still lightly flustered about trying to do Character Q&A With Julian and ending up on ummmm quite the detour regarding Elias.
like i am certainly processing. some. thoughts. and. ah, feelings. about what is transpiring to be the weirdest therapeutic tool of all time? like we all know Julian is built heavily in my image and shares a large amount of my baggage but…i gave him a little less of it. and that means he can say certain things far more easily than I can. I guess arguably this is the closest I’ve got to integrating that *I* might be able to express things like that.
Part of it, I know, is that he’s a more “acceptable” proxy? He’s a skinny, pretty man so when he says cornball shit like “Elias, I feel unspeakable” I can be like….I can view that as charming. (“Charming”. Dude. Is that what you’re calling it? You are quote unquote charmed by it? Lmfao. I think you feel unspeakable about it.)
I know what’s happening is that I’m holding up a mirror and finding ways to make me accept and appreciate my reflection, and I know there is absolutely nothing wrong with entering this particular dialogue but also WHOO BOY IT ESCALATED QUICKLY, a wild thing to say about an “interaction” in which I am both participants. And I probably need to pay attention to the “me” in this conversation, too, because….like.
Both parts of that conversation were me. Julian, being Julian, is not and never was going to be the one who escalated and asked the probing questions. That, actually, was me - and not a role I was playing, the whole weird thing about this dialogue that threw me at first was establishing that I am literally just me, apparently. I didn’t assume a character. This might be the only space I’ve ever been in (entirely fictional, entirely self-created, but nonetheless unique) where I have behaved only as myself? Where I have been completely up front about my wants? There literally came a point where “we” went….hm hold on let’s dial this back. And here is the thing: I don’t think I have ever said to a real human person what I responded with then in the bubble of This Is All Make Believe, which was, “Yeah, I think I need some time to process this. This was a lot! This was fascinating and part of me Obviously wants to continue this conversation but I agree that let’s like. Take a minute to digest.”
I don’t do that in real life. I either Keep Going Because I’m In It Now, or I freeze. I don’t know there’s a LOT in this exercise and how it went, in both sides I played during it. I just showed up to do a writing exercise but wow uh it turns out I’m getting a very intimate view of my psyche from two directions at once so that’s FUN anyway don’t even look at me if you can read between the lines no you can’t
btw by cooler i don’t mean like. trendier or more conventionally attractive but a version of myself that feels more like an honest representation of myself and all the layers of myself that are shifting as i grow and learn more about myself and the world …. (which makes me hotter.)
it’s so silly but i find there’s something weirdly restorative about doing Kinda Niche Kink Commissions sometimes
like specifically those clients who show up not quite apologizing but almost apologizing - checking in if it’s even okay to ask for what they’re asking for. and i see myself in that, and here i am on the other side going, “of course i can do that! what do you want to see?” and even though their thing is not my thing, there is a joy in that itself? that through my own comfort with other people’s stuff-I’m-not-into, i accept that other people don’t need to feel the way i feel for me to feel the way i feel.
there’s genuinely something in creating a space for someone else to feel comfortable and not-judged. i love the earnestness that gets brought to these interactions (because it’s SO different to bad client vibes where you as the artist feel kind of like…used, there’s a boundarylessness I’ve encountered that feels skeevy even when what they ask for might be absolutely fine) and i love feeling like it is meaningful to someone else that i am safe to ask the question to in the first place
i honestly think it’s a terrible shame we live in a world where it’s largely considered Not Okay to get a bit weird with it, because we mostly are all a bit weird? so whenever someone shows up and entrusts me with their own weird i’m like, aw. that feels good actually.
helping other people put their shame down and get earnest and sincere about it all so i can make something that scratches an Oddly Specific Itch is honestly so cool
I realize I’m gonna feel trapped if I believe I can’t leave. The cage might be illusory but I’m going to react to it like it’s real if I don’t test it.
I’m having a hard time processing that my fighty parts are covering for the parts that want to flee - their logic is: drive the “danger” away, or provoke the “danger” into rushing you so that the need to escape will finally feel justified.
