Sunday, August 13, 2023

Oz is the Best TV Show That You'll Probably Never Watch

(CW: discussion of SA, prison, violence, institutional violence, racism, etc.)
 
Alright, here's a little quiz. Imagine a TV show that contains everything I'm about to list, and guess when it was aired:
  • Diverse cast including black, AAPI, Latine, etc. actors
  • Prominent epic mlm romance
  • Multiple queer main characters
  • Multiple disabled main characters
  • Multiple male main characters who are victims of rape
  • Nazis/white supremacists as bad guys; punching and killing of Nazis
  • Exploration of issues affecting prisoners, such as prison rape, prison labor, "cruel and unusual punishment," the death sentence, solitary, voting, and so on
  • Focus on institutional and structural failures leading to oppression

You got your guess in? Good. Now scroll down.






Oz premiered on HBO on July 12, 1997, and ran until February 23, 2003. It contains all this, and multitudes more that I can hardly remember after a single viewing. I only heard of it and decided to watch it because 1. Dave from Dopey said he loved it 2. due to a brief mention in the book Difficult Men by Brett Martin. I don't think I personally know anyone who has watched this show.

When Tim and I started Oz, we had no idea what to expect. After the first episode, we were intrigued. Then, somewhere in the second episode, which discusses the way prison deprives one of sexual expression and affection, then intensifies the stakes by having the New York governor remove prisoners' right to conjugal visits (a right which is never restored in the entire series), we fell in love. By the end of Season 1, which climaxes with an epically filmed prison riot, Tim and I were in awe. For the rest of the six seasons of the show, we repeatedly reached the end of episodes and ranted and raved about how, "No one is watching this show, no one is ever going to watch this show, WHY IS NO ONE WATCHING OZ?"

I'm coming in hot shortly after finishing the series finale of Oz, here to write an impassioned appeal as to why more people should be watching this show, to unironically, maybe even cringily state that I think Oz is one of the best TV shows of all time. No one is going to ever watch it, no matter how much I shout, and that is a real tragedy.

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Those of you who know a bit of TV history, at least enough to know of the The New/Second/Third Golden Age of Television, will notice that premiere date, which puts Oz before Sex and the City, The Wire, and The Sopranos. Basically, it came before the prestige drama format -- ~13 episodes per season, high falutin' themes, big stars, season-long arcs, lots of characters, moral ambiguity -- all the stuff that makes your favorites like Game of Thrones or Succession or Breaking Bad tick.

Oz has accurately been called a proto-prestige drama. Content-wise, acting-wise, structure-wise, it's somewhere between a community theater production and a Twin Peaks style soap opera combined with a dinosaur-ish almost-prestige drama sensibility. No, no, don't run away yet! I know this mishmash sounds weird but I promise you this one of Oz's strengths -- it'll just take a while to explain.

One of the most prominent features of Oz is Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau), a prisoner who is wheelchair bound after he was thrown off a roof by the cops who arrested him. He is not only a character, but the show's narrator, popping up between scenes to talk into the camera about whatever subject ties this episode together. Sex, shanks, cruel and unusual punishment, apocalypses, childhood trauma, religion, garbage; no subject is off-limits, including criticism of the prison system itself, complete with statistics. These rants are sometimes incoherent, sometimes so incisive and boundary-pushing that my jaw dropped on more than one occasion. With this, he explains the world of Oswald State Penitentiary (its nickname, Oz, being the name of the series), the despair and irony and danger of prison life.

In Season 1, Augustus is often filmed in a replica of one of the glass cells that characterize the experimental prison unit, called Emerald City, where the majority of the action takes place. In the cell with him are a bed and a toilet -- for in Oz, as in many prisons, there is no privacy for either shitting or sleeping.

While Augustus speechifies, the cell often spins around and around, turning him end over and end, while he cranes and twists to keep speaking into the camera. It's an image that will stick with me forever: Augustus in his wheelchair, being flipped over and over as prisoners wander the common area of Em City below him. The speed is fast, but not too fast, regular but disorienting. "In Oz," (a common sentence starter for Augustus), you are not meant to have stability. You have get used to the washing-machine-tumble of daily life, the deliberateness of punishment that makes you feel overwhelmed, afraid, dizzy from constantly trying to adjust.

 The inimitable Augustus Hill (Harold Perrineau) spitting truths from his spinning cell.

This applies to the experience of watching Oz as well. Rather than having an A plot and a B plot and C plot intertwining over the course of the hour, all the plots in Oz happen in chunks. First up, let's see what's happening with (the incredibly hot) Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker) for three to ten minutes, then let's get the update on Ryan O'Reily (Dean Winters) and his brother Cyril (Scott William Winters), then let's see what's going on with the prison administration -- and so on. The most intense or thematically relevant plot line is generally reserved for last, with Augustus saying one last thing to usher in or cap off a final cliffhanger/devastating moment.

This takes some getting used to. One effect of this structure is that plot beats happen at a breakneck pace. Someone is going to have a trial for their appeal: the next scene is the trial for their appeal. Someone is going to have surgery, or has implied they're going to kill someone: next scene is surgery, murder, whatever totally bonkers next move would normally be reserved for Act 3 of a normal prestige drama episode. As the show goes on, the plots become more intertwined and the segments bleed and tangle with each other. Somehow, it works: the turmoil is constant for each character, the plot beats hit like so many rounds of ammo. It's endlessly engaging, and since there's no beating around the bush, a huge amount of drama and content and commentary can be fit into a single episode.

This, with Oz's ever-complexifying, highly dramatic, and violent content, creates a Shepherd Tone effect, where the tension is perpetually rising with each murder and feud and fight. Yet, somehow, when they want to pull out the stops, they do, creating moments of explosive drama so intense, so incredibly shot and choreographed, that I will never forget them so long as I have a working brain. Sure, it can all be a bit bonkers, implausible, off the wall, but holy shit -- I can't even describe some of these moments and how they made me feel, because that would be giving away spoilers!

Kareem Said (Eamonn Walker), one of my favorite characters, looking like a Renaissance painting.

Another central feature of Oz is the devout "anyone can die" approach. They did it before Game of Thrones, and to great effect: the premise is the dangerous conditions of prison, where you can get killed by your fellow inmates, the universally corrupt guards, inadequate medical care, even by the building itself. The first episode takes pains to set this up, introducing Dino Ortolani (Jon Seda) as a main character, a troubled individual with the ability to improve, only to kill him, gruesomely, at the end of the episode.

The churn of introduction and death is so constant that Tim and I liked to place bets on how long a new character would last when introduced (this is a lot of fun, I recommend it). Sometimes they would be offed before we could even place our bets, their intricate lives cut off unceremoniously, sometimes we would watch as seemingly minor characters evolved into people we cherished and rooted for or hated with fiery passion.

And oh, the characters! I've seen the complaint that the characters in Oz are one-dimensional, and I can only assume the people saying this didn't watch very much of it. There are so many interesting and dynamic characters in Oz that I don't even know where to start. Aggressive bisexual Simon Adebisi (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) and his many manipulations, the constant question of what in him is genuine and what is yet another illusion; Tobias Beecher's (Lee Tergersen) unending struggle with eminently hateable Nazi rapist and iconic villain Vern Schillinger (JK Simmons), which becomes a struggle with his own awakened hunger for violence, his desire for forgiveness, and his sexuality; Ryan O'Reily's tenderness and cold-hearted manipulativeness, which often become one and the same, especially when it comes to his brain-damaged brother, Cyril; Kareem Said's grappling with his faith, with the desires that contradict his faith, his search for a balance between righteousness and ego; Miguel Alvarez's (Kirk Acevedo) convoluted path towards redemption; Dr. Gloria Nathan's (Lauren VĂ©lez) burden of trauma, how she fights for her ethics in an unethical world.

All that and I haven't even mentioned Oz's clergy and staff, the prophet who speaks to god, the tunnel-digger, the manipulative mastermind bisexual maybe-maybe not serial killer, the various drug dealers and kingpins, the drug addled poet, the televangelist, the sole woman on death row, the horrible Nazi whose internal life is suddenly explored in the final season, and so on. I failed to even describe a few of my favorites -- that's how vast and complex this show is.

Vernon Schillinger (JK Simmons), one of the most compelling television villains ever, playing Macbeth in the final episode of Oz.

There are those who will criticize some of the acting in Oz -- it's overacted, overdramatic, they hired too many theater actors. I couldn't disagree more strongly. There's something to it, this community theater vibe, with the dramatic bongos accentuating every plot beat, the characters soliloquizing into perfectly cast beams of light, the screaming and intense stares and nose-to-nose arguments, the way you can imagine the sets being transferred onto a stage.

I could theorize about the way that Oz depicts prison life as a performance -- people pretending to be untouchable, likeable, scary, innocent, guilty, all the deceptions needed to get by, while the real drama happens with their inner selves -- and I think that would be correct on a thematic level. But really, if you can make yourself comfortable with the cheese, there is so much to be gained -- not just from the actually incredible performances from the whole cast, but from the cheese itself.

All that being said, the cinematography is accomplished, despite the fact that this show has never been remastered. Actors emerge from shadows into puddles of light, or disappear; the background is used to maximum effect to show who is watching, listening, noticing; characters speak to each other through mirrors, bars, glass, their reflections and framing showing who is free and who is not, who is alienated and who is present, who is trying to connect with whom. The world within Oswald's walls is artificial, claustrophobic, crowded, brutalist, unpleasant, lacking in beauty or privacy. Beyond flashbacks to characters' crimes, we rarely get to see outside Oz, and with good reason: when you are a prisoner, prison is the world.

So, for all the soap opera ridiculousness that Oz can sometimes veer into, the show reeks of thematic content. As the show tumbles on, and the prison staff continue to display an astonishing lack of competency and moral solvency, a deeper meaning becomes clear: all this drama is caused by the incompetency, the lack of care, the dehumanization, and boredom of prison. Surely Oz is the most dramatic prison on earth, just as Grey's Anatomy features the most disaster-struck hospital in the world, and Walter White is the most outsized meth cook in the world, but, let's be honest, almost all TV shows -- especially prestige dramas -- rely on heightened action to make their points.

