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[posting-cringe]

witnessed

part of the antidote is to imagine myself being held by a friend who loves me.

A; A?

i didn't call them today, even when i was in the midst of the horror; it didn't occur to me. could i have?

part of the antidote is imagining myself being perceived in my crying and sadness and grief; having it be

POSSIBLE!

most of the time emotions feel impossible; foreign to me. my baseline affect is...flat and deadeyed in a deep; deep; deep profound way; emotions can't penetrate; emotions aren't able to be present.

the urgency of the trauma, the

LISTEN TO ME!

NOW!

comes from there being no room for me; no escape valve! no guarantee of being able to feel the feelings - trauma, horror, grief, disgust, repugnance; and so getting stuck in them; only having an emergency brake to pull.

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holding

a sight;

horror horror; horror, horror

part of me...freezes, screams, goes pale

locks down

trying to keep the channel open; trying to remember my body in the world;

trying to feel the grief, seemingly infinite grief; more than can fit in my body;

how is it possible to feel this and still walk around; do chores; do my job; to live a life?!

"trusting that it passes" - does it ever pass?!

i suppose it did; just now;

but there's something else here;

there's a noncomprehension. how can x become y? how can ___ing ____s become ______?

i feel my mind straining to turn the horror into rage, blinding rage, endless, terrifying rage;

but another part of me resists.

there's a thick, thick sinew connecting me, politically-economically, to my surroundings; to my sustenance; on which i think i depend;

these murders, this infinitely brutal cruel __________- --- i don't even have words for it; but it..."doesn't fit"; it doesn't fit with what i know; it's abstract; even the one time it wasn't for me;

so when it intrudes and penetrates the gummy shell surrounding me, there's shock, and horror, and screaming and pain and misery;

but it remains abstracted; the rage i seek; the rage and pining for justice is also abstracted;

a moment i remember, standing on a street corner in the rain, seeking out an image of pain and violence to stoke my anger;

what is it i'm searching for?

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negotiating with Tisiphone

you; you want me to listen to you; you want me to listen (perhaps as I rage and want to scream at others to listen); you want me to HEAR YOU; you want me to internalize what you're saying.

OK.

"socialized neither male or female, but white; pursuing innocence." listening to a song that was so extraordinarily beautiful and powerful for me; feeling into its melancholy; but also noticing a hint of...pleading, of resentment, of protest, of aggrieved defensiveness. of self-martyrdom.

what investments do i hold in innocence?! i had earlier believed that i was one of the few good among the people around me, one of the few with clear moral eyes; then i believed (full of rage and resentment) that i was one of the few who had the courage to reckon with having done harm, and made amends; but i think in that second instance i still felt like a victim; that my efforts were going unrecognized; and certainly that the process had wounded me and diminished me in ways I didn't deserve, and that those who publicly proclaimed their victimhood and righteousness were in fact also selfish and deluded; refusing to give up a mantle of innocence that they didn't deserve; that they were looking the other way from their own acts of violence or complicity; that they also deserved to be taken vengeance upon; that they also deserved to feel broken and ashamed.

whew!

how *does* someone internalize their capacity to do harm? how *does* someone reckon with the ways they've caused others pain? i think it's tied to the murky, mucilaginous force field I feel around myself; which leads me to feel both protected but also severed; insensate to the ways i affect and am affected; unaware of being vulnerable and capable of being harmed; but also compartmentalizing the ways i am capable of affecting and harming others.

do other people feel this way?! I don't think so, not fully and certainly not universally; the Erinyes scream their accusations so forcefully in order to try to penetrate this barrier; but theirs can't be the only impacts i'm letting in.

when something in that barrier is violated, it's...horrific; but mainly it's bewildering; it's a gaping jarring stuttering contradiction that I can't wrap my mind and body around; maybe i presume that this is how it feels to others. and the thought of causing that for someone else is horrifying; and then it compounds and spirals.....

i think - no, i know - it's a somatic awareness; it's a way of feeling your body in the world in a way that allows for give and take; impacting and being impacted; but right now i'm disjointed and hollow; i can't feel myself and so i can't feel myself acting on other people (and i can't feel others acting on me).

coming back, focusing on the original question; internalizing my capacity to harm (and to repair and grow); how different is my experience from others'? i feel simultaneously like i am much more strict with myself, much slower to forgive myself (phrased differently, much more willing to take accountability, and less in self-denial); but also that i'm much less in touch with my own actions and feelings.

...maybe these things aren't in contradiction!

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taxonomy

there are different types of crying.

some of them come honestly; unbidden (but *triggered*) — tears that flow; tears that wrack me.

