I’m quite surprised at how broken I am. I probably don’t
appear to be (who does?) but I am a mess. I guess I’m high-functioning enough
to pack most of it away where it doesn’t show but recently the crazy has been
bleeding into my day a bit too much. It’s odd, because it’s happening at the
same time as I’m beginning to feel better about myself. I’m like Shiva; the
creator and the destroyer. I know it is probably part of my final restorative purge,
but it really does have arsehole timing.
There are benefits to all this self-analytical masochism.
The emotional bedrock throws up stuff I probably needed to revisit. Sometimes,
literally... At the beginning of one week in my office, I vomited and at the
end of the week was broken down in tears. The vomiting was not
lifestyle-related but rather a debilitating and retch-inducing bronchial virus.
Fortunately I was alone in my office both days and, luckily, am old and foolish
enough to know how to puke discretely and without mess. I rarely drink enough
to be sick, so it’s generally an almost nostalgic experience, if merely
horribly so. But I digress.
The breaking down was more surprising, but also healthier.
It had been my best friend Jim Crow’s birthday the day before and I’d posted a
song on Facebook for him, Delicate by Damien Rice. Tragically, Jim died nearly
a decade ago but the song was one that he had played on the guitar quite
regularly. It holds some significance to me, his family and people who knew
him. The song has more resonance now as well, especially for the apt, rising notes
of sorrow and loss.
My reaction caught me by surprise though. After posting the song, my stomach knotted
and a few tears came to my eyes. I’m not at all ashamed, although I am relieved
that I was alone in the office. However the sorrow kept returning, pulsing and
washing over me in larger and larger waves. I closed my office door and sat on
the floor behind my desk, sobbing. I hadn’t even played the song, merely posted
it, but I couldn’t stop shaking. For the first time in a number of years the
complete, absolute, godless realisation of loss, of Jim’s non-existence, and
how I would never see my friend again hit me, and hit me, over and over.
I would have welcomed this emotional break more had I been
at home rather than in work. I remained on the floor for about half an hour
until the feelings subsided enough to tidy myself up and go next door to speak to my boss. I told him what was happening and that I had
to leave, and he was very cool and understanding about it. I think that
beginning to break down again whilst trying to explain it to him probably helped
my case as well.
I walked home and spent the day posting and playing all of
my favourite songs that we used to listen to, so much better for being home and
safely ensconced in my room. I needed the release, and it felt good to think
about him so emotionally again, even reliving the pain and trauma of losing him.
It took being broken to reach that point. And that was just
one week...
I’m not suggesting that my emotional state has been a
perpetual rollercoaster, I am generally quite good at working through my pain. The
best way, I find, is to accept the slow, inevitability of it and wallow in its
horrible, revealing torture. I was just surprised to find that the maelstrom of
weirdness that permeates my daily internal world was seeping out. I was losing
my grip and my ability to turn off the clamour of neurotic crazy that I had
been successfully subduing in social situations previously.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m actually getting better, I’ve just
been experiencing a mild identity crisis and misery glut, and the frequency of
those dips is falling as I begin to realign. But this stuff works you over, and
the self-pity pisses me off the moment it’s passed. I had periods of abject
misery where I lay in bed, wondering if I would cry were I to share a moment of
intimacy with a woman again.
The moment it passes I know how pathetic I’m being. I am
honestly beginning to like myself again and I can tell from the faces of my
friends the points where I am actually functioning ‘normally’, especially
compared to the numerous social occasions where I have fallen flat.
I’m not worried, I am getting better, and most of the time I’m
not even sad anymore. It’s hard, emotional work, building myself back up. A work
in progress...
