Trapped in my brain, or safe in my mind?

 05/08/2023

Dear Future Historian,

I fell in a coma for a moment.

Or—to be more accurate—I dreamed I did. It was a bit spooky in the beginning. I kind of lost time for a moment. I knew I was not awake. I found myself running among white abandoned corridors with high ceilings. How very institutionalised my subconscious has become!

I could still hear the sounds from the surrounding ‘real word’. Yet, I could not wake up. I just kept running within these corridors, opening one door after the other, only to find more corridors, more corners, more shadows.

At some point I stopped, and I took a deep breath. I could still hear my surroundings.

I was poorly for weeks—I’m still recovering—and being sick to my stomach so much, that even breathing made me nauseous, and I was—sorry-for-being-graphic-warning—throwing up my guts out every 5 minutes for 48 hours already at that point. I was at the stage that women get during a long labour, or people under prolonged torture. The stage that even 5 minutes break are enough to get some sleep in between of pain-highs.

Trapped in that corridor, I meditated. I breathed. I focused on the moment.

‘This is MY brain I’m trapped,’ I declared boldly. I do not need to keep running. Any monsters or something in here are all under my authority. I own this place because I have never lied or hide anything from myself. All personalities of mine get along, even the ones that do so only out of necessity; you know, to avoid panicking in moments like that. Plus, I’m a writer and a philosopher, so I will definitely find ways to entertain or at least occupy myself here.

Thus, just breathe. Relax. Safe place here.

As for there? I could still hear around. The love of my life was with me, and I could hear the sounds of him taking care of everything. Safe place out there: checked.

Breathe again. Inhale. Pause. Exhale.

And, just then I woke up.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but it was quite intense 5 minutes for me. Also, taught me an unexpected lesson. I do trust my mind. Who would have thought? I was under the impression that I am the most insecure person in human history. It turns out all my insecurities are external. Apparently, I feel quite confident inside ME. Maybe, that is what saved me from gaslighting.

Watching Hannibal last days. The mind games of gaslighting. So much work. I don’t get it why anyone would put so much effort for evil. That is the main problem in the world. The serial killers are the only ones that would ‘walk the extra mile’ to change the world according to their taste.

People like me that want to change the world to a direction of love and freedom are too lazy to work as hard as Hannibal for his meals. Maybe my problem is that I’m anorexic. Lol. I’ve started trolling myself now instead of trying to make sense.

Not out of my attention difficulty, no. Neither due to my laziness to stay in track of my quest to Make Sense (Sam Harris reference).

It’s because people that call themselves ‘not lazy’ are most likely serial killers with a lack of sense of humour, or just Objectivists.

Me, being a Preferentist, I allow the Muses to guide me freely, and I thus shall allow myself to get of topic. That is what these letters to you are my dear future historian. Letters of thoughts and questions. Not a book of aphorisms.

06/08/2023

Unfortunately, it is not just intelligent psychopaths and gaslighting narcissists that can make us question our own minds.

It’s my language teacher, that said to me—a born writer—that all legendary writers that was to be born have been long dead, and don’t accept newcomers in their club.

It’s my half-brother, that slapped 15-year-old me when my neurodiversity—then undiagnosed—made me distracted when he was math tutoring me.

It’s my mum that, refused to accept that my ex was emotionally abusive to me, because—she said—he was ‘always so nice’ to her. (Nice! Lol. Hello… Try more for being kind I’d suggest people. Whatever. I give up).

It’s the astronomy teacher, (doesn’t look like I’m really giving up yet) that could not explain to me ‘how come the distance between the Sun and the Earth during the North hemisphere summer is different than the distance between the Sun and the Earth during the South hemisphere summer, yet both ‘summers’ are equally hot’ or something like that, and made me feel, in front of the already bullying-me-class, that mine was the stupidest question he ever heard of. Probably it was. But, school should promote sincerely stupid questions. Because, after that, I stopped asking, and then I stopped paying attention all together.

It's the French immigrant lady in a local home education group (that had less qualifications than me, yet worked as a teaching assistant when I was cleaning a school), that did not give me her agency’s info, or any info at all, and when I was sharing my hypochondriac/OCD difficulties and my back-pain problems in my cleaning job, and she told me that ‘beggars can’t be choosers’. (I did work as a teaching assistant later. Only to get in trouble one day, cause the principle punished a boy for throwing his pasta in the lunch room, but I was there and I saw that it was another boy that did it, and when I offered my knowledge of the incident, I was told to keep my mouth shut in front of the children and never contradict the principle; even if she was not in front at the pasta-incident. I did get a good reference paradoxically after that from the agency that send me to that school and offers for other placements. But, I realised that it is rather hypocritical, or at least contradictory, to choose to home educate and at the same time work at a school). Getting off topic (what topic?).

It’s just that stressful mindset of ‘whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ made me get in bed for weeks just from stress, and its usually wo/man-made troubles, that could be easily avoided.

