Waves

The quarantine experience has given me a stillness and stability and lack of logistical hell and responsibilities that have been a bizarre form of controlled testing conditions about my mental illness.  Of course I am not unaffected by the stress in the ether regrading the global pandemic but now I’ve been able to witness how I process that with a clearer vision, without all the ever changing set of variables and tumultuous lifestyle I’m accustomed to. 

My moods comes in waves.  Everytime they crash on me I feel like I’ll be held under forever.  I know that the entirety of 2018, I didn’t experience a single moment of joy.  It frightens me to return to that place.  But currently, the mood will come, whether depressive or manic, and it might feel so all-encompassing, the inability to sleep properly because of racing thoughts, or, the urge to self-harm, to cut myself up into a million pieces, and then, without any drastic action, the wave crashes, and I move on to another mood.  I am not desperately trying to solve each mood, I have such a limited set of tools, and the things I can often rely on for self-care, I’m already doing abundantly to occupy myself in quarantine —

So I ride the waves, and after a couple days of utter listlessness, I had renewed purpose and was very active for a couple of days.  But I’m not chasing that active-ness level to achieve on a daily basis.  Today I might not change out of pajamas until the afternoon.  I’m trying to ride the waves and not fight desperately against them.  I will not be the “best” version of myself everyday.  And it’s okay.  It’s not a problem I have to solve.  Someone told me to “ embrace my boredom” and it made me feel guilty that I had any restless emotions.  But how can one not have negative feelings in this moment? It’s understandable for EVERYONE.  It’d be BIZARRE to see the world burning and be totally ZEN about it? I don’t want to be that person. 

I don’t want to be miserable 24/7 either.  I felt guilty when I was enjoying the chance to rest.  But I’ve been preaching the duality of all my experiences.  That alongside the pain I can experience joy.  I wrote that sentiment to my friends early on, “Tt’s a feeling I’m extremely familiar with, the helplessness and inability to have a positive spin on difficulties, but the discomfort of sitting with unresolvable pain, but also realizing that even in times of pain you can still experience joy.  It can be a duality, instead of the joy mitigating or eliminating, resolving or obviating the pain, you can just have the two side by side.”

The problem solving is so exhausting.  I complain about it endlessly.  People don’t validate, they problem solve. I internalize it as well.  I feel enormous pressure to fix myself all the time, even though in my head, I have come to terms with the chronic nature of my illnesses, but I still want to beat it.  To hold myself up to standards of the “best version” of myself at all times. 

But the ocean is vast, gravity is undeniable, and the intensity of the waves may vary, but they will come and they go — I’m not saying that I’ve bought into “this too shall pass” because I still feel certain that one wave might bring me crashing into my suicide, worn down, but for the time being, I’m trying to ride them.