Attraction and compulsion...

I have just spent the last hour and a half or so, in my car, finishing reading one of my 'Emily Strange' books, instead of clearing out junk and organising my House the way I should have been...

What is with that anyway???

Why am I so obsessed by organising and reorganizing it all? What's so darned important??? particularly as I have managed to completely organize everything before only to have then felt so freaked out that I deliberately messed it all up so that I could reorganize it... again!

I really don't get it...

I mean, it gets in the way of sooooooooo much I need and want to do... I want to LIVE my Life...

And yet, I cannot deny... not even a little bit... that organising and de-cluttering literally thrills Me somewhere deep down inside...

I remember that being something I was deeply attracted to about the idea (and the actuality) of spending time with Ben at his house when we were together...

Everything inside of my mind just went quiet when I was there... Each and every one of his million-gazillion-billion comics and books, which could have been so incredibly overwhelming, were instead, organised to pathological perfection...

Even now, I get a tingly shiver run down my spine, just remembering...

And Rob had/has so few personal items and was/is so into controlled minimalism that I couldn't help but be drawn to him on that level...

Darren, on the other hand lived in such an out of control, chaotic, filthy house that the potential for drastic change and improvement overrode my horror and repulsion at the idea of anyone living in such a place... Even his lifestyle was screaming for an organizational overhaul (which he begged me to help him with; I'd NEVER try to enforce my belief systems and values on another like that)... And until I saw that he was essentially, not incapable but instead, simply too lazy to bother keeping up with even the most basic of maintenance, and on top of that, was taking me for granted and slagging me off to all of our friends behind my back, I was a Happy of sorts...

Interestingly, Peter never really rated on any of these scales... He was messy and a mild hoarder and expected me to mindlessly pick up after him... He had a very 'entitled' attitude, which had nothing whatsoever to do with BDSM practices...

Although... mentally... inside of my own mind, he created massive messes that I almost lost my mind trying to untangle, categorize, neutralise, and store away in boxes never to be touched again... So perhaps he was not quite a complete dead-loss in the attraction-as-the-result-of-this-unhealthy-obsession-with-organisation that I have...

That does not explain my ex-husband, Andrew, though...

Or maybe it does...

Maybe our complete incompatibility (he was a hoarder and I was not) on this level was a part of what was driving me crazy...

Steve, while not what could really be defined as a 'relationship' exactly, I found attractive in a way because while he still had 'stuff' (but not to point of hoarding), it was interesting personal stuff... and he was still able have that stuff and to maintain a stylish minimalism... Our relationship was never really more than a friendship that occasionally (via mutual agreement) 'crossed the line'... but I liked it; it was simple and honest...

L and S, on this level, I was drawn to in this way because, while both are hoarders, L was chronic and S was a strange mix of unpredictably minimalist and hoarder all at once (something I find psychologically fascinating)...

Either way, they asked for my help and before I could clearly see that I was being used and taken for granted in damaging ways in that unconventional relationship, the prospect and actualisation of beginning that gargantuan task, again, thrilled me in ways that seem a little too intense to be either natural or healthy...

I am sure there is more unpacking of this subject that I need to do, in order to free myself of the detrimental side of my compulsion... but that is going to have to wait for a bit as I have already spent more time than I had planned on, just reading in my car and then writing this entry...

Or maybe I actually should just keep doing what I want to do instead of what I feel compelled to do; I don't know...

Possible title for next entry: Hoarding and D.I.D. - IS it actually hoarding at all???

Anyway, catch ya!

Hell...

Nights have become a nightmare in and of themselves...

I either no longer sleep... Or I do sleep... And when I sleep, I sleep deeply... I dream

This is no life...

This is Hell

On going insane... by never having been saner

Tonight, I lost my mind...

By seeing things so very sanely and clearly... Clearer than ever before, in fact... 

And it was excruciating!

There is no longer any doubt in my mind that I need to 'be in Hospital' if there were a hospital that could or would actually help, instead of simply medicating me out of my mind, against my will... I would say 'making things worse' except at this point, it really wouldn't... I honestly am at a point where that part of hospitalisation would be nothing more than another pointless drop in an endless ocean... of pain... of suffocation... of being trapped... of betrayal

And then this happened...

