Skip to main content

Just Keep Swimming

My mental health has taken a bit of a dive. I feel unstable, wobbly of the mind. Lately I have been thinking, " I could write a suicide letter on my blog. No one would notice. " 
So yeah, not a great thought process to have. Life is a struggle, challenging, relentless. Steam rolling me into the ground, again and again and again. And when I feel like I am clear, far enough to catch my breath, the life steam roller descends and I am squished into the mud of despair once more. 
The thing is, I have been functional, doing really well even. As I have recovered the practical support has dried up. I don't expect to be handheld through life forever, but ongoing support, especially from family surely is not too much to ask? It saddens me that people who profess to love me and my partner and our children, only offer support when everything falls apart. Perhaps our lives wouldn't fall apart if offered consistent, practical support.
Since I began to function like myself again, I have felt even more isolated, lonely, misunderstood, sad and helpless as to how to make life better for myself and my family. My partner has health issues that are becoming increasingly difficult and stressful to contend with. Some of it could be mitigated by him making changes to his diet and routine, but he is stuck in a rut and I think has become apathetic about his situation. So I have to take on more than my fair share of family workload, as there are certain things he can't do and other things he can't be relied upon to actually get done. He is a good man. He looks after me when the sky is falling in. That's probably the reason why his health problems scare me so much. I am afraid to lose him. He's all I've got. Our kids can't take the load of Mum in an episode of mental breakdown and panic. Of course I want him to be well for himself, but I very selfishly want him to be well for me. He very much anchors me to reality when my mind is unwell. 
Recovery won't happen overnight. Relapse is a possibility. I can't express how hard I am working to stay well at the moment. The last resort is my medication bag of tricks, which I haven't needed just yet. But if things keep sliding downhill, I may have to dip in and take a pill to come back down to Earth. 
This shit is hard. It would be hard if you were a single person with a seemingly straight forward life. My life is a spiral slippery dip with balls of chaos and madness thrown down it every second of the day. I coped quite well with all of it until last year. I just want to be well. I want to do something with my life that I love, that brings me joy, that makes my soul sing. 
Right now, I am drowning. And it would be easy just to give up, just to stop it all. 
Dear Me, don't lose your shit now. You can do this. You will get through this. And one day you'll come back here and read this, and you will be glad that you stayed. You're braver than you think, worthy of all the things and have a heart full of love. Just keep swimming.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Crash and Burn

Imagine your walking along a path and then all of a sudden a flash flood furiously catches you off guard and any sense of that path you were walking is now indistinguishable. There is just a raging torrent of dark water propelling you to who knows where. That's a little bit what my panic episodes are like. And when you're amongst that swirling, angry torrent, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that, your environment for the most part is the same. The path is still there, the familiar surroundings are unchanged and when that panic flash flood subsides, those foundations of your life will most likely still be there. It just feels like they're not when all of a sudden your main objective is to keep your head above black, panic water and find something tangible to grasp on to. The relative stability I had been having over the month of June, in spite of all the ridiculous amount of appointments and box ticking monotony, came to a crashing end the last weekend of the month. J...
2 comments
Read more

Chance Encounters

Last week I put my script in at the pharmacy for my "keep Fred in his box" medication. When I went to the counter to pick them up, the man at the counter handed them to me and asked why I was taking them, "There's a few things you can take that for is all", he said. I resisted the urge to blurt out that my brain is broken and that it is an anti-Fred, and just explained it was being used as an antidepressant. He went on to ask if I would be interested in some supplements that could help. "Yeah sure, why not", I said. I figured what could it hurt. He writes down the supplements on a piece of paper, but also walks me through some of the ones available at the pharmacy. The list was for vitamin B, vitamin D, flaxseed oil and probiotics. He also let me know about a book that he recommends and a group that runs seminar type sessions on depression and brain health, among other things. I was very grateful, "Thanks for helping me out. I think I was close t...
2 comments
Read more

Remember Who You Are

Hello my name is Léyanie and 5 weeks ago I was suicidal. Worse than that even, I was panicking and suicidal. And I completely felt unhinged from reality. I wasn't technically psychotic. I had insight into my behaviour and my thinking being terribly wrong and frightening, and uncharacteristic of myself, but I was terrified that I could have easily tipped over to the psychotic and done something dreadful to myself. I required immediate assistance and intervention, I was resigned to the fact that I was probably going to be hospitalized, but I am lucky to have a great doctor and she prescribed medication that helped and I spent a week with my Dad. My family dropped their lives to support me as best they could. My sister was key in that intervention, bundling me up and taking me to my doctor and then dropping me off at Dad's. She checked in everyday with me, as did my great friends, and I am so very thankful for that. What you may not know about this story is that prior to my breakd...
1 comment
Read more