 

The O'Reily brothers, Ryan and Cyril, played by actual brothers Dean and Scott William Winters.

Within this overarching theme, there's more: revenge and forgiveness and redemption, how to love in terrible conditions, the various ways power is established and enforced, the question of what is deserved and what no one could possibly deserve.

Talking specifics, there's Cyril's arc, which probably involves a lot of egregious misportrayal of people with brain injuries, but which nonetheless distills the idea that prison isn't good for anyone, that even an innocent would be turned violent and reactive by these conditions.

There's a brief and oft-criticized arc about an experimental drug used to advance prisoners to the physical age they would be at the time of their release, allowing for early release. Though the showrunners half-assed this plot, it still opened the question of what the point of prison is: is it right to take years of peoples' lives as penance, does that make any sense?

This plot is just a subset of the long-running critique of the death sentence, which asks what purpose it serves, whether it makes sense to enact it on the mentally ill (which is everyone on death row), whether the accidental justice of prison violence is any different from the institutional justice of the death sentence.

There's close examination of the lives of prison employees, how some derive sadistic benefits from their work, how some are corrupted by it, how some are traumatized by it. The show lays out, through many different character arcs, the way systems of power not only dehumanize the oppressed, but also those in power, some of whom become craven and lacking in empathy, some of whom find their empathy abused and crushed by their place in the pecking order.

The script also often plays with the idea that, in the areas where no one is surveilling, where guards can be bought out, crime and violence is basically condoned. The administrators never try to stop it, they just try to harness or control it, or tamp it down for the sake of their own careers. Thus, banal, institutional evil is compared with with illegal evils, and their symbiosis is laid open.

I could go on all day, so I hope this is sampler enough. Suffice to say, there was so much I feel I barely took in all that Oz had to offer on a first watch.

Simon Adebisi, the original chaotic bisexual and evil mastermind.

Now, I've talked up this show a lot and I have to confess some shortcomings. First, and most simply of all, yeah, sometimes the writing is bad. Some characters are introduced, have no point, and disappear. Some plots appear and dwindle away like a sigh (though, just as often, the showrunners let you know episodes, even seasons later, that they didn't forget after all, and they will finally bring that thing you've been wondering about to a head). People will get seriously injured, then be fine in two episodes, with no lasting marks. But, in my opinion, the good outweighs the bad, and the bad is at least kinda funny.

Also, for all its progressiveness, Oz was made in the late 90s and early 2000s. It hasn't aged well in some areas. Augustus and Cyril are played by able-bodied actors, Cyril's portrayal is dubious at best, and almost every character says the n-word or some other slur at some point, regardless of their race (though this arguably imparts a level of unpleasant realism, especially when it comes to the Aryan Brotherhood). It's complicated, as any piece of media is, regardless of it's age, and you have to be willing to shake off fair amount of microaggressions and questionable representation to get through the show.

In addition, there are some facets of the show that give a real "your mileage may vary" quality, though I'd argue that this comes with the territory of prestige dramas. However, my opinion is that, in comparison to many prestige dramas, these are features, not bugs or hollow marketing gimmicks: they are part of what makes the point of Oz.

First of all, there is the violence, which is constant, often excessive, and which sometimes results in hokey practical effects (though IMO, if bad effects work puts you off a movie or TV show, you're missing the point). I've alluded to this a lot already, but the violence is the point: the cheapness of life in prison, the multifarious way death affects other people, the way people will talk as if someone deserved it, and so on.

Then there is the constant male full frontal nudity, which I imagine makes some uncomfortable. To be clear: there is a lot of dick and balls, all the time. The fun thing is that you get to see famous actors hang dong, especially Christopher Meloni, who seems perfectly happy to be filmed naked, pissing on camera, showing his butthole, etc., all while he was working at the same time on Law and Order: SVU.

 

My favorite gays, Tobias Beecher (Lee Tergeson) and Chris Keller (Christopher Meloni). This is during Tobias' unhinged weird facial hair phase.

But, of course, the nudity in Oz is pointed. Early on, we see Augustus naked and having sex with his wife shortly before his injury and arrest, then we see the special intimacy he has with his wife during his conjugal visit, in which they must accommodate his disability. My memory is hazy, but by my recollection, Augustus is describing the wonders of sex and intimacy, heavy with the implication of what is lost when you are in prison.

Indeed, privacy and intimacy are rare in Oswald State Penitentiary. Characters are most often seen naked in the showers, where they are distinctly vulnerable, and when they are thrown in "the Hole," a cold, empty cell with a single bucket which prisoners are forced into as punishment for misbehavior. Shots of the characters getting thrown into the Hole are especially brutal -- they stumble in, junk jiggling and flailing, colliding with the filthy walls. The door slams shut behind them and the slot window slides shut.

Oz is quick to address the fact that part of the punishment of prison is that your right to bodily privacy and enjoyment of intimacy is stripped from you. You must shower in public, shit in public, masturbate in public. Romantic and sexual moments are stolen in odd corners or at night, in your cell which has no protection except the cover of darkness. The guards could come along and break it up at any moment. There is even a plot in which a character gets certain privileges which no one else has -- one of these is that he is allowed to hang up sheets in his cell, shielding his activities from everyone else.

At the intersection between violence and nudity is all the rape. There is a lot of it -- talk of it, and several graphic depictions -- in all its flavors. Schillinger and his "prags" are a constant staple of the show, multiple characters are brutally raped on screen, and at one point a flashback depicts a rape perpetrated on a woman by two characters who wind up in Oz for that crime.

I am a survivor of sexual assault, and I found this shocking and hard to watch at times. But, now that I am more recovered than I used to be, I believe that the main criteria for a tasteful depiction of rape is that it have a point. And Oz is certainly making a point, showing how rape can be a power play, a cycle of abuse, a status symbol, a currency, a means of fucked up self-protection. The actual scenes of assault tend to be filmed to emphasize the victim's experience and point of view, making it clear who we're sympathizing with.

In the last season, there is an exploration of one character's relationship with rape, both as perpetrator and victim, which eventually involves a rape survivors therapy group. It was this that convinced me that, for all its splashiness and shock value, Oz's handling of rape is surprisingly sensitive and nuanced.

This is Oz's fatal flaw. It is so intense and weird that it is genuinely hard to recommend. Your average viewer faces so many contraindications that they might just give up. But also, it is beautiful and thoughtful, delivering drama and daring themes in equal measure. If you can do it, I am waving my arms, yelling, screaming at you, "IT'S WORTH IT! FUCKING DO IT! I DARE YOU! DON'T DEPRIVE YOURSELF! EVERY EPISODE OF OZ IS THE BEST EPISODE OF OZ EVER!"

Saturday, July 22, 2023

The Story I've Wanted to Write for ~20 Years: The Locations

Since the winter of 2004, when I was 11, I have been working on a story. At this point, few people know what it actually contains -- the days of reading each others' stories off binder paper are long gone. I rarely talk to anyone about it in detail. I don't think my husband even knows much beyond the basic premise (though he did help edit this blog post!).

The reasons for my secrecy have been manifold -- I'm naturally secretive about my inner worlds, it's not finished and remains more theory than actuality, someone could steal my oh so wonderful ideas, blah blah. WELL, SCREW ALL THAT! I've changed my mind.

After the mental health collapse that was brought on, in part, by Twitter and the travails of the publishing industry, I had to do a little reflecting. The idea of compressing this story into a publishable format was gnawing on my soul. Less than 100k words, fewer POVs, "standalone novel with series potential," choosing one or two themes...nope, I don't think I want to do that, at least not yet.

I have lived in this story for 19 goshdarn years, and I have never written out the whole thing the way I want to: with as much diversion, detail, and development as Middlemarch or The Tale of Genji. How can I bear to shove it into a neat little box before I've experienced it the way I want to?

So! Maybe I'll experience it alone, or maybe, somehow, I'll someday be able to sell it in some form. But I can be less alone if I share some of the details with the world.

The Pitch

The ultra short version is this: "Four teens who can turn into dragons are exiled from their home and dragged into a war started by their parents."

 

The unhinged comp title version is this: The close character examination and teen drama of Skins and Euphoria meets the detail and set piece battle sequences of War & Peace in the intricately realized high fantasy world of Etnuet.

 

The longer (but still insufficient, so just imagine me saying "basically" and "more or less" in every section here) goes something like this:

Linymua, Sorora, Driana, and Malarain are the heirs of an ancient lineage of humanoids who can turn into dragons, termed the Dragons of Light -- one each for the gods of Life, Sun, Water, and Wind. They have never met their counterparts, the Dragons of Dark, because of a schism formed and a war fought by their parents over whether or not the eight Dragons, in their holiness, should pursue imperialism.

At the pivotal, naturally tormented age of 13-14, the four girls, along with Malarain's mother, Marar, and Malarain's defenseless human cousin, Rillen, are exiled from their home in the canyon city of Dezra when The Dark, led by Iliara, launch a surprise attack. As the city falls to The Dark's control, our characters flee for their lives. On a globetrotting journey of strife and angst, they must decide whether they'll run forever or fight back against The Dark.

There is, however, another side to this story. The Dark's younger generation are all teenagers too, caught up in their own struggles, dramas, and obsessions. After Book 1, I plan to show this world isn't as dualistic as it may seem by showing what Alariis, Nutanoth, Effriehl, and Garofh are going through and what the war means to them.

The Locations

So the real reason I'm here is because for a few months now, I've been drawing pictures of and fleshing out the various locations in the world of Etnuet where my dear characters will spend time. I figured sharing this information and art would be a fun and accessible way to give a glimpse into this world.

