I got a lot of input from people I never would have imagined could understand or would even want to try to understand. I got a lot of "I feel like that, too." Or "I love someone who feels like that." Or even "How do I help when you feel like that?" It was mind blowing the conversations I had and the people I had them with. But in all of the discussion I have had about mental health and stigmas over the last couple of years, nobody has ever asked me what it's like.
In no way does the fact that nobody ever asked "what does it feel like?" detract from the value of the the conversations that have ensued because of it. There has been tremendous value in acknowledgement, alone. But yesterday, easily the worst day I have had in in years, or maybe ever, I got an email from the Hawaii contingent that read "how can i help" in the subject line. I didn't open the email until this morning because I didn't know the answer. But when I opened it, the question wasn't "how can i help?" it was "what does it feel like?"
As I scrolled through the email, the tears I had been withholding for the last couple of months fell down my cheeks to the keyboard. She wrote: "I don’t know about panic attacks from my own experience. I can only estimate that they are a more overwhelming feeling than what I have felt at times in the past when I felt I was caught up in a dark vortex that threatened to consume me. I imagine a panic attack is what it feels like to be swept into the throat of that vortex." That was the most accurate likeness I have ever heard from someone who has never experienced the mental and emotional suffering of anxiety or depressive episodes. When I read that, I cried more.
And while it was so vividly accurate, it also seemed so very generic. It's easy for people who have been swept away into such a vortex to relate to the analogy. It's ominous and vicious and so very dismal sounding. It's easy to relate to that when you have experienced it. But it doesn't necessarily define what happens when you are being forced into the unknown of that oblivion.
So, this is what it's like...It starts pretty benignly. You wake up in the morning and there is an unspecified dread. It doesn't necessarily present itself as fear or panic, but something doesn't sit right. Maybe a premonition. Like you know you are going to walk into the bathroom and the tub will flood or walk outside to find a flat tire on your car. And even if those things don't happen, you convince yourself that they will. Just because the tub didn't flood and all four tires were fully functional on the way to work, you can't shake the idea that something is going to happen. You become hyper-vigilant. There is a suicidal deer lurking in every shadow, there is a drunk driver in every headlight. You finally get to work and hazards on the roadway have escalated to occupational hazards.
You start to believe that you aren't capable of completing job functions. You devalue yourself, and assume everyone else has done that as well. Then you feel guilty for failing the people around you. At some point in the day, maybe mid morning or mid afternoon, you find yourself laughing at asinine jokes or looking at the clouds rolling overhead, and for a brief moment you realize how silly you have been to take all of the shit so fucking seriously. You pull the best positive energy out and finish your day. There's a sense of relief as you make your drive home. You made it. You convince yourself you can do it again tomorrow. And you believe it.
Then when you get home, you close the door and lock it behind you, because you don't want that day getting back in. As you do the dishes and put something in the oven for dinner, the fear sneaks back in. Maybe you weren't wrong when you woke up. Maybe, there was something out there, but you just escaped it. Shake it off. That's just fear trying to own you. But by the time you should be drifting off to sleep, panic set's up a fucking novelty table in your brain. So, you don't fall asleep until it's tomorrow, then you wake up, what seems like minutes later. In actuality, it was only minutes later.
You wake up again with an unspecified notion of impending doom. It's a little harder to get in the shower. It's a littler harder to get in the car. It's excruciating to go to work. You know it's ridiculous. So you go. But by the time you get to work, you have villainized yourself to the point that physically hurts to walk through the door. Your colleagues say "good morning" to you. You curse them under your breath. "Don't fucking patronize me." The day plays out pretty much the same as the day before, only all the emotions seem to amplify. Do that for a week or two. Or maybe a month. Throw in some extenuating circumstances and a good run of bad luck, and you just went from barely functioning to barely breathing.
It doesn't matter what you do or who tries to comfort you, you don't see a purpose. In fact, you see a burden. The insufferable darkness that you can't escape, the weight of the burdens you place on others is suffocating. The weakness that you exude is a crime only punishable by solitude. In the off chance you allow another being close enough to see your vulnerability, the only option you have is to apologize. Apologize for wasting the limited oxygen produced by Earth's vanishing forests, because you aren't worth anymore than that. You are a fucking waste.
And that's what happens. It doesn't matter how many people call or text or visit or get on planes to make sure you are OK. You are a fucking burden on humanity and you don't deserve the time those people are investing in you.
That's what it's like. It's like drowning while you watch everyone around you breathing.
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