I have spent as much of my life as I can clearly remember, and a bit more that is vague and fuzzy, operating with silent shouting, screaming and bellowing in my mind.
When it first appeared, in my teens, it was led to some fairly extreme ups and downs. Emotionally, alcoholically, cannabis fueled. Shouting loudly enough to drown out the noise, drinking enough to make it vaguely amusing, or smoking enough to be able to sit next to it and tell it to chill.
Or find a venue, a pub, a party, where the surrounding noise competed effectively.
Over time it became a part of me, one that was always going to be there, an element of the physiology. It grew or shrank in volume, sometimes in tune with external influences, sometimes for no reason.
And the years pass, and the coping mechanisms get to be, for the most part, effective enough to present normality to the world. For those who know me, perhaps normality is not the best description of my public demeanour, but it will do.
Hiccups here and there, but for the most part a coped with life.
It doesn’t always help with concentration, and sometimes it requires real concentration to step it back behind what is present, and sometimes being able to be with, be part of, immerse in other lives provides an effective foil, a muffler.
So, a little too much television maybe, a bit too much of standing on the edge and watching to change the focus, but all in all, I have arrived at a better place than I would have assumed I would find.
I am part of lives that are not there as distractions, but as lives that are linked to my soul. I can see small, incremental impacts that I can have to aid, support, lead change, difference, improvement. I guess that is what is meant by finding a purpose.
And the hardest part, when I get passed the feeling that it either isn’t real, or won’t last, is to keep the build-up of negative at bay.
Because I am getting closer to a place of security, of stability, of capability.
So I have been overthinking every moment from today forwards, of course. But good thoughts, clear and comfortable.
And I am not going to get defeated by a ridiculously archaic and convoluted system designed to drive anyone over the edge, never mind someone who has had a silent ‘JUMP’ echoing through their mind for years.
Their are people out there, probably loved by countless family and friends, who, at the moment seem determined to make time slow to a crawl, and turn expectation into entropy.
Looking back through this it my not be overly coherent, but as a means for me to grasp the future ownership – sort of – of my own home, against the gathered hoards of solicitors and financial advisors, it will have to do.
The next corner is so close, and turning that corner will be another pillow of comfort for the future, and another noise reduction for the cacophony.
But, right now, its bloody noisy up there.
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