Parasite

I am a parasite.

I don't say this in some analysis of the relationship between mankind and the world, or as a means of dredging counterarguments from those that read this. I say it because as I look at the evidence with an open mind, I find it to be undeniable. I am a parasitic organism.

How can I say this? Well I can't live on my own. I've lived on my own or mostly on my own before and it's weeks or at the very most months before it all falls apart.

I'm riddled with physical and mental issues. Many of which without medication my capacity to function within modern society would boil down to nothing. I have ADD, trace amounts of OCD, Seasonal affectation disorder, diabetes, gout, allergies, and what is effectively arthritis. At 29 that's quite the laundry list of disfunction. If it weren't for my parents putting up with me as long as they have I don't know where I would be and if honestly I would be alive. I owe them a greater debt than I think I will ever be able to repay. I love them dearly and wish that I could do more. And I try to do more though it doesn't always look like it.

I am at my most fundamental a broken thing. Flawed is perhaps the better word, but I prefer the images the broken conjures. It lets me pretend that may someday be something with the power to fix me. But that's really just hopeful jibberish. The only way forward is to continue forward. One awkward and painful step at a time.

Now, for those of you positive thinkers who merely think that it's a matter of thinking the right way, "happiness is a choice" and all that bollocks. Please remember that I know this. It's not some mystical secret that will open my heart to the universe. I remember the secrets I'm told. And as secrets go, this is a bit of rubbish.

You haven't been inside my mind.

Imagine standing at the center of a storm. One large enough to have an eye. The kind of huge angry storm that casts princes to their destinies and tears away at mountains like onion paper. Great clouds lashed into a frenzy by the lightning lash of an angry god.

That's what it's like at it's worst. It's a storm to be endured. When it's gentle I can find means of tricking it. Of directing it. But it's not easy, and it's not always worth the cost to command it. But it's this aspect of my mind that makes me a parasite. I need others to help me sort it through. To fight it and live my life.

A parasite by it's fundamental nature is incomplete. They lack something. A potential to protect themselves. The ability to gather their own energy. A great bleeding hole in their heart that forever bleeds but refuses to let you die. These are what make a parasite. A lacking.

So they latch onto something else. Some other creature that can fulfill that lack. If they're kind and considerate they find a way to give something back. They achieve symbiosis. The mitochondria in our cells. The bacteria in our guts. They're mooches. They're leaching off the things that we have that they don't. But they help us out along the way.

Don't take me wrong. This writing is done with a full understanding of my positive traits. I'm painfully aware of them. I'm not fishing for people to tell me what a "Great Guy" I am or shower me with hugs and well wishes. In all reality that would further aggravate the problem. Because there are far too many times when it really doesn't matter what's good about me. That gaping hole filled with illness and madness...

It's always still there.

Tripping me.
Tearing at me.
Defining me.

And letting me drink of the truth in the bitter cup.

I am a parasite. And I'm sorry for that.