Chaos, Emotion, and A Glimpse

Emotions are a tricky thing.

A little over three years ago I felt okay. I was still struggling with a bipolar diagnosis and finding my own unique degree of “normal”… but I felt like overall, I was starting to get things together. Life was busy and I was keeping up – full time job, four busy kids, the entire family moving every direction with activities, and a marriage that needed work but that was dedicated. It wasn’t perfect, but I did feel like I was starting to get a handle on things – that if I worked a little harder, and pushed through the rough times a little stronger, than it would be okay… I would conquer the madness.

Even though I knew it was stressful and a struggle to move, I never would have imagined that just a few short months after moving I would find myself in one of the darkest places that I had ever been – in essence the start of a roller coaster of a recovery journey. The emotions that floated around my head had always been extreme, but as I began to travel a new road, research my illness’s, and take off the many masks that I had always worn; I found that I no longer knew how to handle anything – let alone the emotions that ran rampant through my brain, fluctuating with little warning, sending me down twisting paths that always felt like they were trying to trip me up.

 

Three years ago I posted on Facebook, trying to make my life seem exciting and good – showing off our new home that we were settling into and bragging about the beauty of living in the country; I was trying to make it seem like an adventure that I fully intended to not only participate in, but to enjoy. And yet just yesterday, I found myself curled up in the corner – struggling to breathe as I battled emotions so intense that I felt like I had been propelled right back to the beginning of my journey. As I fought through my emotions and worked through the steps that I have learned to bring myself back to the present I grew overwhelmed – upset, frustrated, and confused – over both how far I have come, and how far I have left to go.

Just yesterday, I found myself wondering if it was worth it… if I would ever be the vision of “normal” that I have spent years aiming to be.

And then I was okay again. My mood bounced back up. I smiled… I cuddled… I played with my kids… I felt hope and motivation. I felt good – even if it was only for a brief few minutes before the chaos resumed inside my head.

And throughout the day I used up my strength – my inner monologues and my conscience fighting amongst itself. I used up my patience and my own understanding – I used up my own pool of excess emotion to propel myself through dinner, through conversation, and through the evening with the family. By the time that bedtime arrived, my head hurt and my brain would not shut down. Things people said – the way that I reacted – the things that I did and felt and said and saw… it all replayed on repeat. My emotions swirled back up and as the exhaustion settled in, I wasn’t sure that I could bother to repeat the steps and the process to calm myself down and think rationally.

And the worst part is – sometimes I question it all.

Nights like tonight, where I can’t sleep and my brain works non-stop, I wonder if it’s worth it to keep moving forward on this spiralling pathway that I’ve chosen. I want healing. I want recovery. I want to be able to say that I did it… I conquered those thoughts… those ideas… those reactions. I want to be able to say that I have no more darkness in me, and that medications and therapy and a lot of work has helped to restore my brain to some semblance of “normal”. I know that tomorrow I will mask it again and I know that I will pretend that I am okay as I work through more of my “stuff”. I will smile and make nice, I will socialise, I will bring up normalcy and stigma, and I will talk about fighting and winning against mental health.

But the truth is; emotions are not easy – and fixing chemical imbalances and learned behaviours and reactions, is more difficult than anyone will ever admit to.

Because the truth is hard to admit.

It is never easy to say that you are struggling and that you feel like a failure.

It is never easy to say “I’m not okay” or “I’m suicidal today”. Stigma is everywhere – in the world, in our friends, in our homes, and in our family. Our loved ones become numb to our pain or our confusion – our constantly heightened sense of emotion and our inability to deal with life in an appropriate way. Compassion fatigue allows those who we trust with our baggage to become desensitised – to possibly say the right things but without meaning, or to simply ignore our struggles and our victories.

And so we return to the places we came from – hiding the truth and masking our journey with quotes and inspirational sayings. We pretend that although it may be tough – that we are fighters and that the worst of the journey is over, just a few small hurdles left to clear.

My emotions are not okay. My own emotions might never be fully okay or one hundred percent manageable.

After years of working on controlling them, on doing recovery work, and on researching therapies that can help me process and see things differently – I can honestly say that some days I feel worse, being aware of and in a position where I am expected to be able to redirect those emotions, and process things in a more acceptable manner.

A little less than three years ago, I tried to jump off of a waterfall and my life was saved by two police officers who pulled me to safety as I let go over the ledge. I was confused and unable to handle my emotional state – I was depressed and while it was an intentional act, I was also unaware of the depth of my own state of mind, and the way that my brain processed things differently. I wish I could say that being in that place, was the worst day that I have experienced.

But the truth is, it wasn’t.

Some days are utterly unbearable and there are many days where taking my life still seems like an appealing option… a better option than living in this constant fear, pain, and chaos.

But then I remember the good days. I remember the small victories that I am the only one who has noticed – the way that I didn’t go to bed one night feeling like there had been a massive war inside my head… or the way that I controlled myself in an overwhelming situation… or the time I set a date for myself to make a decision, and then I let it pass by. There are victories every day. There are reminders and support systems and people who might not ever “get it”, but who are there. There are the days that I force myself to talk about it – the good and the bad – the victories and the struggles, so that other people might not feel alone any more… or so that someone else might see the battle that I face. There are the days where I say I will not give up – and there are the days where I cannot do much more than sit and pretend to be okay. There are days where compassion fatigue and struggles of their own prevent my friends and family from checking in or from being able to help when I ask… and then there are the days where they are there – a touch, a hug, a tea, a friendly “hello”, and I hadn’t even thought that they noticed.

