Impressions of Insanity

Impressions

I'll just repeat the warning - the weblog below may contain strong language and explicit references. All links within the posts will open in the same separate window.

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Friday, August 04, 2000

11:27

So many dreams I can't remember any of them. Very busy dreams. All my dreams have been busy recently. And I hurt so badly today I don't know what to do with myself. It's worse than it has been all week, and this week it has been pretty damn bad.

And last night Andy got the Weapon so mad it had it out with him. He wants me to fast before we try to sort out this flaring problem, so he gets me on a really low ebb. He said it might be dangerous otherwise, will involve a deep merge. If I flare while in a deep merge it could get nasty because my power structures designed for much higher capacity than his.

I'm interfering with electronics again. The CD player just went mad.

The Weapon got angry because no food means no fuel and the flares eat up everything very quickly, and leaves nothing for anything else. It castigated him for his previous failures to do what he said he would do and told him that the fast was pointless because he wasn't going to get around to doing the work that would make it a useful exercise, and all he was doing was impairing function.

It can be so desperately horrid at times, it really can.

Off to Herefordshire this weekend. I was looking forward to it. I'm not any more. Today I just want to sit home and cry because it hurts so much.

Wednesday, August 02, 2000

17:58

Notes from the Stones

Andy phoned. I had to pick up, it could have been anyone. Had already fielded a call from the film crew. He phoned and it was like sitting in a tiny glass box, pressing my tear-streaked face against the sides and shouting silently while someone else wearing my face and name and using my voice made small talk, conversational inconsequentiality.

It is so very, very good at making everything seem just peachy to the outside world, even if the inside walls of that glass box are streaked with sweat and blood from ragged fingertips. Ťwe live in the egg. we have covered the inside wall of the shell with dirty drawings and the christian names of our enemies.ť

That was not a conversation between brother and sister. That was the sort of emotionally vapid catch-up call that occurs between friendly acquaintances. And now I feel so tired. The day is going too slowly. Everything seems to take inordinate effort. I may have to leave early today.

He didn't notice. He couldn't tell. He thinks you are just fine.
Go away. I'm not playing this game today.

My face and hands circle the glass box, looking in at me with a soft, smug smile. Fingers caress the smooth surface and the gesture makes me feel ill.

He will consider the pain to be a little thing.

Where are Hugin and Munin now? Caged like finches, wings clipped. The ignominity of it.

The pain is not a little thing. It rages, caustic on the lining of my brain, grinding against the inside of my skull. It chews on the muscles and the tendons of my shoulders, gnaws on the bones of my arms and hands. It weeps venomous snakes around my intestines, invades my rib cage with carnivorous arthropods. My veins are crawling with skeletal fingers, the flesh of my legs repeatedly biopsied with kitchen tongs. My head is caged in a frame meant to keep it steady but the bolts have been sadistically over-tightened. My eyes are penetrated by thick, hollow needles that alternately pump in brine and then empty them to a vacuum. The base of my spine is being crushed in a granulator, and my feet are bound into balls.

It is all I can do to keep from crying out, running into the road, charging headlong into the first lorry that comes my way at a reasonably fast speed. I feel almost as if I have been gut shot and am deserpately holding onto hot, slippery intestines with disbelieving hands.

Last night he mailed me and I read his emotional treatise dispassionately, uncaring. I noted the things he had got wrong, where he had evidently misunderstood the obvious message. Then I went and sat down and ignored it.

I am being broken, ground down. I sit here and cry now, nearly, as long as no visitors are watching. None can tell.

Never let them see you bleed.

Could I muster the strength to ask? Then have him blunder through excuses to his wife and work, putting the stability of his own life at risk, when I have a gym session booked tonight anyway and will be seeing him on Friday?

No. Tears fall in despair at that answer but I could not justify it.

Of course you can't justify it, there's nothing wrong with you. Stop being so weak and selfish.

There, you see. The grain of truth. It would be both weak and selfish to ask. But not in the way it means. It is selfish by definition to ask someone to make some effort on one's behalf, and it is demonstrably a weakness of some description to require that assistance. But it makes it sound so dirty, as if it is some overwhelming character flaw. I do not think it would be justified, not with his situation as it currently stands, but surely I'm not some sort of monstrous emotional vampire?

