A Self-Examined Problem

[Tyler]

Yeah. I mean, I know it's not exactly the right way to think about it, but I can't help how my mind is rutted right now, y'know? Like, it's been this way for a long enough time that, while I know it's not “normal” normal, it's normal enough to me that it's what I revert to. I mean it's not voluntary, really.

 

Well you're not wrong. And I know that it's unhealthy to keep digging deeper into the ruts, and going over the same tracks over, and over, again. Look: it started too long ago for me to even remember, now. It had to be in elementary school. Some throw away attitude that I took on and clung to. Then as I was going through middle and high school no one, least of all I, really noticed anything abnormal, because at that age everyone is abnormal, right?

 

Anyhow, I know what you're saying here. And on a conscious level I really do try to fix what's going on. They don't use the analogy of a 'rut' for no reason, though. It's like every morning I wake up and the thoughts are already going through my head on the established tracks; it starts right as I open my eyes-- even a little bit before, while I'm dreaming. I just start on down the same pathways as usual, and I have to dedicate a good amount of energy just to trying to derail that line of thought. And this is before I even get out of bed and shower, and brush my teeth, and all that.

It doesn't get any easier, though. It's like I'm constantly calibrating my head back to where I'd like for it to be. It's like it keeps veering to the left and messing everything up just enough to be missed if I'm not paying attention to it, but profoundly noticeable on a long-distance trajectory.

So already a good amount of my day is spent trying to maintain the mold I want it to fit in, right? But it's not even just that. I mean, I know living the way I am is unhealthy-- I know the thoughts are really hurting me in the long run. But day-to-day, I can, or I guess could, operate normally. I can smile at customers on the job, and log inventory, and keep a surface semblance of competency, and even tranquility. Hell, I get complimented by co-workers for looking like I'm always in a zen-like state of mind. I bet you can hardly believe that, right? I always think it's a little funny myself, but I'm glad I can at least appear like everything is working properly.

 

Oh right, yeah. So it's still a struggle, in the mental pose I'm trying to keep. Like, I don't know, like flexing your physical body at all times and all over, all day long. Something like that is what I'd equate it to. Besides, it's all pretty physical anyhow. I have to think about breathing every five minutes because I feel that dyspnea kicking in whenever I let things go for even a moment (honestly, I feel like my insides just give up without the most minute attention to and manipulation of every detail on a full, conscious level). I have to check my pulse-- I raise two fingers to my throat right under the jaw, and hold it there, feeling the blood going and going, pumping through the artery. That actually helps a little bit, to hear a steady rhythm and feel it with your own hands. Although, as you probably guessed, it never wants to actually stay steady, so sometimes it just becomes more stressful than anything to feel my heart beating. Anyhow, I make sure to maintain a smile or at least a neutral face, just in case anyone is watching. Plus I push my body into a straight posture, shoulders wide and chin up. I only do this when I'm out in public-- when I'm at home I just laze about as slack-bodied and unsightly as it pleases me[1].

I don't know, I guess it's not that bad, really. The physical stuff, that is.

 

Well, that's the thing, right? Obviously I'm here for a reason. It's gotten to the point that I can even operate in society like a normal person. For the last few weeks I've been out and about, I've felt this tingling sensation just on the edge of my vision, kind of like manifesting as a bit of static on my sides and when I stand still for too long it begins to linger a little closer to the center of my view, y'know?

 

Well, it's this kind of feeling. I don't know how to best summarise it, really. It's like this kind of, um, well, like, have you ever seen that Edvard Munch painting? The one he's really famous for, The Scream? I guess everyone's seen it, by now. Anyhow, that's what it feels like. Like I just get this feeling that rains over me and my face just flattens out and my only instinct is to grab on tight to my own body and hope I'm not ripped apart by this kind of surging, this pounding right in my chest that echoes out in my stomach and makes my knees all weak, and makes every bit of my skin feel dry and cold but at the same time sweating and tropical, weak, paper-thin, y'know? It's like this out of nowhere. I can't stand it. In fact, that's the worst part of it: it happens no matter the situation. And I never know when it can happen. So instead of being able to caution off certain aspects of life so that I can live a mostly normal life, I am in this state of perpetual worry about whether or not I'm going to get into that mood while I'm out for the day. You know how that feels? To just be living, and then suddenly not? To be taken outside of yourself in this constant state of examining every function of your body and checking off this hourly checked-list in your mind, making sure it's all going according to plan?

