You Cannot Put a Psyche in Airplane Mode

(How NOT to disappear completely)

On the illusion of the offline retreat, the weight of the whiplash, and why the shadows offer no relief.

I went blank on here, and across every other digital grid, for almost two months. I didn’t announce it, I didn't leave a forwarding address, and honestly, I still don’t have a perfectly packaged, poetic reason for why I pulled the plug.

When someone who is usually loud suddenly goes completely dark, there is an assumption that it was a conscious, enlightened choice. People assume you retreated into the "real world" to find your center. Let me disabuse you of that notion right now. Reality was not suddenly better or more profound than the virtual one. My headspace was certainly not a comfortable sanctuary. There was no grand epiphany waiting for me in the quiet.

I left because my nervous system simply hit a wall.

The Weight of the Whiplash

For a long time, I had been locked in a relentless argument with circumstances. I was constantly whiplashed by the sheer, sickening velocity of a world that insists on conducting business as usual while bleeding out. You all know the feeling, the whiplash of holding grief, rage, and historical memory in one hand, while the world demands you maintain your balance with the other.

At first, the silence felt like a deep, anesthetic relief. The noise stopped. The screens went black. I thought that by shutting the door, I could finally stop the spinning. I thought that if I stopped looking at the fire, I might stop feeling the heat.

The Myth of the Shadows

But here is the brutal, unglamorous truth about the dark, staying in the shadows hasn't brought me any actual relief.

You can turn off the internet, but you cannot turn off the boiling of your own blood. You cannot uninstall the things you have witnessed, and you cannot put a fractured psyche into airplane mode. The silence didn't offer a cure, it just amplified the echo of my own isolation.

I still don't know exactly where my spot is in this world. I don't know the precise coordinates of where I belong in a reality that feels this broken. But I have learned, the hard way, that my spot is not in hiding.

To Those I Left in the Dark

To anyone I left confused in the wake of my sudden ghosting, I apologize. If you looked at a deactivated profile or an unanswered message and wondered if I had quietly removed you, blocked you, or cut ties, please know it was never personal. It was a complete, systemic shutdown. I didn't walk away from you, I walked away from the noise.

And to those who defied the blackout, who refused to let me just disappear and reached out through any other possible channel, digging through the silence just to check for a pulse, thank you. Your persistence was a tether I didn't even know I needed.

The Return

I am back.

I haven't been fixed, I haven't been sanitized, and I certainly haven't been quieted. The break didn't make me any more palatable or any more willing to compromise. I am as loud as usual, whether you like it or not. The world is still burning, the stakes are still absolute, and I am still here to document the ashes.

Free Palestine. 🇵🇸

Go Bosnia and Herzegovina. 🇧🇦