Paranoia — A Coping Mechanism

I dimly remember that moment. It was the first instance I was conscious of that inner alarm — which was to then occupy me, scare me and be a part of me for a long long time.

Thoughts of incompetency and inability had entered into me and shocked me like those waves of tsunami. All of a sudden. I looked at myself in a different light. No longer was I an existence drifting around sniffing the next dopamine releaser without a concern and clue. I was a young man, a family-member and a citizen — and a failed one at all that!

I had spent my life up to that point in the perfect sense of blissful ignorance. My sense of myself, the people and the world around me limited to my idea of an ideal person and my next hedonistic move. Anyone or anything that did not fit into these categories were useless.

It didn’t matter to me how and where my income was to come or the income of my family came from, let alone how and where the society I lived in, its culture, my nation, humans, life and the Universe came from.

And then that moment.

I know now that it was a very natural thing to happen. Just an alarm of entering into adulthood. But for me it came as a shock: A shock at the sight of what was there in the world in contrast to what I had been seeing. A shock at the realization of what I had to actually do in contrast to what I had been doing. A shock on hearing the things that had to be heard in contrast to the music with which I was myself deafening.

I have talked to a lot of people about this. For most people all this is a normal transition. An entry into adulthood. They grow up with some amount of maturity. If they act careless, it’s only out of the realization that life will soon be adding some serious shackles in them: Do it now because soon you can’t!

For me it was different. Hence, the shock.

I started to seriously freakout. I suddenly found flaws in the shoes I wore — Why on earth are the toe box so rough?

I found flaws in the pants, shirts I wore. The hair I kept. The way I walked. The things I talked or didn’t talk about. The people I met!

Next few months went by in great agony and anxiety. I found flaws in absolutely everything about me. Hadn’t been a normal let alone a good friend, son, grandson, brother, nephew, class-member, citizen, human. My whole existence was flawed. I was paranoid, but I was correct!

I should probably end it all!

Some people need a stare into an abyss in order to be able to notice the sky above.

I was one of them.

I think that is where I found a solution. The concept of existence and the possibility to ending it all may have provided me the slightest relief. It may have prompted me to think a little bit more. Ask myself again. Answer whether it was all an end or something could be done.

Answer: What is fear? What are my thoughts trying to tell? Why do I need to feel this way? Can I feel any other way? How do I feel any other way? How do others feel? What is all this? What is going on? What the hell is life? Why am I here? What are they so cocky about? Why are some confident? Why am I weak? What are emotions? What are thoughts? Why do I feel good when I think about all these things and write them down? What if I write more…What if I write even more?. Why does writing feel so good? What if I write for the rest of my life? What if I don’t care about all that and just bloody write…..

I started to express all that happened in me through poems. I never wrote regular poetry before that.

One day -> One thought -> One feeling = One Poem

And so I started composing poems. Everytime I had a poor thought, a miserable feeling, I wrote a poem.

Each time I wrote, I felt clearer and better.

Days turned into weeks, weeks into months, months into years. And so half a decade passed by. Poetry was my best source of understanding, expressing and feeling good. I just wrote! In Nepali, in English: I wrote a lot of poems. I fought all my weaknesses with poems, I gathered strength with poems. I cried with poems, laughed with poems. I learnt with books but understood with poems.

I learnt and did my best to firstly be a friend, son, grandson, brother, nephew, class-member, citizen, human. I found my role, I found my responsibilities. I created myself.

And so, five years and more than 100 Nepali Poems later, I published my first book on poetry with 70 of them:

A year later,

I compiled, edited and published PARANOIA. A collection of 50+ Poems in English:

Here is the free pdf:

fraweanarts.com/wp-content/uploads/PARANOIA-Adesh-Acharya.pdf