Delusions continue

If you remember, I somehow managed to tame the delusions, so to speak. Just like in Darwin's theory: they began to evolve. I was no longer tormented by thoughts like, "They're looking at me, or they know I'm using." No. They no longer affected me because I knew what to think. However, when they began to grow in strength, somehow achieving a charisma that resonated with me, I understood that this wasn't the end of this horror.

If I understood correctly, this was only just beginning. I felt so helpless, because in this world (the borderland of realism and delusion), there was no one to help me. I had to face it alone.

When I observed the increasing intrusion of these self-creating visions, I decided that abstinence would be advisable. And so I did.

I felt ambivalent, because on the one hand, it was a bit sad to part with something that magnifies my euphoria and is a wonderful escape from everyday life, and on the other, an indescribable feeling of happiness.

Yes, I left, without a single problem. This strange pride was even pleasant – I was able to resist temptation, I was able to overcome my addiction, and at the same time, I felt so liberated and happy.

The days passed, the sun and the air temperature perfectly reflected my state of mind. I believed I didn't need to take anything to be someone. Because, in truth, faith is the greatest drug. Without it, it's bad, empty, and strange. And when it's there, my whole life is written in colorful markers.

I was reaching conclusions that had previously been incomprehensible to me. I returned to another addiction: reading books. Did I read? Are you kidding? I devoured those books, page by page, letter by letter. I was constantly hungry.

Hungry for life.

I know, I know what you're thinking. That what I'm writing is untrue. That so many people can't get over it and fall into various forms of depression, deciding that the world is no longer interesting. That's true. I'm only talking about the first few weeks.

About two weeks passed before I stopped feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and excessive appetite. I slept off all those late nights during that time; apparently, that's how it works. You can't just pull three straight nights and then only get one.

I slept twelve hours a day, and I usually settle for seven, and I feel great. I rarely sleep more than nine, so those twelve hours were a phenomenon. On a mass scale. Like people on the moon, like Martians at a tire sale.

It was the same with food, because I devoured food like crazy. After this diet, I had to make up for all those calories. How many dinners did I eat a day? Several, for sure. After just two weeks, as I mentioned, everything returned to normal.

My figure and weight, too. I'd lost a few kilos and my beer belly. How on earth had I seen it again after two weeks? I sat and thought, and ate another helping of delicious sandwiches.

I also regained my self-confidence. On the descent, you feel like you're a nobody. Nobody likes you, and you're generally worthless.

So I welcomed these flashes of narcissism. It's better to be a narcissist than to hate yourself. Believe me.

And the smile. It was on my face again, every day. There were no descents, no bumpy rides. I lived like everyone else. I was human. And I forgot about the delusions.

A month passed when I began to believe I was clean, both physically and mentally. Physically, you can see this in my urine. The darker, even browner, it can be considered an ecological threat.

But no! My urine was clear again, without that specific odor.

As for the psyche, it's harder to judge. Because you never know what it's going to come up with. And you can't just analyze it. Unless someone eats pencils and drinks petroleum gas from the gas station, in which case you can, but only as an exception, as the diagnosis is easily predictable. I bet you've all guessed how to classify such a culprit.

Time flew by, I was alive. People on the street were just passersby, sometimes glancing quickly, but that's normal, isn't it? You can't walk around without looking at anyone.

That would be weird.

It had been about two, maybe even three months since I decided to call it quits. I completely forgot about the delusions, and if they did resurface, I'd laugh them off. How could I have been so stupid? In retrospect, it was nice to laugh at myself.

That evening, as I was falling asleep and thinking about those drives again, I decided the nightmare was over.

I fell asleep, not even realizing how wrong I was. The nightmare was over. Now the real hell was about to begin.

That night, I dreamed of pleasant things. And nothing foreshadowed the coming terror.

I woke up refreshed. I looked out the window and smiled at the sight of the warm weather. I did a dozen push-ups to maintain my fitness, which, incidentally, had suffered during the "adventure." I bathed and then ate breakfast. Just one more.

A pleasant melody was playing on the radio, and strange sounds could be heard intermittently outside the window. What it was, I don't know. I looked out, and nothing. Complete emptiness, a light flashed before my eyes. However, it could have been, and probably certainly was, the result of a sudden, violent movement. (Sometimes, when you get out of bed too quickly, you experience a brief moment of eclipse, as your body tries to regain balance. If someone is capable and nothing is impossible for them, something like this can happen by approaching the window too quickly. I dedicate this sarcastic title to myself, because I'm not insulting others. Well, jokes, jokes, and the horror hasn't even entered the terrifying moment.)

