Desperately lonely is a place I find myself in a lot lately. Stable and functional. Yet disconnected, discontent, and dissatisfied with my life. Depressed, sad and lonely. If I told my psychologist I felt desperately lonely, her response would probably be something like, "Well that's very strong, dramatic and emotive language..." and then proceed to navigate me to more positive waters. Yet when I hear her response, I interpret it as 'let's tone it down a bit and look at the situation with some pragmatism'. I have never been particularly adept at approaching my emotions with pragmatism, is anyone really though? Even though I have managed to appear stoic and contained in the face of adversity and some very sad circumstances life has thrown my way. It didn't mean I felt the emotions of those circumstances to a lesser degree. In fact I think trying to contain everything, meant all those emotions and feelings concentrated and each time something significantly challenging came along, all these feelings just became stockpiled in a dark corner of my mind. Stock piling stuff does not help. "Bottling it up" is a good analogy, albeit an old school one. I relate more to stockpiling, because every now and again I would go and sit in the stockpile and be sad. And then I just became sad all the time. I almost cried in Aldi this morning. Thankfully not when the very nice checkout guy made small talk and told me to "have a nice day". I wavered then, easily could have burst in tears and declared, "my depression rains all over my nice days, but thank you". But I didn't. I instead retreated to the packing table and quietly held off the tsunami of tears while packing cereal and toilet paper. I held it back while I walked towards the automatic doors, stepped outside, paused and put my sunglasses on. Then the stream began. It became a flood when I got to my car and loaded up the groceries. And when I got in my car, it was face in hands ugly crying. Why? Why am I like this?
The last couple of days have been tough. Fred bounced all over my life again. Fred is the name I give my panicky episodes. Fred is a jerk. Low-level anxiety with a dose of depression is much simpler to manage without Fred. But occasionally he comes to the party, uninvited and ready for mayhem. Though upon reflection, I believe my depression is getting worse these past few weeks. There is this hopelessness and meaningless and bleakness that has surrounded me in a fog. When I read Johann Hari's book Lost Connections, he described his depression as though pain was leaking out of him. I can relate to that, I feel like pain and sadness have been leaking out of me for months. Where do I turn off the tap? Can I replace the leaky tap? Can it leak happiness and joy instead please?
I feel like I am working really hard to get better. Each day I can function is a gift. And I am thankful for the functional days.
But the loneliness is making me sad. And when you're depressed and lonely and sad, you're not in the best place to socialise or try to make friends. Even though I feel lonely, I do crave alone time. With a family as hectic and busy as mine, you're rarely alone. The time to gather my thoughts is important and it's tough to do that in context of our family life. I guess that's why I blog now. It has become an important part of processing all this mental and emotional instability. I am hoping that one day it can shift into a more positive and optimistic place to ramble on about my mind universe. But not just yet.
Whenever I am having tough moments, my three year old has a way of helping me push through. She will do something cute or hurt herself and need me to settle and soothe her. Or she will just want me to play with her endlessly. It is exhausting. But I realise in those moments, that she has had the least amount of time in this world. And she needs her Mum to not fall off that cliff. All my children do. They are all a tether that keeps me here, stopping me from falling off the cliff. When will it all get less hard? When will it all make sense?
I find myself watching all these motivational and spiritual speakers. Some are helpful and some lead you down a path that makes you question whether they are as delusional as you are amidst your mental illness. Do you need to be somewhat delusional to believe in a higher power, a faith in God, a divine source? Some of these people talk of light beings and being descended from aliens, as matter of factly as they would talk of grass being green. It's oddly weird. And who am I to know and question their beliefs. It's all on scale of preposterousness, isn't it? Your God couldn't possibly exist, because my God exists type stuff. I don't have the answers. My breakdown has me pondering all these things. I have faith in something. But I don't quite know what that something is. I don't think you can know God, so much as feel God. It's like trying to describe the taste of water or something. The space between all things. I know I need more of it in my life. But sometimes going down the rabbit hole messes with my psyche. And my sanity has been a fraying thread this year, I don't need to drop a God anvil on it at the moment and question all the things. Anyway. Loneliness is a bit of an epidemic. I heard a quote that loneliness is the absence of self, or something like that. Which kind of makes sense for me. My whole self has been entangled with this mothering caper for awhile now. Hopefully I can find ways to feel less lonely as I go about disentangling myself a wee bit. There is a thread of me amongst this mess somewhere.
Comments