I think I’m starting to figure out why I’m so reserved/”cold” emotionally.

When I was a teenager, like 13-15, I was a HOPELESS romantic. I would write fully fledged, and ultimately fully produced and orchestrated songs for my crushes and create massive works of art across a variety of mediums that took months, sometimes years, to complete, at an age when most boys couldn’t be arsed to get a girl flowers unless their mothers or sisters prompted them, ESPECIALLY if that girl scared them shitless.

And I was intense about this art. If someone inspired a piece, they’d probably end up knowing. I was intense about EVERYTHING. I was often the teachers’ favorite, I knew the answers to most questions, I HAD done the homework, I had an excellent memory, and I wasn’t afraid to kick anyone’s ass if and when it came time for trivia in almost any subject. I was a pompous dick about it, too 🤣 I was gonna win by a mile and I knew it. I wasn’t the type of person in high school that guys wanted to date. Be friends with, if they were daring, but not date.

The transition from hopeless romantic to cynic came at about age 16-17 after endless rejections and being told to tone myself down over and over. I began to hate my happy, romantic side. After one final diplomatic rejection from the guy I had written “My Island” about and being told to tone myself down one final time, I marched into my long term hairstylist’s office as soon as she was free and told her to cut all my damn hair off and give me the pixie cut I’d desperately wanted since my headmate Castor had cut our hair short like that when he was 10. I buried the rest of my sentimentality with that haircut, too, and started playing my cards close to my chest.

I still wrote huge things for my crushes, but that, too, stopped after I wrote my album The Places We Come Home To in 2018 for my first husband when I was 20.

I hated it so viscerally that it took two years to release a proper follow-up to it, Light on the Final Day, and I had written that record a few months BEFORE most of Places ever occurred to me.

It would take nearly three years after that for us to release any kind of proper follow-up to Light on the Final Day, something broke in me so badly. And it wasn’t even really me that wrote any of it, Metacognition (2023) is Eight’s masterpiece.

And for someone used to writing and recording several records a YEAR, this devastated me.

It’s taken being in several lovely partnerships to get me to uncover a FRACTION of that sentimentality. I still really can’t write happy things without cringing or feeling sick, but I’m getting there. I’m immensely grateful for their patience while I unfuck myself.

-Allēna

The person who broke me also taught me three things.

• ​How to hear truths when someone compulsively lies.
• ​The multidimensionality of song lyrics in forging meaning within music.
• ​How to think so little of myself that I will excuse my own sexual assault for a $15 car ride.

​Did you know catfish are apex predators that hunt and devour crabs? Crabs! The little sideways-waltzing dual pincer-wielding fencer crustaceans. Crazy right?

​Funny story: my astrological sign is Cancer. These days I find coincidences funnier than I used to.

#TraumaHealing #AbuseSurvivor #DarkHumor #ProcessingTrauma #Astrology #CancerSign #NatureFacts #Metaphor #MusicTherapy

Hi, I (Allēna) am back in front and low-key panicking…

I know that the people who know me will probably be like “what else is new” but I’ve honestly been so hung up on the fact that it’s been ten years since Xavier died this month that I forgot that all of the albums that I wrote and recorded in the wake of losing him will also be turning 10 as well until I saw a video of my Painter Guy headmate playing my arrangement of “Heroes” by David Bowie on a piano he found in the hospital we go to??? So that’s kinda fucking me up.

https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUvyJXxl9de/?igsh=MWFlYTdtcTY4MnJkZQ==

I honestly didn’t think I would live this long. I know a lot of people when I was 18-19 certainly didn’t think I would live this long (I was a hot fuckin mess and it took me years to get out of that tailspin) so while I’m none too happy about having to figure out how to promote a metric fuckton of albums on what is soon to be the ten year anniversary of their release, I am also trying to be compassionate toward tiny grieving past Lēna and keep in mind that I didn’t have a blessed clue that I would live to see 28-29, my depression was so goddamn bad and I was constantly trying to blot myself off the face of the Earth and writing albums instead of doing worse dumb shit. As badly as I want to go back and kick Past Lēna and to some extent, Past Eight in the ‘nads for writing and recording music like they were running out of time in 2016-17, they really didn’t know what the fuck else to do and had just lost Xavier. So I can’t really be all that angry. That being said, a bitch is fucking tired and I don’t have anything close to a promotion strategy for any of this shit. I don’t even have regular access to a piano anymore.

