Tuesday, December 3, 2013

Inside my head

One day I'm singing happy songs on a roadtrip to Tagaytay, the next I'm blurting out "I'm inexplicably sad today," and I just lie in bed excessively, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the next trigger so I can escape loneliness and go back to being happy again.

They must have a name for it. I'm not bipolar, I'm also not clinically depressed. But I did test positive for hormonal imbalance. So maybe I'll just charge it to that.

My triggers are everywhere, sporadically finding me in the most inconvenient moments of the day, like maybe at 6pm when I'm assigned to write the lead story for a newscast and I can't think -- my mind just blacks out, and my palms become uncontrollably twitchy and sweaty and there is a strong urge for me to shout but I can't and that only makes it worse.

Sometimes the trigger can be as simple as a song; for example, hearing something which played at a certain moment in my life I would rather not remember. I associate things/people/moments to songs and when something plays and brings up a memory - I lose it and can never figure out how to snap out.

But at least I know where it's coming from. The worst moments are when it just hits me from nowhere, like a sudden whiff of air, or a movement from my periphery, or just a case of deja vu, and I'm thrown off. Like tonight after the newscast aired, I felt a turn in my stomach -- probably because I have not had dinner yet but instead of accept an invitation to eat, I wanted to go straight home and sleep, because that's when my mind is most peaceful, when I'm in the comfort of my room, safe from the world and its cruel elements.

So then I sat up to try and write it down. Another attempt to make sense of it, that maybe as I type words here I'll stumble upon an explanation at least, if not an answer. But the city lights outside my window is such a terribly sad image, causing my heart pain, worsening by the minute, the sound of the fan whirring like a broken sound to a broken cassette or something. Something must be up, so I rack my brain for sign of where this sadness must be coming from, but it's giving me nothing.

When this happens, I usually blame it on the obvious. I let a wrong graphic illustration air tonight, on my own segment even, after that I wallowed on heartbreaking internet posts from Paul Walker's daughter, and then of course, I remember, I have not had dinner yet.

But my stomach feels full and my brain is telling me that any minute now I may want to vomit but of course I won't --- in reality, my stomach is empty.

So I just stare mercifully at my downloads tab, I'm expected to have fresh episodes of sitcoms in 20 minutes -- maybe that'll solve it, but my wifi suddenly broke down and 20 minutes became 20 hours and then 20 weeks and that stretch all the more caused me anxiety, like being on a rollercoaster and never knowing when it's gonna stop.

Then The Wombats' Let's dance to joy division played. I remember listening to this last year, on a bus, on my way home from my teacher's mom's funeral in the province, and I remember feeling not happy, but content.

And it just washed away everything that's been occupying my head for the last 2 hours and finally -- thank God -- it snaps back into focus so I can do what I set out to do -- which is to squeeze in some work before I sleep.

Over the years I've learned slightly how to deal with it; I've learned never to force it by doing oe thinking of something happy and expecting it to just go away -- it never does -- I've learned not to attach to it too much -- I can't explain it but I've learned that just as bad triggers are everywhere, good triggers are too, I never know what to look for but somehow, I end up finding it -- like tonight, through a song.

There's a relief in the heaviness of my chest and I no longer feel I have to vomit, the space around me is slightly spreading out, I'm not fully normal yet, but I'm better.

And that'll have to do for tonight.

Until the next time.

So yes, hormones, you're a real bitch.