YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

I woke up earlier than usual; I've been sleeping in too much without really caring. This time I was up by late morning, not really on purpose.

Now that I remember, I intended to do some "work"--basically study anatomy for art purposes.

I'm seriously wondering if I forgot to take my med this morning--now I'm worried if I take it now it'll konk me out or something. That it just won't help.

Instead of doing what I should have, I watched a really fucked up movie. I did not realize it would be fucked up; I've been on a thriller/horror movie binge for a few months now. I've become very numb to on-screen violence...

Basically my advice is: don't watch Proxy. It depicts people with mental disorders as having no rhyme or reason for the fucked up things they do--they just indulge in fucked up things.

After watching it, I felt like my mind was in a fog. Like I was empty on the inside. I looked up reviews for the movies just to decide what my feelings were and I still can't come to a conclusion except what I just said above.

Now it's about the time I usually wake up and I realized I just spent most of my day, and little shot glass-sized capacity of emotions and focus, on a movie that was essentially a huge waste of my time. Just trying to gauge my reaction to it.

I feel ill in the stomach, a little over-caffeinated, like I can't think straight, and sort of anxious or neurotic. I really think I didn't take my pill... it feels like I've just stayed up all night, even though I didn't.

What IS this feeling? Just emptiness, numbness, anxiety?!

And does anyone else just get completely fucked up by movies or media sometimes? Usually I really like dark stuff--but this felt sociopathic. I always get pretty involved in the things I indulge in for entertainment and when I'm sort of blindsided by something... well this is just like, not knowing how I feel. That's kind of rare with me since I usually spend a lot of time reflecting on how I feel.

I guess I should also add that the day before yesterday, my step dad yelled at my mom, then yesterday, he was looking up how to kill himself. Maybe I'm compartmentalizing so much now that I just feel this numb void inside, especially watching a lot of heavy media recently.

I guess I just want to know if anyone else gets this weird gnawing numbness.... or have experienced it before... or gets really caught up in the media they watch--which for the record I do on total automatic. It feels weird for me not to be immersed in something in front of me.

I feel like I have absolutely no idea what to do right now, so I'm going to listen to the newest episode just to see if it calms me down a bit. Even just hearing Paul's voice sort of unsettled a knot in my stomach just now--it felt like a breath of humanity, empathy, that I'd just been denied for an over 2 hour movie that was just about cruelty and senselessness.

Take care, Sherlock, and keep writing.

I can relate to you so much right now!

Hang in there

Hug

I really relate to the fucked up movie watching thing. I watched a documentary today about this killer from Staten Island that murdered mentally disabled children. They showed clips from this Geraldo Rivera expose on the Willowbrook "school" for the disabled they used to have in Staten Island. It was the mid fucking 1970's and kids were packed in there naked, banging their heads on the walls, sitting in their own excrement...they found many of them had been raped and hepatitis and other disease was rampant. I wanted to cry when I was watching it but I didn't - I just stared and felt dead inside. Horror movies don't tend to effect me as much as documentaries...there was another one I watched about how ubiquitous rape in the military is. I live nearby an army base and now I find myself feeling a mixture of sadness and disgust when I see them in uniform at the bagel shop or running outside wondering on which side of the rapes they are - victims, perpetrators or silent witnesses.

When I feel numb sometimes I think I gravitate towards horribly sad shit in order to feel something. I don't always want to "cheer myself up" with comedy or happy movies, the happiness makes me feel even more outside of myself when I'm in states like this. It gets me to feel something but that something is usually hopelessness and self hatred because I feel like I am totally that bystander - I can feel disgusted but I'm not doing anything to help anyone. My brain is making my body feel like a piece of chewed meet with the tension I hold inside me and now that I'm trying to stop drinking there is no buffer, no way to feel OK in my own body.

Not sure what to tell you but damn do I relate. Sorry if I went off to much on my own thing there - just in a weird place tonight.