the NPC who tells you the bridges are open

The other day, I read a book called The Brain Plague, about microbial people who inhabited humans and regard them as gods and worlds. A pretty decent read, though heavier on ideas than on quality writing (as with most scifi), and I liked it. 

The plagues of the title occurred when the human host/god stopped being in charge and instead the micro people ruled and acted without constraints. (That unnuanced summary suggests some dreadful political analogies, but I promise it's better in the story.) Living in the brain, the unruly micro people were able to manipulate chemicals, creating great pain or great pleasure or subtler, more dangerous effects, allowing them to manipulate their god. 

I started thinking about this earlier in the context of my own brain. I'd intended to go to college this evening, weather permitting, for a revision class. Deferring is still my plan, but I'm hoping to pass the exams in January and not need to retake this semester's courses when I return to studying. I need to do well in those because the exam gives only 70% of the total marks and I failed to submit any assignments. I'm obviously going to need every mark I can get, so it mattered to me that I attend tonight's class.

I didn't. Even earlier in the day, I had this miasma of apprehension about going to class. All the usual worries - it will be cold and unpleasant getting there and getting home, you've missed so many classes so you'll feel out of place, you've missed so many classes so you'll be frowned upon, you should be ashamed. Nothing very concrete, little (though enough) to pick at and dismiss with CBT, collectively pressing me down under a hand of disgust and despair. 

I crossed the bridge for home, still undecided, but feeling the "don't go/I don't want to go/it's not safe for you" crowd in on me. It was dark and cold and sad out. I needed to be safe. 

Inside, I dumped all my belongings and coat as usual, immediately tended the gadgets that reassure and distract me. PC, radiator, iPad. I turned each of them on and my anti-college mind shape relaxed its grip, feeling me prepare for a night in. It took me food and about ten minutes gazing at IRC and twitter before I could contemplate college again. I looked at the clock and thought about it, and like swift chastisement from angry brain inhabitants (!) the sense of being too terrible to leave the house, a waste of space, punched back in. Some more self-torment - ah, overtime, I hope it's worth it. 

Each time I obey the life-neutralising feeling bundles like the anti-college collection or the people-hate-you party, I'm left with shame and relief. I want to do the things they stop me doing, I don't want to do them, and it's a matter of luck or support which way I end up swinging. Perhaps if it was really a group of tiny people, I could reason with them, get them on my side?. I know that in years of thinking and writing to the school-phobic side of me, nothing in there has changed; it's more resilient than any of my other, dwindling hangups. Indeed, the farther I get from past genuinely horrible experiences, the less I dare to do. I'm beginning to think this is a battle I can't win alone, not yet. 

What a week. It's been an excellent one in terms of college: I'm back on track, I've learned stuff, made it to every class this week, my marked assessments got As, I've sorted out an arrangement regarding my undone assignment that will make this the first semester when I've done *every* assignment. I'm proud of myself.

(I also nearly exploded with anxiety during my last class as I realised with horror how little I knew, unable to answer any of the six questions scrawled on the board. Twisted my legs and arms across each other, drew patterns on my arms, frantic for distraction. A break came and I rushed out and around the building, moving from a fast walk into a run as I tried to scrub off the stress by splitting the air with my body. Yet I stayed at college, stayed for another hour, learned, unknotted, relaxed.)

Dreamwidth-wise, it's been excellent too. I'm settling in, meeting so many new, interesting people: my reading list has just *exploded*. It took me about seven years on LJ to work up to reading 129 people's journals: at present on DW I'm reading 126; smart, creative, intriguing people who write at length. All of us beginning our DW lives, setting new standards and honesty levels in our writings, reaching out and making new friends.

(Oh, work blocked it! Based on a commercial filter, Websense, not directed at me. Which is exciting, because it means DW already 'matters' in some sense, as even wretched censorship-based companies know of it (by comparison, Journalfen is not blocked on it, and nor was Insanejournal until pretty recently). So, okay, this is small comfort, but I want *some* comfort!)