Letters from the Edge of Tolerance

Life is as beautiful as it is ugly. That feels like a contradiction until you live it long enough to realize it is just the operating system. Time does not care if you are winning or drowning. It keeps moving forward, dragging you with it like you are a loose thread on a jacket you never asked to wear.

We get love. We get hate. We get tenderness and we get teeth. The wild part is how evenly life hands them out, like it is trying to be fair while it is actively ruining your day.

And of course we look for an escape.

Mine came from BDSM.

I found it young. Young enough that people would have opinions before they would have empathy. I was barely the age of consent when I started, and yes, I know how that sounds when you say it out loud. But it was consensual, it was structured, and it was the first time I experienced something that felt like control without chaos. It was the first time rules meant safety instead of punishment.

Under my mistress I learned things that sound dirty if you only read them one way, but feel holy if you understand why they mattered. I learned what it meant to surrender without being erased. To kneel and still be seen. To be handled with intention instead of being handled like damage. I learned that pain can be chosen, and when pain is chosen it stops being a weapon and becomes a language.

It is poetic, in a sick way, how life pairs trauma with escapism. Like it hands you a bruise, then offers you a velvet glove and says, see, balance.

Even in romance and pain, I find a comfortable numbness to it all. That weird middle place where you are not okay, but you are functional. You laugh at the right times. You say the right things. You play the role. You survive. You call it living because that is what everyone else calls it.

My mind is always dark, dredging up the past just to remind me of all the wretchedness. Like it is afraid that if I forget the worst parts, I will let my guard down and the universe will take that as permission to swing harder.

Why was I chosen to suffer so much?

I know, I know. Nobody is chosen. The world is not a storybook. Suffering is not a prize. Trauma is not a prophecy. But tell that to the part of my brain that keeps tally like a petty accountant with a grudge.

I have always considered my existence to be paired with suffering and pain. Not in a dramatic, romantic way. More like a background hum. Like the refrigerator buzz you stop noticing until the power goes out and you realize how loud it always was.

And then there is the physical stuff, the insecurity stuff, the stupid stuff that still matters even when you tell yourself it should not.

I do not believe I am attractive. Even when someone tells me otherwise, my reflex is to downplay it. I call myself average. I joke. I hide behind sarcasm. I act like it is all fine. Then I turn around and admit the most ridiculous, honest detail: magnum condoms are the only ones that do not make me go soft or feel too tight.

There. That is the kind of truth you laugh at because if you do not laugh you might actually feel something.

I always question if I am even material for a relationship or if I am just some joke or farce. Like I am built wrong. Like I am a draft someone forgot to finish but shipped anyway.

So here I am. Why do I exist? Why am I still here, alive yet dead inside, broken like a shattered mirror?

I trudge along anyway, only here because I am not all there. I think therefore I am. Yet I am nothing. That is the loop. That is the punchline. Consciousness is a cruel gift when you are wired to remember everything that hurt you and question everything that tries to love you.

I paint myself in tattoos not for the art, but for the pain. To remind me I still feel, even if it is a hollow mockery of what feeling is supposed to be. Tattoos are proof. Ink is evidence. It says, I was here, I endured, I made the pain mean something instead of letting it mean me. 

I have learned time and time again that the only real person you can trust is yourself. Trust is not hard for me because I do not understand it. Trust is hard because I understand exactly what happens when it breaks. 

Valentine’s is always rough for me. My ex wife’s birthday. Our marriage anniversary. The day we got divorced. Also the day I poured everything I had into a lasting gift and watched her mock it like my effort was embarrassing. Romantic holiday, right? Nothing says love like a date that feels cursed on multiple calendars at once.

I have tried many times to remove myself from the world, but like always, failure through and through. Even quitting, I could not get right. 

But fuck always living like woe is me.

Even if my wife cheated on me with my father.

Read that again if you want to feel your brain do that little blue screen of death thing. That sentence is so absurd it almost sounds fictional, like a plot twist written by someone trying too hard. Yet it happened, and I am still here, and I still have to make coffee and pay bills and pretend I am normal in conversations where nobody knows what to do with a truth like that.

Someone out there has had it worse, right? Or am I just saying that because minimizing my own pain is safer than admitting it crushed me?

Fuck if I know.

Life is like a sick twisted joke, but we all persevere whether we want to or not. Some people call that resilience. Some people call it stubbornness. I call it involuntary participation.

Is it better to stay a fuck boy, keep it casual, keep it shallow, keep it safe? Or is it better to settle down and risk becoming a target again? I am apathetic, but also a dark empath. I understand emotions but barely feel them the way I should. I can map feelings like a mechanic diagnosing an engine, but I do not always feel the heat until something catches fire.

