Delirium Tremens

Life. Margaritas. Sense of myself. Laughter. Joy, overwhelming unbridled joy. I suffered today at the strangest times. I struggled to see myself, struggled to exist in the simplest of situations. Shaky, fidgety, stiff, awkward, robotic, white, lame, boring, strange strange girl. Seeing the lack of my self reflected in their eyes, their sad confused eyes wanting more than I could provide. I flee. I always do. From the conversations, from the moments that could make me memorable or at least a person. I’m afraid I won’t do them right, so I leave. I make excuses, the master of diversion, of reasons why not. There is a solid steel wall up between who I am and who I act as though I am most of the time. The pain this causes is unbearable. I flee to visit a client. I’m in the subway and I feel a flood of ants in my brain and body held tight together for hours and now free. I at once understand how people become psychotic. The voices, the visions, I get that. The compulsions to do horrible things, I get them too. This all encompassing sense of loneliness and otherness. It is far too much to bare. Being confined within a brain that is beyond your control is excruciating. Like being awake and paralyzed on an operating table. By far the most terrifying thing I can imagine. Saw-like torture chambers – fine, eaten by zombies – cool, haunted – awesome, but the anesthesia scenario – too close to home, I feel it every day. I can’t make my body, my voice, my brain do the things it should so I just scream in my head and pass through the world letting it happen to me. But my friends have the power to break me free of this. I went from an entire day of this numb terror and entered into a warmly delicious place where I could breathe again. I laughed and told bad stories and felt my self again.  I jump off the sidewalk singing Fuck You and May says "is she drunk" Ray says "no, that’s just Amanda." Such a simple thing but it’s so beautiful to me I can’t describe. To be known. To be whole and seen and to exist. Recognition of self. It’s deep shit. And as self aware as I am I can’t figure it out. The parallel universes I live in. The delirium, the joy, the explosions of pain. I don’t get it at all, but surely it will make for good therapy.