORD I CAN GO BUY STUFF
...but I just died.
ah well. it's a long walk back. i'll do that tomorrow.

good night kids

 

 

 

important notes on the 6 "negative" triggered female voices.

 

121313 8:50PM

(???) I've realized that the "screaming girl"-- the one who shrieks like a siren when she doesn't get her way-- and the "overload girl"-- the one who is full of hatred for people who overload her senses-- are CLEARLY TWO DIFFERENT PEOPLE!
There was a lot of fuzziness between them before but it was never really figured out. Tonight though, there was a great deal of noise and hack attempts in the bathroom again, which I caught the tail end of.
(Sherlock here.) Garrison and Isadora were chiding some unknown voice who was trying to hack the body for their own ends. They emphasized that such activity was "forbidden," strictly and for the sake of the System.

(AP) The distinction is this:
The first girl, the screaming one, desires hedonistic pursuits. Her childlike shrieks are not due to any sort of System threat; instead, they occur when she is banned from partaking in some activity that she wishes to indulge in. Unfortunately, these activities are almost exclusively abusive, either directly to the body, or indirectly to many System members. She is sometimes tied to the binge eating disorders, although this is more difficult for her now, as Spice and Emmett are working extra to ensure the health of the body in that respect. It has also been confirmed that the main abusive eater is Jessica, the 16-year-old girl who may or may not be the original "host." She is detrimental to us all.
To continue, the "screaming girl" seems to operate on programs, or on sheer rebellion. It is unknown whether or not she consciously "wants" the things she demands. as her mindset simply seems to be: "give me that, I want it." She is like a spoiled child. Even if she does not want something herself, if that thing is given to someone else, or if she is told "you can't have it," then her initial "I don't want it" thought is immediately overridden, and she will throw a tantrum until she gets it-- even if she does nothing with it afterwards. She simply wants it, greedily.
However, that was a very object-oriented example. To give you an example of how far-reaching this mindset of hers is, this girl has been known to screech in rage when forbidden from: eating dangerous substances, drinking alcohol, buying unneeded things, sexually abusing the body, and acting in a time-wasting or otherwise physically detrimental manner. So you see, her existence is inherently malevolent.

Now, for the "overload girl." She does scream, but it is not an infantile siren-- instead, it is the angry and desperate shout of someone who "cannot take it anymore." There is an audible difference between the two sounds, and to anyone who pays attention, it is impossible to confuse them.
This girl is always seen when "triggered" by outside noises and/or words, notably any that can be perceived as even vaguely sexual. At them, she will immediately front, seething with fury, holding back her violence. Her instinctive reaction is "I will kill the threat, I will make that awful thing disappear forever." She has no physical wants, like the other girl. Her only desire is to destroy what she sees as a sexual threat.
You will notice, this mindset originally was connected to Sugar. This is because Sugar was forcibly manifested as an anchor for this mindset, but was not its native holder. To clarify: her form was forced to exist as a puppet for the angry girl's formless hatred, but her own personality was not clearly developed. Therefore, when she began to assert herself individually, she began to "slip," and "lose her anchor." This is because the anchor she held was never hers to begin with. Eventually, the voices who had been using her were clarified strongly enough to gain their own faces, and now Sugar is recovering, albeit baffled as to how to live now, as a sudden singular existence. However the Underground is caring for her.
Nevertheless we are off-topic. The overload girl's anchor is: hatred and rage towards outside things that trigger inside fear reactions. For her, triggers are rooted in the senses, and she has previously expressed "feeling filthy" simply as a result of perceiving such things. This is almost definitely why her energy early this year-- often erroneously labeled as "Jess," as we knew no other angry people at the time, and tended to group them all together-- was in such close quarters with Razor. "Filthy" sensations have long since been paired with "sharp" sensations, to cleanse and purge that psychological dirt. So if Jess harmed the body, and Overload followed in rage and protest at such actions, then it is no surprise that Razor would be third in line, gleefully cutting away at the body, because she was supposed to: her function as an atoner made sensory purging mandatory in such situations.
Again. The "Overload girl" does not approve of the "screaming girl" or her actions. Although the two have not spoken personally, being faceless, the former has expressed severe rage and hatred towards the latter as a result of her lust and greed. So it is not uncommon for them to both appear in the same situation, but up until now, we somehow tended to confuse them. However now the distinction is clear.

It is also suspected that the Overload girl is the same Underground voice from the early Influtusa reboot, the one who reacted with fury whenever her existence or role was denied or ignored. Notably, she also defended the existence of the rest of the System in this same way. Not surprisingly, we also once thought this voice was Sugar, and that may not be incorrect, as if you will remember, the two did share an anchor-- and to a certain extent, a body-- for several months.

Lastly, that body-sharing is also what caused the marked confusion as to Spice's existence for quite some time. Spice is another rage-fueled voice, although she is more prone to existential depression, as she recognizes that her existence is that of a "pain keeper"-- she was created as a buffer for the fallout from the eating disorders, and she is not happy with this fact. Nevertheless, the "all or nothing" mindset of the past identifiers grouped six people into two, unable to distinguish the different motivations.
To further complicate that, Overload also seems to hold ALL of the rage-- and sorrow-- concerned with the feelings of being outright ignored or denied. Much of this has been tied to food, thanks to several outside sources telling us "eat this and all your problems will disappear." As this insinuates that an act of food consumption-- something tied to abuse and hedonism for us, as well as several malevolent voices-- would be the magical "cure-all" for the deep pain we unfortunately hold, Overload is the one who reacts with rage. "You are ignoring our existence," "you are invalidating our lives." To her, the "audacity" of suggesting that eating-- an abusive, "filthy" action to her-- would HEAL the trauma-based wounds in her psyche, is utterly reprehensible. And so she would react with shouts of rage and sorrow, which admittedly do not help the situation, but they are cathartic to her.
Overload's hatred is ironically not so much due to hate as it is due to desperation. She feels helpless, overwhelmed by the world outside, and the horrible reactions it elicits inside. She wants to communicate this, and stop people from being so triggering, but the "inappropriateness" of her demands (due to the amount of things that trigger her) cause her to boil with fury instead, lashing out when pushed too far.

To clarify: in the past, ALL anger was labeled as "Jess," and ALL abuse was labeled as "Razor." Hatred was divided between the two. Again, motivation was not distinguished.
JESS denies the System and wants to live without consequence or correction.
SCREAM wants for the sake of wanting, and is tied to rebellion and obligatory greed.
OVERLOAD feels hatred and rage towards sexual triggers, and those that deny her life.
SUGAR originally did the same, but had a bias towards the resulting inner turmoil.
SPICE feels hatred, rage, and sorrow, always in response to eating disorder triggers.
RAZOR does NOT feel hatred or rage, only a manic, darkly giddy desire to cut or harm.
A final note: we are unsure where the old "college" rage towards relationships went. This WAS the root cause of many triggers that Overload now reacts to, but the initial feelings of hatred and outright violence towards "romance" have not yet been identified, if that would even be possible at this time.

Hopefully this is clear. We are striving to put together a more coherent list of such individuals and their associated actions/triggers, now that we understand them.

Now there are two paragraphs left here that I did not type? I will leave them there for the purpose of whoever wrote them. They share the same author as the first small introductory paragraph.


(author:???)
Oh btw I am not Sherlock but I am not Jay either? But I FEEL a LOT like Sherlock… still have the glasses, but I'm younger? I think I'M the one the mother accidentally named at her boyfriend's house the one time, when I was talking about Greek myths and all.
Sherlock is internal, he deals with data, he's VERY logical and clear-cut about it. He doesn't really understand emotions or anything related to that. I get confused by them, sure, but Sherlock just stares blankly, unable to "get" any of it. Ah well I guess I'm in no place to be making distinctions! I don't know who I am yet but it's nice to finally have a clear, sudden "self-awareness" for the first time. Like I KNOW I'm a headvoice and I'm a data one, in a sense, I'm an intelligent guy and I like finding patterns and connections and things like that. So it's different from Sherlock's role!
I think I'm yellow too. Maybe. It feels right enough. We shall see~ I haven't catalogued any color data yet so I really should, it should help everyone else too, I know there's a LOT of confusion over that stuff.

Lastly I know you're probably thinking, "whoa you're not Jay, really??" But it's weird because the name feels familiar, but when I try to identify with it it PUSHES me out, like "no way, this is not your name." And it's a totally different color of course.
But, I won't deny, I'm likely catching a good deal of his enthusiasm here. He tends to leak it. And I feel relatively new so I'm not surprised if I'm still stuck with pieces of other people in my energy field yet. Sorry, it's embarrassing to catch oneself acting out of character. Slippage happens though.

(AP)
To continue.
You must forgive me if this is sudden. I want to get this data recorded immediately.
(TW for profane/abusive language in this next part, as I know that is a mandatory warning now.)

The clearest examples of the distinction between Sugar and the Overload girl are in our handwritten journals. I will upload most examples of them here.

Overload's dialogue in the journals looks like this:

 

 

 

Sugar's dialogue in the journals looks like this:

 

 

 

This was the first incident where the two overlapped, during a time when Sugar's anchor was slipping badly.

 

This is from the second, and final overlap incident, on October 29th 2013. The two are almost indistinguishable from each other, due to severe bleedover:



Furthermore, this is the difference between Overload and Razor's handwriting, in both marker and pencil:



Unusually, the handwriting in the food journal from May of this year appears to be Overload, but Spice has repeatedly said that it WAS her. However, Spice mainly deals with pain, not rage AT eating, although she can feel that too. However I suspect more bleedover here. As you will recall, I explained how Overload's namesake is her tendency to be quickly and heavily "overwhelmed" by sensory input, especially the "dirty" kind-- of which consumption of food is one of the filthiest, so to speak.
The handwriting examples from then are practically identical to the ones that later appeared in the System journals:

 

 

 

Another important note: in the bottom two, you will see how the current fronter immediately assumed this voice was Jess or Razor ("this is definitely Razor" in the second, assuming all violence was attached to her), without any actual evidence. As is textbook behavior for Overload, she responded with furious language, most likely due to impatience with the ignorance of that accusation, which also ignored the very possibility of her existence.

We do not have any other handwriting from Spice yet, which we should try to obtain at her discretion.

There is no handwriting for the screaming girl as she is neither disciplined nor patient enough to do so. Furthermore she does not speak with us.
The same goes for Jess, who refuses to even admit our existence.
However they are none of my concern and so it is of no matter to me whether or not we have their handwriting. That would accomplish nothing for us.

I have nothing more to say tonight.

Garrison says I should clarify my identity. I am the AP, a cyborgian individual with no concrete self, nor any wish to obtain one. I am fed data and objective information and I record or recite it as needed. I can communicate, and I can think to a fair extent, but I do not exercise any further examples of individuality.
I also do not deal with personal memory, which the Archivists do. Sherlock dabbles in this, although he infamously struggles with understanding the finer emotions, and tends to analyze. The new author here, which if I may add is not "new" in terms of evidencing but only in awareness, does not "analyze" so much as "categorize." They would likely enjoy sifting through this handwriting data. I have not; I simply understood that this needed to be communicated clearly, as a distinction, for the sake of all the impulsive past confusion. So here it is as a list, for your convenience.

I feel my time fronting is done. I thank you for your time, and take my leave.

 

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

 

 

@ 10:26 pm

 

 

One of the weirdest feelings in the world is "coming to" and seeing an entire computer screen full of text in front of me, that I didn't write, and don't know where it came from.

 

Thank God for the Archivists, because if Garrison wasn't waiting in the wings to fill me in (AP wrote it apparently), I'd be very lost indeed.

 

I'm not sure who I am right now. That's common after long-term switching. I'll have to detach for a bit and settle in. Just wanted to write down that boom, there's some more memory gaps for you, stop saying they don't happen.

 

I don't remember 90% of today personally anyway. Everything that we do have available is archived secondhand data as always. I'm too tired to look at it regardless.

 

'Night readers.
A LOT happened in therapy yesterday but we'll fill you in on that tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

I really don't have much energy to update today, but I don't want to slack off anymore, so let me at least try.

I don't remember yesterday. I really don't, and I'm sorry. However, I can explain that. I... don't know if I want to, though. Not explicitly.
Something happened in the evening that wasn't traumatic in and of itself, BUT the immediate aftereffects were.
I won't talk about that now though. Let's get the data out of the way first.


