No Sense, No Connection

http://www.zerochan.net/1965969#full

These days whenever an utterance escapes my lips and becomes lost forever, I feel as though I'm a shade behind everything else. It's the queerest feeling, to feel as if there's a glass wall that reduces my voice to mere muffled sounds even though the person I'm talking to is peering right at me through the barrier. Whatever I say doesn't seem to be of consequence at all - words take off like distant planes and fade into nothingness like vapour. 

The more I realise this, the more I just don't feel like struggling. I end up feeling relieved when all I need to do is to listen to what others have to say and reacting to them. Yet I feel as though I've been stripped of some sort of ability, which makes me feel a little helpless and removed from the flow of events with time. I'm just a spectator, silently watching from the distance. 

My words no longer carry meaning and convey my feelings. I make no sense, and I'm unable to connect with others. I feel like two entities in one - a ventriloquist and his dummy. I am superficial, insincere, and dead. 

Even though I've somehow lost a subtle part of my ability to communicate like how I used to be able to, I try to cover it up on the surface. Smile harder, maybe laugh a bit more. Insert more reactive phrases that essentially mean nothing beyond sounds of acknowledgement. Silence? Ask questions, anything - just make sure they keep talking, and that they never stop. It feels like I'm running and running, like a hamster in its wheel.

I'm sure people can sense how I'm not connecting properly with them. The impressions you derive from conversations are sensitive and ever-changing subtly like feeling the temperature in a room. Yet because socialisation is essentially a process of negotiation where parties test the waters and tread carefully in different ways through a minefield of etiquette and sensitivity, they still continue to try and talk to me, probably thinking that they were the ones who took the wrong turn.

I wonder if this phase is temporary.