Now, I know my art skills aren't the best. I have terribly shaky hands, ADHD and a host of other problems, so straight lines aren't the easiest for me, and details are a struggle. But hopefully these drawings are sufficient.

I plan to continue this series with the buildings The Dark inhabit over the course of the story -- when I finish drawing them! For now, we will chronologically explore (most of) the settings visited by The Light over the course of the series.

Behold! A map of Etnuet that combines its topography, drainage systems, and biomes! And the locations to be described below!


1. The Palace at Dezra


The city of Dezra existed in a lazy bend of the Daiev Canyon long before the area was colonized by the Adjellien. It was originally inhabited by humans -- called the Tetchik -- and some dragons (which, in my world, are a sentient species capable of participating in society). The humans lived a semi-nomadic lifestyle, migrating between the canyon bottom in summer and the plateau in winter.

The Adjellien are a long-lived feather-winged people that historically have had grand imperialist ambitions. When they conquered the area, they built out the city as a sedentary establishment and constructed the Palace of Dezra on a mesa that was separated from the canyon wall by erosion, called the Sky Island.

The reason this is important is because The Palace at Dezra, having been built by the Adjellien, is a structure informed by imperialist design, which has been altered since the Adjellien Empire collapsed.

The Adjellien have a fascination with geometry and symmetry. The Palace was built to be maximally auspicious: as perfectly symmetrical as they could make it, made from "masculine" shapes, namely squares and triangles. It's a gargantuan construction, built to be a bureaucratic hub (as it is today). Several architectural features cool the Palace in the blazing hot summer: four wind towers, which conduct cool air from above into various rooms and atriums throughout the building, along with the flight well in the center and the four triangular courtyard gardens on the ground floor.

The square-rotated-in-a-square design is common in Adjellien architecture, as it results in built-in landing platforms. The flight well, with its own square-in-square pattern, also provides more places to land. Thus it is highly accessible to flighted people, from whom the Adjellien saw no threat. During their reign, there were no stairs inside the building, making the upper levels -- where the most important functions of government were performed -- inaccessible to those who can't fly. The walls were also intended to keep out the rabble on foot -- a winged person can easily fly over.

Since the overthrow of the Adjellien Empire, stairs have been put in, but no one could every figure out how to make the Palace more defensible. Thus, it falls to The Dark without much resistance when they march on the city.

This is where my four teenage dragon-girls start the story. Two of them grew up here, two of them were transplanted later. They live in the upper levels with Marar, Malarain's mother, who is the enzi (sort of like a governor) of Dezra and the only semi-responsible adult looking out for them. Though they can look over the city -- its grid streets, its marketplaces, the dwellings built into the canyon walls -- they can rarely go into it. Marar will not allow this.

Marar also keeps them sheltered from the secrets of her past. Though she knows that war is inevitable, she hopes against hope that she can save the children from the harsh experiences that marred her own youth. Maybe, if they're lucky, Iliara will wait just a little bit longer.

So the young ones spend their time in their bedrooms watching boats on the river and storms in the sky. They hang out in the atriums, the gardens, attend festivities in the grand Hall of Pillars, trying to decipher from eavesdropping and careless words who Iliara is, what became of The Dragons of the Dark, what happened during their parents' time, and whether this boring life will ever change.

2. The Tree Apartment in Ruon


After our protagonists escape the attack on Dezra, they travel to Ruon, capitol of the Naldoros, a somewhat unified species that are distantly related to humans. The Naldoros are evolved to live in the forest. They dislike wide open spaces and are sensitive to light, so their cities are adapted to be as integrated with the forest as possible.

The Naldoros have mastered the art of altering and encouraging the growth of plants with magic. Dwellings, such as the one pictured here, are formed by growing several saplings together, twining them into one large tree over the course of decades. Most trees can host anywhere from 2-4 apartments, which are grown directly from the wood of the tree. Even the furniture -- what little there is -- is grown from the tree, and is alive.

There are inherent issues with people inhabiting a living structure -- they damage the bark, introduce contagions, apply pressure and weight. Some features, such as doors and fireplaces, require introducing foreign materials into the tree's structure. As such, in most homes, the only true door is the front door, and the windows are small and glass-less (though they may be sealed with wooden shutters, which aren't attached to the tree itself). These trees are closely tended to by a government commission, which treats them for infection, prunes them, directs growth to repair damage, and so on.

Many other species would find innumerable faults with the way of life enforced by these tree dwellings. They are often cold in winter (the Naldoros are cold-resistant and don't mind), there is little privacy, dwellings are sometimes shared between families, and much effort must go into the upkeep and care of the structure. Also, housing must be planned decades in advance, meaning the government must be able to closely predict the growth of the city's population, the decline and replacement of dying trees, and so on.

Naldoros values have grown around these circumstances. They value adaptability, caution, care of their surroundings, and community. Such values can be seen in the autumn leaf-raking festival, in which everyone aids in the monumental task of keeping Ruon from drowning under fallen leaves. There is, of course, copious drinking and partying once the work is done.

The issue of housing is centralized in every way, to the point the government guarantees housing for every person in the city of Ruon. To the Naldoros, it is shocking imagine that there are cities where shelter must be paid for, and those who can't pay must do without. They adhere to this ideal even if it means sometimes cramped conditions and little choice in the specifics of their homes.

Our beloved main characters, however, are not used to these notions, and certainly aren't used to such cramped quarters. From the moment everyone moves into the apartment, Marar's struggle is figuring out how to keep the teenagers from erupting into drama as they adjust to their new surroundings and face the long, cold winter in a unfamiliar place. As arguments and betrayal tear through the group, their sleeping arrangements, and their interactions around the grown-in dining table, evolve.

3. The Great Tower of Serriilynest

The Great Tower centers the floating city of Serriilynest, which is inhabited by the Carnilgenien, a winged relative of the Adjellien. Long ago, they moved into the hills south of the Torothint Mountains. Their presence continues to cause strife with the native population, an insect-winged species called the Nezrigue.

We've got two pictures here: one of the Great Tower with its defenses, and what it would look like without them. The defenses address an age old question: how can one create a fortress against aerial assault, especially if it must cater to an aerial species?

The Carnilgenien approach relies on heavy use of hipyadan, a kind of magic generator, which are used here to levitate massive stone rings, one nested within the other. When decoupled, the rings provide an almost complete encasement of the Tower, with slits left between some layers, allowing for patrol, surveillance, limited passage to and fro, and fighting around the openings between rings. The occupants of the Tower, living off the massive stores of food below, must then live in almost total darkness, telling the time only by the slivers of light that make it through the walls.

Observant readers will notice that the design is similar to the Palace at Dezra, just extended upwards. This might be because I'm unimaginative, but my justification is that it's because the Carnilgenien once lived alongside the Adjellien, until they were persecuted and forced to flee. In that time they picked up some tricks, such as the square-in-square building design, which allows for winged people to land and take off from the triangle platforms at the corners. However, the platforms here are tiny, creating a bottleneck for flighted invaders.

The Great Tower passes through the many layers of the city of Serriilynest, from the lower layers, where the poor live in shadows, to the mansions at the top. The bottom level of the city bristles with memorials to the dead. The Carnilgenien cremate their dead, but create memorials for the bereaved to visit. Thus, the ground around the base of the Tower is where the memorials for the members of the two royal families, along with certain members of the government, are placed.

Our protagonists come to Serriilynest because they learn that The Dark have plans to attack the city and seize its store of back-up hipyadan. They join in the defense of the Serriilynest, and so join in its society. They attend celebrations and the ceremonial declaration of war in the super vertical Great Hall in the bottom level of the Tower. They must transform into dragons to fly up to the second segment, to their tiny rooms and the moments of privacy they provide.

Above them, in the top level, live the two royal families, who rule Serrilynest together, and the intriguing Prince Nalran, who is not set to inherit the throne. He brings his wit, friendliness, and handsomeness into the group, changing their dynamic yet again.

 Before long, war comes knocking on Serriilynest's door, and the Great Tower's defenses are put to the test. It's anyone's guess who will win the day: the Carnilgenien and their allies behind floating walls of stone, or Iliara's renowned tactical genius. 

4. Purunsdana Fel, Seat of the Oshgai Monarchy

Purunsdana Fel is a castle in the northwestern city of Lunanon, and the seat of power for the Oshgai theocratic kingdom. The bulk of the building is actually underground, in a maze of tunnels bored straight into the stone of the Lunanon cliffs. This makes Purunsdana Fel highly defensible -- which is what brings our characters here. Thus they move the front of the war from Serriilynest to Sorora's home city, which she left after her mother was assassinated about five years ago.

The main building, which is similar to a manor house, was built long ago, when there was no unified Oshgai kingdom. Small, and more defensible than comfortable, it was the home of a local warlord. Over the years, as the area's governmental situation evolved, the building was expanded, the walls heightened, and the uncoordinated mess of tunnels was magically dug into stone below.

This accounts for Purunsdana Fel's haphazard appearance, including the metal ventilation pipes popping up everywhere like mushrooms. The windows -- which are strengthened and enchanted against Etnuet's extremely high tides -- are a more recent addition, so the rooms of the ruler, the steward, and certain favored people, can look out at the sunrise over the sea.

At the base of the cliffs is a natural grotto, now connected to the castle to serve as a harbor. The entrance is enchanted against high tides. These enchantments must be refreshed daily. The effect of the high tide rushing against an invisible wall of magic is so stunning that inhabitants of the castle often come down to spectate. The grotto also serves as a dwelling place for the wisiu, plesiosaurus-like relatives of dragons that direct ships across Etnuet's wild seas. They are friendly and like to receive pets.

During the long, dark winter spent in Purunsdana Fel, Sorora must confront the memory of her lost mother, and settle into the throne that awaits her. Standing in her way is her uncle, Basiehte, who has grown comfortable as Steward of the Oshgai in the past five years. She and her friends suffer their various crises and dramas in the castle's dark halls, gossip in the solar, which catches the morning sun, and watch the waves that rise, like emotions, almost up to the library's wide window.

