Introduction
I have written so many words to avoid the things I actually need to say. Because what I need to say will have consequences. It will mean that I need to change my life, that I have now come to a point that I see my worth, that I can see myself as being successful, achieving my personal goals and desires, which are not unreasonable. I would like what most people want, to earn a good income so I can keep a roof over my head and keep my family (in my case two cats and a small dog) fed. Have my health back which was cruelly stolen by forces that I could not see, but were all around me. This is my journey from what I thought I should be, my fall, a small climb, another fall. I am not on the summit yet what I understand now is that you don't get to stay at the top for long, its about being able to maintain some stability and stamina to get through the times which are uphill struggles and not lose yourself too much in the good times. I have learnt that life is about balance, everything in moderation, enjoy it while you can, be kind to others. Mostly be present in the moment and check in regularly with myself to see where I am, if I want to be there, are things okay? So few people live in the moment and get lost in a world of everyday tasks which don't seem enjoyable. Things seem like a grind, like you cannot catch a break, like life is unfair and these bad things can only be happening to you. Its not to say that bad things are not happening, but the key is to overcome those negative thoughts, to replace them with positive behaviors, simple things that you enjoy. Sitting in the sun for a moment to feel the warmth on your skin. Having a warm bath and taking time to wash and cleanse yourself. Without sounding to LA meditating, just taking a moment to be in the moment. Discovering mindfulness and that it is so simple to learn about how to control yourself with your breathe. The exercise is simple the practice is long, but it is so beneficial. This is a journey to simple and normal and peaceful that is all I want. Because what bad times teach us, is that good times are made of the simple things, hugs and affection and laughter. That is what makes us human that is happiness.
I am now at a point in my recovery where I am able to look back without the trauma being to much to cope with. I can look at myself with empathy and kindness without the heavy cloak of darkness which was once all around (and still is sometimes). I have dozens of journals from my journey from hell and back and yet to this point I have been too afraid to read them. For fear that the darkness may pull me back. I hope to now look at them with a view to find any use that others might find helpful in their own plight. If one person can feel as if a hand has come out of the darkness to guide them in anyway, if any part of my journey can give comfort I pray that my words find them. There are so many of us, we are a tribe we are just too isolated to find each other. But much of the recovery is about reflection and most of the time it does require isolation. I like to think of myself as an emerging butterfly. I am not quite out, I have pushed my leg out a little bit of my cocoon and I am feeling about in the dark, but I am not yet sure of what is out there and where I might end up.
That is why it is so important for me to track this part of my journey. Where I can still see both sides. My therapist (who is amazing) tells me that I am currently on a sinking boat in the ocean. It is no longer fit for purpose and yet I still cling on. There is another boat in the distance and it looks beautiful and sea worthy and yet I don't know how far it is, I am unsure of whether I will make it and when I get there I am afraid of what I might find. So at this time I am clinging onto my wreckage, my illness no longer defines me, it is something which I now need to manage. But I am grown apart from it, and I can finally see that. If I do not write, I with either recover and forget how important it was to remember. Or I will keep afloat, adrift in the dark lonely ocean, merely surviving until I finally sink.
If I can help others in their suffering, even just one person. Even just you. Or perhaps a family member or a friend can have something resonate, that is worth the fear of revealing myself and everything that happened to me will all have been worth it. I will have taken something bad and made it into something good.
It is my understanding that the meaning of life is the 'passing down of knowledge', I also believe this will be an amazing healing experience for myself and will assist me in building the confidence I require in my ability to swim to my new beautiful boat. My story isn't special, nor particularly unique, but it is a journey that was longer than I expected, it was far more difficult than I can possibly explain to someone during a normal conversation. And has lead me to a point which is better than I ever thought was possible. I have changed, over and over and become the person I always wanted to be, throughout battling depression and anxiety I have been stripped down and humbled to my core. I know now who I am and I also know what I want from my life. I also know far more about life in general than I ever knew before.
Whilst my writing is for myself I would love to think that others can benefit from the lessons that I have learned. Perhaps they can read my words in times of darkness and understand they are not alone. That it Is not them, it is the illness. That they are separate, that this darkness is not who they are. That there are ways to live with it, and possibly even escape it.
It is hard to describe to another person, your feelings when you are in crisis or panic or just having a regular bad day. As frustrating as it may be for the people around them, the person that is going through it is in a state of perpetual pain. On a scale of survival, daily tasks, simple outings will become overwhelming to them. They will be tired all the time, to the point of exhaustion. They may not be able to take care of themselves in the way they would like to, not because they are lazy but because they cannot move physically from their bed. Their self esteem is so low and the day seems too hostile to bare. It much easier to exist in the safe space they will create for themselves which can be controlled so that they can keep calm. That is what happened to me, it was gradual. I didn't notice what was happening at first, when I found myself feeling as if something was wrong, I didn't know what was causing it. And by the time I realised what was causing it, it found that it was everything. All the signs in my body telling me I was doing too much, or that my friends were causing me stress I didn't need, or that I was in an abusive relationship and had way of realising how damaging it was to my being. Or that my toxic workplace was also causing me to doubt and despise myself in a professional capacity. So when I struggled to conceive a baby, that was the flame that was thrown into the kindling that was me at that time. And I collapsed,the pavement slabs which were once solid beneath my feet started to crack slowly, the cracks forming deeper and longer until the slab I was standing on shattered under my feet. I fell through, into the darkness, a bottomless free fall into confusion and despair. I had what would be described as a nervous breakdown.
