That’s how I feel right now. Part of me is fighting really hard to be positive, but meeting stiff resistance from the paralytic ennui and despair of depression, and the result is a constant balancing act between depression and mania.

So how’s YOUR head doing? Because it’s all fucked up in here.

Hopefully, now that I have eaten, I will be able to settle down and attain some kind of stable mood. Doesn’t seem likely right at the moment, but it is possible.

But the odds are that I will do what I always end up doing : plowing ahead by sheer determination, ignoring the chaos inside my cranium, and get through my day one step at a time.

Fuck the wind. Fuck the rain. Fuck the cold. Fuck the thunder AND the lightning. I will continue to put one foot in front of the other no matter what.

And all the time, the world happens around me, and I don’t feel a thing.

Just like in this video.

That’s the cost of being Numb.

First time I saw that video, I connected with it (and the song, of course). That’s pretty much exactly what depression is like. You keep going, and life happens around you, but nothing really gets through. And you sit there, numb yet hurting, feeling completely alone, no matter what the actual truth of your life is. The whole world seems to be made of DON’T. Everything is poisonous and boobytrapped and wrong. There is no safety, only an endless list of things not to do.

Eventually, you just stop trying anything. What’s the point? Nothing is good. Nothing is worth the cost. Your only hope is to do as little as possible and shut the world out as much as you possibly can.

That’s when you learn that despair can be a blessed relief.

Sometimes I look out at the world with reptilian eyes, wondering with perfect detachment what all those warm blooded mammals are doing in their hot and urgent lives, and it all seems so strange to me. What must that be like, to be alive inside? How can it possibly be worth all the trouble and the stress? It’s so much better to be safe in my isolation, observing and analyzing and finding patterns, knowing that no matter how close I get to that hot and stimulating world, I will be safe inside my sheath of ice. I might even laugh at all those silly people out there, living their crazed lives of contrasts and collisions, and all the while the lizard inside me moves like the ultimate anthropologist through the herd, unmolested.

Then comes the contempt and loathing. Fuck all you goddamned people. You all can just go to hell. None of you were ever truly there for me. So fuck you all, individually and as a group. You won’t let me in, I won’t let you in to hurt me, then. You can rot, die, and roast eternally for all I care.

Time to give all the coldness inside me back to the world, with a vengeance. Maybe then I will be able to find room for some wholesome healing in my heart.

It shock me how much loathing and contempt I have inside me. It doesn’t fit my self-image at all. But that is what isolation does to a person. You end up all frostbitten, ice-scraped, filthy meat soaking in ten Spring’s worth of runoff inside. Nothing can get in, so nothing can get out, and all your pain, loneliness, and heartache just keeps building up until you feel like you are going to drown in it.

And buried deep inside is a voice just screaming and screaming where nobody, not even you, can hear.

And you sometimes wonder if you should just let yourself fall apart. End the slow death march to a pointless and worthless grave, withdraw from reality entirely, and let the world do what it will with you.

Catatonics have very few worries, and nobody expects anything of them. Bliss.

Either that, or do something extremely and vividly crazy to force the world to pay attention to you for once. Walk naked into a police station and take a shit on the floor while maintaining eye contact. Throw bowling balls off an overpass into rush hour traffic and then pretend all the chaos and mayhem that ensues has nothing to do with you.

Those poor people! Someone should do something to protect them from people like me. What a shame.

Or even take some hostages and when the cops show up, make absurd, demeaning, and downright disturbing demands of the authorities. I’ll let them go if you get ten men to ejaculate simultaneously on live TV.

You have to admit, the ratings on that would be through the ROOF.

So the reptile becomes the maniac. Guess we weren’t that safe after all. Turns out that rather than a peaceful and bemused observer, you are that most dangerous of beasts, the intelligent lunatic. Detachment and peace? Bullshit. That only leads to lunacy and derangement as you try to blame and punish the world for the isolation you, yourself have imposed yourself.

The world does not owe you people willing to crawl through the minefield of your defenses to deliver some warmth to you despite how hard you fight it. It’s a crazy thing to expect of anyone and an even more insane yardstick by which to measure the world.

At some point, it’s going to have to be you that opens the door. People can knock, but only you can let them in, and if you don’t, eventually they will give up and go away.

And you can’t fault them for that.

Once you realize that it is the terror of letting things in that is the real source of your pain, you can throw away all the anger and pain and concentrate on overcoming yourself.

Only then can you join the rest of the world in the sunshine and the rain.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.