I was having some deep thoughts in the car this morning. I thought I'd share.
1. Nothing is linear.
2. Except lines.
3. Everything is a back-and-forth, up-and-down, side-to-side process. Sometimes this feels a little bit like mental illness. Sometimes it IS mental illness.
4. You spend your life trying to get from here to there, and you think, OK, all I have to do is put one foot in front of the other, and I will get where I'm going. And then you end up somewhere else. And you don't know where the hell you are.
5. Or what you're supposed to be doing. Or why you're doing it.
6. Then you start to get depressed. Or angry, which is really the same thing.
7. Eventually, you go to see a therapist, who confirms what you've known all along: Yes, you are mentally ill. You are probably one meltdown away from being institutionalized.
8. Some days you feel like a reasonably functional human being. You take a shower and bake some bread. The smell of fresh bread makes you weep with happiness.
9. Other days you feel like an undiagnosed schizophrenic, living two or more secret lives, with a tenuous hold on reality.
10. But your therapist reassures you that you are not really schizophrenic, or bipolar, and you don't really have obsessive-compulsive disorder, although you might, indeed, have a tiny case of ADD.
11. But the real problem is this existential angst (see numbers 4 and 5), which is essentially the human condition.
12. What to do, what to do? Think. Talk. Become more aware of your interior life, so that you make intentional choices which are driven by meaning and purpose. It's a process.
13. This process takes time.
14. And it is not linear.
I just thought I'd share.
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2 comments:
What a thoughtful piece. "Yes, you are mentally ill. You are probably one meltdown away from being institutionalized." - I'm not sure I'd totally agree with this statement, it's hard to tell if you meant it seriously or jokingly.
As a child abuse survivor, the recovery process is anything but linear, so your non-linear concept really rings true there, even though you meant it on a universal level.
Thanks for your comment, Adam. I was probably about 33 percent serious about being one meltdown away from being institutionalized.
Fortunately, that was then and this is now. (Hey, that would make a great book title!) Now I'm medicated, therapized, healthier.
Hope you are, too.
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