A wired article about neurodegenerative disease.
I don't feel like myself most of the time. I haven't for a long time, and it's not really getting better. And since I don't anticipate ever being able to afford to get an MRI, we'll never know if it's a physical degradation in my brain. Since I can't afford thorough psychological investigation beyond discount talk therapy and basic medication, we'll never know whether it's due to old trauma, new trauma, depression, attention, anxiety, or just the persistent torment of being a compassionate person enduring poverty in the decline of the world's stupidest country. Since I can't afford to go to a general doctor, we'll never know if it's a thyroid problem, or some other tiny gland malfunctioning in a way that makes me listless, disinterested, self-recriminating, and unable to sustain most emotions for long enough to do anything about them.
I get angry when I see a question like, "How do we know what the self is?" But that's because I used to have such a clear sense of myself, and I still feel that person within me, but I'm not him. And nobody clear has stepped forward to take his place.
I'm sorry for not being a better friend, relative, partner, and colleague. I'm really, really trying! As hard as I can. But I need some slack. Because a lot of the time, when I see a text from a friend, I just can't answer, even when I want to. When I've hurt someone's feelings, I can't face them, because I don't have any explanation. When I can't meet someone's professional expectations, I just shut down, because I can't justify it. I want to do all these things. I want to be present. But it's been taking everything I have just to keep working enough to possibly pay my bills, and to try and have some moments of relaxation and fun along the way. Which is what I'm going to keep doing.
But I read something like this and really wonder. Is this why I don't feel like myself? Is my brain devouring itself? Have the more enjoyable aspects of my personality been cauterized by repeated disappointment? Or is it just so god damned unpleasant to live in this place, at this moment, in this world of fairly clear solutions to problems both small and large, none of which can be implemented because we are drowning in virulent ideology swarming through the petri dish of forced-precarious humanity? WHO KNOWS?
Anyway, I'm honestly trying my best. I'm doing "okay!" I'm making my own meaning and trying to believe in it as best I can. If I get better, which doesn't seem likely for various reasons, then wahoo! But if I get worse, and less able to be someone we'd all like to recognize as "me," then I'd just like to state for the record that I really do like being Nick Splendorr, when I can be in a room of people laughing and sparking ideas together, or deep in a book that connects me to an electric mind, or singing and smiling on a stage in front of a room full of people. When I can stop being alone in my mind with myself, whoever the vengeful bastard is. That these and other pleasures are so infrequently available is just something we all have to deal with!
I wish we had the privilege of simpler lives that make any kind of sense. In any case, I appreciate very much those who have and will share their time with me. Y'all are great.