Sometimes, I feel like I'm dying

It's difficult to put into words in a way that isn't alarming, so I can only say it like it is. Sometimes, when my mental health or chronic illnesses are flaring severely, I fall into an emotionless state where I don't feel hungry. I don't feel much of anything, but it isn't the anhedonia that's common with depression. I still want to play my favorite games, I want to watch things that have always comforted me. But there's no enthusiasm for anything. And when it's my chronic illnesses becoming severe, like they have been lately, I feel an unsettling quiet from deep within, like I'm dying.

I've felt that way before when psychotic, and sometimes I'm aware it's highly unlikely that I'm dying at thirty-five during a flare while going through prolonged stress. Yet, my body is sending the strange, quiet signal that it's happening, and when it persists, I don't know if it's real or not.

I'm going through that now. I'm trying to keep in mind that a close friend just died last week, and I've been thinking a lot about death, how someone could be posting on social media one minute and then the next day be gone. Someone could fall asleep at night and never wake up again. I am reminded of how fragile our bodies can be, and it hit hard recently because my friend wasn't much older than me.

The other night, a day after I found out about my friend, I stepped into my dark living room. I wanted to check the locks on my door again, as I often do, to make sure I locked them. As I passed the threshold from the kitchen that led into the front room, I saw my friend standing in the dark corner for a moment. My heart jumped into my throat and I became intensely paranoid, and I hurried back into my bedroom. I struggled to sleep and tossed and turned, and despite being exhausted, I was afraid to close my eyes. I feared he was still there, wandering around my home despite trying to talk myself down from the fear. "If it is him, he's just visiting one last time." "He would never want to scare you, what are you so afraid of?" "He wouldn't be angry at you for not responding to his last text message you kept forgetting about, he'd understand."

My chronic illnesses flared badly again, and eating became even more difficult. I'm going through another period of feeling weak and I get the sensation that I may faint a few times a day, since my digestive system is a wreck and zapping all my energy. And today, I fell back into thought again as my appetite disappeared. I still feel nothing. Even my anger is muted, although it's there.

I genuinely felt like my life was coming to an end. Naturally, not self-inflicted. That quiet signal from somewhere deep within crept up on me, and I'm sitting here now, trying to mitigate the feeling, but I feel it strongly. It's like a feeling of inner peace, of a genuine quiet when everything is done. No more hunger, no more emotions, just a time to wait.

And that tiny, little voice of logic is trying to reach me, but it gets buried in the void with everything else. I know if I say this to a doctor, they will, again, tell me I know too much and am aware of too much, so I can't possibly be experiencing what I say I am. The only people suffering or dealing with real psychosis are the ones who have no idea and are destroying themselves and their lives. The real sufferers wouldn't even question it, not even a little bit.

'You know it's a possible delusion, so you can't be experiencing it.'

'You have the ability to even question if it was a hallucination, so it can't possibly be one.'

'You have an inkling of a peep of logic trying to swim up to the surface, so your experience is invalid.'

How do I communicate the reality that, yes, I am a little skeptical it could be a delusion, but everything in my body is telling me it is not? How do I communicate a full body feeling, a sensation, a... state of strange quiet within me that is telling me, 'you're dying.' It might not be true, but I feel like it is true.

I saw my friend crystal clear that night, and I tried to talk myself down; it was just a hallucination, right? No, no it wasn't. But since I can question it at all, my experience is invalid, no matter how frightened I was or how difficult it was to turn my back to my bedroom door, or even close my eyes.

Despite the doctor saying I can't possibly be experiencing what I am, I still hallucinated my friend standing there in a dark corner at midnight. I still feel like my body is quiet and at peace like my time is drawing near. I still feel and see all of it.

The last time I felt this way, it had been a delusion. Eventually it won't be, but I question how soon that will be. My physical health is much worse now than it was before. And I felt the need today, like I did the last few times this occurred, to lay in bed on this cloudy day and look at the ceiling in a darkened bedroom. I played this album, as I did last time, since it mirrors how I feel.

Perhaps this is another form of dissociation. I did start to feel strange yesterday, and the day before. Today, something feels odd about the world, as if I'm existing in a space out of time. It feels like the past and the present all at once, and I feel lifeless. I want no one around me, and the isolation feels comforting.

It's such a strange and peaceful state of being. It might sound frightening, but I've been here a few times before. I'm not a danger to myself at this moment, nor am I a danger to anyone else. I'm just... lost in whatever dimension I've stumbled into. And I'll probably keep on breathing, but I just don't know. Time will tell.

©2024 Shane Blackheart