Safe mode

I have recently found myself pretending to be ok. I have been pretending not only to others, but to myself. It was like catching someone telling a lie, discovering that they were hiding something from you... but it's yourself. You really don't have any excuses, lying to yourself is futile, you'll always be found out.

I realised I was just holding it in and not coping well. As soon as I realised this, I had a breakdown. I slipped back horribly into old thinking patterns, low mood, physical symptoms and harmful thoughts. My brain hurt. It was painful and all too real and felt like it would never end. I found myself trying to walk home but immobilised by the feelings, unable to think straight and crying uncontrollably. At one point, a very concerned man stopped and asked if I was ok. I, of course, said yes.

He clearly knew at this point that I was far from ok but apart from offering to get a taxi for me (which I refused) there was little more that he could do. I thanked him profusely before he left me where I was standing, snotty and crying and "ok". Obviously that wasn't going to be the moment for me to stop pretending. This kind stranger didn't really want me to start talking. His concern was for my safety but I'm sure had I said "Well, seeing as you asked...." he may have retreated rather quickly.

I was hard on myself and I felt that I had no choice in letting the feelings engulf me. The next day, walking home, again it hit me. I realised that only a few days earlier, it had been a year since I had decided I was going to commit suicide. Suddenly I felt like nothing had changed and I was no further forward. I couldn't see any of the progress that I had made, I could only see the black cloud that was surrounding me and dragging me down and I let it. I felt helpless. My brain, however, decided upon a different course of action.

I call it safe mode.

I know for a fact that when my brain goes into safe mode, I act weirdly. I feel it, I watch it happen, but I am not in control. Several things happen; I retreat into myself a lot, I am very wary of other people and even jumpy, noises startle me and I say almost anything that comes into my mind, my filter is broken. I become wide eyed, fragile and somewhat childlike but my brain stops hurting. This lasts as long as it needs to, just to get me over the worst of it.

It's as if my brain just dulls itself. I think less and I listen less. Inside my head becomes a little bit quieter but this comes at the cost of me being less able to have a conversation. Short bursts of perhaps off topic subjects and an overwhelming tiredness.

I wish I could turn it on and off myself but I am not in control of it, just as I don't control my depression or anxiety. It is yet another part of myself that I don't understand and probably never will. Right now I am still running safe mode partially, though I am definitely regaining the controls.

I am not ok but I am also not "ok".