I do not know how I managed to get myself home that day, feeling as if my feet were made of concrete I placed both hands on the banister of the tube station to walk down the stairs to the terminal. It was busy, rush hour, people hussled and busled all around me, yet I knew I was invisible. Even if I had asked for help I doubt any would have come to my aid. I reached the map on the wall. The journey to and from my tube stop to the train station had disappeared in a fog in my head. A journey which I made twice a day was something I needed to check like a tourist on the tube map. It was a jumble of rainbow snakes, it made little, to no sense to me at this point, but finally I did find my location on the map. I placed my fingertip firmly on where I was and eventually found where I wanted to go. After what seemed like forever I planned my route home and I cannot remember anything else until the next morning when I walked to the Doctors.
Having booked an emergency appointment, knowing that something was quite horribly wrong inside me, I walked the less than one mile to the surgery from my home. The thing that really stuck out to me about this walk was when I saw an old wire camp bed leaning up against the front of a house, put there I assumed for a trip to the tip. I cannot remember whether I simply glanced at it or whether it had caught my eye for a while, but I imagined the wires stabbing into my skin and knotting inside my arms. I imagined that the wires were crawling back out of my body, and up it and strangling me, getting tighter. I imagined me haunted and covered in blood, in crisis and panic and not knowing what was happening to me or what to do next. And that torturous visualisation, which I almost felt like I could feel physically can still to this day be recalled. What was happening? Because whilst the wires may be in my mind, the rest was true I had fallen into the abyss. Still I was glad it was sunny.
By the time I got to the doctors I was happy that there were electronic log in screens so I did not have to speak, I had so many words in my mouth, but I had no idea what order they would come out. I certainly did not need, an audience for my mental word vomit, which I would inevitably spew, the first time I opened my mouth. Having reported my arrival, I sat directly in front of the digital sign which would be the thing I needed to concentrate on next. Just stare at the little sign and wait for my name. And breathe. And wait. The next thing I remember is being in the small office with the nice, young female doctor, which was refreshing. Someone whose first language was English so I could follow the conversation and know that she was understanding me also. She had short hair, and behind her on a coat peg, hung a bright yellow rain coat. I imagined what her home life was like. Was she coping? Was it just me that was not? I had started to believe that nobody was stable, which made me feel less stable. That everyone around me was collapsing, because everything around me was. I opened my mouth and started to tell my story. I spoke for a long time. The buzzer on her desk kept going off, an alarm to tell her the next patient was due, and she was overrunning with my appointment. And yet she, she did not let that distract her from me telling my long and emotional tale of woe. I was grateful that she was genuinely listening to me and giving me the time I needed. If only talking therapy with a health professional, face to face, was available to all people that required it.
Finally the doctor gave her response to my desperate plea to make me feel better, and it was not what I wanted to hear. She told me that there was no magic pill and it suddenly dawned on me that I was going to have to cope with feeling this way. Not just for another day, or night or week, but that, as she said it was a 'process'. I asked her, 'what is happening to me?' she told me that it 'sounds like you are having a breakdown due to stress'. Yeah okay lady, I thought, she does not know me, she does not know that I am fit and active and accomplished, surely this was not happening to me?
Months prior to my falling through the pavement (nervous breakdown) and my subsequent visit to the doctors, I was having lunch with my two best friends, one of them was talking about the fact that her sister was no longer able to go to the hairdressers alone due to anxiety and that she had been signed off, as unfit to work in her amazing job as an architect. She was a young healthy professional. I, being a curious kitty wanted to understand why, what was it that scared her? Could she identify the thing that was causing her fear and anxiety? Little did I know that the answer to my question of what was it that scared her, was everything. Everything now would feel impossible. That was the answer to my question. She was able to manage and with family support and a bit of therapy and medication she was able to come back. She now has a lovely life and is married with a lovely house and lovely husband. Knowing people that have come back from the kind of condition that has taken hold of you completely, to the point that you cannot attend the most basic of appointments gives me hope. It really does make me feel true happiness for her, she is a kind woman and deserves only the things that she dreams of. Of course what I know, now, is so am I. Anyway I digress, back to the Doctors office. I asked 'how long will it take for me to feel better?' She smiled softly, yet shook her head. And informed me that it was a process. That 'it would not be easy', and that, 'as long as it took to get me into this place, will be as long as it takes to get out of it'. The news was obvious and yet devastating. This place that I was in at the moment, was not habitable, it was hostile and prickly, I could not imaging spending at significant period there and survive. One thing was clear, I had no idea where my downfall had started, therefore, I would have no way of knowing just how long my recovery would be.
I would spend the next several years correcting my course, retrieving past memories and trauma, crafting a tool kit to calm and care for myself to ensure I survived. Had someone told me that day that you will experience joy again, I would not have believed them. Anything less than darkness was gone, there was no light, no hope. And yet now I do feel joy (not every day, lets be real), but it happens. I can make joy happen by appreciating the small things. Playing with my dog, grooming the cats. Chatting to my Mum, spending time with friends, going for a walk, doing yogalates (its a thing, its really good for you!). I have found a space that is warm again, that is inviting, that is safe and that is mine. But this place is not just isolation, it is living. At least some days, I am living. And those days are wonderful.
My old self is no more she has not been seen since, the last time I saw her was when she fell down a pavement at Piccadilly Circus.