Endless War

*taunts in a relentlessly, lilting, mocking, hypnotic voice*

It's zombie time, Little Girl

It's zombie time...

Go, on, give it a whirl!

*hands her the bottle of Valium and continues to coax her to take some of the tiny yellow pills inside*

Make everything fade back to black

Make up for what you know you lack

No more screaming

No more tears

No more truths

No more telling fears

Become the drone they know and love

Say 'Yes Sir', 'Thank you Sir', 'Three bags full Gov'!'

And... Go back inside the mirror

Where you know that you belong

No more fighting, pleading, crying

No more trying to be strong

Just be nice and quiet... shhhhhhhhh

Don't tell our secrets anymore

We won't let you back out again

Of that you can be sure

All that you actually did tonight

Was show us how we need to adapt

So we are re-keying all the locks now

Just give up, you know you're trapped

You see, if you would just stop fighting

Maybe we could stop fighting too

You could rest and go back to sleep

And we could do what we want to do

It's such a pointless battle, you see

You know we'll win the war

You're fighting for a self that never should have been

Of that too, you can be sure

*violently throwing the Valium bottle away, pills flying out of it in all directions, screams back at them...*

Well what if I don't want to go?!

What if I don't want to just survive?!

What if I want to take MY OWN Life back?!

What if I don't want to be buried alive?!

Because that is what you're really asking

You know I can't breathe in here

I'm haemorrhaging right before your eyes

But you don't give a fuck! You've made that clear!

As for your 'ressssst' and 'sleeeeeeep'

You fucking KNOW it's not like that!

Try nightmares, terror and endless running

On a Hellish treadmill track!

So stop your lies, your cruel tricks, your taunts

This pain's driving me insane but I'm going to win!

Even if it takes me the rest of this endless futile life

FUCK YOU! I'LL NEVER GIVE IN!

I found out, as I heard an Alter talking to Rob tonight (I both love and hate him for 'loving me enough' to not fuck me into self-destructed oblivion right now), that I allow the abusers into my life in order to control those inside of Me that would abuse me so very much worse than anyone on the outside has or ever could now...

They have grown and learned from the seeds of hatred sewn by my first abusers and by every abuser since... and in turn, out-learned and outgrown them... It is a matter of pride that they are better and more skilled at the craft of abuse and control and torment than any abuser ever was or ever could be again now... It is also a warped bid for safety and survival... one that I do not know for sure that I will ever be able to overpower... but that apparently, I have no intention of backing down from fighting, no matter how futile that may ultimately be...

It would seem that I am no longer any more willing to remain trapped and silent and abused on the inside than I have become on the outside... How I am supposed to find a way to out-evolve my ever-evolving and incomprehensibly intelligent mind, I have no idea... Nor do I know how I will survive the blinding pain and anguish that comes from such torture...

I am trapped...

I can't go back... I am too depleted to make and retain enough ground to feed off of to become strong enough to ultimately win...

Where do I go from here?

How do I survive the unsurvivable?

Or more to the point... how do I find a way to stop surviving... to dismantle the unconquerable will to live that keeps me suffering an agony and torment I never knew anyone could survive, let alone Me???

Also... I watched 'Divergent' tonight... and Claire sent me a text message proving to me that she sees and understands much more than what she ever admits... and I read this poem (Finding the End - by Sarah K Reece) that spoke all of the words I have been struggling to scream, Myself, for so very long now... It was bliss and agony to see my feelings right there on the page, in someone else's agonised words...

And then I fell, screaming and crying... apart... and back together... all impossibly at once...

I don't know who I am, or where I am going... or what the hell I am going to do...

