Tag: healing

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Inside My Broken Mind

It’s evening, my high point of the day; evenings seem to give my mind a little reprieve. I feel like a minister preparing for his sermon. What can I say that would help someone today? What can I say that would help myself today? My search for healing and peace are never ending.

I compare my mind to that of an hamster on a hamster wheel; always moving but getting no where. Thoughts enter your mind that we have no power over. What we have to realize is that; that’s all they are, thoughts and nothing more. Taking control of these thoughts and realizing that they can’t harm us is the first step to recovery.

While these thoughts are controlling our mind, we have to concentrate on our breathing, that distracts us from our thoughts, which are usually dark and ugly. It is a never ending nightmare. Yet we long for night time and sleep to escape our nightmare. Sleep is our only escape.

We watch everyone around us, living life as if all is well, but in reality we know it’s not. We want the world to stop and let us get onboard. We’ve fallen off and can’t get back on. We are swimming in an ocean of pain, trying to keep our head above water and hopefully one day will learn to swim like everyone else. But right now we are drowning; drowning in our own thoughts.

Everyone experiences depression differently. But during my major episode, the world looked dark, what was beautiful; looked ugly. The simplest task seemed impossible. I felt I was slowly dying while watching everyone else play, laugh and smile. Those things felt impossible for me, that I was not worth any of them.

Depression is utterly isolating. You hide inside your head, knowing that no one can see what’s going on inside. You live in a world of your own, afraid to come out. An overwhelming fear of your own life and mind.

Everything seems meaningless, including previous accomplishments and what had given life meaning. Anything that made you feel a sense of self-worth, self confidence or self value; just vanishes. But over time, with a lot of hard work, you can find meaning again. It’s difficult to describe all of this in a way that someone who’s never experienced it can make sense of it, because it never always made sense to me.

My depression manifested itself through uncontrollable emotion. But a better way of describing it is a constant feeling of numbness. You felt nothing!

When you wake up, you don’t want to get out of bed; life just seems too big, too unbearable. All you feel is sadness. You wish you could sleep all day and never wake up, where dreams are better than life (the life inside your head). Sleep was an escape from reality. But I have taught my brain that reality is not that bad and I can get through each day (one day at a time).

Now I try to stay outside my mind, not always listen to what my mind is saying. But enjoy the things that I do have around me and be thankful for the little things. This takes time and practice but it’s what you have to do if you are going to survive this “battlefield of the mind”.

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My Mental Health Update

Here I am years later from my worse relapse of my life and still struggling. I could say what people want me to say; “I’m doing great”, but that would not be the truth. I am all about being real. The truth is, I have come so far from where I was but not where I would like to be. My broken mind is still mending/healing. Then what encouragement would that be for someone experiencing major depression and anxiety disorder; I never give up! Sure, there are still days when I want to, but the battle rages on.

This may be my lot in life, I don’t know, I hope not. But if it is, I pray God would give me the grace to endure. But right now sunny days look a little brighter. I now have more urges to do things that last year I had no interest in. For example, going out in the garden gives me a form of pleasure. Going to the grocery store is not such a big deal anymore. And I’m doing much better socially, it still increases my anxiety but not as intense.

I still see my psychiatrist regularly. Right now I am doing group therapy for eight weeks. My medications have not changed and have been extended for another year. Also my psychiatrist does a form of therapy called Mindfulness; in a nutshell- being in the moment. I see my psychologist every 2-4 weeks; for mainly talk therapy. All of which help me to gradually restore me to some sense of mental health. And also gives me a sense of support whereby I feel I am not fighting this battle alone. So how ever long that is; I don’t know and I don’t know if anybody knows. My psychiatrist in St.John’s told me there was no cure for this disorder but I could eventually live a functioning life again. So if I take his advice this is something I will have to live with. If that’s the case, I will always have a struggle and will have to learn to adjust and accept my “thorn in the flesh”.

My therapist introduced me to a book that paralleled with my life experience with mental illness. “Man’s Search For Meaning” by Viktor E. Frankl. Dr. Frankl was a psychiatrist who was captured and sent to the Nazi death camps; one of which was Auschwitz. During which time he encountered suffering, harshness, starvation, cruelty and inhumane conditions that would break the spirit of any man. But Dr.Frankl said,”..life is meaningful and that we must learn to see life as meaningful despite our circumstances”.

So inspite of my suffering, mindful torment, life changes and loss; life still has meaning and purpose. This as been very hard for me to accept and work through. But as Dr.Frankl stated,”meaning is possible in spite of our suffering”.

So when I have days, like today, that are not so pleasant; I have to remind myself that my life still had meaning and purpose inspite of my suffering. I wish it were as easy as saying,”today is going to be a good day”. But my broken mind doesn’t work that way. It’s like someone with anorexia and saying to them; “all you have to do is eat. That’s not the way a broken mind works. I pray to God for all of us who suffer with any mental illness, that it were that easy. Dr.Frankl was asked what the meaning of his life was and one of his students answered for him,”The meaning of your life is to help others find the meaning of theirs”. May I be the same instrument to others, to find their way.