Looking sideways

A few days ago a good friend of mine, who also happens to be very clever and wise, told me about some experiments he had been doing with ChatGPT. This friend happens to be a psychologist, and he's been experimenting with trying to personify the AI bot, discussing his feelings with it and attempting to be analysed by it. He told me that, surprisingly, he got really good results and was impressed with the way it went. He told me I should give it a go, and normally I’d be sceptical of trusting AI with my feelings - despite trusting a blog with it… Yes, I can see the irony. But in this case, I have huge trust and admiration for this friend, so I decided to follow his advice and, well, give it a go. I wasn’t sure where to start, so I input a prompt saying that I thought I had OCD and I would like help trying to understand it. This turned into a good 2 hour long chat with the, where I talked about the various things that I feel, things that happen inside my brain and things I know about ...

It felt like a movie scene: I had just left my flat and was halfway through to the bus stop to catch the 1X to work, with a cup of coffee in my hand and some pop diva singing inside my noise cancelling earphones. The song ended, and the next song came on: GUY from Lady Gaga. Completely random and unplanned. I smirked and thought to myself that the only thing missing was my bus stop crush. And then, just a few steps ahead, he came out of the gates of his block of flats. I am pretty sure he saw me, but he didn't show any signs indicating that he did, so I gave him the benefit of doubt. We crossed path twice again before I sat down inside the bus, and then there was no doubt left: he actively chose not to acknowledge me. Which was not unexpected, since he did the same thing the whole weekend, after I asked him for his contact details. But I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. First things first: how did we get here? A couple of weeks back I decided to walk up to him one morning and s...

As I sat inside that church, during one of the lowest points of my life, I felt the vibration of the multiple drums going through my body, even though the sound of those instruments was muffled and unclear. Bolero, with its increasing intensity, was playing through my noise cancelling headphones, blocking any attempts of sounds to penetrate from outside. I gazed into the grandiosity of that atrium, the paths taken by the shockwaves caused by those instruments, how it went around the curves made of concrete, and made its way back to move me whilst it failed to make itself heard. Suddenly, something else hit me: I suppose I have a thing for killing. That is a bold statement, so before you plant multiple red flags all over me, embody Lady Gaga screaming "KILLAH" and dial whatever 3 (or more) digit number the police uses wherever you are, let me expand and clarify this. I don't mean literally killing someone, the physical act of taking someone's life. In fact, one of my f...

That ship has sailed, for us both. It was one simple act, for a few minutes, but it changed our story forever. Neither of us will ever be able to say that we have never done this. And that haunts me now. When I heard what you had done, the room around me disappeared. The floor vanished, and suddenly I was floating in this empty space where things changed forever. I started shaking. I went into survival mode, and I hated you. Like I never hated anyone before, ever. Deep down inside, I wish you had never been born, that you had never come into our lives. I felt disgust for you. I did not understand these feelings then, and perhaps this is one of the reasons why things unfolded they way they did. When we met again, I did something very wrong. I said the right things, I have strong arguments to justify why I did it, and I had the best interests of those involved at heart. But the way I acted was wrong, and suddenly I went down to the same level as you. Here I was, doing to you what I, just...

Just a quick update: I finally walked up to the guy at the bus stop and talked to him. We only chatted for a few minutes, and he was lovely. It's been half an hour since, and I'm still shaking. G.U.Y. - Lady Gaga (Artpop, who'd have thought...)

This text was written about 3 months ago, but I did not publish it then. I was extremely overwhelmed at the time. So much so that, in the following days after I wrote it, I had a massive breakdown, which prompted me to get away from everything, including the blog. I am in a much better place now, and the next entry after this one will explore that. But before discussing how I feel now, I think there is a value in this text, which is why I decided to publish it even after all the time that passed. Please be mindful of my mental state when it was written, therefore be aware that this text is very raw and might be triggering. How did I end up back here again? This is a question I’ve been asking myself often these days. I thought I made huge progress, but somehow I am back at square one. I always heard people saying that things don’t just fall on your lap, that if you want something, you have to get off your arse and do something about it. The thing is, I did! I have done a lot about it, a...