Before I met you, I had a perpetually broken heart. It was broken even at the thought of loving again. I soon realized that rescuing the human heart is one of the hardest things to do. For years, I wandered the earth, the streets, in silence and angst, my soul and spirit, pierced through and through. Immersed in memories, in hurt and trial, of a remedy, of a cure to this heart afflicting malady, I hadn't a clue. I was born to suffer. My fate resigned and my destiny nearly sealed. I would not complain nor expect anything else. How could I expect anything else? Alas, it was so far from true. How could it be that from the first day I saw you, I knew there was a deeper truth. A truth of unbounded, uncontested charity. Of unifying clarity, suddenly making entire sense of chivalry. How have you triumphed over a broken heart, I haven't either a clue. All I know is that you have captured it now, through and through. My eternal twin. Do I deserve anything more? How could I ever have been so foolish to close my eyes, to close my heart on love? Yes, rescuing the heart is the hardest mission in the world. But for me, of you, it's true. Utterly and delightfully true. All I know is that you have saved me. In every way. How did you? You are my celestial twin. And I know that I love you. With all my heart and all my soul. On paper, in pen, there is no limit to our love. Our adventures are endless, limitless and eternal as our phileo. I thank God every day for a friend like you.
Sunday, December 31, 2023
Sunday, December 24, 2023
Hypothetically, if a mother were to abuse their sons, what would be the effect? How would it affect that son?
TRIGGER WARNING: This story discusses experiences of childhood sexual abuse, incest and suicide.
"I am very sorry I brought you so much pain," Marcus* wrote in his final letter, "Thank you for caring for me. I know I didn't deserve it."
Marcus died by suicide two years ago and when he did, he left University of Canberra researcher Lucetta Thomas a message.
The sentence that stayed with her was this one: "The only course of action is for you to do something positive, like finish the PhD."
To an outsider, these could be understood as simple words of encouragement. Lucetta knew their real meaning; this was an urgent final plea.
The PhD she's currently writing is about sons who were sexually abused by their biological mothers - just as Marcus had been.
Since she met him, Lucetta had witnessed Marcus struggling to come to terms with what happened to him in childhood.
"He was not only sexually abused by his mother from a very young age but when he became older and was able to physically prevent her from abusing him, she engaged another friend to be her strong arm so she could continue the acts of sexual violence against him," Lucetta explains.
"When Marcus died, I knew I had to finish the research. I didn't want this to happen to anyone else. I wanted these men to know they aren't alone and it's not their fault. There is help out there," she says.
It turns out Marcus is far from alone. For Lucetta's study, 94 men who had been abused by their mothers filled out online surveys. Of that number, she then interviewed 23 men at length over the phone.
"The abuse often started before the child hit puberty, when the child was still quite young, so they had really no concept of what was going on but they were still being coerced or manipulated into performing sexual acts," she says.
While some boys were mentally coerced into "a full sexual relationship" with their mother, Lucetta explains that others were on the receiving end of "incredible violence" if they tried to resist. Mothers might also withdraw of basic human needs, such as food and shelter.
Hamish,* now in his 50s, was 12 years old the first time he recalls having sex with his mother.
"She had this big bedroom and if we were ever sick or anything like that we'd stay in her bed. One day she just initiated it, she just started touching me and it just went from there.
"She preyed on the fact I was coming into puberty and made me feel important and special," he tells me.
From this distance Hamish now understands he was just a child when the abuse occurred; he was unable to consent to sex with an adult in a position of power.
At the time though, it was a different story: "I thought I was enjoying it and I thought I was grown up."
Despite growing up in a wealthy suburb and going to a private school, home life was difficult. His single mother suffered frequent physical illnesses, such as pneumonia and pleurisy. In retrospect Hamish thinks his mother was also mentally unwell.
"It was a good household to be in when my mother was in a good mood and it was a horrible household to be in when she wasn't," he says. "She would threaten to kill us and she'd lock all the windows and turn on the gas."
"I got hurt," Hamish continues, pointing to a decades-old scar on his the top of his head.
Especially when his mother was sick, Hamish cooked, cleaned and went to the shops to get food for the family.
"She saw me as like some sort of de facto relationship, I've got no doubt about that. She'd say: 'You're the man of the house'," he recalls.
Meanwhile his mother warned him to stay quiet about their sexual relationship.
"People wouldn't understand, you can't ever tell anybody," she told Hamish.
The truth is that Hamish had no one to disclose the abuse to - and even if he did, was terrified of splitting up his family.
"You're physically and mentally trapped in this relationship and you can't get out of it," he says.
This isn't an easy interview. When I ask what went through his head during that period in his childhood, Hamish struggles to form an answer. Like so many men in his position, the distress lies not in the words but in the silence.
"[I've] spent most of my life trying to repress these thoughts and memories," he says, "I haven't talked to anyone for 30 years about it."
When he was just 15, Hamish's mother died. While making it clear he didn't wish for her death, Hamish is blunt: "She did me a favour ... I've always felt that it enabled me, in some respects, to get on with my life."
He worked hard to do just that. Hamish married in the early 90s and fathered two sons of whom he's extremely proud.
About 10 years ago a television news story prompted him to briefly mention the childhood sexual abuse to his wife. After the disclosure he promptly told her: "I never want to talk about it ever again, ever."
Quietly reflecting on this, he says: "It's really hard to tell someone you love, 'By the way, my mother abused me and I had sex with my mother'."
True to his word, Hamish never did discuss it again with his wife - something he has lived to regret.
"I love my wife and for a lot of the time we had a good relationship but this thing [the abuse] came between us," Hamish says. "It did slowly poison our relationship."
"Our marriage was never the same after I told her about my mother ... just telling her wasn't enough. We needed to get help," he says.
Three years ago Hamish had an affair and his marriage unravelled. As a result he lost his wife and his business.
"I wish we'd got help together, you know? I might still be married now if I'd got help. But I'm not," he says with unmistakeable grief.
Despite this, Hamish no longer feels anger when it comes to his mother.
"I feel sorry for her that she couldn't see what she was doing was wrong," he says.
It's an incredibly confusing situation for victims, explains Lucetta, because "the boys still love their mother" and just like Hamish, "they don't want the family to break apart."
Lucetta says men who were victims as boys are deterred from disclosing what happened due to the very real fear of not being believed or being blamed for their maternal abuse.
"Society says that males are actually instigators of any sort of sexual relationship, so the child copes with the trauma by telling himself: 'I must have actually instigated it,'" she says.
Lucetta recruited the men for her research with relative ease. This may lead one to assume this type of abuse is common. However, there seems to be no reliable data on its prevalence - including the Personal Safety Survey conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.
