My ED feels like an airlock. I am on a ship flying through the time and space of my life and on my journey, I encountered a black hole. My ship is currently stuck stationary on the border of the escape horizon. On encountering the black hole, my ship set off a master alarm which triggered my onboard computer – a Corrupted version of Clippy – that when activated convinced me to run for the safety of the airlock. I cannot pilot my ship from the airlock to get out of the trajectory of the black hole.

The black hole I encountered is made up of all of the triggers that convinced me that the airlock was the only option – The grief of losing my friend, and everything else I did not deal with in the last 4 years because I was grieving for her. The massive density and sheer number of triggers eventually caused them to coalesce and collapse in on itself, creating the black hole. The airlock has added protections for black holes; I do not feel the full force intensity of it’s crushing weight or it’s suffocating gravitational pull when I’m in the airlock. It also shields me from the radiation, and from feeling like I too, will collapse in on myself.

In the airlock there are only two options left, to execute escape protocols and leave the airlock into the vastness of space and be consumed by the black hole (absolutely not an option), or leave the airlock and join the rest of the ship that has everything and everyone I love on it – the ship is my life, the whole of it. I of course, could stay here too, but it’s not a long term solution, airlocks can only maintain life for a strict period of time.

The airlock is not as terrifying as it once was — it’s even got Jellycats and string lights, my little survival bubble of comfort and confinement. But it’s still an airlock, it only lets me view what is on my ship through a porthole window, I don’t have access to the full range of emotion or experiences as I would have on the ship. I can’t experience the full fluffy weight of joy, excitement, or happiness just the echoes and memories of them. 

That’s how the airlock works as a safety, it also dulls the weight of my other emotions, I don’t experience the full force of them either. I dont get paralysed by the black hole and what it represents. I can just live in the peace and quietness of the airlock, I can look at the stars out of my window, I can play with my Jellycats, and I don’t have to process all of the emotions – They can’t interrupt my airlock sanctuary from the other side of the door.

Taking the door to my ship and leaving the airlock, isn’t as simple as it sounds either, it’s not just about opening the door, and walking through it. I wont be immediately greeted with my good emotions, my loves, my passions, my excitement, or my crew mates, I will instead be greeted by the flood. 

Opening the door immediately causes a catastrophic difference in pressure that my ship corrects through flooding the airlock with suffocating emotions completely overwhelming me making it difficult to breathe. Despite my wanting to desperately go back on my ship, I am paralysed in fear of the flood, I am scared and frightened. I know from last time, this process severely affects my mental health – Twelve years ago I ended up in a crisis from boldly going where I hadn’t gone before, that was so severe I still think about often. It affected me for years, and despite asking for help over and over again in the years since I wasn’t given any to process any of it. The proof of that, is apart from the grief of losing my best friend, the exact same events caused the black hole again this time.

Due to being able to access the history logs of my ship Corrupted Clippy is able to convince me that opening the door, is too devastating a decision I can cope with, “You can NOT deal with this”, which is evidenced by the crisis logs and now, my current mental health deterioration. This time in the airlock, I thought I could open the door ajar, just a crack, taking small steps instead of giant leaps toward the ship. But the flood came anyway. The ship, trying to maintain equilibrium, barraged me with emotions so intense I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way. I thought this would only happen if I pulled the door fully open, like I did last time.

Now I can’t process anything, my mind spinning from the flood, the depression of the black hole affecting me. I hear Clippy’s voice louder than ever: “I told you this would happen if you eat. You shouldn’t have touched the door AT ALL.” In depression Clippy starts to make more sense to me, offering me the airlock as the only escape from equilibrium and the resulting feeling of maximum entropy – everything, everywhere, all at once. After all, decisions shouldn’t be made when you’re mentally unwell — or in a vacuum. And I am in both. That is why currently, I am feeling what I am feeling. A deep depressive episode from opening the door ever so slightly with the tiny steps I’ve taken towards the door of my ship.

Corrupted Clippy being the machine that it is though, doesn’t account for nuance and emotions and I am always aware of this, even if I want to believe Clippy at times. Staying in the airlock will stop the emotional flooding, but to avoid it completely, I’d have to stay in the airlock forever, and I can’t.

The time limit of the airlock even though I can’t see it, is ticking and tocking loudly, ringing in my ears, deafening at times. With every twinge in my body, every weird pain in my chest, every time it hurts to sit in the bath, I wonder if that means the life support of my airlock is about to run out. At some point the airlock itself will be unsurvivable. Corrupted Clippy never considers the ticking clock of the airlock, it’s as if it is oblivious to it’s existence. it wants me to, “Just stay in the airlock INDEFINITELY”. By suggesting this option, it doesn’t even consider it’s own survival. This is how I know Clippy is corrupted. 

Clippy doesn’t see the real solution. Its cold logic stops at, “Don’t touch the door; it’ll be better that way.” and “Stay in the airlock forever” and “Less door is good, so lesser must be better”. But the truth is, the longer I stay in the airlock, the bigger the flood will be the next time I try to open the door. Every time I retreat, I might feel “better” in the moment, but the fact I do have to walk through the door eventually doesn’t change. The black hole doesn’t go away if I fail to acknowledge or to observe it, I have to be the one to steer my ship past it. The black hole waits for me, growing denser with every passing second. The only way out isn’t to avoid the door — it’s to traverse the pain and step through it so I can get to the controls and get out of the black holes trajectory. The ticking clock reminds me that I can’t stay here forever. The airlock isn’t survival; it’s just a delay. And every second I wait, the doors flood of equilibrium looms larger.

Opening the door sucks, everything in me, and my on board computer is screaming at me to get back from the door, but I tentatively step forward anyway.

It’s always darkest before the dawn and it’s hard to dance with a Corrupted Clippy on your back, so shake it out :-

(Images :- Made using canva premium images and elements, bear star photo and bear element my own)