Validation

There is a girl

who cries out at night

and the only thing

that can soothe

her

Fear

Loneliness

Pain

is

Me.

<insert space here>

There is a girl

who knows nothing.

She knows not of

Time

Society

Death

and the only definition

of Love

that she knows

is

Me.

————————————

I’ve been having, as they say in the South, “a time” of things. Usually, the Depression comes in great, heaving waves of endless sorrow and feelings of worthlessness, bringing with it a barrage of loud, relentless reminders as to why I suck and why my life is useless, etc. that simply won’t be swatted away. After tolerating/battling this for months, I suddenly felt myself shut down. For the last three weeks or so, my mind suddenly stopped everything and I found myself in a state of foggy lethargy and aparthy. This resulted in my forcing 600 calories a day (when I remembered or was pressured to eat), and staring blankly at the wall as the hours slipped by, unable to complete simple tasks or basic sentences. After about two weeks of this, the clouds parted and I was able to get out a little, socialize with friends, bathe and put on some makeup and feel a little relief finally. And then I took a tumble into the haze again.

My doctor opted to change up my medication [yet again], and I found myself both in withdrawal AND in this state of elevated depression, which left me completely useless. I attempted to take on the task of running a household and watching my daughter to no avail, and, after a day or so of this, my mother caught wind of my condition and immediately leapt into action, taking over my mothering duties and scrubbing my filthy, neglected house from top to bottom. I fought off long-seeded feelings of guilt and uselessness on relying on my parents to bail me out [yet again] and spent the days sleeping in completely exhausted, painful fatigue. Occasionally I was able to drag myself from bed to a steaming bath, staring through the splotchy green haze of medicinal withdrawal and watching my limbs disappear until I realized I was shivering and the bathwater had turned cold long before I had the clarity to notice. I didn’t check my email, I didn’t pluck my eyebrows (both being manic habits of mine for a little more than a decade), I didn’t bother to read or enrich myself in any way. In fact, the only effort I was able to manage was a smile and forced (forrrrced) enthusiasm when my husband returned home every evening, terrified that he will soon become exhausted with frustration at my perpetual dysfunction.

(I think the thing that pisses me off the most about those people who don’t bother to understand mental illness or depression is their misunderstanding about the dysfunction of it all. To them, doing nothing or staying in bed all day is a choice that is one’s way of disappearing from life, which is simply not the case. If a person is physically incapable of completing thoughts and sentences and is losing track of time as though being stoned, it is nearly impossible to pull together enough clear cognitive progress to will one’s body out of stasis. It isn’t the same as being in post-breakup mode where a depressed person lies in bed all day and sobs over old love notes and mementos; it is a real disability that is part of the whole “mental illness” diagnosis. I digress.)

Today there is movement and a sense of independence again as my doctor has put me back on the amphetamines that allow me some energy, albeit artificial. I still feel as though I have nothing of use to write about, but I am forcing myself to do so in order to keep my recovery moving forward. (And yes, this entry has taken me an hour to write, whereas it would ordinarily take me twenty minutes. I am having to retype sentences and proofread to catch my incoherencies.) Today I am showering, putting on makeup, and leaving the house to meet a friend for lunch. This, I know, doesn’t sound like a productive day to many, but I feel it is a vast improvement from the blurry suspended reality of this last week.

My mind is quiet for now. For the first time in literal years, I am not bombarded with constant doubt and worry, I am not hearing my inner Opponent laugh at my intentions, I am not shirking away from forward movement because my relentless neuroses convince me that I’m worthless. I am not beating myself up for making my parents and loved ones carry me through my dark times or clean up my mental mess. I’m not raking myself over the coals for all the mistakes I ever made to anyone ever. This, too, is a major improvement on a number of levels.

But something still doesn’t feel right. I feel this sudden emptiness, like a veil has been lowered to keep me from feeling anything. Perhaps this is another stage in recovery, my mind shutting down and resting before slowly allowing itself the freedom of emotion again. Maybe this is The Hermit card incarnate, when I’m supposed to hibernate and store energy for the next chapter of my recovery instead of wrestling with the demons in hopes that they’ll be forced into submission.

Thankfully, however, there’s a tiny inkling of hope that has returned, which is the biggest relief of all. For the past few weeks, the apathy and lethargy has hosted a belief system of hopelessness, which was the most intolerable of all emotion. Even in my darkest moments of the past, there has always been a notion of hope. Even sitting in a mental hospital amongst the other crazies, I still believed there was a life better than this, a reality just out of my reach where claircognizance and functionality were a part of life. The daunting idea that this would always evade me, that there was no point to any of this, no use for any of our society or recovery or progress, no hope in any form for any one person or people was too much to bear. I don’t know where this sense of renewed hope and worth has come from suddenly, but I will consider it another blessing and not delve too far into my Higher Power’s motives in returning it to me.