Aug 23

 Yesterday was one of those dragging along the bottom garbage days. Where I never get past feeling unwell. Exhausted. Nausea. All day. All evening. Never lets up. It's one of those days where I should instead just sleep it away. But sometimes I make an effort and stay up. And it doesn't help. It just makes me live in a miserable state. Ho hum.

Yesterday I decided to stream a bit of gaming. Sometimes it makes me feel a bit better, or, more often, forces me to mask up for a while, before collapsing afterwards. I don't know. All I can tell you is that sometimes just being distracted from suffering helps. Often I do it with gritted teeth. It's not that I don't enjoy it. But it's like trying to concentrate when you constantly feel like you're going to throw up. It's. Not easy. Everything in your system is screaming at you to go rest. Feel better. 

But I know from years of this, that it doesn't get better. Better days are a rare shimmering jewel. Great days I never have anymore. Long lost to history.

Today is also rough. But I have been very slow about it. Not tried to force anything. Not like I do anyway most of the time ! And it seems to have heled. I am a little more stable today. It feels like I have a tiny glimmer of energy. I haven't tested it. No doubt it will evaporate as soon as I look at it.

It crossed my mind yesterday of talking to a friend I haven't talked to in years. My brain has started to idle over it. Apparently. The trait I have of pre-gaming many things is one of those core traits related to childhood maltreatment. It is, apparently, part of a defensive mechanism. To play everything out first. Because the situations you are in as a kid are high stakes, high volatility, unsafe. So you practice first.

It makes sense when you put it like that.

Anyway. 

Part of this imaginary conversation. I stated. The person you once knew is gone. Long dead. There is someone left that looks vaguely like they did, sounds at times similar, but it's not them. There is just me. And I am not like I was.

I've never really thought about it for myself in those terms. I believe it to be very true. Now the statement is out there. I have had such thoughts in the past about people I have known. In a few cases. The people I once knew changed so much, that it was like they died. And I grieved about it. One of my exes is like this. I have thought about it often. How they changed. How inevitable change is. And how it can be a roll of a dice how much, how far. It has given me deep insight into how relationships change over time. How very difficult it can be for say, married couples, to maintain that connection when years turn to decades. It's not about any one party being weak. Or a cheat. Or false. I see that often it is just a function of time. People change over time. Of course ! And where a set of paths once upon a time shifted together along a way, after time it can be that they have drifted away. Different directions. Different goals. Thoughts. Dreams.

When you step back and look at it, it's utterly ridiculous to expect a relationship to stay as it is for decades. That's not how it works.

For relationships. To my understanding of it now. One part of it is luck. Probabilities. It's going to be the case that some lucky few do indeed travel sympatico for all of their lives. But it's unusual. Luck of the draw. One bigger part of it is adaptability. How flexible are you in accepting the differences in people, your partner. Can you adapt to ever changing shifting sands beneath your feet and stay on top, or do you get buried beneath. And end up breaking apart. And the last bit of it is maturity. The maturity to understand the blend of love, care, familiarity, stability and compromise. All these things blend together. Sometimes almost impossible to pull apart they are part of each other. And there is a maturity and wisdom in understanding how you connect to someone else. It isn't just about a wham bam head over heals infatuation. In fact sometimes it's not about that at all. It's also about things like comfort and stability. Reassurance. So many things. The romanticised ideal is for it to be all about the head over heels love. Which, don't get me wrong, is great. But I think the quieter more mature bit is understanding all the rest of it as well. I think, our modern neurotic mindset that media has built, makes an enemy of things like understanding and compromise. Or even the dirtiest word, convenience. But all those things are part of it in a long term relationship. At least. That's what I see. And understand to be the case.

I think like much of the modern mindset, the internet has a lot to answer for. It is doing a bang up job of poisoning peoples minds about all sorts of things. It isn't of course, evil in and of itself. It's just a tool. A reflection of it's users. But what I think it does do. Is amplify even the quietest most deranged signals. And puts them on par with the sane ones. The result being. The internet is covered in mentally damaging information and opinion. And it is slowly killing us as a species. We are slowly becoming increasingly demented. Neurotic.

Anywho.

Long tangent.

People change.

I have changed.

In my - probably very fucked up - opinion. I have not changed for the better. Enduring all the misery I have has twisted me. My psyche is scarred by it. And scabbed over into a rictus that I cannot change.

I find it hard, no, hard is the wrong word, I find it impossible to find happiness anymore. I am aware. That I am stuck on one side of the scale. Permanently in shadows. I was always prone to that on any neutral day anyway. One of my old docs said it was a gift. Seeing things others couldn't. Finding the problems that others brushed away. It was a way to improve things. He was a good guy. But. I am stuck in the land of shadows at this point. Pathological. All I see when I look is the ravages of time. Disappointment. Sadness. Misery. I can see the break points in peoples lives. How they struggle. The rising tide of debt, greed, seflishness and how it impacts everyone.

I know. Still. At this point. That this isn't objective. That there is also good. And happiness. And things can go right. But that's not what I see.

I know enough, to know I am fucked. Biased. To the negative.

