this photo is from about a year and a half ago, when i went with gk for work he had up north. gk was working. no other humans were in view. i was walking along the beach by myself at lowtide, and was startled by sudden movement. as far as the eye could see, there were little blue crabs. their bodies looked like pieces of turquoise. i suppose they were camouflaged, since they were the same colour as the sky and water. it was an unexpected thing. i had never seen anything like it. i only had a cheap camera with me, and i tried to get a close photo, but this was the best i could do. i didn't have much time. the crabs were startled by my presence, and scuttled away very quickly, and this set off chain reactions with regards to all the little crabs far off into the distance. you can't really see how beautiful the crabs were.
i'm not feeling particularly crabby (ugh, that's pretty lame), but i've decided to provide something for people to look at because i'm rambling on and on today, it's all pretty boring, and i feel self- conscious about it. the photo is sort of here to draw attention away from all of it. my depression hasn't let up at all. i don't know why i can write, but bear in mind it's a very mindless kind of writing, something i can do even though i'm so depressed i can barely move. i'm trying to preoccupy myself before my appointment.
i wake up with a feeling of dread. how the fuck am i going to get through the day? and i crave some kind of pleasure or release, and start thinking about food, but know i can't have anything except healthy meals. the cravings are with me all day. i walk around like an automaton. the daily routine is set out for me and i can follow it while dodging the mines without too much expenditure of energy. but it feels like something is pushing on me, pushing me into the ground. i feel so heavy. my eyelids droop, my face droops, it feels like all of me is drooping. i don't know how i stand up. at the same time, i feel incredibly fragile, like if someone touched me or yelled boo i'd shatter into a million pieces.
i keep looking at the clock. how much more of this day do i have to endure? i try not to think of the days after today, but i can't help it, it all stretches out in front of me like a neverending horror movie. when i'm exercising, i count the minutes. i am not over-exerting myself. i take my pulse and note my body's reactions, and i'm being very sensible. when i finish, i feel relieved, but there's no feeling of accomplishment, and the physical sense of well-being is overshadowed by the gargantuan depression. fuck, i need to try to get up and have a shower now. and the idea of that just seems overwhelming.
walking around the neighbourhood at night, going for a drive, watching a movie, they are all things to do, but all things in which time and endurance are not out of my mind. how much longer can i do this. today i found the words 'i want someone to kill me' on repeat in my mind, like some kind of mantra.
i have thought a little of cutting lately, but i don't feel like i have the energy to cut. and i don't really want more scars, i guess. last year i made a few new ones, big ones, and while they were healing, they were incredibly itchy, for months. they still itch now at times, and still look an angry purple when i'm cold. i think mostly i just want food.
if i were in some kind of life and death situation that involved a group of people, i could be absolutely trusted not to eat more than my share of food. i don't think it's the hunger pains or weakness that cause me to give in. it's the emptiness, the meaninglessness. with nothing to do all day long, no real reasons to do anything, all i can do is think about the psychological craving to stop pain. i'm not sure how it works with alcohol and drugs, but for me, the cravings do not stop. each meal is a trial. i think i get through the days in part because of the structure of my relationship with gk. if he was not in the house, i would be helpless against even the food i despise and do not find at all appealing. i think the idea of his displeasure and disgust probably inhibits me to some extent. i don't know how to explain that. it's like i can even remember once when living alone i tried to keep 'safe' foods, and what i'd found 'safe' turned out to be potatoes, carrots and apples. but when i was desperate, i'd even binge on those things. no, i didn't have butter or anything else for the potatoes. trying to throw those things up was pretty disgusting and painful. sometimes too impatient to even let the potatoes cook all the way through. just the desperation, needing the behaviour.
next day: i woke up early today and could not get back to sleep because of all the horrible thoughts in my head. i decided to get up and exercise, have a shower, etc. in less than 24 hrs (at the time i finished writing it's more like 16), i will be out of the doctor's office. i'm nervous that i will need more tests, or something i hadn't counted on. i don't want to go, but i think i will probably end up going.
gk and i talked for a long time last night, and i feel less pressure now. i think he really wants to see me do what i think i want to do, but i think he can probably handle my presence for another few months even if i can't be who i want to be.
