Animal's Cave

[Animal]

I can't treat this like a real diary because so much of what I write in diaries is tied into Erosia and the characters therein. My books are not yet published so there is information I can't splat about in public. Nonetheless, there are some deeply personal rants that I can post. I will use this as a diary to the extent that I'm able. It may be helpful for me to see how my public diary unfolds over time. The issues will be more grounded in purely Earth than my private diaries, as the symbols and metaphors that color my inner world are left out.

I may also copy some old posts here.

[Animal]

This morning, I was trying to figure out the right terminology for the obsession I've suffered from all my life. I just looked up 'body dysphoria without being trans.' One short explanation came up here:

https://www.quora.com/Is-it-normal-t...gender?share=1

cis gender people, getting genital lifts and rejuvenation and implants, boob jobs, liposuction, chin lifts ( especially with selphie-phone images looking so surprisingly unsatisfying ), butt lifts and implants, eye bag removal, face lifts, ear tucks, endless, $16,000,000,000 per year in the US alone, you read that right, sixteen billion dollars a year industry in the US alone.

Most people abbreviate and co-opt clinical jargon, and the opening statement probably means body-gender minority of trans gender people experience body gender discomfort, or seek clinical assistance to relieve such stress.

One shot of the hormones of the sex / gender to which one self-identifies has been reported as bringing instant relief,

Not sure about all the numbers and facts here as the comment was just from a rando. But it basically sums up what I've been thinking for a while. I have always wanted to be a man, but when I looked into it, I had the sense that if I were a man I'd want to be a woman, and that this was not really about gender for me because I can express either gender through my art at my leisure, which is enough. A key point in this revelation, which I had when I researched transgenderism in my late teens, was that I'm very comfortable having sex, being seen naked, photographing myself naked or being in a bathing suit. I have never liked my body -- I've had major major issues around this, which I've elaborated on in other threads. I'll even share a facebook post that I JUST wrote under an appropriate thread but then took down. No one who is reading this post needs to read the spoiler to get the rest - I'm just storing it here for my own "diary" purposes.

SPOILERI take it for granted that I want to look good. I've had a serious traumatic illness that almost killed me - which began when I was sixteen - but I always had tremendous will to fight, despite constant setbacks. The only time I ever wanted to kill myself was a few years before that. I had been in theater and music my whole life, and directors would not give me lead roles. When I asked how I could improve in the future, they would tell me "you have the best voice that ever walked into this theater but you just aren't pretty enough to play the lead." I got 100% scores on state-wide singing exams in opera in other languages, and I had a 4.5 octave range, a lot of emotion, good acting etc. I started working at restaurants and bars to sing and play by myself at 13, and people absolutely loved my music, so I earned a really high amount of tips. But I couldn't make it any further, not in a real substantial way. Guys at school would come up to me and say "You're really good on stage - too bad you'll never make it because you're too ugly." I wrote out my will, filling up a diary, and contemplated suicide for probably two years, even while I continued practicing and slaving away to make my voice, piano playing, acting, etc -- perfect. Finally when I was 15 my acting teacher said I was ready for Broadway and I should start auditioning for the major roles I want, and she was sure I'd get them - but first, I needed to get a nose job. My entire world opened up. Nose job? Me?!!! I mean this was 1995. This seemed like a distant Hollywood thing. I had never even thought I was rich enough or famous enough to do something like that. But I realized in that moment that I had a potential for a future!!! My parents agreed pretty quickly because they knew how serious I was about this career. So I got the nose job, started getting callbacks, roles, attention , deals,.. but then I got sick within the year, lost my voice from illness, and ended up speaking in a whisper. Still, THAT did not make me suicidal. It did throw me into an unimaginably dark place for a long time, but within that darkness I was bursting with willpower, drive and passion. And I could look in the mirror without wanting to punch it and destroy myself with the glass. Such a HUGE difference in my self esteem, even though I lost so much. Now I felt worthy of a man's desire.

