Will The Real Jane Please Stand Up?

I have had a very dark couple of days. Yesterday and today have felt as though I am in an arm-lock with my mean inner voice.  Where have the really positive voices gone, just when I need them?  The work I am doing emotionally at the moment feels as though I am going really very deep - but I am so exhausted and upset with where I go when I do go this deep that I am emotionally tired and then I am back in the rabbit in the headlights mode and completely stuck.   

The deeper thoughts are helpful in as much as I am making connections and exploring ways of understanding myself in ways I have never done before.  I have touched so much within my psyche with my recent paintings and seeing more of my work now framed and up on the walls (spooky) - that I don't know what to do with the light or the dark, I have forgotten what I must have learnt as a magical child in those first years.  So I guess I choose the safest route of all which is self-sabotage.  Give up, I guess.  Or focus on how to block getting better because I don't know what I am getting better for.  Will the absolutely authentic Jane please stand up and take a bow.  I'd be delighted to see her again in full, turbo driven creative excellence. 

Back with dark thoughts; nothing new there - that none of this is really worth going on with; feeling that I have to somehow work out how to relieve the inner torment which makes me feel as though I want to blow my head off (not literally) just to stop the voice going on and on.  Days like the last couple I haven't got the energy to fight or offer any serious distractions to myself.  I think mentally I need to get up do my hygeine routine and just paint - but I have showered for the first time in three days and spent either thirty or thirty-two minutes sitting in the sitting room in the whole day yesterday at the request of the hospital, other than staying in bed.  My partner's watch reckoned it was only thirty.  We negotiated whether I should stay longer.  I think I was probably back in bed before the poor guy had a chance to finish the sentence.

Of course, mean voice has it all sussed, I am sabotaging because it's fun being ill;  I am not as ill as I think I am - just a lazy sloth.  I am chasing my own tail - yes - it is all my fault, of course it is.  I just dig deeper into the duvet - OK - I (mean voice) win - but I still can't shift this enormous sense of morbidity.

Last night I watched some late movie set in a psychiatric long stay establishemnt, although written and produced I would guess in the seventies, it had Whoopi Goldberg in who - when I am well - is a great role model and inspiration to me.  She can make me smile or cry in a second - her timing is incredible.  I love  Maya Angelou too.  They'd both be at my 'perfect' dinner party. 

It probably wasn't the most sensible movie to watch retrospectively but I am not making sensible choices right now - and although it explored the practice in asylums in The States, I guess a decade before the movie was made, it affected me deeply.  I had already felt so bad earlier in the day my partner had phoned the hospital.  Back to square one - at least that's how it feels.  I then watched this movie?  Why?  For goodness sake?!  I really am my own worst enemy.  Scenes of people wanting to kill themselves; living with bi-polar; working through addictions - Diaz - of course etc.  I even got the nail scissors out to see how difficult it is to actually just cut your skin - you know like self-harmers do to say - "Hey I can't do this anymore and everything hurts anyway so why not physically too?"  Then I understood for the first time ever, the attraction  for them - if they believe it would genuinely reduce the agony inside.  I didn't think it would work for me.  At least mean voice assured me I'm all talk and no action - a prize producer of larger amounts of do-dos; Tragedy Queen and not even gutsy enough to end my own drama.  So my mean voice has her uses.

Today I have finally got up and showered after The Paul O'Grady Show (I have a soft spot for Paul because he reminds me of Blackpool and my childhood).  I am blogging.  I slept for about 6 hours today - three hours this morning and a couple of hours this afternoon - which makes six on Diaz.  The Diaz is up again - hospital orders - and this calms the physical signs of the depression enormously - particularly the shakes - so typing is a lot easier- even picking up pills was tricky on Monday.

Friends continue to be long suffering and amazingly encouraging.  A beautiful angel arrived in the post this morning.  Thank you C and A.  I can't see hope just now - and she is an angel of hope - but I can read about it a little while back in the blogs and I did get better last time - even if I became ill again.

My own 'angels' have felt strangely absent in recent months.  I've realised that at the deepest level this is my stuff not theirs - no hiding behind insight and perceptiveness, or the magical mysteries of spirituality this time - this is the lonely descent to find out what is going on in and for me.  I am relying on my tenaciousness and utlimate resilience.  I have broken out in a sweat writing those words; it's as though I know I will be punished later by mean voice for daring to publicly suggest such a ridiculous thing.  But I'll risk it.  I can't love myself more fully, or be gentle until I have a sense of what pulls me off course so easily. I can feel my anxiety rising.

Good things today:

The angel - but I can't really see it yet.  I just know it is there.

Sleep.

Dreaming of speaking to someone I wanted to know was around and finding out after the call and I had woken up properly that I did speak to her.

Bad things:

Torment.

Anger at myself.

Anger at others.

Now limiting how much I speak because mean voice says I shouldn't say so much; I will get better if I say less.  So today I have counted my words - 182 so far.  Talking to dogs or cats does not count - but I don't talk much to them - it's more stroking and snuggling.

Teazle and Bertie sent me a card.  It's a cartoon of two cats sleeping in armchairs opposite each other:

I'd get so much more done if only I could get by on seventeen hours sleep.

Comments

[carolynn]

We will hold your angel of hope for you until you can hold her for herself.
However... to know she is there even when you cannot see her...now that is faith.

We do know that the real Jane is still there.
A Jane we love and know is wonderful
Even if you cannot see her or know her for herself and we will hold that knowledge for you until you can know her again for herself.

The fact that you are experiencing other Janes does not make you any less real
The fact that you are acknowledging them makes you more real that most of us out here in our unreal masked world!
Velveteen rabbit story.....something to do with the process of becoming really real.

This does not make you unlovable or unloved but even more loved and cherished

With all our love C

[Gwen]

Hold on in there, you are still the same Jane we all love. The fact that you can recognise the other Janes is encouraging and as Carolynn has said more then any of us are brave enough to face. All your friends are standing together to love and support you through the "lows" and rejoice with you at the "highs".Everyday is a step in the right direction however slow or shakey it might appear from your end, we can see the progress you are making.
Let you guardian angel gently support you.
Much love. Gwen

[Jane W-G]

Gwen,

Still in a very down period and so I am not hearing affirmation too well. But these messages are all here and when I am feeling better will be picked up on and be wonderful reminders of mutual affection.

J.

[Jane W-G]

Carolynn,

The Velveteen Rabbit is one of my all time favourite stories and I sometimes read it to silent retreatants during dinner - simply for it's transforming theme. Desolate these last few days - but I have a full review on MOnday which will more objectively assess my progress.

The feelings expressed are mutual.

J.