Clever Title

It turns out Dr. Psychiatrist is very likely correct in that I have found a plateau of stability with my current medication regimen. There are unquestionably still some bumps that need to be smoothed out. I still startle at just about any unexpected noise, although this is better than it was previously. I still have occasional episodes where I see or hear something three or four conceptual jumps from anything hospital related, my brain immediately decides to make those jumps, and settles on “Hey, isn’t this just like [$awful_thing]”? No, it really isn’t like [$awful_thing]. In fact it isn’t connected at all. Thanks for bringing it up though, because now all I can think about is [$awful_thing]. My brain is not particularly helpful a lot of the time. And, of course, I still can’t seem to tolerate being out in public for more than 2-3 hours. On the up side, the first hour or so seems to be getting a bit easier but when it’s time to go, it is still time to go.

Bumps aside, this calming of the inner turmoil has allowed me a bit more clarity than I have perhaps had in the past, which brings me to the point of this particular post¹. I am improving, and I continue to improve, but I am not doing it quickly. Also, there really isn’t much I can do to speed up the process. It has been brought to my attention that putting pressure on myself to recover may, in fact, be counter-productive. This is a realization that has been growing for a while now and I am only starting to really grasp what it means.

Among the more obvious sequelae of not being able to hurry recovery is the effect it has on my prospects of returning to work. Previously, as recently as this summer, I had been operating under the assumption that when it came right down to it, and I had used up all the resources that have been made available to me, if I wasn’t ready to go back to work I would sweep everything under the carpet again and just go do it, much like I have in the past when I was feeling run down and burned out. What I have come to realize is, this is how I ended up here in the first place. There is no room under the carpet anymore and I can’t keep trying to sweep stuff under there. Not “can’t” as in “shouldn’t for my mental health”, “can’t” as in “am actually unable to”. I find that I can’t² ignore things anymore, which may also explain why I jump every time there’s a noise.

I know I have posted about how I never really understood how people who survive disasters could describe themselves as lucky³. If you were lucky, your house wouldn’t have been hit by a tornado. My difficulty was misunderstanding the word. You can have Win The Lottery luck, or you can have I Didn’t Die luck. I bring this up because I am incredibly lucky⁴ in that I have a great many supportive people in my life. The time will come, sooner rather than later I suspect, when I’m going to have to lean on the people in my life even heavier than I am already.

1. Penalty; unnecessary alliteration. Five word penalty and repeat the paragraph. ↩︎
2. See previous discussion on the intended sense of the word “can’t” ↩︎
3. Nope. Still not going to go back and look up which post it was. It’s back there somewhere. ↩︎
4. In the I Didn’t Die sense of the word. Again, in the I Won The Lottery sense I wouldn’t be in this position to start with. With as vague as this goddam language is, it’s a wonder anyone can communicate at all. ↩︎