It Might be the end of the World, But I’m still Crazy

I woke up this afternoon, thinking it was just another day. The sun was out, domino was hungry and I was ready to back to bed (being depressed, I spend much of my time sleeping. As of today, I average about 13-15 hours of sleep. I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t stop myself from sleeping). Instead of going back to sleep, I made a cup of coffee and turned my computer on.

The Rapture is upon us!

Every website I visited was on rapture watch- even the video game news sites I read had articles and commentaries on the end of the world. It was cyber chaos. Although the rapture/end-times has yet to happen, my question is how much psychological damage did this have on the population? Although the rapture has been proven false, how many people around the country (or the world for that matter) truly believed or thought it was possible that the rapture could occur? Just the notion that the end of the world is coming could send a depressive person into a massive and destructive episode. I mean, if people were planning on killing themselves because they realized Pandora (the fake world created by James Cameron for the movie Avatar) was not real, what kind of impact would the end of the world have on someone who is unstable?

(http://12uspost.com/end-of-the-world.html)

A couple years ago, before I was diagnosed with manic depressive illness, I was constantly overcome by my fear of mortality. I would spend a great deal of time trying to convince myself that I was not going to die and that the fear was unrealistic; I would scream at myself (this was all in my head) and constantly repeat: “go away bad thoughts, go away bad thoughts” until my mind was settled.  Some nights this tactic worked and I would be free of my paranoia. This tactic only worked a few times. My paranoid state would be exacerbated by the nightly news- stories about mass murders, rapes, burglaries, assaults, public intoxication would overwhelm my fragile and paranoid mind until I was convinced someone was coming after me to slit my throat. I remember this one night, about six years ago, when I started to have a paranoid breakdown during dinner. My family like to watch the news while eating dinner, so my mom’s small tv set was turned on in the kitchen. The story that night was of a family who had been robbed and murdered in their home. As I sat there, moving my food around with my fork, my mind started to go off the deep end. They are coming for you David, your fucking next, that neck of your’s will meet my blade and your blood will be spilt. There is no way to escape, you are going to die David and there is nothing you could do about it. I was shaking. Neither my parents or my sister knew what was going on in my head, they just continued eating.

Go away bad thoughts, Go away bad thoughts, go away bad thoughts.

Dinner had ended and I was sitting on a stationary bike. Although it had been almost an hour since dinner, my mind was still overcome by thoughts of death and paranoia. I was frightened, but I kept to myself, because I thought no one would understand what I was going through (I was kind of right. My parents and my sister had never experienced a paranoid episode or dealt with a mind that tries to destroy itself. However, they were worried about me. At the time I did not want to accept this- in fact it would take me almost five years to work up the courage to ask for help).

~

The Rapture is upon us!

It’s May 21st, 2011 and the end of the world has yet to happen. I am still sitting here, still thinking, still worrying about my future and still crazy. As this post comes to an end, I want to remind everyone that May is Mental Health Awareness Month. I want to end this post with an amazing quote:

“Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Stay Strong!

Dave.