peaceful and mostly calm and fighting for my life

July 27, 2011 by innerlight 2 Comments

It’s been a while since i’ve posted on this blog — one, i’ve been posting and processing on various forums for mental health, and journaling on moodtracker.com; two, for the most part, what i have been experiencing has been less acutely dramatic. I’ve been inbetween everything. And, I still feel like i’m waiting for … well, what am i waiting for? and in order to do what? I’m not sure. What inspired me to post tonight was the revelation that I want so desperately from others the feedback that no one wants to give. I want to have the wounded part of me validated, confirmed, defined. I want to know how i really came across in my now-ended era. Did people see any of the struggle that has been going on inside of me, or “am i crazy”. ! What a crazy thing to say!  But it’s so true. I’ve written some key players in my life. One person responded with a quick one-liner, which was supportive, but so brief as to feel a little like being brushed off. After a few days of contemplation, I responded by asking this person if they ever thought I might be a little unstable, or mentally ill. This is what i so desperately want to know. But of course, I heard nothing back. No one wants to be the one to say yes, I think you’re mentally ill, and your diagnosis fits. Who wants to say that? That little dialogue is a good example of the hesitance i feel from so many people I have worked with — that they are hesitant to involve themselves with me at all. If i choose to believe that, and take it to be the (unspoken as it may be) answer that I have been looking for, yes, I can run with that, and feel a sense of clarity and direction for healing. The “but” is that it relies on an assumption on my part about how others are feeling. So what is real? This is what i keep coming back to.

The good part lately has been being away from all that, getting the space to digest and really try to figure out this life-long dilemma of confusion in me, for that is the “insanity” that tears me into strips. Not knowing what is real, what is the truth of me. The air here is so sweet and fresh, the grass is green; there are deer and bunnies and birds and so many meadows, and hot, hot sun. I’ve realized how much I’ve missed suntanning. For the most part, I feel calmer than I have in years. The racing thoughts and panic have finally subsided. There is still the question of accuracy with my diagnosis, and the process of meeting a new psychiatrist and doing another diagnosis process takes time; in the meantime, my assignment is to find a sense of normalacy and rhythm and routine in my life. Ha. The sporadicness in me has really gotten to full heights. No predictability, reliability; easily confused and confounded, lost in my car, forgetting things. Thing is, I have time to get lost and take three hours to go grocery shopping and get completely distracted at Winners or the dollar store or talking to the cosmetician at Shoppers along the way, so that 6 hours later, I actually come home with groceries and a whole lot more. All this on 6 hours of sleep. Hmmmm. Hypomanic? At this point, who’s to say. When i suddenly became the “life-of-the-party” clown character for the evening at a music festival over the weekend and reverted back to my quiet, hesitant and self-conscious self the next day to completely confuse and baffle someone I’d met the night before — what was that? Is that hypomanic? Well, and again, at this point, whose to say. And again, the thing is that I currently have the time and stability to ponder these things, and figure out how to handle myself accordingly in the world with these quarks of mine.

I am resting and reading and suntanning and going to 12-step meetings, and sometimes i am grieving–I realized that today reading Codependent No More by Melody Beattie. What am i grieving? Why do i have a sense of loss. Well, I guess i am grieving the personna I have clung to for so many years and that i have shed like a snake skin. I am truly naked in the world. I am grieving the places of discontinuity with certain people and places, and my long, awkward, agonizing, painful and drawn-out leaving. I feel ashamed of that; yet the thought of hearing that there were others witnessed that in me, lovingly or not, is a comforting thought. It means i really did have a grip on the reality of what was going on, on some deep level of me that really wants to be validated.

I am almost far enough away from the awfulness and the terror to wonder what the heck i got so upset about, and start minimizing the whole thing, and the whole notion of being somehow off balance or ill at all; and yet it has been drilled into me with pain that it is a matter of life and death that i do not do that. Lest i forget; lest i move on without a thorough sweep underneath the rug, extermination, integration of dust mites and closet monsters for without a single doubt, i know that another encounter like the ones I have had would not be survivable.

So i am peaceful and mostly calm and stress free, and yet fighting for my life at the same time, finding the ground somewhere in the great abyss.

Here’s a gift from Yeshe, who I saw live at the music festival i’d mentioned. I wrote about hearing him play:

“The crowd was transcended in the pulse of the universe; most sat rocking with eyes closed, some lied down and stared at the clear blue sky in the hot sun, and a small few of us danced. I could have danced forever, but my feet got burned.”

Peace