two tampons and no lights

Between PMS, acquisition of the guilt-mobile, and my sister having to euthanize our family's 19-year-old pet cat, I managed to fall back into the slump of which I had being doing so well to evade. I struggle to write this just as much as I've been struggling to do everything recently. In fact, after staring at a partial sentence for over an hour, the only way I've suddenly been able to muster focus now is by turning off all the lights, closing all my open web tabs, looping some Bunyan to keep my thoughts from wandering, and enshrouding my body in an exaggeratedly over-sized flannel hoodie, which belonged to my sister back when she was in junior high and that I have since transmuted into my ragged uniform for pensive days. I latch onto such extreme solutions (though this being the tamer of my otherwise unmentionable antics) as desperate methods of escape from these cyclical autistic fits. Of course the escape itself is an illusion, as such behavior only augments my symptoms further. I am outside myself, both unable to realize the induced distance and maintain the prolonged concentration necessary to regain control.

My manager came over to my desk on Friday to ask how I was doing. I assumed he was referring to my calling in sick on Tuesday and that I have been taking a number of days off lately for doctor appointments and illness without ever explaining to him the reasons. When I made a very brief and mumbled explanation of my ailments, he seemed slightly confused (as he usually is by anything I try to say) and proceeded to tell me that if I needed to talk to him about anything, he was always available. After he walked away, I began questioning if I had answered him correctly as his gestures implied that I hadn't. Then I realized that maybe someone had actually noticed that I'd spent the last two days crying at my desk and had ratted me out.

About a month or two ago, I had crashed so far as to allow myself to be pressured into seeing a shrink. Psychiatry has always seemed like psychological prostitution to me, i.e. paying a professional to listen to one's problems because one either can't, just prefers not to, or is just unsatisfied with discussing them with a friend. I'm not meaning to debunk the profession or the need as a whole so much as say that my personal lack of trust and disinterest in opening up to strangers makes the option rather undesirable and likely to be ineffectual. My negative expectations may have doomed the half-hearted attempted from the get go, if you can call one session, in which I knew from the moment he introduced himself that my being there was a mistake, an attempt. My fluctuating and panicked curiosity in medication was what intrigued me amid that dire time and last week the interest reoccurred. Yet now, I still remain stubbornly reluctant to succumbing to such potentially damaging experimentation. My impatience for such a trial and error, cop-out approach tends to supersede such intrigue, negating the possible drastic consequences of my dismissal.

I don't mind my melancholy. I don't mind my reticence or even my solitude. What frustrates me though is the stagnant lock-down state that periodically engulfs me and that I am incessantly trying to evade. In these moments I completely lose my abilities in both self-expression and social communication. I can't muster an opinion, let alone a complete thought. I can't write. I can't talk. Apathy thwarts my every hopeful inclination and for days, if not weeks, I get nothing done. Every friend I've made in the past two or three years I've now lost because of these fits, and as they become increasingly more frequent, I fear that I'm wearing the patience of those that remain.

There's a boy at work that I like. He's now made numerous attempts to try and talk to me and nearly every time I've manage to briefly amuse him, I then baffle him with my sudden awkward, evasive tactics. Only twice have I taken the initiative myself and both instances were indirect: loaning him music and e-mailing him for advice on something I didn't really need. Both times his responses demonstrated increased interest in communication and both times I did nothing to further it, let alone reciprocate. For indirect attempt number three, I'm enlisting a friend because 1) I don't want him thinking my interests go beyond friendly in nature and 2) only in the presence of someone that I'm comfortable around do I think I stand a chance of being able to act like myself. I don't know if this is ridiculous or just plain pathetic. Either way, it's quite typical.

Although I'm obviously in the process of recuperating from my most recent fit, I still dread to think how long I have until my next one. Will I have enough time to make it worthwhile to start this or that project? Should I attempt planning this or that social activity or should I wait a little longer to make sure I'm past the point of imminent relapse? It is ridiculous: I've put my life on permanent hold for fear of my own instability. One lesson I have learned from this most recent occasion is that I've relied too heavily on unreliable people. I used to always use artistic interests or creations to get myself out of ruts and actually my most prolific periods have always been when I'm either trying to avert an attack or recuperate from one. I'm trying my hand at a number of different methods nows, as not all moods are helped by the same efforts. I'll take my chances this way, rather than agreeing to be sedated.