So, the indescribable white light, very thinned by darkness, looked incredibly grotesque. I instinctively stepped back, covered my face with my hands, and after a moment, decided that the sun must have gotten a raise because it was using ultraviolet rays.

I dismissed it all as a joke; I had no reason to worry. How could I have known this was the beginning of absurdity?

In the afternoon, I went to a nearby pitch, where my friends and I transformed into soccer stars and played. My fitness wasn't what it used to be, but it was going well. However, at times, something gripped my stomach, and I felt like I was getting close to breakfast for evacuation. I refused permission. Plan B involved rest, and it was definitely better than plan A.

I rested for a while. The moment lasted over twenty minutes, and I couldn't regain my strength. I felt my muscles ache with exhaustion, and my heart couldn't keep up with the amount of blood pumping. And when I sat down on the bench, where the reserves usually sit, I saw those grotesque lights again. Again, lasting a split second, as if designed to be invisible. I felt the warmth of my blood, I could barely swallow, and my muscles were so exhausted that I screamed in pain every two minutes. A cramp. And research teams, intrigued by this unprecedented howl, are still searching for the object and its infrasound. UFO? Bigfoot? Nooooo…

When I got home, I decided I'd made the right decision to give up on the game. I felt like a retiree whose favorite sport was flipping channels. And somehow, it worked.

I still felt tired, so persistent that I closed my eyes and fell asleep.

When I got up, I felt something strange, like fear. Like some secret was lurking in the air. Accompanying this feeling of fear was a nagging smell. Something like… I don't know. I just felt something strange. I was walking around the apartment, sniffing everything, like a dog searching for prey, when I realized I couldn't smell anything anymore. Nothing. Did I imagine it? No, I definitely felt it. Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a sudden reflection of light that blinded me and paralyzed me with fear. And ignorance. What was happening?

I sat there, sweating, clutching the sheets, and only then did I realize I'd been dreaming. It was morning, so my question was—was there a football game or not?

The calendar dispelled my doubts. I slept all day after the game and into the night. A record, but one I greeted with lukewarm enthusiasm.

I began to notice I was getting tired quickly. It was vacation, so I was lucky to be able to stay home all day without overexerting my muscles.

In the evening, a strange, mercilessly painful pain hit me in the lower back, where you could dig into my kidneys. It hurt so much that tears came. However, I didn't notice until the pain subsided and I simply sat on the bed. When I thought about it again, I howled like a werewolf at the moon. And it stopped again. Of its own accord.

That night, the pains recurred regularly, preventing me from closing my eyes, even for a moment. The tears that fell could fill a bucket. And yet I didn't lose any weight, paradox?

In the morning, I felt fine. But when I bent down to pick up the wrapper I'd dropped while unwrapping a piece of candy, I felt another pain, this time different. "God, if I have a slipped disc at this age, maybe I'll retire immediately," I thought

. After a moment, I decided it was worth shouting to ease the pain, even if only a little, as a release of emotion. Meanwhile, I screamed, howled, and cried like a child deprived of the food I craved, when the pain persisted. It clung to me, I thought.

I didn't even notice the precarious position I found myself in. I felt sleepy again and longed for rest. And it was only 10 a.m.

Some virus must have caught me. I lay in bed and nothing happened. I recalled the old days, dreaming of how pleasant it would be to take flight and soar like an angel, as high as anyone ever had. And when I closed my eyes, I was where I used to soar nonstop. But it wasn't the same.

That day could be considered nostalgic. I missed that feeling, yet I felt like someone saying goodbye to a loved one, with only the thought of never seeing each other again swirling in my mind. A final meeting, censorship, and introverted sadness.

Beads of sweat appeared, my body grew hot, and my senses sharpened. It was just like before. My heart was beating at lightning speed, the pressure almost tore my arms apart, and the euphoria intensified with each passing minute. Another flood of thoughts, another wide range of ideas, another set of plans, and in short, the world looked like Eden.

I got out of bed; I had to pace around. I had to do something. I stopped thinking rationally about doing anything. And it really took me a while to realize I wasn't taking anything.

Excessive longing, the desire to taste that feeling for the umpteenth time, and the placebo effect. My mind filled in the rest. It enveloped me in a halo of euphoria again. And I didn't even know it wasn't real. It was another example from the shelf of delusions.