when gk and i were in tennant creek, a little aboriginal girl asked me why i had my labret. she didn't refer to it by name, she just pointed to it. i thought it was a good question, but i couldn't figure out how to answer her on the spot. her mother seemed slightly embarrassed that her child was being so nosy, and seemed to almost apologize for her. i wish i had been able to answer the girl better, instead of mumbling some lame response, but here is my answer now, as well as i can organize it:
the labret and navel piercings represent slightly different things to me, but when i finally got them done i think it was in part about trying to hold onto some sense of self when i came to australia, and in part about marking the experience, a rite of passage. i wanted the experience of structured, chosen pain, and something physical to look at, a reminder, some kind of symbol to stand for what i'd gone through in my life, and what i had wanted. i came to australia with very little personal money, and i spent the last of what i had left on the piercings. i didn't think i was being 'cool' or 'fashionable'. i don't think it's particularly fashionable for a woman my age to do this sort of thing. and i wasn't trying to recapture lost youth. if anything, i had the idea that most people would see me as silly for doing something like this to myself at my age. but what it represented to me was that i was taking a stand. there was no going back. i wasn't going back to canada, and i wasn't going back to appearing as someone who superficially at least fit in. my normal appearance just sort of blends into the background at times, and i wanted there to be at least a little jarring, with the hopes that i'd be inspired to take things further. i wanted to make it clear that i wasn't afraid to ruin my chances with 'normal' people. anyway, that was my intent, but maybe it wasn't the smartest way to try to attempt to communicate all that.
[25/03/05: i removed the labret today. i'd had it for almost 4 1/2 years. in all that time, i guess i never got around to doing much to make my appearance less 'normal', except in images. i feel depressed about it, but my gums in front became irritated. i'd been putting off making a decision about it, in case i managed to kill myself. anyway. it already seems to feel a lot better to have it out.]
i have wanted to have a few tattoos for some time. i kept waiting for inspiration, to know exactly what i wanted tattooed to myself. or to perhaps have contact with some person who would draw one for me that i'd like, some person who was important to me. maybe i would find the pain uncomfortable, but for some reason in my imagination i've seemed to eroticize the experience. i guess now i feel worn out. i don't have any ideas, and i don't want to get a tattoo just for the sake of getting a tattoo. i want the tattoo to have some meaning to me. and then.. the idea of finding a tattoo artist i could be comfortable with.. i'm not even sure if that's possible. and tattoos take a lot longer than piercings, so if i was not comfortable with the artist, i could be reminded of a bad experience every time i looked at the tattoo.
with the labret, the pain was clean, clear, sharp, exquisite. there was a kind of perfection to it. the navel was a little more unfocused. i first did my navel myself either just before or on my 29th birthday. i had decided previously that i would not live to be older than 28, and it was highly distressing to me that i hadn't been able to kill myself. i felt that was old enough, i didn't want to get any older, and i'd been seriously suicidally depressed already at that point for at least 5 years, and i'd accomplished nothing at all. i spent all my time gazing at my navel. i already had the feeling every day that i just couldn't go on. when i wasn't able to kill myself, i needed to do something to mark the occasion. it was a kind of desperation. maybe that's what it was, i needed to do something to mark how significant it was to me, how painful it was to me that i hadn't killed myself. it was quite a struggle, and i think it took something like an hour for me to get a thick sewing needle all the way through.
the piercing only lasted half a year. it rejected, the skin growing thinner and thinner, and left an interesting scar. the navel piercing i have now is healed and i have no problems with it. i wanted the piercing so badly that i was willing to give up the idea of strenuous exercise for a year. excessive heat and sweating seemed to cause problems and mess with healing. so all i did that year was walk with gk. the labret has caused some gum erosion for my bottom two front teeth. i don't really worry about it because i keep thinking i'll die before long. i don't have any problem with oral sex at all, i don't even notice the labret unless i make a conscious effort and there's definitely no discomfort whatsoever, but when it comes to kissing, if there is roughness or an unexpected angle with too much pressure, it can sometimes hurt a little when my gums are knocked by the labret backing. i could begin vomiting again about a month after i was pierced, and it didn't seem to ever cause any problems. one of my reasons for getting a labret was partly that.. to force myself to avoid vomiting, because when i moved in with gk and left canada behind, i went through a really bad bulimic phase. it helped for a while, but ultimately i don't think it helped much.
