DM,
I started with silence -- but maybe in a sick sense? I loved (and still love) meditation, laziness, catatonia. Bored and content. (I spent a few years, just staring at a wall -- I don't regret it -- it was peaceful nice.)
Then (around 2002?) my voices pushed me. I think they are a source of pressuring me out of my tamasic state towards a rajas state. (?)
But actually, the voices didn't push me towards anything optimistic -- mostly just into alcohol and nicotine to try to deal with
annoyances of life and dealing with my voices, themselves.
Alcohol and nicotine feel like a cane to help me walk (through a rajas guna?). If I lean on them for rebalance, I either imagine (often hallucinatory) to
either hide from things (retreat to tamas), or they remind me of a sattva fantasy/dream/goal (but in a realm where eventually drugs don't belong).
