I have not been clinically diagnosed with anything, which may at this point invalidate my claim, but I know I’ve got the “something” those of us with this condition experience.
Corresponding with accounts I’ve read from others, some of us develop this identity (ha) after we come to perceive the human existence as one devoid of divine matter and constructed simply of mechanistic elements which have no long-term redeeming value. This condition, in my case, and to my great dismay, came on during a 2-year stint I had working retail and abusing caffeine. I was getting little sleep at the time, and had just recently fallen out of love with a girl by strength of will alone (which may have been the onset – I KNEW I had broken something in me when I finally managed to subdue my feelings for this girl).
From then on my spiral went only down. I became judgmental of the human biological organism – ceased to see the magic in it. This troubled me to no end, seeing as I had always had a strong connection with my perception of god and the eternal. Panic attacks ensued, and I now have a full-blown anxiety complex. However, my symptoms are easily negated by the consumption of alcohol. Needless to say, the most troubling factor of this is that I feel I’ve lost cognitive muscle; as if my brain uses only half the gears it used to, thus leaving me in low speed and trying to catch up with reality.
Many have been the moments standing in line somewhere and suddenly a brief dizziness passes over, followed by a sensation that I can only describe as being physically amorphous, devoid of substance – an empty thing. Everything seems distant, as if there was no possibility of me ever reaching it. So I stare at whatever it is, trying to figure it out. Put simply, I feel like an autonomous contraption, forced to exist, operating entirely on muscle memory and second nature.
In truth, there is such immeasurable depth to this condition that I think it may be a few years yet before we come to understand the implications of this condition. Some will argue that we are irreversibly damaged, hindered by the barbed wire of our own minds. And some may argue that we are enlightened, fully aware of the intricacies of the universe, and not limited to one-dimensional reasoning, that perhaps we take in more of the universe than has been understood as “healthy”. The important thing, I believe, for us, is to stop the search for self-definition, and instead focus on things outside of ourselves in an attempt to identify with such external media. I wish all of us the best, and I would not be here were I not speaking the truth, as I perceive it to be.
I do no like the void, Sam I am; I do not like that I not am!