Polar Opposites

I teeter between self preservation and self destruction.
Though it seems as though a very wide expanse could live between these two polar opposites, the line is very fine indeed.
In fact, if I am not exactly in between, my pendulum swings all the way to either side.

The idea of anything harmful but avoidable drives me to wrap myself up as tightly as possible as to not let the wrong things in. To keep it all out is to keep safe in case the good things go bad. I seek distance and loneliness to maintain a controlled world of very few variables. I was born with tendencies toward severe anxiety, stress and depression. So it is that I block out that senses and outside forces that would aggravate these tendencies. As best I can, that is. Because life happens so widely outside one's realm of understanding and will.

So when under these closed-in environments, negative things still occur, things that deeply shake me down, I am spurned to the other side. Practically embracing nihilism and fatalism and existentialism. I seek out things that are short term bursts of life and end up as long term spirals of doubt. I figure that if I cannot control things to keep me well that I might as well just do exactly as I please. I might as well experience everything I can while I can because the light will go out soon enough. Like the melancholy cousin of carpe diem.

But when I am locked up, I am so cold and empty.
And when I am out and lashing, I am stone and anger.

I cannot maintain the in between for long. The smallest infractions trigger the biggest fall outs. I absorb everything so deeply, so perceptible am I to others' reactions and follies. It comes in and rots and begins the cycle again.

I do not expect happiness. I just wish for some form of peace. To be able to sleep. To be able to let things go. To be able to grow and move and learn. To be able to process in a healthy way.
I feel as though I have done so much work already. I keep wondering when I will get to coast a little, when something will not constantly require more of me.
I am hoping as I age it will become easier. But it seems so far away.

And perhaps this is my strict upbringing or some sort of distorted Puritanism, but I feel as though I will never deserve to not be so heavy souled. It is as though I have used up all of my graces and what has come to me is what should be with me. Someone must pay for my transgressions. I am scared to move forward because I am never sure when I have finished paying. Life costs too much. It requires too much of me. I would rather forgo the good if it means I could forgo the bad. The repercussions of my self destruction are likely to reinforce my self preservation.