I have this trick that I use when I feel anxiety.
I don't think.
I don't even try to feel.
I send out my perception and try to change the world around me without doing anything. Its different every time, but I've tried to turn the sun into a ball of darkness or change the people around me to stone or make the room I'm standing in empty so that no one has to see me fail. Well... I do this without thinking. I guess I dream when I feel anxiety and it pushes it away. I tell myself that I can't feel it now and that I'll have time to feel it later.
The problem is... I never do feel it later.
Later...
I end up feeling like this.
And I don't even know what you call this.
I should have spent all day preparing... I'm about to close this netbook and take it with me, but I won't have internet to communicate with you.
I'll miss you.
Yeah... you: nothing.
nothing at all
nothing important
I've been trying to dream of someone to replace the loneliness with and I wake up with a forgotten memory. I think all I have been getting is blackness.
I did a run today. My legs got heavy before I even started. My blood sugar tanked too so I was sweating the kind of sweat you get when you're afraid, but I told myself that I didn't have time to faint and that I had enough energy to do it. I got out there and ended up running the whole time because I wasn't going to let any of the people driving by see me walk. I didn't feel anything then but my dehydration and the weight in my legs.
If I try too hard to remember I feel a shadow of the fear I could have felt, and while that shadow almost brings me to tears its a current compared to a storm of raging water. I have focused sadness.
And maybe that is what this feeling is.
Focused
depression
stay beautiful
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I'm so glad to see that you are still here. Does writing these post help you in any way? Help you to feel, or at least allow you to "label" your emotions? Figure them out?
ReplyDeleteHave you ever heard of the people who do not feel pain? It is a disease called CIPA. It is rare a genetic disorder where you do not develop the nerve fibers to carry temperature or pain signals to the brain. The people with this disorder seem inhuman. They live near death at all times, unable to sense when they have gone too far. They are ghosts.
Your description of pain reminded me of classical conditioning in psychology. If an animal was abused, they would avoid whatever they did before that caused the abuse. The animal knows not to do something, because that something will cause pain. It's body, it's natural instinct, is to avoid pain. Like you said, your body tells you not to put knives under your skin or starve yourself, and yet you do it anyways. You fight against nature; and you inflict pain on yourself because you feel as if you deserve the pain, you deserve to be punished for who you are or something you did. Yet, you don't see animals hurting themselves over something they did wrong, right? They don't have the mental capacity. They are fine-tuned with nature and they follow nature's orders, because they don't have the ability to question it, to push it's limits. We hate ourselves due to the standards society sets, over-thinking, high-expectations of ourselves, etc.. We want to go against nature, fight our own boundaries, see how far we can push them. Living on this edge, testing our limits, and inducing pain is a high. It is a challenge; just like purging till you choke on blood, or fasting until you faint, or running until you collapse.. It is testing your boundaries. It is a sort of suicide, on the brink of death, but not quite there yet. Almost there, though. Almost. I get you. The "scream of mercy" you talk about, the pain, it's your body screaming at you that you are pushing too hard, or going too far. It's a burst of adrenaline. The moment you fall and cannot breathe, the moment where you do not feel anymore, that is death. Death is nothingness. Death is out of our control. We cannot sense death, because death is beyond our sense of understanding.
I also: "hoard food, dream about it, think about it, hungry even while eating", etc. Sometimes I even have dreams where I am eating something that I wouldn't even look at in reality, and I'll wake up crying and feeling so damn guilty. It takes me a while to get over dreams like this. I am always thinking about food. Always. Hm, but at least it is something to think about. Most people obsess over who they are in love with; thinking about them constantly. I think about food 24/7; my eating disorder is the longest relationship I have ever been in. Ed defines me. It's funny, how many similarities my relationship with "Ed" has with an abusive relationship.
-You're avoiding your feelings of anxiety by numbing yourself out. In rehab, every time we sat down to eat, we would have to rate our feelings on a scale of 1-10 before and after eating. Every time before eating I was usually very anxious. By the end of dinner I was absolutely numb. I'd have this "zombie" stare of sorts, just staring at something random but not thinking of anything. Not feeling anything. I would detach myself from everything I was feeling and only act as a robot, spooning food into my mouth and thinking of nothing else. Once I got into that mood, though, I stayed that way. I detached from everything, and I didn't want to feel because I was afraid those feelings would kill me. Kill me for eating like I did, and losing control.
ReplyDeleteAvoiding emotions can be very dangerous, though. You push those emotions inside, pretend like they are not there, but they are there.. somewhere... collecting in the back of your mind, or in the pit of your stomach, and you are going to keep pushing all of these different emotions back. You will continue to deal with them by feeling this way, of feeling nothing, until one day something happens and you try to push it down with all of the rest of the emotions, and it will explode. You won't know how to deal and you will drown with all of your emotions. Maybe practice sitting with yourself, sometimes? Letting yourself feel whatever you need to feel. Sometimes it takes a while for the feelings to show themselves, especially if you've buried them deep enough. Just wait. They'll come, and hopefully you'll feel a bit more alive once they do.
I'm very glad you are alive, by the way.
-bri