Non Compos Mentis
Madness and Monsters
Addiction is a centripetal force. An addled mind endlessly circling a black hole.
Non Compos Mentis.
Addiction is the mind that is forever dancing on that thin line that is the border of sanity and madness. Addiction is the mind seesawing between contentment and feeling a hunger that wants nothing less than to devour the world.
Non Compos Mentis.
Here be dragons. The monster may be a 3 inch by 6 inch mini computer that brings the world to your hands. The demon be the chemical storms you ignite in your mind, the waves of neurotransmitters with one hell of an undertow. Perhaps the beast is the cataract over your eyes that causes you to see others not as they are but as you are. Or it may just be a hydra and you get all of the above.
Non Compos Mentis.
The chill of addiction is the realization you are not in control of your own mind. Forget behavior - forget placing the bet, bringing the bottle to your lips, endlessly swiping. The real horror lies within - your own emotions, affects, fantasies, thoughts, ideas, dreams. At times it feels none of this is “yours” - but then, you sit on the mat long enough, you have no idea what “mine” even is. The surges of desire that inundate the cortex, the fantasies that erupt unbidden, the scheming that is halfway done before your consciousness puts 2 and 2 together. None of these are “out there.”
It is understandable that some speak of addiction as possession - but what truly makes the blood turn to ice is the realization that the Enemy is non aliud. To chase one’s addiction through the labyrinth of one’s psyche always ends in the same place: before a mirror. The eyes that stare back are your own.
Non Compos Mentis.
While written in the second person, and not with “I” statements, the reader can probably gather there is some “lived experience” behind this one.
I was inspired to write this one after reading two books by the incomparable James Hollis (Swamplands of the Soul and Living an Examined Life).
This particular post seems to end on a rather grim note. What can I say - Requiem for a Dream made an impression. That said, unlike the film, which ended in the depth of winter, I am living in spring - something I will write more on.
For now, switching metaphors, I will say that there are few times more uncomfortable to live than between the darkness and the dawn - and yet there is nothing more inspiring than those first glimpses of the sun on the horizon.