Jun 15

 Quiet.

I think the mental meds are doing their job. Smoothing out the crazy. Smoothing out everything a little. Up. Down. They don't promise happiness per se. Just. A little more stability. But even then. Their effects are not exactly predictable. In the past I have described them as lopping off the bottom of the trough. You still get sad, and are miserable or whatever you like. But you can't spiral into the deeps. You hit a glass wall at the bottom. And you even out.

They also mute any highs you have. If you have any. There can be an odd rebound effect when you stop taking them. You feel happier. For a while.

I am not happy. Not even close to it.

I have given up entirely on everything. No joy, no hope, no movement. Just existence. Same as usual then, except, the bottom is lopped off. Ish. I no longer am literally driven mad at times. Instead I dance on the edge. Bubbling. Not really sane. Not really insane. Sane enough for 10 meters away.

The house and everything about me has gone to ruin. I am not cooking. I am not cleaning. I am not going out. I am not talking. I am not doing anything.

I am sleeping a lot. Sometimes to get through bouts of nausea which continue to plague me. And sometimes because I feel like shit. But also lesser sometimes just to make the day go away because I have nothing.

There have been a few rare times I decide to do something. Only to be saddled with nausea. Which entirely robs me of motivation or thought. And chases me back to bed to sleep.

This is part of the problem. My issues. Robbing me of even the lightest of capability to do something positive for my mentals. Caught between a rock and a hard place.

Rationally speaking it makes no sense. Why I am still here. I am just literally here to stop everyone else being in pain because I am gone. But really. It's not achieving anything. It certainly does me no good. But then again. Illusion is most of the deal with life. People can be comforted with what they think the world is. If I am still kicking. Others world maybe is a little less cold. But really. It has no basis in rationality. It's not like I have an input into any of their lives.

And in any case. I am not so sure that many people would care. And doubly the case. They would get over it. I think. Maybe I am being unfair. Put yourself in their shoes. I wouldn't get over it.

But then. I find so much of what I think or feel ends up not being relatable. I am. Not the same as others. Not in some high and mighty bullshit way. Just. I don't know. I see the world a bit differently perhaps. I have painted myself into a harder corner maybe. I have particularly mental fuckery. We're all unique.

A very deep and sleepy sadness has leeched into every bit of me. That whole utter hopelessness and resignation thing. It feels like the meds are the only thing holding me in the world at this point.

This week at the shrink we got to talk about loss and grief. Just about. There is so much to say about everything. Life, the universe and everything. Every minor point is a wander down into a related tangent. We didn't get into how loss was impacting me. We just really covered the physical loss aspects. And some connected things. Becoming ill and losing my former life. Then losing Ares 8 months later. Then losing my mom a year later. Then losing Athena a year and change after that. And the loss of having someone there with me. Stretching all the way back to .. 20 years ago. Another loss of lifestyle. Habit. All interconnected. My life of some 25 years prior give or take basically lost to me. A memory.

It is. A lot. For anyone. I think that's fair to say.

I failed to articulate or make any headway into how it was impacting me. Beyond it being "brutal".

I remarked that I didn't like losing people. That I had good relationships with most of my exes for instance. That I was perhaps unconventional. I didn't do the resentment thing. Where people get upset and angry and hate because of how things turn out. Or mistakes made. Or promises broken. It is life. It is people. Things happen. I said that when I care for people, I care for people. Of course things can be challenging to deal with. I am not a robot. But. Ultimately. If I like you. And care for you. That's always going to be the case. I said I looked on others that got mad and so angry with each other with an understanding but at the same time, how odd it was. That such affection turns to such hate. If you care for someone. You want them to be happy. Whatever that means. It's always been a truism for me. And sure. Sometimes that may result in personal pain. But still. Go. Be happy. I would hate for someone to sacrifice that for my selfish sake.

I also said that as I had got older I had lost jealousy and other such negative things. It. Wasn't like that for me anymore. Truly. Go be happy as a person. With me. Without me. Life is hard. And messy. I am absolutely not going to stop anyone trying to find their peace. I know just how hard that is. How shit life can be. I am going to try very hard to not add to that bullshit.

The shrink said it was clear I valued people and relationships. It sounded like I was some mercenary. I said it wasn't transactional. No they said, I get that. They also wondered whether my not wanting to lose things made me hang onto those relationships. I saw where they were going. No. It's not some manic avoidance of loss. It is more of a stable care for others. Less tempestuous, up and down, stormy. And more of a stable, I care for you, that's it. I also said in a very human way there was something nice about knowing someone well. And them knowing you well. You spend a lot of time with them one way or another. That's a good thing. Having people like that.

The shrink agreed.

