When Existentialism Keeps You Up At Night (Part One)

 WARNING: Arbitrary foul language!


It's 1:00 AM right now and I am once again writing down my thoughts for the internet at large because I can't keep them in any more and my journal is offering me jack-squat in the relief department.

I often have existential crises. I will lie awake or stare into space or drop what I'm holding and become obsessed with the very nature (and purpose) of my own existence. It begins with a simple thought: Why the fuck am I here?

So, like a good scholar, I decided to get on to the good ol' inter-webs and try to decipher exactly what I feel so hopeless about and what I can do about it.

In my search for something to pass the time before my head smacks into my keyboard, this is what I found:

Wikipedia

Upon perusing the article, I see much that I already know:

"An existential crisis is a moment at which an individual questions the very foundations of their life: whether this life has any meaning, purpose, or value. This issue of the meaning and purpose of existence is the topic of the philosophical school of existentialism."

 The article then goes on to state (in the description) that an existential crisis may be misdiagnosed or co-morbid with a number of psychological and neurological disorders... but there was a citation needed so fuck that. I already know I am depressed.

Wiki How

Wiki How articles are always fun. There is often a whole lot of information on this website that I laugh at. Really, it's ball-bouncingly funny. This time, however, I found some genuinely interesting things that I decided to pursue for my own interest's sake.

There was this Norwegian dude (see Philosopher) called Peter Wessel Zapffe (He was 91 when he died. I would be pissed off if I got that close to 100) who said that human self-conscious is actively engaged in the "repression of its damaging surplus of consciousness."

What this basically means is that we are fighting to not think about the "WHY" of it all. Zapffe suggests the following options to helping us silly humans get through this sort of shit.

1. Isolation

This is the good old "leave it in the back of the fridge until you forget about it" method of dealing with our own existence. The only problem is that no matter how long you deny it, the smell of last year's mac and cheese is eventually going to get to you.

2. Anchoring

The basis of this method of ensuring you get some sleep one day is to grab on to the State, morality, fate, the laws of life, the people, the future – even God – and never, ever let go. Get out that old Bible and dig your nose in deep. Really inhale that book mould. 
 Getting in touch with this stuff (be you a Bible-basher, a Satanist or a liberal) can help you stay focused and not allow yourself to give your existence a single thought. As Zapffe says, "build walls around the liquid fray of consciousness."

3. Distraction

Now would be a good time to buy that VPN and finally do some internet "research". You know what I'm talking about.

4. Sublimation

Now, not only am I thinking to myself; finally, a bit of diversity to Zapffe's One-Step system but this is also a method I advocate and practice as often as I can. Get all Airbender-esque with that negative thought and use it to power that guitar-solo you've been wanting to play, or that painting you've never finshed... follow the theories that made Thales of Miletus, Empedocles, Simon Stevinus, Christian Huygens and, of course, Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz household names; conservation of all that darn energy!

That sums up the intelligent part of the article. I shall now quote, in order, the "other methods" this article suggests (with my own suggestions for the author):

1.  Understand what caused the problem.
 Well, shit, Sherlock. What would we do without you?

2. Try to see life and your place in it as it really is.
Or, "Why giving up LSD led me to suicide."

3. Acknowledge that this is a common problem.
Can't be. I only found 17 forum threads on the subject.

4. Consider how well orchestrated life seems to be.
Tell me more about the rose tint; does it come in different shades?

5. Stop comparing yourself to others.
Tried it. Didn't help. That's why I'm reading your stupid article.

6. Don't be afraid to make up your own rules.  
"But officer, I am suffering from an existential crisis!"

7. Try to voice what your problem is.  
Or, "How therapy bankrupted me."

8. Imagine several different people you like or respect giving you advice.
I so wish I was joking about this one...

9. Imagine giving advice to someone else in your situation. 
"So you're saying that the best way to deal with my son's wetting the bed was for me to stay a virgin just like you? Hmm. Interesting."
  
10. Problem solve.
See thought 1.

11.Take what you've learned. 
See thought 10.

12. Aim to create peace and joy.
No, you fucking aim to create peace and joy, mate.

13. Clean whatever room you're in.
An existential crisis! Quick, to the broom cupboard!  

14. Remember that tomorrow is a new day.
See thought 11. 

15. Question yourself.
This is how I got into this mess the first place, you stupid, mother–  

 BuzzFeed

You know that indescribable feeling of nope that passes through you when there's a big spider in the bath?

 Quora

Now, there was a lovely long article answering the question about losing all hope that I will link here but I cannot for the life of me remember what I wanted to comment about it because I got distracted in the comment section:

"Go out and have an Ice-cream."

Now, you can't argue with logic like that, can you? (For the first time this morning, I am not being sarcastic.)

I'd love to tell you that it is now 5:30 AM and I am watching a beautiful sun rise over the sleepy African bushveld... but I'm not and it's not.

It's 2:05:47 AM (well, not anymore) and I am no less tired, no less of an insomniac and no less closer to crushing two pan-dimensional hyper-beings with a teapot for building earth as some stupid philosphical class project . I'm merely going to do now what I do every time this happens and watch cute cat videos on the internet until I drown in my own drool.

After all, what else is the internet for?

A Pain In The Heart

Some of my thoughts have been causing me physical pain. It's a deep, cold tightness that grips my heart like a vice. It makes my stomach feel raw and empty. It feels like something is trying to rip my soul from my chest.

My exhaustion will not wane. The pain just gets worse. It's loss. Loss of a thing that I still possess.

But why? Why is this chemical reaction in my brain causing this physical ache in my heart -  an ache caused by no more than an emotion? Why do I have to suffer this phantom pain from something that hasn't happened? What purpose does this serve?

