So here I am, typing sentences as I listen to Braid, a nice band I recently discovered. I am alone in my apartment. I'm reading health dot com about anxiety disorders: "...panic attacks, phobia, and social anxiety", it says.
There's actually something kind of reassuring about being diagnosed with a disorder or a clinical problem. Maybe because it means that a problem has finally been identified. It has been given a name.
I continue reading: "interferes with daily life" ... "Sleep problems". Well. Thank God I don't have either of those. So maybe I don't really have an anxiety disorder.
The sudden interest is due to the fact that last Monday, I was in advanced production, and the teacher was like: "hey your student project reminds me of this sci-fi short film. Let's watch". It was scary. It really scared me. It scared me so much, that now it's Friday night, and I'm still thinking about it. Sun Kil Moon sings that he was "broken up about" his cousin's death. That's probably the wrong term in my case, but that's how I feel a lot of the time. I feel broken up about it.
I was at a get-together later this evening, and saw a bowl of plastic pears. My heart sank. Why? Because the pears weren't real. They were not trust-worthy. I was telling someone that I wanted to get away from film and study computer science. He said programming is great, because you can tell a computer what you want it to do. My heart sank. Why? It reminded me of the sci-fi film. Every night since the incident, I've been hanging out in the living room later than usual, too afraid to go to sleep. I've been eating less regularly, having practically lost all of my appetite.
It's weird. Why this sudden fear? It reminds me of this summer when I watched videos about killer automatons in a video game. (Actually quite similar to the theme of the sci-fi film in question). I was pretty much the same as I am now. I couldn't sleep by myself. Their creepy, dead smiles would appear in the corner of my mind's eye even in broad day light. Thankfully I more or less got over it eventually. Between that time and now I've been more or less fine.
Being a film major, one is prone to see a wide variety of potentially unsettling things. But this film... this one fifteen minute film. It's affected me so much this week. Like I said, it hasn't really interfered with my daily life, it's just that I've been feeling so broken up about it. It's made me question the nature of humanity. It's made me feel like I've witnessed evil in it's purest form. It's made me, for the first time, feel really, really sad that I'm a film student. I almost want to call off my graduation so as to not have a bachelors of film and media studies. That's how much distance I want to put between myself and this film. I don't even want to have anything to do with the same industry as this film anymore. For the first time, I feel a sense of shame and disgust attached to my major.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who feels this way in my class. But still: should there be a threshold for what can and can't be screened in a film class? Is there a way to predict that a film can mentally scar a student to such an extent?
Truly, it feels like a scar has been opened up in my mind. But it is an old scar. This week has reminded me of when I was 12, when my fears were much worse and far more plentiful. It feels just like it did back then. Almost exactly. I remember trying to breath heavily each night to keep the thoughts of Hitler and Thos We Don't Speak Of and other horrors out of my head so that I could fall asleep. But here I am, 22 years old, ten years later, experiencing the same child like, monsters-under-the-bed-like fears. Now is the time when being diagnosed with something is nice, because it means I'm not a child, just an adult with mental issues.
This past winter, I didn't experience anything of the caliber that I am feeling now, but I was nauseous sporadically and had no appetite. I'm not sure what I was anxious of specifically. I just was. Maybe I'm just perpetually anxious. I'm anxious about money. I'm anxious about relationships. I'm anxious about how I lay my dishes out to dry. I think I hate travelling so much because I am afraid of new places. I never think about the future because I fear it too. I try to avoid even knowing what day it is. I fear the past also. I refused to get a pair of shoes because they reminded me of my employer at a summer job.
Some people, like my brother, think I just have a <<je m'en fous>> demeanour around people because I don't talk to them or even acknowledge them. It's the opposite. I'm too scared to talk to them or even acknowledge them. I don't know what to say. Most of my conversations are riddled with some form of anxiety and are generally unfulfilling affairs. It is rare that I find someone I am comfortable talking (or not talking) to.
I don't mean to say that I'm miserable all the time. As a matter of fact, before this week, I was really, really happy. Or content. Content is a fine word. I would play Monster Hunter, go to class, go to work and sleep. Does that sound sad to you? I wasn't sad. If my whole life could be like those past weeks, I'd be happy. I just can't understand how my life can crumble so in a mere fifteen minutes. Maybe something about automatons triggers my anxieties. I don't know. Super upsetting to know that a life of ease can be so easily shattered. Well, at least I'm praying a lot more now, right?