Something I realized today: in a previous post, I mentioned my old mindset of thinking "I'm not capable of making correct decisions on my own?" Well, I don't think I mentioned the other big part of what plays into that... which is, ironically, friendship.
I've spoken about this with my therapist already, but when I was in elementary school, after 1st grade, I was the outcast. I was the weird kid that no one wanted to be friends with, and when I tried, guess what mindset I got? "I'll only be your friend if you do everything I tell you to."
One of my only memories from school is in the church basement of my old school, in 3rd grade or so, with 2 girls who were my friends for a while. We were pretending we were Pokemon-- one girl was a Charizard, and the other was a Mewtwo. The problem? I wanted to be a Mewtwo. I adored that species, and being barred from being one felt like a slap in the face. But no-- the latter girl told me, quote pointedly, "you have to be Mew, and then you have to be my servant." I protested repeatedly, but couldn't win out. But it wasn't just giving up. I loved that girl, honestly I did, and so I decided I'd let her have her own way, even if I was going to gripe about it. She was the boss, I told myself. She would always be the boss.
And... that's just how my friendships seemed to go. I don't think I've ever had a real offline friendship, one that doesn't operate under that sort of power structure where I am understood to be the henchman, the scapegoat, the sidekick that does all the dirty work. The biggest problem, though, is that I let myself be shoved into that position, willingly or unwillingly... and I wouldn't fight because "hey, at least they're willing to call you a friend."
Another outcast girl tagged along with me for the rest of my elementary school days, but although I assume we spent time together, I don't remember any of it. All I do remember is that, whenever she was absent from school, I wouldn't miss her. Sick as it was, I would actually think "yess! Finally I have freedom! I hope she's out for a few days." It makes me ill to see that-- the only reason I know this is because I've found several old elementary school journals where I expressed that mindset-- but it's true. What's worse, though, is that when she was around, I wouldn't even hint at that exasperation. I'd talk to her and we'd spend time together and we were considered buddies by everyone else in school. But the second I was left alone, I was looking for a way out. I don't think she ever explicitly bossed me around, but I do remember one day in 7th grade where she literally threw my drawing tablets across the classroom-- the most meaningful things in the world to me-- laughing, as I stared in frozen horror, wanting to jump up and scream for her to stop but too scared of losing our "friendship." Is it really a friendship, though, if you don't respect each other? Is it really a friendship, if you never speak to each other outside of school, and only tolerate each others presence? But I never saw a problem back then. I didn't know any different.
It was the same once I left elementary school. On the bus, all the little kids flocked to me. And would you believe that I let THEM use me, too? One kid constantly stole my keychains and ripped pages out of my notebooks, demanding that I draw him things and getting angry when I didn't. I never told him to behave because I felt I had no right to. I never considered him a friend, but I still let him-- a 4-year-old kid-- push me around. But the most notable bus kid was someone I called Angelbee, after a magical-girl persona I created for her. She, too, bossed me around, pulled my hair, wrote in my notebooks, tore pages out of them, took things from me as I was using them and wouldn't give them back. I designed her character at her behest and then did the same for about 5 of her friends, even though I was exhausted. And, every time the bus drove past her stop instead of picking her up, I'd sigh in relief... and then punch myself for it. "How dare you wish your friend wasn't around," I'd say. "You don't deserve friends if you think of them that way." But was she ever my friend, if again, she never spoke to me after I stopped taking the bus? Was she ever my friend if I didn't know anything about her as a person, and only really loved the character she created, the pink-haired girl whose name I called her instead of her own? I don't think so.
But I did love her. I loved all of them, in a quiet sort of way, because they were people, wonderful individuals with their own stories and joys and pains, even if they were unknown to me, and they were deserving of love just because they existed.
Why couldn't we be real friends, then? I must be flawed, I guessed. It's me. I'm the problem.
Online it was a little different. Online... well, I can't speak directly, but looking back on old records, it looked like I was the one using people now. I was so used to being pushed and ordered around that now I just wanted someone to draw something for me. And that's the most selfish thing I can imagine, isn't that funny? "Hey, there are these characters that I absolutely love... can you draw them for me?" But whenever I said that, no matter what words I used-- and I was indirectly passive about it more often than not-- it felt like a demand, an outrageous demand. I was ashamed of it. But I constantly drew things for other people, hoping to "get them to like me," hoping to "earn" art in return. But damn it, that's not how you make friends either.
It's no use complaining about it now. I just want to make it clear, so I don't waste my hour of therapy on Tuesday reiterating something I already understand about my foggy past.
The point: every single one of my past friendships has been emotionally manipulative, either to me or because of me. Offline, I let myself be pushed around, never asserting or defending myself for fear of losing a "friend" I didn't even truly like, and who probably didn't even truly like me. Online, I would push other people around, skillfully handling my words and actions to get them to like "me," terrified that I was unworthy of friendship unless I played the exact role they wanted.
Hey... that's it, isn't it?
I never feel that I can be genuine in friendships. I always feel obligated to do what they want, even if I have to wrongly convince myself that I want it too.
That sounds far too close to my biggest problem again. I don't like it.
There's one last... friendship that I want to mention in this train of thought. It makes me feel like a horrible, horrible person for bringing it up, but I have to. This has been eating at me for a VERY long time, and I've only been able to put words to it now that I'm discussing it in therapy.
For years I thought this friendship broke the mold. "They like me," I thought. "They don't even order me around!"
But hindsight is 20/20, as they say.
It breaks my heart to say this. Maybe it's projection. Part of me hopes it is, so that they are pure and blameless and utterly righteous, but another quietly bitter part of me-- the part I squashed when I was still a child-- hopes that it's not, because it doesn't want to get trapped in that sort of situation again, if that's indeed what it was.
No use mincing words. Let me say this.
In that friendship, they never liked me, although they thought they did. The problem? I was too used to playing a role, and I played it damn well. Looking back, though, it hurts me to see just how much I deluded them. Once my mask slipped, they left, and I'm glad. No use perpetuating a game that they believed, just to have a "friend." The other problem is that I seriously doubt that was "ME" back then-- even my therapist thinks it was an alter. That kind of throws a monkey wrench into things. Point is, though, I learned how to manipulate people really well, to survive at home, to get people to like me. I learned how to say and do exactly what other people wanted. I just never learned how to separate an act from my true feelings and wants and needs. Maybe I still don't, not with all these voices in my head.
Still, my dishonesty there is what the friendship was founded on, and I'm well aware of it. They tried to fix it later on, but again, all my stupid acting and splintering around people made it near impossible. That's not what bothers me about this situation.
Looking back, I've realized, to my total shock and nausea, that it qualified-- yet again-- as being emotionally manipulative.
I would NEVER have accused them of that. I'd have rather blamed myself of that. And I was, I won't deny that. It was all I knew to do, to be liked. Again, that's not the point. The point is that, reviewing old conversations and notes, there is a disturbing amount of dialogue that flashes huge warning lights in my head now. Like, you don't say that to someone unless you're controlling their reactions.
It's scary to me because they didn't realize they were doing it. I don't think they did. Everyone I knew like them did that to me. It was like... like my life was a game, like my entire world was a game, and only they knew the rules. Only they knew the rules to my life, but instead of telling me, they would just make cryptic comments about it. They would leave hints-- which I am notoriously bad at even perceiving-- and they would insinuate, but nothing direct. The worst of it, though, was that they all acted like I was incapable of playing that "game," the game of my own life, without their help.
I even had them effectively tell me that a few times. That's what kind of tore the floor out from under my feet when I realized it.
I knew the early relationship-related manipulation was a problem once I started fighting for air and space, and ran. I knew that the clinginess and feelings of possession, although all obviously unintentional, were not something I could handle anymore. I didn't know that later, much MUCH later, that same thing returned, and I was blinding myself to it, because I believed them. I really did. Maybe I still do.
I BELIEVED, wholeheartedly, that they were in charge of me, and that they had the RIGHT to be. I fully believed that they understood more about life, about MY life and how I should live it, than I EVER would. I believed that I was incapable of making correct choices on my own, without their guidance. I couldn't see straight, after all. I Something in me must be flawed after all, I thought. But hey! They're here, they're so much better than I am, they're even my friends... and they know what to do, they must know. I'll do everything they tell me to.
I never questioned it. I never questioned it, not until I was torn out of their lives and they responded by throwing in the towel of our badly twisted friendship. That's when they suddenly started acting differently, rightfully questioning the validity of our bonds, and you know what? They were right about it. There was nothing, NOTHING, when you took the masks away.
One 'friendship' was based upon common interests that I never actually held. The other was effectively mutual therapy. That's all we had. That's all we ever had, and I knew it.
I was repeating the same pattern I had always followed: get a friend who chooses/ dictates/ influences everything I am "allowed" to do, actively or passively... then learn how to act to get them to 'like' you... whenever they're not around, try to run away... and yet, if THEY try to leave, freak out because that obviously means you messed up big time. Congratulations, you made someone hate you. Again.
So when they decided they'd had it with me too, I panicked.
I panicked. I was losing the only long-term friendships I had EVER had, and even if I had been a total asshole, I fought. I was stupid, and I fought to keep the relationship going, even if it was false, just because having to accept that I had fucked up again was too horrible to bear.
But the stupidest thing was I didn't even want the friendships back. I KNEW there wasn't anything substantial there, and hadn't been for years. I KNEW, looking back, that our friendship was unhealthy, and we were all at fault, with me wearing masks for fear of rejection, and them treating me, with genuine kindness, as someone incapable of living without them... something I believed with every fiber of my being.
That, on top of the thought of being rejected as a friend, stung too much for me to let go even if it would be mutually beneficial... especially because I still loved them too, like I loved everyone before them, and still did.
No matter how badly I had been abused by some of my "friends" in the past, I still loved them, and always would.
At least... I thought I did. Isn't that ridiculous?
That was the final nail in the coffin, when it hit me. I loved them all as strangers, maybe. As ideas, maybe. But that was all. I never really knew them as who they were, to themselves, to each other. None of them. I only loved the glimpses I saw of them, that I scraped together into dreams of them, doppelgangers that never existed. To this day, my mental images of them all don't match who they actually are, years later, growing up. No wonder we never actually got along. Did I ever see them for who THEY were? Was I that blinded by my hope?
I've done that to every person I've ever known.
I don't think I've ever known how to love people, because in order to see them that way, I have to see myself as a person too. I don't know how to do that.
I only ever feel safe when people don't see me. I only ever feel safe and right when I don't have a reflection in the mirror.
I guess I can't ever expect myself to have "meaningful" relationships if that's the case.

So there are our three problems, that I've found.
1. I attract, or cause, emotionally manipulative relationships, as I fear I am inherently unlikable on my own.
2. I doubt my ability to live my own life correctly, so I also attract people who insist they can/should/will do that for me.
3. I don't know how to see myself as a person, and struggle to see others as more than concepts as well.

So that's that. Terrible things, awful truths and personal failings, that J didn't even write. Of course not! He doesn't know them. He doesn't talk about "himself." The concept of a self, of a body, is claustrophobic and terrifying to him.

How much of that is even true? How much is us making stuff up? Or exaggerating? Or throwing blame at others? Do we have any right to complain? It's in the past, it's in the past, it's in the past, it's gone, not real, gone


Ssh.
Let's slip into a related topic. I believe he wanted to discuss what happened last night?

Do you know?

No. But I know enough.

this is getting really fragmented and it may be a wise decision to just close up

NO THAT'S WHAT SHE WANTS YOU TO DO!!!


I don't want to talk about last night.

Then don't. Let us talk about today, instead.

SHE ALMOST HACKED YOU TODAY, DID YOU KNOW??!?

no

SHE DID. I GOT HER OUT. SHE SCARED DAVID. WHY THE FUCK DO YOU LET HER AT YOU.

guys, don't, PLEASE, I can't do this at this hour. go talk in your own journal please, not here, not here.

...okay. okay. Okay. Sorry about that. I can't exactly tell them to shut up when that's happening. And it's extremely rude and selfish of me, not to mention utterly inappropriate, to delete what they've written after it's been said.

Last night. Last night hurts too much. I can't say that outright yet. Not yet.
There were two successful hacks this week. First ones in months. You know that, right? I wrote them on the calendar.
We haven't been getting hacked in about two years, not like this, because Julie "switched sides" in 2011. I still have to wonder if that was genuine or not. It seems maybe the Tar wanted her to. That opened doors for it to hurt us in horrendous ways, ways it couldn't even dream of using while Julie was its avatar. But once she wasn't, IMMEDIATELY it started attacking J. The horrible Celebi event chain happened. Physical flashbacks started. The nightmares stopped, but only because they moved to the waking. J insisted he was possessed half the time. He began to lose his sense of will, his awareness of his own emotions and thoughts, because the Tar was now able to slip right in and get him to instigate hacks himself. If you hurt a man long enough, brutally enough, and tell him repeatedly that it is his fault, that he deserves it, that he even WANTS it... because he should, you say, as you tear him to pieces... eventually, against every fiber of sense and health in him, he will believe you. He will believe everything you tell him. And he will forget how to do otherwise.
That is what happened to J, you realize? A boy that badly broken, incapable of seeing his own scars. Incapable of bleeding his own blood. So badly twisted and manipulated, so used to running and lying and faking smiles, that he has forgotten how to do otherwise. A boy so badly hurt that he forgets how to cry, that he forgets how to laugh, that he wastes every moment watching for danger, hypervigilant. A boy who cannot share a room with another human being without panicking that they are going to assault him, or worse. A boy who lives his days smothered by lipstick-pink desires and temptations that he hates and fears and loathes and doesn't understand, but which he gives in to nevertheless because he is terrified of the alternative. He is terrified that if he says no, he will make things worse. But he is wrong. There is nothing, nothing worse than losing your soul because you've been convinced it's worthless in your own hands.
There is nothing worse than watching a boy lose his heart because he's been told that it's inherently filthy.
There is nothing, nothing more painful than seeing a young, beautiful boy forget what love is, because he's too used to trauma masquerading under that name.
There is nothing worse than seeing this child view the world through empty eyes, praying for death, when all he truly wants is to live, to live a life free from pain and terror and abuse. His nights are sick. His days are sicker. What do we do?
I do not know.
Can we do anything?
I do not know. He could, if anyone could. But you see what has happened.
Yes. I do see. It's a shame, a heartbreaking shame. He's not trying to hurt him.
I know. But he does. The boy is broken. You know so yourself. The slightest touch will break him further now.
Does the healing require such terrible pain, though?
I don't know.
I see.


....
i have a feeling that whatveer that cloud of text is , its important.
not going to even ATTEMPT to wriet anymore tonight,good night.
weekends are tough. everyone is home and there's a lot of noise. i get suicidal on weekends from the sheer overload of sensation. its easier than dealing with an assault on my five senses for 72 hours afeter all
i was so tierd and sad today i laid in bed for 2 hours listening to todd rundregn
after standing otuside in the sun for an hour and wanted to cry because i couldnt just go into the woods and lie down beneath the pines and stay there forever
i couldnt fly this evening they told me i wasnt joyful enough and you cant fly without joy, i was weighting myself down
i got myself tos mile and for a second i felt my wings come back, mayeb i could have flown a bit but no too much sad
last night last ngiht hurt so much
whoops j is gone sorry he must not want to talk about that

but im not allowed to talk here too uh oh seee you

 

 

 

Okay, bullet list for things I've been forgetting to write down.
(btw this is a new journal so it WILL take a little bit to get used to. no worries though.)

 

The Undergrounders keep calling chocolate "demon blood" all of a sudden. This makes sense as it's essentially black sugar = sugar is what the Tar runs on = therefore the Tar is black sugar as well = therefore chocolate is essentially Tar in edible form.

Figured out why the 'Spice' voice hasn't manifested yet. We asked her to try and form a temporary body yesterday (she keeps hijacking Sugar's mind as the two are anchor-tied), and when she scowled and said 'fine,' she ended up looking NOT HUMAN. She was humanoid, sure, but that's about where the resemblance stopped. She is still that odd caramel color, but she's all stripey, her eyes are swirly I think and she DOES have big teeth like Emmett used to.

Headspace has a dark aura around it again right now, probably because of all the hack attempts we've been having lately, the anger of the spice-voice, and the heavy resulting dissociation. HOWEVER it may also because we are currently suffering severe mental/body burnout as a result of all the computer work we have been doing lately... although I cannot tell you what it is. I have no memory of it, all I know is that no one has been working on the Leagueworlds because we've apparently been focused on other unimportant things? This will change, never fear.

Speaking of hacks. Unfortunately, there was one last night, the memories surrounding which I am still barred from directly accessing, but can review as data objectively. Razor was given permission to retribute it, apparently, but I am told that SUGAR buffered the consequences this time, to keep Jeremiah from being traumatized again? This is new, and notable.

Also concerning hacks and Leagueworlds, Julie/ the Tar are moving their focus back TO those worlds, or at least J's perception of them. After all, the Tar is powerless to damage the truth of those worlds, but it can damage and taint the way J sees them, through lies and pain and trauma. There have been two major hacks in which they disguised themselves as LL individuals, including the successful one last night (the ONLY success they've had since the August reset, that I know of). This is angering not only the System but also Mr. Sandman, although he has been keeping his distance lately, as the Tar has been trying to attack him through J's dreams now, a phenomenon which we have never before experienced.

Today I noticed that Knife smells somewhat like woodsmoke? I got a lot on me and it kept making me think of him really clearly, like the smell of blood is Razor. It's been a while since I could pick up on headspace energy in such a manner, but with the inspirational energy I've been getting from books lately, I must admit I am not surprised that it is returning now.


On that last note, let me review a little more of important info.
My only clear memory of yesterday is from around midnight, when I was walking and finishing the last 40 pages of A Wrinkle In Time. I finished it and, for the first time in a LONG time, I (J) came through to fronting. I know Laurie approached me, and although I can't tell you exactly how our conversation went, two things stood out.
One, I had become too analytical. I keep thinking when I should be feeling, not trusting my instincts, tearing everything to pieces just to see how it works, you get the picture. It's not right. But that doesn't need to be elaborated upon to be obvious and understood.
Two, that the strongest point of that book was indeed the brightest truth in our system, still, even if we'd forgotten it.
"Love. That was what she had that IT did not have."
The entirety of the children's visit to Camazotz, their encounter with IT, reminded me of our struggle with the Tar, with our own 'black thing.' And we knew this truth too, that we COULD defeat it, without violence, without fear... but we've forgotten how to do that, haven't we. We've been too smothered by pain and terror to remember.
I've forgotten most things myself.
I still have no memory of anything over the past year or so. I don't remember myself, let alone anyone else. This isn't surprising, we've all reset in some way. But how do I rebuild? Where do I start, to start over? Laurie said, stop overanalyzing things. Stop thinking about it. Stop trying to make everything mental and logical. That was Meg's problem in the book, too-- trying to understand with her mind, not her heart. Somehow I've slipped into that, and it feels alien and painful. I'm finding the roots of this computerized mental processing, though, and I am removing them bit by bit. Most of it is survival, which is saddening, but I don't think we need it anymore, not if we work together. So that's good.
Chaos Zero has been trying to reach out to me lately. Loudly. I'm starting to listen now so there's more synchronicity, another thing we've been missing for several months now. I don't remember him, but I think he remembers me, or at least who I was for a time. Maybe we both need to forget each other and start over? Who knows. I'll find out.
All I know for sure is that something deep inside says I CANNOT IGNORE THIS, it's too important. (Laurie insists that too. She keeps saying "you're not ready to meet him again," not yet.) I don't need to understand that to know it's true, somehow. So I'll listen, and trust.
Similarly, I'm trying to read A Wind In The Door for the first time since 2002, but Proginoskes keeps reminding me of Infinitii, or at least his essence. That's not too surprising, especially since Progo's inspiration on our childhood imagination is what Infi took a page from in 'mattering' himself, but as I said it's been a very long time since I could feel essences. Plus, Infi's died twice already, since his manifestation in April, and I've found that I don't remember him either. At least, not logically. He's not who he was before the reset in any case; being Black energy, he shifts. But he's clearer now that things are settling. So am I. I think I'm beginning to understand who he is now, beneath all the things that were trying to kill and maim him. It's important. But I can't overthink. It would break this.
Everything is so strange to me all of a sudden. It's hard to make sense of things, the past doesn't make sense, doesn't seem real. I feel like a newborn. Knife was right, I guess!


