Now here is a question! And it only took five others to get to it. Ah well, was the journey worth the efforts? We shall see. Again, I have several reservations about how the question is framed. Notwithstanding these, the query poses an interesting point, especially for a person that is vexed by depression and anxiety. “What do I do to save myself from falling into the abyss?” might be a better posing of the question. But that would require the author to admit that there is darkness, an abyss, and so on. But I digress.
I am dancing at the edge of the cliff at this moment. I am writing to save myself the plunge.
My anxiety is more than conditional, my depression more than occasional: both are the dark edges to my aura that become greater or lesser but never truly vanish. To a much lesser degree it is like the delusion of a treated schizophrenic: the voices are there, but the mind chooses to ignore them. “The delusion is real… ,” I started to write that sentence, it seemed to be oxymoronic; that is, however, the nature of the delusion: its puissant pretense and convincing façade mask reality itself in a haze of incredulity and confusion. That is so often how I feel. I feel that now, as I write.
Understand, I am not a cowardly person. I have physically taken firearms out of the hands of people that intended to use them, and did so calmly. I have reasoned with persons intending to do harm and walked away having brought the situation to a peaceful solution. Why, then, can sounds, smells, perceptions of reality, send me into a dark and stuporous spiral of fear, one that has in the past turned me into a maniac of spewing profanity and verbal assault?
Fight or flight… visceral and survivalist, binary ethics (we all know my feeling about that one).
Life is more than two options: fight or fuck, make love or war. I want to feel the colors and not simply to struggle with the dark edges. It is not that I cannot do so, indeed I spend most of my time content and happy in my way. But these moods can sweep in like a tsunami, a rogue wave that leaves noting but death in its wake. Good God, are you listening? I am thankful that by nature I am not self-destructive, but this slow stewing my own adrenalin induced haze is more than I want to feel. That bitter metallic taste in my mouth, the tightening of my stomach, and the feeling that I am alive. Now there is a paradox.
Damn. I want the room to stop spinning. I know that this will pass… that is my life-jacket. Breathe. Just breathe…
On a somewhat jocular note, I almost made it into Limbo! Not bad for a former clergyperson!
The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:
| Level | Score |
|---|---|
| Purgatory (Repenting Believers) | Moderate |
| Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers) | High |
| Level 2 (Lustful) | Very High |
| Level 3 (Gluttonous) | Moderate |
| Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious) | Very Low |
| Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy) | Low |
| Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics) | Very Low |
| Level 7 (Violent) | Moderate |
| Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers) | Moderate |
| Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous) | Low |
Take the Dante's Inferno Hell Test
