you are looking well, you look very refreshed after your break

You are looking well, you look very refreshed after your break.  Oh god why do I just cringe when I hear that.  Yes I do look well , its a pity you cant see into my soul, is how I would like to respond, or sometimes I just want to say thank you but how did you expect me to look.  Or even F**k off you hypocrite, what you would like to say is Jane I thought you would look like a bag lady but you look normal, I bet there is nothing wrong with you, you have been faking it all this time , really you have been secretly off on holidays for 6 months.  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Some people cross the street when they see me, either they dont want to speak to me because they are afraid I will unburden myself on them, they dont want to acknowledge the fact that if i can crumble then they can too, they are wrapped up in their lives and I am no longer a part of it.

There are those of course who give me their email address or number or invite me for coffee or lunch , those who unexpectedly show up with flowers and presents, those who show they care by comming up to me and hugging me.

There are those who come up to me and share their story of hurt, abuse or despair because they think I will understand it now.

I was always the same person, but I might not have understood.  I have been all of those people I describe above.

Today I have to deal with some very difficult stuff and I have devised a note to hand people when I cannot speak or understand because I am so overwhelmed.  It says;
I am anxious; when I get anxious I panic.  When I panic I do not understand what you are saying to me.  Can you please write down the most important part of what you are saying and what you need me to understand so that I can refer to it later when I am calm.  Thank you for being patient with me.  I might look fine but really I am too anxious to hear what you are saying to me properly right now.  I wrote this note to help me cope in moments of utter panic, When I am too overwhelmed to speak. Thank you for treating me with kindness and compassion.

I think it is worth a shot.  I look OK. I look like myself , the woman who can do what ever she puts her mind to .  I sound OK , I sound like the profession well educated woman that I am, but oh god how i feel is far from OK.  Do I need to be a crying jibbering idiot, with bad hygiene, weird hair speaking in tongues for people to understand that I am not able to function as well as I look and sound.  I have been struck dumb by the intensity of the confusion I feel some days.  When I can finally articulate what I was feeling many people tell me that is normal and they accept it as part of their life.  for me it is not what I think of as normal.  I had excellent recall, I could juggle chainsaws(metaphor) I could reason and understand.  I did not see the signs that how I saw myself was not really how I felt and I compartmentalised my life so that I could present the well adjusted image of myself to some people and hide the absolute terror I felt.  Joining myself up is proving to me more complex and demanding that I anticipated.  I thought take a few tablets, get some counseling and everything would be as I want it to be.  Be I am not God, I am not the man who runs the world. I am not perfect  I am me, a flawed human being a woman trying to make sense of her world.  I may not be able to ask for help yet but I can hand someone my note and perhaps some of the people I encounter today might be able to understand that under the veneer of calm and control there is a very confused person who is struggling to find her way in a rapidly changing world.  who is struggling to understand what is happening and why.  Who is not superwoman but just Jane an imperfect woman doing the best she knows how, trying to find her way in a very confusing world. 

the day it glittered

We all remember days when the world seemed perfect, the perfect man, the perfect cup of tea, the perfect temperature of the sea when you go swimming.  The day started very cold.  I was successful in getting out of bed that day.  I had stopped the endless crying associated with the awful episode.  I felt my spirits lifting.  The weather was beautiful.  As I still had no real depth perception I was still too scared to drive so we walked.  That was the start of the road to recovery, one of many small steps.  That day was the only time in my life I saw the kind of frost we all are programmed to envisage as the crisp frost of Christmas.  The night before a rapid frost had coated all the trees.  As the sun rose it started to glitter.  Slivery specks of glitter started to fall from the sky. Oh dear I thought those damn hallucinations have finally moved out of the house.  (As an aside, perhaps the language was a little more colourful and my vision was a bit shaky at the start of the episode.  I would sometimes think I could see black dots moving on the floor, they were of course just the marks on the floor boards shaking because of my very very jittery nerves.) Anyway to make a short story long it really was glittering.  As the air heated up the lumps of frost were falling from the trees.  It looked like someone was shaking silver glitter from the trees like in a glitter globe.  the angel of the sun was so low that it made each speck of frost shimmer all silvery and pink. I was not hallucinating I was seeing the beauty of the world.  There are so many beautiful things to see.  That day I took out my camera and walked to the beach and wondered at the beauty of the world.  Had I been well and able to drive I would never have experienced the day it glittered.  How many other things do we all miss.  

Be still and notice the beauty of the world.

Happy Saturday.

small steps to success-letting go

For the last 4 months I have searched for myself.  

Last week I stopped looking. 

As is the case once you stop looking you often find the thing you lost. 

It happened when I stopped forcing myself to reappear and just let go.  I read about letting go, I tried to let go, I tried to force myself to let go, and finally when I had exhausted every method I could think of I gave up trying.  LOL , that is what letting go is all about.  It is like flinging yourself off a great height and not thinking about what the landing will be like, or where you will end up, or if someone will be there to catch you, or if you will crash onto the rocks and smash, or a million other things that come into the exhausted brain.  

For me letting go was like flopping backwards into an abyss and discovering that, instead of being crushed on the rocks, I was being cradled gently in a soft fluffy feather and floating on a warm gentle breeze. I had forgotten about all the feathers I had laid out to catch myself when I fell, about all the feathers others had sent to catch me, about all the good things in the world, about all the kindness and compassion out in the world.  It is there for everyone when they are open to it.  I had heard and read that so often, I never understood it on an emotional level.  I read so much, too much, I tried to understand it , instead I needed to feel it.  So often that wonderful brain of ours tries so hard to understand that it shuts off our emotions as they are so painful.  It is only trying to protect us.  But its ok to feel even if those feelings are painful, because we can let go of the feelings, just like we can let go of the baggage, fling it off train, out of the window, into the sea, anywhere where we want. 

So I let go, I gave myself permission to let the tension go, forget about all the things I need to do, let go of my expectations, of the expectations of others, of all those limiting beliefs, of all the things that do not make me happy, of the grief for the past, of the broken relationships, of the unhealthy things that keep me down, of the limits others have set for me, of the guilt, the sadness, the failures, the success, the achievements, the shame, the embarrassment, the hope, the things that I thought defined me, the perfectionism, the need for approval, the worry about money, the worry about the children, the insanity of the stolen relationship, the waiting for that text, the stress of what other bad news is going to reveal itself next; all the things that weighed me down.  I threw away the baggage.  I laid down the burden.  It is my fervent wish that I never pick it up again. 

I came back to myself when I let go. 

So let go, float, be free, every day is a new day. 

Let go of yesterday and take another small step forward.  Another step to a successful recovery of yourself. Remember that when you stay with yourself you are never alone.

While I was writing this I listened to Cat Stephens Morning has Broken.  It is uplifting and soothing. If you are reading this try playing it now and float away.