You’ve Come A Long Way, Baby: On Ill-Being
At what point does it become fruitless to do anything but treat the symptoms? Is recognizing—and therefore at least attempting—to come to terms with the fact that you will always suffer—in one way or another—crippling pessimism or the healthiest thing you can do? Why is it a sin to try to relieve pain in the most efficient way you can think of, when all else has failed? (Or at least, you’ve done all you can, and it’s gotten better, much better, but it’s never been complete, and occasionally you lapse into things again, is it temporary or will it all come flooding back?, you ask yourself, terrified and anxious, wanting nothing more than for it to go away, sometimes knowing the source and sometimes not, knowing it will probably be gone in the morning, you just have to get through the night, so why not get through it with a little artificial help? When does it become better in the long run, to dull and shelter and not pointlessly confront?)When does it become acceptable to give in, without fear of it being called giving up?
Being called that by others, yes, but yourself as well. And they perpetuate each other. Your frustration becomes silence, internalizing, turning inward, which begets others not understanding the tiny amount they could if you tried to express it. Express it, which you sometimes do, when you’re feeling particularly saucy, and for a brief moment there is relief, there is reward, because someone hears you, someone connects, you’re not imagining things, it’s not all in you’re goddamn head, and most importantly, you’re not alone. Their empathy helps you deal because it makes it real: Its mythic proportions are chipped away and it becomes something not only tolerable but vanquishable. You are given hope, a hope which itself is a powerful narcotic.
But without that connection, without that validation, you despair. You feel without thinking and think without feeling. You suffer in silence, running round the corners of your brain. You begin to feel hatred, and what little energy you’ve got left is channeled here without your consent. Your frustration is as needless as your guilt, weighing you down, adding to your pain, forcing you into a vicious downward spiral. Others cannot see your invisible suffering and therefore cannot comprehend. With you versus the world, you begin to think they’re right. Maybe it is just all a hoax. Or not as bad as you think and feel it. You’re too sensitive. Or else you panic, because this means that it doesn’t exist outside your own body, your own head, which means that there’ll never be a cure, you’ll never feel any different, any better, you’ll always be in this state or fall back into this state, it’s an inevitably of life, the only other one being death, which may or may not help at all, if only you knew, if only it wasn’t such a mystery, you might be able to do something about it. No one will ever possibly appreciate your limitations and your idiosyncracies, and what’s worse, you’ll never be able to really respect them anyway, they’re obviously too damn shallow and self-absorbed, why bother even trying to talk to them?
Only a miracle can break the cycle which has persisted since you have had the function of memory. And miracles do happen, you have discovered that. Recently there has been relief, there has been connection. But it is fleeting. It is always fleeting. And in some twisted ironic way, having connection which becomes alienation only exacerbates everything. When you were alone, shut off inside yourself, the idea of struggling to survive and relate in a world so foreign, so unforgiving, so stark, was bad; the reality of it is unbearable. At least back then you could pretend it might be different. That was your favorite fantasy. But there is no room left for fantasy. You’ve already gone too far, there’s no turning back. Fleeting connections and frequent retreats are all you’ve got to look forward to now. The rest of it, you’ll just have to deal with it. It will always be there, in some form, on some level or another. And hey, it’s not as bad as it once was. You’ve improved. You may have improved all you’ll improve, but even that is something. Hell, if the constant dull ache and the occasional acute bout are all you’ll have to deal with, consider yourself lucky. Just remember how it used to be. How you struggled, how you fought against it, against all odds, and came through, sweating, gasping, staggering—but you did it. You did it. You’ve come a long way, baby.
posted by Vee @ 12/26/2005
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