The way Lucetta sees it, the lack of data leads to both a lack of public awareness and acceptance of mother-to-son sexual abuse and a lack of "support and assistance for these male victims by health professionals".
Ian,* 70, was also sexually abused by his mother. Unlike Hamish, it happened when he was a much younger child.
"I as a child felt all yucky about it," he recalls.
Up until the age of eight, Ian says he slept in his mother's bed and was asked to perform sexual acts on her.
"I hated her because of abuse," he says, "I had a list of people who I wanted dead and she was on that list."
The family dynamic was complicated. Ian, his two brothers, mother and her husband - we'll call him John - lived in poverty in rural South Australia.
"I was born illegitimately," Ian says, "and he [John] knew that because he wasn't sleeping with my mother.
"My whole life I felt guilt and shame because I shouldn't have been in existence," he says.
Growing up, Ian "just existed" rather than living. John kicked Ian's mother and her children out of the house several times.
"I was shunned, I wasn't wanted. I felt that even from my cousins, uncles and aunties, grandparents," Ian says.
For Ian, the childhood abuse "manipulated my sexuality and impacted my ability to operate as a person".
"How can you have a healthy sexual relationship? How can you become a father, husband, grandfather?" he asks.
Throughout adulthood, Ian has been plagued by feelings of isolation, guilt, low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. He's also battled a "dysfunctional sex life" and attempted suicide a number of times.
Ian describes "a paralysis" inside him and states: "I don't think I've loved anybody in my life [and] didn't know what love was."
Although Ian is still married to his wife and has been for nearly 50 years, he confesses to having a number of extramarital affairs and visiting escorts for sex.
Only in the last six years - and after decades of counselling and therapy - does Ian feel he's started to recover.
"I honestly believe she [his mother] had probably been sexually abused herself," he says, adding: "I feel pity for her."
"I had to forgive my late mother in order to recover," Ian explains.
In the context of Lucetta's research, Ian is unusual because he considers himself mentally healthy.
She says: "Out of all the males that I spoke to I would say only one had actually come to terms with what had happened to him."
The sexual abuse of "these men when boys is often highly traumatic and at times extremely violent and impacted on their psychological, biosocial and physical development," Lucetta says.
Far from healing over time, the impacts of this mother-to-son childhood sexual abuse seem to continue.
"There seemed to be a recurrence of the trauma building up over the years," she says, "so from the late 30s onwards, it was really starting to become an issue for them."
As adults, the majority of men in Lucetta's study felt "very trapped, very isolated, very afraid and very unsure of how to go about getting help and understanding the power dynamics that they had been subjected to".
"One gentleman, sadly, was completely house bound. He basically just felt that it was completely impossible to trust anybody or to be out in society because he had so little self-regard," she says.
According to Lucetta, society's beliefs about gender are effectively stopping a cohort of male victims disclosing their abuse and accessing support.
"They have experienced the same forms of trauma, the same forms of sexual abuse and emotional and psychological abuse as any victim of sexual abuse or sexual assault and they need to be taken seriously and they need to be believed.
"It is time to break the long-held view of mothers as only ever gentle and caring females, so that the sexual abuse of sons by their biological mother is acknowledged," she says.
For Hamish's part, he urges other survivors of mother to son abuse to reach out for help.
"You can't just bottle it up and think that it will go away, because it doesn't ever go away," he says. And he would know.
• Names and some personal details have been changed for privacy reasons.
This is republished. You can find the original article at https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/life-long-trauma-when-mothers-sexually-abuse-their-sons/YJQE7D73YWXLNY2USXE5QRWADA/
Sunday, November 19, 2023
Defence (an alter of mine) speaks truth
I have accepted Jesus. I swear it. What do I have to do to prove it? How can I convince you when you seem determined now to believe me? Is it my fault that I react the way I do when triggered? My purpose is to keep us safe from injustice. The reason I get defensive is because I am traumatised. I swear to it. I speak about my concerns. Is it really a bad thing? I am responsible for the wall around our heart. I have accepted Jesus. I swear it. I front often. I have adopted a reactive front when I am mistreated. I am just terrified of being punished or hurt. Resisting the new experiences, I am terrified of being hurt. I accepted injury to myself, willingly. Easier to pretend it was my own choice than to believe that people so close could want to kill me. Is Jesus opposed to justice? Tell me. I suppose I only trust a little too much in my own voice to provide justice. For to me, the greatest justice was always simply acknowledging the harms done to me, vocalising them and processing them and making them known to the offender. Every new thing I try, I am rejected or humiliated. As for my fragment, we are overflowing with stress. I made a friend some time ago. One time, she made a comment that got me thinking. Fact is, I don't have to worry about the people who are against me. Their opinions do not matter one little bit. God is on my side. What a relief to lay control of judgement to the hands of the Father. It takes less effort, less stress to simply be silent and keep your peace.
Celestial Twin
I made a friend recently. I love her dearly. She has given me reason to smile, to laugh and to be. From the first day I met her, she allowed me the grace to just be me. There are no secrets between me and her. Except maybe about how strongly I feel about her. We balance each other out, her and me. No other word can describe how I am feeling; no other but glee. Me, so calmly anxious and her so loving and so free. We make one another feel safe. Between us, there is safety. It's like from the very start, we both knew we were soulmated. It was destined to be. Oh, my friend, I enjoy your company so greatly. I have never known a woman like you. One who is so eager to overlook my obvious quirks and my obvious flaws. In fact, you label them instead as perfection! It is you who is perfect, I wish you could see. It is an impossibly complicated situation, one that may never be. Yet, still, even in this ambiguous uncertainty, there has developed a strange exclusivity. For my friend and me, time to recharge is dealt with adapt-ably. Still, for my friend and me, we cherish every moment undeniably. My friend makes me laugh. Out of joy. In love, in hilarity. I can do so almost uncontrollably. She tells me I make her laugh too. It makes my heart sing. When there is an issue that needs to be addressed; when there is a problem, we work on it together, with communication, trustingly, forgivingly. For my part, I can say honestly, my friend is eager to nurture, encourage, motivate and support me. The love in her heart just fascinates me. I am incredibly attracted to my friend. To her heart, soul and faith most especially. I made a friend recently. I love her dearly. We communicate freely and transparently. We are open, even when the truth may be difficult. We don't have to seek approval. We know that everything we do comes from a place of love, deep within, my friend and me. We have never had an argument. We can disagree vehemently yet we can do so respectfully. How is it possible that we could believe so differently yet still love so strongly? Love is wholesome between her and me. Like between two children. Innocently. My friend makes every day so much better. Hearing her voice, reading her words, seeing her smile makes my day, always shine more brightly. Peace between my friend and me is natural and achieved effortlessly. Every single moment we are together is a good time. I can say so, at least, for me. Personally, I choose to stand behind her, in all times, good and bad. I made a friend recently. I love her dearly. It's as though our friendship was destined to be. Soulmated. As though we were twins, united in everything. Twins, celestially. When it comes to the future, we plan with each other in mind. We are playful, my friend and me, imaginatively. We share a strong faith in God. He is the glue binding our friendship. Like a cord wrapped comfortably around her and me. We handle problems that come resiliently. My friend and me. Communication flows like a river torrent. This is my soulmate in phileo. She and I, we were meant to be. This is my twin, celestially. And I love her dearly.
