The Point of No Return

History and literature are full of examples of actions that cannot be undone, steps that cannot be retracted. Julius Caesar commanded his legions to cross the Rubicon, countless seaborne invaders have burned their boats, Shakespeare had Henry V exhort his troops "Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more; Or close the wall up with our English dead". Common to these is the idea that, while the action might be a desperate gamble, turning away would equate to failure - come back with your shield or on it, death or glory.

Such actions are invariably described with the benefit of hindsight and portray the events as heroic and aspirational. But can they really be considered to set a good example - are there situations in which risking everything on the roll of a die is the rational course of action?

Obviously the answer depends on the consequences of turning away, of choosing not to act. In Caesar's case his term as Proconsul had expired and he had been recalled to Rome in the face of Pompey's accusations of insubordination and treason. If he had not invaded Italy from Gaul thus instigating a civil war he would have found himself much reduced, his political aspirations in ruins. For such an ambitious man that would have been intolerable; he preferred to risk defeat and death but was aware that he could count on significant military, public and political support. Bearing that in mind, it was a calculated risk.

I would describe myself as risk-averse - I tend towards courses of action that have less uncertainty, smaller chances of incurring harm. I find uncertainty - any kind of gambling for example - to be stressful. The worst kinds of situation I can imagine involve having to decide between courses of action that each carry risk: being between the devil and the deep blue sea. It is a combination of fear of the unknown and fear of the prospect of suffering injury.

Problems arise when faced with such dilemmas - I can easily be frozen into inaction by my fears, even if doing nothing carries its own risks. In consequence I will attempt to keep my options open, to leave myself a route back to where I started. To pass the point of no return is, to me, like jumping off a cliff (I have a fear of heights which makes this allusion particularly apt). I am over-aware of the consequences of failure and this biases my judgement to favor the path with the least bad risk rather than the one with the highest potential benefit.

It all boils down to fear and anxiety, those often irrational feelings, that steer me away from particular situations or courses of action. I guess I am at least predictable in that I will act to minimize my anxiety. Avoiding becoming trapped - cornered - with risk on every side is crucial to this. There will be no passing the point of no return for me, thank you.

Let's Talk About Me

Writing can only achieve so much. There are times when I feel I am holding in so many silent thoughts, so much unexpressed emotion that I get mentally exhausted. It's difficult - if not impossible - to let go, to let it out. Like a locked door to which I do not possess the key. The pressure builds up behind the barriers and the strain makes me fractious.

Mental tension leads to physical tension, that characteristic tightening across the shoulders causing muscular discomfort, aches and pains. How can I relieve this stress? Get things off my mind?

It doesn't help that I subconsciously avoid analyzing the causes of my feelings. As if afraid to confront them head-on I avoid letting my inner eye gaze long upon them. Must avoid eye contact, even in here. So these nebulous concerns accumulate while I refuse to reify them, to give them substance, because that would require that I acknowledge their presence and admit that I cannot handle them.

But admit to whom? To speak of such things to another would need such a degree of candor - such openness - that I would feel too exposed and vulnerable, succumbing in that instant to overwhelming fear, and hastily slam the shutters closed.

To what kind of person could I reveal the detailed depths of my inner turmoil? Whom could I trust implicitly to keep the secrets of my soul safe from the sight of others? It's a puzzle, to be sure - I would have to know somebody well to feel comfortable enough to consider opening up, but having done so I could not subsequently feel comfortable around them. It would be as if I were laid bare. So I end up believing that exploiting such a level of trust would destroy it.

The end result is that I continue to accumulate the hurt and pain, trying to keep it locked away from my day-to-day thoughts. Trying to appear carefree, chasing distractions and amusements that will occupy my mind for a while and give me some respite. Until the darkness returns, as it inevitably will, since I cannot open my mind's doors and let in the light. I am simply not able to talk about me.

Blame Culture

Whose fault is it?

It seems there is no longer such a thing as an accident in the strictest sense. Commercials pop up all around to urge us to sue for compensation - "Have you had an accident that wasn't your fault?"

