People Are Strange

I'm commencing this entry in the context of great uncertainty as to how to begin. I will endeavour to keep the narrative of a lighter nature than it typically transpires to be, but I'm afraid of setting such an expectation given that, as ever, it's when things are particularly difficult that I feel the need to write self-indulgent essays by way of some desperate catharsis. So please forgive any misery-ridden expression to follow.

It's an unpleasantly contradictory situation to be in - feeling both horribly alone and overwhelmed by the scrutiny of others. I've recently found myself suffering such a circumstance even more than usual. In starting my second year of sixth form over again I can't help but feel lost and abandoned without the small but wonderful circle of friends whom I would usually dote and depend on. Once again I seem an alien in an environment I was already far from comfortable with. To be on an entirely different level to my peers - not in superior way - is incredibly isolating. I simply cannot relate. How could I? These people know nothing about me or the suffering behind my social front even though that is through no fault of their own, so when they go about their trivial chatter it's inevitable that I feel more distant than ever. The sense of exposure doesn't help my already soaring anxieties. It's horrible to be literally stared at by most of the younger years and unforuntately this is not paranoia talking. Paranoia is merely the consequence of their glares: I wonder what is going through their minds to cause them to feel the need to blatantly nudge their friends and point, then follow me with their eyes and whisper amongst one another. Are they gossiping about that girl wearing the weird clothes? Or worse, are they questioning why I should be allowed out in public looking as fat and grotesque as I do? It has got to the point where I've had brush ins with year 8s, being assaulted with sarcastic remarks or less-than-kind comments after I ask them (admittedly not-so-politely myself) to stare at something other than me. In all honesty it's troubling me more and more everyday in accordance with my increasing discomfort with my own body, living with the burdens that I do.

People are strange. Everything seems unsettling and frightening when one seems a stranger to the rest of society; either completely unknown or known too much. Socialising is such a daunting process, made worse by feeling on a completely different planet to everyone else. There are very, very few who understand, who I can actually converse with to a degree which exceeds the frustratingly unfulfilling conditions of empty small talk. Lack of empathy combined with my heightened sensitivity render the smallest remark as a source of great distress for me. I wish there was some way of presenting what I've been through and how I'm still struggling terribly without fearing the judgement of others. Despite being reserved and introverted in nature it makes it all the more difficult to get through the day when no-one appears to have any comprehension of how much words can hurt. Even the most inadvertent comments about mood, personal experiences with regards to hospital or food - from those suffering from eating disorders as well as those who are lucky enough not to be afflicted with such a soul-destroying disease - have the power to trigger the depressive, self-destructive voice in my brain until there is very little spirit or rationality left in me. I don't really know what to do anymore. It's a perpetual enigma; to be both terrified of being alone and fearful of human contact, desperate to communicate socially but utterly unable to relate.

I know I've got to hold on but I'm so exhausted that it's painful. I'm going to Paris with my best friend in less than a week and I don't feel ready at all; I want so desperately for us to have the time of our lives together but I'm so very fearful that my raging insecurities will ruin everything. This new adventure simply has to be a turning point for me; a goodbye to pain and trauma - but I have this absolute terror that I won't even make it on the trip. I somehow need to nullify this despair and emotional instability within five days. I need to no longer be on the brink of suicide by Sunday night.

Think of the good things. Grin and bear being around others until the agony of isolation subsides. In crisis seek those you love. I know all of these things but it's a challenge to say the very least to put them into practice whilst my mind and heart feel cast adrift in a vast ocean of emptiness.

I know that biting the bullet is the hardest part so I'm trying my best. I'm persevering with sixth form in spite of my hopelessness, in an effort to pass the time more than anything until France. Something has to inspire my hope and joy again. If I can make it, hopefully life will become less of a torturous experience and more a blessing, or at least a challenge I feel equipped to face.

I Mind

I'm growing horribly tired of either feeling too much or feeling nothing at all. It seems there is no comfortable medium, no bliss of relative contentment - only the agony or short-lived thrill of an extreme. The rapid and intense oscillations of temperament are persuading me to a point of exhaustion. 

