Mania

So, I have this problem. It’s a persistent one, and it’s likely to continue being a persistent one for the forseable future.

During certain periods in my internal cycle, if I open the throttles on my mind and give it something entertaining to chew on, like recording a album, dancing, or thinking about life, there’s no rev limiter.

It spins up, faster and faster, until eventually it starts to wobble and shakes itself into a shutdown condition. Next thing I know, I’m somewhere where the doors don’t open. Generally I get sprung fairly quickly, generally no one has been actually hurt although there is sometimes some property damage, usually caused by the cops spike stripping me.

I’ve learned to avoid driving while doing it. Safest that way. However, even when I do it in my own house, people come and tell me that I don’t have atonomy over my own body, that even though I’m threatening no one and I’m eating and drinking, I’m not permitted to do this.

Many of my friends think that this activity is seriously unhappy-making, and undesirable, and it’s only a matter of time before I kill myself or someone else.

Here’s why it’s challenging: every time, from my perspective, it’s a win.

Every time, I have more mental capacity, more flexibility, more mental power and capability. This isn’t illusory – I can often measure it very real-world ways. Things I couldn’t do before the ramp up that I can do afterwords. And I suspect that it is one path to developing http://www.sheer.us/weblogs/?p=3211. I’ve learned not to try to contact $person[0], although apparently I haven’t mastered yet not contacting $person[1]. So I need to improve the software so that it keeps me from contacting CLASS($person[]). Which I will make a honest attempt at. (I don’t stop missing these people ever. I don’t think it’s likely that I ever will. But, you want to remove me from your life, I figure that’s your right. Just forgive me if I want to build the ability to dream about you anyway.

But.. even if I remove that possibility, it’s clear that I’m growing whenever I climb the linear mental accelerator that no-sleep during a approach window represents.

At this point, I’m thinking I should plan these. My body seems to like every six months for them – I think I should take vacation time, I should have my lawyer on call to block any attempt to commit me that isn’t as bona fide as it comes, and I should just really embrace this as this is how I choose to be. Slowly my friends are coming to see my point of view. I think increasingly they’re starting to see that my life is not giving me what I need, and that it’s not reasonable to expect me to sit here with one engine out and the other at idle when I was made to fly.

I wish more people would join me. I’ve got reasons to think others have done this before me.. it’s all over the music of Owl City, for example, and hinted at in U2 and sometimes VNV Nation.

Every time, the experience with the linear accelerator convinces me I should take another ride. And I wonder, to what extent are people telling me not to do it because they’re afraid to do it themselves? How many of the experts that tell me how wrong and dangerous this is have done it themselves?

One possibility that I’m considering strongly is that I’m not actually at the edge of my mind, and that I’m supposed to be. That the people I see in my ordinary reality are reflected light from the real people that are out there filtered through many, many layers – too many layers – of neural filters built out of my persistent and irrational fears. I can’t tell what anyone else’s conscious experience is, and as far as I can tell, no one else can tell what mine is, although I encourage you, if you have the technology to read my mind, please do so. If you can help me reconnect with the people I can’t handle losing, please do so.

$person[0], I wonder if you read this blog, a lot a lot. I will admit I find it likely that you do, or that you have a friend reading it for you to watch for certain things. Wish I knew what they were. If so, I can’t say so in cleartext most of the time, but I need your help. A abuser destroyed part of my mind, and I’m just guessing at what happened with little but static and noise to go on. Apparently your friendship was something that part of me rested on, and while I accept the loss because I must, it never stops hurting and I can’t find any way to make it stop. I told you if you told me your lines I would respect them, but my fear is your lines are never and nowhere, and I also fear this may be because you believe things about me that just are not true, and the only part of me fearless enough to even try to approach you is the part of me that is the least representative of my ability to be a normal, contained individual. Please believe that the person you met IRL the first time I came to visit you this century is representative of who I am in person. But I can’t do that in email, especially not when I’m in ‘trust and send’ mode, which I can only really enter with you, for reasons that will become apparent when we talk, if they haven’t already.

$person[1], I don’t even know what I said to make you so angry. I have zero memory of it, it happened in a blackout from my perspective. I doubt you’re reading my blog, as I have to accept I probably don’t matter that much to you. So be it, but I wish we were still friends.

9 Responses to “Mania”

  1. Firesong Says:

    You should absolutely have the right to do whatever, in your own space, on your own time.

    And I’ll try to help you in any way you want. With any of this.

  2. Sheer Says:

    I probably need to have something like Ellie’s “OK to go” in Contact..

  3. Steve Seman Says:

    I still don’t fully understand the $person situation (in plain english). I do have a thought on the mind throttle mania though. Can you position yourself physically in an isolated environment with provisions (island, desert, mountaintop, etc.) and have someone come get you after a certain period of time? Take a couple of video cameras and record your experience (in case of blackout). Wear an iWatch to monitor heart rate, etc. Approach this as a lab study and gain some raw data each time you do this.

  4. Sheer Energy Says:

    Steve, interestingly, I was just thinking that a portion of the appalachian trail would be a great place to do one of these. A portion with cell coverage every few miles, so I could checkpoint in. I mean, they’re easier to do on your feet anyway..

  5. Steve Seman Says:

    Well, I just happen to own property that I am building my off-grid home on that is very close to the Appalachian Trail. If you need a base to jump off from and someone to pick you up when you’re done, let me know. I have 4g service where I am at, not sure about the Trail…

  6. Steve Seman Says:

    https://www.google.com/maps/@39.1097465,-78.4456146,226m/data=!3m1!1e3

  7. Steve Seman Says:

    My YouTube Channel about my property…

    https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq3osGaeZtde87cX_fm80_w

  8. sheer_panic Says:

    I think it’s really cool that you’re doing this. I have other friends who have made off-grid properties and built up beautiful houses on them.. there’s something different, better in some ways, about living where 60hz and the paved road does not reach. I hope I’ll be welcome on your land from time to time. It is on my todo list for the next few years to buy a plot of land of my own unimproved and out past where the grid reaches.

  9. Steve Seman Says:

    Yes, Jon, you are always welcome in my home 🙂

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