Benivala's Mount and Riverwatch Hall in Haleah


Now we're getting into some late series locations. By the time our protagonists get here, they will be about 16-17 years old. Depicted here are the hills in the upper districts of Haleah, a mountainside city state with an unusual government and an intricate upper class social scene. The actual building they inhabit is on the far left there -- I'll get to that later. Also, though it's not depicted here, but I imagine these buildings being adorned with a rainbow of pastel colors and intricate details -- Modernisme style.

At the moment, I'm talking about the two buildings in the center: Benivala's Mount at the top, overlooking the city of Haleah, and Riverwatch Hall below it.

Benivala's Mount is named after Haleah's philosopher king of yore, widely considered to be the greatest ruler Haleah ever had. Benivala speculated on many subjects, but especially the imperfection of every form of government due to one issue: the varying quality of the people involved.

Did this mean he wanted his personality to be replicated and preserved in a magical device to be consulted by a ruler that was to act solely as a medium for Benivala's opining? Well, the documentary evidence isn't clear one way or another, but that's how Haleah is governed now, with the addition of some more democratic governing bodies. The device resides in Benivala's Mount, which also serves as a meeting hall for the aforementioned democratic bodies.

The building itself is perhaps more gaudy than Benivala would've liked, but he would approve of its position atop the hill. Benivala wrote that the pursuit of philosophy and virtue is like a pilgrimage up a mountain: as one strains to reach the top, they drop the unimportant frivolities that weigh them down and, in the high, clear air, they can reach their inner self. Hence, in theory, all members of the government are required to perform a version of this pilgrimage every time they attend their sessions.

However, there are always ways around the austerities required by virtue. Where Benivala's Mount once stood alone atop the hill, it is now surrounded by the houses of the wealthy families that tend to participate in the government -- shortening their daily trips significantly.

Riverwatch Hall was built some time after Benivala's Mount. Benivala emphasized the importance of social interconnectedness in a city, the ability of classes to converse with each other in spaces designed for everyone. So, naturally, it made sense to erect a building in an area mostly accessible to the rich to serve the social needs of all.

Riverwatch Hall serves as a gathering place, dance hall, library, and, most importantly, as a place to view the Iriligen River on nights when it shines under Etnuet's two moons. The river has been the subject of much poetry, and, on the nights of river-viewing parties, is revealed to the assembled crowd with much ceremony, to be met with gasps of awe and wonder. From Riverwatch's vast windows, the river can be seen from afar, meandering across the Fohl Grasslands like a ribbon of moonlight.

During the protagonists' time in Haleah, Riverwatch Hall and its many parties becomes the focal point of their social life, which grows so important to them as to rival the war itself. Alongside the friendships and laughter, there is also the excitement and danger of budding romance and sexuality, and all the complications these bring to those who are arguably too young to be involved in such things.

Speaking of things our characters are too young to handle -- come spring, The Dark's armies march on Haleah. When they arrive, they can be seen from the Riverwatch Window, their camps a blight on the landscape, an ever-present reminder of the war these young ones have tried to forget.

The Linixala House in Haleah


This is the building that the main characters actually inhabit while in Haleah. It is the private residence of the Linixala family, AKA the Dragons of Life. Linymua's mother lived here before her death, when Linymua was just a baby.

The Linixala family hails from Haleah originally, though they were of common standing until one of them became the Dragon of Life and aided with the overthrow of the Adjellien empire in the area. Since then, their name has been important, and they earned themselves the money and the right to build a fancy house close to Benivala's Mount.

The Linixala House was built not only for the Linixala family, but also as a place that could shelter all of the eight Dragons and their offspring. The dream was for it to be a place where new generations could be taught and raised together. Due the schism between The Dark and The Light, and then Iliara and The Dark's takeover of Haleah about twenty years ago, this didn't work out. However, Iliara's decision to spare the Linixala House has many implications -- doubtless she hopes that some day, unity can be achieved and the building can serve its purpose at last.

The intentions remain in the architecture. The tower to the left is the section that provides housing for the Linixalas (and beautiful views of the river and city), while the rest of the house is dedicated to rooms for eating and entertaining, rooms for guests, an extensive library, servants' quarters, and a defensible underground bunker and food stores. Gardens surround the building, with plenty of eucalyptus trees, and there is space for weapons training in the back.

When Linymua and her friends arrive at Linixala house, it has not been inhabited by a Linixala for about sixteen years. The servants remember, but Linymua does not -- she hasn't met anyone from her own family since she was a baby. The Linixala House serves as a home base for the youngsters while they navigate the Haleahen social scene. After the parties at Riverwatch Hall, the get togethers at so-and-so's place, the politicking at Benivala's Mount, they retreat to their new home and get to contemplate what it meant when someone said this, when they smiled like that, and so on.

As time goes on, the Linixala House will start to feel like a prison with a scenic view. Though the river, the valley, and the mountains can be seen from the windows, they are framed by eucalyptus leaves that hang down like bars. The world outside is inaccessible due to social and political obligation and the siege that grinds at the city of Haleah. For about two years, our protagonists will peer out these windows over the city where everyone knows their names, and over the field before the city, where, before long, the final showdown will occur, deciding the fate of Etnuet.

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That's it for now! I'm not sure when I'll be able to put up the locations from The Dark's side of the story, as I haven't finished the drawings for that. I might get to some character descriptions or a retrospective view of what this story means to me, etc. first!

Also, this is not a complete renunciation of potential publishable work. I'm still shopping around some short fiction. Also, I have previously talked about a story idea involve a faery girl in an Ordovician world (since this to the tune of "Barbie Girl"), and that's still something I plan to work on -- maybe even this November if I don't have another mental breakdown! So stay tuned for details on that too.


Sunday, March 19, 2023

Taco Half-Moons, Like Pregnant Bellies

This is a little story I wrote for a specific publication (iykyk), which I feel is too specific to submit elsewhere. Even so, I like it, so I thought I would share it with the world through my blog! It's just a short read about what truths may be divined from a Crunchwrap Supreme.




The oven clock reads 12:01 – Jessica is right in time for lunch, which bodes well – but the house gloams in perpetual twilight, the curtains drawn and the air thick with incense and weed smoke. The shifting light of the muted TV is the main source of illumination, leaping across the shriveled potted plants, the bottles crowding the kitchen counters, the chipped Buddha statue staring serenely down at the ash-piled incense tray.

Most of all, wrappers clog every spare surface, spilling out of paper bags, and flocking across the floor, uncounted Baja-colored bells ringing in Jessica’s head. Twisted knots of sauce packets, the glimpse of an occasional corner label, a buzzing whisper of  “Taco Supreme. Chalupa. Doritos Locos Taco. Burrito.”
In short, Jessica has never been in a place like this. Even the frat houses in college weren’t this bad.
Jessica hesitates by the door. Two human figures shift on the couch, mired in the seafoam of wrappers. 

“What’d you bring?” The voice cracks out of the darkness. One figure sits forward, protruding into the embrace of the TV light. A woman, skinny and rigid, her teeth flashing with reflected light.

“What you asked for, Oracle,” says Jessica, bobbing her knees in something between a curtsy and a bow. “A Crunchwrap Supreme with potatoes and beans, three Doritos Locos Tacos, a large Baja Blast. I made sure they put in a lot of Diablo sauce.”

The Oracle’s hand flutters, gesturing her forwards. Jessica passes over the bag for the Oracle to examine, still holding the drink. The Oracle tears off the sticker and rustles through, assessing everything by feel.
“You understand the symbolism of this order, do you not?”

Jessica shakes her head, handing off the drink. The Oracle sets it on the coffee table, pushing aside wrappers, assorted crystals, and the tall tower of a bong.

“A Crunchwrap full almost to bursting. The round half-moons of tacos, like pregnant bellies, packed with flavor. Diablo sauce, full of fire, energetic as the quickening spark of life.”

Jessica’s breath sucks into her chest. She hadn’t mentioned her reason for visiting on the phone, yet the Oracle knew. “What about the Baja Blast?” she asks, but the Oracle has already unwrapped a taco and taken her first ferocious bite.

The second shape speaks up. “She just likes the Baja Blast. The drinks usually don’t mean anything.” He shifts and resettles on the couch, flicking on his smartphone. The screen’s light illuminates his prematurely lined face

“Oh,” says Jessica, and watches the Oracle eat, feeling that she is observing a beast in its cave. Entranced, it takes her a moment to remember the baggie burning a hole in her pocket.
“I uh…I brought you the extra offering.”

The Oracle is deep in her meal. The man leans forward to take the baggie of weed from her hand, reaching across the Oracle’s hunched form. He reaches for the bong, checking the bowl and emptying it into an overflowing ashtray.

“You said that would…help the accuracy of your reading?”

“Do not talk to the Oracle while she is eating,” snaps the man, making Jessica jump. Then he says, softer, “It’s best if you focus your intentions on what it is you want to know. That helps too.” He sets about packing a fresh bowl, apparently absorbed by the parade of ads on the silent TV.

The Oracle has finished her first taco and now takes her first sauce-doused bite of the Crunchwrap. Jessica tries to focus, struggling at first with anxious remembrances of all it took her to get here – awkwardly asking after rumors, the phone calls with the long silences, the friend of a friend who referred her to her husband’s weed dealer, the cop car that seemed like it was following her from the Taco Bell.

But no, she’s supposed to focus on the why, not the how. Her hands creeps unconsciously to her belly, to the empty womb that would not produce after years of trying and trying until the trying became a tiresome chore that scraped her like sandpaper.

The Oracle stops mid-Crunchwrap to take a deep pull from the bong. The fire illuminates a furrow in her brow, then flicks away. Moments later, she exhales an electrified billow of smoke.

Oh, that smell! Jessica’s insides twist her into the unwanted past: the smoking session before the drinking started, the way it felt like the joint was passed to her twice as often as everyone else. She got giddy and stupid, saying that all the memorabilia – pool cues and framed pictures of white men – made the frat house looked like a fucking Applebee’s. Then she got scared, and they told her a few beers would make it better.

