My Computer and its Code

I’ve been trying to describe what my brain has felt like for the past month since my diagnosis. What I picture is an ancient desktop computer, large and bulky, running advanced green code across the screen, one line at a time. When the code fills up the space, the computer goes blank for a second and then starts over. It runs down the screen, symbol by symbol, line by line.

My brain= computer

Code= whatever the f has just happened 

The code appears far too advanced for the computer's software. The computer is old, comfortable, and worn in. The code is beautifully complex, seemingly unsolvable with loopholes and special characters that the computer has to interpret and learn. The computer should have flashed a “code incompatible” and powered down at first site of this problem. The computer did not power down. It began computing.

My brain began computing one month ago and it hasn't stopped since. It works tirelessly sifting and sorting through pieces of information, trying to make sense of it all. It rearranges the order a thousand times trying to get it right.

This go, go, go, mirages itself well, manifesting in “positive outlets” like creativity. It is the same creativity that helped me design a blog in three days. It is the same creativity that gave life to the writing pieces found here. I think people believe I have a choice to write my story. I do not. When I get an idea, I sit down and it pours out of me whether it takes twenty mins or two hours. I’ve been calling them my “Alexander Hamilton moments.” I believe I’ve gotten a taste of the mania he must have felt to write 51 federalist papers in such a short time. His brain was in overdrive. He was computing.

The real issue is this computer is an overachiever. A 9-5 work day won’t cut it. Actually, it has designated 11pm- 8am for its prime hours of operation.

I go to sleep and I think I’ve powered the computer off. I pray for rest. But when I wake again and my consciousness meets my thoughts, I find that the computer is still coding. It is the in-between dream state that has been sacrificed. Do you know what I’m talking about? The moment you wake up, when your brain is foggy and you’re half-in/half-out of a dream until reality hits and you come-to? My dream state, once vague and abstract, filled with visions of eating cotton candy clouds with a childhood friend, is now assaulted with rapid, lucid questions. When will I lose my hair? Will I break from the trauma? Can I go back to school in the fall? Is this as bad as it gets? Am I okay? When will life be normal? Why is my mind racing? I thought I was asleep. Am I ever really asleep? It never stops.

This computer deceives me at night. It turns itself back on perhaps minutes after I have powered it off. You may be wondering how a plastic and metal machine turns itself back on or confused how the metaphor aligns with the code still running while I am still asleep. I am confused by that too. Can a computer be “off” and “on” at the same time? Am I ever really asleep? I’m not sure.

I feel sad for this overachieving, unyielding, never satisfied computer. Is she broken? Is that why she won’t stop running? I think she can be fixed. I want to tell her, “It’s summer break! Please, take some time off!” 

I long for the day when the computer slips into that resting state...the one where the stock photos of vast mountain scapes play across the screen, inducing a state of calm. That feels a long way off. For now, my mission is to live in harmony with the constant buzz of the hard drive. To find peace in its alive-ness. That is what I can control today.

Xo,

M