I’m just coming to the twelfth hour of feeling like myself again today, and it was blissful. For the past two nights I’ve gone back to sleep after waking early and distressed, and both nights I’ve dreamed for the first time in many months – that’s got to be a good sign! I woke this morning feeling rough and did good things anyway – gamed with my sister and had a hot cinnamon donut for breakfast. I can’t tell you how ridiculous and frustrating it is to be trapped inside a nervous system gone haywire, literally trembling and rocking with distress while doing something I really enjoy… That’s been my world lately, hours and hours of endless distress despite everything being well. But at about noon it switched off as suddenly and without tangible cause as it comes on, and the whole rest of today has been simply glorious.

Rose and I spent the day with friends, we had fun at a ball range practicing our baseball skills, had a picnic, watched movies, ate ice cream, played games, and had a great time. I am so relieved, it’s the most wonderful thing in the world just to feel like myself.

I feel so incredibly fortunate to have friends and family who are comfortable inviting me around and still including me despite the high chance of panic attacks and chronic distress at the moment. I feel so lucky and loved. I’m having to cancel a lot of things I want to do at the moment and I’m so grateful for people who get it and know that I’m not hiding behind anxiety as an excuse to get out of things, that if I say I wanted to come I really did want to be there.

The most terrifying thing about feeling this awful and out of control is my terror that maybe this is ‘me’ now, maybe this is what the rest of my life will be like. Today what helped was deciding that even if that was the case, I was still going to be part of life, to do my best to live a decent life; to be present, to care about people, to limp along as best I can however messed up and broken I feel. This thing that’s got me by the throat and is scaring me out of my mind is not going to win. I’ll fight every step of the way. How wonderful to be rewarded with so many hours in which breathing happened easily and without thought. Please let it happen again, often, please.

I’m still here.

It’s really hard to fit words to what has been going on.

Things have been really hard. Nothing feels like it makes any sense. Every day I feel like I’ve fallen off the planet. I work hard at it and most days things settle by nightfall. Whatever answers I think I’ve found, whatever peace or acceptance or path forwards, none of them persist into the next day. I fall off the planet again. Whatever worked yesterday or last week or last year doesn’t work today. Nothing makes sense to me. Everything has fragmented and I’m haunted by a terrifying nihilism.

I went camping. I’ve withdrawn from my online world. I eat, I cry, I write, I distract myself, I sit in the garden, walk the dog, cook, read, focus, talk it out, and clamp my mouth over the yawning darkness in me and sit meekly on the edge of the lives of people who are doing okay right now and kind of bask in their warmth. I remind myself that I’m loved, valued, okay, accepted, and deserve to find some peace. I try not to lean on anyone too hard. Other people try to help me feel something, they talk or listen or make suggestions or help me do things. Take me to the beach, or out for ice cream, or share lunch with me or just reach out. I’m being patient because it’s all I’ve got.

I’m not suicidal or starving or self harming or at risk in any of the conventional senses. I’m not sure what’s wrong. I’m anxious and depressed except not exactly. I’ve got ptsd sort of. I’m kind of grieving. I’m going through an existential crisis, possibly. It’s exhaustion, in a way. It’s regression, somewhat. I don’t know. Nothing exactly fits. All of the above. None of the above.

I’m still alive though. I’m having a really rough time. Crying until you throw up rough.

Most days I also find a place where I’m okay – just okay – or even really okay – contented, happy, settled, baffled. I slip into bed between my love and a cat and my skin is thrilled by the soft feel of the blanket and the warmth of cat and skin and I feel nested and safe and loved.

Every bit of perspective I garner is gone the next sleepless morning when nothing can settle me. My vulnerability is overwhelming. I am scared, confused, angry as hell, exhausted, frustrated, and I want my life back. I’m holding onto one college subject by my fingernails. I sold a beautiful painting and felt for the whole rest of the day that everything was going to be okay and I had a place in the world and things would work out. It’s like I’m living a kind of nightmare groundhog day. I spent savings on fuel to go camping because under the stars is my best psych hospital usually and it was great and it was horrible and I think it helped… I got home to sick pets and bad vet bills and sick Rose and I’m currently on antibiotics for a sinus and tooth infection and just had a root canal re-drilled and packed. The garden is glorious. My system feels like it’s been turned inside out and put back together by a 2 year old. Each day I make some sense of things that feel inherently senseless and find a way to live. Each new day I have to find another path. It’s not leaving me much time to actually live, achieve goals, be useful, get my dishes done, enjoy my life, or even connect with people I care about. Reading calms me down, as does watching movies. Both have clear narratives and they are soothing when I feel like I’m freefalling – things are cogent and march towards conclusions.

