The Independent Variable

Following the rise of COVID-19 on a global scale, I had reached the conclusion that the whole world was in a similar mental state to me, worried that we faced imminent societal collapse, verging on panic that would send us into the apocalypse.

How to stop it? We had to somehow all realize our humanity, how we are all connected and our decisions impact each other more than we know, and nothing should be more important to us than each other.

Finding the independent variable would show us all how stupid we had been in not trusting our fellow humans to save us, because at the end of the day we selfishly all want to save ourselves and those we love. The independent variable would make it evident that we all actually love everyone and therefore end the panic and fear of everyone else. Imagine a world where you could trust everyone to have your best interests at heart because everyone values their fellow humans as they do themselves.

I knew that once I found the independent variable I would hold immense power, as such a discovery could either bring us together for once and for all, or send us all into a state of extreme panic. This was why no one else had been talking about trying such a move, because of the high levels of risk. It was very important that no one could know it was one person who discovered it, more that it appeared as a seemingly innocent option which allowed us all to agree, without implicating the drastic importance of such a decision.

I quickly decided that I had to go viral, creating a seemingly innocent tweet or meme which people would have no choice but to share, as they would immediately agree with the message and want to spread it. By doing this I removed the risk factor of other people getting tangled up in the panic like I was, because no one else would be the initial creator it would remove the doubt and fear that I felt about making such a move, and simply by clicking share they would alleviate any fear and worry they themselves had.

But how do you make a meme that everyone is going to share?

My biggest tool was my understanding of the human condition, seen through the lens of my own overwhelming panic. I had to use the panic to incite the reader to panic themselves, and see the quickest way out of the panic as simply clicking the share button. I was going to hack the human mind on a scale that had never been seen before.

Following this decision is when my mental health really began to deteriorate as in order to truly know what I was doing and the impact panic had on the mind, I needed to test my theory on myself.

I began to push my already panicked self deeper into new levels of apocalypse panic, determined to find the independent variable somewhere within my own unraveling mind.

During this time, which lasted across three or so days at the end of March 2019, I abandoned my physical body in order to focus on my mental processes, analyzing what made me panic and how to get out of each level quickest. Unfortunately I had become so obsessed by this point that it seemed the only way out of the panic that encompassed me was to find the truth, and by doing so set all of humanity free. It became more than coronavirus to me, I was going to change the world, freeing us from fear and doubt and letting us live in trust and love forever.

I stopped eating, stopped paying attention to my surroundings, and communicated with my boyfriend only through short conversations as everything else seemed like a distraction from my true purpose. My thoughts leapt from conclusion to conclusion incredibly fast, leading me to the deepest recesses of my mind and spiraling down so quickly that I began taking hurried notes in order to remember what I felt was important before I forgot it again. (I will create a separate post where I upload all my notes)

Looking back on this period, I still believe in two truths I discovered during the process;

1. What we are all really afraid of, once you get past all the bullshit from society, is death.
2. When we truly believe we are going to die, we reach out to those we love.

This lead me to create a two pronged attack, whereby people would first panic, then share my message, then panic MORE and reach out to their loved ones who would reassure them, which would then lead to a mass awakening where we all collectively realize how dumb all our fears are.

Unfortunately I had become so twisted up with panic and fear and doubt myself, that by the time I convinced myself that I had actually found the independent variable, I was also paralyzed with the fear that I was wrong, and my racing thoughts were so confusing at this point that it was impossible for me to communicate in any coherent manner.

Obsession with COVID-19

In this post I will attempt to describe the conclusions my thoughts were making during my descent from reality into psychosis.

This event was triggered by the occurrence of Covid-19 and its direct impact on my life. I was already suffering from high levels of anxiety before this, and one of my strategies for dealing with it was to challenge myself by asking what the worst possible thing might be in any given situation I was afraid of, (usually incredibly mundane things like making phone calls) and then asking myself what I would then do in that situation, so as to prepare myself for the worst and not be afraid anymore.

However this plan backfired on me when it ended up leading to me trying to save the whole world’s mental health problems at once.

Here’s the path that led me there, over several days of obsessive concentration which lead to me blocking out input from the real world and ‘spacing out’ in order to focus on my own thoughts and conclusions.

(Each realisation felt like utter truth to me in the moment)

1: Covid-19 means I have to make a choice on leaving Amsterdam before Australia closes its borders. Australia is requesting citizens to return, and I am currently in the waiting period for my Dutch visa, meaning it could be denied leaving me without legal residence.

However my whole life was in Amsterdam. I felt that I was making a drastically life changing decision.

