The moving company called.
They arranged a time. Then they
called and rearranged the time,
naturally – although, to be fair to them it was only an hour’s difference. Wednesday, they showed up. They lifted the boxes in through the door and
then they left.
There you go: permanency.
I have now moved to the UK from NZ.
Today I have not been happy.
Dealing with fluctuations in my mental state is not
something I believed I would have to confront.
I always considered myself aware.
To become unaware, out of control, and to not recognise you are falling
out of control is frightening. Still I wonder
whether I actually suffer from depression or anxiety or whether I just simply
need to pull myself together and get on with it? Trying to second-guess my mental wellbeing is
to sit on a helter-skelter, one that has no end in sight. It is simply a spiral and it goes down but you
never know how high you are. It is a hair-raising
ride and it sometimes feels tremendous – wholly counter-intuitive. And I have that sense of vertigo about
me. I don’t know if I am near the end or
whether I still have so far to fall.
Today’s lowness has this boxed emblem of permanency at its
core. Whilst there is light in this, 89th
birthdays and board-games, today this feels like the much darker sequel to a
chapter that has now been closed and put up on the shelf, out of the way, ended.
Fluctuations in mood and a sense of loss of purpose
obviously come and go. For the last
year, year and a half, that is something I have had to try and come to terms
with. All of this results from decisions
I made. I know that I am at the heart of
the situation I find me in now.
Acknowledging that this is my fault hasn’t lessened the pain, confusion
and suffering. Moments vividly crash
into your head on a day-to-day basis, stopping me cold – constant reminders of
the fool I was and also reminders of my descent into illness.
I tried counselling but found the responses I was getting to
be trite and clichéd. Again, that can
only come from the information I was giving the counsellor – they can’t
second-guess their patient; so whatever it was that I was saying I was either saying
it wrong or I wasn’t heard. People have
suggested that I try a different counsellor.
A year on, that would result in different advice: I run now, I’ve moved
country now, I don’t drink now, I eat far too much sugar now, I see my daughter
again. The me that sat in with the
counsellor is gone.
A phrase that springs to mind is one I associate with
Australian sport: mental disintegration.
That’s what happened to me, I think.
I drank, I argued, I became sullen, I became unbearable – I must have
done. The person who at the time I went
home to every day, the person I loved, decided that I wasn’t loveable
anymore. And so the person I loved left. I crashed.
I am still crashed.
And here we are, year later and I am fifteen boxes. That’s all.
Fifteen boxes. Not big ones
either. I threw away loads, gave away a
house full, and I boxed up fifteen boxes and sent them on a boat to the
UK. They have arrived and they have taken
up space: physically, cognitively, emotionally they take up space – and today
has been a bad day.
My dreams are still flooded with Aotearoa and the one who
left me. Two nights ago the dream was a push and pull fight, wanting her but
never wanting to touch her again.
Two days ago, I walked my daughter to the library and we sat
next to each other and worked. On the
walk down the hill she reached out and she held my hand. She is still of an age where she will
confidently do so regardless of time and place.
I hate how I feel. I
hate feeling crashed. I hate feeling fine and then not. I would give anything to feel not
crashed. I think.
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