when living alone, without another person's likes and dislikes to influence me, my food situation is weird. i haven't ever been able to store things for regular daily meals. i can't store condiments, or other odds and ends either. definitely not baking supplies. i just always seem to want to buy fun food. i do sometimes buy safe foods, but i don't want to. the pattern is that i'll have a really big food orgy day or maybe a few, then starve for a while. it will seem the only way i can manage things. i don't want to go through that kind of starvation again now. it scares me. i know there were always things about it i liked. i liked the feeling of emptiness after a really long fast. i liked the tight, small feeling of my body. i liked looking thin. there was sometimes more to it as well. psychologically.. maybe there was some kind of high, almost spiritual. but there was so much time alone, with nothing to do except think about how hungry i was, and how alone i was. even with the positives, i still feel afraid to face that kind of aloneness again. in part that may be because i know that i will only be able to live like that a while, and then i will become homeless, unless something intervenes, and i really wouldn't count on something intervening.
chocolate chip cookies. for bingeing, most of the time i really don't like to have to do any cooking or baking. often when i'm really panicked i just can't manage to relax enough to get recipes right. also, i tend to find it unsatisfying to have to prepare the food. i want it already done for me, like someone else is taking care of me. but weirdly, lately i seem to keep craving homemade chocolate chip cookies. i'm not sure why that is, because i'm not sure that as a food they even rank close to my favourites category, and my current recipe isn't anything special. but maybe it's something that keeps me preoccupied. it takes a while to mix the ingredients and do the baking and cleanup, and i can eat some warm (often with coffee), and then some later (often with coffee). i like them both ways. i've been trying to think about what this craving might represent.
i used to bake cookies for my family, but since my father's favourite was oatmeal with raisins, i think i made those most often. i preferred chocolate chip, although i did like the oatmeal raisin ones. when one of my brothers was in university, i remember that i baked a lot of cookies for a 'care package' that my stepmother organized. later on, i remember receiving a letter from my brother in which he had included a subliminal message - he had written across the main body of the letter in yellow highlighter pen sideways. he wrote something like: 'send cookies. lots of cookies. singing chocolate chip cookies.'
i felt protected on this shaded veranda. i could peer out and find the world beautiful. gk has work coming up near here again, and if i want i can stay here again. this is the same place where i saw the crabs while i was walking along the beach. i think i want to go, but i'm not sure i will be ready, or feel in control enough of myself.
i had a really good time while i stayed here, and i wasn't even thin. i didn't exercise beforehand, i didn't attempt to cut back my food intake, i just packed in an unconcerned sort of manner, and went as i was (about 120 lbs). and i was more relaxed than i've been during most trips. it's not something that i think can be repeated just like that. when i say that i had a really good time while here, it needs to be qualified a bit. when i remember anything, usually it seems to me that my stress outweighs everything else. i think it still did on this occasion, but not by as wide a margin. part of why i had a good time relates to the fact that this was when my coffee addiction began.
i sat on the porch reading, venturing out a little, but feeling protected. i didn't see very many people. this is the time when i started to drink coffee every day. i hadn't had much in the past. only a couple of times with gk, and then for about a week once. back then, coffee didn't seem to cause the same sort of problems for me that it does now, but it was probably because i hadn't become excessive with it yet. during this trip, i had coffee every morning with gk. he had to get up early to work, and i thought it would be better if i stayed up all day so that i'd be able to sleep at night. and coffee gave me this incredible high. it was very conducive to daydreaming. i was reading anaïs nin's 'a spy in the house of love', and i was genuinely enjoying it. it's really rare for me to be able to say that. i've tried to avoid reading for a long time because i realized i was trying to read things i didn't really enjoy just to try to round out my brain, or have something to brag about, in a sense, if i ever had the opportunity. but also, i just didn't have the energy to look for books, and i didn't have the necessary concentration level to read.
after that trip i used coffee to help me through things. like sanding floors, painting my room, etc. otherwise, i wouldn't have imagined where i could get the energy. but i didn't really drink coffee by itself. it was more like i made hot chocolate with a bit of instant coffee in it, and then kept increasing the amount of instant coffee. i liked the taste and the kick. what i've since found is that for some reason, brewed coffee doesn't seem to provoke as many outbreaks as instant, and so now i try to just make brewed coffee. i like to make cappuccino. so i put some coffee on and froth some milk, and then i sprinkle cocoa on top. but it takes a lot of effort to wash everything up. but i very much like the smell and taste of real coffee. of course, i'm not drinking any of it now. i will probably have it on vacation again. i think it makes vacations better. i don't seem to develop many sores when drinking real coffee regularly or excessively, but i do usually experience the itchy- tingly sort of thing a bit. anyway, when i try to detox, it seems it's much sooner that i can start having sex again when it's real coffee that i'm giving up.