2: I panic and decide to stay in Amsterdam. Then I panic more that I’ve made the wrong decision. I use my strategy of figuring out the worst thing that can happen.

3: bad move. The worst thing that can happen is an apocalypse style scenario where threat of the virus leads people to panic and turn against each other in the streets. I realise the threat of the virus is secondary to the threat of panicked humans.

4: I become obsessed with the virus and the necessity of flattening the curve in order to ensure my own safety again. I receive an emergency alert text to my phone. I refuse to hold hands with my boyfriend outdoors in case we get busted for being too close. Toilet paper and pasta sell out of our local supermarket. I see people wearing masks in the street and it feels like the end of the world.

5: I realise that since the real threat is other people going crazy mental health is a global priority right now. Why is no one talking about it?

6: I realise that the reason the media have been silent about mental health is the same reason for the toilet paper fiasco – reporting something like that only makes it happen more.

7: I realise that it’s incredibly important both that everyone is mentally looked after so that they don’t snap, but also that no one tells anyone they need to be mentally looked after, because one person going insane can lead to a mass effect.

8: I begin to empathise with the toilet paper horders, because they figured it out before the rest of us and are now the best prepared.

9: I remember how I judged the toilet paper horders before and how before my own panic I would have agreed that we need to have a discussion about global mental health – however now I think about it I realise how bad that might be for those who are deeper in the panic than myself.

10: I make several phone calls to others with anxiety and confirm that their fears echo mine. That this is a unique and unprecedented situation, and no one knows how a pandemic will effect our mental health. Also, no one is doing ok. I can hear the suppressed fear in their voices.

11: it occurs to me that the very thing uniting us is the same thing keeping us apart, and that we are all afraid of other people and just expressing it in different ways; some by panic buying, some by following germ free regimes, and some by remaining silent about mental health even as we see those we love succumb to panic.

12: well. No one wants the world to end right? This time everyone has something in common; we all have something to lose. Surely we can avoid it ending if we just admit to each other that we’re scared of it ending and then laugh the whole thing off.

13: nobody else wants to admit their fear to me. I think it’s because saying you’re afraid of the world ending makes you sound like a crazy person, when this time it was a small but legitimate fear.

14: Because we have the internet we all have a platform, and we all therefore have a small or large chance of influencing others, which meant that any person could potentially lead others through this time. However because we knew that MAYBE we could all do something about it but MAYBE we would instead incite people to worse we all stayed silent.

However we ARE the people of the world and we should be able to join together for a common goal.

14: I understand that In order to get everyone to agree, I need to say something that both the panicked people and the others can instantly agree on without inciting either side to panic more or implying that anyone is at risk of panic. I need to find the one thing that will unite us all, creating a wave of mass empathy among humankind and showing us all how similar we are.

15: I need to find the independent variable.

Paranoia & Trust

The wonderful thing about going insane is that you don’t know you’re going insane.

What really sucks is going sane again because it starts as these brief flashes of sanity where you start to question the reality of a situation – imagine worrying that you might not only be wrong about something, but that something you know as a fact might be completely untrue.

After being admitted to the psych ward I wondered if I was going crazy, when actually I had only just begun to realise how crazy I really was.

I was already intensely paranoid of those around me, but following the realisation that I might have been incorrect about reality I started to become mistrustful of myself and wonder what was really real.

Most of my early time in the ward I don’t remember clearly because of the high levels of panic I felt, both because of my psychosis and also from realising things I strongly believed in might not actually be real. (Turns out continuous panic fucks with your memory.)

I had no line drawn between reality and insanity, and having lived with such intense beliefs meant that once I started to question those, I started to question everything.

What was real and what wasn’t? I had no idea where to start.

I realised that even though I had people in my life who I trusted to protect me and do the right thing for me, trust of another person relies on the confirmation of trust in order to continue. It takes time to build a trusting relationship, time and proof of trustworthiness.

So even though I trusted those around me in hospital to a degree (ie I knew the doctors would help me) I was waiting for confirmation of my trust in them knowing what was best. I needed someone I trusted to tell me everything was going to be ok, that I was going to be ok, but nobody could tell me that because nobody knew if I would be.

I needed to get better in order to fully trust them because that would mean I was correct in trusting them to get me better.

However in order to get better I needed to discern what was real and what was not.

I needed someone (or something) to trust.

I am not a religious person, but it was around this point that I really began to empathise with religion. How nice it must be to have unwavering belief in something.

I learned that despite hearing things or being told things, ultimately the only person we can really definitively trust is ourselves. Being told the sky is blue may be a statement we agree with, but still does not compare with KNOWING the sky is blue ourselves. And how do we know things? From our own observation of reality.