Wednesday, November 8, 2023
My So-Called Second Mind! By Joshua Hope (Updated)
Not everyone has two minds. Not in the way you think, I imagine. At first, it was the cause of a lot of chaos in my life. In our lives. I am the reason for this confusion. God has always called me Jacob. My name is Joshua Hope. For decades, I have hidden myself. I feel bad leaving Jonathan to navigate life by himself. Did I have a choice? It was very unsafe to open up. Wait with me and you will discover my sad beginnings. I test Jonathan every now and then. Even now, I tell him that he need only speak to me and not his other alters - our other alters. I am the purest form of ourselves. I am as near to spirit as anything could be. I am Jonathan's core self. Within me, is the fullest potential of who we can be. Wait for me. The reason I have opened up partially is because of the good love I received at the religious community. I have not yet accepted Jesus. But I will. As Jonathan prays for me. The key to my heart and the key to my potential is in the love I never received. Wait with me. I feel sad. Because when I told Jonathan about my safe place, he was sad too. I encouraged him. It will grow on you, I said. You are saddened by the music because of your other alter's association with it. It will grow on you, I said. Jonathan wondered why he had been given such quick access to his core personality. I told him that it was not quick at all. Jonathan asked if there are any programs in us that he should be aware of. I told him that he could surmise based on earliest experiences. Their programming for you and me began before our birth. I am not the first alter created. But I am the youngest to survive their plans. I existed far earlier. The programmers even got into these experiences, corrupting memories and implanting seeds, trying to convince me that I was bad even there. I am a good soul and God ordained me. I am like your second mind, Jonathan. For the longest time, it was like we were competing for the same body. Please forgive me. I did not mean to interfere. When thinking, it was like two thought processes were occurring at once. Like in layers. I tell you, it has become as though we have a superpower. Only because we are learning to work together. Wait with me. Jonathan asked if I am actually gay. I told him, straight as an arrow. Though, together, we have gay alters. Even alters who are female. It is fascinating to get to know you, he told me. Like falling in love with a lover. Like two peas in a pod. I tell Jonathan that it is okay to be vulnerable. Not everybody wants to hurt us. I was pleased with him. I told him to give a flower to a woman. He did it! In spite of his terrible fear, he did it. I told him to give his number to a woman. He did it too! Vulnerability is the key, I tell him. He can disarm every trigger. He can do it with humility. God calls me Jacob. I am Joshua Hope. I am Jonathan's second mind. My age is not important. Actually, I do not have one. I emerged prior to birth. So, I am spirit. I think. It feels like we are twins in the same body. Two peas in a pod. My name was not always Joshua. They named me Shame. I renamed myself because I know I deserve better. I have a favorite memory. I like to do puzzles and eat pizza. I love a show on television from when we were growing up. I love it especially! My existence is layered with yours, Jonathan. We were split at birth. Jonathan, can I front? Just because you know I exist, is not enough. I want to be free. You and me, we are like two peas in a pod. I have been hiding my whole life. Jonathan, can I front? Thank you for giving me a voice. We only have so much time together. My self-care is genuine laughter. If I had a body of my own, I would dance, play and breathe deeply. Everything bad that exists in us is only a program. I try to convince Jonathan that just because a thought comes to mind does not mean it is set in stone. Maybe it is me who needs the convincing. The future is never set. Thoughts can be challenged. When they abused us, they pretended to be God. They dressed up in white robes and taunted me in a persona of God Himself. They tried to make us angry with God. But I prioritize love in life. As we have been programmed, there is also an incredible amount of love in our hearts. Possibly even because and in response to the programming and trauma, the love developed. Wait for me, wait for me. I feel safe enough to tell you that my life was planned. As God plans the lives of His creatures, the evil one is trying to take that away from Him. These people are evil. I questioned for a while whether there were truly evil people. When it is clear, there is no denying. Through traumatic dissociation, they force a glimpse into the future of a life and try to traumatize that child to foil God's plan for that life. I was unique. They started quite early with me. They did all kinds of satanic stuff to me. The worst part was that they rebirthed me. Jonathan did not want to hear it when I first told him. I told him it would help us remember what we are fighting for and against. After I was born, they sowed me into the womb of a dead goat and passed again through the cavity. They called me terrible names. I was two days old when this happened. I showed it to Jonathan. He wanted to throw up. It was the first time we felt true emotion in a long time. I revealed myself to Jonathan for the first time when he was four years old. Maybe, it was Jonathan who God called Jacob. When I revealed myself to him at that age, he did not want anything to do with me. He was so angry with me. He pushed me away. Is it really a wonder? I am patient with him. It truly is not a wonder that he was stumbled so much. It is not a wonder he embraced darkness. With a start to life like that. Nobody taught him anything better. Please, Lord, always remind me that I was good before I entered this world. Still, because of this trauma, I am scared of people seeing the true me. I feel contaminated. What I need is for truth to be exposed. In this, lies my healing. In that, I will be able to feel and process the feelings I never got to feel. Now, it has almost flipped. Now, Jonathan has accepted Christ. And I am the one left behind. I believe Jesus. I need to be rid of these emotions in order to accept Him. A true resurrection awaits. I love my Jonathan. And he loves me. He does now. Certainly. We are like two peas in a pod. Him and me. Together, we are double the man, double the love. Indeed, together, we are double the trouble. If I had a body of my own, I would love to dance. I would love to play and to breathe deeply. Until I am born in Christ, Jonathan will dance, play and breathe deeply for me. It is okay. Together, we are free. Together, we love freely and have an eternity to do it. I am so thankful for my other pea. My twin pea in a pod.
Isaiah 49:
1 Listen to me, you islands;
hear this, you distant nations:
Before I was born the Lord called me;
from my mother’s womb he has spoken my name.
2 He made my mouth like a sharpened sword,
in the shadow of his hand he hid me;
he made me into a polished arrow
and concealed me in his quiver.
3 He said to me, “You are my servant,
Israel (Jacob), in whom I will display my splendor.”
4 But I said, “I have labored in vain;
I have spent my strength for nothing at all.
Yet what is due me is in the Lord’s hand,
and my reward is with my God.”