I do try my best to not let it colour my attitude to others. To always strive to be positive for others.

The darkness is kept for me.

Bound to me. On a leashed chain. Capable of savaging me. But not others.

I am, as my shrink refuses to accept, broken.

Big picture. Things get broken. Shit happens. It is not ridiculous. Nor uncommon. It might be uncomfortable to think of. But it does happen. And I am broken.

The point of me thinking that. In that imaginary conversation. Of the person I was having died. Gone. And some approximate doppelganger left. Was something of an understanding. An excuse. A get out clause. But really of acceptance and understanding. I am not the person I was. The person who I am is not someone you will like. And that's ok. It's not you. It's me.

In an attempt to counter the relentless lack of self worth. I have also changed in more positive ways I think. It has not been all bad.

I think I have definitely grown softer. More understanding. When I was younger everything was sharper and more black and white. Right and wrong. I was way way less accepting of flaws and weaknesses. That was just "doing things wrong". I was an idiot in that way. In my defence this was what I was taught. Right. Wrong. People are stupid, possibly weak, if they're not doing it right. Maybe assholes. I didn't think ill of people. I just thought many people fucked things up. Or lied to themselves. Ok. People do lie to themselves. But now I fully understand why. I understand the enormous pressures there. And how within that is the secret to the human condition. That people aren't what I originally thought - just people going about their business. Life is a struggle. At times a scream. Desperately paddling to keep heads above water. And often not allowed to show any sign of struggle. Or emotion. And that people reach their limit of what they can do. Not on paper. On paper anyone is capable of almost anything. But in reality people reach their limits. How many plates they can keep in the air at once. How many fake smiles they can plaster on their faces.

I think. I understand the human condition properly at this point. And just how much of it is based in fear, anxiety, desperation and entrapment. Once you understand how difficult it can be on somedays to get from one day to the next, everything makes sense. When you look for the reason. You see the fear hiding behind the shout. The violence. The reaction. The lashing out. The indifference. You see people pushed to their limits.

So. I have changed. I now have a lot of compassion for people. Of all stripes. Including "shitty" people. The worst people. I can see the things that made them twist into such horrors. And there is a sadness there that they had to endure that and become the horrors they are. It doesn't excuse it. But it does make it understandable. And often tragic.

I have learned patience. I am still at times, not good at this. An ever ongoing lesson. But I am much much better at this now. I have learned to have patience even in the most challenging of circumstances. When physical abuse is thrown at your face. Patience. Calm.

Even cynical me appreciates that compassion and patience is a good set of traits I have learned. It feels, not only useful to potentially anyone around me, but also feels like a morally right thing to do. If such a thing even exists.

As part of that my ideology has shifted to become one of reducing suffering where I can. Of course. I am beyond fucked up at this point. So it's rather like the proverbial asthmatic ant with heavy shopping committing to climbing Everest. What use do you think you're going to be ? But. I try where and most importantly when I can. Reduce suffering. It comes with understanding people. Empathising. Sympathising. Understanding how shit life can be. And that no matter what, even in some vast objective nihilistic take on things, the subjective minute to minute, suffering is important. Even if nothing matters. Suffering in a moment always matters. That human subjective response does matter. Even in a perfectly nihilistic universe. And. That suffering. You can often do something about it. You can make it worse. You can make it better. You can do nothing. It is within your capability, sometimes, to make a difference. In front of the mind wiping enormity of the uncaring universe. It is possible. For the most insignificant speck of it. To make an action. That carries weight. It does matter. To someone.

These are some of the ways I have changed.

I have washed up onto the shores of a compassionate understanding of the human condition.

I am still human. Still flawed. I don't have infinite patience or understanding. I can fail. Push me hard enough.

But I try hard to have patience and compassion.

This is why I think, one of the worst ills there possibly is, is for someone to suffer alone. It doesn't matter what ills they have caused. Suffering on your own is the worst fate of all. The worst punishment. And I don't think anyone deserves it. Really. Ask me on a shitty day. And I will say some absolutely do deserve it. Fuck them.

But not really. That's just me losing patience.

And in any case. Most people are not raging assholes. And can suffer alone.

It's one of the things I have noted with Hazel.

When some people have told me to cut her out of my life.

Treat others how you yourself would want to be treated.

Suffering on your own - even when you do behave abominably. Is a horrible thing.

And. As much as  I can. I will endure that. And go sit with someone. Just to make sure they are not alone.

It is. Probably. Self destructive. Another symptom of that lack of boundaries. Lack of self worth. Not protecting myself. To make sure someone else is OK.

But. I also don't think it's a terrible thing either. That there should be, at the end of the day, regardless, unconditional love. I think. Also. This is what some religious texts try to bang on about. Love thy neighbour and all that. In todays world it gets twisted. At the moment into hate if nothing else, which is, bewildering and again, tragic. But. Eh.

Anyway.

What do I know.

I am broken.

But I try to be patience, compassionate, and understanding of each persons unique hell and where I can, hold their hand and remind them they are not alone.

Treat others, how you yourself would want to be treated. 

Is it enough ?

No.

But I don't know how to do more.

And. I am ill. And fucked.