Suffice it to say, I would say that I've gotten to the point of not being able to handle this any more on my own, which is why I'm here now. In fact, and I didn't even tell this to the secretary when I got here, but for the past four years it's been building up to this kind of feeling almost daily. Like, it's become more of an intrusion. And it's become so much of a problem that, in all honesty, I've considered just bricking myself. Or whatever it is that would solve this problem right now. Because, if I can be honest with you right now, I've considered it long and hard, and I've come to the very stern conclusion that being able to end it all would, as far as I'm concerned, be a welcome retreat from how it is now. I know that life is precious and fleeting and that we're supposed to enjoy our time on this planet, and that we only get so much time to even enjoy, really, and that there is beauty immense and profound and numerous in example and all over the place if you're really looking for it, but that's the problem: I can't look at anything else, like this. I'm just turned inside out, looking at what's going on with me, alone, like some kind of necessary-narcissist, constantly going over every bodily function and rewiring every thought. Every night I'm reading up on how to 'help' myself (if that's even possible), and I'm talking to my boyfriend about how to be helped, and he's trying his hardest to be there for me[2], and no matter how much I honestly hate it, the conversations with family often veer back onto my issues, because for some reason it's just more apparent to them than the average person that I'm going through something, and they try to speak as best they can to help out with that, even if they don't necessarily understand what it is or even believe it to be a real problem. So I'm just caught in this: feeling guilty about myself or resentful that I have to keep feeling anything about myself in the first place.

I mean it's certainly not supposed to be like this, right? Healthy people go out and live for others: they live for family and friends. Like they raise kids, and own pets, and volunteer, and all of that. Everyone gets a little tired or sick of things every so often, but they don't get these kinds of thoughts and feelings that just tear them apart at arbitrary moments in public or at home. I know that, if anything, that much has to be wrong with me.

 

Okay, that's true, but I can't help it to be critical of myself. Who else is going to do it? Everyone else seems like they worry about offending me, that they're treading on eggshells. Everyone looks like they're being perfectly nice and uniformly understanding of what is quite obviously a selfish and unnecessary problem I'm having, and I don't really know why. But regardless of why, someone has to be the voice of reason in a vacuum like that, and if no one else can do it (effectively), then it's got to be me. Besides, I think I know myself a little bit. I mean, I've spent enough time inside of my own head to feel comfortable with saying that, at the very least, there is something not-cool going on, and I can somewhat understand what it is, too. I just have no idea what I can do to really fix it. So, what is it that you usually say to people who have this problem?

 

 

 

[1] - which I know isn't the right way to do it, and is probably only causing me more discomfort in the long-run, especially because I have to continuously adjust my posture in public because I spend so much time at home, not keeping a straight spine, but anyhow, I just can't be bothered at the end of the day when I get home and take off the uniform and eat dinner and wash my face and lay down, because by the time that's all said and done, I don't even think about how I'm slouching at all.

 

[2] – and actually this makes me feel worse because I know that in comparison, my problems are way less severe than his own. He's had a hard life, what with his mother passing away, and his only recently moving to the country, and still learning the language, and his co-workers give him a lot of sh*t because of his thick accent, and he's been more supportive to me (and his sister, who, like me, is going through a lot of internalised problems) than anyone else I know. It really just kills me that I'm putting so much of that pressure onto him. Like I'm offsetting my own problems and just giving him more, instead, which just doubles back onto me. But then the other choice is not talking to him, which he has assured me I should not do, because, as he says, “silence is worse than a cacophony, to [him].” Which I struggle to believe, but on the worst days (like the ones leading up to today) I can't be bothered to doubt myself that much, and just revert to offloading more of my thoughts onto him than I probably should. Which, looking back, I know is the wrong thing to do. But then again, looking back, everything I've done for the past decade looks like the wrong thing to have done.

[Ziggy455]

I can't really critique this, but f*ck a doodle dong ding diddly f*cking do, let's give it a worthwhile response.

 

I've worked in security for a couple of years now, and I used to work for some close friends. I think while working for them, I punished myself because my best friend died in my arms (another story, another time). But working for these people was kind of a punishment for me, because I suffered greatly at the hands of the missus who was a party animal and I'd get into brawls involving her.

