06.05.2019
It’s likely to be a hospital trip after all. Maya has persuaded me with her persuasive power to take care of a stationary admission. Sure, I’m feeling relatively well right now, but she pointed out that this is not a decisive criterion, as this mood can also quickly turn upside down again. When she reminded me that she had been with me for almost ten years now and had seen what this disease was doing to my life, I simply couldn’t disagree. All my knowledge, all the advice I give other people, I almost never use for myself. She said that my arrogance would eventually kill me because I am so presumptuous to believe that I can cope with this disease alone and overcome it on my own. I think it is time to admit to myself that I am unable to do so. I have tried it over the last few years, but if the last few months have shown me one thing, it is that this attempt has ultimately failed. I advise anyone suffering from a mental illness to seek professional help, but over the last few years I have done everything but listen to this advice. Maybe, no, no more maybe. Something definitely has to change. I have to change. Change my behaviour. One more time. If I want to survive the next few years, then I have to acknowledge that I need help from a doctor. That I can no longer do it alone, but better sooner than later do everything necessary to get along with myself and my life. I don’t know at this point how it looks with medication, because as far as I know there is no effective medication for the treatment of borderline and the last time I tried it (and when the diagnosis was not yet made) the consequences were rather unpleasant. Therapy will be absolutely necessary, so that I will learn strategies to deal better with the effects of the disease. I had always assumed that I only needed to read enough research to know what to do, and maybe that’s true. I probably have enough theoretical knowledge to actually know how to behave during these periods. However, it seems that all this knowledge is not enough to enable me to actually implement it. Or I overlook something essential. In any case, it is necessary for me, through professional care, to achieve the stability needed to restructure my life and live an organised life. Completely exaggerated, fucked-up characters are usually only exciting in movies, because we know that they fulfill their role within the structure of the movie and therefore work. But nobody sees how these people live their everyday lives. What daily challenges they have to struggle with and how difficult it is for them to get anything done in a reasonable way. I have felt this more than clearly in recent years. I have made so many mistakes, claim an unbelievably crappy impulse control to be my own and regularly lived a life to the limit and beyond. Of course such extremes are very attractive for an audience that sits comfortably in the cinema armchairs and is amused or repelled by the peculiarities of these people. But actually experiencing these excesses yourself is not necessarily the most enjoyable experience. I am not a movie or book character, rather I have a very real life. But living this life like a movie inevitably causes problems. If I ever write a book about how such a life actually feels, other people might understand that this is not a desirable state. Or maybe I’m also writing that book right now? Presumably, at least some of these thoughts will flow into the plot, for that they are too genuine and simply reflect too well through which extremes one walks almost daily. So there is probably something good about the fact that I take the trouble to write down this chaos. At some point I might actually be able to capitalize on it. A big toast to my materialistic worldview. It would be too bad, if I would use all these hours of writing only for myself, but nobody else. If I succeed in benefiting from it in a sustainable way, it would have its upside.
Egotheist 