What You Don't, Or Might Not Know

I don't know who might be reading this. I just know that now its here for whoever to read, I guess. I'm not even sure why I'm doing it, or what this might be for. Consider it, I guess, my secret public journal or something. I guess getting out in a journal or diary isn't enough for me. Maybe I just need to make things more public, let other people know how I feel or what I feel. It's hard to say, honestly. Whatever the reason. I’m doing it, and I might continue doing it, if the need arises. This first post, more than anything, is to inform.

So, let’s set the scene. I’m sitting here, listening to a music playlist I’ve created that would make an emo tell me to lighten up; the most abysmal, depressing, and sad songs I have. They evoke in me scenes from books I’ve yet to write that are designed to make people weep openly and wonder what might be the matter with me that I should do something so horrific to such noble characters. There will probably be a lot of that in my writings, if they should ever see publication. I’m tired. Very tired. Exhausted in a way I don’t have words for. I haven’t done anything but sleep since I got off work last night and it’s not enough. It’s never enough. I’m wearing my sit around the house clothes, which consist of baggy, gigantic comfortable sweatpants and an old shirt that I probably shouldn’t wear, but I do cause its big and comfortable too, but covered in lingering bits of something that once made me violently ill (although, surely by now, its all been washed out, but who can say?).

The most important thing, the thing that I am all the time, the thing that should be most prominently featured in this setting is that I am alone. I’m alone a lot. I have so much time to myself. Quiet, silent, peaceful times that are filled with nothing. My son is asleep, as he must for school, and even when he’s awake, we can connect only a bit. He’s a teenager, after all, and I feel as though I’m intruding on his life if I talk to him. I try, but I never know what to say. He’s so much smarter than I am, has so many brighter prospects. I’m just trying to not to screw him up too much. I hope I do okay, but, though I love him so, I can’t connect. We are similar, but very very different. My wife is, of course, at work. That is a necessity. One of us has to make money and since I’m incapable, she does. I would be a great deal worse without her. Who’s to say where I might be if she hadn’t come into my life? I don’t know how or why she stays with me. She’s better than me, just like my boy. Both of them would be better off with someone else in their lives, but they make do with me. I do what I can, but I know I don’t measure up.

So, alone, comfortable, and tired I sit. It’s one of those days that I know nothing will happen. I can’t sleep, but I’m so tired I want to do nothing else, and nothing will interest me so I dink around at the computer and watch TV till the time passes and sleep comes. That, in a nutshell is my life. I’d say that many of you might ask why I don’t go out and see friends, or have a social life, or play video games, or something of that sort, as many of you know me very well. I’d say many, but I don’t really expect anyone to read this. It’s why it’s so liberating. Who cares what I write here if no one will read it? Does it even matter? Maybe, maybe not, but I’m doing it anyway for reasons I don’t quite understand. To answer the question though, what happened to my social life, the answer is obvious.

I’m broken.

I used to be quite a social butterfly. Then a woman came along and into my life, and she introduced me to the dichotomies of life in a whirlwind relationship that absolutely crushed me. Passionate love, intense hate, and all the extremes and mediums therein. Love, life, longing, lies and more. I dealt with it. I did everything in my power to be a good man. I can see that pretty clearly now. I gave and gave and gave until I didn’t have anything left of myself to give, and I kept giving even after. I still don’t know why. Maybe I wasn’t strong enough to be on my own again. Maybe I thought I was wrong. Maybe a number of things. In the end I stayed and got worse and worse and worse. Now we get to the stuff you might not know.

I stopped sleeping. Almost entirely. 3 hours a week, maybe, sometimes less, sometimes more. That was my average. I stressed about the kids. I stressed about the money. I stressed about the house. I stressed about my wife. I stressed about my friends. I stressed about the car. All of it. All the time. My mind, normally a loud and obnoxious thing on its own became a claxon so loud, it drowned out all hope of normal thought or sleep. Still, I carried on, diligently; the British would have been proud how I stayed with that sinking ship, still at the helm and doing all in my power to steer her into harbor without crew, rudder, wheel, and with most of it underwater. Then it was over.

Just over.

I didn’t have anything. I was alone again. That made my head louder. I’d lost friends, ignored friends, given up friends, and I was tired. So very tired. My life settled into routine, which I tried to snap myself out of. I did, for a brief time, when I met my current wife, who has been the most amazing thing to ever happen to me. The brightest shining moment of my life. I’ll never understand why I got so lucky, or why she stays, but I do know she’s good for me. After a time, I settled into a routine with her, but things were getting worse. I wasn’t sleeping. I got extreme headaches that lasted for days. I was brutally irritable, snapping at the slightest thing. I was moody to the point of being Homer Simpson; bright and cheery in one moment, depressed and lethargic the next, and angry right after that. All over the place. But, I’m me, and I’m stupid, and I don’t much care for myself, so with my wife in need of things (a home, electricity, the basics) I marched to work, getting sicker and sicker, both physically and mentally as I marched gladly toward the grave in a very literal sense.

