Poison

Reflections. On life, decisions, peace, everything. Sleep deprivation is like a venomous spike deep inside your flesh. It spills it’s poison through your veins, clouding every thought, every judgment, every decision you make. It intensifies negative emotions by a hundredfold. No wonder, everything turns to shit, whenever my body decides that it’s time to ignore a healthy amount of sleep once again.

Alas, it usually only lasts for a couple of days before I am able to catch enough and regain some control. Or maybe my dear friend, the void, answered my calling and lend me his tender touch. I don’t mind either. It’s better than before. No feelings of despair, no desire of hurting myself, no constant rumination about ifs, whys and hows. Finally I can dive head on into the ocean of emptiness again. Took me long enough.

Until next time. Whenever I try to explain to other people how I perceive emotions and what it’s like to constantly juggle between several extremes, I am never sure whether I am actually able to convey a somewhat appropriate image. Sure, I try to be as graphical as possible but sometimes I have the feeling a lot of people are thinking “Oh, well, it can’t be THAT bad, right?”
Blessed be their souls in their naivety.
I envy them. I truly do. Living life like that must be close to hanging around in Elysium. Maybe some day I will join them. I would like to.

Interesting side note: two days ago I was head deep into ruminating thoughts about why I still haven’t killed myself yet and somehow these dreadful mental explorations appear so far away. Probably one more reason why emotions make everything so much more complicated. And potentially dangerous, even deadly for some. I don’t want to die. No matter what my head is telling me during these fucked up days. Just imagine all these years of constant struggling and effort. I survived so much shit and suddenly I should just throw everything away? Then why did I even fight for so long? I could have given up ages ago. There were so many opportunities, way better ones than now even, on which I could have ended everything. But I didn’t. I fucking pulled through. I screamed, I cried, I vomited, but I fucking survived. Every. Single. Time.

Why would I give up now? Because of some other inconveniences I have to endure? Nothing I face right now is even remotely close to the shit I have already been through. Not. Even. Close.

I cut out the venomous spike. Threw it far away. My mind is clearing up again. Not seeing the obvious right in front of you, is a dangerous disability. Well, at least I have some clear sight now. I am just not sure, how I will be able to redeem this very state of mind next time I’m in dire need of it. It is pretty easy to rationalize, whenever your mind is not clouded with shadowy poison. Somehow I need to find a way of conserving and reminding myself of these obvious truths right in front of me – even during my darkest hours.

Maybe it will help to read these words again as soon as I feel the pull into the shadows again. It might not prevent me from drifting offshore completely but maybe I can throw out an anchor to avoid getting thrown too deep into the chaotic sea. It is worth a try, I guess. Can’t end much worse than the last times.

The interesting part is, whenever I imagined some kind of rejection in my life, my mind starts a race to the bottom as fast as possible. It starts from “Hm, did I something wrong?”, gains speed at the well-known marker of “I am pretty sure, I fucked up somehow, it’s always like that” and runs straight over the cliff into the abyss of “FUCK! FUCK! FUCK! EVERYTHING I TOUCH IS TURNING TO SHIT! WHY NOT JUST KILL MYSELF NOW TO FINALLY BE DONE WITH IT?”.

This is, of course, a very unhealthy response towards a very common emotion. I have my own theories about its root causes, but these don’t really help in developing a more useful approach of dealing with these feelings. Instead, I need a different response.
I will call it the SOFFU approach. Survival Of Former Fuck-Ups.

My creativity for abbreviations is amazing, I know. But whatever may work, is worth a try. If I am able to recall SOFFU whenever my current world starts turning into a giant shit-hole again, it might help me of regaining some form of control and not completely losing my mind inside the shadows. If this approach fails as well, I merely have another one added to the ever-growing list. No big loss and up to the next one. SOFFU it is then. It might actually work. I have been through so much shit before, why would I stop now? There is nothing new for me here, everything I encounter, I have seen in some way before. Why should I be afraid of another snake in the grass, when my body has been mithridatised countless times? Another bite is just more of the same. Been there, done that. Whatever. My mind’s attempts of killing me didn’t succeed in the past and they won’t bear fruits now. Hit me, punch me, kick me, cut me – there is nothing which I haven’t already done to myself over and over again.
This is just another Fuck-Up. Business as usual. I will survive again.