I didn’t think that by 25 I would have been in and out of psychiatric hospitals 4 times.
I didn’t think that I’d have spent hours and hours of time sitting in 5 different psychiatrists’ offices and 6 different psychologists’ waiting rooms. I didn’t think I would have been through 4 different anti-depressant medications and 78 sessions of transcranial magnetic stimulation and still kind of not know what the fuck is going on.
It’s hard not to fade after years of battling something so invisible, but that’s what mental illness is. It convinces you that the vision you had for your life that felt so real and so possible might have never even existed.
There are so many emotions that I cycle through daily and it’s hard to have time for them all. But the main one is grief. Grief that the worst days aren’t a passing moment in time, but lifelong.
When asked how I feel on a scale of 1-10 I don’t know how to answer anymore. I’ve said 6 when I’m at my worst. I’ve said 6 when I’m feeling pretty ok. It’s almost impossible to work out what I’m meant to be feeling or the spectrum of emotions that normal people feel when it’s blended so seamlessly with whatever the fuck is wrong with me.
Being an equal part of the process is the hardest part because I wish I didn’t have to be. Some days I don’t have the energy. Some of the doctors and psychiatrists who have treated me have almost made sure I wasn’t—asking questions to tick boxes and not trying to understand my thoughts so much as my head. Like a problem to be solved under the assumption that I couldn’t possibly know what’s needed to help me. It’s so silly because the information is only inside my head. When I check out there are consequences, but when I burn myself out trying to be part of it there are consequences too.
And the consequences of this have been big. A year or more of the wrong treatment, where I’ll assume it’s working great until it becomes glaringly obvious that it is not.
I’m constantly breathing through it. I’ve been thinking about Aron Ralston a bit lately. I think about how he had to weigh his pain against his future when there seemed to be no solution and I wonder what my equivalent of cutting off my arm would be. What do I have to let go of—or accept— to reach my own version of safety?
Sometimes I don’t even realise how bad it is. I’ll be telling everyone I’m doing so well, “I’m a 7/10 today” and I’ll forget that I spent 3 nights in a row a week and a half ago sobbing myself to sleep for no reason. I get these tiny glimpses—when I listen to really good music, or maybe my senses combine to create this fleeting feeling where I think I might be able to enjoy life again. I suddenly want to be dressing up and expressing myself and dancing and having fun but the majority of the time it just feels impossible.
Acceptance (kind of)…
My therapist tells me to think of things as ‘parts of myself’. I think there are 2 main parts of myself. The part that has changed her opinions and tastes and interests. And has become less judgemental and more comfortable in herself. And the other part is the illness. Sometimes they are so intertwined I can’t tell where I stop and it starts. I like who I am becoming but I hate what is happening inside my brain.
But then—likely out of desperation to find some reason why this is happening to me—I wonder if there is a part of this whole experience that has led me to the opinions and interests that shape me. Has the torture allowed me to see a version of life I mightn’t have? Be someone I wouldn’t have? It’s impossible to know. Maybe I would’ve become this way anyway. But there was never going to be an anyway. That’s the point. This is the way it was always going to be, and this way has shown me some good.
