final act of the freak show

hi im thalia, curator of this collection, theres a lot of shit in here i’ve learned over the yeaars trying to be kind to myself as best i can and enjoy life and be nice to other people and shit. this is what helps me do that i think. i have memory issues and this is all stuff thats been said before but i’m gonna put it in front of u in some somewhat neat somewhat messy piles. some of it probably has ssome academic backing or smth but i could never honestly tell you which parts i’m stealing and which parts im making up. try to read with an open mind lmao. that way i can really get my worms in u. i'm also typing this howeveer idrc my keyboard is weird sometimes n i jus let it do that if it wants. could also be my shaky hands. whaatever, call it a unique narrative voice

its gonna draw a lot on concepts i talked about with my class n they all probably have notes somewhere and they might notice similarities between this n like death of ivan ilyich, wit, trans a memoir, safe, the elephant man, stuff like 

disability (for me its h-eds, go google it, but like essentially its the youre in a doubtable amount of agony always disease its so fun)

transness

autism

ocd

cptsd

multiplicity

schizophrenia

depression / mania

borderline personality disorder

immune system / stress disorders

"hypochondria" (BULLSHIT concept)

mortality (confronting and embracing and resisting and whatever)

#thefreakshow (reassurance for able bodied folks that they are normal and not so unfortunate, a place for freaks to see themselves empowered through freedom from shame and monetary gain, an instance where someone is deemed abberant and laughed at, and all the cruelty that implies)

#caregiving the dynamic between a sick person (hi thats me) and their caretakers and people around them and doctors and such

#medicaldrive trying to become “healthy” in whatever that means

being #monstrous, inhuman, needing to be changed or fixed to be acceptable for society, having caretaking needs beyond what others are capable of, acting in strange or harmful ways, being visually unacceptable (elephant man)

#unseendescent living in a body you know to be certainly doomed while others insist on the lie of hope, refusing to mourn you with you before you leave (death of Ivan ilyich, butterfly and diving bell to an extent)

#butterfly having a vast internal life you have no way of externalizing, thru paralyzation of the body socially or physically (the diving bell and the butterfly, trans memior)

#intrainterpersonalvoid the great distances that can exist between a self, the surface of the self, and others (elephant man, the diving bell and the butterfly)

#selftorture finding joy in a monotonous or painful or humiliating or degrading or otherwise negative state of being (the diving bell and the butterfly)

self sacrifice for society, #martyrdom for academia and medicine and other institutions, the beauty of it when it is chosen and the horror when you are selected arbitrarily or otherwise for sainthood (wit, the silt verses)

#lonelyartiste dedication to a craft as isolative

#happyhermit isolative existences as bearable and free of judgement, but also as lonely and maddening

#amisafe drives for saftey, for hiding and running away from pain and fear and negativity and how that doesn't guarantee a better life, how it can easily lead to a more isolated life (safe)

#woundedchild disability feminizing all forms, how it makes one appear less strong or capable or trustworthy or autonomous, needing a caretaker (safe)

#woundeddog disability masculinizing all forms, driving us to seek strength and autonomy over others, to impose pain on them (death of Ivan ilyich)

#whereisme questions of where identity is stored in the body, whether it is the brain and the memories or the body and it's reactions

#dataerror dementia / alzhiemers, memory loss and the fear and distress it can cause the self and others

#erraticity parkinsons, mania, loss of control of the self and the body and the fear and distress it can cause the self and others

loving the body as an animal that once had a self attached to it, as a monument and memory of that self (a splinter of a dad is better than no dad at all from the diving bell and the butterfly

#interpersonaldependence, living in symbiosis / parasitism with those around us, communication and trust without judgement surrounding needs

#narrativizingillness telling stories, simplified or romanticised or wwhatever versions of the past, about ourselves to better understand how to move forward, relying on others to read that story and give us kind and helpful advice, sometimes by telling their own story

here's the playlist of songs that will eventually be featured on this blog for lyrical analyzation

questions of this text

which philosophical approaches help me to be kindest to myself?

