Shattered

In silence, we suffer and silently we pray.

*We hope that life will change that it means more than the day before. That it will cease to continue to feel like nothing at all.*

No one notices, and we sit miserable and alone. No one cares about anything more than the present pleasure that will bring them a little closer to death.

There is nothing left for me here in this world, maybe the next one will be less disappointing. Mother is right. Everything makes me unhappy. There is nothing… Only when I’m angry can I feel anything, anything at all besides sadness… This hole I’ve tried to feel is unfillable.

I distracted myself by keeping busy, busy, busy, and then how can I have the time to mellow in my self-pity. I went to school and I tried to better myself through experiences, knowledge, and awareness. Yet, like a circle, an endless cycle I always end up right where I began. Miserable and now only more aware of it.

It’s like it’s always been there, dwelling just out of sight.

When I think about other things, for a small moment, I feel that I may move beyond it, through it, past it. I cannot leave it behind because it is a part of me. I don’t think I’ve ever been free to be happy. No, this shadow sucks out joy with time, minutes, hours, days, months, or even years. It has great patience and eventually, it always comes back like a virus stronger than before.

When I try to lie to myself about light or hope at the end of the tunnel, I know it's lame and corny because of course, it’s unreal. The reality is that it was only a mirage, a phantom of the imagination. Or a small glimmer of hope, just enough to antagonize me further. Like I am in palpable hell and this is my punishment to feel like I might escape this endless meaningless void for something real, tangible, something I can love.

Then it smashes it away. I don’t mean literally like I keep going through tragedies and losing all I’ve built up in life. (What happens in life is beside the point, for we all face a tragedy of some kind) No, I mean metaphorically, yea I know — poor me.

Metaphorically I keep losing it, > that spark, >that zealous, >that thing that gives you a reason to keep living. That soul that something that says to drink water, so you may live…

I don’t know why it disappears, I don’t know where it goes… and I wish it was taken away because of something that happened to me instead of something inside of me because then it might be easier to explain or easier to understand. As it is, it’s impossible to tell others that I am depressed because I lost all will to live and not be able to say why.

“No, I am not trying to hurt you.”

“No, I am not seeking attention.”

“No, I don’t want to be selfish.”

It’s better that I just don’t say anything at all and fade away. On the inside, I am already fading away a shadow of my former self. Every time it comes, that dark and mysterious pit of despair. Whatever it may be, will make me disappear.

When I gain some modicum of strength to fight for the breath in my lungs. (For it very much is a fight. Otherwise, I would just lay there until I stopped breathing.) I fight my mind and body to demand that I get up and drink water, that I occasionally eat and shower. Eventually, I distract myself enough to pretend to be normal enough to have a life.

Like I said these spells can be in complete control for long periods of time or have an ever-lingering gloom over me.

However, when I find a respite and think that this is it, this time I WILL change my life and never go back!

And I do everything in my power to make that a reality.

I reach out to friends, I make connections, I find purpose in my everyday life again. I volunteer to add value to the world and not just myself. I attempt to maintain perspective; I center myself with positive thoughts. Make schedules and goals. Take care of my body and feed my mind with good books and rich works of literature, history, and culture. Take time to breathe and not be overwhelmed. Walk my dogs, write, and dream again of a future that I can be happy in.

Then I wake up. Its afternoon. I’ve slept through my alarm and everything is gray. The sunshine that hits my pillows makes me cover my head.

My eyes hurt; my mind is foggy. I am thirsty, yet I don’t care to move. I inherently know this is not only a bad day that started because of a headache. This is different.

> It was back.

Why?

I’ve been doing everything right. Practicing good habits, exercise, and socializing. Laughing and crying at sad movies, expressing my emotions in a healthy way. But, it was back.

Part of me screams, “Noooo! don’t let it in, don’t let it win, you just have to fake it till you make it. You just have to get started to get motivated. You just have to keep busy in order to feel better”.

“It’s just in your head.”

So, I drag my heavy unwilling limbs out of bed to shower and stand there dumbly until the water runs cold and my hair still contains shampoo, unrinsed. I can’t focus, and I don’t care. I don’t care about the hunger in my stomach I don’t care about the to-do list, the blinking phone. All my energy is sapped from the shower

Yet out of habit I force myself to stay out of bed and I go through the motions as I know I must. I feel detached and far away. My body is not my own and I watch as I do things bored and disinterested.

Eventually, I give in to the tiredness that hangs on my every move like gravity. I stop the fight and I lay down and switch on the tv or pull out my phone to do mindless stuff until sleep comes. Yet, despite my wariness sleep eludes me until the sun peaks out and the birds chirp. I shut my eyes and a dreamless dark sleep finally takes me into a faraway place.

When I wake nothing changed, so I lay there and do nothing at all. I will lay there for hours until sleep comes then lay there some more. I search my mind and sometimes even the internet — if I have the strength to do so. Searching for a reason, for the hope that I can change and that I might be me again.

My brain shuts down. All the uselessness of everything hits me. I will die and none of it makes any difference in-between. What gave me joy before now I felt nothing for. Was this what it is like not having a soul? Am I soulless? Each time I come back from this empty darkness I feel a little less caring, a little less intact. I am a little less alive inside.

Is this my eternal punishment? Is this what all people suffer? I wonder what the point is then, the point in doing anything at all.

I am a two-sided coin with a disproportioned weight.

~The light half fighting for my survival, for meaning, love, purpose.

~The Dark half weighing me down. Dragging me through the mud, telling me to forfeit, to stop because like a bad movie it just needs to end already! Nothing will ever change.

Every flip is harder to make and even harder to keep. I feel that I would rather have nothing at all than a bad movie I must endure.

Even now I am fighting to stay optimistic, trying to say that maybe going to therapy is going to change something. That this time will be different. That I will just have to wait and see because the future isn’t written, blah blah blah. I know I most likely will never be rid of this darkness that threatens to swallow me, like living with a terminal disease; one day I may never resurface again.

And with this certainty, I feel it’s only a matter of when. How long can I continue this half-life? This fight? I must adapt to live with it or crack under it.

Signing off;

Yours truly, Shattered.