So yeah, sometimes it feels like I am the ass end of some god’s joke.

Will I succeed more than I fail, or will my failures haunt me like the ghosts of my trauma?

Dax had it right with To Be a Man and Dear Alcohol. I have fallen into the bottom of a bottle more than once, not because it fixed anything, but because it made the world quieter for a few hours. Sometimes quiet is the closest thing to peace I can afford.

And now I have moved to start a new chapter, but I still cannot seem to get a job. I get interviews, plenty of them. One to three a week sometimes. I do the right prep. I say the right words. I smile at the right moments. I shake hands, metaphorically or literally. Then I get the polite rejection that reads like a form letter and feels like a confirmation of every ugly thing I have ever believed about myself.

Time keeps moving. I keep applying. The joke keeps writing itself.

So what is this post, really?

It is not a cry for pity. I do not want that. It is not a manifesto. It is not a goodbye. It is just me holding my own thoughts in my hands long enough to look at them without flinching.

Life is beautiful. Life is ugly. Love is real. Hate is real. Pleasure can be medicine. Pain can be grounding. BDSM gave me a door when the room had no windows, and I am still grateful for that.

I do not have a clean ending. I do not have a heroic lesson. I have a pulse, a dark sense of humor, some ink, some scars, and the annoying fact that I am still here.

Maybe that is the whole thing.

Not victory. Not defeat.

Just continuation. 

Have you ever lain awake at night, staring at the ceiling, while a cacophony of voices in your head refuses to let you rest? It's not the peaceful silence most people crave before sleep—it's a battlefield. For me, these aren't just fleeting thoughts; they're persistent intruders, my inner demons, screaming and arguing relentlessly. I never know why, but at times, all they do is scream and argue in my mind, preventing me from sleep. They twist the quiet hours into torment, leaving me exhausted and frayed.

These demons aren't abstract; they have faces, names, and agendas. They remind me of my lack of worth, whispering—or shouting—insults that cut deep. What's worse is their cruel game: they build me up first, inflating my ego with false praise, only to tear me down moments later. The crash is harder every time, like falling from a greater height. It's a cycle of emotional whiplash that leaves me questioning everything—my value, my decisions, my very existence.

Then there's Damian. He's the most visceral of them all, always clawing at the walls of my mind, demanding violence. His urges are primal, a raw hunger for destruction that I have to fight back constantly. It's exhausting, this internal tug-of-war, where reason battles impulse, and one wrong move could spill into the real world. Damian doesn't care about consequences; he thrives on the chaos, pushing me toward edges I'd rather not approach.

And the collective? They're a chorus of madness, always shouting insanity and gibberish while erring on the side of chaos. It's like a deranged committee meeting in my skull—endless debates that go nowhere, filled with nonsense that somehow feels profoundly disruptive. They amplify every doubt, every fear, turning minor worries into apocalyptic scenarios. In their world, order is the enemy, and they drag me along for the ride, whether I want it or not.

Living with these inner demons is like carrying a vial of poison you can't set down. I try to ignore them, to push them into the background noise of daily life. Distractions help—work, hobbies, conversations with friends—but they're always there, waiting for a quiet moment to strike. Therapy, meditation, even medication: I've tried it all, with varying degrees of success. Some days, I win; the voices fade to a murmur. Other days, they roar back louder than ever.

Warning: This is a piece of fragility wrapped in my ever present insanity as a futile attempt to cope with things that no one should have to.

In the scorched earth of my mind, where memories flicker like dying embers, I stand amid the ruins of a life forged in the furnace of unrelenting trauma. Dissociative Identity Disorder, that fractured mirror of the soul, reflects not one face but many, each born from the ashes of Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. A childhood laced with shadows, where trust was a fragile flame snuffed out too soon, leaving me to navigate this labyrinth of selves. We are not whole, not singular, but a fragile alliance teetering on the edge of chaos. At our core, three voices echo in the void: the one who writes these words, desperately clinging to the reins; Damian, the inferno of unbridled fury; and the collective, a swirling madness of whispers that tempt the abyss.

We gather in the dim council of my thoughts, forming a consensus that demands an odd number, a precarious balance to tip the scales away from deadlock. Three, five, sometimes more emerge from the haze, but always uneven, always teetering. It is our pact, our survival code etched in the embers of forgotten pains. Yet control slips like smoke through my fingers, tenuous as a spark in the wind. I, the anchor, strive to hold the line, to weave our threads into something resembling sanity. But the flames lick higher, and depression's heavy shroud descends, a weight that presses me into the ground, whispering of worthlessness, of endless nights where dawn feels like a cruel jest.

