Lachesism

I once read about something called lachesism. They described it as the “desire to be struck by disaster – to survive a plane crash, or to lose everything in a fire – anything that would put a kink in the smooth arc of your life and forge it into something hardened and flexible and sharp, not just a stiff prefabricated beam that barely covers the gap between one end of your life and the other”.  And as I read it, word by word, I realised I’ve been experiencing it for years…

I broke my left wrist when I was 9. When I finally got home from the hospital I remember asking my mother if dreaming about something could make it real. The reason I asked, is because I would often daydream about being hit by a car, and even thought that was not how I got hurt, I wondered, if in a twisted way the universe was hitting me back.  

Looking back to other dreams I created as years went on I realised facing disaster was a common topic. Granted those dreams always involved saving someone and a happy ending, but nevertheless…

There were the occasionally lightweight happy dreams, but they never lasted long, it was almost like the darkness soothed me. I think part of it came from wanting to justify the darkness that always been inside me. Wanting, needing a reason for it.  I’m often ruled by very dark moods that come out of nowhere, waves of anger and panic and utter sadness that come for no reason. I feel them creeping in and yet I do nothing to stop them, sometimes I even feed them, because I’m subdued by this overwhelming need to feel utterly sad. Overtime I’ve learned to dig myself out of that whole, I don’t allow myself to stay longer anymore, but for some reason, I still go there…

Lachesism, this desire to be struck by disaster, doesn’t come only from the need to have a reason for sadness though. Maybe more than anything it comes from the desperate need to feel something, anything at all because even worse than feeling sad is to feel nothing, to feel numb. To feel so empty inside that good or bad you just hope something happens that makes you feel alive.