I used to believe that refusing to acknowledge my own limits was the definition of “strength.”
I was always the first to enter the construction site and the last to finish the blueprints. “I’m fine.” “I can do it.”
I didn’t realize back then that those words weren’t spells to encourage myself—they were weapons I used to back myself into a corner.
Painting Over the Warnings
It started with small glitches.
My fingertips trembling slightly as I tried to tie my necktie in the morning. Standing on the train platform, a thought would casually cross my mind: “How easy would it be if I just stepped off right now?” Still, I crushed those alerts. I told myself I was just tired. I couldn’t afford to be weak. The harder I tried to be “competent,” the blinder I became to the cracks in my own mind.
I kept pouring the heavy cement of overwork into those cracks, desperately trying to hold the structure together.
One Second Before the Crash
Back then, I was a piece of heavy machinery with broken brakes. I honestly believed that accelerating without knowing how to stop was the right answer. I was arrogant, isolated, and dangerously naive.
Then, one day, my world violently collapsed. Everything that was “normal” yesterday became impossible.
I couldn’t read a single line of an email. The ringtone of a phone turned into a physical weapon directly assaulting my brain. Just crawling out of bed felt like an Everest-level physical impossibility.
My brain died. That’s what it felt like. The diagnosis: Adjustment Disorder.
A mental illness I arrogantly thought only “weak” people got. When I heard the doctor’s words, I felt absolute despair. But at the same exact moment, I noticed a sick sense of relief washing over the bottom of my heart.
“Ah… I don’t have to push myself anymore.”
Looking Up from the Bottom of the Swamp
I fell off the rails of society and was violently thrown into the deafening silence of unemployment. Staring at the wood grain on the ceiling felt like an eternity.
My former comrades, my career, my confidence—it all felt like an illusion from a distant universe.
But you know what? I don’t hate the man I was before the crash. He fought foolishly, blindly, desperately trying to become “someone.” That raw “heat” he had was the only ember still smoldering in my freezing room.
The Xer’s Monologue
There are plenty of “AI experts” out there. But how many of them have felt the sheer terror of their mind breaking, of falling off society’s tracks, and are now using AI to claw their way back?
I believe I’ve “overcome” it, but I can never say it won’t happen again. Even now, I sometimes catch the scent of that muddy swamp. But because I hit the absolute bottom, I have a view others don’t.
I’m done hiding my scars behind a fake smile. Those scars are the ultimate proof that I survived.
Got it done.
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