Ever experienced that moment where you open your mouth and nothing comes out? Not a murmur? Nada? Zip?
Ever experienced that moment where you open your mouth and something comes out... but it's just not right? It's not what you wanted? It's not what you intended? It's not what you feel?
No? You're lucky and I envy you, even if I struggle to 100% believe you in that answer.
Yes? Then you might just understand where I'm coming from, at least partially if nothing else.
See, it's these two ends of the spectrum where I've been living my life for the last couple of months now.
(I'm not sure what this post is setting out to be yet; apology, emotional admission, deeply uninsightful warbling, who knows? But bear with me, as I know, if nothing else, it's important. Or it feels important to me. If you could just humour me, that'd be great.)
I've written about past problems and battles (?) I've had with anxiety and panic, mental health. If you read it, thank you for taking the time to do so. If you didn't, but want to, have at it (x). If you didn't, and don't want to, short version is; I'm a bit fucking weird (but if you've had any interaction with me whatsoever, you knew that anyway).
I had problems, big deal, everyone does, just different ones. In some way. I suffered, got help, fixed myself. Sorted. Job done. However, what a great many of you don't know at this point (maybe you did, maybe you noticed, I don't know?) is a couple of months ago I started relapsing. The anxiety, the panic, the confusion, the instability. All starting to assert their presence, quite forcefully.
Now, the situations are immeasurably different this time, compared to last. I'm working (I couldn't keep a job due to illness), I'm studying (I didn't even feel capable enough to contemplate it), I'm socialising (I shut myself off from everybody, physically), it's actually hard to keep me indoors now (I became agoraphobic).
This means these things have been asserting themselves in different ways than before. See, mental health is a fluid concept. This means that mental health issues, illness, are also fluid.
Hard to detect. Hard to confront. Hard.
I'm happy. I think I'm happy. I should be happy.
And yet, I knew. I could feel it. I don't know what 'it' is, but I knew it's face. It's claws, and that's not even dramatisation, they're definitely claws. It's eyes, that nobody else can see, staring out through mine, warping whatever comes into view.
The common sense approach here is thus; you know you have a problem, you do something about it. Now any of you who know me, know that maybe commonsense isn't the first point I jump to (Ha!) always. For everyone else? Yes, of course. Myself, well that's far less straight forward. Less important.
(Okay, so this is the point that I stopped writing for 3 days because I
didn't know what to.... I just didn't know. Then decided where to go
with it... and put it off for a good 5 hours after deciding. Little
insight there.)
And there's the problem.
I've been throwing myself into everything else instead. (Note; makes it worse by the way, don't do it. Seriously.) Everything else was, is, more important. I knew what this felt like, I knew what it could do. To me. Make me feel. I got to a point where, I'm fairly certain, I couldn't get lower. But I dealt with it before. I also know what it did to everything and everyone around me too.
You can't fix that. Or it's at least a damn sight harder to, if you can.
Which is the point of this. I think.
When things affect other people, directly or indirectly, you have to take responsibility for that. I have a responsibility for that.
Responsibility is a substantial weight, one that weighs heavier when you deny it and hide from it. But I have been anyway, steadily, progressively, without direct intention. Maybe to hide, but never to hurt. I close everyone off, not because I want to, but because I don't know how not to.
I drown myself in everything else so deeply, hoping to get
deep enough that nothing else can touch me. Turns out, it's only the
good things that can't touch you when you get down deep. The bad
will always drop down with you.
"Denial may be somewhat comforting but it hinders to healing and progression." - A very knowledgeable friend of mine.
It's an isolation that suffocates you... but keeps you breathing.
Being stuck in a place where you don't feel able to reach out no matter how desperately you want to. Confined and constricted, by nothing, but everything at once. Wanting to cling to those that you desperately can't bare to be in the vicinity of.
Frustration, to the point it literally, physically, feels like it's hard to draw breath.
A lump in your throat that feels like it's three times the size of the pipe it dwells in.
Being so tense, it feels like my muscles will rupture from continuous, painfully strenuous contraction.
Having someone say something to you and, literally, just.... nothing.
Open your mouth and... nothing.
But not always nothing, which sometimes is even worse. Because what does come out is often not what was supposed to, or how it was supposed to, or, just, not right.
Ever had someone come up to you, a friend, and say something, anything, and instead of a response, even a hello, nothing happens? Nothing comes out. All you can do is make a cursory noise of remote acknowledgement and then leave the area?
Even that's worse than nothing. It comes across incredibly rude if little else. The insight being; that played on my mind for days. I lie. It still is now.
It's incredibly disheartening when you ask yourself a question like, 'Why couldn't you just say 'Hi.'?!', and you actually have no viable answer.
I became adept at faking it, but that's become oppressively harder the longer it's gone on.
Dealing with people, any people, on a day to day basis had/has become one of the biggest challenges I've ever had to face.
People at University, which I love.
People at work, which, again, I genuinely relish.
People at home.
Strangers.
Friends.
Family.
I've alienated people in every aspect of my life because of it.
Which is where the apology comes in.
It's perfectly truthful, I am fully accepting, that I've not been, am not, the greatest person to be around. Understatement of the year so far, I think, maybe.
I'm not sure of much, but I'm sure I've come across as rude at times. Unthinking and inconsiderate. Inarticulate. Uncaring. Harsh. Oblivious. At times, downright unbearable.
Which, for me, is especially horrible and painful. For that I unreservedly apologise. There has never been any intention to be that way.
Now, this isn't something that has a beginning, middle and end, wrapping up all nicely in a package. A nice little, comfortable story.
I'm still struggling now. I'm not going to deny that.
I've said before that I feel trapped between 3 people in my life. Who I used to be, who I am now, and who I want to be. Maybe I'm further from who I want to be, and who I feel I truly am, than I was before. But I'm working on that. I'm working on how to do that.
I'm trying,
It turns out that's the point of all of this.
I'm trying.
