For me, one of the hardest parts of fighting mental demons, is the constant questioning of whether your thoughts belong to you, or your illness.
I have always had a problem of thinking too much. I’m sure you’ve all been there, with times where you lay awake at night? Now, not to say my problems are bigger than yours or any one else’s, or that people struggling with mental health have it “sooo much worse“, but picture that feeling and then multiply it by x10, 12, 100- by any number- and that is similar to how dark days can be.
Yesterday I had my first day back at work after being off sick (my body decided it would get every illness at once). After sleeping the weekend away I found the day very tiring (as I’m sure many of us would) and I was exhausted by the end of it. But this is where things become an issue for me. I’m never certain of what all of my triggers are, of what exactly releases the dark monster into my head, or of if there even is a trigger but instead maybe it is just wild and unpredictable in its attacks.
I’d had a pretty good day all things considered, and I’d even been invited out by work colleagues (to which after battling with myself for a while I said my usual no (but that’s a different story)). I called my partner on the way home and spoke about what to get for dinner and then I just got more and more down. Not because of anything anybody did, but it just happened. I started hearing annoyed tones in my partners voice, started feeling rubbish about myself, like I couldn’t be bothered to do anything, upset about people at work, questioning, questioning everything. I comfort ate the flapjacks I brought for my partner to “cheer him up” in a way he didn’t even need, and then felt guilty for eating them thinking about how fat I would get. I called my partner again when I got to my car to “make things better” which again didn’t even need to happen. I drove home and began thinking my regular thought of running away, that I’d become old and boring and was leading a mundane life, that I didn’t know if I wanted to be with my partner of 5 years who I love deeply, questioning if I even knew what love was at all, if I was settling and many many more other thoughts.
This journey home by the way, took no more than 45 minutes. In 45 minutes I had decided that my whole life was a mess and I was living a lie, that I was leaving my partner once and for all and not getting a house with him but instead going travelling, disappearing.
And then I get home, walk through the door and see his face, and he grins at me, and I can’t help but to grin back, and all of it melts away, those thoughts, the fears the worries, None of that is what I really want.
But it can seem so real, it can convince you so much, confuse you, delude you.
I had a good chat with Jed, who is the most brilliant and understanding man I have known thus far, I even told him I want to run away! And he didn’t even flinch, he told me he would help me with a “fuck-off fund” and many other ideas, and I just couldn’t believe it, as I never believe it. A dark thought slips into my head again, telling me I don’t deserve him. Which is true. I don’t. But I love him anyway, and will do until he loves me.
My thoughts are a constant battle, one minute I’m fine and the next I’m not. It is difficult, and it is exhausting.
But each day, as I have learned to do over the years, we battle on through.
-ox
Chan Tells... 