Throughout my 20s I exercised too much, monitored everything I ate, and obsessed over maintaining this hotness. The illness made my hair and eyebrows fall out (hair grows back, eyebrows don't), left me with TMJ and crooked jaw from meds etc, but I didn't stop - I did everything I could to maintain a desirable level of beauty. Once I entered my 30s I got sicker once again (thanks to Obamacare, I could no longer get the same meds), and I've managed to relax on this - although I still have nightmares that my husband doesn't like the way I look (he has never said this or given any indictation). I wake up in tears. I definitely have issues around my looks, which started from this stuff I went through as a kid, being rejected in the industry I excelled in ONLY BECAUSE of my looks and feeling like my future was out of my control.

But despite all the obsessions, nightmares, and shame about my appearance, I feel much more confident when I'm fully exposed. Perhaps it feels like I momentarily prevailed over the shame, and that gives me a kind of rush? It's definitely not because I like how I look. That said, this did not seem to me like gender dysphoria specifically, even if I feel better manifesting as a man when I'm channeling myself into a fictional character.

Still, this was not compelling enough to stop me from transitioning. I made the decision not to transition ultimately because of my vanity. The need to look hot and to be desirable to anyone of my choosing was stronger than the need to be a certain gender in daily life. If I could choose my gender and fully embody it, then I'd have snapped my fingers to become a man. But being a weird looking, short 5'4 man with the wrong genitalia and a high (whispery) voice, and a tiny chin, sounded much less desirable than being a woman who (more often but not always) experiences myself as a man internally. Most of the time, I am not thinking about gender but rather having nightmares about my love interest not desiring me, or wanting me sexually but not being particularly moved by my appearance. To me this feels horribly shameful and infuriating. It makes me feel out of control, not good enough, not trying hard enough, wrong, broken. I have these nightmares to this day, about Daeva not being into my looks, even though he has never given any indication of this, and has always expressed attraction and desire for me. It has absolutely nothing to do with him and after years of this 'condition' I know that. In the past I used to imagine that my love interests didn't want me with the kind of desperation I wanted them, but just 'liked my personality and settled for my looks.' I really convinced myself of it, and it affected how I treated them. I was not mean to them or anything, just closed off and always making sure he never felt like I wanted him too much so that he wouldn't view me as an 'easy target with an uninspiring appearance.' I needed to know he chose me.

Nonetheless, in my mid-20s, amidst intense dieting and workouts, I began to reconcile that although this shame would plague me forever, it was about me and not necessarily about the other person desiring me or not. I am much more comfortable being an aggressor, and being very expressive of my passion and desire for someone. This feels more natural, but I held myself back as a misguided seduction technique, hiding the extent of my desire. By realizing that my 'ugly' was in my head until proven otherwise, I enabled myself to pursue and express in the way that flowed most easily. In other areas of my life, I have always pursued what I want aggressively - but the shame stopped me in the instance where it counted most.

Unfortunately, the messages I received from men continued to plague me. In my late 20s, my body looked a lot better owing to my hard work, and I became more aggressive with pursuing men - but the two boyfriends I had over those years outright admitted that they didn't think I was that physically attractive, although I was hot and sexy and they loved my personality. This came up when I was actually feeling fairly good about my appearance, which clearly would not continue since I cannot spend my whole life dieting and exercising when I'm very sick - and the illness resurging was an inevitability. Not to mention, I was in my late 20s and would age, so I was quite aware that as a woman, this was my 'peak.' Their "good enough I guess" attitude about my appearance certainly did not help my attempt to get 'past' my shame. It proved me correct, that my personality and 'sexiness' could be tops but I still had no control over my physical appearance being inadequate.

Another problem is that I expressed my male alter ego around that time, which made me feel most attractive. Women had dreams about him and invited me to dress up as him and come to bed. In one case I really really wanted to, but I could not "dress up" in bed. To make love and express my feelings for her, I needed to be fully me, naked, just as I am. But I knew she wanted "me/him," not "me/her." This was one of the times when I questioned my decision not to transition. "He" came off very masculine and much sexier than I ever could as a woman, and this may be because I feel right, and more sexy, as 'him.' I feel so right, so alive, nuanced, and hot in my body when unleashing him.

