One who flew...

Today I actually sat down and spent about 3 hours reading my journals from July 2014 to August 2015.  All I can say is wow.  I don’t know how productive this exercise was because doing this almost paralyzed me.  My major depressive episode began after a pretty personal event, I may or may not get into that at some point in time (it is important but still too raw for too many people).  Reading the journal entries was almost like watching “One Who Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” and I was every character in the book, sometimes all in one day.   I know now that a great majority of it was the cocktail of medications I was taking but it is spooky.  What is worse is the things I wrote that came out during the divorce and I denied they happened.  I don’t remember more than 75% of what I wrote happening.  Or I remember it “happening” but I don’t remember the details – you know what was said, what the emotion was, what caused that day – all I have to remember it are these journal entries.  The entries fly all over the place; they are illegible (and I have pretty good handwriting); they have date errors (where I wrote August when it was October); they are scathing; they are well to any sane person, exactly what my ex-husband called it “horrifying”. 

I remember an incident where we were going to try marriage counseling and for some reason they wanted to see us separately first.  I went and the first thing the lady said to me was “I’m here to do a psychological assessment of fitness on you”.  I don’t just remember it, I wrote it down.  I freaked out.  I also freaked out on my ex-husband, I was certain I was there for evaluation for commitment proceedings.  Now, after reading my journal, if that is what was going through his head, or even the psychologist, I don’t necessarily blame them.  How did it get that bad?  How was I holding on by a fingernail?  I wanted to say, how did no one notice? - but they did and everyone seemed to be doing what they could but, well just but! 

I got off all the medications except the anti-depressant and kept the anxiety meds for as needed.  I pretty much did it cold turkey (not recommended unless you want sudden rapid weight loss and three to five days where you don’t leave the bathroom or have sweats and hand shaking).  Life, however, came into focus.  Then I started self-medicating with alcohol.  I didn’t do it to self-medicate at first.  At first it was self-liberation since I hadn’t drank much, if at all, in 23 years but it rapidly turned into self medicating. 

Today, and l mean literally today, I’m alcohol and med free (under doctors watch).  More has come into focus and I’m really not sure I like it.  I’m wondering if the haze and excuse(s) and little bit of numb may have been better!?!?  Today, I have to take inventory in my life, I’ve decided to start in 2014 and work my way forward then work back.  However, knowing me, I may skip all around depending on the topic or emotion.  What I do know today, as I write this, is that I literally lost my mind and holed up inside myself, I have no REAL memory of about 18 months of my life and I don’t know if I need or want it back – the written proof has scared the hell out of me.  I do know there were real people there for me but I’m not sure exactly who or what they did or how they fit into the puzzle.  How do you make amends for going mentally unstable?   How do you hold your head up?  I’m hoping my “Storm has Run out of Rain”, but I am not so certain it has.  Terror or something above scared but maybe below terror is the word for today.  Ironically, even this, my breathing is normal; my pulse is normal and my thoughts are clear.