Mental Deterioration is a psychological phenomenon that gradually limits and decreases the individual's cognitive capacity over time, reducing their ability to empathize, think, and understand other people.
While sitting on the plaza, seeing the familiar faces around, some familiar guy selling glasses came up to me and said "hey give me your phone" then "hey give me your money". I realized that these people have given up on their future. At least, he didn't point a knife or gun at me though.
They remind me of beggars where the only sentence they know is "give me" and the only gesture they know is horizontally extending their palms. In a desperate attempt to survive, it seems they gave almost forgotten to care about others, only thinking about themselves.
Everyone knows the unspoken rule of social interactions "give and take" — if you received something, give something, and if you got a message, reply back.
Anyone who wants to take something from others without even thinking of giving anything in return is either blatantly ignoring this rule or has forgotten that it existed — in which case mental deterioration is already present in that person.
According to the law of survival, anyone who overcomes their problems and weaknesses becomes a stronger person than before, just like how some blind people learn echolocation and how a person with dwarfism becomes braver than anyone else.
However, what if someone gave up on their problems and succumbed to their weaknesses, rather than overcoming them? What would happen to them?
It's simple, the reverse happens — they become a weaker person than before. Their minds would start to deteriorate as the guilt from abandoning their ideals, dreams, and values slowly consumes them alive.
Their mental power would be constantly spent on running away from their guilt for their entire lifetime, rather than being used for productive or creative tasks.
Their lives would slowly become a grand illusion fueled by their own delusions, and without any will to escape and take responsibility for their life, they are ultimately — trapped.
Without any outside interference or active desire for change, for them, life becomes an endless hamster wheel whose only hope for freedom, is death.
Any person who wasn't able to overcome their problems and gives up eventually becomes part of that problem.
If you can't defeat them, you become like them. If you can't win against your monsters, you become that monster.
Usually, people with this condition once believed in their ideals and had dreams, but even with their ideals, they weren't able to get what they want and only increased their suffering. Eventually, they felt that they have no choice but to succumb to some sort of moral realism.
The severity of this condition depends on how many times the person has given up, and on how long this condition is going on.
The power of their Will and the quality of social support they receive is also an important factor.
Here are the most common thinking patterns of those who have this condition:
Among those with this condition, these following symptoms are frequently observed:
The estimated demographic most vulnerable to this condition are those with low socioeconomic status, belong to few or no social groups, received little to no education, and belong to third-world countries. (Lol is this me?)
However, keep in mind that even those who are not part of the estimated demographic can be affected by this condition as well. Those who receive higher social support and have stronger will are the ones who are mostly unaffected by this condition, even if they are, it would just be extremely mild.
As someone who has lived and still living in extremely harsh environments without any social interactions, I'm one of those who are most prone to mental deterioration, and it has affected me to an extent.
Whenever you give up any of your ideals and values, then abandon it completely, mental deterioration starts to occur. It is the ever-present painful "guilt of giving up" and "running away". Those who have a strong will and social support can minimize its negative effects.
So far, I have given up and ran away so many times in my life. In the past, I have given up on an important friend and myself and started being blind and apathetic to other people and my needs. The intense regret I felt from that time which made me emotional for months still haunts me today.
Of course, I managed to resolve those two in the present now and I'm learning to take care of myself. At this point, the ones that are causing mental deterioration to me are that I have given up on interacting with real-life people and reforming my family, but not completely.
Remember the tripartite Will in my previous article? I may not have the confidence to do it for now, but I still have the desire to do it and the belief that it's completely possible if I tried.
Basically, I want to do it in the future, so I don't abandon the possibility completely. It's kind of a tactical retreat lol.
I may have lost my will to fight today, but I'll keep training until I regain my will to fight tomorrow.
Honestly, there's no ducking way that someone like me who has been frozen solid by their own cold logic, shrouded by their own darkness, and has given up on so many important things, should be able to stand up, keep living, and writing in this life.
Yet here I am, still alive. Because there are still so many things I haven't given up. Thus, I only have mild to moderate mental deterioration.
Whatever happens, I'll never give up on this world, my dreams, and my life. I'll live to see the end of my story no matter what. I'll crawl my way to the end if I have to.
"Tripartite Will — Possibility, Desire, and Confidence. The three things to make it happen."
"Where does confidence come from? It comes from experience, achievements, and from within."
"'Let go and accept, because I'm enough' — there's nothing in these words that I can agree on, and that makes me sad."