Emotional Seesaw
I've spent a great deal of this year in a very familiar and all too predictable cycle. I would know that if I have had 3 or so 'good days' I would be due to spend the next few days falling apart. I knew then also that if I had spent 3 or so days as an emotional wreck, my subconscious would soon then allow me a short break from the drain of it all. This systematic cycle appealed to me, most likely because of my OCD. It reassured me when I was down because I knew I'd be ok if I could just weather the storm; it even reassured me when I was holding it all together because being positive on your own is tiring and after a few days I'd often feel ready for a good old curl up and cry.
I think as the heartbreak eased I began to fear the cycle, I wanted to break it. Time has passed and so the cycle has become sporadic at best and certainly nothing that can be known. I am fine most days, but maybe I'm not, perhaps I am confusing fine with busy. I am busy most days, I am distracted.
Last night I let my guard slip: after a whole run of very enjoyable days over the Jubilee weekend, being surrounded by friends and family and going back to places I love, the places I've called home in my life... I am back at work, back living on my own, sat in the evening watching a mediocre hospital drama, and all of a sudden I couldn't feign off the urge to cry. This is a reminder, and it reminds me that even at my happiest, all of a sudden sadness could surface from somewhere deep within. It's a sadness that comes on without warning, is almost utterly out of context and even when I try to think I cannot reason with it... I can list sad things but I couldn't attribute them in that moment.
At that happy time in my life I was a little embarrassed when I couldn't help but be sad, but I take it as part of being me - and given how happy I was then, an ounce of sadness was a small price to pay. In all honesty I think we all need to feel sad sometimes, and to be suddenly submerged in sadness is like a retreat from the world, like being back in the womb - you curl up and there and then nothing but your own survival matters. Kurt Cobain's words often haunt me, but they have every truth and I know just what he meant when he wrote:
"I miss the comfort in being sad".
Polka Panic
I've spent a great deal of this year in a very familiar and all too predictable cycle. I would know that if I have had 3 or so 'good days' I would be due to spend the next few days falling apart. I knew then also that if I had spent 3 or so days as an emotional wreck, my subconscious would soon then allow me a short break from the drain of it all. This systematic cycle appealed to me, most likely because of my OCD. It reassured me when I was down because I knew I'd be ok if I could just weather the storm; it even reassured me when I was holding it all together because being positive on your own is tiring and after a few days I'd often feel ready for a good old curl up and cry.
I think as the heartbreak eased I began to fear the cycle, I wanted to break it. Time has passed and so the cycle has become sporadic at best and certainly nothing that can be known. I am fine most days, but maybe I'm not, perhaps I am confusing fine with busy. I am busy most days, I am distracted.
Last night I let my guard slip: after a whole run of very enjoyable days over the Jubilee weekend, being surrounded by friends and family and going back to places I love, the places I've called home in my life... I am back at work, back living on my own, sat in the evening watching a mediocre hospital drama, and all of a sudden I couldn't feign off the urge to cry. This is a reminder, and it reminds me that even at my happiest, all of a sudden sadness could surface from somewhere deep within. It's a sadness that comes on without warning, is almost utterly out of context and even when I try to think I cannot reason with it... I can list sad things but I couldn't attribute them in that moment.
At that happy time in my life I was a little embarrassed when I couldn't help but be sad, but I take it as part of being me - and given how happy I was then, an ounce of sadness was a small price to pay. In all honesty I think we all need to feel sad sometimes, and to be suddenly submerged in sadness is like a retreat from the world, like being back in the womb - you curl up and there and then nothing but your own survival matters. Kurt Cobain's words often haunt me, but they have every truth and I know just what he meant when he wrote:
"I miss the comfort in being sad".
Polka Panic