I'd imagined the ride and felt no difference. (If there's no difference, why pay more? Economics comes first ;))

It's long been known that it's not the drug that's the source of happiness, but the brain; that's where the processes that produce effects like euphoria and hallucinations occur. The drug is merely a tool, a key. A magic spell. Mary's spells. And again, I drifted off, unaware of how dangerous it could be.

I woke up in the night, sweaty, hot, and with a paranoid fear of who knows what. I looked around the dark contours of the room, and the only thing I could fix my eyes on, for more than a second, was called a spider.

I wonder if it was small? About the size of a palm. I watched it stroll along my wall, as if it were just out for a walk to stretch its enormous, grotesque legs. It darted quickly; I didn't even realize I'd lost sight of it. Desperate, thinking the spider might hide somewhere and then emerge in the night to eat me, I bolted from the room in the blink of an eye, making a noise as if it were, at least, the zero hour on New Year's Eve. My parents were already awake, the neighbors probably too, and the sensationalist newspapers had probably gotten a tip about the young man screaming in the night as if he were being flayed. And again! That thought! Everyone knows!

I stood paralyzed with fear, simultaneously angry at myself and at Mother Nature that, out of a wide range of phobias, I had to have this one, arachnophobia.

My parents decided to deal with the matter quickly. They entered the room, and I stayed behind. When I announced I was staying put, trying to justify my fear of going in, I learned many things from the looks in their eyes. But I'll keep them to myself.

The spider hadn't been found, the expedition had failed. Whoever saw it, whoever knows.

The more I thought about something, the greater the risk that another delusion would revolve around that thought. Eventually, I found myself sitting in a room full of terrariums containing thousands of spiders. I thought about it to such an extent that I was a spider myself. Paranoia.

The pain returned. If fear can transform into a delusion, so can the belief that something hurts. Even as a child, I had shown an undeniable talent for hypochondria, so now I had the opportunity to put it into practice.

And...

But wait? It was all absurd. Stupid, strange—why was this happening? And that's a good question. Was this really happening?

Spiders still crawled on the walls, practically everything hurt, and when I recalled my old adventures with the synthetic, I felt like I'd been drugged. No, that couldn't be true.

I decided I wasn't having enough contact with other people. I'd become terribly withdrawn when I'd given up my power. Not because I couldn't speak clearly, quite the opposite. Somehow, it just didn't seem the same. I didn't understand those words myself, but they were the driving force behind my irrational behavior.

Only after a while did I understand what was happening. Extreme emotional states began to creep in, from outbursts of anger to sentimental listening to music. While I savored the ballads that gently drifted into my ears, I allowed my eyes to admire the beautiful landscapes drawn from the book on the shelf next to my bed. The book was titled "Wonders of the World." And it was wonderful, that's for sure. I was drifting off once again...

It was catharsis, savoring beauty, not fantasies of some unknown degree of perversion, about nature and freedom. Surely there's no such branch? Besides, who cares?

Dreams? Are they beautiful? Now I'm talking about normal ones, about life plans, about people, about everything.

I didn't even notice when the whole day had passed, and that day I was just dreaming. From my career—I hope—political, to the idea of ​​publishing a book and then a film adaptation, and so on—an Oscar, a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, a Victory Potato, and so on, ending with imagining the one. Hmmmm...

Ahhh... The thing about dreams is that you have to know how to use them in moderation, and that's true with everything, well, maybe with a few exceptions, but that's not the point here. When you cross the line and start living your dreams, it doesn't bode well. It's easy to soar like an angel, but the fall can be more painful than the hardships of the ascent.

And unfortunately, I had to learn this.

Who was I already in my dreams? A politician, a writer, a man who could afford to donate a hundred million dollars to a foundation, a gangster respected by everyone, and a loving and caring man for that one, imaginary and idealized one.

So I lived a normal life, sometimes escaping into the world of dreams, when over time sadness arose. Because I wasn't who I dreamed of, and that one wasn't there either. It struck me how someone could be so stupid as to start believing in what I had created. In an instant, I was demoted, my awards were taken away, and my beloved passed away. I was left alone.

But that wasn't the end of my dream adventure. I began to transform the people who indirectly participated in my imagination, of course without their knowledge, because of copyright and all that. It doesn't matter that the person said A when I imagined they were saying B.