And what do I need to escape? There’s no danger except my “inability to escape” - the cage is made entirely of my overdeveloped fawn response. My “job”, the one I was born for, the learned belief that the world works in a way where everyone deserves agency but me.
But the idea that I’m meant to do this (i say, sitting in a cafe with a cinnamon bun I can barely eat) even though it feels like it’s getting a “negative response” - the cue I should abandon myself - is hard to process. It’s hard not to go, “I did this wrong.”
I know I didn’t. I know it’s going to be fucking messy. Other people never want to feel distress, and my anxiety provokes distress, and my anxiety is just here and real. It’s not callous to follow through on what you’ve been asked for, and trust that this is better than the mess that would’ve come of trying to stay.
Going through my old diary again. It still fascinates me, seeing a version of me that is absolutely still highly compartmentalised but also way more connected to its wants and needs.
It’s weird viewing the exact things that pushed parts into exile. My mother did not, uh, do a good job of teaching me that I was okay.
(Sexuality, horror, and processing under the cut)
“She says perhaps I’m too young. I’m 14! Old enough to know horror is about the thrills of the unexplainable and the mystical, it’s not all about fear.
Apparently I shouldn’t draw horror pleasure. But it’s the only reason I do draw it. Then she says I should do what I enjoy no matter what anyone thinks. It makes no sense.” - 11.11.07
I still remember this day so clearly, emotionally speaking! One part fawning to one part righteous indignation at being told I was too young to create janky art of undead hellbeasts. I’m proud of little me for responding, privately, with a “fuck you I do what I want” - the pages following this are full of messy doodles of bloody claws and hell beasts and harpies with their tits fully out.
To this day I feel a kind of stoppering around the visuals I used to take pleasure in drawing (i love that teen me has no compunctions with saying “i draw horror for pleasure, I draw it to give myself a bit of a thrill” - I knew I found it on some level compelling and exciting). This specific day has left marks on my bones. Drawing images containing blood feels as obscene as drawing explicit sex - “worse”, even? Not Allowed, even? It feels like the Most NSFW Thing I Could Ever Be Caught Making.
In another entry not long after, I accidentally (No for real, no seriously it was not the product I purchased) bought a How To Draw Manga book that was nothing but reference images of lingerie and underwear through the ages. I (in a refuge at the time thus having no privacy) hid it under my pillow like an idiot. It was found, awkward conversations where I sounded like I was lying so blatantly were had, and I write later,
“Well, I’m glad my book is NOT considered p*orn lol […] The thing is, I don’t know what’s deemed acceptable. And I don’t really know how to ASK.”
Absolutely everything about me developing a sexuality was just kind of shamed? All I learned was that if I was caught with content that *was* deemed expressly sexual, that was Bad of me. It taught me to be afraid, and it taught me to be furtive, and it taught me that everything that gives me a thrill down my spine is absolutely definitely to be hidden because that’s the sign something is Bad.
I was so enthusiastic about my horror shit. It lit my brain up because it let me interface with concepts like Pain and Fear in a safe way. The fear that comes with being mortal and the fascination I had with what it might be like if you weren’t - now I think of it, that whole story was just about Scared Impermanent Mortals and Reckless Immortals Trying To Feel Alive. Something felt, after that conversation, Wrong-Forbidden about writing about an undead who threw herself from cliff tops and darned herself back together for fun, or the dethroned necromantically shackled goddess picking fights in hell for the fuck of it, because she could be wounded but never die and she was so fucking bored.
And I guess it’s wild to me - understandable but fucking wild - that she saw this and just reflexively tried to shut it down. I get she probably didn’t want her kid drawing Weird Horror Stuff in case it reflected on her, but it boggles my mind that she didn’t consider the inevitable consequences. I have a lot of feelings about the ways I was made to bottle up part after part. I’m proud of young me for having more integrity with themself than I do. “For pleasure” feels like a dirty phrase to [not shame] about anything i do even when the context is nonsexual? And especially when the sexuality of the thing is Ambiguous like it is with the horror - it’s not inherently a sex thing but it’s definitely somewhere diagonal to it. When “pleasure” means The Thrill, I struggle bad to trust it: if anything, when I do make nsfw content part of me tries really hard to avoid The Thrill. I’m more comfortable with my more outrageous commissions, where the content is Weird and Wonderful But Thoroughly Not Of Interest To Me, than I am making something because I myself get The Thrill.