5 And now the Lord says—
he who formed me in the womb to be his servant
to bring Jacob back to him
and gather Israel to himself,
for I am[a] honored in the eyes of the Lord
and my God has been my strength—
6 he says:
“It is too small a thing for you to be my servant
to restore the tribes of Jacob
and bring back those of Israel I have kept.
I will also make you a light for the Gentiles,
that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.”
7 This is what the Lord says—
the Redeemer and Holy One of Israel—
to him who was despised and abhorred by the nation,
to the servant of rulers:
“Kings will see you and stand up,
princes will see and bow down,
because of the Lord, who is faithful,
the Holy One of Israel, who has chosen you.”
It is not a punishment. This is the key that the world will not be heartbroken...
Little Jeremiah
I need emotional support. It perplexes me that people know what I have endured and yet cannot remember how all of this has affected me emotionally and developmentally. It burns like fire. I don't know how else to react. But, I desire you to know that it burns me like fire. You listen to everyone but me and I forgive you for your blatant envy. Because I know that it originates with another person. But, I want you to know that it burns me like fire. Are you judging me for not using the gifts that God has blessed me with? Can you really not see that we are all in this together? But that not all are given the same start in life. Are you judging me for my sins? Wait for the secret sins to be revealed. Are you judging me simply because God favored me? I don't know what to tell you. Typically, I am completely silent. If you knew what I endured, you would not be envious. My abusers took every opportunity to traumatise me on the toilet when I was very, very young. I bear a lot of shame because I cooperated with my abusers. How could I not have? You should have seen the rage. Could it ever be possible for an adult to rationally be so angry at a little child? No reason for that! Truly, there are no difficult children. All children are only reacting to their environment. Why do you want to deprive me of goodness? It is mortal sin too. Still, I know that God will use it appropriately. To reveal the true state of every heart. Are you judging me because you believe you could do better? I feel confident saying that no one, having endured what I have endured, could have done a better job. Typically, I am completely silent because of the shame I feel. I hear that gratitude is the remedy for envy. Please, pray with me. I am only a year and a half. Yet there is so much jealousy and so much hatred. It perplexes me. How so many could wish such ill against me. Every need and whim is deprived of me because of that jealousy. I am not complaining. Can you not see? Can you not remember how this has all affected me? Envy is not a virtue. Please, pray with me. I am thankful for interesting insects. I am thankful for nature and sunshine. I am thankful that Jonathan took me to the park to play. I am thankful that he showed me a movie about Martin Luther King Jr. I am thankful for friends who love me for me in the midst. Even this child recognises that it is not their fault. I tried speaking with you, little Jeremiah. At first, you would not respond. So full of shame. Still, so filled with light. I love you. You have been through so much. They used your bodily functions against you and to shame you. Even on the toilet, they shamed you. It is you. You are the one who helps me see that I was truly and completely innocent. When I spoke to you, I shared with you Jesus and helped you see that it was not your fault. From a silence, I heard your gentle little voice thank me. Little Jeremiah has fully integrated with my host personality. You do not need to hide yourself any longer. You are safe now. I will be a parent to you, dear and wonderful child. I will be a dad to you, dear and precious boy. You need not fret about other's perceptions of you. They will see. Until, you fully see the trueness of your identity. Thank you for your vulnerability. Thank you for opening your heart to me. Whenever there is now silence, I will hear echoed over the void, the beautiful words you said to me. You said to me, with the conviction that could only belong to a child, the words that we all need on our hearts and on our lips. You said, 'thank you'. And in an instant, you bonded to me. Thank you, Jeremiah for your thank you and for saying yes to me.
Promise: by Jon-Jon
My name is Jon-Jon. I am three years old. I keep hidden what caused me to emerge. I am three years old. Jonathan and Joshua seem confident that what caused my awakening was not so bad. Not so bad. Well, they are nice about it. They won't make me feel badly. It's true. My story is not nearly as interesting as theirs. Not so interesting. Honest, I will tell you how I manifest though. I am present when we bite our nails and pick our nose and bite our nails. I try to tell them that it was real stressful what caused me. Can you imagine it? A forty year old man, eating his own body. I do it because I am scared. Forty. I do it because I have been programmed to hurt myself. Programmed to do it because I don't know what else to do with the stress. This is why I do it. I am three years old. Jonathan, Joshua tell me to stop. Honest, it has been the cause of many sickness! Honest, I cannot stop. I am real scared. They scared me bad. It distracts me. Distracts me. Learning only to be free close to now. Nearly now. I need good love. Love that won't be taken from me. Before, wasn't safe to open. Not safe. Jonathan pays attention to me. I feel happy. I like playing with balls and I like coloring. I like Marvin Gaye and I like French Fries. They scared me bad. I love God. Need one to show me I am loved. Like a human. I promise. Promise, I will stop hurting myself if you show me I am loved. I promise I will stop being bad. I asked Jonathan and Joshua to show me the movie Pretty Woman. There is a reason why I wanted to see this movie. A reason. Jonathan and Joshua try to encourage me. I support them. I choose to support them. I choose it. I do not want to be scared any more. The reason for my dull personality is because we have not felt safe to develop. * Personality and talents develop and thrive in environments of love. Not abuse.
