Flickering
Bluelighter
I'm just now noticing that I've had this pattern going in my head for a long time, where suddenly out of nowhere, I'll be struck with a feeling of near panic. It's a muted feeling of being suffocated. Everything I look at becomes intimidating. I read the most negative interpretations into events and people, taking in information from the fearful, defensive side of me. My thoughts turn naturally to the most violent and terrifying parts of humanity; the things I know we've done, and are doing, and will do to each other. I feel myself to be in the middle of some insane whirlwind.
But here's the weirdest part. It's become totally normal to me. I've almost stopped paying attention to how much energy I put into resisting the effects of this anxiety. Years back, when it started, it was debilitating and there were days I could not get out of bed. But the world didn't wait,and I learned to just go about my day with it out of sheer necessity. By the time I started using psychedelic drugs, at 21, I was learning how to walk down the street on four hits of acid in the midst of these horrible feelings, and not lose focus on what I was doing. I had to, in order to go to work, make money and get through the day. After you practice enough, you really can stop noticing anything. Some days it feels as though I've had part of my mind amputated or something, so it's like the mental equivalent of getting the bills paid while you only have one hand. But it's been going on for so long that I just feel like I've stopped giving a shit about it.
By the contemporary clinical model I know I'm 'depressed' plus a bunch of other diagnoses, but I haven't found that model useful. Truth is I've gradually been feeling better ever since I stopped taking prescription drugs for this. Some days it's like a roaring turrent of pain in my stomach but I think it's losing its hold over me. I begin to wonder if it's going to slip away, it might start to only hit me about once a week, and then once a momth, and then a few times a year, and then it'll just go. Or something. It seems like a general reaction to the world, painted by some of the uglier things I've gone through, so that everything looks hopeless, overwhelming and judgmental. I know, from flashbacks in an ayahuasca experience, that the roots of these started with a chain of events in childhood. (It drilled the message into me for a day straight. Wished I hadn't taken a second cup.) It seems to me though that what I experienced was not just some personal thing, but rather the abuses and the neglect of our culture, which we all went through in different ways. In other words I've come to view the seemingly mad attitudes you see in our culture - eating yourself into obesity, being violent, dominating people, the constant need to make more money - as different forms of being battered and bruised. Are these best framed as illnesses, or just as ways we adapt to the world that can be useful or debilitating in various ways?
Anyway. The thing I wanted to point out was: isn't it interesting how this fluctuates? Comes and goes in waves? I'm sure it's the same for you, whatever your particular habits and/or conditions are. I was meditating before I wrote this and I noticed I've been in one of these downswings all day and I've just been blocking it out. Do other people experience mental health issues this way?
No diagnoses please. Not to be rude but I'm becoming heavily disillusioned with the psychiatric vernacular. I don't want this to be about what's 'wrong' with you or with me. To be honest these days, I'm more or less fine as far as functioning and appreciating my life goes.
But here's the weirdest part. It's become totally normal to me. I've almost stopped paying attention to how much energy I put into resisting the effects of this anxiety. Years back, when it started, it was debilitating and there were days I could not get out of bed. But the world didn't wait,and I learned to just go about my day with it out of sheer necessity. By the time I started using psychedelic drugs, at 21, I was learning how to walk down the street on four hits of acid in the midst of these horrible feelings, and not lose focus on what I was doing. I had to, in order to go to work, make money and get through the day. After you practice enough, you really can stop noticing anything. Some days it feels as though I've had part of my mind amputated or something, so it's like the mental equivalent of getting the bills paid while you only have one hand. But it's been going on for so long that I just feel like I've stopped giving a shit about it.
By the contemporary clinical model I know I'm 'depressed' plus a bunch of other diagnoses, but I haven't found that model useful. Truth is I've gradually been feeling better ever since I stopped taking prescription drugs for this. Some days it's like a roaring turrent of pain in my stomach but I think it's losing its hold over me. I begin to wonder if it's going to slip away, it might start to only hit me about once a week, and then once a momth, and then a few times a year, and then it'll just go. Or something. It seems like a general reaction to the world, painted by some of the uglier things I've gone through, so that everything looks hopeless, overwhelming and judgmental. I know, from flashbacks in an ayahuasca experience, that the roots of these started with a chain of events in childhood. (It drilled the message into me for a day straight. Wished I hadn't taken a second cup.) It seems to me though that what I experienced was not just some personal thing, but rather the abuses and the neglect of our culture, which we all went through in different ways. In other words I've come to view the seemingly mad attitudes you see in our culture - eating yourself into obesity, being violent, dominating people, the constant need to make more money - as different forms of being battered and bruised. Are these best framed as illnesses, or just as ways we adapt to the world that can be useful or debilitating in various ways?
Anyway. The thing I wanted to point out was: isn't it interesting how this fluctuates? Comes and goes in waves? I'm sure it's the same for you, whatever your particular habits and/or conditions are. I was meditating before I wrote this and I noticed I've been in one of these downswings all day and I've just been blocking it out. Do other people experience mental health issues this way?
No diagnoses please. Not to be rude but I'm becoming heavily disillusioned with the psychiatric vernacular. I don't want this to be about what's 'wrong' with you or with me. To be honest these days, I'm more or less fine as far as functioning and appreciating my life goes.
