Today was Therapy Thursday.
And my shrink, Doctor Costin, had an intriguing suggestion. In the course of the session, I was talking about the massive psychological wound around which my psyche is formed and I said that I wished there was the psychological equivalent of a wheelchair or other prosthetic that could help me deal with it.
It was meant more or less as a joke, albeit one with a nugget of truth.
But Doc Costin said he thought I could build something like that myself. In my mind.
And he’s right. I totally could. That sounds like a very “me” thing to do.
And what the hell, it might even work!
But what would such a thing even look like?
It would have to reinforce me somehow. Prop me up. Give me the structure that I can’t seem to give myself. The structure I never got as a kid and never had to develop as a student due to my outrageous natural abilities.
In many ways, these brains of mind have spoiled me.
By default, I am goo. Shapeshifting goo. I can take any form I choose and tend to shift to whatever shape best suits the situation I am in. This gives me a great deal of flexibility and there is enormous power in that. I can be whatever I need to be.
But in between those moments I am a limp pool of wet noodles. It’s great when I have some clear purpose or goal to focus me, but when there isn’t, I am lost and adrift.
I’m a genie without wishes. An android without a master. A self-driving car with no destination. And I can’t seem to generate these inputs myself.
So in addition to holding me upright and giving me structure, my psychological superstructure would also need to somehow support my finding and expressing my own desires via actions.
Honestly, I am picturing a robot hand holding mine and a robot voice saying “There, there. Everything will be all right. You are a good *tik* human. “
That’s almost painfully adorable.
A lot of it does come down to reassurance. It doesn’t always seem like it, but I am a very anxious and worried and nervous person and having someone strong and competent and confident to reassure me would go a long way.
A father figure, basically. Someone to calm my fears and encourage me to try new things, take risks, and expand my horizons.
Of course, this is putting a lot of strain on out whole wheelchair and/or prosthetics metaphor. We’re talking an actual person now.
So not so much a prosthetic as a mentor. Or a boyfriend.
Or a “Daddy”, I suppose. In the BDSM sense. I won’t deny that the idea of taking a subservient role to a dominant male has some appeal to me. Mostly because it would relieve me of the burden of having to figure out what the fuck to do with myself.
Can’t imagine who could actually dominate me, though, and that’s the problem. I am not looking to play let’s pretend. It would have to be someone who genuinely has a stronger personality than me otherwise I might as well stay home.
And I have a mighty strong personality. Backed by a smartass attitude and a very sharp and powerful mind. They would have to be able to anticipate and out-think me, and that is a much taller order than mere power of personality.
But who knows. Maybe somewhere out there is some megalithic motherfucker who could put me in my place.
I’ve always wondered what it’s like. I bet it’s nice.
More after the break.
On feeling more
More of what?
More of everything, really.
Unsurprisingly, the emotional effects of the mending of my heart are mixed. Having this newly strengthened river of life flowing through me has basically turned up the volume on all my emotions and that’s taking some getting used to.
It’s nice to have the good things amped up. I feel more capable of joy than ever before. I can feel more of the warmth of the company of my friends than ever before. I feel closer to the warmth and the light of the world than I have in a long time.
But the depression has gotten stronger too, and that worries me.
I find myself feeling open, active, conscious despair more often. Depressive thoughts like “I don’t want to deal with anything” and “I don’t want to get out of bed” and “there’s no point in anything any more” have become far more common.
And my sessions of sitting on the edge of my bed, lost, are getting longer and longer.
In the long term this could be quite good because it’s the product of my mind forcing buried emotions to the surface so I can process them and deal with them.
But you have to make it through the short term before the long term matters.
I don’t think I am in danger. As unpleasant as these moments of peak depression can be, they are not giving me the urge to do anything. Not yet, anyhow.
Luckily, I am very good at just soldiering on no matter what, so even if my depression deepens I know I will keep trudging along.
Besides, I can feel something being formed deep in the subterranean caverns of my soul. Something dark and grand and huge and powerful. Like an ancient god from a time before reason coming back to life and returning to its people after thousands of years of a deep and troubled sleep.
It is mighty, and noble, and invulnerable, and driven by a desire to give its human children the gift it has been protecting in its deep cavern all these years.
A gift that will bring them a great and terrible Awakening that will banish the shadows from their minds and let them see their world with clarity and depth for the first time.
It will do this because it loves it.
It knows some of us will die.
But the soul of humanity will be reborn at last.
Well that happened.
I amaze myself sometimes. Had no idea that was all in me. I just had the vague notion of something big and dark inside me and when I started writing about it, that came out.
I totally see how someone of a more mystical mindset would interpret an experience like that as being some kind of communion with a higher plane or cosmic entity.
After all, subjectively, it feels like that all “came out of nowhere”.
But I know it’s just me and my weird old brain.
Still feels pretty good to get it out there though.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.