Back around '93 or '94, I lived in a duplex in a mature neighbourhood that developed around Currie Barracks. We had conifers everywhere, everyone's yard(s) had them, many of them planted in the early 50's. Some were planted without care for how big they'd get or how outspread their root structures would get after a few decades, and we found out the hard way that one had grown out too close to the house's foundation.
We found out during a MASSIVE hail storm that sent some cars down the street, hilled roads became mudslides, and we found out that we had a 4 ft-5 long crack in the wall at the lowest point of the house which was also the 2nd lowest point in the immediate 10 block radius around our house. (The lowest being the playground across the street. It disappeared completely during the storm.) The crack had been started from the outside, by the large spruce in front of the living room picture window.
While having someone come in to assess the damage, I found out that the tree never should have been planted so close because 'hairs' from the tree would wrap themselves like fingers around miniscule cracks and chinks in the poured foundation and as the hairs grew into root shafts (and then larger) that they'd eventually form little fulcra, slowly, microscopically wedging the concrete apart. Once big enough, and enough of a path of least resistance had been created by inherent weak spots in the concrete and the force of the growing roots, the whole thing would crack and the crack would get longer in the direction the roots grew.
While I always knew that this was how things worked from a biological standpoint, I'd never really thought of it in terms of real life. I'd seen pictures of ruins, I'd visited weather- and time-ravaged historical landmarks, and you could even see where various biological elements had added to the decay of the structures, but I'd never really paid attention to the process except for 'hey look, there's moss growing on this thing'. Even though it was really 'hey look at this organism taking it's sweet time gnawing on this shack'.
A few years later, during which I took a lot of vacations to the Midwest, I noticed all the buildings that had huge walls of ivy crawling up their sides. I remember thinking how cool it looked, how it kind of reminded me of Vancouver or Montréal, because Calgary just didn't have the climate for that kind of coolness. Everything's cold and yellow and brown by October. I love Calgary. I don't love the brown. Lots of yellow and grey and brown.
While outside having a smoke (I still smoked back then. EGADS do I miss smoking; I hate missing it.) outside a bank in Park Ridge, I was looking at some ivy that was clinging to the side of the bank and how it was going russet and scarlet as the weather changed. Despite the weather getting colder, I could see little tiny hairs, like teeny naked fiddlehead greens appearing at the end of a gothic floral arrangement. Some weren't any bigger than a really bad hangnail.
They looked like they were rock climbing, like they were wearing fuzzy flannel pyjamas and that it was just plain fuzzy friction keeping them up there. Well, that *is* kinda how it is, but I was still so struck at how nature works, how tenacious biology can be, how powerful taking the path of least resistance can be. The whisker-thin hairy sprouts made me think of the flooded basement, of the large crack that let in ~5,000 gallons of filthy water.
There was a point to all of this, I swear.
I think of my brain and my Dark Brain (I need to come up with a better name for it. I'll have to think about it...) as walls and tendrils. My brain will just sit there, minding its own business, and over time I'll feel little bits of Dark Brain slithering in there. A tendril here, a smidge of root there. Slowly casting a pall over my brain that I don't notice until some very cold drafts have blown in. All I can do is clean up the mess after someting finally gives.
I wish I could say "Oh, it just hits me all at once." because then it sounds like I had no way to stop it.
When I say "No, man, this shit's been creeping around in there for a while" I get the very distinct impression that there's subtext in that statement that, though completely unintended, is potentially damning.
"For a while..."
"So, if it's been doing that for a while, why don't you just go see someone."
If only it were that simple.
I don't know what causes these tendrils.
I don't know where they are all coming from.
I don't know where they're aiming for.
I don't know how to stop them.
I don't even know how many different sources there are.
I don't know what they all look like.
Some are interconnected.
Some are singular.
Some are knotted badly.
Some are dying on their own.
Some are getting gnawed away at by time/experience/therapy/medication/acceptance/support/love. Sadly, there aren't as many of this last one as I'd like.
The only thing I know for sure is that they're always there. That much I can feel and know with absolute certainty.
Now it's Autumn, and it's time for the tendrils to start working their way back in some more. It's times like this when a particularly pissy bout of PMS, or a really bad day of traffic, or an unusually somber news article will just set me off. Not cry. Not yell. Not rant.
Completely lose it.
And, of course, losing it makes me lost it even more because now I'm furious at myself for losing it in the first place.
If I'm lucky I won't get a panic attack.
I'm not usually very lucky.
You've not truly lived the sad suburban life till you've shut yourself in the house for a week to avoid people, then buckled into yourself in the throes of an attack so bad that you've literally forgetten how to breath, all while trying to dish up some food for your cats.
I've been curled up on the floor in the kitchen, my cats hiding in the living room because I'm wailing.
At everything.
I'm sure I'll delve more into that, but what starts it all off...
The tendrils.
These aren't delusions, or death/dying ideation, or emo cutting thoughts.
These are things that have actually happened, most long long ago, that replay in my head.
Thing is....it's EVRYTHING.
Every thing I've ever done that wronged anyone living with whom I've had contact, who I can remember (even if only by face or a nickname), at any point in my life, from my earliest memories.
e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.
ever bully someone?
you sure?
Ever shove someone? Ever say something mean about someone and they found out? Ever disappoint someone, for ANYTHING, at anytime? Ever fall short of yours or others' expectations? Ever do something that got completely misinterpreted/misunderstood? Ever get falsely accused of anything and then didn't defend yourself? Ever realise you did/said something stupid/careless and can't make amends or apologise? Ever do something you regret at all, regardless of the severity?
Add them all up.
Every single one you can remember, even if all you can remember is the reaction or the aftermath. Oh, and make sure your brain has decided that all things are equal in that you can feel as bad about a slight as you would for a serious infraction, and that you will think of them with equal frequency and with equal damnation, always defaulting to the worst possible reaction.
Oh, and there's no rhyme or reason as to which memories are going to trigger which others, so the same ones may come up multiple times BUT the truly vile ones have a greater chance of coming up more often and in more combinations.
Now play this in a loop. Well, not a loop so much as a constantly running program that grabs elements of one bad experience and finds others with similar key aspects, going through a thought cloud of brain bile.
Think of it as a Pandora for all the real nasty that can be contained in one's person's head about every last not-good thing they've ever done in their life.
Full surround sound, full HD colour, constantly running, going through all the possible permutations. You can maybe even still smell sweat, taste adrenaline tin-foil mouth, feel the closed-in feeling you had at the time it happened, whatever 'it' is. You may even get nauseated, claustrophobic, hysterically sad, sour-angry tummy, you may realise you're crying and can't stop it. Or maybe you'll get so stuffed up from crying that now you're so congested that you can't breath properly, which then triggers more claustrophobia and all you know is that under covers in a warm bedroom in the dark is the LAST place you want to be right now.
Now maybe you realise that you might wake up your partner (or even worse realise that you're alone), that you're crying over memories, that you can't change anything...
Now, try to fall asleep like this.
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