transabled.org

I just came down with a flu; big ensemble of symptoms. What bugs me more than anything is the fatigue and lethargy. Oddly enough I have a massive craving for bread. Alicia is off to the store in a few minutes.

As with you, these things produce a marked increase in depression symptoms for me. But you and I will both feel better emotionally when physical health returns.

There IS always hope, no matter what. Wish I was there to give you a big hug.

Thinking of you.

~ Chloe

Hi Sean,

I hope that your mood will be better when you overcome the flu or what it was.

When I am really down, when all my tactics fail, then there is only one option: Let myself fall until I reach the ground. Taste the bitter drink until it is empty. You say you fall without a parachute. Let yourself fall. Only when you reach the ground you can start climbing again.

Sometimes it is necessary to let go of everything, even the “I”. There is a core of life and of yourself that one can perceive better when one has fallen down to pieces, paradoxically.

“Die Träne quillt! Die Erde hat mich wieder” (Goethe; “the tear wells, earth has me back again”).

There’s a nice text about crying here: http://www.info3.de/ycms/printartikel_1669.shtml (in German, I try to translate in an abridged version:)

In each tear pain materialises. Tears are the drops of blood of the wounds of the soul. Like blood they do not only show the injury, but also are a remedy.

I can suppress this remedy. I can swallow my tears. But they will make a knot in my throat.

Who cries, makes him/herself free. He does no longer neglect or repress what lives in him or her, he/she expresses himself/herself.

When it hurts deep down in us, then we may cry and only the salty tears enable us to transform an untangible pain into a human, sensual experience and finally into knowledge.

I hope you have somebody in whose arms you can hide and cry.

@Chloe, yes, there always seems to be hope, somehow. I don’t know if that’s good or not…

@Phil, I’ve been to the bottom of the abyss a couple times. It’s not pretty. And when I reach there, I don’t climb back up. I hear what you are saying. Once at the bottom the only way is “up”, but I cannot afford to let myself go there again. For if I do, the only way for me will be in an institution. If I slide all the way down again, I know that there will be no net keeping me anywhere, and I am most likely to lose grip with reality.

Hi Sean,

I think I made a mistake. I took my experience and thought it might be similar for others. This is most often wrong. Sorry.

When I reach the ground, I don’t lose grip with reality, but find the firm ground of the more real reality. It leads me back to what really is important. I lose a lot of control, and that hurts and is good at the same time. But I haven’t lost myself (my real, inner self) in this development.

But maybe I haven’t been to the abyss, only to the ground, and there’s a difference.

It all sounds as if you could really do with a counselor/therapist. Is there only this one person around whom you don’t really trust and who is not available at the moment?

You mentioned an institution. A friend of mine said that after spending months in such a place, he was really better. I’m not so certain.

Maybe you could need a rest somewhere else - not in an institution, but take some time off, just for yourself, “take the waters”, in a resort where you have somebody to talk, can do something for your body etc.

Was there aggression and anger when your bread turned too dark? When I get aggressive after “failure”, it is a sign that I constantly judge myself and what I do. It is better to take a rest and to cry and to be compassionate with myself. Even self-pitying is better…

But of course, these are just things I say from my perception and experience. Everybody has to find his/her own way to deal with oneself, BIID and other problems…

I wish you good sleep!

Hey Sean the selfish pig.

Your shrink took leave to have surgery mostly likely because he needed the surgery. Not because he has it in for you.

Hey, Olivia, watch your tongue. Sean didn’t say he was blaming his shrink, only that the break has given him time to consider whether the man can really help him.

@Olivia, I am amazed that based on a couple things you read from me, you’ve decided I’m a jerk and a selfish pig. I did not say that the therapist took leave because he has it in for me.

I do feel justified, however, in feeling that the clinic itself is reluctant to work with me, considering that it’s been just about a year that I’ve been trying to get help from them.

@Brice, thanks for clarifying for me :)

Two things (one unrelated to this topic in all ways)::

1) Man, when you miss even a month of stuff, there is a WHOLE ton of backlog, which is usually read late at night on weekends…

2) When I was in middle school (a few years ago, my doesn’t time fly!), one week I was having a hard time with BIID, having just returned from a trip to visit mom where I can (could) pretend. Well, we were doing something in our language arts class, and some insignificant event happened and I just couldn’t control my emotions any longer… I had an emotional breakdown in the middle of class (which is embarrassing enough, but not being able to explain it is even worse). It took a few hours (of softly sobbing in the counsellor’s office, hinting that there was a much bigger problem that I actually refused to talk about, aka BIID) to get back to a functional level, and after that I was emotionally shaken for a few months. BIID is really nasty when its bad… and a big nuisance when its good.

By the way… Sometimes I wonder what effect telling that person about BIID would have had, but that would be for a full post about me to have it make any sense.