i really don't think i could read anais nin's journals now. i've read them in the past, and i think now i wouldn't have patience. i think i could read more of her novels. maybe it was just the coffee.. but i felt at home reading 'spy in the house of love'. i didn't relate to the need for deception. i wanted to have many lovers and different experiences, but not to have to lie about them. i wanted a different kind of freedom. but i think she probably understood a certain something about mystery, and art.. and it's like i can never come close to having the kind of quality she had because of a kind of boringness. maybe it's a lack of intelligence or artistic sensibility. what i identify with is something i wrote about recently, how for some of us it may be possible to feel that we've lived many lifetimes in one life through the contact we've had with lovers, and also the idea that relationships can't stand the pressure of constant analysis and fixation, and that this accelerates their endings.
maybe it seems that my attitude is that i've completely sold out (worse than ever before) by marrying to save myself from homelessness and that i've lost self-confidence as a result (i think that's true to some extent), but it's a lot more complex than that to me, and i think that in part it was a drastic way of seeking some kind of healing at the expense of some other ideas that i thought were important to me. i guess i adapted to new opportunities, new information, and while perhaps that doesn't sound too flattering, to some extent it represents that my mind was capable of being open enough to gauge my abilities and weaknesses realistically, adapt, take a risk, and see if there was another way for me of looking at life.
my relationship with gk has brought me to an environment where a distressing lifelong health problem (skin condition) has cleared up. we're creative together, have done a lot of cooking together, and have worked on various websites together and taken a lot of photos together. we've travelled together. before, gk didn't have a travelling companion. and he's also helped me to have something of a voice. i was isolated, completely alone, and much too apathetic and energyless to make a website on my own, but when i had access to his knowledge and digital camera, i was suddenly able to do things i wouldn't have thought possible before, and now i have the opportunity to try to record something that has been important to me - dancing. i suppose that sounds fairly calculating - but in the beginning i had no conscious awareness that i was even ready for a relationship, and i tried very hard to scare gk away.. i guess the survival instinct is an ugly thing at times, but it seems like both gk and i do get something out of our partnership (although it is hard for me to be objective about what exactly it is that he gets out of being with me), and i don't think either of us is close to free of sentimental attachment. i feel like i want to stay with him a while longer. to live out this one aspect of life a little more fully. i really don't know what will come next, though.
sometimes i want to be locked up and fed a predetermined amount of food at various intervals through the day, but not locked up in a hospital. i want to be locked up in some weird way, by some strange person who has an intuitive understanding of my personality. i want somehow there to be a necessity for me to have to exercise a certain amount. first, i'd like a last food orgy, then i'd focus mentally, and consent. i guess it would be sort of like detox. i think i'd have to commit to at least a few months and there could be no mercy, but it's like it would need to continue until i felt at last, ok, this is the best i can do with my body. but also, at that point, i wouldn't be ready for the world if i was constantly feeling like i was going to lose control. so i'd have to do it long enough so that i'd feel more confident that i could live at least for a while like that, and somehow these details would have to be worked out.
it's not really practical to do it here, and i don't think it would be fair to put that kind of responsibility on gk. it would be too iffy here.. if i had my own self-contained apartment within the house, it might be easier, but as things stand i'd have to be let out to use the bathroom if i were locked in my room, and i can see that leading to me pushing the boundaries. and in the end, i'd probably still be the same person. i think the issue is that it's a little weird to lock your wife in a room in this day and age, even if she consents to it and it might actually improve her health. the idea of being locked in a hospital is not at all what i want. i cannot improve in that sort of setting, and it ends up being an incredible waste of time and medical resources to force it on me against my will. i need more privacy, and i need more 'open' attitudes than what i've seen offered in hospitals, and in addition, just the stress of being around so many people would be more than i could handle, and it's like i'd be starting off with ideas i don't accept in the first place.
