Sanity's Requiem

I've started having the nightmares again. The dreams where I lose myself, and my sanity, and all I can do is cry and try to hide cause I'm so broken and I don't want to be. I used to have those dreams a lot in the past, when I was really sick, and even after all these years they still scare the crap outta me. Nothing scares me more than the possibility of going insane. The fibromyalgia doesn't scare me - it just makes me tired and frustrated - the thought of breaking something doesn't scare me - it's just an unpleasant thought - and the thought of getting a serious physical disease like cancer or whatever doesn't scare me either - if it happens, it happens, and I'll deal with it if it ever comes to that. But the thought of going insane scares me so much that I can't even begin to describe it.

I've been to that point where I really should've been locked up in a padded room, cause I saw things that weren't there and heard voices in my head, and I can't even count how many times I've been curled up in a corner, crying hysterically while begging for someone or something to come save me, or just end my life. I've felt lost in famailiar places cause my brain told me I hadn't been there before, I've had blackouts because other personalities took over and made me do things I never thought I'd do, I've heard the ground beneath me cry out in a horrible cry that nearly broke me, and I've looked into a mirror and what looked back wasn't me. I know what it's like to be in that spot. And I never, ever, ever want to end up there again. I'd rather die, cause even death is less scary than losing my sanity.

You don't know what it's like, unless you've been there yourself. It can't be described in a way you'll understand, and you really can't imagine what it's like. You can watch movies with crazy people, and you can laugh at them, or feel sorry for them, or find them fascinating and/or cool, but you can never, in a million years, understand what it's like to be them. Insanity is not something fun that you can watch from afar. It breaks you, it breaks your life, and it breaks those around you that care about you and that have to watch you fall apart without being able to do anything about it. Just thinking about it makes me tear up, and even though I might joke about it today - cause joking is how I deal with bad shit - it's still the scariest fucking thing I've ever experienced.

Looking back, I find it amazing how I managed to survive it all. I feel so horribly bad for the people that got caught up in it, trying to help, and how my insanity broke them alongside me. I know it's not my fault, cause I had no control over it, no say in things, but I still feel bad, and I'm sorry. And I swear, if I ever end up in that place again, I'll just disappear from this world instead of letting anyone come close enough to get caught up in it. It sounds so horribly dramatic, but I'm just being honest. Going insane is so horrible I can't even put it into words, and knowing that you're breaking your loved ones is even worse.

Never again.

I managed to survive it, amazingly enough, and I wish I could say that it was all thanks to the support from my loved ones, and from the help I got from many psychiatrists I saw, but that's not what saved me. That's not what kept me going through that hell, holding me up so I wouldn't drown in my own sanity and be lost for good. That's not what pulled me away from that edge every single time I was ready to end it, and gave me a reason to keep fighting. I owe it all to my world, strange as it may sound. But I've already said that about a gazillion times now, how my world saved my life, so I'm not gonna go in on it right now. I just want to say that I'm grateful, and that I'll never let go of that world of mine, cause it's as much a part of me as I am of it, and without it I'd fall apart, and die.

But, nightmares. That's what I started to talk about. I used to have a lot of nightmares about going insane, and they've come back. I guess it's just a really good sign that I'm scared, despite how I pretend not to be. I've had a couple of episodes that worry me, where I've heard or seen things that weren't there, and suddenly feeling lost when in familiar places, and, the worst one yet, suddenly having someone else take over my mind without my approval. I mean, I've already come to terms with the fact that I have a multiple personality disorder (or dissociative disorder, as it has been renamed now), and I've learned to live with it and even take advantage of it it, and I've come to the point where me and my other halves have an agreement on how we run things. I can borrow the strength I need from them whenever I need it, without them taking over completely, and we all feel satisfied with this arrangement. So when they suddenly start taking control without my say-so, and I start feeling others whom aren't even part of this little group of me, then I get worried.

It's a defence mechanism, that I've come to understand. That's why people develop alternate personalities - to escape something that scares or threatens them, leaving someone else in charge instead of dealing with it. An unpleasant situation arises, and you run away into your own mind, letting another personality take over and handle it, cause you yourself just aren't strong enough, or you're just too scared. The perfect defence, and I get it. And I get how I ended up creating this defence for myself during my early childhood, and how escape seemed like the only way to survive. I get why I needed this in the past, and why I felt like I had to protect myself. But why now?

