There’s something wrong with me.

Some thoughts emerge and spread like a contagion, infecting experiences and the way we see the world and how we fit in it. For most of my life, I dealt with a particular and chronic infection. When I made mistakes, when I doubted decisions I’ve made, and when I failed to find joy in the things that I felt I should. What is wrong with me? Why am I like this?

I approached this inner plague in the most scientific way possible — trying to isolate the source and contain it. I’d eventually corner it but it would flare up again with the inevitable and ever-changing challenges that life would present to me. My methodology was to quarantine it, to take whatever measures necessary to tuck it away and polish it not as yet another failure but as an unfortunate situation that was under control to the public of my inner eye.

There’s nothing wrong with me.

Wrong can mean many things, but in my case it was clear. I found myself in a dizzying cycle of striving and pushing for contentment. Nothing special about that, nothing wrong in the sense of the word. Contentment is abstract, so I would define it, brand it, and create my own little manifesto and roadmap towards it. But it was evolving and devolving at a pace that I couldn’t keep up with.

At one point it was a particular career, then it was a type of love, and then it was a different type of career and love, followed by a lifestyle, an idea. But it was more than just shifting objectives — it would be a hard reset of my values and beliefs in a cycle that spun violently faster with each passing year.

I feel like I’m two people, and they just take turns sabotaging each other.

At least this was how I explained it when I found myself face-to-face with a therapist. Perhaps a more accurate way to explain it is a sudden switch of lenses. After all, we become what we perceive the world to be and find our place accordingly. Through one pair of glasses life was a violent ocean of risk and opportunity. I was impulsive, bold, reckless — driven by a thirst for novelty and terror of drowning in inertia that was intoxicating. But then, without warning, I’d find myself looking through another lens. Then the seas were dried up and life went on for everyone who made it to shore. Only I didn’t, and would be standing alone at the bottom of a canyon, left behind. Then I was methodical, bitter, and desperate to climb back up and endure the labor of it all in silence. I was determined to go back home, and by home I mean a reprieve from the echoing emptiness.

If we go back to the two people analogy, you can say that the team fit was a bit off. But diversity is what makes teams great, and the right communication could make them a powerful match. Which is what I tried to do — in a very corporate startuppy way.

But let’s take a few steps back. Because attempts to converge the two without professional help were not always unsuccessful.

My conscious self was the moderator, negotiating terms and compromises so the two could live in peace. Because for three decades they were at war — and they hated each other. How would you feel if someone would destroy months of painstakingly planned efforts for a thrill? Or if you were berated and shamed for wanting too much by someone so satisfied by so little?

Let’s call them the Hedonist and the Stoic.

The two co-existed, but they would take turns in the spotlight. There were fleeting periods of cease fires — one Sarah would tiptoe the edge of self-destruction so the other Sarah could build a serene future in peace while staying entertained. But these periods were always laced with dread, because it never lasted beyond a few weeks.

Moving away from all the metaphors, in practical terms I have built careers at different companies, formed personal relationships with people, and developed healthy habits only to burn them to the ground. But what’s funny is that in the moment it never felt like self-destruction, and there was no guilt in doing it. I felt euphoric, liberated. This is who I am. I never settle, I can and will do anything. Fuck everyone and everything. Life is meant to be consumed, and I am the flame that devours it. Every cell in my body was charged with emotion. Ecstasy, fear, rage, everything in HD. It was beautiful.

It was cloud nine. For weeks on weeks. I had my ways to prolong it, but eventually the rapture ended. And like any other high it came at a price — the comedown.

The new relationships, cities, jobs, friends, and experiences would lose their shine. Nostalgia and regret took over when the ashes fall and everything turned gray. I would find myself knee deep in the ruins of all the prior civilizations I’d built. But beneath it all was a glow — the embers of the glorious moments that made it feel worth it. And possible to do again.

Experience teaches, and I knew what to do. I’d create and build anew. I was exceptionally good at it at this point. It was a source of pride and misery, still tainted by that insidious thought. There must be something wrong with me. Why do I keep doing this?

Everything I have shared so far cost me years, thousands in sessions and lost opportunities, and immeasurable emotional suffering to understand. But there came a point in 2020 where I had it figured out. Though I can’t take full credit, I got help. Up until then I managed the Hedonist and the Stoic in silent shame — because it was always a matter of time before I’d fail. The situation was escalating, and I broke the silence. I learned to analyze the experiences that shaped me, share them, see the patterns and form some conclusions and assumptions to explain them. This made it a little more predictable. Manageable.

