OK, so I didn’t have a red hot idea of what I wanted to write tonight. So sue me.

I wonder when people started saying that?

Been feeling anxiety and depression lurking just over the horizon of my massive reality denial field today. Even as I entertained myself with Fallout 4 (current hobby : murdering things with a tire iron) I could feel this shadow lurking out there, waiting impatiently for the moment it could pounce.

Joke’s on it. The way I live my life is expressly designed to keep my mind so busy with this n’ that n’ the other that it never, ever, ever, gets a chance to GET me.

I wonder if there is a limit to that, though. By default, I have assumed that I could (sadly) keep doing it till the day I die. just stay huddled in my tiny cave, determinedly and stubbornly ignoring everything going on outside by using my entertainments to keep the space where reality would go filled with something else.

Anything else, really.

And like with my adorable turtle metaphor from yesterday^[1], staying withdrawn only makes things worse.

But what if that ability just…. runs out some day? What if my shadows get strong enough (or my resistance becomes weak enough, or whatever) and all that bad shit I keep marginalized in my mind breaks through?

I am ashamed of how much that idea appeals to me.

Because then I wouldn’t have to decide to do it. I would be spared all the need for a painful self-sacrifice by forcing myself to choose because – miracle of wonders – the choice would be taken away from me and I would have no choice but to deal with my bullshit and finally get my shit together.

What a wonderful idea! I feel warm and flushes just thinking about it.

But why? And what does that say about the nature of my issues? Most people would think that having all their demons come for them at once would be their worst possible nightmare and the sort of thing they would sell their soul to avoid.

But I’m Not Most People (INMP). To me it sounds lovely. So what’s my deal?

Clearly, the sticking point is decision. So let’s look at that. There is something about having to decide when to face my problems that is so bad to me that it makes a psychological apocalypse seem love a warm summer daydream to me.

I know that I have serious issues around decisions when they are personal ones. In other situations, I can be swiftly decisive like a top notch executive, but one of the unholy rules of depression is that everything is different when it applies to YOU.

Even when that makes no fucking sense at all.

Anyhow, patient readers know I have issues with option paralysis. And I used to wonder why that was. What kept my normally brilliantly analytical mind from being able to evaluate the available options and choose an optimal route?

The easy and misleading answer would be that there are just too many options. My creative mind comes up with far more options than I am capable of evaluating, so the whole process breaks down at that point.

But I no longer think that is the real answer. I think it’s one of those bullshit tricks my depression pulls to protect itself.

It’s a dodge,. basically. And I won’t fall for it any more.

In fact, I bet if I tried to actually articulate all those options, I wouldn’t be able to because they are not real. All that is really there is the feeling that there are too many options and I can’t possibly choose.

Either that, or my mind subliminally phrases the questions so broadly that I would basically have to process the entire universe to answer it, and gets the depression’s desired result that way.

And I know that I am cognitively capable of overcoming that problem. I am totally capable of breaking down a big decision into smaller, solvable units and then intergrating the individual results into an overall solution.

I mean, that’s synthesis, and I totally rock at that.

So clearly the problem is emotional. My depression throws up this bullshit roadblock to give me the “escape” from the situation it has made artificially stressful by giving me the “excuse” (may lightning strike them all) that, well, I just CAN’T possibly do this clearly totally imPOSSIBLE thing!

What a load of crap.

Well that shit ends now. I am onto you and your dirty little tricks, Depression, and I am going to dismantle and destroy every single one of them until there is nothing left for you to hide behind and you and I can finally have it out once and for all.

A battle you know you will lose. Hence the hiding.

You know that I am unstoppable once my willpower is fully engaged and I have a clear target to focus on. I am the motherfucking DEATH STAR when I get going, and nothing and nobody can stop me then.

And I have a simple solution to option paralysis : cheerful fatalism. It’s the perfect antidote for taking things way too seriously and thereby turning even the most trivial of decisions into some kind of life and death struggle.

Let’s spell it out here : I hereby declare that I don’t give a fuck what happens to me. Positive or negative, all outcomes are welcome as long as I am getting somewhere.

Even tragic failures with lasting negative effects are better than this icy paralysis based on nothing but bullshit and lies.

Whatever happens, it will be because I was living life instead of hiding from it, and that means it was totally worth it.

So what if I am in the infinite hall of infinite doors? That doesn’t mean I have to be Burridan’s Ass, starving to death from its inability to choose one pile of hay when they are both indentically close and appealing.

I can just start opening doors and dealing with whatever the fuck is on the other side. Good or bad, it’s still better than starving in the hallway.

And despite what my depression tells me, I can cope with negative outcomes.

Because I am not a trembling mimosa, shrinking away from the slightest touch.

I’m the Juggernaut, bitch.

And I am going go get what I want out of life.

Even if that means destroying everything that gets in my way.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.