sorry, i forgot i existed
a goodbye to my worst coping mechanism
existence and i have a funny relationship, we stare back at each other confused, with hatred and love, in and out through the years. how can you escape the thing that makes you? if i had to answer i’d say you can’t but not for a lacking of trying because i’ve been trying. as far back as consciousness takes me i remember the coping of any sinking bad feeling, of which there were many thanks to the constant of anxiety, would be a lingering thought of “i wish i didn’t exist”, not in a “i want to die” kind of way (or at least not yet) but in a “i want to disappear and not leave a trace kind of way”, potentially the precursor to years of mental illness to come but regardless the traces always lingered and i find myself still trying to snuff that desire out. all that to say sorry for my absence, it’s a bad mechanism, but really i forgot i existed.
i think it seems like i’m devoid of dreaming and hoping and praying when i give into this abyss of nothing but maybe it’s the opposite. there’s so much out there my mind can’t process, too much potential that i get overwhelmed, and a crushing, crushing fear of the failure of it all.
what is time if you are not existing? months and years washed down away, days that have no ends and ends that have no beginnings, yesterday and tomorrow blend together. is this the loop of life we cannot escape or a self-made fate? i got scared of perception when faced with it and gave into the temptation of a dark, twisted habit. one that prevents reflection and impression by an imposed prison of isolation. the clinging to four walls and no escape with it.
the escape comes from a lack of living. if no one sees me and i stop feeling real does my life mean anything? existential state of mind makes the thought of crisis constant. and sorry if i haven’t called because my voice is a sound foreign in this space, my thoughts a conversation and the hintings of feeling crazed. i know i should want more and to leave, to live, to build something tangible i can call my own but the weight of it all not happening is too much to bear. i think wasted potential is more comforting when i can be reassured in it not happening for a lack of trying. i am not brave, am not a ‘i did my best and it didn’t work’ kind of person, not yet anyways.
i’ve spent an identifiable amount of life like this, in and out of an ungrounded state, if i could define it i think i’d start grieving all the time wasted over anxious fearings. i don’t think i’ll ever stop desiring a return to this unreachable place when things are loud but i think the loss is out weighing the good and so i’ll start remembering that my existence is a real, tangible, palpable musing and maybe start living.
you put an overwhelming sensation i’ve always felt into words. thank you for your existence. and resistance!
This title is so compelling. I for sure relate with it, and find it a cute, creative and very self-aware (in a good way) response to a bit of dissociation :)
There's a principle that's helped me massively in any sort of inner self-analysis work I do, that goes: "don't rehearse the pathology". It means, even if technically on paper you might 'know' you have xyz traumas and abc coping mechanisms etc, when you tell yourself a story like "I dissociate and that's bad", your subconscious hears that and declares "hear that everyone? That's part of our identity now! Do more of that!"
Whereas, communicating it how it appears, fresh in the moment, like "oops, sorry, I forgot I existed there for a second, what were you saying?!" reframes it and you can maybe start to see it not as a bad pathology to cut out and get rid of, but a creative powerful ability your mind uses to protect itself from certain things. Or just to take a rest from the world for a while, maybe.