which attitudes towards death and suffering free me most from fear and discomfort?

how can I inscribe my identity upon my body in a way that protects me from those that wish me harm and endear me to those who wish me well?

to what extent can my strategic mental frameworks ease and reinterpret my pain?

how do we find ourselves? through others? through experimentation? through reactive aversion?

how can we love those with monstrous qualities?

symbols to look for

things

houses - personification of the house, a body that is written upon and lived in, haunted by ghosts of all who have lived there, theres a great jacob geller video on this, bees are inseparable from beehives

technology - humans are inseparable from our technology, so it is part of our organism, the material world pushed through the filter of our consciousness, the computer as a part of the brain, a different storage location, medical advancements as facets of human existence without judgment, eg treatments and the states they leave us in eg prosthetics, plastic / top / bottom surgery, drugs like chemo, hrt, even medically unconventional drugs like alcohol and weed and such

burning / fire - self destruction / aggression, the stage before rebirth, the phoenix alight

life from death - flowers on graves, the stage after rebirth, the egg in the ashes, a new self from the old

eyes - perception and interpretation, scopophobia and agoraphobia as well as narcissism, desperation for it / repulsion from it

masks - the curated self as a performance for others, customer service voice, code switching, autism, the ability to be someone else with great effort

places

the void - you aren’t supposed to be here, biologically, socially, mentally, it is unsafe, if you're here you’re dead or dying, the further in you drift the farther you get from humanity at large, but we long for it nonetheless, the sea, substances, bliss, nirvana, euphoria from unorthodox sources, wonderful location for self destruction

the city - human community manifest, a place designed and intended for you, healing doctors and nourishing restaurants, togetherness, the further in you go the harder it is to get away from others, from perception, from judgement and laws

people

the internal family dynamics - seeing oneself as being made of the people who have been in your life, perspectives you have experienced the impact of, each can become overactive within the self, and overlap with the other in weight of presence at any given moment

inner caretaker - managing your self as one would a child, soothingly, that eases pain effortfully, operator the coping skills we have learned from others

inner child - the strong averse reaction to stimuli, the desire for petty comforts that must be indulged in from time to time, feels the things we need to cope with

inner aggressor - the averse reaction to self or others, Adrienne’s “dog” who tears at her sweater, the destructive responses to stimuli we have learned from others, death drive

inner protector

inner lover - the attractive reaction to self, others, or stimuli, the ability to appreciate and be drawn to, the positive, creative response to stimuli we have learned from others, life drive

inner animal - the unthinking, bodily response, the knee jerk, the growl of a stomach, the fur on your legs, the baseline default continuance, body without consciousness

feared self - the version of yourself avoided being, the most rejected version of the self, the negative aspects you think may be part of you, that you see in others and are repulsed by

desired self - the version of yourself striven to be, the positive aspects you don’t believe you have, that you see in others and desire them for

the monstrous - ways in which we are demonized and made to seem inherently cruel or evil, archetypes we are pushed into when we unsettle or harm others

werewolves - one who is inseparable from their feared self, inner animal, then inner aggressor, due to cultural pressures of perception and the confined space of the roles it is allowed in (dog or man), feral dominant dissociation during sex

dolls - one who is inseparable from their desired self, idealized moldable femininity, innocence and youth, due to cultural pressures of perception and the confined space of the roles it is allowed in (infant or maid) fragility passive submissive dissociation during sex

vampires - one who is inseparable from their feared self and desired self, inner caretaker, then inner lover, then inner aggressor, trust turned sour, an unbelievably talented and powerful and influential figure, plotter, schemer, keeper of eldritch knowledge that grants control of others, active dominant vocal intelectual presence during sex

sirens - one who is inseparable from their feared and desired self, inner child, then inner lover, then inner aggressor, alluringly talented in irresistible ways, love as illusion for predation, form that grants control over others, active submissive vocal intelectual presence during sex

parasite - any piece of the family dynamic can take this role and each do so in their own unique way, one who's interpersonal dependancy is greater than their capacity to contribute positively to those dynamics