Have you ever felt like a ghost walking emptily through your day? As if something has held your senses captive but has immobilized you at the same time. My limbs work. I can move. It’s all automatic, maybe a little too automatic.
Some days, I see the world, but I can’t hear the world. I can see mouths moving. I can see the motions and the movements. I can see what I’m supposed to be hearing like the sounds of the person next to me tapping their pencil. But I don’t truly hear it. The world is happening around me, but I have it on mute. Sometimes, silence is my friend. Sometimes, it’s all too familiar. It scares me. The minute I can hear, it’s like the world has woken up. It’s like I’m standing in the streets of New York with headphones on and people are passing me by. The song stops, and in between that transition to the next, the chaos and the commotion flips on. I can hear again.
Other days, the smallest tasks seem like the most challenging. They build up. All the things that went wrong during the day pile up. Silly things that would not bother others make me feel like I need to rip out of the skin that’s restricting me. There’s this urge to scratch and escape from the skin I am not comfortable in. It happens sometimes, this feeling. To cope and to avoid this feeling, I overthink. I worry. I wonder. I try to avoid it. Decisions are my worst enemy. In order to feel comfortable, I am careful. Too carefully, my actions become repetitive. I become scared of things like not remembering to lock my car or to smile at every stranger that passes me by. It’s a cycle that consumes me. The symptoms are not always obvious. The signs are my indecisiveness and my avoidance of situations that involve pressure or conflict.
Have you ever felt the pain and unbearable struggle to breathe and fight tears? The forcible feeling in your throat as you feel like you’re suffocating. This force that cannot be seen is a strong fighter, and it’s holding you down underwater. The desperation of trying to take a breath and then you collapse. The fight settled down, but you didn’t win. Your limbs are numb and you are trying to reach the surface. These are the bad days.
A lot of the days, this doesn’t happen. I get out of bed. I get out the door. Then, mid-day, I’ll get overwhelmed. Most days, it never hits me. The day will be incredibly calm. But then some days, it catches up with me, and silence becomes my comrade for the day. Some nights, I’ll lay in bed while my mind replays the whole day. It doesn’t stop. It doesn’t shut up. Maybe that’s why I enjoy the silence at times. Even though it’s an empty silence, it’s better than the feeling of suffocating. It’s better than the chaos that is my mind.
HCXO!