thehusk

I spend a large part of each day trying to remember why I’m still alive. It slips away from me so fast, and all I’m left with is the nagging sense that everything is wrong. The isolation, the loneliness, the longing, the fear. Things are not ‘ok’, and it’s unlikely they will ever be ‘ok’ again. They’re just not bad enough (yet) to overcome the terror of death. And until that changes, all I can do is prepare, and try to make things as easy for myself as I can. The problem is keeping that clear in my mind, when a large part of my brain wants to go into meltdown. To desperately lash out, or grasp at anything, to find some relief or salvation. To make it stop. But it won’t stop. There is no solution. There is only coping, better or worse. What I need is someone on my shoulder to remind me of that, every minute of every day. So I don’t sink into self-destructive behaviour. No relief, no way out, no solution. Only coping, better or worse. I need someone to slap me and shake me out of it every time I sink into this paralysed state.

Wanting things is a problem. If I could just not care about anything, then no problems. No fear of losing out. No fear of death or pain. Just lie here in tranquility until my body shuts down, and gets returned to the earth. These atoms could be put to such better use in someone else. Someone without a me in their mind, twisting and tormenting them.

But there is wanting. There is attachment. There is fear. So I will lie here a while longer. But then I will get up, and continue the pretense that there is good reason for this organism to continue.

Life is a process of discomfort. Rarely excruciating, but always threatening. Toothache, backache, stomach ache, headache. Heartache. There is always something that hurts. And it only gets worse as you get older. Things wear down, and reach a point where there’s no recovery. And then you’re just stuck with the ache – this nagging reminder that your body is slowly falling apart. And part of me just wants to be free of it. But never enough to actually end it. To overcome the delusional parts that still want to live. So instead I lie, wallowing in my pain. And look for ways to temporarily numb it.

There are things I should probably be doing, in order to live a better life. To be a bit less miserable. But I don’t know how to bring myself to actually do them. To be less bad as a person. Because it requires confronting reality. And reality fills me with despair. It requires acknowledging the things that I’ve done, and the worse things that I want to do, and how fucked up it all is. And the fact that I will never be able to connect with another person because of that.

And recognizing all that makes me want to curl up in a ball and die. It makes me want to erase all of existence. To destroy everything. Because what meaning is there in that kind of existence? I’m so completely, totally alone. Not just in the present, but for as long as I’m alive. I will never be able to let anyone else in.

So why bother trying to be a better person? When I’ll always have to hold my true self back?

How do you motivate yourself to try and make things a little less bad? When inside you know that no matter what you do, it will never make things ok? That you will always be alone. The despair is so deep, and there’s no way out. It drains all my energy. I don’t know how to live with it, but the only alternative is death, and I’m too scared of death to kill myself.

The only way I will ever have anyone in my life is through lying to them. And lying only makes you feel more alone. It eliminates any real connection. So it’s pointless.

So I will always be alone. And I don’t know how to be ok with that. That kind of life seems pretty pointless to me. Nothing seems interesting enough to make it worth living.

But I still need to find some way to motivate myself to be a little bit less bad, through all of the despair. Rather than just turning to my worst instincts for a kind of desperate pain relief.

I’m living for a delusion. A fantasy. And I know that. It’s never going to work out. In the end, all I’ll be left with is my sad lonely little reality. But I can’t stop myself. I’m not in control. I’m so enthralled by the fantasy that I’ll keep sitting through the pain day after day, just for a chance to pretend.

It’s so pathetic. I’m just another dumb meat robot, lumbering on in the vain pursuit of procreation. But cursed with the awareness that it’s hopeless, and all that’s left is pain.

Reason is the slave of the passions. It doesn’t matter that suicide is the rational course. My drives don’t want to die. They want to keep pursuing the illusion that dances on the horizon, no matter how impossible the reality. I am trapped, by my own mind. I am not free to do what is smart, what is sensible. I am not free to die.

