Don't get me wrong. I didn't expect for life to unfurl before me like a red carpet to freedom when I started treatment. I'm a realistic gal. I'm pretty much prepared for "the fuzzy end of the lollipop" or any other whip-bam-boom that comes my way. I'm aware that survival is a struggle, life is hard, love hurts, etc. The tough stuff was normal to me-- expected. In fact, I used to laugh or roll my eyes a bit at people who bitched and whined about how "hard" they had it. "What's the matter? Did you have to try or something?" Pft. Honestly, what did they expect? No one said it would be easy, after all.
I know that people like to camouflage the blatantly absurd nature of life with things like video games, fashion, or romance, but I don't think that anybody's been bamboozled from the fact that this whole "living" thing is kind of a sh*t storm. "Get real, cry baby," I'd think when someone started blubbering over some break-up or random, petty BS. "This world's got bigger problems than your self-absorbed nonsense." Perhaps subconsciously I was being my happy, prideful, narcissistic self: I've got real problems. I'm insane, and I hate myself, and this entire universe is a joke. People are cartoons, everyone's a liar competing for first place in some non-existent prize fight, and they beat each other to a pulp over nothing-- and this despite the fact that we all cross the same finish line no matter what came before. "Holla', Conqueror Worm! Eat me!"
Naturally, while these hopeless, FTW, FML, RIP thoughts were polluting my internal world everyday, I worked overtime trying to disprove my own theories by outwardly portraying the Disney heroine of the Midwest. Ask not, want not. Always say 'please' and 'thank you.' Help others even when you can't help yourself. Most importantly, always turn that frown upside down! I was begging the existence I viewed with cynicism and the people I viewed with skepticism to prove me wrong. Reward this shadow of goodness with the real thing. Please, before I die of heartbreak!
I've written about the struggle this balancing act became for me in past articles. I've also written-- in my Introduction article-- about my lowest point. What I haven't yet expressed is the terrifying and yet almost exultant feeling one gets, when barely holding onto an over-burdened state of mental torment, looking downward into the abyss that is utter insanity. It seduces with white noise reverberation in your head. This feeling of, "Yeah, I could go there... I kind of want to go there," tempts the mental victim to just let go and free fall into oblivion. It provides quite the unexpected and disturbing orgasm-- knowing you can marry, consummate, and submerge your flesh with nothingness. It's signing a contract, consciously or unconsciously; it's accepting your mind's exit.
How fine to just give up, how fine to no longer care... Hasten life's cruel process by delicately resigning and annihilating thyself! Deteriorate! Be banished and unreachable, and never, ever come back! Allowing oneself to look down There-- into the pit of surrender-- and partly get off on it, this is the part that invokes terror. It's so far gone. So far. Deep. There is no return... While the soul is willing, the mind is weak and it, in turn, weakens the flesh.
