Do you ever find, after having been terribly sick or terribly down for a long time, that you resist feeling or seeming or accepting being better?
For example, I have bitten my nails most of my life and over the past decade and a half have managed to slowly make time periods between biting them longer and longer. Then last summer, when the troubles began to get worse, I began biting my nails again. I bit all of them, at some point, to the point of pain.
A friend recently pointed out how they are growing again. "No they aren't," I said, pointing to the shortest one. "I bit this off just recently." "Yes," she said, "but I see white on all of them."
I wanted to argue with her. I'm not letting my nails grow. I'm still biting them because I'm Not Better Yet! I'm not getting better!
Why? Why would I resist any sign that I may be rising from the Abyss? Why would I want to continue to be or appear to be suffering or ill or unbelievably depressed?
Maybe I'm afraid that if I seem to be getting better, then no one will have patience with me if I'm not completely better — Now! — and all the time hereafter. Or maybe they'll think I was malingering: how long do you have to be in a Bad Place or State before you have legitimacy?
Or maybe I'm afraid I'm doing a disservice to my mom's memory by getting better now. Or maybe to myself in some odd way: if I'm well now, was I really that down and unreachable or was it really just ... all in my mind. Nerves. All those things that say I'm just a hypochondriac or just trying to get attention. Or maybe that I'm actually crazy. But something.
I have honestly turned the corner and I want to live now. That's an amazement in itself.
I'm still not doing my homework regularly, but I believe that my sleeping sickness over my vacation trumps that. Once I have the sleepiness under control and am feeling more me-normal again, the new "better-ness" will be more perceptible.
I'm going to show it off. Let others make their own judgments. I've been down to the Abyss yet again — my third time? my fourth or fifth? — and I beat it yet again. How many others can say that?
My assvice... honoring the "down" is worthy, but so is honoring the "better."
ReplyDeleteJulie
I think all of those reasons could be right/valid. For example the first one, that it might affect how other people treat you. Or maybe they'll be all "But I thought you were better now, right?" if you have a mini relapse or something. Cause the reality is, that might happen. While you make your slow climb out of the abyss, you'll have to ignore The Others. They won't always understand how it's done or what it looks like, or how long it takes, or that there might be some backsliding or reversals along the way. You just take your time and do it your way -- nails bitten or not! :-)
ReplyDelete@Julie, you are right that I need to be okay with "better."
ReplyDelete@Mabel: you are also right that I need to accept that I'll have good times and bad times still and screw The Others (but not in the good way). :)