Neurological Chokehold

You feel things deeply

You feel them all at once

Like someone hit every switch on the panel

And broke the dial off

You can go from laughing

To drowning in a flash

Because a glance or a word

Drags up a memory you never speak about

It's physical too

Your chest clamps

Your vision tunnels

Your thoughts scatter like broken glass

You want to explain but words don't come fast enough

And deep down you're scared they'll leave

Before you can get them out

Because they always do

You want closeness you crave it

But when someone gets close

It feels like they see every scar

You've spent your life hiding

And your body assumes they'll use it to hurt you

So you test them

Not to be cruel

But because your nervous system is screaming

Make them leave before they matter

You say things you don't mean

You watch yourself ruin moments

You swore you'd protect

It feels automatic

Like pulling your hand from a flame

Except the flame is intimacy

It's not just outbursts

It's the quiet

The kind that eats you alive

You sit in a room for hours

Unable to decide if you should move

Something simple becomes a threat

Your phone your laundry your breath

Everything feels like drowning

With no surface in sight

Anxiety isn't nervous energy

It's full body hijack

Your chest locks

You forget how to breathe

Your stomach flips

Everything feels wrong

But there's no obvious reason

You just feel like something's coming

And sometimes

You can't even trust your senses

You see flickers in the woods

You hear your name in the silence

You don't know if it's real

You don't tell anyone

Because they'll say you're broken

But you're not

You're just surviving a mind

That never shuts off

Focus

Shattered

Just make a list they say

Try that while a bomb ticks in your gut

You forget mid action

You reread the same line ten times

You leave food on the stove

You walk into rooms

And forget who you are

It's not spacey

It's overwhelmed

Your brain reroutes energy

To survive the next hour

Memory gets fried

Decision making collapses

Your muscles ache

Your sleep is wrecked

You wake up clenched

And haven't relaxed in years

Adrenaline poisons you in slow motion

Your immune system shuts down

You ache you twitch you break out

You forget how to relax

You haven't felt safe since you were a kid

Appetite gone or it binges

Your weight swings

Your hands shake

Your jaw locks

Even dreams don't let you rest

Daily survival becomes a test

Cooking you forget burn it stare at it

Not sure if you're hungry

Or just too anxious to eat

Hygiene

You stand in front of a shower

Trying to convince yourself

You're worth the water

Sometimes the cold feels better

Like proof you still exist

Feeding your animals

You'd starve before they do

You wonder if they'd be better off

Without you

That guilt hits harder

Than anything you feel for yourself

It's like being lit on fire

And told to stop screaming

You feel too much or nothing

You cancel plans then sob alone

You apologize too often

You dissociate

You watch yourself from the ceiling

You believe the worst thoughts

Not because they're true

But because they're familiar

It's like waking up next to wreckage

You don't remember causing

People are bleeding

Looking at you like you're the one who lit the fuse

And maybe you were

You just can't remember striking the match

It's shame without context

Guilt without a timeline

You're trying to solve a crime

Where you're both the suspect and the witness

But the footage is missing

You ask yourself

Was i really that cruel

Why can't i remember what destroyed everything

And when no answer comes

You assume the worst

Because you've been the worst

Even if you didn't mean to be

You apologize but it sounds hollow

You explain but it sounds like denial

People stop listening some walk

Others stay but never look at you the same again

So you retreat not out of coldness

But because you don't trust yourself anymore

Silence feels safer than the risk

Of burning down someone else's world without knowing it

Living with yourself feels like being handcuffed

To a version of you that might go off at any second

And you're terrified because it still has your face

Your voice your name and it never lets up

You want to fix it you want to be better

You want to deserve love and peace and forgiveness

But how the fuck do you fix something broken

When you don't even remember breaking it

You want connection but panic when it comes

You push people away then break down when they leave

You sabotage love then beg for it back

Then hate yourself for needing it so badly

You overthink every word and panic over silence

You assume they'll leave because they always did

When someone says i love you

You brace for the blow that always follows

It's not cute and it's not aesthetic

It's waking up with guilt you can't even name

It's talking yourself out of suicide

It's holding something good in your hands

And watching your brain say you don't deserve it

It's hell with rare beautiful flashes of heaven

And you cling to them like breath underwater

This isn't mood swings it's a neurological chokehold

A war between instinct memory and reason

And reason always fucking loses

You're just trying to make it through another day

Without falling apart in a way that makes someone leave

That's what the fuck it's like

Every day in my mind