For two years the moderator kept the Hedonist and the Stoic in check. I built and burned conservatively. Felt joy and comfort. There’s nothing wrong with me. I was wrong.

It was sudden, unprecedented. A coup orchestrated and executed by the Hedonist when I least expected it. Restlessness, boredom, fear, a raging fire. Everything felt like it wasn’t meant to be this way. I resisted and it’s hard to explain in words. Because I know I’m not stupid. I’m not undisciplined. I have proven in so many ways through various successes and obstacles I’ve overcome that I am strong. I was just as much the Stoic as I was the Hedonist.

But in the face of this particular breed of overwhelm I am utterly powerless — because if I don’t succumb, there is no reason to live anymore.

It was the longest and most devastating phase of destruction to date. One that led to a series of impulsive decisions that corrupted every aspect of my life. I should have been terrified, but I never felt so powerful. So alive. It was the first time I was certain that this was it. We finally had a winner, and it was the Hedonist — the real and only me that I was always too afraid to give the reins to, and I loved her in a way that I can’t quite compare to any other love I’ve felt. I admired and feared her, she was god-like to me and I embraced it when she swallowed me whole.

And just as quickly as she came, I woke up one day and she was gone. For the first time it was not just my life in ruins, but I, too, was disintegrated into nothing. I watched myself go through the motions from a distance, on autopilot. I laughed, I worked, I socialized, I accomplished, at times I even thrived, but I was so far away from it all. I watched the world out of the furthest corner of my skull, audio and optics came with a lag. Everything around me and inside me felt dead. I was dead. And pretending not to be was unbearable. I waited it out, as I had done before. She always comes back.

Months passed, and she didn’t. I went to a doctor, because a not-so-new thought kept getting louder and louder. One that would lead to something irreversible.

From the very cliche couch I heard myself speaking calmly, he seemed to hear me but I could barely hear myself. I was faint, weak, faded away. But I was prepared. Depression was something I understood. And I was certain that it wasn’t chronic because it would disappear with no trace once it runs its course. I explained that this was just a longer phase, and before it goes too far I need something to help me wait it out until (in different terms) she comes back. But then came a question I hadn’t prepped for.

How do you feel when you feel good?

Nobody had ever asked me this before. And why would they? We never question what happiness feels like. It’s universal, palpable. A smile or a laugh is contagious because mirroring joy is as natural as breathing. It threw me off guard, but I described it, and he responded (in different terms).

There is something wrong with you.

I will not use labels or add diagnostic details here. Not because I am ashamed or private about it, but because it will distract you from the story I am trying to tell. It’s silly how the thought I tortured myself with for years, and sought confirmation for out of every situation I landed myself in, was so comforting and offensive coming out of another person’s mouth. One with an MD.

Grief is the best way to describe it. The Hedonist and the Stoic were no longer what I thought they were. It made so much sense, but I resisted. Somewhere even in the depths of my self-loathing at the time was love for the crew that did their best to keep me afloat — and we’ve pulled through a lot of shit. I was prescribed what I needed to keep them at bay and reluctantly took it for a while. But I still wasn’t ready to let go. I satisfied the need for a second opinion that ultimately confirmed the first. After that I surrendered, but not after I chose to reunite the team in spite of what I’d learned.

But I knew it was a final goodbye.

Time has passed, and there is no crew anymore.

The Hedonist and the Stoic were gone, and the moderator was made redundant. There’s no rubble to clear, no conflict to resolve, and no crushing void to fill. But there is also no euphoria, no terror, and no blinding confidence. The curve has flattened, and instead of fluorescent hues and grays, everything is pastel. The wrong in me was now right, but to fix it I had to embrace the loss of the extraordinary.

Some days I find myself wondering if I’ll ever stop missing them. As strange as it sounds, the calm and clarity was unsettling. I never fully understood how people find joy in the mundane, as I had only ever felt happy chasing the spectacular and destructive. But the person who wanted that is not here anymore. Instead stands an entirely new person. One that doesn’t yearn to be burned. One that’s not impressed by the challenge of scaling the same cliff they throw themselves off over and over again.

It’s still strange to put down the glasses and see myself and life as what I guess it always was — or as much as any person can objectively perceive things. But in doing so I have finally become someone I am at peace with, and who, irrespective of mood or circumstances, I appreciate and respect. Instead of seeing fragments of a person I liked pieced together from two, I see a whole person that makes sense to me.

I’ve never felt better — but fuck, I’m bored.