In my quest to gain control over my life I have succeeded in weening myself off of medication, a process that took several years with many side effects, believing I was trained well enough that I could take the full brunt of my emotions without having them dampened by drugs. Anti-depression/anti-anxiety medications not only reduce the impact of negativity, but positive feelings as well, finding an even balance akin to a vegetative state, particularly when doses were often increased without regard for balance. The term "chemical imbalance" is an interesting analogy that some psychologists fail to recognize. If an imbalance is caused by a lack of dopamine and/or serotonin, then naturally increasing those will eventually restore balance, but too much will throw the scale out of whack again. (Disclaimer: I have not slept in two days, so what little psychiatric understanding I have is thusly reduced. I have a better understanding of behavior and emotion because my empathy levels are higher than my scientific vocabulary, and most psychobabble sounds to me an awful lot like psychobabble. My powers are purely analytical, and as such my "understanding" of the brains physical workings should not be taken into consideration when making your own life-altering decisions.)
I have been functioning without medication for approximately two to three years, and in that time I have managed to keep myself upright with few setbacks. However, in recent months my self-regulatory ability has begun to wane. If left unattended for prolonged periods of time, I am plagued by irrational fears and daymares that not only weaken my spirit, but my body as well. Many of my fears are brought about by my conviction that no matter what I do I will never succeed in my plans to build a sustainable future for myself. The climb is steep, and my ability to grip reality is being eroded away by sharp jagged fail.
I am losing my ability to trust myself alone. I am fine so long as I am in the company of those I resonate best with, and I have not gone weeks without a good night's sleep. I know that if I met my goals, or at least felt like I was making some actual headway in achieving them, that the need for medication would be negated. It's my lack of purpose and personal fulfillment that's driving me deeper into depression. Even TAD is feeling more like a hobby than it originally did a year ago. I am a dedicated worker, and a firm believer that if something's worth doing it's worth doing to the best of my ability, yet that seems to be difficult to get across in my job applications.
It took a lot of time and effort to come off medication, and I fear that if I start taking it again I'll be attached to it for the rest of my life. There shouldn't be any downside if it works, but I don't want to be dependent on chemical substances because I enjoy who I am when I'm happy, and that degree of happiness could be an unfortunate casualty I do not wish to risk. Medication is an option, and one that will be considered further in coming weeks, but I am of the utmost certainty that there would be no need for it so long as I can re-integrate self-regulatory mental processes into my daily life again, just long enough to achieve my goals.
The three driving goals I have are:
1) Obtaining a job.
This will not only provide me with a sense of purpose, and thus a reason to continue fighting, but much needed financial assistance to acquire and maintain the other two goals.
Adversity: Poor networking, limited job supply, no "practical" work experience, though I hold fast to the fact that directing and producing TAD, even at an amateur level, is great leadership and organisational experience.
2) Owning and having the legal authority to operate a vehicle.
Reducing my reliance on public transportation and chauffeurs.
Adversity: Goal one must be met. Testing difficulties.
3) Having a palace of my very own, rather than "borrowing" one.
My evil citadel is something of a time-share at the moment.
Adversity: Goals one and two must be met. Possible need to compensate for increased income requirement by acquiring a room-mate.
It is with these things that I will achieve a state of semi-independence (As expressed in prior entries, I do not wish to be wholly self-reliant. After all, social and emotional reliance on others is essential to a healthy mind. Plus I need minions to do my bidding.) and thus establish a sense of self-confidence that is lacking at best, and ill-placed at worse. Once all three conditions have been met, it is then, and only then, that I will have the confidence to achieve my fourth goal, and the true motivation behind my desire to better myself. After all, with my living situation as it is I can be sustained for many years to come, but it is from this fourth goal that most of my pain and desire arises. This recent revelation has put much in perspective, including the possibility that even after achieving my three primary goals I may not be able to achieve my fourth.