That’s not why I’m here!

Or was it? On that night, stumbling home after her imprisonment, vomiting in the bushes, she’d slammed her fist into that filthy organ, and swore to herself in a drunken sob that if any child arose from this event she’d kill it herself.

Had she cursed herself for life in a moment of reactive unreason? She hadn’t known then how she would actually feel about children when she settled down.

The Oracle finishes the Crunchwrap and another taco. The wrappers join the pile bubbling from the crack in the couch. She takes a deep draw of her Baja Blast and, while she finishes the last taco, Jessica does her best to focus, asking the universe, fate, whatever god presided over this woman, what would become of her barrenness.

The Oracle finishes her lunch with a belch and a bong rip. Then she stands, her face pressing forward into the TV light. Jessica catches a glimpse of the high dome of her forehead, the thin lips pursing over those horse-like teeth, before she turns away and crosses the room to a dark doorway.

“Now what?” Jessica asks the man.

Without looking up from his phone, the man says, “She sleeps. She dreams. You wait. Sit, if you like.”
Jessica picks an armchair in the corner, her bottom sinking painfully into the deflated cushion. This, she thinks, does not bode well.

For hours she watches silent sitcoms, trying to guess at the drama unfolding between these lip-flapping characters. A blonde woman with plasticky make-up weeps through many close-ups. Was she troubled by an unplanned pregnancy? Why weep when she so easily had something Jessica might never have?

Meanwhile, the man puts in headphones and pats his knees while a haywire of breakbeats sputtered across the silence.

The oven clock reads 1, 2, 3. The gloom of the house deepens. Finally, at 3:43, movements from the darkness of the other room, and the Oracle returns, padding silently between discarded wrappers.

“I have dreamed,” she announces, her voice a brassy monotone. She looks not at Jessica, the man on the couch, or the TV, but towards a draped window, her eyes focused on some far distance.

Jessica twists towards her, heart pounding.

“Buy a Beefy Five Layer Burrito with extra sour cream. Return to your husband. This will break the spell of bad luck. The time is right. You will have as many as you like, in the end, but the first one will be the hardest.”

Jessica’s eyes sting with tears. “So what happened in college – it didn’t cause this?”

The Oracle turns her eyes upon her, but that gaze stares past her, through her. “No. There was no curse. It was mere coincidence. Go, now, before the time passes.”

Jessica’s knees hit the floor. She takes the Oracle’s hand – dry, smelling of smoke and salsa – and kisses it, thanking her through tears.

“You heard her,” cuts in the man’s voice, “Go on, now. Don’t waste it.”

Out the door, into the car, key twisting into the ignition. Back to the Taco Bell. She’s never been so hungry. She encounters no line, the order is out almost as soon as she reaches the window. Mouth thick with sour cream, one hand driving, one hand clutching the burrito like a lifeline.

She finds her husband still clocked in at his laptop. She casts it aside and fucks him right there on the couch. Crying out in animal pleasure, she thinks she hasn’t been this wet for months.
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The first pregnancy is hard, as predicted. The nausea for the first three months is so bad that her ribs start to show. Then the hunger returns, a ravenous desire for Crunchwrap after Crunchwrap. Her feet swell up in the last month, sticking her with needles all day and night.

The baby takes his time, on the inside and on his way out. But out he comes, sliding at last into waiting hands. Jessica weeps with joy as he is laid on her breast, his vernix caseosa thick and rich as sour cream.

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

A Brief Update

This is just a little post to prove that this blog isn't inactive, and my presence on the internet hasn't entirely disappeared. I have tried several times to draft something more cogent, but it either becomes too unhinged to share or I just wind up with a sketchy outline that I can't fill out.

Basically, for months now, I have been doing poorly, physically but mostly mentally. I have a new diagnosis that explains a lot of this, but I have been mulling over how much I should share about that. Suffice to say that winters have always been bad for me, and this year it hit particularly hard.

I have not written in any real sense since the end of October. I worked hard on worldbuilding for a NaNoWriMo project, coming up with over 25k words of worldbuilding, and then realized I no longer had it in me to actually do NaNoWriMo. A few days after that decision, my brain imploded.

It would be simple -- too simple -- to say that it's merely an issue of overwork, that writing 6 days a week for most of two years was too much for me. But, honestly, I do not find that pace too hard to keep up with if I have a steady sugar drip of external validation for my dark little soul, and if the bottom doesn't drop out of my mental health. I could've withstood a lack of validation, but too much other stuff happened, so here I am.

I had to leave Twitter something like two or three weeks ago. The introduction of the view count was the last straw for me. I wanted to write a long post about how bad Twitter has been for me and why I don't think the publishing industry should be so reliant on it, but I haven't been able to wring it out of myself. The long and short of it is that Twitter is designed to foster drama and comparison with others, and the view count insidiously plays into that.

Seeing the depressing stats on my posts was enough. I have a sliver of self-preservation in me still. I had to leave. If having a writing career requires me to be constantly torpedoing my mental health with social media and scratching my brain for pithy Twitterisms, maybe it's not worth it. It wasn't getting me anywhere to be on Twitter anyways, so maybe I can do without it.

So, what have I been doing? Well, telling myself I should just go for a walk when I can barely get off the floor some days. But also, coping by absorbing myself in various fixations. I've realized that this has always been a way to cope with these bouts. In middle school I wrote my little stories on notebook paper, in high school I dove headlong into ancient Greek history and botany (especially of carnivorous plants), in college I obsessed over Bach and forum roleplaying.

Fantasyland has been blockaded. I cannot reach it. So I am obsessing over fragrance. I have a binder full of entries for each fragrance, complete with cute little title cards that I've drawn. I must have at least a hundred fragrances in my drawers, between full bottles and minis that used to belong to dead people, and samples that I've gotten for free by hustling on Facebook. I get myself through the dark hours of night by thinking of what I shall wear tomorrow.

Hell, here's my Fragrantica profile, since perfume reviews the only writing I've been producing lately. Look at all the little balloons on my reviews -- that means people liked what I wrote!













A selection of my cute little perfume title cards. I could've scanned them, but I'm also a pile of soup, so you're getting photos. :)


I've been reading more too. Chugged my way through the first Warriors series -- a nostalgic pursuit for me. Now I've started Narnia, which I've never read all the way through before. I'm also working on The Last of the Wine, the tatty old copy that my high school ancient history teacher gave me as a gift when I graduated. I love how Renault's writing is thoroughly immersed in the time period. The vivid descriptions of the temples, the streets, the gymnasia, Athenian fleet setting out for Sicily, the walls of the city. Maybe I was never able to understand the fuss over Madeline Miller because I was so pampered by Mary Renault.

Since early this year, I've been working on The Tale of Genji. It's been slow going, partly because the Tyler translation is accurate to the point of being difficult to comprehend, partly because the book is so huge (~1,100 pages!) that I have to be careful to not pull my shoulder when reading it. I still love the hell out of it though. Genji is a horrible man, I love to see what fresh drama he is getting himself into. But also, all the beautiful imagery, the conversations through standing curtains, the long hair, the colorful robes, the women renouncing the world to become nuns...I can't recommend it highly enough, even though no one will ever take me up on it.

Well, that's the basic summary of my life. I am still alive, even if I have all the dynamism of crusty clam on the seafloor. It will pass at some point, and then we'll see what I am.

Thursday, June 23, 2022

On Self-Loathing

CW: frank & extended discussion of mental illness, trauma, self-loathing & self-harm; bullying & social exclusion; SA; dissociation; recovery & therapy; mentions of addiction, EDs, & medication

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DISCLAIMER:

In addition to the content warnings, I think it is important to make several explicit exhortations.

First is that, despite the many different ways I talk about it, I want to make clear that in my right mind, I know that self-loathing and self-harm are not a healthy way to live life. Self-loathing is, of course complicated, but my goal in writing this is, in part, to describe why I need to recover from it and, in writing about it, help my own recovery. Self-harm is, of course, an extremely dangerous coping mechanism, and if you can stop, or not start in the first place, you should.

Second: this might be difficult to read for people who care about me. It describes some concerning and distressing behavior I've displayed through the years, the kind of stuff I don't often talk about openly. I try not to be too graphic, but there are points where it's upsetting anyways, and points where it's necessary (and, apparently, there may be points where I'm not aware of how intense some of the content is because I'm so desensitized). This warning may apply if you know someone going through something similar as well, so tread with caution.

Last, but perhaps most importantly, if you deal with self-loathing and self-harm this might not be an advisable read if you're not in a good place with that stuff. I don't want to trigger anyone, so I've done my best to avoid specifics, but I know that the subjects themselves can be triggering if you're in a certain state of mind. So, please, be careful, and only read this if you're doing okay, have support, and/or if you truly think it will help. There's no shame in not reading it.

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5/3/22

Something has irritated the scars on my upper right arm, turning them purple. When I notice this in the shower, I experience a fleeting moment of absurd hope, thinking it is possible to turn back time, for my scars to be lurid and fresh once more.

I'm dissatisfied with them lately, the way they've all gone silver, the way the ones on my legs have smoothed and flattened. They used to be dark, sometimes almost black when I came out of the shower, and the ones on my calves used to be raised like guitar frets, so firm they made a sound if I ran my fingers down them hard enough.

It's not the same now. My legs used to be a horror show. If you inspect them, you'll see the extent of what I did to myself, but it's not the shock it used to be.

Why do not want them to fade? One could come up with all sorts of unsavory conjectures, all of which would be at least half true. I'm trapped in time, obsessed with my teenage years because I feel disconnected from my past. I am uncomfortable with getting older. I'm attention-seeking, attempting to prove to the world and myself that I have suffered. I am a wannabe, participating in the self-harm suffering Olympics, trying to show that I had it worse than others.

