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Monday 9 April 2012

Custard and Quicksand

If life is like swimming, the water I was swimming through started to get thicker and thicker a long time ago. For a while I guess it was like fighting through custard. Sometimes it got thicker and it became harder and harder to swim. Sometimes it let up and got easier again for a while, but I haven’t been swimming in water for a long time.

Eventually I was swimming in quicksand, and being pulled under, so quickly. It felt so out of my control.

Somebody is playing a cruel trick on me. They replaced the quicksand with custard again, just for a few days. The custard felt so much easier to swim through. Now I’m just alternating between custard and quicksand. Just when I remember how much easier it is to swim through custard, the quicksand is back. When it’s easier to fight, I forget how hard the hard bit can be. When the hard bit comes back, I don’t believe that swimming will ever get easier again.

I don’t know if this is what recovery is supposed to feel like.

I’ve never recovered from swimming in quicksand before.

I don’t know if it is worth fighting through the custard just to be pulled under the quicksand again, or whether this means that I need to try something else.

I don’t know why some people believe antidepressants are a fucking lifeboat, a ‘happy pill’. They have stopped me from drowning in quicksand, but that’s all they have done. I’m not better. I’m not okay. I wish the custard bits would last for longer. And I can’t even imagine how it would feel if the plain old water came back.

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This blog might be temporary. I just needed to get my thoughts of recent days out somewhere.

7 comments:

  1. Hi Emma,

    For me, that is exactly what it has felt like. Recovery is hard work, some days are better and some are worse.

    I've had T1 and clinical depression for as long as I can remember. I've been on and off various meds for years, it took forever to find some that worked.

    And it took even longer for me to decide that I was worth fighting for. I've been seeing a counselor for several months now and it has made things better for me.

    You can do this, you are worth doing it for. And you don't have to be alone in doing it.

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    1. Thank you so much for the response. I am looking into counselling, but in the past it has had a really negative short term effect on me (after the sessions I feel like it's spiralling out of control even more).

      I was hoping that after being on the meds for a while I might be in a good enough place that I could cope with counselling and eventually experience some positive long term effects from it, but I'm just not sure if I'm there yet. I am definitely considering it.

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    2. It's like anything else, you have to decide it's worth doing. For me, it became obvious that meds along wouldn't do it.

      The issue was that I wasn't ready to to go thru the therapy. I finally decided I had to do and it was, and still is, scary as hell at times.

      But, at least for me, it is worth it. I hope you can find what you need and if there is anything I can do, don't hesitate... k?

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    3. Thank you, Scott. It makes such a difference to know that I am not alone. There may be a blog or two to come once I have started with therapy! I know that I have to do it at some point, I'm just scared. I'm trying to get through that, though.

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  2. You're welcome, Emma... I've been documenting my therapy experiences if you want to take a look

    http://strangelydiabetic.com/2012/01/07/how-deep-is-that-damn-rabbit-hole-anyway/

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  3. The quicksand feeling is almost the worst part. I've written about my own experiences and new adventures with my mental health counselor and anti-depressants over at my D-blog, too. It's a work in progress and something that needs attention every day, but luckily we have the ability to not continue sinking in the quicksand. Thanks for sharing this here, and best your way.

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    1. Thanks, Mike. I've been following your experiences, and again it's good to know I'm not alone (although it sucks to think other people are going through this as well).

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