To disappear

Lately, I’ve been feeling like I want to just disappear from life. Not die, although dying isn’t something I care about right now either. I just want to shut out the world and everyone in it, and just exist in my bubble free from everything. I’ve started ignoring texts to play video games instead. I haven’t taken out the trash and my dirty dishes are in piles spreading to the counter. I have no desire to start going on walks again. I’m just shoving in my mouth whatever easily accessible foods are in my pantry or fridge. I spent too much money already this month but I’m starting to care less and less.

I’m so impoverished from being disabled that I’ve developed a fear of money, in a way. I get stressed and have a meltdown when I think of it or when I see something I want but I know if I buy it I’ll not have enough to eat. I have a meltdown when I see how much prices have risen on foods that are accessible to me, as someone with POTS and CFS that makes it too hard to cook for myself and keep the mess cleaned up after cooking. (I tried that for a month when food stamps didn’t come during the government shutdown, and I pushed myself into a severe flare of both POTS and CFS and it’s been about a week now and I’ve not bounced back. I can’t cook at all now).

Everything about my life is slowly causing me to give up on everything; failing as an author repeatedly and remaining invisible no matter what I do, facing worsening chronic illnesses, being disabled and impoverished after getting screwed out of the benefits I was owed, having my food stamps amount drastically cut, losing my trauma specialist in the middle of CPTSD therapy… there’s a lot. And now I’m faced with worsening food insecurity.

So why did I order DoorDash twice? Why did I buy a game? Why am I buying sweets and junk food instead of actual food that will give me nutrition?

I have stopped caring.

I may overdraft at the end of December and get hit with mounting overdraft fees that start at $30 and go higher. I may just sink into this depression and shut out the world because nothing is working, nothing is getting better, and I’m tired of having to be strong all the time. I’m tired of being told I’m brave and smart just because I’m surviving a hell I should not have had to survive. I’m 37, I’ve been told I’m brave since I was a child having disabling panic attacks that made me faint. Every moment of abuse I’ve survived, every assault, every shitty thing someone did that rewired my brain has given me another ‘you’re so strong’ compliment.

No, I’m not strong. I just look strong to you because you feel like that’s a compliment, like it’s supposed to lift me up or something, or give me some new perspective about myself and how I’ve survived.

I’m fucking weak. I am weak every time I have a rage fit in private, when I struggle to cry and am unable to, or when I’m unable feel love or connect with friends because trauma has emotionally stunted me so severely I can’t feel much of anything anymore. Trauma has caused me to feel like a robot interacting with people in ways that I feel I should because that’s what’s expected or appropriate for a human being to do.

It reminds me of a few stories I’ve heard about people who have antisocial personality disorder. They watch other people and take in the etiquette, they learn from TV and other media how to engage with people in ways that are beneficial and appropriate. ‘This emotion goes here, people act this way when this happens, you should say this or act like this because it will be received well, you should do this because this is how people act when they are (insert relationship).’

I feel like an android that is looking at everything through an emotionless lens. Sure, I do feel things. I get sad. I get angry. Oh, do I get angry. I become distressed. I can smile sometimes, and I know what makes me happy. But when I’m interacting with other people, it’s become a formula in my head. Because it’s expected to be a certain way.

If that formula ever stops, if I stop caring about the formula for social interaction I’ve created, I disappear from everyone and everything. Trauma has caused me to become a husk of what I once was.

I’m not saying I don’t care about my friends. I genuinely do. I am glad they are in my life. But I have to be honest as well that love is an emotion I can no longer feel. I may want to feel it, but I can’t even say the word to someone without locking up and going mute first. When someone says they love me, friendship-wise even, I get extremely uncomfortable and wish they hadn’t said it. Rarely have I made myself say it because I want to. I wish I could feel it.

I know where it started. I know it happened years ago, when I lost the one man I’d fallen so deeply in love with. Losing him devastated me in such a way that I could no longer say ‘love.’ Love was never kind to me up until that point anyway, but he had been a spark. He was the one. I’d never fallen so deeply in love with another person in my life. But it was one-sided in the end.

I won’t lament about the other times people ran from me when I said ‘I love you,’ or they were put off by me admitting my feelings to them (people I knew well who were, apparently, just leading me on). It’s just something that goes so deep, combined with the other abuses I’ve endured, and all of it together had me living my life in a way where I was constantly repairing the tape, glue, and pins that were holding me together.

And now, it’s all falling apart. I’m tired of trying to hold together this image of being The Strong Survivor. My body and mind are so worn down from an entire life of trauma. I have been patching myself together since I was ten years old sitting in a psych ward because I wanted to die.

What’s that… 27 years of burnout from trying to be strong? At some point even an android falls apart and struggles to function. And there is no one here to repair me, to help me pick up the pieces or help me clean and cook. I do not have a partner, and I’ve never wanted children. I live by myself. I do not have family I can depend on so heavily or not worry about there being consequences later down the road if I do. I do not qualify for any help despite being totally disabled due to ageism. I am left here to rot and see if I have the ability to piece myself together again this time.

I don’t think I can. This tooth infection I’ve had off and on for a year, and some other health issues I have been planning to get looked at… I just don’t care. I don’t. This morning during my shower, I didn’t even care about the prospect of an infection spreading and just ending me. It would be a mercy.

I’m not trying to sound extreme or cringe, and if you think I am you can fuck off and forget I exist. I’m not gonna sugarcoat the way I feel for fear of what others have to say about it. In the end, everyone’s just looking in this little window I open from time to time to reach out. Very few see the rest beyond that window, and even then, I fear being too honest when my moods get too dark. When I just feel like ending everything because this is not a life. But I know I’ll continue on, weakly if I have to, and some thoughts people just don’t need to be dragged down by.

I’m not sure where I was going with this. I’ve just decided to be weak for once, instead of the strong trauma survivor the world expects you to be. I don’t want to be an inspiration. I don’t want to be ‘bigger’ than those who hurt me. I want to be at peace. I want to live a life where I can afford my bills and be able to have a little fun too, instead of just sitting here trying to decide if starving for a few is worth the newest thing that just came out that everyone online is enjoying and talking about, that I want too.

I just want life to be more than whatever this is. But the reality is that I’m disabled, and the US government stops seeing you as a person worthy of dignity the moment you’re too sick to work.