Being back, being alienated

I came back to Toruń depressed and I've never really recovered. Few first months were unbearably hard. The way I perceived the environment that I belonged to those days is difficult to describe. Everything seemed to be unbelievably ugly, dirty, damaged. Hostile and violent. I didn't want to meet people. I didn't want to speak. I was hiding. Every time I had to say something I forced myself to do it in Polish, I was still thinking in English. It was expression of something we call in Polish “inner emigration” (emigracja wewnętrzna), alienation. I felt stoned all the time, imprisoned on some strange planet. I couldn't sleep and was permanently tired. It happened once that I woke up at 4:00 o'clock, when the sun was rising, crying and having strong feeling that I didn't want to live anymore. I believe when you want to kill yourself at this time of the day when everything is rising to live, it means you really want to die. I couldn't do much. I was trying to survive, to wait until those times will past.

Everything was annoying me, making me mad. It started already in Brussels. I became so aggressive towards girls that I didn't recognize myself, was afraid of myself, didn't understand what was happening to me. Being in Belgium I didn't have time to analyze properly my behavior and that's why the strangest ideas came to my mind, the strangest solutions as being possessed by dark forces, by evil. In Toruń everything became clearer. It was simple symptom of depression - dysphoria.

My prime activation, my greatest passion which is observing people has stopped. Every time I went out I was sneaking trying to avoid meeting people that I know which is really difficult in city as Toruń. However I could notice also some bright aspects of that situation. It has happened quite often during my work at university that once a student got a final mark he suddenly, strangely stopped to recognize me on the street. And on that time I could learn there are many who say “hello” even though I didn't notice them.

I got back to my old bad habits, neurotic ones. The ones I thought I got over with a long time ago. I started buying things. I started to spend money compulsive and destructive way.

I brought 300 euros with me from Brussels. It was more than my monthly salary in Poland. Additionally EP has reimbursed my travel expenses. And I also borrowed again the 3.000 zł I have already borrowed going to my traineeship and saved during it to pay back after comeback. I could live with all those money half a year. The problem was I started to spend enormous amount of money. On books mostly.