My mood is better today.
Yesterday it was pretty dark. Not for particular reason I can think of, just that part of my long mood cycle I guess.
I suppose that’s another thing I need to get used to about myself : I’m moody. And my moods don’t necessarily proceed logically from anything in my life.
And that’s frustrating.
My overly logical and controlling mind wants everything to proceed logical via a known and controllable cause and effect and has a very hard time accepting that some thing happen “just cause”.
I mean, they have a cause on the fundamental scientific level. Everything does. Presumably a Clarke level alien could track my brain chemicals and activity and show me exactly why my mood shifts like it does.
But I sure as heck don’t know.
It does feel like a cycle, though. A process. Some deep part of me is on a long loop kind of like a conveyor belt in a factory, and the factory is smelting and refining me as I pass through it, and even though the belt is very long, I am still keenly away both that I am going to end up back at the beginning again and that I am not really getting anywhere.
I still feel like a passenger in life. A spectator. A tagalong. Life is something that happens to other people, not me. I’m just this strange and unique creature who is always on the outside looking in and who has no idea what it’s like to actually be apart of things.
But perhaps there is strength to be found in my strange life in suspended animation. I certainly have an extremely unique point of view and some very deep insights into how things work and how they SHOULD and COULD work.
And I am passionately interested in what is going on in the world, and I feel like I could make a valuable contribution to the public discourse if I could only get over myself.
I’m working on it.
At least I think I am. I dunno. Maybe this life of mine really is a conveyor belt and the unhealthy part of my mind has gotten very good at creating the illusion of progress while keeping me “safe” by making sure I don’t get anywhere or change anything.
I’m definitely of two minds about nearly everything.
There’s the healthy, sane, expansive, confident, upbeat side of me that can’t wait to go out into the world and find fun things to do and cool people to meet.
That’s the side of me that really just wants to go play with the other kids.
But the other part of me is still that traumatized little monkey who was raised in isolation and then introduced to the other monkeys and instantly freaked the fuck out.
My isolated life has made me ill suited to go play with the other kids. The sheer volume and density of the fear involved is staggering. I had to learn, at way too young an age, that my only safety lay in nobody noticing me because I stayed hidden away.
And the only place I was truly safe was alone, at home, in my bedroom. That was the only place I could let my guard down and relax the hypervigilance and feel, well, as safe as I am capable of feeling, anyway.
Even in here, the permanently panicking little animal inside me never truly relaxes. That’s the part of me that has been hiding deep in the darkest recesses of my mind and calling the shots from in there with the cold yet crazed calculation of a mighty villain.
He’s just trying to be safe.
But I don’t know what it would take for him to realize he IS safe. Has been for a very long time. The things he fears so much are just ghosts of the distant past.
But he’s afraid to relax and let go.
Because that’s when they GET you.
And that would be the worst thing possible.
More after the break.
Everything is fine
That’s what I am telling myself and sending it as deep as it can go.
Everything is OK now. I can relax. That scared little animal inside me can finally calm down, lay down, and have a nice long rest.
We’ve made it home safely. In fact, we’ve been home for a very long time.
And we have nothing to fear in the big wide world but our fears themselves. We are perfectly capable of handling whatever life throws at us.
And even if we get overwhelmed and freak out again, so what? Hang in there and wait for a little while and it will go away.
Anxiety is not destiny, for fuck’s sake. It’s just the result of a malformed adrenal response being triggered by innocuous things and if I just hang in there rather than fleeing I will see how meaningless it is.
And there’s always Xanax.
At this point, I feel like what remains of my skinsuit of fear is really just a kind of chemical residue remaining in my system entirely shorn of any cognitive justification.
So much for the cognitive behavioural therapy approach. According to it, if I change my thinking I will change how I feel!
Yeah right. Fuck off, CBT.
Ahem. Anyhow, knowing that all this fear holding me back is basically biochemical bullshit does help me push through it.
Sure, the alarms will go off, but I don’t have to listen to them. I know they are meaningless and represent nothing but a broken warning system.
I feel like I am building up the strength and will to make a big leap into something new. Like making my way onto YouTube again.
I look at my YouTube account and see over 300 videos there and I realize that I am perfectly capable of creating content daily.
Only now it would be much more well produced and way, way funnier.
I could really rock the YouTube world but I have to get started and established first. Make a “workflow” that makes creating videos as seamless and friction free as I can.
Any minute now. I swear to God. It’s coming.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.