#claude: *in the midst of a successful healing process" | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

athys-obelia · 3 years

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so why did amnesiac!claude take as much time to bring back athy as he did?

(just what i think 😳😳)

i believe this is where we find the answer:

his word choice here is integral to understanding amnesiac!claude, because we aren't dealing with claude after he's raised athy. it's practically LP!claude all over again.

and even if diana may see giving birth as an act of love, claude sees it as a choice. it's her choosing someone else over him, which is why he considers it betrayal. that's what his life has been - the emperor choosing to favour anastacius, anastasius choosing to hate claude, penelope choosing to betray him. and diana, who has literally introduced him to unconditional and reciprocated love, has just done the exact same thing. diana has made a choice, and like everyone else's, it wasn't him.

in amnesia arc, we are being reintroduced to him as a character, and it's why it's so long - it's all his thoughts since he's met athy compressed into one arc.

he deals with athy the way LP!claude would, which makes sense. he wouldn't have kept someone by his side - the way everyone claims he has athy - if he didn't love them, and if they didn't love him back. and the "proof" that someone truly does love him, to claude, is the choice. the choice that everyone else failed in making. the idea that he chose athy - diana's child, the child that for all intents and purposes he planned on killing - for fourteen years and that she chose him back is quite ridiculous to him.

but that's what she's been doing all along, right?

...choosing him for her debutante, finding her happiness in going with him and not lucas or felix or ijekiel, and many more little instances like this. she's been choosing him for fourteen years, claude sees this especially when athy mentions she doesn't need to see diana because she has him (i'm pretty sure he was awake) - which is why incidents like this stopped happening:

even during the LP!timeline, athy has not given up on her father. despite having realised he will not accept her, she knows she would've died to keep jennette, his 'happy ending' alive. athanasia has unknowingly, in both timelines, become exactly what diana had hoped she would - his constant.

the one person who chooses him, over and over and over.

and what happens in LP!timeline? the moment he lets her go, pushes her away, he has no one. that happy ending is gone. i have no doubt that felix would never have stayed after athy's execution (despite being in the flashbacks of athy's birth, the massacre of ruby palace, he isn't present in the dream where claude is dying with anastacius in the shadows). he loses it all.

but here's the thing about him - despite everything, claude craves love. after being abused by his literal family, he accepts penelope yudit into his life. he may have held some positive sentiments towards her - especially after the neglect and humiliation he faced from his family and the noble court, there must've been some comfort in her presence. and she hurts him.

years later, we see claude letting diana in.

he's given away his heart twice and he knows he'll do it again, thus that portrait of penelope in his room to warn his future self. and really, after letting go of athy who poses such a threat to his heart, amnesiac!claude should feel relieved. at ease.

he isn't, though. his most trusted friend is telling him he had found love. that for the fourteen years he cannot recall, he was happy. amnesiac!claude is restless, and that desire to be wanted, chosen, is still fresh. the dream about diana puts it all into perspective. magic is not a cause, nor the effect. it is simply an aid, a catalyst. he could not have possibly forgotten diana had there been a symbol of her, of their love, right beside him - and now, chasing athy away has become a battle against his own mind. dreams cannot simply be conjured up, they are the work of the subconscious - and to deny the truth behind his safekeeping of her paintings, the protection spell on her, the chair in his office and athy's gardens, to deny all of this would be to lie to himself. so, he puts her through a final test:

and athy chooses him again.

this time, however, it isn't over felix or diana or lucas, athy has chosen claude over herself. over her safety. despite him publically denouncing her, despite an attempt on her life, she's made her choice.

it is a gamble, a risk, claude knows this. the courage to return can only be fueled by love - athanasia mentions she doesn't want to fall into his trap as well, but where does she end up, despite this fear? she returns to him, as she always does.

she doesn't pressure him. athy checks on claude everyday, advises him to keep his health a priority, she decorates his study with what I assume are lavender flowers (which are known to symbolise purity, devotion and serenity, and are given to convey a message of healing and love - spoon often plays with the symbolic significance of flowers in her panels) and despite her insecurity, invites jennette to the lake for his comfort. she stands in silent support, showing him that she will remain 'the constant'. it makes him want to remedy their relationship, understand the happiness she had apparently been giving him for years.

and so, he chooses her:

#claude: *in the midst of a successful healing process"#anastacius: ✨no✨#stop calling amnesia arc boring pls #i'll cry #there's and difference between 'boring' and 'consistent'#it's consistent characterisation 🖐️😤#who made me a princess #suddenly became a princess one day #wmmap #sbapod #athanasia #claude de alger obelia #diana of siodonna

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germainedelarch · 7 years

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Why is lack of self worth such an integral part of the human condition? And why isn’t asking other people how they see us part of building up that sense of self more often? Why is the negative and self-flagellation our go-to voice? And why do we just accept all of this as the status quo? (Thank you, MandyPants, for inspiring this sub-tweet).

