Thinking about Photography

I'm looking back at old photos, and realizing how our thought influence what we present through the camera. The eye behind the lens influences what appears through it. It's strange to me; even as a photographer, I always assumed it photography couldn't be expressive art, and that anything involving capturing and reproducing reality could do little more than present with distance. I could not see how an artist could influence photography. Make it their own. Tell stories.

But looking back, it's obvious. There are so many things in reality--thousands of moments and angles and perceptions. And which moments you capture--those say something.

It makes me a bit uneasy, looking back at the photos my brother took of me during our warm years. I look back and know, in hindsight, that he loved me. And it makes these really beautiful, flattering images appear in a new light.

Whenever I was the focus, it always seemed like watching someone beautiful I think there's love in these.

Or maybe they're just great photographs. I don't know. But reflecting on it, I always assumed these were the best photos of me, most representative of myself. I think that's because I've always been a bit in love with myself too. (Or, a lot in love with myself.) I can see it in a lot of the pictures I take if they make me the focus.

I always try to make my happiness palpable or I make myself look desirable in some other fashion. I always get transfixed by photos of myself. And when I'm taking photos, I simply wish that I could be the focus of all my shots. It's another form of narcissism, I guess. I've never been interested in finding the beauty of other people through my photos, but I constantly wanted to communicate how desirable I was to others.

I have other photos too, though. Photos where I try to capture edginess, sadness, or more often than not, a feeling of being disturbed.

They're either washed out or they're gritty

I don't know. It's strange. I have a lot more to think about. About photography. About identity. About how I want to be viewed and how I view myself.


Life is good.

Old Poems I Found

Time Capsule

I used to whisper all my secrets into
his keyhole, letting them pile up
inside him like a chest of treasures.

That was back before I made myself
forget forget forget;
he’s become a time capsule of my adolescence

and recently he buried himself somewhere
where I won’t be able to reach him.

Sometimes I wonder where he is,
what he is carrying,
and when I will be allowed to look inside.

Who was I(/Is the monster getting better at hiding)?
I spend hours forgetting who I am.

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of it,
bob up to the surface only to find myself
drowning in blood and dripping,
before I slip beneath the surface again.

When it all drains I’m just left
slowly remembering myself on the countertop,
staring at the mirror,
waiting for recollections of the past afternoon
and only finding a map of open wounds.

(Who do I become when
I’m not me and why
do they leave behind so many tracks?)

Twitter Poem


I want to carve a new childhood in fresh snow
Hold your hand
make sure I laugh this time.
We’ll play hide&seek and this time you’ll find me.

Untitled


I used to try to weave my hands into everyone else's
but thy would just keep unravelling.
I couldn't tie anyone down.
So I started weaving my own fingers together.
Wove them into nooses.
But one day I extended my hands to yours
and they knotted into mine so tightly
I doubt they'll ever come apart.

“Broken Toes”

Every day, you are standing on my toes.
I feel the pressure, the weight, and
The crippling pain every single moment of every single day.
It comes in the form of fear.
I fear smokers because you smoke, I fear coughs because you cough,
I fear hallways because one time you walked down a hallway.
I fear beer cans because they make you angry,
Because they don’t make you stumble but they litter the hallways and trip me as I try to run away from you
As you walk down hallways.
.
There are some days where you dance on my toes,
Crushing them and delighting as you hear the cracking of my bones,
Letting the percussive rhythm become the base of your war cries, your song, your dance.
You dance on my toes,
But by sunrise I know you’ll apologize.
You’ll call me to the table and watch me limp, watch me crawl
And roll over the beer cans in the hallway,
You’ll put out your cigarette and cough and say that you know you hurt me,
And you feel bad about that,
good.
But the thing is, you have no idea what you are supposed to be apologizing for.
.
You apologize for hurting me.
You don’t realize that even after you apologize you’re still hurting me;
You aren’t done apologizing yet.
But recognizing that would mean that you would have to get off my feet,
And if you aren’t stepping on my toes then how else will you make yourself taller?
.
The only times you remember that what you’re standing on is me are the times when you hear the bones crack and you watch me drag myself across the hallway afterwards.
You don’t realize that after you apologize you place your feet right back on my broken ones,
I have never been able to fix myself,
My toes have healed in twisted diagonals and after years of you re-breaking them I doubt I’ll ever walk right,
You don’t realize the extent of the damage you’ve caused and that’s why you don’t understand when I’m still angry even after you’ve apologized.

