The Healthiest I’ve Ever Been, The Most Cut Off I’ve Ever Felt

 

A Note on Style and Intention

This entry exists because of Meditations.

Marcus Aurelius wrote not to impress, not to instruct, but to stay sane. To face himself. To put shifting thoughts into form, even if they led nowhere. That’s the spirit I’m following here. That’s why this exists.

I'm not writing this to explain anything neatly. I’m not even sure I could. I’m writing because there are things swirling in my mind with no conclusion, no shape, and I want to see what they become when they’re written down.

This isn’t about narrative or polish — it’s about truth.

The truth as it exists now, while I write it.

I’m not trying to teach. I’m not interested in performance. I’m trying to be accurate to what's going on in my head: fragments of thought, reflections, discomforts, and patterns I only half understand.

The writing itself is the act of sorting. Trying to name things. Trying to trace the outlines of feelings that don’t yet have definitions. Trying — maybe — to find some answers in the middle of the process.

If clarity comes, it won’t be clean. But it might be real.

And that’s enough.

Fit, Focused — and Completely Cut Off

Author in mirror, fit and composed, capturing a moment of clarity and solitude.

I’ve never looked better.

Physically, I’m in the best shape of my life. My neck looks great in this photo — defined, strong. No Adam’s apple, which might explain why I’ve always had a good singing voice.

Mentally? Sharper than ever. Thoughts clean and fast. No brain fog. Just clarity.

And yet, I’ve never felt more cut off from the world.

It’s like the more I focus inward — on health, discipline, and awareness — the more I realize how unhealthy the world outside is. As if the cleaner I get, the more polluted everything else becomes.

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The Exit Plan

Author in mirror, fit and composed, capturing a moment of clarity and solitude.

This isolation isn’t accidental. It started as strategy.

The plan was simple: earn my MSc in Computing & Information Systems, secure a short-term job in Ireland, then leave permanently. I wasn’t trying to build a life here — I was building my escape.

So I disengaged. I didn’t invest socially. I didn’t lay roots. I even fantasized about changing my name to erase any connection to Ireland.

I never really sounded Irish anyway. People often said I had an English or posh accent — likely a result of early years in London and extended family ties to the UK. That distinction only deepened my sense of being a stranger here. A stranger in a strange land.

I was close to the finish line. Ready to move. Then everything collapsed.

When Life Won’t Let You Leave

I didn’t drop out. I paused. Temporarily.

At least, that was the plan.

When my father was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer, I was deep into my MSc in Computing & Information Systems. It hit hard, but we fought it together. I drove him to chemotherapy almost every other day. It was brutal. But he made it. Against the odds, he was declared cancer-free.

The victory was short-lived.

A few months after getting the all-clear, his body — worn down by the ordeal — simply broke. The damage from the chemo was done. One night, he was rushed to ICU. He didn’t come back out.

What made it harder was knowing why he’d retired early in the first place: to care for my mother when her health began to decline. He gave everything for her — and when he was gone, that role passed to me without ceremony or choice. I inherited his position, his responsibilities, his quiet sacrifice.

So I stepped in. My degree went on hold. Again.

Over time, my mother made a surprising recovery. Nearly back to full health. I saw a window and took it. Re-enrolled. Focused. Tried to reclaim the life I’d set aside.

Then she collapsed in my arms.

That collapse led to the discovery of an inoperable brain tumour. Non-malignant, but devastating. It wasn’t quick. It wasn’t merciful. It was a long, slow fading — and once again, I was cast as full-time caregiver. For years.

I never finished the degree.

I didn’t choose this life. I tried to build something for myself — but every time I got close, the floor dropped out. I’m still here not because I failed, but because I kept being pulled back into someone else’s survival.

The Layers I Left Empty

But the truth is, this story doesn’t start with my degree. Or even with family.

By the time I was eleven, I’d already endured abuse, neglect, and humiliation — most of it delivered by people in authority. One teacher in primary school told me I looked like a “Hollywood prostitute.” I didn’t even understand the words, but I felt the cruelty. I never forgot it.

The abuse wasn’t random. It was tied to how I looked, how I spoke, where I came from. Being part-English in a post-colonial country with a long memory and a deep nationalist streak made me a walking target. My accent, my vocabulary, my presence — none of it fit.

I was told I sounded “English” or “posh.” Never kindly. Always with an edge.

It wasn’t just classmates. It was teachers. Adults. Institutions. I suffered both ethnic and religious discrimination — the kind of hostility that rewires a child’s nervous system. I learned early that safety wasn’t guaranteed. That trust was earned and often betrayed. That belonging was not on offer.

Years later, I was diagnosed with PTSD — not from a single traumatic event, but from simply existing too long in an environment that treated my identity like a provocation. Not war. Not disaster. Just life in Ireland.

