Plodding on

Everything feels like such a struggle at the moment.

The CAT team came out this morning and I had to admit to slipping up over the weekend.

I self-harmed – not badly – but still.

And as soon as you say that to CAT, alarm bells start to ring.

Suddenly I’m ‘high risk’ again.

Then I get told off.

‘Have you looked at the anxiety booklet we gave you last week? Why not? Is it because you don’t think it would help?’

Why not? Because I’m exhausted. Because my brain is full of fog. Because I’m using my scant reserves of concentration for the work that can’t be put on hold just because I’m not feeling well.

They’re going to get the doctor out to review me. But what’s the point? I already know what they’ll say. My problems are all psychological. Changing my medication won’t help.

We talked about my psychology assessment on Thursday and how I feel it’s become a line drawn in the sand, that when I cross it, everyone is expecting me to be Better.

The CAT guy agreed that it won’t instantly make me better, but apparently it should give me Hope.

He pointed out that I’ve been unwell before and recovered, so I should also have Hope that I can again.

But when I’ve been unwell previously, it hasn’t culminated in blue lights and motorway bridges and being hospitalised under the threat of section. This time, unwell has reached whole new heights or depths or whatever I should call it.

I have no prior experience of recovering from things being this bad, and it’s becoming increasingly hard to believe in the prospect of recovery.

In my better moments, I try to accept that this is God’s plan, and that it doesn’t actually matter if I never recover in this earthly life as I have the promise of a new brain and body in Heaven.

But at other times, I seriously doubt my ability to keep living like this for however many more years.

I know it’s a sinful thought, and that I should have enough faith to get me through even if things don’t get any better.

That makes me feel even worse.

I also feel guilty for feeling on my own in this, but I do. My head may know that God is with me, but my heart is struggling to feel it. And actually, what I want and need right now is someone to sit beside me, hug me, hold my hand.

God’s arms might be around me, but I can’t feel them. I need an actual human being, someone who actually cares.

But already, this period is becoming something ‘past’ in people’s minds, even though to me, it still feels very ‘present.’

When I’m up and showered and dressed and doing the school run and work and swimming lessons and cooking dinner, no one realises how much I’m struggling, and having used up so much of their time and resources during my hospitalisation, I don’t like to say.

No one knows that I need to go out to the shop and buy a birthday card, and I’m so anxious about the big wide world that it feels impossible.

No one knows that I’m dreading the few days away we’ve booked for half-term, that I want to cancel it, that I don’t think I can cope with being away from home.

No one knows that I want to book a massage but am scared that I’d freak out and embarrass myself by having to leave halfway through.

No one knows. It’s lonely. I’m lonely. I’m scared.