We got somehow onto talking about coping. Bubbles. Contexts. That people lived in their context circles. The shrink asked if I thought it was possible to live without some kind of coping mechanism because that was what I was implying. No, I said. I don't think it is. I don't think we are built for it. We need that buffer, illusion, narrative, happy story to endure the world. We are not meant to stare into the face of the abyss. It's beyond our evolutionary fleshy clown car we inhabit. 

And what about you they asked.

Where is your coping strategy ?

Ah. I said. There is where it all starts to go wrong.

None for you the shrink said.

No. None for me.

I smiled the smile of the damned. I am fully aware of where I stand.

Grim. I said.

And the session ended.

They checked I was ok to leave. They were concerned. Not a great way to end a session on the statement of grim.

I will be ok I said. Grim is my normal. I am used to it.

I left with a heaviness clouding behind me. Nothing new. No insight. A statement of the geography. A short stare into the abyss. Which isn't good. It is there. I know where I am. I know where I stand. Embracing it full on is, and I think always will be, corrosive. I... don't think... anyone can stand there for long. Hence the whole, I think people need illusions to exist.

During the session we started to connect back to things I had said earlier, right at the start, the week before. About the corrosiveness of somethings we would talk about. About those doors that once stepped through you cannot go back through. Finding out that the wizard of oz doesn't exist. Santa Claus is fake. And elves aren't real.

I am slightly concerned. That we are starting to approach some kind of event horizon. The shrink is smart and switched on. I am slightly worried I am going to tip them into some kind of void. But hopefully not. Perhaps they have a strong belief in Jesus. Or something. Their illusions are strong. I worry they are not.

The shrink did flail around at one point. Struggling to connect the dots of nihilism and loss and coping and context. They are all tightly related. They could see the points. But not quite how they all interconnected. After visibly struggling with it and trying to give themselves time to think I offered to bail them out, which they took. I would tell them what it meant to me. They were happy with that. The drowning stopped.

At some point close to the start of the session I related that in recent years I had had the revelation that, whilst being authentic, not shying away from experiences or truths, or whatever, that it didn't mean I had to do it all at once. I could in fact, pace myself. I didn't need to consume all the emotion right here, right now, unrestricted. Pace yourself. I admonished myself for being an idiot for taking so long to realise such a simple point. After all everything else in life was about pacing yourself. Everyone needs sleep. Rest. Food. Recovery. The shrink noted it was a good point but questioned the word idiot. You're an idiot they said ? Yes I said. Idiot. Idiot they repeated surprised. No half way measures there. Just idiot. Yes. Idiot. Wow. Ok. They said. I got it. I have a very tough inner critic I said. That isn't the half of it.

Uh huh.

So. Another session tomorrow.

I did not have a good feeling before last weeks one. It feels. Hopeless.

Tomorrow. I feel like. It's hopeless.

There is more to cover about loss and grief I think. About how it impacts me. About how everything to me is now inverted. I live in the past. And the future is dead to me.

I don't know.

Perhaps they have some tips.

Drink more green tea.

Stretch in the mornings.

Praise the sun.

I feel somewhat guilty about going to the shrink. I feel like I've just handed them an impossible knot. That has corrosive properties. None of what I say is irrational. All of it is rational. Objective. Logical. The universe is horrible. I didn't make it so. Human society as it stands can be terrible. I had no hand in that. The problem is I see too far, too much, care too hard. And sure. Some of that is probably down to being some fucked up neurodivergent type. Some squirly little fucker. But there is no trick there to making me realise the misstep I've made. Those steps are meticulous. That's the problem. You can't reach me by teaching me obvious shit. It requires. Something else. Which in human context, may not even exist yet. Which is not as big of a deal as it sounds. 150 years ago. You get an infection. You die. Antibiotics in a human context did not exist at that point. Tough luck if you needed them before they were discovered. So it goes. 

We did cover some of that. About the size of your context circle. Dunbar's number ( 150 ish ). About that being your bubble basically. But that with training or effort or whatever you could of course, expand it. And expand it. 

But. We're not meant to do that. Big inputs. Limited processing. Fried processor.

Another circular reference back to the whole earlier session chat about how focused society was around the intellectual being oh so important. More than anything else. And how everything pushed you to be better, be more. And nothing warned about the hazards on that road.

I know why.

People don't get that far. So. The hazards are poorly reported. Those that do report it off themselves. Their message does not make it into the mainstream.

Keep On Huffing That Good Stuff. Only Good Things Can Come Of It !

Yeah. No.

Anywho.

Roll on tomorrow.

I am pretty sure I already know what they are going to say. They will talk about mental hygiene. And being in the moment. And reducing that context circle. And attempting to set new patterns of behaviour. At first programatically, but hopefully in the long term, automatically.

Ho hum. 

We shall see how well my prediction pans out. That is. If we even get to that. I suspect that advice is a few sessions off yet.

Ah Johnny.

You are such a massive pain in the arse.