It would almost be funny, if it wasn’t so pathetic. The thing that consumes my mind, that seems so amazing and essential, is also one of the worst things in the world. What feels good is also terrible. What kind of exquisite mindfuck is that? Almost as if I’ve devised the perfect method to mentally torture myself.

It’s been almost 4 years since I last went to that place. I think about it often. I might go back at any point. I might’ve gone back today. I seriously considered it. I still might. 4 years teetering on the edge, barely holding myself back. Why? It’s not like I’ve changed. It’s not like it even makes me an acceptable person. ‘Great, you stopped doing that unforgivable thing. Gold star!’

I tell myself it’s because I don’t want to feel worse about myself. How could I possibly feel worse about myself? But there’s always a worse, no matter how low you go. Unless you’re a psychopath, the guilt and shame just continue to pile up. There’s no rock bottom – we passed rock bottom long ago. You just keep on digging.

I tell myself that it won’t satisfy or change anything. That’s true. It won’t make my fantasies real. It won’t make it all ok. It won’t resolve anything. No matter how amazing or relieving it feels in the short term, nothing will get better.

The desire for that short term escape is still very strong. Anything to forget the pain for a few weeks, days, hours, minutes. To feel fully absorbed in anything. To feel fully alive again.

But it won’t last. Perhaps I’ve learned that much. The reality returns, the guilt kicks in, and the low is worse.

So, this wonderful essential terrible sickening thing – we’re not doing that anymore. So then why not suicide? What else is left for a monster to do, if it can’t bring itself to be properly monstrous anymore?

I tell myself that I can’t do that to my parents. To leave them with that kind of pain, with the unanswered questions. It would destroy my mother. But that may be a rationalization. If I cared that much, surely I would never have risked their wellbeing by going down this road.

It may just be blind fear of death. This monster badly wants to survive, and spread it’s monstrousness.

Or perhaps it’s fear of what might follow death – judgement, punishment, torment.

So, not suicide then. At least not yet. So what then? Try and find some way to bear this pain without wanting to tear the world apart? Try and find some kind of fulfilment with those who would be rightfully disgusted by the truth of you? Whilst also keeping everyone at a safe distance, so they don’t become contaminated? Fuuuckkk, just kill me now. Snap your fingers and erase me from existence.

I’ve spent so many years trying to numb the pain that came with self-awareness. Recognizing what I really am destroyed me, and I can’t see anyway back from that. But I also can’t bring myself to end it. And I can’t stand this cage I’ve built for myself. I want to be invested in life again. To really feel, rather than constantly managing and denying feelings. But the feeling often seems unbearable.

I don’t want to lie to myself anymore. To hide the truth behind rationalization and reason. I don’t want to be this detached zombie. But I can’t stand the truth. The truth makes me want to erase myself from existence. It sucks me into an endless pit of despair. I have to find some way to live with what I am, and what I’ve done. To really live, authentically. No more pretending, or constantly dulling the pain.

The only thing I fear more than life is death. Or more specifically, what might lie beyond. Things would have to be utterly terrifying here for that leap in the dark to seem preferable. It could easily get that bad, but until then I’m stuck. I’m suffering, and in pain, and I hate it. I’ll complain,  ***** and moan, struggling with myself, desperate looking for some way out. But I won’t actually do the one thing that would end it all. Not until my future in this world is so scary that death seems easier. Fear is everything in my life.

No matter how many times the shame hits me, I know I will return to it. I know the thoughts in my head are wrong. I feel it, every time. The recognition of how fucked up it is. But I just don’t care. There’s no version of me that I wouldn’t be ashamed of. So why not push it, right to the edge? Think and feel the worst things I could possibly think and feel. Be the most wretched creature I’m capable of being.

There is conflict inside my mind, but that side of me will always win. I don’t care enough to deny it. To maintain the effort. I don’t believe in or care about anything strongly enough to keep that up. I’ve tried. Or tried to try. Or tried to want to try. But ultimately, there is no try. There is only do, or do not do. And I won’t. I’ve proved that to myself, time and time again. Because I don’t want it enough. I want to be shameful, and wretched, and disgusting. Talk to me in a few hours and you will find someone glorying in their own depravity. The shame is superficial. It doesn’t hit home. It doesn’t last. Nothing changes.