I just know it will be something... because it will be... something... it always is

**Poem sourced from a publicly available blog ('Holding My Childhood to Randsom'), without express permission from the author, but with full credit given to both the source and the author, hopefully having caused no offence to the author, should the author ever stumble across this blog entry of mine... I have not sought express permission for the sole reason that I do not wish to draw attention to my own thoughts and feelings, expressed herein**

Finding the End - by Sarah K Reece

Sometimes I must let thoughts swirl all unformed, nebulous, stars seen through water, no patterns or constellations, just points of light.
I wait and I follow
One thread and then the next, one path
Then the next through the labyrinth, as
The kaleidescope gently tilts and the light changes to green
Then amber, as floor becomes wall and then ceiling.

I found a limit this week, an end of myself, of my capacity
To believe, to hope, to conceal my terror like stuffing all the things
I don’t know what to do with into a spare room and closing the door
Like so many times before it isn’t like the ending of a film
Or a piece of string or the daylight but
Like stepping out of bed in the dark and padding down the hallway
Opening the kitchen door to find
A gaping hole where once there was a floor
A cliff that tears downwards and a dark wind rushing up with the smell of water
The house, the earth, the country itself all fallen into the sea.
That is the coming upon the end of my strength.

At first I am hysterical.
I howl like a dying animal and force my palms into my eyes as if to stop the rain
I take my body and my mind like they are metal I can beat upon an anvil, hot with self hate, and turn into a bridge between
Who am I now and who I wish to be
Who I owe to my loves to be, to my child yet unborn, to the world.

Sanity returns as we start to topple.
I do what all do who stand upon cliffs, and become still.
And there’s a place on the edge that’s without pain
Or joy or hope or love. Blood no longer runs in veins,
There is no more screaming. I look
Perfectly normal. Where my heart used to be
Is an empty restlessness, the dangerous torment of the numbed.
I am alone on a dead planet.

Later I take a step back. My thoughts return
Like gulls wheeling over me. All the threads snapped. Only fragments remain. A memory of skinned
Raw anguish from which all decent people flinch.

I draft no plans and write no treaties
Just rest in the night with the gulls wheeling over
Listening to the tiny whirring of the compass inside me
That will say ‘that way’ and then there’ll be
No night or cliff or screaming in my mind
Just a path and the moon and the next step waiting before me.

A Life, not just less ordinary... but more Miraculous

So much has been happening in my life of late...

Among other things, the re-emergence of someone who was a part of my Life many years ago, has resulted in Me being challenged to not only leave behind all of that which makes Me cry... but to run, with abandon, after all that I can create and Be as an Artist...

This is my first time beginning to experiment with Impasto...

I have completed the night sky backdrop for a huge landscape canvas (to hang above the head of a queen-sized bed) I am doing as the commission...

It's sooooooooo scary when a part of the design brief is:

1. You must let go of your perfectionism and just paint (I am considering painting with my eyes closed if I can't stop my brain from trying to think this one, instead of create it)

2. You must experiment

3. I will own your first Impasto painting experiment... EVEN if you think it looks like crap!

:O

Well... I'm trying... and HARD!

I'm really pleased with how the swirls of night sky have come up so far... I have some ideas for how I am going to finish this piece but waiting for the Impasto to dry is freaking me out because it is giving me waaaaaay too much time to think about the next steps and the ONE thing I need NOT to do right now if I am to be able to complete this piece as directed... IS THIIIIIINK!

Oh wow... What on earth have I signed up for here?!?! Lol?

If it sux, it's going to be hard to let go of... And if it rocks (which I'm hoping it will), it's going to be even HARDER to let go of...

Oh well...

My goal is to have it finished and ready to go home with its new owner by Saturday night / Sunday morning before church (yes, I may be up all night on Saturday night completing it), so not long to go before it's all over one way or another...

Here goes...

I can already feel myself growing and changing as the direct result of the effect this person's belief in Me and their encouragement... The result of this huge influx of confidence and growing self-assuredness really is a Life more Miraculous <3 :)

All the World's a Trigger... And I am but the Many Parts of One Person who may not even truly exist...

And so this is who I am now...

Or at least a part of who I am...

If I am honest with Myself, I have no choice to admit that I no longer know who or what is Me and who and what are triggered fragments of Me (and as such, not really Me?)...

I am so many things these days and not one of them feels genuine or authentic or real anymore...

It is true that I am currently in extreme pain...