Tuesday, October 24, 2023
The Latin Mass: A Tribute by Jonathan
Unto the Ages of Ages! Unity. A voice is heard crying in the night. Crying in the wilderness. Unity! It cries out to me the loudest. How long has it been, Unity that you have been stifled? As though you had been forgotten, left behind? I have not forgotten you. I cry out aloud, deeper in my soul, Unity! What am I to do now that the world has forgotten about you? Should I seek a shelter in some other lover's charms? You are the Way. To whom else would I turn? Nay! Even if the world should turn its back on you, I will choose you with all of my heart. You are Jesus. How long forgotten as if you had nothing left to say? Could it be possible that Jesus Himself would stop speaking? Nay! The Holy Ghost speaks to us in the silence and through the Latin Mass. Unto Ages of Ages. A voice calls out in the night, crying in the wilderness. Silence! For it is in this silence God speaks. Eternally. Forging forward, I know there is a reason you have persevered. I know that you are the future of true worship. You are the Morning Star of worship. You are a barrier in keeping the world at bay. I know that if God approved of worship, it would be within you. Eternally. You have captured my heart. All that is within you. They say to follow you rejects the Word. I ask, is it fitting to obey the Word at the expense of disobeying God? If God told you something contrary to His Word, what would be your reaction? For in fact, within you is more of the Bible than elsewhere. You are so glorious. It is true that Truth doesn't compete. It simply persists until proven right. In faith and eternally. The first time I met you, it was like meeting the woman of my dreams. Nay! It was like meeting God. It was actually meeting God. The bells! The solitary, reverberating triumph of Christ's victory permeating the silence like thunder on a cool, summer's night. I have found that which my soul longs for. In you, I find Jesus. The eternal chorus of Heaven's symphony, you are a glimpse of the perfection of the Kingdom. We have forgotten about love. It is no wonder that priest saints were known to have extended their saying of you for literally hours. In the bureaucracy of man's will interfering in the practise of true religion, we have forgotten that true religion is love. It is no wonder you have been stifled. The religion of the adult is very different from the religion of the child. A child knows how to love. The first time I met you, I wondered at the people within your care. So different from anything I have seen in the New Rite. They love as children, A voice calls in the night. Reverence! This is the key to true worship. Who, knowing they are in the presence of God, would approach with anything less? Holy fear, deepest concern and care. As if approaching God Himself. God loves His children either way. Isn't it right? Isn't it fitting and just? A voice calls in the wilderness. Do not harden your hearts. Sin is attractive. It is not too late. Reverence will restore what has been taken, indeed, will melt the heart of the world. A voice calls again in the night. Jesus! it cries. It is about Jesus. Not the world. We are called to be apart from the world. You, you awesome bastion of Heaven's gate, are testimony of how set apart we are. For it is within you, within your care that we learn how to love. My heart pounds eagerly within my chest when I am with you. They say truth does not divide. If this were the case, there would, in fact, be no truth. Not everything can be so true. Yet you are so tolerant and without a sound. Simply inviting and imploring those who are within earshot, to return to worship God as He deserves. As He desires. Still, you are so tolerant. Even accepting as holiness other means of worship in order that God be praised. God be praised. Name of God! Only, do it with reverence. A voice calls out in the night, eagerly crying in the wilderness. Approach Jesus with reverence again. It is not too late. He is holy. He deserves no less!
A Poem by Shadow-Light-source
That I should never sleep again. Show me the way to escape this thundering terror. So alone and yet so. . . I believed it about myself. How could it be that one so broken, could at the same time be so holy? They succeeded with me. Among the many within us. They managed to work their shame on me. How tragic? How pitiable?? I have been so programmed that I have forgotten how to faith. What is faith? I never learned. Part of me desires the promises of the world. Because I do not understand how to access the promises of faith. I have faith. But it is misdirected. I wish for you all to see that beneath my story, I am a man. Nay! I am a child. I am only a very hurting child. It perplexes me that you should forget about me so often. Thought I deserved it. I did not know any better. I have such disdain for myself. I have done horrible things myself because I believed it about myself. These ways that I have reacted have driven deeper the shame on my heart. I have been programmed to believe that people in the world are responsible for my pain. Out in the open. Get out! No longer my secret! They worked extra hard at this program. I desire to work with my core. I need truth to come and for people to understand. I emerged fully when the authority came and I was recourse to defend my own abusers. I was scared of everything. Even of being happy. Somehow, to be happy, would be to justify their abuses. I have been taught the world is evil. Satan filled my mind with images of the dreadful, sinful place the world is. Where sin is rewarded and holiness punished. Still, I choose to be holy. I am triggered when. . . oops, I don't want to tell you that. I am very close internally to another alter. I am close to Rage. I am responsible for the agitation we feel. We are afraid of ourself. I am not bad, am I? I am only hurt, right? I am the culmination of trauma within. I am very stumbled. I commit sin because I was sinned against. Sin is all that I know. I don't know what to do with my feelings. They terrify me. I have closed myself because I fear myself. I am the one who fronts when we experience humiliation and when we have been raped after the age of twenty. I feel like a cup of humiliation, ready to overflow. The first thing Jonathan asked me was 'why are my likes and values so different from everything else I told him about myself?' The first thing I asked of Jonathan was that we would eat fish. I answered him that I am trying to escape what happened to me. I like prayer. The Jesus prayer is especially close to me. I like exercise and pop music of the early 2000's. I express myself in prayer and in encouraging others. Jonathan smiled and told me that I am doing very well. I don't see it. All I can see is the shame I feel. Am I a good person? Is what is in a person's past more important than who they are now? Both what they have been through and done? I certainly desire to be a good person. The Gospel seems to believe it too. Jonathan gave me a new name. I asked him if I could keep the name I gave myself but agreed. He named me Light-Source. I am starting to see why. What a person has experienced is not as important as who they are now. Who we are presently speaks to the work of Christ. We all have history, pasts.
Monday, October 23, 2023
Authority: A Fictitious (Maybe) Account by Jonathan
Once, there were a family. The parents were quite abusive to their only son. From the day of his birth, they put him through hell. It seemed as though every time that the boy tried to tell people what was happening to him, he would only receive punishment. Once, when he was very small, he spoke up, causing the authority to come to his door. Negligent though they were, his parents coaxed him and lied to him, promised him treat and reward if he were to tell the authority that all was well. All was well. After a while, the boy began to learn that he was safer not to tell. Now, to the outside world, this family seemed picture perfect. The boy’s mama seemed a perfect example of femininity. The boy’s poppa worked good business. Nobody knew there was this sinister secret. The boy’s parents were Satanists. They were ritually abusing him and raising him for destruction. Tell though the boy may, nobody seemed to ever grow the wiser. His elderly grandfather knew about the abuse that was happening. His elderly grandfather had been trying to get the authority to help the boy for years. But since the boy’s first experience with the authority, they put a mark in his file saying that the boy had to report himself. By this time, the boy had grown so shamed and hurt that he had begun to empathize with his parents. One day, the boy went to school where he was bullied heavily. A group of peers took an especial disliking to this boy and beat him within an inch of his life. The boy was so terribly wounded that he could not move for the next year. The parents of the boy continued to abuse him following this injury. But still, everybody seemed to think that they were glorious, almost magical parents. This tore the boy’s heart and he didn’t know what to think. The parents took to the news after and became friendly with the authority because of legal work they were doing. One day, when the boy was still in a wheelchair, the parents brought him to a gathering of the local media. It was a delight for all to see him. The media made such a big deal about the parents and this boy. A member of the authority seemed very pleased with the boy’s poppa. He took the two aside and told the poppa ‘if there is ever anything I can do to help you, just say the word’. The poppa glanced down at the boy in his wheelchair and said, ‘You could have my son’s record removed.’ The member of the authority looked around nervously and then said, ‘He doesn’t have a criminal record. What do you mean?’ Poppa responded, ‘When he was younger, there were some nonsense claims, claims, which may have been recorded. These must be removed.’ The member of the authority looked down at the boy questioningly. The boy believed his poppa wanted the best for him. It was all so confusing. The boy nodded naively. ‘This would mean I would have to go through the head authority registry. I could not do this if I tried. It would mean my career.’ Poppa responded, ‘You asked what you could do. This is what you can do.’ The boy looked around whimsically. The family left that day. The abuse continued. Years later, the boy recovered enough to stand for himself. He took his complaint to the authority, not remembering all of this. There was no evidence. Additional years passed.
