Archive for December, 2008

ravelling

Written on December 31, 2008 by kat. 3 Comments

(i know it’s their choice
but the star in my name makes me feel like i’m a swear word
unworthy

i know it’s my choice
but i don’t have the willpower to be okay with their hurts
i cause them)

i know everything already. i say that like it’s a defense. heavy, i am so heavy, i have always been so heavy, it will never cease. we feel emotionally wounded by half our world (edges) and physically wounded by the other half (aeron). i meant it when i told him i get sick of them both. why can i tell him that and not them? it is so fucking scary to trigger them. how can i knowingly trip the wires? there are tripwires, everywhere, everywhere.

we have to stop letting ourselves read their journal. but we don’t function well by avoidance. it’s not our tack. avoiding contact with our mom was one of the hardest things we ever did. i like to dig around in wounds, play with the blood. so their journal hurts me, so it is a pull. fascination, to be hurt, to be hurt.

i know i always have trouble writing but it feels different lately. more sinister. there is more going on and i’m able to say less. i’m so scared all the time to trigger edges. i know they don’t want me to censor myself. but how can i set off the bombs? not when that makes me into the abuser. if they would explode into me, that would be a whole lot easier. i read their journal and think, they hate me, they hate me, they hate me. why would anyone think that i hated them, if they didn’t already hate me? the people that use this logic ignore the circularityhypocrisy. if the ouroboros could step away and see itself whole, would it choke on itself? i imagine the bile uncontrollably tied to sight, to perspective. if we pretend the landscape is all pastoral, it won’t turn against us. but – we do see. we see that we think people must hate us because we think they hate them, and so by our own logic we do hate them. it’s not that we think for a second that we hate them. it’s just somehow not a contradiction, in that world.

our weird little secrets. we say sorry all the time, but if someone says sorry to us we think they are mad. i don’t think it’s so simple that the truth is we are mad when we apologize. maybe sometimes. but really, not mostly.

compassion gets hidden under layers of triggers. it feels like they don’t love us, they think we don’t love them. everything is worn out, ugly, seams showing. like the inside of a tire. the landmines are so thick that it almost feels like it doesn’t matter that there’s good solid ground around them. that the quick is whole and well. i feel so tired thinking of them right now, because thinking of them is thinking about trying to be good enough for them.

these are the things i don’t want to say. how can the triggers not cascade from here? what good does that do to anyone? is there really such a thing as through? (the laden traveler may not reach the end of it.) i am triggered too, i am in the past beyond redemption. there is nothing but past. there is nothing but thickness, blood haze, demands upon demands.

i want this to shatter my world, because the thought that i can exist without a richness of family, without people to be close to, is the weariest thought. i have to fight and fight and fight to talk myself into hope when i’m thinking about them. when they’re there, it’s sometimes ok. but when they’re not there we feel cornered by their judgments. shrunken, dwarfed, worthless. they are smart enough to see our real worthlessness. with many people, we can set it up so that … it’s hard to explain. we present our weaknesses as things that are only weak on the surface, things that we trust our friends to see are whole underneath. we make the worth equation be in such terms that the answer will be positive. it’s not really conscious. but if they see through, we have no defenses, nothing to hold in front of our face so that if they hate us they don’t hate the real us.

their mind is sharp enough to see us but i am afraid their values find us wanting. it feels like such a slap in the face that they probably think the same thing about us. should we just lie down and wallow around in our hypocrisy? wear it without hiding? yes, we are gigantic hypocrites. if it helps any, we can’t ever forgive ourselves for it.

life seems cold and hard and heavy and endless. nobody has any reason to make allowances for us. there is nothing but wall. i can’t wait to die. to really die. it’s not like we are alive.

only sometimes……. but i don’t understand the hope, and like a bigot, i would stamp it out for fear and hate of the unknown. if i admit it, you can hurt me. if i admit it, i have turned from my reality to yours, i have lost my pride and accommodated myself to you.

