Unedited thought stream.

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.

 

What an incredible piece of writing. Here are a couple of thoughts I had while reading it: the concept of 'deserving', where does that even come from in us? Why should we deserve or not deserve anything? It implies merit when merit is something that barely figures in any given human's experience. Maybe it is simply choices. I can choose to give myself opportunities to be happy in this life or I can choose to hide from those same opportunities because they may also hold the possibility of hurt.

A psychedelic experience could be very powerful indeed--especially with the intention you have for it. What about nature and the same intention? Have you ever spent a sizable amount of time in nature alone? The ego tends to get very threatened and dominate with endless chatter at first and then a magical thing happens--the world of mountains or desert or river or wherever you have chosen to be, takes that incessant chatter in your head and just kindly says, "hush." And you do. Very healing.

I so know what you mean about craving invisibility and craving to be seen. It's a human struggle in everyone I think--although most people, especially younger people seem to struggle more with the latter. Struggles are fine when you can step outside them with some regularity and observe them.

Being terrified of vulnerability is perhaps the most self-destructive, self-defeating part of being human. It's why people love getting high--the inner critic gets taken off-line! So how can you do that without a drug? Practice, practice and more practice in my experience. Almost ever single time that I have actually worked up the courage to expose myself in some way (authentically) it has been the opposite experience of what my fear was telling me it would be. So the next time, it got easier and the next time, even easier, etc. My mind still throws up all the fear, but it has gotten easier to just say,"yeah, yeah, you again? Talk all you want but I'm not listening".

I really enjoy your blogs. I know you write them for you--to work things out by seeing where the writing leads you--but I get a lot out of them and I bet a lot of other people do too.

 

Thanks for your kind words and thoughts Herbavore.

I love nature, and find solace in the silence and peace it provides. It revitalizes my soul. When it comes to psychedelics, my first preference for location is nature, preferably somewhere quiet, where the silence can speak. Maybe I could quickly recount a psychedelic experience I had late last year, the type I might benefit from attempting to re-create.

I'd just come back from a warehouse party with great vibes and a couple good friends. I'd ingested both MDMA and MDA, and started smoking a little weed when back at the house just to chill out and ride out the rest of the evening. At the time I was using opiates daily and had been for eight months - this was my first serious habit. As I was drifting off into sleep, in the darkness behind my eyelids, a vision emerged. I saw myself vomiting, but it wasn't regular vomit. It was toxic, poisonous green goo. The realization of what this meant came to me in a flash. The symbol was showing me I needed to purge my opiate dependency from my body. It couldn't have been clearer.

The days following the trip, whilst it didn't quite happen immediately, I began my serious struggle with the beginning stages of trying to get clean. It's an experience like that, which I'd love to have again - a reminder of what I’m doing to myself by continuing on with unhealthy habits.

Consciously one can become quite adept at rationalizing almost anything, but symbolic revelations in the midst of psychedelic experiences can almost indescribably transcend the mind-reason-logic complex. For someone who doesn't believe in the metaphysical and generally considers themselves a skeptic, psychedelics still fascinate me to no end.

Yes, you're right, I write these for myself, but if anyone reading them gets a sense of happiness, connectivity, peace, or joy from them...all the better at the end of the day I say.

 

Thank you.