Ants.
This is a new one. Something I hadn’t noticed when last it started happening.
Thing is, I can put up with all of it except the fucking ants.
I doubt you can imagine it.
The incessant buzzing noise in the back of your skull is bearable compared with the sensation of their crawling.
The thick tongue is tolerable. As is the constant taste of metal in the mouth.
The slow-moving glaciers of your exhausted sluggish thoughts that occasionally crash into each other and shatter into splinters of nonsense.
The uneasy feeling that you are also making other people uneasy when they speak to you. Because you have to stare at them blankly for a few minutes whilst your brain grindingly processes the noises that have come from their mouths.
The short- to medium-term memory loss.
The sensation that your eyeballs are filled with sand.
The less-than-uplifting sensation when friends of several years who have not seen you like this, who don’t know about it, take one look at your eyes and say ‘Fuck, what is wrong with you?’
Bluffing your way through work, speaking to clients when you can’t remember a meeting from a day ago let alone what they said thirty seconds ago. And coming out of it ok, but only just.
Using the traffic lights. It’s a big city, you’re a big boy. But you just don’t trust your reaction- time. Not now. Best to be safe. Wait for the lights with the blind and the old.
The short temper. You say things. Things you would normally quell for the sake of an easy life. The astounding thing is that when you drop any social etiquette toward people you dislike they are so befuddled by it and by the dead look in your unblinking eyes that it actually makes life easier for a little while. But not in the long term. And you’re so detached you feel no sense of satisfaction or victory anyway. You just ARE. You exist. Because you have to. And if you stop, the momentum may just disappear forever.
And so you eat. Not because you are hungry but because you have to.
You laugh and socialize. Not because you want to. But because you don’t want people to think you hate them. Which they would, if all you did was stare, which is almost all you can do.
Four days now. Either asleep by twelve (late for me) and awake by three or wide-eyed-awake until three and awake again at five-thirty. It’s a new pattern I do not understand.
All of it would be tolerable but for the ants under the skin of my forearms. Crawling.
My lower back too.
That would be fine were it not for the fuckers under the skin of my cheeks and the back of my neck.
The worst thing is that it makes you feel like yourself again. A self that you worked hard to get rid of.
Thing is, I can put up with all of it except the fucking ants.
I doubt you can imagine it.
The incessant buzzing noise in the back of your skull is bearable compared with the sensation of their crawling.
The thick tongue is tolerable. As is the constant taste of metal in the mouth.
The slow-moving glaciers of your exhausted sluggish thoughts that occasionally crash into each other and shatter into splinters of nonsense.
The uneasy feeling that you are also making other people uneasy when they speak to you. Because you have to stare at them blankly for a few minutes whilst your brain grindingly processes the noises that have come from their mouths.
The short- to medium-term memory loss.
The sensation that your eyeballs are filled with sand.
The less-than-uplifting sensation when friends of several years who have not seen you like this, who don’t know about it, take one look at your eyes and say ‘Fuck, what is wrong with you?’
Bluffing your way through work, speaking to clients when you can’t remember a meeting from a day ago let alone what they said thirty seconds ago. And coming out of it ok, but only just.
Using the traffic lights. It’s a big city, you’re a big boy. But you just don’t trust your reaction- time. Not now. Best to be safe. Wait for the lights with the blind and the old.
The short temper. You say things. Things you would normally quell for the sake of an easy life. The astounding thing is that when you drop any social etiquette toward people you dislike they are so befuddled by it and by the dead look in your unblinking eyes that it actually makes life easier for a little while. But not in the long term. And you’re so detached you feel no sense of satisfaction or victory anyway. You just ARE. You exist. Because you have to. And if you stop, the momentum may just disappear forever.
And so you eat. Not because you are hungry but because you have to.
You laugh and socialize. Not because you want to. But because you don’t want people to think you hate them. Which they would, if all you did was stare, which is almost all you can do.
Four days now. Either asleep by twelve (late for me) and awake by three or wide-eyed-awake until three and awake again at five-thirty. It’s a new pattern I do not understand.
All of it would be tolerable but for the ants under the skin of my forearms. Crawling.
My lower back too.
That would be fine were it not for the fuckers under the skin of my cheeks and the back of my neck.
The worst thing is that it makes you feel like yourself again. A self that you worked hard to get rid of.
posted by Tired Dad at
8:29 pm
13 Comments:
Hello Tired. Does this ring any bells?
I know. I just know...
for me it's the constant high pitched whine in the ears.
uhoh.
I do not know. I just do not know.
I'm sorry.
I don't even want to attempt to imagine it.
Strength to you.
Adrian: Hello, and welcome. My, we seem to have some time on our hands.
Ang: Indeed.
Jane: Fuck. I'd forgotten to mention that one. But you're quite right.
C: Thanks.
It's from a film called Schizopolis, directed by Stephen Soderberg before he started schmoozing with Julia Roberts et al. I'd highly recommend it. I've been looking for an excuse to post something from it for years now. So thanks! (I mean, sorry about the ants and all. But the internet is all about me, isn't it?)
A: Ok then.
the noises in the head are the worst...Tired Dad, have you ever been diagnosed with anything like bi-polar disease? that could explain quite a bit about lack of sleep,ie mania. just a thought.
At first there Tired Dad I thought what you were describing was a particularly bad hangover. If that is at all what it feels like- a succession of mornings after the night before, except without the consolation of there having been a night before to speak of, then you really do have my sympathy.
P: Welcome. And no I haven't although oddly it is suggested from time to time. By buffoons - bi-polar is one of the most difficult things in the world to diagnose and may not actually exist. I just don't sleep too well at the minute for very good reasons. But thanks.
J/Crinkly: Cheers.
welcome to the colony
Eh?
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home