What do you do, when you might want to want, but don’t really want anything at all? How is one supposed to live one’s life not wanting, not really needing, except to disappear completely? Just to make things easier. Just to feel a little bit at home within one’s self, disconnected from all the things that make life full of half-hearted decisions and no actual endings.
I’ve contemplated this need for a disappearing act, especially prevalent and now almost accepted in these times of social isolation and loneliness. I’ve never really felt lonely, not to a point where it got destructive, and I’ve always thought of myself as someone who was better at being alone than most, but these days I get almost worried at not really feeling any drive towards other people, as if I should want human connection, instead of grabbing this opportunity to be as alone, and slowly morphing to as little as possible.
Yesterday, I came across a post on Facebook about the fawning trauma response - not anything new, the site that posted it I followed for this exact reason some months back - but this series of explanations really hit home in a way, I did not expect nor really liked. I trace my current moods of not wanting human interaction to this in my mind sort of imaginary response (as I still am not sure what constitutes a trauma and if I’m actually allowed to think of myself as someone with this experience), but it gets complicated, always complicated by inconsistency in reaction and thought relating to actual humans in my life. What confuses me the most - and I’m still not used to this kind of emotional confusion - is the fact, that I almost don’t want to exist - not in a suicidal, but more of an existential kind of way. My main thought as of this moment is that nothing really matters - not in any way that is relevant to anyone but one’s self, and maybe not even that - so what is the point of existing? If I do not have a drive to answer a text, nor do I have a drive to not answer it, I might as well answer - but is this the trauma reaction? Is this me trying to ingratiate myself in the relation, so as not to be left behind because I am unresponsive - and does it really matter, if I have no drive towards that person or people in general? Does it actually matter, as long as this relationship floats just above water, getting just the necessary amount of air so I don’t have to deal with any more than its basic premise? Is that even fair? And am I supposed to concern myself with the fairness of it?
I have this constant, gnawing feeling of not really knowing what is me, if there even is such a thing, and what is me trying to be someone I think I should want to be. The lines don’t blur, they don’t even exist at this point as I’m trying to think and not to think at the same time, to feel and make sense of things amidst an overwhelming desire to not to deal with any of it and at the same time grab it by the throat and sink my teeth into it, tear it apart bit by bit to see what really is inside, no matter how awful. And suddenly it all makes sense: the wanting to disappear, the perfect mix of being extremely preoccupied with everything within and around me and complete apathy towards all that too.
And I try to hold onto to the fact that I don’t care, not really, until the panic of ruining something intangible and maybe not even real or worth saving awakens in all its spiky, painful glory and I suddenly feel like melting into the floor in a very unzen kind of way because of literally all the things, no matter how minor. It’s an insane switch between being composed and decomposing in an instant, a living death with a moment of overwhelming clarity and classic existential dread. At least Kierkegaard had a God to contend with - I, unluckily, only have myself.
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