Krúos

“Wait, WHAT DO YOU MEAN (bilingual alter) WON’T WAKE UP WE HAVE A TEST TODAY!!!!!”

“…who put the body on a roof again?”

“uh…”

“GODDAMMIT (teenage alter) WHAT DID WE TELL YOU”

“…no, no (little), go to bed, it’s past your–No you can’t stay up the body is doing adult stuff– JUST GO TO BED!”

“questions we ask the host: what’s for dinner? what’s this word? who’s this? how do we talk to this person? what’s the equasion for this? things we ask (older alter): where’s the host?”

“okay, careful, careful, careful…AND WE’VE OFFICIALLY GOTTEN OUT OF BED, GOOD WORK PEOPLE, I’M PROUD OF YOU!”

“why is everyone asleep it’s literally 7pm?”

“why is everyone awake it’s literally 3am?”

“can everybody shut up I’m trying to front”

“CAN EVERYBODY SHUT UP THIS IS IMPORTANT”

arguments about what to do

including over what we eat

arguments over going to friends’ houses

PLEASE don’t tell me they’re real. don’t tell me about your spiritual beliefs while i’m talking about them.

don’t tell me the shadow people are demons or aliens or from another dimension.

don’t tell me the world might actually be fake, or send me real life matrix conspiracy theories right after i’ve told you they’re a trigger.

it may be funny to you, when i have to sit against a wall so i know nothing’s behind me, or when i wear long sleeves to ignore the bugs under my skin, but it’s horrible for me.

it’s hard enough to convince myself that they’re not real, i don’t need someone else telling me i’m just seeing into another dimension or some shit and ending up back in a psych hospital.

me, neurodivergent, has consistently hyperfixated on media ever since i developed cognitive thought:

traumatic memories, especially traumatic memories from when you were a child, are notoriously difficult to access in their entirety. there are a lot of reasons for this- dissociation, injury, and memory deteriorating over time to name a few- and this can present a challenging question to survivors: how do i know i’m not lying?

people who are faking trauma or mental illness in general know they’re faking it. if you didn’t wake up one day and plan out what a fake traumatic memory you were going to have, and all the triggers you wanted to have, then you’re not faking. 

"ah, a returning donation! thats a 'shut up im trying to sleep' from wit! thanks i wont !"

Something I wish both the people I left behind in the church and the people I met after leaving understood is that I have good memories. I have absolutely amazing memories. Some of these memories many of the secular people I met give the side eye, and these are also the memories those still enmeshed point to as a reason it wasn’t that bad.

But these good memories don’t always feel good. That’s something that’s hard for people to understand. Sometimes these memories bring me a smile and fondness, sometimes they feel a like a rope tightening around my throat.

It’s so frustrating because I wish that they were one or the other, but they’re not.

The positive memories don’t outweigh the negative experiences and the negative experiences don’t have to engage the positive ones.

Trauma isn’t black and white. Perceptions of memories can change. That’s okay. Trauma is complicated. Life is complicated. We’re allowed to have had good memories in toxic places. We’re allowed to look back in different ways. We’re allowed to feel how we feel.