So yeah. There is all of that to contend with.

Wish me mother fucking luck.

-Allēna

“salvo ii”

#anger #angryPoetry #cptsd #depersonalization #derealization #domesticViolenceAwarenessMonth #Processing #processingTrauma #reactiveAbuse #sadPoetry

Well, I had therapy yesterday…

this session actually felt productive.

I’ve been wondering for a long ass time why I write the way that I do. It feels like I’m possessed much of the time. Once I start on a project, I find it very difficult to stop, and if I’m not working on a project, even if there is no specific creative urge, it induces paralyzing anxiety. I feel like I constantly have to be working on something or else I feel like I go (more) insane, start climbing the walls, what have you. I’m a perfectionist about my work, too – if it’s not up to a very high bar that LITERALLY NO ONE ON EARTH is holding me to but myself, I panic and find it very difficult to share it.

I’m also VERY rigid in other areas of my life. I am severely anxious about a lot. I have a damn near pathological need to know as much as possible, especially if it might possibly involve me, no matter how mentally taxing learning all of this information might be day in and day out. I feel like I have to know. Additionally, I feel like I have to be doing something about what I know, lest the doomspirals begin in that way, as well. I hold people to very, very high standards as well because if they fall short, it makes me VERY anxious, like my life could fall apart at any moment, someone could get hurt, etc..

I’ve been like that for as long as I can remember. We all have.

I talked with my therapist about much of this yesterday and he said that it sounded like I was describing obsessive-compulsive disorder. Initially he recommended seeing a psychiatrist about it, but I reminded him that due to my trauma with all of that (see: all of my posts about my mother DIYing MKULTRA with psych meds, etc.) and the fact that while it does suck to create this way, writing and creativity is my lifeline. I don’t know what I would do without it, and I am processing a lot of my trauma when I write. So ultimately we determined that that probably wasn’t the best idea since it wasn’t necessarily harming me and in fact doing more good at this point in time.

So, that’s my confession for you all. I quite likely have OCD and it’s the root of much of my creativity, perfectionism, and a whole lot of other shit. It feels less like a death sentence to admit that than I thought it would.

Until tomorrow (or the doomspirals will get me, haha),

-Allēna

#MadStudies #mentalHealth #OCD #processingTrauma #therapy #tragicBackstory

y’all get a two for one special tonight. this one’s called “queer pressure”.

#cptsd #gay #lgbtqia #nonbinary #processingtrauma #queer #queerpoet #recoveringaddict #trans #transgender #transmasc

Episode YES: Insomnia Strikes Back

Hello, cherished mothers and fuckers. Lazarus here once more with your daily Des Moines Cropduster (context below, thanks, Theo).

I thought this prompt looked interesting and I have a few responses for y’all.

If you had a freeway billboard, what would it say?

Here are my favorite contenders thus far:

Ashley Halliwell’s Brainhole, New and Improved, Under New Management. NOW WITH MORE INSOMNIA!

Got questions? We have answers. Believe them or else.

The speed limit on this freeway is 80mph. But we bet you are not going as fast as MY BRAIN CAN PROCESS EVERYTHING…

How many sins have you committed today? Not as many as This Motherfucker. [photo of my face] If you can commit more Christological heresies than This Bitch in a 24 hour period, YOU get a free cardboard box.

Got Lore? We Sure Do. Follow For More.

All of the potential billboards would include a link to Open Sorcery for the bit, of course.

And simply to up the ante, I would place the billboards in and around the Cleveland, Ohio metro area. What can I say? I know my audience.

In case y’all can’t tell by the above dastardly suggestions and the post title, insomnia is STILL kicking my ass. I am beginning to wonder if it’s because of the fact that, on top of the vitamin B supplements I’ve been taking, I have started taking ibuprofen and Tylenol every 4-6 hours when I don’t lose time to deal with my chronic pain further. It’s working wonderfully for the pain. However, there’s been one absolute motherfucker of an unintended consequence. My brain has come completely, exhaustingly alive again, just like it did before my now-integrated headmate Allēna came down with mono when she was 16.