There are few people who have a stronger rationale for killing themselves than me. I have made myself unemployable, undatable, incapable of basic social interaction. And I have dug a deep well of sickness inside my own mind. I have corrupted and twisted myself beyond all recognition.

But I won’t do it. I know I won’t, no matter how much I should. Because on some level, I want to be this. I want to go on being this pathetic, useless, disgusting waste of life. I love my own depravity. I’m deeply attached to my suffering.

It’s all my fault. I could blame my genetics, my environment, the universe itself, some creator. But no matter how they came to be, the faults are within me. The sickness is in my head. The problem is me. And I won’t solve myself. Though no one else can.

How do you become one, consistent, coherent self? I want so many conflicting & incompatible things, and my mind swings between them from minute to minute. They may all be impossible anyway. Doing anything may be futile. But if I could just maintain a consistent mindset for a few weeks in a row, I could at least move toward something. Instead of being paralyzed.

I don’t know what to do. How do you make lasting decisions, when your motivations are continually fluctuating? When you passionately want something one minute, and couldn’t give a shit the next. How do you live like that?

I dreamt a lot last night. It wasn’t pleasant (it rarely is.) I dreamt of doing terrible things. Or wanting to do them. Of being on the verge of doing them.

And I dreamt of figures from my past, in new contexts. But I felt their disdain for me, and knew it was well earned. That they despised me, and were not wrong to do so. I had pretended to be someone else, and my true worthlessness had been revealed.

I don’t know at what point I became worthy of such disdain. I feel it was long before my worst acts. Maybe my personality was always shameful. I was always shy, quiet, held myself apart from others. Perhaps I gave the sense that I thought I was superior. Perhaps I did think that.

I couldn’t take a joke, or teasing – I was hypersensitive. I didn’t understand what was going on. I remember being very scared, and that feeling never left. I felt out of place, and I didn’t know how to adapt to my new environment. And rather than looking outward and learning, I turned inwards and hid. I don’t know how much responsibility you can put on a 9 year old’s shoulders for that. But I chose cowardice, and every year that followed I doubled down on that choice. So I can’t blame others for identifying that, and not liking it. I don’t think hitting or spitting is acceptable regardless, but I can’t claim that they were wrong to despise me.

But still, I carry the anger from that, the hatred. 25 years on. Emotionally, I’m still that cowardly child. Possibly it’s some kind of wounded narcissism. I hate people for revealing my own weakness. I hate others, and I hate myself.

Sometimes I wish I’d stuck with therapy, and found some way to transcend the injured infant inside. But I couldn’t let go of my addictions. I didn’t have enough hope of anything better to see me through. I need my sickness – it’s all I have.

I want the pain of this to stop, but simultaneously I can’t stop inflicting it on myself. I don’t know how to stop hating myself, because there is no future version of myself that I don’t hate.

I am an awful person. From every standpoint. No matter your philosophy, your personality, your politics, pretty much everyone can agree that I am scum – the lowest of the low. I am one of those quiet figures that drift through life in the background, keeping their evil intent hidden until it’s finally exposed. You may know that something’s off when you look in my eyes, but it only clicks into place when the truth is revealed.

Unfortunately (for me), I’m not a psychopath. I feel the shame of what I am. The isolation of it. Living with myself is hard. I don’t sleep well at night.

The standard response is ‘so change’. It’s not so easy. When you’ve dug yourself a pit this deep, there’s no hope of ever getting out again. A few things you really can’t come back from. They contaminate your mind. It’s easier to just keep digging.

I’m less bad than I used to be, in terms of my actions. But my mind is as sick as ever. If you knew the things that go through it on a daily basis, you would hate me, and you’d be right to. I hate me, when I see myself objectively. But still, that part of me persists. The monster rages inside my head. All I can do is keep it on a shorter leash.

