Welcome Back To Purgatory~

Frankly I'm not sure what to think any more. The only thing which seems clear to me is what I want and what I can do in my work, intellectually. Yesterday night I couldn't sleep, couldn't find a comfortable position, started to get annoyed at little things, like part of my bed covers touching my neck or just not feeling comfortable somewhere, or just when I felt something itch again. Eventually I just started scratching myself with my nails with excessive force, then started punching my upper body and tummy as well as inflicting pain in other ways. This lasted until I forced myself to quit and grasp my bed covers really tightly while fighting the urge to inflict more and more pain. The thought of plunging a knife into my abdomen seemed like a wonderful idea, or so my emotional side kept telling me.

My crying woke up Pieter, who came to my room at around 2.10 AM and stayed with me and comforted me until I felt somewhat calmed down. The rest of the night I spent in his bed, as I didn't want to be alone.

The past days, ever since I quit with the anti-depressants have been marked by an increase in my sensory perception, heightened awareness of my environment and my emotions. I can cry again when I feel horrible, instead of just sink away into some passive state. For these reasons I'm glad I quit with the anti-depressants.

So why do I feel so terrible, so tired so often? Why does everything from relationships to sexuality to just plain seeing others hurt? Why am I feeling disgusted with my own body more and more often? Am I obsessing about my medical questions? Why do people call it an obsession when you're wrestling with fundamental questions? Do you call someone who just woke up from a coma after a bad accident and can't remember anything from his or her past obsessive if that person says not to be able to live without knowing who he or she is? Would people just tell him/her to forget about the past and start a life without such baggage?

Likewise, why do people tell me to just give up on finding the answers to what my body is, what and who I am, and just live a life without giving a second thought to those things? Isn't something majorly screwed up with that kind of reasoning? Would you tell someone to just pretend he or she actually has a kind of anonymous body which exists and yet doesn't exist?

I feel that it's completely ridiculous that I'm being treated the way I am. I deserve answers to those fundamental questions about myself. There are actual laws against the kind of cruel treatment I'm suffering from even now. It could never be the intention that someone who is in so much mental agony due to frustration would be left to his or her own devices until that person eventually decides to do something stupid and harmful to him/herself and/or others out of pure desperation? Because that's what I'm right up against at this point... pure, undiluted desperation. I don't know where to go, what to do, what to hope for, why to keep living, why to accept things, or why not, or... just everything. I want to yell out at the top of my lungs about how miserable I am, yet I know that doing so would just result in me getting smacked down by people who think I'm trying to attract attention, and ignored by others.

I want to give up... and yet I know I can't... suicide is the only thing at this point I can decide about by myself, whether I live or die the only thing I can control. Yet I don't want to die. I've always considered suicide to be something for the weak, something for those who'd rather give up than keep fighting. Even now I'm working on AI and robotics research which eventually should lead to an existence which is at least on the level of a human. I'd transfer my awareness and memories to such an entity and in essence become immortal. This is my life's first ambition, followed by learning everything there is to know. These goals aren't something I'll just throw away.

The only choice I'm thus left with is to use my rational side to essentially disable my emotional side, to accept that I'll never experience or be capable of love, friendship, relations, sexuality. I'll never have a self-image, never able to say anything about my body. To give into such things will destroy me and thus I'll have to actively avoid encounters with these dangers.

What is left for me to do? There is the upcoming appointment with a gynaecologist, I can go to a lawyer to discuss legal options. Realistically I don't think that I can keep suppressing my emotional side as the event last night showed and that unless something fundamentally changes I'll be destroyed one way or the other. In many ways I'm now back at where I was four years ago, when I had suppressed my emotional side to a point where it didn't affect my observations or daily life any more. It's just that my emotional side has had four years to grow, and before I had 21 years the time to suppress my emotions, without it ever giving a chance to develop. Not that that was a very desirable situation.

Something needs to be done.


Maya