There's a numbness over me like a veil and I can't shake it off. Sometimes writing the pain away helps, but I know this won't make sense. I have a perfectionist's attitude when it comes to writing. If it's not perfect, if it doesn't move you, then don't put it between the covers of a book. But writing is also pain and I've felt a lot of that. The worst kind of pain is one you can't describe. The kind that manifests as a rough ball in your chest, right below the ribs. I picture it as a dark, fuzzy demon that lets its energy seep into my soul.
I can never explain it to anyone else. Others get frustrated when I try to describe it because there is no evidence that I'm not okay.
But I'm not okay.
When nothing is wrong, but nothing is right either, that is my hell. I can't focus and I can't find pleasure in anything. Writing is the only place I can go to relieve my insanity. It's a choice I can make to prevent unloading my anxiety onto an unsuspecting loved one. Yet it's not a solution. It's a way to kill time while the racing thoughts slowly grind to a half and the tears dissipate. Nothing erases the feeling. I can only take the edge off.
When I can't do anything except wrap my arms around myself and collapse, no one can save me from myself. I'm too far gone at that point. Being happy is a foreign idea. Even if someone came to ease the pain, they would have to shake me from the stupor and prove to me that I'm okay.
Anxiety prevents me from seeing myself become anything more than what I am. I lose myself to it. It coils around me like smoke until I'm paralyzed. It whispers in my ear and tells me that nothing is good anymore and nothing will ever be good again. It makes the idea of suicide sound seductive. Giving up sounds appealing.
I'm trying so hard to stay afloat. It's only me that can change my path, but I'm blocking myself. How do you fight your own demons? When will they stop eating me alive?
I'm always telling myself, "Keep it in check, don't lose your shit. Keep it together." It's a warning, and it's always imperative that I pay attention. I have to take it one day at a time, one very excruciatingly slow day at a time. But that's not life. That's not living. That's getting by.
I can't shake these thoughts and I'm wasting my life away, that's the truth of the matter. I'm absolutely lost inside my own mind.
