Sunday, December 12, 2004

   Save me, someone, anyone!
Okay. I'm feeling wacked out because of stupid finals. Which would be why I haven't posted in a few days. (how many has it been? I'm really bad at keeping track of time . . . )
But . . . here are some thoughts I had while studying. Not too refined yet, but they capture the odd stuff going through my brain:

One:
I was studying in my psychology text during that insane weekend before finals and came to the section on psychological disorders. In the unit introduction, the author was saying, ". . . the bewilderment and pain of a psychological disorder--which can bring unexplained physical symptoms, irrational fears, or even the feeling that life is not worth living." And I thought: Even? Even? How curious that is to me! I know that 'even' must make sense to most people, but the idea that life might not be worth living has pervaded my thoughts constantly for so many years that I have completely and utterly forgotten what it feels like to be unequivocally certain that there is a reason to bother with life for even one instant longer. The phrase felt unreal and rather petty. Even! The notion that it seems perfectly normal to say even in that context to most of the population is astounding and unreachable. It is ouside my realm of experience. I think I did not have such troubles as a child, but my spiritual and psychological state during those years has been lost somewhere in the stream of time . . . I cannot even imagine how good it must feel to not be questioning your existence and the meaning of the universe incessantly. Yet, somehow, to those who do not doubt life so, from what I understand, there is no spread of warmth, no utter joy . . . and to me, that is the greatest mystery of all--that so many can take life for granted without a second thought.

Two:
My perception of reality is distorted. I feel things physically, but not clearly, and not very well. It does not seem real. I feel--detached. Emotion, as most people know it, is alien to me. All I feel is pain. Not searing, not unbearable, but more than a dull ache. I feel pain and all else drowns in it. On the rare occasion, I can feel the slightest twinge of emotion--it comes as a shock. Even if it is negitive it is sweet. It is Other. It is all that I desire. Do you feel so many intense emotions that they constantly yank you about and you wish for nothing more than to be numb for awhile? Do not wish it! I say I feel pain but its constancy renders it immaterial. For all intents and purposes, I am numb. I will tell you now that it is worse than being dead--even if it is blessedly tranquil at first, you soon come to realize the most horrible internal affliction. There are things around you that you should be able to emotionally react to--but you do not. You feel nothing. Your heart does not drop. Your feet do not float. You may attain a mental feeling of emotion--you may become depressed, or frustrated, or sad, or happy, but it's not the all-encompassing unbearable indescribable feeling that comes from your heart. It is Nothing. It is useless. It is a distraction, a diversion from the realization that you are empty. When you want, with your deepest being, with all you have left, to feel something, anything, so that you cannot forget it, so that your most profound self cannot stop screaming for the injustice of a living death, that is worse than being dead.

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