Sometimes it’s a way to ground myself; it’s recognizing the little moments of anger and frustration (and probably shame) and sadness that have been building up; it’s an acknowledgment and a release.

and yet other times I’m trying to exorcise myself; this is the one that feels the worst, by far; I’m trying hard to make contact with something that my body recoils from; I’m trying to force myself to feel the enormity of something I’m trying to shrink from; and I’m trying to avoid; I’m trying to cleanse myself; I’m trying to grieve and accept; but I’m also shutting something out; I’m not letting it sit in my body; I’m terrified of what it might do; I’m terrified of what it could do.

What if I let it sit?!

I think that that might be the first step to actually transforming it; to actually engage with it; but oh, oh, oh, I’m terrified.

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tracking it

watched gone girl. (spoilers)

The climax came: a torrent; my body responded; horror on horror on horror on horror; but also, incomprehension; dissonance; disbelief; the inability to reconcile something so profoundly horrific with the rest of the plot; people talking and speaking and negotiating on the level of feelings and words.

in the moment, something in me catches; is stuck; I’m agitated, I’m avoidant; I’m not fully in control; later, I finally try to exorcise this feeling, this moment I’m skipping over; this glitch, this stitch;

This little seed of jarring dissonance inside me; I’m terrified of it. I’m terrified of sleeping with it inside me; I’m terrified of letting it go unattended; scared of what it would release inside my body; it’s like a black parasite; I want to get it out.

O……C……. D?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!

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mismatch

a moment of clarity today, in the shower;

remembering what I had been doing!

that journey, that heroine's journey, of self-discovery, turning inwards; of grappling with things inside myself; of trying to get to know the territory of my own body.

that's what i want to be doing right now.

and that - like so many other things - constitutes a sort of intermission; maybe; but more to the point... there's a mismatch in energy between this; and the mission to "set up my space" -- with all of the fraught and sticky connotations I've attached to that.

the one is inward; it's small, it's closed; it's pushing the world away; it's dissociative;

the other is aspirational; it's hyper-focused on being perceived; but mainly, it's trying to build on a foundation that doesn't exist yet; to wit - my sense of self.

i think so much of my ferocious resistance and pain at trying to do this apartment project is because... i don't feel ready!!!

the whole thing was based on a sort of fantasy of...inner peace; woman [smiling contemplatively] alone with [a cup of tea]...at my breakfast nook; on my porch; etc etc etc.

i wasn't fucking thinking about the fact that the whole ass thing that i'm trying to do is like, cry and cum!!!!

i'm not really sure what to do with this; my apartment is a shithole and that feels bad; and needs to change.

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intermission

before the pandemic; before the storm, I was —

gathering pieces; I was — putting one chapter to an end; I was starting to assemble what I thought I needed for the next one.

many pieces of it were not right or true; I was fudging and faking and masking; but I was also seeking; grasping.

intermission - giving up a name; releasing it to wander on its own; trusting it would come back with stories to tell me of its own.

Giving up a name; with nothing to replace it; only a “this page intentionally left blank”; a calling card with nothing on it that the people around me have nonetheless know me by. (a new name bubbles; it has congealed more solid lately; but it is still subterranean)

intermission; I stepped off of a path in 2014 (15? 16?); I said, I need to find myself. I stepped off again in 2017; I said, this is a time for self-discovery. The job was going nowhere; the name was chafing; but now I’m in a different place, and still without either.

2020 hit, a storm raging and furious; I said, this is a time to wait; this is a time to hunker down and weather; this is a time to hold my breath.

2023 - I said, I need time and space, to cry and learn; I am suffocating here; I need space to breathe; I need space to discover who I am; but now I live alone; and now I’ve severed another link to the world I lived in and on.

it is true, I think, that the pandemic is different from the rest; it’s been brutal and cruel and miserable and cold and lonely and enraging. All the rest is up to me - more or less - but this raging silent storm is completely beyond me; beyond anyone; it’s cut me into a different shape, nasty and angry and bitter and jealous.

I have not yet figured out how to relate to the person I was pre-Covid; it’s helpful to remember, though; I was hopeful. I was seeking and I was searching; I was fake but I was moving.

if only x, then y; once I a then I’ll finally be able to b. This has not turned out to be true; not in the energetic sense in which I’ve asserted it; it is in limited instances; I can’t tell the difference. I know I would do well to reorient; I don’t want to.

a name, a home, a vocation, a family, a community, a purpose; I yearn and I cry and I numb and avoid; and I wait; and I hope; and I depend on the future.

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shame part 67968

Shame grounds me. It blocks me, it blot things out, but I seek it out because it’s one of the only reliable way I have to connect with my body. (At least to some extent. I think it’s a false floor; I think it’s possible to go deeper; but it still gets me into my chest and I’m not just ballooned up in my head.) So I wonder if there’s something there - some part of gratitude or understanding for the shame that’s necessary to release it or loosen it; to recognize that it’s doing something (it thinks is) good; it’s trying to bring me back to myself; to remind me that the things I’m doing are not who I think I am; that the way I look is not the way I think I should; that the ways I act are not how I want to. That there is a me that discerns and judges and wants and has opinions; it’s usually sad and angry and cruel and disgusted and miserable, but it’s me.

