This past week, I’ve been getting mysterious itches. This brings me back to the week when I suddenly got some sort of allergic reaction to chicken (or was it chili?). My friends are telling me that I’m stressed out. This time the itch is a bit different; the itch stays no matter what I eat or what I avoid eating. I suddenly have bumps in my body (I’m 100% sure it’s not herpes, tho), and I remember the time when my friend got a bad MDD episode and her body itched so badly that she cried every night and became suicidal. Mine doesn’t get that bad, but I have also been thinking about getting my mental health checked up.
When I tweeted about the mysterious itch, she said that when she went through the same thing, our reconciliation workshop mentor told her that she might be feeling the itch because she’s nitpicking about the things she can’t control. Her body is sending an alarm and reacting to that thought, that frustration, and those tiring small, particular urges to control or to have things go her way in detail. She said that might also be the case for me. So I do what I do best (and instinctively, like a robotic mechanism at this point): sit with my thoughts and unpack them.
I think about how I feel undeserving and every little thing that makes me feel that way. Something as small as getting a goodbye hug or comparing my experience with other people's. Spiraling jealousy, feeling unworthy (and undeserving) of small things I’ve always wanted. The thoughts turned into anger because I believe no one should ever feel like they don’t deserve good things. Then my insecurity takes over. Within a few minutes of letting all hell break loose, my body started to itch. It feels like a slow explosion, like something erupting from deep within and reaching my skin. The bumps start to sting a little bit.
I know the human body is this delicate mechanism. The entire universe experiencing itself. Complete with alerts, defense, slow healing power and all. But I didn’t know that we could be allergic to certain thoughts; it could send alarms when it feels too much, even get annoyed when we nitpick on things we can’t control.
I find it endearing that my body knows that these thoughts are bad even before my brain (and my heart) can accept that they are. I wish I could ask for help, but the same thoughts that bring the itch make me think that I don’t deserve any; because it’s not bad enough, because I don’t ask for help enough and I don’t want to be the boy who cried wolf, because if I were a house I put up this German brutalist facade on the foreground, and I’m good at convincing people (and myself) that everything’s fine.
And again, I just do what I do best: handle everything on my own and tell my slightly worried friends I have it all under control.
