Maybe this is it?

I wrote this post about 10 days ago and never quite got round to publishing it.  Most of the time I feel ok about being honest on my blog, but I wasn't so sure about sharing this one.  But for some reason, I'm doing it anyway....


My last post was titled 'This isn't everything you are', after a Snow Patrol song.  But what if this is everything I am?  I know people can change over time.  But change can be harder for some than others.  Take a physical example - a person who naturally gains weight very easily will have to work very hard to lose that weight and then keep it off.  There's not much room for 'off' days, as they will all too easily fall off the wagon so to speak, and one biscuit can lead to five which leads to an empty packet (I speak from my own experience there).  This could easily get that person down.  Or they could decide that they are up for a challenge and keep working hard in order to feel the benefits.  Decide...  It has to be a conscious choice.

 

I'm much more of a pessimist than an optimist.  I have a family history of depression.  Looking back, I can see the cycles of depression or depressive episodes that I've gone through since primary school.  When I realised that I was depressed again in summer 2014, I wondered what I had been doing wrong.  Had I got lazy and just slipped back into negative thinking habits?  Shouldn't I be coping better with life?  Most of the people around me seem to cope with what life throws at them, so what's wrong with me?  If I could just find the right medication, or go to enough counselling sessions and journal enough then I will find that 'fix'.  The magic wand.  The fairy dust.  Of course it sounds ridiculously naïve as I type that.  Life doesn't work like that.

 

I had a really hard counselling session a few weeks ago.  'No pain, no gain', I told myself.  And I went home and waited to feel different.  I waited to feel the freedom and release that I expected to come from having touched some very painful memories and feelings.  I thought I would feel a physical weight off my shoulders.  And so I waited.  And began to have doubts.  I asked myself what I was doing wrong.  Maybe I hadn't tried hard enough?  Maybe I hadn't opened up enough?  I shouldn't still feel like this.  I shouldn't still struggle with the same problems that have affected me for the past however many years.  I've talked about these things with counsellors before.  So why do they still upset me?  I shouldn't feel like this.  I should be able to cope better than this. 

 

Is accepting this is going to be a long term fight admitting defeat?  Or just being realistic?  Perhaps it depends which way you look at it.  Part of me longs to get to a point where I just feel 'normal' (whatever normal is) and can put these issues to rest.  A point where this time is the last time.  But in longing for that, am I just adding to the sense of disappointment and frustration that I feel with myself?  My struggle to accept that I'm struggling only seems to make things worse.  I find it hard to allow myself to not be coping.  As if I should be invincible or something.

 

I accept in my head that I will always need to keep an eye on my mental health.  But I think it only really hit home today what that might mean.  The prospect of a constant fight not to eat the whole packet of biscuits.  To dig my heels in when I feel myself slipping down that dark hole.  It makes me feel tired just thinking about it.  I suppose it becomes easier over time.  The more you practice, the more it becomes second nature to reach for the positive reaction over the default negative one.  But the thought of living like this scares me.  What if I don't have the fight in me?  I'm not great at making good choices.  Who would want to be with someone like me if they know there's a chance I'll go through another cycle of depression at some point?  What if I have kids and pass my mess onto them?  What if I can't protect them? 

 

And so the fear of what life might hold stops me from actually living it.  I find myself stuck in a place where I look back with regret, look forward with worry, and miss out on the here and now.  It's not a good place to be.