Thankful Thursday – Turning My Back on Despair
I am having a very difficult time today with overwhelming emotions. I feel like a disappointment to my family, I feel like I am living a pointless life, and I feel completely hopeless that I will ever be what I’m “supposed to be”. I don’t even know what I am supposed to be, other than a mother. And, through the miracle of extreme errors in judgment, silence of extreme emotional pain, manipulation, deceit, self-hate, self-hurt and despondency, I am a mother.
Unfortunately, I am having issues in accepting my life as it is. No, I am not caught on “what could have been” or “what could be”… I am caught on my life as it is and the pain I now feel.
People always say, “Live for Now”, “Don’t live in the past”, and so on. Well, for me, the past IS now because these feelings (originating in the past) are very real and very present NOW.
It hurts.
Today, I am having a hard time dealing with it.
It is a constant struggle for me, as I have written about many times, but it never stops hurting – the pain level never decreases, no matter how many times I address the issue. It is always just as strong, just as heart-wrenching, just as visceral, and just as overwhelming.
It’s times like this I start to think things like, “I wish I could just go to sleep and never wake up.” or “I wish there was a way the part of my brain that thinks these thoughts could be pulled out so that I never have to feel this way again.” or “Why can’t I just be normal like other people and be able to get over things from the past?”
But, the truth is, there is no escape for me.
That is why my options are: Live or Die.
Since I refuse to Die, I continue to Survive, with a tiny sliver of hope that one day I will learn to Live.
Sometimes I wait for signs that things will get better and that my pain is not just wasted because it will make me stronger. Hilariously, I only receive signs that tell me that my pain is completely wasted and that nothing will ever change because nothing will “Get Better”, since the source of my pain is a ghost from the past that has haunted me for at least ten years.
So, here is an effort to ground myself and exorcise that ghost for the time being. Because, today, the pain is unbearable.
Here I will recount the things I can be grateful for, since my mind wants only to dwell on the things I can be [self-]hateful for.
1) My sweet children who love me and look up to me and cherish me unconditionally.
2) I am alive.
3) The weather is cool.
4) I am not starving and have food to eat even though I have no appetite.
5) I have plenty of clean water to drink.
6) I have a nice and safe house to live in.
7) I can start planting more seeds in the coming weeks and was successful in transplanting some of my live broccoli over to a new spot in the garden so that I could plant more broccoli seeds next to it and will have a huge broccoli yield this year.
8) The wind blowing on my face to dry the tears from my eyes.
9) That I am still alive, that I have survived to this point.
10) That I can look at myself and see that I am not the monster I tell myself I am, that it is just these emotions that make me want to die or make me feel like I need to be punished in some very extreme manner that will cause me great suffering.
11) I can see that I am always suffering, and that there must be some way to escape it, even if I have not found the path yet.
12) I make myself suffer, even though I don’t know how to get away because it is when I silence this suffering that I silence myself and become a robot.
13) That I am no longer going through the motions of life, and am now a willing participant – even though I don’t know how to be happy.
14) That in spite of everything, I really do have a pretty good life overall – I am not in danger, I do not feel fear, I can pursue some of my interests as time permits, I am only as limited as the limits I put on myself.
15) That I made this blog, because otherwise I would just be sitting here staring blankly at my screen and holding back the tears that keep coming to my eyes because I keep thinking thoughts that have a strong emotional component and I cannot say all of the things I think anywhere, even here, but at least I can get some of my thoughts out and realize the source of my emotions.
16) That I self-manage my depression medication, because I can change my dose at will and will be increasing my dose for the next few weeks, because I should not be feeling this deep of a low. I realize there is most likely a physiological cause for this despair, though it is very difficult to understand that when I am feeling it. I can only understand that when I type out my thoughts and am able to think more clearly because I can SEE the thoughts in front of me and SEE that these are abnormal thoughts, even for me.
17) That now I feel some small amount of peace. I feel like some of that overwhelming anguish has subsided and that I will be able to make it through today.
18) That I have a family who loves me to go home to every day.
19) That I am loved, despite my faults and problems and bizarre behavior. There must be some good in me if good people can feel love for me.
20) That I can sigh with some relief that I am growing and learning and changing.
Despair has changed to Gratitude. Thank you for your eyes and assistance, my friend of the cosmos. Now that I realize I am valuable and do not deserve to feel this pain and do not have to continue to focus on this pain, I am feeling love for this existence and I am feeling a little better because I know I am loved.
May tomorrow be a brighter day.
– Jane.