Sweeping change.

Something odd is happening to us.

I notice it in myself, of course. But I also notice it in others within the Collective, and we have commented to one another about it for the past few days. Something is amiss, to say the least.

Molly has become more "clingy"...Jude has reverted to a nearly silent state...Aine and Rowan refuse to leave the Spires...Niven has gone in search of others like him...Siroun is picking every comment apart as if it were paper to be shredded.

As for myself, I am finding those warm and frighteningly familiar attitudes returning. Those "fuck you" attitudes. I hated myself then. I feel I have overcome that part of my past, that I do not need violence or a barrage of verbal atrocities to flow from me in order to feel in control.

A spraypaint can burst near us today at the shop. We were covered in sticky, dark red pigment, and for a moment, I wished it were blood. One week shy of a year without having self-injured, and the thoughts return. Why is this? Is it that a year will make it impossible for us to say we "slipped up" if we cut? Or is it that the summertime is always a trigger? Perhaps neither...perhaps it is merely that old habits never really change.

As Alice (often) said, "Curiouser and curiouser..."