There are days in which I struggle to marshal the resolve to continue on living.
I wake abruptly in the midst of colder nights, and I find myself gasping for air. An initial startling effect from the spontaneity of it all, followed by a powerful melancholy. A rush of darker thoughts inundate my entire body. My chest aches in mighty fashion, similar to when I’ve lost a loved one. Except here, I haven’t quite seemed to have lost anyone but perhaps myself. Or rather, my spirit.
Generally, I am capable of gritting my teeth through physical pain. If not my teeth, then the toothpicks nearby. If I drift too far, I force myself to rest through introspection. It is there where I feel most comfortable, an impermeable vault, my Great Wall.
But when it’s my own mind that betrays the body, I slog and mire and whelp in the face of my incompetence. And I can’t quite look to others’ support. For when I look to those around me, they continue on living. Their worries are in the material world. There are direct, tangible solutions to their issues. Mine are imaginary; I’ve been told they do not exist on many occasions. I do not blame them, for we are different people.
I cannot tell if it is false. I cannot understand if mine are a chemical reaction or I’ve made my own problems. Or if I’m just a critically damaged person who isn’t capable enough a man to remedy these things. My greatest fear right now is that is that someday I’ll let go of reality, that I may actually leave everyone that I hold dear. I don’t want to be that selfish person. Really, I just wish this weren’t the case. I want to be like everyone else.
I so greatly wish that I were normal.