Doom Cloud (Updated)

Do you have a doom cloud? You know, that sneaky demon seed in the back of your brain that starts as a small little voice telling you that the world is scary and awful and that you're stuck in a swirling drain of failure that you'll never emerge from. Then it grows and grows until it consumes your entire head and then your entire body in a torrent of dread and despair slowly weighing you down day after day until you feel like you'll suffocate under the pressure of it all. To top it all off the doom cloud rains on you a constant barrage of awful thoughts, feelings, and mental horror shows inside your brain until you feel like you want to pry open your own skull with a claw hammer just so you can dig the bad images and thoughts out of there, like cutting out a cancer.
The helpless hopeless feeling the doom cloud wraps you up in feels like cling wrap squeezing you tighter and tighter until you want to implode, then you can dissolve and melt away and flow carelessly down the swirling drain into the sterile darkness.
A Liminal Perspective illustrated it all quite well:
I want to get angry at the doom cloud. I want to cry about it. I want to want to scream and throw punches and smash breakable items with a baseball bat. But I don't. I can't. The doom cloud has sucked all my feelings away. I just feel blank. Blank and empty and irritable like I'm trying to function on not-enough-sleep. It's like a hangover without the booze. Crankiness and blinding fear swirl around in my brain, fed only by this fucking cloud and my new-found ability to not be able filter any outside audible stimuli. I can hear EVERYTHING! Finger nails scratching a scalp, 4 conversations in various areas of the office, the copier spitting out papers. I just want to sprawl out on the floor in a quiet room and just be there forever.

There are times, in my murkiest moments that I wonder if maybe being temporarily institutionalized would benefit me...Wow, it's really scary to actually see that written down. I've never said it out loud to anyone. But then I argue with myself that people who need to be institutionalized don't usually wonder if they should be institutionalized, right? Then my social anxiety kicks in and fills me with even more self-doubt when I realize that committing myself would require me actually going to a hospital and trying to convince them that I'm crazy enough to need one of their beds for several days. To explain how much that is not going to happen, I will explain this: I'm afraid of getting ill or hurt, not because I would be getting ill or hurt but because I'm afraid of all the ambulance/hospital people staring at me and judging me then rejecting me for not being hurt or ill enough to treat with top-notch care. Am I fucking neurotic or what?

The worst part is having to go to work like this. My office is the kind of corporate atmosphere where people will still come in even if they're barfing up a lung, so my calling in sick due to a bad mental health day would be scoffed at. Every time the phone rings at my desk, I have to take several deep breaths and force myself to answer it at all, yet alone be all perky and bubbly-like so that maybe the person on the other end will maybe choose to not yell at me or be unnecessarily douchey.

No. The worst part is feeling completely and utterly alone and not having anyone I can talk to who understands this feeling. I feel surrounded, yet alone. I know that I'm not alone, though, thanks to some brave peeps out there who understand and remind me that I am, in fact, NOT alone in my suffering. Thank you for your emotional bravery. Maybe one day I'll be brave enough to share this too.
Thank you to:
Allie Brosh, Jenny Lawson, Chris Hardwick, thanks for keeping me laughing.
At the end of the day, sometimes the cloud dissipates and I can see and feel and think clearly again.
P.S I promise I'm going to a psychiatrist next week.
To counter-act all that sad, here's a piggie:
Thank you Cuteoverload.com for my daily squeeeeeeeeeee!
UPDATE: 2/27/12-I am going to the psychiatrist this afternoon and I am flipping out!!! But, I promise I'm going to push through it and go to my appointment.
 Update: 2/27/12- Holy shit! I got anti-anxiety drugs! Weeeeeeeeee!

Update: 2/28/12- I went to the psychiatrist last night, she was very low-key and I felt comfortable with her, unfortunately, she doesn't do talk therapy, which is something I think I could benefit from and I know I need to start long-term therapy sooner rather than later, and she agreed that I would do well to seek out a therapist. She wrote me a script and I got it filled last night. On my way to work today after reading an article about malfunctioning elevators (probably not the best idea for someone with an elevator phobia) I started freaking out inside. I tried to comfort myself by reminding myself to breathe and that I had a little tablet to take in case. This just got me more anxious. I'd never taken an anti-anxiety before and the thought of starting another drug freaked me out even more. Oh irony, you cheeky bastard. I sucked it up, popped my clonazepam and climbed in the scary elevator of doom in my building. Shaking like a leaf and trying to breathe and not pass out, I survived the elevator ride up nine floors to my office. After a small emotional breakdown, I got settled at my desk, and that bad boy pill kicked the fuck in. I have never been so high in my entire life! Well, I've never been high at all, not counting the morphine drip I had when I was in the ICU 12 years ago after spinal surgery. I freaked out my poor co-worker a bit being high and very uncoordinated (more so than usual) for about 2 hours, and then I settled down and felt really sleepy for the rest of the day.

Update: 2/29/12-I'm not supposed to take my new meds every day since there is a dependency risk, but after yesterday I almost don't want to take it again, that was crazy! Crazy, and a little awesome. Good news: my anxiety appears to be under control today. Bad news: the doom cloud is taking its sweet-ass time dissipating.

Balls.