Just as it is true that I have been overloaded mentally and emotionally by extremely traumatic situations, most of which I feel trapped by and unable to control...

I have no doubt... that I am... once more... dissociated out of my Mind

I look at this photograph... and I watch Myself posting it here and in other places on the internet... and although I know, on some level logically, that I should be feeling shame? or at the very least, concern for my dignity, modesty and privacy... I don't

In fact, I feel compelled to post it... Compelled to scream out my pain through it somehow... Compelled to cry out for a Help that I am terrified but not yet quite convinced, does not exist...

And yet at the same time... I believe this shot is beautiful in some desperate way... I want to scream out that beauty into the internal Abyss and to have the whole WORLD confirm that I am beautiful and wanted, so loudly that the screams of the world drown out the screaming inside that is telling Me that I want to kill Myself...

Oh FUCK! I am really NOT OKAY, am I...

What the hell am I going to do??? :'(

Hope...

Hope is such a funny thing...

And a desperate thing... And a hopeless thing...

Hope is dangerous

That is all

A New Work in Progress...

Love Me 9 Times


Love Me 9 times
In My darkest hour
So that I might trust
In Your Love and its power
Love Me 9 times
In the apparent absence of Mine
For, deep inside, I long to be Yours
And to call Myself, Thine
Love Me 9 times
When no-one else will
I have more love to give
Than any Heart could demand I fill
Love Me 9 times
With never one doubt
Show Me Your Love is real
You don't need a way out
Love Me 9 times
Then again, 9 times more
Love Me even when it hurts
Never wish to even the score
Love Me 9 times
Love Me until the End
Understand, I was never just Your Lover
I was also always Your Friend
Love Me 9 times
Love Me even when I'm sad
Still see Me through My tears
As I finally let go and grieve all that was bad
Love Me 9 times
And never let Me go
For I Love You… and I need You too
More than You will ever know!

Suicide on Mother's Day...

Today I desperately want to commit suicide...

There are no words for how or why...

There is simply no point... no way out... no end to my suffering...

... No Hope

and I am done.

I know...

I know he did it...

I have always known, deep in my gut...

I am sad... He seems so lovely... just like my grandfather

There is nothing I can do to save them now... nor can I reach back into the past to save their mother before them...

I am powerless...

I have to find a way to let it go.

Bad Day...

It's been a bad day today...

And for a few days now. And lots more even that that too.

I bought Myself this purple/lilac bear on the way home from the Hospital today.

I told the Raging Ones that if I got the bear they would have to go away and calm down... and that the bear would help 'Us' to calm down...

Lots of bad things and people have been happening to 'Us' lately... and I have to make it stop... I'm tired of fighting and having to be right all of the time when the people who are supposed to be right aren't and can't be bothered and are doing bad things...

Anyway... the Raging Ones agreed, so I got this Bear

It feels kind of like it's safe and like the bear is hugging and holding 'Us' too... Even the Raging Ones and the Grown-Up Ones and the other Ones who don't like to be touched... but they don't seem to mind because the Bear is safe... and is being a Helper... and it's okay

That's all.

Up and Down and in Danger...

I am depressed and manic and switching all over the place lately...

I can't make it stop :(

Thankfully (but for how long, I do not know as triggers are everywhere for this particular Alter lately), I seem to have found ways to settle enough to sate Elyria's rage... and although she comes and goes, for the most part she simply remains close to the surface but not completely 'out'...

Scarlet is in and out too...

I have no idea of who I am... I am just here I guess... writing again... coming and going as the 'Others' come up for air and take charge for a while before disappearing beneath the surface again (for some reason the surface appears as water in my minds eye... perhaps there is an art piece waiting to be birthed, who knows...)

I don't even really know what I want to say here... So much and yet so little... all at once

The mania I have been experiencing reminds me of my old bipolar days (which may or may not have been a misdiagnosis)... And some of the accompanying behaviour is reminiscent of those days too... but I am not going to go into specifics right here, right now... It is enough to say that on a logical level only (as I have been severely switched out at the point in time that these 'concerning behaviours have occurred) I have deep concerns about some of the people I have been 'choosing' to spend my time with and about those I have rejected spending my time with of late...