The monster is me, in a deep sense. I moderate myself, to try and limit the pain I cause to myself and others. But it will always be there – it’s too integral a part of myself to let go. It would be like cutting off my limbs. I can’t imagine living without that part of myself. It’s horribly contaminated and warped, and there’s no healing it, but it’s integral – it’s essential.

It’s debatable whether I should kill myself simply to rid the world of this sickness. When considering the effects on family I think probably not. And I’m too afraid anyway. But that means living with being this terrible person. And that hurts, a lot. I feel like shit, because I deserve to, because I am a piece of shit. And there’s no way out of that awareness. No amount of good works or volunteering or charity change what I am. I’ve really tried to pretend I’m a decent person. I’ve been through therapy. I really tried to starve that part of me. But it changed nothing. Now mostly I just want to numb the awareness away. Which helps in digging my pit ever deeper. My own little private hell.

I’m stuck in a very strange position. It seems that overall my life is not worth living, so from a purely self-interested point of view I should probably kill myself. But I’m still very much attached to the idea of life, and afraid of death. So I instinctively don’t want to do it. I also believe that it would devastate my family, likely causing them greater suffering than I’m in now. So I also shouldn’t do it from an objective moral viewpoint, at least as long as my parents are still alive and so invested in me.

But when they pass on, or when something gets significantly worse, then I should do it. So I should be trying  to overcome my attachments, and my fear of death, so that I’m ready, when that time comes, along with preparing my method. But I have no real idea how to go about that, and I feel very little motivation to do so, because the parts of me that don’t want to die are still strong.

I have very little motivation to do anything. I don’t want to die, but I don’t much want to continue living like this either. And I don’t really believe that a worthwhile life is possible for me. It’s this weird in between space.

I am the ghost of Christmas depravity. Don’t worry, you have to fuck up real bad to end up here.

I’ve made myself alone, always. Even when surrounded by people, laughing and smiling. What I’ve done is always there, in the background, separating us. If they only knew…

There’s no way to make it ok, or wipe the slate clean. I have to live with what I am, with the fear and shame of it. I am not safe to be around people – not safe to exist in the same world or breathe the same air.

I deserve worse than this. To be trapped with the knowledge of what I’ve done, the full awfulness of it, with no escape – that would be hell. Right now there are the distractions of life. But who knows what the future holds?

This is not remorse. Remorse requires turning a page, renouncing the past. I’m the same monster I always was. I’m just slightly more self-aware. I know how wrong what I am is. But that changes nothing. I am the same. It’s as strong in my mind as ever, maddening and intoxicating.

There’s no recovery, no coming back from this, no peace to be found in this world. Only the hope that when I finally die, that will truly be the end of me. That I will return to earth and grass, air and water, leaving no trace to stain the world.

If anyone reads this, don’t let yourself end up here. Find someone, anyone, who you can open yourself to, and be real with. Before it’s too late, and you’re too far gone.

I am a fantasist. I’m massively emotionally invested in things that are impossible in reality. Which generates endless despair. But I don’t know how to stop wanting what I want. Some things just feel essential.

My fantasies are also terrible. The sickest, most deplorable things you could imagine. And yet they also feel wonderful and great. So that’s a massive headfuck. Huge amounts of shame, guilt, fear, and self-hatred. But it also feels amazing.

So that holds me back from pursuing anything real. I can’t let anyone else see the sickness inside me. And I can’t give it up. I can’t contaminate others.

So my life has no meaning. I want the pain to stop, but it’s not strong enough yet to overcome fear of death. I want someone – I don’t want to be alone anymore. But I can’t – I don’t deserve to be with anyone. I can’t pretend I’m worthy of being with anyone. I have nothing to offer anyone. No one could see the sickness in me and not be disgusted.

My life is pointless. Just try and prepare for when things get bad enough, then kill myself. That’s it. No ambitions, no realistic hopes. Just sick fucking fantasies, and sad delusions, and shame, regret, fear, self-hatred.

