I have always been a creature of feeling. More often than not, it’s gotten me into trouble, particularly when I got caught up in one emotion or another and somehow got carried away. I’ve pissed people off, driven them away, lost things that were important to me… all because I wasn’t able to keep my feelings in check. However I felt at the time, though. I felt justified. I reasoned with myself, and decided that I had every right to feel the way I was feeling. Whether my logic was faulty or not really isn’t for me to say, but I satisfied myself at the time that whatever emotion I had at the time was the right one. Now, strangely, it feels like the opposite is happening. I have no idea how to feel about things. I’m aware of several different things happening at once, but all those little things somehow seem to cancel each other out… into nothing. It’s like standing in a crowded room with twenty or so voices speaking at once, such that each drowns the others out and I can’t make out a single word any of them is saying.
If there’s anything I’ve learned from having my first significant surgery a few months ago, it’s that there’s a definite difference between numbness and a lack of feeling, because even numbness is a feeling. It’s almost as though the skin draws into itself and is aware of nothing but some strange current that flows through it, but the sensation is there. I’ve experienced numbness before (mostly during migraines), and I hate it. When it happens, I typically pound away at the hand or the leg or the part of my face that’s afflicted, desperately trying to make something break through. Lack of feeling is altogether different. When I woke up from surgery, I felt nothing. As much as I would have hated the pain, the fact that it wasn’t there was unsettling, because there was something about feeling nothing that just seemed wrong. I’ve just had a scalpel taken to my face and my nose forcibly broken. I should be in pain. It’s only logical. Any person who enjoys horror movies will tell you that the most frightening part is not when the killer hacks people apart with a chainsaw. It’s the waiting, the dead silent anticipation beforehand that makes your skin crawl. I don’t get the twisted pleasure people get out of that. I spent most of the time in my post-surgical haze just waiting for the pain, anticipating it, dreading it. Thanks to the magic of modern pharmaceuticals, it never came… not really. I waited just long enough for it to hurt a little, then swallowed a pill, and felt nothing again. It was a nice way to coast through the healing process, of course, but I guess it doesn’t really translate emotionally. I find myself in the same situation again… I know there should be something going on in my head right now, something big. But there isn’t. Or maybe there is, and I’m just so thoroughly confused that I can’t sense it. Doesn’t make much sense, does it?
I’m aware of the anger. It’s not blind, explosive fury, though. It’s a constant, steady seething contained beneath the surface of whatever thin veneer I’ve painted on. I doubt very much that I’m hiding it well.
I know there’s sadness. Both because of what’s happened, and because I never in a million years would have expected it. I’ve cried a little, but not much. Somehow it feels like it should have been more. Is there an excess of it that I didn’t get out? Where does it go, anyway? Do the unshed tears get stored away in a reservoir somewhere waiting to burst in brute force over some insignificant insult, or do they simply evaporate in the sun?
…and mistrust. That’s the big one. I don’t know why I’ve always noticed this in animals… cats, for instance. I volunteered with a cat rescue a few years back, and the seasoned members of the group explained that there’s just no taming feral cats, because they were born in the wild, and they really don’t care much for people. I always marveled at how my own cat strolls up to me, fearless, and demands his throne upon my lap whenever I’m curled up in my armchair. He trusts in people because they’ve never been anything but good to him. There’s a host of people in my life who’ve been good to me. One less, now. The problem with this particular one less, though, is that it was someone I always thought I could trust. I suppose if I looked at it logically, in perspective, maybe it wouldn’t seem like such a big deal. This sort of thing happens every day. Makes no difference though, because it’s never happened to me. And now, it’s not even really happening to me. I’m not truly the injured party here, but I’m feeling the fallout. I’m trapped in it because I’m too close not to be affected by it. And I’m angry. Yes… there’s the anger again. I’m angry at what’s been done, but more than anything, I’m angry because I’ve been so blindsided by the whole thing that it’s making me reexamine every relationship in my life. Every single person I know has the potential to hurt someone… and probably has. But which one of them is going to turn on me one day? Just one? A handful? All of them? It’s a screwed up sort of Russian roulette I’ve been drawn into. It’s not just the one person. It’s not an evil thing that possesses people. It’s not a blackened soul that doesn’t feel. It’s you, or me, or anyone else. A human being that made a mistake. We’re all capable of it. Thousands of years of history have taught us this. Hell, I figured I had the potential to do some emotional damage to someone, if I wasn’t careful. But somehow, I always chose to believe that other people were better than I was. Now, the foundation of everything I thought has been shaken to the core. I wasn’t prepared for this. I didn’t see it coming. I sure the hell didn’t ask for it. And now I’m frantically looking around in every direction, waiting for it to happen again.
They say what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. I don’t really know if that’s necessarily true. A myocardial infarction (heart attack in layman’s terms) results in scar tissue forming in the heart. It’s a sign of healing, sure, but scar tissue is functionally inferior to and weaker than the tissue it has grown to replace. And having one heart attack puts a person at a much greater risk of having another. So in some cases, what doesn’t kill you actually makes you weaker and more vulnerable to the next blow. I really would rather that not happen here, and comparing an emotional insult to a physical disease is just kind of… well, stupid. And a little melodramatic, besides. As stubborn as I am, I’m well aware that I’ve got a choice in the matter here. How much choice I’ve got really isn’t clear to me at this point, though. There’s not much way to battle how you feel, is there? Or is it all a matter of willpower? Being a person who is self-admittedly ruled by emotion, I suppose I never really figured I had any say in how things affected me. Maybe I was just being lazy about it. Maybe it was a little easier for me to figure that it was something I couldn’t help, because then I wouldn’t have to put any thought or effort into it. Maybe I just watched the whirlwinds of each emotion that surrounded me and merely grabbed on to the nearest one and let it carry me away. All I’m really sure of at this point is that I don’t want to let this get to me. I don’t want to be the person who sits in the house all day because they’re too scared shitless that something bad is going to happen when they venture outside. Right at the moment, though, I definitely am a little afraid.
Ah, fear. In a game like this, the trump card is always fear. And I think another one of those oft-used sayings is that we only fear that which we don’t understand. How can you train yourself not to be afraid of something if you don’t even truly understand it? Or is it worse to think you understand something, and end up being completely wrong about it? I’ve been a worrywart most of my life. I went through a period of a few years where it completely overtook me. And after all that, I think I’ve got the worst of it beat. Maybe getting through all that made me better equipped to handle whatever else I ended up going through after that. But I really can’t be sure. And that’s the damnable misery of all of it. I’m not sure of anything right now. And overthinking the whole thing probably isn’t going to remedy that. (Never does, in my experience.) All I can do is sit and wait for the dust to settle and hope things won’t be quite so hazy when it clears.
I’ve got only one thing to ask right now… don’t ask me what’s wrong. Not even if we’re particularly close (especially not in that case). It’s not really my secret to tell, anyway. I’ve been sworn to silence, and while I may not like it, I’m bound by it. There’s a bit of irony there… I’m a little unsteady right now on who I can trust, but I sure the hell want people to know they can trust me.