And it was truly terrifying, because I was lost. I couldn't rationally answer what I had created and what I had seen with my own eyes. Was there a difference between realism and unrealism? I don't know. It seemed to me that everything was one.

And at the same time, I wondered if, since I wasn't imagining much, my driving wasn't also the result of a delusional fantasy? A schizophrenic stubbornly believing he'd taken drugs and now tormented by delusions of a relationship?

And it was getting worse.

When the curtain fell on my dreams, I realized I'd been creating the world as I wanted it to be. I decided I needed a change: that's why I was acting so strangely, like a cricket on a forest festival.

I arranged a few meetings, which, once again, I decided weren't as I'd imagined. What's there to hide? The world couldn't even compare to my dreams, because they were too idealistic and taken far too seriously. This led me to grapple with this grim relativism, between what was beautiful and imagined and what I saw, which, to put it mildly, looked a bit worse.

Why had everything suddenly lost its color? The sandwiches stopped tasting good, and conversations with girls weren't the same as before. Even the day was less sunny, and the refrigerator was whiter. Another moment of such reflection, and he was peeling the plaster off the walls. Once again, I employed my tactics. Admit it and use it as a weapon to fight it.

Yes, I declare to all and sundry, here before millions of listeners, that I had been too absorbed in my dreams, slowly losing sight of the fact that a pleasant vision is one thing and life is another.

I received absolution, and everything was supposed to be beautiful now, like the ending of a novel with a happy ending. But no…

So what if I confessed when there was none? I was a nobody compared to my delusional self. I stopped watching movies then, because previously I'd imagined myself a GREAT screenwriter and the one who came up with the plots for all the GREAT movies. I didn't admit to the weak ones. When I realized I hadn't written a single script in my life, I knew I'd gone crazy.

My mind was in chaos. Indescribable, because something was constantly troubling me and preventing me from breathing.

A minor depression set in. Days without a smile, hours without any pleasure. Everything was gray, sad, and brought on a gloomy mood.

People who have recovered from addiction are usually exposed to a higher level of self-blame for everything. The war in the world – because of me. The famine – because of me. Demagoguery – because of me.

The reasons for feeling down kept growing. A psychological asceticism was born then, which I wouldn't wish on anyone. (High excise tax – also because of me! AAAAAAA….)

I verbally lashed myself out to the point that when I looked in the mirror, I couldn't look myself in the eye. I hated myself. I convinced myself I was nothing, that I would achieve nothing. I reached such a level of mental perversion that I could give lectures.

I surprised myself when, over time, it began to bring me relief, sometimes joy. I never understood ascetics, but this lesson proved incredibly instructive.

The climax of each session was the moment when I mentally composed a farewell letter. I imagined the worried faces of my loved ones, and I suffered so much, humiliated myself so much, that I stood up and said, "You're talking nonsense, you don't want to listen. Start living, and people will always be with you." And I understood.

The letter, the last one. Everyone knows you're dying. What do you want to tell them? How will they behave when you're gone? In my masochistic visions, everyone forgot. A day or two. And you have to go on living. Phanta Rei, also life and memory.

I remember it like it was yesterday. I closed my eyes. The room was cold, very cold. I sat undressed, hardening my physicality while suffering greatly. I imagined my funeral, tears welling up—both in the illusion and on my cheeks. Then I imagined how people would remember me. When there was nothing to remember, I suffered like never before, then I imagined their lives going on. Simultaneously, completely erasing me from memory. Like a blank, unsmudged sheet of paper. Without content.

A life without meaning, without purpose. That's how I perceived my life.

Later, when it stopped bringing any results, I had to reach for something stronger.

A conversation with someone, a bond of sympathy and friendship, or love—the more the better, if the greatest possible suffering is desired. And you have to tell them you're terminally ill. Unable to control your tears, you have to talk about how much life lies ahead of you.

The suffering brought me relief, because after a while, I realized it was just a hyperbole of illusion. I knew I was only adding half of it to make things worse and more difficult, but in reality, I was lying to myself.

Worst of all, it changed me so much and taught me to appreciate the details that I became a different person. Was it really so? Was I lying to myself once again?

The awareness of my death was so deeply ingrained in my mind that I began to believe it. When I talked to people, there were moments when my thoughts drifted away, trying to understand why me? Why should I die? It

increasingly haunted me; it was getting closer. I classified all the dreams, all the signs in the sky, and all the phone calls—mistakes I accidentally made—as "Confirmation of the Worst." Almost an apocalypse.

