It’s hard to differentiate what part of your body is the source of pain when it’s your brain that’s ultimately responsible.
Have you ever been so anxious that you threw up? Do you blame your stomach for having a reaction to something most likely not immediately dangerous to you?
Have you ever cried to the point of dehydration? Do you blame your eyes for the thirst you feel?
Have you ever truly felt the weight of your sadness?
All of these thoughts come to me as I lay in bed. Exhausted. Soul and mind crushed from work. From life. From existence.
Defeated.
Downtrodden.
Depressed.
Death seeking.
Of course I don’t actually want to die. My therapist tells me that wishing you didn’t exist is just as much a suicidal thought as wishing for your own death. She’s probably right but it doesn’t feel the same to me.
I’m laying in bed and staring at the ceiling. I can’t sleep. It’s too late. I’m going to be late to work tomorrow if I don’t get to sleep soon.
And the pebble in my chest tugs down a little more.
Is this why my relationship is in shambles? Why I have so few friends left?
The stone in my chest pulls down a little more.
I’ve been working at my job for almost 5 years now. Every move upward just ends up making me feel worse. Is this what I want to do with my life? Am I even happy doing this?
The rock in my chest pulls down a little more.
I know my unhappiness is hemorrhaging into my life outside of work. I see the way my wife looks at me. I remember the way she used to look at me. Like I was the perfect guy for her.
Now I feel like all I do is remind her of all of my shortcomings every time she opens the door and I’m there.
The boulder in my chest pulls down more.
It’s getting hard to breathe.
Maybe that’s a good thing. Maybe I just succumb. Let it take me and have done with this song and dance. I’m not strong enough for this. I’m weak. I’m lying in bed weighted down by an invisible force killing me from the inside and I’m letting it win.
I’m suffocating.
This isn’t normal. Even at my worst I’ve felt like death but never the inability to breathe. I try and adjust myself but I can’t move any muscle more than a fraction of an inch.
The hill in my chest is pulling me too hard.
I’m afraid. I don’t want to die. Not really. And as my mind tries to fight off this paralysis, I try to find the source of it all. Where the original point of immobility is. It’s my brain of course. That rat bastard brain of mine.
The mountain in my chest is crushing my very existence out of me.
I don’t want this. I want it gone. I want to wake up and be better. Do better. If only I could just shake this unbearable weight of-
A new weight appears on my chest, startling me. An external weight. My cat.
The little brown noise factory is meowing at me.
She wants some love.
My hand is not my own but I see it come up and run through her dark silky fur as she sinks onto my chest and starts kneading me.
The mountain is gone. The original pebble severed. For now. I’ll feel it again soon.
But for now I’ve got an anchor.
And I remember that this mountain I’ve been carrying in my chest I was only supposed to climb.