Those who’ve had near-death experiences claim there are tunnels and white lights, unearthly, angelic music, warmth, infinite peace and a God who speaks to them as He (or She) holds their hand and assures them there is a Heaven and a perfect world beyond this one with a special place for their soul to rest when all ends in it’s earthly form – and when they come out on the other side, they embrace the divine revelations and start to truly appreciate life in all it’s splendour and imperfection, emerge stronger, changed individuals, more attuned to the spiritual realm, more calm, you might even say enlightened, knowing they hold a deeper truth most people don’t understand, the secret to the meaning of existence itself.
Well…for me, it was the exact opposite. I came out alive, with just two visible scars on my body (but a whole village of invisible ones), but it was like something had sucked me into to my worst nightmares, my worst fears, my darkest hell. I couldn’t function. I felt subhuman. I was consumed with a deep, visceral shame, my mind wouldn’t stop creating atrocious images and scenarios of death, decay, pain, destruction, failure and a bleak, dark, funeral future (did you know there’s a band called exactly that? But I digress). I became an uninhabited shell, an empty and soulless body being dragged from place to place, inertially. No life inside, no feeling, only numbness. I lost the light in my eyes, all you could read into them was terror – the terror of what I’d seen, what I’d experienced, vivid memories of the numberless times I’d gruesomely died in my mind and the one time I almost did…for real. It was like someone had placed me in every horror movie I’d ever watched. Simultaneously. And the void, the nothingness within me was unbearable, almost impossible to carry. It’s weight was killing me every single day, repeatedly. I never knew that nothingness can hurt, but I’ve come to find out it’s an atrocious, insidious pain. And the worst thing? There is no medication, no possibility of release, no doctor who can fix it, no magic potion that can fill it. It just exists inside you until it either consumes you whole or you decide you can’t take it no more and start fighting against it. Monsters and demons were clinging to me in my dreams, I had night terrors – I would refuse to sleep because I knew that the devil would be waiting for me there and I would wake up terrified of what he’d shown me.
I was a wreck, a worthless blob completely lost in my own head and to this day I still haven’t experienced many fears greater than that of observing as your mind is slowly turning against you, mocking you, belittling you, despising you. Despite it, so many people surrounded me with love, patience, care, spent time with me, promised me it would get better, showed me that I wasn’t broken beyond repair, but someone worth saving. They saw something good, they saw possibility in me, something I just couldn’t.
For the first year or so, life seemed dull, tasteless and mostly a burden. I constantly craved London and my perfect white room where I’d been so happy surrounded by pigeons, freedom and hope even in those uncertain lockdown times – with every atom, as if my soul was being held captive there and I couldn’t do anything to retrieve it. Even if that white room represented my descent into madness, a madness I’d called for, a madness I only now understand had to happen so I could finally face my pain, my trauma, my limitations. There couldn’t have been another way out.
I didn’t want to die, but couldn’t bear to live either. I became Godless, artless, loveless, faithless (r.i.p. Maxi Jazz) and had lost all my sense of direction and self. The sun wouldn’t warm me up no matter how bright, music couldn’t touch me because my emotional strings had been severed, I’d watch comedies expressionless, was so afraid of people that I stopped answering calls and messages, lost friends who couldn’t understand what I was going through or didn’t even try to, but slowly new ones – more patient, more caring, more profound, more empathetic took their place in my life and it seems like they are not going anywhere. And the people who’d known me before and remained even after all the turmoil, after everything I put them through – those are the true heroes in my story.
I continued to isolate into my own world with my tuxie cat, kept writing although the mood was gloomy and dark, I continued to desperately search for answers – had it been psychosis or a spiritual emergency? depression or the dark night of the soul? Who was I anymore? What were my values? Why was I still here? Was my soul really gone? I went to priests, psychologists, therapists, I researched the internet far and wide, spoke to shamans, clairvoyants, angels and demons, I watched, read, compiled, but I refused to be medicated simply because I wanted to understand, I needed to go through the process on my own, I desperately needed to talk, to be listened to and understood, to be told I wasn’t insane, I hadn’t lost my soul, not to be sedated and turned into a walking zombie. I already felt like one. But most of all, I desperately wanted to understand myself, both shadow and light.
I got a job, than another one, but still couldn’t connect with people, didn’t want to connect with people, had no self-esteem, no power, no will to fight, no motivation, no joy, no sense of wonder, no curiosity. I couldn’t see beauty in anything. I couldn’t hold up a conversation, every sentence felt weird and rigid and…off and people could sense it. I lost my voice, my essence, my fire, my intelligence, my wit, my quirkiness, my warmth. Everything I’d built over the years had vanished in a blink of an eye. I was back in childhood, a frightened little girl who got abandoned, hurt beyond words, whose spirit crushed and stumped over, who didn’t think she deserved love or anything, for that matter. Existence was draining. I had no vitality, only dread for what was to come.
I HAD BEEN DEFEATED.
To be continued.
Green Eyed Kisses,