[added 07/01/05: when things are even worse than usual, i sometimes wish someone would take care of me in that sort of way. experiments with gk have shown that i need an extreme level of commitment to the idea, on both our parts, or it won't work. i would definitely need to be locked into some kind of self-contained apartment and the rules and limits would have to be very clear, and extreme. i wouldn't have problems making up a detailed plan for a period of a few months, and even providing alternate food suggestions if certain things aren't available, and making up alternate solutions for other potential problems. all of this beforehand, before consenting to the situation. but if i can come out of the room, i'm going to push the boundaries. now, of course i realize that this situation is not going to help me with all of the issues that seem related to the eating disorder in the first place, eg, stress related to dealing with people. so my self-chosen incarceration is not a realistic plan for learning to cope with life or food in the longterm. i guess at best what it could be would be an extreme measure to help my body regain a kind of health or strength, which might in turn help me in other areas. it might also be of some help in dealing with my overwhelming sense of failure relating to all the other things i've tried.
when i think about that kind of situation, though, i think of it with a certain end in mind. that the situation would help me get strong enough to finally go through with my last few creative projects, and then kill myself. or just kill myself.
when it comes to just my creative projects, there's a definite problem i see. even if the whole plan comes from me, and i work out all the details, i think i might have psychological issues with needing so much help to carry the plan out, to the extent that the creativity will be affected in a way that cancels out some of what i think i'm sort of aiming at. i'm not sure, but i think that for these last few things, i might need to find something within myself so that a certain part of the last effort comes from me. i think also it may be possible that my creativity comes from the tweaking or emphasis of the disturbance in brain patterns, and that if i were too 'healthy' i wouldn't have the potential to get to what i personally want to express. so i sort of wait for everything to align just so, so that it all comes together for a moment.
if i were discovered in a semi-catatonic state, or in some kind of extremely poor condition, i would probably respond to someone taking care of me in this sort of way, though. i would probably eventually recover to the extent that i could participate more in helping someone to help me.
as for anything longterm, there are so many issues, and my patterns are pretty firmly entrenched. in addition to stabilizing my food intake over an extended period, with the goal of helping me to stay at a weight/fitness level that i accept, what i see is that i'd totally need to rebuild everything, almost from scratch. i'd need to find ways of interacting with the world, and people, and i'd need the feeling that there was at least some stability in my life - that some relationships were going to last. if someone could guide me, i could probably try to make lists of potential interests, and ideas about how to approach them. but it's like i'd need my hand held. i think potentially there are still a lot of books i'd read, but i'm not sure any more how to find them. so i think i'd need help in figuring that out.
i have tried a lot of this with gk. there is the potential for the whole situation to be taken further, but i think maybe i'm avoiding the issue. i don't think i really want to be helped in this way. it's like a potential way to make my life better if i have to be alive, but i think what i want is to finish a couple of projects and die.
one really big issue that i can't really see any way around is the getting older thing. i just don't see any way i'm going to be able to cope with it, not really, not deep down. and i'm hoping that i kill myself. trying to think about it... maybe the problem with getting older is thinking i missed any chances i had, and if i could 'accomplish' something that felt significant enough to me, like maybe filming the dancing, it might help me to cope somehow. it might help me to let go of a certain part of my life, and move on to another level.
but i think part of what i feel i've missed is the love of my life. it's like i feel i was born for something i haven't experienced yet, that i actually am realistically capable of experiencing something that i just haven't been lucky enough to experience. and without that, it's like getting older will only seem painful. i know the kind of creature i am, and getting older eliminates the possibility of important aspects of this thing i was looking for. it's not that i can't see what other kinds of love there are, it's not like i can't see that adaptation is possible, but honestly, there is a certain part of experience that would resonate with who i am at a very fundamental level, and i don't think i'll ever be able to say that i don't want it. but time is running out. for it to be even remotely like i want it to be.
and the main thing is, i'm too attracted to the other side. i don't want to explore my healthy or realistic options in life. i get stuck running over the same old ground, and as usual i look like an idiot going through all the possibilities and complications, when at the core, the core of what i want doesn't change. and i think also i live with a level of discomfort that is abnormal and feels like a constant state of torture, without enough of anything that feels like a reprieve. if i were to take drugs, i'd always develop a tolerance, and would have to take increasing doses, or search for new drugs. it's the same for ways of coping with life, it becomes an ongoing struggle to find ever new ways of coping on a day-to-day basis. realistically, i don't think this can be solved, and the effort expended does not seem to be worth the results, and is incredibly draining in itself and adds to the discomfort.
