Guys, I feel depressed. I have so many thoughts going through my mind that I am presently unable to really discuss it much, but I just feel emotionally like shit. Almost all the time, too - I just can't get the energy up to get out of bed and do work. I can hardly bring myself to read for school (it's also the end of the term), and my essays have been suffering. The entirety of the world has collapsed in on me, rendered me motionless and inert, and robbed me of my independence.
I can't talk to friends. I can't even speak with strangers; almost every single goddamned thing I try to say feels like a lie, and I don't really know why. Literally - there's a physical sensation that I associate with speaking now that makes me think if I say anything deep or internal, then I'm just lying. I don't know what it is. I'm afraid of it.
I was in AmeriCorps for 10.5 months as a legal assistant, helping people fill out their legal forms for custody, divorce, etc. During that time, due to poor organization within the program (both the greater Walla Walla area AmeriCorps program and the particular program I was serving) AND to my inability to see much progress in the fight of the oppressed, I fell into a lot of bad feelings. During the time I spent there, I unplugged my refrigerator and began sleeping on the floor, without a bed. I read a lot and had almost no furniture; all the furniture I did have was donated. I ate very little. I didn't feel particularly bad, but I just felt lost and estranged from everything. I eventually began following this motto: "Suffering is Greatness." I tried to create as much suffering my everyday life, which became a problem.
When I returned from AmeriCorps, "Suffering is Greatness" was still stuck in my mind. I'd picked up habits that made me unintentionally always do the most difficult thing I could in any situation. This is obviously problematic.
All in all, I just feel like shit now. I've been through a couple of relationships and I keep losing friends because of them, which compound difficulties onto this. Also, my mother lives in extreme poverty currently because of her own emotional issues. My father is retired, but he has a big tumor in his prostate due to Agent Orange exposure and is currently receiving treatment for it. I'm afraid.
I keep finding my friends lost in their own bullshit. My best friend, with whom I feel absolutely in love, has a tenuous relationship with another friend of mine (they've been sleeping together) who, due to his own cynical group of friends, is actually getting bullied regularly but can't do anything about it. (He's also about 20 years old; he can't do anything to stop that stuff because he works 7 days a week and is trying to be what he considers responsible.)
I'm not in a bad situation: my college is paid for (thank God) and I'm rather intelligent. But I question my reality at every turn. I'm afraid that if I have a relationship with a woman that I am taking advantage of her, because I'm afraid of being an oppressor. I live with fear in my every step. When I turn in a paper or an assignment, it's usually something that I've only started working on on the day it's due; I only tend to get decent grades regardless of the work I put in because I write essays out of boredom and confusion.
I'm guessing that I have a tendency to compound my stress because of my father's PTSD; we both let things build up until they reach their boiling points, and then explode. He's trained himself out of it, but I don't have that training - and honestly, I'm really afraid that one day the stress of the entire world is going to reach up and clock me so hard in the brain that I'll just want to end it all - either by walking away forever (mentioned above) or killing myself.
I refuse to walk away because I feel attached to the world I'm building. I refuse to kill myself because (regardless of whether I believe this) my father has always seen suicide as a waste, and I would hate to be a waste.
It's just that the entirety of the universe is such a vast place. It pulls me left and right and left again, without any thought about me or what I might be leaving behind when I get pulled into the future. I'm perpetually in a state of confusion. I don't usually feel very empowered or affirmed, and I'm unsure why.
It's just that lately, I just want to do absolutely nothing. Literally - I just want to exist like a mound of flesh in bed and think about how complex the world is, how I'm never going to understand it, and how the world is just going to keep on moving without me.
I love riding bicycles, but lately even that's done nothing for me. I tried starting a new relationship with someone - just to encourage me to feel - but that just doesn't feel right, either. I tried working on my bike earlier today, but even spending ten minutes and being unable to fix it immediately sent me into a frustration that led to my throwing things, hitting the bicycle (and throwing it on the ground multiple times), and then crying on my floor for at least ten minutes. What can I do?
I can't just keep going on like this. It feels like it's going to kill me, either by my own hand or by some sort of stress-borne sickness. I'm stuck. The world pulls me perpetually in multiple directions: should I be an intellectual? Should I be a bum? Do I need a college education? What direction is my life headed in? Will the last time I see my father in my lifetime be the last time I ever see him? What of my friends? When they die, are they just gone? What about me? What about the world? I have very specific (and private) political beliefs, which are very important to me, but I can't even express or partake in any politics because I just don't have the motivation. I feel apathetic, and what's more - whenever I feel this way, I project my depression onto the world. If it's apathy, then the world becomes apathetic; I can't bring myself to believe that any of my friends actually care. If I'm angry then the world becomes angry, etc.
I tried taking acid recently, which actually helped a lot - it relieved a huge amount of stress and gave me some focus - but the depression, which is another issue, is still here. I can talk a little bit about it now, and that helps.
I don't know what I'd like to receive in response to this - encouragement is nice, but like the posting rules say, it doesn't really help that much. I feel like ending it (which I won't, despite how strong the feelings are). No matter how much I try to consider problems in a new light, they seem to just take old forms. And I don't want to ignore it or work through it: I want to figure it out.
Submitted May 28, 2015 at 12:35PM by zenmaintenance http://ift.tt/1HNw4iO depression
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