Recurring Episode: The Knot In My Chest

Every time I spiral into my dark thoughts, about self values and inexplicable hatred towards everything; I can feel a knot growing deep inside. I told my sister, I'm doing just fine. Don't you worry about me. I've survived this for decades. I can get over it somehow.

The first thing I notice is my insatiable need to buy things. I feel like I need to somehow suppress the vile thoughts seeping through my brain by creating a temporary happiness. The easiest way to achieve that is by buying things. It is excruciating. I know that I don't need those things. I understand that it is a temporary urge but it is hard to fight. The urge would immediately cease to exist once the episode ends. But until then, it's like one item after another. With every purchase I manage to delay the numbness from spreading further.

 But the numbness continues to spread despite the delay. There were whispers. Not quite audible but like a feeling. Something come and go at random moments.

"I suck at this"

"I mean nothing"

"There's nothing in life that can make me happy"

"My existence is a lie"

"I don't deserve this life"

Every waking moment, the knot grow larger, fed by my endless self pity. I can't bring myself to talk to my loved ones. I don't want them to notice the darkness that is growing inside me. The colors in my face fade from day to day. No matter how much rouge I dust on my cheeks, they're never pink enough. No matter how many time I apply my favorite lipstick, they seem dull on me.

I am reduced to my worst look. Have I always been this ugly? Oh my God, I am really really fat. Oh my God, my nose is enormous. Oh look at those whiteheads. I'm disgusting.

At random hours I would feel like I need to cry that very instant. I feel like throwing up. The knot manage to push the air out of my chest, it manage to raise my tummy contents to my throat. It's hard to ignore my breathing and heartbeats. At times I feel ending them so that I don't have to hear them so loudly.

What first feels like a phantom numbness now feels very real. My forearm feels numb, throbbing but unmoving. I don't know how to explain it. I used to scratch it frequently just to chase away the nothingness I feel. Now I try to ignore it. But it turns into something worse. At my worst hour, my jaw tighten, instantly I feel immense pain on my face, in particular along my jaw. It's like somebody bashed my face with a baseball bat. The pain in jaw usually comes with a sharp pain in my chest as if somebody sticks a knife through it. It usually last around 2 to 3 minutes but it's getting longer as I keep fighting it. It comes and go. There's no definite time or place to trigger it. It just happen.

I don't know how but one day I woke up and all the darkness disappear. The knot in me becomes unravel. I feel lighter. Everything seems so beautiful. For a brief moment, all the pain I suffered feels worth it. My life had never been so beautiful. But it too disappear into nothingness. I go back to my normal self. Nothing too extreme. Until the cycle starts again and the knot grow larger and larger until in unravel itself.

My life is a ticking bomb and it pains me to go through it over and over again.

Adieu