Small collapses: about wanting to always be OK and the ups and downs of healing

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I collapsed. I could not sleep well and was panicking about my lack of sleep, had repetitive thoughts and was nervous. Yesterday and today and I was not feeling like myself, and I considered going to a mental health institution to receive guidance. However, I imagined they would give me pills and I went off pills three months ago. I was sort of derealized this morning, could barely make out words and talk to my sister. Everything felt off. I tried to get through my bouldering class. My body felt heavy. I could barely pull myself up. I managed to get through the class, often thinking about going to the doctor.

It was in the car on the way back that I started dozing off and I felt my nervous system shutting down. When I came home, I collapsed. My stomach was hurting and all I could do was lie down. So I did, and then I felt like I’d have to stay there all night. I decided to do so. Told my friend that I could not make it today. I decided not to be OK, something several therapists have suggested I do. In reality, I did not have another choice. My body’s and mind’s demands became very clear all of a sudden.

Honestly, the whole thing was a relief and I realized I had been in survival mode since yesterday; not really myself.

The thing is, I want to be OK so badly, that I deny and reject the difficult feelings and emotions. I fear them, loathe them, refuse them, and all of this takes a lot of energy, and basically putting up this wall between me and reality. Hence the importance of allowing myself to feel “negative” emotions or sensations or to go through difficult moments with patience and lots and lots of compassion.

I have still so much to learn from myself and I still have so much healing to do, but I was in this illusion that I was OK. But just days ago I was reading that healing was a bumpy road. You think you are doing well, then you face the darkness again, and pull yourself out again. I forget this and I forget to have compassion.

The lesson today was to observe everything going inside and out and see my body, my nervous system and my mind naturally just go through all this. I got to evidence what I can do if I do not choose fear, but acceptance.

I wanted to do too much. Go on dates, go dancing, go to concerts, find a job, I started a master’s… just too much and this forced me to slow down and breathe. I am glad.

Beyond Sweet Metaphors

I haven’t written anything raw in quite some time. I try to say things in pretty metaphors, but how do I really feel? I feel a bit devastated and a bit lost. The tragedy is that the more I lose him, the more I lose touch with my most recent narrative; with my most recent self. I have to let go of that self and it hurts so much. It is not the letting go of Krishnamurti or Buddhism. It is not “simply letting go” or observing with the third eye. That does not do the trick. It is letting go like losing a limb, or having your skin pulled off, slowly. What is left is this mess of flesh and bone and it feels like I am an eternity away from growing new skin.

This is how letting go feels. Even after daily meditations, after Saturday yoga, after writing in the twenty different Word documents I started since I left him. This is unbearably painful at times, but the place I left was also unbearably painful. So I am a line extended between two unbearably painfuls.

But I have hope. I don’t feel it. I don’t see it. But I have hope. Or at least I hope that I have hope and that is hopeful enough.