The Dark Passenger

“You don't like yourself. But you do admire yourself. It's all you've got so you cling to it. You're so afraid if you change, you'll lose what makes you special.  Being miserable doesn't make you better than anybody else, House. It just makes you miserable.” – Dr. James Wilson: From House M.D.

The image you see above has been my laptop wallpaper for quite some time. Most considered the image disturbing, disgusting even and always asked me why such a wallpaper. As always for these things, I had no 

answer. It is as Dexter describes my ‘dark passenger’.

I wished the story ended here but my morbid fascination with death, the undead and likes doesn’t end here. I am and always was fascinated by vampires, the concept of using someone’s blood to stay immortal appealed to me ever since I was a kid. I have seen pretty much all vampire movies which are out there, except Twilight that is. I don’t really like to see an animal blood drinking; humane, goody two shoes vampire. I like my vampires cold, chilling and bloodthirsty. I used to hang onto sites like vampiresfreaks.com, vampirescene.com a lot once.

My favorite TV series are Dexter, House, The Mentalist where the protagonist is damaged by some trauma and is maniacal, self destructive and is addicted to something or the other. I have seen Dev D at least 100 times and continue to do that every time I get drunk alone. I get severe bouts of what I call the ‘Devdas Syndrome’, I shut myself in my room and start drinking alone and all the dark thoughts inside come rushing out. It is when sleeping monster in the depths of my brain snap his eyes open, Max Payne’s words, my favorite video game, where again the character has self destructive behavior, insomnia, inner demons, disturbing monologues, the whole works.

I became a big time insomniac after my messy once-upon-a-time break-up and still have relapses, I couldn’t sleep for four months once and I get those episodes again. I have trouble falling asleep on most nights. Most times I either listen to music till I fall asleep to silence the inner voice which keeps me awake or I drink myself to unconsciousness. My fascination with alcohol is well known even though I am not a heavy drinker, amount wise at least. I am still a light sleeper and wake up on the slightest disturbances and have trouble sleeping back again.

My sarcasm, cynicism and habitual mocking are well known too. Defense mechanisms as a psychologist would put it, a system designed to keep people and ideas at a distance so as to not get hurt if and when they let me down. I generally don’t share my inner feelings with the people near me, which is my brother’s biggest complaint. Every time when just two of us drink together he tells-all and the most I have to offer is silent nodding or some anecdotes. This is actually the reason I started this blog, I somehow prefer to write down my thoughts and publish it to be read by people around me rather than speak to my near ones.

Other signs are there too, a lot of color black in wardrobe, thick curtains in my room, commitment issues, hard rock as choice of music (though I have toned down in the recent years), fascination with the 'to be or not to be' soliloquy, spinning stories about serial killers in my head, even my choice is porn is too hardcore for most people. 

When I reread this it sounds like it is some rant about my cool-ness and how I am so unique accentuated by a lot of hyphens, and to be on a even keel here most of my friends like the stuff I do. Dexter, House etc are widely seen TV shows, millions of people have played and liked Max Payne, Dev D is a cult hit again. Many of friends like vampire movies and there is no dearth of insomniacs either. Maybe it’s nothing, nothing more than my narcissism, and my imagination running wild. Maybe it’s everything.

I can assure that the clinical analysis of a psychiatrist of these things is not good. I know because of my amateur knowledge of psychology and psychiatry. And the various test which I keep taking on the internet which all point towards the same conclusion. The psychiatric evaluation also points towards some severe emotional trauma which caused this. But whatever you have read about emotional trauma like childhood trouble, parental neglect, some mishap or other fancy things which Hollywood and popular culture dumps on you, never happened to me. No wife and child murdered by psycho killers, no gunman in the dark alley, no parent’s divorce, no alien abduction. I was raised in normal, plain vanilla middle-class family, have one older brother, parents who love me, a set of close friends, two decent relationships, a job and no dysfunctional attributes. As I said, maybe it’s nothing, nothing more than an attempt of self assertion of importance, a feeble effort to break free from the clutter.

But as I write this in a severe vodka induced hang-over I change my laptop’s and phone’s wallpaper from Michelle Rodriguez holding a gun and vampire drawing blood to more society friendly themes. And fight the urge to write a melancholy poem about betrayal in love instead of this. Maybe now I would get some sleep, while watching a rerun of Dev D that is.