|
|
10:41 p.m. - 2001-06-28 ---- The unrelated phrase of the night comes from an earlier, sadder Silverchair. "Feed me the pain," whispers the voice of Daniel Johns in my head, and I understand him detachedly. Depression is a still a pervading sensation, feeling its way through the cracks in my medication. I used to not only feed on the pain, but while I was dealing more in deception.... the tangled weave of beliefs that formed a hard shell over me... I strung the pain right along with it. The original cause for my pain, if there was one, is long buried underneath layers of deterrent, therapist and otherwise. The beginning was real, I think, the sudden panic of having to rush offstage with the sudden, certain notion that I would literally die if I stayed sandwiched in between Erik and Phil, playing their instruments like robots. I dumped my euphonium on Erik and ran, ran out to the shining white hallways. I was almost thirteen, missing my bass solo, missing my euphonium solo, missing my hold on reality. I looked down at my body and noticed its whiteness, noticed the curves of my bones, tried to learn to breathe again. This was pure, uncontrolled crisis at its best. I did not manipulate the shakes in my body, I did not miscontrue the nausea rising in my throat. This came from outside, completely unprecedented to the best of my knowledge. It was the beginning, though, and as creative as I seemed to be, I had trouble inventing problems out of thin air. Something hit me hard and I unwittingly built it up. No, that's wrong. Completely wittingly, I built it up, but its impact in the long run wasn't what I had expected. Forced emotions are still emotions, and once felt, they are not easily discarded. ** I'm losing my grip, I said to myself, trying to see if, indeed, I might be doing just that. Testing its impact in the palm of my brain. On my own, I added to the statement. Mind. I said it into the phone before long. "Come and get me, I seem to be losing my grip on my mind." They came, maybe not quick enough, but it served its purpose. The attention came in short bursts, but it compelled me to feign suffering more. October, 1998. My hands were swelling disproportionately, even as I looked at them, they seemed to be inside out and my heart was beating them even more full of blood. The couch was my supposed haven; whenever I moved from it, the performance demons would surround me again. But before long my couch had turned against me, making it impossible to breathe, the air getting caught in the space above my lungs, my stomach turning and turning again. My head was squeezed mercilessly in pincers of a giant invisible suffocation machine. My eyes would not close, if it was light, they would not open. I saw things in the dark that would eat out my very being if I didn't end it quickly. Between poundings of my heart and head together, conspiring to make me lose my mind, I perceived a phrase, written in yellow, superimposed over the gray matter in my head. Losing my grip, it wavered over me, on my mind. April, 1999. Never before had I believed in karma. For some reason, it took me nearly four years after the fact to start. **
|