Finding Me

Chapter 1 : Existence

Another sleepless night. Once again staring at the ceiling in the dark, surrounded by a monochrome world, just thinking. I'm not an insomniac, I can assure you that, I just sometimes find it hard to go to sleep. I mean, how am I supposed to go to sleep when I don't even know who I am or if I even exist?

It is not unusual for me to question my existence, in fact, it happens quite often. It's not a pleasant feeling and to be honest, I quite often wish that I never experienced such a feeling that can reduce me to hysterics at times. I know the term existential crisis is often overused, but only when you have truly experienced one will you know of the pain felt.

I understand that this sounds arrogant and pretentious ( and to be honest, when writing that I did feel such a way ) however, it seemed to me the simplest way to portray going through such an experience.

To help provide you with more of an idea I copied out my thoughts from mid – crisis below. It only lasted for about twenty minutes, but during those twenty minutes, I felt so alien, so broken and incomplete that I was genuinely struggling to breathe.

What am I ?

Do I even exist?

Is this sight before me all but an elaborate illusion and am I vicariously living once again through someone else's or something else's or but a simple fantasy life?

To have mind and body yet live only in the mind, and to see my body yet it feel detached. Cut off from reality, lost in the abyss between thoughts and reality. A great pulsing darkness consuming the back of my mind. The black of existence infecting me and in which I am lost.

The feeling of being lost yet found, and the knowing of where I am but is this actually true? This hand I see before me is under my command yet it feels as if it is not part of me. To look in the mirror only to see a pale face look back at me with the same lost blank eyes. It is but a mere reflection, a false scene of life, a shell of all that is, has been and is to come. Or am I the shell? Living life being whole yet being completely and utterly hollow inside.

Am I even alive or am I but an illusion?. A cruel figment of a soul's imagination placed there to plague them till their end?

Am I but a puppet enslaved by the puppeteer, forced to bend to the will of another and being used as if I am but another simple pawn in this one callous game of life?

What even is life? Is it but a word given to the time our perceived own thoughts appear conscious to one's self?

Or am I but a thought? A lone question formed simply by chance, or by calculated data? Am I reincarnated into a new life independently through each lone thought?

To appear so strong and united with one's self when in reality I am merely shattered glass, garbage thrown away or just left there unnoticed, people blind to it even being there!

This water I feel, or so it may be perceived, running down my face, is it really there, or is it but another complex illusion of life? The sensation of feelings, or is it all but calculated thoughts, telling me to act in one way, blinding me to reality, separating me from my body and mind? Or is this my mind? I can not simply comprehend anymore! An internal evil coming to claim me for its own, while I sit here without a voice, no way to call for help, inhibited by my own evil that rebukes any source of freedom. I am but trapped in my own mind and left here to suffer for the rest of time.

You may be wondering why I wrote this down at the time, surely seeing my thoughts written down would only make it worse. However, writing, to me, is a way to organise my thoughts, calm down and not worry about the whirlwind of thoughts in my head. This is pretty much all this book is going to be - a record of my thoughts as I travel through part of my life, in the hope of finding myself.

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Let me know what you think or if you can relate.

Eruwaedhiel Alda

P.S. If you hadn't guessed I often write in weird ways when experiencing a strong emotion