Feeling nothing is unpleasant. It might not be painful, but it surely renders a sickening discomfort to the newly barren expanse of existing as a ghost. At times it almost seems as though feeling absolutely nothing at all is worse than feeling hurt. The chronic emptiness, the crippling loneliness... they are like a nausea which will not go away... I am washed out at sea, indolently rocked by the ocean's currents which keep me afloat but leaves me lost. I can somehow miss the interjection of pain amidst the vast, grey void. At least it reminds us that we are alive.

The lows are, understandably, pitiful. Once sunken into the dark, unfathomable depths it is seemingly impossible to drag oneself from the mire. You can fall unexpectedly too; in a moment a minor incident can throw you from the level terrain of comparative emotional stability into the rocky chasm of absolute turmoil. Worse still, the higher you fly, the deeper you plummet. The potential for subsequent despair jades even happiness with a sense of danger and trepidation. 

I don't think I'd be here however without the sporadic highs. Disorientating though they can be when the mania and hyperactivity is so intense that I feel I might be losing myself in the exhilarating whirlwind of my thoughts and actions, to be floating above one's surroundings in a strange yet delightful haze of delirium can be an oasis amidst an otherwise torturous existence. Who wouldn't want to feel happy? Even if the manic sentiments are purely superficial, an armour of glorious ecstasy enveloping and, ephemerally, eclipsing the internal anguish, they still feel better. I could describe it like being in a curious daydream you don't want to wake up from. Logic tells you it is all a figment of the imagination and will soon swiftly leave your mind in a potentially abrupt and frightening manner, a flurry of newborn starlings leaving their nest; but this knowledge does not necessarily hinder you from (foolishly) allowing yourself to be swept up in the romance of the euphoric sentiments. It truly is a crying shame that the good times all have to come to an end. More often than not I find they meet a miserable fate.

It isn't just the volatility which is draining, but the nature of my sensitivity and relation to others in terms of what has been described as a 'fatal sense of empathy.' I simply cannot stop feeling for other people. Blotting paper for the suffering of others, I can't help but absorb their pain on top of my own. I know that it is only detrimental for me given that it reliably sends me into self-destruct mode, but upon hearing that there is someone struggling or witnessing their decline I become dangerously pre-occupied, even if the anxieties go unspoken. It literally kills me. I can cry myself to sleep over someone who, though I've never met, I'm aware is in poor health; or spend hours ruminating, worrying myself sick over those poor girls I left behind in that horrible place. What am I supposed to do to stop seeing and feeling all this suffering? There is no way to expunge my thoughts of worry, nor my breaking heart of its pains for them. There is so much hurt everywhere; I just can't not notice it. I can't stop it from affecting me, more deeply than I can begin to describe. It is utterly impossible to detach my mind or heart from it: I cannot forget, I cannot forget, I simply cannot forget. 

In essence it isn't just that I've been through too much; it's that I've seen others go through too much and it still haunts me day and night. I mind that there are people out there in misery who I am powerless to help, and I mind to a damaging degree. Of course it is difficult for anyone to move on, but the past seems inescapable for me, as does the continuation of suffering which pervades the present. There is little solace from the perpetual grief - I am sad to say - and I'm not sure how to go about finding any, unless in the near future there were to be some technological advancements toward brain transplants which as it is I may well be morally wary about. Perhaps there is no answer. No escape from my woes. Is it possible for one's life to embody an eternal grief process? 

If I cannot turn off my mind the best thing I can do I suppose is to enrich my life with joy as oppose to allowing myself to succumb to the darkness within. I am endeavouring to look forward instead of back but it is far from easy when it truly is a day-to-day battle. Maybe I need to accept that I will always be emotionally fragile as a result of what has happened, and particularly susceptible to the stresses suffered by others as well as myself; I might never be able to move on. The best thing I can do for now is to live, in spite of it all. I will; for those I love and care for if not for myself. I have good experiences ahead of me if I can make it and - typically, as a testament to my rapidly fluctuating mood - I am determined to. I am going explore the wonders of this world with those most precious to me. I am going to embrace new discoveries and take joy in the positive memories I do have deep down. If only there was a way to erase the anterior areas of the brain which have been wounded by trauma and torment... perhaps my mind and spirit would be sanctuaries rather than cemeteries.