As a stoic and mysterious master of darkness, it is not in my nature to open up about my feelings, but my need to do so has leaked out into this blog, transforming what was once a catalog of my major accomplishments to a series of angst filled declarations of my personal weakness. I should be writing things such as, "BEHOLD! I, the infamous LORD VELTHA, master of narrative, have at last achieved victory over the internet by staking claim over my own territory where I will be granting the droll and trivial masses to bask in the glow of my masterful works of triumph!" or even "After initial YouTube success, my greatest works are now being adapted for syndication by a television network enthralled by my sheer BRILLIANCE, and understand that my ingenious stories could influence future generations to stop watching all of the other bull-dookie that is currently airing on other networks and create a world of fresh and exciting art!" by now instead of this paltry, "I just want to be loved" crap.
My outlets for communication, much like my opportunities for success, are limited by my own unfathomable intellect/neurosis. They exist and can be found everywhere, yet something inside holds me back. There are things I do not openly discuss, yet are frequently pondered upon. Things that have also influenced my need to prove myself to myself, if only to prove to myself that They were wrong. Emotional invalidation is of great concern to me. There are few things I appreciate less than being heard but not felt or understood. I have reason to fear people not getting me, or worse still telling me that what I feel is wrong. I am not a trusting person, and without trusting others then no one can trust me, and thus my fourth and most important goal will never come to fruition because even with fame and fortune under my belt I will still be an asshole. I'm trying though. I am learning to show people I care.
I will continue to fight for now. I have checkpoints established in my timeline. Checkpoints do not reflect the time-limit I have to reach my goals, but operate in a fashion similar to check-points in arcade racing games. In my eternal need to convey my unparalleled perceptual superiority in a fashion the layman can understand, I turn to video game analogies.
In arcade racing games there is a set time limit for how long you are able to compete in the race. Checkpoints set up along the route from point A to point B add seconds to the timer when reached, allowing you to continue on in the hopes of crossing the finish line first. In some games, if you're very fortunate, you can still cross a checkpoint while coasting to a stop and still be awarded additional time to continue. My checkpoints are landmarks in time pertaining to events I feel are worth struggling onwards towards, often pertaining to new releases in entertainment media such as film, video games, or comic books, because experiences through art are often more relevant and achievable life experiences than those in reality. Studies show that actions or media perceived influence the brain. The same neurons in the brain are stimulated when you perform an action as when you're observing someone else performing the same action. (This is where my failure to actually save and catalog information I reference so that I can share it with others comes to bite me. The MLA gods would smite me for such frequent citation offenses.) Art works the same way. By reading Scott Pilgrim... I AM Scott Pilgrim. By playing Sonic The Hedgehog... I AM Sonic The Hedgehog. In fact, the psychology towards my absolute hatred of the werehog levels in Sonic Unleashed is an interesting subject for study. By hating the game I am playing... I am hating MYSELF. Video games are designed to provide the consumer with a sense of accomplishment. Everyone loves to level up. It keeps me going.
Returning to my analogy, if I go too long without reaching a checkpoint I can feel myself start to coast. Checkpoints must be pre-established, and if I do not set one within an acceptable amount of time I begin to succumb to depression, but can convince myself to fight on in the hope that eventually I will discover a new closer checkpoint. Gamers can relate to the sensation of panic as the timer ends mere virtual feet away from a checkpoint, and understand the pain of barely making checkpoint after checkpoint as the timer runs out time and time again, wondering whether you'll make it or if you'll get a game over. It is not a happy sensation in gaming, and it is even less so in reality when your life is on the line.
To stick with car analogies, but for non-gamers; imagine your car breaking down approximately every two minutes on your way to some place important you have to be in exactly an hour, and each time not knowing whether or not the car will start back up. Welcome to life with manic depression and anxiety!
This seems to me like an unnecessarily long post. That's saying something, you know, for me. I must make a sandwich and walk across the horizon. I cannot trust myself to remain stationary today.
Pathos and good will,
Lord Veltha
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