Anxious Discomfort and Chronic Fatigue

Thursday, Summertime, Age - 26
Mural Buenos Aires
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I have the kind of fatigue normally attributed to all night study sessions or marathon training. Not the way you’re supposed to feel mere hours after waking up.

I can’t get myself to do the things that I know I need to do and the things that I want to do. That is my base issue right now, I cannot get myself to DO all of those things. Even the most basic things at times. What I know is that I have serious psychological problems that are preventing me from even saying “yes” to try something. Getting to the point of being able to just get out of bed on days like today will be major for me right now.

Discomfort so persistent and long lasting that it is starting to feel normal. It doesn’t seem possible that other people are going through life without a constant gnawing in their stomach and fear pumping their heart.

I’m fighting demons, deep within my skin. Picking at them as they creep out of my pores. This week I can’t stop picking at my skin. My legs and face are covered in scabs because I can’t stop picking. I can’t eradicate these demons. They want to win. Even when doing good things like exercising, work, positive thinking, meditation…They can jump on me at any point and I awake in fear after spending the night deep in nightmares. They steal my energy and tell me I’m not worthy. I fucking feel this draw, this beckoning. The demons are begging me to join them.

I’m tired of fighting. I want to give in. Choose the easy way. The path of disbelief. Ignoring the possibilities of a life filled with magic and light. Choosing, or maybe not choosing but stumbling on a road that’s dark. Looking down at my feet but tripping anyway. Fighting my intuition because I am afraid of feeling happy and being let down. Afraid to TRUST.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had vivid nightmares. Night before last I woke myself up by yelling in my sleep. Being a frequent nightmare sufferer has manifested itself many ways. Multiple times a month, or more depending on what’s happening in my life, I will sleep “enough” hours but go through the day in a fog. These intense dreams leave me with emotional hangovers in my waking life. It’s like waking up from one life into another.

I can chart the ups and downs of my life through my dreams. I have 11 years of dream journals saved up on my computer, adding up to 35,000 words of potential horror movie material. That is not counting the dozens of handwritten journals tucked away in the attic of my sister’s house. Lately my nightmares are so frequent I am too afraid to go to sleep. I’m afraid when I’m awake too.

My heart is beating a million miles a minute. I feel this sense of impending tragedy at all times. No matter how ready this anxiety is trying to make me, there is no way to prepare for doom. Living in fear is a kind of hell.

I’m afraid of everything and when I’m alone I let that fear consume me. It eats me alive and works to sever the ties I have with others. It exposes itself in antisocial tendencies and extreme jealousy. Suspicion that could be the end of what I hold dearest. Creating self-fulfilling prophecies. I’ve forgotten the magic that always kept me going. The magic in the wind, in the trees, in the stars. In me.

I don’t know who the girl smiling in my photos is. It isn’t me. That’s not me. I don’t know where that joy is, what a facade. What a phony getup. I’m a monster in disguise. I’m made out of atoms and my spirit is trapped in them. I’m not this life. I wasn’t made to be here, but here I am. I keep searching the world over trying to find a place to call home, but nothing fits. I often feel alone in a world that I was not made for. It’s like they see that I’m barely holding it together, as if I could burst from my skin at any moment, and I clutch my knees tight to my chest to keep from exploding.

My thoughts are circling and I can’t stop the spiraling repetitiveness of my internal obsessions.

I'm so tired,

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1 Comment

  1. Alice Lynn on May 20, 2016 at 12:45 pm

    A powerful piece of writing and horrifying too, as I try to fathom what you’ve gone through. Your bravery in exposing your innermost fears, pains, and psychic despair casts a bright light on anxiety an depression (mood disorders). These entries belong in text books or manuals for psychology students, counselors and mental health providers.

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