~~Her eyes glance to the SonyPMW that glares a red LED light. She exaggerates a moan as her bottom lip tucks under her bite. 5-digit imprints begin to welt and ecchymosis starts to surface. He thrashes her body into the Kingsdown cushion.~~ My body hosts a habitat for not just one, but two. Beyond my classic blonde ringlets and wide blue eyes lurks a predator. I call her Vixen. She is a lecherous creature infested in my mind. I cannot rid her. We share the same body, but she deludes my cognition. She is the entity of our illness that resides in our ventral striatum. The conflict between us does not cease until I swallow the colored beads engraved with a systematic arrangement of numerical and alphabetical configurations and close my eyes. My mind disintegrates into a trance. Peace―finally, until REM generates its own unconscious version of Vixen, for Vixen has no regard for serenity. In fact, she preys on calmness. I have wild conversations and battles with voices in my head. The relationship among us is hardly fathomable. The only means I have to express the delusion and insanity that unfolds inside my cranium is through abstract metaphors. And even then, oftentimes I lose myself in the psychobabble and pronouns. There are too many identities. Is my nonsense merely a figment of my distorted reality, or is it true? I don't know. I am not her. She is not me. We drive the same car and run on the same fuel, but there is only one wheel. For some months she used her bondage to leave me tied and helpless in the trunk. Vixen drove me down unpaved roads and scuffed our tires. I persisted to plead for a break, but one of Vixen's chief qualities is her apathy. After months of intense therapy and rehab, I finally escaped the trunk. I shifted from the passenger and back seats, contingent on how much time could elapse before the car required a refuel. After innumerous efforts to achieve 30-day abstinence, Vixen took the passenger seat. I hesitated to touch the wheel―afraid I would wreck both of us. I had not forgotten how to drive, but I forgot the traffic rules. Simple guiding principles like stoplights were difficult to realign myself to conform to. The only light in Vixen's world signaled “go;” even red meant “keep going”. It seemed unnatural to stop and “yield” did not exist in Vixen's vocabulary. My folly was a recipe for relapse. Lest our psychosis lost you, allow me to elaborate. I am a recovering sex addict. In order to grasp a clue at who controls my behaviors, I compartmentalize. As such, I personified the part of my mind that is plagued with an illness. She, Vixen, is like an escape artist. She's mastered the skills to escape what is real and deny what is true. She abducts our body into her alternative universe and I return with black and blue and welted evidence of our travels. My unadulterated self is impaired with shame and disgust. I see Vixen's graffiti plastered on my body's canvas and it reminds me of her grueling obsessions and masochism. Not that I would ever desire to, but even if forced, I could never escape to the places Vixen is so familiar with. It is her realm, not mine. Thus, I struggle with dissonance and impulses on a daily basis. Dissonance is a frustrating state that devours my energy and cognition. Denial worms its way into my head despite my efforts to banish it. Rationalization, minimization, ritualization, manipulation and crazy-making are only a handful of potent enablers. The constant questions of “who” and “what” confuse even the simplest of ideas, hence the medication to keep me functional―if you would even call us that. Despite failures, I can now intellectualize my behaviors, but whether that belongs on my excuse list or my sobriety strategies: I do not know. But I do understand that ignoring Vixen only intensifies her outbursts, like the one I endured prior to my first lapse―the prerequisite to a relapse: Salty, fiery tears streamed down my cheeks and collected in a damp puddle underneath my bed. I clung onto the metal framework, hiding from voices that echoed off the innards of my skull. White noise screeched in the background like nails on a chalkboard. I am amazed that my neck did not snap while I tucked my head into myself like an isopod crustacean. I gasped for air as if I were being water-boarded by my own tears. I felt like an ant being tortured under a scorching microscopic light with malicious eyes watching its every movement. I could not help but wonder if death was the only escape. My fingers type anxiously as I complete this work. I have so many voices to speak for, but such little language to communicate with. Delusion skews my vision of reality. As I prepare to close my thoughts, Vixen insists to secure the last word, but no. Patrick Carnes' are the words I want to conclude my piece. “Addiction is an illness of escape….it cripples the core ability to know what is real because…rationalizations and delusions make it impossible to cope with details.”