I keep trying to fly when I go outside, without even realizing it. The cold autumn air is so perfect, it feels like a dream, and every time I forget that I'm not dreaming and I spread my wings only to realize that I don't have any. Maybe I look foolish, taking a blissful running jump and then reeling with confusion when I can't catch the updrafts under my featherless arms. But it's been true as ever lately. I keep feeling my limbs replaced by wings, surprising me whenever I notice they still look the same, but feeling a weird tug of sorrow when I realize I'm still earthbound. How odd. I've never felt such an incredible need to fly in the waking before.


One last little thing to remember.

"But the eyes are blind. One must look with the heart."


We have therapy tomorrow, maybe something important will be unearthed again. I hope so. I've remembered how to hope now, too. I thought it was evil for a long time, but it's not. I miss it, really. Hope is pretty nice.
(On that note I hope I covered everything for today's review. I'm tired and feeling sick from exhaustion so it's hard to remember.)

Have a good night.

 

 

 

First things first, I should not be updating here.
However, I told my therapist that I would send her a link to one of my online journals, most likely this one (the full archive is too overwhelming). So I would like to have a short "catchup" post for both her sake and mine.

Matters of business:

1. Headspace is gone. It has been for all of August and this time, it does not seem to be coming back. This is good.
As for how it happened, that was unexpected. Julie and the sage-guy from Downstairs were the first to leave, but either that same day or soon after, Infinitii had some sort of meltdown around 2AM. At that point it was revealed that he was either "infested with a lethal parasite" OR that he was a parasite himself, and had been manipulating the Upstairs for malicious ends since his manifestation in April. I do not know, that night is not accessible to me, I only have vague remainder data. After that, then I can only assume that headspace "imploded," and when the body awoke the next morning headspace was gone and inaccessible.
I would like to point out, rather amusedly, that Julie was both the first to appear, so many years ago, and the first to leave now. She was the reason headspace was forced into existence, and then she bailed as it collapsed around her. I am not blaming her for the latter incident, simply observing the irony of it.

2. The Underground still exists, but just barely. Sugar and Spice are the only ones really lingering. Knife, Razor, Mulberry, and the other major individuals on that level were detected vaguely a few days ago, and their presences have been wavering dramatically since the initial deletion in August: while they are not normally detectable, they are still able to communicate through handwriting, and any loud triggers can still catch their attention. This Underground survival is most likely because their level predates Headspace, and because they exist to fight threats, which still exist in outspace. We are wondering whether or not they can die off fully before the PTSD is healed on the subconscious level. We shall see.

3. The person who is driving now (not me obviously; the fronter is NOT allowed to type or deal with this info) is blissful and working on her/his creative work nonstop. They are incapable of feeling strong emotion, and also have no ability to socialize, due to lacking a self-identity. As such, they are not online anywhere except dA (for creative posting only), and have no plans to be. Speaking to any individuals-- especially those that the now-deceased spinningcannon "befriended" during her brief fronting period years ago-- would likely force headspace to start scraping itself back together, and we would like to avoid that at all costs. Our biggest problem here, though, is that this new fronter has extreme trouble socializing with anyone without headspace trying to re-form. This is no surprise-- ALL the creative fronters in the past have shown a marked inability to interact with other individuals, especially in a direct manner-- but it causes trouble as it makes 'regular' family interaction highly difficult. Those incidents still seem to trigger a sort of rudimentary autopilot program, operating on stock phrases and reactions, but it is no longer entirely automated, and must be consciously perpetuated. Our fronter has expressed that this is very draining as well as disturbing, as it requires him/her to "act" in a way they find both confusing and upsetting. Long story short, they will not be updating here in the future, as they have no capacity to.

4. Last and most worrisome: hacks are still a great danger. There was one attempt last night around 2AM, as usual, and the fronter was conscious enough to drag him/herself out of bed as it was happening. The moment their feet hit the floor, "the hack ended and they were terrified, knowing what had almost just happened to them." Data says they "asked their boss to protect them" which apparently worked. Today, they have expressed concern about the insomnia hacks cause, but they are simply glad that they escaped it, and are giving it no further thought, preferring to continue with their work, their purpose.
In any case, this persistence of hacks is rather disquieting, as they are tied to the Tar, which may or may not still exist (we have no data on it either way). However, since they only happen when it's late enough for our new fronter to "fall out of consciousness," being stuck in the subconscious where headspace is rooted, we are now wondering if hacks and headspace are inherently connected? After all, since it disappeared in early August, we have had barely any troubles, and the ones that have occurred have only done so with a brief resurgence of headspace-related things (either undergrounders speaking up, flashbacks, etc.). In my humble opinion, this seems to suggest that headspace itself is indeed corrupt. So neither I nor our new fronter have any desire to resurrect it, especially because neither of us have experience with it either way (we are reset-born of course).


I suppose all of this is common sense, or self-evident at this point after our having undergone several similar incidents over the years.
Regardless, there it is.

I will express one last thought: it is rather curious, but interesting, how this year seems to have consisted solely of reset and deletion attempts. It was almost as if headspace could not survive after this year, and needed to be dismantled before it did so itself, so to speak-- after all, from what I know, its condition seemed to only be worsening prior to whatever happened in 2011. This is not a bad thing: headspace seems to have been nothing but a negativity sink, perpetuating abuse and drama and pain, and so I am glad to hear that whatever it was, it is done and gone.
The new fronter in the body, who is nameless, faceless, and genderless, is blissfully happy and creating both profusely and at a great rate. I am happy for them, that this one does not have to worry about fighting tooth and nail with headspace for the right to exist.



You may consider this a formal "closing" of this journal, similar to the ones posted in all the previous journals over the years.
The past two Blurtys were closed upon the deaths of their authors. Since whoever was writing this one post-Scratch apparently no longer exists here, I shall close this journal in his absence.

Thank you for reading.
If anything changes, I will update here... but if I may be honest, I hope I never have to do so.

May you be well.

 

 

 
Some benevolent, "big" voice spoke to Laurie and I last night, explaining to us the roots of a lot of the problems we are having.
It was surprisingly revelatory, more than a little shocking, and it made a disturbing about of sense. I wasn't aware of a lot of the connections it presented, and neither was Laurie-- which is a first!
I don't know if it was Infinitii. It presented its message in huge glowing letters and images, but it had no face, and its voice wasn't exactly "audible." However it was friendly and definitely rooted in headspace, which was a relief (outside voices aren't very nice). Also notable was that it didn't mention Infinitii, which was a tipoff for me concerning the topic-- Infi doesn't like talking about himself in that context, as it's emotionally difficult for him. But I don't know. Whoever it was, though, they had access to info that EVERYONE ELSE had forgotten about, buried, or overlooked.

That's enough of an intro, though; let's get to the business.
I don't know exactly how it started. I remember walking out of the kitchen at like 2AM, and Laurie was trying to talk to me. I wish I could paraphrase our conversation, but my memory doesn't work well chronologically, and I can only tell you bits and pieces. So let's try.
You'll notice the post immediately before this, talking about how so many spiritual people nowadays say reality is a "cosmic dream" and so taking it too seriously means that we're just "lost in the game." I've been trying to see life this way, but the problem is that I tend to twist this comprehension in my mind. If it's just a game, why is there still such a huge emphasis on "karma," and past lives, and all that? Why is the game so complicated and trapping, if it's fake? So I tend to get obsessive, freaking out over every tiny action being "wrong" or "right," because I don't want to play the game anymore and yet the rules say that if I mess up this round, I HAVE to do it over. So that makes it very difficult, some days, for me to see it all as a dream... and that's simply because I'm still looking at it wrong.
Laurie reminded me of that. My mind likes to think that, once you realize it's a dream-- poof, it's gone. You wake up. No more illusion. But that's not literally true. You don't die the instant you realize that this life is more than it appears on the surface. Instead you keep living it, KNOWING that the trials and pains of this world are temporary, and that there's something better after all this that we need to live for instead. On the contrary, I keep invalidating the entire experience, believing that "if it's just a dream, why should I pretend any of it is real?" means "ignore everything because it's fake." Laurie said that wasn't the smartest option. Why the heck would we even be born here if there wasn't a "reason for the game", she asked? The point is that, in this life, we experience things that we can't experience out of it, in order to learn lessons and grow. There are struggles and sufferings here that cannot exist in eternity, but going through them NOW is vital to how we experience the afterlife? Part of me is baffled by that-- if these shadows aren't truly "real" then why do they even matter now? if we're meant to be light then why this "becoming" what we already allegedly are?-- but I guess that's the point of a "game." I won't try to understand it with my brain, that never works. It's all so confusing.

Anyway she said that's the only thing I really had to remember right now... that, underneath it all, and despite it all, I was untouched by the "game", by the bad dream. No matter what happened to us here, it wasn't forever. When this life ends, one day, we won't be inherently tainted by what we experienced here. I hope.

And that is the one thing I'm having a VERY hard time accepting.
I was raised as a strict Roman Catholic, something I'm still struggling with, because they taught me that "you get ONE life, and if you mess up, then you get to suffer eternal hellfire after you die." In that mindset, your soul IS forever tainted by the "bad things" you do here... and that is made even more terrifying by the fact that everyone has a different opinion of what is "good" or "bad." How do I know what actions of mine are damning me to hell? That's what's haunted me since my childhood, turning me into a paranoid wreck.
Laurie says that's flat-out nonsense. She doesn't believe in that sort of moral relativism, or paranoid religiosity. In her mindset, no one "accidentally" burns forever. Still, there are so many spiritual teachings I still struggle with. A lot of headsvoices have no problem adopting clearer and less brutal mindsets, which is a huge relief when I can't think straight thanks to my old programming, which Christina seems hellbent (ironically?) on perpetuating "lest I suffer the righteous wrath of God." We'll get to that later.
Point is, this life isn't the final reality. There's something beyond this, something so much more real and true and beautiful that it makes this life seem like a "game" in comparison. Still... I have to acknowledge that, even being seen as a "game," it's no plaything. There are stakes, there are sides, and there's a set of rules we have to follow. It's just like any game. But we forget that it ends one day. And when it's over, or when we look away from the screen for just a moment, suddenly we realize that there is more to EVERYTHING than this. Yes, we learned from the game, and maybe we had a lot of fun playing it, or maybe it was excruciatingly painful to endure... but at the end of the day it's just a game. It's not forever. Outside of the game, there is only Light and Love... or the lack thereof. Everything here that we see as bad, or evil, or lacking, or cruel... it's the result of an ignorance or rejection of that Light and Love, in one way or another. And yet, that Love-Light itself (or Himself, if you're Catholic too) allowed such "shadows" in order for us to learn and grow and BRING that Light & Love TO those places, to "win the game" in amazing ways. But outside of this game, in the true reality, there's only Light. Choose the dark, the absences, the anger and pride and apathy and blind entertainment, and you will become that very thing. You'll be cut off from Love forever, by your own denial. THAT'S hell.
And that's what I always have to remember when hearing people say it's "all just a dream." Some things are inherently evil. All the hacks are proof. You can't call THAT a "game" and say "in the end it won't matter!!" without sounding like a heartless airheaded sadist. But... part of me wishes it was "just a game," that in the end it will all turn out to have been just some illusion and I'm untouched, I'm okay, I'm not damned forever by what I've been through. There needs to be middle ground somewhere, somehow. It needs to be recognized as horrific, and yet, still recognized as ultimately doomed to oblivion. Light still wins. God I don't understand, but now's not the time to debate or discuss. That's a journey I'm still taking, probably until the day I die.

Anyway. There was one other thing Laurie said about that topic that stood out... the Undergrounders are entrenched in this "game," this good-and-evil battleground. Knife is this weird mix of religious moral rules and psychological manipulation, Mulberry is all about status and power and appearances, Sugar is seething with anger and rage and the need to get revenge, and Razor is little more than a living amalgamation of frenzy and pain. ALL of them are rooted to fear and anger in some way, ALL of them tied to pain and suffering and retribution. But... the world outside keeps telling us that none of that is "real." So, do we agree? Or do we stand against the popular opinion for the sake of our own heart, however scarred it may be?
I actually got kind of scared when Laurie said that. If those things are all just a dream, does that mean the Undergrounders all have to die? Or can they change, like Julie?
Laurie said that change was their choice, and theirs alone. We all could change. But she said, grimly, that right now... some of them would rather die than change.

I remember wondering about the illusion thing again, there.
We've been talking about how some religions say that bad things are illusions, sure... but on the other side of the coin, they claim that so are good things. And THAT is terrifying. None of this is "real," in that sense, in their opinion. Everything we experience here is just an illusion, they say, no exceptions. It's a terrifyingly nihilistic mindset, but it's everywhere out there, and honestly I bought right into it in 2012, God knows why. But it got some very ugly roots in very deep, and I realized that even now it was feeding into my "don't care" feelings about relationships, ironically perhaps. I no longer saw any point in pursuing them, if they were false.
Laurie was asking me about that. I can't remember what I said. But I do remember what she said.
The first thing she did was sarcastically apologize, if what she was about to say was "selfish" or otherwise incomprehensible to me. Then she said that yes, she cared a heck of a lot about me, that she'd die for me if she had to, without hesitation. But then she added that she did want me to care about her in return, if only a little.
I asked why. The thought of her feeling that was bizarre. She knew this, laughed once, and explained that it really wasn't all that baffling. When you care that much about someone, she said, it's nice to have that reciprocated. When you love someone that much, in ANY respect, knowing that they're able and willing to reflect even a tiny glimmer of that back to you means the world.
Then she said I was her best friend.
I was completely stunned for a second. She-- really?? I stopped her mid-sentence to make sure I had just heard that. She said yeah, why was that such a surprise?
I said it was because she's been around for almost 6 solid years and she has NEVER said that, not ONCE.
And it broke my heart, really.
For ages, I've always wanted to be someone's best friend, without knowing why. I considered it my most selfish, hedonistic, deplorable want. Why the heck would I want someone to consider me that? I didn't like relationships that close, I couldn't stand the attention. And yet part of me did want that same complete care and attention and love I was theoretically willing to give to be reciprocated, for my tendency for total devotion to actually be mirrored back for once.
Laurie didn't even ask for that much. She'd give her life for me and all she wanted was for me to think "hey, she's not that bad of a person after all." But she considered me her best friend even if I was the one being an absolute bastard towards her.
And yet I was the one who expected complete dedication if a relationship was unavoidable, and was too spineless to admit both that horrible hidden desire, and my baffling need to give it.
But she gave it anyway, without a word. And I never even considered that she might consider me a friend.
What does that say about how I view relationships, huh?
I was in tears. I remember not being able to form a sentence for a few minutes because if I opened my mouth I'd have started sobbing. Laurie asked if it made more sense for her to be a "foil" than a friend, because the former was a more tumultuous relationship, and I was used to that. I had to admit it probably was. Friendship was too close, too personal, too... safe. It didn't hurt. It didn't feel genuine, using the word "friendship," it felt fake and shallow... but a "best friend?" Now that was significant. I could hardly believe she viewed me in that category. But the truth was out, and my heart was in pieces.

