There is a dark grey cloud above my head. It dominates over my mood, my energy and my sanity. It makes me dull, sulky and I just want to lie down on the ground and stare up at it all day long. But that is not the end of this story. After many days, weeks, months, years, on again off again; I’ve realised that it comes and goes. That means it will pass; sometime, someday. But every time it arrives, I think its here to stay and until its here I can’t see the silver lining, the blue skies or the green birds. I barely see the stars in the sky because I would rather have the blackness of the night engulf me than look at those little dots of light. The void looks like a comfortable space because of the absence of everything and the presence of nothing. Its calming, and charm of the null is nothing short of enchanting. Its strikingly similar to the notion of a ‘safe place’ or to a mind like mine, it could very well be ‘my happy place’. A place I can go to in my head when I feel overwhelmed by others or stressed or in situations that make me panic. Its that sea of black I’m floating in, far away from the dots of lights. But what if one day this cloud passes and I’m here under this blue sky but I still don’t see the silver lining? What if I crave grey skies on blue days with blue skies? What if I can only float when I’m supposed to walk? Because floating is easier than falling. Because this is now my comfort zone. Its not that I’m scared of change — rather I have no desire for change. It is a higher state of acceptance of the impact of being a pessimistic realist. An unavoidable grey area between being practical and being depressed. There are so many lines here; some clear, some blurred; and I want to keep crossing them going deeper and deeper into the dark. Because ignorance is bliss. Just like distractions come to us easier than actions, ignorant bliss sounds sweeter than logical solutions. It is the intermediate — the freeze response — where you can’t fight or flight but rather you are in a state of — no thoughts, no decisions, no choices and no actions. Where things seem like they could be fine if they didn’t exist. So momentarily they don’t. Not in the real physical world and not in the mental awareness of the world aka forming breaks in memory.
Humans are creatures of habit. So whether it’s a good habit or not, it feels good to cling to it. So I cling to it. I prefer it. I prefer silence over sounds. And after thriving in this state for so long I sometimes prefer to see dark grey clouds on days that are too bright and too sunny. This is not a matter of self-love or self-pity or selflessness or selfishness or whatever pre-conceived stereotypical notion you have about your vague ideas about mental health so don’t project your unhealthy ideas of insanity on me. Your opinions are yours alone and I don’t relate to them. What I’m trying to say is if it takes us so long to learn these habits its naturally going to take a while to unlearn them. Both you and me.