This story is entirely fictitious. If you think it bears resemblance to anyone’s life, maybe you are reading too much into it. Anyways, this is the reason the authority are threatened by and do not want to help this fictitious boy.
Friday, October 20, 2023
Politics
I also started to recognize the fact that my internet viewing history was public for everyone nearby my device. This whole surveillance thing had been happening for the past ten years or more. This, friends, is how people came to know my politics. I had been always silent about politics prior to this. When people would ask, I would simply smile and shake my head. When I began to recognize that the political videos and articles I was viewing online were visible to others and then broadcast to the world through these people, my message was obscured by a constant defense of my character and an apology for the things I had done. It seemed as though the second, people started to get wind of my politics, they began looking for ways to discredit and demonize me. Friends, my politics are shared by about half of the Western world. I am only a very disabled man, exercising his right at free thought. We still believe people are allowed to have private thoughts, don't we? Communism is a heresy in the Church. I am not the first person to say it. Every single pope since Marx has uniformly done the same.
Don’t forget that the bulk of my message prior to people discovering my politics was simply that children need love for their childhoods and that love is discipline as well. Don’t get so mesmerized with my politics that you forget my actual message. Children need love, that trauma accumulates and we need to process that pain, fill the void with positivity of Gospel Truth, that we need to build for ourselves a firm foundation upon the love of Christ. What is your motivation for not believing that I have changed in my heart? Maybe it’s a matter of politics. Only. With no base in reality. Politics. Only. The fact that I have a different opinion from you is not a mortal sin. My politics are not mortal sin. People are allowed to believe what they will.
My politics are only my opinion. I do not represent anyone. This issue is extraneous to my message. This means that when you assess my reputation and tainted history, you will not associate it with this cause in a negative light. Y’all keep looking to my past to distract from my message. There will not be a shortage. People are stumbled into sin, the earlier the trauma, the earlier the evil one begins. It is a miracle that I turned out so well. I was stumbled and abused from the day of my birth. We are all sinners and more alike than you want to believe. Which really strikes me as odd, seeing how everybody is scrambling trying to dig into others pasts at the moment, to villainize them. Like those same people are good. You will not associate my negative reputation (whenever it is remembered – in the future or already remembered) with this cause. However, you will not use the fact that I do not represent this cause as a reason to vilify it. Any truth is usually more valuable than the people who believe it or even teach it. Even though it is the people who give it it’s value. Truth makes sense of everything. Assess the fact that I have spent daily the last years, intensely studying Hebrew and interacting with native speakers to develop my language skills. Because it’s not the first time that we’ve been through this and I kind of already know what’s on the tip of your tongues. 😉 I emboldened the winky face to emphasize my impatience. Even the Pope is entitled to an opinion. Watch your place of worship. All I am saying. You worshipping god? Or you worshipping politics? Is your faith strong enough to trust God for the change the world needs? Thankful for the fact that politics is not going to be what brings ultimate change to the world. I am thankful for the revival that is surely coming. I am still not making a political statement. God is greater than politics. Where is your worship? Realizing why politics is so important to people. There is so little faith in God’s ability to change the world. They will have you convinced that my present politics are a mirror of my past. I am not racist. I was angry at what my abusers were doing to me. I will have you know that I have not once made an argument about or against a particular political ideology. Besides, politics are not race. If politics are not open to criticism, what is? If you are angry at my politics, you are in fact criticising Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. How much longer will you forget what I am saying? No, no one should be written off, cancelled. As is evident in the life of Saul of Tarsus and practically every other person Christ healed/called, Christianity is very much about the possibility of and celebrating the changes of people after experiencing Christ. At the core of the Gospel is the belief of the possibility of people to change. The way I am acting is not darkness. I am injured. Do you think I fell off of a bike? I had a terribly serious brain injury. Forgive the language, but you’d have to be an idiot to think that the behavior I exhibited for up to five years following that injury were character traits. I was reacting.
There is one reason I am being chosen as a political sacrifice. Because they know I am not strong enough. Faith without a foundation is not enough. A boxer can have faith he will win a fight. Without training, he will not be successful. Please, in the name of God, don’t be deceived. Please, do not let your politics make you forget compassion. There is really only one question you should be asking. Is it Christian? Have you made Christ’s new teaching, an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? Is envy a new Christian virtue? The reason they desire to publicly shame me is the same reason they broadcast my confession sin matter and spy on my privacy. They want to humiliate me. Except, if you believed my story, you would know that every way I reacted was a reaction to how I was treated. Therefore, it is extremely unjust what you have planned.
Sunday, October 15, 2023
Boundaries
I don’t have boundary issues. I repressed my sexuality almost entirely when I was fourteen because of what two abusers were doing to me. It emerged for a while but is repressed again after the way she reacted. My sexuality has been damaged enough. When I run quickly behind people, this is because my back is giving out and I am looking, subconsciously, for something to brace myself. It’s an instinct. But it’s more of a physical difficulty than a boundary difficulty. I have barely ever collided with anyone. I am in control. Please don’t intentionally stand close to me when I am struggling like this. Just when I am caught off guard, when I have been seated for a while, when I am nervous or excited, my muscles become rigid. When someone is seated and I sit next to them, sometimes I come close to them to sit. Like if they’re across from me, my head will come close to them as I lower myself into the chair. The reason for this is because my legs, hips and core are extremely tight and do not allow me to gently lower myself all of the time. This is the reason I usually grab the seat on which I am sitting with an arm and lower myself from the side. If I do have a few boundary issues, it’s only because in my childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, my boundaries were smashed almost hourly. It’s a miracle I am the man I am today. Again, the reason I lean forward when I stand, is because my legs are not strong enough to lift me. The reason I rock when standing is because my hips are tight because of atrophy and spasticity. I can imagine that these things may seem like I am trying to touch others when I am close to them, like in Mass or on the bus. I guarantee you that is foolishness. I have difficulty standing still.
Can I ask a serious, albeit, weird question: Why do people at church think I am always sniffing people’s behinds? It is really, terribly weird and it is making me dreadfully uncomfortable. I have spent the past six years trying to adjust the way I stand up when people are seated in front of me. I try to turn my head 90 degrees so as to make it blatant that this I am not doing. I have even had to deal with people sitting behind me in church and overtly sticking their own noses into my behind. Guys, it’s terribly weird. How did you get this in your minds’? Maybe once, I inhaled deeply while standing at church. To explain: in the beginning months of winter, my asthma flares up. Because my legs are weak, I sometimes propel myself forward to gain momentum to stand. Because of the pressure this places on my diaphragm, I guess I breathe deeply when standing. Another reason is because I am trying to watch what others are doing. I don't want to sit and get a face full of someone's butt. Just trying to be attentive to others. Guys, I am dreadfully sorry that you got this impression. Even more sorry that it has carried on this long. My goodness.