There's actually something kind of reassuring about being diagnosed with a disorder or a clinical problem. Maybe because it means that a problem has finally been identified. It has been given a name.
I continue reading: "interferes with daily life" ... "Sleep problems". Well. Thank God I don't have either of those. So maybe I don't really have an anxiety disorder.
The sudden interest is due to the fact that last Monday, I was in advanced production, and the teacher was like: "hey your student project reminds me of this sci-fi short film. Let's watch". It was scary. It really scared me. It scared me so much, that now it's Friday night, and I'm still thinking about it. Sun Kil Moon sings that he was "broken up about" his cousin's death. That's probably the wrong term in my case, but that's how I feel a lot of the time. I feel broken up about it.
I was at a get-together later this evening, and saw a bowl of plastic pears. My heart sank. Why? Because the pears weren't real. They were not trust-worthy. I was telling someone that I wanted to get away from film and study computer science. He said programming is great, because you can tell a computer what you want it to do. My heart sank. Why? It reminded me of the sci-fi film. Every night since the incident, I've been hanging out in the living room later than usual, too afraid to go to sleep. I've been eating less regularly, having practically lost all of my appetite.
It's weird. Why this sudden fear? It reminds me of this summer when I watched videos about killer automatons in a video game. (Actually quite similar to the theme of the sci-fi film in question). I was pretty much the same as I am now. I couldn't sleep by myself. Their creepy, dead smiles would appear in the corner of my mind's eye even in broad day light. Thankfully I more or less got over it eventually. Between that time and now I've been more or less fine.
Being a film major, one is prone to see a wide variety of potentially unsettling things. But this film... this one fifteen minute film. It's affected me so much this week. Like I said, it hasn't really interfered with my daily life, it's just that I've been feeling so broken up about it. It's made me question the nature of humanity. It's made me feel like I've witnessed evil in it's purest form. It's made me, for the first time, feel really, really sad that I'm a film student. I almost want to call off my graduation so as to not have a bachelors of film and media studies. That's how much distance I want to put between myself and this film. I don't even want to have anything to do with the same industry as this film anymore. For the first time, I feel a sense of shame and disgust attached to my major.
I'm pretty sure I'm the only one who feels this way in my class. But still: should there be a threshold for what can and can't be screened in a film class? Is there a way to predict that a film can mentally scar a student to such an extent?
Truly, it feels like a scar has been opened up in my mind. But it is an old scar. This week has reminded me of when I was 12, when my fears were much worse and far more plentiful. It feels just like it did back then. Almost exactly. I remember trying to breath heavily each night to keep the thoughts of Hitler and Thos We Don't Speak Of and other horrors out of my head so that I could fall asleep. But here I am, 22 years old, ten years later, experiencing the same child like, monsters-under-the-bed-like fears. Now is the time when being diagnosed with something is nice, because it means I'm not a child, just an adult with mental issues.
This past winter, I didn't experience anything of the caliber that I am feeling now, but I was nauseous sporadically and had no appetite. I'm not sure what I was anxious of specifically. I just was. Maybe I'm just perpetually anxious. I'm anxious about money. I'm anxious about relationships. I'm anxious about how I lay my dishes out to dry. I think I hate travelling so much because I am afraid of new places. I never think about the future because I fear it too. I try to avoid even knowing what day it is. I fear the past also. I refused to get a pair of shoes because they reminded me of my employer at a summer job.
Some people, like my brother, think I just have a <<je m'en fous>> demeanour around people because I don't talk to them or even acknowledge them. It's the opposite. I'm too scared to talk to them or even acknowledge them. I don't know what to say. Most of my conversations are riddled with some form of anxiety and are generally unfulfilling affairs. It is rare that I find someone I am comfortable talking (or not talking) to.
I don't mean to say that I'm miserable all the time. As a matter of fact, before this week, I was really, really happy. Or content. Content is a fine word. I would play Monster Hunter, go to class, go to work and sleep. Does that sound sad to you? I wasn't sad. If my whole life could be like those past weeks, I'd be happy. I just can't understand how my life can crumble so in a mere fifteen minutes. Maybe something about automatons triggers my anxieties. I don't know. Super upsetting to know that a life of ease can be so easily shattered. Well, at least I'm praying a lot more now, right?
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