PTSD isn’t just memories — it’s a rewired brain. Always on edge. Always scanning for danger. That hypervigilance becomes your baseline. You freeze. You dissociate. You learn not to expect comfort or connection, because history has taught you those things are unreliable.

I live with a chronic physical condition that I trace back to that same early trauma. I also live with deep-rooted psychological reflexes that stop me from grabbing what’s in reach. I mistrust open doors. I flinch at good fortune. I wait for the floor to give way.

Even when life is calm, my body expects another impact. That’s what it means to carry this kind of history.

The Layers I Refused to Build

Take Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Now reimagine it — not as a pyramid, but as a set of Russian nesting dolls. Each layer — survival, safety, love, esteem, purpose — nestled inside the next. Most people spend their lives building these layers inward. That’s the standard model: meet your needs, become whole, attract others.

But I stopped early.

I built the outer doll. I function. I appear present. But the inner layers — the ones that connect you to the world — those are missing. Not because I couldn’t build them. Because I wouldn’t.

From the outside, people sense the absence. They don’t always know what it is, but they feel it. I don’t radiate that warm sense of embeddedness, of cultural sync. There’s a tension, a distance. I get read as cold, incomplete — maybe even hollow.

But I’m not hollow. I’m withheld.

The core of me is intact. I just never handed it over.

Russian dolls

To build those inner psychological layers — love, esteem, social purpose — I’d have had to entangle myself in a culture I couldn’t trust. Irish society never felt like home. Its values, its rhythms, the currency of who gets included and why — none of it resonated. To accept its terms would’ve meant internalizing something I couldn’t respect.

So I kept those layers blank. I chose not to let the world in, because I didn’t want it shaping who I am.

What I carry inside isn’t absence. It’s a sealed space. A space I protected from external influence. Not out of fear — out of principle.

And maybe that’s why, years later, I still come across as the outer shell. Polished. Self-sufficient. But echoing slightly, like something closed off.

This isn’t dysfunction. It’s design.

I didn’t build myself for comfort or compatibility. I built myself to survive without compromise. And in doing that, I cut myself off from the very structure that relationships depend on — the layered warmth people instinctively look for in someone they can lean into.

Maybe I look like a doll missing its centre.

But the centre's there. I just never let it be filled by the world I was given.

The Inner Womb

These layers — survival, safety, love, esteem, purpose — they aren’t just needs. They’re wombs. Protective spaces where something human can grow, rest, and connect.

And for a man, these wombs aren’t optional. They’re expected.

We’re supposed to carry them — not just for ourselves, but for others. Especially in relationships. The idea is that a woman seeks a man with these layers in place. Not just outer strength, but inner infrastructure. A framework. A place she can enter without fear of collapse.

In this metaphor, the woman is the final doll. The innermost sanctum. The seed of continuity. And she can only settle safely in a man if his inner layers are solid — not performative, but real. Protective, structured, warm.

If he is hollow, she senses it. If he is fractured, she shields herself. But if he carries the layers — even unformed but honest — she finds her place in him, not as something absorbed, but as something completing.

That’s the unspoken architecture of real intimacy.

A woman protects her womb. She doesn’t just give it to anyone. She looks for someone who can house her being the way she would house his child. Someone whose internal life doesn’t frighten her. Someone whose soul has room.

The Hollow That Rattles

So now I’m in a bit of a quandary. A philosophical and biological pickle.

I’ve spent years hollowing myself out — not in self-harm, but in self-protection. I rejected the layers that would’ve tethered me to a society I couldn’t trust. I let the inner dolls stay unformed. I chose to remain the outer shell.

And it shows.

The Empty Can Rattles the Most

I don’t come across as someone with the rich, warm structure a person can lean into. I come across as the hollow doll. The one that rattles when you shake it. The one people instinctively sense is empty inside — even if it’s not truly empty, just sealed.

But now?

Now I want something different. Something simple. Something as old as breath: companionship. Touch. A relationship. The possibility of love, even if fractured or imperfect. I’m only human, after all.

In my original timeline, I’d have mated by now. Hopefully 2.5 children, a partner, a home elsewhere. That was the plan — mate, move, rebuild.

Instead, I’m stuck. In a country I didn’t choose. Among a people I kept out on purpose. With a shell I’ve worn so long it’s become how I’m seen. How can I attract anyone now — not sexually, not physically, but emotionally — when I’ve made myself appear so hollow?

This is the trap I built. And now I have to sit inside it and ask: is it too late to let someone in? Can anything grow inside a space I’ve kept so carefully empty?

Or worse — if I try now to rebuild those inner layers, do I just end up shaped by the very world I meant to resist?