Starting Over from the Pit of Despair

Last week I broke up with my boyfriend, citing my mental health issues as my reason that I needed space to find some healing.  The relationship was just dragging down my spirit, and it was making it hard for me to recover. I wanted a break from all the feelings, the anxiety, the situational depression.

Unfortunately breakups rarely end well.  Both of us where struggling to swim on our own in this life, alternating taking personal responsibility for being grownups.  I knew it was wrong, we were super co-dependant and fighting alot.

All I ever wanted was a boyfriend, but not like this. Not the co-dependancy and being a victim to my partners issues.   I never wanted to feel responsible for someone else's happiness and wellbeing and to be the reason they are making better choices.

My soul wanted to be free, to be single to find my own rhythm again.  I've been denying myself this because "things aren't that bad," or "they could be worse."

Meanwhile I was anxious and my energy constantly feels depleted because I refused for a year to leave an unhealthy situation.  My business was suffering, my mental health was suffering, but I just sat on the fence, waiting for a big "God moment" to help me make a decision.

 When I asked for space and he threw me under the bus and said the most horrible, soul destroying things about me and my struggles with mental illness and cursed me wishing me the worst that was a big enough sign for me.

So now I find myself shaky, alone and afraid.  Desperately wanting to feel some relief and some contact with my higher power.  I'm getting moments of peace and serenity, but they are fleeting and the guilt and sadness and anxiety feel pretty all consuming at times.

The thing is recovery is a selfish process, and sometimes when you're drowning in the deep end of an emotional ocean, and the ones that are supposed to love you are struggling too and pushing you underwater you gotta bail on the situation and to swim to an unknown shore.  

We are both beautiful humans, just broken and need some space to grow and find our own sunlight instead of fighting and blocking each others light with unconscious patterns of behaviour that don't serve ourselves or our relationship.

This weekend has been pretty tough, and I'm sure he's struggling too.  I want so badly to just be able to forgive and patch things up, but thats not being honest with myself and that's setting us both up for failure.

SO for now I swim, unsure of how long its going to take for me to find my way back to the shore of balance and sanity.

The pit of despair is where I've found myself, but depression isn't what I want as a result.
I need to find acceptance....BIPOLAR is super hard....ADHD is hard....ANXIETY is a monster and BREAKUPS are awful.

The next steps are acceptance and commitment to keep moving onwards and upwards.  To brave the storms of my mind and heart and to find a solid reliance on the healing power of the universe.
I wish everyone thats struggling to find those glimpses of light and to find the hidden strength to keep braving whatever adversity you find yourself up against.

We are not alone and isolation only makes the recovery process take longer.  Thats why I'm sharing my journey, reaching out to friends, going to work and going to AA meetings. I'm not letting familiar patterns keep me stuck, because our job in this lifetime is to fight to take control of what we can, and learn to surrender to the process of healing, even when change feels impossible and our preconditioned patterns of depression feel all consuming.  Truth is I need myself now more than ever to be compassionate and understanding, and I'm not really interested in feeding despair.....I am and always will be a child of the universe, and I wasn't born to suffer, but I was born to learn and grow and unfortunately pain is a natural byproduct of growth.

When You're Under a Raincloud, Look for Rainbows

I had the kind of year that left me in awe and terror of the severity of my mental illness, but also showed me the strength of my own character and resilience.

In late April of this year, I'd had enough of a six month episode of clinical depression and was at rock bottom.   I was at Sunshine Village, pushing my limits on my snowboard, yet no trick landed or amount of speed was quelling the incessant feelings of hopelessness and despair.
I sat on the mountain, my goggles filling up with tears of desperation and frustration.
"Why was this happening?" "What was I missing in my treatment plan?" "Was I treatment resistant? Doomed to a life of depression and misery?"

Part of me knew I had to dig deeper than I'd ever gone before to get out of this rut, so I took myself to the hospital.  A judgemental and mean male nurse told me I was fine and to leave the emergency and go back to my psychiatrist, so I left that day without any help or answers.

Finding out my psychiatrist wouldn't be able to see me the following week sent me back to the hospital, and this time I brought a friend.  The same asshole rolled his eyes, but luckily it's a team approach, so I ended up getting the help I needed.

I knew what my treatment resistant bipolar depression needed and it was ECT and hospitalization, and within 2 weeks I was back to myself.  I did about 10 rounds of ECT and had amazing results and very little memory issues.  Was it scary?  Not as scary as staying depressed and thinking awful thoughts of wanting to drive my truck off the road.

The staff was amazing, the other patients where supportive and I got really into floor hockey.
I'm actually pretty good at floor hockey and honestly for the first few weeks out of the hospital I was secretly wishing I hadn't checked out just so I could score a few more goals.

  ECT got me back to maybe 60% better and I had a business to run so in-spite of my new found passion, I wasn't about to get too comfortable in the psych ward.
Additionally, my room was across from the nurses station, and they are a really rowdy bunch at 7 am, so I never got really comfortable. Not only that, but hospital wards are no substitute for comfortable suburban living.

Do I miss the safe, structured environment and 3 meals a day?  Ummm, yes.  Do I miss drawing and playing the piano?....absolutely.  I did realize that once I was depression free, the rest of the journey back to wellness was my responsibility.

I wanted a miracle, but the last 8 weeks haven't been easy.

My business grew exponentially, and I found myself hardly keeping up, back on nicotine and redbull and working long hours.  I was in the fight, flight, or freeze response trying to juggle a ridiculous work load.  My poor overtired and wired brain started getting obsessive compulsive about germs, a scary symptom of my inability to find balance.  I started just wanting to give up, when was this battle going to stop?  When was I going to find the peace and serenity I so desperately needed?

What gets me through is my ability to always look for hope and the presence of a loving higher power in my difficulties.

Through all these challenges, as storms of mental illness disturbed my inner landscape, I kept the faith I would heal, and that the God of my understanding would guide me on a daily basis.
I have been guided every step by a loving higher power that didn't want me to give into clinical depression and despair.  Friends, counsellors, doctors and random strangers have said the right things to give me the strength to go on.

Nature has shown me amazing weather this summer in Alberta....so many rainstorms, thunder storms and windstorms in June that reminded me of my own storms...frightening but impermanent.
After most rainstorms, rainbows showed me the connection between this realm and the spiritual plane.

I really believe that God is within all of us and knows our struggles and wants us to find healing.  Our job is to keep reaching out and having faith that no matter how long the storm lasts, there will be healing and redemption and we must hold on and keep fighting.