[{"Cibelle"(Cavalli}Bastos)]: SELFDEFRAGGING

IT'S BEEN A LONG A LOT - III

Cibelle — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 20:16:35 GMT

It’s been nearly a year from the last time I’ve sat down to pour into this self-defragmenting section - a diary of sorts.

I’ve refrained from writing because although I rub up against the societal imposition of being “all goo! I’m great! It’s all OK” whilst simultaneously oscillating between feelings of doom at witnessing a continuous life collapse are now finally peppered by possibilities, yet still not entirely concrete, nor solid and activated enough. The need to write is present, the shame to write about it all is also. Unfortunately I’ve learnt that talking about what is currently precarious only makes it all more vulnerable despite any progress. Sitting with a tight chest doesn’t help me either.

I stare into the now and ahead of me with my life’s deliverables still unglued yet steady in my shaky hands. Before this body and soul can reach the promises ahead, I see a rickety flimsy bridge peppered with the big glass water container meme variations. One bit cracks, I patch it up with spit and goo, a bit of trash and a band-aid if I am lucky to find one. Well great, another crack immediately pops on the other end; internal screaming, rocks hurtling down the hill I’m trying to climb, gusts of bureocratic and material winds shake up the bridge. I need a crane to lift my being whilst my own mother plays with a sharp knife nipping at the edges of the rickety bridge’s ropes.

Believe me, it is best I update my life in poetry. It’s been too many graphic descriptions into retraumatization and with it, the inflicting of vicarious trauma into any listener, viewer or reader.
I sit at this laptop to pour out the heart, honour the shadows, to empty these thoughts and feelings, because maybe, just maybe, if I voice it all, however dark, however shameful the feelings, in the honouring of it all I may catch more silver linings for my collection and survive to thrive.

IT'S BEEN A LONG A LOT - II

Cibelle — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 16:42:53 GMT

Little did I know that the social worker at the Job Center was gonna end up having such a great time when I first came into her office, with no translator, in a panic, rent cut, no moving or storage budget, recently hospitalised, with a Sozialgericht klage in hand and a Brazilian passion in vocal tone propelled by a Mars in Leo and Mercury Sagitarius about to blow like a fire arrow at her very first eye roll at my poor german skills and sheer AuDHD burn out desperation.

I started the day late for my own timing, no shimmy a day to keep the sad away. Gobbled down to soft boiled eggs, 30mg Elvanse, one pot of greek yogurt and stuck Chicken, my chihuahua, in his travel bag and a pouch of dry food with a couple of “snackinhos”. Bag in shoulder, low battery foldable scooter in hand, stinky jumper yet impeccable nails, off I went with a stack of Job Center letters, Sozialgericht Klage, laptop, and a recently found back of licorice Rizzlas brought to me in Brazil by an artist friend who still lives in the UK - the licorice Rizzla became the highlight post Job Center meeting.

I write this post meeting “vrawwwrrrr” sitting outside Gorilla cafe as unsupecting Brazilians speak their deepest secrets unbeknownst to them that yet another undercover Brazilian is present. I lowkey want to let them know that I know, but the distraction and undercoverness of it all is too pleasurable and useful to keep my mind monkeys on track as I retell of what happened today.

First things first. I may or may not have mentioned that I remain in some kind of shock at my situation. Who would have known that a person with a CV like mine - including the academic one - would find themselves with absolutely no cash, maxed out overdraft, spiraling on a bureaucratic rollercoaster for this long, stuck in Germany, when a simple move to Brazil, or even a neighbouring country could probably set me back on track with both my mental and physical health by providing a healthy emotional landscape and WORK - aka INCOME.