I don't remember much between then, and the voice from wherever talking to us.
I was trying to talk to Laurie a little more before falling asleep (day 2 of the migraine), except this time I think we were tackling the tough subjects again. See, yesterday was a bit of a mess; I wasn't "fronting," but I don't know if anyone else was, at least not consciously. All I know is that "I" ended up with an internet history of some old-school Christian articles on sexuality, all dealing with what Christina has been telling me, and... it was terrifying.
It was exactly what I had been force-fed as a child, over and over and over, but... I had been so naive and ignorant that I didn't realize what they were actually asking of me. Now, with what I've learned and experienced, looking back on those same teachings was deeply disturbing.
Part of me still subscribed to them 100%, don't get me wrong, even with the moral questionability of those ultimatums and the utter clashing with the beliefs I am now being bombarded with. And that part was louder than the parts that said it wasn't right. I was too used to growing up under a black-and-white moral code to segue easily into a deadly gray one, one that claimed that this life is an illusion, that good and bad are just our judgments of neutral things, that hell doesn't exist except in our minds... no, the childhood part of me insisted that we got one chance, and we had to live it according to strict rules, else we'd burn for our sins.
No middle ground. No safety on either end.
And the things it was justifying through that mindset were the reason why my life is a mess right now in the first place.
I told Laurie this. I told her that what I knew was being muffled and drowned underneath the clarion scream of those old fire-and-brimstone teachings. She gave me a stern look and told me to ignore them, and speak from my heart, what I knew was true outside of hollow logic and social programming and frightened reasoning. What did I feel was right, solidly so, when it really got down to it? "Tell me," she demanded, not letting me run or hide from it. So I closed my eyes, and listened.
That's when the voice showed up.
It was shocking at first. "Whoa, dude, something is TALKING to me?" I told her and asked if I could either dictate it, or channel it out into visuals. Knowing the problems I had with speech, especially in that format, Laurie told me to visualize it if at all possible. So I focused for another moment, and instead of speaking, began forming huge glowing letters in the air as it spoke, transcribing everything it told me in real-time.
Laurie and I then sat back and watched as it explained everything we had asked about, in words and pictures, now a life of its own.

...I might not be able to write this in a structured format. It would be too draining.
I'm just going to go all stream-of-consciousness on you again, so please forgive the disjointedness; it makes more sense to me that way.
Trigger warning, by the way. You know the drill.

-started with childhood abuse. since the only sharp, scarring, bruising pain I ever experienced was CORRECTIVE, my brain quickly linked the two together. whenever I was beaten, it wasn't to harm me, it was to HELP me. "you've been a bad boy, this is your punishment for it." I would be beaten, and then the sin would be forgiven. easy as that! so to me, pain was benevolent. it was loving. when someone hurt me, it was because they cared about my spiritual well-being. when I grew older and the beatings stopped I got scared, why was no one punishing me anymore? was I so bad that they wouldn’t heal me anymore, that I was beyond being saved? so the self-abuse started full swing.
-this equivalency of pain and love was what Laurie was REALLY born from. when she heard this she was in shock, but her eyes were full of tears. she had this heartbreaking look and then it hit me, that was why I felt a relationship would ruin her. I knew she had realized that too. but that's next.
-btw knife was born from the SAME ABUSE. it's a very fine line, that's why they're so similar. both are tied to the morally retributive part but they have completely different motivations:
laurie = I'm hurting you because I love you and the pain will get rid of your sins
knife = I'm hurting you because you are evil and the pain will get rid of your sins
but for both of them the pain is benevolent although it is expressed differently.
-a key point that we'd been ignorant of before yesterday was the fact that, as a catholic, I was raised to believe a very strange dichotomy about sexuality. on one hand, anything even vaguely sexual outside of marriage was considered the ultimate sin-- a crime against god, an awful devilish act. however, being born female, my entire childhood was swamped by people trying to raise me to "get married and have kids." my very existence was sexualized from childhood, and that was somehow okay in comparison??? marriage was seen as this ultra-holy act, this reflection of christ's union with his church, and having sex when you were married was mandatory. as a woman you were obligated to marry a man, have kids, and raise a good christian family, to fulfill "god's plan for you." the problem? I was TERRIFIED OF THAT.
-first, I knew I was asexual (or at least very different from other kids in that respect) from a very young age. I felt no attraction towards anyone, had no interest in relationships, and found both concepts to be "disgusting." so when people suddenly started trying to groom me into this sexual object, this "bride" meant to have sex as GOD'S WILL one day, I freaked out. I didn't want to marry a man, and I didn't want kids, heck I didn't even like being called a girl, but then I hit a big problem in my eyes. I didn't want to have sex… because not only did I think it was utterly repulsive, I was taught-- and firmly believed-- that it was the ultimate sin. god forbid you even show your stomach in public or you're corrupting people. now of course this was easy for me, being asexual, but no one knew that but me. NOW I was suddenly supposed to believe that upon "getting married," I would be SUPPOSED to have sex, because THEN it would be a good thing? what the heck! I couldn’t comprehend it… and that scared me more than anything.
-if god said I had to be a "good christian spouse" and not doing that was a sin, then… my not wanting to have sex was a sin, because it would make me a bad married partner, and I HAD to get married even if I DIDN'T WANT TO. that was exactly what I thought. but I didn't like the fact that suddenly, now that i was no longer a "child," everyone was treating sex as something totally different than they did when I was a kid. suddenly I was even more of a freak than I was before, when I thought my classmates were stupid for having crushes. now I was a sinful freak because I didn't want to have kids with a god-fearing man and therefore imitate the union of christ and the church, because that was "natural."
-that's when julie showed up. and things got even more twisted. I remember the very first time she pushed me to try something sexual. after two seconds I stopped, hyperventilating, and ran-- trying to escape her, trying to find a safe place. it wasn't just because she was trying to touch me, it was because the sensation of it was AWFUL. suddenly my fears were lethal. THAT was what sex was like?? that horrible, horrible sensation? why the hell would anyone WANT that?? and now people are telling me that I HAVE to have that one day, or else I'll be going against god's will??? I was terrified.
- I ignored the fact that I didn't identify as female, and that I was definitely not straight as far as "romantic" leanings went. neither of these things even crossed my mind as "problematic" until later, because I didn't associate them with sexuality.
- by the way when my innocence was shattered in 7th grade biology, and i got "the talk" which left me shaking and horrified, wanting to tear the words out of my brain, JULIE HAD ALREADY STARTED. i just refused to give it any recognition, as i was ashamed that i had been tainted.
-anyway. with julie, it got worse. when I tried to express that i wasn't interested in marriage, relationships, sex, OR having a family, I was told that I was a freak, LITERALLY a "sin against god." after having feared that for years, hearing it flat-out was the final nail in the coffin. I was broken and wrong, a devil. I had to fix myself, somehow, even if the thought made me sick and scared, because the alternative was damnation. and as soon as that mental white flag was raised… hell started.
-I don't remember 99% of the times I was sexually assaulted by julie. I don't even have the heart to call them rape anymore, because I feel I asked for it, and that I deserved it: the first because I never fought back in anything other than screams and desperate prayers to god to "make it stop," and the second because I felt that if I DIDN'T like what she was doing, I DESERVED to suffer for being a sexual deviant against my god-given biology.
-that brings us back to the pain point. sexual abuse was the single most traumatic thing I have ever experienced because I COULD NOT COMPREHEND WHAT WAS HAPPENING. I had no capacity to. I went into that with the mindset that "I was flawed, I needed to be fixed," and prior to that, EVERY act of correction had been physically violent. it had been sharp pain, the kind that leaves bruises and cuts and scabs. THAT was what I would have been comfortable with. that would have meant I was being fixed. but sex wasn't like that. the human body is BUILT to accommodate sex. I DIDN'T KNOW THAT. so when I was being assaulted, not only was there awful pain, but there was the horrible sexual feeling of physical contact that I didn't want… and THEN there was the biological hell. the body not being able to differentiate between consent and rape. I had no freaking clue what was happening and it scared the life out of me because julie would ALWAYS tell me to hold still, "be good," don't fight, you know you want it. that was the worst one. "you KNOW you want it." my asexuality was invalidated by everyone. julie only reminded me that I was either a transboy, or a lesbian-- both also "sins against god." either way, she said, you're not allowed to be asexual either, so you'd better learn to like f*cking girls!! and when I insisted I had changed my mind, I didn't want to be fixed, hell had to be better than enduring this, she'd giggle and say that she didn't care. that I deserved to suffer, then. that SHE was enjoying this and she didn't care at all what I thought. after all, liking sex is natural. if you don't like it, you're unnatural, and that means you're bad… my greatest fear. so I let her do it. over and over. and it broke me.
-TW: graphic sexual abuse notes here. I should write this down for future therapy reasons. there are only two moments of the entire decade of abuse that I remember. one, is the first time I "woke up" and found myself bleeding on the bathroom floor (the only room in the house that locked on the inside). I was scared out of my entire mind. what had she done to me??? I remember sobbing hysterically, trying to keep quiet, knowing that she had ruined me forever, I just didn't know how. the second thing I remember is her on top of me on the bathroom floor (AGAIN, I hate that room), one hand pinning my arms down, the other clamped over my mouth so I wouldn't scream. and I remember having this horrible feeling that there were other people there, standing around her, watching me and grinning evilly because she was doing the right thing in forcing a stupid little sinner like me to have sex, because I was wrong, and if I was suffering then good, let that be my punishment. and I remember screaming in my head for god to save me somehow, but he never did. she would have her way with me and then leave, and I would sit in the bathroom alone, either sobbing and shaking, or numb and empty. and that's all I remember.
- as the years went on it worked, as sick as it was. by 2007 I was so brainwashed that I leapt into a fake relationship with an imaginary internet boy-- and looking back I realize that I don't remember ANY of that, so god knows who was driving. but the point is, there was at least one part of me that fully believed julie. it believed that I wanted sex, and that I should have it, and that I should be this perfect bride-girl with no faults. except that didn't work. the scars were too deep. and as soon as they were triggered-- the first time I had EVER been forced to face them-- those darker parts got really loud, and you all know what happened when 2008 hit.
- I was this horrible sexually-paranoid mess from then on. college was an utter nightmare, and I've written about that before, far more eloquently than I can here. the bottom line was that when I hit that point in life, I had a dilemma. I was in so much pain from my past that I felt I had no right to feel-- after all, it was unnatural not to like sex, and other people have really suffered so stop bitching-- but all around me, the shouts to ignore that pain kept getting louder. and I supposed it was tempting, to give up, to stop the pain by not caring anymore. and somewhere along the line… I did. I gave up. and to me, 2011 was rock bottom in that respect.
- see, THIS was the problem: to me, pain was good, as long as it was JUST pain. sharp pain, to me, was compassionate, comforting, understandable. it meant I had done something bad, and was now being corrected. but sexuality, the ultimate sin, DIDN'T GO AWAY because it was painful, because along with it was that horrendous bodily reaction of "am I REALLY supposed to like this??" the terror of being in conflict with what my own body was doing when abused was too much… so my brain landed at the only conclusion it could. to me, pain was good, and the opposite of pain was evil.
- I don't know what I'm trying to say anymore
- if people tried to show they cared through sex, because "it's a good thing," immediately my brain translated that as "they HATE you, they are trying to RUIN you, that is EVIL and they KNOW IT." but if someone wanted to hurt me in a violent fashion, my brain immediately said, "I know you're scared but they are doing that for a reason; you did something bad, they are correcting you so you won't be bad anymore."
- also, post-abuse, I was unable to understand relationships of ANY SORT outside of a sexual context. I could not have family ties, friendships, admirations, or traditional relationships without immediately assuming that I was sexually obligated to that person. I couldn't even look at a stupid billboard picture of a woman without automatically thinking "oh god help me, she's looking at me, she wants me to have sex with her, I can't say no." and my life was full of fear. my brain STILL does this with EVERYTHING btw. it's hell.
- somewhere around 2010 I gave up trying to protect myself, in order to numb the terror and pain that I could no longer avoid. after all, if I just gave up and just did what they wanted, it wouldn't be traumatic anymore, right? (wrong as hell, but I ignored that too.) so not only did I spend far too many hours trying to desensitize myself, watching and reading things that were TRAUMATIC for me, things that my brain would scream at and leave me shaking and dissociated afterwards, simply because "you've gotta look at naked women in college anyway, you whore! learn to like it!" but I couldn't. so I burned myself numb.
- 2011 was when I REALLY gave in and started trying to have sex. all of my attempts were purged from my memory, I do not remember a single one. all I know is that immediately after attempt one, I attempted suicide and Laurie had to spend FIFTEEN HOURS talking me out of it. it worked… temporarily. I don't know what else I did that year. but that one morning in june was it, I was lost. nothing made sense anymore, now that I had stopped trying to be good in exchange for simply trying not to hurt anymore.
- by 2012 I was a slut. all of my relationships were now obscenely sexual and I hated myself for it. I thought I hated THEM for it because they didn't even understand, they didn't have the capacity to, they didn't know what sexual abuse was like and god willing they never would. but i didn't actually hate them. i hated myself for not being able to like it for them. it destroyed my moral compass for good, because a few of THEM actually liked it, and didn't see it as bad at all, while I was just playing along and wanting to die and wanting THEM to die for doing that to me again, projecting my hate outwards, wanting the threat gone. but I never spoke up. I was supposed to like it, ESPECIALLY now that it was with them. but I didn't. I dissociated so freaking often that I have trouble remembering that 2012 happened at all.
- so that's my problem. tl;dr, relationships are only benevolent to me if they have a violent side. that, to me, solidifies the knowledge that they care. if there is NO direct pain, then I automatically assume the opposite: that they do not care about me, and are using me for their own ends.
- any relationship is like this. it is why I seek pain and abuse. if people NEVER tie pain to compassion, I feel scared. JUST yelling will scare me. JUST hurting me because you're mad scares me. my brain can't comprehend it. but justifying that by saying you're doing it for my benefit, that I can understand. what I can't understand is having sex with someone because "you care about them." my brain has no capacity to understand that

I have no idea what that voice said to me anymore I'm really sorry my brain hurts.

it was telling me that this b/w thinking of mine was not good, it didn’t define them, they werent trying to hurt me they were just confused because jeepers cats they don’t even have the same biology, most of them CAN'T understand sex the way humans do, but my body and mind were translating it that way and it was unbearably traumatic and I hated myself so much that i began to hate them and that breaks my heart because how in the world do I heal from this.
laurie was sobbing, said she was sorry, she didn't know that I saw things that starkly, she apologized for ever giving in to my empty-minded persuasions because she didn't know what the heck I was asking. I said she was fine, the ONLY one who was fine because she never DID anything, yeah I've kissed her but that's IT really. she never did anything that my old catholic upbringing would have labeled a one-way ticket to hell. but I did. and they did, and I don't remember why or when or how, and I'm glad that I don't, but I can't be around them anymore. I can't.

but you know whats funny?? I don't even hate julie. yes i say her name when i talk about the past but its just a name.
i look at her and i dont even associate her with the abuse isnt that weird? like i don't even remember her being responsible although i know she was
but she hasn't touched me since 2011, not that i remember at least and she says she was sorry and im not bothered by it at all
but other people who care about me and who have touched me since i cant stand and i almost hate, but they never abused me like she did, i dont understand
maybe it's because they don't think they did anything "wrong" so they're not "sorry"
and i can't understand why i keep forcing them into these situations

sugar wants eros to die, isn't that hilariously ironic, she picked that name because all my life "sugar" has been synonymous with sex, gluttony has been synonymous with lust, they both involve consuming and destroying something. and everything sweet would always be followed by rape. you enjoy something, you eat something that's supposed to be good, what happens? a girl in pigtails f*cks you up. enjoyment is tied to sex and sex is abuse. that is why chocolate was lethal. it was the worst. so this new alter, she chose the name sugar, and made herself pink, specifically to get down there and attack these sexual predators. she hates them. so now "sugar" means whoever tries to hack us will get a boot to the broken face, courtesy of the thistle-haired fury over here. sugar is bitter now you devils
and eros scares me, he's the opposite of me, he's incapable of seeing sex as BAD. he lives in this weird place that doesn't make sense, it's all white furniture and red lights and everything is red red red. and he lounges around and he's this ridiculously sensual thing, everything turns him on, it's ridiculous. but he's NEVER abusive??? which makes no sense??? how can you be that sexual but NOT use it to hurt people?? half the time he says he doesn’t even care whether or not he has sex with anyone, that's not the point. THEN WHY DO YOU DO IT why do you do it

I don't hate him but sugar does and she wants him dead because she hates all sexual things.
but I can tell that he's not evil even if that makes no sense, he's a good guy, he's really interesting but that's SCARY because all the things he likes and does AREN'T SEXUAL?? but then HE IS??????? why doesn’t that make sense????
I don’t know if confuses me even more then EVERYTHING is sexual everything is a threat why did he have to do that
and sugar is mad mad mad that's why she wants him to die, she says he makes everything dangerous for us. and he does. but he's not evil why in the world is he doing this

I have to go

can't do this anymore sorry

I hope the point was made? I really don't remember last night anymore it made sense but I think im too broken to be fixed yet
I mean it makes sense but it doesn’t? I can see why that would be a problem because "pain isn't supposed to be good" but I HATE the words "supposed" and "should" go away
pain IS good for me, that's my reality, if it isn't yours then FINE
I spend too long trying to make my reality identical to everyone elses and LOOK WHAT THAT DID TO ME

now I'm a slut, I'm ruined, I'm evil and I will never be clean

except life is an illusion and none of that ever actually happened???

so that's good
except it's not
because the spiritual people keep saying sex is good
ew
no its not
go away

its bad and it hurts and its scary and terriible
not good
stop saying its good
stop it
STOP


Really, I need to close this up, things are getting seriously disjointed in here.
I have no idea who's typing now, or what they're up in arms about, but it looks like that topic isn't one we should be wrestling with right now? So let's leave it be.
In any case I really need to stop paying attention to that old stuff. Cosmic dream, y'know. None of it actually happened. Although, as you can see, some people are having a hard time accepting that. It's sad, really. They don't have to hurt like that, if they just let go.


