Static

I have hit a new point in my never ending spiral towards madness. For years, when I had a depressive week it felt like a knife slowly carving out my heart. It was a dull, aching pain that pulsed slowly. Sometimes fading into the background to be forgotten, but always coming back. It was at these moments, highs and lows, that I was mostly active in life. Because I still felt something. I still had internal pain that in some odd way kept me going.

These last few months though, something new has happened. The best way I can describe it is static. Where my life before was hills and valleys, this is like a flat path. But fill the path with soundproof foam and roll me up into it. No longer do I feel much of anything anymore. I still feel the need to use the bathroom, eat, and sleep. Everything else is just a low hiss in the background.

For a while I thought it was just a valley that I would come out of, but as time moves forward nothing changes. In some ways it’s a good thing. I feel less unstable, more sure of my sanity. In other ways it is detrimental. Things that I hold valuable and things that bring me joy look gray. Nothing holds my interest or thought anymore. Because of that I have become even less active in my own life. I have withdrawn more.

It makes me so worried that I will never come out of it. Spending time with friends, something that in the past always could snap me out of anything. Now it is just a waiting game. Just me waiting till the obligation to smile, laugh, and act like a functional human being is over. I understand how awful that is to say. I also wish I knew how to take the mask off and show how I truly feel.

Something about my personality or the way I was raised caused me to be entertaining and a people person. I have no clue how to stop it. If I just sit around quietly people just ask me what’s wrong. Of course something is wrong, but no one wants to hear anyone’s issues. My mind knows that if I am a bummer all the time I will lose everyone. So it puts on a show. The only time I don’t feel tension is when I am alone. When with people I’m burning special fuel that I don’t have much of. It’s why I often plan days of nothing after days of seeing friends. To rest and recharge, to get over the fact that I can’t feel for them the way I used to.

From what I have read this is the last stage. Nothing much more happens after this. You either find help or you stay in the static. I don’t know how long I can stay here. Right now there is an odd comforting nature about it. For months I have needed to call one number to set up a doctor’s appointment. For months I have done nothing. Why can’t I just call? Have I grown accustomed to being nothing? Am I scared of how much a feeling mind will hate what I have become? Change is hard. That’s what it is. I will call. I have to call.

-Tom