Thanks so much for your thoughtful response, @Scooter9. I hadn't seen the issue the way you described it. Luckily I was able to take 24 hours to clean up my act and think about my outburst.

There is definitely a gap like what you described, but I think it's more so between who I am and how I picture “a functional human adult” is supposed to look. When I get in this headspace, I feel like an unassimilated animal, like I haven't fully assimilated into human ways. That's the gap I wish I would cross, but my destructive tendencies disrupt my attempts to cross it, because there is a part of me that, I have long suspected, doesn't want to. I want it to, but it doesn't want to. And it has good reason not to want to, after all, the world is a horribly dangerous place, why would it want to belong in such an environment? The trick I think is convincing it that I'm not gonna abandon it even as I bring myself and it more deeply and fully into the world.

I think you hit on something very relevant to me in this moment: you mentioned “conditions that are bad for me, especially emotionally.” I admire that you’ve been able to separate yourself from that without completely withdrawing from the world. I hope I will continue making progress to do the same, one aspect of which is probably to cut out or drastically cut back on intoxicants for the time being.