I don’t really want to repeat my perexes, so I say it in a simple way. Life is complicated, and everything takes ages. These are the two basic premises of life to follow, and the only ones in my perception. It has been a whole year since I’ve overcome one of my biggest life challenges and seven months since I had a mental health crisis. This post unveils some insights from the follow-up since that time as well as the darkest corners of my mind today.
Taiku’s evil brain is not a thing anymore. I must admit that I have entirely forgotten about it. My guess is that it succumbed to my mental self-preservation mechanisms and was simply tamed. Upon reading my previous post, I was genuinely shocked, and I can’t say I remember writing it at all. Ugh…
The following text does not include any disturbing graphic material but refers to personal experience, which may not be suitable for all audiences.
- The Best Summer of My Life at All
- Twists Into a Nightmarish Fall
- The December’s Urge to Self-Destruction
- And The New Year Without Any Resolution
- Being Isolated in My Own Home
- Struggling Not to Feel Alone
I am doing my best to think hard, but… *sips from a Desperados beer can,* my mind is blurry, as usual. The previous sentence should give you a clue that I relapsed to drinking alcohol, even though I’d say it became way more narrowed down to certain situations. Regrettably, these situations have been occurring more frequently and almost on a daily basis in my life.
Anyway…
The Best Summer of My Life at All
Ignoring the wasted half of summer holidays as described in my previous post, I can’t say the same about the other half, August. In fact, one of the triggered fight-or-flight responses in my body was to flee my safe yet not-comfortable zone as soon as possible. And I couldn’t have managed it without the unwavering support of a specific individual who, regardless of the circumstances, consistently tensed his muscles, calmed his mind, and exerted his utmost effort to assist me. He never hesitated, even in the middle of the night, to jump in his car and drive around 150 kilometers to my city, Prague, just to see if I was actually okay… and alive. Thanks to him and his most adorable doggo ever, I have cherished memories that have prevented me from completely drowning in darkness. Jackal Shadowwolf easily persuaded me that I can still have true friends!
Around that time, I fell in love with the Frenchcore electronic dance music genre yet again. I used to listen to it occasionally many years ago, but one August day, YouTube randomly recommended me one particular mix called Nareku – Frencore Mix Vol. 8. I liked it. In fact, I loved it, and I loved it so much that I couldn’t stop listening to it. Eventually, my mind subconsciously assigned this mix to all of the wonderful shared summer memories. I found myself replaying them all in my mind every time I was driving to see my sweetest bestie and was excited for the upcoming weekend full of peace and rest. Check out my YouTube comment under the video if you are curious about what I wrote there. Day after day, that music just felt like a pure expression of positive emotions, and in fact, it made me cry many times too. With confidence, I can say this period was my true summer holiday, and my strong and colorful memories prove it. All of it, despite the fact that I actually didn’t take any extra days off at work.
I would never have guessed that this was just the beginning of something slowly evolving into pure happiness. When September happened, I had sinned, but just a little bit. After seven months, seven days, and approximately four hours, I felt the taste of alcohol on my tongue again. On the 2nd of September, I agreed to celebrate the final breakup of my old not-really-a-relationship with my ex-partner by having a tasty Pilsner beer together. From that moment on, he became just a roommate. What a peaceful ending to one of my long life periods, and I finally felt free again. Free enough to start making my own plans and spending even more time with my dear bestie Jackal. Just a few days later, both of us attended a local convention, Furrstein. Although the event took place in the second half of the month, the weather couldn’t have been more perfect. Gifting us temperatures far above 25ºC, this last summer weekend of 2024 was suitable for swimming in a pool, having fun, and enjoying the good time. I barely remember it today, but the emotional trace is engraved deep inside me. For the first time after so many years at a convention, I felt loved and surrounded by true friends. I wished it never ended, as I did enjoy one of my best moments of the entire year there. Also, it was the first time I had some naughty fun with the jackal ^^
The summer vibe still felt strong, and we had plans. Neither of us wanted the summer to end, and he had a wonderful idea to organize a small weekend furry cottage with a dozen friends. Luckily and unluckily, just after the convention ended, I suffered an injury. I was dancing to the music, still radiating happiness, and stepped clumsily on the outer rim of my left foot. I collapsed to the ground immediately, hearing a single scary crackling sound. Then the pain settled, and it was strong enough to be annoying. For the whole week, I could barely step on it. Then the skin went purple on the entire surface, and I was scared that I might have fractured some bone. I talked to my mom a few times, explaining my symptoms to her, and she confidently ruled it out, because otherwise my pain would have been way worse. So the best working theory was that I’d temporarily dislocated some of the internal joints, and the force caused the nearby ligaments to stretch far too much, possibly even tearing them. I can’t say I was not upset. In fact, I was quite destroyed. The furry cottage was about to take place in less than 2 weeks, and I couldn’t walk or even drive. Fortunately, the foot had healed up enough before the event date. It still did hurt, but screw it. I was the organizer. I had to attend. Looking back at the timing, we were incredibly lucky with the weather. The entire week before, Czechia had been struck by lightning storms and heavy rains, cooling down temperatures and raising the water levels across the entire land. And coincidentally, just the day after our wonderful, warm, and sunny cottage event, the temperatures dropped from the summer-like ones, and clouds covered the sky again. Luck, or perhaps fate?
