I feel too much

I feel too much.

My feelings have such an enormous power over me. I am the eye of the tornado of my feelings whirling around me, trapped.  My feelings are a tsunami, thrashing me, pulling me under, drowning me.  I pray to die, but my reflexes betray me.  My feelings make me suffer, but won’t permit me a release.  My feelings are big, they are enormous, they overwhelm me, they envelop me, they crush me. 

I act robotically, my surface seems steely strong, as my feelings devour my insides.  I go through the motions, step by step, to problem solve, to self soothe, and I push, I push through the paralysis that wants to swallow me whole. I use every ounce of energy I can muster, any strength I might have, I summon the muscles, the muscles that have long ago atrophied, to try to overpower my feelings, to guide myself to the otherside. I surround myself with beauty, the ocean, the sky, the birds, a delicious meal savored, a long shower, chores done.  The feelings, they might retreat for a second, but if I lose focus, if my concentration wavers, my feelings plaster themselves all over my being, whisk my mind to fantasies of  self-destruction, to numb the feelings, to inflict physical pain or consume drugs, to gamble towards death. My feelings dissolve me into a puddle of nothingness, a stale swamp of stench, full of disease.

When someone unleashes anger, when their rage makes me feel punished, my outsides stand strong, but my insides, my feelings, my feelings are like zombies arising from the dead to grab my ankles and pull me down in to the grave, and I fall, I crumble, I’m a helpless child, I’m powerless, I am trapped, I am doomed. 

I hate my feelings. My painful feelings outshine my joyful feelings.  When I feel, it mostly feels bad.

This world in unsafe for me. I am not strong enough, my resilience is a charade, it’s a costume.  It’s tattered, it’s unravelling.  I want to feel the good, but too much bad is all around me, surrounding me and all those years of treatment, of therapy, of medication, didn’t give me an arsenal of strength or reliable weapons to fight back. 

I want to give up. I want to give in. Sleep, rest evades me. I am depleted, but I can’t recharge.

I am breathing, my heart continues to beat, but surviving, it is not living.  It’s not a  life. I am barely human. I do not belong in this world.