Limbo

I just took a shower. It might seem trivial... A simple task that many people - maybe even most in the civilised world - do every day. For me, it’s a little different. I’ll admit that I don’t shower all too often. At least not to most standards, but certainly more than soldiers in a whole somewhere in Iraq or any other place at least at one time in total ruin, dreaming - praying - for the next time they even get a drink of water. But I’ll tell you why. Even in the most unproductive or seemingly pointless tasks, I become obsessive. I keep on doing more and more, often ignoring the need to take care of myself. I’m a little better, now, though. At least I’m somewhat prompt when it comes to eating or drinking (I’m worse at making sure I drink something for the day than eating, when I have the chance to simply sit down and obsess over something.

But a shower is even more than just a moment where I remember and make sure to take care of myself. It’s my safe haven. It’s where I get a chance to think without limitations or distractions. It’s a place where I can step back for a bit from the troubles of life - of living. It’s where this man of little faith in just about anything gets a little... replenishment of faith. When I’m in a darker place... a much darker place, sometimes only the ‘safe haven’ part is true. Sometimes I lack all faith - in my spirituality, in people, and in myself, if not also in more.

I sometimes pray. It’s almost the only place I ever pray, or ever have prayed. I don’t very much, though. Not in the grander scheme of things. In this last shower, it was different. I think I’ve made it quite clear that I’ve been struggling - a lot - lately. In the past... well, almost year. I’ve struggled very much for at least six years, but not nearly as much as now, or the first two of those six years. In this last shower, while praying - if not perhaps begging - I was first upright, and then I fell lower, and then lower until I was completely on the ground. I was fighting and fighting to force tears to prove to a God I’ve had wavering faith in that I truly meant what I asked, and it isn’t until now, while writing this, that I’ve even came close. But, when I was done, and I got back up, a chill ran through my whole body, and in the hot, steaming shower, I got goose bumps all over, and thought to myself, ‘How can I not be sincere, with this reaction?’

My psychologist gave me a little homework to do before our next visit. She said to, ‘write down [my] thoughts every time I’m happy.’ At my last visit, I gave her a list of my main problems, and she had said how I always dwell on the negatives, but never on the positives. I always analyse what’s wrong with me, but never what’s right, or - if nothing else - good. I’ve thought about it, and the only answer I can think of is, ‘I never think when I’m happy.’ I don’t think, I don’t analyse... I don’t obsess. Happiness, for me, is just a moment - a time where everything is merely an endogenous response, a physical reaction, a natural, pure thing. It’s really not explainable. It’s not something that can adequately be put into words. But, being just a moment, happiness is all too fleeting. It lasts seconds, minutes, or probably at most hours. Days would be seemingly unheard of.

Happiness is a time where there’s neither hope, nor lack of it; where there’s no pain, no worry, and no fear. It’s a place where thoughts are essentially non-existent and the soul takes over. Now, this is not to say that I don’t talk, that I’m reckless or without intent, or where I’m totally vacant. I’m there, for sure, and happiness can most certainly be interrupted, or more likely crushed and destroyed, in seconds with a simple stimuli. When this happens - when happiness loses to... the darkness, I suppose - I return to my ‘normal’ self, constantly worried, constantly paranoid, constantly analysing, constantly obsessing, hopeless, struggling with faith of all kinds, angry, fearful, turbulent, broken, alone... sad.

I’ve heard on more than one show and movie at least something along the lines of, ‘Hope can only carry you so far before reality sets in.’ It’s too true. Reality set in somewhere toward the first quarter of this past school year - my 12^th grade year - that grew and grew into an unstable, unstoppable force until I become totally catatonic and had to drop out. I dropped out of my classes, really, and then my... ‘Home school,’ I suppose you can call it (not to be confused with homeschooling) dropped me... without any notice, too. Honestly, I just wanted a little break, not to end it outright. If I completed that year of school, despite all of the disruptions of the previous three years, all of my missing credits would’ve been waved and I would’ve graduated. I would’ve then been able to proceed to college and maybe even a successful life. I want to try and achieve all of that; I just don’t know when I’ll... even be capable of doing it.

Perhaps my biggest, baddest habit is avoiding... running away from, anything and everything that causes anxiety and depression, making my bubble, my safe zone, smaller and smaller, yet I get more and more anxiety to run away from, and that bubble gets perpetually smaller and... well, I think it’s quite obvious that it simply wouldn’t end well. Probably utterly petrified of the world, holed up in some deep, dark place, hiding from... everything. That is, of course, if it continues to perpetuate to that point.

