unforgettableFOXfire
I serve MacPhisto
- Joined
- Sep 20, 2001
- Messages
- 2,053
And now its time for the 'let's watch fox talk with himself' game.
I don't know about psychotic breakdown... I've had a few neurotic ones, I suppose... many more existential quandries... The most severe break down I had was one time in highschool either at the end of grade 11 or the end of grade 12 (before I started grade 13 aka OAC, which has since been discontinued), at the peak of my misery, I barricaded myself in my room with a bookshelf and hid in my closet for 3 days. Didn't eat, snuck to get water and use the washroom during the rare times people weren't home, and spent most of that time crying like mad. I hated. I felt excitement. I wanted to kill. I wanted to die. I wanted to love. I wanted to know. I wanted to forget. I wanted to have everything and nothing all at once. I wanted power. I wanted to drink life until I could imbibe no more. I wanted to make things easier and still see all the rewards of labour. I wanted to give it all up for one sweet moment without misery. I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to understand...
I can't even sit and watch tv for an hour, but managed to sit amidst boxes and clothes all day, sleep, and do it again for another 2 days...
It was partly the culmination of years of pent up hostility towards my peers for the way I was treated (for the names I was called, the things that they threw, the damages they caused), partly hostility towards myself for allowing it to go on, partly hostility towards the system I was trapped in (the school system makes children impotent to deal with problems that they face; no matter what they do, they effectively face punishment from someone's hand). Being trapped within systems I hate is something that I still deal with and struggle with on a frequent basis... But it's life. Life is a struggle. It's been a matter of choices, or lack thereof... And making the right choices if given the opportunity... but, before one can make the right choice, one has to know and understand what 'right' is, in a more meaningful sense than obeying what definitions they've been given. I looked at my world and the values that were set out did not match up with the actions I saw taking place; but, these values also said people are good, and yet so many were clearly not; something had to break here. So much hypocracy. So much wickedness and ugliness in a place so supposedly beautiful and wonderous. The world became polluted and corrupted for me; a place where everything was toxic, dank, reeking, and wretched. Something needed restructuring. As it turned out, it was apparently my mind. A single person cannot break the world, no matter how stubborn and well-intentioned they are -- the world breaks them.
I couldn't live in denial of the realities of life, though I wanted to (and this is not to say that the world is a dank, wretched, filthy slimepit not fit for man nor beast; quite the opposite, I now choose to believe). I couldn't shrug it all off and be happy and 'do the right thing' when I no longer saw any motivation, and no longer even saw what it was that was 'right'. Nobody seemed to be punished for their misdeeds. Nobody seemed to be rewarded for their goodness. There's no safety in numbers for the people doing whatever they pleased, some were punished and some were not. There was no victory for the doers of right, they suffered needlessly, were punished wrongly, or sometimes found some sort of reward. As far as I could tell, it was a free-for-all, every man for himself. Identity was meaningless. There was no order, only chaos. This continued stress on all the organization forced upon my life I contemplated, from birth to that moment, I sat bewildered as children often do as the out-of-control mechanations of life swallow them up and incorporate them unquestioningly; all this chaos in a place that was supposed to be ordered and work a certain way. All I'd ever been was stepped on, used, and taken advantage of because I put my faith into people's alleged goodness. I took a sharp turn towards the pessimistic, I recall, as I got closer to my breakdown... it happened slowly... little things first... then bigger... then open denials of reality at large, escaping into video games and the magical realm of the internet, and books, and music... Anything to prevent my bubble from bursting.
Thank God I made that mistake when I was young and not when there would've been no safety net to catch me when I fell -- because the bubble will burst.
In many ways, I'm still trying to accept the reality of the world in which we are all completely powerless. Its 1% what kind of person you are, and 99% chance... and what makes or breaks that 1% is not whether you're good or bad, smart or stupid, strong or weak, but how you act in the face of the changing circumstances that will always surround your life. All those things are important, of course, but if you don't prove your salt on life's battlefield, you're just another casualty. We all die, but we all should choose how - and it's not one final choice, it's a lifetime of action. Whether we enjoy our lives or not is entirely up to us, no matter what life throws at us. There's good in everything. Life might be violence, but violence can be as beautiful as anything else.
I was not content simply believing this on someone else's word, though. Partly because that was my problem in the first place. Partly because it wouldn't have been as meaningful, I still wouldnt have 'got it'. I had to do it the hard way. I don't just mean '3 days of crying'. I mean 3 years of mentally reconstituting myself afterwards - and indeed, I had to do it myself, to be free of falling into the same traps. I mean, I had help... I had my family there to support me, just as they always had... but it was different. More meaningful. They weren't my competition or setting me up for a fall or sowers of deceit. They were actually proper family.
Looking back, I'd say I was definitely in a state of derangement, for thinking the things that I did, maybe even being the person I was... But I don't know. I'm not even 100% sure I'm on the right path now, but I think I'm heading in a good general direction. Just one of those things I guess. Blind following the blind, ship of fools sort of thing.