The Past is the Foundation of the Future

1.
My future is built on my dreams
floating above me, as if suspended in air,
a city on a cloud

but my present is built upon
my childhood,
a shaky foundation that shifts and sways
so full of holes, it is,
and blurred and not-quite-solid
my early days a puzzle of sun-damaged pieces,
colour drained

days I can only really remember
by opening old notebooks
and seeing the crayons cry through their circles.
(No wonder I made myself forget)

Now I do everything I can to just remember the present,
pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
singing the memories into songs
hoping that it will stabilize the my dream-cloud’s future.

2.
Just past the early years I forget forgetting
I remember my family relocating to Crystal Lake, Illinois
(a suburb of Chicago which, like all before it,
I strategically wiped from my mind)
and the only thing I can remember of it
is that when my family left Chicago to move to the Pits of Hell
it was a slight improvement

and when we entered the den of Hate and Fire
my knees were so against it that they couldn’t stop
shaking side to side
but everyone else told me it looked just like a house
and nothing like the Pits of the Netherworld
so I went against my misgivings and followed them
(which I wish I hadn’t)
and I was locked within for eight long years
that irreparably changed me

(but I made sure to forget
most of this as well
ask me what Hell looked like and
I will only shudder in reply
with my legs still nodding no)

3.
There is one vague recollection I have
of trying to tell my mother that we were actually
within the fiery depths of Hell
and not a nice, happy, banana-yellow house in
a quiet suburb of Minnesota

and she called Satan himself
to scorch the idea out of me
and I still fear fire, you know,
except for that one time I pretended I didn’t

4.
and maybe I was just trying to blend in
and act like I felt as at home there as everyone else.
I started burning complacency into my skin
until it hissed (like it did after that run in with the Devil)
and I tried to burn any way I could;
but then I got possessed by another damned demon
(that happened a lot to me back in the day–
there’s a lot of them hanging out in Hell and they knew
I was pretty weak to their kind)
and now I can’t stand by a lighter without fearing
my body will act on its own.

Whoever said you should fight fire with fire
obviously never tried it.

5.
But like I mentioned, I got out eventually
And it felt so good! Like Heaven, yanno?
(not like I’ve been there)

but looking at the outside of it, it was made even more obvious
that Mom had been parking her van in the
Gates of Hell all these years, and she still
didn’t know

and I told myself I wouldn’t try telling her again
(because my body still remembered last time
even after I made my brain forget–
you can’t really forget pain like that)
but maybe living free made something slip,
because I told her again

and you can imagine my surprise,
learning what my mother had picked up
from that Hell she called Home.
(My ears continue to fill with sizzling.
I’m still tender to the touch
and it’s been about a month)

6.
And while I regretted forgetting so much,
maybe more than anything
I regret making myself remember
this story again and again and again
(pressing it into every page, pencil, and poem I can
because the past is the foundation of the future).    

Calluses

i.
I used to be afraid of growing callouses.
The way my guitar teacher described them, it sounded like
I would lose my sense of touch,
and I was so so scared
of being unable to feel anything.


ii.
One day a man walked into my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.


iii.
One day a man walked past my house
and I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.


iv.
One day I walked into a therapist’s office
and the way they talked about meditation, it sounded like
I would just relax.

But when I walked into myself
I felt so many things that
I wanted to stop breathing.


v.
One day I walked into a doctor’s office
and the way they talked about medication, it sounded like
I would lose all these feelings,
and I was so so scared
of losing myself.


vi.
One day I existed
and I felt so many things that
I almost stopped breathing.


vii.
I walked into the therapist’s office again
and we talked about how I quit guitar lessons
and we talked about that man
and we talked about men like that man
and we talked about meditation
and we talked about medication
and we talked about sensitivity
and we talked about callouses.


viii.
I left the home that man had walked into,
and I avoid people that remind me of him.
I’m still scared of meditation,
but I have the names of a few prescriptions.
I threw out my guitar a long time ago, but
I started learning how to play the ukulele
and I have never felt better about myself.


ix.
I am beginning to grow callouses on my fingers
and they feel spectacular.   
 


Life is good.

Reminders to self on why I Might Not Be Making Up This Multiplicity Thing

because I keep thinking I jumped the gun. And that, when I do feel singular, that all my past feelings are invalid. So I'm make myself a list to remind myself why I even started researching pluralities in the first place.

