i’m craving rest, but my body is restless.

my mind is racing, but it’s completely blank.

I’m sweating through my clothes, but am getting chills intermittently.

my body aches. my head and back throb.

words are going in one ear and out the other. i hear things, but nothing is being comprehended.

a deep wave of anxiety hits every few seconds, leaving me paralyzed. i need to get out of bed. i need to take my medicines and get ready for bed. but I can’t move.

I can’t stop shaking. my body feels completely off kilter. everything feels like an out-of-body experience. even typing this feels weird, like I’m not doing it, but my body is. none of this makes any sense.

I’ve cried daily this week. Sometimes for actual reasons, actual disappointments or things that made me sad or frustrated. But mostly because I’m just low and sad this week and have no one to help me get through it. Silence has been louder than loud, and the loneliness of this season has been deafening.

I’ve gone to bed before midnight almost every night this week. Not because I was tired or sick, but because it felt like there was no point in staying up. There wasn’t a point in anything. Everything feels moot right now, useless. It’s useless to eat when nothing is satisfying; it’s useless to play games online when I can’t concentrate; it’s useless to read when the words all run together.

No reason to write unless words come. I’ve stared at an empty screen more than once this week, unable to pull words from my brain. I have blog posts I need to write, articles I could be working on. But the words are elusive.

Even now, I stare at the screen, unsure if any of what I’m writing is making sense. But my brain won’t shut up long enough for me to lie down. Thoughts consume me, but I can’t make sense of them. They just keep hitting me, piling on top of me like a blanket I can’t unwrap myself from. I’m being swallowed up by my own thoughts, the spiral tightening around me. I can’t squeeze myself out; the grip only gets tighter the more I try to run.

I feel stuck.

I feel overwhelmed.

I feel fearful.

I feel sad.

I feel disappointed. Discouraged.

Yet I feel nothing at the same time.

My energy is zapped. And yet sleep eludes me.

I hear music, but it sounds more like background noise buzzing around my head and less like music. I know the words, but my brain isn’t computing enough to actually say them.

I don’t remember what life was like before depression anymore.

I don’t remember what life was like before anxiety, either.

I’ve lived with both to a degree most of my life. The darkness started swallowing me whole as a kid, but it became more apparent as an adult, as I tried to actually live.

The voices have always played in my head, reminding me who I am and how crappy I am. They’ve gotten louder as I’ve gotten older. The ones that have been playing this week:

You’re stuck here forever. 

You’re never going to get out of here. 

You’ll never be able to be out on your own. 

You’re never going to make it. 

You’ll never have a career. 

 

No one cares. 

No one’s listening, so quit texting/posting/sharing. No one’s going to respond back, even to check on you. 

Why do you think you matter?

You’ll never get this figured out. 

You’re clueless. 

This is useless. You are useless. 

Quit trying. There’s no point. 

Is there even a reason you’re trying? 

These are just from this week. This. week. This is what I’ve been up against.

It’s a battle between me and my brain, and this week, my brain has won. I have shrank back inside myself, not texted people for help for fear of burdening them with my problems again and again; I have canceled plans, unsure if I could even hold a conversation without crying. I haven’t read or written, haven’t done any of the things that usually bring me joy, because there hasn’t felt like a point.

I’ve numbed myself with candy and Netflix and naps, and even my numbing tools are irritating me. nothing is making me feel better. not sleep. not food. not tv. not music. not jesus. Nothing’s working, and I’m scared all my ‘fixers’ are giving up on fixing me. I’m scared I’m beyond help.

I know I need a medicine increase. I know I need to get back into therapy, it’s been too long (since June). but I can barely think about getting out of bed, let alone anything else.

I should be this vulnerable with a friend, not the internet. But I don’t have a friend I feel like I can be this vulnerable with. Who wants to hear this shit? Who wants to read a text about my tears and frustrations and disappointments this week that led to this spiral? Who wants to hang out with the perpetually sad and anxious girl? No one, my brain says. No one you know cares, my brain reminds me. So I just will put it here, and hope that maybe someone will be willing to listen. Or maybe I’ll delete this later, because people will read it and think I’m weird or frightening or whatever. I worry more about what people will think when I publish this than I am about how I’m actually feeling right now.

September was a brutal mental month. October wasn’t great, but it was better. I need November to turn up, and we’re not off to a great start. I just don’t know where to even start.

What I do know: I hate this. I hate this. I hate this. I will never understand why this is my hellish cross to bear. I will always long for a life without mental illness. I want to feel normal. I want to feel things for as they are, not as I fear or perceive them to be. I want to feel more than numb.

But I don’t know how to get there.

I’d love to end this saying that I’m okay… but I’m not this time. But maybe now I can sleep.