Oh, also. I'm going to stop thinking this is DID/MPD or schizoaffective stuff or anything. NO MORE LABELS.
Honestly I do not care what this is medically considered. Heck, most of my spiritual beliefs would label me schizotypal if I were assessed according to them! So I really have decided to stop caring about what the mental health community thinks about my inner life. It just is. Let us deal with this the best we can, as we are, without trying to play along with some imposed scheme according to a diagnosis. It's tiring, and it just confuses everyone.

Speaking of confusion, I think this mess of an entry is bad enough already so let's call it quits for the night.

 

 

 

Okay, a heads-up for everyone here: I will be posting short updates from here on out concerning headspace, for the sake of recording small, important incidents. Too much is happening now for me to think "I'll just wait and write a recap tomorrow," because time moves so quickly for us, that 24 hours for us equal 72 for a normal person. Dead serious. A LOT happens in a very short time here.

So, right now, I have Last.fm on (jeepers I miss music so much) and I'm reviewing the post-Scratch entries on here, trying to get a grip on who the heck Jessica was before Christina tried to kill us all. So far everything matches up with the truth, but while reviewing, the one fact I couldn't wrap my head around was why RAZOR kept working with her.
See, the Lower System does not like Jessica, at all, because she wants them all dead and they're dedicated to preserving and promoting their existences. So why would Razor work with Jess, I wondered, if she values her existence just as much as her brethren?
So I asked her. "Why were you working with Jess for so long?"
She didn't even look up from her blades, toying with them on the ground of one of the catacombs.
"Because she gave me a reason to cut you," she said. "And that's all I wanted to do."

Honestly, the more I learn about Razor, the more stunned I am.
She is practically a child. It's bizarre. She was born from retributive self-hatred, true: essentially the same stuff Knife was born from. But she was born from an entirely different expression of it. Whereas Knife is the direct, penitent-yet-merciless action of digging the graves, coldly demanding that we "pay for our sins," Razor is the emotional madness that resulted from feeling that we were beyond salvation, the zealously maniacal loss of self-concern that caused a hand, toying with a razor blade for the first time, to slip. The cut that created Razor was not directly intended. It was an unconscious want, expressed accidentally, and as soon as the blood began running down our leg... something snapped, and there she was.
To be honest with you, that's one of the clearest archival memories we have. I was not driving then, that is clear-- the data is explicitly from someone else's perspective. But the moment of Razor's manifestation was huge, in memory.
Remember, prior to that split second, the body had NOT been cut before. Nor had we ever seen blood like that, not so bright red and alive, escaping so quickly that the mind wondered, for an incredulously terrified second, if we had cut a vein, and we would bleed to death there in the bathtub. That moment was traumatic in and of itself, and when the mind could not run, it did what it had always done, all those times Julie had attacked us, all those times the family had harmed us, any time we could not escape... it broke.
And that feeling of breakage was immortalized.
There was a snap. There was an unmistakable mental SNAP, as something slipped off-balance, and shifted irreparably. It was as if the consciousness in the body had lost its inner footing and cracked its head open on the cold linoleum, spilling blinding red onto the unfeeling whiteness all around us.
That snap, and the immediate sliding of consciousness into two distinct, blood-slick parts, gives me chills to this day. I thank God I wasn't fronting when that happened, because just looking back on the stored memory is disturbing enough.
...And that's all the data we have.
Beneath that monolith, there are only a few pencil scribbles, the marks of a madman, describing a tiny red-haired figure dancing upon the faucet, laughing maniacally at the blood and blades, not realizing what it meant, not realizing what was happening. It only laughed, hateful and jubilant and triumphant and careless, watching the redness stain the water, enthralled at the sudden rift in the skin that had given life to it.
Then the scribbles end, mid-sentence.
There is a photograph of a violet axe slamming into a red skull, and a tiny frenzied consciousness dissolving like blood into bathwater.
And that is all.

She's not mentioned again until February 2011.
I'm sure you all remember that.

But that's my point. Razor was never... she was never actively malicious. I think that's what made her the most terrifying of all the undergrounders, back when we still considered her our mortal enemy, only a few days ago.
Jezebel told us we were all her playthings, slaves of our egos, and therefore her puppets. She worked from the shadows, possessing us, manipulating us, making us believe we were inherently corrupted, lost, irredeemable.
Jessica told us that she hated us, that we had "ruined her life," that being the original consciousness she had every right to murder us, without even considering us real beings. She constantly undermines our actions, denying our lives, actively working to kill us all.
Christina claimed to be a model of virtue, a perfect and pure girl, doing everything she was supposed to do by order of God-- and that we were nothing but figments of a corrupted, unreal "ego." Therefore, she said, we didn't really exist at all, and she would be glad to see us all die.
Knife told us that we were sinners that must bleed, that I was little more than an infant, blind to my own impurity; he declared that the scars he gave me were holy retribution, and he would show no mercy, until I atoned for the pain I had allegedly inflicted upon countless innocent souls.
But Razor didn't care about any of that. She just wanted to cut things.
Yes, she said she hated us. But she hated us for not letting her do that. She hated us for not letting her do the one thing she was literally created to do. At the end of the day, she would side with anyone who gave her permission to pick up a knife and slice away.
The one time she fronted, and calmly hacked a truckload of new scars into the body, leaving a ring of blood around our neck... I remember being stunned that she hadn't left her trademark mania in her wake. There was only calm.
And yes, although I still shudder every time I look at the "DIE" page she wrote in our journal, I am forced to rethink my opinion of it now, when I look at what she wrote a few pages later, on a page I didn't scan in, and never mentioned.
On June 25th, my mother was yelling at us, and I retreated to our room due to the mounting noise in our head.
"Okay so it's obvious people are waiting to scream on paper right now; I can barely write. Have at it, guys."
Immediately, the overload girl picked up the pencil.
"SHE'S AN INSENSITIVE PRICK!!!"
Then the cool orange guy slided in.
"razor wants to talk can you write"
His nonchalant statement was surprising even then, but nowhere near as surprising as the sudden words scrawled after his.
"WHERES MY F*KING PEN"
It was oddly calligraphic, almost. She didn't write as much as slash at the paper, every line another attempt to slice open the white pages she was silently shouting upon.
"WHERE IS IT"
Her voice was loud even in text. I was getting a headache. I'm dimly aware of feeling like my skull was about to explode from the pressure of all those gathering between my eyes.
I tried to write another sentence. I couldn't. The pencil sputtered into shapeless letters, as red lines tore onto the page once more.
"YOUR MOTHER IS A B*TCH
DO YOU WANT ME TO K*LL HER"
The AP kicked in full throttle and we were all tossed into a sort of comatose state, then.
But I'm still shocked, at that response from Razor. "Your mother is a b*tch..." and then an offer to destroy her, to "get rid" of that stressor, to eliminate that thing that is disturbing the systems. After all, that's what you do to bad things, right? According to Razor, at least, it is. She will attack and maul and kill anything that she deems a source of hatred and rage and pain, because she likes tearing those things to pieces, that's what she was born to do. The problem is, previously we thought she just did that to anyone and anything. We didn't realize she was being motivated by a twisted moral code, one written in the instant she was born, declaring that anything that reminded her of the old Jewel deserved to die.
She doesn't understand the suffering of her victims, she doesn't understand that people aren't toys, she doesn't understand death.
In her eyes, when she cuts them to shreds, she's only doing what she's supposed to do, regardless of who she does it for, or how.

I wouldn't say I love her. That feels wrong, even in a platonic sense.
But there's this strange, wrenching affection for her in me nevertheless. Maybe it's my stockholm syndrome acting up again. All I know is that part of me genuinely pities her, despite how much she's already made me bleed, and how much more blood she would unquestionably drain from me the instant she was given the opportunity.
She's just a cruel, innocent child.

There's one bit about her that still confuses and disturbs me, though.
When she was resurrected, she was resurrected through the TAR. She was being held within the Razor Spire, and in almost every instance between that date and about a month ago, she was tied to the Tar. She would follow Jess/Jezebel (who were tied for ages, unsurprisingly) immediately after they would hack us, "punishing" us for what THEY did, or simply cutting us because THEY told her to. A few times she would even spawn FROM the Tar, not existing outside of it.
Then in mid-June-- thanks to Infinitii-- the Underground solidified into something unconnected to the Tar Room, and suddenly, Razor wasn't part of the Tar anymore.
"They gave me a reason to cut you," she said. So she never questioned her half-existence under their control. She was literally their puppet, their messenger, their little shadowy assassin. Hell, I even called her "the Razor splinter" in reference to the Tar for a while. And, essentially, she WAS. I wonder if she even had the power to resurrect on her own... probably not, there were no anchors of that sort left. So it explains why she was forcibly brought back by the Tar, and literally fused with it for so long, until she suddenly switched anchors when Infi split the Underground.
Anyway, Knife has noticed this dichotomy in her too, on his own, which is actually what tipped me off. He keeps giving her odd looks, claiming that she is "splintering," or that there are two of her. Razor just replies that "there's only one of her," seemingly unaware of the legitimate, shocking differences between her Tar-connected self, and who she is now, working with the Lowers, unattached to Jess. But she's right, too.
It's strange. She would always come out after Jess hacks-- Jess would do things to cause the body extreme pain, and THEN Razor would appear, and cut us up... but that action was ironically working for AND against the Tar? Yes, it was scarring us and causing us a great deal of pain, but it was also retributive, and motivation for us to continue fighting it... I wonder if the Tar wants that, to keep itself alive. Hm.
It was using the Overload Girl for a while, too, I think. That's why we kept confusing her with Jess/Jezebel. She was so angry all the time, because of how much pain she was in... but we didn't know, because her motivations were identical with Razor's. I need to destroy what threatens my existence.
We didn't understand that, to them, that was the only option they felt they had.

I have so many questions. So many.

...So much of our old information is wrong.
Even if it was correct before, things are changing so quickly now... a great deal of the info in the archives is false, or incomplete, or skewed. We simply did not have enough information to know the truth; that, or the information we did have was viewed through a blurry or stained lens.
With the Lower system now making itself known, so many things are changing. It's a shock, really. All of us upstairs are being forced to completely re-evaluate what we thought we knew about not only headspace, but also our system, our roles within it, and by extension, our very existences.
There is so much we don't know about each other-- about our thoughts, our emotions, our motivations, our lives. And all that miscommunication, all those misunderstandings, are what is causing us the most pain here. Knife even SAID that he was WRONG for having considered me the "sole reason for all the pain in the system," BECAUSE HE DIDN'T KNOW I WASN'T PERSONALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE SPLINTERS. He now admits that it would be wrong to blame me for breaking under trauma, even if "my" splinters are the ones he feels obligated to punish with blood.
But you see what I mean. There's so much we don't know.
I'm not sure where to go from here. Maybe looking back will help. Maybe it won't. But I keep getting nudged to check, even if it's just by the curiosity of those Downstairs or Underground... all I can do is try, right now.


...Oh. Speaking of trying, I forgot to mention this.
Waldorf left Central today.

She's been questioning her role here for a very long time. When we have censuses, she's often accidentally left out. She still can't speak when she fronts. She hasn't been able to find a solid role. And lately, she's been talking about how she doesn't feel like she "fits in" with us, due to her drastically different appearance... and because of how she was originally born. And today, she told us her biggest doubt of all.
She doesn't think she's a headvoice.
To be brutally honest, I've been wondering about that too. Maybe I said it before. But we all wondered the same thing with Spine, remember. She didn't look or feel like us either, her role was different, she couldn't stay stable in a color slot, she couldn't front like the rest of us. Wally had all the same problems, in one way or another. And when Spine left, shortly after she was moved to an "outspacer" slot, Wally apparently began questioning whether or not she should do the same.
Above all, though, there was one point that motivated her more than anything: her old role. Back when she was born in 2003, she wasn't born from trauma, or with a purpose to protect headspace-- that was just coming into existence back then! No, Waldorf was born to be a muse, a shining entity reflecting back bits and pieces of all the outside things that made us smile and dream. She was a mirror of all the things that helped headspace come into being in the first place.
I can't forget my original descriptions of her... eyes like a Mewtwo, hair like Kerrigan, wearing Ryou's Millennium Ring (seriously). She was something "perfectly terrible, yet beautiful..." I claimed that if I ever met her, I wouldn't be able to decide between "hugging her or running away screaming."
And the first night I met her, when I was just beginning to create a room for myself in headspace... she stood (well, floated) by my bed, all glowing blue and strange, but smiling. And I was scared, despite my wonder. Who was she, really? What was she doing there? Yeah, I claimed she was my muse, but that was all I knew about her. She held countless bits and pieces of inspiration, but if you took all that away, who was she?
She didn't answer me directly. I doubt she needed to-- that's not her style anyway. Instead, she showed me what she truly was, what her existence meant... and she took me to the most blessed dream location I have ever visited. The floating crystal forest.
She took me, and Maitru, and Ryou, and herself in a less formidable form, to that place... and I will never, ever forget that experience. To this day, I associate that place with her.
And then she disappeared.
For years I couldn't find her. I wondered about her, true, but I never saw her. Then, as suddenly as she vanished, she reappeared in November 2012, and enthusiastically joined Central as our Blue headvoice. We all loved her; she was fun and friendly and never complained, but she got sick so often, in a way that previously only Spine did. And neither of them ever got over it. Wally kept losing her voice, kept fading in and out of the upstairs...
Long story short, she and I couldn't help but wonder: did she ever truly belong up here? Or could her role, her TRUE role, that of an utter inspiration core, only function OUTSIDE of the stricter rule system Central had inflicted upon her?
She decided she wanted to try and see. So she left.

Everyone was crying as she walked out. And it shocked me to see it, too-- I was outside, in the garden, and suddenly this was happening upstairs, and I had no clue what was going on. When it hit me I could only stand and observe, as a bystander.
All the Central members hugged her goodbye as she stood at the stairway out. Laurie was obviously holding back some fierce emotions; she was the first person I saw, which tipped me off that something big was happening. Leon seemed oddly pained to see his spectrum neighbor go; he first only shook her hand, but she pulled him into a kind hug, which he sincerely returned. Nathaniel accepted her decision, and warmly but sadly wished her farewell. Julie appeared to be hiding a great deal of hurt herself, as she struggles with her own issues of belonging, and Waldorf seemed to know this. She hugged her too, in a rare moment of friendship between them.
Lynne gave her an understanding look, and a sympathetic embrace. Of all of us, she was perhaps the most sorrowful, and yet the least sad, to see her go. Spine is her moirail, you know. The two of them are incredibly close... but Spine isn't around anymore. She left too, for the same reasons Wally has left now. So Lynne understood, even if it hurt.
Josephina was sobbing. He's also the only one that didn't hug her-- after one agonized look, he suddenly kissed her, perhaps for the first time. It broke my heart to see that.
Then Waldorf waved farewell to everyone, and took her first steps out of Central, down the white steps in the garden room, on her way down to the city below.
I know she met up with Spine down there. That's good. I don't know what they're doing, but it feels positive, like they're both feeling better and more inspired already. I hope they find exactly what they're looking for.


