I have schizophrenia. Along with the super fun delusions that the CIA is beaming thoughts in my head to get a sex change, I regularly oscillate from one extreme mood to the other. Some days, I am literally the second coming. Other days, I am literally the lowest piece of shit the Earth have ever birthed.
Today is the latter. I feel like garbage, and I hate myself because I slept in to the late, late hour of 9 am on a Sunday. I know, I make Satan look like a puppy. But, I keep kicking myself over it. I try to stay vigilant with my efforts to keep improving. I feel overly compelled to stay productive every day because it’s the only thing that disuages the burning bushes of God telling me I’m a worthless waste of space.
When I’m in my manic states, I feel like I can take on the world, and with the energy I have, I probably could if I directed them in a more focused manner. There are days when I wake up before 6 (might not have even gone to sleep) and immediately start writing. I’ll write for 4-6 hours on these days. I’ll practice my juggling for 1-3 hours. I’ll practice Norwegian and Hebrew for an hour. I’ll practice rapping for an hour. I’ll send out resumes. I’ll workout. I’ll make video content. Hell, I’ll even just talk to myself and tell myself that I love myself and that I’m worth it because I know it will have a tangible effect on rewriting my neurons.
Then there are mornings when I wake up and I find that I’ve transmuted into a bloated slug. Not only do I feel that way, but that’s also how I’ll think of my body. I’ll curl up in a ball and cry. Sometimes I’ll start the day off right with a nice punch or two to the head. I scream at myself internally to get moving; to just get the ball rolling. But I can’t. I feel like nothing matters and that nothing I do will even have an effect on myself or the world.
Hell, I feel like an asshole because the only content I can produce on these days revolves around myself and my problems. I try to create meaningful articles, or funny stories, but there’s nothing brewing in this pot. I hate that. It’s another nail in the self-hate coffin. As far as I can move this machine forward on the good days, my ability to make real, tangible change to my life is crippled by these days where it feels like the machine elves have thrown a few dozen wrenches into my production line.
These are usually the days where I am the most paranoid. I have so much trouble getting out of bed, let alone outside, because I can feel the eye of God on me. This is the main reason I can’t find or keep a traditional job. I’ve had days when I had interviews, but I fell to pieces as I practically flailed myself to get out the door. In contrast, the days when I’m not like this, I’ll usually wind up at the interview and wind up talking about how I love Norwegian because the definite articles are different than they are in English and how I’m going to be famous by becoming a juggling, rapping Jesus and that I’ve already been greenlit because I’ve paid off my debt with the Illuminati by playing a little girl online and catching predators for six years and what’s that? You’ll call me? Ok! I’ll wait by the phone!
And that’s reason #4,513,880 why I hate myself. On these days, everything I’ve ever done comes roaring back in full gear, hitting me like a bus. My world becomes a house of mirrors, where everything I’ve ever done that’s remotely bad or stupid or has any connotation of negativity gets amplified and reflected back at me. I get lost in this nuclear dinosaur of a storm, and can’t find my way out.
But I don’t let myself be defeated. I never let myself have zero days any more. I always find the strength to get up and get something done. It wasn’t easy to get in this habit, but like most things, it builds over time. Layer by layer, we can rewrite ourselves.
Our mind is like a pile of sand, with each experience being a different grain in the pile. Being conscious of this, we can choose to mindfully give ourselves experiences to dislodge our old patterns of thought and behavior. This is not something that can be done in an instant. I used to believe that there was some magic/occult/esoteric way that I could throw a blue whale on my sand pile and get rid of all the trauma I’ve had. There’s no teleportation to the destination we desire; the only real solution is to walk consistently in the direction we want to travel.
And, honestly, that’s where the joy of life comes from. It’s a journey, not a destination. If the problems life throws at us were solvable with a magic wand, life would get boring really fast. The suffering I’ve been through and still get stuck on makes the contrasting moments all the much sweeter. And the act of freeing myself from this seemingly endless bramble patch will make life so much more joyful when it is a distant memory.
Hey, I wrote a short book about the experiences that led to me being in this place. It would really mean a lot if you picked it up. It's a rollercoaster ride through my childhood and explores (mostly) everything that shaped me into who I am today.