That’s what this auto-therapeutic journaling journey feels like sometimes.
The image I have used before, though grisly, still applies : it feels like I am a soldier with a gut full of shrapnel who is forced by circumstances to remove it all himself.
And every little piece of jagged metal removed does make me feel better, and enables my mind to heal itself just a little bit more, but there are moments when I nevertheless want to give up and just die quietly rather than keep doing it.
But I soldier on, as I must. True despair is alien to me. I have to keep moving. That stubborn unquenchable spark that acts as my pilot light will allow no less.
So I am restless. I have always craved mental stimulation in large quantities and of course, that’s something that my life of video games and the internet can deliver.
It’s things like purpose, direction, a sense of accomplishment, things to be proud of, a position in the community, or even some good ol fashioned fucking it can’t do.
Well, it can probably do that last thing via hookup apps, but meh.
Of course, when I speak of “it” I really mean “me”. I can’t provide those things for myself because I am still too dang crazy. I can’t stand the thought of stepping away from my entombment in games and YouTube for even a short period of time.
And maybe that’s the problem : thinking about it. I know that my mind is extremely unreliable when it comes to predicting how much something is going to suck and I have no reason to think it’s any more right about this than anything else.
Maybe that’s just the little fear that covers up a much bigger fear of the real world, then.
It’s that “failure to launch” thing again. Somehow, my fellow flightless birds and I become convinced that we cannot handle the real world and that if we were ejected into it by circumstances, we would die. It would destroy us.
But is that just a symptom of a fixed sense of self? To the caterpillar, the transformation into a butterfly might well seem like dying, and worse, being replaced by something entirely new and alien to its current form.
But that’s a word for that : maturation. Growing up. Our entire journey from conception to adulthood is one long radical transformation from zygote to taxpayer.
And yet we have no doubt that we are the same person all the way through.
Why is that, do you think?
And what happened to my unfeathered cohort and I along the way that interrupted that process and left us stranded on the precipice of maturity convinced that if we make that leap we will not fly, we will die?
Perhaps what the vast majority of humanity has that we don’t is full and unconscious access to their instincts and drives. They don’t question why they would do what their developmental programming tells them to do, they just do it.
But I’ve always wanted to know why, and rejected anything whose justification I could not see. And I think that is ultimately what has doomed me.
Sometimes if feels like I am under the influence of a powerful magic spell that keeps me in a trance and compels me to live as I live and do as I do.
And of course, the person casting the spell is also me.
Perhaps I have hypnotized myself into hypnotizing myself. Spooky!
But the truth is that I am terrified of what happens when this spell ends and I have to wake up and face reality.
It all seems so frighteningly intense and overwhelming and “real”.
I can’t imagine how I could possibly handle all that.
Not without someone to hold my hand and help me stay calm and centered and confident. Someone who can catch me if I fall and support me if I stumble and guide me when I once more get lost in the dark.
What I really need is a grownup.
This is what happens when you end up raising yourself.
More after the break.
All about brains
OK, hear me out.
We all agree that we only have one brain, right?
And yet, if someone is killed via a gunshot wound to the head, we say it “blew their brains out”, not their brain.
Does injury somehow make the brain plural?
My favorite aunty
Aunty Histamine, that is.
I really need to get back on the antihistamines. Not only do they keep the sniffles and sneezes at bay, they block all my other allergy symptoms too, like sinus headaches, itchy palate, and a general inflammatory feeling throughout my body, sometimes accompanied by muscle aches.
Just another day in the life of a gimp.
Which reminds me : I think I have fallen back into the habit of judging myself like a normal person again.
Hence thinking of myself as a “loser” with all that entails.
There’s some truth to that. I have lost out on life, that’s for sure. I mean, here I am, brain the size of a planet, and so forth.
But it’s not my fault. I’ve been quite ill. Mentally and, increasingly, physically.
And, arguably, the system hasn’t been all that successful in treating me. I talk to Doctor Costin once a week, and that helps, but I have him more or less cowed now so mostly he just listens to me drone on and on for 50 minutes.
And that does help but it doesn’t get me closer to sane.
It’s mostly been up to me. Hence this journal of mine. The whole point of this daily practice of mine is to remove that shrapnel I mentioned in part 1 and slowly work my way towards a normal life.
What I could really use is a therapist with balls of steel who maybe doesn’t like me that much and so is willing to push me and prod me and challenge me in order to force me to grow and mature.
Or maybe all I really need is a nice long cuddle. I don’t know.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.