Diary: The Incredible Shrinking Man

[Content warning: mental health, shrinking manhood]

Dear Diary,

I’ve lost weight, quite a lot actually, but it seems my physicality isn’t the only thing that has diminished.

I remember watching the 1957 classic ‘The Incredible Shrinking Man’ when I was very young and very impressionable. Filmed in black and white, it has that old school melodrama, and there’s even a trailer voice-over by Orson Welles.

Directed by sci-fi legend Jack Arnold, and starring Grant Williams, it tells the tale of Scott Carey, who is covered by a strange mist while out on a boat. He later begins to shrink, a little at first so his clothes no longer fit, then more progressively until he’s so small he’s fighting off the cat and eventually a ‘giant' spider. A gripping adventure, but also deeply troubling. 

The reason I remember it so well is because of the emotional trauma. At first he doesn’t know what’s happening, and then he worries about his marriage, which begins to deteriorate as he gets smaller and more morose. The world starts seeing him as a freak, and eventually everyone thinks the cat ate him.

When I look back on my own health situation and relationship over the the past few years, the similarities are such that it’s perfectly possible a strange mist engulfed me too while out walking on the hill. It might also explain why I’m very uncomfortable around cats.

My shrinkage began with my diminishing capacity to understand, engage with, and cope with others. Not that this was ever natural or easy for me, but it became more difficult and more stressful until I just couldn’t do it, and I didn’t know why. It affected my employment and my relationship, and eventually caused the collapse of both. 

And so I got smaller - in stature, self-worth, and in my joie de vivre. Then I started to lose weight, and my clothes no longer fitted.

I had peaked at 102 kg (16 stone / 225 lbs). The consequence of an increasingly sedentary lifestyle exacerbated by working from home following Covid, and a careless and somewhat irregular diet. Middle age and the comforts of married life certainly didn’t help.

Without a conscious effort or plan, and after about two years, I settled at around 85 kg (13.4 stone / 187 lbs). Still big enough to fend off spiders, but now walking about in oversized clown trousers.

It feels like there’s a bit more space inside my head now too. More room to contemplate and digest a new understanding about myself and my natural limitations. There’s less noise and oppression, and fewer daily demands, which combined have greatly reduced the mental load.

Like Carey, I’m slowly coming to terms with my new reality. For me it’s a simpler, less complicated life, but it’s not without its own challenges, including an uncertain future, which casts a shadow over me like a giant obstacle.

Writing and drawing helps, as do close friends, old and new, that know my situation and support me anyway. So maybe, unlike the movie, there just might be some grounds for optimism.

The film concludes with Carey, less than an inch tall, alone at night in the garden, completely diminished in every way and fading into nothingness. It filled my younger self with wide-eyed horror.

In a futile attempt to dull the sense of utter hopelessness and fragility, Carey, resigned to his fate, declares, “To God there is no zero. I still exist”.

Well, at this point in his story, it’s probably too little too late.

Diary