When I am taking photographs I feel what it must be like for normal people. Not that I presume normal people go about their days without worry or sadness, I know they experience a wide spectrum of emotions. I also know that most of the time they are even, neither horribly sad or jumping with joy. They do not spend any time thinking that everyone is going to abandon them or that everyone is plotting to destroy them. I spend around an hour every day convincing myself that this is not the case. It is difficult. I would say that I am used to it for it is normal for me. I know that those feelings are without reason, that they are not realistic. Still, they exist every morning, noon, and night. There is also the depression. The sadness that is constant and without a cause. Nothing bad has to happen for dark clouds to follow me around constantly. That is a twenty-four-hour a day battle. Do you know the feeling in your gut when you are about to cry, like when you contemplate death at a funeral of a loved one? That pain creeps in while in line at the grocery store, in the shower, driving on the highway, taking a bite of something delicious, kissing someone I am in love with, and while doing any and everything. Not daily but five to twenty times a day, maybe more. The trifecta would not be complete, though, without anxiety.
Along with the anxiety and depression come a number of physical side effects. These range from mild discomfort in the form of itching, pains in my stomach or back, and slight shaking to others which when they first occurred were mistaken for ER visit realm maladies. The ones I mentioned above (itching, stomach and back pain, slight shaking) are an every day, twice, thrice, a day thing, but there are others, odd ones, that are less frequent but frequent enough to annoy and cause hard to explain situations. For instance, the need to run as fast as possible (kind of like restless leg syndrome but during the day). Also, there are the more dangerous attacks that cause tunnel vision and blacking out. There are the times when those usual pains of the back and stomach become nearly paralyzing. Also, there are times when the uncontrollable shaking exceeds the "slight" and becomes so violent that it appears to be a seizure. There is my usual episodic crying that turns to uncontrollable weeping which then turns into the need to curl up in a ball or to find a small space for which to squeeze myself into. There is the urge to scream and the fear that if I do not I will punch myself in the face or pull out all of my hair. Then there is what I think is the worst which is an odd sickness that resembles the flu and can last days. This is not common and has not happened since the day after my father's funeral but the rest of those happen fairly regularly. I experience all of them at least once a month, the mild ones nearly daily and the severe but not the last one weekly. The most common being stomach and back pains, tunnel vision and uncontrollable weeping. It's normal to me. All of these have been a part of my life since I can remember. When I was young I would make up excuses, but now, if anyone notices, I try to explain. That doesn't work. So, what does work?
Basically, acting like I am fine is the only remedy to my problems. I live in a world of make-believe. I pretend like the "crazy me" is my alter ego, one that I must keep a secret. Like this, writing this blog entry it is not real. Are you confused? You should be.
This is not fiction but to me it is. No one will actually read this but they will. No one will take this seriously or believe what I am putting down but they might. This will change nothing but it could change everything.
This exists because I am all out of ideas. This happens due to the fact that my frustration has to go somewhere. The screaming in a pillow type of exercise that is "journal writing" used to help but now I have to put it out there for real people to read. I have a compulsion. For once in my life, I want people to understand exactly what it is like to live in my body and brain. Maybe then they could understand who I am. Maybe then, I could understand who I am. As I have stated before, I have only known myself for less than two years. Before that, I was drunk for nearly 22 years and before that, I was a child.
I am sure extensive therapy would help. I don't have the money nor the time to do that. I can barely (not really at all) make ends meet now. I need more work and I can't spend money on shit I can't afford. I am trying to stay sane. I am trying to stay alive. I am trying to improve but I am fighting someone or something at every turn. Whether it is others who wish to deceive me, who just don't want to pay me what I am worth, who don't understand why I would charge what I charge, who don't realize they are getting a deal, who don't realize when they should toss me a bonus for going that extra mile or hour or day or week, or who are just plain cheap and mean who pose a tremendous obstacle or if it is something like my camera taking a shit, the car breaking down, my computer malfunctioning, someone dying, my insurance rates going up, my phone bill increasing, any bill increasing and all of this while my rate of pay has not increased much over the past ten years. Maybe it is my love of run-on sentences that make little sense? Who knows?
I am lucky enough to have a few people in my corner but I am sick of my inability to do anything for them, to always be the one asking and never giving, and wondering when the absurdity of my mental illness will hit them. Borderline personality disorder makes me imagine abandonment. I think that everyone who cares will leave me, basically, any minute now. I know this is not real but I don't sometimes. Sometimes the real and the imaginary get confused. It is only a matter of time and it is nearly guaranteed that at some time in the future I will turn on them and accuse them of plotting against me. If they have read anything I have sent them about my illness, then they should know this. Pills can't stop my fate, therapy is not there, so like a time bomb here I am, waiting to lose those I love.
Keeping up with this blog is impossible. In order for me to include what I do every day to trick myself sane would take nearly the whole day. It would take pages. I have tried and it is overwhelming. It is also ever changing. I have to think up new tricks daily. My stratagems are fundamentally the same. First, remember that your fears are not rooted in reality. Second, remember that depression, anxiety, and fear can not kill you or even hurt you but acting on them can. Third, no one benefits from your death. Fourth, this is not over, you still have time. This is not over, you still have time. Time is not for me but it is all I have. I must work harder, always harder, always more, this will never stop. Everything has to be work. Every movement must have meaning. I am not a victim. I am not hopeless.
I am tired, though.
Before I go...
There are also "the strangers". These are people who hardly know me or do not know me at all, but still, have helped me out one way or another. I don't know why. I will tell all of you strangers that I am not giving up. Your help has not gone to waste. I will always have proof ready for you. These were taken today. There are more, and as long as I have a camera and a computer there will always be more. That is all I need, my camera and my computer. A phone helps, of course, and a home.
No comments:
Post a Comment