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10:25 p.m. - 11/15/02
..if one day I find my peace of mind.,.
The battle I fight continues. I'm not sure exactly what that battle is, but I know war wages on, and I'm here in the middle of it, staring at the carnage, trying to grab hold. Not so many casualties today. I distracted myself with more of my sci-fi homework, the continued exploration of Dune, which is the first major piece of sci-fi we've read that isn't foremost a social commentary. I'm falling into it, though- finally. It's been too long since I allowed an author to take me out of my world completely; it's been too long that I've used literature only to confirm my world exists. I am doing everything in my power to become a science geek. Step by baby step.

While I was reading I enjoyed myself; afterward, I felt terribly depressed. Why? Was it as simple as the devastating turn the plot had taken- one I knew was bound to occur? Did it have to do with those self-destructive urges forced outside my thoughts? What is the link that says, any time I spend reading will leave me at-least equal time depressed? What is the correlation?

I think it has to do with the very fantasy that felt so comfortable. I've grown very adept at blurring out the world. Through depression, through fantasy, through literature read and literature written- through a thousand tactics made habitual, I have managed to decrease the intensity of the Real world. And in doing so, I have isolated myself, made myself into an island where I cannot be sustained through relation and I cannot be sustained by self. (Both identity and interaction seem to disappear.) Yet, I'm not willing to abandon this ability to fantasize; the blurring of the world has saved me before, and I'm not convinced it won't save me again. The question is, to what extent do I control it, and to what extent do I need its opposite: reality? This ability is only as useful to me as I am capable of handling it. I need the power also to instate in myself a sense that I am grounded in a world, that nothing is as flimsy as it seems.

There have been times, these past few weeks, when I felt like I could put my hand through solid wood. Through glass, without it breaking. There have been times when everything seemed so infirm that the shifting of particles did not seem possible but predictably imminent. If the forces of nature can't hold together the world, it's simple to assume they can't hold me together either. I wonder how much time elapses between the world seeming unreal and my own existence fleeting to the outskirts of perception. Or does my identity go first in the succession?

I need a constant. Something about myself that doesn't shift, even when the depression takes hold. Nights like these past few, I can't make contact with myself well enough to feel sustained by her. I have memories of those times when I have felt utterly enthusiastic about who I am and who I have the potential to be, but the person I revelled in as well as the person who revelled seem lost. I need something in me that sustains through all of this, something I can look at and say, "See? X is still here. The world is real, I'm real, all is safe." I need something that doesn't shift with my moods, my temperaments, my chemical balances. I need a sense of permanence that can't be washed away.

To what extent are we defined by our relations? To what extent am I solely myself, and to what extent am I created by my interaction? I've been thinking about the different perceptions of God, how some people believe in a God that is separate from the world and others believe God is the sum of that world. I've been thinking about how I have this own confusion about myself. Is this girl no island or is she truly individual? I'm not sure which answer I'd prefer, but I still struggle to catch hold of one. I need to know who I am to keep from being who I'm not. I don't want to further enter unhealthy relationships, to be defined by illness or caretaking, to be defined by someone else's needs. I don't want any of that, and goodness knows I have the opportunity (something fishy is the breeding ground for codependency; I swear) but there has to be some option past the surface. There has to be something I can do, some way to catch hold of who I am and keep her safe.

One of these days, I'm going to learn tricks my illness does not know. And then, it's going to be a match worth watching. Then, true drama will ensue.

And victory.

chord

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