This comes on the back of a post I wrote the other day [link to 6 Days after #topsurgery: #Selfcare is hard…]

It’s a myth that self-love is an inside job. Especially when thinking overrides feeling and thinking comes from a brain hacked by thousands of external viruses (the voices of others, their judgements and expectations, and our perception of their judgements and expectations; how we think people see us vs. how they really see us).

Please read this theory, it’s SO liberating:

This warped view of self and others’ views of us is especially true for those of us with mental health issues, stress, low self esteem – all of us, in other words – whose internal hard drive is compromised by these viruses, not just the software.

How do you run functional software when the hard drive is compromised? And how do you fix the hardware of your brain with the hardware of your own brain in order to run functional software free of viruses? More on ways of thinking when your thinking is untrustworthy because of external and internalised stigma here (coming soon).

Self-love as an inside job: the old joke about how many therapists it takes to change a lightbulb: Only one, but the lightbulb has to want to change. Recovery IS an inside job, but if you’re not asking for help from those who can help you, it’s impossible.

S(ave) O(ur) S(ouls): Message written on the inside of a toilet door at Tara Psychiatric Hospital, 2011.

Not very helpful writing a note for help on the inside of a toilet door, when you’re the only one inside it, and the person following you needs as much help as you do… (Yes, psychiatric hospitals can and mostly do cause more trauma than help, but again, it’s about finding that one person who SEES you and LISTENS).

How did this change (and continues to change) for me?: The waiting to be saved vs. saving myself with the aid of chosen family and healers?

(Also spoken about previously in my post about spirituality. [Link to: Why I’m zen in the midst of chaos: Spirituality for recovering-Christian Atheist Literature Snobs like myself (& images of my text tattoos]).

How can self-love only be an inside job when we don’t live on an island by ourselves and the mirror we look into shows us how we see ourselves, not how we are? The only truly reflective mirrors are those who love us – truly love us, unconditionally; those who SEE us for who we are, no for who they want us to be for them. This is why Chosen Family is so important.

It was one of the exercises they did with me at one of my Tara (psych hospital in Johannesburg) stays [link to Loony bins #lettersfromselvespas(t)sed]. A room full of suicidally self-loathing people writing down good things about each other, then giving them to each other, with that message: if only you could see yourself the way I see you (which inspired my image-making as a ‘photographer’) [link to my website of images created by, for and in honour of all the No one is more YOUer than you” peeps].

From that day, after that exercise in a Tara group therapy session, I made a point of asking people I trusted what they liked about me (psychologists call this “reality testing”). And I started fighting the programmed lesson that self-pride is selfish and narcissistic and boastful and the innate compulsion to brush the compliments off and started taking them in. Especially those repeated by more than one person, and those that rung true in the deepest part of me that I kept telling to shut up because I was worthless. That’s how the endless (because it’s always in progress) journey of self love began for me.

Self love is an unconditional acceptance of self as we are, without the “I can be so much more and so much better”. Self love is “I am enough”. Self love is unconditional. Yes, we can want to be our best selves.

But:

Firstly, this is a continuous process, a being, not a goal; and, secondly, this becoming is only possible through the constant reiteration of unconditional love from those around us and ourselves.

Which can only flourish in a letting go of those who do not see us, those who do not love us unconditionally. However difficult that may be. Because the only thing more difficult than letting go of “loved ones” and loved things that don’t serve us, is keeping them and self-loathing in our lives.

Is any of this easy? Fuck no. Is any of this achieved overnight? No, fuck no. Is any of this achieved, a done deal, over and “here’s your certificate”? Only if you’re a monk living in the mountains meditating 12 hours a day.

It’s a process, one day at a time, one decision, choice, feeling, action of “I’m choosing my self-love/self-care/Spoonie voice over my internalised critical voice” (which is never ours, but our mother’s/father’s/religion’s/society’s and all of them at once).