I remember it was evening. Cold, I was home alone. I had no one to talk to, except what I needed to say? Hi, how are you? I'm nearing my death date, but tell me – did you hear about what happened in Parliament?

Why me? And what was I even sick with? Oh… Kidney pains that would occasionally ache, probably under the influence of strong suggestion.

I convinced myself of that, and it wasn't as funny as it sounds. Every action was pointless, because I wouldn't finish anyway. I added old age to my memory. I was an old, sick, and dying grandfather, nineteen years and a few months old.

Worse still, I believed yet another lie about looking older. Hundreds of wrinkles, dry skin, memory and concentration problems, and whatever else I dreamed up. Not me, that is, but what my beloved imagination told me.

Being told clearly and unequivocally not to talk nonsense and to take care of myself lasted about three days, during which my agony was straight out of "ER." I groaned to myself. It would still make sense if anyone were listening. But to myself?

And again, the psychological asceticism.

And so everything intertwined, the delusions mixed, creating ever newer confabulations that I believed, willingly or unwillingly.

On the street, people started turning to look at me again; when someone wrote in a notebook, I knew it was a note against me; even on television, I could spot a conspiracy against me.

Days passed, and I slowly came to terms with these delusions, gaining some knowledge about myself and life. Yet they kept attacking. The absurd thought was that there really was a conspiracy against me. Everyone knew each other. It didn't matter that my friends never saw each other, but I felt like everyone knew each other. Everyone was after me. Binoculars aimed at me, a wiretap on my phone and attached to my clothes, which took me hours to find. Even though I didn't find the supposed thing, I knew it was there somewhere. It had to be there. They were listening, recording me. They were analyzing my every move. Something... Truman Show-style.

I became suspicious and watchful. And although I'd been through this before, and had gone out myself, this time I proved that it couldn't be completely fought.

They were talking loudly outside the window; they probably wanted to rob the apartment. The sun was too bright, they probably wanted to blind me.

When I felt a moment of peace, I looked at myself as if from a different perspective. I didn't recognize myself. It was sad and pathetic how often, wanting to prove to friends that someone was following me, we would go on such provocations. I always saw the spies, and in my eyes, I won. They looked at me strangely, yet sympathetically. I interpreted their glances differently.

They were in on a conspiracy. Who will admit that something exists when officially it can't? Oh, well, who? (Those who agree – first warning. After two, the text is deleted  )

There was no end to the new delusions. Fear of the end of the world, of scores I'd made up for myself, of going out in public.

Even when the store didn't have what I wanted to buy, I imagined the real reason for its absence.

I knew the answer to everything, I knew everything, and the longer and more persistently it haunted me, the more, despite my acquired knowledge and experience, I couldn't shake it.

You could say I was becoming increasingly stupid. A stupidity easily confused with fatigue.

Because maybe that was more convenient?

To demonstrate how paranoid the feeling of a priest evokes, I'll cite an example. You have money, a lot of it, and you have to carry it somewhere. And what? On the street, you look around because you know everyone knows what you're carrying. You pass people who only give you fleeting glances, reading more into them than you should. You're gripped by fear, psychosis. You don't know what to do. Everyone is against you. You can't trust anyone. Even a grandmother who walks at 0.00000000053 km/h is a potential thief, a repeat offender, and a professional.

They're everywhere.

And they always will be.

Don't believe it? Look around the street. Consider whether you might be under surveillance to some extent. And worse yet, they know everything about you. Don't turn around now. One's in the closet, the other's hidden in the chandelier. Pretend everything is as it should be.

And there's no escape. Because this is a game with no end.

The end.

(And yet, there is an end.)

From the Author.

You're probably wondering if this is true? What does it matter? If it were true, it probably won't go away, and at most, it will only add to my worries, as the readers will turn out to be "Them."

I tried to add a bit of humor to make it more enjoyable, as I'm not particularly good at horror stories.

Soon I'll be writing about a schizophrenic, his world, and his helplessness in not being able to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

I wonder if there will be interest then in whether the story is fact or fiction.

All I can say is that experiencing something triggers a lightbulb moment, the kind that often accompanies animated characters; the right proportion of fiction, mix it up, and I hope it's enjoyable, or at least interesting, to read.

Maybe, at least, your dreams of becoming a famous writer will come true.

Count to three and walk away as if nothing had happened. Good luck.