It doesn’t shut up. Nothing helps it. Not sex (for very long, anyway), not getting stoned off my ass, NOTHING. Zilch. Nada. The only thing that even remotely helps is letting myself pursue whatever idea has fascinated me until I’m so thoroughly burnt out and exhausted that I see fucking double and finally pass out. And even then, I sleep maybe 4-6 hours a night. It’s very, very rare these days that I get more sleep than that, and the sleep I get is absolute garbage. My dreams are vivid. I toss, I turn, I’m up every few hours… I swear I’m more delirious than asleep.

Am I simply a husky in human form?

This shit has made me intimately and acutely aware of why my strictly enforced bedtime was 8PM for most of my youth. I didn’t fucking sleep! I COULDN’T fucking sleep!

I’m realizing as well why my dad, Xavier, and my late grandmother, Rose, were always doing projects, as well, and I am more grateful for this blog and my myriad other projects and interests every day.

Rose was a chemist by trade, ran every damn social club in her town, was a former art dealer with a glorious collection of beautiful art, gourmet chef/baker, read books backwards, and I never saw her sleep more than four to six hours, either, before she got very sick in 2010. She was an indisputable genius whose brain was also fucking ALIVE, and frankly I can’t blame her for having so many interests and being constantly on the move. If I could handle it physically, I would be, too. Lord knows I am mentally at this point.

Fuck.

Well, that’s enough bitching about my blazing fast brainhole from me for one day. I’m probably gonna watch some TV and scream into the void or something, also known as every DM in existence. Emerson and Zelda are spending the night together and going out to a Fancy Restaurant tonight which means that your gremlin gets delicious leftovers, hehe. I live for tasty leftovers. I’m also calling my cozy partner in Michigan, Autumn, later. They were the suitor I mentioned a bit ago in this post and things are going so well! So things aren’t all shitty in my brain.

But before I go… Memes.

Stay tuned for more magic, lovely entities! I love y’all.

Cropdusting complete. Lazarus out.

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

Subscribe

#2010 #annoyance #AutumnThePartner #chronicFatigue #chronicIllness #chronicIllnessRecovery #dailyprompt #dailyprompt1808 #DesMoinesCropduster #EBV #Emerson #ibuprofenExperiment #insomnia #jokes #memes #processingTrauma #ramble #rant #Rose #Theo #vitaminB100Experiment #Xavier #Zelda #ZeldaSystem

On Hooking ‘Em and Cooking ‘Em (Get Your Minds Out Of The Gutter, You Sinners)

Hello, assembled host. Lazarus here once more with more bullshit for your viewing pleasure. The below prompt from the journaling app Day One looks interesting, so I shall answer it in due time, but before I get into the thick of it, have a fucking meme I cooked up last night that is tangentially related because I said so.

Do you spend more time thinking about the future or the past? Why?

Today’s prompt from Day One.

To answer the intriguing question the prompt posed, my answer is both. Why, you may ask? Because I’m an AuDHD gremlin with a fucking brainhole with a working knowledge of world history from my years spent as a tutor who happens to see the future on occasion due to a nifty combination of brain damage, annoyingly supercharged intuition, synesthesia, and neurodivergent pattern recognition. In short, my brain never shuts the fuck up, especially as I continue my inner work and find pockets of my mind that I have repressed for years. I have next to no sense of linear time or object permanence. Can I get a pretty damn accurate sense of who you are within five minutes of meeting you? Absolutely. Do I know where my cell phone is half the time? Oh gods no.

And due to surviving a helluva lot of trauma, having a near perfect autobiographical memory, and being unusually well traveled due to being raised with an ass load of money and being so charismatic I annoy myself, I have many, many stories to tell on top of my knowledge of world history. I call these stories my Lore or my Tragic Backstory interchangeably depending on how I’m feeling that day. As demonstrated by the meme I shared above, people seem to like the stories that come out of my facehole.