i have to let go of feeling wronged by them. but i have to do this spontaneously, not because it is wrong and selfish and hypocritical to feel ill-used. it is. but i don’t think i can stop this hurt, this grievance, until i forgive myselves for harboring it. fucking wretched thought!

i want to sleep and sleep and sleep. i want to eat my teeth. i want to die, oh mother i want to die and die.

how to not be judged

Written on December 27, 2008 by julian. 3 Comments

in edges’ spirit of imperfect performances, i’m going to post my song, even though it’s very very amateur of a recording.  it’s copyright 2008 to me, all rights reserved – for some reason i’m way more paranoid about my music than my writing.

sorry it’s not a streaming format – if i decide to post more maybe i’ll figure that out. for now, please to enjoy the mp3.

How To Not Be Judged

i’ll swallow poison until i grow immune

Written on December 25, 2008 by we don't know who. 1 Comment

i hurt.

these keys are so soft, they tread as softly as me. they are seductive. anything couild slip out between my fingers. i could be anyone. i am hurt, i am troubled.

it doesn’t feel like nymph is moving, or like she’ll ever move. my cunt hurts, or it feels… icky. damp, stuck. please help me move.

i only feel bad because i came in my pants. i need to recognize that i can’t do that – i need aftercare for self-abuse, ha! i need to do laundry. i need to be loved. it feels so good to come but it means i’m all day in the world of rape, rape, rape. aeron is so very mild in that world.

i am so heavy, and so fake. i am so lost. i am cold. everything feels cold. there is no warmth in the future, only cold damp and things to do.

i hurt, i am heavy in my heart. there was such a joy in playing bass while edges played guitar. to be in that supporting role. to follow them, guide them, make it easier for them, complement them. just like dancing. so why can’t i just be happy? stupid question, i guess. i want so badly to be loved, but i don’t know what that phrase means at all. we’d do anything for it, be anything for anyone. it’s hard to see if/how aeron hurts us.

the snow is melting on the electrical line outside and there is a row of droplets ready to fall. i thought they were christmas lights, because they reflect the streetlight. it is beautiful. or could be.

nothing works for me anymore, i don’t know what i’m doing. i don’t know how to move. everything is soggy, the world, my cunt. i am nobody. i am in pain. i am free, save me.

there is no path, because i have to make my own. there are no lines and nothing is secure. everything is at risk, everything. there’s no safeguard; i might lose so much, i might lose my life. i might lose my head. i might not be able to keep going to school. i might have to i might i don’t know i don’t know i don’t know. the one class was enough it was enough how am i going to do two?

with lots of accommodations.

maybe. maybe. but oh, i have to do it all alone, and it just seems so big. especially when edges would rather (it feels like) that we devote our whole life to healing, like they are doing, again. but we’ve been there, and we need more meat, we need something to chew. all heart and no head is not a balance either. i still want to heal. i know i still have trouble. it’s tougher to see what i’m doing wrong, though. i am so much better at distracting from the real pain than i ever was before. i can seem downright reasonable.

i’m tired, and i’m lonely. i share my story with everyone. everyone is exhausted, everyone is lonely, everyone is hurt. i am nobody. only it doesn’t take away, for me to be like everyone. and just because they are hurt too doesn’t mean i’m not.

i don’t know how to reach nymph. i don’t know if i’m going about it right. i don’t know if i’m alive. such strange things slip out on this keyboard, things i didn’t mean to say.

i should post this, take it out of notepad, for once these are words i can more or less share. but that seems exhausting, why is a copy/paste so much work? i am ambivalent about my words. maybe i crave to go unheard, lost, clean with mystery. if you do not know me then maybe you will accept me. maybe i am dreading criticism. yes, something in me shrinks harder when i notice it. don’t hate me, it says, i’m trying, i’m still trying. save me. there is nobody outside us that can save us. you have to understand i am faking this, what’s really there is hopelessness. but i’m saying the therapy words in case they start being true. or maybe they are true for some. nothing is simple.

