I think all of us have a place we go inside our head when unhappiness creeps in and we’re not content and at ease with the moment. A place where we can go so the negative emotions don’t completely take over and control every aspect of what we do. A place where we can think without the biased of the dark cloud raining on top of us making us do anything to escape.
My place is quiet, but the walls are tall and at times if I’m not strong enough, the thoughts echo with a thunder against my chest and I find myself wanting to escape to anywhere but there. A heavy blanket and a corner, I try to make myself as small as possible, even smaller than what I already am in this vast universe. How did I get here? The realization hits me like a ton of bricks falling from the top of a 12 story building; I’ve always been here, it just looked different. There was a bed, and a soft carpet, and a door I could close when I was afraid. But that large looming shadow has always been in that doorway. Larger than me, filling the frame, unseeing and uncaring. It makes me feel so small in a way that I want to find a cake like Alice and be bigger than that shadow. The anger boils and the hot tears of “I can’t do shit about it right now” flood my face in rivers, blinding me and soaking my chest.
Thoughts of an over-thinker are a dangerous place. Your brain has the ability to lie to you, to tell you what you want to hear instead of what you need to know. But the truth is there, under that thin veil you’ve created, you can see it, all the pieces that make it so, but you can’t quite make out the details, because maybe you don’t want to. Comfort is a risky place to settle, it’s what you strive for but it’s also what can kill you. Hope can lift you as high as the birds and then drop you six feet below the surface, just as fast. Everything from breathing, to walking, to just making eye-contact becomes exhausting in a way that you feel like there are claws wrapped around your heart, squeezing out everything good so only a hollow sack remains. And like with quicksand, it seems the more you fight against it, the deeper the claws sink, puncturing you so that you lose parts of yourself before you even know they are disappearing.
That place I go puts walls in between myself and the outside world. A sort of apathy cradles me in it’s arms, telling me bedtime stories until I fall asleep. I’ll smile tomorrow and I’ll tell everyone everything is fine. I’m not dead, although if I was, how would I know? I’m breathing and moving and I got up and dressed and am functioning so, I’m fine, right? Because if they worry, I worry. I’m already worried, I don’t need the jet-fuel of compassion and empathy. Because what if I say one thing but do another? I judge myself already, I don’t need the feeling of judgement from others around me. Although, it’s quite narcissistic to think everyone is worried about you all of the time, isn’t it?
Everyone needs a place to go.
