An Ouroboros Named Trauma
For the last 30+ years, I’ve struggled to understand my choices.
They haven’t all been bad, but a large majority of them have been questionable.
And it’s always frustrated me because I know what I should do and what I want to do.
And yet?
I’ve chosen against my self-interest so often it feels pathological.
From an outsider’s perspective, though, I imagine it looks like I’m only acting in my self-interest.
I imagine that most people who engage in “risky behaviors” look self-serving to others, myself included.
Why can’t they control themselves?
Why do they have to be so irresponsible?
Why do I have to pick up the slack because they can’t be bothered?
In my experience, though, I wasn’t having fun. I wasn’t having a good time.
I was struggling every second, and food, drinking, drugs, or sex provided the only relief accessible to me.
A momentary hiatus on the never ending self-hatred scripts running in my brain.
A pause on malignant shame.
A moment to breathe without drowning in sadness.
A small respite from the pain.
When your body is in chronic fight-or-flight mode, the volume knob gets cranked all the way up.
Turning the volume down, even for a few moments, feels worth chasing.
The problem with chasing that feeling the way I did is the shame that was attached.
Here I go again.
I’m such a loser.
I’m worthless.
That shame fueled another round of respite-seeking behavior.
Which fueled another round of shame.
And on and on it goes.
An ouroboros, forever feeding itself.
Looking back on it now, I realize it wasn’t self-destruction.
It was misguided survival.
It was a nervous system set to chronic hypervigilance, my body chasing relief despite my mind’s objections.
A cycle where every attempt at escape tightened the loop.
I don’t like it, but I understand it.
