Lamentations

What a day.  I am still trying to come to terms with the fact that I had set rather more of my heart on the job and community posssibilities that got away at the end of last week.  At least I know now it wasn't just me that was the problem.  It is money.  A huge relief.  But I will need a job which takes me into new and stimulating situations for sanity's sake.  I will need to earn and I will need to do what I can to get to being me - I won't say again - because each depression brings different insights.  Different me-s emerge and dominate.

I write better when other things are happening around me; I use time like it matters and I am better house-trained.  Appreciated by the family.  Jane, well, and frustrated, was once described by a now retired Archdeacon in East Anglia as a " caged lionness".  Very true.

I know these things with the top 10% of my head - the other 90% is pretty much dead as a Dodo.  The only thing I can settle to is sleep.  I have been filling in a timetable looking at what I actually do in the day, when and what anxiety rating I give the activity/interruptions. 

Amazing the things that just now send me up to 8 or 9/10.  Answering e-mails - but not writing blogs. Unexpected events of any kind.  (Mungo ate my Diazapam this morning and I ended up taking one old tablet and one new before realising the old pill I had taken was 5mg and not 2mg - so I took 7mg of Diaz this morning - but then had the panic while my partner phoned the vet who said we should have a quiet day - dog-wise.  (Mungo - our usual 'trumpeter' and warner of approaching people and cars - has been a bit like a pyjama case, spending most of the day on my partner's pillow or in the dog bed with Delia his dinosaur - but no further medical action needed.)  Expecting myself to do something and then realising I can't manage it has been the toughest part of the day.  My new mantra is "I know I am very ill but I trust the staff at the centre to get me better".  I am working on it.

"I know I am very ill but..."

I've also had fun - yes (the word does enter my vocabulary even when I am mentally working out how many paracetamol and codeine might be in reach) filling in an interest checklist supplied by the centre.  I realised it would have very little filled in if I based it on now (sleep, eat and think and not thinking aren't really hobbies) so I have tried to think back and remember some of the things I would have loved.  You are supposed to use 1 for not interested; 2 for a little interest and 3 for a lot.  I had to introduce 0 for ironing which I want defended as an interest. It is male oppression and for some females an obsession but it is not an interest.

It's easy to be flippant just because that's one of my finest lines of defence - and I guess some would argue - attack.  But the truth of the matter is I look like death warmed up - at least still warmed up (stay positive).  I live with dark, dark thoughts of a happier world without me and torment myself with guilt and shame about things which I am sure in the clear light of day - the part of me which has gone walk about again after the calamity of having to reassesss what my future now can't be in a few months time - I will look back on and assess as the hubris of a ridiculous Tragedy Queen over-reacting to the kindness and affirmation of others (still be all my fault though, I expect).

For now I am struggling with the call to pull me out of my stupor and move on.  But I have promised to trust and I will.  Dear friends wrote that I should hang on because there will be a light at the end of the tunnel.  I can't find the tunnel just now and lights aren't much use if you are myopic.  Stay positive.

The toughest part is that I feel I have run out of the energy to keep fighting.  I am still thinking and working hour by hour just now to try and keep the anxiety under control.  I feel it's a losing battle.  It's just after 8pm now.  It may be better by 9pm.  Who knows.

No painting today.  Failed.

But I have done my homework for the centre.

I've probably spent far too much time with my own thoughts - which is not considered good.  I wonder if CPNs are generally ENFJs?  But I have little to say out loud and no energy to engage.  I have to use that energy to block the incessant child-like tantrum screaming in my head: "Just give me my life back - any life - just life back NOW!"

I wish I could write more positively and conventionally - but I know I am in the heart of the writers of The Psalms, Lamentations and Job.

Comments

[Gwen]

Don't be hard on yourself, I agrees with other's comments that you HAVE made incredible progress and will continue to do so. Stop searching for the next venture, it Will come when you lest expect it. Trust S and, "Trust the process". You may not beable to find the tunnel but at the risk of being blasted out of the water it IS there. Whether you what to hear it or not, you are a very speacial and talented person and you WILL be that person again, doing and enjoying a new challenge when the time is right. Don't worry about when that will be. It will happen. Much love from us both.G &T

[Ruth Heeley]

Huge disappointments are bad enough when we are well. Keep faith in yourself and in your God, dear Jane. The church is as fallible as we are - and its officers so often seem not to be able to see beyond their noses. You have so much to offer...'you are uniquely and wonderfully made; you have a unique vocation to fulfill'. (Remember?)You don't think God will let that go to waste, do you? Love you lots. You are daily in our prayers. Ruth.

[Jane W-G]

R.,

Thank you. I have made my peace with the person I needed to. I understand more of what has happened in recent weeks and now realise I am not the problem. The hard part, as always is letting go of an idea that looked like it truly was manna from Heaven. Now, we watch and wait and pray - and we have that clean sheet of paper to fill when we meet after Easter - full of ideas of where now.

Your prayers are much appreciated.

With much love,
Jane

[Jane W-G]

G.,

I know in some bit of me deep down that all you say makes sense - for now I can't feel it, if you know what I mean?

One hour at a time and I fill in what I have done and my anxiety rating. It helps - spookily.

You'd roar at Mungo - he is konked out one minute and chasing three dogs round the house the next. Poor creatures make a dive for cover.

How's T doing?

J.

[Gwen]

yip know what you mean! keep at girl! one hour at a time is good.
Tom doing well thank you, he says he has'nt felt this well for years,!!! Would have loved to have seen mungo as a pyjama case and a greyhound the next!! what a picture? My love to you all. G