But, there I am, with my likely second worst habit, dwelling on all of the negatives. I suppose that, when you wear the dark, roseless-colored glasses long enough, it’s hard not to only see from that perspective. When every attempt at doing something good, something productive, and something hopeful fails, crashes, and burns right before your eyes, you also start to pick up on the view that the world is a big bad, hopeless place that you simply don’t, and can’t, fit into. A puzzle piece trying to fit into the wrong puzzle. And you start to wonder, ‘What’s my purpose? What’s the point?’ And it gets harder and harder to see the light as you fall deeper and deeper into the tunnel that seems as though it was designed - tailored - for just you; a hole that you now fit into that no one else does, designed to ensnare and confine you to. And, when other people tell you that they’ve been there, or that you’re words ring true to them, you have the hardest time believing them because, well, obviously no one could possibly be like you. No one could possibly understand. And the darkness blinds you, and extinguishes the fire... at least until a little spark manages to ignite, only to eventually be extinguished again.

Now, there’s mania. Mania can be a great respite from all of this... awful, tiring shit, but it’s... well... manic. It’s crazy, nearly uncontrollable, frenzied, and... often enough, euphoric. It’s like a drug, and with any other drug (at least illicit ones), there’s a terrible crash, and you desire with all of your primal heart to get just one more taste of that ecstasy, regardless of any consequences. And when you taste it, you think that the crash is worth it, but it’s not. And when the crashes get longer and more frequent, that euphoria becomes just a problem. The higher you go, the lower you drop, but damn do you want to go high. It’s like a rollercoaster that’s both fun and frightening, only it’s constant and seemingly never ending, and you’re heart can only beat so fast, your lungs can only take so much, and it ends up taking a toll on your body, mind, and soul that feels as though it’ll be the death of you.

Lately... I’ve been in a weird state. My mind has been... turned to slush, my body put into a daze, and my consciousness in Limbo. I’ve felt as though I’ve been taking my opiate pain relievers every day, all day. I’ve had headaches, but they’re just slow, long, dull headaches. I’ve felt like I’m in a dream state, my body on autopilot. I react to things, even in ways that I don’t mean to. I’ve been in this sort of Limbo before, but not so... strongly, or dominantly. Not so long, either. It’s been weeks, and for months it’s been becoming more and more frequent with longer durations each time, building up with time.

If you’ve never taken an opiate, or at least something like it or a benzodiazepine, you probably couldn’t fathom what this feels like. You’re there... but you’re not... I suppose it’s a little like dissociation, which is common in some mental disorders and rare, often spontaneous states, similar to a fugue state. It’s relaxing, but it can also be disturbing at the same time. On the show Prison Break, the character, Doctor Sara Tancredi, talks to one of the... many antagonists about his addiction to a benzodiazepine, and - being an addict to morphine, herself - says, ‘It feels like you’re walking underwater, doesn’t it?’ That’s probably not an exact quote. That’s perhaps a very simplistic way to describe this feeling, this ‘Limbo’ as I’ve been calling it.

I suppose that it’s somewhat peaceful. From this whole, long ‘stream of consciousness,’ as they call it in the literary and psychological worlds, it probably doesn’t seem like it, but I’ve actually been dwelling on the dark, negative things less while in this state than usual. Maybe it’s a defence mechanism... Maybe my body knows something is seriously wrong and it’s trying to remedy that problem to the best of its abilities. I really don’t know.

I suppose that ever since I got on meds, I’ve felt like a great deal of my mind was locked away in a vault that’s seemingly impossible to break into, which I don’t have a key or combination to. It feels like the only... logical, if not a perversely logical, way to open that vault is to get off my meds... and let my mind run rampant once again. Much of the part of my mind that is still accessible tells me that that’s crazy and utterly stupid, but some other part - a very seductive part - says that it’s the best thing to do. My mind is split, in the sense of being indecisive as well as in the sense of being broken.

If the cost of my sanity is to lose a very large part of myself, sanity doesn’t seem like a very good option. Even with my sanity, I’m obviously not doing too well. I think with a more... I wouldn’t say rational mind... but one that is fully intact with reality. I almost envy my old self, delusions, hallucinations, and all. The only real downer - from where I’m standing now - is the very, very serious sleep problems. If I could be off antipsychotics/mood stabilisers, but still manage to get at least the sleep I get now... it seems almost perfect to me. I found comfort in... what was beyond reality. Sure, I was plenty aware of reality, too, but I almost lived in two different worlds at the same time. They didn’t collide, but rather overlapped. The things that were perhaps most clinically considered ‘wrong’ with me, which the meds then at least mostly got rid of, where the things that made the most sense to me. I was happier then than I am now, in the sense that I had more and longer moments of continuous happiness, but I also had much, much darker places, too. It was crazier in the most literal sense, but it was me, as a whole.

I suppose I’ve been in a sort of Limbo for a pretty long time, now, but it’s most obvious right now. It... surfaced into the physical and conscious world, rather than more just the subconscious. ‘These are turbulent times,’ they might say in some cliché movie or show, but it’s fitting, I think.