Today, on our “things I need to periodically remind myself” playlist, we have that old standard, “people do actually care about me”.
And they do. They really do. I know they do. All evidence points to this conclusion.
But I forget it all the time because I don’t feel it.
I am just too goddamned numb. Depression is a lot of things but I am convinced that at the deep down core, it is numbness.
That seems counterintuitive because depression makes you feel a lot of very bad things. But I would argue that those bad things all stem from being too numb to feel the good things in life like people caring about you.
So you feel utterly alone in the world even when surrounded by friends and family who love you. I know I do.
Maybe that’s because it is easier to handle being utterly alone than it is to face the fact that all the love you want is right there but you can’t feel it.
I mean, would you rather believe that nobody is calling, or that many people are shouting themselves hoarse trying to get through to you?
Being in many ways far more honest and realistic than is good for me, I know that people out there are trying to care about me and that while I don’t literally believe they aren’t there or don’t count, I don’t necessarily reflect all I receive either.
So to anyone who care about me and loves me and wonders if I even notice or whether it makes the slightest difference, know that I do notice and it makes a huge difference.
It’s just that my depression is like living on Pluto. The light from the sun barely reaches me at all and any signal you send is very weak by the time it gets to me.
I wish it wasn’t so. I want to be able to receive all the love in the world in high fidelity surround sound both so that I will be much happier and so that the people I care about know I value and cherish the love they give me.
But it’s just so damned cold and lonely out where I am. And I want to move closer to the sun and all my friends, but I am too damned scared of melting.
Being frozen is all I know. So no matter how much I yearn for the light and warmth of human closeness, another far sicker part of me equates melting with death and will fight that move like it’s a fight for survival.
And for my depression, it is. Closeness would kill it. It can only live if it can keep me identifying with it so that I think of damage to it as damage to me.
But I am not my depression. I want it to die, die, die so I can finally be myself again. If damage to it hurts me, then I am fine with that,
Bring it on. I will march through Hell to rid myself of these demons. Let the fires of Hell make me pure. Let them burn the pain away, Let them cleanse me of my filth.
A clean like that is worth any amount of pain.
Wait, what was I talking about again?
More after the break.
A low boil
I’m in a pretty shitty mood right now.
I feel irritable and tense and restless and liable to snap. Everything hurts and I hate the world. I’m just glad I don’t have to deal with people for another 3.5 hours or so because I feel pretty grumpy.
And I feel crappy physically as well. That might well be the cause of my bad mood. I have aches and pains all through my body and I feel like my skin is on too tight. My head hurts and I am overheating from a vague but pervasive burning sensation.
In other words, I am rocking a body wide inflammatory response probably set off by a hay fever attack I had a couple of hours ago.
Despite my having a 24 hour Reactine in my bloodstream. One I took 12 hours ago.
You’ve failed me again, Reactine. God damn it. This is all a plot by the makers of Reactine to get me to shell out for the stronger but shorter lasting regular Reactine tablets that I would have to take like four to six times a day to get constant coverage.
You can have 80 percent coverage for 24 hours for a reasonable price or you can have 100 percent coverage for 4 to 6 hours for two limbs of their choice.
Plus an option on your spleen.
So right now, I feel like barking at strangers. I want to tell the world to go fuck itself then provide it a long and extensive list of both justifications and methods. I want to bash skulls with a red hot hammer until I feel better.
I want to leave a long trail of destruction and mow down any bullshit that confronts me.
Hopefully a couple of my trusty Tylenol pills will take the edge off. Man I am blasting through those fast. I bought 200 (two bottles of 100) not that long ago and I am going to need to buy more soon.
Oh well. They help a lot and they are cheap. Well worth the price, even if they go quick.
I don’t like being in this sort of mood. My determination to never take my bad mood out on others keeps me from externalizing it the “normal” way, despite my knowing intellectually that there are worse things than being cranky now and then and that said crankiness is probably a lot healthier than my internal total prohibition.
That’s great in theory but in practice I can’t imagine being able to live with having snapped at people just like my late father used to snap at us kids.
So I choke on my own venom instead.
There has to be some superior solution that lets my bad mood out without transferring my pain to those I love.
Maybe I should give up and become an atrocious internet troll. Use someplace like Reddit as a dumping ground for my most brutally honest opinions and see what kind of ruckus I can cause.
Bet I could cause a lot. I have a natural talent for pissing people off.
Could be a fun hobby.
But I think I will stick with Tylenol for now.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.