I’m Not Dead Yet (Part 2)

Having run away from the psychopathic condition for five years; desperately trying to convince myself that I wasn’t disordered and that all was truly fine, this caused me to completely forget all the mental fortitude and tricks that kept me out of trouble the many years prior. I wanted to believe that I was just misguided and that there was light behind my eyes after all, mostly because the alternative suggested great academic debates about good, evil, worth, and unworthiness. Don’t get me wrong, none of this was feeling state driven, but if you’re gonna leave a legacy, it’s probably better to leave a legacy of good rather than bad, and when I could not convince myself of the legacy I was creating, that fucked with me.

I’m not all bad, but I’m certainly not all good, either. But the demons have been gnawing ferociously at me these past five years or so. Impulsivity and thrill seeking in particular have been completely unchecked, leading to scenarios of temporary poverty and absolute abandonment at times. When a person cannot ever feel true affect (emotion), it leads them to engage in an escalatory cycle of shenanigans trying to chase fleeting feelings. There have been multiple times, for instance, that I’ll go to the casino and absolutely slam $20 or more slot pulls just to chase a high. Winning or losing doesn’t matter at that point, it’s just rush of pissing money. I bet I lost over 30,000 dollars in the past year alone going after feelings that last only the briefest of moments.

A particularly manic spell oddly enough was the catalyst for returning to my unfinished business. As the longtime reader knows, orthogonal to the personality disorder nonsense, I am bipolar. While manic, I was especially dangerous in my thrill seeking and emotion chasing, and while the mania abruptly stopped after a few weeks, the damage left behind was substantial. It became clear that I needed to re-enter therapy, and to do that, I needed to find a therapist I could trust with the unsavory bits.

From there the conclusion of my current journey became clear. If I’m re-entering therapy, it’s time to become mindful, to return to the days of galvanized resolve that I had during my A Tale of Two Masks era. It’s time to do the heavy lifting that will honor my past, keep me grounded in the present, and shape the future.

Over the coming weeks and months, I will reintroduce the reader to the psychopathic condition, my experiences with it, and the hopes I have in order to remain not just free, but thriving.

I’m not dead yet and there is so much work to be done.