we know we are not worth it. we already know. it feels like we already know everything, and it makes us want to die.

of what was everything

Written on December 20, 2008 by cricket and kat. 0 Comments

catastrophe – my life is slipping out of my hands. i feel so close to loss. i feel so endlessly deficient. there is a way to deal with not being good enough, but it has a high price. just sink in every way, leave nothing above ground to snag feelings on, be absolutely at the bottom of the food chain. if you are in misery, real misery, if it’s bad enough that you’re never not thinking about dying, then we will grant you the boon of not being able to afford to measure up. you can throw away opportunities and it won’t matter; fail your loved ones but you knew that would happen.

but the second your despair does not consume you, we are coming back for you with all the demands.  we will find the smallest hope and pile weights on, we are doing you a favor. hope means you are accountable. hope is just vulnerability. 

we are so small and angry, so endlessly resentful. i swear i won’t let you get me this time, not again, but the need engulfs me and you trap me, trap me, trap me. the more lip service, the less your words mean. it’s no use saying the right things, i will not be disarmed. you feel superior and you are not showing your hand.

we want to give up on all of it, friendship, love, therapy, school, people anywhere. i am not part of you. i’m trapped inside me and i want to, yes, throw it all away. i never had to wonder what that song was about.

if we shut the world out enough, is there a way to return to sanity? there is so much here we wanted to get done. instead we use all our energy on drama, every ounce to keep you from hating us. every one of you, this is not personal. or rather, it is personal to every single other person in the universe.

it’s ok because we hate us, we see everything you could find fault with and more, we know why you’re wary of us. disgusted with us, superior to us. but at least for right now, we have the luxury of despair. we don’t have to fucking care, so just fuck off. fuck the fuck off.

i know she gave me all that she was

Written on December 19, 2008 by we don't know who. 2 Comments

maybe edges is right that we don’t read their journal for a reason. caught up just now and we do feel like shit every time we read it.  we have been mis-using our energy. we have been scrabbling on shale uphill, trying to avoid triggering them. isn’t that what love is? or maybe it’s more selfish. it hurts for us to trigger them. it hurts so fucking bad. it means we are the abuser. we go to great lengths to make sure that if we are in a trauma bond, it is as a victim. we’d love to be a rescuer but we know very well that’s beyond us. but if we trigger them they are the victim, and guess what that makes us?

an old classmate found this journal, which makes us a bit nervous. honestly, we don’t care if people don’t judge us. but there’s so much to judge us for. and it’s like, if he found it, who else that knows us now could find it? one of these days i’m going to need to get a job. i haven’t gone and cleaned up to make sure this site isn’t searchable, but… i dunno. i really hate the idea of censoring myself AND i hate the idea of being anonymous. but i’m so crazy! anyway. that isn’t really relevant.

we feel like it is not okay to be ourselves with edges, or have our own issues. we feel like we have to take on their mindset in order for them to love us. and we can do that, even more easily than we can take aeron’s on. but i don’t know how we really feel, about anything. i don’t know how to be for myself.

there is so much love and so much stress. we are so competitive with them. we can’t compensate for them well enough, because they are smart enough to catch the subtler things. it means we have to wholly wholly fall completely into their mindset. that is our defense. for some of us, that is the only defense possible. we contort so much, trying to make our relationships work alongside our triggers. 

it is so scary and depressing to think there’s no one whose mindset i can trust above my own. it feels like falling.

honestly, i think one of the reasons we’ve been drained by processing is that it takes more energy than we have to both process and try to not trigger edges. it’s for edges that we don’t want to go there. it’s so we can stay good for edges. we don’t want to soul-search and find disloyalty to them inside us. it seems like it would be so easy to lose their love, and worse, to lose their approval. we will never be good enough, and one of these days they’re going to see just how much we’re faking. and they will see us as their abuser, or at least themselves as done wrong by us.

between this all there is so much love and so many good times. there is nothing like the moment they answer the door and we get to just hug them for minutes. no one has ever made us feel as cool as they do. good about ourselves, yes, but it’s that particular flavor. it is constantly inspiring how much they are up for, how much growth they take on. it makes me want to be my best for them.

i feel like my life has been slipping away from me, and i can’t get re-centered. i keep letting everything go. i keep lacking energy. i want a fresh start. but i am more laid-back than i used to be. i worry i’ve doomed myself to doing the minimum, forever. for example, i’ve run out of energy for writing.

multiplicity and autism?