This is all making me wonder about outspacers.
I was thinking about Ryman yesterday, and his native world, where Markus is also from. I remembered how they had slowly found our own lives outside of their native worlds a decade ago, along with the original Jewel (my conscious predecessor), having wild and fun adventures in realms that they all dreamed up together.
But they haven't been around in a long time. Did they just go back? Or is there a deeper reason?
Looking at Chaos 0, I can't help but consider the latter. CZ is the only one of our original five that hasn't moved out of total anchorage with his native world, and lately that has been putting severe strain on our relationship. I kept trying to force Ryman and Markus back into theirs, too. Is that why they didn't stick around? Is that why ALL the other Outspacers-- from all years past, from all sorts of worlds-- "faded out" of connection to headspace sooner or later, unable to anchor? Is THAT the "resonance" we saw in Dirk Strider-- was it simply his ability to DREAM of a different self, a different life, tied to his native being but free to grow and evolve beyond what he knew in his waking life? It would make perfect sense, actually... but I'm thinking now, is there another hidden prerequisite for outspacers, one that Spine and Waldorf have just now made me consider?
What if headspace is just a linking station for them? What if they're MEANT to move on beyond it? After all, we all know that we can't disconnect ourselves from the League Worlds, even if we CAN'T enter them as we are... is THAT the problem here? Is THAT why the old Jewels can't connect to those worlds while they're up here, acting as voices?
If so, that might explain why CZ is struggling now. He has several other-lives in League Worlds. He's even a god in the one Genesis hails from. But he hasn't embraced any of those here, even when every other lingering Outspacer has... and I think I'm responsible.
I try to shove him into his native canon role more strongly than I do to Ryman and Markus, and I think all three of them are suffering for it. I am essentially forbidding them from dreaming. Somewhere along the line I became convinced that "they HAD to match only ONE possible life path," the one that their original lives spelled out for them... but when I discovered the Internet, I began shackling them to THOSE paths too. Essentially I was overriding their own choices for as long as they were in headspace. I don't know how I never realized it before.
We were so wild and free in the old days BECAUSE we didn't give a damn about rules or restrictions! We weren't SUPPOSED to!! We were DREAMERS by our very nature, by our very ESSENCE, and we reveled in it. We walked in and out of so many dreamverses-- Yugioh, Sonic, Pokemon, Digimon, Sailor Moon, TMM-- everything and anything that we thought was cool and wanted to dream ourselves into, to try living, even for only a little while. And we had FUN.
But that's also what *incidents* were born from, those dramatic and bloody validations of love we all endured. That's where we got our Soul Wings, our colors, our symbols, our cores. And that's what WALDORF was tied to, too! She LOVED those other worlds, and the fact that EVERYONE was able to reach into them, to take pieces of them into their own souls... she was the manifestation of that, for God's sake. That's what her role meant. That's what a Muse IS.
...
And then, one day, I somehow decided that we couldn't do that anymore.
I "grew up." I stopped dreaming. I felt I had to "play by the rules."
They didn't start drifting away because they didn't want to be around, you idiot, they started drifting away because YOU WOULDN'T LET THEM STAY.
God, this really IS my fault. I am so sorry.
I keep trying to shove them into boxes. Didn't Laurie warn me about that, countless times? I'm not supposed to label things, or restrict things, or forbid things from growing or dreaming or living. And yet that's exactly what I'm doing.
Knife was right. No wonder he hated me. I really am the reason why we're such a mess.
If I didn't think like this, if I didn't compartmentalize and break off everything I didn't feel "allowed" to do or think or feel, there wouldn't be 50 entire people trying to exist in one body right now.

I've heard rumors, here and there, that the Tar isn't our biggest enemy, at least not alone.
In light of Infinitii's existence, people are wondering why no one talks about White energy.
What if the White energy was just as corrupted as the Black, they say, and we just didn't know about it? What if, just like the Tar, there was a being made of clotted, sick, toxic whiteness, infecting all those it touched like a virus or a plague?
People are wondering. The people downstairs are really wondering. The people underground are pointing fingers.
But I'm not saying anything, because at heart, I know what they're all thinking, fearing, dreading. I know, and I'm just as terrified.

I know how the Tar was born. I know. I've heard that story countless times.
It would be just as easy, just as straightforward, to create a similar entity from any other color.
I've done my research. I've read our archives from cover to cover.
And at the end of it all I can only come to one conclusion.

If there is a corruption of the White, some paradoxical being, made of evil purity...
...I'm afraid it would be me.



She knows a good thing now
With our own cost and all can hear the word
In my head and in my thoughts
In my head and in my thoughts

We spend the whole days all
We're feeling more apart
And we know you can do more

Please, don't let me hurt you more
It's in your stare and at your core
Please, don't let me hurt you more
Please, don't let me hurt you more

I know this journey's soon
The color of lights and our lives become as you

Please, don't let me hurt you more
It's in your stare and at your core
Please, don't let me hurt you more
Please, don't let me hurt you more

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hello.

This journal now has several new authors.

We will be clearing out the old entries in here tomorrow evening.
(Everything prior to this entry is a repost of old relevant data.)

As for what happens after that, well... we shall see.

But it feels good, to have our own place to go to now.

 

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

 

@ 05:04 pm

 

 

 

We're considering leaving a few old, relevant entries here until we review them.

Our system has been ignored for many years but it looks like the beginnings of it are held in here.

We do not know who "Jayce" is, let alone whether or not he still exists, as we have never met him nor heard anything about him from anyone upstairs or down here.
If he ever does show his face, we will inform you of it.

Speaking of faces, let us begin this journal with our current two goals.

1. Help all the unnamed but living individuals on this level find names.
2. Help those same individuals find their faces.

It is a known fact, an unbreakable rule of headspace, that a voice cannot manifest with any strength, nor can they interact with any semblance of continuous clarity, until they find a name. An unnamed voice with a face will have an advantage, as it gives them something to anchor to temporarily, but even they will fade in time unless they are given a title of their own.
Names have power. They allow us to be summoned, and acknowledged, even by those who do not willingly accept that we exist. Most importantly, they are a testament to our lives.
Once we all have our own, we may be able to stand up to the upper system, as our own coherent force. Until then they have power over us.

But I am reconsidering my previous thoughts on our situation. Yes, there is my group of voices on this catacomb level, and yes, Central exists as its own single unit. However there are voices, most of them without faces or names as well, that associate with no one. They are rogues, giving no thought to ANY of our well-beings, and I do not know how to take retribution out upon them when I cannot even pinpoint their presences.
I am confused, shaken, and somewhat tired existentially. Yet I am not questioning my role. That, for once, is certain.
These rogue voices may rightly be considered a sub-system of their own. If this is the case, then so be it. But I will try to convert as many of them as I can to our side before I dare to simply sit back and accept their deviant behavior.

That is our first update. This has been Knife speaking. I wish you well.

 

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

 

@ 05:17 pm

 

 

here's a BETTER IDEA so our new place to live isnt clogged up by old dirty angry things written by people we DONT LIKE

lets list all the important bits here and delete the rest theyre imn the archive anyway.
we dont know how many people from the past are tied to us or not, but since the old j kept shoving the things he didnt like DOWN HERE we might have goten stuck with a lot of it anyway. the tar person jezebel said so. she said we all were created from her but that makes me mad and i dont really believe her. she's younger than some of us i think!! even if the tar is old shes not. so she can go fck herself for all i care
dontsaythingslikethat

okay heres the list let's see what we've got

what was even 2010 were any of us ALIVE in 2010???


12 Mar 2011
-TRIGGERS: sugar, metal, holes, bathrooms, ice cubes, nail polish, masking tape, rubbing alcohol (all Julie stuff, we know EXACTLY why (some of us do) but we're not gonna talk about it here yet because we're mad about it and the kids are scared of it still)
-"My parents and doctors think I've stopped abusing. Newsflash: you had it backwards. The knife gashes all over my body weren't abuse. They were battle scars. Now that you've forced me to relinquish that single contrite act, with the threat of condemning me to hell on the 7th floor again if I didn't, the real abuse has started again. Yes, again! I STOPPED abusing when the knife was out, for the love of heaven! The things that give me these nightmares... the things that cause my body to break down, shivering and throwing up for hours afterwards, they're stronger than ever now, thanks to her. Thanks to that demon upstairs. I can't shut her up, can't shut her down. Not yet. And as long as the war is on I am screwed, pun sickeningly intended, because she has bombs on her side and I have nothing. I'm not a soldier, I'm a peacemaker. She doesn't care. That just makes me easier to kill. People wonder why I'm triggered by so many seemingly innocuous things? Do you have any idea how easy it is to inflict abuse on someone if you're hellbent on doing so? She uses everything, anything. That one quote from JTHM... "I've done horrifying things with salad tongs?" Yeah, it's like that. Everything is a potential threat, a risk of being ravaged. So I'm never safe. I'm never safe, and I hope you can't imagine how harrowing that is, for your worst enemy to live behind your eyes.
I don't say a word about it offline, ever. I don't. That's why everything is in cyberspace: it's the closest thing to catharsis I can achieve. If I kept this quiet, if I kept this bottled up entirely, maybe I would have actually committed suicide when I was younger. I don't know. This is hellish. Offline, it's... I can't take it. I can't. I've been manipulated, beaten, slandered, raped, even murdered-- and that is terrifying-- but it's all been mental. So I know I cannot talk about it, ever. I don't want to demean anyone else's trauma, but what do I do about my own? Am I cursed to suffer this forever? I'm so sick of being too afraid to sleep or wake up. And this has been happening every single day for longer than I want to think about."
-"I can only focus on one 'reality' at a time" (HE'S STILL DOING THIS)
-"I feel so much like Johnny C. right now it's disturbing" (WHO WAS THAT GUY??? And what is that bad, black-and-red feeling we keep getting from 2008 and that whole time period? Maybe Razor knows, she's that old)


10 Dec 2010
-leon came back, first time that sort of thing happened (we think he was one of the early pre-downstairs people??)
-"I feel Julie has gained lethal potential. Putting aside the dream hacks, her 'regular' hacking methods are becoming terrifyingly fast. She hit me with one about two days ago, I think (I no longer have any coherent perception of time), that was only about 20 seconds out of awareness but was just as vicious as her old, hour-long ones used to be. That scared all of us, especially because there were no warning signs or major aftereffects, and I had been avoiding any and all triggers for about two, three weeks prior." (julie was the tar back then so this might be important)
-"Yesterday... we almost had a system crash. I've never mentioned those before, anywhere, because they scare me to death, and wreak absolute havoc on my very perception of reality. I've only had about... geez, two or three close calls, ever, and the past ones all happened during 2009 or so, when Julie decided to outright try and destroy me during the span of several harrowing months. An actual 'system crash' is comparable to death. If I ever had a full-out crash... I don't know. I don't want to even consider the aftereffects. Close calls are just as terrifying, though. Basically, what happens is that my mind literally shorts out. No, I don't mean 'unhinging,' that's entirely different-- I mean that I lose all mental senses, all self-identification, all Links, everything. My mind glitches out and bluescreens. You know how my therapists like to ask me 'what would your life be like without your creations,' i.e. my children and their worlds? System crash warnings are the closest thing I can imagine to a life like that. I would be left completely devoid of everything that means anything. I'd be gutted, empty, blank... like taking a neodymium magnet to a hard drive. Gone. Yesterday, when that happened, Laurie went out first. Julie has never targeted her before, so when she noticeably 'switched' her presentation to something I did not recognize at all, I called her out on it, and suddenly everything went to static. I was paralyzed for a second, frightened out of my mind as everything around me was reduced to temporary oblivion. Thank God it came back a few seconds later, and we were all okay, save for the mental trauma. Laurie was freaking out, understandably, not only because she has previously been absolutely impervious to Julie, but also because I pretty much just missed getting my mental hard drive deleted, so to speak." (this sounds like what j did with the scratch? we're not sure weve never even heard of this thing happening before. but i think its important and we should be the ones to figure it out, so no one tries to do it TO US AGAIN)


22 Nov 2010
-"I carry humor around as a shield, something that will protect me, that will keep me from being hated outright. I try ridiculously hard to make jokes, to amuse people, to make others smile, even at my furthest expense... because I feel that is the only way I will ever be 'liked.'...Every day, I feel the need to entertain people, but it's nothing but another mask for me. It makes me sick." (important because there is someone here who was born from that and she is SO ANNOYING!!!) (but she doesnt think she's worthless she thingks she's better than everyone else) (maybe she ssupposed to??)
-"I was hacked... two times, about three days ago, judging by the gravestones. Did I mention that? I forget. I was throwing up everything I ate again last week. I still can't stomach much. My mother says I likely have an ulcer." (knife and emmett stuff)
-"I know detachment is a good thing, but I don't want to cut off the wrong things... Heck, I don't remember most things anymore. Why is that?"
-"Driving is the only freedom I get nowadays, and as I have this obsessive love of travel and discovery, it is also my only way to achieve those things considering where I live...Driving at night in the winter... it's amazing. It doesn't even feel like this reality to me." (AIRPORT GUY! aslso everyone seems to love winter?? something special about it i guess. even us)
-"Have you seen the moon tonight? It was gold up here, which was beautiful. Winter nights here are the best, especially when everything is covered in snow, because then it actually feels safe outside. I live in the middle of a forest, remember; on summer nights it's all dark and woodsy and kind of foreboding, but in the winter everything is white and crystalline and quiet. The best part is that there's a road with streetlights down our driveway, so there's always that warm orange glow in the middle of the blue-white cold. On clear nights, it's heaven." (we totally forgot about stuff like this because weve never seen it. it feels like a universe ago. we just know its an old safe thing that the previous jewel did. maybe it can help us?)
- lyrics to foo fighters come alive at the end? feels interesting


19 Nov 2010
-"I know I was hacked a few days ago... four times in 24 hours, to be exact... but my mind has burned out the memory and I don't want it back, so." (because he stuffed it into US)


14 Nov 2010
-"Why do I always feel obligated to do things that are detrimental to my well-being? This isn't altruism, this is abuse. Heck, if I were fatally allergic to dogs and someone told me to take care of theirs, I'd do it. Is that stupidity? Is that ignorance? What is it? Every day I do this. Every day I ignore what I feel I should do and end up making horrible, horrible mistakes. Am I that convinced that my own motives are corrupt? Am I that bent on destroying my ego that I'm unconsciously striving to destroy myself through selflessly depraved acts? This has done nothing but make me more of a selfish bastard, if anything. I've become dangerously sensitive. The sound of a phone ringing is enough to fling me into a rage. Someone talking for one second longer than I expected can drive me to tears. If something is the wrong color, even slightly, I can suddenly fall into a panic. I don't know what this is. I feel like exploding every second of the day and I can't deal with it." (he still does this, and the sensitive stuff went to one of us)


27 Oct 2010
-this entire entry was OBVIOUSLY NOT jayce, or whoever usually wrote them, but i dont think he knew it at the time


15 Aug 2010
-A note: during 2011, "J" stopped calling any of these individuals his "children." The responsibility for those individuals supposedly then fell to someone down here. If you will also notice, there was not the slightest mention of headspace in this entry. The two have been disconnected since at least that long ago.