Three years ago I had no idea what I was doing. I was simply trying to survive in the best way that I knew how – with no knowledge, no true support, and no ability to identify what was really going on in my head.

Today – I still feel the same way a lot of the time. But emotions are tricky, the mind

can be a complicated maze to navigate, and recovery is never a straight pathway. So today – while I don’t understand, and while I have chosen to stop trying to navigate my head for a while, I will talk about it. I will share a bit of the chaos – I will share a bit of my life. And sometimes, sharing a small glimpse into someone else’s head, is the very best thing that you can do.

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Recovery in the Quiet Times

Today I’m taking a quiet afternoon to myself. During the process of self-discovery and recovery, where I have spent hours upon hours trying to understand my own thoughts, emotions, actions, and reactions – I have discovered that I need space. I need time. I need to breathe.

When my husband and I met, we were in high school. Soon after we began dating, our first son came along – followed by three more children, college, and careers. Life spiraled faster than we could see coming and we embraced it. From sun up until sun down we worked – we went to school – we played with our kids – we paid bills – we rushed around from one thing to the next. There was rarely any time for anything else. We were young and we had a family that depended on us.

During this time, my battle with mental illness was just beginning to pick up its pace. There would be many days where sleep was an illusion, fighting became my go-to reaction, and life didn’t make sense. Pushing through, neither my husband nor I really understood why we did the things that we did, how to change, or even what was wrong.

Of course, life simply can’t continue on forever in a tangled, confusing, chaotic mess and so when we crashed – we crashed hard. Both of us faced demons from our past, triggers from the present, and emotional/mental/physical problems that neither of us was prepared to handle. We nearly gave up; on ourselves, on each other, and on our marriage. We didn’t deal with things well – our problems spiraled, my mental health became a severe mental illness and I almost lost my life.

Since then, life has changed for us.

Thankfully, we have been able to establish an incredible support system and have opened up to friends and family along the way. Through our journey – both together and individually we have discovered things that we couldn’t have even begun to comprehend before this point. Things in our life – the way that we think, feel, and act are changing – and as our knowledge grows and we spend hours in self discovery – we continue to find better ways to move through life – both separately and together.

For me, one thing that I have learned – is that I need ‘down time’. Without down time my mind becomes muddled – call it chemical, genetic, or a product of life – it is something that I have learned is vital to my ability to function well.

Personally – I find this frustrating.

It isn’t that I don’t like life – in fact I do very much like living a full life. I like to go out. I like to spend time with friends and family. I like to explore new places, things, and people.

I also like to be alone.

Sometimes I need to be alone.

Sometimes I need to take a break in the middle of the week – I need to sit on the couch with my feet up and a book in my hand. Sometimes I need to close my eyes and have a short nap. Sometimes I need to literally sit and do nothing.

And yes. Sometimes I get frustrated with myself. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t have endless amounts of energy like my husband seems to have. Sometimes I wonder why I can’t function in the same way that everyone around me seems to be able to – pushing through and just faking it.

But I can’t. Believe me, I’ve tried.

I have spent countless days in misery as my mind became overwhelmed with pain and fear and anger and confusion. I have spent time in the presence of people where I have broken down, unable to continue on a conversation because I have put myself into a situation that I cannot handle at that time. I have been to the point of suicide because I simply can’t do life anymore. I have felt like my brain has been cracking down the middle, fighting with itself – two sides of the canyon – one side yelling at me to be normal, to keep going, to just ‘suck it up’, while the other side of me begins to see things, hallucinate, become unstable, paranoid, or simply dark.

I have fought through instability, mania, depression, and borderline rage. I have struggled to find level – and I have struggled to keep myself from falling down a rabbit hole more times than I can count. I have spent more time than I care to remember in hospitals, in counselling, in groups, and in study – trying to understand why I just can’t function ‘normally’.

And finally, I have spent time fighting. Fighting with myself. Fighting with others. Trying to explain to them – what I can’t even explain to myself. I have spent hours crying because I can’t do what I desperately want to do. I have spent time debating, explaining, and eventually silent, because others in my life simply don’t get it. I have felt guilt over relaxing, and fear over a fight that I was sure to come, if I spent those moments quietly – if I cancelled plans, or if I just said no.

But now, after years of work. After walking a recovery journey that fills me both with pride and frustration, I finally have the confidence to say enough is enough. It doesn’t matter. I don’t question a diabetic that needs insulin. I don’t question a cancer patient that needs rest. I don’t question a person struggling with an illness on why they need time to recover. I respect it. I respect them. And I respect myself.

There will always be people in my life who don’t understand this need I have for time, space, and silence. But I don’t need them to understand… now that I understand, I get it. Not everybody needs the same thing that I do – and not everyone is going to see what not having these things will do to me. And that’s okay.

I’m okay with that.  And that, is how I know how far I’ve come.

That is how I know – that regardless of whether or not other people may understand my actions towards my recovery and myself, I know that I am doing what I need to do – with confidence, with guidance, with support, and with determination. These are the things that I have learned. These are the things that will ultimately ensure my success.

So now, I’m going to go sit quietly in the corner of my couch, my kids sent outside to play in the sunshine, my husband puttering around the house, and a book in my hands. No justification. No fighting. Just doing something that I desperately needed to do today, to avoid a break. Just being me.

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