Feeling Something

It's waking up and feeling sad, but then feeling content because at least you are feeling something at all. This sadness is something that sometimes comes with know discernable reason. You can wonder, and over analyze, and try to find a reason for your emotions... but this only creates a larger pit of despair. Then the room darkens, and the guilt falls into place.

Why should I feel this way? So many have it so much worse? I have no reason to be sad; therefore I have no right to be.

It's noon and I have not left my bed.

"Hey, how are you?" a friend asks in passing.

"I'm great, just went to the cat café to study. I'm going to ace this assignment." Your smile grows bigger with every word. Only after turning away does it fade. You cannot help to wonder why you couldn't have said what you really felt, why you could not have managed a simple, but poignant help.

Help, I am drowning. I am falling in slow motion, the bottom of this chasm a far away place — unreachable — hopeless.

And then you're fine. It's another day, and you wake up the way you feel you should. You make plans with friends, clean your room, and do your hair. You truly do feel great. And for a while you believe that you are normal — that the darkness has lifted. For a brief moment, breathing comes easy, and your heart feels light.

It could be days, it could be weeks... but no matter how good things seem to get, you always seem to get dragged back down.

Your eyes open, oh no... I can't get bad again.

This time it's the nothingness, the numbness that keeps you in your bed. Your sanctuary, not because you need comfort, or you're sad... but simply because you could not care to be anywhere else. There is no point.

The what if's begin playing over and over again. What if I wasn't alive? What if I stopped seeing my friends? What if I quit my job or dropped out of school? But you aren't suicidal. That is not it. You never plan to die, or even want to. You could not care to. That is the thing. Sometimes it is not about how hard life is. It's about how hard it is to care. If you do not care about life, it's even harder to care about death.

This is the feeling that makes waking up for the day an insurmountable task. Why get up? What is really the point? But you do... because that is what you are supposed to do, and you don't want your parents to ask you what's wrong.

And somehow the smiles come. You laugh at every joke. You accept the offer from the boy who wants to walk you home. Then he says goodbye. The magnitude of what that word means hits you like a train, and as you turn away the tears begin falling. Your body shakes, and your lips tremble. You enter your home glad that no one else will witness what is about to happen.

Slouched against the wall, sobbing ... shaking ... breaking. Crying over nothing, and missing what it felt like to feel nothing. Breathing becomes a difficult task, as your throat becomes raw from sobbing and attempting to not be too loud.

I'll call a friend, you think. But before you have a chance to shakily dial a number, you remember what you said to them who knows how long ago, and wonder if that could have hurt them. You think of another friend, the one who is always there for you... but no, you don't want to be a nuisance. What about your friend who confides in you? You can't call them... They have enough going on... You cannot have another thing to feel guilty about.

So you crawl into bed and shake and cry until your lids are too heavy to keep open. Only then does the pain subside, and only then is everything ok.

"How are you?" your friend asks.

Fine, good, great, it doesn't matter what you say. A lie is a lie, and regardless of how you feel you are never fine. You are treading water in a wave pool that has merely slowed down. It is only a matter of time before the waves get bigger, and your arms get tired. Once again you will be left drowning, and only when things seem at their worst, your toes will touch the bottom. And you will be able to breathe again momentarily.

It's a cycle. And the only end to the cycle is to simply be able to vocalize truthfully when asked, "How are you?"

One of these days you will shake your head and ask for help.

Help.