I’m determined something will change. I will process what I need to process, grieve what I need to grieve. I’ll let go of each tooth and find some humour in my bewildered sadness, let go of my grief about goals like having better health insurance, savings for tooth replacements, a good paying job. I’ll go hunting for more information and approaches to find something that helps. I’m not giving up – I’ve worked so very hard for this life and I want so much to BE here and be able to feel it and connect and be in it. I don’t know what’s gone wrong but I want to come home.

Right this very moment in time, I am utterly content. It’s 5am and I’m still not asleep because sleep seems to reset the anxiety and I can’t get bear to let go of this moment just yet. I can breathe. I’m in bed, or rather, I’m on the couch in the loungeroom with Rose sleeping bedside me and the animals all around, because we thought a change of environment night help. It’s dark and quiet and beautiful.

The past 6 weeks or so have been hellish. Stuck in chronic distress all I’ve been able to do is look for windows of time when things are not so bleak and soak up what I can. Rose is on her way up I believe. Not back to her old self yet but certainly her windows of good time are getting bigger and lasting longer. And I think I am too, a bit slower and more bewildered, but starting to come out of it at times. A couple of nights ago Rose sent us to bed alone with journal and pen and candles lit and for several hours we were in no pain at all – gone, like turning off a tap. But that night in sleep it all returned.

Today I had a remarkable conversation with an acting student about the making of art and being centered. She was so grounded herself that just being in her company I felt myself calm and settle into some unreachable peace. When I went back to class the trembling nausea and catch in my throat returned, but the memory of that peace wasn’t entirely gone and all afternoon I cultivated it.

I’ve had the most wonderful evening I’ve had in weeks. Friends came over for dinner and hugs and games. The lovely lady who bought my first print left a beautiful comment on this blog and I felt a tiny flicker of warmth when I read it! Someone asked for a referral locally and I felt a tiny sense of looking forward to getting that professional support referral project up and running for my networks… The joy of that! To feel things again! To care about my work again!

When it’s gone it’s so terribly gone though. A couple of days ago I phoned my mother from bed, so distraught she cancelled her day and came straight over. I spent most of it crying. There’s been many days like that. I coax myself into housework and college and doing my best to function, and I sob inconsolably the rest of the time. Focusing, meditation, conscious breathing, journaling, warm baths, sitting in my garden, distractions, good company, and all the millions of other tools I have to manage tough times seem to do nothing.

Yet, in the presence of someone deeply calm, something in me calms, like a distraught child being taken by the hand and walked through all the dark and scary night back home where it’s safe, and realising on reflection that they weren’t so far lost after all. It’s infuriating. It’s wonderful.

I had a sense today that following my transformations this year, in some ways I’m exactly the same highly strung, passionate, intense persons I’ve always been. But in others I am totally different – approaches that used to nurture me now do nothing, while I find myself deeply moved by approaches that have always been useless to me. Something has changed, and I don’t know it or understand it very well yet. I have the sense of myself – my body and mind, as a new kind of instrument I don’t yet know how to play or care for, don’t yet know how to hear the warning signs of problems, or nurture to get the best music from. It’s been a harsh lesson, like leaving a guitar out in the rain! I’ll learn. I’ll do anything I have to do.

Right now I’m going to surrender to sleep, and try to accept with grace the possibility that tomorrow I’ll be a trembling overwhelmed shadow of myself again. I can feel the lump in my throat, the bite of nausea. It was real, I did find a window, and I will find more. I’m going away shortly, camping with my sister in the hopes that this time my night under the stars will be helpful and reset some of this anguish. I hope the dawn is near for me, I do. I am grateful to be reminded of the humbling sweetness of those who have very little being kind – how few of us who live privileged lives ever get to feel that? It flattens those hierarchies of important people so quickly, stings but only our pride. You can’t look at people the same way when last week you were so broken and they so kind. They become your equals, even your teachers and mentors. Always learning, always something to learn.

Wish me luck.

Dear lord. Sometimes life makes sense and feels manageable and there are plans and directions and a sense of hope. And sometimes life is just… white water rafting, when you thought you were going hiking. When you packed for a picnic after a bush walk up a hill. And brought your favourite collection of sharp, spiky implements, your best boots, and certainly no paddle.

Guess I’m still human after all, spiritual awakening and all. At the moment I wake up many times in the night, full of deep dread and horror about very small unimportant matters. The feelings are nebulous, intense, and difficult even to name. It’s taken me a week to begin to be able to discern each flavour independently – there’s guilt, there’s failure, there’s grief… Often it’s just pain, a kind of bleak anguish that’s unbearable. It can’t be sat with, can’t be visualised away, can’t be un-fused from. I took myself down the beach overnight, and instead of finding peace I sat alone in my van, arms flung wide, begging for help, for peace, for respite, before falling into brief exhausted sleep, only to wake in agony again. The sudden decent, the depth of it all caught me by surprise and left me reeling.

