I carry around with me this sadness in my heart, a sadness which is underlying, not hidden – but still not visible in everyday life.
And this sadness can be triggered by the simplest of things.
Like in sociology, where we’re reading The Communist Manifesto. Manifesto. Just this one word is enough to send my sadness pulsing through me. There are many manifestos out there, but there are only two I am familiar with; the communist one, and Breivik’s. And then I get really sad.
Or like in criminology. Our professor mentioned the ongoing protests, and talked about how they’d been going on “over the summer”. And then I was emotionally overwhelmed with sadness. The summer, huh? Other things happened “over the summer”, which I was more focused upon.
But he moved on, talking about Emil Durkheim, and explained his study on suicide. Suicide. That was enough to trigger both memory and sadness again. It comes pulsing, crashing through me. And all I want to do is pick up my stuff and leave, to find myself an abandoned corner of the school to sit down and cry. But then I have the academic curiosity, as well as the deep, dwelling desire to move on. And so I stay. Only to get distracted by a picture of a cop. And so it all comes back.
But the worst is when I’m in town, either driving by on the bus, or walking through/around, and I see a real, live cop. Just a bobby, out on patrol. Then I don’t get sad. I get scared. Really fucking scared. All my instincts screams out, telling me to back up, move away, run if I can or have to, but “just get the fuck away from there!” And I hate that. Obviously I don’t do as my instincts say, I calm down and continue on my way to wherever I’m supposed to be. But I recent myself and my mind, my painfully obviously strained mental health, for letting me fear so irrationally and desperately the sociopolitical/criminological organ I love and respect because I know they are there to make our lives safer and to protect us. I know this, and yet my stomach twists and turns in knots, I get nauseous and light-headed, overwhelmed with terror and fear for my life when I see them. It’s so irrational, specially coming from me, who had no part of what happened over summer, I get furious with myself for even reacting this way. When I’m done being angry with myself, I get sad again. And when I can cope with my sadness, my body is left empty and drained.
These emotional trips varies from lasting a few seconds to hours and days. Who am I to have such fears, when I did not even have to go through any such horrors as my friends, comrades, acquaintances and other youths on that island? I was not even a bystander. And I don’t count myself among those who were directly affected by what happened. I had no close connections with anyone who were there. And yet I dare be scared and sad on the behalf of them, them being a minority of people whom I have never, and may never, seen or spoken with? Of course, I knew of a few of the people who were there, and I’m from such a small rural village that I had close friends who were/are close friends with those affected. But I am not among those people. Even so, my brain has the nerve to react like this, like I was there. Of course, even though I was not physically there, my subconsciousness has taken the privilege to portray myself and my friends, family and other acquaintances placed on that island on the day of horror, displaying every single death, every singe drop of blood spilled, to my inner eye whilst I am sleeping. And when I’m resting. I’m under strain, in a constant battle with my body and my mind, distracting myself to the point where I can rest for some time. Sleeping is not easy, because even if I was not there, I still feel like I was. I have been there in my head, so many times, over and over, seeing my loved ones die. Seeing people I have met, under any circumstances, disintegrate in front of my very eyes, like it was real, like it was really happening, over and over and over and over and over and it’s a never ending cycle of bloodbath in my subconsciousness. I am left drained of all energy and to a certain point; lifeless. I was not even there, but in my own, selfish, ignorant way; I might as well have been.
I am dysfunctional and off balance, not to the point of lunacy, but to a point where I question my own intentions. Because I feel like I am alone in being like this, as I should be and hope I am, but being alone in something means there are no one to talk about this with. And so whenever the appropriate topic comes up in a discussion, I find myself bending it one way or the other, twisting the focus to me and to what happened. So I question myself. Am I really as upset and unbalanced as I feel, or do I feel like this simply because I am an attentionwhore? Do I actually need someone to talk to, or with, or do I just have the need to have people feeling sorry for me.
Seeing as my dreams have mainly consisted of night terrors ever since then, and I feel like I’m feeling all these overwhelming emotions, I am tempted to believe these are the actual conditions, but even so, I cannot help but wonder.
I should leave things at this for now, and go find my happy place for some time.
I might actually need it 🙂
– L A♥
L A Function 