I can say with confidence that I have body dysphoria. Gender fantasies are part of this but far from the bottom line. I don't have the luxury of focusing on these emotional nuances in therapy right now, but if this medication starts to work perhaps I will address it. To be fair, I've spent many many many years confronting this within myself, which is why I can splat this in public. And Daeva has been amazing in helping me, just through his honesty and consistent desire for me, coupled with me feeling like I can open up to him about the depths of my dysphoria. That goes a long way, but it's definitely not enough - it's something I have to reconcile within. And I am much, much better with this issue than ever, but it doesn't "go away." Much like being an addict - you're always an addict but you can be a 'recovered addict' and live a good life. I will always be dysphoric but I have achieved much of my hope of living a beautiful life, despite any illnesses or setbacks - finding true love, pursuing my visions, having better friendships and relationships with my family, etc. There is always more growing to do, but I do believe I've managed to communicate this better so that I'm able to love more honestly, and even to go years without obsessing about exercise and diet if my health issues are too overwhelming. Nonetheless, this is an issue I may live with my whole life- but if it motivates me to write my books (where my energy is male), to record my videos (with my male alter ego) and to thrive, then it's not the most pressing matter to address. It is also an inspiration.

[Animal]

Old post - 01-15-2020, 11:26 PM. - in response to Vive's thread: "Real life Aesops. What are your most important life lessons?"

I've learned the sorts of lessons that destroyed everything I was, and could have killed me. I took those lessons into my body physically, and I'm lucky to be alive. No, I'm not talking about the illness. The illness taught me lessons, but I don't blame myself for being sick. I know in my heart that I've done everything in my power to get better. Everyone could always do more, and there's always some remedy you haven't tried yet.... but I believe I've achieved a good balance between living my life, sustaining a sense of purpose and working hard on it; and doing the pragmatic things I was able to do to stay as healthy as possible. I don't blame myself for this at all - on the contrary, I believe I handled myself the absolute best I could, whether others believe that or not. They haven't lived in my body. They don't understand what it takes for me to feel there's a reason to live. It's crucial for me to balance this passion and purpose with a sheer will to survive - and I must say I've done a damn good job.

The lessons I took on myself were of a different nature. After I lost my voice, my hair, my IQ points, my ability to walk (which I got back), my financial and physical autonomy -- I wanted to control something. At this point I could walk and move just fine, but still suffered other symptoms and remained stuck on IV medication. My career, vision and passion left with my voice, taking my innocence along with them. But the illness also left me 20 pounds thinner! I'd gotten some training to learn to walk again, and now I knew how to lift weights without bringing back my muscle pains and arthritis. I maintained a routine at the gym, sometimes every day; at the very least, every other day. I ate very little. Sometimes just a few string beans in a day. I dyed my hair pink to express the loss of my pipeline to Earth, the descent into a shadow of my old (blood-red) self.

My body was my first project.

I couldn't sing, but I could express my passion and pain in art, still. I took LSD and tried different mediums. I set up controlled experiments on my own mind, such as limiting myself to just one medium for the duration of a trip (which for me, lasted up to 20 hours). I would wake up at some hour... sometimes 2am, sometimes 4pm, whatever suited the experiment - and I would plug myself in to some machines to discover my new medium. Sometimes my medium was a diary, and I would bring it to the top of a mountain at night by myself. Other times it was a keyboard, plugged into recording devices ahead of time. Other times a computer, or a camera.

Habitually, I sneaked into the dark room after hours. There was a window I kept open and I had the key because I worked there. I would blast my emotional music mixes which were set up to bring me to catharsis through a story that went from beginning to middle to climax to end - release. In the meantime I would develop photos. My body was the canvas upon which I expressed the emptiness, lust, rage and anguish within.

I mourned what I had left behind, but my wings were more powerful than ever. I fell from the heavens and became something so much more than I ever dreamed I could be.

