Kit.
Usually, this blog is for the rest of Legion - a place for them to write about things important to them. But after something that just pulled up a bunch of memories, I felt I should write - since it's about them. You see, from time to time, I kind of like to think 'you know, I'm not as bad off as I thought'. I kind of hear Legion in the back of my head, but I can filter it out, and I can go around thinking I'm healthy and everything's fine. Then something happens, and I'm reminded that my existence, my 'sanity' is always at risk. That I'm on the razor's edge between being 'together', and having something else take over and leave me on the dust. It's those bad days that reminds me there's a reason my life is the way it is.
When I was younger - when I was first dealing with Legion as an active force in my life that I was aware of, there were triggers. I never really knew what would pull one or another up, and I didn't always have the tools necessary for dealing with it. There were a few members that would help, but we weren't used to the idea of something else wanting to pull itself up and take over, and the results were rarely pretty when it happened. Typically, it was Dark wanting control, but not always. Sometimes it was Sonic, sometimes it was Daryl, something... it was something deeper, and worse, and those were the really bad days.
It was hard navigating what was okay, and what wasn't. If I was a teenager at the time, I could have chalked it up to 'teen drama', but... it wasn't. It could be a song that would send me over. It could be some sort of interaction with someone that hit me the wrong way. It could be a lack of interaction, making me feel isolated. While we were trying to get used to one another, there were significant shifts in emotion, and that could get the ball rolling from 'I'm fine', to 'hold me down'.
I remember some of the events from the Year of Hell, and I have to admit, it's embarrassing - more so when I wasn't at my own house, in my 'safe zone'. If I lost control at home, I could lock the door, and let things run its course until I was okay. When I was at someone else's house? ... I have snippets of Cat's friends holding me down, thrashing around, trying to claw and bite and attack. I don't remember what set me off - like I said, the triggers were all over the place - and sometimes I wonder what these people thought when Dark or something else wanted free.
(I sometimes wonder if my friend Christine wanted to do an exorcism on me at times...)
But, sometimes I forget that this is still a risk. I remember listening to a song (for those interested, Gowan's "Moonlight Desires") at one point, dancing with Cat at a friend's house, and mentioning to her that the song was a bit triggering. It wasn't a bad song, there weren't any lyrics that were bad for me or anything - it was a combination of the music, the tone, the emotion in the song - it would set Dark off. And I remember dancing with her, and her arms around me, helping me to keep things together as Dark pulled itself up to the surface.
And I was thinking 'oh yeah, that song' as I was listening to it today, and then I felt Dark start clawing its way up to the surface again, and I was like 'what, still?'. It was a reminder - I'm not as 'healthy' as I may think I am - that this is still a thing - I have triggers, and they're not all mapped. It reminded me that Legion is still there, and not all of it is under my control.
I've noticed Sonic likes to peek out from time to time lately, to say hi to Cat, and get some attention. I wonder if I should take that as a warning - that the more instinctual members of Legion are more active than I might have thought - that there's something that's got them agitated, and I should keep a tab on things and see if I can fix it.
