Translated by Hinh
At four in the morning, I was walking near Zhongguancun. Life looked as if it had returned to normal, and then very quickly explained its cruelty again. Life has feelers that reach outward, and I have many bottles of benzodiazepines.
Of course, I am not hinting at anything overtly dangerous, and I would not recommend it. I usually take the lowest possible dose only when needed, but there are actually very few moments when I especially need it. Whether I run into violence, or one of life’s complete failures, I always enter a kind of battle mode, as if fighting against heaven could still be enjoyable.
Some things hurt more than you imagine.
For example, inside this two-square-meter loft bed and desk space, my behavior has gradually started returning to old patterns. In an earlier blog post, I mentioned that for a period of time I used caffeine, medication, alcohol, and then more medication to make up a barely harmonious orchestra, just enough to preserve my ability to function. These past two days, though, I have been wondering what human function really is.
When you fall into extreme pain, everything becomes dull, dazed, and blank. I do not know what I am supposed to do next. I walk through the streets with a close friend’s voice on the phone. My friend is trying to give me live commentary on a baseball game. The sky turns gray-white and slowly brightens. I try to follow that voice forward, find a destination on the map, and then end up walking in circles back to where I started.
What supports me enough to return to where I am staying is nothing more than a sudden rational choice.
At that moment, my sense of self is completely chaotic. I cannot distinguish the clear voices inside my own body. Once again, a bad experience does not immediately bring paralysis. Real pain always arrives after safety. If the instinct to survive gives way to panic, then life is lost. You die. Threat is everywhere. I woke up with my body still tense, and the back of my jaw hurt from how hard I had been clenching my teeth.
The medication seems to have stopped working.
Sometimes the thought of death floats lightly in my mind and circles there. A rubber duck turns with the water in a bathtub - that is death. For me, death is the rubber duck in the bath. I have only used a bathtub a few times in my life, but I like collecting rubber ducks. Every cup of Linlee lemon tea comes with a small rubber duck; in my own life, every small task I finish seems to come with one small piece of death.
Death is accumulating. It questions useless things, challenges the edges of morality, and says no to trauma in a loud voice. The only thing it does not do is run away. You might say death is an escape, but it is not. It is a sacred fighter, bringing the arrival of Judgment Day, because when my eyes close forever, the world will disappear with my heart and stop existing with it.
Sometimes I lose my ability to feel. Sometimes my feelings are too intense and too extreme.
Maybe I am simply getting old. I look at what is on my desk. Everyone tells me that I should ground myself. On the desk there is my medication, leftover pills from older prescriptions, vitamin D3 supplements, a fountain pen I like, and a messy vase with nothing in it. And then suddenly… I have nothing left that can be said. My thoughts, and my soul with them, become dry and shriveled.
Why am I writing today? Because I saw an article about psychotherapy. It said that if self-harm is a way to express pain, then artistic creation can become a substitute form of therapy. I desperately hope I can have a strong intention in that direction.
I have been sitting here - completely - for a long, long time.
Starving? No, no… I do not feel very much. Me and my body, me and myself, me and sound, me and the disorder around me, me and my tangled hair, and more and more medication.
Yesterday, I had to take some benzodiazepines.
Today, I feel that even without them, nothing has really changed.
This is a piece of incoherent nonsense.