COLLABORATION = MEANING
:)

Existential Crisis

Surrounding -  the exhausted sighs of the severely lacking quality of interaction.  Everything simply a grating noise in the background, slit my wrists, please.

How did I get here?

How did I become so completely confused about my existence, my purpose, my desires?  How did I get to a point where I can’t even fathom the reality of a purpose?

I am suddenly the girl who can’t seem to find proper meaning in anything without the help of companionship.  I channel that ending message of Into the Wild and when that seems to fail and I look towards my research and my future, I remember God and it’s importance fades to gray.  When I really ponder Christ, the point of my entire conception slips away into one simple role.  So this soberness settles in and I desire to be alone with Pink Floyd and Albert Camus and my overbearing awareness (for of course, I am more enlightened than the average human being, and oh the weight it carries). Yet, the next moment I am too lonely to shut myself in and I throw myself laughing into a social setting or obligation, creating fun in every situation. 

I don’t know how it happened.  I can’t understand how everywhere I turn I constantly find myself in an existential crisis.  Today, maybe it was the lackluster nature of the conversation I so coveted.  Maybe it was my arrogant disappointment in him - no - every human.  Maybe it was me sitting so long, doing what?  Maybe it was the dull hum, the air conditioning, the clothes I was wearing.  Maybe it was the need to pour out my life in fake mental conversations.  Maybe it was the focus I had on the video, for what is the point of focus?  What the heck is the point of me investing so much of my time into something that is going to be destroyed?  Maybe it was the irritating and unasked-for assistance offered last night - thoughts of you don’t know me and you don’t even care.  Maybe it’s the limited communication that words offer.  Maybe it’s the constant 180º transitions.

How do I go from being so happy, so contented, to being so utterly and frustratingly confused?  How come I am rid of most external stressors yet I feel the need to fill that gap with my own internal ones?  Maybe it’s this fake study, it’s beginning to get to me more and more.  I am becoming bitter and disdainful towards it.  And then I had a wonderful meeting yesterday, giving me so much hope, but for what??????

Why can’t I exist in a normal happy human state - motivated by hard work and accomplishment?  Why am I so repulsed by this?  Why does it not seem to have a place in who I am?  

But who am I, really?  I am lazy.  I want to learn but I don’t take the time.  I am too introspective with no grounding.  I want to be awarded for my creative passions, not my ability to get a letter grade, which is ridiculous and stupid of me to demand from a black and white world.  I don’t like to wear shoes.  I don’t like to follow trends yet I do so on a daily basis.  I don’t meet people with similar souls yet I want to be “friends" with everybody.  Oh wait, except the people I inwardly judge as soon as I see them walk into the room.  I loathe other people’s drives.  I don’t understand my own.  I want to be content in Christ yet I look to every other alternative.  When I look to Him, I see past Him to a “deeper” side and can’t settle in His glory.  I hate complacency yet I dwell in it.  I figure out my supposed passion yet can’t seem to focus on it without feeling like I’m betraying God.  I want to be natural in my abnormal tendencies yet I succumb to the feeling of needing to act normal.  I pretend I care for things that I really don’t.  I feel inspired and then I feel like the biggest failure on the face of the planet. I feel misunderstood and I feel like I can’t understand.  I force myself into fun to cover up inner questioning.          

God, no wonder I’m so confused, my life is a facade of walking contradictions.  The pitch of my voice is a map to how extremely false I am.  

I hate Tuesday mornings

My thought process

6:45am - Get up at an ungodly hour because a shower probably wasn't taken after working out the night before.
7:00am - Try to put on clothes that won't require changing 3 times throughout the span of the day.
7:10am - Actually plan ahead and make coffee.
7:40am - Shove down breakfast.
7:43am - Attempt to fit oversized backpack and traveling mug into bike basket.
7:45am - Try not to hit any bumps to prevent coffee from flying out all over the place (that's never happened before).

7:47am - OK, don't change gears that's fine. 
7:53am - Lock bike at the bottom of the god-forsaken hill and climb the rest of the way up. Is it 90 degrees?
8:00am - Settle in, pull out laptop, put on sweatshirt, take off shoes, lean back, drink coffee.
8:03am - Completely shut out unimportant monotone and check e-mail, Blackboard, and Facebook.
8:17am - Ignore important e-mails and resume work on Codecademy.  Periodically research correlation between metabolism and thyroid.
10:20am - Finish coding and research.  Glance up at the video a grand total of 3 times.
10:25am - Is someone really asking a question about air gaps in water filtration methods?  Do people actually care about air gaps in water filtration methods??
10:40am - Are you seriously asking about the 6-inch gap from the floor???  AND taking notes??
10:45am - Can I leave yet?

