In many cases, people can change a lot within a relatively short time span. Change does not inherently push in the direction of good or bad, however, it does imply a difference from another point in time. With this in mind, the change over time, that is, I’ve had to ask myself, “How have I changed and over what period of time?” Without a distinct reference point for a period of time, one can endlessly ponder in a world of introspection without learning anything meaningful or tangible from it. In this case, I want to loop back to around a year, and assess the things I’ve experienced over the past year, and find some level of meaning and growth within it. Ideally, this will be done carefully enough so as to avoid incoherent rationalizations of unrelated patterns, but a level of bias will be present. If you’re uncertain, the point in sharing these things is to give a reference point for how someone else thinks; once again, not that my thinking is better or worse, but possibly enters the realm of atypical, and could be potentially beneficial any person who does a think on occasion.
In just over a year, specifically during the summertime last year, I was working at a gym. It was not a particularly enjoyable job, but it was part-time which gave me time to do things of my own desire and ponder a little bit. My position at the gym was a janitor; I was indeed cleaning floors, gym equipment, and locker rooms. Despite the general displeasure and miserable feelings, it resulted in real tangible results of work; I could see things make a change over time, which is an important theme for avoiding the feelings of cyclicity. Aside from the job itself, I would actively use the gym after it closed as I was working in the evening. This was a benefit to me in the most obvious of ways; my physical health. I improved on my whole body, a mix of upper and lower-body strength training and cardio. While working, I was able to listen to audio, and I did a mix of audiobooks, especially in the beginning, but eventually migrated to music. While not a wise choice, I started to loop into what music I would normally listen to, and eventually had patterns of what I would listen to, rather than introducing new music on a consistent basis. This only worsened the cyclicity of the days on the trip to work, while working and exercising, and on the way home. There were also a variety of things going on during this period of time that were not involved with the work itself.
I was playing some new visual novels. At times it was before work, at others, afterwards. Burrows was probably the most significant one, and it is still unfinished, as well as The Smoke Room. Both of these visual novels have a mix of powerful and weak writing, just as all pieces do, but I found a decent amount of pleasure in both when they had their moment. You could call these two or so months a “depressive low” or something akin to that, as my general desire and pleasure in things had been depleted, and new means of distraction was being grasped for. At that time, I still did not have VR gear because of my previous selling of it. Which I realized then, and still realize now, was foolish, but that meant I didn’t do much of any VR. While not socially isolated, I wasn’t seeking out much real social connection aside from pre-existing friends. Even then, it would only be when they would initiate conversation with me. This type of behavior, the isolation anyway, is generally a reflection of my mental state, and usually means a mental decline.
In this decline, a number of my friends reinforced and said some of the same things. Of which, a particular idea, seeing a specialist, was brought up time and time again. After a certain point, you run out of things to try, to do, and so you decide to try something you believe won’t work anyway. I’ve done it before, I did it again, and I’m certain I will act the same in the future. I was suggested that I see a therapist, and some others also mentioned seeing a psychiatrist. I was antagonistic towards both, but eventually gave in. I spent a long time trying to see one, actively tried getting help, was denied said help, and found one route of getting mental care. That route moved faster than anticipated, but was still slow, especially considering my condition. However, I could never say that I wanted to self-harm, as that would lead to me being institutionalized, so of course, I did not.
The process was essentially speaking to someone, and then getting a therapist and psychiatrist based on the judgement this individual had on me. I don’t remember the specifics as to how long it took to see someone, but it was relatively quick. I was doing this while I was still working at the gym, and initially, I was able to balance it out somehow. I started seeing the therapist first, only online, as that was the easiest method, and it was not very helpful. I didn’t obtain any new insights, get closer to healing, or really open up much at all. It’s not that I was unwilling to open up, it’s simply that the opportunity never arose. I’m aware that these things take time, and that’s fine, but it seemed like there wasn’t enough time to reach that point. After a few weeks of the therapist, I saw a psychiatrist, the first session was in-person, and then afterwards, online.
