My apologies to those who read my last blog which was the same as the one before. I’m still new at this…
My good friend just told me she is paralyzed with malaise. This is much the same situation I had just revealed to her. I sit here, with her in mind, wondering the same exact thing she tells me she wonders. I’d give almost anything to know what causes this overwhelming malaise. And along with it, of course, is that indescribable pain that we keep trying to describe, though nobody but another who has it seems to be able to understand it.
When anyone wants to know about the pain, I tell them, “on the worst day of the worst flu you’ve ever had, when your hair, your fingernails and your skin hurt and your bones down deep ache like you’d swear they were disintegrating…that’s what it feels like most days.” And then again there is the malaise.
Why does it flare like it does? It does not seem to matter whether you have big plans (goals to look forward to) or little inconsequential plans (no big deals going on) or none at all (no stress to get anything done). It happens whether I just finished a big stressful project (exhaustion from relief of putting forward a huge effort) or just returned from fantastic time off (let down from a lot of downtime back to up tempo living).
You never stop struggling to figure it out. And there is always someone who will try to help you by telling you to reduce your stress. There is only one way not to have stress in your life but that way is totally incompatible with life itself.
At one time I thought it was that I had too much too look forward to, too many plans piled on top of each other. So I got rid of some of those onerous plans and I still felt the same way. Maybe I felt incompetent to get targeted things done. Perhaps I didn’t have the expertise to do it completely or sufficiently. To counter that possibility, I began developing a cadre of competent advisors and confidants who I could rely on to help me. I still felt the same malaise. Apparently even knowing who to call did not prompt me to call.
Then I thought, could it be that I am tired of life? Could I really be saying, “I don’t want to be here anymore and I’m bored with it all?” That’s suicidal talk if I ever heard it. But I’ve been suicidal before and seriously so. Being suicidal from age 8 to 32 is seriously, majorly suicidal. I am an expert on feeling suicidal. After all, I am a suicidologist, I have overcome it and I write books on how to overcome it like Just Because You’re Suicidal Doesn’t Mean You’re Crazy: The Psychobiology of Suicide and the next book to come, CPR for Suicidal People.
Moreover, I know contemplating suicide is only an effort to make a person feel better. It is a simple and effective coping mechanism as I explain on my website, https://www.jsp3.org. Contemplating freedom from every daunting and incomprehensible problem promises peace and nothingness. But I know I want to live – I just don’t want this pain and malaise.
Feeling suicidal can strip you of energy and desire. But I have desire. I have tons of desire. I have so much desire it eats me up. I don’t have to kill myself because it kills me just sitting here contemplating what I cannot get up and do.
It sounds like “depression” says my mental health counselor self. Well, this is not depression as noted in the bible of mental health disorders, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders. I laugh at funny things. I sleep well. My appetite has not changed. I don’t feel like dying. I’m not persistently sad. I do things I have committed to do. I do my volunteer work and get plenty of satisfaction from it for as long as that lasts, which does not seem very long.
But what I am is tired and in pain and I am bored of it. I am on the only regime of pain medication that can be done at this time. The pain is tolerable. I simply do not understand it. I have a mission in life – I know what I want to do, what I feel I am called to do. I have hundreds of unfinished undertakings.
People are right in that pain can be exacerbated by stress and emotional upset. And joy is antithetical to pain. But life is stress. You can’t avoid it. In order to try to mitigate the effect of pain, one must intervene on life’s stress by probing into possible sources of stress.
Now comes the existential questioning. What in my life has given me pause to go forward?… What has disillusioned me so much that I cannot move towards my own goals?… What has given me the idea there may be no point in going forward? …What has happened and how am I interpreting it?… Has anything happened that has not happened before or has taken me by surprise and destabilized me?
Well, let’s see… doubt and financial insecurity…disappointed currently by unrealized expectations…disappointing news and loss of some opportunities considered integral to my ongoing plan of achievement… questioning my overall achievement plan as to its viability…my new diagnosis of glaucoma and celiac disease and a notice that a dear and long-time friend has cancer.
Well, let’s see…I guess if I were to be my own counselor, I could see why I might feel stymied and “dead in the water” (maybe an unfortunate use of metaphor). But these stresses are part of life. To avoid them is to avoid life itself. There will be thwarted goals. There will always be inner questioning. There will be unfortunate news.
Well, I have discovered some things, but still I have no definitive answers. I owe myself 100 bucks for professional consultation. Pay up. This is a cash business. And, not so dang amazingly, I do feel better even though there was no resolution. Life is like that sometimes.