There has to be a comfortable middle gear between “ambitionless drifting” and “hating myself for being an ambitionless drifter”.
Once more I attack my crisis mentality. Like I’ve said before, I live my life like I’m in a fucking bomb shelter. As if there are hordes of radioactive mutant zombies hunting me and I can only stay “safe” by coming as close as I can to not existing at all.
Which doesn’t work, by the way. I spent my whole childhood doing that. On a deep level, I knew (without being able to articulate it) that everybody in my family seemed to be kind of mad at me all the time and that this anger could flare up at any second over practically anything that reminded people I was there, so my only “safety” (on the emotional level) was if nobody noticed me.
At the same time, I was desperate for attention. Starving for it, even. Kids need attention paid to them in order to feel validated and appreciated, and that does not change just because I was an unwanted kid.
I didn’t ask to be an odds-defying miracle baby. It’s not my fault that I was somehow conceived despite my mother having her tubes tied.
But you have to admit, that was a pretty neat trick.
Anyhow, my point – yes I have one – was to bring up the subject of this crisis mentality of mine. It’s this persistent notion that I am in terrible danger and that I really should be facing reality and getting on with life but I am not and that means I totally SUCK and am a LOSER etc. that I am hiding from when I play video games all day.
It’s a monster of my own devising, a mere sock puppet for my depression, but it’s kept me in check for 30 fucking years .
And I keep trying to address it. I tell myself that whether I am acting to better myself or just fucking around, it’s OK. I am okay. Whatever happens, it’s fine.
But that doesn’t work for me. And this is where all my frustrated energies and ambitions come into the picture.
Because of all that pent up life force and drive, I am restless and angry deep inside. There is that eternal spark deep inside me that I call my “pilot light” which on the one hand keeps me from surrendering to despair but on the other hand it makes me restless and hungry for stimulation all the time.
And that drive wants to DO THINGS. Important things. Meaningful things. Things that carry some goddamned weight in the real world.
Things that prove I am not completely worthless, a net drain on the world.
Because if I truly am a living liability, then the world would be better off without me.
And we don’t want to go there.
But that’s what my neglected and resented childhood taught me : that I made the world a worse place just by being born and that I was not welcome in this world and that the world would be a better place if I crawled off and died quietly somewhere.
And I know that’s all a lie produced by mental illness, but that’s my higher mind talking. The mind with all that intelligence and creativity and other flashy stuff.
The deeper self, the inner child, still carries the burden of all that neglect and resentment and still feels like I make life worse just by living, let alone taking up resources that should go to someone more worthwhile.
Defined as “literally anybody but me”.
That’s what fuels my endless self-persecution and it is that demon of self-loathing that I am fleeing by remaining buried in my distractions.
If I could only learn the love myself, that demon would die. I need to somehow give that deeper self permission to be alive, and the right to be loved and appreciated.
I still don’t feel welcome anywhere. Part of me is always ready to run and hide.
And that’s no good.
More after the break.
The storm is over
The storm is over
The war has ended
The wolves have stopped howling
And can now be befriended
The demons were banished
The ghosts are asleep
The enemy vanished
With nary a peep
The party concluded
The guests all went home
The house is vacated
And I am alone
Everything’s peaceful
Nothing to escape
I have nothing but freedom
So why don’t I feel safe?
I feel better now
There, I finally wrote some decent poetry. I feel better now.
And to answer my final question there, I don’t think I know how to feel safe. I have been in this state of cowering and cringing for as long as I can remember.
I know that I was a happy kid before the rape. I was bright and cute and effortlessly charming and therefore had a tendency to be the center of attention wherever I went and led quite a happy life.
But it’s hard for me to remember that. Not just because it all took place before I was 4 years of age, but because it’s kind of painful to remember what I lost.
To imagine the shining innocence that was shredded and scattered to the wind by my rapist, forever shattering my consciousness and turning me from that bright and shining kid into the fragile nervous wreck you know and love hurts like a bitch.
Like I like to say, I lost my innocence so young I don’t remember it.
But that’s not true. I do remember it. I remember what it was like to feel warm and loved and connected to the world.
And as much as it burns to think about it now, I have to make myself do it, because that’ where the uncorrupted copy of my personality lies dormant and if I am to become even a shadow of the person I was supposed to be, I will have to restore from backup.
No matter how old a backup it is.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.