The one on my mind lately is that I miss self-harm, I crave it. The other night I was so riddled with self-harm impulses I could hardly figure out what to eat. I was in the kitchen and the knife block was right there and I kept thinking but what if, could barely string together two thoughts in between the images and sensation of what I wanted to do myself. Creative new things I hadn't thought of as a teenager, or had been to afraid to try.

I got to bed without hurting myself, laid there trying to read War of the Worlds while the urges flashed through me like tics and twitches. My arms, my legs, my chest, all craving mutilation in little jolts. If I thought of myself, anytime I have ever been seen or heard to speak, the next thought would be -- oh, I shouldn't say. You're not supposed give people ideas.

I reached down the the scars on my outer thighs, so broad and hard, the gnarly crosshatch I barely remember inflicting. There's some small relief in that, knowing that it has happened. Old scars are like a ghost of what I crave, satisfying enough to get me to sleep at last.

[a picture of me at age 18, against a backdrop of glowing yellow light cast on a white wall. My upturned face and arm are in the corner, and scars are somewhat visible on my arm]

Me and my scars in 2011 -- one of my favorite pictures I've ever taken of myself

6/10/22

Months ago, I had an idea for a post: an exploration of my self-loathing, because I've never seen anyone do it and I'm tired of the isolation and stigma that still surrounds the subject.

I have tried to write this post many times. Each time I wouldn't know what I was doing. My insecurity would crush me, convincing me that I'm just complaining aimlessly into the void. People will read my self-pity (That's what it is, right? There's nothing else here, right?) and hate me.

Maybe it'll work better now that the burden of self-loathing has lifted a little. I know it's temporary, brought on by certain happy events and the weather finally warming. I still battled shame over getting 5/6 on my Wordle this morning. Point is, nothing external can fix this. No matter how much success, how much affection, how much good weather, the self-loathing is still there. Dormant, perhaps, or weak, but always waiting to strike.

A dear friend recently told me he'd tried to read my blog but couldn't stand it because it was too intense, made him worry about me. My heart broke a little. I went and retrieved the therapy book I keep forgetting to work through (The ACT Workbook for Depression & Shame).

I don't want to worry anyone. I can't say I never did because I did have my manipulative moments, and sometimes, in high school, I was genuinely desperate for help. But there was a reason I used to hide the wounds and scars. I suppose there's a reason to show them too.

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5/3/22

I had an idea to make this post primarily about self-loathing, without talking too much about the self-harm, but I've given up. They're inextricable. I've been hurting myself since before I hated myself. My earliest recollections of self-harm start from around first grade, whereas the beginnings of my self-loathing are more uncertain.

It's not like I was born hating myself, or like my earliest memories are specifically marked with it. I remember being bullied in elementary school and my response being contradictory: either I would hate myself, falling in line with what I imagined to be my tormentor's viewpoint, or I would spend hours in focused, silent retaliation, asserting to myself why I was better. I don't know that the "or" even makes sense here, because these responses were often the same thing, e.g. me fantasizing about telling a bully that "maybe I should go suck on a tailpipe and die" as a way of showing both how she made me feel and how ridiculous her opinion of me surely was.

(In the end, it's all about the same thing: me either being worse or better than the people hurting me, or somehow both at once. It's not that I ditched one path for the other. I still lean on both for consolation at times, even though it's unhelpful and unhealthy to over-elevate or crush one's self-image.)

Meanwhile, I self-harmed by throwing myself on the floor, trying to hit my head; prodding at my skin harmlessly with pencils; twisting lanyards around my hand until it hurt. The first time I cut myself was in 6th grade, when I thought a friend was avoiding me. She wasn't, of course, but the fear gripped me so tightly I went down to the stream and scratched my knee with a piece of broken glass. (The first of many instances where I'm grateful and amazed I didn't contract tetanus). I hadn't gotten the idea from anyone else, I hadn't read any panicky articles about this new "self-mutilation" craze sweeping teens. I knew instinctively what I wanted.

The year was 2004. I hardly knew what I was getting into. As I continued the practice with new implements, I didn't realize I was hardwiring myself for deepening obsession, and that for whatever reason, the balance of self-aggrandizement and self-loathing would tip dangerously towards the latter.

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6/10/22

Just kidding, I know exactly what caused that tip. It feels so clear to me that it happened in 8th grade, when, for reasons I don't feel comfortable talking about, I cut off all my hair with a pair of scissors. Curls falling to the floor, where I left them for months as a reminder of my shame. Rumors spread about me in school. Strangers made jokes about my gender and sexuality (In the end they were kinda right -- now I'm agender and bi. Funny). I wanted to die, but I settled for giving myself nosebleeds in the shower and watching the blood pour down the drain. A secret, clean method. No one knew.

By 9th grade I'd formed a superstition that if I hurt myself, I would get my way. I had to pay in blood for anything to go well because otherwise I didn't deserve it. At the time, I was primarily concerned with romance, bleeding into the sink in exchange for a message on Myspace.

In 10th grade I tried to stop because a boyfriend asked me to. I became obsessed with the idea of someone I loved pinning me down and cutting tallies on my ribs. We weren't talking at the time and I fantasized about this contact, obviously the only kind I deserved. Being in a relationship meant being pressured into sexual activity long before I was ready. I'd dissociate afterwards, then go home, listen to MSI, and imagine this person, who I loved so sexlessly, punishing me like a revenging angel.

In the summer after 10th grade, the superstitions I'd developed got their narrative pay-off. In August, a month after I'd learned my family was moving to Australia, I went through a rough break-up and experienced an extravagance of manic behavior, formulating some elaborate time-based system of self-harm based around the number 21. If I did it just right, if I didn't eat or drink, he would take me back.

Then, that same week, a friend raped me. I tried to stop him from pulling up my shirt, but he tugged it out of my hands. He patronizingly kissed the mess of cuts on my stomach and kept going. Afterwards, I kissed him goodbye at the door, begged him not to tell anyone, and went upstairs to the bed covered in his semen to pay my penance on my skin.

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Did I choose this? I was a teenager -- thirteen to sixteen years old. If you had asked me what I wanted in life, I would've said I wanted to write and then sat on the fear that I wasn't good enough. If you had asked me what I thought I deserved in life, I don't know what I would have said.

My brain had this dark, dramatic predisposition to self-blame or self-aggrandizement. My attachment style was a nightmare. I thought lovability and worthiness must be externally earned, and would do anything, even things I didn't like, to gain that. I only tried to stop self-harming when boyfriends would say, "Please stop, for me." Otherwise, love was paid for in blood.

What tools did I have to counter my own mindset? How could I realize you can't stop hating or hurting yourself for anyone but yourself? How could I guess how far it would go, or how it would affect my biology as an adult?

I was seeing a therapist but I couldn't talk about my self-harm because I was afraid she'd tell my parents. I could never tell her the full truth.

When I told her that my family was moving to Australia, I spent the entire session curled up in a ball on the chair. "I'm looking at you curled up there," she said, "and I'm seeing what I'm worried will happen to you when you move, that you will curl up into yourself."

I didn't know at the time that she was right.

There was a time when I blamed myself for what happened when we moved to Australia, thinking, if only I had been more sociable, if only I'd tried a little harder with the friends I've since learned I can trust. Then I wouldn't have this trauma, these scars, this social anxiety.

But, looking back at the documentary evidence, I've discovered the truth that's honestly harder to swallow: I didn't have the tools, the abilities, the help. My trust in other people got severely burned. I snapped my hand away and curled around the wound. I sank deeper.

↜↝

2011

"#54
The realization:
'He didn't even use me as a person
I was just an
object, a trophy.
But he is still happy.
I am not.'
Blood, blood, blood
smeared over things so symbolic
of ruin and shame, of
don't let anybody in because
this lack of wisdom protects no emotions
so protect with
how much it would hurt to have
someone fucking between those torn thighs.
Punishment. Atonement.
The word 'FILTH' carved into pale flesh.
'He is happy, they are all
happy, having stepped on me.
And I am not.'
Red hand prints like all the
fiery, grasping claws of these men who can now brag:
            She was a bit of a
            bitch really.
            Asked too much
            wanted too much but
            at least her tits were nice
            at least I got to lay my hands
            here
            and here.
This terrible realization:
'I am not to be loved.
I am to be used so
they are happy.
I am not."

↜↝

6/13/22

Most of my scars are from after I moved to Australia. There was an abusive teacher, a persecutory school administration, homesickness, rumor-mongering, people who told me not to complain because people with cancer have it worse, the realization that what had happened in my bedroom on that summer day had been rape, the fallout of that which involved few people believing or supporting me or caring much at all. In my last year of school, I isolated myself so thoroughly that I didn't talk at all some days.

My apologies for exposing you to my old poetry, but I chose the poem above because of the contradiction in my thinking it illustrates. In the wasteland of rape trauma and social trauma, I struggled with how to view myself: was I a victim, clawed at by men, or was I somehow to blame, my inherent self an evil that warranted assault and dehumanization?

I mostly leaned towards the latter. How else was I to explain the way the world seemed intent on beating me as soon as I raised my head, striking me whenever I reached out a hand for comfort? How could so many people hate and mistreat and ignore me if it was unjust? I had to be evil, because then at least the world was right.

I often encounter rhetoric -- often from cis white men -- about not having a victim mindset, about how much better it is to view everything as a result of your own actions. It's not a horrible idea in moderation, but I used an anti-victimhood mindset to hate myself, but the truth was that there was no way for me to be in control.

How could I stop a friend from pulling out his penis when I said "no" already, when I was alone in the house with no one to stop him? How could I keep people from taking his side? How could I stop a teacher from bullying me when she got angry at me for looking in the wrong direction, holding a scrap of paper, crying from fear? How could I get my peers to like me and listen to me and believe me?

With the assumption that it must somehow be my fault even in situations where I had no agency, my reasoning became amorphous. The problem was me. I had to stop talking. I had to stop being myself. I had to cut the word "FILTH" into my thighs as a barrier to letting anyone else in ever again.