If it makes me fizzy and excited, I get scared of it Because This Event Taught Me That’s Bad. The battle between Yonder and [not shame] revolves around this, because it’s Yonder’s favourite feeling in the world regardless of context. From a Yonder perspective, “draw what makes your heart do the BIG smiley emote” is what’s happening. From a [not shame] perspective the BIG smiley emote is a harbinger of being told off. Big smiley emote feelings are weirdo behaviour, it says.
And goddddd I’m tired of feeling like a weirdo. I look back and think, wow, that kid did literally nothing wrong. Why would you make that kid feel like it was wrong and bad to have an outlet?
what if I just take all my relationship with sexuality and then simply. project it. lmao. it’s so weird to have made a character who was deliberately very close to home and then opt to give him backstory that is ALSO an abstracted and more explicitly Troublesome representation of…….my problems with Doing Intimacy
I gave him my desperate need to be sure he’s wanted before he makes a move, and I made him wreck the only relationship he deeply desired before it could even begin as a result?
and now I’m here like ANYWAY TIME TO FIXATE ON THIS MAN’S SEX LIFE because
a) if this awkward little nerd can be desirable then so can I be (and in the weirdest twist of fate ive decided he is in fact desirable, and there has never been a weirder ‘is this person attractive or do I want to be them’ scenario than when this person is someone you yourself created and portray.)
b) it’s a comfortable one step removed from interfacing with my own desires barehanded with no oven gloves no that’s not a double entendre I just mean direct interfacing is sometimes Risky To Handle because Shame Time. it’s as close as i can get to embodying the self i’d like to exist in. he is the oven gloves.
c) I have made him Neither Pure Nor Shameless But A Secret Third Thing (A Lil Repressed And Shy At First But Ultimately Reasonably Comfortable With His Desires) and that’s a good thing to be able to conceptualise ESPECIALLY because other people tend to view him, like me, as some kind of sweet woodland animal in a sweater vest and yet nonetheless Julian Experiences Sexuality Quite Definitely
I just wish i could temporarily project myself into his lil universe so i could briefly be someone who’s at where he’s at: Closer To Comfortably But Imperfect Enough To Feel Attainable. which tbf is kind of what I am doing but I mean I Would Like To Be The Wizard Because I Think The Wizard Fucks More Than I Do Despite Being A Pathetic Little Nerd (Affectionate)
[Image Description: a tweet by Soph (@/StorybrookeSoph) that reads “Friendly reminder that you have zero control over how other people perceive you so you might as well just be the person you want to be anyway." It was posted on June 9th 2021. End description]
high key fascinated that i use a cis male character as my personal proxy for exploring my relationship to intimacy (rather than say, any of my million No Gender No Problem characters)
there’s definitely Something going on with that, but for the life of me i am yet to fathom what. I do make characters who are mapped closer to the body and the self I have to tell stories that explore those themes, and that feels satisfying and affirming in its own way, but those stories aren’t about Truly Letting Yourself Be Seen the way his are.
