by Jamie G.
CW: Mental illness
It’s a moment-to-moment experience. It’s as if a light gets turned off and that light represented everything good in the world. Everything that felt worth fighting for is suddenly out of reach, beyond your capacity, and not worth the effort.
Friends? Don’t bother.
Family? Just a blood obligation.
Dreams? For youthful souls who haven’t felt the sobering clutch of reality take hold.
Every sensory experience becomes overwhelmingly distracting, all the lights around feel sterilized and steeped in fluorescent intensity. Every attempt from caring onlookers feels infuriatingly substanceless as they fail to grasp how deeply ingrained the hopelessness is. A wash of dysfunctional apathy lingers like a shadow mirroring your every move.
What caused this damsel in distress attitude?
It’s all in your head they say.
Look at the bright side they say.
You’ve come this far they say.
You were fine earlier they say.
You don’t seem like yourself they say.
I feel like I barely know myself. I think to myself as the words swallow me, carrying me away to a world constructed by woven webs of contradictions that are vicious, superstitious, and deeply duplicitous. Who dictated and designed a habitat full of unwanted visitors and needy strangers who call themselves the park rangers as they wander my mind.
The light switches on again. Just as fast as the light turned off, it’s back on. Triggered by a positive interaction or positive outcome, the mood that was dictating every thought, feeling and behavior has utterly disappeared. It has been replaced by a new puppeteer. The previous puppeteer was domineering, disruptive, and cynical to a fault, leaving no space for compromise or reinterpretation.
The new puppeteer is infectiously hopeful, emanating a child like air of light, love and possibility. Life returns to your demeanor as you see yourself in a whole new light. Reassessing and reconstructing your sense of self. Why hadn’t you been able to see this before?
Lazy? Doubtful. You just need a fantastical collision of inspiration and energy.
A failure? No, you are God, the sole creator of your own past, present, and future.
Unimportant? Of course not. You are loved by so many people who value you.
Weak? Impossible, you have the inner strength and drive to take over the world.
You ponder how you will change the world and rewrite history as your to-do list for the day becomes incomprehensibly long. Rewriting this story begins with undoing the damage the depression has done. Cleaning up the messy remnants of the depression swing while dancing to the songs that feed your soul.
The speed of your quippy interjections accelerates as the meaning of life oozes out of every microexpression. An excitable wave, a spunky flip of the hair, a wink to yourself in the mirror. Today is for concurrence, the sun shines for you, and finally, the gates of possibility open allowing you to spread your wings and sore.
Despite the overwhelming presence of catharsis and opportunity, the inkling that this feeling is fleeting never truly leaves.
What goes up must come down.
