I know that I haven’t always felt this way.
When I was younger, I was nervous. I was quiet and shy and it always took me a while to warm up to people, even those I saw on every holiday, birthday, and graduation. But I wasn’t like this. I wasn’t like the other kids, but I was happy. I could go about my day without an onslaught of questions running through my head without any reprieve.
I could ******* breathe.
There was a breaking point.
I know that now.
I was sad but I wasn’t like this. Yet. I was drowning but still unaware of the fact. I could get by if I needed to, wanted to, and I did.
Now, a hangnail can plunge me into darkness.
I don’t know how to get back to the before.
I don’t know if I will.
I don’t know if I can keep going on like this.
Hopeless.
Lifeless.
Every rise and fall of my chest takes a tremendous amount of effort.
Every morning makes me sick, and every night reveals more that needs to be fixed.
Fixed.
They gave me pills. I went to therapy.
I talk about it. I talk about it with anyone that will listen. I know that somehow it helps me, even if in the moments, it makes me feel like I’m helping dig my own grave. It’s heavy. It’s tiring. It comes spilling out of me like a ******* wild fire. All it needs is that one spark.
God, I’m sick of the natural disaster metaphors.
I know that I’m not a disaster. I know that this is normal. I know that there are millions of people around the world that feel just as bad as me. A lot of them feel worse than me.
But right now, I feel like I’m the only one who has ever known this kind of suffering.
I know that isn’t true.
It doesn’t help.
The air conditioner sounds like a rainstorm.
I miss the rain.
Last Christmas, I got really bad again because the days were so short and my job kept me in the dark and out of the sun every single day. I forgot what the day is like. I forgot what it meant to be awake.
It didn’t let up for a long time.
I had to quit my job to get out of the bad place.
I ended up in another one, though, because then I didn’t have any money and I wasn’t eating enough because I was too anxious to leave my room and I couldn’t focus in school and I ****** my grades up.
I don’t know if I’ll get into Cal Poly. I kind of doubt it.
My GPA is average.
I probably had a better chance of getting in in high school, and I still got rejected.
I know I wouldn’t like it there because the people are too normal. Too white. Too rich. Too blinded by their privilege and the pretty bubble they live in.
The happiest place in America.
We’ll see about that.
Maybe.
I used to be like them. I could have thrived among them.
I’m different now.
My life is divided like that: then and now, before and after.
That’s how I know there was a break. A shift inside of me.
I can’t see anything the same way.
I hate the people from high school that I used to so desperately want to be popular with. I can’t eat steak. My hair is green. My skin is pale. Football just doesn’t do it for me anymore.
They’ll tell me it’s loss of interest, a common side effect.
It’s not.
I’m just different.
I don’t eat eggs.
Where is my life going? Do I need a purpose?
I suppose.
I don’t really want one.
The whole idea of being here on earth for a reason is terrifying. Angering.
I don’t want to have to do anything.
I just want to live.
But even that isn’t enough for me. I can’t keep going through the motions. I love my routines, need my routines to keep from falling apart, but I think they are killing me.
I don’t know any alternative.
Routines keep money in my bank account, good grades, enough food in my stomach, strong legs.
I would be nothing without them.
They are the ******* replacement for the purpose I loathe to discover.
I know where I am headed.
I will get bad again. Just in time for the holidays. And I’ll lose my grip for a while.
The anticipation is a *******.
I can feel the pressure building inside of me. I can feel the vibration. I can sense the change before I can recognize it.
A volcano.
And then what?
I live on my own.
If I go down, I go down alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Alone.
Maybe that’s what get’s to me so much. I know that I need human connection because it’s basic biological fact. I know it I know it I know it. I refuse it.
It’s too hard.
It’s takes more energy than I can spare right now.
I hate that I have to think this way.
Because it’s a need, not a choice. I can smile and laugh and tell myself I love life and all the little joys it has to offer me, but it doesn’t change how I really feel, what i really know about life. I’ve felt the pain. I’ve ******* made it my wife.
It’s raining again.
I can hear every whisper in this **** library.
I can never find a book.
The medication is plateauing. There’s only two more doses after this one, and I’ll have to try something else soon.
I did this to myself.
I know that,
It doesn’t help.