You know what it feels like? It feels like guilt. That heavy weight on your chest. A feeling of loss and guilt that has no basis in reality.

Yet it brings me to tears.

Why?

Why?



...

I'm Not Good Enough

Take from this title what you will. I'm not spouting the opinion that I am a victim and that world just doesn't think I live up to expectations of me... this goes far, far deeper than any of that.


I understand my life and live on the basis of a subjective realism. Basically, I have that paranoid feeling that everything outside of my own head might not be real. What if all the people I perceive are figments of my own imagination? What if everything I have ever done has no real meaning because I'm just dreaming all of this whilst being used to power Machine City (extreme example but you get where I'm going with this). This begs the question: why do I feel like I'm not good enough?


Paranoid delusions aside, what do we mean when we say we aren't good enough? What is that feeling that makes us perceive ourselves as failures to the rest of a societal norm?


I'm not going to wander down the philosopher's highway today because I don't have the energy and, quite frankly, I'm not sure it would make a difference.


My point is, I am sitting here, thinking about those nights when I don't want to wake up in the morning and wondering to myself; "What am I trying to prove?"

If I am sitting here in a broken mind, thinking about ending my own life then what does it matter if I have lived up to expectations or not? Why do I care about who likes me, what I look like, where I'm going to live one day, who is judging me... if it doesn't really matter?


This is a phenomenon known as cognitive dissonance, the ability to hold two contradicting points of view at the same time.


Because, for a long, long time, I haven't wanted to carry on. I've wanted to just sink into the sweet darkness and forget. To face that infinite blackness before I become nothing but compost. Some days are better than others and I think that there might just be a reason, some raison d'être to this whole confounded existence... 


I cherish those days. I hold them close because I know that if I can feel like that for a day, I can feel like that for a week... and maybe a month... and maybe a year... and maybe one day I will be happy again.

LIMBO - To Die Or Not To Die?

NOTE: This post contains bad language and dark imagery. Reader discretion is advised.

WARNING! This post deals with the topic of self-harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide. If these are triggering subjects to you, please leave this blog.

For a while now, I've felt that I'm in some sort of Limbo. You know, that inexplicable place between what is and what isn't? It's like floating through life, where the whole of the world is a dark Gaussian blur, and you can't fall into that dark, sweet oblivion but waking up is impossible. It's like a longing for a non-existance, a release and relief into nothingness.

I've had suicidal thoughts for a long time.There are the regular, short, lucid moments in unipolar depression when you just start to wake up to how ridiculous you're being and you manage to get out of bed without expending a week's worth of effort... but those always give way again like a floor of rotting timber.

... and then you start to fall. It's slow and dark. It has an eerie whine and a pulling grey void that consumes you. Eventually... inevitably... you hit rock bottom.

That's just after the razors and the alcohol and the pills. It's that moment when you are trying to stop the bleeding or finish vomiting and you realise that this is it. This is what you're leaving behind. A bloody mess and the silhouette of a desperate soul.

It's not fucking worth it.

SO, you clean yourself up, stagger in to bed, sleep it off and awaken feeling better... and you maintain this until the cycle begins again.

It's exhausting. It's painful. It's chronic and debilitating. All you want to do is fall asleep and never wake up.

That's me. That's where I am.

I'm so tired.

But I'm lucid enough to write this post. I'm alert enough to realise that my thoughts are ridiculous. I'm me enough to know that this isn't where it ends.

But I have things to do. I can't sit here and cry forever. So I am going to get up, dust off the demons and move on... while I have this little bit of strength.

I'm still alive.

So this is it. This is me taking a step into the online world (and not for the first time, might I add), baring my soul to the public for the sake of... whom? Me? You?

I have written a few blogs in my time. They were of a mediocre quality, the everyday monotony of a life painted in high-gloss. That's just not what I want. You probably won't find those blogs anymore... maybe my fictional blog will still be there though.

The fact is, I want to erase the lies. I want to expose the truth. I'm going to tell my story. Maybe someone will find it useful, someone sitting in their bedroom, tears staining their pale cheeks while they enter "I want to kill myself" into Google's search engine. I've been there. I've done it. I may still do it again in the future. The point is, I am alive today. I've won the battles for 21 years. I still have something left to give.

Let me give you the timeline.
I don't remember much that happened to me before the age of three. Not many people do. I know that that was where it all started.

AGE 3:
I came home from playgroup stuttering. Two psychiatrists, one hypnotherapist and three psychologists later, all we know is that something traumatized me, but it wasn't sexual. My parents took me out of that playgroup and I stopped stuttering.

AGE 5 - 10:
I was given the label "shy". I never participated in any school activites. I went to a Montessori school. I had freedom. I had friends. But small things triggered some kind of fear. I liked to be by myself but I was terrified of being alone.

AGE 11 - 13:
I changed schools. Montessori to "regular" private school. I experienced uniformity for the first time in my life and I hated it. I couldn't cope. I refused to participate, I struggled to make as many friends as I had lost and for some inexplicable reason, there was a social hierarchy.
Once we moved far away, I went to a school where I was a minority. I've experienced racism. But I don't hold it against them. It's their parents that taught them to hate me.
Eventually, I couldn't cope. I refused to go to school. That's when I did something that I would regret forever.

Let me pause here. At the age of 13, I finally had a name for what I felt. I finally knew why all I wanted to do was sleep. I knew why I cried every single day.

I was suffering from clinical depression.

From here, the story gets complicated. I learnt many lessons in my life and I hope to share them over the lifetime of this blog.

Until then, stay strong. Remember that you are not alone. It's a long struggle... but it's not the end.
You are loved. There is hope.

~ Alexandra