I love writing. I feel such a sense of accomplishment after taking my thoughts and sorting them, aligning them, and making them concrete, turning them into something that anyone can read, understand, and feel. There is a power in naming something, in finding just the right words for just the right time. Some days, the words flow freely, thoughts leaping from my head onto the page with no hesitation. Other times, the words need to be coaxed out, shy at first, but gradually growing bolder as their numbers swell and they find their direction. But sometimes, very rarely, the right words elude me completely. I know what I want to convey, what I need to share, but none of the words I put together are right.
This is one of those times. And since my own words are failing me, I have to rely on the words of others:
"After more than a year of diagnosis, treatment and waiting, it's almost as if, finally and unexpectedly, my psyche heaved a sigh and gave itself permission to implode. ... It's harder to write about the weight of depression than it is to write about ... cancer and its physical indignities. Cancer is clear biological bad luck. But depression, no matter how much we know about it, makes part of me feel as if it's somehow my fault, that I'm guilty of something that I can't quite articulate."
Thank you, random stranger on the internet, for giving me the words that I could not otherwise find.
The last two months have been hard. Physically, a cold turned into a sinus infection that wasn't quite gone when I picked up a respiratory virus just at the same time that allergy season kicked into full gear. I've been tired, just making it through the days until I can crash.
Mentally, things weren't any better. I have felt like the world is closing in on me and like everything is spinning out of control. I have felt like there isn't any point and I've wanted to quit everything. I have been an emotional wreck, getting angry over little things and weeping over nothing. I have been distracted and not at all productive, avoiding pretty much everything.
I have not been myself.
And even after realizing that something was definitely wrong (which, looking back, took an embarrassingly long time), I still struggled to admit it. I feel like I should be fine. I've been given the all clear by my doctor, so why am I still not better? (He assures me, by the way, that this is all normal, which makes me feel a teeny bit better about everything.)
Remember in the previous post when I mentioned that there is no timeline for recovery? The last two months really hammered that home for me.
So I'm taking some time off work to get myself back together. I'm going to catch up on life, on all the little things that piled up or were put off over the last year. I have a referral to see someone who specializes in cancer counseling and will hopefully be able to start seeing her soon. And I'm going to get myself back into shape physically, because I know that will help me feel better mentally too.
As hard as it was to admit, I desperately need this. It's time to focus on getting myself better. It's time to do some healing.
