Getting better

Since last post I have been vaguely concerned about my state of hazy mental health when I happened upon a new game. It’s a seduction of sorts, not a classic one, more a winning the hearts and minds of the people type game. As I started thinking about the game (always tonguing that point on my canine tooth, like I do when considering something deliciously devious), I immediately started feeling better.

I started wondering whether the mental strain was not just a direct result of trying to be something I am not for too long. Last time it happened, it was because I wore a mask too long, tried to do too much to the point of being totally ineffectual and then poorly handling the fallout. This time I was putting my nose to the grindstone and doing a little bit too much legitimate work, not leaving any time for pleasure. “All work and no play…,” and all that rot.

So I’ve decided that I am going to go on a fast from real work and go on an all games diet, or at least that is the goal. Most likely I will have to do some work, but will be sure to include a steady and heavy dose of games into my daily routine, at least until I start feeling better.

I really should have known better. It’s like running a marathon, steady intake of water and calories. Instead I did a mental version of that time I stayed too long in a sauna and woke up having apparently passed out in a public shower.

No limits

I have a tendency to not know my limits, either from big things like going 10 days with my appendix ruptured before I finally passed out and was rushed to a hospital, to smaller things like having nicks and scars all over my hands from recklessly handling cooking knives. I eat rotten food and have no real sense that I should stop. I have driven too fast, pushed too hard, lied too much, and turned the screws on people so hard that they snapped. I don't know what it is, I am blind to certain boundaries, certain warning signs that I need to back off of whatever it is that I'm doing.

Another small, but illustrative example -- when I was a child, my parents used to monitor what I ate and in what portions. When I first started eating by myself, it took a while for me to understand not to eat until I vomited. I had no desire to overeat, I wasn't even eating sweets or anything particularly desirable. It was more like I either couldn't feel the sensations of being full, or that I was somehow able to override those sensations, to ignore them and keep eating then promptly wretch it all up into toilets, backyards, parks, parking lots, etc.

These past couple months I pushed myself very hard, particularly mentally. Now I feel a little broken. I can feel that I have hurt myself. I am mentally not all there. I don't feel bad, I just don't feel right. When I go to say something, it's like someone else is saying it, and not what I meant to say. There is a disconnect between me, my conscious self, and the me that is talking and acting like me in the world. I feel like I have a very mild form of alien hand syndrome, but affecting my entire body and mind. The inner me has to some extent vacated the premises, leaving the rest to survive on evolutionary autopilot.

This has happened at least once before for different reasons, and I recovered, but was never quite the same I don't think. I wonder what will happen this time. It's odd thinking that my mind and body can take so much punishment, that I can subjugate my will in so many ways, but that there is finally a breaking point where something will just snap -- an irreparable injury. When I was reading that article about Elon Musk, I found an interesting quote from him, an explanation of why his marriage failed: "I went from working hard to working ridiculously hard. And stress breaks things."

Seeing more

From a reader:

Thank you.

I have been lost with who and what I was for most of my life. At an early age all of the therapists couches I ever haunted, the basic conclusion was always the same, just a simple case of manic depression. I never really had the ability to come clean on the mountains of issues I hid behind that fact. For me it was enough, I never saw the logic behind all of that honesty anyways. I was under the impression that there was some slightly different inside of me. I made it my entire goal in life to control my urges as much as I can. Besides just manipulating people just for sport I would also spend hours of my young life practicing emotions. I got so incredibly good at pretending that sometimes I would lose my self-inside of the fabrications. It was so easy for me to make friends and get into relationships with women. I had to create a code of conduct I needed to follow that encompassed almost every situation I would ever find myself in.

To me all of this was normal until I opened up to a friend and was informed that no one was like that. Like being taught that masturbation was a sin at an early age by your church, I spent the rest of my life ashamed of what I was. The worst was I was never really ashamed, I just told myself that I was. I have never been able to feel most emotions directly. I knew what emotion I should feel in any situation and would convince myself that I was feeling it. I have always said the easiest person to lie to is yourself.

After getting older I have come to a massive amount of conclusions on the subject of my self-identity. Thanks to this web site and what you have posted, I found the courage to openly admit to my family and friends what I was. I feel so much better. Not treating myself as an enemy has done wonders on so many other facets of my life.

Thank you again and I look forward to seeing more.

Qaddafi the Narcissist

New York Times columnist David Brooks wonders how Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi has remained in power for 42 years. After chronicling behaviors that clearly suggest Qaddahi has narcissistic personality disorder, the column concludes:

Yet this very megalomania seems to be both the secret to his longevity and to his unhinged nature. The paradoxical fact is that if you want to stay in office as a dictator, it is better to be a narcissistic totalitarian than a run-of-the-mill autocrat. Megalomianiacs like Qaddafi seek to control every neuron in their peoples’ heads and to control every aspect of life. They destroy all outside authority and civil society. They personalize every institution so that things like the army exist to serve their holy selves, rather than the nation at large.

They are untroubled by doubt or concern for the good opinion of others since they already possess absolute truth. They are motivated to fulfill their World Historical Mission and have no interest in retiring peacefully to some villa.

Jeane Kirkpatrick was right years ago to make the distinction between authoritarian dictatorships and totalitarian ones. The totalitarian ones are both sicker and harder to dislodge. Qaddafi’s unhinged narcissistic oddness seems to be the key to his longevity. So remember: If you’re going to be a tyrant, be a wacko. It’s safer.

It's not only safer for a tyrant to be a narcissist, it can also be better for his people, at least if you believe in the principles of Realpolitik (which approach I was pleased to see a frank NY Times article not only addressing openly and honestly with regards to Libya and other recent uprisings, but was also essentially endorsing that pragmatic approach to diplomacy).

Of course, a sociopath would be even better at ignoring conflicting global moral considerations in favor of "his people's needs." But I'm afraid most sociopaths simply do not have the motivation to stick with politics long term, as opposed to selling out and "retiring peacefully to some villa."

Guest post: Sociopath song -- Polly