The psychiatrist, I was totally honest and direct with. I told them my problems, and I believe that through doing this, they judged me and basically brushed me off, like an insect that needed to die. Believe it or not, this ended up not being very helpful to actually healing, and I was prescribed some frontline SSRI and told to wait. What this did was turn me into a zombie, and it only made things worse. It zombified me to the point where I actually lost my ability to function, and in combination with other substances, led to dangerous interactions, which the psychiatrist would have absolutely known about, but clearly did not care. Around the same time, I was going to start having regular sessions with my therapist, but for whatever reason, those never came to fruition, and I lost contact with that person, and through my limited attempts, I was never able to rekindle what little connection there was.
The aforementioned dangerous interactions led to serotonin syndrome, and I experienced it, as I know it anyway, twice. Luckily, in both cases, the severity was quite limited; I obviously did not die. However, I did have many of the beginning signs and there were many scary symptoms that were alarming; like not being able to move my fingers, but as with life, thus far anyway, I got through it. This caused me to stop taking the SSRI, and my psychiatrist simply tried to have me take another SSRI, at which point I stopped seeing that “doctor.” Through the worsening of depression and the traumatic experiences of serotonin syndrome, I failed to work, and I stopped working completely for quite some time. Any amount of coherency and structure was lost, and I had to slowly undo the mostly-realized zombification of my mind and body. All I did was lay around and listen to YouTube videos, and I listened to many. In particular, I listened to hundreds of episodes of Etho’s Lab, in his original Minecraft series. Hours upon hours of commentary on Minecraft and other topics starting from over a decade ago.
Some other channels I watched too, but their names fall weakly on my ears, as their significance or relevance was limited and quick. If I had to mention one more, it would be DNSL, or Daniel from Second Life, simply out of the fact that I listened to many of his videos where people would compete to make fifty or hundred dollars. There was decent entertainment value, and that helped, ever so slightly, to distract me from my awful state. As anticipated, the work I put into trying to revive my body and physical health was eradicated, and my mind was in shambles. Rebuilding was created through time, and time it took indeed. I wanted to work earlier than I actually ever received work, but there was only so much that could be done. I had a history of leaving jobs early, or having contract work that was short-term, and businesses ideally prefer an employee ant for a long period of time.
To reflect thus far, I’d like to call into question my ability to trust others, and my own inability to trust myself. Yes, I literally could not be aware of the future, I am not an omniscient being, but I intuitively was aware these types of individuals would not help. I did not anticipate the destructive nature of their methods, but nonetheless, destruction became. If I had chosen not to trust others, and instead, refute them, time and time again, and trust in time healing all wounds, then would I have ended up in a better state, or would I have ended up in the same spot at around the same time? To have absolute certainty in any direction would be foolish, but I genuinely do believe that my health and healing was brought multiple pegs backwards because of seeing these supposed mental health professionals. I must always question my own thoughts, especially when I have the self-awareness of when I’m in a depressive state, but even within that context, I must, at times, trust myself above the advice of others. If I cannot accurately assess at least a few of my own biases, I must attempt to assess the biases of others. I must try to find their motives, and in this case, these people, my friends, wanted the best for me; for my health. Yet, in their experience and knowledge, their advice was in fact, something that decreased my health; physical and mental. Motives may be good, but wisdom and knowledge may be lacking, and I have to search for these things in others, whether they are my friend or foe.
In the interim between my last and most recent work experience, I did another contract, of very short length, and it was not particularly enjoyable nor pleasurable, but it ensured my continued existence. At the time, I was starting to play music again, although I wasn’t reading or writing much. There was a lack of playing video games, although I do believe that I was getting on desktop VRChat more often. Generally, I wasn’t socializing much, and I started to grind away at instrumentation in less-than-ideal ways. It was a blur of a tide; sometimes socializing but in less than meaningful ways, and isolation in almost completely negative ways. I would repetitively, almost akin to OCD, obsessively and compulsively do the same types of practice on bass and piano. Like OCD, it took up a lot of time and energy, and it didn’t actually help or change reality and of the state of things. If the door is locked, it truly is locked, and even if you can’t remember or trust your own memory of it being locked; it is most definitely locked. I had the anxiety that if I didn’t have certain practice routines, I would lose my ability to play the instruments, and to fight that anxiety, I repeated the same cyclic processes. This, of course, as seen in many of these patterns, made it unenjoyable to “play” the instruments; I wasn’t really playing them, of course. Practice can be music, but in this case, it really wasn’t. It was for the sake of doing it, making myself feel like I was progressing when in reality I wasn’t doing that at all.
