Shut Down
A Dispatch from a Difficult Moment
This is a hard time to write, but it may be useful for someone to have access to a description of this experience so I will try to work through it.
I am facing emotional shut down- something that happens when a person’s brain goes into protective mode and slows, or shuts down emotional and intellectual processing. My brain is playing possum in the face of the overwhelming assault of personal and global tragedy, injustice, fear and anxiety. There is probably a better, more accurate way to say it, but I think that is as far as I can go right now.
There is a secondary hit here, because I pride myself on being a good writer and now I am struggling to get out a simple sentence. You can’t quite tell as the reader because you get to encounter this all at once, but in truth what I have written thus far has taken me several hours and a nap to achieve.
My eyes are hot and achy. I keep falling asleep at my computer. While this may sound like misery, the truly disturbing part is that it is not miserable at all. I don’t feel much of anything except tired.
Thanks, Brain.
If I was feeling everything, I expect I would cease to function. And yet, I have been able to meet with clients, go to rehearsals, and manage about 85% of my obligations without the mask slipping too much. The 15% where I am failing is all in the boring, administrative obligations like managing money, filling out forms and making doctor appointments. These activities are just a click or two beneath intolerable even when I am at the top of my game. Here at the bottom, I can only strap in and wait until this storm of nothing passes.
Although, I am concerned that these triggering events may push me to the limits of my ability to cope. I force myself to exercise and be with people. I keep my therapy appointments. I slowly and carefully express my needs to my family so that I can, hopefully, avoid a complete breakdown or catastrophic explosion.
Last night, my body needed to cry. So I cried. It’s a strange sensation, my body expressing an emotion my brain either cannot or will not feel. Intellectually, I know what is happening. If I witnessed this behavior from someone else, anyone else, I would feel more than I am feeling on my own behalf. Instinctively, I search for emotional stimuli in my spare time, mostly cult documentaries, true crime, or anything involving Brett Goldstein (IYKYK). I watch these things and siphon off the emotional energy stored in my body. I get in a good disassociated cry. I look at things that are hard for me to look at- using these entertainments like an emotional defibrillator trying to shock myself back into feeling.
CLEAR!
The individual things that are overwhelming me are less of an issue than the simple fact that I am overwhelmed. Even as I write this and approach the source of my discomfort, my eyes are drooping and I will need to set my alarm to take another 15-20 minute nap before I can continue.
I am being extra gentle with myself, but even gentleness and patience is exhausting and by 8pm my mask starts to slip and I feel a general awfulness that is often accompanied by unhelpful thoughts. Why did you say that stupid thing? Everyone knows you are a fraud. Why can’t you just get it together?
I will then stay up for another 4-5 hours, ping-ponging between attempts at productivity and somewhat petulant demands for pleasure that satisfies like a glass of warm water on the hottest of days. I go to bed when my body just can’t take it anymore and I dream. I dream a lot.
Last night my dreams involved hosting guests from Canada at some strange house in my hometown while I redecorated a basement room while trying to hold on to an adorable white rat with pretty brown spots that did not want to be held. I had to remain conscious of the rat’s delicate body that I could easily crush while also avoiding its sharp teeth. I ended up driving to an antique store in a car I used to own in the 90’s to procure a bag of ice. Unfortunately, the steering wheel was, for lack of a better descriptor, deflated, wouldn’t turn the car effectively and the antique store did not carry any ice. (surprise!)
All of that makes perfect sense to me. In real life an, Instagram Ad that I made for my upcoming Memoir Programs was set to target people in the US and Canada and so far the only people who have seen it are in Canada. The hometown is obvious (because of my memoir work) as is redecorating the basement room (welcome to my id). The rat? That is probably my children that are growing up and eager to live their own lives. The car with the deflated steering wheel is me, unable to move forward effectively. The bag of ice at an antique store? That one is slightly more opaque, but I am guessing it is the futility of pursuing outcomes that aren’t likely.
I am struggling to connect with a sense of agency in my waking life. I have dreams and goals that seem just as accessible as a bag of ice at an antique store. Plus, I am from Minnesota so I am sure that my dream mind has translated my anxiety over friends and family living under occupation into a search to control the damn thing I cannot find.
I can’t accurately explain how I know that the anxiety is there when I am not actively experiencing it. A few years ago a I tried to explain to a friend how someone can laugh and joke around and still be experiencing a deep depression. This friend was lucky enough not to have ever been mired in that kind of suffering. I can see how confusing that might be to someone, but masking is designed to obscure others’ vision. Sometimes successfully masking does feel kind of good- almost as good as being legitimately happy. But when the clock strikes midnight we know the beautiful coach will return to being a pumpkin, the impressive steeds will once again become mice, and we will return to a life of servitude as if the joy we embodied in a more public space never existed at all.
It’s hard.
But the only thing less appealing than being depressed and anxious is having people I love worry about me being depressed and anxious. Especially since I am in exactly zero danger. I’m not suicidal and I know this doesn’t last forever. I have nursed myself through this sickness many times in my life and I am quite good at it. I don’t feel great but I know I will be fine.
I’m just… you know… exhausted.