The Black Dog

It's taken a month to get this bad, but it is currently as terrible as it's been in three years. Hands tremble, breathing is labored, chest pain never ceases, muscles never stop tensing up, the heartbeat becomes irregular, sleep becomes an impossibility even with pills, concentration is absolutely lacking, the ability to trace thoughts slows to a crawl, the ability to remember how words are spelled goes, even the physical act of typing is difficult, the torrent of words slows to a drip, and every sentence must be rewritten five times else it all reads as gibberish because so fragmented the mind becomes in such weeks - and the worst usually lasts for two weeks at a time. Could I ever finish this essay? For weeks at a time, there is almost nothing but a void, an absolute lack of anything but bad feeling, and the void is so wide that it takes on an absolutely physical dimension of pain. Gradually, as the weeks go on, the reserve of ability for any conviviality at all depletes until it is gone entirely, and all that remains is a hound with the scent of my blood.

The deafening bark never stops, the ears scream with ringing, obsessive rumination, reassembled copies of memories more vivid than ever before, reinterpreting every event, showing me ever more vividly the monster it was afraid I'd forgotten I am. The voice always in the back of my head that living is agony itself becomes the dominant voice in my head. Every day, I try to tell myself 'things are not as bad as they seem,' 'your thoughts are bullshit,' 'you deserve happiness and you will be happy,' 'just breathe Charlap,' 'you're so dramatic,' 'just shut the fuck up and calm down,' 'everything is ok,' and every day, the ability of your mind to overcome any and all good thoughts grows ever stronger. Whether by emotional breakdown or simple physiological breakdown, how can this thing not one day kill me?

Over the years I've developed a reputation for unreliability - cancellation of social plans, parties I'm supposed to host, jobs unfilled, projects unrealized, education failed, relationships un-pursued (assuming the other party ever wanted one), friendships abandoned, all dreams eternally unrealized. What else can I do? When I was much, much younger, it drove me to endless humiliation, it drove me to terror in the very act of living. Was it all based on some kind of initial trauma? Or am I just that lucky to be born this way?

This is the extent of what I can write at the moment. Excepting stupid commentary, it is the most I've been able to write in a month.