Well, hello, everyone. This won’t be the typical sort of post you may have gotten used to seeing here on Open Sorcery. First, these are somewhat unprecedented circumstances.

A few weeks ago, it was discovered that not every headmate in the system decided to integrate. Most of them did. However, we found out that River had constructed an integration-proof bomb shelter deep within the headspace in the event of  circumstances such as this, and he and a handful of others elected to not integrate. To that end, the system is only approximately 92% integrated. I am, if you haven’t guessed, dear reader, not Lazarus, either. Call me Theo. Rather than hole up in a bomb shelter for heaven knows how long, however, I am a relatively recent addition to the system.

I joined to help Laz get a damn break. They’ve been puzzling through a great deal of stress and processing enormous volumes of trauma in a very short time, and frankly, although they’re making excellent progress sorting through things like burnout recovery, they need a hand. They are exhausted.

They figured out a few days ago that if they take ibuprofen and acetomenophen in tandem with their other meds and supplements, not only are they nearly completely pain free most of the time, but their brain fog and fatigue is almost completely gone, as well. This left them with an overwhelming amount of information they suddenly had access to, and while they were making good time processing it, the sheer amount of information in their mind alone was beginning to overwhelm and distress them. So I stepped in at their request, and we have been switching in and out of front when one of us gets too tired to maintain front directly or when one of us is better suited for a certain task.

So far, I have been attempting to categorize some of the information in this mind to make it more easy for Lazarus to work with. They have described lugging it all around as having “the Library of Alexandria in their head, except it’s all bunched up and interconnected with itself to such a degree that it’s impossible to even start to know where one topic begins or ends.” The sheer amount of interconnected, associated knowledge paralyzes them when it comes time to blog or even do something they know they would love, therefore keeping them trapped in a sinkhole of executive dysfunction and anxiety. I hope that if I can make heads or tails of it or at least start by doing something that isn’t nothing with all of it, it may make it easier for them to work with it all at the level they want to as they regain strength over time. I’ve also been taking on more of the physical self care tasks they normally can’t do because by some miracle, it’s easier for me and it doesn’t appear to drain me nearly as badly to attempt or complete them, so hopefully things become less of an anxiety hell for the system overall as time goes on.

Laz has taken to calling me “the himbo who sauntered to Earth” because I keep pulling stunts in headspace to try and make them laugh. So far it’s just made them grumble at me, so I’ve given them more space. I don’t think putting a manhole cover on my head IMMEDIATELY after they said that I idle at Mach Jesus and making faces at them was the best idea in hindsight.

Ah, well. I am doing my best to learn.

I look forward to posting more, but for now, I think I am going to dissociate into music or something for the time being and possibly nap. It was a pleasure to meet all of you. As Lazarus says, stay tuned for more magic!

-Theo xx