The ticking of time

The floodgates opened. It's been days of spinning and dizzyness and black holes. The tenuous thread was stretched too tight. I was sat at my desk and I could feel the darkness, the void like something expanding inside me, filling up ever bit of my body until it had nowhere to go. I could feel the shaking starting in my fingertips and the tears burning the skin around my eyes and falling at a pace I couldn't keep up with. I did what I could. I breathed. I took a time out. I looked down and saw the redness on my arms where unconsciously I was clawing at the skin trying to escape. 

The big glass window was inviting. I watched the people below, the sprawl of buildings. I saw laughter and I saw children walking to the college next door. So full of possibility. A future is not something we are all so fortunate to get. The glass shone and it called to me. It asked me to end this. To stop the suffering. It invited me to jump, to be free, to fall through the air in complete loss of control. The worries will cease. I called the doctor and she sent me to the mental health crisis team.

You are on the brink and you feel hopeless and scared. Being scared of yourself is a hard thing to describe and something you cannot get away from because science has yet to discover a way of detaching you from yourself. So in this highly anxious state you drive up to the creepiest looking building. We're talking the mental asylum of your nightmares, the hotel from the shinning. And you wait. 

The OCD kicks in and I actually re-arranged the discarded bottles on the floor so they were symmetrical in the waiting room. I am taken into a fluorescent space with miss-matched furniture and asked to start from the start. Having to coherently explain the brain processes that have haunted me does not come easily. It is like I am floating I tell her and the rational me cannot intervene. 

I am getting daily visits now. A constant stream of psychiatrists and nurses and doctors and occupational health practitioners asking the same questions. Making the same faces. Nodding their heads sympathetically. They say things like 'you are doing really well' and 'it's natural to feel like this'. I discovered that there are medical terms for things I never knew existed. I have 'hyper sensitivity' the feeling of being overwhelmed. A walk to the supermarket is like looking at the world in HD. Noises are louder, colours are brighter. I jump at a door closing or a voice behind me at the bus stop. But things will get better. The mantra. 

I feel like a 6 year old child again. I pace around the room tapping in constant rhythm. I throw a ball against the wall and rest my head against the cool concrete wishing I could wrap myself around it, wrap myself in a bubble where nothing else can come in. 

A whirl of activity - Valium for the hard days, sleeping tablets to rest, talk of psychotherapy and CBT and long term plans but I cannot look past tomorrow.

I watched a film about suffragettes and the thought of making a difference in the world moves me. "Never Surrender. Never give up the fight". I hold onto it. I take some strength from it and a bit of the fire flickers behind my eyes for the briefer of seconds it reminds me that I am alive. 

I have the urge to buy a watch. I get it as an early birthday present. To watch the ticking of time pass and I think...one day at a time. Sometimes a hug can give you enough strength to move your feet. A friend brought me an orchid. He said 'It's an indestructible flower. Like you'.