Derealization
Please help.
It’s been a while since I felt this way, but the feeling’s back now. I look around me, and it’s as if everything has gone gray, and all sound has gone monotone. No, it’s not like I’m underwater. It’s less suffocating, yet just as deafening. It’s like I’m trapped in some world and I want to escape, but I can’t figure out why I can’t escape, and I can’t call out for help, yet I’m crying, I’m sobbing, and all it would take to break this trance would be to take a step out the door, a text on my phone to a loved one, a cry for help, or really even just changing the tab on my computer. Anything. Instead, I’m fixated on my computer screen, listening to words, mindlessly, watching people go about their fictional, imaginary lives. Looking back at my life, but not seeing it. Looking at it, but feeling nothing, perceiving nothing, hearing white noise, hiding my teary eyes from my roommate, even though her focus is on her work and nothing else. God, I wish I could be like her. I wish I could just make myself. I wish I could just pull myself out of this. It sounds so easy. It is so easy! Change the tab, I tell myself. Start the homework. Get out of bed, I tell myself. Go down to the coffee shop. Let your mind take a break. A real break. Not a distraction, not a show, not another meaningless website, no, nothing like that. A change. That’s all I need, I just need a change, a shift of focus! Yes, I might just go back, I might just curl up again, put my headphones on, dissappear. But I might not. And like this, sitting here, doing just that, I’ve imprisoned myself. I know where the key is, but something within me just won’t let me grab it, won’t let me out. Something within me likes being trapped. Likes having no worries and yet having so much to worry about. Likes escaping the world by being imprisoned. Likes the isolation. Like the lack of thought. And there is so much lack of thought! I don’t even know what I’ve thought about today. Can’t name a single train of thought. Can’t see anything. It’s all so blurry, and yet I know it’s blurry because there really hasn’t been anything on my mind. My mind! So often bustling with thoughts and ideas, so often creating and solving and thinking and thinking and thinking. But not now. Not today. Sometimes I do leave this trance, but never fully. I simply peek at what’s around me and see it for what it is, what it really is. But I can’t do it! It’s painful. It’s torture really. I see a glimpse and all I want to do is hide away again, forget again. It makes me too sad. I see what I’m missing. I see how close I am. So I go farther and farther away. You could say I build a wall, sure, but it’s worse than that. I can’t build a wall. I wish I could. I wish I could! No, no, it’s like this wall, but it’s made of gelatin. I can see through it, break through it. Break through it so easily! Yet something doesn’t even let me touch it. I see that wall and I back away. Like I’m scared. And yes, I’m so scared. So scared. But really I’m most scared of myself. Of what’ll happen to me when I’m stuck here, alone, free to escape yet not willing, tricking myself into believing this prison is my escape. It’s clever really, how my mind plays tricks on me. I’m strong now, trying to accuse it, trying to break through, trying to write, trying to somehow cry out for help. But who’s listening? Maybe someone is, maybe someone is out there, maybe they’ll say something, maybe they’ll help. But what about me? I’m not listening! I don’t care! I don’t care! I don’t care! Help me, I say. I don’t care, I say.
But please. Please I do care. Some part of me cares.
Help me. Please, help me.