I don't think I can hold on much longer.

Why not? You exaggerate. It is not that bad. Show some gumption. It is all in your mind anyway. You have a mental disorder. You have even invented me as a mask for all your own perverted, schizoidal weaknesses.

Oh please, dear god. I can't breathe. Because there is no end in sight. There is no cure for the darkness inside me any more than there is a magic pill that will suddenly make everything else better. I am pinned, literally. I can feel the metal in my flesh, in my heart. Not just pain.

Hot now, flesh on fire, losing muscle control. A man asking directions just gave me a very odd look. I think I may be whimpering aloud.

Tuesday, August 01, 2000

23:57

Did you misunderstand me, anonymous reader? Did you perhaps think I railed against falseness in those I call "friend" or those I call "brother"?

O no. Not I. Not ever.

Did you think perhaps that when I cried "It's so unfair" I meant this isolation, these other commitments that those I love must tend to?

No. No. Not that.

It's unfair of me to think things could be different. It's unfair of hope to act on longings that can never be satisfied. It's unfair of the Rationalist and the Weapon to tell me these things that they tell me, to attack those I love as being inadequate with enough salting of accuracy to make it seem plausible. The things they say are unfair - almost entirely unjustified.

But only almost. As I said; salted with a grain of accuracy. That is all it takes.

I don't expect help, because I understand logistics, I understand that even though the consensus world is all but lost to me (and much of non-consensus these days also) other people do still have lives to lead. Other people do still have things that get in the way.

It's not unfair of them, it's unfair of me. One cannot say the world, the universe is unfair, it just is, and to complain about it is to imagine that everything revolves around oneself, and the issues and people that are important in one's view.

I am not that naieve, I'm just in pain. And ever so tired.

18:21

Notes from the Stones

Oh my the baby robins are cute. Balls of fluff with gaping beaks. And I discover that is not Mr Creosote and #1 son, it is Mr and Mrs Creosote. With attendant fledglings. Two of them. Noisy too.

Quiet here today. No obvious signs of damage - scratched graffiti on the paving slabs. A couple of bundles of wheat, one tied into a cross. That will annoy the farmer. Having a field-full doesn't mean he doesn't mind folk taking some to make crappy symbolic gestures with.

Too much coffee in my coffee. Hard to write today too. Letters seen so abstract, my handwriting slow and careful. It is as if there is an extra step between thinking the words and setting them down. I am more mindful of the process of forming the words on the page.

I feel distant and somewhat light-headed. There is a great deal of pain biting at my ankles, not yet insistently enough for me to give in to it. I can feel it growing in my muscles, in my chest, in my head, in my eyes, in my heart. There is a pressure in my head that feels both positive and negative simultaneously.

Why have I stopped talking to Andy? I miss him but am angry with him for his apparent failure to understand, which is very unfair. The Rationalist has put on his best and most impressive strong man outfit and insistently reminds me that we are not really twins, that by perpetuating this fantasy I am probably harming him as well as myself. The cruel, cold-hearted, selfish part of me tells me that I do not need in my life someone who makes and breakes so many promises, who professes to so much yet fails to follow through with action. It tells me intent is nothing without some evidence of action. Talking and thinking about doing a thing, no matter how seriously, is not the same as doing a thing.

I ignore his messages out of fear, disappointment and spite and somewhere I hate myself for it. He asked me yesterday what the things are that cause me so much stress and then proceeded to dismiss them as things he had managed to overcome and seemed to suggest I am making mountains out of molehills. Get a job, he says, make some money. When sick and bleeding? Work from home, part time. Has there been some sort of revolution in the job market while I wasn't looking? Does he know how much pain there is?

You do not need him, he makes it worse, he builds your hopes them squashes them because it is inconvenient.
I want to cry and I cannot.
If he really cared he would have come.
It is so cold, so unfair, so unreasonable, so wrong.
Is it? He thought you might have killed yourself and still he did not come.
What would have been the point if I were dead? And if I were not dead, then I was hanging on and could wait. It's only until Friday. Only until the weekend.
And what about then? How will he do anything when you both are being sociable and wearing friendly faces? Will he fall asleep again? Will he make more promises he cannot keep? How much more disappointment?
Shut up.
Is it worth the pain? You will both be happier if you keep your distance.
Shutup shutup shutup shutup.