• You can't remember a lot of what life was like at home since around middle school/elementary school. You remember all those bike rides to the willow tree throughout middle school, which an old notebook informed you was your way of avoiding the house (you thought you just liked bike rides????). You remember summers spent with dad. You remember, sometimes, the excessive dissociation on first arriving home & homework/picking, and you remember nights with twin, but what else you did at home outside of your room is fuzzy. It is almost like your memory is missing.
• You can't remember when John moved in. When mom started living in the house. It just suddenly happened. They say trauma causing DID usually happens from 6-9 years old, and you have no way of knowing if that happened. Either way, you have bits of memory from what John did. It wasn't good.
• During middle school, you were dissociating a lot. A lot. AT least 6 hours every day. You thought a monster was controlling your limbs. You had frequent out of body experiences. You floated above your shoulder, watching someone else move your body. On a number of occasions (the most memorable being The Cinderella Incident), this monster seemed to try to kill you. 
• At the beginning, this depression was surely your own. But over time, it faded, or it seemed to... from your main life. But sometimes it would come back, different and overwhelming and without cause. It never seemed to make sense, especially as you became happier. It felt like a depression that may belong to someone else.
• The few times you have been genuinely sad--crying in 7th grade back when you could, when you first started running away from home, when the roomies kicked you out of the apartment plans---have felt very different from the sadness you usually feel, if you get sad at all. Maybe you haven't been allowed to be present during times of sadness?
• Starting in college when you got your wigs, you dressed up as Juliana on a few occasions. Remember how that spontaneity felt. How she picked her clothes. How happy she felt when Starbucks said her name instead of yours, how she recoiled at bridging relationships and felt pride when people couldn't recognize you. That was real and existed far longer than you've been thinking up all this.
• You've tried binding a few times. Since when have you questioned your gender? You never have. You've been more than happen with femininity. But someone else sure hasn't.
• When you started letting Juliana move freely, you noticed things. He hates your girlish coat, your shoes, your purse. He hates seeing your face when she expects her own. He swears a lot more. He won't talk using your voice because it isn't his. Even the broadness of your shoulders seemed wrong. It was honest dysmorphia, you talked it over with Beck, it was very very real but not yours. You have never felt uncomfortable in your body. But someone was.
• Your pantophobia. Why did it come? Why did it leave? You never found out, but that terrifying way of interacting with the world--could you have created that? Did it belong to someone else?
• How many time have you created characters for Juliana? When creating self inserts you always had to make two. Two gemsonas. Two fursonas. Two personas when you drew yourself. You never questioned it, but your identity has always been fragmented.
• You're ace. But sometimes there was sexuality in you that never fit into your personality. It seemed excessive, unnatural, not fitting. Was that you?
• It doesn't have to be DID, you know. It can be DDNOS. It can be a fragment, unable to create a fully developed form. You could be co-opting a lot. Some alters can't front often. She could be a walk-in-walk-out. There are ways of explaining this.
• Nothing bad will happen if you are a system.

Life is good.

Thoughts and Observations after Twenty Minutes of Self-Strangulation

• When did I forget that suffocation caused death?
  Will all my suicide attempts be accidents?
  (Have any of them been ‘accidents’?)

• How much would I hate myself for leaving a body inside my dorm,
  giving my friend a corpse instead of a roommate?

• How much tighter does it have to be to leave a bruise?
• Why do I want a bruise so badly?
  (Maybe it would be proof I could have done it if I had wanted to.
  But what would I do when the colour started to fade?)

• Is breathing really all it’s cracked up to be?

•  I was so close to death. I really could have died.

• I was doing it so I could fall asleep. I don’t think I cared how long I would be out.

• Why do I want to live?
• Why do I want to die?

• When was the last time anyone held me this tightly?

An Exercise in Humility

 I am going to try to list all of my bad traits, because apparently I am not very aware of them and need to stop being a narcissistic a-hole. Here we go:

I am a slob & don't understand when others prioritize cleanliness, I keep trying to make myself look good during class introductions (and make myself look bad instead), I have like 2384837 mental disorders (which shouldn't be a bad thing, since I can't exactly control it, but I am counting it), I am so damn depressing, I make everyone awkward by talking about my depressing life blatantly, I never leave anything to the imagination, I don't know when to shut up, I'm socially inept, I can't read subtle cues or passive aggression, I'm lazy, I underestimate my limits, I'm a weak noodle, I try to tell everyone my depressing backstory as if it cements stronger bonds of friendship instead of making people awkward, I get offended when people don't trust me with their own dark backstories, I'm sensitive as hell, I'm not actually too empathetic, I am extremely prideful of all my good traits, I'm a narcissistic asshole, I can't tell if my OCD makes me look at mirrors compulsively or if I just love myself, I occasionally try to take credit for things I didn't do, I can be manipulative, I have 0 self preservation, I'm constantly trying to make people understand me, I can't understand when people dislike me, I really enjoy being depressed, I get disorder envy, I get a bit jealous about people who can actually do severe self-harm, I'm honest primarily because I feel I do no wrong, I'm not actually too honest sometimes, I try to make friends somewhat based on looks and how people present themselves, I'm still ashamed to be Christian, I flaunt my uniqueness and gayness, I am always trying to get friggin attention, I want to be loved so so much, I'm a hopeless romantic but I can never back it up with actions, I can't remember people's names, I can lie worth a damn, I want to be self sacrificing but i can't stand pain or being hated or even inconvenience, I am far too aware of my good sides & how I am better than some people, I find myself very logical but I'm probably friggin crazy, I doubt I can befriend people without mental conditions, I focus on the conditions of people and try to find them, I think I'm far prettier than I am, I can't talk coherently, I keep using Spanish casually & probably offend people, I'm not actually sure if drawing helps me focus or if it's an excuse, I still wonder if I self diagnose too much, I probably have too many projects I'll never finish, I'm not even that great at art, I love showing off, I keep wanting people/making people take care of me, I have zero strength, I wonder whether my anxiety is over exaggerated, I'm pathetic, I wish people would find me more depressed than I am, I have the pep of an obnoxious five year old, I always look for drama when it comes to myself, I want to be the center of attention, my handwriting is crap, I have the memory of a fly, I'm a procrastinator, I pretend to be asleep to avoid talking to people, I bleed in public, I don't try hard enough not to scratch, sometimes I purposely hurt myself, pain feels really good, people can probably tell what I can do in my bed, I'm always trying to be a friggin fragile broken girl, I want to be beautifully tragic, I'd give up my life at the drop of a hat to benefit someone else & I am proud of it, I don't want to recover, I don't want to stop being afraid, sometimes I still think about smoking even though I don't get the cravings anymore, I try to be a manic pixie dream girl, I think I've started hating men a bit, I dream of being the best at everything, I'm constantly planning on being the best at everything, I'm a friggin teacher's pet, I still lok down on people sometimes, I'm not sure I can get angry, I'm a prude, I use my depression to justify actions I don't agree with, I'm too trusting, I don't trust enough probably, I think there's some internal racism in me, I always want to be desired, I can't stop talking about myself, I'm probably enjoying this right now because it involves talking about myself, I don't have enough guts to kill myself.

Defining Good and Evil

I've been discussing the concepts of Good and Evil within people recently, and I think I'm finally beginning to wrap my head around it.

The story versions of Good and Evil always seemed far too simplistic. People could not simply be Good or Bad; it simply didn't make sense. People were more multifaceted than that. There are reasons and motivations behind everything we do. The fact that someone could do terrible things, knowingly, for the sheer purpose of being evil, has always felt ridiculous to me. Such flat characterizations can't match up to real human beings.

For a while, I decided that Evil in humans just didn't exist. Evil, I decided, was a construct devised within fiction, as a way to create conflict without having to  understand why people acted in bad ways. Evil in and of itself was an all-consuming, hilariously powerful personality that had no real rhyme or reason, much less any basis in the real world. People who did bad things in reality, I guessed, were simply misunderstanding the world in crucial ways, acting out of aggression made from lack of comprehension, or victims of a burdensome mental affliction. These people probably thought they were acting in the right, believing themselves to be Good while following their misguided set of values.

I created this set of beliefs primarily because I was stuck in my own worldview. I could not believe that anyone would willingly be a bad person. I had only seen myself, and inside of me, kindness, compassion, and understanding was key. I believed in the good in everyone.

Since then, I have realized that Evil People really do exist, although they exist in a much more complicated way. It is almost similar to the Alignment sistem of D&D, although maybe even more simplistic than that model. It exists as follows: there are Bad People who do Good Things, Good People who do Bad Things, Good People who do Good things, and Bad People who do Bad Things.