Then I broke, utterly and completely. It all just fell apart. My mind, stressed, overburdened, so strong and supportive and helpful to everyone but me, finally gave up, and my body wasn’t much better. I dissociated. My brain shut off, in a sense, though my body kept going without me. It got bad. I was tired, and I hate myself above all other things, and with all the stress and rage and hate I broke a lot. Time was lost everywhere. The slightest amount of stress about anything and I would start shaking and very soon after my mind switched off and when I woke up, all too often, I was covered with very nasty cuts, having, apparently, sliced myself open with whatever I had handy at the time (once with a plastic butter knife. For some reason, I’m proud of that scar. My wife hates that fact).

All of that happened nearly three years ago. I do not feel any better today. In fact, from everything I can see and feel, I am much much worse. But none of you really know that. See, my best defense is that I can hide. I can go out and I can laugh and be who you think I am and who I think I am, but I’m not. I’m faking it, and, from what I see and hear, doing a fine job. So here’s what you really don’t know.

Leaving the house is a major undertaking for me. Even if I’m just running to a fast food drive up, or going for gas or groceries, it’s a huge process. I can’t just leave. I have to know ahead of time I’m going to have to leave, and then I have to start fighting out all the reasons not to go. Once I’ve convinced myself that there is nothing but to leave, I have to find ways to relax and things to focus on that aren’t leaving the house. Leaving the house is terrifying. I’m afraid to be anywhere else, and I don’t know why. I hate it. I hate that when I’m over laughing with friends, I’m just concerned with getting back home. That’s what you don’t know. I’ll sit over there and laugh and seem like me and be like I’m supposed to be, but I’m so terrified that I can hardly think. All I’m doing is fighting the shakes and the stress and the terror and that little voice that says “They hate you. Why do you bother? They don’t need you. They don’t want you.” Of course, if for some reason they invite me out and I can’t go I feel so guilty, so terribly guilty that it can actually make me blackout. In fact, that happened quite recently. On some level, I’m aware that they are my friends and they understand I’m not well right now or that I can’t go or something, but in my head…

But that’s not the worst of it. The worst is that its getting worse. I have a job now, and I love my job, cause its fun and easy, and I get to enjoy movies and meet new people and I’m very weird and I have this NEED to make people happy no matter what, so I’ve become very good at my job very quickly. But I don’t know how much longer I can keep it. I don’t know how many more times I’ll be able to leave my house.

So, for as long as I can I’ll keep doing it. I have to. I hate myself less when I’m doing something like that. A job. Living like a real person. And I have to hate myself less, cause that’s making things bad too. All I see when I look in the mirror is a failure, a loser, and a fat bastard that I don’t want anything to do with. And then there’s this little voice in my head, that started one night when a friend posted something to me on Facebook. It really stuck with me. I was being chastised for my opinions (a fun little pastime for many people as my opinions are wrong and theirs are perfect) and one of them said, in response to my saying that I wanted to die “Then just cut deeper.” That voice swells a great deal on these nights. These nights when I’m alone and I can’t sleep and I can’t work on anything that voice whispers and whispers, getting louder and louder, until I have to move and occupy my brain with something taxing, like writing or drawing, or a difficult game until it goes away.

Just cut deeper.

Thanks for that.

But there’s more still, you don’t know. For example, you don’t know about the moods. I’m very moody. Grotesquely so. My moods are getting worse as well. Happy is rare. Angry, or irritable is the norm. Sad/depressed is quite common. I can deal with that. I can realize when I’m angry, sad, depressed, manic, what have you. What I can’t deal with is the problem I’m having tonight. Tonight I’m none of those things.

Tonight, I feel nothing.

Not a damned thing.

I can’t get excited. I can’t get angry. I can’t get happy. I can’t get horny (which is a major thing for those of you who know me). And this “mood” will go on for days. I’ll fake my smiles and my laughter. I’ll fake living like a normal person and put on my Bill face, but its not real. There’s nothing behind it. Just… empty. And when I come out if it, I’m usually extra attentive to my wife, because even that, the most important thing in my life can’t make me feel anything. I can’t feel love, or affection, or anything when I get like this, and when I’m not, it scares the hell out of me. My wife is the most important thing in my life, and I cannot imagine what I would be like if I lost her somehow, and yet, there are days when all I can think when I see her is “person”. That’s what my mind does in those moods. There’s no emotion, there’s no tie to anything, they just are what they are. “Person. Cat. Dog. Car. Computer. etc”.

And that is getting worse too. The stretches of nothing are getting longer, and, sometimes, more comfortable. I at least don’t stress when I can’t feel anything.

So, there you go. I don’t know how many of you knew that, or didn’t. I don’t know how many of you care, or don’t and, currently, I have the luxury of not caring one way or the other myself. If you read this, great. Feel free to comment, post, whatever. Just like you might care or might not care what I've written, I might or might not care at some point that you've responded. And, who knows? There might eventually be more to come. There's a lot of things that I keep bottled up. Maybe I'll do a post on my Lightseeker. She probably wouldn't like that. Or she might. Who knows? 

Later days.