And the pain gets worse and I wonder how much longer I can stand it.

In the memories we could never ignore each other for long, but in the memories they could never really keep us apart, not until the very end. There is a lot of difference between trying to ignore your twin when he is in the same house and shares the same room at night, is never more than 5 minutes of searching away, and trying to ignore your twin when he is 2 hours away by car or train and has many more important things in his life that require his attention.

The darkness has become stronger and deeper in the intervening years also. I have become harder, harsher, capable of greater cruelty. More self-destructive, but also more aware of all these things.

I look out the gate, half-wondering if I will see his car. "There! See? He does care."

Of course he cares. I know that. There is nothing to be gained by him coming here. I have gym tonight, will be out from half six til ten. He has deadlines.

But there will be no opportunity at the weekend and that will be your allowance of time together gone with no thing accomplished, with you still stuck in a hole.
It's not his job to get me out of the hole, it's mine. My hole, my job. He's my brother, not my Key.
But you cannot do it yourself or you would not still be there and he is your brother - if you cannot expect help from him, then from whom? Or are you deliberately keeping yourself imprisoned so that he has to help you?
Shutup! Go away! Leave me the fuck alone.
I don't know. I just don't know any more. I just wish it would end. I'm tired of being in pain.

And it only hurts so much because there is a warped grain of truth in there somewhere.

Why does it hold others in such contempt?
Why do others seem incapable of realising the obvious?
Why do others always seem to manage to misunderstand or say the wrong thing?

Not fair. None of it is fair. Marko does not come home - I'm married to him and it is only a 20 minutes cycle ride. He does not come home if I call in distress, at times he is too busy even to talk. I expect too much of people. I should be more capable, more independent. I certainly should not be pandering to emotional weakness.

And that's how the cycle starts, or continues. An ill-thought word causes retreat, which leads to withdrawal. Withdrawal causes isolation which leads to desire and need for company, for assistance. "I need help. Please." This doesn't happen, can't happen, and so the emotional cement mixer goes into overdrive - fear, depression, despair, self-disgust at needs and wants that have no right to be. Anger, contempt, spite.

"You can't help me" becomes "I refuse to need your help, refuse to open myself to disappointment." I refuse to expect your help. If you cannot expect help from someone who says he loves you, from whom can you expect help? Or does that mean that love is irrelevant?

Turmoil. Love becomes no more than intent without action and the whole world falls apart, becomes meaningless. An empath cannot survive alone. So what is left? What is there to keep the empath sustained?

"I'm sorry, I can't do this any more. So sorry."
"Yes you can, you must."

But I can't. Inside I'm falling down a deep, dark hole and the longer they tell me I can, I must, the longer I do because I must, the further I fall. The AllFather said I'm not going to get better. What am I supposed to be fighting for? From where do I derive the motivation?

Death, they say, is too easy. Life down a hole that grows ever deeper is too hard. And no one can show me the way out.

That's because they are all too busy.

Oh god.

Sunday, July 30, 2000

23:40

Just why is it so hard? Why do people find it so hard to accept?

I miss him so much it is physical, a beast. With claws and teeth and a rage of an appetite. Is it just because we see so little of each other? Would it be easier if we could see each other when we wanted, before the missing got bad? Is it simply that circumstances prevent us from having that freedom and we rail against circumstance and curse, and miss each other all the more for not being free to make that choice?

When I miss Frood like that it is because we are being kept apart, by work, by circumstance. Forced separation does it. The lack of opportunity to make contact, to be close. Worse with my brother because we are not seen as brother and sister by consensus, by anyone other than ourselves. When we have the opportunity to be close we must almost steal our moments for fear of being seen to be doing something wrong. For fear of being seen to be inappropriately intimate.

A hug, a kiss, a close embrace. Hardly inappropriate. Intense moments of togetherness to appease the need that builds up over forced time apart, forced denial of opportunity to be together. Forced denial of acceptance that we can be together. We steal moments and part of us thinks it's wrong, because others think it's wrong and those others can affect our lives. But mostly we steal moments for fear of upsetting others, even though we see no reason for them to be upset. And we rage that we have to steal those moments when we feel they should be ours by right to possess.

