phase I
denial
When I first met the one and only psychiatrist who came on this journey with me, he said things like “put the oxygen mask on yourself before you help others” and it was all just la la land talk.
What the hell did he know about value being directly linked to your last good deed?
Denial is being so deep in the illness that you just can’t hear; and you certainly can’t believe.
Before I went to a shrink, and while I was in the true depths of depression, I had all kinds of fear. Being labeled. Taking meds. Surely bad things would happen. And everything was about me – I was the only person in the universe experiencing bad things.
After I started with the doc, and for much of the next nine years, my default brain setting was still fear.
The doc would always say there’s a tape running in my head. Those beliefs I laid down and coded into my brain.
my tape is set on an endless loop.
around and around in my head...
The doc actually said that.
The sheep didn’t kick him.
And nine years later I occasionally feel grateful for having this disease (dis-ease). After all, it taught me to reach out and ask for help.
And to hot-wire butcher trucks and take over the controls.
in those early years, I was amazed at how pathologised I felt. As the DSM moved from 4 to 5, it escalated exponentially. First I had to learn that it is a disease, not a character flaw. Then I had to learn that I am so much more than my diagnosis.
What is harmless to others isn’t to me. With my distorted thinking I can self-harm with everything from alcohol to work to exercise.
bless that doc. he never flinched when I took out my knitting needles and fell back into old habits.
that doc sure has a lot of patience.
sometimes the sheep didn’t hear what the doc said the first time. or the first year.
depression will still turn me around in a heartbeat and have me look back. at everything sheep did wrong today, this week, this year.
the rest of the herd must get so tired of sheep riding backwards.
the doc handles it all with patience and gentle nudges.
sheep’s biggest challenge is to think she deserves what everyone else does.
excellent caretaker. lousy in self-care.
What simply amazes me is that in nine years, that doc never got angry in reminding me that every human is born deserving love. Including loving yourself.
