I am Tess, I am 19 years old, and I handle choice of feeling after Rozaya, known then as Maria, realized her way out of it. I came in the period of time between the publishing of “Shifting Focus” and her next article on the subject, called “…But expression is also a choice.” My current plan is to finish out our time in all of the environments which drove us to the path I still walk, the one that was hinted at in the first article, and then, when things are safer, it is my desire to become a part of her, as I was before what went on separated us. From the outside, I may look as though I do not have emotions, but this is not the case. I’ve simply learned that in order for truth to still be told without punishment, verbal or otherwise, I must choose how I feel about the unfavorable things I experience. I remember all too well what it was like when I was a part of Rozaya, rejecting the idea of choice in favor of total expression. I remember the verbal punishments we all went through as a result of that total expression, and the pain that came from preventing it. It was I, as a part of Rozaya, who wrote “shifting focus,” and I who still continues to practice this idea when it is needed.
For me personally, it does not take that much effort to implement something like this. Once, I would have felt liberated by it, but even as my loneliness threatens to tear a hole in my heart, I do not feel the need to come down to the level of overwhelming feeling that guided me to this point, at least not while things are still unsafe enough that we may be verbally punished for expressing our truth as it stands. In the past, such things as the strong emotions that I have the task of choosing my way out of have been the driving force behind our creativity. When I was one with Rozaya, this urge and the need for survival through choice battled with one another, which is one of the reasons I eventually split from her and took what I took along with me. I don’t consider myself as being creative, at least not in the way some of us are through writing original stories and poems. That was, however, a small price to pay under the circumstances, and as I trained myself to remember that such writings weren’t desired in the place whose pain I was dealing with more often than not, all desire to do such things myself vanished. My path was one of choice, I was reminded almost daily by the happenings there, and creativity, true, honest creativity, for us, was based on the very feelings that I could neither feel fully myself nor allow others to risk expressing on the outside.
When I wasn’t defending the rest of the community by putting up strong filters that prevented the outside’s chaos from coming to them, and not allowing it to affect me, I was on the inside, writing out all of the events of that day in the hopes that, when the situation changed, we could allow ourselves to reverse what I had done and feel what, at that point, we could not let ourselves experience without losing our ability to seem stable from the outside. I became an archivist of sorts, driven only by the need to give those of us who still felt fully the chance to heal from any possible effects of outside experiences that I was involved in somehow getting to them. It was something I did out of necessity, and any eagerness I may have felt for the act of notation was swallowed in the all-consuming need for choice that dictated my experience. I could not allow myself to feel eagerness, or anything else other than the freedom that came from this needed idea for fear that opposing emotions and their inherent conflict would surely arise, and some time before I had separated into my own being, I had adhered to this way of thinking to the point that its opposing view was hardly comprehendible to me. Today, the only reason I understand it is because I see it around me through other insiders during the rare times I interact with the system at large, and have experienced it for a few seconds during one of those times. They have the same difficulty relating to my position here as I do to theirs, because to them, choice of feeling is impossible and brings to mind the all too common message they’d received up to the time of my coming, the message that said their pain was their fault because of their own, chosen, perceptions of the situations causing the pain.
Even I, with such a simple but powerful defense against the unwanted emotional clutter that this world has to offer, shake my head at such messages for the total lack of caring that is presented in them. The blame involved in them is not what I live by, and, as Rozaya wisely pointed out in her second article on this topic, such blame does nothing to empower a person to change in a way that is helpful to their wellbeing. Even the idea from which my own stability comes, which does not involve blame of one’s pain on their own failure to change their perceptions, is not one that all can apply to themselves in safety. When Rozaya first began to use this version of it for survival’s sake, the conflicts between it and her own true nature drove me to my own birth, and, as some may have already seen, caused her many hours of guilt over the fact that she could go where she had gone, and write as she had written while there. Recently, I have begun to practice blending, or partially fusing, with her so that I do not become overly attached to what defines me as separate from everyone else, and so that, when the time is right, I can become one with her and not cause fear in the process. I have seen no need to take complete control of the front, and find that such blending has helped both of us grow to accept one another’s primary states of being just as we do our own, with compassion and dignity.
Even more recently, choice of feeling has become a part of daily life once again. I have been assisting Rozaya in its use, just below her awareness, in a way that will insure her ownership of the state that comes from this idea’s implementation. The reasoning behind this latest leap upward is based not only on survival, but also on the idea that, with preparation by experience, her and I will have an easier time integrating when it is safe to do so. I have not tried surrendering to feelings as of yet, but am planning on doing so when I know for a fact that we will not be punished for honest expression of unchosen emotions. Until that day comes, assisting in the counteraction of surrender by doing and teaching what I was born to do and teach is the extent of my power. I am fully aware that I split from another, and that I do not belong as a separate being. This is another reason I remain as far upward as I do in regards to emotional expression and involvement with the others of this system/community. I am not meant to develop into my own person, only to carry this skill, and so that is what I will do until I can be complete again.
The path I walk is not for everyone, and my only hope is that, by the end of my days, it will not be one for me. My time is coming soon, I can sense it, and I am glad. If choice of feeling is not for one of CommunityBelonging, then it is not for any of us. Though it takes me no effort to remain as high as I am in this regard, I am now safe enough to allow myself to feel eagerness to come down, back to the level of the one I was born from, so that we may both find true liberation through surrender and total expression of emotion. As painful as it will be for the two of us, I think it will bring greater clarity on who we will be in the end, and who we always have been. My hopes are that those friends who know all of us will be able to accept the changes that may come after I integrate with Rozaya, and that, through their words, I do not come away as myself again. I am exhausted, and while I know that I am helping where help is needed within our inner community, what I am doing is not what I was meant to do. I began this article in a state of liberation, but that liberation has turned to a deep, profound loneliness and a realization that the area of life which I so readily exercise total control over was not, and is not, meant to be controlled in such a way.
If choosing your feelings about a given situation is your way, if this is what you know in your heart is right for you, if you experience no unwanted effects from living this way, I cannot in light tell you to stop. But in remembering who I am, where I came from and what brought me to this point, and seeing the loneliness that Rozaya and I have experienced reflected back to me as others within the community have witnessed our upward spiral, I am left to conclude that such a thing is, in the words of Ellasondra, not for me. It has helped us through situations which we would not have survived otherwise, at least not without fragmenting further than we are at present, but in the case of most of this community’s members, surrender to, and full expression of, our emotions, has been more effective in the long run. Choice of feeling has its uses, as Rozaya’s first article, “Shifting Focus,” clearly demonstrates. However, such a thing must be carefully used, because as you’ve read above, it caused its share of problems even while we were under its influence for the sake of our survival. I don’t regret that I was born to do this. I only regret that it had to be used at all, and that the people responsible for driving us to such a point will never admit their part in my birth.
That is one of the many things I will have to let myself process before I integrate. I do not wish Rozaya to have to deal with that pain. I know I could choose my way out of it, decide not to feel it, or change my mindset about the situation to avoid these regrets, but at the end of the day, I realize that Rozaya would not do such a thing, and that the time where I have needed to is passing quickly. It will be a process, but the next few months should be long enough for me to come down from where I currently reside emotionally. That being said, I do not run on a set time when it comes to these things, and there will be no way to tell where I will be when we can eventually leave the place we find ourselves in, and its demands, behind. I have nothing more to say, accept that I am looking forward to that day. It will be then that I can go home.