Intrusive Thoughts

 

Thoughts imbue upon my brain at a mile per second. Unwanted thoughts, disturbing thoughts, psychotic thoughts, as they have for twenty years. Thoughts of distant past I can only hope are delusions, thoughts of recent past I can only hope are misinterpretations. They hound me for a couple hours nearly every day before I can talk myself down with what I can only hope is my more rational side. To conquer them is a multi-decade struggle, and I can only fear, a lifelong struggle.

It began at what America used to call a 'school for truants.' As an adolescent I was already far gone quite, even in late childhood beset from depressions and anxieties, unremitting agony complete with an absence of all good feeling in my chest that felt physical. The slightest provocation would stimulate violent outbursts, followed by still more depressed remorse. I was almost certain that making it to 38 was an impossibility, and I'm sure the thought occurred to my family as well.

The boarding school was a place for badly behaved teenagers, whose animating philosophy was that a person's character was responsible for their actions. They were therefore in control of their actions, and any amount of mental and physical pressure was justified in the pursuit of behavioral reform. It was the kind of place that poured gasoline on mental fires, and what until then was merely agonizing depression became full-blown lifelong psychoses.

In my twenties, I nursed a terrible psychotic illness, and developed a tendency to confess everything else about what I was feeling so as to hide a shameful yet egoistic conceit that I was literally speaking to God all day every day and God was answering back. It was He who breathed life into every decision I made, and threatened retribution most terrible if I contravened laws he would make for me moment to moment. To this day, I have some sort of obsessive voice threatening punishment for all decisions I make that contravene it. I try not to listen, but the voice speaks to me all the time - often sending me signs, basing decisions on a value system of numbers, letters, and even colors. During college, I would have full blown visions of angels and demons, and it goes without saying that however merciful angels were when they consoled me, they were quite severe in their judgements.

Those particular voices and images quieted somewhat in my thirties, but they come to me with each decision I make, and every choice I make over the course of the day is never entirely my own.

But terrific agonies such as those are fully replaced now by obsessive thoughts, thoughts of past and present, thoughts of every sin I ever may have committed, and many which I may not have committed yet with details which, if they haven't, come fabricated fully within my head, detail by detail, along with interpretations of what people may think of me and my actions in the recent past that are of the most severe judgement, and cause in me the most severe of panic. These details could not come more abruptly, without warning, and with moral judgement so draconian I cannot help but often think myself deserving of being known to everyone as the most reprehensible creature on earth.

In recent years, the inner horror has been so dreadful that headaches have become more and more frequent. Numbness on the side of my face and all throughout my body with a feeling of a drooping mouth, a headache two weeks ago that circumambulated the whole head, and markedly increased day-to-day difficulty with spelling, remembering words, remembering what I was talking about, and all that accompanied of course by the further fear that my days are now numbered.

I will be seeing a neurologist next week, and am going in this week for both an MRI and an ultra-sound on my liver. Blood results show that my ast and alt levels are very high, my Vitamin D is low, and of course, very high cholesterol for a 200 pound, 5'4 and a half frame in its late 30s, itself probably caused by anti-psychotic medication I've had to take for over a decade that is only semi-successful. It is probably not a brain tumor or anything of the like, but if it is, who could doubt it is not ultimately the result of a brain already beset by so much illness?

It is a terribly insidious form of OCD, yesterday I tried to count all the intrusive thoughts I had, and I gave up when it numbered nearly fifty over the course of barely more than an hour.

This should be the greatest month of my life: I am relatively flush with success in work and love as never before, and yet the success only increases my fears. I can only hope, as my therapist does, that the success will bring me greater confidence, but with greater success comes greater chance for failure and humiliation. I earnestly hope to hope, and one of the many purposes of a daily podcast is in some ways more personal, a diary of hope's glimmers against overwhelming fears.

There is only one thing which has reliably saved me over all other options and therapies the years, and that is writing. And therefore, I shall write all the more in its face.

See you tomorrow, dear listener.