Bombastic title aside
(I quite liked it when it occurred to me moments ago), I have been
struggling a great deal lately, and the sentiment kind of arises from
that. My Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and my Chronic Fatigue
Syndrome have had some kind of secret meeting and decided that their
host must be pulled to the ground and thoroughly beaten, that there
is just nothing else for it. As their host, I would say mission
accomplished.
I’m quite good at
accepting (read as making room for) my anxious thoughts, even at
times being able to accept that my physical health is about as robust
as a cobweb fluttering from a car aerial as it hits 70mph on a dual
carriageway. Sometimes no amount of CBT, mindfulness, progressive
muscular relaxation or acceptance can lift my spirits and give me
space needed to find the good stuff in life again. The image of Atlas
holding up the sky kind of applies, but with knees almost on the
floor, and a mightily pissed off look on his face.
That doesn’t mean I’m
giving up or anything like that, but I’m really feeling it at the
moment, the isolation, the fatigue, the vicious stabs of anxiety that
make the fatigue worse, and so it spirals down. Even putting some of
my favourite dark ambient tracks on and imagining that I was dead
didn’t do much to ease the stress fracturing my peace of mind (you
might find that weird but it’s a valid meditation practice in some
contemplative traditions). Treating it all as something that doesn’t
need “fixing”, I’m perfect the way I am kind of bullshit didn’t
help either, even when I could genuinely mean it without the sneaky
underlying goal of changing this “perfect state” into something
more workable.
Seeing as I’ve gone
all “mystic”, I should probably end this short piece with some
trite sentiment about “planting seeds in my shit for brains to grow
more positive qualities etc etc”. At the moment, I just feel like
scooping it up in big sticky handfuls and flinging it at passers by, like a monkey whose
banana was stolen when he wasn’t looking. Yes, I quite like ending
on that image, it tickles me.