This morning I woke up, took a deep breath, opened the curtains in my bedroom and let the light spill into my little world. I looked outside and saw the town waking, clouds dotting the sky and birds rushing from nests to find food for their young ones. I was okay, and knew that everything would be alright as my five year old opened the bedroom door to let me know that he was awake and ready to start his busy day of playing with trains.
A month ago I wouldn't have been okay. In fact, I would have been very far from okay.
The pandemic took a pretty large psychological toll on me, and I can now admit that I wasn't right for a long time before then, either. It was simply the boulder that broke my back. I tried my best to keep it inside but as the world was beginning to heal, and things were slowly approaching a new normal, I wasn't. I was getting worse.
Anxiety can be sneaky. For me it crept up over years until I had reached a point where I was left completely dysfunctional and depressed. Not only couldn't I write, but I couldn't function as a parent or spouse. My poor wife finally forced me to face it in late April. I couldn't go on without help and was heading for the worst kind of psychological crash.
I am the kind of person who always swore that they would never resort to mood stabilizing medication because I felt like it represented a failure on my part. From the time I was young it was beaten into me pretty hard that depression is a weakness and means that you're a terrible and useless person. It was a huge mountain for me to summit. It was daunting, it hurt, and I kicked and railed against it for a very long time.
Then I was sitting there in my doctor's office, listening to what was going on inside me from a medical standpoint. Due to the other issues that were fighting to physically take me down -- namely a wonky immune system -- my body had virtually no serotonin. It was being attacked by my immune system. It was likely something I have lived with ever since I was an anxious 4 year old hiding in the bathroom at school because I was having a panic attack.
Fast forward to late May. A few weeks on my new medication and I have emerged from the haze and fatigue that comes with stabilizing, finding my focus to write again. Between my last post and now I had barely touched The Dreaming Sea, but I have had a couple of positive sessions in the last two weeks that have shown me that I can still find my writing voice. In fact, the words that come out of me now have a new life to them -- showing a heart and soul endeavor that I never realized was missing until now.
So, with some patience, draft one of The Dreaming Sea should wrap up over the next month or two. I'm not going to rush it. The words come out when they are ready.
Thank you to everyone who has expressed concern, frustration, and understanding toward me over this difficult time. I'm not sure I can ever say that I am completely healed, because I feel like it is an infinite process. Maybe that's what makes it worthwhile.
Cheers until next time.
