I’ve reached the exhausted phase of my current downswing. I feel like I’ve had myself against the ropes for long enough, I’m psychically bloodied. No mas, no mas. I want something new.
My quest now, my focus now, in the clarity of this moment, is to break the cycle. To quote Phil Connors, “Anything different is good.” I need to find a way to bear in mind during the good times that bad choices aren’t ok, that I’m not absolved of responsibility because I feel invulnerable at the moment. I know I’ll never live perfectly, but I have to be able to do better than I’ve done.
To live in the moment while bearing the future in mind, that’s the goal. To make good decisions even when bad decisions seem to be a myth perpetuated by the spirit-sucking fearmongers. To make good decisions when, in light of a brutal world, do as thou wilt seems to be the whole of the law. I need to build in defenses against my mood swings. I need a thread of sanity and sensibility to run through my various selves.
I’ve felt this before, and I’m here again, so I’m worried that the cycle is unbreakable. How do I make this still matter when Hyde comes back, as he most certainly will? When Ivan Karamazov comes back. When Dionysus comes back. When Achilles comes back. When Sir Toby Belch comes back.
Any ideas? I’ll take all the help I can get.
I just remind myself that my barometer is way off, and that it’s not off randomly, but skewed to the negative. So when I’m low, in despair, terrified, etc. I remind myself that I have a shit barometer and that in the face of any uncertainty (i.e., life) I will assume the worst, feel the worst, make the saddest and scariest assumptions. Granted, I still do that all the time, but just reminding myself that I generally have bad judgment about that sort of thing seems to help.
Not sure if this will be of use, but I do hope that you feel better soon. Just take a look at the hilarious captions some guy put up with pictures of his ridiculously cute baby, that always makes me laugh . . .
That does help, and I appreciate it tremendously. I’m feeling much better in the last day or two.
You’ve got a pretty cute baby yourself, and a cute older than baby, and a cute older than that one as well. Hope your clan is well.
I’ll invent an appropriate Eastern saying: sometimes the solution is so banal it escapes notice.
Visit an analyst/psychologist. Maybe you are already… They don’t need to comprehend you entirely, only to have seen others struggle is a similar way. I still draw on the experience of my time with my Jungian.
[thinks a bit, scratches]
The thoughts and feeling you express seem normal, healthy, unavoidable… but you suffer because of their severity. But maybe you’ve cultivated this severity. After all, “healthy” people seem dull.
Maybe the adjustment you need is a small one. Your soul wants to stand in the storm and won’t take to the shelter. So you stand in the storm with a poncho instead.
i was trying to comment here, and i am supposed to be working anyway. too bad i deleted it: wouldn’t you love to know why i just typed lines and lines and lines about adidas and mad low boy jeans and eh eh eh et cetera? shit, i would.
like i’m the one who could help. i’m more the one who says “dude yeah don’t i know it.” but way more fresher.
I would have very much enjoyed what you had to say, and not held it against you if it failed to solve my problem.
“Dude yeah don’t I know it”, despite its lack of freshness, is comforting nonetheless.