and so it's just a question of how well i really know myself, i guess. it's like i need direct questions, in order to be able to reach for new parts of it all. i can play a mind-reading game, and tackle some of the things that seem to jump out at me, but my thoughts go in so many directions, so many possibilities and maybe i seem to miss things, and maybe i actually do, maybe i don't. anyway, for anyone who feels lost, i'm just conversing with the voices in my head, trying to ask them to speak up a little, or something, because something's getting through, but i'm having trouble making it out. ;>]
when i wrote the other day that i have even less of an idea of what's going on in the world than i did before, i did not mean to connect that to television.. i was fairly unclear. i don't think people get an accurate idea of what's going on in the world by watching television. but there are some things you absorb, even if it's about what products are being advertised, that give you an idea about what pressures are in fashion at present in a certain select part of the world, and whatnot. i guess i was trying to say that i'm woefully uninformed at best, even when i'm at my most informed. i think all issues are so complicated that they need indepth analysis, and i don't really know where i stand unless i know more than i know, and i don't know how it would be possible to gather all the essential information, even if i had a lot of energy.
i personally don't want war, don't want killing, maiming, pain, etc. and i'd rather just give up than have to slaughter anyone to prove my point, and see where things go from there, but maybe that has something to do on different levels as to why i'm so weak and unable to do anything in life. maybe there's a certain amount of aggression that has to be released in some way, and the ideas that are backed by the stronger humans are what lead to advances in the world, or continued survival of the human race. (i guess it could equally be a representation of some flaw inherent in humans that will lead to inevitable destruction of humankind.) possibly it's another representation of how we are more ruled by unconscious forces than we think, by things beyond what seems rational to consciousness considering what knowledge we currently have access to. or considering current morality. i don't know. i do not like to think that it's necessary to accept that that's just the way things are, and i think that if some people are 'sure' enough about what they believe, and have the energy, that it's good if they can apply pressure in various ways to put an end to bloodshed as a way of releasing natural human aggression/competitiveness.
yikes, and now i'm feeling embarrassed again at what a simpleton i am. i sometimes really do wish i could concentrate well enough to absorb more information, to think better, communicate what i do think better, to participate, or something. i just normally pathetically wish i could volunteer to be killed somehow.
i think of xesce as my real name. (it's elsewhere on the site, but i probably should have it in more than one place: it's pronounced 'zess'.) everyone i've had contact with for years now has called me xesce. i told the members of my family that i would like to be called xesce. for legal purposes and various other things i still occasionally have to use the name i was given at birth. i don't think people have to think of their birth names as their real names, though. i don't accept my parents' values, opinions, ideas about life, etc. i don't want to keep a name that they chose for me, a name that represents what they valued and what they wanted for me. i haven't ever really liked my birth name, (although for a time it was something of a relief that it was common enough not to be a source of teasing) and i've always wanted to change it. in addition to that, the experience with my father saying my name over and over is something that had a really big effect on me, and it was a definite factor in me wanting a new name. although, i think it's perfectly acceptable to want a new name just because you want something that expresses better who you think you are. it took me a very long time to be able to finally do it.
[note added 26/12/04: i'm uncomfortable with my statement that xesce is my 'real' name. i'm actually still awkward with it in some ways, but i think what i feel is that it is infinitely preferable to my birth name for me. i will tell people my birth name, but i become uncomfortable when someone seems to think they'll 'really' know me if they know that name. i think of xesce as representing something unknown, something i don't know how to define. it's not attached to a concept. jamie and i came up with it together while fooling around with letters. steward was the one who helped me to break it in, by making a conscious effort to constantly use it in emails. i want to thank both of them. i think i could let the name xesce go. i think it's possible to see names like clothing, even protective clothing. i've let things go in the past that give me a hint of what it would be like to let go of the name xesce, and all i've created around that concept. it could be a part of myself i've needed to develop in as much detail as possible. but i think part of what this vague concept entails is that it is a name that represents how i identify with or am influenced by so many different factors. maybe in this life, in this body, this name is as close as i can get to representing or summing up who i am in totality? if a name or word had to be attached to it? but that that doesn't mean at times i haven't needed to live out or won't need to live out more specific individual parts of who i am, possibly using different names, or that at times i wouldn't want to feel hemmed in by any name or word?]