All my most combative parts show up during the ol PMS and I’m struggling with it because I get in a really conflict focused space, where my desire to be seen and treated with compassion is at war with (unnamed)’s most violent brand of internal disparaging and callousness and their powers combine into this really nasty feeling of wanting to throw a fucking tantrum
I find myself interpreting anyone’s distress or discomfort at the maladaptive ways I respond as people acting like I have less right to even display distress responses than they do, like I’m being told to shut up and stop making the “choice” to be unavailable and withdrawing and fake-present, and it’s weird because it is to some degree surely a choice but also some of it is a reflex and even though nobody is shaming me for it, I am so afraid of being shamed that I am primed and ready to defend myself and in this space of “fuck you I can’t help it, can’t you just be gentle with me” and ironically placing my distress responses before anyone else’s
PMS time makes it really hard to have any tolerance whatever for having done anything “wrong” and all I want to do is defend myself and tell other people that if they want me to react differently then they should just show any fucking curiosity and stop JUDGING me
and obviously I’ve exiled my whole fight response so the fact that it starts thrashing around when the blood curse is imminent is. A mess. Because it’s inappropriate but also it feeds the idea that I’m never right to protest anything because it’s always me being shitty and unreasonable and defensive, which I don’t think is true, but it means I don’t know what is me being reactive and what it genuinely would be fair to ask for to help me get out of a fear response spiral?
dear most recent follower: it took extensive work unpacking shame and fear of being mocked, shamed and rejected in order to stop mocking, shaming and rejecting myself in an attempt to to force myself into Acceptable Gender (Whatever That Means)
i internalised the voices of people who said anyone like me had Internalised Misogyny, i tried to convince myself that i could just blot myself out to make other people comfortable and cause no confusion, and yet at the end of it all, the only thing that allowed me to feel peaceful and not full of deep roiling panic every day was realising one thing:
i cannot make anyone see me. I cannot earn anyone’s understanding. I cannot protect myself from shaming or ridicule or rejection if i show up in the world without trying to fit what someone else says I have to, or ought to, be. I can only exist in the ways that make me feel whole and at peace with myself.
I get that the world is probably slightly terrifying to you and that you doubtless have real and valid trauma and/or people you are scared for and want to protect from their own traumas and fears. I get that there are many people fanning the flames of that fear and telling you that danger is everywhere, constant, and is easy to recognise, and that they can keep you safe. I’m sorry it isn’t that simple and that there is no simple “us” and “them”, no clear cut certainty of Grave Danger versus Safe Haven. People are all just people, and people who are traumatised are often self-protective and prickly and fixated on repelling or escaping what seems dangerous. I hope you understand. I know a lifetime of fawning to people who hurt me sets me up to try and reach out to, appease, and connect with people who I think want to hurt me, so maybe this isn’t entirely healthy - but also I know you’re a whole human being and you probably don’t see trans people as anything other than a threat because there’s something that trips a fear button in there.
If you don’t interact with this, I’ll just block and have done, because I’m still kind of scared of being ogled or pitied or treated like a freak, and this is a place where I want to be comfortable. But also I figure if you’re choosing to follow this particular blog, you’re maybe unpacking stuff too, and maybe you’re trying to find a way to let the guard down. I hope so. We all deserve to be truly comfortable and not stuck in fear responses.
fun TraumaTM things are fun, truly. (i am being fascetious.)
part of the problem with being so wildly fragmented is that it takes a lot of time for protective parts to get caught up on things the rest of me knows. things were the best they'd ever been before my partner went away for a week - absolutely lovely. we'd done a lot of work and been well rewarded.
now, that didn't necessarily mean that Not Shame or any of my other protectors had fully committed to sitting back and enjoying life, obviously. but i was feeling pretty solid.
so the week happens, and there's some real serious genuine progress being made in terms of my self-relationships while alone. Not Shame will actually sit back and let me play. this last week is the most unabashedly creative i've been for honestly probably years now. it wasn't me at 100% - Not Shame would still poke and prod, but would settle.
i even interacted with friends about things that would usually be deep in the Fear Of Shaming Zone. and it was nice. it was fine! it helped me be more comfortable when i came back to myself. i spent so much time on, and discussing, things that were wholly self-indulgent.
and then my partner's come back, and after such a period of Existing As Fully "Myself" As I've Ever Managed, it was like... i was rapidly disassembled. there was shame in places shame wasn't before, for no reason other than parts of me forgetting that we'd been okay already. that all this relaxation and sincere engagement with the stuff i like wasn't on the list for things that needed packing away.