Yes, I'm struggling these days. I'm fighting my way through a particularily tough dungeon, and it's taking its toll on me. But it's not as bad as anything I've ever had to deal with in the past. I'm struggling, but I'm managing, so I don't need that defence. I don't need that escape, cause I'm strong enough to deal with it myself. So why? And what's causing my head to act up, having me see and hear things that aren't real?

I have no idea.

But I'm more worried than I'd like to admit. Although, no, I don't think I'll fall back to where I was, cause I have things in my life now that I didn't have back then, and I found something, or someone, inside me that gives me a strength I never had before, so I won't be broken that easily. That, and I killed the main reason for why I was in such a bad place. So no, I won't fall back there. But I'm still worried, cause there are quite a lot of places between back there and where I am now that I can fall back into. And if my dreams are any indication, then I'm close to tripping right now, and falling over. An even clearer sign that things aren't as they should are certain other dreams and thoughts that has resurfaced.

I used to have a safety blanket. Or, rather, someone I'd turn to when things got bad, though I don't really know why. He's just... My go-to place. And he's been that most of my life.

I'm not sure I've mentioned it before, and right now I can't be bothered going through old blog entries to check, but I've dreamt about the same guy all my life. I have no idea who he is, and in every dream he looks and acts different, and the events in the dreams are different, but I always know it's him, cause I have the same feeling every time. It's just one of those things you know when you're dreaming. But the weird thing about him is that he has a couple of different versions of him that repeat themselves, as in; I dream about them several times, and it's almost become as if these different versions are different people, yet at the same time they're him. It's hard to explain, and it could come from my other personalities just seeing him in different ways, but either way I've chosen to see theses versions as seperate people, that I've given seperate names.

And one of these versions used to be my safety blanket back when I was really sick. Or, rather, back when I was really insane. I only dreamt of that version during those days, and I became somewhat obsessed with everything that reminded me of him. I'd seek out various things that became symbols of him, and listened to music that reminded me of him - the piano in particular became pretty important, cause he used to play for me in my dreams. I know what he looks like, what he sounds like, and how he acts and how he dresses - I see it as clear as day, due to having dreamt so much of him - and it feels like I know him. And I turned to him when things got really rough, and I cried for him whenever I begged for someone to come save me, or end me. I even wrote a story about him, and about myself and how I was doing back then, and it's still my favourite thing of everything I've ever written. It's a short story, called Magdalena, and you can read it here if you want.

And last night I dreamt about him again. I've gone years without dreaming of him - or, well, that version of him - and I'd more or less put him behind me, not really giving him much thought. That is, until now, where he suddenly showed up in a dream again. Not him though, cause I never saw him or talked to him, but he was mentioned. I was with an ex of mine, and we were talking or something, and suddenly she got a call from him, and she just screamed his name, as if something bad had happened to him, and then she took off, leaving me falling into pieces. Just his name and the thought that he was in danger made me fall apart, and then the dream turned into a nightmare where I lost myself and became someone else.

And then I dreamt about the one I killed almost three years ago - the one inside my mind that controlled me. The main reason for why I was so sick, that I got rid of. In the nightmare, I suddenly remembered her, and I got so horribly scared, and somehow I knew she was the cause of everything bad in that dream. It was odd, and terrifying, and I just know that it's my subconscious trying to tell me something. I just don't get what.

Things are odd inside my head these days.

But I'm coping, I think. As I've mentioned in an earlier entry, I try to keep myself busy with various things, distracting my mind from what is going on so that it won't get worse. I mainly focused on my paperwork, and some work on the computer, but the computer work was limited because my computer still haven't been moved into the bedroom and the desk there. Aaaand, now I have to wait even longer before I can move it, because my screen decided to randomly die the other day. Got the computer hooked up to my TV right now, which is horrible. The screen is too big, giving me too much to try and focus on, and it hurts my eyes, my neck, and my head. And my sitting position hurts my body. So, I barely even use the computer these days because of this. Just this entry has taken me forever to write, cause I keep having to take breaks because of the pain. I can't afford a new screen, so I'm stuck like this for now.

Luckily, I got Hyrule Warriors on the Wii U - on the same day my screen broke, no less - so I keep myself busy playing that, cause it's a pretty great distraction for my head. It's a brilliant game, well worth the wait and the money, and I'm totally in love with it. And the fact that it's keeping me safe from what's going on in my mind makes me love it even more.

Hopefully, I'll be able to save up money in the meantime so I can buy a new screen and move my computer to the desk so I can get back to work again, and, most importantly, so I can get back into RPing again, cause that is my favourite kind of distraction. I just gotta hang in there, and keep fighting, and hopefully it'll make it out of this and back to that good place I know I can be in.