It won’t always be like this, it’s going to get better. A very personal response

I want to believe you, I really do. In fact, I want to believe anything, just to know that I can still believe.  Because to believe is to live. I don’t live. I exist, just about.  Hanging on by a dirty, worn - out, fraying thread.  Going through the motions of life, very much dead inside.  Did you know that you don’t have to die to stop living?  

So, your optimistic, hopeful view of the future is not only hard for me to share, it’s beyond my comprehension, beyond the scope of my imagination.  It’s not that my imagination is limited, but it stretches in only one direction – down. I can imagine a future devoid of meaning. I can imagine remaining isolated and lonely. I can imagine never, ever feeling joy again.  But I just can not imagine things ever ‘getting better’.

I’m just so heavy.  Not overweight heavy, although it’s so long since I looked at myself, or weighing scales, that I may be overweight, obese even.  I don’t know.  My arms and legs are leaden, useless, dead weights.  My bones are too dense.  I struggle to keep my head from lolling to one side.  But the physical heaviness isn’t even the worst part.  It’s the heaviness that starts in my heart centre, and emanates through every drop of blood, every cell and hair follicle. From the top of my greasy head to my uncut toenails, every fibre of my being - is heavy.  My soul, if that’s what it is, the very core of me, the essence of who I am, has shrunk small and become increasingly heavy, until it hurts just to carry it inside me.  It keeps shrinking.  I wish the rest of me would shrink too.  Shrink away, implode, cease to be.   The less of me in the world, the better, for everyone.  I want to shrink away from the world, away from myself.  I just can’t get away from myself.  I’m uncomfortable in my own skin, as if forced to constantly wear an ill-fitting suit; too tight, itchy, sweaty, digging into me at the poorly stitched seams. But I can’t take it off.  No relief.        

Have you ever felt excruciating numbness?   I know it sounds contradictory, to be numb and sore at the same time, but so much of this is contradictory.  It’s neither physical nor reasonable, so doesn’t have to make sense.   An empty void that’s full to the brim with despair, leaving no room for anything else. Numb and sore. Empty and full.  Hell on earth.

I can’t remember what it was like to feel ‘OK’. Not even ‘well’ or ‘happy’…  just ‘OK’.   According to the campaigns; “it’s OK not to be OK”.  Have the doe eyed models of these campaigns ever (un)felt like this?  Because I beg to differ with their scripted assertion.  This, this existence, is definitely not ‘OK’. 

People think it’s sadness. It isn’t.  I’m not stupid, I know the difference. I have felt sadness before, and to be honest, I long to feel it again.  Because to feel sad is to at least feel something. Sadness would be a blessed relief from this numb, empty, indefinable pain. At school, I was really good at English, great with words. But I don’t have the words to describe this. Language is inadequate.  Maybe because this isn’t meant to be communicated.  It’s meant to be felt, experienced, and endured in silence. Alone.

At the same time as being heavy, numb and sore, I’m overcome by anxiety. In company, I feel so nervous that I want to be physically sick. I visualize myself apologetically mopping vomit from the shirt of the person speaking to me.  This very real fear of projectile vomiting on people is a sensible and kind reason to avoid company.  Yet I’m told to ‘just get out and socialize more’.    

Even if I manage not to be sick, just being in company is unbearable, because I’m so utterly disconnected.  My body is there, physically with people.  I see their expressions, hear their voices and laughter, even smell their scent.  But I’m as far away as another planet. I’m separate. Different. Alien.  I once read Sylvia Plath describing ‘The Bell Jar’. It made sense to me.  An invisible, yet impenetrable, barrier between me and other people.  They can’t see it. They don’t even know it’s there.  I could scream at the top of my lungs; they wouldn’t hear me.  Not because they don’t care, but because I’m too far away. Unreachable.    

Sometimes, daily tasks are so overwhelming that I freeze.  I tried to buy bread in SuperValu yesterday.  White? Wholemeal? Pan? Plain? Different prices. Different best – before dates. What was the date?  I didn’t know and couldn’t work it out.  Heart racing, palms sweating, confusion blurred my vision until I couldn’t tell one loaf from the other.  No air. No breath. I bowed my head, hiding tears of frustration, and fled.  There’s no bread in the house today. 

I just can’t do it, any of it. 

So, don’t tell me that ‘it will get better’. Don’t hark to a future that I can neither see nor imagine, never mind be part of. I cannot see a future without this thing, no more than I can remember a past when it wasn’t part of me.   This thing has latched onto me so tightly that we are enmeshed, it has seeped into me, becoming all of who I am.  