I remember when tripping over some object left lying around caused embarrassment at one's carelessness and lack of attention - I didn't see that there. Now, rather than being personally responsible for one's own safety and taking care to spot and avoid hazards, it is up to everybody else on the planet to make my environment risk-free on pain of legal action.

Is it just me or is there something wrong with this picture? Whatever happened to common sense? Surely if I choose a course of action that involves some risk then it is my own fault, and nobody else's, if I incur - or cause - injury. It is my responsibility to be aware of the risks and take steps to mitigate them.

Let's take the scenario of crossing the street. Without warning I step out into the road and get hit by a truck whose driver didn't have chance to stop. Based on the premise that whatever happens to me cannot be my own fault then obviously it must have been the driver's fault - he was going too fast or failed to think that I might take it into my head to cross the road right in front of him. Hope he's got a good lawyer!

Or perhaps my assumption was flawed. Consider the possibility that it was my own fault, that I am responsible for myself. That if I don't want to spend time in the ER then I should look before I step into the road. That if I don't check that there is no traffic - if I don't take reasonable steps to reduce the risk - then I am to blame for whatever happens to me.

What about a different situation (one that really happened to somebody I know)? You are walking under a ladder when the person working above drops something on your head. In my mum's case it was a window cleaner's wet sponge - she saw the funny side - but it could have been something that would cause injury. My immediate reaction is that walking under a ladder on which somebody is working is a pretty stupid thing to do and you deserve whatever you get.

The point is that, with a few exceptions, window cleaners do not deliberately drop things on passers by walking underneath. If it is not a deliberate act then it falls into the category of an accident. Yes, he dropped his sponge and it hit somebody. But that person chose to take the risk of walking under the ladder. Some might say that there should be warning signs or barriers; however my opinion is that the presence of the ladder is sufficient warning in itself.

Which brings me to my final point here: what is gained by apportioning blame here? Does the window cleaner benefit from blaming the pedestrian for walking under his ladder? Does the pedestrian benefit by blaming the window cleaner for dropping his sponge? I don't believe either of them does. What would benefit the pedestrian in this case is to analyze the cause of the accident and learn to avoid similar situations in the future. In other words, don't walk under ladders!

There are situations where harm is caused by reckless or malicious behavior - these are not accidents but rather incidents: the effects of actions. In these cases the responsibility lies with the one who caused the incident - it is their fault. Key is the idea that we are all individually responsible for our own actions and should attempt to reduce the harmful effects of those actions on ourselves and especially on others. Failing to fulfill this responsibility is reckless if not deliberate but malicious - even criminal in some instances - if done with knowledge and intent.

Dissociation

Signals flashing through the air,
I don't even seem to care.
No expression, sit and stare,
Mind withdrawn: I am not there.

Dissociation is, I believe, a defense mechanism, a way of getting away mentally rather than physically. For me it appears to be an unconscious reaction to some sensory or emotional stimulation - the first I often know of it is when I realize somebody is trying to get my attention and they say to me that I was "miles away".

Don't ask me where my mind wanders during these episodes - they are blank. I have no conscious memory of what has happened and no sense that any time has passed. In a way it feels similar to the hyper-focused state of flow in that my sense of the passage of time is distorted.

It's not something that happens often - it's far more common that I'll shut down or otherwise become non-verbal and unresponsive while still being aware of what's going on around me. But every now and then I'll notice that there is a discontinuity in my memory - either I find myself in a new location with no memory of how I came to be there, or I notice that there has been some change around me. Different people, a change in the lighting. Perhaps the sun has set and I find myself wondering, or even asking out loud, "When did that happen?"

Discontinuity/
Jump cut reality/
Fast-forward memory/
Void in my history.

Returning to the here and now is jarring, unsettling. It's like falling asleep in one place and waking up in another. There is a strong feeling of dislocation, of confusion. A sense of having lost something. It can even be frightening - being aware that I have moved in time or space but not knowing anything about the transit.