I miss him so much because we have so much to fit into so little time, so much to make up for. That those moments, precious moments, are never long enough. Spikes, aye. Painful in their intensity.

I can see why other people might think it odd. But it is partially those other people that bring about the requirement for it to be that odd.

I wish that weren't so. I truly do.

12:49

You know what it comes down to, in the end? You can choose your friends but you can't choose your family. You can walk away from family, you can choose to cut yourself off from them, but there will always be a link, a bond. Even if, for some obscure, unthinkable reason, I fell out with my brother, he'd still be my brother. If Nick and I had a fight, he'd still be my brother and I'd still have certain feelings about him. If Andy and I fall out, he's still going to be my brother and I'd feel the same grief as I would over Nick.

And maybe that's the nub of the thing with Peter. He chose to walk away. I think Andy and I could fall out (although it would take something desperately serious), but I couldn't ever walk away from him just because he was too much trouble. And I think that means Peter isn't, or never was, Family, and non-Family can't do the job he was supposed to do. He chose a path that meant he wasn't Family. Family is undeniable. You can't argue with it.

Peter warned Andy off, but Andy is Family.

Andy and I didn't choose to be related this way, to have these shared memories (or fantasies, but they don't feel like the other fantasies I have created either, bruv, and you know how good I am at creating fantasies), to be so similar, to have the same tastes, the same interests, similar important events in our lives. We didn't choose to speak in similar ways, to have the same flair for metaphor, the same capacity for passion and emotional fragility. We didn't choose to meet eyes across that rickety wooden gate and recognise each other because ravens always remember.

We're twins, and whether other people agree with us or not, I do wish that they could comprehend that this is how it is for us.

12:02

Missing him bad. All day yesterday - nearly bought some dog biscuits for us to giggle over when I was in the supermarket. Keep seeing his face.

It's disconcerting, like being in love, but there is nothing romantic about this. I don't want to spend the rest of my life with him the way I do with Frood. The passion and desire I feel are quantitavely the same, but not the same in the details of form. I have no desire to sleep with him, to have sex. The longing I have is just to be with him. A similar soul with whom to share thoughts and feelings. A very similar soul. I think perhaps it's the resonance I miss. It's the sense of having found a little bit of the home for which I long.

I feel protective towards him, the way I do towards Nick. He tells me someone or the other has said something horrible about him and I get riled the way I did the day was Nick was beaten up by a bully at school and I nearly went straight round and beat the crap out of the little gobshite. Siblings. Aye. Maybe other people don't agree - maybe if you mentioned my twin brother to my Mum she would look at you blankly (and then nod and say "Ah yes" in that sort of "Humour my daughter she's a bit odd" voice she has, because I told her about him already). But that's not the point. Not as far as we're concerned.

Sometimes he feels like my younger brother, sometimes he feels like he's older. Mostly he feels like he's exactly the same age. Twins? Not really. Split-apart, but fraternal. Twins we were, aye, but the split wasn't even. Yin and Yang, almost. Almost exactly the same but opposite in our similarities. Does that make sense?

The memories are thick and strong today, memories of times past before birth, visions and ideas of things that might have been. So close but so far away. It is a cruel tease.

And now he tells me he's having panic attacks when he tries to go swimming and I just want to drive down there now and talk him through it, be with him, see what the problem is, solve it for him, even just lend moral support. But I can't do that. I can't do that any more than we could take this Dartmoor trip that El keeps going on about (endlessly. Just drop it, will you? We heard you). Frood says no reason why not, we could go to Dartmoor, but there is a reason why not, isn't there?

Why is it that I have that effect on them? Why am I perceived as such a threat?

Frood said to me the other night that he thinks I have some arcane influence over people. He said he can see it. Other people seem to think things are a good idea just because I say so. Infectious, perhaps. Maybe my madness is infectious. Maybe that's why they put me in a box.

I haven't seen Hugin and Munin wearing hazmat suits, but then I don't suppose I would.

Killed someone in my dreams last night. First in a long time. He wasn't nice, he was evil (small "e"), but that didn't make it any better.

Today is going to be a bad day. I'm hot and the pain is quite bad already. 3 hours sleep.