I try to make this a whine-free zone, but today I just need to share where I'm at.
My depression has gone from manageable to unmanageable. My tricks and hacks and boosts are not getting me above water anymore. My eyelids are swollen from crying all the time. I can't sleep. I can't focus.
I'm going in to see a good therapist sometime soon, to help me manage grief over my recent loss and the attending feelings of stress, anger, and despair. It feels like a step back, since I felt I graduated from therapy about ten years ago, having sorted out all my negative patterns and beliefs. And I'm not excited about the work ahead. Cognitive therapy is a lot like physical therapy after a traumatic injury. You have to go through a lot of extra pain to ensure proper and permanent healing.
But I know it's a step forward. I choose healing and hope. I choose not to hide my condition and let it fester. I have learned from experience that pain, like Lanston Hughes' "dream deferred," can be a dangerous thing:
My depression has gone from manageable to unmanageable. My tricks and hacks and boosts are not getting me above water anymore. My eyelids are swollen from crying all the time. I can't sleep. I can't focus.
I'm going in to see a good therapist sometime soon, to help me manage grief over my recent loss and the attending feelings of stress, anger, and despair. It feels like a step back, since I felt I graduated from therapy about ten years ago, having sorted out all my negative patterns and beliefs. And I'm not excited about the work ahead. Cognitive therapy is a lot like physical therapy after a traumatic injury. You have to go through a lot of extra pain to ensure proper and permanent healing.
But I know it's a step forward. I choose healing and hope. I choose not to hide my condition and let it fester. I have learned from experience that pain, like Lanston Hughes' "dream deferred," can be a dangerous thing:
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry upIf you can spare a moment, please pray for me and my loved ones. And let me know when I can return the favor.
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load
or does it explode?
2 comments:
Kari, I'm glad to hear you are getting help. For me, the very act of acknowledging that I'm in the hole again allows me to look up and start the climb out. Hang in there my friend and know that I understand so well the challenges. Remember there is light and you will be back in the daylight again. (I always envision my depression as a dark hole that I fall into unknowingly).
Thank you, Leigh. I am sincerely sick of falling in the same old hole, but I guess mortality is like that for everyone. Most of us will struggle with the same trials and disappointments over and over. And you're right, figuring out where I am is the first step to climbing out. Oh, and this is not Naomi, this is Kari. This dumb computer won't let me log her out.
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