Tag: life

Reality Schism

I’ll admit it, I’ve been struggling. I’ve been fighting the good fight for weeks but today the void is sucking me back in. Yesterday I realized I was doing it to myself and I need to stop…..but I’m having too much fun!!

I’ve been free writing again. I’m blissfully living in the space between my ears. I broke one book I wrote (Heart of My Mothers) into a trilogy. The original was too dense because I wanted my character to grow and experience life adjacent to the plot. My readers liked the story but it was suggested I break it up into three books so I could bring in more detail.

  • Book 1 Andi (Mother): Is ready to be sent to an agent or publisher, I just have to create the query letter and do it. It terrifies me I’ll do it wrong. Wrong means I fail…..again,*
  • Book 2 Veronica (Grandmother) : Is written and needs editing….like Edward Scissorhands level of editing, which magnifies my skewed reality I can’t write perfectly the first time around.*
  • Book 3 Claire (Great Grandmother): Free writing where even the original book isn’t a reference and anything can happen. I’M LOVING EVERY MINUTE OF IT.

The problem? I still have to live in reality. I still have to drag myself out of bed every day and face the world. I still have to take my medication. I still have to apply for jobs. I still have to go on interviews. I still have to remind myself death isn’t a solution.

This morning, by the time I convinced myself to get up (It took an hour today), take my meds and feed my bird I was crying. My reality is just really hard right now. I’m looking for glimmers, I’m walking more than I have to (goal is three times a week) and I still feel like I’m failing. Failing crushes me.*

My character isn’t failing. She fabulously wealthy, she’s popular and she’s the hero in her own story. I’m poor, few people know my name and I’m trying hard not to be the villain. Is there any doubt why I want to live there?

So, right now I’m straddling these two worlds. The endorphin rush from creation strips the serotonin on my brain. Low serotonin makes me want to escape into the story. I don’t know how to heal the schism without tearing me in two.

So I bought yarn.

Any suggestions?

* I know this is wrong thinking. I feel like Sisyphus constantly pushing the right thinking up an impossible hill only to get flattened when the rock rolls over me.

Starting Over…..Again

Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start now and make a brand new ending.

Carl Bard

I used this quote in my Birthday Blues Early post what feels like 100 years ago. It is more relevant now than it was then because it feels like I’m starting from zero in my public life. I’m trying to step in time with the spring renewal and make a new start with what seems to be a world against me. As an unemployed woman who is actively battling high functioning depression with a heaping side of anxiety I feel most days aren’t worth getting out of bed for. I toy with the idea of going on disability but I know it won’t get me to my goals…..and my goals are everything. But I am getting out of bed, and I am fighting the good fight most days.

The absence…

My absence from the blog wasn’t planned. I thought about it often but my job had become too much for me to do anything else other than work, eat and sleep. I stopped going to church, I stopped writing in my journal, I stopped writing period and I stopped sharing my struggle (which had almost become a pleasant journey instead of the arduous saga of anger and sadness it started as).

I’ve been able to track this physical change back to January 2024 when I got COVID-19 for the first time. My symptoms started a week before the traditional COVID symptoms started. I got the gastro-intestinal start, and with IBS it’s hard to tell the difference. I used all my sick days (5 work days) and went back to work feeling not totally well but I persevered and I slowly eased back into the workload.

then, people quit, people were fired, people changed positions and I ended up working alone which caused the lingering COVID to encourage my IBS into overload……or over un-load, if you will. I was taking an antidiarrheal every third day and being completely exhausted when I got home to the point I had to sit in my car for 15-20 minutes after the drive to just rest.

My symptoms progressed to sever bouts of nausea, light headedness and my eyes pinning down to a single point of light if I stood to long……Essentially I couldn’t work. I took a month off to find out what was going on. When I went back I was okay according to the tests and paperwork but I wasn’t. The company and I found it mutually beneficial if we parted ways and I’ve been unemployed since.

Now…

Being unemployed is both a boon and a bane. My hope is these intervening months of rest have strengthened me physically and mentally. I will say, the holidays were hard and dark and somewhat dicey for my mental health. I continued to employ the tools I have learned in therapy like breathing and CBT, I took my medication religiously, and I crocheted a lot and listened to a multitude of books.

Additionally, I’ve prepared the first book in my trilogy for publication, completely wrote the second book and I am outlining the third book….when I’m not telling myself I’d be better off dead. Suicide does not align with my goals for life or the afterlife so I know not to take it seriously but it upsets me when my brain falls back to the old coping mechanisms. It does remind me how much I need to be ever mindful of my recovery. I don’t like feeling ‘the void’ in the background but I am very proud of myself that I am aware of it and I am fighting the good fight to get away from it.