Irish Fairy Tales. Written by Stephen James, illustrated by Arthur Rackham. 1920.

The kind of Brain Tigers that living paycheck to paycheck gives you are nothing less than horrific.

It simulates being persistence-hunted.

You can't think. You can't hide. You can't plan.

"Brain Tigers" are my way of describing the mental sensation of when something intangible activates my survival instincts. Evolutionary speaking, we are only supposed to feel dread when our lives are in immanent danger—like when there are tigers in the bushes.

But our modern society now has simulated threats, such as the threat of homelessness via living paycheck to paycheck. Because our survival instincts don't distinguish between immanent danger and conceptual danger, it reacts the same way.

However, unlike real tigers, we have no means of directly combating these simulated predators, which means we can't remedy our sense of dread. And also unlike real tigers, we can't detect them with our carnal senses, which creates a pretty horrid sense of unreality within our minds.

Not only does this kind of dread shut down our critical thinking, but it also shuts down our free will. As long as you need to worry about making ends meet, you'll never, ever be able to fully tap into your higher judgement.

I've been brainwashed and programmed. I've been warped by neurotoxins. I've been tortured for 22 years due to inflammation of my entire nervous system. I've had mind held in a mental cage nearly all my life.