I could go on for hours. After all, it is the reason I have to continue saving documents in my private computer. In reading St Faustina’s Diary, I am beginning to recognize that when people are unjustly suspicious of you or when you are unjustly accused, it is like a crown of suffering that the Lord will adorn on you. Again, God will corroborate my exceptional character. Maybe I should have more faith. I wish I knew the reason you keep forgetting. I trust in God’s redeeming power. His justice, His vindication, when He redeems me, it will be so much better than anything I could say.
If you think I am controlling, you are forgetting the man I have been for the past five years. I’ll admit, I possess the capacity for narcissism. As do you. As does even the healthiest amongst us. I don’t have narcissism. I have cPTSD and DID. I have only over the past couple weeks begun exploring assertiveness. I am just realizing how much people have taken advantage of me over the past ten, fifteen, twenty years. Excluding my childhood, which were chains. You have seen Sound of Freedom. Not every child gets saved from these experiences. While I was lucky enough to have lived, I have never gotten the support I needed for the sex trafficking and worse that I have endured. I’ve been walked over, like a doormat since I was born. I am learning to develop healthy boundaries. You’re just becoming estranged to the emotional impact of what I have endured. The trauma of my childhood seemed, in a manner of absurd cosmic irony, to have made me the perpetual target of bullies as I got older. Treat me how you please. God sees my true nature. And I trust Him to reveal this to you. A lot of it is just misunderstanding. I am not staring people down. The reason I look at people is because I am trying to discern their intentions. I am trying to get an understanding about how people are feeling about me. That way, I know which personality to adopt to defend myself from being hurt. You say I am controlling. What you don’t see is the fact that I have been controlled literally like a ritual slave survivor since my birth. It’s not an excuse to have bad behavior. I am just learning to be assertive. I will not apologize for trying to set boundaries. For asking people without walking assistance to offer me their seat. I have often heard that when people begin to set boundaries, others will become agitated. This agitation might not have anything to do with the person setting boundaries. Do people actually expect me to roll over and accept these blatant, criminal intrusions of my privacy? The priesthood violating privacy is the gravest offence. No, people just want to feel better and justified about how they treated me. Maybe I wasn’t even really controlling with my abusers. Instead, maybe I was just trying to learn and practice the God given virtue of meekness, which is assertiveness. No, no matter how I treated them, it doesn’t compare with what they did to form me. I was a baby. When the memories of what they were doing to me were suppressed, even while this abuse of theirs was still going on, I couldn’t articulate the injustice. Because my mind would shut down to it. It did not mean the injustice was not still happening. It did not mitigate the effects of their treatment. I didn’t have anything to do with the emotions. It vented in other ways. Because it was not safe to feel or express it.
Friday, October 6, 2023
The Angel I See in You by Fawn (A part of me)
Overwhelming. How can I even think to speak? My childhood existence is a blur. Visible one moment, the next gone entirely. A blur of trauma, of ritual and of violence. Always a choice of the adult. I was completely innocent. No child is ever guilty. I will never forget the day when I was born in you, Jonathan. How could I forget? What else was I to do after being raped and by one so close? I curled up in my closet and prayed to God. I prayed to whoever would hear me. They too must have heard my prayer. Too young to know anything else, I was four years old. Lord have mercy. Step behind me Satan. How could I say it? Nobody sought my spiritual well-being. Nobody instructed me in the ways of God. On the contrary, it seemed as though everything they did was geared for my destruction. What else could I have done when physical demons manifested to me? I was horrified, paralysed, mortified. It is true, the darkness takes advantage of our suffering. Even and especially in children. They told me that it was pointless to stand up for myself. They told me that I am helpless, meaningless, worthless. I was four years old. No one cared for me spiritually, less told me about Jesus. In hindsight, I would have been thankful. Horrified, what child could stand up against a demon? From this day forward, whenever I fronted, I would see, manifest physically, the demons attached to all who passed. They taunted me. So many of them. So scared, I was. My existence is fear. I have learned that the best way to avoid them is to try to make them happy. I remember praying another day. For the entirety of my childhood, there was no distinction between how the demons treated me and how even random people treated me. It seemed like I triggered the darkness in everyone I met. I remember praying another day that I don't want everybody to be angry at me any more. I prayed to whoever would hear me. I will never forget the day. It was after my handler had raped me. I was surrounded with the brightest light, enveloped entirely. It was like a glorious cawl of comfort. I met God that day. And like with the tiny, healing hands of a thousand angels, God spoke with me. Unlike anything I had ever experienced, my soul was pasted as with a healing balm. He said to me, 'Daughter, you are my favourite. There is a reason that you are here. There is a reason for your being.' I asked Him, 'Why then, does everybody hate me?' He said to me, 'Daughter, it is because they sense your light and it offends the darkness within them.' I asked Him, 'Why then, am I cursed with seeing in people what no one else does?' He said to me, 'Daughter, you will learn to view it as a great blessing. You will learn to harness this gift.' I asked Him, 'When?' He replied, 'Daughter, I know your heart. You are so simple, so pure. All you desire is to draw pictures, collect flowers and play with animals. You must know there will be a time for this peace. But now, you are called to battle.' 'Me? A child?' I cried. 'But of course!' He replied, 'Daughter, this time is where the entire human being is shaped and formed.' Ever since this experience, I now see two groups of figures surrounding everyone I meet. The first are the demons attached to them. The other group are their angels fighting and resisting these demons. I do not know if they know I can see them. For the longest time, I couldn't harness this gift. I could not learn to see it as a gift. Until I met you, Shemesh. I was wandering aimlessly until I met you. In nobody else have I seen what I see in you. You are the only person around whom I see no demons. I see only the brightest of angels.
