Look down at my hands
And see they are cracked
Look closer, my cuticles are bleeding
My nails so short, wounds and raw skin
My toes are the same.
Look at my skin, is wrinkled and dry
If only my body could talk
If only my soul could reveal
That it is torn, ripped, confused, drowning
Staying afloat just because it has to.
If only my body could talk
My mind would share its burden with a companion
But anxiety is like:
a snake on my body
It comes, it bites, it poisons
Then it suddenly disappears,
Leaving behind
A figure so serene, so peaceful
An exclamation: What a relief!
Nights and days, cycles of seasons
All has become timelessness
Thoughts of overwhelming sadness
Possess my body.
Without reason, without asking for permission
And I don’t understand
Why me? Why now? Why forever?
Sometimess I feel empty
Like a programmed machine without emotions
They say pills might kill the love hormone
I don’t even remember the last time
I felt alive, excited, in love, high with passion.
I forgot when I screamed of pleasure
My body is numb
I am jaded, in desperate need of attention.
I am lonely, I just want to sleep.
I want to detach from everything.
I want comfort, I want to feel again
Like I am alive.
All these contradictory thoughts
Are fighting a war.
-To the death, they say!
The stimuli in my brain
Have taken up swords
Against each other.
And all I feel is pain, physical pain
My body is agitated,
My heart is running down the street
I am hot and cold and fearful
A poision like liquid travels fast
From my hands to my head.
I feel it in my veins,
Like red chilli mixed with arsenic and hot alcohol.
I feel I am gonna lose it,
Become unconscious soon
Die without even saluting death.
But still,
When anxiety comes I shake off and tell myself:
Oh, another one…it will pass.
Then anger comes..an uncontrollable force
Anger at the world, I feel murderous
I could plant a bomb and end humanity
In that very instant without any guilt
Then I hate myself, for being so weak
For succumbing to this rush of negative feelings and thoughts
For the way I am wired, for my unbalanced hormones
Look at me now and tell me that:
‘Positive thinking helps a lot’
‘Other people have it hard too’
‘You will get over this’
‘We all get bad days’
‘Try to watch cartoons’
Or ‘smoke weed’
And I get it, people say generic things when you have a problem.
They give advice and want to help.
It is called empathy or so they say.
But how can you?
When I am in a constant torment,
Because of the endless stream of ideas,
That I would rather close my eyes
And live in my dreams
But it doesn’t help!
They are nightmares
So how can you?
Serve me this bullshit on a golden plate?
From the outside it seems like a fantasmagoric illness, a made-up ailment
For people who complain a lot, who want to blame their unhappiness on something
And even I ask myself
Why am I not strong enough?
Isn’t happiness my own responsability?
They say it is to be found inside?
Then why does an endless fresh stream of exhaustion and suffering
Flood my every cell?
When I only look for my share
Of satisfaction.
But then I realize, fuck…
Something’s wrong.
People are serving me self-help advice
They say they feel me,
they are here for me
Words are empty,
Silence more meaningful.
A hug, a kiss, a stroke of hair
And delving deep into my pain.
People think: (my friends, my mother, my partner, the rest of the world)
That I should close the door to raw anger
To disconcerting anxiety, to the subtle depression
That I should not think too much
That I should change the topic of discussion.
This exhausts me, leaves me empty
A body without a soul.
Someone who sometimes thinks:
Can I just get intravenous nutrition in bed today?
Adult diapers and from time to time
Some human touch.
I want to be reassured I am still breathing.
So I decide not to barricade myself inside
A fabricated postive energy, happy thoughts bubble
I let my pain inundate me
And tell myself the world is fucked up
So if you want to help
Please suffer with me
Complain and swear,
Ask questions about the purpose of it all
Be confused, cry, struggle
Open up just one eye when the alarm rings
Decide to linger in bed today
To be nostalgic,
To experience movies vicariously
To not go out into the world
To not fulfill your role as an adult
To not take seriously your attributions
Your responsabilities
To still be a kid
Without depression.
So much here… and through it we can make it xx
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It’s hard for me to not say some of those things in my desire to help. Thanks for the reminder that silence can be enough and of the importance of gentle touch.
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Hi … wow … for what it’s worth, I often complain and swear, and would gladly do so with you. And I do cry more than I wish I did. But according to therapy, crying is good for us because beneath all the anger there is pain, emotional pain, and once you get below the anger to the next level, you feel that raw pain, and then we are back in touch with our animal instincts – to howl and wail because that’s how we let the feelings out.
People say all kinds of “positive” things to try to help, and they really do mean well and often love us so much, but I was in a very dark place once, and I told someone about it, and he said something nobody else had said: “Fuck, I would have thrown myself off a tall building by now if I were you.”
Obviously, I’m not recommending suicide as a solution(!), it was just an expression, and (according to therapy) you can’t make someone else suicidal anyway, but when he said that, I felt such relief. No more needing to be grateful because it could be worse; no more positive thinking, or the law of attraction, or others have it worse than I do – when did it become a competition??
And empathy is not sympathy; empathy is when somebody cries because they can feel *your* pain, and the last thing they’d do is try to cheer you up because they know that it just feels like pressure. They’d say, hey I’m here. I’m here, and I’ve been in the dark too. No point trying to drag somebody out; but, damn, I’m grateful if someone will sit with me in the dark sometimes and keep me company. ❤ x
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My late friend Chuy put it this way:
“All my life I’ve been told ‘Thunder can’t hurt you.’, but that never stopped me from being terrified by it. Spare people such senseless jabber.
Hold them, and tell them ‘I’m right here.’.
It is truly the only solace you can provide.”
Seek peace,
Paz
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Believing that you are invincible doesn’t really mean it is truly like they
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like that. We are all vulnerable in a way or another and we need company and support from people that admit their weaknesses too.
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Hugs❤ God is hope. He got me out of depression. He is the only way out I found. ❤
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That is true. I find solace and I free my mind everytime I go to church and turn to God.
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Yes😄❤
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👍👍👍👍👍
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