Eventually I did get another job, and it wasn’t all that awful on paper. I thought it could be okay, and at the end of the day, I was happy to have received anything. In fact, I didn’t expect to get the job that I did; I was expecting something part-time or on-call, rather than full-time. Yet, I ended up working full-time, and that was something I was okay with. I was very happy to finally have some work and repair myself financially. Unfortunately, I did not realize the impact this position would have on my mental state, which was already in the red, and making it worse was not going to help me very much in the desire to remain one of the living.
It was a position at a hospital, as essentially a janitor, although I received admittedly the easiest position from within that department of the hospital: the floors. Yes, my job was to clean and polish the floors, different floors depending on the day. There was such a lack of structure that I was taught a few things by a few people who had no idea they would be teaching someone how to use equipment I had never seen, but that’s what happened. I created my own schedule and structure to follow, and this enabled me to get away with a lot of nonsense in many ways. For example, I was able to spend the first hour of my shift doing what I wanted, perhaps in job related ways, perhaps not, and this was under my control. Along with this, it was an hourly position, of which I could clock in and out utilizing my phone. I’m sure you could see some level of danger within this from a business point of view.
Despite these benefits and whatnot, when I initially started the position, I believe for the first few weeks, I wasn’t listening to anything. Most of the other employees in my department would have an earbud in, to listen to music, a podcast, or an audiobook, but I chose nothing but my thoughts. It was, well, not very helpful. It may have helped me write the initial piece about using the word pedophile, but that’s just about as far as it extended, because no further words came. I would wake up, immediately ready myself for work, take the trip there, work, come home, practice on one or two instruments, then sleep. It was very unhealthy, yet I would continue to do it. This process was eventually augmented when I started to listen to audiobooks while working. It helped the time pass faster, but it also meant that I would listen to my own thoughts less, think less, and feel less.
Zombification can occur in many ways, as you can see. I was acting out the part of a worker-zombie, going through the process, and the days passed like they didn’t matter, and I have to wonder, did they matter? Perhaps, perhaps not. It’s genuinely hard to say. I needed to do something in order to perpetuate my existence. Even then, on the side, I was actively looking for work, but failing to find anything that actually looked appealing. Not an upgrade, or even a side-grade. So, for months, I continued the same process over and over again, and I was, to a level, already insane, and this simply worsened that lovely condition.
I systematically would plan out my food intake, and I would repeat it as if I were simply a machine that could intake the same food and always make the same use of it. No, I am not a machine, and the digestive system does not work like this, nor does it help when the food is not healthy for you in any way. From a certain point of view, I was trying to make the most out of the situation I was in, which is understandable, but I genuinely find myself acting out in extremes, it’s part of my nature; even now that is the case. At the time, it was all about maximizing my own time while working full-time, so I had zero social life and terrible physical health. This led to further physical and mental decline, and the same process occurred like the year prior, but instead of external means tearing down my stability, it was my own actions and lack of a clean way out of my situation that nearly killed me off.
I don’t mean to use hyperbole, I was genuinely dying, I looked like I was dying, and I felt the same way. There is always the itch to die, sure, but in this case, it was not a good feeling, and I knew it would be long and drawn out, and I likely would keep on living anyway. Funnily enough, in this cyclic torture, the thing to finally push me over the edge and quit my job was the fact that my boss, which was a new boss relative to my short duration of employment, took away access to earbuds and whatnot. Basically, we were disallowed from listening to anything while working. I thought I could power through it, or that it might be even be helpful, but it was not. The insanity was getting worse, the drug use, funnily enough, was also increasing at that time. Therefore, I impulsively pulled the plug, as I was also doing many things impulsively.
The power of impulse can be of great benefit. It can take you from someone who does nothing to someone who does something. When assessing the value of something or nothing, it can really come down to how it impacts you, the world, and the people within the world. Of the impulses I was partaking in, it was negatively impacting my mental and physical health in the long-term, my relationships in the long-term, and my stability in the long-term, but in the short-term, it was needed. Or, you could say, I justified it. Impulse will tell you what is needed, and how quickly it is needed, and that need is based on the moment.
