The feeling I have most often is disappointment.

“If I hadn’t seen such riches
I could live with being poor”

I almost had it once; perhaps more than once.  I knew where I was going, I knew what I was doing, and I knew what I wanted.  Since then the person I was has disappeared, eroded by drink, drugs, psychosis and circumstance.  I was a conservative elitist intellectual atheist.  I was against smoking and drugs and I wanted a family.  I was all set for middle England and all it stood for.

Now I have a faith I can’t understand, a curious clashing mixture drawn from (neo) paganism, Christianity, Taoism, mysticism, Spiritualism and a few other things.  I haven’t forgotten my belief in atheism, nor the basis for it, that of science.  At least I seem to have matured there: I now appreciate that science has nothing even close to all the answers.  It doesn’t even have all the questions.  The concept that DNA was somehow spontaneously created, even if it was in small stages and over an aeon or two is still staggeringly unlikely, that it then developed into living cells even more so.  Everything beyond that I can deal with in terms of evolutionary mechanisms.  As to the concept of the universe not existing, a state before time…  I doubt the human mind has the capacity to deal with it.

I have memories that aren’t real of things that probably didn’t happen.  I have no idea how I am meant to deal with this.  I remember being at the beginning of time, seeing everything and understanding nothing.  I remember my mind expanding to encompass the consciousness of all humanity (apparently quite a common psychosis/hallucination).  I remember how wonderful it felt and how awful it was returning to a single entity.

Now I’m constantly defensive.  I want to make progress, but not only do I not know where I want to go or how to get there; I’m also scared of doing it.  Scared of failure, unable to imagine success, unable to believe I am capable.  Full of self-loathing, yet at the same time narcissistic: a Tony Hancock like being.   Right now I feel sad, disappointed, lonely and miserable.  Lonely, yet with such a poor self esteem that I could not even try to make a new friend in the “real world” for fear of what they would think of me, how self-pitying and self-absorbed I am.  My defence mechanisms are so entrenched even my internal narrative is affected.  I go off on internal mental tangents in order to get away from connecting with myself.

Well, I’m receiving counselling, at least for now.  Any advice beyond simple encouragement is most welcome.