this is not for the faint of heart. this is an entry from a period of time in my life that was especially difficult - one of many, but also one of many long ago. i'm glad to say that fortunately (and thru a lot of work) i am not the same person, i'm at a different place. simply put: i am happy. i share this because perhaps someone reading it might understand themselves better, might be helped by it.
ok, so i guess i am having an anxiety attack of sorts. it is not an accelerated heart rate, but it is a nervous panic, and it is not enjoyable. it is a far cry from joy. i took a hot shower, and had a beer to calm myself down. now i feel a little better. i thought maybe writing my feelings of this experience down might help, at least it will serve as a reference for dealing with this as soon as possible – professionally – because this cannot continue. i guess this is the nature of an anxiety attack: your mind and body race through thoughts and memories, and whatever. it is certainly nervous energy, and it’s fucking hell. HELL! i’m kinda alright for now. it helps to write and think this through. but it is really crazy this process that my mind takes. i really don’t know what it is, or what irks it on, or why i keep having it happen to me sporadically, over and over, every so often, sometimes every minute, and others every few years. i don’t know if it’s mental, physical, i don’t know if i cause it or it comes on for other reasons. maybe god doesn’t have anything else to do: god knows he’s read every book in his house and seen every movie ever made, so what else is there to do? but i don’t wish what happens to me upon anyone. really. it’s terrifying. all i wish is for IT to be over, to be OVER, to END and NEVER COME BACK. EVER!!
ok, so this is ‘anxiety’. i don’t know. i just don’t know why or what comes over me. one minute i’m fine – kind of! – and the next, shit, i’d rather he dead. really what happens by the minute is mood swings, but what happens every few years is a severe depression, or utter confusion and sense of loss of meaning or value. i mean it: THIS is such a dark, dark place. it is so lonely, it is endless, it is deep, it is terror, it is HORROR. why am i like this. WHY? what have i done to deserve this. oh, see, now i’m feeling sorry for myself and i hate that. I HATE THAT. i think that’s part of why i am like this, in terror; maybe because i feel sorry for myself, and angry, and have done so over the years. maybe i have closed the world outside. i see it out there, and i stay away. this is a big part, that’s for sure, the fact that i am so afraid of what’s out there that i don’t reach out for it, even if i see that it’s good! and even if it’s not, THIS IS THE WORST THING so out there couldn’t possibly be worse. right? yeah, whatever.
so this is what happened. i sat watching nypd blue, the cop soap opera, which i quite like. it, and northern exposure, aside from public television, are the only shows i watch. so i rushed through my cleaning jobs to make it home on time. i did. i made myself some ramen noodles soup, and laid on my bed watching this episode, which actually isn’t very good. slowly, IT creeps over me. i am not really concentrating on the show anymore because thoughts come in and out of my head, and it worsens and quickens when i catch myself unable to concentrate on the show. NERVOUS ENERGY. why? yes, i have worries and hopes and dreams, concerns, wishes JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE! but why do i experience THIS?!
this is what i feel: i feel so alone. my head is a dark and terrible place to be – mainly, when i’m in this situation. this dark and gloomy shit hole. so i begin to shift and adjust in the bed, and contemplate the scenario of what i would experience, of what will happen if i freak, if this mood indeed escalates to out-of-control proportion: that place where i might stay, and not return – either by or not by my own choice. this worries me. i wish to be someone that can handle a bad BAD space, not the person i am that right away worries for his life. jesus! ‘it’s just an anxiety attack,’ i tell myself. ‘yeah, but why does it have to come back to me over and over?’ there i was, watching a tv show, one that i like. sure, it wasn’t the greatest episode of the greatest show ever. so what?! not everything has to be enjoyable, beautiful, deep and interesting, creative, stimulating... i mean life is not like that and i know that!!!! BUT for no apparent or immediate reason, this looming hysteria comes to haunt me. anyway… so, yeah, i tell myself ‘what if you stay there, get stuck in this basement of fear and apprehension (actually, there are no accurate words to describe this place, and no cost worth enough to rent it; worse yet, to own it!), and what if you experience this for the rest of your life, however long? what if it keeps coming back even sporadically?’ yeah, you see, i would rather... well, it just terrorizes me, paralyzes me even to think that it will return just once again when i am 146 years old for 12½ minutes. i mean, i do not look forward to it. i’m starting to drift, let me get back on track here.
really. i just am afraid to enter this dark place because i am afraid of what i will do to myself, even though when i am not directly in it i see that it ends, i see the beauty in life, i even experience profound joy. BUT, when i am in it, in its murky depth, i cannot see or think of any consequence but death. and that, to say the least, SCARES me. when i am fine i think of death also, but only theoretically, philosophically, like one thinks of hot soup on a winter night, or the pondering of an ant in the fog (nothing like a little comic relief. life is so ironic! poetic justice?).
i just don’t think i have the strength to live long. i always thought i would die young, and the cause would ultimately be because of me, because i was crippled inside – but not by my own hand. i am not normal that way. i am perhaps a coward, walking chicken shit. (humor for the dying?) ok, let’s face it, i simply don’t know what i am! for instance, in this instance i am fine; and for this micro-millisecond i can say i am never sure about any thing: am i happy? am i going after what i want, and do i even know what it is? what is my definition of god? am i a good person, a responsible person, do i love, am i strong, am i stupid, dependable, sincere, am i confused (ha ha!), do i eat well, have i fucked up in life, do i love my father and mother and grandparents, and friends, am i connected to anyone, do i believe in sin (yes, in particular when i am scurrying for my life; striving to live another normal minute, the taste of death in my mouth!!), or am i also afraid of death???