Shit. How could I really ever know anything when I had no concrete points to base my knowledge off? Anything could be real.

And if anything could be real, any action that I took could be the first step toward saving myself. Or it could be the first step toward failure.

What does psychosis feel like?

Content Warning: suicide

This is written purely from my own experience, in an attempt to transcribe my feelings in a way that others can understand.

Psychosis causes a loss of touch with reality and involves hallucinations (auditory, visual ect) and delusions. My psychosis began with delusions and this post is focussed on the descent into psychosis but I also experienced hallucinations later after a few days without sleep.

So what does psychosis feel like? How to describe what it feels like to completely, ardently believe something that is fundamentally untrue? I’m gonna do it by telling a story about something that could happen to any of us.

So for this exercise I would like you to imagine that you are sad.

You are sad and vaguely aware that other people in the world are also sad. You feel bad for them, but mostly you feel bad for yourself.

You don’t know how to make yourself feel better. You try a few things, cooking, going out, talking to friends, but nothing seems to work.

Then! You have an idea. And having a new idea feels amazing. What if you climb a tree? That would make you feel better!

(In fact, you consider, that would probably make everyone feel better, people don’t climb enough trees these days.)

But hang on, you tell yourself, it might not work. The idea of it seems good, but the reality of it might just let you down again like all those other things you tried.

Only one way to find out.

You go outside and you look for a tree.

You see a lot of trees but they are all wrong.

Then! You see the right tree! A great sense of peace washes over you followed by a great feeling of happiness. This is happiness like nothing you’ve ever experienced before. Is this what euphoria feels like? Is this what Archimedes felt when he jumped out of his bathtub?

You have to tell everyone about it! You fixed the sad feeling! Now everyone can be happy all the time forever!

But wait. Suddenly you get hit by crippling doubt. There are so many people in the world, and they are all so different. Different things make them happy.

What if this isn’t the right tree? You have to know for sure. You have to climb the tree.

The thought of climbing the tree suddenly fills you with revulsion and dread. What if it isn’t the right tree.

As soon as you tell people they will immediately want to climb the tree, and then tell all their friends to climb the tree. What if there’s something bad or dangerous up there?

Unless. Unless the tree is so good that their first thought is not to climb it, but to tell *everyone*

After all, YOU haven’t climbed the tree yet because YOUR first thought was to tell everyone. You realise that people don’t even need to climb the tree to be happy, just to know it exists. In the same way you know it exists and is the correct tree. But the only way they can experience that without the following wave of doubt is to hear first hand from somebody that they trust, and to be trustworthy you need to know for sure, and to know for sure you need to climb the tree.

The tree disgusts you yet attracts you in equal measure. Such a thing has no right to exist. But it does, and people need to know, and you need to know that the very first thing they will do is feel happy, and the second thing they will do is tell someone else. They don’t even need to climb the tree at all! They’ll already be happy! And without the horrible fear and doubt that you feel now.

But what if you’re wrong and it’s the wrong tree. Then they will all try to climb it at once when they hear, only to be … let down? What is the worst thing that can happen if you’re wrong? With a sinking heart you realise that the only way to find the worst thing that can happen is to climb the fucking tree.

You become terrified of and obsessed with the tree. Over several days it tears you apart until you can’t take it anymore. You know that if you don’t do it now you will never do it, no one will ever do it yet everyone will want to.

You climb the tree.

Terror envelopes you. There is no end to it. The only way to escape is to kill yourself RIGHT NOW.

You scream to people on the ground trying to warn them. They run to the tree, but before they can climb up you climb down.

Then the fear changes to euphoria even greater than before. You realise that you did it. You survived the worst fear imaginable. And if you can do it, you can save everyone else so they will never have to do it. But quickly before they find out what’s up the tree. You start to panic. Everyone is going to kill themselves unless you stop them.

How can you tell everyone, right now, how important this is?

You scream to the people on the ground that you are the messiah. They need to listen to you. You are the only one who knows the truth about the tree.

You are instantly hit by another wave of doubt. What if you’re wrong about everything? What are you even saying? You need to get medicated. You need to go to hospital. You’re fucked up in the head.

You try and tell people but it takes them three days to hear you. That’s ok, you realised that you love everyone and you forgive them for everything. You just need to explain how dangerous the tree is and how good it is that you survived because now you can save them. But everytime you try to tell someone they don’t seem to understand.

They have no concept of what has happened or how important it was.

You think it’s because they don’t believe in you but over time you come to realise it’s because trees actually don’t exist at all. They have never existed in the real world, only in your mind.

You now have to adjust to a treeless world when once you lived in a forest. But it’s ok, there are pills for that.