The other side of my old dichotomy was present too, of course. I demeaned the people of Perth, writing insulting (and bad) poetry about their supposed shallowness, narrow-mindedness, milquetoast and uncreative aesthetics. I had to be better them, since I couldn't be accepted them. If I wasn't better than them, I was worse.

Sometimes, the realization that I was a victim would break through. In moments of clarity, I would write rants against the teachers, the school administration, and the ones who had sexually exploited me. It's heartbreaking now to read those moments of balance, when I could see that I wasn't perfect but I wasn't evil either, that I was a full human and I didn't deserve this treatment. An afternoon here and there, then back to the usual.

I blamed myself as an adult too, posting apologies on Facebook for not being better when I was in Australia, flying into rages with myself for "causing my own trauma." Only in the past few years did I confront the idea that I was a victim. It was a horrifying realization, one that left me shaking and dissociating in the bath, at work, behind the wheel.

I never hear anyone talking about how difficult it is to accept that in some cases, you are a victim. You got run over in someone's path, it was unfair, and there's no justice or recourse. You were vulnerable, the world was unkind, and you were harmed, sometimes for no good reason.

I think anti-victimhood rhetoric is such an appealing illusion because, if you were never the victim, then surely you can take actions to prevent this ever happening again. It was all your doing, right? You're in control. It's also a viewpoint that's easily co-opted by capitalism and oppressive mindsets: if everything's your fault, then how can systemic forces be to blame? If you're suffering, poor, traumatized, you just should've done better.

In short, it's a mindset that benefits abusers and oppressors. Recognizing when you're a victim is empowering too. Finally, I can accept that I didn't deserve any of that mistreatment, and I should never accept it again.

↜↝

2011
"#48
RULES TO LIVE BY:
1. YOU ARE SCUM. Never forget what you are, never believe you are any good.
2. Always remember that NO ONE WANTS YOU. Your presence is a taint. Don't enter into a conversation unless addressed. No one wants to know.
3. DON'T ASK FOR THINGS. You don't deserve them.
4. DON'T HOPE. It's better this way. You can't be disappointed.
5. PAY THE PRICE. Sacrifices must be made. Blood is the price for good things in life.
6. NOTHING YOU DO IS EVER GOOD ENOUGH. You always need to try harder. You are always a failure.

The rules apply only to me: I am scum, I am the lowest."

↜↝

It hurt to rediscover that entry. I had forgotten just how bad it was back then.

I have a new perspective on it now, one that allows for forgiveness and acceptance for what I did to myself and others.

Read the rules to carefully, even if it's horrible. What am I trying to prevent with all this superstition and restriction? What was I trying to gain?

I wanted to be accepted by someone, anyone, to any degree. I wanted bad things to stop happening. I wanted to prevent the cruelty of others by anticipating what they'd see in me. I wanted good things to happen, so I resorted to magical thinking to foster them.

I was trying to take care of myself.

Self-hatred was self-love twisted on itself, molded and distorted by the treatment of others. Straightforward self-love felt (and still does) too dangerous. Setting boundaries, standing up for myself, voicing my opinions, crying for help, etc. had resulted too many times in my self and my needs and my voice being disregarded anyways. It felt like punishment. So, the solution? Stop doing that and life will get better.

It didn't of course. As I silenced and isolated myself, I became obsessed with Kurtz's gasping words from The Heart of Darkness: "Live rightly, die, die." Whatever it meant in the book, it meant to me that I was trying my hardest and still dying, that living "rightly" was killing me. The loneliness and self-loathing hurt so much the pain became physical, eating at my chest and skin. I thought I'd never live see the end.

Though the emphasis is slightly difference, ACT calls these confused acts of self-care "Defectiveness Coping Behaviors," pointing out that "You wouldn't have used these DCBs early on if they weren't effective." ACT also points out that these behaviors, while they temporarily relieve pain, are self-perpetuating. For example, my isolation increased my shame and fear of others, and it was only by breaking out of that (reaching out, dating, accepting friendships) that I improved my life at all.

And now, of course, these DCBs aren't helpful at all. They're a hindrance. So I need to learn to not act on them, even when they feel so tempting, so comforting, like an old blanket.

Still, it did work for a while. To this day I get dreamy for the memories of lonely trips to the city, dancing around to Public Image Limited while cottony seeds floated through the afternoon sunlight, watching my carnivorous plants grow and open when I couldn't. I wasn't happy, but it was beautiful, sometimes.

A rough doodle from 2011, of a human figure cowering on the ground surrounded by a field of pins. Underneath the human figure is written, in all caps, "IT'S NO WONDER"
Doodled in class, 2011

6/14/22

I was in a good mood today, put on a cute outfit and Etat Libre d'Orange's perfume, The Ghost in the Shell. Smelling like a flowery android fresh off the production line, I drove around on errands blasting Ho99o9 and feeling like a cool and interesting person.

Too much positive feeling, I've realized, is overstimulating. Before long I just want it to stop because I want my normal life to resume. Within hours my brain feels like a peeled mandarin drying in the sun and my joy teeters towards anxiety.

In the quiet hours of the night I question myself, whether I was too annoying today, too loud or too quiet, too demanding. I see myself from the outside, sitting in the drivers' seat and radiating joy and wondering if all that excitement was unwise. The fan I bought to cool my study wasn't very good. I didn't hold my own in conversation. I don't know what I am any more, whether I exist. The day was too long.

I've had the comedown go worse than this. One moment I'm on top of the world, then the next my fist flashes out from the corner of my sight and catches me in the face. It can happen so fast I don't catch it, even though it's my own body. A trained reaction, punishing me for hubris as quickly as a dog salivates for the bell.

It's easier, less frightening, less dangerous, to between average and slightly sad, to keep myself below happiness, it not outright miserable.

Such unexpected self-harm is one of the many signs that I've teetered over the edge of my self-control. Something happens at the wrong time, I make a mistake on a day when I'm on edge, I'm too happy with too hard of a comedown, and I fall over the edge.

No one can reason with me and I can't reason myself, can't stop myself from doing and saying the most horrible things. I insult myself to anyone who will listen, I fight praise because it wells up waves of anger. I tell people they are crazy for loving me, that they should beat me, rape me, kill me, that they'd be better off without me. I hate myself so much it feels like I could just die with it. I know I'm making everyone miserable, but I don't know how to stop.

All the while, I know what will calm down my emotions, make me able to live with myself again. My mind stretches to every item in the room that could be used as a weapon. I feel them all around the house, arrayed, waiting. Knives, razors, heavy books, lighters, anything. Several times I've lunged for the knife block or started striking my head, and I've needed to be physically restrained.

In that moment, the self-loathing is completely true. I never feel anything else in life with such certainty as I feel, during these episodes, that I am scum of the earth, unlovable, that I caused my own trauma because I was too pathetic to accept that I deserved everything I got.

One time, after I'd recovered, Tim told me that the look in the eyes was the same was when I took too much LSD and didn't know my own name or birthday. I wasn't there. I was somewhere else.

Self-loathing isn't always like this. Most of the time, however, I don't entirely disagree with the self-loathing worldview, even when I'm in my right mind. Today, miraculously, I don't agree, which I think is a big step in the right direction.

Most of the time, self-loathing is subtle, the sub-conscious leading my actions. Last summer, I bumped a parked car while trying to pull out of a parking lot because I thought it would be cringe for me to have to add another point to an already messy turn. I wasn't conscious of it in the moment, and I only realized this by analyzing it later. This is the case with so many things: my fear of voicing what I want, my anxiety after the guests leave and I'm alone, the way I choose what to eat and when.

Often, I just get this feeling that I'm evil. Anxiety at everything I do, terror at the signs of my own existence. The trees in autumn become unreal, night falls heavy on my chest. I become unreal. At least, if I'm evil, I don't exist.

How do you counter this? I hit a roadblock with ACT because so much of it was based off addressing, naming, mocking, etc. the self-loathing part of your internal monologue. I don't have an internal monologue, which makes it tricky. Sometimes I can make a joke of it -- "I want to take a bath. Does that make me evil?" -- and that can help. But sometimes I don't feel like laughing.

It's a long road and I don't have all the answers. My point here is that it's not that I can just stop hating myself. This is how my brain works, deep down, in subtle ways I don't yet understand. It's been this way for so long that it's impossible to pin down how or why it started -- even all my explanations above are just theories.

To commit to improving this is to commit to countering yourself on a deep level, constantly. And it gets harder when you don't feel like you deserve to be saved.

↜↝

10/9/11

My side of a Facebook Messenger exchange, reading: "so there's oftentimes the need to express emotional pain, and i've unfortunately developed a horrible destructive way to do so (and thus i find it difficult to do something more constructive like drawing, though i'm trying to work on that) / there's self-hated that sometimes rises up like a monster and makes me want to destroy myself / that often channels int othe feeling that i must be punished for various screw ups (that's apparently a not so common reason for this kind of thing) / there's a weird sort of pride in the thing, knowing i have done things that no one else would dream of doing, even though people don't see a majority of it / i know a lot of people put down self-injury to 'oh they want attention'but that's not the case really, though there have been instances where i only wanted to be noticed, to alleviate loneliness / oh and there's some sort of messed up superstition behind it, thinking that things will get better if only this one task is completed. i know it's ridiculous but in certain moments it makes sense."

Back in 2011, after the worst of it was over, a friend who, the prior night, had seen my scars for the first time, asked me why I self-harmed. It turns out that the answer I gave was like 90% on the money. I'd summarize it as such:


1. I was giving and outlet to emotional pain in a way that I'd found to be effective, if horrific.
2. I did it out of self-loathing and self-destructive desires.
3. Self-harming out of a desire for self-punishment (I will teach myself never to do [x] again).
4. I took pride in my self-harm as something I was good at and something that made my life experience unique.
5. I sometimes self-harmed because I was seeking help without being able to ask.
6. Superstition and magical thinking -- blood in exchange for positive results in life.

