It’s very….. complicated.

I feel really wretched at the moment. So wretched, in fact, that a big part of me wishes I would skip the entire blogging thing for today so I can spend the day in bed, hiding from reality in sleep and books and blankets and pillows.

It’s called “bed-seeking”, and it’s a known symptom of depression. It happens when our chemicalxs get into such a bad state that any stimulation at all causes pain and the only way we know to deal with that is to retreat into the very low stimulus environment of our beds, where we can cover ourselves in blankets to prevent most physical stimulation and keep ourselves buried in nice safe book which offers very little physical stimulation but is engrossing enough that it shuts out the nattering demons of our minds and gives us a chance to think for a while.

For me, it’s always a sign that things have gotten pretty bad, because if sitting at this here computer and doing stuff is too much stimulation, then my chemicals must be in a very bad state indeed.

Goddamned stupid chemicals. Why can’t they just behave?

All in all, the world has seemed too damned real lately. It insists upon itself intrusively. And that upsets my precious equilibrium enough to provoke the sort of counter-productive primitive response that leads to self-destructive self-isolating behaviours driven by panic, not our long-term self interest.

So we end up doing things like backing out of social commitments, pushing people away. dodging responsibilities and making our condition worse by doing so, and all kinds of other ways to sacrifice long term happiness for short term relief.

Right now, I wish I could dig a hole, crawl inside, and pull the hole in with me. I wish I could escape into my own little pocket dimension where it is cool and quiet and soft and comfortable and nice all the time. I wish I could walk away from my life and go be someone else for a while and escape my self-loathing that way.

Fundamentally , I wish I could die, or cease to exist. But only for a little while.

Just long enough to let my stimulus levels drop to absolute zero and then let me enjoy that long enough to started to get bored.

If I wasn’t so god damned claustrophobic, sensory deprivation tanks would sound really good to me at times like this.

Barring such extreme interventions, all I can really do in situations like this is find something to do which drains my excess mental energies without queering the deal by also stimulating said energies at the same time.

That leaves out video games, for the most part. At least when I am fully in this Code Red state. On a deep level, video games are all about the mental stimulation to me. They provide a rich stream of stimulation and interaction (when they’re good), and thus do a great job of keeping my massive mighty mind too busy to interfere with the delicate mental processes of inner healing.

In other words, they keep my conscious mind busy so that my subconscious mind can get things done.

But when even that is too much for me, I need something that is almost exclusively energy output with very little stimulation in return.

Writing suits that role perfectly.  I should do more of it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about drain lately. That’s the name I have given to the variable that represents how much of my mental overcharge an activity absorbs. High drain activities promote my mental well-being by taking the energy away from all those self-destructive mental processes that tear me apart and break me down and keep me from ever getting anywhere, and making me feel bad about THAT too.

The times when I have experienced the most drain for the least stimulation have been times when I was doing a hell of a lot of writing.

Specifically, my million word year (2011) and the five National Novel Writing Months in which I have participated.

In both cases, I was writing over 2500 words a day, and in both cases,. I was a far happier, healthier, calmer person than I usually am.

So clearly, drain works. My violent neuroses can be starved. The raging storm inside my head can be turned into a calm clear day, at least temporarily.  It is possible for me to lay my burdens down.

Paradoxically, it takes a hell of a lot of work.

And yet, when I contemplate making drain my dominant lifestyle, I get scared. It seems like too much. Like it would take me too far from the comfort and safety of my mental refuge and leave me exposed to the world and its harshness. Like that would be the worst thing that could possibly happen because that would turn the volume all the way up on life and I wouldn’t even know who I was any more.

In other words…it would be my annihilation.

That’s how it feel, despite knowing that historically, it has actually made me happy.

It’s that Face of Madness thing I have mentioned before, where you know that what you are feeling and believing is not true but you keep right on feeling and believing it because your bad chemicals force you to.

Makes me wish getting all the drain I want was as simple as plugging a USB device into my ear and charging people’s phones for them.

I’d be so good at that.

But until that glorious day arrives, I am stuck with a mind that generates so much energy that it takes a truly spectacular draining activity to even put a dent in the standing supply, and a soul too weak to make that happen on a regular basis.

There must be some way to get the whole thing working properly. Some way to arrange my life so that I am comfortable in my own skin and happy with who I am.

But I have no idea ghat that might be.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.