psychological disaster preparedness

Do. Or don't. It doesn't really matter. That's the beautiful thing about embracing nihilism as an outlook, a personal philosophy. Ultimately it all ends in the heat death of the universe, so fuck it, what does it matter? Life is what you make it. Speculation on that rumination provides justification for just about anything - and that's something to be mindful of for sure. But that's also the horror about the whole thing. When you're stuck in a neverending cycle of anxiety, pain and regret. When that's all you know how to make, it eventually coalesces in to a black hole of terror and emptiness, a spinning vortex of loathing and fear that sucks you down, trapping you forever in that maelstrom of hurt and sorrow. Everything collapsing to a single floating point, just you all alone. No-one's coming to save you.

If all this sounds like so much the self-absorbed ravings of a gothy teenager who's just discovered Schopenhauer for the first time, I guess that's a fair enough criticism. Some things you never truly grow out of. Some things just sear themselves into your psyche, to become scar tissue, inestimably bound to the concept of 'you', and some things are just too painful, too shocking to be forgotten. The first time you experience ego death at the hands of a panic attack, you discover the true extent of the horror the mind can exert on itself, with you as its hapless victim. It's not too strong a descriptor - having experienced ego death in the traditional fashion from psychedelics, there's really no mistaking that feeling of the mind separating from the body to be carried away by the power of its own silent scream, and the terror you feel scrabbling at the cliff face of the edge of the self, thinking this is it, this is the moment 'I' as a concept is obliterated, leaving behind a spastically writhing body only fit for the insane asylum. And if that's not bad enough, we can set this cycle to repeat dozens of times until you're too afraid to leave the only place you feel remotely safe. So forgive me for the angst both caused by and contributing to a touch of cabin fever.

When nothing feels real, when the very matter of 'real' is utterly meaningless, how do you make peace with that? When it's the feeling of derealisation that triggers the sudden spike of adrenaline and cortisol that instantly flips the world from mundanely intimidating to existentially threatening obliteration. It's kind of like asking how do you prepare yourself for a car crash. In terms of the emotions involved, the level of fear, the neurochemicals and the psychic aftermath, that's not as hyperbolic as it sounds. There's an arsenal of tools at my disposal that I'm slowly, clumsily working out how to wield. I can't always stop the crash from happenning but I'm working on learning how to ameliorate the impact as best I can. Psychotherapist, psychiatrist, mindfulness, medication, dialectical behaviour therapy, self soothing, distress tolerance, emotional crisis management, radical acceptance, progressive muscle relaxation, breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Strange little birds

I feel like I'm rubbish at making friends. Always have been. Maybe I wasn't properly socialised as a child (actually I know I wasn't) but it's one of those life skills I see people enact seamlessly while I fumble ineffectually at the sidelines with a quarter of a clue. Like watching people fly around gracefully at an ice skating rink while I can barely lace up my skates, forget about getting out there and doing anything else besides making a fool of myself. Maybe I missed the day they had successful friendship classes at school but definitely feels like everyone else knows something about the process that I don't. Whenever I'm at social gatherings I look at other people who navigate that landscape with ease and just think 'how do they do that?' I always feels like a character in a game whose dialogue choices are hacky and weird. I know I am supposed to say x and y but i feel strange doing it I, controlling my mouth like I'm playing a part. I do have friends of course. Just not very many. Try to play it off like it doesn't bother me but it gets very lonely sometimes. Solitary melancholy was alright as a goth teen in the 90s but it's sad in more ways than one when you're in your mid 30s.

Some people are fine with being solitary loners, or at least they'll tell you they are. Personally I go between desperately craving company and secluding myself for so long that it sounds strange to hear my own voice when I speak to another. But at the heart of it, we're social animals. Humanity and civilisation would not have got to the point it has, nay, may not even still exist at all, if all those millennia ago primitive humans opted to sit in caves by themselves scratching frowny faces into the walls. Possibly while sporting some ill-considered charcoal panda-eyes, although The Cure was some way off from releasing any material to be sad to. The point is,  networking is crucial. One carbon atom on its own simply exists in isolation without achieving anything, but multiple atoms arranged a certain way can form carbon nanotubes, extraordinarily strong material that is so much more than the sum of its parts. Or possibly just the material for the aforementioned charcoal eyeliner. It all depends on the type of connection forged, and this is just as true for humans as it is for atoms. Superficial and weak connections may be able to form interesting structures but they are transient, unstable. They break easily and the constituents go back to floating about ineffectually by themselves. But the right kind of connection can form a unit that is so much stronger than the individual, able to withstand so much more.

Sadly, not all of us are armed with the ability to make those connections. Some of us won't ever be. Fake it til you make it is generally surprisingly good advice for a lot of daunting situations in life, but when it comes down to the minutiae of interpersonal relationships it can quickly devolve into some kind of psychological uncanny valley. People will disengage and distance themselves from you because, although you seem nice there's just something about you that makes forging that connection difficult or unappealing. But you know what? It's ok. You can't be best friends with everyone. You might be a solitary loner, and maybe it's not by choice.  By ourselves we are merely building blocks, but there are people out there you can connect with, people you can forge that kind of strong bond with. But you must first learn to like yourself before other people can too - that's the real secret. Trite as it sounds, confidence is key. I'm still working out how to do that but I think I can get there one day. Starting from way behind the white line doesn't mean you'll never finish, it just takes you longer to get there.