I don't know about psychotic breakdown... I've had a few neurotic ones, I suppose... many more existential quandries... The most severe break down I had was one time in highschool either at the end of grade 11 or the end of grade 12 (before I started grade 13 aka OAC, which has since been discontinued), at the peak of my misery, I barricaded myself in my room with a bookshelf and hid in my closet for 3 days. Didn't eat, snuck to get water and use the washroom during the rare times people weren't home, and spent most of that time crying like mad. I hated. I felt excitement. I wanted to kill. I wanted to die. I wanted to love. I wanted to know. I wanted to forget. I wanted to have everything and nothing all at once. I wanted power. I wanted to drink life until I could imbibe no more. I wanted to make things easier and still see all the rewards of labour. I wanted to give it all up for one sweet moment without misery. I didn't know what I wanted. I wanted to understand...
I can't even sit and watch tv for an hour, but managed to sit amidst boxes and clothes all day, sleep, and do it again for another 2 days...
It was partly the culmination of years of pent up hostility towards my peers for the way I was treated (for the names I was called, the things that they threw, the damages they caused), partly hostility towards myself for allowing it to go on, partly hostility towards the system I was trapped in (the school system makes children impotent to deal with problems that they face; no matter what they do, they effectively face punishment from someone's hand). Being trapped within systems I hate is something that I still deal with and struggle with on a frequent basis... But it's life. Life is a struggle. It's been a matter of choices, or lack thereof... And making the right choices if given the opportunity... but, before one can make the right choice, one has to know and understand what 'right' is, in a more meaningful sense than obeying what definitions they've been given. I looked at my world and the values that were set out did not match up with the actions I saw taking place; but, these values also said people are good, and yet so many were clearly not; something had to break here. So much hypocracy. So much wickedness and ugliness in a place so supposedly beautiful and wonderous. The world became polluted and corrupted for me; a place where everything was toxic, dank, reeking, and wretched. Something needed restructuring. As it turned out, it was apparently my mind. A single person cannot break the world, no matter how stubborn and well-intentioned they are -- the world breaks them.
I couldn't live in denial of the realities of life, though I wanted to (and this is not to say that the world is a dank, wretched, filthy slimepit not fit for man nor beast; quite the opposite, I now choose to believe). I couldn't shrug it all off and be happy and 'do the right thing' when I no longer saw any motivation, and no longer even saw what it was that was 'right'. Nobody seemed to be punished for their misdeeds. Nobody seemed to be rewarded for their goodness. There's no safety in numbers for the people doing whatever they pleased, some were punished and some were not. There was no victory for the doers of right, they suffered needlessly, were punished wrongly, or sometimes found some sort of reward. As far as I could tell, it was a free-for-all, every man for himself. Identity was meaningless. There was no order, only chaos. This continued stress on all the organization forced upon my life I contemplated, from birth to that moment, I sat bewildered as children often do as the out-of-control mechanations of life swallow them up and incorporate them unquestioningly; all this chaos in a place that was supposed to be ordered and work a certain way. All I'd ever been was stepped on, used, and taken advantage of because I put my faith into people's alleged goodness. I took a sharp turn towards the pessimistic, I recall, as I got closer to my breakdown... it happened slowly... little things first... then bigger... then open denials of reality at large, escaping into video games and the magical realm of the internet, and books, and music... Anything to prevent my bubble from bursting.
Thank God I made that mistake when I was young and not when there would've been no safety net to catch me when I fell -- because the bubble will burst.
In many ways, I'm still trying to accept the reality of the world in which we are all completely powerless. Its 1% what kind of person you are, and 99% chance... and what makes or breaks that 1% is not whether you're good or bad, smart or stupid, strong or weak, but how you act in the face of the changing circumstances that will always surround your life. All those things are important, of course, but if you don't prove your salt on life's battlefield, you're just another casualty. We all die, but we all should choose how - and it's not one final choice, it's a lifetime of action. Whether we enjoy our lives or not is entirely up to us, no matter what life throws at us. There's good in everything. Life might be violence, but violence can be as beautiful as anything else.
I was not content simply believing this on someone else's word, though. Partly because that was my problem in the first place. Partly because it wouldn't have been as meaningful, I still wouldnt have 'got it'. I had to do it the hard way. I don't just mean '3 days of crying'. I mean 3 years of mentally reconstituting myself afterwards - and indeed, I had to do it myself, to be free of falling into the same traps. I mean, I had help... I had my family there to support me, just as they always had... but it was different. More meaningful. They weren't my competition or setting me up for a fall or sowers of deceit. They were actually proper family.
Looking back, I'd say I was definitely in a state of derangement, for thinking the things that I did, maybe even being the person I was... But I don't know. I'm not even 100% sure I'm on the right path now, but I think I'm heading in a good general direction. Just one of those things I guess. Blind following the blind, ship of fools sort of thing.
