I’m Ash.
I live somewhere between what’s real and what my mind insists is real.
For a long time, I tried to draw a hard line between the two, but it kept blurring.
I study the world through physics and the mind through experience, and neither of them behaves the way I expect.
In lectures I talk about particles and order and motion, but my thoughts often move in stranger directions.
Some days my brain runs on a system of its own. Doctors gave it a name. I’ve learned to live with that name like it’s an old roommate I didn’t choose but can’t evict.
Writing helps me make sense of that shared space.
It’s slower than thought, quieter than panic, kinder than medication.
When I write, I can look at what’s happening inside me without it feeling like a threat.
That’s what this place is for.
I called it The Quiet Schism because that’s how it feels most of the time.
A steady split between how I see the world and how the world expects to be seen.
Sometimes it’s manageable, sometimes it leaks into everything… sleep, studies, conversations, even the silence of a lab room.
I came to Germany for my master’s degree in physics, thinking I’d find stability in numbers, equations, data.
Instead, I found that science and chaos can coexist just fine.
I spend half of my days working through research projects and half working through myself.
Both feel like experiments with unpredictable outcomes.
I keep notes for both.
This blog is part diary, part observation log.
I write about small moments — mornings that feel too loud, coffee that grounds me, the strange stillness after a psychotic episode.
I write about science too, sometimes. The comfort of equations, the honesty of uncertainty.
There’s no fixed topic. Just whatever feels real that day.
If you’re reading this, maybe you also live with your own kind of split, maybe not the same kind, but a version of it.
You’re welcome here.
This isn’t a polished story. It’s a running experiment in staying alive and staying honest.
Some days I’ll succeed, some I won’t.
Either way, you’ll find the data here.