Each morning I wake feeling something I can’t really name. It’s not self destructive, I don’t feel the urge to self harm, I don’t feel suicidal, exactly. It’s unfamiliar and horrifying. The only way I can describe it is feeling like I’m dying. I have no sense of hope or a future at all. My throat is half closed and I can’t breathe easily. If I manage to meditate or focus or in any way create some room between myself and the feelings, I relax and immediately go back to sleep. Then I wake 20 minutes or so later, intensely distressed again. It’s demoralising and exhausting.

I’ve been reaching out to people. The only thing I’m finding helpful at the moment is the kindness of my tribe. I feel lost, and I can’t see myself clearly any more. Other people holding hope for me, telling me that I am not worthless, that I do contribute to the world or their world in some way, are holding a mirror in which I do not recognise myself but I can at least acknowledge that this might be me, even if I can’t feel any of it right now.

It’s a kind of hell. I’ve appreciated touching base with others I know go through hells like this. I’m finding that I come in and out of it. I can talk about it quite calmly now. Tomorrow morning is likely to be another world entirely. In it I feel stripped, vulnerable, defenceless, frightened.

Rose is in a hell of her own. Flashbacks can be devastating. Hers can be severe and completely overwhelming. We’re slowly finding what helps, but it’s all from scratch. Nothing that’s previously helped is working. So far company is better than being alone in them. Children or animals are deeply grounding and the best approach by far. I can hold her hand and sometimes talk her through it or sing to her. A wet cold cloth on her face and neck helps. Sometimes weight is grounding – I cuddle her or Zoe lies on her. Sometimes a dog lick will break her straight out of it. None of the other grounding techniques she usually finds helpful are working. It’s a slow trial and error kind of process.

One of the things I love about her so much is that even when she’s in hell, she’s kind. I was a wreck this morning and so was she. But she still got up with me, cut me up veggies for lunch, and dropped me at the tram. Our night was bookended by her flashbacks until 1.30am, and my unique brand of existential misery at 5am. There were still cuddles and gentleness, reading Harry Potter to each other, back rubs and sympathy. I’m lucky and I know I’m lucky. ❤

So, I’m trying to clear the decks as much as I can without actually destroying any of my projects. I’ve talked myself out of closing down my business and the networks for now. I’ve wrestled with the mess that thinking of my art as a business creates in my head. I’ve failed and fallen over and messed up most of my attempts to follow through with my goals over the past couple of weeks. I’ve failed to finish an essay and had to withdraw from another class at college. I’ve answered a few emails that I could open and read and still breathe while replying to. I’ve cried in the toilets at college when hearing about a couple of people with DID who killed themselves. I’ve reached out to people who are being kind, sending messages of support or telling me how they see me, see my work or believe that I have a place in the world, who recognise their own dark hours and don’t judge me or think less of me. I’ve been grabbing hold of anything that resonates, reading about focusing, coherence therapy, moving towards the pain, and just holding on, minute by minute, waiting for something to change.

I found a sentence that I loved recently – being in the land beyond the maps. I’ve felt like through so much of my life. Multiplicity, psychosis, my art, grieving Tamlorn and finding myself in an experience of profound awakening… If you walk the paths you will end up where all the others who walked those paths went. Paths are what we crave most when we feel lost. The certainty of hope. We’ll trade in almost anything for it, and bind ourselves into lives that don’t fit us at all. What’s much harder but much more likely to take us somewhere amazing is putting together the skills and tools and resources we need to make our own path and follow our own stars.

But hell, it’s not always easy. I guess one of the things I’ve been doing in all this pain is taking up my rightful place in my tribe. I’m not some kind of guru to follow. I’m not a shrink. Even the idea of ‘peer workers’ who have recovered and have some kind of wisdom to pass on doesn’t feel real comfortable. I don’t have the answers and I can’t take away anyone’s pain. Sometimes I help people and sometimes I need help, and that help is mostly in the form of simple kindness and connection. I’m as human and fallible and full of doubt and uncertainty as the next person. I know a lot about surviving hard times and sometimes that’s brilliant and sometimes it means almost nothing.

Thank you, those of you who have reached out. You who share your own hard times honestly. You who – for reasons I can’t really fathom at the moment – send money or support me in some way. Thanks so much for being part of my world and not hating me when I lose my way. You help me not hate me too. I’m glad to not be alone.