I have been caught in a rut. In a spiraling stream of water that is heading down the drain. I have forgotten I have the tools I need. I am reclaiming these tools today, at this moment.

Physically I have been sick, very sick. Mentally, I have been suffering. And spiritually I have been fighting some unrecognizable battle.

I have found the answers, the passageway, my ‘out’ through careful observation of self, of others, and through letting go long enough to gain perspective.

I had a rumbling of insights that were more disturbing than pleasurable, like bad food on an empty stomach. I keep gurgling up something of self, and pushing it back down, in an attempt to stop this ghastly taste of me from penetrating my taste buds. I have been forging through the forest of reason in effort to find the end, the stopping point, the light into the resting field.

I have had no success in my futile ways. No success in the instigation of force or the instigation of spinning logic.

My only refuge has been in dismissing ego long enough to take a good look at the circumstances unclouded and without residue of pain and fear. To peek through the window as the observer and not the trembling wounded child. This has been difficult. Not an easy task: to dismiss the part of self that wants attention, recourse, answers, and love, and to let in the part of spirit that is complete. I have fought this process with clenched teeth and starving nails.

Essentially dragging my own physical self out of the cave she wished to remain within.

In stepping back and watching me gyrate, from one retched cave of bitter-pain to the next, I have noted the effect. I have witnessed how the deeper I dig in self-pity and remorse, the deeper I fall, and the more I attract further elements to solidify my pathetic state.

I have witnessed how like attracts like, how the more I became what others thought I was, the more I brought to me others who saw me the same.

Effectually, I was a metamorphosis in full swing, becoming what I focused upon.

I was told, while in a weakened physical state, that I was wrong. That I was twisted in my thinking. That I was creating my illness. I was told this repeatedly by doctors. But then the other doctors would come, and claim what illness I had. Explain to me the sickness, validate my physical pain. I could not find any reprieve. For one minute my reality was one person’s and the next the other’s.

I was so fragile in self, from the continuing weakened physical state, that I took on whatever the onlooker perceived me to be. I became a yo-yo in truth, vacillating based on a random output from others. One minute I was up with hope, one minute I was down. Of course, somewhere inside of me I became the judge and jury of right and wrong, of hope and no hope. I took the stimuli and decided within which person’s words were damaging and which were helpful.

Here was my first turn off the course of love: In thinking anyone beyond self could dictate who I was, how I felt, and how I would be.

I got caught up in the concept of time. In the clinging to output and the desperate need of outcome. I began to focus on the end and not the present. I began to fear the future and the unknowns. I forgot that there is no definite, there is not stagnant, there is no way to control anything.

Fear consumed me. And soon the past became my hauntings. And all I could here was the doctor’s judgments. I wanted nothing more than to be protected by the next onset of judgment placed on me. Nothing more than to sleep the time away and wake up outside of the hospital back in my bed with solutions, with the ability to live again, outside the debilitating illness.

My future became my only hope and my past my only nightmare. I was consumed in helplessness and dismal self-fear. I began to reach out for any glimpse of rescue. I began to panic. Terror took over, and I slipped further into the net of ego consumption. I became the feed, the broth, the stock for the over-bearing demolishing ghost of wanting. My desires took over. And everything began to collapse.

In my weakened physical state, having barely slept or eaten in weeks, I began to see everyone as the enemy. And in turn, they began to see me this way. This validated my worthlessness. This fed the fear further. Until, soon, there was nothing I could see clearly. I began running faster from my core self and began slipping further into self-demolishing-demise.

I was never depressed, but I was constantly forlorn and terrified.

None of what I had studied mattered. None of my angels could I hear. And none of my hope could I find.

People I knew found me in this state, and I became in their eyes what they wanted to see. I could feel it happening. A part of me watched as the others about me began to project their fears into me. I became a sponge of sorts, absorbing their negative energies—their shadows. Being an empath since birth this was my natural tendency. And being so weak, I had no will to protect myself from their self-reflection.

I became a mirror to everyone about me. I became sensitive to all their plights and pain. They put into me what I was putting out: disbelief, suspicion, fear, accusations, desperation, rescue. And the others, who were not in this state, the ones that were more content, more or less pleased with their world when they met me, they soothed my soul. I could feel their energy. Still it seemed some giant game of cat and mouse. I was being chased down by whatever mood the cat was in, either batted like paw to a string or scratched and scratched, the post itself.

Soon I was such a mess, I was hysterical. Fear entirely consumed me. I could not help but cry and rage. I exploded like a child. I was helpless in all degrees, every part of me severed. Still the observer of my own self watched from a distant, though he faded in and out now.

At home, the situation did not change. My children were enough dismissed by their own actions, that my mood and altercations did not affect them enough to project my fear back to me. But the adults were not as removed. They were too close to me. And soon I became what they saw, too. They absorbed my fear, and I absorbed theirs and we existed as this interchange of pain, blame, and desperation.

Had I known how to stop, I would. But I could not see the all as an extension of self. I could not see that the poison in me was leaking out everywhere. I was already so weak and afraid, and all I wanted was support, but my own power, my own ability to manifest from my emotional state my physical world, became my own greatest injury. I was limping by my own doing, using fear for a crutch, unable to look and realize the situation.

Soon more and more around me became my enemy, validating my worthlessness and fear. Soon their fear grew exponentially. At a time I needed nothing more than unconditional love and affection, I was judged, controlled, criticized and belittled. All of me became subject of fixing. Here I felt in defense and went into fight mode. Here I let fear entirely take over.

I’d forgotten how beautiful I am.

I discovered myself perpetuating this ‘fear,’ bringing this fear into other friendships and relationships. I began to spill out. And more and more ‘unfortunate’ events transpired. I don’t accept blame for my circumstance. I refuse to self-punish. I refuse to bring further fear into me. I also do not blame others. I spent enough of the past day doing so. I still have a quench of anger and a quench of distaste for those I encountered. But I recognize if others project into me, then I must in theory project into them. We are equal players. A tango exists, and neither is the leader or the follower, both trapped in this movement where fear is the dictator.

I have found my only refuge is in the continual release of all anger and blame; this means for self and others. Holding onto self-punishment or the punishment of others is detrimental.

I have remembered what I have been taught in the last two years, through readings, meditations, dreams, and daylight visions. I have been shown how to alleviate my pain and suffering through the release of past and present, through the release of all emotions not representational of love. I cannot go back and fix what has happened, nor can I make amends for what was. I only can stitch my own wounds back together with the thread of awareness and growth and confirm to self I did the best I knew with what I had. I can treat myself with self-respect and enough love to dispel the fear. I can let go of what will be of the future and what will come of the past. And stop replaying the ghosts in my head, the ones feeding me horrible lies of self. These are in my control: letting go, being in the present, focusing on love and love alone.

This is my life boat. To be. To love. To live.

I have had a hard time of it for certain. In some ways, I know I created the chaos. In some ways, I know others were active participants. Where I end and others begin is still a grand mystery to me. Many a reader has told me I read his or her mind when I write. That I seem to capsulate the aspie experience. But what if they are reading mine? What if we are one mind? What if this is just one giant stream of consciousness, and I’m just a water drop with a voice?