Damian rises first, rage incarnate, a blaze that consumes without mercy. He demands violence in every breath, every heartbeat a war drum calling for blood. In moments of intermittent fury, he bursts forth, seizing my limbs, my words, leaving trails of regret in his wake. I awaken from these blackouts, staring at shattered glass or bruised knuckles, questioning the deeds done in my name but not by my hand. Other times, subtler, he borrows my voice, twisting it into snarls and threats that echo long after he retreats. He is the fire that devours forests, the uncontrolled burn that leaves nothing but ash. Born from the betrayals that scarred us young, he guards the perimeter with flames, ensuring no intruder dares approach. But his protection is a double edged sword, cutting deep into the fragile peace we build.

Then comes the collective, that embodiment of pure insanity, a chorus of intrusive thoughts and random urges that dance on the precipice of reason. They are the what ifs that pull at the edges of reality: what if you stepped off this ledge, feet dangling over the void, wind whispering sweet release? What if your hands wrapped around a throat, twisting, turning, calculating the rotations needed to sever life from body? Three full turns, perhaps four, they murmur, their questions probing depths that should remain sealed. They are the madness that laughs in the silence, urging leaps into the unknown, prodding at boundaries with gleeful abandon. From harmless curiosities to the grotesque, they flood the mind like wildfire spreading through dry grass, igniting doubts and desires that scorch the soul. They are not one, but many fragments fused into a single, chaotic entity, born from the fractures of trauma that splintered us apart.

Together, we burn. I, the weary mediator, fight to douse the flames, to channel Damian's rage into words rather than fists, to silence the collective's siren calls before they drag us under. But depression lurks in the smoke, a suffocating fog that blurs the lines between us. It whispers of futility, of a life forever up in flames, where hope is but a fleeting spark extinguished by the next gust. Mornings become battles to rise from bed, the weight of unseen wounds pinning me down, while nights stretch into eternities of hollow ache. The trauma echoes, a relentless blaze, replaying scenes of abandonment and pain that fuel our divisions. CPTSD's legacy is this eternal fire, where triggers ignite old infernos, pulling Damian to the forefront or unleashing the collective's torrent.

Yet in this conflagration, there is a strange poetry. We are the phoenix, rising from our own ashes, time and again. The consensus holds, odd numbered and unyielding, a ritual that binds us. When Damian roars for destruction, I counter with restraint, and the collective adds their wild queries, tipping the vote toward survival. It is not harmony, but a discordant symphony, notes clashing like flames against night. I maintain control, however fragile, threading the needle between selves. Some days, the fire warms; others, it consumes. But we persist, a testament to resilience forged in hellfire.

In the quiet moments, when the blaze simmers to coals, I ponder the origins. A life filled with trauma: the sharp sting of neglect, the thunder of raised voices, the invisible scars that burrow deep. DID emerges as armor, splitting the unbearable into manageable pieces. CPTSD weaves its web, ensnaring us in hypervigilance and despair. Major depression cloaks it all, a shadow that dims even the brightest embers. But here, in these words, I reclaim a spark. Damian grumbles in the background, demanding release; the collective poses riddles that twist the mind. Yet I write on, holding the quill steady.

Up in flames we go, a bonfire of broken parts, illuminating the darkness that birthed us. Perhaps one day the fire will purify, burning away the pain until only wholeness remains. Until then, we dance in the inferno, three and more, an odd alliance against the night.

So the best way to start this off is to give a bit of a diagnosis, most people don't talk about this kind of stuff because it's a "touchy" topic. But I, at a very young age; 8 years old; was diagnosed with the following:

• Self anihilation disorder
• Obsessive compulsive disorder
• Attention deficit hyperactive disorder
• Depression
• Anxiety
• Insomnia
• Intermittent rage disorder
• Dyslexia

And recently I have had these reconfirmed and the list added to:

• Manic depressive disorder
• I do not have panic attacks, I have a more severe version known as manic attacks. Basically I have to calm myself or I will have essentially a heart attack, so I take Ativan
• Flashbacks (thanks army)
• Legally deaf, even though I can hear; most of the time.
• Acid reflux disease

And the list goes on for a while, but after years of treatment and working on myself. I have learned to manage all of this without medications. 

Now everyday I spend ten minutes convincing myself that today will be just like the rest, and it's fine for me to continue living, and that's it is not ok to be a mass murderer( just kidding there). No I actually have to give myself the will to exist daily. And reaffirm to myself that suicide is for cowards. 

After that I pray for 20 minutes at my alter, the I go on about my day. From there just before bed I pray, squaring away my mind and soul, and hope that I won't wake the next morning. When I enevitably do I repeat the process. I plan to live my life fully enjoying everything that makes me happy.