Change the metaphor

I loathe the term “it’s a learning curve”. Really? We go from 0 to 50 to 100 and reach enlightenment, self-actualisation, Nirvana, success, the goal, self-love? Such bullshit. Instead of a curve, think of W.B. Yeats’ gyre – a constant widening and upward moving spiral, which narrows again – because nothing is linear.

It’s a two steps back, one step forward dance, which as we get better at it becomes a three steps forward, one step back dance, and more often than not back to two steps back, one step forward – but NEVER to the same step.

I’ve always said there’s no such thing as rock bottom. There are multiple rock bottoms, with each one of them being on a another level, never the same ‘downward’ level.

And speaking of steps: Capitalism with its metaphors of ascending ladders, goals reached, success, perpetual forward motion REALLY sets us up for failure, because it has the antithesis of failure of “success” – an ever-changing target that no one can achieve. And why should we? The “success” that Capitalism allows us to achieve means very little for us as human beings, not corporate automatons.

Of course the artist above depicts this as failure, because in the “success” metaphor of life, this is success, and, obviously, leads nowhere.

So rather than these steps think of steps in this way: Not upward steps, Escher/Hogwarts steps: not success, but growth (growing); not a linear learning curve, but a gyre; not achievement, but being; not I love myself, but, I am learning every day, through those that love me unconditionally, to love myself. Sometimes I’m in the middle of the tornado-like gyre and things are shit, but as things fall apart, they also expand and grow, and so do I. (I love Escher for so many reasons, but also because it reminds me of the magic of Hogwarts).

Closing thoughts, for now, on this subject:

Why do we not want to heal? Yes, we say and believe we want to heal, but something holds us back. What is it?

I don’t heal because healing = “fitting in”, being part of the status quo, being one of the sheep, not being an individual. Staying sick (depressed, addicted, stressed, whatever) becomes an addiction, a coping mechanism.

I don’t heal because society proves that those that don’t fit in, the Black Sheeps, the Anomalies, the Freaks, the Individuals, are either swallowed by society (treated and made part of the pack), or pushed to the edges of society (jail, psych hospitals, communes in the middle of nowhere) (Read Claude Levi-Strauss on the anthropoemic vs. anthropophagic society).

So I fly my Freak Flag high, to stay an individual, to stay apart from the sheeples, to distinguish myself from the herd. Because “normalcy” and convention and politeness and society and civilisation in all its forms – religion, school, authority figures, etc. have rejected me.

But the truth is: we are ALL freaks. None of us fit in. None of of us are sheeples. Some of us are plugged into The Matrix, and others aren’t. We have no right to judge those who see the world the way the world wants us to see it. Those plugged into The Matrix have stories, hopes, dreams, traumas, insecurities, and want, so desperately, not to fit in, but do the best they can to fit in out of fear.

It is our responsibility as The Fearless, Terrified Ones who want to heal to learn these stories, to speak other people’s languages – their home languages, their cultural languages, their Sandton languages, their Bloemfontein languages, their corporate languages, their love languages; so that we can get over the romanticised and dangerous notion of the mad, starving artist; the square peg trying to be pushed into a round hole. The more we learn we’re not alone, the less lonely we feel, the more we connect with those around us, the more we heal.

Hermit-ting has its place. The mad artist moments have their place. The sheeple moments have their place. (And let’s not for one second argue we’ve never been a sheeple, in some space at some time for some reason). No one is an island. No one has a monopoly on pain.

We are all worthy of love, healing, being heard. There is nothing glamorous about suffering in silence. Let’s stop being so fucking polite and judgemental; ask for help, give help, love others who love us, and allow those who we know on a gut level are good for us into our lives.

There are billions of people on the planet. Rejection from a parent, a loved one, a church, an authority figure, a rapist, etc. is ONE ISOLATED (and sometimes not isolated) incident. Why should it define us? We are enough. I am enough. I deserve to heal. I deserve to be happy. I deserve love. I just need to prioritise who I expect if from: me, and those who SEE me (in the Avatar sense). The Spoonies. The soulmates. The tribe members. The chosen family.

As always, this is a work in progress and notes towards the book I’m writing. This is all my opinion as I sit here today. I’m writing as a #notetoself to remember these lessons so that I don’t have to re-remember them as often any more, so that I remember the Escher steps rather than the Capitalist steps. So that I remember my self, my selves, and all the selves I can be.

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Why is self-love so fucking difficult? #selfcare #depression #addiction Why is lack of self worth such an integral part of the human condition? And why isn't asking other people how they see us part of building up that sense of self more often?

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