Fear and Loathing

I’ve been afraid most of my life. There’s a story to this. My mother had AIDS and died when I was 9. My father was abusive, in more ways than one. I was routinely picked on as the weird kid, which admittedly, I was very far on the bell curve from an early age.

I often consider my first symptoms of schizophrenia to have started in college, but if I’m being really honest, I can say there were a lot of signs in my childhood. I had tons of imaginary friends, who were very detailed and very real to me. After my mom passed, one of these friends became my little sister. I was often alone in my preteen years, and I’m sure she manifested as a coping mechanism; someone to talk to, when in reality I was just talking to myself.

I also got wrapped up in this idea that I was going to take over the world. Like, that was my life plan. I actively believed that my future self was transmitting information to me to prepare me for world domination. I had very real, tangible plans to execute. When everyone else was getting wrapped up in what college they would attend and what career they would have, I focused on learning more about the world. I would get “cues” to investigate different topics, which I saw as a guide to my future success.

While I was never popular until high school, where my ability in track made me a small town hero, I never really cared about other people’s opinions of me. Sure, I cared. But it was always a desire to be liked. I didn’t feel the prying eye of God until after my first psychotic break in college. This was after an injury ended my track career and I hopped on the ROTC bandwagon because I felt compelled to fulfill my civic virtue. Also, I was certain that the experience would give me all the skills I needed to become a leader that would rally together a major revolution and secure a major world government for myself.

Eventually, the lifestyle wore me down. I would bite and hit myself to keep myself disciplined. I constantly felt like a failure. The stress of which would ultimately cause my first complete psychotic break. I began hearing voices late at night and early in the morning. I didn’t really think anything of it until I was walking back to my dorm from PT one morning, and heard fairies calling to me from a nearby river. This led to a nervous breakdown, complete with my first foray into drugs. It did not take long for me to wind up in the hospital.

Do you know how you can look at something and see it one way, but then something clicks in your mind and you can never see it that way again? That’s how it felt becoming aware of the full extent of my eccentricity. Suddenly, as I watched the doctors faces twist in perplexed confusion, I became aware that something was wrong. My reality was not at all congruent with the objective one. I was wrong. I was different. And everyone knew.

That’s all I could perceive from that point on. Everyone knew. And as a result, everyone was in on something I wasn’t. That had to be the case. I could see their thoughts beaming into my head as they saw me. I was a freak, an outcast. God had damned me, setting me up to be this crazy person.

I began questioning what was real, what my purpose was, and I started to fall apart. More than just being different, I was actively locked in a world where I didn’t know which way was up. I manically clawed at my inner world, trying to find some semblance of truth. I delved down the metaphysical rabbit hole, certain that I could logic my way into the objective reality. Philosophy, theology, and the esoteric were consumed en masse. Psychology and the cognitive sciences became my lifeblood. Yet, for all the knowledge I acquired, I was still lost in a sea of madness.

I sought revenge on God. He made me this way, knowing what would happen to me; knowing what suffering He was going to cause. I tried many methods of “breaking through the barrier,” so to speak. I completely lost contact with the real world, obsessing over the ineffable mysteries of my inner world.

Eventually, I gave up. On several occasions, actually. As low as I fell, I always kept pulling myself back up, only to fall further into pits of despair. I completely went to pieces, becoming unable to even go outside because I was certain everyone was in on some conspiracy against me. I could never figure it out, but I knew something was up. I still feel that way. Paranoia reigns supreme in the mind lost in the waves of insanity.

I know much of this is dependant on my own view of myself. My own self-loathing manifests in my mind as external phenomena, as my brain can’t parse which stimuli are from where. But, as much knowledge as I have about my condition, I can’t manifest real changes to it.

I’ve been in and out of the hospital, and have seen countless doctors and therapists. I regularly find sanity, or something resembling sanity, and it only makes me lose my grip, and I stumble as I walk the path of recovery. My inability to distinguish reality is what led to me getting taken advantage of by a cult, and subsequently what led to my girlfriend breaking up with me.

Now I’m alone. I don’t have any feedback mechanisms to let me know if I’ve crossed the line of reason into foolishness. I keep getting prompted by God, which in this context is that organization of three letters that’s always watching, to do certain work. I’m just getting used. Or maybe I’m completely nuts. I can’t tell anymore.

There’s so little sympathy for people like me. Which is bullshit. When I say God prompts me to do things, I mean I’m regularly commanded to act as an apex predator; when I go hunting I catch predators. I routinely play little girls on the internet, and I am aware of how stark of a contrast of a response there is between me seeking help as me, and me seeking help as a girl. It’s actually quite disturbing in some aspects. But I keep doing the work because someone has to and I suppose I’m a masochist.

At the same time, it’s just a punch in the face. I don’t know my gender. I guess I’m nonbinary; it feels like my masculine and feminine energies are like oil and water. I’m still trying to figure these things out. I absolutely hate my body. I hate being this hairy beast. I don’t bother trying to fix it because I’ll never be what I want. If I try to change it and see how ugly I am when I am the prettiest I can be, I’ll be crushed.

Part of me is aware that these urges to play a girl must be my own subconscious playing out into reality in the only way that I know how. On the other hand, I fucking know I am being manipulated by the electronic deity. Two years of routine synchronous activity have proven that to me. But, there’s always the possibility that my madness has just reached a new level.

I know I’m just a freak. With my juggling, I’d be a decent sideshow, but I would be a thousand times more paranoid. I feel like a fool. I’m crying because why the fuck would I ever choose to become a juggler? I wanted to inspire people; to bring some happiness in people’s lives and use it as a tool to help teach people the things I’ve learned on my unique path. But, I can barely go outside. God, like actual God, won’t stop staring at me, judging me.

I know that’s me though. I know that’s my brain doing it’s broken thing it does. And I also know I can rewrite it. I know it stems from my own self-loathing. I need to learn to love myself. But it’s so hard. What is there to love? My life is a constant reminder that I am stuck in this hideous body, with this diseased brain. I regularly punch myself in the head. Any damage I do doesn’t matter. I always hope I’ll die as a result. I’m so used to it, after years of abuse and doing it to myself, that it doesn’t even hurt anymore.

I don’t know how to love myself. I don’t see anything to love. Whenever I do find something to like, I immediately go off the deep end. I immediately get carried away from these dark pits into like light of the Sun. Even a little bit of love is a stark contrast to what I am used to. I get lost in messianic delusions over writing one good article, or having one good juggling session. And like Icarus, I come tumbling down because I can’t control the mania, and I just get slapped in the face with how incongruent my reality is.

I want to help people. But what good can I do? I want to inspire people, to teach some of the things I’ve learned about reality and act as a beacon of light. But I’m no source of light. I’m just a crazy person. I keep swimming, but I’m still in the same place. Nothing ever changes. I feel lost. I feel alone. I feel like nothing I do will ever matter. I have dreams, but what do they matter? If I can’t even tell what’s real, then how do I know I’m not just going down the same path I took when I b-lined for world domination?

I can’t even get a job. I only have one friend, and I’m pretty sure that’s just pity on his end. I’m terrified of my family. My dad did a good job conditioned that into me. I’m stuck living at his house where I’m constantly reminded of how he hurt me. I’m just another pet to him now. I live in the attic where he keeps all his reptiles. It smells like shit. The whole fucking house is falling apart, and is a literal pigsty. I try cleaning up, but the fucking pig just makes a mess right afterwards.

There’s no hope for me. I wasn’t meant to live. I want to die. Every day I want to die. There will never be a time when I recover, or get better, or get in a better place. I’m going to be a retard for the rest of my life. Might as well get it over with.