If you know me, and of me, you might be thinking “WTAF Cibelle?! HOW?! There’s a Wikipedia entry to your name, you are cited in numerous publications and surveys on cyber-feminism, you’ve lectured at Stanford, you’ve been in incredible keynote line ups with the likes of Geert Lovink, Julieta Aranda, Daniel Jhave Johnston, Ana Teixeira Pinto, like really what in the actual fuck of all the fucks? You literally performed at the Carnegie Hall, Montreaux Jazz Festival, Auditorio Ibirapuera, you have close to a million streams a year on Spotify alone, like, not to mention showing work at MASP, ICA London, Martin Gropius Bau, WTH?!”
Same. I think the same. The Job Center person looks at me bemused when they check out all I’ve done, and this is just a tiny percent.

With all of this said, it’s time for a some backstory, and really, one of the true painful blessings this emotional, financial and health rollercoaster has brought me with its never ending thread of silver linings.

The thing that I’m realising this surprisingly late in life is just how deep is the impact of trauma. The trauma of abandonment wounds, emotional distance, conflict avoidance, shaming, emotional neglect, diminishing, scapegoating and all other kinds of othering can have on a neurodivergent person, and if FLINT*, add exxxtra layers.
Weirdly enough, it wasn’t until I practically lost everything - tho I was recently shown that nothing is truly lost - nevertheless, being made to believe that no matter what you have achieved, it may amount to nothing to those who you’ve been conditioned to want to please.

It's been a long "it's been a lot" - #1

Cibelle — Thu, 24 Apr 2025 14:51:57 GMT

How to even start something I’ve mind rehearsed, stepped back, came back through the thought again, guts, courage, de-gaslightifying myself into a great bit “you know what?! fuck it” energy for perhaps the most epic word/feeling dump of all of my enbystory.

I’ve refrained from telling all step by step as it happened, and then when I thought I had found myself in the mid journey of it all, I thought to re-attempt. Now as I believe I edge closer to some kind of end to this incredibly long “it’s been a lot”, perhaps it’s time to spew, let off, soul nudes, and narrate some of the wildest most intense year and a half of my 47 years of roaming this cosmic marble journeying through space-time as I fumble and jiggle trying to appropriately fit this meatsuit, relate to fellow meatsuit wearing entities and deal with the sheer absurdity that is dealing with the structures of these societies, most recently, the German bureaucracy obsessed institutions.

As we are in my most kerouakish section of my substack where not one fuck shall be left in place, and all vulnerability is in promise - whilst fighting fears of such nakedness - I end up by talking the deepest depth in near code, poetry, satire, drama and dark humor, after all, if one doesn’t dive deep into the depths of the deepest darkness how in the actual fuck can anyone find the light.

I sit at my enormous - and heavy - glass dinner table which was once found on the corner of smth-strasse and carried home in six arms.This very table has seen a lot. From the joyous most abundant days of embedment into big tech, to opening my mouth against injustice happening somewhere between a river and a sea to find my inbox suddenly void of commission requests made minus by a defamatory piece on artists like me on the Taz newspaper circa November 2023, to the absolute shitshow of bureaucratic torture than ensued once I simply tried to make sure I’d be financially safe for the months to come as the ongoing horror of such relentless exercised injustice would - was, and is - spilled by my big old mouth, fingers on tippytap, succulent fruit images with hidden text and omfg how I hate having to write in such code.

Coming soon, coming now, forever coming and going, defragmenting, consolidating, dissolving and so on.

Cibelle — Tue, 28 May 2024 13:07:02 GMT

The day has come when finally my guts spilled over through my fingers and the months long decision to stop sitting on words, images, sounds, breath, whatever, has finally spilled over.

I resisted Substack as I’m tired of avoiding algorithmic deaths through posting unending, tired, pushing, DMing, so that my existence in the streets of social media isn’t erased; I mean, dead.

These days I try to keep my subjectivity residing within my body and now meandering the 4th dimensional space of the digital realm where we all come in communion, disembodied, neck arched, thumb sore and shallow breathed.

So it happened. I finally posted on on Substack, and so, this section you are reading now is dedicated to stream of consciousness, to verbal processing, to letting thought, feelings, words, and words as images, and thoughts as squiggled abstractions of concepts and emotions stream through the tip tap of my fingers on this keyboard. As I make sense of it all. Yes, there will be far too many commas, o…