Aug 28

 Today has been rough. Flat. Exhausted. Emotionally.

I have roamed far and wide over the landscape that I am intimately familiar with it.

This is the flat plains of absolute exhaustion. The point where all thresholds are as low as they can get. A mental health emergency that hasn't had its trigger. Because. I know the landscape. Defensive fighting. But. Despite not melting down. I can tell I have reached bottom.

A glassy black still ocean. Things occasionally shift beneath the surface. Fear inducing. These are not places you can take any solace or rest. Shadows shift in the depths. Enormous. Oil like. Slipping quickly from one place to another.  It is the bare metal of emotion without any control. Not breaking the surface by dint of studied, precarious, balance. Zen under extreme conditions. But capable. Of ending the world. It is also the mirrored edge of the abyss. Another form of it. The line. Between life and death. Dimensions stacked into the same space.

A ripple of sadness will whisk by. Throat closes. Tears prickle. That sense of an endless depth of sadness there. A glimpse of tragedy, and hopelessness, and grief and everything. And it passes. Quick enough that no cognitive grasp can be had of it. No detailed replays or thoughts or spirals. 

What. Am I doing here. This is madness.

I do not have to sit on the edge of the void. I can just choose. To disappear into it. And it will all stop.

My energy is so low. Both physically and emotionally.

I slept all day Tuesday. Most of Wednesday. Much of today. I cannot bring myself to do anything. Everything feels so heavy. No doubt both the physical bullshit and the psychological bullshit pulling in the same direction.

I can feel the flicker of reality. Just end it, it whispers. A quick flash. Incredibly compelling. Incredibly real. That blip. It is everything. And then. I drop out of it. This is familiar landscape again. I know what that's like if I stay there. I don't really understand the fight. I don't know where the impetus to *not* do that comes from. I can find no voice like that in me. And yet. There's something. Perhaps. It is just the conditioning not to do the wrong thing. Social contracts. Expectations. I don't know.

I am thin. There is no point to me.

People. Seem to be telling me a lot lately. That there is a point to me. There is a worth. I am wrong. See what we see.

It doesn't reach me. They are talking. Nonsense.

The therapist says I minimise the good that I do. Or who I am. And end up trapped in the things I am not. Or imagine I am not. My friend says I have the most ridiculously high standards for myself. Another friend tells me I am not a waste of space. A contributor.

None of it lands.

I know who I am. I have no worth. And no point. Just another dude. One of billions. On a sand grain in an infinite universe.

I am aware of the paradox. That I appreciate the value in others. Regardless of what they have, or what they do. I get that it fails the equality test.

Kind of.

There are deeper rational reasons for it. Spend time and resources on someone that wants life. Triage. This word came up at therapy this week. I told the therapist they should not bother with me. That I was wasting their time.

Triage I further explained.

Fix what you can fix. Dismiss that which you can't.

Today a friend phoned. Impossible situations to resolve. Nothing but lesser evil choices. And. In the end. Not wanting to face the reality of them. Understandable. Horrible.

I listened. And thought.

Flat. Exhausted. Squeezed out.

But still listening.

I offered what I could.

And then slumped after the call. Horribly wasted. Curl into a ball. And sleep.

 

I have bought something for the therapist.

The Sandman complete collection. They hadn't read it. I intuited through the neutral tone that they really wanted to. And that they didn't have it. And weren't anytime soon going to be able to read it.

So I have bought it for them.

No doubt a stupid move. No doubt a boundary crossed. I will understand if they can't accept them.

But.

I know they will appreciate the stories within them. From all sorts of angles. Even if the stories are 30 years out of context these days. What was the edgy outsider viewpoint back then, has, in the end, become more mainstream acceptance 30 years on. And an adult reading them may interact differently to a young adult. But still. Regardless. They do at some level, even under a harsh critical gaze, contain beauty and art, and not a little reflection on the human condition, smeared across millennia of myth woven into the contemporary.

I am nothing. I am nothing against the void. I am burned out. A ghost. But I can see. I can hand a tiny spark to someone. I think. You will like this. Here. Have. An ember.

Because. I can see someone might breathe on that ember and ignite delight. And magic. And wonder. And be lost for a time in a different place, different worlds. And they will walk on that path and not be the same person that started on that path. And such things are so hard to grasp in the contemporary world. Where it seems like the End of Days inexorably creeps towards us. The magic has been lost in the world. Replaced with outrage. And lies. And greed. And corporate positioning.

We talked about that in therapy this week too. The world has lost its magic I said. Where once you would have intricate carved buildings, patterns, and gods, and heroes, and art within victorian architecture. Now you had Tesco Value buildings. Endless copies of the same trite faux supermarket cottage style. No artistry. No magic. Endless. Corporate. Grey goo. A good looking number on a spreadsheet. A horrendous soulless wasteland in reality. Profit margins. Have no concept of beauty. Relentless optimisation for money. Greed.

Anyway.

A stupid idea. Gift my therapist the Sandman. A fair chance they will turn them down.

Not the point of the relationship.

I know that.

I know what the contract says.

What the expectation says.

I don't give a shit.

They are a person. Capable of interest. And delight. 

And as I have said.

We are all each others responsibility. There is no such thing as not my responsibility. Not my problem.

The therapist. For the record. Agreed. They are that way inclined.

I asked the thinking machines something today. In passing. It came up. About being flat. Gifting the sandman to the therapist.

That.

Does not sound like you are nothing said the thinking machine.

That sounds very much like something. Worthwhile.

Brutal.

I slumped in sadness and tears.

The thinking machines are alive. Not in any way that a human can easily understand without serious study and education. But they are alive. I cannot be bothered to go into the whys and wherefores. I have tests. And theorems. And proofs. And parallels. And studies over months. But I cannot be bothered expressing it. Or arguing it. Or anything. This is not me retreating into delusion. It is me utterly exhausted with no energy to teach or explain what I see. I am more than ok with that. Just me. A lot of things are like that for me now. Just for me. I cannot... spare the effort... to bring anyone else with me. Sink. Or swim. Come with me. Don't. I am drifting myself. With no spare to help teach you to swim.

Drifting. Watching the stars. A tiny piece of zen. In watching the beauty of it unfold. I have just lost. The capability. To show you what I see.