Sleeplessly Exhausted
Exhaustion. Inability to experience any pleasant feeling, even interest in things I once loved. Dark thoughts cloud my soul, causing gloom to lurk over every aspect of my life. Brain partly shut down, the remainder of its functioning areas grow hazy. “That’s what it’s like in my head all the time, constant snow, constant weather patterns of all sorts—blizzards, cyclones” (Elizabeth Wurtzel). How am I to take on the world when I can barely survive my own mind?
“I feel not the strength to put a concentrated effort into my existence. This weight is unbearable most days, so how do I carry on? This burden is inescapable; all the time it haunts my thoughts. So how is it that I’ve made it through so far? I am one of the few people who has seen things like this [hallucination of hell; hearing demons]. Therefore I WALK ALONE. There’s no one to understand or relate to me. My problems are unique. I sit, & think, alone, & only then are my bottled-up tears shed without an attempt to withhold them, without remorse for feeling weak” (March 2009; age 16.)
Author Elizabeth Wurtzel of Prozac Nation writes, “I want to explain how exhausted I
am. Even in my dreams. How I wake up tired. How I’m being drowned by some kind of black wave… They have no idea what a bottomless pit of misery I am… My God, I could raise a family of six children & hold down a full-time job with all the energy I expend on depression!”
I am repeatedly told that XYZ is my duty, whether it be household chores or diligence in school or never being late to work. What no one realizes is that my primary duty is to survive. Their ideas of thriving are too advanced for what I can handle.
“I hate this unspoken nightmare. I hate this loneliness that haunts my tears. I hate this fear with angst that plagues even the Smile. I miss the charm of hope, the glee of peace. I miss the comfort. I miss the promises! & I miss promises being kept. I am strong, but I am tired of strength being a requirement for daily living” (May 2009; age 16).
“What do you do with pain so bad it has no redeeming value? It cannot even be alchemized into art, into words, into something you can chalk up to an interesting experience because the pain itself, its intensity, is so great that it has woven itself into your system so deeply that there is no way to objectify or push it outside or find its beauty within. That is the pain I’m feeling now. It’s so bad, it’s useless. The only lesson I will ever derive from this pain is how bad pain can be” (Elizabeth Wurtzel).
The blizzard of my mind continues to wear me down daily, its intensity plaguing all sanity I attempt to cling to. I can only foolishly hope that some redeeming value of my pain will yet transpire, & that someday I shall master my struggles rather than being destroyed by them.
Perhaps someday I shall indeed be the victor of this battle.