How Are You Feeling?

That's a normal question that normal people ask each other. Me? Not so much. I'm not feeling much of anything besides paranoia, emptiness and a vague sense of meaninglessness. Certainly these are not markers of a man within whom the Holy Spirit resides.

I touched on this several weeks ago. The symptoms do not seem to be improving.

I was reminded of the whole thing on Sunday while teaching class at church. We are studying Peter's letters to the churches in Asia Minor and somewhere midway through chapter 4 of First Peter he writes that we should be clear minded and self controlled so that we can pray. It struck me that I am never clear minded and I have way too much self control.

Seriously, my mind will not be still. It wanders all over the place all the time constantly overthinking everything and questioning everything, even the motivations of people that want to be my friends or even help me stay out of the depths of my mental Mordor.

Add to this the fact that I crush every feeling that comes through my mental doors to greet me because I CAN'T DEAL WITH IT ANYMORE! I just want it all nailed down so it's not flying up and hitting me in the face all the time with demands at inconvenient times of the day. This is not new behavior for me. I have been doing it all my life simply to deal with the SSA. I box it all up by categories and file them away in my brain where I won't find the feelings, but apparently the packing tape is getting old because all those thoughts and feelings have been escaping to torture me anew.  

I've spent much time in my life trying to create this Stoic exterior and it is crumbling.

If this continues, I will be a weeping mass of protoplasm, crying every ten minutes over something that I thought I had dealt with years ago.

There is just no middle ground with me. If I am to function in the real world, I need the mental acuity to be self controlled, but not at the expense of my mental or spiritual health. My spiritual side seems to be in a coma right now. Maybe something is trying to wake it up. Is that a good thing? I don't know. It scares me and at the same time I seem to want it.

I need to go fishing now. It will prevent me from thinking further about this.