These paragraphs do not feel like guided by the Muses. I said I’ll follow them, and then I stopped writing yesterday. What was I thinking?

07/08/2023

I went to Maidstone with my daughter today. We went to an amazing Greek bakery in the high street there. I love that bakery.

I feel a bit better every day. I’m learning to take it slow. Starting from the basics. Breathe. Sleep. Dring. Eat. Like a baby. Repeat. Without adding any stress or any junk food. Repeat, till not just not-feeling-so-weak, but till I feel strong finally. And then, breathe again, repeat again, maybe add some junk food here or there—but only in special occasions.

It’s hard. Everything is so hard. Life is hard. But, she is full of potential of wanders.

The wander of love, of friendship, of knowledge and art…

Nevertheless, as the saying insist—despite my protests—life is hard.

However, it’s mostly unnecessarily hard. That’s what’s upsetting.

Yes, there are Pompey-level natural catastrophes, diseases, and accidents. Yet, it is malevolence mostly that causes post-traumatic stress disorders. Unnecessary suffering. Not that any suffering is necessary. No. But, isn’t it truly the biggest tragedy that most of suffering, despite nature having so cinematic and massive ways for it, it is, at the end, the personal, man-made, easily avoided suffering that causes the most damage.

Not a good category to thrive against nature, suffering. What a shame.

I had an amazing epiphany after my falling-into-a-comma dream.

I think I reached enlightenment there for a sec, or something.

I realised, and for a moment I could feel it with my everything, that we are all caught into a gigantic and ongoing spider-net of family and social massive trauma. We are all reacting the best way we can, according to our traits, our abilities, and our traumas. Unable to really communicate our needs and our different points of views. And, as the song wisely say:

Some of them want to use you

Some of them want to get used by you

Some of them want to abuse you

Some of them want to be abused

…..

17/08/2023

I know. I know. It’s been days. In my defence a friend of mine came from Holland for 6 days.

(Note to self: you do not have to apologise or have excuses for not finishing a writing project at once, or even for not writing every day this summer. Remember that the ‘Dear Future Historian’ project is all about not settling for restrictions on my letters to the future. This project is not to be consistent in its production rates in order to be sold to my contemporaries. This project is all about maintaining freedom of speech, and free flow of thought, and for that to be preserved, I should leave aside any guilt for having a priority spending time to recover and with my loved ones instead of forcing myself to write, only to end up with something like the previous paragraphs. I do not write to trap between the letters my mental health problems. And, when I do—yes, I know that is contradictory, but if you know humans, you’d knew it’s not—I don’t just stop there, I keep writing, trying to see the situation with the other’s sides perspective. I try then to find the universal elements of my…. Oups that was just a note to self).

Where were we? The joys of ADHD. Lol. Now I need to read everything again. But, I’m hungry. And, having lost so much weigh lately, maybe I should go eat something. I’m sure it won’t even have any delay effects for the dear future historians. In fact, I could never mention that I’m pausing again, and then maybe they would never know about the time-gap of the two paragraphs.

Ok, ok. I’ll go.

20/08/2023

Oups. That snack took a bit longer than expected. And, you know what? That entry is taking valuable time out of other projects I had planned for this summer. I had planned more projects than I actually could manage again. Trying to carry too many watermelons, as they say in Greek. The message of the summer was to rearrange my priorities and put ‘taking care of me and taking it easy’ first. Because, life is worth living, and people are worth loving, and my books are worth writing. For all that, ‘taking care of me and taking it easy’ and living in the here-and-now should be number one priority.

Thus, I need to be realistic of my time resources this summer and leave you right here and now (13:42pm) my dear future Historian. And, lets speak about the elephant in this book’s room. This entry was supposed to be the last of Spring 2023. Well. That ‘train’ has past long ago. Yet, do not despair my dear readers. (Lol. Come on. Let me be graphic for just a paragraph. I’m just trolling).

I am starting my last creative writing module this October. This year is the final of my undergraduate degree. And, did I tell you I already got accepted the offer for an MA at the University of Kent? Long story short, this year’s writing projects for university will be published in my blog, after they’re marked, and will be added to the Dear Future Historian series next Summer. But, if you’re reading this in a paperback, and there is only two two more entries in the book, make sure you keep that copy. They are limited edition. I will keep them available to buy for one year, and then withdraw that first edition.

The second edition will be two books instead of four. One will include all the Dear Future Historian entries (2020-2023), with the addition of the new ones (not included in the first edition). The second book will be an anthology of all (so far) my short stories, scripts, and poems.

Thank you for reading my thoughts (isn’t that what reading is in a way? Consensual thought-reading, or something).

Well, there goes any chances of you not finding out the time gap between now and last time I wrote. I’ll take Jesus’s approach on that one. The Truth shall set me free.

Take care. Be kind.

then we went to visit Brighton beach