i have problems with the idea that what a person 'really' looks like is only about what they look like without makeup. i don't think i've got any impressive examples of makeup application in the photos on this site (and in some cases i think it looks bad), but taking photos is difficult, and learning to make adjustments for photography is also difficult, and i'm still learning. anyway, i like to wear makeup, and i think i have a better chance of expressing who i think i am, who i want to be, with makeup than without it. it seems unfair to me that my efforts to disguise my father's features and to try to play up other features would be viewed as deception or trickery of some kind. to me, it seems like a creative way of trying to cope. and there's more to it than that. to make value judgments against makeup, which i think a lot of people do, is to deny that there are such things as competition, creativity, mating rituals, etc.
if a person seems to want to convince me that i look ok without makeup and that it's just my low self-esteem that makes me think i don't, i think they're missing the point. by wearing makeup i'm trying to express something i can't without it. i'm trying to attract people who might be looking for something similar to what i'm looking for. if a person wants a 'natural'-looking mate, a 'natural' sort of person, i am just not what the person is looking for. i'm not 'natural'. everything is a struggle for me, and i don't even want a 'natural' life. i think that surprises people. it's almost like they take for granted that everyone wants a simple life with no drama. i think it's ok to want someone to be comfortable with, to hang out with, etc, but i keep longing for some kind of excitement. in part, i think my grooming rituals represent that.
if what a person is trying to say is that they find my particular way of applying makeup excessive and/or not attractive, then i suppose that is something for me to consider. the thing is, i've tried applying makeup in so many different lights, and i'm just not sure how i appear. i would like to be more creative, but i don't have energy at this time.
if someone wants to see me in a lot of different ways, wants to understand all they can about me, i can understand that person wanting to show acceptance of me even without makeup, but i will admit that i'm just not all that comfortable if it's a big focus. i will just think that the person is looking for something i can't provide. it's like with the name.. i have to make a conscious effort to question all of the messages around me that say a 'real' name is what you're given at birth and not what you choose for yourself.
when i was in 4th grade, one day in class i put my head down on my desk and blurted out 'nobody likes me'. i think the teacher felt sorry for me, but those words came back to haunt me in the form of taunts from other children. i think that throughout my life sometimes people liked me, or that they liked me in the beginning. it's just that as they get to know me, their feelings change.
i can see how it would be difficult to like someone who is frequently unsure about whether she wants to continue to correspond or not, especially considering the ways i've expressed that to various people. i think most people are at least somewhat vulnerable, and i don't think many can handle that kind of seeming rejection, where i might take off at any time, leaving them stranded with partially or more than partially exposed feelings. i try to cut things off cleanly when i suspect i'm not going to be able to hold myself together well enough to deal with the chaos of my thoughts and feelings, but it can be so hard, because i do still have a human craving for comfort, understanding, feedback, friendship, and sometimes i screw up. i used to fantasize about being a good friend, all the little ways i'd show i cared, how well i'd listen, how i'd never give up on a person, how i'd try so hard to always express myself compassionately and with respect in regards to the other person, that i'd be an interesting and stimulating companion, etc. but the years of longing and isolation seem to have stolen those fantasies from me, and in practice i've always been a very undependable friend. i'm too much of a mess to offer anyone anything. i'm too panicked, too distressed.
do i like anyone? i like gk and i like various different people in different ways, but for the most part it's usually easier for me to appreciate people from a distance, when i'm not overwhelmed with stressful feelings and thoughts in uncontrollable directions. would i like someone like myself? probably not, and maybe that's part of why i want to die. i don't know. i can't get far enough outside of myself to really see myself, maybe. maybe i keep waiting for the qualities i have that i like to be wanted or needed, but i get the opposite message.
there are so many things i feel defensive about. if i were to die, and my family found my website (it's not hard to find my website, they all know my name and i think all have computers, but i don't think they've ever searched me - theoretically they could still search me while i'm alive), would they try to make me into a liar, or someone out of touch with reality? it's like i want to defend myself beforehand, because there will be no one else to defend me if i die. but i don't want to keep dredging up the past. i want to let it go. there are so many details i've omitted, and if i was challenged, i'm sure there would be so much more i could add to explain further, to complicate things further, or to show them to be even more complex. i just can't write it all at once. is there something that gets through about my basic personality without going into all the details? is it that i'm a weak, self-indulgent, apathetic, lazy, disgusting parasite? maybe. i don't know how to change.