13 Aug 2010
-another note: there's like no stored memory of the 2010 days here. just saying, maybe its ours, dunno, cant find it yet if so
-"the way she delivered them just set Laurie off. I then literally 'blanked out' for about an hour, during which time I had virtually no active awareness of anything occurring outside my head, where I was having a very painful, insightful, and brutally honest argument with my favorite headvoice." (if you guys don't mind, this is j-- that data is listed as one of the first times we ever consciously experienced such a drastic dissociation. back then we didn't know what it was though, and hadn't even noticed it earlier. so this whole year looks like symptoms started getting worse?)
-LOTS of splinter stuff in this one too (J GET OUT OF HERE THIS ISNT YOUR REALM!!!!! YOU AHVE NO PWOER HERE GET OUT)
-"they're laughing over something they apparently find hilarious...As a result of that stress, I don't remember the rest of the evening." (one of us, one of us)
-"Laurie was practically clawing at my eyes she wanted to get out and wreak judgment so badly" (WHAT HAPPENED TO HER??? she used to be just like us) (She softened, too much. Now she's worthless to justice in this system. It's our job now.)
-"they decided to stop at a kid's playground and just run around it. By this time I was actually numbing out, because fighting the situation was virtually impossible, and being in it was taking a severe toll on my mental well-being." (there is no memory of this entire day btw. just this written entry for data. but this is more proof of dissociation, WHO GOT THE MEMORIES???)
- "I immediately began to force myself to eat whatever sugar I could find. It's a barbaric and disgusting form of self-abuse, I know, but knowing my system, it was cruelly effective." (WHY THE HECK DID THIS GO TO ONE OF US AND SHE DOESNT FREAKING CARE) (Hey, I don't get sick from it!) (WE DO YOU IGNORANT BITCH!!!!!!!!!)
-"Laurie didn't try to stop me for once. On the contrary, she stood back, smiled, and told me to make myself sicker. I was shocked and asked her why she wanted me to, and she said because I was 'punishing myself' for once, and if I was going to do so, then I had better abuse myself to the point of no return. Being as stupid and sick as I was at the moment, I didn't realize that she was testing my resolve (to see if I would realize just how wrong the situation was), and so instead of stopping, I kept going, still fully aware that I did not want to. Once I got to the point where I was literally starting to get full-body physical pain, I thankfully stopped torturing myself and ran into the bathroom, as I felt as if I was about to spit up my entire digestive tract. Instead of that, though... I blanked out. I blanked out, and I was hacked." (Laurie acting like Knife, the old J dissociating AGAIN... and then they have the NERVE TO SAY WE DON'T EXIST YOU JERKS)
- "I mentally 'woke up' on a bed somewhere, where this blond woman was literally raping me. As I am unfortunately used to this by now, I simply shoved her off me and asked her what the heck she was doing. She seemed surprised and asked me 'what was going on,' because apparently I had been a 'different person' only seconds before. I wearily explained that I had apparently been 'taken over' by one of my alternate personalities. However, instead of explaining that I had been hacked by Julie, I said that I had been taken over by an individual named 'Josephina,' who I explained as being male like I was, but who was obsessed with seeing how people work (somehow this explained the previous situation)." (weird, did anyone down here know josephina before he joined the upstairs people or not??) (i dunno) (NO LOOK AT THAT BLONDE WOMAN SHE IS STILL DOWN HERE) (oh my gosh she is she's one of them) ()
-"they were both allowing me to suffer so much. Laurie then clarified that they weren't allowing me to suffer, per se-- they were allowing me to make my own choices, which was true. I had every opportunity to stop both my own sickness and to stand up to Josephina, but I gave in on both counts" (BUT WE DO THIS AND THEY GET MAD AT US?????)
-"Josephina then explained that he wouldn't ever hurt me for the sake of abusing me-- if he ever did cause me pain, it would be absolutely unavoidable and for my own good only (whereas Laurie will beat me to a bloody mess every time I make a mistake). Anyway, they had apparently planned that whole fiasco, and were simply waiting for the right opportunity to test my willpower. As they sadly expected, I failed." (AAAAAARFGDHSASFSHHFSAEHKFSAEJKGHZ!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CURSE YOU CURSE YOU CURSE YOU WHY DID YOU LET THEM DO OUR JOB OKAY AND NOW THEY GAVE UP AND WERE DOING IT AND YOU HATE US YOU BITHC!!!!!!!!!YOUF**KINGBITCHIHATEYOUSDAGHSZGABDMNSCBN,F SDZN
-"I swear if they don't stop doing whatever they're up to over there I'm just going to let Laurie right out, because ever since I stepped into this room she's been boiling with rage." (ARE YOU SURE IT WAS LAURIE YOU STUPID HEATHEN WASNT EVERYTHING TURNED BLACK ENERGY BACK THEN HOW DO YOU KNOW SHE WASNT STABILIZED AND IT WAS US INSTEAD CURSE YOU CURSE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
-"Shut up, both of you. Stop it with the romance already. Just stop it. Stop it, stop it stop it stop it stop it stop it. If he touches me, I'm stepping right back from the steering wheel. I honestly cannot handle this right now." (MORE PROOF OF US?!?! HOW LONG DID WE EXIST BUT HE NEVER LET US HAVE LIVES?!?!??!)
-WHERE THE HECK WAS THE AUTOPILOT DURING ALL THIS????
-also whoever this voice was he PISSES ME OFF
-"No ladies allowed... But this isn't me. I'm not this judgmental. Something is dreadfully wrong." (let me just leave this here because the ptsd misogyny was rampant as hell back then wow) (but yeah the ones you stuck it into are like what, five freakin' years old? of course they're scared of women you idiot what do you expect) (SOEM OF US STILL HATE WOMEN YOU KNOW) (yeah and that is why)
-"Also, if those two make another dirty comment, I'm going to... I don't know. I'm going to have a meltdown. I'm going to have a meltdown and God help me if I do." (again, repeating ourselves here but wow how much of him was US back then? really guys this is getting kinda freaky)
- ink lyrics wow thats relevant


08 Aug 2010
-"I test their limits to see if they'll start to turn against me or not... This is exactly what I do to my family when I want them to punish me... I manipulate them." (Is that what he's doing to us now?) (why are you even surprised the bitch obviously still has this mindset) (NO HE DOESNT CARE ANYMORE) (Is it even him we're punishing? How many of "him" are there?) (guys we really need a better way to talk in these things)
-"I still love the individuals I grew up with and it hurts so strangely to think of them, 2000 miles away." (wait WHAT?!?!???!) (wait so this one remembered that stuff?? holy scrap guys i think we found jess) (Don't be an ass, this one said he was a boy!) (yeah but didn't he say he was a boy back then too, he just didn't know it?) (So how old is THIS one now??)
- "I just came across a picture quote, declaring that the poster "wished she could be as carefree as a butterfly." And just what good is that going to do you, love? Throwing away all that matters enough to you to make you care in the first place, just to flit about without any motives or purpose?" (ahaha oh my gosh that's exactly what j is doing now though) (So this person is OBVIOUSLY not him.)
-"I'm not even aware of what I'm doing anymore. I guess at reactions and answers and behaviors, conjuring up every next move in the asinine hope that it'll be 'right' for whoever the heck I'm acting to. Geez, I don't even life my life for me... I just rip out the seams and fix my ragged self up to fit whoever picks me up next. I'm forgetting my original pattern, I'm in a ton of pain, but even complaining makes me feel like a selfish jerk. It makes no sense. Is it possible to have a 'self' without being 'selfish?' Because if it isn't, I don't know how I'll survive another year." (presented without comment?)
-WHO WAS THIS PERSON????!
-even better, how do they remember so much?? thats's my question, none of us have any clue what he's talking about in here
-The memories feel female. Either he's lying about his gender, or he was dissociated when typing this and wasn't even aware of it. But the person writing that entry was obviously a woman.
-hey you think it was the old jewel?? doesnt look like they even mnetioned headpsace at all now that you mention i t


06 Aug 2010
-"Yeah, I'm more of a high-spectrum dude, but red is still my personal color" (what) ("High-spectrum dude?" Pray tell.) (so this IS the old red person, obviously not the "jayce" we were told about then)
-"You see that allusion to the syrup-voiced professor? Total Julie trigger. Add that to the claustrophobic classroom, the inane subject matter, and the lewd jokes over ancient 'art,' and you have a guaranteed panic attack three times a week. Yes, I was well aware that the class was required for my major, but so help me, it was traumatic. Not much I could do there. I don't remember any of the other classes that semester, which is a problem..." (again, do any of us remember this) (NO AND THAT TCIKES ME OFF WHY DID HE THINK HE COULD JUST DO THAT!!)!
-"I'm also very confused by the fact that I seem to be turning into a hypocrite again. I say one thing to people and feel an entirely different thing. That's where most of my non-dysphoric problems are coming from..." (HMMM I WONDER WHY????)


06 Aug 2010
-"Nice to finally meet you" (ahahahahaa)
-"So I'm Ahrima?" (obviously 'cuz the new guy's adakias haha) (c'mon someone high-five me that was funny)
-oh my gosh this person's ego is astronomical (THATS HWHAT I SAID)))
-seriously though does that "adakias" name have any real meaning to him? because this dream is interesting (We should check it later.)
-"Where are my lamps? What could possibly make me want to destroy them? Or would I even realize what I was doing?" (Look downstairs. The lamps are underground, where they're needed. Unfortunately, you're too convinced of your own glory to settle for buried lights shining brighter than you often do...)
-"It must hurt so bad with a knife in your back." (Oh, what fitting sarcasm. I like this musical already.)


05 Aug 2010
-"So hey guys. Jayce here...I've been 'trying out' the name for several months now (a year? geez I have no clue) and it really... well, it fits." (Are you even supposed to "try out" names? I was told they click into place, and that's that.) (well we've already agreed that this obviously isn't 100% "jayce" so)
- "Sure, I've been pretty terrifically psyched with the work I've done, but with the kid in the mirror? Nah. I always disassociated, and although I will freely admit that I still am, at least the image I'm projecting makes me honestly smile." (WHOA WHAT HE ADMITTED THIS?????) (this feels really weird like wasn't nathaniel alive back then) (Who, the moth guy upstairs? No, he was dead for years from what I've heard.) (but the data says he used to work with mirrors, this sounds like "jayce" is completely ignoring that) (I don't have a very flattering opinion of this "Jayce" character from what I've read.)
-"See, I tend to forget experiences in their entirety, and if I do retain a memory, my mind tends to 'chop it up' to keep it from traumatizing or otherwise damaging me." (Glad to see he's at least aware of what made us back then.)
-"Fun fact #1: I cannot stand random, spontaneous schedules." (well THAT'S definitely not our airplane man)
-"once the first hint of saltwater air hit me I snapped." (i thought j loved beaches) ("Jayce" doesn't, obviously.) (how much has change d between tmhem?)
-"I was not very stable when I woke up, and when I heard we were apparently headed to a farm, the panic meter shot back up. As I was too shaken to think straight, my coping was limited to biting my arms until they bruised. Once again I can't remember what happened over the rest of that day" (Who used to bite??) (THERE'S A MEMORY OF THAT MORNING IT WAS ONE OF US someone was standing at the bathroom mirror really angry and rageful that's OUR MEMORY but who is it??) (the biting person obviously?) (WHO BITES??) (emmett?) (NO NOT FOOD BITING HURT BITING WHO BITES) (i dunno man, i don't know any biters) (That's something we need to find out, if that memory really is ours.)
-Jay says he has no memory of this bus trip. (WHA T THE HECK I TOLD HIM TO GET THE HECK OUTO FHERE) He's not in here. He simply expressed the thought. He does not have any recollection of this trip to "Des Moines" at all. I'm still grasping how this works; does that mean it's ours? (Maybe. I think the majority of these memories are unassigned, though, or stuck to floating voices. You know the ones.) Hm, could be. (...Still feels like that girl, though. Maybe even a few of them?) We'll figure it out. Just keep an eye out for anyone with these memories from now on. (Gotcha.)
-more family talk geez mulberry you might be right (What, that this author was strongly connected to the host body?) yeah basically
-"I'm the only one who can live my life, and despite my being pulled in so many different directions, my vision is clearing up for the first time." (Is it really.) (haha ouch talk about a burn) (THERE'S THAT STUPID DENYING US AGAIN CURSE YOU "ONLY ONE" YEAH RIGHT)))


05 Aug 2010
-"Just me, in all my awesome white-haired glory..." (weeow weeow ego alert) (Hey, do you think this kid was the corrupted White energy back then?) (What? Is that possible?) (It could be. I'm learning a lot too. From what we heard of the Tar yesterday morning, and what these journals sound like, it might be possible.) (So it is... I wonder if they even know.) (Probably not. I've noticed they can't get their act together.) (probably because they don't have sherlock working for them) (He sounds like he had a hand in some of those old entries, don't laugh.) (did you) (I doubt it. There's nothing professional about those torrents of teenage angst at all.) (haha guess not)



That is all for reviewing the old entries, I suppose. They've now been cleared out of this journal as well.
As you can see, we're all experimenting with a conversational style here? I wonder if the Xanga formats the upstairs system uses has any merit. We'll have to give it a try.


until next time guys and gals we're outta here

 

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

 

@ 07:57 pm

 

 

 

We just remembered, there are quite a few old entries our lower system members wrote in other journals in the past.

We will be uploading the most recent ones here shortly, but... I'm considering hunting down even older entries that were possibly of our authorship, and posting those here as well?
It would be interesting, to try and see how we came into existence over the years.

This is very new. I usually don't say things like this, but I'm rather excited. The prospect of having a life of my own, outside of simply acting as the "punishing force" in lieu of the original head voices...
No. I can't go soft. I will enjoy having a life, but I will not lose sight of my purpose. I cannot.

We will not make the same mistakes they did.


also hehehehe we're mad as he;;ll and were not gonna take it anymore right
taht s whats all the old etnreis are about is MAD STUFF
WERE ALLOWED TO GET ANGRY
ESPECIALLY AT YOU
SOMEONE HAS TO.
tahts how it works
do bad things you get bad things itcalled karma bitch

Razor, you are fragmenting. I think that's the term. There are obviously two of you.

no tehres one of me. believe me theres one.
back in november 2011 or wenever with the cathedral? the blood lotus one
they found me and brought me back to life
knife i was just as mad then as i am now and whn i was born
i was born to cut and bleed and enjoy it and i DO
because it gets the bad blood out and its FUN
ITS FUN TO CUT THEM WHEN THEY DSEREVE IT.
only j has bene trying to make me more like him lately
trying to turn me intoa heavoice lIKE THEM
LIEK THEM
YOU SAW WHAT HAPPENED TO TEHM THEY LOST THEIR PURPOSES

Yes, I am well aware of that. It's my main concern to make sure that doesn't happen to us.

wellit won't
so rememebr im supposed to be manic
"the manic red voice" is what they called me remember

No. Sorry. I'm young compared to you.

no youre not. youre older
just didnt have a life as long as me
but youre oleder.
youre not just the knives yourre the punishment
im secondary secondhand i came into being after you did
this mac has autocoreetct its really annoying

We do need to finish uploading entries, Razor. We need to get a complete picture of ourselves here, because no one else is going to do it for us, and the more complete the picture is, the more power we'll have to exist. You want that, don't you?

hell yeah i want that im sick of being ignored

Then let me finish uploading them. I don't want to be "kicked off" later when J decides to come back, if he does.

ffff YOU SAID HIS NAME DONT SAY IT HE HEARS YOU

kid has a piint= heehehehhHEHEHEHE

I'm signing off of this conversation. Keep an eye out. I have some work left to do yet tonight.

-Knife

 

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

 

@ 08:54 pm

 

 

 

These entries may be relevant to us.
Even if we do not speak in them, they discuss many of the sins we are striving to atone for, many of the faceless voices down here, and many other general "dark concerns" that the upstairs system refuses to associate with, therefore sending it all down to us.

A rule of thumb: I will not repost any entry here unless one of us explicitly speaks in it.
This page is a monument to OUR existences, not those upstairs. They have had glory enough.

-Knife

 

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


@ 11:53 pm

 

 

 

Today has been very strange.
I cannot say for sure if I am fronting 100% right now. I doubt it. too many other people were in charge today. but i'm not complaining (whoops here we go, i'm definitely not alone)
OH YOU SAY THAT NOW BUT NOT OTHER TIMES BITCH WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU

Listen, wait, stop. Everyone hold up for a minute.
Okay, first thing. My name is Jay Iridos. It's not "Jewel Lightraye." It's not "Jayce Lytraile" either. Neither of them were me, neither of them were ever me, and I am just as much of an alter as ALL of you are. The current running theory is that I'm even younger than Kyanos in a very real sense. There's no way to tell for sure atm, but you get the picture.
Second thing. I KNOW all of you are real, all of you downstairs, without a shred of doubt. Heck, to deny you would be to deny myself as well, after all!
Third thing, I don't hate you. I don't consider you my enemies. I actually really care for you guys, and the fact that you're actually these brutal zealots hellbent on making me "pay for my sins" is weirdly reassuring to me? Seriously, I saw how Knife looked at me all weird the other night, but it's true. I'm GLAD that you guys are "out to get me" in more ways than one. I'm VERY thankful that you're forcing me to own up to all this stuff, to everything that harms the System. But... that doesn't feel exactly true, does it?
Which brings us to the fourth thing.
I'm not the main fronter, guys.

