You know when you get into blogging or writing a diary and you feel all excited, and free almost that you can get all your thoughts down onto paper and even share them with others if you wish, who may even relate to you? Its therapeutic and rewarding and you know you will always carry on blogging not just for your readers but for yourself and your personal well being?
And then a week goes by without a single blog post, then another and another and you feel like you need to blog so you write a review, because reviews are safe. Reviews don,t require you to share how you are feeling on a day to day basis, you can concentrate on the specific task of sharing a specific experience which is great because it allows communication and connection without giving too much away.
The thing is to write, to really honestly write about mental health you have to know what is going on inside your own head. Or at least that is what i have been telling myself recently. How could I possibly Blog when I can barely make sense of it all? I've been feeling almost numb, the pieces don't quite fit together in my head, I feel nothing, almost like I am looking in from the outside watching someone else, I can see the emotions on the surface but I cant quite tap into whats really going on inside.
Then I had a realisation that this numbness is part of my mental health , weather its a good or a bad thing right now I really don't know , but this is how I have been feeling for a long time now, so maybe in order to make sense of it all I should just talk about nothing, literally.
Nothing, Nothingness, emptiness, a complete lack of feeling or understanding of my emotions. I am usually quite tuned into my feelings, and I have reason for how I am feeling one way or another, but right now this locked out sensation is disturbing.
I would rather feel everything than nothing at all.
Physically I also find numbness disturbing, that odd tingling sensation on the border of the numb part, that total disconnected sensation makes me feel queasy and unsettled. For Example I have a numb thumb after a little baking injury a few weeks ago and if anyone touches it I feel sick , I'm not sure why but i cant handle the sensation of not being able to feel something I should, it just freaks me out!
Well apparently not being able to feel my inner emotions makes me feel queasy too, I can tell you how I've felt on the surface recently, its all been relatively normal i would say, joy over Amelia's birthday, anger at Fibromyalgia and what its doing to my family, Happiness in catching up with friends, Disappointment in not conceiving again, Tears over One born Every minute, these are all pockets of emotions felt on the surface, by which I mean I feel that emotion but it doesn't effect me or consume me completely, I can be sad , then reason and feel better so in general for me, emotional stability.
Maybe I should relish in this state of emotional stability , maybe i should feel calmness in knowing that under the surface I am not falling apart, maybe I should be happy knowing right now I don't need to be fixed.
But its not something I know and the quietness for me is disturbing, I know due to my history over the last few years that this is how my breakdowns have started, nothingness boiling down to deep depression, however in the past I've known that I am down. Currently I don't feel down at all,quite the opposite i
nfact , although my anxiety is high, I've gone back to not going anywhere alone apart from a short walk three times a week to toddler group, I cant sleep when Ian isn't at home (he sometimes works nights) As my silly brain convinces me the house is on fire, or someone is breaking in.
My Anxiety is high, hold on.........that is a strong emotion....maybe I'm not as switched off as I thought, maybe I'm not as lost as i think but maybe I am quite simply but cautiously entering new territory.
Maybe I'm starting to settle down emotionally, maybe this quietness is a good thing. Perhaps I'm finally (thankfully) loosing the demons completely.
Its still unsettling, however maybe instead of being disturbed by the darkness, I should enjoy the stillness and the calm.
Is this what normal feels like?