10:47am - Complete lack of interest in anything relating. 

10:50am - Why is my hair sticky after I washed it.

10:51am - Why am I tired when I got sleep. 

10:52am - Off to 2 meetings. 1 of which is irrelevant and pointless. 

Still

Sitting there - face wet, blinds cracked. Light spewing with a noir-esque undertone.  The harsh warning of a train passing; late arrivals meander in.  The beep - the most consistent aspect and yet the consistent reminder of irritation.  The anger building - and falling - as the arcs of a heart beat.  The incriminating piece of art veering down from the wall, begging memories.  The moments laid out - what has there ever been to hide?

Anxiety by Vice

Wow. This is incredibly accurate.  Now I don't feel like such a broken human when I pull over randomly while driving or hide in a bathroom stall from my responsibilities just to breathe and try not to cry.

"The first thing that has really helped me is to examine the difference between the sensation, or feeling, I am experiencing and the meaning I give the feeling. This means that sometimes, when I am on the precipice of a panic attack, I will literally get out a piece of paper and divide it in two. On the left side I will write down the sensations: rapid heartbeat, shortness of breath, tightness in chest, choking feeling, blurred vision, butterflies in stomach, dizziness. On the other side of the page I will write down the meaning I give these sensations—the thoughts that I ascribe to them.

As an example, here are some thoughts that I regularly experience at the onset and during a panic attack: Oh no. Something's wrong. I'm dying. How will I ever hold it together professionally? What's wrong with me? How will I speak? How am I going to stay here? I'm going to have to leave. How will I stand up? People are going to know or judge me. Why am I having a panic attack with someone I love? My time with this friend or loved one will be ruined. I'm going to be like this forever. I'm different than everyone. This is going to last forever. Why do I feel so weird? This is the breakdown. All is not OK. I'm going to be consumed.

When I separate my feelings and thoughts out like this, in different columns, I'm able to sort of slow down the "doom cycle." Sometimes, on a good day, I can even find a reasonable attribution for the sensations. To me, it always seems reasonable that I could be dying. But sometimes I find a more obvious reason. Maybe anyone would be nervous in the situation I'm in. Or maybe it's the first time I've let myself slow down all day to feel anything. Maybe it's feelings from three hours ago.

Obviously, there are some situations (a work meeting, a class at school) where it doesn't seem weird to take out a piece of paper and write. You just look like you are taking notes. But for situations where it would be kind of "weird" to begin "journaling" in the middle of the event (dinner with a friend, during sex), I have another good tool.

I've started to assess my emotions and give them a number on a scale of 1-10. As a lifelong avoider of feelings, I can't always describe exactly what I am experiencing—but I can always tell if it's a 3 (mild discomfort) or if it's a 10 (definitely dying).

Recently I put the number system into play while having lunch with a professional acquaintance who was visiting my city. For normal people, this doesn't sound like a huge deal, but I'm not normal people. We were just finishing our food and I was about to drive her to her hotel, when suddenly, I was hit with a weird-ass feeling, like a wave of existential sadness. What freaked me out the most was there was really no reason I should be experiencing this feeling. What was this sadness? Was I going to cry in front of this person? How would I hold it together enough to drive her to her hotel?

The thing is, the sadness itself wasn't totally unmanageable. If I were to give it a number, I'd say it was about a 4. You can drive on a 4. You can continue living. But my fear around the sadness, the thoughts that catapulted it into high anxiety, ratcheted me up to about an 8 or 9. 8 and 9 are far less doable than a 4. So what I discovered was that it was actually my reaction to the feeling, and not the feeling itself, that made me feel like I was dying. This thought somehow brought me back down to about a 5. I suffered some, but not as badly as I have in the past.

I don't know if I'll ever be "cured" of my anxiety disorder and the depression that underlies it. I was born a sensitive and imaginative person. To cure my anxiety entirely, I would probably need to be cured of myself. But these tools, and others I'm learning, make me feel less doomed when I am in a bad cycle.

I also just like the idea of experimenting with tools. The notion that a panic attack or experience of anxiety can be a time to practice, and is not something that must be solved now, is a big relief. Often I make the situation worse with my urgency—the thought that I must get better today, or else. But experimenting with various tools takes the pressure off my meds to be at the elusive "perfect level" and lessens my need to always feel like everything is OK.

Perhaps because I've struggled so much in this area, I sort of just assumed that successful people, or "normal people," don't feel fear. Like, if I feel fear then I have no chance at being OK, as though fear is a flaw or something that can be smelled on me. The truth is, I still don't particularly want to be courageous. Like, if it were up to me I would not have these issues that force me to be courageous. But when I can approach the doom itself with a looser grip, I feel like less of a freak among people and more like a sort-of OK person."

-Vice