‘I’m not weak’. That’s the other thing that awareness campaigns tell me.  But strength is relative to the weight a person carries.  This feels like 100kg of dead weight. Could you carry that around with you all day, every day?  Or would you need a break? A wee breather?  That’s what I need. I need to put it down, if only for a while.  But the weight is me, I can’t put it down. The reps never end.  I did have strength - once.  I used it all up carrying this thing for days, weeks, months, years.   Now, I’m tired.  Sick, sore and tired of it.  I’m battle weary.  So many battles.   I have been strong, and I have tried. God knows, I’ve tried so hard.   I don’t want to be like this. It takes so much energy and courage just to function, just to be in this world. I’m exhausted by existence.  They say that my struggles make me stronger, resilient. I don’t want resilience.  I want peace.

The Nurse suggested that I go for a walk.  He said it would help.  He obviously can’t see the ache in my bones, lack of oxygen in my lungs or massive weight on my shoulders.   Walking not only requires energy, but also confidence to be in public. There’s a risk I’ll meet someone I know, and have to say hello, maybe even interact and make small talk  …..  without vomiting.   Climbing Mount Everest would be a better suggestion, an easier challenge.  At least I wouldn’t meet someone I know on that summit.        

So, here I am. Lying on the sofa, again. Watching the wallpaper, again. A crumpled pillow at my head, body weight sagging well hollowed dents in the seat cushions. I’m not even comfortable. My neck hurts and I have pins and needles in my left arm and hand.  But I can’t move. I’m stuck.      

Dry eyes focus on the cup sitting on the coffee table. It’s at eye level, so no effort required to see it.  The cup is stained. Old stains.  I mustn’t have washed it properly. Brown drips below the rim, above the faded pink flower. Light grey stains at the base of the handle.  The coffee will be cold by now. I meant to drink it, to get a caffeine boost so I could shower, dress, and leave the house. I didn’t.  I sat the cup on the coffee table, and my bum on the sofa, just for a minute. But gravity is powerful, it pushed me.  It pushed me hard, forcing me into a lying position, again.  Watching the wallpaper, again. Staring at the cup, again. Was that an hour ago?  Maybe two hours? Three?   Time means nothing. I have nowhere to be, nothing to do, no-one to see.  I made sure of that. I strategically disconnected and withdrew.   I won’t be missed.

Remembering your well-meaning words of encouragement, I try again to believe that ‘things will get better”. But where’s the evidence? I separate my thoughts and feelings, like the counsellor taught me.  ‘Don’t believe everything you think!’ she said. A nice wee girl, I’m sure she was good at her job.  She tried.  I look at my thoughts logically, objectively.  They didn’t come from nowhere.  They come from my genuine lived experience, that being in this world is unbearably difficult.  Even if, with huge effort, I manage to make things better, something out of my control always, always happens to make it worse again. Every time I get up, it’s even harder to stay there, because I know what’s coming. It always comes, and I’m just too tired to keep fighting it.  The feelings I have make sense, they are a response to my experience. My experience has been difficult, very difficult.   How can I feel ok or happy, when I have evidence that it has always been like this? I have always been like this!  There is no evidence, no reason to believe, that it will ever get better.

So, what’s the point?

Wet nose on the back of my hand. Familiar smell of fur. My heavy eyes peel open to meet hers.  Unblinking. She’s between me and the coffee cup. Close up. Blocking my view of the wallpaper.   Her face is large in front of mine. Her breath stinks. I didn’t hear her coming in from the kitchen. She just appeared, as she often does.   Another nudge.  She forces her muzzle between my hand and my face, so I have to lift my head.  Whiskers light against my wrist. The cool tip of her nose against my cheek.  Warm velvety ear on my chin. Life. A paw on my arm. Nails scrape my skin, just hard enough to feel, soft enough not to hurt. I need to feel. I already hurt.    

She doesn’t tell me that ‘things will get better’, or that ‘it’s ok to not be ok’, or that I’m weak, or strong, or resilient, or what I should or shouldn’t do.  She is just here with me, silently and fully.  That is enough for her. Well, it’s enough until she needs to get outside to pee, because she can’t open the door for herself.  Then, she needs me to be just a tiny bit more; vertical and moving, however slowly, just as far as the door.  That’s all. 

“It won’t always be like this; it’s going to get better” makes as little sense to her as it does to me.  No judgement of how it is, or aspirations of how it will be.  Just acceptance that we are both here, now.  That is the only truth we are certain of, and right now that is enough.

I love her and she needs me.  So, I get up.