For whatever reason, I tried using material goods to make myself feel something. No, it did not work, but when you are acting and thinking irrationally, you keep on moving in the same directions. I was trying things I knew wouldn’t work, didn’t care, impulsively did them, and continued on doing so until reaching a point I knew was too far, or a point I simply could not bear. Out of all the material purchases, the most beneficial to me has been the virtual reality gear, as I have made great use out of it, and that has made it worthwhile to me for the distractibility and social-ability. Nearing the end of the job, I was losing complete desire in anything I once cared about, and this was basically only music at the time, and if I wasn’t going to play music, I was going to have to occupy my time in an alternative fashion, and at first, this was sleep. Sleep is a powerful tool, especially when you’re depressed; it’s the perfect tool for escapism. Even with the nightmares and sleep paralysis, it was better than being awake.
Eventually VRChat and virtual reality took the place of sleep, and I started talking to people basically every single day. Sometimes it would be before work, sometimes afterwards, but it was happening on the daily. I would only play music to maintain some basic physicality or when it was needed out of me from others, but not for my own pleasure or enjoyment. When I finally quit my job, I started to take the VRChat hours to the next level, and for some, it isn’t all that extreme, but for me, it absolutely has been. Currently, as this is being written, I am cooling down; that stage is ending, but when I was reaching nearly 150 hours in the past two weeks; I mean, that’s a lot of talking. I talked and talked, and for what reason? Well, for many months, I think about nearly eight months, I wasn’t socializing much at all. Which meant I had a lot of catching up to do.
Talking to people stimulates me in many ways, and that alone can be a topic of interest, but something to note that’s relevant here is that it brought me to think about things again, and interact with ideas I otherwise wouldn’t have. Audiobooks are not the same as physical reading, and I have not read much of anything lately, only a few books, and they didn’t stimulate much writing at all. However, with talking? I have felt myself blabber and ramble on endlessly; so many hours of talking and chatting. The number of hours I’ve rambled on about so many topics is great enough that streaming my VRChat experiences has come to mind over and over, and if it continues on, I will. I might as well use that ability to entertain than simply letting it stay hidden for only a few to enjoy.
During this period of time, within the last week or so, I’d say there’s begun a revival in interests that had died for a time. A month or more at the minimum. Music is beginning to make a resurgence. Actually taking pleasure in listening and playing is especially wonderful when previously it was stripped away from you. I’m writing and making videos, although who knows how many, and for how long, but it is happening. Talking to people in VRChat is still high up there, but it is in the decline more than anything else, which is healthy to say the very least. I want to keep playing, but I’m finding more value in these other things which I describe, which makes me feel productive and like I’m doing something that matters.
I think that out of these experiences, I have undergone various extremes. From the extremely bad, to the extremely tiresome, to the utmost cyclic and insane. Not only this, there have been drastic switches from one side to another, not overnight exactly, but akin to it. What to make of it? Well, I have learned that, with certainty, I like to operate in extremes. I go in one or two directions hardcore, and that becomes my life or a focus of my life, and I don’t want there to be anything in-between that. I made work my life, and it was rough, but that was basically it aside from the music. If I had to make that a focus of learning of this past year, and a common theme in sharing all this information, it’s that there are upsides and downsides to doing this. It can eliminate distractions or otherwise external stimuli that inhibit me from doing whatever I consider to be my purpose at the time. This feels great, and I like to feel like I’m doing something that matters, and that’s all I can do, and it is something that must be done. Unfortunately, it also means that I fail to acknowledge the parts of the world I still impact, and even my own body.
Balance is commonly shared as an idea that is the direction all things are heading towards, however, never actually become. I think of a pendulum, personally, and it means the same thing. I have to recognize, that in a way, there are pendulums for all things. All things want to remain at a balanced state, and the mind and body are no different. In ignoring the general need or desire for balance, one can find themselves extreme in one direction which harms one or more opposing directions. Those opposites will not sit there and simply “take it.” This doesn’t mean people start attacking you or your actions, but for example, your body can start acting odd or “funny” from malnutrition or a sedentary lifestyle. I recognize my extremeness, and it isn’t quite a state of being black or white, nor is it acting with the whole pendulum swinging in mind, either. I must now recognize that I can notice when I’m being extreme, and then try to find a level of balance, or strive for some balance, in order to maintain a state of homeostasis. Otherwise, I’ll break down, and as we’ve seen already, the cycle will repeat anew, and that is not ideal. Not ideal at all.