Time moves slowly, and still I can't quite keep up.
Some things haven't changed much. The house was a mess before the hospital, and it's still a mess now. I was behind at work then. I'm behind at work now. I felt out-of-touch with tracking the kids' lives, friends, joys and fears then, and I still feel out-of-touch now. I worried I was leaning too much on my friends then, and I worry about it now.
Some things have changed. I couldn't see anything but this emergency exit before. Suicide was a foregone conclusion. It was just a matter of time and perseverance. I was in an oppressively small and dark and soulless room. But now... Now the room is a little bigger. A little brighter. Sometimes there are other people in the room with me. Sometimes this sense of peace creeps in around the edges, and I can loosen my grip on the incapacitating fear of abandonment and chasmal self-loathing. I can just be. Sometimes.
I'm trying to do the good stuff every day. The showering, getting out of bed, working, engaging with the world stuff. The taking my medicine and scheduling appointments with the therapist and the psychiatrist and the general practitioner and the other therapist and the orthodontist (Evelyn. Different long and whiny story) and the endocrinologist (Gideon). The cleaning. Exercising. And most days, I can do it pretty well. I can even go easy on myself for not living up to my own infuriatingly impossible standards. Sometimes.
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| Sometimes, breathing and beating one's heart is enough. (Fabulous figure from Hyperbole and a Half, obviously) |
I have felt so much love from so many people, and I haven't really responded in full to any of you, but know that I appreciate it. Thanks for taking the risk and talking about it. Even if you weren't sure what to say. It's weird talking about messy stuff. It's hard and there's no script. But thank you. It's surprised me how one message or text or email grounds me so well. Of course I know I have friends and family out there in the world, and I know I'm part of family and friend groups who love each other unconditionally, but sometimes I can't get to the feeling it part. So when I see a message in my inbox, I always have this moment of, "Oh yeah, THIS person! I love this person!"
Sometimes I feel like an atomic bomb detonated. And the atomic bomb was me. And it didn't kill the people closest to me when it all happened, but there was definitely some radiation damage. I didn't mean to be an atomic bomb, and everyone knows that, but still I was. So I've been re-entering these relationships with Jonathan and the kids and the friends who were right in the mess when things started to unravel. There is frustration and pain and forgiveness and love. There are long conversations and even longer pre- and post- self-analysis of conversations. There is wishful thinking involving either (a) running far, far away in a complete avoidance of all perceived problems, or (b) speeding up how quickly I can "get over" this whole thing and not quite so obsessively analyze every interaction and want to discuss myself ad nauseum. All of it makes me feel frail and scared.
It's a curious process, accommodating these experiences into an understanding of myself - who I was and am and want to be. Things go in and out of focus, and I can see these dots to connect but I can't quite connect them yet. So for now, I'm trying to trust the process and be gentle with me and be patient with the people I love.
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