Written on December 4, 2008 by jo/e. 3 Comments

i know that i am not autistic, and i do not claim to be. i want to think about some things, but i’m working through stuff – i don’t necessarily offer opinions here, or endorse those that i seem to be offering. i’m wary of encroaching on space that isn’t mine. but there are some thoughts.

some observations:

  • there seems to be a higher than average co-incidence of multiplicity and autism
  • there also seem to be quite a number of multiple systems who have people inside who identify as autistic (of course i am thinking of my best friends indigo)
  • they’re both defined as “disorders” in the dsm but have huge contingents of members that don’t feel it’s a disorder at all
  • some traits (i don’t want to say symptoms because i don’t think either is a disorder) seem to be shared at least somewhat between the two groups
    - I’ve never met a multiple system that didn’t have someone inside, usually someone young, who didn’t stim, if i understand that term correctly
    -  i know many multiples, include myselves, that have insiders who have significant sensory difficulties or differences from the norm
    -  i have never met a multiple system or heard of a system that didn’t have insiders with significant speech or language difficulties
    - a lot of multiples, including myselves, have a really hard time with all kinds of social interactions
    - maybe it’s “just” part of ptsd, but multiples i’ve known, including myselves, seem to have trouble with certain stimuli (in my case, noises, crowds, unfamiliar situations, movement, almost anything associated with people being around)
    - i know a lot of multiples with OCD-like symptoms, and it seems like maybe a lot of autistics do as well? 
  • both groups are often considered incapable of self-diagnosing, or of having self-awareness, which seems to be complete and utter bullshit
  • mainstream people seem to be unnerved in similar ways by both groups
  • both types of being involve significant and intimate cognitive differences from some (perhaps mythical) “normal” template – perhaps why we’re so unnerving? 
  • many/most multiples have been abused, and autistics are at a much higher risk for being abused
  • i read a lot of people involved in the disability rights movement, and i often feel most at home at the blogs of autistics, maybe even more so than people with mental illnesses like bipolar, depression, panic disorders (though i have two of those three)
  • obviously these are getting more personal and thus more spurious, but our system has a weird fascination with autism that we try to keep under wraps because it feels like it’s not our place. we don’t want to be voyeurs or intruders.
i know the list should be longer and i am forgetting some things. i was talking about it with edges a little last night. i really want to hear indigo’s thoughts on this, since they obviously have much more of a claim/handle on this intersection than i do. at least what i would consider a more valid perspective. though i don’t know… it’s possible my fascination might have to do with parts inside that we don’t let out. we have some parts, that haven’t been out in years because we do all we can to keep them inside, that have some really strong echolalia. 
and i have a track record of not allowing myself identities that particularly belong to me – NOT that i’m suggesting i have anything that would ever be diagnosed or allow me space to claim that title, but that some inside might be like indigos – that there are people who seem to have a similar set of traits. 
i realized lately that i’ve always been a little jealous of people with physical disabilities – oh god, so much here could be taken wrong, but i swear i don’t pretend to any of this – and ej has actually been helping me realize that i have a lot more pain than i think the average 27-year-old does. again, i don’t think this makes me count as having physical problems – but having manifestations of body pain and such due to my multiplicity/ptsd/whatever might be some of the source of my envy. we (the myriad) always seem to envy who have claims on things we experience, even if we experience in a different or more mild way. it’s like if we don’t have severe crippling pain all the time, we must be fine, and can never consider it, even the migraines, when trying to go about life. i don’t know.
i know there are huge differences between experiencing some similar features and having any claim or any idea what it’s like for others. i know there are many people who don’t think of social anxiety as a disability, because everyone gets anxious of people sometimes. no; experiencing it on a daily basis, in swamping amounts, is an entirely different kettle of fish. someone in a thread for disabled queer people said he didn’t think people with mental/psychological disabilities belonged there or even were “disabled” because he thought of a disability as something that is always on. leaving aside the huge numbers of people with physical disabilities that can be incredibly variable, i don’t think people understand just how much the anxiety/depression/whatever IS always on.
i’m so afraid of not being sensitive enough. of being a privileged oppressor. but i guess… sometimes i just have to speak, and be willing to back down and to learn.

