Surviving the Social Suicide
Think of the time when you survived the Social Suicide. The time when your status sunk lower than it possibly could have (in your perception), You never would have thought yourself to be the person everyone saw you as.
And think of the moment you looked in the mirror and saw it too, saw yourself as this despicably humiliated person. And the horror of realizing there was really no one to blame.
Yes things had been done to you, and misfortune had befallen you over and over again in material matters and the material world. But the character that you represent? It was all you, always you. No one told you to become unprincipled, no one told you to become cruel, spineless, selfish, or listless.
Can you remember that feeling of looking in the mirror and seeing that person that even you would not want to be companions with?
Now remember what you did next. For most people it's nothing, for most people it was written off as those regular self deprecating thoughts that are apart of the human experience. The reason why the ego exists is to protect us from such blows to the confidence in our character that are so regular when our character attempts to mesh with others. But that moment is different and we all know it was different, it was the moment we could not reconcile what we saw in the mirror, with what we thought of ourselves for months and years up to that point. That moment when every compliment started to bounce off us and every critique started to melt deeply into our heart and soul.
Before you know it there's this ugly darkness staining where there was once hope for our future. You see a future and realize with growing horror, day by day, that you don't see yourself in it. It's bright and beautiful and you aren't there. The euphoria of a happy, stable life isn't one where your character fits.
And it didn't just hurt, it decayed at your soul. Like a blight or infection in a fucked up zombie movie. But it's worse because it wasn't a sickness you caught or were 'exposed' to, it was you. You chose the decay and hurt you were feeling. That deep depression that starts to eat away at even the good things you once saw in mirror. Till one day you look and see nothing.
A void where light doesn't reach, and it constantly craves more. More money, more excitement, more friends, more fun. More love.
Then in a moment of clarity it comes to you that you're alone. Through this pain that disguised itself as clarity, and this silent enduring of self hatred, you could not feel a connection to others. The void does not connect and it cannot be connected with.
In these moments you may have contemplated the worst, the removing of yourself from the equation and how to do it without harming others. You have the horrifying realization that you've already done it.
So what do you do? Do you die? Well the conclusion you just came to is that you've already been doing that. You've scouted out the plot, bought the gravestone, and dug the grave. You are looking into a dirty hole and telling yourself to climb in. What do you do?
Well you get scared. As we all are, death is never peaceful. We can delude ourselves into comfort, into saying we are not afraid but being faced with that dirty hole and gravestone with your name on it. You are afraid.
So you walk away, and that walk breaks into a run, and before you know it you are desperately clawing to get away from this grave you dug. Sex, Drugs, Parties, Faux Love. Until you end up where it all started. In the mirror. And it hurts. It hurts like your skin burning and water filling your lungs and tightness in your throat. Faced with that void in the mirror it hurts so bad you want to run right back to the grave you dug a lifetime ago.
And a lot of us have run back to that grave. May their souls rest in peace.
But some of us feel a fire, and it is not righteous and it is not pretty. This ugly fire that makes us want to shatter the image that led us to so much pain and suffering. So much time wasted on the void that always wants more.
But you can't shatter the image, it's you reflected back. It will always be you and it always has been. You realize that choice to do nothing from so long ago was a choice. You chose to run. You chose to not face yourself and everything you had done, ever will do, and want to do. That hopeless despair that you did it all to yourself sets in again but after a lifetime of running that fire passions you into a wrath. A raging against the reflection, a raging against the world that 'did this to you', a raging against those who abandoned you to endure the void alone.
And in a moment of rage and wrath and ugly despicable hatred for the reflection something reaches you. I can't know what it is but something reaches through that void and for the first time in a lifetime it doesn't hurt. Maybe it was exhilerating, exhuasting, sad, lovely. And it's different to the running. It's different to the sex, the drugs, the parties, and that painful thing disguised as love.
It's real. It's so real you tell yourself it's fake, You tell yourself you can't have this and that it's just a dream. Another lie to distract from the truth that is the void.
But you can't resist doing it anyways. Again and again, like a sweet treat before bed, or a secret whispered to a best friend on the playground.
So instead of living in the graveyard, a new lifetime passes in this in-between. Neither living nor dying. A lifetime spent at the crossroads, at the in-between. Asleep.
This isn't living.
I know it's not but I can't help myself. Stop making this personal, it's easier if it's not. Don't break my third wall.
Whatever.
So this isn't living, and you know that. But you're still here, waiting for something to drag you out into the light. Out of the fog.
No one is coming.
And I know that- You know that. So walk anyways. Stumble, scream, cry, laugh, and one day the fog might not be there.
the fog will always be there.
I told you to shut up.
The fog won't always be there. You have to believe the fog won't always be there. Because I have to believe the fog won't always be there. The cake isn't a lie and the fog isn't coming. This was supposed to have a happy ending. This was supposed to be a beacon of hope.
It isn't.
Instead I fear this would just make things worse. Make it foggier, make it hurt more. I can close my eyes and see that grave even now.
Come to me.
I won't because I can't, they won't let me, and I love them.
That didn't stop you before.
They love me too. Goddamnit they love me too and I can't hurt them the way I would hurt myself.