Tag: mental health

Healing Is Ugly

Bones

I always had this romanticised view of healing – it would be a long journey filled with cups of tea and staring broodingly out windows at beautiful views. There would be journalling, organisers, tidiness and order as I put my life back together. Maybe some perfectly placed Himalayan salt lamps.

I now see that as a very superficial healing. It’s pretty, but utterly insubstantial. And impractical. I would love to be able to organiser my way to a nicely balanced life, but the healing required goes straight to rock bottom.

I am scraping the bedrock within myself, the depth light dares not touch. I have spiralled down through the need to be productive; I have waved at the trauma of spousal abuse as I plummeted by; I have touched the deep childhood wounds. Now I stare up at them all, indistinct shapes in the murk of my psyche.

Dishes pile up. The same clothes are worn, day in and out. Showers become an ordeal. I lie on the couch and my vertebrae sink, heavier than stone. My body cannot help but follow.

This, too, is part of healing. It’s the ugly, crushing depression that comes when you feel safe enough to feel. That lifetime catches up with us all eventually. Embrace it. Sit with it. Learn the texture of your grief, the flavour of your rage; they are a part of you after all.

I will build myself back up, but for now I will learn the cracks in my bedrock. This, too, is a part of healing.

Still Walking To Wellness

Bones

It has been a number of years since I have last posted. I have moved again, once again to the other end of the country, once again to a place where I live with no one but myself and my animals. But lately I have been thinking of this platform, and the fact that in a very real way, I still need it.

I started this blog in a very bad headspace. I began it at the start of my journey of disability, ,as a way to get things out into the world and off my chest. As I got what I thought was better, I stopped posting as much. Turns out the only thing I got better at was squashing down my thoughts and feelings.

Now I have room to grow once again. I have room to think, express myself, and contemplate without external stress. I am taking this as an opportunity to work through the thoughts and behaviours of a lifetime, with a view to improving myself going forward, bit by slow bit. And that, for me, involves understanding where those thoughts and behaviours came from and why I used them to survive.

So I shall return to active writing, once more documenting my (very slow) walk to wellness in the hopes of comforting other people that they are not alone in their struggles.

All Beginnings Begin With An Ending

Bones

I find myself on the floor, in the fetal position, alarmingly often these days. Much has happened in the last several years, and honestly, I haven’t felt able to really communicate it, either here or to friends, let alone to family. It’s as if I am paralysed by something, the words stopping before they can fully form and trickle down my fingers to the keyboard.

But now I am at an ending. I am packing up my home, the one I have lived in for the last 5 years, and moving to the other end of the country. I am packing up my treasures.

I am packing up the lie of a joined life I have lived for over half a decade. I am realising, in packing, how separate, how alone, I have been, living with the human I thought the world of.

I am packing up the ashes of the pets I have lost. Their mementos. A halter here, a collar there. That chair that my old cat vomited on so many times I just gave up and put a sheepskin down.

And now I am at a beginning. I am moving into my own home, one I will share with no other human, for the first time in my life. I am moving into a rural environment, where I see naught but paddocks out my windows, for the first time in my life. I am moving to a new city because I want to move there, for the first time in my life.

All beginnings begin with an ending. I am mourning the ending so that I may fully embrace the beginning.

Anxiety and Decision Paralysis

Bones

I am regularly overwhelmed with a feeling that, after many years, I have realised is severe anxiety. It is a restless, painful feeling. It constricts my chest and tightens my stomach and sets my mind spinning in useless circles.

I can only describe it as a feeling of wanting to do something, wanting to do everything, but wanting to do nothing. It results in me sitting on the couch doomscrolling Facebook. I think of all these things I’d like to do – play that game I’ve got, write a bit, go for a walk, clean (literally anything) – and my immediate and very visceral reaction to everything is ‘no, I don’t want to‘.

It is a feeling I am overly familiar with. It’s something I experienced quite intensely during my relationship with It. It’s something I continue to experience today, although I do have to admit it’s nowhere near as bad as it used to be. It’s also a feeling I really struggle to break out of.

I’ve realised over the years that this feeling is tied to how well I am managing to stay on top of the things I must do (whether that’s work or university), as well as how often I have been outside in the last few days. Which, right now, is not at all and not at all respectively. I’ve been unwell with the non-COVID-flu-like-thing (well, so far I’ve tested negative) for the last 1 1/2 weeks, so I’ve been inside and not attending lectures for all that time.

On these days I usually realise I’m going to be dissatisfied with anything productive that I do, or I’ll be irritated while I do it, so I dumpling up on the couch with a good book (or, more recently, a suitably trashy regency romance manga) and write the day off as a loss. I also typically have the lounge wide open to let the fresh air in.

Unfortunately it’s winter and, as I just realised, everyone is running fires. So I’m now well smoked out. Oh well. Back to trashy manga, and stay safe everyone!

Farewell to 2021

Bones

I won’t look back on 2021 with fondness, and I won’t sugarcoat it by highlighting the few silver linings. I will mention them, but I will not say “they make the bad things worth it” because, to be honest, they don’t.

2021 sucked. It was hard, it was painful, it was stressful and expensive. I was diagnosed with postural hypotension, and discovered that I would convulse if the almost-fainting episode was severe enough (I suspect this is convulsive syncope, but there’s no real way to diagnose it, unless I have an observed episode). I was dismissed by doctors for both that and my munted wrist.

My narcissistic ex-husband finally sorted out paying me (and my mother) for his debt / things he borrowed, and while that was great, the nightmares I experienced during this were something else. At least now I can file for divorce.

I gained and spent a small fortune. I’m still kicking myself for spending that much. I have so many regrets about that it physically pains me to think about it. I still don’t know how.

Because of my ruptured triangular fibrocartilage complex, I was unable to attend university last year. I was also unable to work. Unable to knit, crochet, write. I became very depressed, which resulted in me becoming one with the couch for the majority of the year. I gained another 8kg.

I had surgery for my ruptured triangular fibrocartilage complex at the start of November. They found a lot more damage than they expected. They repaired a ligament connecting the medial and proximal carpal bones in my right wrist, admired the joint capsule I had busted up, and took a redundant ligament from my inner wrist to become my new ECU sheath. Since late December I have been permitted to begin moving my wrist, though it remains sore and stiff. The scar tissue adheres to the underlying tissue so quickly, I must keep massaging the extensive scarring to break down those bonds.

There were bright spots in 2021. I got away to the beach for a bit with the dogs. I have increased my energy levels considerably. I’ve worked hard to gain more fitness and strength. I have made it to the end of 2021 with the same number of animals as I went in.

I will work hard to make sure 2022 is a better year than the last one.