Sometimes diving too deep into the Rabbit Hole has something in stock that’s really messing up and shaking the very foundations of my resilience systems.

Not in terms of falling back into toxic habit loops or alcohol abuse, but something that keeps my psyche on its toes for longer than I would like to: Bad dreams, shaken emotionality and standing beside myself.

This is nothing to worry about too much, but it makes me think about the why and possible implications.

First of all, what was the trigger, the contents, what really shook my world?

If you have ever heard about a short story called “I have no mouth and I must scream” and/or you have read it, you might know what I am talking about. It is easily one of the most disturbing pieces of scifi – horror – philosophical writing I got the pleasure (or mispleasure?) to read.

I won’t spoil the contents or the ending, but there are some key factors which won’t easily align with my ability to incorporate it in a meaningful way into my personal philosophical dealings with existence, my Core, my emotionality, etc.

1. the Apocalypse
2. absolute helplessness
3. absolute external determination
4. a setting where self efficacy is in no way a possibility to help

Why does it qualify?

1. The apocalypse is something I deem as some sort of personal trauma. It guess it has to do with the fact that, as a fretful child and teenager, I was exposed to films like “The Day After”, and I grew up in the last decade of the Cold War with a massive escalation in the arms race, especially in Europe. Additionally, my exposure to polemic and alarmist theories and conclusions regarding Climate Change dug deep into my soul, where they still linger. I have learned to find some positive adaptation strategies, so today the Apocalypse is a predator without teeth to me these days. Stories and fiction in this regard, however, still scare the sh*t out of me, because the end is simply the END, no use of self efficacy, no way to do something meaningful.
2. helplessness of the character(s): Well, if you read/have read the story, you will soon find out that there is nothing the protagonists can actually do that won’t end up in total and utter failure that will in the end have them be punished even worse than what was before. Self efficacy or hope, in turn, will be turned against you.
3. absolute external determination: Similar to 2., but the knowledge about being manipulated by a diety in a way that it takes away your identity and you KNOW that it has done so, mirroring every day your ineptitude to do something, because you know you have been stripped of your ability to help yourself.
4. The setting itself is so bleak and so determinedly doom – and – gloom that no matter what the protagonists do, they know they won’t ever escape. They are simply at the mercy of the antagonist.

The interesting thing to draw out of this, in terms of taking something positive away from this (brilliantly bleak and disturbing) story is the following:

The antagonist is turning from a kind of victim into a perpetrator, torturing others who are weaker than him whom he can blame on being the way he is. The victims of this victim-perpetrator is, physically and psychologically, stripping his victims of every possible means of resilience and self – effective behavior. And that, my friends, is mobbing. Systematic mobbing. It is the same way bullies will manipulate their way into the minds of their victims, finding other people to assist in mobbing, to let the victims feel powerless and helpless, up to the brink or beyond the decisions of suicide.

Interestingly, this is giving me a sense of self – effective behavior, because I have, all my professional life, dedicated parts of my energy to fight mobbing and bullying whenever possible. That is when hell becomes other people…

Until next time, take one step at a time and keep up the faith in yourself.