Lee was being silly worried about losing it in the forums and asked for the first signs of a nervous breakdown. Amanda just happened to be up that night and she laid it all down for our education:

nervous breakdown. [broken down]

there’s the high-to-low, almost bi-polar quality of character brought on mostly by stress, which seems mostly normal until you discover it’s not getting any better. infact, it’s getting worse. none of this is your fault. none of the stress or dynamics or issues. everything dissolves into a mosaic of chaos. panic attacks–the bit where you’re so screwed, so overwhelmed, so helpless that you can’t even breathe properly anymore. literally. the worst part is you KNOW you’re not being rational..hell, you even know what is rational, you just can’t follow impulses of logical reasoning. that in itself pisses you off, because you notice your own stupidity, and it’s annoying.

here’s where you recognise you need help. anything–just for someone to reach out a little. just to genuinely take and give back in a quid pro quo companionship. not from pity, but from trust. faith. but not just anyone, someone you trust. someone who can look at you, say they’ll never leave you alone, and make you believe it. half-ass in-passing relationships of circumstance, lectures, counselors, advisement, insubstantial bs just isn’t enough. then again, you can’t very well ask for help–shoving that burden to anyone else either, now can you? this is your problem, even if it’s not your fault. your responsibility. you think to yourself, yea–i’m ok. i’ll make it. i have to make it. you watch them all passing by, begging them with your eyes, choking back tears. all of a sudden you look around, and you see..

you’re alone in the crowd.

which is the coldest feeling of all. no matter how many people are standing by, waiting to catch you, waiting to pull you back up and love you all along the way, you can’t see them. here’s the problem: you can never see the people standing behind you.

now, you’ll recall that it’s not your fault. but you start to wish it was, because if that were the case, then you could affect it. you could do something to change it, control it, shepherd it towards another path. but you can’t–it’s out of your hands. this ofcourse sends you into a downward spiral of frustration and depression, once you realise how pointless it is to attempt to put any kind of structure and control back into your life. you notice in yourself a lack of emotion. motivation. innovation. you find yourself incredibly devoid of

life.

at first you don’t feel anything. an indescribable feeling of dissolution—then, if you’re lucky, you scare yourself back to reality once you’ve watched yourself slipping away. you notice you’re scared, which means you’re feeling again, which seems like a miracle. anything is brilliant once you’ve hit bottom.

you grab onto whatever little hope you find in that, and climb your way out. hand over hand, step by step. that’s all you’ve got…

until you bring yourself to stop running, breathe in, and turn around to see the people who’ve stood behind, waiting to catch you all along.

If symptoms arise please see your doctor or psychiatrist ASAP!

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 11th, 2005 at 6:47pm and is filed under reflection. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.