yes, i know, everything changes constantly, even morals, but somehow nothing is consistent for very long with me, and THAT is a fucking shame–a promising could-have-been, with very good intentions: like his well-meaning father. boy, if i could have my father’s conscience i think i’d be happy, or at the very least sufficiently content! yes, it’s at times like these that i envy his developed, perhaps inherited, talent for detachment! i don’t know, but maybe that is a major issue; it’s indeed alarming to think that maybe the fact that i see my incredible potential but lack the courage to do anything about it, and instead i opt to sulk in conscious pity of my choice to remain much less than my abilities. hmm, i think i’d be half alright if my pity was at least subconscious – perhaps like my dad, and the rest of the world, or certainly most of it! is lack of ambition, determination, and a limited capacity for love, commitment, and responsibility a hereditary trait to be found smack in the middle of an unfortunate gene, contained in a random pool of dna?!?! again, alarming, but too broad for this essay. i’d rather be rid of any spiritual connection or high aspiration, and be a simple person who’s happy, but, then again, of course i’d rather not. besides, i think i’m doomed for eternity, stuck with this body and this soul – very respectable, indeed, but not fun!!!!!!!!! (perhaps I’m even envied, but what do those few shallow ones really know?) uhh, maybe i feel a great responsibility to the world – and to MYSELF – to prove to them some thing, to change something, to teach some thing. apparently, i’m full of shit, but even of THAT i am not sure. MORE HUMOR. but in this present hell there’s a paradox: what i am experiencing is sad but funny… pretty pathetic, huh? though i see the potential of humor in death, it is not funny when it stares you straight in the face and stimulates your taste buds. it winks at you, tickles your sides, brushes your hair. it makes me want to throw up your inside, and begin anew. alas, that’s too simple. enough with this sorry attempt at prose, and on with the story!
i am a simple person, i think. maybe i'm a deep, thinking person, but still simple. even my art is not very deep; beautiful, maybe, but not ‘DEEP’. can i accept that? can i accept myself? am i a very scared puppy? to all these questions I answer a fatigued and profound “I DON’T KNOW!!!”. well, what do you know, you stupid idiot, at least you could accept that you are a simple, scared, stupid, shameful son, and be done with it. and LIVE! (you might look into the previous sentence and read too much into the word SON, but i assure you all those words began with ‘S’ so… but of course I’M NOT REALLY SURE!). LIVE, simpleton, just live!
that‘s when hate myself (well, i hate myself almost all the time, if not always): when i can’t even tell when i speak the truth. oh that sentence is hysterical, really! here i am talking to myself and i CAN’T EVEN TELL IF WHAT I AM WRITING IS TRULY ME! that’s just pathetic, man. i mean, this is pretty damn funny when you think about it. it’s one thing to be unsure if you’ll make it to the bus on time, or that your boss will approve of your project, or if this tie looks good with this sock, or even if your date will like you, BUT not to be certain about ANYTHING at all about YOURSELF – your own SELF?????!
“mr. fried, this is definitely a problem. and i feel sorry for you. no kidding.”
“ok, the know-it-all, higher, wiser and experienced mr. fried… ok, what are you going to do with your lower self now. will you help him know more, or will you continue to ridicule , to watch him trip over himself? actually, i didn’t think you had it in you to be so cruel. i thought you rather kind and warm, at least, most of the time – almost all of the time. you know, if there’s one thing i’ve preached consistently about you it is that you are sensitive; you know, you pick up others’ feelings, their moods, you know, that you have great insight into people, etc. etc. etc. and now, well, i see you are no different than all the people i have ever disliked greatly, and all rolled into one: the BETTER side of mr. oded fried.”
“what a great couple you two make. good luck! well, maybe you should know (and you can be certain this is straight from the almighty): you two should just go ahead and fornicate, you know: MAKE LOVE. fuck each other in the ass, deeply, deeply, and be done with it! then, and forever, you won’t have to spend your whole life fighting your own self. god knows, i mean, uhh, umm… i mean, i know you’ve spent half your life doing that, sowhat use is it, tell me? where has it gotten you? and maybe, just maybe, you are the ones causing yourselves to have a hard time in the first place – even anxiety and depression, and i repeat, ANXIETY and DEPRESSION.”
“well, as grandma used to say: ‘from your mouth to God’s ears!’ ehh... this is the lower self, again. really, it frightens me to think… really, really REALLY scares me to think that anxiety and depression are not caused by me – solely by choice, i mean. oh, GOD, it paralyzes me to envision and feel that this gloomy feeling will come back to grasp me, haunt me, play with my fucking head! shit. REALLY!!! this is no joke, no joke at all! it scares, as they say, the living daylights out of me. i panic when it registers in my brain that i am freaking!”
“well, there you have it, young man.. .being that i spoke, and being that i also AM god, and therefore have god’s ears, i can assure you: they are BIG! therefore you and your wonderful, beautiful grandmother can both be certain: i have heard! enough already!!! best wishes, young man. now go pop in a video, watch a good movie, and go to sleep, and, oh, take your higher self with you! after all, even the genius can come down to earth once in a great while.”
“i heard that! and i’d like to say that I have been here, down HERE, on earth! i’m waiting, just waiting for you two to finish whatever nonsense it is you’re talking about, and start the darn movie!! jeez! i’m dying to find out what’s happened since we last watched it. and, uh, oh yeah, don’t forget the popcorn.”
i’ve been writing for an hour and 3 minutes, non-stop. that’s enough. i feel slightly better.
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