When I was a teen, I wrote fantasy stories for an online roleplaying writing game with my online girlfriends. It was my sanctuary.
After my mother slapping me for some transgression, or my father shutting down my computer when I wasn’t doing homework, writing became a way to escape from my parents’ emotional unpredictability. It became like a home away from home, a paracosm into which I could depart and find solace.
In high school, I would fantasize about this world instead of paying attention to the lessons. I would come home and act out scenes from it that I planned to write. I actively lived in this world of maladaptive daydreams.
Nobody knew about this world except my online friends and me. It was sacred to us.
That was before my first psychotic break.
I am now tethered to a reality in which there is no escaping certain circumstances in my future.
There is no fantasy world to find home in. I currently do not feel at home in community.
I have fallen into a deep, dangerous loneliness.
I could get lost in the welcoming embrace of psychosis. I could escape into this realm, a realm which has its own mythos, characters and storylines. Like the fantasy world I used to escape into, except this paracosm can hijack my perception of reality.
I confess that psychosis has a way of luring me in. Like the sirens of the sea. Except instead of my death, I am lured into madness, which some might say is worse.
I remember during the first episode, wrapping my mother’s hands around my neck and asking her to kill me. She withdrew them and muttered “No… no.”
I have been dealing with intrusions of suicidal thoughts since I was a teenager. Currently I deal with them on a nearly daily basis.
There is a brokenheartedness in me. A hole. Maybe several. I fill these voids with various things. Weed, alcohol, food, coffee, media. It is a homelessness of the soul.
A home feels like being loved.
Right now, I have no home.
I will write my way back home. I will find a way to love me. I must be alone to find this. I cannot beg for scraps of support anymore. I must find the support within myself. A home.
And this home will be tethered in reality. A home where I don’t need to turn to fantasy or psychotic delusions for comfort. A home where I love myself without needing everyone else to do it for me.
I have to lose everyone to love me.
🩷