Life Inside Panic

Yet again I can’t sleep. I am stressed about my life, my job, my future, my present, I can’t seem to let go of my past. Nothing is certain. I find no comfort in anything. So here I find myself staring at a months worth of Xanax, Lexipro, and Lamictal and wondering. What if the answer is that simple? What if since everything I touch will always turn to ash I should just shut myself down completely? What if my purpose was to figure out that I have none. Is it really even a life when it’s filled with nothing but disappointment, betrayal, loneliness, and agonizing pain? Feelings that make every day seem less like waking up for. I don’t want to feel anymore. I want to go back to the way I was when all that mattered was who was paying my bar tab and how I was getting home. Why did he have to change me so much that I can’t go back? Why did he have to make me want a life that I can’t have and at the same time make me despise everything that I was before? Why can’t I erase the pain and just remember the good? And why does he get to pretend as though nothing happened just because he can shut off his emotions like a switch? I want him to feel it, every bit of it. I want him to cry every night the way he did before. I want him to feel even for one day the pain I feel and not be able to just push it down and ignore it. I want him to feel it or me to not feel it ever again.

I have been looking for the key, a magical answer to make it all go away and just let me forget. But I’ve come to realize there isn’t one. I think everything I’m going through is a part of of my healing and instead of trying to turn it off I have to allow myself to feel it. The fear, doubt, anger, sadness, guilt, worry, worthlessness, the unanswered questions that are never ending. Some days are good, some days are ok, some days are not so good, and some days are just unbearable. The feeling of “this is not the right thing” clashes with the feeling of “it has to be the right thing” because it’s the only thing. My past, present, and future are in question, and my dreams and nightmares have begun to blend together. I’m starting to wonder what is worse, the dreams that I know are no longer true or the nightmares that are. The sleepless nights spent lying in my bed alone, feeling so utterly lost, have become such a habit I no longer try to fight them. Then I look in the mirror and think how did I allow myself to end up like this? How will I ever love again, how will I ever trust again? Who will ever love me again? I listen to people tell me I’m strong, I deserve better, I will be ok, but it doesn’t stop my fears or hurt.  I believe the only way forward is day by day, baby steps into a new world. Learn to be confident and to smile again. There is no date on the calendar that I can look at to know when I will be happy again. It is an uncertain path I must walk down. When the sun shines and I feel its warmth, when I feel safe, when I feel comfortable, when my head stops swimming with the questions, then I will know I am finally on the way to being truly me again. Time is a great healer but I must fight through my wilderness of loss first. I have to face all of these emotions and then I will be ready to begin to live again. I will find myself again, it will just take time, and I’m sure there will come a day when I look in the mirror and see the girl looking back at me that has been lost for so long now. This will be one of the hardest journeys of my life but I will not let it break me. Life will ultimately lead me in the right direction but for now I need to allow myself time to just feel it all.

So for all of you waiting for me to figure it out, there it is. You have to allow yourself to take it all in, to feel everything you want to ignore, and to find a way to cope. You have to know that there will be days it doesn’t feel worth it but there will be a day when you will look back and say I am a better and stronger person after what I went through. Just keep moving forward until the day comes that you no longer want to look back.

I thought I was past the depression but I was so very wrong. D tells me how he is stuck between two worlds and though I never tell him, I feel the same way. I’m stuck between longing for what should be and forcing myself to move forward in a life I don’t want. My world is filled with tears, regret, and loneliness. I try to pretend that I am not there but rather in a place filled with possibility and hope. I force myself to laugh so no one notices that I no longer smile and I yell so I can leave before they see the tears. I never allow anyone to look into my eyes because I am afraid that they will see past my facade and know I am hollow. I feel so broken that I will never be even close to whole again.

Everyone likes to tell me how I should meet new people but they don’t understand my hesitation comes from the fact that I have learned a great truth in life. Anyone new you come to know is just one more person you will have to lose. Life is pain. Sometimes it comes wrapped in a pretty package but ultimately everything ends up hurting us in the end. With how deeply I hurt everyday I know I can not take anymore. I have surpassed the point where you can move forward and hold on to that optimism that life will turn out as it should. Every experience in my life should have taught me that I am not destined for happiness but I rebelled against that fact. Holding on to the hope that life will work itself out and everything bad will ultimately lead to something good. I had it all wrong, everything good eventually turns to bad. Everything that brings you true happiness will, in the end, break your heart. I have finally accepted this truth and given in to what is to be my fate. The things I wanted out of life will never be. The future I thought I had found is dead and with it died every part of me that knew hope, optimism, or desire. All that is left is a cold emptiness, a blissful numbness that only subsides when the pain and longing flood in and overwhelm me.

It is so scary that the only thing that gets me up everyday is a phone call. Sometimes it’s only 5 minutes and sometimes it’s 30. Sometimes it’s as simple as the sound of the voice on the voicemail. But that is all I have left. A voice that for a few moments is able to take away the pain. I guess there really aren’t happily ever afters and true love stories don’t have happy endings. They just have endings…

Every day I feel my sadness and loneliness growing. I do what I am supposed to; take my medication, go to my therapy, pretend to feel human but on the inside I am screaming out in pain. For the last couple of weeks I have not been able to contain my tears. I don’t understand what I have done to deserve this kind of life. I know that I have made mistakes but I have always thought I was a basically good person. I keep waiting to wake up one morning and have had some great epiphany on how to be happy but it never happens. I swear every night that tomorrow will be different, I will get up and do the things I need to do. But every day it’s the same. I drag myself out of bed, get a cup of coffee, and try to hide the emptiness I feel and make it through the day without breaking down in tears or yelling for no understandable reason. I know my greatest source of sadness comes from my failed relationship with D but I should be feeling some sense of closure by now. I long to feel his arms around me, to hear his heartbeat as I fall asleep, to see that smile and know it is for me. I miss him so intensely that some days I can actually feel the pieces of my heart shattering into even smaller fragments. I wonder if there is even enough of it left to ever feel joy again. My life is a pointless disaster. I have managed to become a 29 year old bitter, lonely, broke, unemployed, burden on every one I have ever loved. I thought my depression was chemical but I have been on my medication for over two months and though I no longer feel suicidal, I still have this hopelessness that is so intense I feel physical pain from it. I have an appointment with a new psychiatrist tomorrow and maybe he will be able to help me. I just want one morning where I am actually happy that I woke up instead of feeling dread to have to face another day.