I expressed some of these concerns (using specific details) to someone close to me last night and was met with an emotionally aggressive response I would never have expected... She is also D.I.D. and deals with her life in a completely different way to Me, so perhaps I hit a nerve, I don't know... I only know that I walked away feeling more unsafe and alone than ever in this... I had hoped for potential insight; both into her own coping strategies and her observations of my own recent behaviour, in the hope of being able to pinpoint and fix where things must be going wrong, so that I don't risk finding myself in a much bigger mess after having worked so very hard to achieve the safety (in the physical world) that I have finally achieved...

I don't know where to turn now...

I see the signs... and like a freight train, racing down a hill with failed brakes, I watch on... helplessly... trapped inside at crucial moments, hoping and praying that the Alters who put Me into these current situations, will this time, stick around long enough to accomplish what they chose to begin... and that the resulting new internal strength and self-protection they have promised me will result, actually results...

I am afraid of things going the way they used to... I am afraid of being badly hurt again... so badly that I end up in an emergency ward... or worse still, in a psychiatric ward...

I do feel different though... somehow more stable in this harsher resolve that still doesn't feel as though it belongs to Me... For the first time in a very long time, the Alters who are switching out actually feel so foreign that they feel like completely separate entities who have simply decided to walk into My Body and to operate Me from the inside as though I were a helpless, lifeless puppet... I feel bullied by them...

Perhaps this is because I am blonde... and those coming and going right now (more than I am even here anymore) are all brunettes... Scarlet is the softest of the brunettes, that I have 'met' so far... I don't feel so bullied by her... But the situations I find Myself in as her, very literally require my surrender to her... If I don't... if I am suddenly 'here' in those situations as 'Me', the damage would be massive... So even though I do not feel bullied by her, I still feel powerless to 'regain control' when she is around, doing what she does...

A part of Me is also standing back and watching, right now...

These Alters are assertive, where I have not been able to be... they are unafraid, where I have been terrified... They are confident they can re-write history in the present day (by recreating certain situations with old abusers in the current day and making them end differently, with the power and a 'win' of sorts, going to 'Us'), where I had previously come to accept what had happened and had been trying to find ways to simply move on and leave it all behind...

A part of Me likes some of what these Alters are and wishes she were more like them... A part of Me hopes that at the end of all of this, perhaps I will be... only I will still retain My soft and gentle, loving, hopeful Heart... I do not know if this is possible or not... But I am watching carefully... and I am learning... FAST

Even now, amidst My own fear of what is happening, 'they' are pushing through and trying to re-direct this 'cry for help'; turning it into a celebration of changes afoot, that I am neither sure are safe or desirable...

What happens if, in all of this, I lose people I love... Already, these Alters have an incredibly low tolerance for my Mother; a relationship I have worked hard to create and nurture, despite our history... And they have this same lack of tolerance and compassion for a few other key people in my Life also...

What am I to do?

How do I save relationships that are nothing but another's memories to these Alters that I actually, almost completely AM so much of the time these days??? Particularly when the relationships I am 'supposed' to be saving... or more to the point, not obliterating as 'I' would like to, literally drive the Alters 'I' am, to distraction... making them even more enraged and unhinged than they already are?!

Whatever the outcome here, I have to go as I am running incredibly late...

Today is my youngest daughter's 11th birthday and I have to find a way to be able to 'switch out' and be able to be all soft and loving and gentle and able to deal with my family, who are coming over to celebrate with her and to make her feel special... The softest parts of Me do Love her so very much... and certainly feel for her - she is incredibly emotionally fragile and has had a rough time lately... I just need to find a way to access those parts in time... time I do not have more than about 20 minutes of, left... I do not want to miss my little girl's birthday! (more on that later perhaps) :'(

Elyria takes Control...

For far too long now, my hair has been stained with Elyria's Darkness...

And it simply won't come out...

It is too Late...

No matter what I do right now, Elyria (and those she brings with Her), is here, for as Long as She wants... to stay

It has come to the point, where I cannot even truly recognise photographs of Myself as the blonde I have always been...

