I left the house for the first time in at least a month, it might have been two; I have lost track of time. It’s strange, trying to integrate. I feel dissociative. I feel like I’m not a part of this place, just an observer, just someone watching with the flat affect, that humdrum numbness that is beginning to seep into everything. It is right sometimes, that apathy; it makes me perfect. It makes me…unaffected.

I didn’t feel any anxiety, more of an awkwardness. This hasn’t happened in a long time. There was no pulling from the bottom of my stomach, no lurch that made me want to run to the nearest corner and vomit. The cold sweat never came, my voice was quiet, but steady. Acceptance, I guess. Acceptance that though I am nothing to these people and they are nothing to me, in order to survive I have to tolerate them. It didn’t hurt; I can’t feel anything right now anyway.

I was standing in line for coffee. No, I didn’t force my mother to go get it for me; I took the money and went to the register myself without even thinking about it. She was on the other side of the store. It sounds like nothing, but my misanthropy and introverted nature have made simple tasks like that absolute torture. The looks, the eyes I can feel burning into me. The knowledge that my ineptness is completely and totally visible, that I am making a fool of myself before I even speak. This usually floods me, but not this time, not when everything is so impossibly cut off, disconnected. I’m more like something automated than something living.

The awkwardness came when I realized I didn’t know who was next; I assumed I was, but the woman behind me had moved toward the register and I just stood there. I blinked, thought about it, and stayed exactly as I was. I wasn’t in a hurry, and I really couldn’t care less if she went ahead of me. Then she tells me to go, smiling. I say sorry, and mutter something about not paying attention.

Again, this sounds normal. It sounds like any everyday event. But the fact is, standing in front of a cash register and having to order something and converse with an employee is more painful to me than something dying. I feel it like a tragedy. It builds like some sort of fucked up finale: standing, waiting, knowing that impending doom is coming for me. That soon, I’m going to have to talk to whoever is standing there, I’m going to have to feign that the last flitting thought through my head was not about sticking one of my hands into the blender sitting on the tabletop. Then, ding. I’m next.

I had a bit of a breakdown today. I threw a silent tantrum and binged on everything I could find in the pantry. I must have eaten two days’ worth of food (at least by my meager standards). I had to get my mind off of the thoughts, I had to concentrate on feeling something besides complete agony. Breathing, existing…it hurts more than anything sometimes. I wanted to sleep, but it seemed that no one would have it. The cat meowed, attempting to rip the tape I’d stuck to the bottom of my door to block out the sound of existence. I locked the door, but people tried to get in anyway. Finally I managed a few hours. I woke up ravenous and dull feeling. I ate sugar like it was a drug; I needed the shock to my system because I was feeling so incredibly low.

I hate these mood swings. My six month diet change has altered everything, made it all worse. I’ve menstrated twice this month, which to me is bizarre after having times in the past where I’ve gone years without a single period. But it makes me emotional in a very strange way. I cry for stupid reasons, but yet I don’t feel it…. How to explain…. It’s like I’m crying for how sad I am, but I’m using other things in order to pry the tears out of myself. So I’m not crying for the movie, I’m crying for the residules of whatever this is. The darkness. Because I can never cry for it. I never get to shed it; it just stays there, impervious to everything. Perhaps then, I do need to mood swings, if only to vent.

It’s ridiculous what effects me and what doesn’t. My boldness shows in some places, yet shrinks in others. I wore my corset to the stores, and didn’t cover it up with a jacket. Just didn’t care. I like it, I felt like wearing it. People stared and I didn’t care. Where I live isn’t exactly the place to dress up; I was out of place. How fitting. Sometimes I think I like that they know it, others…I’m not so sure. But why can I wear what I wish yet not present myself without feeling incredibly inadequate/out of place? I want to laugh at the sheer stupidity of it. 

It’s been a long day. I need more sleep.