Monday 2 February 2009

Waking Up

There isn't much I like about having this illness but at the moment I'm coming out of a long depressive period and it's amazing to be waking up again, to feel like there might just be a future, a reason to make it to my next birthday.

It's the simple things that I am taking pleasure in at the moment like washing regularly, cooking a fresh, healthy meal rather than eating super noodles. I now wake up and open the windows and let the air, and the world in. I have clean bedding, clothes and pots and pans. I haven't cleaned the oven yet, but I will. I have the energy to leave the house and the other day I went to the cinema and watched a film, I felt like a normal person walking along the street and filing into the screen with the rest of humanity, I sat on the bus with my ipod on the way home and took in the city. I felt that buzz that life can sometimes give you, of living in a great city full of lights and madness, I wasn't part of any chaos or crisis though, I was just taking the bus home.

I like not thinking about death all the time, I want to keep taking all my medications and am grateful for Mirtazapine which I think has helped me finally shake off the black dog, it was the 3rd anti depressant my doctor tried. I feel sure that suicidal thoughts are like a diabetic going hypo and my coping strategies are my insulin, those thoughts are not me, they are my illness. I like my CPN and doctor more, they have helped me through.

It's nice not to be googling the following for hours on end: suicide + painless methods, how many seroquel do i need to die?, poisons + online + uk delivery, bipolar disorder + suicide rates, can 1 litre of vodka + depakote + seroquel kill? Ad nauseam
When I had a clean up of my flat I found 3 suicide notes, a noose and a stash of paracetamol, all of which have been disposed of. I find 2 letters from close friends reminding me of good times, urging me to hold on and promising that things would seem better soon, they were right.
It's nice to read again, newspapers, poetry, books.
I haven't got a full life yet, my doctor wants me to stay away from employment for now, I still have dips and bad days but I'm mostly not depressed, and I'm alive and glad of the fact. It's progress.


Below is a poem by Raymond Carver, I really like it:

Company

This morning I woke up to rain on the glass. And understood 
that for a long time now
I've chosen the corrupt when
I had a choice. Or else, 
simply, the merely easy.
Over the virtuous. Or the difficult.
This way of thinking happens
when I've been alone for days.
Like now. Hours spent
in my own dumb company.
Hours and hours
much like a little room.
With just a strip of carpet to walk on.






1 comment:

  1. Hi! I hope you're feeling well. I found your post very interesting.
    You could take a look at my blog about poetry. It's both in French and English.

    http://schabrieres.wordpress.com

    Here is a short poem by Raymond Carver that I like:

    And did you get what
    you wanted from this life, even so?
    I did.
    And what did you want?
    To call myself beloved, to feel myself
    beloved on the earth.

    ReplyDelete

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