And It Got Me Thinking

Yes - I know - what are the chances of that?  :-)  Every chance of course!

Watching the programme last night about becoming less anxious, less inside your own head, less analytical and to grow out of it and it really is beginning to feel as if that is happening.  I can't tell you how difficult it actually is though.  It is a continual struggle to stop yourself going back to where you were.  It's easy to fall back into the habits of a lifetime and go to that "happy place" in your head except it isn't a happy place at all, it's insular, it's self injuring, it's poisonous sometimes eating away at you, it's lonely and yet it is also comfortable and self fulfilling, familiar and my bolt hole from reality.  It's where I do all my thinking and planning, it's also where I mentally "self-harm" myself where I beat myself up, where my darkest thoughts gang up on me and so it isn't all that nice either.

I wonder if I struggle with mental health problems but I don't think so, I certainly have never felt that I have.  I do suffer from massive introversion and with the processing power of my brain - more so when it isn't doing anything other than looking at itself - it leaves me open to attack myself and if you've read this blog you know how bad that can be.  I have no doubt that I've had depression of some sort and that I have pretty low self esteem and low confidence levels although if you met me face-to-face you'd probably find that hard to believe, I'm pretty good on the outside just a little bit rotten on the inside. 

The Hippocampus region of the brain and it's there that some of the stress that cancer caused appears to have screwed around with my head was mentioned last night - a little too much to go through here.  I was thinking about how I've taken a long time to get to a position of taking a bit of control and to stop living in this spiral of introverted inward gazing, self mocking post cancer life that just didn't allow me to build away from what had happened.  How I envy some of the patients I met who took this all in their stride and cancer surgery was like popping down to Sainsburys for them.  They turned up, had their operation and went straight back to their lives.

Me?  It affected me pretty deeply and profoundly as mortality was presented to me right before my eyes.  I wanted to know all about it, how to cure it, prognosis, mathematical equations, odds and potential life expectancy.  To me, I needed to understand all this.  Not sure that it would be everyone's ideal.  

Let's leave the operations, treatments, side effects and physicals to one side apart from to say that these are challenging in their own right.  Apart from here in the blog and on the odd occasions when I did feel like sh1te, I hid that lot - no need to upset anyone else is there?  I struggled more with the mental side.

After all these years and quite suddenly it dawned on me that if I was to get out of here, get out of my mind - without the use of mind bending drugs that is! :-) - I needed to let go of how I live now (well then) and to start to live my life through a more emotionally driven way rather than the theory  plann, manage and direct way I have all my adult life.  To me it is a terrifying place to go because it does mean I don't have that control, it is also liberating and exciting and makes me feel alive as well.  It's only been three weeks and it's been anything but straightforward and it certainly hasn't been easy but I do have a couple of very close friends who are helping me through this transition.  I'm so glad that they are there because I struggle with it but I'll not be beaten.  

I'd say that my self esteem and self belief have improved, I feel good most of the time, I actually stand and walk tall when I'm out, I can feel that.  I do get attacks of confidence and doubt but I am dealing with those.  It feels like I'm struggling to shed off an old skin and emerge anew.  It isn't all happening at once that's impossible but day by day I am getting more confident, have a much better can do attitude and slowly the procrastination that has dogged me for so very long is beginning to melt away.  

Life's got good at last - life's also got frightening and big and time is going fast and slow and I feel great and worried :-) It's brilliant, it's all rather new, it's all rather scary and yet wonderful too.  I've a long way to go to change my head and to climb out of the cr@p place I've been for so long.  I've the opportunity to grasp it, I have good friends who are there to support me too.

The climb away from Depression is a long one but I've made a great start, my mind is now open to new possibilities and gradually I'm being pulled out of the prehensile strands that hold me back and of the shadows of my mind that aren't there to help but to wound me.