I was their worst nightmare. I was death, the end of all hope that they feared to see in the mirror. I was the unbridled desire in everyone. The fire that would burn them alive - but I had survived. I made a deal with the devil and I never had to repay him because he fucking crumbled at my knees and became my servant. I mean this more literally than you might imagine, but I won't go into the concrete details lest I reveal too much about the humans who I lusted and longed for, who later fell under my spell.



This was magic I never realized I had. I was on a power trip. It wasn't a fantasy. When I was alone I was all to aware of my losses, hunger and pain. I knew that if my angel, my obsession - would reject me - I would crumble to nothing. I was at his mercy, feeding on the memory of his innocence for dear life.



When I looked at my reflection, all I saw was my desire for him. I wasn't good enough for him - but did my idea of him even exist? He was a phantasm.

Layers upon layers upon layers of past selves, current selves, future selves. Losses. My home planet. My obsession who was but a ghost, and I knew it; yet I talked to him and he said he loved me. Me. No one could love me. I could not love. I could not possibly tell him how I felt. We could write songs for each other and post them in various places for each other to find, even before internet was known to others. It was our secret world sometimes; other times it was a public dance. He was across the country... across the universe. He might as well have been John Lennon.




I cannot describe the world I descended into. There is a description of it online, which of course, doesn't cover all of it.... it's an interactive series of pictures that someone can click through, as if making their way through a dream.

My trips to Earth were more desperate. Blood lust. Desperate to feel something. But feeling would destroy me. Telling him how I felt would be ripping my heart out and leaving it in the sun to scathe.

I had already lost my heart, along with my voice, and that was in the past. My first love, he had loved me so, but he left me. Love was not enough to save us from ourselves. Nothing was. He traveled around the country hopping freight trains, and consumed. And he showed me what I was. Or perhaps, made me what I was. Anaeia. Animal.



So I met my obsession. And it's only when I saw him that I felt human. I felt real. Yet he wasn't real. So I wasn't either. And yet my feelings, my desire, my passion - was more real than anything I'd ever imagined feeling. Deep as I was during childhood, this was something more. This was immortality. Power. BUT IT WASN'T ENOUGH. I wanted to feel love.


And thus my shadow ate me. And I looked damn good doing it.






I was the dream and the dreamer. The desired and the desirous. A beast of my own making. I could not love. The devil won after all. I consumed him. You are what you eat....


There's so much more I could say. So many real life details, concrete circumstances, names, dates, conquests and revelations. The bottom line is, I tasted love again. And it all came crashing down.

I am mortal.
I have a heart.
Just like everyone else
I am broken
Unlike anyone else
I am alive.

I barely talked to him for the whole three years. We were friends and lovers, not committed. His music reawakened mine. His innocence aroused the deepest shame I can possibly imagine. Looking into his eyes, I saw my beautiful destruction wouldn't impress him. He knew I was really in control. And he also knew I wasn't in control. Or maybe he didn't know a damn thing, but he just didn't care for my bullshit. He cared only for my soul.

And I couldn't give it to him.

I was too ashamed to show him what I had been. My brown hair had grown back. I had gained an acceptable amount of weight. My reputation as a conquerer preceded me, but I had slowed down. I could pass for human. His friends would buy it. But he would see right through that lie.

I hid my soul, my music, my past, my face. It's visible in any picture with him. Whatever power, immortality, beauty, magic and passion I possessed... gone. I was reduced to nothing.

I loved him, in the sense that I wanted him to succeed, even at the cost of leaving me behind. I wanted him desperately. But I was not in love with him, so to speak. I could not trust him with any information about myself. Not because he was rude or unaccepting, but because it would poison his ears. I could not do that to him. When I detached from him and he caught glimpses of my wild spirit, crossing the country on a whim and doing things that are unthinkable to most people ... he was impressed. Turned on. He was jealous and sad that he hadn't lived the way I had. He confessed that he loved me. Finally! And then I lost my spirit again. I could not sustain it in the face of feelingsmyself.

All of my lies had been shattered. Fucking sixes, showing me my humanity, not buying my bullshit, wanting me to have a heart. God damn them.