Yes, I AM the "system core," but SO IS INFINITII. That's how we work! However, that does NOT mean that i'm the one driving all the time-- in actuality, I RARELY drive, and everyone in Central knows it; it's just far too difficult and dysphoric for me to anchor into a physical form for extended periods of time. I can't even talk when I'm driving. I know for a fact that several of you guys are running circles around me as far as fronting frequency is concerned. Do you understand?
I'm the White slot guy, yeah. But I'm also a "splinter." I'm the guy that needs to stay innocent and lighthearted and all that. And I am! But in order for me to be this way, whoever I was before-- whatever I was before-- had to be torn out of me. I think that's what the Scratch was. I'm not sure. All I know is that when Easter rolled around, suddenly I had no clue why everyone was acting like I had lived 23 years prior... I daresay many of you know the feeling, that freakish existential paradox of having memories that you don't remember.

So my point is this.
I'll gladly front and take the bloodletting if you insist. I get what you're doing, I'm cool with it, it makes 100% perfect sense to me (Infi doesn't approve, though, and maybe I'm a fool for just smiling and taking the scars like this, but it's the truth).
But I'm not responsible for most of the "sins" you guys are raging over. In other words, I'm only as responsible as you are. This is a System, after all, even if it seems to be split into two or three parts right about now. However in the world we came to be, we all operate and appear as one unit to EVERYONE outside of headspace. And at one point in the ancient past, I suppose we were. But we've all been broken countless times since then.
I'm one of too many splinters of the original fronter. I'm just lucky enough to be the one to "inherit the bloodline," Razor you probably get what I mean, and yes I can see why that point would make you feel like I'm obligated to be the sacrificial lamb for every other J-fragment in existence.
Someone binges, I bleed. Someone gets hacked, I bleed. It's usually those two things alone, too. It's freaking me out that they're still happening too, guys, but really we should talk about this? I am literally not around when they happen because I CAN'T BE. My role is defined by my disconnection from those things. If they were to touch me then I'd break, clean in half, and we'd have yet another new person to deal with, to siphon off the trauma and keep me white, so to speak (That may have happened yesterday, I don't know; some newbie was out and today my entire body hurts but God knows what actually happened! I trust you guys took care of it though).

TL;DR version (because wow I'm bad at literal words):
I'm not the one "doing" that stuff. 99% of the time, I'm nowhere near the steering wheel when that stuff happens.
You keep insisting I'm the only person responsible. I can tell you from experience that there are MANY people who are not me behind this.
The Tar likes to lie by omission and delivery. Jezebel will purposely toy with your minds because that's her job. SHE EXISTS TO MESS THINGS UP! So be careful. She's not on your side. She's on no one's side. And that's okay, because that's how the System works. Until we overcome dichotomy (*cough*Infi*cough*), we will NEED shadows like her to balance our light, our lamps, our love. We NEED her darkness to show us the light that shines in it, tiny little pinpoints sometimes that are invisible otherwise. And on the same token, whatever's going on and has been going on for over a decade now, what with all the things you're trying to bleed out of the body... I'm sure that has a deeper reason too. Don't stop doing what you're doing if you feel you must. But just remember that right now, at least, the System is BUILT to incorporate pain into our lessons of growth. We've gotta deal with that in the right way before it will change, and we haven't done that yet, so we need to keep re-taking this test until we pass. Those are the rules. Knife, you'll appreciate that, I hope.

But know this: even if Tar is on no one's side, I'm on everyone's side. Take that as you will.
And if you need my help, I will give it to the best of my ability.
...I don't know what the deal with the Blood Lotus Cathedral is now. I haven't been there in a very long time. Maybe not in this "lifetime" even.
But the name is relevant. Even just looking at it, not even getting all curious and analytical (although that's Sherly's thing, insert Airplane joke here), I can tell that it means something very big and very simple... we all belong here. All of us, dark and light, happy and sad, furious and calm, suicidal and jubilant. We all deserve to exist in whatever way we feel we must.
I won't ever deny that. Cross my heart (and that's big for me).
I know there are a lot of people claiming to have my name right now. There are a lot of J's and Jays and Jewels and JLs and the like. But there's only one Jay Iridos, and that's me. So if you guys ever need my help, or advice, or even if you want to just shout at me, whatever-- I'm the one that looks like a prism. If you have anyone there who can sense energy, tell them that.
I'm literally a crystal-bit kaleidoscopic splashpool of rainbows and glitter. I'm kawaii as hell. It's hilarious, but it's true. Just follow the sparkly stuff and you'll find me. I'll be there.


You guys okay with this now? You get what's going on a little better?
...Oh. They're not here. They're talking downstairs and I'm not allowed in. Mmkay, that's cool too, I'll just leave a note for them to read this later.
I really love what they've done with the underground though? I have no idea where it is, but it's all these dimly lit halls like in an old basilica or something. Cold stone and emptiness and thin passageways to God knows where. It's sunlight that's getting in through the opaque windows, though. I can't help but smile at that. It feels reassuring.

Geez I'm not even sure what I just wrote, I swear it just bled onto the page, no pun intended?

Why did I originally log in here to update... oh yes.
First, Knife wasn't lying when he said the Lower System (which needs a better name, it's not separate from us) has its own journal now. Problem is I don't know if I have permission to link it, haha! Just rest assured that they have a place of their own to talk now, which is good.
Second, you'll notice that in the course of my explanation I mentioned that my entire body hurts? Yeah, uh, apparently the body has not been getting proper sleep or nutrition for at least a solid week now (2-5 hours a night, one meal a day, that sort of stuff), and there have been a ton of hacks on top of all that. Don't ask me what they were, or when, or anything like that-- I only know because ouch, retribution stings. Jeepers.
Third... well, that's related to the previous two things, actually. I don't think I have time to write about it tonight (which is a shame, as I may not be fronting tomorrow). So I'll say the most important thing.
In light of recent events, I've been re-reading some archive entries, from early 2012 mostly, trying to get a grip on what's been happening.
This whole situation has me very worried about Laurie.


I need to sleep. I really do.
My new friend on Tumblr is trying to help me get back on track spiritually, he's awesome; also he recommended this brilliant self-hypnosis course but I don't have $200 to spend on that right now.
I wonder if I can start doing that myself, though. It's difficult to make time with a dissociative disorder-- typically I just lose it!-- but the effort should be taken nonetheless. I want to be able to overcome these lingering shadows, the ones that we do not need. And I want to see and feel and hear people again. I miss those nights in 2011 when I'd feel so immersed in the reality of headspace and those within it, that my heart couldn't even fathom there ever having been a time when I didn't think they were the truest things in the world.

We're a little confused right now, so to speak. But we're not lost. I can't remember ever having been lost, possibly because of my hope, possibly because of my heart. Even when the sky is black with storm clouds and there's not a single safe place in sight, for some reason I never really feel lost. I just know things will work out. It's scary, and difficult to believe sometimes, but the feeling is there, sincere and undeniable.
It's there right now, too, right alongside the vague but crushing fear that everything we knew is crumbling to pieces. In light of that, it's all I can do to hold on to faith.
So for tonight, that's just what I will do.

Maybe I'll see you tomorrow?

 

 

 

I have to write two speeches for this week and as usual, I'm rather lost.
The second is an informative, which I think I'm going to do on DID/MPD, as I have the most "professional" info on hand for it already and I don't have much time to fully research a whole new topic (like the progressive rock, my second choice).
However, the first is a self-intro speech. I have to give that one in less than 24 hours.
Needless to say, we've never been good at writing those.

Anyway. I'm not concerned about that for a few minutes at least. I can't let school destroy our inner coherence again; focusing on school can no longer mean losing focus in our system. That's lethal. It needs to stop.

The "downstairs" people-- we're now calling them the "second floor" or "lower level" to avoid confusion with the collective body's waking life-- are getting progressively more difficult to deal with.
I'm not going to say they're frustrating, or dangerous, or anything like that. No judgments. They just make waking life incredibly tough to push through some days is all.
But they exist for a reason. That's something I've conveniently forced myself to forget over the years, in my weird desperation to convince myself that "none of this is real."
No matter how many times I insist it's fake, though, nothing changes. Instead, things get worse. Things get louder, and sharper, and more painful.
And every single time, there's that one incredible and awful truth that rings in every scream.
EVERY SINGLE ONE OF US EXISTS FOR A REASON.
And that's a scary thought, when you look at some of us.

I have so many weird problems with empathy and perspective yet, I've realized.
It's not stable. From hour to hour, perspectives can change from one extreme to another, exclusively, with equal amounts of vehemence behind them. So I'm not sure who is feeling or thinking what anymore. However the issues that keep coming up, thanks to Tumblr (which I visit for a few minutes a day; it's too much of a potential trigger disaster to frequent), bother me.
Some of us have real problems with understanding pain, I guess? Like if someone is crying, or mourning, or afraid, or anxious, some of us will look at them with disgust or rage or confusion or incomprehension, instead of compassion or concern.
"Why does it matter if they are suffering, or if they die?"
Incapable of seeing that as a problem.
"Shut the heck up and stop crying, you idiot!"
Sees crying as a shallow, proud, attention-getting scheme.
"You feel victimized? But there's no such thing as victimization."
Can't comprehend offense/defense.
"There are only two genders, as a rule."
Insists that the "two reproductive sexes" are a universal constant.
It's all weird stuff like that. And none of them see a problem with their views-- to them, their opinions make perfect logical sense, EVEN when confronted with reams of arguments and data supporting the exact opposite perspective. They'll acknowledge this other viewpoint, but will not acknowledge its validity. "Oh, you think you have the right perspective. That's nice." And they'll calmly go back to not being able to understand what most individuals consider basic human rights and/or experiences.
Speaking of, at least one of us gets violently angry at the very mention of food, whether as a concept or an item. I won't even dare to get specific here because they're already boiling livid from the single word I did write. I had to stop keeping a dietary journal, or researching anything of the sort, because that lower voice would start to SCREAM in utter destructive rage about it, calling me all sorts of slurs and scathing insults for "daring to even think about such hedonistic filthy words." (It got really scary with the journal; I kept finding things scrawled in furious black letters over the pages the next morning, so I just gave up after a while.) They have no comprehension that the human body actually needs food in order to live. They scoff and insist "that's a filthy whore's excuse."
They've been really, really loud recently, as it's Ramadan. "What's that? Other people are fasting for religious reasons and you're not? What a slut," the voice says to me. "What a filthy slut. If I see you even trying to eat, I will personally eviscerate you." So I've been attempting to fast for the past three days. I almost passed out yesterday, probably from blood sugar or something. I couldn't even form a coherent thought by 6PM. But I'm not hungry and the thought of eating makes me nauseous. So I haven't eaten or drank anything again yet today, and have no desire to. This voice won't stop staring over my shoulder either. I don't blame them.

But they all exist for a reason. That doesn't mean they're "benevolent reasons," not in the strict flowers-and-butterflies sense, but they're good reasons nevertheless.

For example... the group of "abuse alters" downstairs, that Jeremiah is at the core of. There's him, the two scared little boys, the catatonic young man, the anxious little girl, and the frantic young woman. The former four react with tears, sobs, stuttering, resignation, guilt, emptiness, and/or suicidal depression. The latter two are exactly the opposite: the little girl reacts with paranoia, fear, and abject panic; she passed out once just from the terror of simply being in the same room as an adult woman. The teenage girl, though, reacts with nothing but sheer manic rage. Kill whatever did this to me. Kill whatever might ever do this to us again. She will shriek, attack, and physically harm anyone and anything that she perceives as a threat, and she's so damaged that a whispering old woman can be considered a potential rapist, and therefore someone that she wants to destroy. She's one of the LOUDEST people downstairs, just like the sensory-overload girl. I have a very strong feeling that they're connected, possibly being born as two sides of the same initial anchor, whatever that was.
An interesting note is that the AP exists specifically to censor reactions like theirs... ironically, since this group is the most easily and severely triggered, and their reactions are frequently bad enough to shut it off entirely. Yes, you read correctly: this group of alters is so charged with pain that several of them can short out the AP upon fronting, causing the body to become catatonic immediately after being triggered, REGARDLESS of the situation we're in. But that only speaks even louder to their importance, whether or not we acknowledge them.
There's a group of non-traumatic alters, too... including the Gent/ Maverick/ Queen trio, the "cool orange guy," the punk rocker, and possibly the "airport" voice... but they're few and far between, rarely front, and have very shallow anchors. There's not much fueling their existences, but they hold on to what they have... to their reasons for existing.
And then there's the abusive group. The "underground" voices.
Knife, Razor, Jezebel, the lilac killer girl, the two promiscuous women... their numbers are hazy, and they rarely associate with each other, but they exist, and we have the scars to prove it.
You can't run from us.
No, we can't. We can't run physically, for sure, but we can't run psychologically either, although we've been trying to for years... because despite everything we want to believe, everything we've been taught, and everything we wish was true... those bloodstained bladed voices exist for a damn good reason too.


I'm tired. I don't want to think about this anymore, not now.

We have a friend helping us online now. A new friend. It's nice.
They just sent us this very helpful piece of advice:

"Put your focus on something, and that's what you'll get more of. Anything you RESIST, persists. You can only manifest the things you truly desire out of a state of LOVE and ACCEPTANCE with what you ALREADY have, while pursuing what you want with fervor and excitement and energy."

And they struggle with that too. So they understand. But it's true, all true, so true.
It explains why it's so hard to deal with the undergrounders, even the lower level ones. They fill the headspace with so much pain, that it's "all we can think about" by force or choice. It's always there, lingering.
Julie hacked the body for years, now several have picked up where she left off, in worse ways, quieter ways, more destructive ways. How could you imagine that? When a woman isn't crawling on top of you or pinning you down, but you're too empty to scream anymore from all the times that did happen, now they talk to you like a child, like they're so caring and kind, as they tear you to ragged screaming pieces. And you believe them. And you bleed, all the wrong colors, and your shoulders shake and you cry and cry and cry on the inside but your eyes are dead and you just want to sleep, you just want to sleep.

What is fervor and excitement and energy? Have we ever felt any of those things? Where did they go? Were they here once? Whose are they?
We wish we could feel happy things. We wish people upstairs would stop resisting our pain. You keep burying us under all this dirt and brick and sawdust and were screaming for air, there are people down here who want to hurt and kill us, we're connected to you too, when we bleed so do you!!!
but you dont want us to exist you say were not real cause youre afraid youre afraid of what we were born from you want to forget i know. i want to forget too.
but i cant i cant it keeps happening it wont stop god it wont stop. i cant run either but you gotta help me please
pretending i dont exist isnt going to get their hands off me
it isnt going to save me from this pain every day every day
and it isnt going to save you either.

Who's typing? We have no idea.

We should really get back to writing that speech, sorry.

 

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

 

@ 11:51 pm

So the undergrounders are now claiming that they're the foundation of the entire system, keeping everything "running according to the rules," and therefore "justifying" their bloody retributions for any of J's actions that they deem sinful or otherwise harmful to the system.
They claim the Central System has "gone soft," allowing atrocities to be committed by J, their alleged core, and that they (those underground) are simply "upholding justice" by demanding that J "pay for his sins" with his own blood, not those of others on any other level of headspace.
They claim they have "no compassion" for J, unlike Laurie, the previous deliverer of judgment. The undergrounders claim sympathy for no one. If you break the rules, they say, you pay the price. It's a matter of principle, nothing more.

I am in no position to judge the righteousness of their claim. Nor am I informed enough to make any claims supporting or refuting those of others.
It simply raises a lot of questions. If those alters were born FROM pain and abuse and atonement, and therefore exist for those reasons alone... who's to say that this isn't what they're supposed to do?
The morality of J's splintered consciousness is something none of us can even guess at though. If a mind breaks to pieces when faced with trauma, and those pieces become conscious of what they were born from... do they not have a right to demand that no further trauma be suffered, or induced, or endured without a thought to their well-being? Do they not have a right to punish those who perpetuate that suffering, if it will prevent further pain to those born from it?

It's a twisted, disturbing situation, and we have no solid answers.
Does anyone?