Knackered Fears Flaming Out with Benzos

   Hey there, Knackered here. Today, he senses that he may be feeling a bit aggro. A major political event is in the offing tonight.  It promises to occupy the air space and head space of millions here and abroad.  

   Like most scintillating things going on these days, it’s just too much of a sensory overload for him. It has all the makings of a dumpster fire floating down Schitt’s Creek.  And Knackered has no intention of getting burned in the process.

   With little energy left to give these days, absorbing the same from others can burn him just as badly.  And just dabbling his toes in the the juggernaut of public politics tends to set his nerve endings afire.  

   Being in public spaces sends  energy vibes shooting at him from all directions as well.    Knackered has no way of knowing what kind of intentions they convey, but the end result leaves him gasping for escape into fresh air.  

   In the rare occasion that he is required to ‘do’ public, his escape route usually results in isolation for a time.  This can be misconstrued by others as off - putting, but it serves his personal need to reclaim his sense of self and unload the feelings of claustrophobia that entangle him.  

   Knackered does his best to limit the amount of information he absorbs.  Ingesting it requires digesting, processing and the effort of straining it through the colander of assimilation.  Is it actually worthy of brain space, or should it be relegated to the trash?  

   This bombardment leaves him with confusion and mental fatigue, rendering his decision making abilities muddled.  

   As difficult as it is to sort through the ‘incoming’, responding coherently can be equally difficult.  Social anxiety alone can make conversation difficult, but struggling to ‘pull up words’ (gifts of both benzo WD and the aging process) often renders him ‘tongue tied’.  

   Throw in the fact that Knackered has a ‘selective hearing loss’ and the entire communication process can become a misunderstood mishmash.  He isn’t really a lousy listener as much as he tends to latch onto a word or phrase and make assumptions as to the rest.  

   Knackered suspects that much of what’s going on with him can be traced back to ‘brain fog’.  Much like the tingling and ongoing tremors in his legs, the nausea that comes and goes, and the gasping for breath that comes to visit, it’s another ‘gift from the benzos.  

   In the end, Knackered is reminded that unwanted and unneeded information is just a waste of cognitive headspace. Ralph Emerson probably said it best: “There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.”