One of the strangest aspects of my addiction is how a part of me wants to be addicted because I think it might help reduce the length of my life. To go deeper, I'm stuck in a limbo, where my desire and even need to move forward is blocked at every chance by demons of fear. Low self esteem, social anxiety, nihilistic outlook, pointlessness, aimlessness, why bother?
So - drugs. Numb the feelings today because tomorrow I could be gone. But I want to be happy. But I need to get my use in balance to be happy. But balance is near impossible when you believe you have control and have to learn the hard way you don't.
Then boredom. Bored of trying different ways to get the tolerance down. Bored of chasing the tail, just to be underwhelmed by the effects. Sick, and tired, but not sick and tired enough. I've told myself I was sick and tired of being sick and tired before; but then, I got clean. And then I was not sick and tired - so I started using, to feel good, not remembering what it was like to be so sick and tired of being sick and tired that I had to stop. It's sick, and tiring to say, but I think i'm addicted to being sick and tired. As Eckhart Tolle has said, (one of the few "spiritual gurus" I gain inspiration from,) the ego is addicted to suffering. How right he is, and how cruel a world we create for ourselves with ego in our time at the centerpiece of our social and personal lives.
Somehow I've learnt this is my place in the world. The world I deserve. To be downtrodden, low, under, beneath, not allowed, restricted, impaired, barred, inhibited. Struggling, infected, troubled, outcast. Throwing chemical handcuffs on my wrists so I don't hurt myself or someone else under the sheer weight of the absurdity of being human and looking at the world through these eyes.
I know I deserve better but for so long and for reasons I can't escape, I've imprinted in my mind this idea that I don't deserve peace. The clashing voices of the people in my head - my own, my family and friends, a whirlpool I can't navigate. Do you know what it's like to crave spontaneity, closeness, and deep connections, yet simultaneously being terrified at the same time? Like seeing a dance-floor and really wanting to dance but letting your fear stopping you from letting go? That's how I constantly live in every aspect - not quite in life, and not quite out of it. One foot in the door, the other outside, so I can peek in but not really be in there, and run if things get to scary.
I guess i'm terrified of being hurt in relationships the regular ways; being lied to, being cheated on, being dumped, feeling like nothing. But even more frustratingly because it's even deeper, is being appropriated. Losing myself in the relationship. Being afraid of being engulfed by the others. This schizoid dilemma. Hungry for love but terrified to eat. Self imposed exile, because i'm not deserving of food (love.) To lessen the pain, drugs. The pain is utter loneliness. Loneliness I'm only sometimes I'm aware of, because I can distract myself with temporary relievers.
I crave being invisible, but crave not to be. To be seen is to be known and to be known is to be identified, and to be identified is to be drowned... this strangling feeling...a feeling of dying. So either I can feel like i'm choking, being strangled by this irrational feeling that others want to take me over and obliterate my identity...or I can isolate myself, and become lonely, and increasingly bizarre, social skills waning, emotional growth slowing, cognitive capacity diminishing, dying, instead of living, dying, with these drugs, which only make me feel better for a little bit before I get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Then, I start choking, and it's onto the drugs and into exile again.
Something to break the cycle. A shift within, probably best. From outside, maybe something drastic. Powerful Psychedelic trip in the midst of withdrawals or directly afterwards with intention and purpose rather than an aimless foray into the wonderland of psychedelic strangeness.
Humans are strange and imperfect and i'll be damned if you could find a much better example then myself - and if I sat next to you on the bus you wouldn't know. But that's probably the case for every person, from the brightest to most dim-witted - conscious to barely aware. All walking on this road, navigating toward this end, for what reason, I don't know.