The Rage

Bright, flashing lights. Loud, high-pitched sounds. Rough, scratchy touches. I find all of these overstimulating, sometimes to the point where they overload my senses causing physical pain and stress. It's a cumulative effect - as I experience the sensory input I first feel discomfort. This builds along with my stress level.

There are times when I just up and leave to escape from the sensations. This is effective from my point of view but not so good when I'm in company. Then there are times when I dissociate - withdraw into myself - and largely stop being consciously aware of my surroundings. Finally there are the times when I am not able to get away from the stimulation, when I am not in a calm enough frame of mind to withdraw.

In those situations the stress builds and builds like a lake filling behind a dam. Only instead of water it is an inner rage. From trying to block out the offending sensation, I now find myself fixated on it - tunnel vision where all I can see is the source of the anger and pain. My muscles tense, my blood pressure rises. Unbidden, dark thoughts of violence rise from the depths of my mind, hurling themselves against the walls of self-control that contain them. I am beset by images of the destruction of my nemesis; I picture myself wielding sledgehammer or wrecking bar and pounding the offending object into mute submission as I scream and howl, releasing the rage.

I am not a violent person by nature - people know me as laid-back and easy-going. It usually takes far more to rouse me to anger than most other people, and I very rarely feel anger towards a human or other animal. But when the pressure builds inside... I find it exhausting to hold it all in, and when the dam breaks open everything I had held back floods out in a meltdown.

Afterwards is emptiness and exhaustion. And then, later, comes the shame. Shame of failure because I lost control. Shame of drawing negative attention from those around me.

Two things prompted me to write on this subject today. The first was this blog post about misophonia. The second was a very unwelcome change in my local pub: a slot machine was moved to a new position right next to where I usually sit. Bright, flashing lights directly in front of me - need I say more.

Incandescence

Embers glow too dull to see
And yet the fire still smoulders,
Drip-fed fuel of hurtful words
While seeming to grow colder.

Now the kindling's stacked so high
It's balanced on a knife-edge,
Fatal breath of oxygen
Explodes it in violent rage.

Getting In Tune

I was at a gig in the local pub on Saturday night; a local band called Fuzz Universe. I really enjoy live rock music - it seems to be an exception to my usual intolerance of loud noise and bright, flashing lights - and I had a very pleasurable time. I even enjoyed a brief chat to the lead guitarist afterwards: he's one of only a few people to have recognized the subject of the painting on the back of my leather jacket as the character of Death from Terry Pratchett's Discworld.

I had a brief moment of anxiety early in the night when the singer came round with the mike during Johnny B. Goode in search of some audience participation in the chorus. Unfortunately my nerves got the better of me and my mind went blank: I forgot the words! Both of them - "Go" and "Johnny". Not singing was actually more embarrassing than if I had managed to do it. I got a chance at redemption a little later when he came round again during Kings of Leon's Sex on Fire and this time made a decent stab at it. The thing is I often sing along to songs I know reasonably well, just not loud enough that people can generally hear me. (I do the same when I'm driving: sing along to whatever CD I'm playing.)

I didn't quite realize how loud it was until the band finished playing and I had ringing in my ears and a slightly unpleasant damping of my aural acuity - my own fault for spending almost the entire night about six feet in front of one of the speaker stacks! Surprisingly there was only one moment when I overloaded and almost blacked out - a brief second or so when the input exceeded some internal threshold and I stopped hearing - causing me a moment of disorientation before recovering my faculties.

The band finished with Foo Fighters' The Pretender as an encore and I've still got the tune going round and round in my head - it's a good thing I like the song so much. I've caught myself humming and singing it in the shower (another favorite place for me to sing). Getting tunes stuck in my head is something that happens to me a lot - I just hope I don't start singing or humming them out loud in public. I attract attention by talking to myself now and again; I don't want to appear even more eccentric by singing as well. I've never managed to find a way to get such a song out of my head except by listening to something that I find even more catchy. Usually each will reside for a few days before the next one takes its place: I wonder what my next one will be.