frozen solid
I realized this weekend the severity of my problems with stress and anxiety. I was lying in bed, looking over at my stuffed animals on a shelf across the room, and I realized that I could remember a time when I could actually relax and enjoy myself without feeling like I should be doing something productive or could be doing something more enjoyable. I'm a "live for today" sort of person but the problem is that I constantly try to make today the most productive today there is. I can no longer relax at all unless I'm in the middle of yoga or some other intensely physically focusing activity (a paradox right there). I can't make decisions without deliberating over them for a stupidly long period of time. I can no longer NOT feel guilty about chosing one course of action over the other and wondering what would have happened if I'd made the other choice. The littlest things make my mind grind to a screeching halt and stay deadlocked for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes... an hour... a day... a week.

What do I wear? I change three times. Where do I go for dinner? I pick six different places and narrow down the list. I toss back and forth the last two choices for twenty minutes. Anything impulsive is against the rules. Always planning; writing in calendars. Never any time for freedom, always have to make sure obligation is done first.

Whenever someone asks me what I think, I freeze. I'm constantly tense; I can't unwind. My back pops, my neck cracks. I lay in bed awake. I curl up. I stretch out. The walls close in. I start the day planning my course of action. By three in the afternoon I have a stress headache and my vision is blurry. I can't think. Demands make me cry. I hate my job. I hate my classes. I hate writing. I hate people who try to get close to me. I go home. I sit in front of the computer. I do nothing but can only think of what I need to do. I eat to unwind. I eat to stop the headache. I eat because it's comforting. I eat becase I'm not hungry and it feels good to indulge in something. Then I stop eating. I hold back. I starve, I control. I revise, I rewrite, I pare down, I perfect. I make up, I slim down, I consume, I refuse. I sit and wait for someone else to tell me what to do and how to act and how to look and what my god damn syllabus for life should be because I don't know I don't know I can't even make one tiny fucking choice any more. I'm frozen solid.

Christ, at this rate I'll be institutionalized in five years. I just want to be a whole person and actually find enjoyment in one day of my life. How long has it been since I've enjoyed anything in a relaxed, awake state? How long has it been since I've enjoyed food, sex, sleep, nature, conversation, company, accomplishment, interaction, learning, philosophy, spirituality? How long?

I'm not depressed; I'm not destroyed; I'm simply devoid. And that's the crux of it. I just go through the motions, some days remotely pleased with myself, others not so much so. I mark the days of my calendars with a face for my emotions. Some are sad, but most are neutral, a little straight line for a mouth. A dash where my smile should be. Even on my weekends.

I thought to myself, Saturday morning, as I lay in bed and attempted to enjoy a lazy morning (I failed), that it had to stop. I'm telling myself today, as I try to unwind before going to bed, anxious at the things I have not finished, that it is destroying my life. That I need help. Even though I recognize it, I can't do anything for it. I don't know what to do. No one I know can give me impartial advice; not even my closest friend. I should seek help. I should and I want to. But I don't have time. And there's the crux of it. There needs to be a nice little pouch in time just for me. A day or two every week so I can have me time. Me me ME. That's all I want. Stop asking me to do things with you. I don't want to go to coffee. I don't want to go on a motorcycle ride. I don't want to talk to you. I want ME. I want to talk to me. But I'm here, alone, and the words don't come. Because I'm not here with myself, really, at all. I'm here with my fucking day-planner because that's all that's left.

It's true what they say; you can't love anyone else until you love yourself. I had that for a little while... I remember it. But I can't decide how to get back there. Next term, I will make time. I will find someone to help me find me again and unwind this freaking knot in my head. I'll stop being everyone's pawn and playing everyone's game and just get back to my whole, spiritual, self. I will enjoy at least one more day in this life that is MY OWN.

Addendum: Somehow it always seems to come back to the fact that I have $30,000 in loan debt hanging over my head. And that pretty much determines the course of my financial independence. I wonder if I should write about this SHIT on my scholarship essays and if THAT would get those fucking bastards to give me a little money.