I can get stuck in the shame; but I can also get stuck avoiding it. Shame breeds desire which breeds shame; and every time I act on that desire it deposits a quantity of shame back into my body; which then I need to cry out; but sometimes then I just pleasure it away; which doubles things down. I think that’s part of what’s been happening this week; not a shame spiral but a shame cycle.

what do I want?! To feel desired, to feel powerful, to feel capable, to feel agency, to feel connected; to feel safe; to feel comfortable; to feel at home; to feel sexy and smart; to feel loved; to feel ; to feel ; to feel ; to feel ;

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I don’t seek out seeing you

because your anxiety is cruel, cuts me deeply, I seek it out because it affirms my own, but it is miserable to encounter.

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endurance

could I continue to take care without being seized with terror, and rage, and shame, and sickening doubt and confusion? Could I be a part, apart?

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grief

there is an entire planet to mourn.

“things will never be the same,” you say, enragedly but smugly, your digital face a mask.

for a long time, I refused to believe you, “you,” the proverbial resentful supercilious scolding superego other.

because your prescriptions are impossible for me. I cannot imagine living the rest of my life without the connection I’d become used to; I cannot remain solely accountable to the distilled and hardened core of holdouts — even as I believe them.

Vulgarly: I can’t stay masking forever. Even as I say these words, disgust and shame and rage surface; I feel cowardly and weak.

things will never be the same; part of what that means is grief. Grieving the lack of worry; grieving the feeling of belonging, of known consensus; of ease. Some people were never included in these things.

Grieving - accepting the reality that there is more danger now; that disability and debility is closer than it had been.

if I’m bedridden in a few weeks, or months, or years, how will I feel about all of this? Will I rage at my current blitheness, my willingness to sacrifice my future health for current comfort? Will I forgive myself? Will I carry the same acceptance that I’m grasping at now? What if I sickened someone I love?

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this is why i don't fuck with organizers.

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I’m scared to touch my own face.

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taken back

talked about skincare with you today.

I’m a teenager again. I’m 26, looking on Reddit. I want to crawl out of my skin entire body. I can’t experiment because I hate myself, I hate the way I look, and I can’t…*digest* the reality of my physical body enough to actually engage with it. Same with my hair, same with my clothes. It’s fucking awful.

I feel like a pimply teenager, except things are somehow worse because I’m older and fatter and balder, and I don’t have close friends anymore. Maybe I do, I have the ounce of maturity I’ve managed to claw and snatch from the hard brutality of my emotional terrain thus far; but I don’t love my friends the way I did with some of the people I knew then.

how the fuck do I show myself now? How the fuck do I show the reality of me, a giant blubbering baby, a teenager wracked with shame? HOW??!!!!!!!! TELL ME WHAT THE FUCK TO DO!

the…wriggling worm of my every day consciousness is one that I feel a lot of impatience for, or fucking hate sometimes.

I can’t change myself because I can’t accept myself; I can’t accept myself because I’m trying to change myself.

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my thing

disgusting, wretched

but also dangerous, harmful; something to be hidden; something to be ashamed of;

something I cannot love, let be loose or godforbid, juicy

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paranoia

I see you; I feel you; I taste you.

can I recognize you for what you are?

what if I knew you by a different name?

what if I could hold you in my hand, and not as a black sticky spiderweb across my throat and heart?

what if I could tell whether you were telling the truth?

what if you weren’t?

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Parts work

mommy mommy mommy MOMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

why did you have to treat me like that?

to think about you being my mommy is to feel shame.

something about being a little baby, a little boy, a little child, held by you, i feel shame.

______

I am gripped with powerful, terrifying, choking, overwhelming fear right now.

part of me - a dim, quiet, background part - can imagine what it feels like to meet this moment with equanimity and courage; it feels something like standing strong, exposing myself and taking on some risk of what might happen. feeling present in my body; in my stomach and groin and pelvis; it means receiving things from other people and processing them.

_______

crying earlier. had a wonderful moment babying myself - feeling like it was OK to cry, letting myself cry, feeling release and feeling something like neutrality and compassion for myself as I did so.

i can tell that this is part of the path.

holding myself as i cry and wail, with compassion and patience and judgment -- but not rushing to snuff the flames. let them burn out!

_________

mommy - why did you cry on my shoulder by the ocean? i don't think that was good for me.

mommy - why did you ask for your own mommy in the car? i don't think that was good for me.

mommy - i'm so so so so so sossososososososososososososososoos scared to lose you.

mommy - maybe i can use my words. maybe i can tell you how i feel. but with someone else; a therapist or someone else to prevent you shrinking into your own shame. that shame is caustic to me.

mommy i love you