Well, today sucked. Hardly surprising considering the way yesterday finished I suppose. True, there was a trip to the beach, fish and chips, and ice cream. Why isn't that good? Because today, I am crap. Complete and utter crap. Today is one of those days of my life that I'm never going to get back. Today, I really needed to complete my timesheet, for work. It should have been submitted on Friday, it wasn't. Today I needed to search for my medical certificate to attach along with the timesheet. I got so far as half dismantling the Christmas area. Yes, Christmas. It's February, and I hadn't taken down the 'tree', or finished opening the gifts. Yes, that sums me up pretty well.
Some might call it lazy. Others might call it disorganised. Kinder people might simply say I have different priorities. The truth is, sometimes it feels like I have to concentrate really hard just to stay upright and breathing, and sometimes, I fail even at that. Today was mostly an upright fail day. I spent most of the day only semi-conscious, and I achieved a sum total of nothing good, plus I managed to plumb new depths of dismalness into the bargain. Just when I think there's no further down to go, I always seem to find a new crack to fall through. Today, I let my son see me falling apart, really falling apart. I've always tried so hard to hide it. Today, I couldn't manage even that.
I was thinking earlier, maybe the Lasagne Project is not so apt a name for this blog, maybe Mining, or Deep Sea Diving the Psyche or something, something not so much about 'layers' as 'how low can you go'. I was so shocked last week when my doctor said: 'You know, hospital is always an option at this stage.' Jesus. I guess sometimes I've kidded myself that I'm not as bad as I seem, and that really I'm just a bit blue and that if I look at enough trees, and take enough deep breaths, it will all be OK. Having your doctor say that, not far off the back of your Psychologist suggesting that your case is a bit beyond her and that perhaps a Psychiatrist would be a better option ... these things really knock you around.
Damn. Today I hit myself. Whenever I go a stretch of managing not to do that, I always allow myself to hope that it will never happen again. Then when it does, a big part of the distress is the disappointment in the fact that it did. This year was the year when I finally realised that if I didn't seek help, I was going to die, or at least do myself some really serious permanent injuries that would hamper everything in my future. It's just not safe to spend as much time as I do wrestling with yourself to prevent yourself from taking flying leaps at plate glass windows and dreaming of lying down on the road, on the downwards stretch of a curve in the street. Think about those things too much, and eventually, the laws of attraction would tend to dictate that something bad will happen, because the Universe does tend to try to give us what it thinks we want. And what it thinks we want is pretty much what we think about the most.
I'm sure that's how I ended up being carted off from work a month or so ago, in an ambulance. I got a migraine. It was so bad that some co-workers took me to First Aid. The First Aider called an ambulance based on my blood pressure reading (180 over 119 or something like that). As they wheeled the stretcher away with me strapped on it, I was crying because the pain was so immense, I thought I was going to die. Then I thought: hang on, isn't that what you WANTED to happen, don't you WANT to be dead, and for it not to be your fault? Which was kind of a handy thought at that point, because it did help me to relax quite a lot, realising that I was pretty much in a win/win situation. Odd the things you can remember thinking, when your head feels like it's going to explode. Odd in fact that your head can hurt as much as mine did that day and that thought is still possible, in amongst the pain.
But that was over a month ago, and today is today. How much progress have I made in that time? Well, some, maybe? None, perhaps? How do we measure those things. Is cleaning off the top of the microwave a big enough deal to celebrate? Is hitting yourself and crying uncontrollably for what feels like hours on end enough of a small speed-bump to simply shrug off and get up and do it all again? Is deciding that you are unwell enough to hold down a full time professional job and taking steps to put it all on hold for 6 months to a year a positive thing? Who knows. Not me, that's for sure. All I know is that I'm upright and breathing right now.
The sun is going down. Apart from consuming an enormous amount of calories made up of fat and carbohydrate, I can't count a single positive thing that I have done today. If I had to count my blessings right now, one of them would be that there is leftover lasagne in the fridge, because I surely won't be making a full meal tonight.
Perhaps that attitude of gratitude is something I need to work on. A lot. Perhaps the focus of my better days should be on creating things that I can appreciate and benefit from on my not so good days, and even on my completely dismal days. What's that called? Making hay while the sun shines. Today, my sun didn't shine, sad to say. Tomorrow, perhaps it will.
Tomorrow is not a lasagne day in the culinary sense. My partner and I are going to meet some friends for lunch and they are going to take us out on a boat. So, perhaps it will be a lasagne day in the metaphorical sense. I hope so.