There is one piece missing from this explanation, whether I was conscious of it at the time or not:
7. I was (and am) an addict.

↜↝

6/20/22

There's some debate, apparently, as to whether self-harm can be called an addiction. Speaking for myself only, I found it to be addictive, and find myself racked with cravings to this day.

I've been listening to the podcast Dopey ("The podcast about drugs, addiction, and dumb shit."), starting at the beginning. I'm still in the episodes from when Chris was alive, and at times I've been struck by his description of intravenous cocaine cravings: he doesn't crave the drug so much as the needle, the image of the needle puncturing his skin, the blood pulling into the barrel. He'd talk about how euphoric recall colored his memories of using, making the moment before the needle's plunge seem deliriously desirable, even when he knew that the following high was unpleasant and never worth it.

What is it that I crave? The feeling of something dangerous in my hand. A whole lot of visual stuff people hate for me to describe. The shock of mutilation, knowing I've gone too far and I can't take it back and I'll be suffering for this for days. My feelings flattening to blankness, the warmth and sleepiness that washes in as the blood drains out. The hard-gotten self-care of patching myself up, cleaning up the blood, watching the wound heal through its slow torments.

I don't remember so well the feelings of shame and panic that tend to follow the self-harm. Euphoric recall makes it hard for me to remember, even if those are essential parts of the experience.

It's not just negative feelings that cause these cravings. If I sit here and think about it too much, desire rolls over me like a wave. My skin itches and aches, my hands wring and my nails twist into my cheek. I can't sharpen knives, or even be near someone sharpening a knife, because it's too visceral, fills me with sensually intrusive thoughts. Sometimes I find myself in dark corners of Twitter, looking at images of self-harm with slavering obsession. Oh, wouldn't it be nice? Don't you miss it, Lyra?

There is, potentially, an explicable mechanism for self-harm addiction. In response to the wound, your system floods with endorphins. Half the time, I wouldn't even feel pain at what I was doing to myself. Riding my feelings, I'd go until the calmness of endorphins seeped in. I'd become exhausted, heavy, a feeling like being wrapped in a blanket. It would be hard to get myself cleaned up and easier to sleep. Sometimes, in the years of insomnia in Australia, it was the only thing to help me to sleep, when melatonin and dipenhydramine and Zopiclone couldn't.

Nowadays, when the madness sets in, when I shift into that negative world where my own worthlessness feels like the only truth, I get so frustrated that there is nothing I can do about it. Normal coping mechanisms don't do much. I can be hamstrung for the rest of the day, trying to wait it out. Lying in bed, waiting to see if I can sleep it off. In college, it would go on for a week at a stretch, the slow, grating hours scraping into days.

I am not supposed to self-harm. Everyone gets upset when I do it (a reason I usually find more compelling than "But it's dangerous and you should love yourself"). I know it works, that it's the only thing that flicks the switch and shuts me down, and in those moments I can argue extremely eloquently as to why I should be allowed to do it. In lieu of doing whatever I want, I wish sometimes that I had done more damage to myself as a teen, so I'd have more scars and horror stories.

I also relate heavily with Of Herbs and Altar's wise words on the subject of missing your Eating Disorder. The parts that stuck out to me was how he talks about calorie-counting can be so all-consuming that it leaves little room for other emotions, and how life becomes so simple when your focus is so narrow.

Self-harm was much the same for me. I've come to miss those times when I had no thoughts for the future because I didn't think I'd be alive, when my sole focus was doing as much damage to myself, engaging in as much of this addictive, self-destructive behavior as I could humanly manage, with little regard to the long term consequences. It was a life without nuance: I was evil, and I needed to be punished, and I was good at punishing myself. I had a skill, and in my self-centered concept of the universe, it was a useful one.

In contrast: adulthood, with its responsibilities to others, financial considerations, conversations of where we will be in a few years, the struggle of accepting yourself as an imperfect human being with flaws that you must either confront or accept, the realization that you are not even uniquely evil. No, you're just a person.

If I were to give in, pursue the path of self-destruction again, I wouldn't have to worry about all that any more. I know all the tricks of self-harm. I'm proficient and don't have to fumble through the basics. If I wanted to, I could show people the resulting damage, and they would scramble to make me better.

My life is no longer built for that. I can't self-harm in desperate isolation. There's people around me now, and I hate frightening them. I resent it sometimes, but they're helping to keep me safe without even knowing it.

↜↝

I saw this comic bouncing around on Tumblr for a while, but of course haven't seen it since I decided to write this. In it, Person 1 makes a self-deprecating remark, "Haha I'm so stupid," or something. Person 2, frowning in my recollection, nails a board with a positive affirmation on it over Person 1's speech bubble with.

On Tumblr I think it came with an assertion that "no, you do not get to keep your unhealthy coping mechanism," and maybe some talk of how self-deprecation -> self-hatred and harshly-worded, even disdainful insistence you need to work on yourself if you ever want to get better (and, supposedly, removing negative self-talk is the way to do it).

There's an aggression/tough love approach to these depictions and conversations that makes me wildly uncomfortable. I get that self-deprecating humor is uncomfortable and annoying for others, but this reads to me as an effort to link irritation with a moral exhortation to Do Better. Stop feeling this way, or at least expressing it, because it's bothering the people around you.

It reminds me of when my Self-Loathing Containment System TM experienced an unexpected breach and a friend responded angrily, saying, "No, you don't get to say that about my friend!" I spiraled for days. What was the point of friends if they didn't want to know what was going on inside me, what it was like to actually be me?

It reminds me of people telling me I needed to shut up because there were others out there who had it worse. It reminds me of people who let me fall by the wayside when my emotions became too much for anyone to handle. It reminds me of people who found my expressions of unhappiness annoying, and so cast me to the side rather than helping. But hey, maybe that's the trauma talking.

I see the good intent here. You want your loved ones to love themselves, and for that to be evident. But if the end result is, effectively, silencing someone, I don't see what good that's doing. If someone is already angry with themself, is you being angry at them going to help?

Season 2 of Euphoria was a (very fun) mess, but the scene where a bunch of influencers scream at Kat to "LOVE YOURSELF!" was so on point that it had me sitting there with my mouth hanging open saying, "Finally, someone said it!"

This intense pressure to love yourself can become just another stick to beat yourself with. It's framed as a choice -- just do it! It's easy! Just drop that self-loathing and love yourself! So, when I'm in those borderline psychotic states of self-loathing, I find myself blaming myself for not making the simple choice of loving myself. If I loved myself, this wouldn't be happening! I wouldn't be taking up so much of someone else's attention! I wouldn't be such a nuisance!

"Love yourself!"

The fist comes flying out of the corner of my vision. Bam!

"You're a good person!"

Bam!

"Why can't you just be a good person!"

Bam!

"No one cares if you feel this way! No one wants to hear it! You'll pretend like you're happy and no one will ever need to know!"

Bam!

And so on. I've literally hurt myself while my brain seethes with affirmations. Whatever works for others, it doesn't do it for me. CBT and similar feel too much like gaslighting to me.

My therapist has given me the more achievable goal of self-neutrality, to be pursued with ACT, which to me is more about accepting that you're going to feel like shit sometimes and not letting that get in the way of my day-to-day life as much as possible, and accepting when it does. She has agreed with my suspicion that likely I'll never be entirely rid of my self-loathing, but perhaps it'll be more manageable, and the dips into madness will happen less often and I'll be better at handling them when they do.

I think self-love is so popular nowadays because it's marketable, because it makes good content for viral posts, because wouldn't be nice if all the discomfort and trauma just disappeared? I've seen it work for some, but it seems too far to reach for me. At least for now, I'm afraid I'll overextend.

I feel safer when someone lets me feel the way I feel, provides a soft (yet maybe slightly resistant) surface for my sharp words. That's a lot to ask of someone: that they not get upset or angry, that they tell me that they understand my feelings and disagree as gently as possible, even if my self-loathing batters against everything they believe. I'm a lot to deal with, I know.

I wish for people to be kind, to understand that I didn't adopt this viewpoint willingly, and certainly not to annoy and upset people. It was all quite logical at the time. There was a time when it was all that got me through. Undoing these patterns will, perhaps, take the rest of my life. It can't be countered with pithiness.

↜↝

Oh, I could talk about it all day. If it were acceptable, if there weren't concerns about triggering people or giving them dangerous knowledge, I'd spend all day writing down everything I've done, whispering it like a spell. Thinking about it, my skin is alight. I can feel old sensations lining my skin. I want it back, I want it all back.

But you can't dwell on it forever, can you? After a while it gets boring. After a while, I just want to drink tea, read a book, and go to bed. I want to life to continue.

↜↝

Today, I blew a tire while driving. This is the third one. I was so upset with myself, so disgusted with my sweat and my inability to loosen the bolts on the wheel, that I thought I'd rather die than ask for help. Help came anyways and I returned home aching for the sharp little knife in the knife block. I told Tim exactly what I thought myself, how it was time I gave up driving even if I enjoyed it because I'm a menace and cost us too much money.

I couldn't let it go. If I forgave myself then -- then -- then what? The universe would round on me and punish me because I didn't do it enough myself. Tim would hate me. Everyone would hate me. My sense of self would collapse. The horror of what laid beyond just forgiving myself nearly stopped me.

But, slowly, I relented. Tim asked me for a hug. Face buried in his shoulder, I allowed myself to ask him what I had been wanting:

"Do you want to order pizza tonight?"

"Sure, I'll exploit your bad feelings to feed my desires for trash."

"So long as you're exploiting me," I joked.

We laughed about it and tears squeezed out of my eyes. Already it was passing. I took a bath and used one of my precious bath bombs to treat myself. We had pizza and watched two episodes of Breaking Bad back-to-back. Despite my paranoia that I need to be working basically all the time, I've written close to 3,000 words tonight.

I think, for now, I'm doing a little better.