For example, Beck's father is a Bad Person who does Bad things. He's an abusive asshole who shows little if no regret for his past and present actions, with a lack of guilt for what he knows are terrible thoughts and actions. His motivation as still complex, and stem from ignorance as well as a need for respect, etc: but no matter what the reasons, he is a Bad Person. He may do the occasional Good Thing, but it is not an overwhelming part of his character.
In comparison, Beck's mother is Good Person who does Bad Things. She's an alcoholic who can be terrible while drunk, but she is always genuinely upset about it later, and strives to get better. She loves and cares for others sincerely, and fights to improve herself when she has the strength. Her Bad Things are not necessarily indicative of her character.

Evil, as commonly seen in stories, is few and far between. Most people who do Bad Things, I hope, are Good People who Do Bad Things, and attempt to get better when they are able to. This might be much later, but they are capable of redemption and feel sincere guilt over their actions. But there are some people that, in a D&D sense, are Pure Evil (Bad People who do Bad Things), and they surprisingly follow many of the same tropes and simplistic narratives as actual cartoon villains. For example, people who resemble Pure Evil often seek out people than are Good, and feel an irrational urge to hurt the lives of those people. I have no clue why, but I believe seeing Goodness might just irritate nasty people. Thus, Good naturally attracts Evil, with unfortunate consequences.


One reason I have always struggled with the conceptulization of Good and Evil is because of my inability to define John. Was he a bad person, or a good one? Did his bad actions or his few, interspersed good actions define him? Is he misguided or a victim of something he couldn't control, such as a warped worldview created by his work environment messing up his head, or is he just a terrible human being? I always struggled with giving him the benefit of the doubt, thus unwilling to let myself hate him despite what he had done to me; I was unsure which of his faces qualified as the Real John.

Aimed with this new understanding of Good and Bad in defining character, I was asked to have a talk with John today, perhaps our first conversation in over a year. He made it clear that it may very well be our last. The conversation was short and had one main message (don't hurt Mom), but I gleaned many things from what he said to me.

1) He is perfectly aware he hurt me, how it affected me, and that it was wrong of him.
2) He "literally does not care".
3) He is aware something is wrong from him, that he will "self destruct on his own"; in fact, that it is "inevitable".
4) He genuinely cares about my mother.

And so, finally, without my memory picking out only the good moments or my prior weakness and trauma magnifying the bad, I can safely define John's character with clarity. He is perfectly aware that something is wrong with his worldview, and that this causes him to hurt others. However, he feels no regret for the actions caused by this. In addition, he has practically given up on finding help, or trying to be a better person than his mental state allows him to be. He does not care about the hurt he has caused or will cause in the future. He also does not care about himself or of how I think of him (or whether I think he is a Good Person): but he does care about my mom.

He is a Bad Person who loves my mom. That is it. Whatever things he says or does for my mother, it is not indicative of his overall character. It is simply a good trait he has within a whole slew of bad. He is a terrible human being; and he doesn't mind others knowing it. He is completely unrepentant.

Now, I can finally allow myself to hate him without feeling bad about it.

(During our talk, I told him it wasn't his fault. I wish I hadn't.)

Life is good.

Love ramblings

My relationship is so good???? In so many ways???? It’s incredible???? I can’t believe this???? It legitimately feels like fate. There is no other way we could be so perfect for each other.

Like, all of our interests and preferences line up in all the right ways. When it comes to chores, I love laundry and dislikes dishes, they like dishes and dislike laundry. But when it comes to music we both like the same things. And there’s like a thousands examples of this, where we either trade off or share interests and it’s beautiful??? Like all the relationship planets aligned.

And it’s weird how easy it feels? Like, when I talk to adults I get really uncomfortable not calling them by their last name, but I can easily call my partner’s family by ‘Uncle’ and ‘Mom’. They already feel like my family. And they see me as a part of the family!! Ah!!!! I am accepted and it is nice. And soon I’m going to their family reunion! And I get to meet more family!!! That feels so special!!!

And we both like cuddling, and I can fit in most of their clothes, (which is AWESOME I love that), and their cat has an unnatural fondness for me, and our friends get along, and all of my family loves them, and living with them doesn’t even feel like fireworks and passionate volcano kisses, it’s like..normal. It feels like the way life is supposed to feel. Like I was waiting for this and the rest of my life had been kind of building up to this preconceived standard? This is where I was supposed to be. I love this. I want this to be my entire life.

I really really love my partner and we fit so well together and we are so good for each other and I have never been as healthy and happy as I am now with them.
I've never had anything feel this good and actually be this good for me.

Life is good.