And - when it IS a lasagne day again in the culinary sense, I have a chicken and mushroom suggestion from a Facebook friend, on that sounds a whole lot better than the versions in that very dodgy e-book.
So - when the morning light comes streaming in, we'll get up and do it again. Amen.
Some might call it lazy. Others might call it disorganised. Kinder people might simply say I have different priorities. The truth is, sometimes it feels like I have to concentrate really hard just to stay upright and breathing, and sometimes, I fail even at that. Today was mostly an upright fail day. I spent most of the day only semi-conscious, and I achieved a sum total of nothing good, plus I managed to plumb new depths of dismalness into the bargain. Just when I think there's no further down to go, I always seem to find a new crack to fall through. Today, I let my son see me falling apart, really falling apart. I've always tried so hard to hide it. Today, I couldn't manage even that.
I was thinking earlier, maybe the Lasagne Project is not so apt a name for this blog, maybe Mining, or Deep Sea Diving the Psyche or something, something not so much about 'layers' as 'how low can you go'. I was so shocked last week when my doctor said: 'You know, hospital is always an option at this stage.' Jesus. I guess sometimes I've kidded myself that I'm not as bad as I seem, and that really I'm just a bit blue and that if I look at enough trees, and take enough deep breaths, it will all be OK. Having your doctor say that, not far off the back of your Psychologist suggesting that your case is a bit beyond her and that perhaps a Psychiatrist would be a better option ... these things really knock you around.
Damn. Today I hit myself. Whenever I go a stretch of managing not to do that, I always allow myself to hope that it will never happen again. Then when it does, a big part of the distress is the disappointment in the fact that it did. This year was the year when I finally realised that if I didn't seek help, I was going to die, or at least do myself some really serious permanent injuries that would hamper everything in my future. It's just not safe to spend as much time as I do wrestling with yourself to prevent yourself from taking flying leaps at plate glass windows and dreaming of lying down on the road, on the downwards stretch of a curve in the street. Think about those things too much, and eventually, the laws of attraction would tend to dictate that something bad will happen, because the Universe does tend to try to give us what it thinks we want. And what it thinks we want is pretty much what we think about the most.
I'm sure that's how I ended up being carted off from work a month or so ago, in an ambulance. I got a migraine. It was so bad that some co-workers took me to First Aid. The First Aider called an ambulance based on my blood pressure reading (180 over 119 or something like that). As they wheeled the stretcher away with me strapped on it, I was crying because the pain was so immense, I thought I was going to die. Then I thought: hang on, isn't that what you WANTED to happen, don't you WANT to be dead, and for it not to be your fault? Which was kind of a handy thought at that point, because it did help me to relax quite a lot, realising that I was pretty much in a win/win situation. Odd the things you can remember thinking, when your head feels like it's going to explode. Odd in fact that your head can hurt as much as mine did that day and that thought is still possible, in amongst the pain.
But that was over a month ago, and today is today. How much progress have I made in that time? Well, some, maybe? None, perhaps? How do we measure those things. Is cleaning off the top of the microwave a big enough deal to celebrate? Is hitting yourself and crying uncontrollably for what feels like hours on end enough of a small speed-bump to simply shrug off and get up and do it all again? Is deciding that you are unwell enough to hold down a full time professional job and taking steps to put it all on hold for 6 months to a year a positive thing? Who knows. Not me, that's for sure. All I know is that I'm upright and breathing right now.
The sun is going down. Apart from consuming an enormous amount of calories made up of fat and carbohydrate, I can't count a single positive thing that I have done today. If I had to count my blessings right now, one of them would be that there is leftover lasagne in the fridge, because I surely won't be making a full meal tonight.
Perhaps that attitude of gratitude is something I need to work on. A lot. Perhaps the focus of my better days should be on creating things that I can appreciate and benefit from on my not so good days, and even on my completely dismal days. What's that called? Making hay while the sun shines. Today, my sun didn't shine, sad to say. Tomorrow, perhaps it will.
Tomorrow is not a lasagne day in the culinary sense. My partner and I are going to meet some friends for lunch and they are going to take us out on a boat. So, perhaps it will be a lasagne day in the metaphorical sense. I hope so.
And - when it IS a lasagne day again in the culinary sense, I have a chicken and mushroom suggestion from a Facebook friend, on that sounds a whole lot better than the versions in that very dodgy e-book.
So - when the morning light comes streaming in, we'll get up and do it again. Amen.
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