Loneliness, My Oldest Friend. in Journal
- July 10, 2020, 10:49 a.m.
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- Public
You comfort me and hold me while I have no one else. You’re here with me even others are close. You guard me against their efforts to come between us. You are a jealous friend; never letting me leave your side.
Lately I have had a lot of disturbing thoughts.
I guess it’d be more accurate to say that I’ve become aware of my disturbing thoughts. I’ve always had them. I guess I thought they were normal…
It is so odd. To finally feel like a new person and have these weird, violent, intrusive thoughts invade the sanctity of my mind. My new perspective recognizes them immediately for what they are; odd, strange, and dangerous. I cannot trace their origin. They just appear.
For example, I thought of going to the park this morning. I was thinking about how I could get the stroller out and attach the carseat and walk around. There is a bridge over a river at the park. It’s very sturdy and has railings. That’s actually where my husband proposed.
Well, I had a vision of walking over that bridge with my baby stroller, and something undetermined happened that my baby in his seat fell over the side. I thought, well I would immediately go after him. I thought about how I’d jump in, if I’d have enough time to save him from drowning. Would there be any alternatives? No, probably not; I’d have to jump. So jump I would. But that river, although quite wide, is not very deep. Certainly deep enough to drown an infant. I would probably break at least one leg from the fall, maybe both. Maybe I would be able to save him through my pain and broken legs. More likely, though, if I fell from that height into shallow water, my head or face would strike a rock just below the surface. And I would die.
I would be dead; just a corpse in the river, while my helpless infant also died not far from where my body lay.
Now I used to think; well, these thoughts are trying to keep me safe. They prevent me from doing dangerous things that might result in my injury or demise.
Okay. If I accept that, I must find something intrinsically dangerous about walking in the park, and more specifically about crossing that bridge.
Moreover, if that were true, all of these intrusive thoughts would be there to warn me of dangerous circumstance.
But they aren’t.
They are always related to ordinary, everyday tasks. Tasks that are wholly and completely innocuous. Like walking in the park. Opening a door. Walking across the grassy yard. Taking a bath. Making dinner.
Just everyday, normal, innocuous boring tasks.
If these thoughts are not trying to keep me safe, what is their purpose?
If I had to guess. I would guess that they are here to keep me lonely.
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