Today was a pretty productive Therapy Thursday.
And one of the gems today’s session produced was the fact that I have been internalizing my rage like all depressives, taking it out on myself, despite the fact that like the title says. I don’t deserve it either
Lemme back up and explain.
I have all this latent rage that needs some way to express itself. Leaving it locked up is not an option. Rage demands expression and will get expressed one way or another whether you let it out voluntarily or not.
Same with other primal emotions, like fear and lust.
Nothing stays suppressed forever.
So there are two wages rage can be expressed : externally and internally.
We’re all familiar with externalized rage because we’ve all known angry people. And we’ve all had experience where we lost our temper because we were in a bad mood.
But depression has its roots in internalized anger, where the individual takes it out on themselves inside their own mind, often without realizing they are doing it.
This is the Eternal Prosecution I was talking about yesterday. Abuser and abused are one and self-destruction is at its most…. efficient.
But it has to go one place or another. Either I take it out on others or I take it out on myself. And of those two, I have consistently chosen to take it out on myself as taking it out on others is absolutely morally unacceptable to me. My anger does not make other people suddenly deserve to suffer.
So that leaves taking it out on myself the default choice.
But as Doc Costin pointed out, I don’t deserve to suffer either. Nobody in this scenario does. I’ve done nothing to earn the wrath of my Eternal Prosecutor. I did nothing to earn all the abuse and neglect I’ve suffered in my life.
I’m a sweet guy. I deserve better than this.
But if it can’t go out into the world and it can’t stay inside and wreak havoc, where there heck is it supposed to go?
There has to be a third option. I know it doesn’t seem like there is, but that is what makes it a fascinating problem to me.
It is through such dire conflicts of the mind that the spirit grows and consciousness expands. Hence the whole “one hand clapping” bit.
Which reminds me of something amazing that happened last week.
Fair warning, not sure I can express this in a way that will make sense to others.
But I have to try.
It happened when I was talking about the whole idea of feeling trapped inside my own skull. That, unsurprisingly, set off an attack of what I will call “existential claustrophobia” and I started to hardcore panic.
But then a voice in my head said something like “no, we will USE this” and turned the energy of the panic into energy to crush the walls in my mind that hold me back.
That’s the best way I can think of to describe it. It was glorious. I felt this spreading relief and a deep sense of dark victory as my mind crushed its restraining walls via expansion like an angry amoeba busting out of its petri dish.
Obviously, turning panic into growth is one hell of a trick, and I look forward to exploring this extraordinary form of alchemy further in the future.
Sharpened by reason. Powered by pain. The engine that will set me free.
What a thrill!
More after the break.
Where’s the fire, mark II
Let’s try this one again as I did not end up saying what I meant to say last week.
Typical, I know.
Anyhow, what I wanted to talk about was this constant sense of panic that is always there in the back of my mind.
Like I (kinda) said before, everything else in my mind operates within the envelope of that panic. I honestly can’t imagine what it would be like if it wasn’t there.
I’d sleep a whole lot better. That’s for sure.
And the thing is, objectively, I know I have no reason to panic. I am, health issues aside, completely safe. The sense of being hunted and having to hide or something will GET ME is entirely delusional.
In fact, on a very fucked up level, my various serious health issues have been a relief because at least now, my paranoia is justified.
Ba dum tish.
The deepest and most destructive form of this panic is the constant feeling of failure that I have talked about before. It is definitely the biggest and baddest of my demons and the one I flee the most.
It’s from that feeling that I am hiding when I spend all day playing video games an blogging and hiding from life in general.
Deep down, I have no faith in my ability to succeed in life. So when I talk about feeling like there is something I should be doing but I don’t know what, hidden within that sentiment is the feeling of my own general weakness and incompetence that informs almost all that I do.
Deep down, I do not believe myself to be capable of making it out in the real world at all.
This despite the fact that if I break down what it takes to live alone into its constituent tasks, I can do them all.
Pay bills? No problem. Do my own laundry? I have since I was ten. Cook for myself? Ditto. Shop for myself? I actually enjoy it. Keep my space neat and clean?
Um…. I can pay someone else to do it for me!
But deep down I am still the abandoned child waiting for someone to remember me and come rescue me and protect me from this cruel world until I am strong enough to make it on my own.
I was kicked out of the nest far too early.
I still need someone to take care of me.
But I am a big huge tall man now, and nobody takes care of people like that.
Not for free, anyhow.
Guess I need the money to pay someone to do it.
Better get on that right away.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.