And I left him behind. A painful decision. But I could no longer objectify him as a symbol. I could be there for him as a friend and risk losing him to someone else.... I needed to work on myself. And I moved to the city and began my work. By some act of the Gods, I met a pregnant cat in my first week, and her kitten rescued me.

And this was the beginning of my life lesson - that my beautiful and passionate expression of my deepest self can be impressive, honest and seductive. It can bring me catharsis , make me compelling and make people love me. I can even glean tremendous joy from the process of producing art projects, sculpting myself into an art piece, expressing what's inside. But that's not the whole story.

There's also a regular human, a little girl crying her eyes out because "he doesn't want me." "I'm not good enough." I really am the bizarre creature that I seem like, but on some level beyond that, I am human just like everyone else. And there is beauty in that too.





This did not mean I had to give up my intensity, my passion, or my pursuit to express it in the arts. All that it meant is I could allow myself to be truly vulnerable - to real feelings, for humans who are my equals. I could love.

[Animal]

I posted this dream on my website three years ago - but I wanted to put it up here for analysis. I first wrote it around 3:30 am on my cell phone facebook messenger, addressed to my husband Daeva - so that I wouldn't forget it. I have not edited a single word since then, aside from correcting blatant typos and replacing the names. The dream is written down exactly as I remembered it and first sent it to Daeva in messenger that night in 2016 - and it still sticks with me. Any ideas?

[Animal]

01-25-2020 - Old post, PM rant

Eros is the life force
It's more right than anything else
I don't want to kill people, cheat on anyone, lie about anything.
So I have no big ethical conflict to speak of
The more I follow my heart, the better the outcome
Since my heart is full of LOVE which can't be wrong.
What gets in the way is my ego, fear, shame...
And all that shame comes from arbitrary ethics
"I'm not pretty enough" (for who?)
"I'm not healthy enough" (for what?)
"I'm not working hard enough" (for what?)
Obviously the answer is for ME.
I have some arbitrary standard that I hold myself to,
and then I inevitably fall short.
My ego who wants to be just as amazing as the ideal me in my imagination,
acts outand overcompensates for the shame
that I'm not that person
But if I just let that person go and flow with who I am,
then I'm alive.
All of a sudden I do look prettier. I accomplish more. My health improves.
I'm not saying it's easy
and standards exist for a reason -
without them we'd never improve, never challenge ourselves, never grow
but ultimately i prefer to immerse myself in something carnal and spiritual
including my feelings, my art
and then it goes away.
once I tap into the flow the burden of shame is lighter
and I fulfill the standards more.
So I am in favor of honoring Eros.
Erosia is my home.

[Animal]

[rant from facebook]

I disassociated from being "An American" and being "A Jew" for the first 30 years of my life. I insisted that I am Erica Xenne (I even changed my surname) and I am my own person.

I have an amazing family. I could not possibly be blessed with a better family, really. My first name Erica is a derivative of Richard, and I think my parents did this by accident. My middle name is my mom's maiden name, but as far as I'm concerned, my name is Erica Jane (aka Riki Jane). This way I retain my parents' names, but my 'surname' is one from Erosia.

I also love America, and I appreciate that USA was the first country to be founded on a PRINCIPLE rather than just "the fact that we own this territory." I also have very positive feelings about Jews as a people, and Jewish genius and inventiveness, and how much we have been through while still retaining our integrity as a people.

But none of this is ME. It's just happenstance. I happen to be Jewish, American, white --- but I could have been a billion other things, and it's just chance. If my parents had given me up for adoption, I could have been born and raised in some other country, with some other religion - but I would still have the same genetic and personal makeup. So I don't consider Judaism, Americanism, and so forth -- part of MY inherent makeup. I'm a separate being, and I needed to explore what that meant BEFORE I could appreciate the effect that outside influences have had on me. And that is what I did.