i just have to say

Written on December 2, 2008 by matt. 1 Comment

ok, so i wanted to twitter about this, but then worried about how i would fit it in. then i decided i could write it and link in twitter. so, this will not be much of an entry.

i’m just feeling kind of proud of myself and it’s so rare that i just want to bask a little. we had a 3-week project with two big tasks in my class. the tasks can be measured objectively, so the teacher tells us who does best. (trying really hard not to use keywords so people might find me and ruin my totally nonexistent anonymity. it’s probably good for me to try to not use technical terms anyway so it makes sense to everyone reading.) our group had the best overall score on the second task, the easier one. i am really happy because i have very very little programming experience, so in general i cannot expect to compete with the more CS backgroundey people. also, the second task was predominantly my job – i talked with the others about how to code it, and they helped me find a bug or two, but i was the one who did it.

but, in his post saying which group had the highest score, he called me morgan, my old girl name. (luckily it’s androgynous enough to not out me by itself.) i was so bummed but i decided i was going to be brave and quickly sent a polite email to the professor asking him to change it. i really hope he gets it soon. but either way, i’m just really proud that i was able to send that email. that was asking a TEACHER for a totally frivolous thing. it was all advocating for self, and shit.

put a blue light on the river

Written on December 1, 2008 by kat and matt. 0 Comments

maybe, a little motion. an expansion, barely noticeable, an undulation, like breathing. it certainly hurts new. last night we got about five hours of sleep, because of flashbacks. that’s not par for us at all. we have trouble with sleep, but we’re so good at not seeing. well, even last night we could do the not seeing, we just couldn’t avoid/distract and fall asleep. there’s a less familiar emotion ruling that i can only describe as horror. sitting with edges, not enough distraction, the horror would trickle back and we’d physically flinch. it was embarrassing. my lack of control.

today was hard. there’s a hurt, a rift, that i don’t know how to heal. i mean, i know what the next step is, i know what to try for, but i don’t know how to soothe, to heal. this sick familiar disgust with self. again, a lack of self-control caused us to say something we had consciously decided not to say. though, the saying just was the thoughts escaping. it’s the thoughts that are unacceptable, and i don’t know how to deal with that. self-discipline does not work. the people who are good at suppression and discipline agree that we should never say a word aloud, but the issue itself is one they are judgmental about. i mean, they think we have no room ourselves to talk, but they don’t deny the judgements – no, they’re the ones putting them forth. if you can follow my anaphoric haze.

little ones just want it to be all better, they want it so bad. they’d make any promise, but the fronts would be the ones bound to it. but the hurt is valid, is common across the rift, and it’s not going to get better. there are too many years to go. the hurt is real. 

they’ll never trust us again, never relax around us again. some inside are sure of that, and it convinces others inside that they hate us forever and wish us ill. i guess the missing step is accepting being resented. yes, they resent easily, as they are perfectly frank about. 

the only thing we know to do with anger directed at us is side with it. so being constantly resented for flawed but ordinary actions, normal mistakes, is hard to deal with. our current balance is too subtle for our self-accord to go entirely missing… we need our self-esteem. we have to find another way to dodge than taking the violence on completely. it’s like… we can get in the head of angry people, we can bring ourselves to see it easily, so then we really are angry at ourselves, we really do feel we’ve been totally unacceptable. and to err on the right side, we blow it up as big as we possibly can, till a one-second slip could easily cost us an entire relationship, it would make sense, it would be right. because we can see how it would be impossible to forgive.