So yeah. I spend a lot of time thinking about both. Time isn’t linear, anyway, so what the hell? Mentally I’m almost constantly relaxing on a huge plot of land in Sullivan County, Pennsylvania ten years from now, or trying to find various belongings of mine that have disappeared into the fucking ether again. Where are Y’ALL mentally?

Anywho, it’s almost my naptime. Before I go, have more memes and a video of me voice acting for a kitten who I call Sean Connery Nugget with the Zelda System. 🤣

Goodnight, lovely gremlins. Tell me of your many travels in the comments, throw a party, do whatever you want. Just be excellent to each other, that’s all I ask. 💛 Until next time, stay tuned for more magic. – Lazarus

PS. 2011 or so called and it wants you to have this earworm back 🤣

https://open.spotify.com/track/02GjIfCpwttPAikjm5Hwcb?si=P4WU3rDKQSGZinC-AT7cvg

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

Subscribe

#alchemist #alchemy #cptsd #dailyprompt #dailyprompt1808 #deconstruction #lore #memes #processingTrauma #prophecies #SeanConnery #SeanConneryNugget #strokeSurvivor #tbi #tragicBackstory #Xavier #Zelda #ZeldaSystem

The Himbo Who Sauntered To Earth

Well, hello, everyone. This won’t be the typical sort of post you may have gotten used to seeing here on Open Sorcery. First, these are somewhat unprecedented circumstances.

A few weeks ago, it was discovered that not every headmate in the system decided to integrate. Most of them did. However, we found out that River had constructed an integration-proof bomb shelter deep within the headspace in the event of  circumstances such as this, and he and a handful of others elected to not integrate. To that end, the system is only approximately 92% integrated. I am, if you haven’t guessed, dear reader, not Lazarus, either. Call me Theo. Rather than hole up in a bomb shelter for heaven knows how long, however, I am a relatively recent addition to the system.

I joined to help Laz get a damn break. They’ve been puzzling through a great deal of stress and processing enormous volumes of trauma in a very short time, and frankly, although they’re making excellent progress sorting through things like burnout recovery, they need a hand. They are exhausted.

They figured out a few days ago that if they take ibuprofen and acetomenophen in tandem with their other meds and supplements, not only are they nearly completely pain free most of the time, but their brain fog and fatigue is almost completely gone, as well. This left them with an overwhelming amount of information they suddenly had access to, and while they were making good time processing it, the sheer amount of information in their mind alone was beginning to overwhelm and distress them. So I stepped in at their request, and we have been switching in and out of front when one of us gets too tired to maintain front directly or when one of us is better suited for a certain task.

So far, I have been attempting to categorize some of the information in this mind to make it more easy for Lazarus to work with. They have described lugging it all around as having “the Library of Alexandria in their head, except it’s all bunched up and interconnected with itself to such a degree that it’s impossible to even start to know where one topic begins or ends.” The sheer amount of interconnected, associated knowledge paralyzes them when it comes time to blog or even do something they know they would love, therefore keeping them trapped in a sinkhole of executive dysfunction and anxiety. I hope that if I can make heads or tails of it or at least start by doing something that isn’t nothing with all of it, it may make it easier for them to work with it all at the level they want to as they regain strength over time. I’ve also been taking on more of the physical self care tasks they normally can’t do because by some miracle, it’s easier for me and it doesn’t appear to drain me nearly as badly to attempt or complete them, so hopefully things become less of an anxiety hell for the system overall as time goes on.

Laz has taken to calling me “the himbo who sauntered to Earth” because I keep pulling stunts in headspace to try and make them laugh. So far it’s just made them grumble at me, so I’ve given them more space. I don’t think putting a manhole cover on my head IMMEDIATELY after they said that I idle at Mach Jesus and making faces at them was the best idea in hindsight.

Ah, well. I am doing my best to learn.

I look forward to posting more, but for now, I think I am going to dissociate into music or something for the time being and possibly nap. It was a pleasure to meet all of you. As Lazarus says, stay tuned for more magic!

-Theo xx

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

Subscribe

#academics #alchemist #alchemy #alters #deconditioning #headspace #MachJesus #memes #processingTrauma #weWantADamnVacation