No matter where the sun strikes us, knives will grow

I feel detached from the world around me tonight. It's like I'm existing in my own little bubble that is technically within but entirely separate from the reality in front of me. My thoughts and emotions are racing and cycling rapidly, my insides tingle with unspecified anxiety and stress. It's like I'm floating in a void and the processing of incoming environmental stimuli is blunted or scattered, understated. I guess a somewhat comparable example could be seen in the case of absorption lines as seen in astrophysics. Each and every element on the periodic table scatters some wavelengths of light and absorbs others. Let's say a star has a planet orbiting it and that planet has an atmosphere. We can tell what that atmosphere is made of by measuring what portions of the visual spectrum of light, or photons, are absorbed when the star's light passes through the atmosphere. This will appear as black bars, or absorption lines, on a rainbow displayed on a spectrograph. My experience is sort of similar; just as not all wavelengths of light make it through an atmosphere, not all sensory information is making it through my CNS to the various processing centres in my brain. I feel foggy, hazy, everything feels similar but different. Something is being lost, I feel like I'm existing outside of everything. It's very difficult to explain. My memory feels impaired as well, I have a very hard time remembering even what happened yesterday. My eyes are heavy and objects in the environment even look fake. I don't know if this is some sort of mild state of dissociation but I wouldn't be surprised.

I decided to go for a walk, to see if that would snap me back to reality. I had a compulsion to go quickly, like there was a stress inside that made my legs move faster and faster. I power walked and eventually ran until I ran out of breath and started to hurt. As I came upon the shopping plaza down the road, my eyes darted around to the stores, cars, and people around me as I moved. It all looked so fake, the people didn't even look like they were real people. They may as well have been automatons. I know that they're real people, I know everything around me is indeed real. I'm not in a psychotic state or anything, I'm aware of everything. I'm just saying that it feels different. The best explanation I can really give is that I was existing as a separate entity from everything and everyone else and that everything else feels muffled or something. I say "was" but it's still going on now. I would say that perhaps I'm slowly going insane from lack of social contact, but that can't be it as I work with people Monday to Friday and am usually texting someone when I'm off. Even interacting with the cashier at Walmart felt a bit off. It's like I was talking to a doll or something. The people there, they looked unreal almost. When I got home, I cut a couple times to see if that would bring me back but it didn't real do much of anything except give me an endorphin rush. Which was nice but not what I was looking for. So then I poured a drink and came on here to complain about it. I'd like to say that drinking and writing go hand in hand and that I'm engaging in a ritual that has practiced by writers worldwide for time immemorial. But I am no writer, I'm just an idiot writing a stupid blog. I'm no more a writer than a 16 year old girl with a diary.

A thought occurred to me while I was writing just know, so I might as well flesh it out. I find myself withdrawing from social contact more and more as time goes on. I know I work with people, but I'm interacting with them only is required to do the job, I don't engage in any sort of chit-chat. I'm not hostile or anything, I just keep to myself and stay more or less quiet. But at the same time, I know that I'm craving social contact more and more as well. You would think the two would be inversely proportional but that is not the case. You know what I want more than anything in the world right now? A long, full body hug and to cuddle with a girl while watching a movie. Pathetic, right? I sound like every neckbeard basement dweller ever. But the thought of actually do doing that scares the hell out of me. Maybe I fear the inevitable rejection that accompanies those things upon the realization of who I really am. I feel like since I began cutting again, I moved past the point of no return. Any attempts to engage in meaningful human contact would be met with failure and abandonment. I'd have to lie to the poor girl about who I am. I would know that were she to see the scratches from the razor, she would leave immediately, believing me to be some sort of monster. She wouldn't be wrong to do so or think that. It would be hard to blame her. Self injury is an extremely difficult thing to accept about another person. I know, I witnessed it in some of the people in my life. My mother compulsively picks at her skin as has large scars from it and my ex girlfriend from high school, Erika, used to cut as well. Both have made suicide attempts through pill overdoses. That was hard on my head and no one should ever have to put up with that. I wouldn't want to put any other person through that. But, paradoxically, I want someone to have close that I can admit these things to, these self-destructive behaviours, uncontrollable emotions, and abnormal thought patterns without fear of judgement or abandonment. It's another case of emotional brain being disconnected from and in opposition to my logical brain. My emotional brain wants that intimacy, that closeness and reassurance that everything is going to be okay, but my logical brain knows that that is nothing more than unrealistic expectations. People will get hurt upon learning the truth and leave to save themselves any further grief. It knows that it's better to withdraw complete and not subject anyone to my madness. Yet my emotions leak through and I talk to the odd person about some of what I'm going through. I feel like such a bad person for letting that happen, they don't deserve that kind of treatment. I hate myself for it and that's the punishment that I deserve for not keeping it in. I'm beyond redemption at this point and any attempts to make any meaningful connections with others is futile and ill advised.  And I can't stop the wanting and yearning. I really am the worst.

Until next time.

- K