As a child - I'm talking 8-12 years old - I read Hermann Hesse, Carlos Casteneda, etc. Those just called to me -- not because of my school, my parents, or any other outside influence. I don't remember how I first found out about them but I did, and I pursued those books. I also got obsessed with Les Miserables & Phantom of the Opera. I was attuned to human tragedy and spiritual transformation, all on my own. My parents are psychiatrists but also Atheist/Agnostic and very pragmatic people. I was the only one in the family who took an interest in the spiritual, and I have been into it since I was a child. I even got my mom to take me to crystal shops and spiritual shops so I could read about ESP and collect appropriate crystals for the energies I wanted to channel.

I was preparing for a career in music when I lost my voice forever at age 16, so that set me away from the life path I thought I was taking. All my life the only thing I knew was writing and music. Being unable to pursue music, there was only one choice - writing. But I was a good musician, with a natural gift which I was able to turn into "genius" through hard work. I was a horrible writer, and despite my natural ability to channel plots, characters and worlds, I could not deal with WORDS. So I had a lot of hesitancy about taking this up, since it is not a natural talent. Yet there was nothing else that my soul burned to do. So I studied comparitive religion, philosophy of religion, and some anthropology in college, along with taking some photography & writing classes. There I learned about all kinds of philosophies and religions that have taken off in history , and also learned how religion WORKS. On my own time, I became fascinated with reading Hitler biographies, because it struck me that one man climbed up from nothing and got so much power in a country that wasn't even his. This lead to my awareness of politics, since I had never taken interest in the modern world up to that point. I was more attuned to the timeless trends that underly EVERY period of history, than in the "modern world" which I have always seen as an incidental happenstance. The world around me has never felt like "my world," except in the sense that it's one example of archetypal trends that repeat timelessly.

I started taking interest in politics in my late 20s, when it became clear how power was lost and won, and how it was being used around me right now. Part of my interest was also about my illness and all the shit I Had to go through to get medicine, which wouldn't be necessary if not for an overreaching, dishonest and bad government - and which got much worse under Obama. Also, when I talked about this, my friends' reaction- to call me RACIST instead of actually listen to my experience -- was striking enough that I actually found it interesting. So I became particularly attuned to "religion" just as I always have been, and noticed the ways in which they had been brainwashed. This was a deep, EXTENSIVE study for me, not a light presumption.

It's only in my thirties, after I had explored my own identity, written much about my home planet and learned my psyche very well, that I started appreciating the influences that I incorporated from outside myself, and how those affected my personality or my own thought. Such as Judaism, Americanism, being white etc. But those are peripheral and incidental influences compared to my relationships with my family, friends, exes and husband; my interest in music and the human psyche; my novels about my home planet, my strong interest in philosophy and religion, etc. I don't "identify" as being part of any culture or religion aside froM Erosia (my home planet), but I can appreciate and elaborate at length about how these cultures have influenced my mindset, and. contributed to make me express the way I do. However, I think most people give more credit to this than I do; as I am quite prone to see myself as an individual. As a good friend pointed out recently- if an alien came down here to learn about humans, I would serve as a poor example of my current tribe. And he's right--- and that is something about me that no culture would ever manage to change. I'd die before I would lose ME.

To add to my case, people who have done studies of twins separated at birth have found that NATURE was much more important in their choices than NURTURE. i do think that being nurtured by my family in particular has shaped me in many ways, because those are individual relationships which made a strong impression on my psyche. But if I had not been raised by them, I would still have the same basic NATURE - and that is what the twin studies prove. So I have always found my own nature (and human nature in general) more fascinating and pertinent, in understanding myself (or understanding humans), than I have found culture and religion. That said, once I had grounding in my own thoughts about what it means to be human - and what it means to be ME - then I branched out to understanding the more peripheral influences.

And this is why my outlook is 100% incompatible with collectivism. Because I understand the power of my own nature, my own choices, and my own identity. There is absolutely nothing and no one that could take that from me (I've lost my voice which was my WHOLE LIFE and if that didn't do it, nothing will). I would have a much easier time accepting death than conformity - and I am quite sure that if I am put in a position where I must choose to join the collective monolith or die, I'll plunge the knife into my own heart.