This time my panic has screwed me up in a massive way. I didn't notice something that should have been obvious, and as a result I'm in deep slag with work. They can't kill me, and I'm not even all that scared, which is probably the scariest thing. It's like I've lost my survival instinct, which usually kicks in in these cases. I want to get out of this situation. It's not just work, it's everything in my life. As soon as I notice a small improvement in some part of my behaviour (e.g. nearby friends), another part comes crashing down (e.g. everything pertaining to public life, including e-mails and work). If I read myself Tarots now, my "public life" card would be the Tower. It's so catastrophic I'm almost relieved. Something must happen now, I hope there'll be something to pick up in the rubble. I'm still living in that world where, no matter what you do, "it's useless, it won't work, you'll fail". I'm living a self-fulfilling prophecy and can't get out of it. I can't take a sabbatical from life as I did with my friends, because I'm discovering these very days that now I CAN do stuff, and by keeping up the attempts I get more confident. I should do the same with work, but I can't screw up work like I've screwed up with friends in the past. I can't explain I'm ill, for a lot of reasons. I can't explain how totally paralyzed, blinded, out of my wits, deer-in-headlights terrified of EVERYTHING, I am; to the point that my brain's most basic functions shut down and I read dates wrong, I forget important things, I believe things that are not, such as "time is relative". I'm glad I've been able to tell my friends, and *maybe* to make my family understand, but that's as far as it goes. Maybe that's why my life has improved in those areas: because I've been able to explain. I can't explain to my employers, my long-distance acquaintances (not YOU - you know who you all are, and you know me *hug*), the random people I meet, what happens to me. Most people, certainly not employers, don't give you slack for this, most of the time they don't even know what you're talking about. They don't see the Dementor perched on my shoulder, sucking up my soul until there's nothing left. They don't understand that I'd rather watch Transformers or go to Ravenna than do anything else, not because I'm lazy or childish, but because passion, no matter for what, drives the Dementor away, is the very opposite of the Dementor - unless the Dementor crushes it, crushing my spark. Just yesterday I was thinking that I hate the TV interviews when the murder-of-the-week neighbours say "They looked so nice, so normal." What's normal? What do you know about it? I hate it when the latest celebrity has a near-brush with death, or even dies, and people try to pin the blame on someone. It HAPPENS. Get used to it. People suffer for a lot of reasons, and nobody has the right to judge. Try rather to be more attentive and compassionate to everybody around you, you don't know what they are hiding. Anyway I'm not going to kill anyone, I'm just sorry that my life is getting destroyed by forces that are inside me, when otherwise I've been blessed with so much good fortune. Now a good shower, because I've sweated a bucket, and maybe a good cry, which hadn't happened in months, and then I'll try to think this through with a clear head. "Nothing happened to me, Agent Starling. I happened." - Hannibal Lecter |