Metacog-Gnosis

Gnosis is KNOWLEDGE.

Knowledge is BLISS.

Plato knew knowledge

- like the sun-

has the power to obliterate

silhouettes of perception.

The Importance of Shattered Innocence

As the protagonist in a story comes of age, their innocence will undoubtedly be lost, betrayed, shamed, maimed, or corrupted along the way. The story’s resolution is then defined by that character’s development, or how they choose to evoke their evolution from ignorance to enlightenment in future chapters of their life journey. This recurring theme reflects a universal narrative as we all navigate our own coming of age stories across obstacles of immaturity, insecurity, adversity, and post-traumatic stress.

Growing pains are a lot like maternity pains- no emotion goes unfelt and everything hurts as we expand into unknown territory and face a new phase of our existence. Fortunately, growth goes hand in hand with newfound perspective, and the knowledge gained in the process helps to make the tribulations of change worthwhile, acceptable, and even sought after.

I posit that self-awareness produces more bliss than ignorance… albeit a bit more brutal and honest in its methods. Knowledge has the power to obliterate our current sense of self, essentially demolishing one reality and replacing it with a more profound point of view. If we can survive the blast and absorb new information rather than deny it, stability, peace, and happiness can sprout from the wreckage as we become more evolved versions of ourselves in a healthier society.

Socrates knew that to KNOW THYSELF was to recognize the soul. 

Broken Record Epiphanies 

I will be sitting

slump-stumped

inside my stalking-staring eyes

when the doubt-lump dumps

choking back the why-why cries

at the wallows of the weeping-wheel

(swallows of just keeping still)

feeding my past every meal-

and I’m still sitting here.

I’m still sitting here

stuck.

Stop!

I’m a lost mess.

I want to stop this.

The table top is spinning,

and the test is really thinning,

lapsing-lack of really grinning,

mope-esteem, “I’m never winning”

and my knees I see

with my head down.

"Please, can I 

stay down here and hide

without ease?"

I scream, this mess

is getting old,

older, and older.

I have to get over,

be over, jump over

this chewing dissipation

sitting staring

always guessing

never living

always giving

up against the woes,

stepping over every toe

while ignoring what’s real-

this day, tomorrow's gift to feel

to do something new and go beyond the fining dues,

defining that thing new 

outside the red 

wipes my blue’s

crop.

Stop!

I’m a taut mess.

I want to calm this

constant over-whims

singing tarnished hymns,

flip-drip my lazy sins,

and my conscience comes in bins,

and I haze even 

strepping over mazes.

The lines will cross my mind

and I’m going through crazes,

temperature in phases- it phases

cuz now I’m getting cold, colder, and colder.

It’s time to talk slow, slower, and slower

cuz now I’m old and cold, and I’ll only get older

than this shaken, shivered self.

Without much sense, 

she deviates.

Her aura is lost; 

it palpitates.

Her every-eye

insinuates,

Those stealing lies will meet their fate

to which my sorrows congregate

and move my under-rest a bit.

The bullshit gets all of it.

The bullshit gets all of it

to make me head on my new day

as though there’s nothing in my way.

And now it’s time for me to say,

Stop.

I'm a deep mess,

need a deep breath. 

Then my calling calls its calling,

and I feel I might be falling

in love with my past.

The bullshit made me last.

I stand up

on my feet, 

with my head up.

Hear me speak.

"I am abreast

of my mess.

It is me, on

repeat." 

This Time Around, Though

The difference is

I’m not stuck 

in between myself

inverted and backwards. 

I’m a loud bird 

oversharing my message 

clenched tightly 

between my talons.

Knowing Forward

I had 

a family, 

and then I knew divorce. 

I had 

a childhood, 

and then I knew hormones. 

I had 

some friends, 

and then I knew their spells.

I had 

some lovers, 

and then I knew betrayal. 

I had 

a brother, 

and then I knew his death.

I had 

a crisis

and knew my train had wrecked.

I had

loneliness.

I knew not where to go.

I found 

a partner

who knew me through my hell. 

We made

our babies, 

and I knew a mother's kiss.

We are

a family, 

and I know this to be my bliss.

The Order Within

I recently described writing a poem of such few words, like this next one, to be like studying a cadaver’s many innards. Each beat within each letter, within each syllable, within each word, within each line of the poem as a whole makes it exist within lean reason.

This next poem is about insight; it is an ode to my newfound functionality.

When I first heard about dissociative identity disorder, around four years ago, I was already deep in the process of ordering the disordered side of things. It could have been alarming for me to hear that I had what is more commonly known as multiple personality disorder, but my therapist introduced it to me as a more appropriate diagnosis than bipolar disorder with care, tact, and two year’s time.

Neither he nor I believe I have multiple personalities.

I have ONE massively, multi-dimensional personality.

I can, however, identify with and confuse others’ emotions as my own, especially if my nervous system is in a hypervigilant state, such as when I am sleep-deprived, flushed with cortisol, socially overstimulated, or triggered by an unhealthy ego. 

Sometimes, my thoughts race so rapidly, the world around me slows down to an underwater crawl, and I float through it instead. 

Sometimes, my space, face, voice, and point of view slips out of reach while the need to be exactly right for someone else directs my compass askew. 

Sometimes, my body is blurry in a crowded space while the tones, expressions, gestures, and subtext of others has me consumed. 

Sometimes, my senses are just too fucking amplified.

Sometimes, I skirt by 

wide-eyed and terrified. 

Sometimes, I hide out

because I can’t figure out, 

“Who am I?”

I have also split into “alternate versions” of myself, either becoming small like a child, or ferociously controlling and wild, or foaming at the mouth, self-loathing and vile, or androgenous or depersonalized or…

My memory is highly concentrated and intense but also quite spotty and sparse, like a damaged film strip. Most of my memories are more emotional than substantial due to the number of years I’ve spent dissociating from them.

For fifteen years, I was told that I had bipolar disorder (without ever feeling bipolar.) It had been rationalized that I was experiencing multiple episodes per day, or something called ultradian rapid cycling, when in fact, I was traumatized and desperate for the right lexicon to define the complexity of my psychology. It could be argued that acquiring the correct knowledge about myself mixed with particularly acute metacognition, or an awareness of one’s own thoughts and actions, cured me of my disordered state.

Despite how brutal it can be to learn hard-to-swallow truths- whether it’s about family, friends, your partner, or yourself- I believe a better version lies on the other side of ignorance. As my therapist once reassured me, an identity that can dissociate from a place of awareness can also transform the original catalyst for disorder into a healthy and productive tool for empathy, boundaries, and artistic expression. This is something I call, Dissociative Identity Order.

Laying bare the refurbished art of my immature past is the next step in healing my soul from the years I’ve spent living my life unbeknown.

Welcome to the show.

~Mother Crow