Rediscovering

My apologies for not updating frequently, but I can safely blame my life for the wait.  Work and school have both teamed up to make me as busy as possible, and so I find my plate nearly overflowing most days.  I'd also like to apologize for how boring these posts must be, compared to my more reflective ones.

The problem is that my recent life is just not that weird or anything.  My work life is normal, my school life is the usual pit of scorn and derision, and even my dreams are pretty laid back.  The most recent dream has been nothing more than me walking in a field, which doesn't strike me as either interesting or terrifying.  I guess I'm just as close to normal as a guy like me can get.

The innocent will rest

The innocent will rest in the peace they've been given.
Paintings will sleep on the floor.
Build walls of lonely dreams as beauty fades.
I can't take this anymore.

While the experience of being unsure who or where I am is, in my experience, a grossly unpleasant one, there is a far worse experience that I've had on occasion.  Every now and then, especially if my radio somehow shuts off at night, I will die. 

The sudden shock of not having any interests, or fears, or feelings is jarring, especially so because of the extreme sensory overload that accompanies this death each time it happens. Every individual sound becomes a scream, and the barest light melts my eyes from their sockets.  My sheets shred across my skin, combining the worst parts of sandpaper and powdered glass. This pain is amplified a thousand times, until my brain finally figures out where the gap or whatever is.  

While the pain may always stop, it also robs me of what makes me myself.  The fact that I'm still Richard is there, but I might as well be any other person, because Richard holds no context by itself.  What Richard loves, what Richard hates, and what Richard wants is all lost to me, and it takes a bit of time to decide what Richard wants now that the pain is gone.  

Usually, what Richard wants after these moments is for the pain and sound to never come back.

Explanation

So as far as first posts go, mine dragged on.  The explanation it attempts to provide is also a bit poor, so I'll use this post to give a better one.

About six years ago I, through a rather unfortunate incident, ingested a large amount of "embalming fluid", the liquid form of PCP.  The damage to my nervous system was so severe, I went into a coma for roughly a month. After waking up from it, I started suffering from prolonged episodes of depersonalization, like what I described in that first post, where I lose track of exactly what or who I am.  These episodes can last anywhere from minutes to days, and usually end with me snapping out of it in a strange place, unsure of how I got there despite having a full memory of watching myself, or what I believe to be myself.

The reason for this blog is because my latest episode ended with me staring at my computer screen, with this very interface open in my browser.  I left the page open, and revisited it after a few days with the notion to record my feelings and, maybe, jot down a few choice "memories" I have of past episodes.

To Tear The Curtains

We came this far to tear the curtain
Shed light so I can see your eyes
Shed your light on me

I need music.

No, I don't need music actually.  All I need is sound, but music makes a more pleasant distraction.  This distraction is necessary, because otherwise it's just me.  

I can't let it be just me.

For reasons I don't want to explain, involving a certain thing from my past, I've always had an issue with silence.  If I don't have some kind of noticeable background noise going on, I start to... fade.  It's not some weird magical bullshit, it's just a problem of definition: without background noise, I inadvertently start to focus on my own existence and ultimately lose myself.

Have you ever put something down, like your keys, and looked away for a second?  Of course you have, and they're always right where you left them.  Now imagine if you looked back, and you couldn't find them suddenly.  It might just be that they were misplaced, yeah, but what if you just didn't know what they looked like anymore?  What if your memory of those keys was subject to change: one minute you're absolutely certain what your keys look like and do, and the next you've completely lost the concept of being able to lock or unlock anything?  Your eyes dart around, suddenly suspicious of whether or not everything around you is actually a key, or maybe even your set of keys, and the dread dredges up the thought that everything is locked now, at this exact moment of weakness where you'll never have your keys again.

We'll just say that I've gone days without finding it.  Without finding them.  In silence, I lose myself, and the thought of never finding it again is constantly on my mind.  I don't know if writing out this sort of thought helps, but the click of my keyboard is a beautiful curtain to hide behind.