When back at home, while waiting for more amazing still-summer-to-me weekends, I gave another chance to Elden Ring RPG game. Unlike last time, I was actually willing to learn to play it entirely on a controller. And since both I and my ex-partner shared the interest of establishing evening game sessions and enjoying the comfort of the couch and the big TV screen, I purchased the game on the PlayStation Store. We immediately fell for it. When one was playing, the other one was watching and helping by googling advice about quests and enemies. This game is so massive and rich and gives players a lot of freedom in terms of character building and decision-making in the various storylines. Speaking of video games, at that time I was also patiently waiting for Satisfactory 1.0 release, which was scheduled for September 10th. I didn’t mention it in my previous post, but I found escape in there. I had lived in my virtual factories for a few months in early summer. The game had become my reality, and no, I didn’t feel a need to carry around a spinning top for reality checks. Clearly, I’d have called myself one of the biggest fans of Satisfactory. So when fighting massive bosses in Elden Ring, I couldn’t stop being excited about eventually returning to my sweet home, the factories I built in the other universe. I missed my lizard doggos, and I bet they missed me too. What might surprise you at this point is the fact that my comeback has not happened until today as I am writing this post…
Twists Into a Nightmarish Fall
Something weird had started happening shortly after the Satisfactory release. I couldn’t return there yet, as our multiplayer world didn’t feel friendly to me anymore. I intended to swap one particular player for another, but the decision seemed impossible to negotiate. I was stressed and felt under massive pressure as the atmosphere at home got intense, maybe because of this or also due to other simultaneous things. I can’t tell exactly whether the sudden weather change had such a strong impact on me too, but it probably did. Eventually, my mind collapsed into the smallest corner of the darkest depths. I barricaded myself from the outside world, as I couldn’t cope with the feeling that one of my dreams was burnt to ashes, or two if I count the season of the year. I resigned myself to living and was only surviving while entirely isolated for weeks. This ugly streak was fortunately broken in the middle of October, as I was summoned to subtropical Barcelona for a department meeting of my company for five days. My weather depression and dark thoughts were held back temporarily, although I wasn’t there to enjoy a sunny vacation but was instead expected to do some heavy-duty senior engineering work. Our offsite meetings are always very mentally and socially exhausting because managers push the time spent face-to-face with other colleagues to its limits. But hey, I escaped the reality and felt the smell of freedom mixed with fresh salty air blowing across the Mediterranean Sea. Apart from dusk-till-dawn hard work and constant getaways from tiger mosquitoes and biting fruit flies, I thoroughly enjoyed my stay there. I was even able to restore my online presence, chat with Jackal and a few other people, and send them photos and videos I took. On one evening, and sadly just once, I had enough time to walk to the beach and touch the warm seawater with my bare paw. Hello, Sea, it’s so nice to feel you after 15 years! Eventually, I was relieved that our flight back to Prague departed just a few hours before those dramatic and deadly floods had reached the coasts of Spain. We have all read the news, haven’t we?
In the evening of my return, I suffered a severe mental breakdown. Within a matter of hours, everything descended into chaos, shattering my will and spirit and shrouding my sight in darkness once more. I found myself unable to interact with anyone from my personal life, including Jackal. I simply couldn’t let that evil out of me. My self-isolation was back, and to pinpoint its seriousness, I canceled all of my regular appointments, including those with the psychologist and singing lessons as well. While I was panicking from the feeling that house walls were literally falling on me, I kept refusing to ever go outside. To survive the evenings, which on my scale were always the worst, I was drowning myself in beer. During the workdays, I relapsed into another old bad habit of mine. I drank a single glass of kratom in the morning. I desperately needed a stimulant, as I was facing the imminent threat of being fired for literally not doing much since the beginning of the year, which was nothing but true. However, by finding the right and safe dosage, which was two teaspoons per day while avoiding the weekends entirely, I managed to keep the non-addiction under the strict control of the leftovers of my mind. With this plan set, no addiction had seriously built up, maybe just a slight psychological one. It took me a while to figure it out, sensing some dopamine craving signals from my brain occasionally, but I was able to maintain full control.
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