 

The reason I mention this is because I've made pretty much every bad decision somebody can make. I've stolen my best friends girl. I've failed at my job. I became addicted to painkillers and alcohol. (I realize my similarities to Max Payne are bar to none, and I find that ironically hilarious, but I'm no rugged narrator, haha, and real life isn't like the movies.) I lost my guardian, the woman who raised me to cancer. I was violently beaten by my partners, I was almost castrated, and I'm twenty two years old. I was trainwreck of a person, and I still am in many ways. sh*t, my psychiatrist told me I'm not 100% sane, and that's okay too, because I don't think anybody is 100% sane, and even when we all pretend we're smooth as f*cking peanut butter on the outside, we're not on the inside. We're all bricking it, and winging it, and we don't know what the f*ck we're doing most of the time.

 

After my best friend bled to death in my arms, I finally cracked and was admitted to a psychiatric department due to PTSD, Anxiety, and depression. So I really did snap and since then I got exactly what you put in this:

 

I have to think about breathing every five minutes because I feel that dyspnea kicking in whenever I let things go for even a moment (honestly, I feel like my insides just give up without the most minute attention to and manipulation of every detail on a full, conscious level). I have to check my pulse-- I raise two fingers to my throat right under the jaw, and hold it there, feeling the blood going and going, pumping through the artery.

 

 

I do the same. I feel like a forget how to breathe and have to force myself, panicking, I'll double-check my tongue, my eyes, my throat, and my pulse because it's always an abnormal thorn in my side of where I'm panicking over dying even thought I'm completely healthy. That's my past, clawing at me. I used to abate it with drink and pills, but now I don't, and I control it, but sometimes it gets the best of me and I have to swallow, close my eyes, or step away for a brief second to tell myself it's all in my head, and I'm not dying, I'm just panicking.

 

I have spent the last six years of my life, making mistake after mistake, hating myself for everything I've done. Yet as critical as I have been, I've suffered bad sh*t because I felt like I deserved it. What's important, and relates to your text is that you say you're very self-critical of yourself, and that you feel like nothing has felt right in the last ten years.

 

Take it from one of the most colossal f*ckups ever to grace the UK. We all live on this rocky path of ups and downs, and everybody questions themselves, and even though you're self critical, you haven't done what I've done. I've made horrific decisions, and I'm an asshole! You question yourself so much, so much that it physically affects you, when really you are just too critical. Why? That negative feeling of nothing working for the last ten years isn't right. You might have only affected one person, for one moment, and that moment could have been something big for them. You could have been the product of change within somebody and you wouldn't even know it!

 

Whatever your problems are, they're yours, and to look at somebody elses and assume theirs is worse isn't how to look at anything because it's like you de-value yourself so much that you even think your problems are pathetic. I can sit here and tell you DON'T THINK LIKE THAT but I know how sly those moods are. I know how easy they can creep up on you and be take you over like cancer. It's horrible.

 

The most important thing, and I have to tell myself this, is that we are who we are, and our own self-criticism is good, but when it becomes to a point we're damaging ourselves, when it comes to the point we're not living and we're worrying, physically, then it's time for you to hear something which I refused to believe myself.

 

You're are just right, just fine, just good, and where you are supposed to be, and you're worth getting up tomorrow.

 

When you wake up, and your mind's already running on that track as if it's never stopped, remember that there's others out there that may look smooth as f*ck but they're just like you, mate. We're all just winging it on a prayer and a bet and some of us understand and acknowledge that more than others.

 

You're doing just fine, don't think like you aren't.

Edited November 7, 2014 by Ziggy455

[Lead]

Well sorry for this but my English is not so good and i didnt understand what you wrote but please tell me do you have GAD Generalized Anxiety Disorder or other disorder or something different. Listen i went through some incredibly sh*tty and life consuming disorder you wont believe what it does to human mind and ill believe in whatever you say about your disorder ill try to help you ill do my best

[Mokrie Dela]

I'd rather not discuss disorders or personal things of that nature here.

I agree with this. Such a matter should be kept to personal messages, if chosen to be discussed at all in my opinion.

 

Lead, If you're concerned about your physiological or psychological health, visit a trained professional. Friends and talking can help immeasurably, but you have to identify the root of the problem.

 

Tyler: the term "enjoy" is a strange one in this sense. Reading this can be enjoyable but not in the schadenfreude way, but in a more appreciative way. I personally think that writings that come from a real place have more impact and mean more than completely fictional tales - myths, for lack of a better word.

I'll try to read this soon, in a place where I can give it my complete attention. Somehow, I feel a semi-indepth skim isn't respectfully sufficient.