Isolation
My heart dreams of being far from society. I dream about being far away from stress, worries, responsibilities, bills, landlords, and neighbors. I’d trade my last dime, my computer, and even my Playstation 3 to be far away from this rat race that everyone else participates in. There is little I’d miss about society, and thats an extreme understatement. I suppose this attests to a narcissistic nature about me, but I’d have no reservations about leaving life or family behind. Its always been my desire to escape it all. I don’t see starving to death in a freezing cabin out the woods any less desirable to the world I live in now.
Subconsciously, I think it goes even deeper. It’s most likely my emotions that I seek to escape. I resent the world around me for constantly putting me in a position where I have to face those feelings, when what I desire is to feel nothing at all. Emotions feel like death, which is why my mind has mastered the art of rarely feeling anything at all. If I’m a schizoid, then that is the sole purpose of my disorder. Most of all its myself that I wish to escape, but as the saying goes; Wherever you go, there you are.
So is healing possible? How do you overcome something when your entire character has been designed to prevent it? Everything required to get better is everything I seek strongly to avoid. All I have is the insight to recognize the damage and a desire to not be outsmarted by my own mind. Other than that, I’m basically fighting a battle to gain something I don’t really want at all. What I want is to just fade away. What I don’t want it to open up and let people in. I don’t even know what is that keeps me going, but I’m glad its there nonetheless.
So am I on the path of healing, or trapped in a swamp of self pity? I can never tell the difference.
Filed Under Depression, Schizoid | 5 Comments
Black dogs and thick fogs
The trauma of my last relationship landed me in a psychiatrist’s office looking for answers to my ex-girlfriends bizarre behavior, but it also led me to answers about myself I wasn’t exactly looking or asking for. He emphasized the word “major” and somewhere else in the sentence he said depression. That’s the point I began arguing with him. “But I’m not sad,” I exclaimed!
It turns out depression isn’t always about being sad. It explains isolation and a lack of energy. It explains the inability to find enjoyment in things you once found enjoyable. It explains the lack of desire to socialize and make new friends. It explains a lot of things, but does it explain me? I wasn’t so sure and after the argument he wasn’t either. Is it possible to be depressed the majority of your life and not even know it? He offered me pills and I offered more arguments. Is that a label, or is it a symptom of something more?
I guess I don’t know a thing about depression, but I do know a thing or two about anhedonia. Anhedonia is the inability to experience pleasure from otherwise pleasurable life events, and I seem to have a severe case that I’ve been carrying around for a very long time. Its feels a bit like living in an empty shell watching the world pass you by. Its a key symptom of depression along with a myriad of other mood and schizophrenic disorders, and even some of the personality disorders.
Nothing irks me more than the people who cross my path and tell me to smile or mention that I should be happy and tell me to cheer up. If only I had known it was so simple. If only I had known that mental disorders are a thing that you can simply will yourself out of if only you’d try. To think I could wake from this dream if only I thought to do so. No, overcoming things is neither simple or fast, but I wont let it stop me from finding a way out. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember that on the other side of where I’m at I’ve been promised moonbeams and rainbows. Not a day goes by that I don’t wish I was different or normal. I’m never not thinking about how I got here or why I remain.
A lot of people think its the rainbows I fear, but its not. Its the trail of dark shadows that block my path and stand between me and what I desire. Not many people understand that, and I wouldn’t bother explaining it to them. I’d rather offer cryptic tidbits. I don’t need their judgments or the stigma that comes along with the explanation. Like my ex, I don’t want people turning their heads sideways and looking at me like I’m some kind of psychopath.
Filed Under Depression | 7 Comments
Folie à Deux
Folie à Deux means “a madness shared by two,” and Folie à plusieurs means “a madness of many.” It is more commonly known in psychological circles as shared psychotic disorder or induced delusional disorder. These disorders occur when a person has been exposed to the paranoid thoughts, delusional beliefs, or magical thinking of a disordered individual, and begin to accept them into their own belief system. Typically, those involved tend to be isolated with little interaction with the outside world, and spend a great deal of time with the originator of the magical beliefs. After years of narcissistic abuse, I could almost say I was certain that I suffered with a bout of it myself, but I’d prefer to call that by it’s proper term, “brainwashing.” Everyone else calls it “gaslighting.”
Filed Under Abuse, Depression, Psychology | 4 Comments