Still, maybe if I tell myself this often enough something will shift in my brain. I’m so, so tired of being this.

I’m so insanely alone, and hopeless. Can’t pretend I don’t deserve this. But I don’t know how to live with it. I’m so tired of carrying this weight, all this longing, regret, shame, self-hatred. I want to go back, to before I did this to myself, but there’s no going back. I want to go forward, but forward is death, and I’m scared. I’m scared of somehow becoming stuck like this, a sad eternal echo. So I delay, playing for time, hoping for some kind of magical reprieve, or to uncover some hidden understanding of reality that will remove my fear.

I don’t want to be alone anymore. But I also can’t let anyone in. I’ve truly screwed myself over.

The thing is, I don’t know how to tolerate feeling like this. The sheer fucking loneliness of it. The self-hatred. The shame. The despair. The regret.

I keep telling myself in my mind ‘you’ve got to find some way to cope with this.’ But I have no clue. My mind is constantly tearing itself apart, looking for a solution. But there is no solution. I have irretrievably fucked my life up. There’s no removing this stain. No making it right. No way to make myself acceptable to others. So I will always be alone.

I don’t know how to accept that reality. How to live with it. It drains all possible meaning from the world. So I desperately fantasize over some way to break through those logical constrictions, hurting myself even more each time the reality is made clear.

And yet I feel like I should somehow be able to cope with this experience, to function and give the appearance of normalcy. To get through each day without wanting to curl up in a ball and cry. To avoid passing my despair onto family members who don’t deserve it, I should find some way to live with this. I just haven’t got a clue what that might be – it seems unbearable. How can you be this endlessly alone and not go insane?

There is no hope. There is pain, tiredness, longing and sadness. And fear. Boundless fear.

But presumably, this pain will come to an end. Though it may get far worse before then.

Perhaps I will somehow find the courage to end it by that point. But if not, it will come to a natural conclusion.

The average lifespan is under 80. Knock several years off that for depression and chronic isolation, plus a few more for lifestyle factors. It could easily be less that 40 years. Even less if I get a terminal illness.

What’s 40 years, given the span of the universe? A blink. The last 33 have gone by in a blur. It’ll be over in no time.

No matter how bad it gets, this will come to an end. Unless there’s a hell. In which case I’m truly fucked

This despair will fade back into the background. Logically I know that. Tomorrow it will be covered over by anxiety, and distraction, and possibly even some brief excitement. But right now, it has me. And everything is wrong. And nothing will ever be ok again. But it’s fine, even though it’s not. Nothing to see here. Move along.

I want to do some truly terrible things. I don’t think they’re ever going to actually happen. But just the awareness of that side of myself leaves me feeling afraid, and isolated from others. I’m the bad guy in everyone’s else’s story.

I suppose it’s because although I’m a bad person, I’m not a psychopath. So I still crave social acceptance & safety, even though I know I can’t have it. Awareness of the immorality of my desires terrifies me, because it’s a reminder that everyone is a threat. Anyone who saw the truth about me would pose an unacceptable risk. Essentially I’ve made myself an enemy of humanity.

So I have to isolate myself. But that carries it’s own fears. We’re tribal creatures – the lone wolf doesn’t live long.

I’m terrified of something beyond death – of judgement. Of the evil within my mind finally being laid bare for all to see. Of punishment. That seems like the only real reason not to end myself, beyond just a blind will to survive.

I don’t really know what I’m doing here. I’m a monster who’s failing to live out it’s impulses. A cowardly monster. This should be the bit in the story where I escalate my crimes, and the authorities finally track me down. Instead I’m just hiding, waiting, fantasizing, pretending to be normal. My past could still easily catch up with me, but until then…what? Realistically, I’m not going to reform, or suddenly see the error of my ways. It’s gone far too deep in my head for that. So I’m just waiting for the end – for  the world to tear my life from my hands, and force me to face death.