hsphaven

It is a fight, like being hit by wave after wave, barely able to catch a breath before I am knocked under again. I had perhaps two better days this week, but my depression is not done with me. I feel it tugging at my legs again. Yesterday I told my therapist that I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff. I am doing a little better, but I am cm’s away from falling once again. I feel a strange sense of fear when things are better because it makes me realise just how bad things were, and I’m scared of being back there again. Unfortunately things tend to turn again within a few days, not even that.

What does it look like when in the gripes of my depression? It’s feeling damaged beyond repair. It’s believing death is the only way out, and making elaborate plans to end my life, or just wishing I’d get a terminal illness and die. It’s not being able to take my mind off the things that are wrong with my body or the world. It’s withdrawing from friends and lashing out at the people I live with for not leaving me alone. It’s having nothing to look forward to. It’s blaming myself for losing my case worker. It’s getting headaches and other mysterious pains. It’s not being able to make any decisions, whether big or small. It’s being bound to the bed or the TV/computer, watching every episode of “Paramedics” to pass the time, no longer living but just trying to survive each day. It’s going through all my playlists trying to find a song that sparks something in me, but finding I can no longer enjoy music… it is just meaningless noise now. It’s wanting to cry all the time but not being able to. It’s eating too much or too little. It’s sleeping too much or too little. I was hoping to get a new script for sleeping pills today, but the medication is monitored by a government system which has flagged me “red” because of some other medications I were prescribed. I am furious because I had been doing all the right things like getting the sleeping pills from the same doctor and waiting a few months before requesting them again. I do not abuse the medication and don’t take it every night yet it doesn’t take much for the system to class you “red”. My mum said she got classed “amber” merely because she was given a script for some strong painkillers when in hospital, even though she never filled it. Now I will have to suffer months of myoclonic jerks/shocks, distress and insomnia at night. Well who really knows how long I will be “red” for, but last time it was 3 months. Life is just fucking shit all round.

I do get a bit of seasonal depression. I am grieving for my case worker and it doesn’t help that it’s set against the backdrop of fall with all the leaves falling and the sun going away. I am sensitised to loss, and that is why I broke down this evening. I bought this doll (the one on the left):

The artist made another one and had them sitting together in the gallery as though they were family. Then she took this photo. She uploaded it to Facebook, and wrote “oh my darlings”. She has a massive following and someone asked for more photos of them together, to which she replied that they’d been separated now. It just triggered this massive reaction in me and I started crying, my lip trembling. I said I’m willing to bring my one in to hang out in the gallery, see his brother and Mum, and have more photos. I asked the artist if she’d consider keeping the one that’s left, but she makes a living off them. I don’t know who’s going to buy his brother. I’m really hoping it’s another kind local who sees him in the gallery and falls in love. My dad said that the same kind of people will be drawn to these dolls: sensitive, artsy folk. So at least I can be assured that he will probably go to a good, loving home, and we will all be connected through our shared sensitivity and the way we have all warmed to this artist’s creativity. I am touched that people were asking for more photos of the two dolls together. There are more people like me out there who are soft hearted.

There was a quote I had in mind for this post, and I will finish with it.

“I asked the leaf whether it was scared because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was very alive. I worked hard and helped nourish the tree, and much of me is in the tree. Please do not say that I am just this form, because the form of leaf is only a tiny part of me. I am the whole tree. I know that I am already inside the tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. That’s why I do not worry. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon.'” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh