We have all been there- it is the one experience that unites all beings. Suffering, depression, illness. It is the mud through which we discover elements of our nature which are enlightened. Soft. The antidote to the hard edges of life which leave you bruised and cautious of more pointy corners.
But context is important, and this I often overlook, assuming sometimes that the reader is living in my skin. Pressed up against the mottled screen of my reality.
In the depths of a bipolar depression I find myself left alone with two young children and my husband overseas. I have taken sick leave for my Bipolar II, but the striver within me (I believe she is still in grief counselling) insisted I enrol in study that I need to do for my job. Two birds, right? Breakdown and some qualifications. This thought made her much happier about the whole thing. For the most part she has been right, learning provides focus, shape and a goal to my days. It reminds me that I am still capable for creating new pathways in my brain. However, the constant cycling of moods leaves me unsure of who fronts up to each learning experience- the slightly manic scared me, or the severely depressed one. Nonetheless, this striving cheerleader of mine insists some achievement will help me, keep me functional and about this she is right. The above is of course not a catastrophe, and one is invariably reminded of starving children, and abused, manhandled beings that have it much worse (the striver's pet topic). But I have realised, a deeper me has realised, that discounting your current experience is a form of cruelty. A form of denial, that becomes encoded in your body as shame.
And oh does the manic depressive feel shame! Not having met many, I cannot speak for others, but for myself and for my high-achieving striver the shame is palatable. It rings in my ears as constant chilling rebukes, it floats in throat as an uncomfortable collar of "what if" and it fogs up my brain with constant plucked (selective) evidence of how I have failed. How I have not been strong enough to resist, well, the in-built structure of my brain and a psyche put under too much stress.
I guess there comes a time where every person is 'not strong enough'. Surely that is the one equaliser in this life. It is different for every person, and should not call up shame (you can probably now tell that I have passed the proverbial pen over to my kinder self). I try to unwind it within myself, not with logic, but with a felt sense of my suffering. Surely if all of me can truly feel how hard this muddy muck that I wade through is, they would ease up. Hold me, comfort me and let up on protecting me with high functioning "achievements": doing the tutorial, reading a child a book, cleaning the house, putting on a brave face to my husband calling from the other side of the world. My first week without him was a shameless and blatant attempt to satisfy the achiever. Who in her defence was trying to prove to me that I was "OK" and would be back on my feet in no time.
Because surely things couldn't continue getting worse?
Surely, the electricity turning off, the leaky gas in the kitchen, the horrible (unexpectedly cold) Australian winter, the gastro, the sicknesses that had now bedridden you, was enough?
Perhaps the ever-present shame of taking time off work to deal with your manic depression would satisfy life as laying you sufficiently low? How about the stabbing memories of tearing yourself apart, open in front of your boss, so he could see you were entitled to the sick leave? The pity in his eyes, the insensitive comment here and there? The absent, yet loving, husband. The children's tantrums and tears? Have we yet appeased the gods?
Perhaps now it can stop?
With no reservoir of energy every lancing, tiny blow has stung and threatened to knock me off the perch I have positioned myself on since falling off the higher altitude of "being well and fully functional". My achiever is now clinging to the perch of "recovering super mum and student" with everything she's got. A part of me admires her tenacity.
But as I cursed life for throwing me so many curve balls (while feeling shame knowing it was nothing compared to what someone else was dealt), I remembered the day that a life had leaked out of me one painful clot at a time. In between my children. How it had taken me by surprise. Surely life cannot be this cruel? Surely the breakdown I had after the second child was successfully born and conceived was not enough. Had I not paid my dues?
We must all reach a time when we feel life is being unfair. Overplaying her hand.
So I slow down.
And listen.
And wonder why the relief does not come.
And the kinder, softer part whispers to my felt body, to relax back into the mud. Accept it. Oh that maddening word- acceptance. Like it is a choice. Like prying the achievers frozen hands off the ledge of the 'known' and 'comfortable' is easy. It is truly the boulder that always rolls back down the hill, and has to be hoisted up again. You think you have accepted and then life calls up its brutal symphony to remind you that you have not.
Forcing endless levels of acceptance.
Let's change the lexicon then.
Perhaps we can instead honour. Not quite worship, for life can be a cruel goddess indeed. But just honour the down. The fall, the crash and the inevitable landing into the sticky mud of shame and exhaustion. Exhaustion at the thought of having to rebuild after the fall. Let's lie in that squelchy mud and get comfortable and wait.
With bated breath.
To see whatever it is that you need to in order to grow, change, amend yourself. To be kinder, more open and wait for Spring to come.
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