but all of that is still attachment to the self. maybe it is the need to dodge, itself. maybe i need a shield? maybe i need to stand and get hit? the hit would not have such impact if we didn’t run it through our little magnifier inside. 

it feels like they will never not be angry with us. like we’ll never be able to step freely. but i know they can relate to all of this too. i know it’s the same on the other side of the mirror, almost shockingly the same. so okay, i want to let go my pride and be the one to give. i have no problem with giving.

i guess the problem is i forget to take into account how others inside feel. matt doesn’t get us in much trouble at all, though it feels like he/i gets blamed for most of it. when you are the default, precision is going to be poor. i also get more credit than is due me. 

if it feels just as wounding and cold on the other side too, does that mean that’s just it? that we’ll always feel that way, no way to stop, because it’s a two-way street? 

i feel so hopeless. i’m not trying for status here. i just want the hurt to release a half-centimeter more. i’m not angling for anything but mutual cessation (reduction?) of pain. 

i am sick with it. my blood is heavy. i’m not giving up, not in theory, but every moment is forever. so it hurts always. it’s cold and hard and lonely and flat always. there will never be such a thing as connection. the things we are touching when we think we are touching others! it’s crazy!

i have been hated so long, or my reflection/projection has. it’s not about them at all. i am choking on the relentless presence of my own tail.

i only came here to talk

Written on December 1, 2008 by chris, jo/e and we don't know who. 1 Comment

what if we stopped running? o my god, please no. the nature of the thought is to avert. running is intrinsic. it feels like acid in my mind, we need containment, we need walls. this is ridiculous. nothing so bad could have happened. and if it DID then it wasn’t happening to US so what do we care? we should not be traumatized. ok, even the minimizers have to concede that was a dumb thing to say. but sometimes, yes, it feels like not our grief. i don’t think we even knew her. or if it happened more than one year. i know it didn’t happen every year. though something did.

should have been us, should have been us! the guilt is strangely not what’s dominating right now though. it’s the barbeque burnt hair smell, orange licking pink and making black, good lord we can’t even say it. we can’t even say it here. i don’t understand why. we’ve told people. everyone knows we have these spurious memories of b… i can’t type it… of sacrifice by fire. our fingers are jolting, stuttering, this is tough.

good lord, is it really true that we’ve always been oblique about this? no wonder our therapist forgot. her forgetting still stings. shouldn’t make such a big deal. it wasn’t us getting hurt.

it’s not the guilt, it’s the horror. all day, someone inside went hunting for the gruesome and the tragic. tsunami pictures. stampedes. that kind of thing. we didn’t know why until edge was asking questions and asked how long we’ve had trouble with therapy and we realized it was rather neatly traceable to the beginning of the month. and then we realized what we haven’t let go of, why we had to see. we’re usually pretty good at desensitizing ourselves to triggers – we pick at the scab until it’s all scar and it takes a lot to get under. so why the flinching, today, tonight? why seek it if we flinch? are we trying to get to where we don’t?

i want to throw up until all i can smell is vomit. i want to go so far away.

there’s no sound. there’s a little heat, but not really. just our face some. but the smell and the sight are fucking enough. 

i don’t fucking CARE if you don’t believe me, i know how it sounds and i’m doing this my way. of course we have people clamoring for a chance to deny, voluminously. but fucking fuck it. this is really fucking hard and i do it any fucking way i can. i’m tired of being alone. i’m tired of being all safe and gold-silence. and in the end i have to consider the possibility that this is real. i’ve certainly been struggling, there’s a lot of stuff to explain away in a denial.

really there’s not much though. what else is there to say? sometimes in the summer when i walk down the street and there are barbeques i want to run into backyards and smash their grill to pieces, shake them until they see how their stupid picnic affects others.

you have no fucking idea.