Whatever’s gnawing at my head has been doing it long enough that it began to eat into who I am.
No, wait. I take that back. This part is immortal. There’s no evil in this world capable of taming, destroying or twisting that force. What happened, though – is that the evil tried to cut it off. Why bother destroying something existing beyond place and time when you can just veil it, cover it, pile fear on top of it until even the bearer of that force themselves cannot find it?
I can’t sleep. Whatever’s gnawing at my head takes the biggest bites at night. I read psychology handbooks in bed, and it rarely helps. Escaping obviously doesn’t help either; the wicked side of proper, successful therapy is that once you make some changes in your head, you can’t get back. I wish I could spend hours or days blissfully unaware of whatever’s going on around. I can’t. Now that I’m aware of how things could be, now that I’ve unblocked my ability to feel – there’s no escape. You don’t get to lie down once you learned how to run.
* * *
The despair has not changed – but I have. I still feel like I’m Tennessee Williams; I wait for the click – except I’ve found some less drastic way to bring it upon myself. Back then I used to drink myself into oblivion; now I’ve found some very promising ego state triggers that hopefully make me click. Because mind you, it’s a known phenomenon. Ego states. On a good night, I’ll just introspect upon myself and watch the post-traumatic cauldron of thought. On a bad night I am both the cauldron and all within. From the inside, trauma doesn’t feel like an inflicted wound; it feels like the world is on fire.
Reading psychology handbooks in bed surely can’t be that bad.. right?
* * *
Folks, I’m fooling myself. Books no longer bring me the enlightenment they used to. I’ve found people. My stupid autistic ass has found people, human connection, emotions, compassion – and now I can’t go back. That stuff – even though extremely taxing – seems way stronger than any kind of excitement I could get from a good design or a good book. So here I am, with a goddamn choice: stick my head in the tarpit of everyday life’s escapism – or stick my head in the sun. My choice has become the infinite boredom, or the infinite connection. In a way, I learned the whole spectrum of feeling and being, just to be thrown back in the same old choice:
Too excited / too frightened / too exhausted / excruciatingly bored.
* * *
Post scriptum:
I forgot about this blog. Of all the brain outlets I have – and mind you, I have plenty – this one seems most personal, most “me”, most “I don’t give a damn about what you think about me when you read this”. I forgot I don’t have to be comprehensible here. I don’t have to make sense. I get to juggle emotions, to mistreat words, to tell lies with pictures. Only the die-hards will read this anyway; only the fools and witches will understand.
I like this place. Soon it’s gonna fill up with pictures once again. Didn’t I tell you? I found the click. It’s my camera’s shutter sound. It’s the pop of a developer bottle’s lid. It’s the film reel closing. It clicks – and I’m back. Not whole, not healed, not suddenly free – but at least fully present. At least with this click I get to tap that creative life force I almost thought I lost.
I read up so much about traumatic triggers I didn’t realize there are also healing ones.