and so here i was, playing out the steps of a dynamic that was several restore points early. i showed her my art, but not all of it, not the part i'd been drawing for an audience of seven (an enthusiastic, complimentary audience of seven) only hours beforehand. that's embarassing. i'll show her the parts that a bolder, more centred me already said i wanted to show her.
there was tension in my body and it didn't make any sense. it's the most trapped within myself i've ever felt, just watching myself act like i used to act but no longer feeling like it was right or necessary, just... under some internal imperative. act like you're okay. laugh it off. say you don't know why you're tense (you're tense because you showed her your art but darted quickly away again, like you weren't proud of it, like you couldn't wait to escape, like you were ashamed, and you're tense because why did you do that? you wanted to engage. you wanted to connect. it's haunting the fuck out of you.) wake up in the morning and wonder why the stories and thoughts and images that were filling you with fizzing excitement, that compelled you, that moved you, that you were using to explore parts of your heart and revelling in the journey of....aren't....really....there any more. get frustrated. scroll your phone until your eyes hurt, be sad because your eyes hurt, feel directionless, wonder why you just want to lie on the sofa and do nothing. kind of know why it is, but feel bad about it. think that you want to talk about it, but instead you put on another episode of something, even though you're screaming at yourself to make words about it.
and ultimately like, we've talked. but i didn't start it. and that sucks. it looks like the same old pattern (we've talked about it and know why it isn't) and it felt like being physically restrained by parts of my own mind that could not comprehend that they'd already been shown they didn't need to do this.
it's fine, i just...wanted to look at it. and wanted to really zoom in on the fact that the listlessness, the lack of creativity, that's not me being 'tired'. that's me shrinking into a speck of myself for fear of shame. that's protectors crumpling everything i've worked on into a ball and shoving it into the desk drawer before anyone can see. i've kind of been living like that for a while now and it's only now that it's become obvious that it's not....like.... some days i'm just lucky and have flashes of energy and creativity.
that's what i'm like, more often than not. i'm not struggling to stoke it to life, i'm struggling to give it room to exist.
listening to music you loved when you were younger feels like a connection with your past self. like did she know I’d be listening to this exact same song so many years in the future? she couldn’t have imagined the person I am now. it feels like a hand reaching through time. like looking at the moon and realising that throughout history other people have looked at the same moon and felt the same way. a moment when the boundaries of time blur and it’s just me, enjoying music, connected with all the past versions of myself who are listening to this same song
I try very much to be a Good Parent to all of my smaller, younger parts. Usually I am! But today I was just like oh huh, sometimes I start trying to engage with them in this harried, exasperated way.
Now tbh I don’t think this comes from anywhere I don’t already know - but usually this part deals with other people and only shields my little dudes. But since I’ve been engaging with [unnamed], it turns out it can and will turn its attention inwards. And it takes on a far more explicitly Parent Out Of Their Depth energy when it does - because [unnamed] is fighty. And there’s this desire to just, ugh! Shush! Stop being difficult! It responds by arguing and bargaining and getting increasingly frustrated because [unnamed] is calling every other part all kinds of names and shoving them and it just hooks this part of me that doesn’t know how to be patient and unreactive.
It *is* hard to stay with myself and have Best Friend Energy and curiosity and compassion with this one. Little Thing is clingy and scared and needy, but I’m okay with that - I’ve got good at being patient and encouraging and reassuring. “Hey, it’s okay, cry it out and then let’s give the scary thing a try. I’m here, I promise I’ll look after you,” to a scared thing is relatively easy. [Unnamed] acts out and screams and hits. It is the mental equivalent of having to mediate a playground dispute where [unnamed] is pulling Yonder’s hair and pushing them in the sand pit and calling them - and anyone who tries to intervene - a lot of Very Nasty Names, and they won’t come quietly and adamantly will not apologise.
And part of me, it turns out, responds to that by entering a power struggle and trying to put [unnamed] in time out which simply Does Not Work. It’s useful to be aware of, because I don’t always notice myself sliding over into a very different energy to the one I enter the dialogue with.
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