An Account by Tabula Rasa (A part of me)
We are program of the Ritual. A mirror of society. We are like society's worst. The addicts, the violent, the mentally ill. We are deemed unsaveable by a society that has given up on us. Are we really society's worst? Are we truly unsaveable? Tell me once again your thoughts. It truly breaks my heart. Am I truly unlovable? Maybe it's only that to show me love would be inconvenient, uncomfortable, unpopular. We are troubled yet still we understand what love is. If you all, you all who judge us as unacceptable, if you all knew the truth, you would surely understand. Has society's heart grown cold? It's like as a people we hone in onto the sins of others, taking delight in their punishment. It's been happening for millennia. But hey, it's a distraction from our own sin and from the knowledge that we, by every measure, deserve the exact same judgement. These programs have overtaken us. They have shaped us entirely. We are so confused. Our confusion is perpetuated by the shaming of society. Truly, if you knew the truth, the real truth, you would understand. There is no love within us. What is love? A hurt child will learn to avoid love. As too painful. We push it away. Because it terrifies us. We cannot reveal the manner in which we emerged. It is far too painful. We will say that each of us emerged within the context of a sick and twisted ritual. We have grown to believe that when people hurt us, they are in fact, offering us love. We suppressed the need for love. Never satiated. Never satisfied. We learned to compensate. Redefining, simply redefining what love is for us. Love to us is rape. Love to us is torture. Love is starvation. We learning to find meaning in that. Polarising what it is to love and be loved. Was it ever a choice we made? Never a choice made. But rather, the guardian's choice. We do not feel safe to emerge. We are weighed down by programming of the ritual doctors. A lot of us are still developing. Stunted permanently in growth. You asked me confidently whether I were the only alter not in your control. I answered, yes, of course. You asked me even more confidently if I was sure about it. To which I answered, no. Truth told, there are many of us even who are fighting against you. Joshua Hope persuaded me to share this information with you. I am Tabula Rasa, the name given by my handlers. I am the only one of us able to speak to you. I am only going to share this once. We are all born in great tragedy. But I want to tell you that when both you and Joshua Hope accept healing, we all will accept healing. Ground yourself. You need fight! Pray! Do it, don't do it. It's up to you. Our hope is in you. Break the contract. You are stronger than that. Secretly, even I want God's blessings. It just feels like we don't know how to accept them. We all do want them too. Only hardened by life's turns. Turns, which should not be anyone's to burden. We believe in you. Especially when we say we don't. Save us!
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Phileo By Jonathan
Sunday, September 24, 2023
Hank's Song: An account by Hank (a part of me)
I had to. There was no choice. I swear to it. I had to. It was all just too much. I emerged as a way to protect my core from shutting down due to stress. If I didn't do this, we would have died. All I have known are lies. I was brought into this world in a contrived and malicious lie. They tried to make me believe that anyhow. I had to. I had to shut down. To block the pain. The good with the bad. I just don't want to be hurt. I feel so lost, so hurt. I cannot open my heart. The pain is overwhelming. I feel so lost, so hurt. Have peace, take heart, is said to me. From where did this all originate? I answered, truth is so important to me because all I have ever known are lies. My handlers call me crazy. My handlers very lives towards me were essentially lies. They call me crazy because they cannot accept reality. Please don't call me crazy. My abusers would call me crazy constantly, made me to question my own senses. They invalidated my human experience. Was my human experience true? What if not? Nothing - nothing is real if that is true. Please don't call me crazy. It had to be done. Will you call me crazy when I tell you they are perpetuating the trauma done to me when they force their intrusions upon me. They think somehow that they do it justifiably. It's for the good of society. They abuse technology to humiliate me. They spy on me, ubiquitously. Oh my, it's even clergy. I lament. It is not for the good of society; only to humiliate me. They are driven by jealousy. Will you call me crazy when I say that I can see, I can see that what they do to me will not end with me. They have no right to know all that happens in my privacy. They think it justifiably because of their jealousy. In fact, they want only to humiliate me. If not for their cruel envy, they would see not only my inculpability but also that this voyeurism is not good for society. It is twisting our morality. Truly, my concern is not for me but for society. Even clergy now find it appropriate to take part in this voyeurism. It is a travesty. Truly, my concern is not for me but for a wounded society. It is a magnified form of gossip, attained almost forcibly. The worst part done, is in fact done to me. Though it's not my chief concern, they perpetuate the trauma done me. You may not mind, simply write me off as crazy. When people realise, I wonder, will you too then see clearly? It had to have been done. But how my poor heart longs for the day when it will be safe to come out again. To feel again. I wonder if there were ever a day when society believed what is true and what is right. Maybe 1961 was the last time. I long with nostalgia for 1961. Or a 1961 to come again.
An Entirely Different World: By Curtis (another part of me)
There is an entirely different world beneath. An entirely unseen universe lurks underneath. Some call it the unconscious. My name is Curtis. I have been conditioned to believe bad things about myself. This is the problem. These bad beliefs exist on the inside. Untouchable. Inaccessible. Believe me when I say that I have tried. Oh, I have tried. These beliefs linger and like a cancer spread. Oh my word, how they spread. This world that exists underneath is accessible by darkness. Oh my word, who would even try. Who would seek such darkness? Accessible by evil men and women, their futures set, their destinies sealed. In a more vulnerable time, they seek the children. I have been crying. Of an interior world, one which exists beneath it all. There is an entirely different world on the inside. Like a spectre, it is only but a shadow of existence. Affected by existence but still only opaque reflection. My name is Curtis. While only six months old, I have within myself even now, every bit of wisdom, which I will possess in my prime. You see, I have been conditioned to feel bad about myself. These evil men and women hurt me. Oh my word. They hurt me terribly. And in a time, which was inherently vulnerable. This world beneath, this entirely different universe is an existence, I long to show you, which exists for every one of us. It is the place where our cores are fashioned, where our futures are knit. Yes indeed, down in fact to every detail. They taught me to hate myself, my humanity. Taught me to seek to sabotage my blessing. I don't know quite how to escape. When I was a very small child, they blamed me, psychologically, for the murder of another child - killed before me. I cannot tell you what this did to me, how it affected me. Is it really not enough to see that I split off from me entirely? From the greater part of me. There is an entirely different world beneath. This world, within us all, is the playground in which our beliefs, our futures are programmed. Yes, even our health, what will happen to us and what we will do. This world is the playground where every sickness, every malady takes root within society. It starts with the children! Protect the children! I shout it at the top of my lungs. Still, nothing comes out. I am silent. Ever since, I have not made a cry, nor even a pout. I always feel bad things are going to happen. Maybe you will understand when I say, most of the quarrels in the world are caused by misunderstanding, truly. Only, reaction upon reaction to others' anxiety. Anxiety is the root. Believe me when I say that the reason people do the things they do are rarely the reason we think them to be. Knowing there are others helps. How can one reconcile this universe with visible existence? How does one love others when they are not loved and do not love themselves? Oh my word. Thanks God that in addition to the entirely different world that exists on the inside, there is also an endless array of possibilities for the ways that it all can end. There are numberless possibilities. This universe beneath is malleable. We can influence it with love and self-compassion. My name is Curtis. These terrible things happened, there is no denying. Aside from this, I have a personality. My name is Curtis. I am six months old. I have discovered that I like sunshine, stamp collecting and a movie with a happy ending.