The Truth

Not long ago, I read an article about a process called sensory gating.

Which claims that we naturally filter out redundant or unnecessary stimuli, as a means of stopping an overload of irrelevant information in the higher cortical centers of the brain. The point of this is to allow us a basic understanding of our surroundings with a handful of accents to colour the scene in the vein of sounds, sights and smells.

That is however, unless you’ve taken LSD. 

In a room I’d been in countless times, with the same small group of close friends that I’d experienced this very thing with many times before, somebody had unlatched the gate, and I was a little overwhelmed. 

In fact, more than a little. 

Sitting in a chair, propped up on my left elbow, I could feel my brain running through the trillions of computations necessary to render the entire image that lay before me. Geometrically building the space one pixel at a time. Rifling through the known spectrum of colours to identify exactly what shade of beige that speck of carpet was 154cm away from my left eye. 

I was settling down now though, the background had been almost entirely filled in, and I could see the truth again.

I had been sitting in that spot for aeons. Entire lifetimes had begun, flourished and been forgotten, and my mind was still whirring away, trying to find some definitive proof that I could in fact see the sound waves rippling into the air from the speakers to the right of me – or whether it had actually only been 5 minutes. I hadn’t quite figured out either.

I’d still been interacting throughout this experience, laughing in that contagious way with my friends about something innocuous, but it had felt more organic than laughing ever previously had. I could feel how the sound was being made; breath rasping from my constricted throat as my lungs squeezed the last wisps from me, my abdomen cramping against the constant contractions, which only made us laugh harder. I was settling down now though, the background had been almost entirely filled in, and I could see the truth again.

From the article (that I briefly skimmed through), the system that builds the foundations of our own realities begins at birth. We come squalling into the world with a fairly mature set of functional sensory systems (with sight being the sense that’s only somewhat organised), but no perceptual knowledge, which we have to gain through experience with the world around us. Everything we encounter has to be processed and categorised, folders have to be made, filing systems implemented and cross-checked constantly to make sure there are no repeats. Experience-analyse-cross check-categorise-understand. Is it any wonder that babies cry so much? 

It was when these building blocks of understanding were eventually placed in my mind as a child. When all the shapes, colours, sounds and smells had coalesced to form the objective truth before me, that I could finally make out the little dark spot on the peripheries of my sight. Like a dead pixel in a camera lens – no matter how far I zoomed out, it was always there. 

Once processed, the information hardens, the sensory gating takes place and your brain gets to work on any situational unknowns, as you make your way through the vast quagmire of life.

Love. Death. Can I make it across this road before that Fiat hits me? 

But an ever-present in all of this was the dark spot. 

No matter how small it was I could always see it, and it was all I could think about. How do I remove it? How can I ignore it? Will it ever go away?

So I looked for happiness to try and blot it out. It became my boulder. Like Sisyphus I strained against the weight of the knowledge that I was trapped, and yet I would keep fighting to reach the peak and to be free from it. The hope that drove me into lovers’ arms, friend groups, and “just one more beer.” I thought if I could only reach the top then I could change the truth, but I knew I couldn’t. 

Sitting in the now almost fully generated room with my friends I shift from my left arm to the other side of the chair, to lean on my right elbow. As I do so, my brain goes into overdrive again. A change so minute had occurred, and yet so powerful. My head had moved only a few inches but now I saw the world in an entirely different way again. The computations in my mind begin from scratch and the boulder tumbles down the mountain. I’m confused, so I start with what I know.

The dark spot. 

Working outwards from the core truth of the dark spot in the centre of my being, I spread and expand. Little distributaries carving tiny wrinkles into my brain about who I am, all beginning from the darkness.

In fact, this process had repeated itself in every area of my life. Every once in a while the darkness would overflow, reclaiming everything that had grown and leaving an empty maw, the undeniable truth. There is something wrong with me. There will always be something wrong with me. It will never go away. It would stay there, staring me in the eye, until it slowly shrank away, and the process would restart. 

The average timeline was 2 months.

A change so minute had occurred, and yet so powerful, my head had moved only a few inches but now I saw the world in an entirely different way again.

I could never break free from the truth, and the truth was no matter what I tried, no matter what I did, the darkness was at my core.

Therapy was just another tool I’d utilised over the years to break free from the cycle, but in and of itself it was a part of the cycle. I went to free/donation only therapists for three summers between each of my university years, but all of them were hamstrung in any true attempt to help me by the limited time I was with them (at most for 10 weeks), though at least it allowed me to feel like I was trying. I had to believe there was a chance I could break free from it. 

But I knew. 

Of course, there were clear warning signs for a long time. I would have to sacrifice more than just an hour on a Tuesday afternoon every summer in the quest for happiness, and yet I was adept at ignoring this fact too.

Drinking would accelerate the cycle, whatever stage it was at. I’d push the boulder with more vigour and enthusiasm on the ascent, but the resulting carnage it caused when I peaked would leave me shattered and exhausted. The frictious white lines that marked the well worn breaking point stretched and grew on those around me. 

So, unsurprisingly, one day they snapped. 

And through that I sacrificed drinking too. Though it was too little, too late. 

When I returned to therapy now it was through desperation, not belief. I wasn’t pushing anymore. I was at the bottom, and I was just about stopping it from crushing me. 

See, suicide had always felt like an option to me, but I’d imagined it as an eventuality I chose because I was done with everything else. 

Now it felt like an inevitability. Like the tempting offer of sleep during a blizzard. And I was afraid of what would happen if I let my focus slip and took it.  

Over time I managed to recoup some energy. The truth was still there, but the hope began to grow again too. I started pushing slowly, with more stability and patience than before. The steady metronome of meetings kept me that way, but I still didn’t think too far ahead. 

One task I was given (and to tell you the truth I didn’t see the point in) was to make a list of 5 things I was grateful for that day. I did it sporadically at first, but one day I decided to commit to it, and I did it every day before bed. They would be the simplest things, and at first I felt like I was struggling to even find them. What on earth am I grateful for? 

The sound of the bells ringing out from all the churches in the city on Sunday. 

Seeing a muscular pitbull wait for its owner to give him his life jacket, so he can go swimming in a dog park. 

A mum and her son running for the tram and laughing together. 

And then situationally things changed too.

I found my own apartment. 

A new job.

A new group of friends I connected with. 

And then, almost without me realising, it clicked. 

I had reached the peak, but the peak was flat. I didn’t need to push anymore.

A change so minute had occurred and yet so powerful. My head had moved only a few inches but I saw the world in an entirely different way now.

For the first time in my life the dark spot was gone.

For the first time in my life, I saw that it was possible.