It was the fall (or was it spring) semester of my junior year of college. I was in the empty computer lab and addled from not sleeping for 3 days. I had Microsoft Windows open. Blank. White. A one-dimensional white room that I”ve been occupying in for the whole day as it transitioned into evening and then slowly creeping into the dead ambience of night. For the past week, I couldn’t write anything, let alone force myself to read the material for class. I remembered the topic of the essay clearly: analyze the difference and similarities between Leibnizian and Spinozan monism. It was about female sexual predators and the intersection between the legal system and gender norms. Everything was born out of the orphic egg as the cosmos formed from the primordial yolk.

I could no longer tolerate this way of life: endless days of attending a dull lecture (if I even managed to attend class), going to work, and retreating into domestic isolation to sulk and fester in my own depression. That moment in front of the computer of me struggling to write a single word on that document had me pondering: what the fuck am I doing with my life? What vague future am I working towards? Is this all worth it in the end? What do I truly want in life? I truly hated my life during that time – I had nothing to show for it, I had nothing worth living for, and nothing to look forward to. The plan was that I finish university and start establishing a respectable career, maybe as a lecturer, therapist, social worker, or whatever, yet no path seemed satisfactory to me. I was never attracted to conventional modes of living, not because I’m a rebellious free-spirit, but because of something else….Something more deeply rooted in my being and outlook.

Throughout my life, even before the onset of mental illness, I’ve always had nihilistic tendencies. I was never one to think my life had meaning or that I was destined for a higher purpose or greatness, however that didn’t mean I did not have my own ambitions. I merely had the biological imperative to live and to explore and that was enough justification for living, at least initially, yet apparently not enough to sustain the will to live. Nothing satisfied me or made me happy in the long run, except for one thing: violence.

I’ve never been a particularly physically violent person, but the language of violence seems to speak to me the most keenly – killing, maiming, violating, brutality, oppression, and domination and their presence within the human condition didn’t require further explanation for me. I knew. I understood. I understood violence born out of rage. Violence as an exercise of power. Or as an extension and manifestation of lust. And as another tool of rationality and progress in the name of secular, humanistic values that actually in the end propagate a system built on oppression and exploitation. To live is to bleed, and you (or I) can’t fully experience the full extent of life without the force immanent within it. I remember as a young girl studying taekwondo and loving the physical and mental discipline required to master it and the pain that came with it. There was an artistry to it all by way of learning to reign in the violence and force until when it was necessary to utilize them. Mind ruled over matter in that one must not give into their violent impulses but rather channel them in a controlled and rational manner, and sparring was the activity where I could exercise these principles. In a match, if you use too much force you either lost or you were disqualified. Brute force was frowned upon, instead technique, reading your opponent, and tactical intelligence were favored, which are much more effective and impactful means of channeling violence. I was at my happiest when I sparred and won. Or even if I lost, I was still given the opportunity to fight and to learn from my mistakes. I know someone would suggest that I should get into MMA or boxing, but I wouldn’t want that. I don’t want to operate in the daylight and express my violence through societal sanctioned entertainment. It’s not about expressing violence for the sake of violence but it’s something more corrosive and at the core.

During that 3 day insomnia stretch, I was binging execution videos and snuff films (or what was available without going into the deep web). I was watching pseudo-snuff porn as that was the only way I could get off. This brings back memories of the time in high school where I read a book about sex trafficking in Eastern Europe. One story that stood out to me was a young girl being sodomized by a group of men in order to break her in. About a decade later, I listened to a podcast about domestic violence and in one account a woman was imprisoned in her house by her husband. He would beat and rape her daily, and forced her to eat from a dog bowl. Whenever they would go out, he had her duck her head under the glove compartment so she wouldn’t see the street signs and he threatened to kill her if she attempted to prop her head up. She didn’t even know her home address. In all of these moments, I was overtaken with sadness for these people as well as with a sadistic and morbid arousal. I felt empathy for the victims but at the same time I would be lying if I said I didn’t want to do those things to other people.

When I was a middle schooler, I was obsessed with serial killers which wasn’t too unusual for people that age. I’ve heard true crime and serial killers are popular with women because the fear and danger they experience in life are realized and taken seriously in those stories. They serve as guides to avert danger (via morbid fascination). I never related to that, at least not consciously. I always related to the predatory serial killer, and maybe this was my own form of internalized misogyny seeping through since I saw the often female victims as nothing but pieces for the male serial killers to project their violence onto; this was a more virulent manifestation of the male gaze that I’ve internalized. Anyone can become a victim and I didn’t care about them; they were faceless and nameless nobodies in comparison to the sensationalized serial killers. I hated femininity and femaleness and witnessing serial killers was a way to kill and make obsolete my own femininity. My violent and antisocial (and quite phallic) predilections are not in line with society’s view and expectation of women. We’re socialized to be nurturing, self-erasing, peaceful, compliant, and deferring and my instincts go against those things. Of course make no mistake, I’m not making a feminist argument for who I am since this entry has nothing to do with the betterment of women, obviously.

My violence is like a black hole, devouring everything in its vicinity and corroding everything it touches. Except when it’s not. If I lacked the compassion that I have and possessed more drive, I wouldn’t hesitate to be a more destructive force, whether I be a criminal or a politician. Even now, in my more stable state of mind, I still find myself unsatisfied with the peace. I want intensity. I want to live on the fringes. I need to bleed and cut. In order for my life to mean something, for it to be worth living, I need to walk hand-in-hand with death whether that be physically or psychologically.