Anxiety

Image courtesy of Stockvault.

Another thing I’ve been doing for the past several months is avoiding writing anything about my mental state. It’s been bouncing around from dark places to lighter ones, and the extremes both haven’t made their way here. If anything, I’ve been a bit pessimistic.

Most of this has been the product of anxiety, a general feeling I get about things happening in the future. Change is something that sets me off, and all I do is think about it. I can’t live like I’ve been living for the past few years, but forcibly changing that sends me into a pit that I can’t crawl out of. So, I bounce between being excited and afraid of the future.

The most frustrating thing of all is that I know this is irrational. For example, I want to try to sell fiction, but then I get batshit scared that I actually might be able to do it. It doesn’t matter that most writers never become authors, and most authors never sell many books. I haven’t failed or succeeded at anything, and worrying about it is pretentious and stupid. On top of that, I bounce heavily between believing I should keep trying and believing I really shouldn’t write another sentence.

Putting all of this out in black and white doesn’t always help, either. Another symptom of anxiety that I have is this need to avoid things until I can maintain a balance in my thoughts. On a good day, I feel nothing at all. Happiness only leads to misery, and misery only leads elsewhere. Interacting with people does have a positive effect, but it’s like blowing up a balloon. Too much, and I burst. I never have figured out what happens when I’m near the breaking point.

I did that last year, and I became worried on some subconscious level that I needed to work harder at managing myself. I unfollowed every blog on my reader, I stopped posting daily, and I stopped reading as much as I used to. All of that was done with the noblest intentions, but it really hasn’t helped.

I don’t know if the pendulum is swinging back the other direction. A real shitty thing about mental illness (I have depression as well, for anyone who is not familiar with me) is that the whole world is one of those carnival hall of mirrors. Perception is what governs reality for everyone, and mine is broken. It’s like being lost in the wilderness with a compass that lies to me.

If I could have a wish granted, it would be that I would stop being terrified about the stupidest horseshit imaginable. I’m tired of being paralyzed by fear to the point that my mind has to get really depressed to compensate. It’s embarrassing, something that I can’t talk to people in real life about. People look at you funny when they find out you’re crazy. Worse, some people try to pretend that they can empathize.

There’s no way to empathize with someone trapped in his mind. That frightens people who don’t have that terror seize them in moments when they have to be honest with themselves. Even when I can recognize it in others, it’s more like hearing the shouting of another inmate too far away for meaningful conversation.

Or maybe this is another distorted reflection in the hall of mirrors. Maybe it’s a distortion I have to see because the truth is something else that isn’t good for me. I don’t know. And it gets tiresome looking for answers.