Sunday 13 October 2013

"I Want To Be Your Sledgehammer" - Peter Gabriel



My therapist said that I like to tear things apart. Not in a She-Hulk way (although there has been occasion) but mentally, I like to dig in to things to see why. Inquisitive. Like Sylar without all the murdering. Y'know curious. 
This apparently makes me a great patient, which is all rainbows and puppy dogs until I can't see the answer or I can't show my working out. Then my world is stunted for a while.

See, I'm not great at the 'big picture' thing, I'm not quick with the connecting of dots anymore. I used to be, not so much now. Point is, I never realised it but I can actually pinpoint the exact time when I started to come out of this ebb of depression. Before this point, life held no consequence, I really didn't care if I lived or died. In fact, frequently I would actually fantasise about death, even wish for it.

It didn't happen suddenly, it sort of tagged on from my sudden bout of panic attacks, which I now know was an indication of my emotions changing. When I first got the panic attacks the fear wasn't about dying, it was about being horribly disfigured or brain damaged by an allergic reaction. I know, kind of irrational. But there it was. Anyway, I had begun a new TV series, another form of escapism, and I know I need to stay away from dramas but it was something I'd been waiting to get round to for aaaages.

So, this guy is facing the chair in America for a crime he didn't commit and the date was worryingly close, all of a sudden I start crying. Crying! I just became overwhelmed with the sense of injustice at this man having his life taken away from him for a crime he didn't commit. He had absolutely no control over it. Two things raced through my mind:

1) I promised myself that I would never commit a crime in a place that sill allowed executions.

2) I am now terrified of not being in control of my own death.

Now, the suicidally minded among you may think I would then make a plan to end my own life on my terms before the power was taken away from me but no. I actually became scared of death, which in turn, I assumed, must have meant I wanted to live. TO LIVE!

And now, after my panic attacks are beginning to subside and my moods are more stable (more on that another time), I realise that I'm pro life. I'm happy to be here, living, surviving, climbing out of the ebb.

I never thought I would notice my recovery but there it is, one step at a time. Just one step at a time. That's all.