What is it like?

It's like seeing the world through whatever filter I might be wearing that day. Or even that moment. A snap shot of the world through the wrong filter can lead into a downward spiral of racing thoughts and unrelenting paranoia. I can never trust my own perceptions of the world because that view is inherently skewed. Altered. Modified by something that isn't really real.

I've made decisions, sometimes life changing decisions, based on this altered view of reality. I'm not a good person. I've made bad decisions. Very bad decisions. I simply cannot see how this decision I am making, whatever it may be, is the wrong one. But it was the wrong decision. Why couldn't I see it as wrong? Why is my moral compass so catastrophically broken that I can no longer tell the difference between right and wrong anymore?

I can convince myself in the moment that I deserve whatever it is. That I need it. That there is no reason, at all, that I shouldn't have whatever it is. The thought that I shouldn't have it, or that I shouldn't pursue it, simply does not cross my mind.

And it should. Probably. This is what makes me a bad person I think. I don't doubt these bad decisions. That angel on my shoulder that is supposed to be my voice of responsible reason seems to fly away in the moments when I could most use her guidance.

The devil takes over. And when it's done, when that decision has been made, I can hear the devil laugh. He has won. And I'm just left being that bad person I was always afraid I would turn out to be.