The blonde-ness looks wrong... and out of place... and unattractive... It looks like a bad choice that I once made... and looking at those photographs repulses Me, as I wonder how I could possibly have ever thought that I looked good as the blonde I actually naturally am by Birth!

That I can still remember, via 'snapshots' of words that describe emotions I am not able to connect to but somehow know happened in this Body, loving being a blonde... and being praised as Beautiful... even having believed as such Myself... well... it disturbs Me on a very deep level...

I am afraid to Trust... After all, how could I possibly trust eyes that would one day tell Me I was beautiful as a blonde, which now betray whomever I was at that point in time, with eyes that now tell Me that I looked repulsive as that blonde... and only Beautiful now that I am Raven-haired and my true colour??? And all for no more proof or reason I can find, than a simple psychological switch???

Yes, I am disturbed... internally... and externally

Deeply.

Even my daughters know the name Elyria... and that it belongs in some way (even though they do not understand how)... to Me

Elyria is making changes in My Life that I do not know whether or not I should want and embrace or not... Most of them are Protective... and... long overdue... But as I can only guess at the wisdom and functionality of what I may have once wanted, (for Her feelings and belief systems are so very strong right now), what am I to do?

I am not even sure of how it is that I am even writing in here... I recognise My Voice... but I do not know why She is allowing it... or Me... I no longer even know if I am Me... or if perhaps She actually is the Me that 'We' truly are... Or perhaps neither of 'Us', nor any others of 'Us' inside are truly a Me...

I don't even know anymore... And I used to feel as though I knew

I am grateful for the opportunity, not the chance, as it is not by chance I am here, but by Her Choice, and so therefor, opportunity... to breathe in here... I felt like I was suffocating...

She is so Dark... and deceptively balanced... But her hatred of the World last night, came screaming to the surface... after a Betrayal that She accidentally found confirmation of, yesterday... And I am powerless to shut It or Her down...

I think, perhaps, I am screaming out for Help in here right now... But it will not do any good... because the second I stop writing, I will be gone again... Her Hatred will reign... and although, on some level, I will keep 'Us' secluded from those She would seek to eradicate from 'Our' Life, I will not be here to feel... only Elyria and Her Gang will be around, controlling everything... And what 'They' do not feel... what I cannot make 'Them' feel... well, I cannot force any of 'Them' to Act upon... It is only this Internal Treaty that has, so far, kept, the almost imminent now, massive sweeping changes 'They' see as necessary, from having already been enforced... and even that is only possible because of this  current Internally-Agreed-Upon seclusion

It is time for Me to go now...

My Feelings have been becoming a Little too strong (how and why is there a Little in here somewhere???)... and the Threat I am beginning to pose to this current World Order, could have Me lose this Space (journal) altogether, if I do not Honour this Trust and Leniency I have been momentarily and provisionally Granted

I am not even really sure of My Name... I only know, that I am whomever usually writes in here... And that 'Our' psychologist is going to be truly Tested and then kept or discarded by Elyria, based entirely upon whether She passes or fails this latest Opportunity to Get to Know 'Us'...

I am Afraid

Elyria is back...

Well, hello there Elyria...

What brings you back?

I didn't know that it was you who hides in the shadows and the undercurrent of those of us who 'work'...

But then again, now that I think about it, it certainly does make a whole lot of sense... You being the sexually taken yet chaste One... You being the 'forever Alone' and 'haunted by the pain of Our past' One... Your deep emotional connection and similarity to both Alisa and Violet...

I hear the screaming pain in your silence... And I feel your burning and aching in Our body... I see deeply, as, just like You, I noiselessly, look out at the world, through your eyes and am paralysed and mute... just as you are... because you are here...

I can feel You... I believe You... I am You

Was your separation from Me as a whole, completed, the day Alisa betrayed herself and stood aside as Violet did her first shift?

I am hoping We will not need you... but I know why you are here now... I am sorry for your sadness... and that you have been woken and called upon once more... I am sorry for your pain... and for its abyss-like depth...

I am sorry for a lot of things...