20. May, 2022

Credit where credit’s due

Soaring above the sand flats of the bay they drift and swoop playfully in the thermals driven by a fresh nor-easterly breeze. The autumn air is beginning to cool as we move towards the onset of winter and soon that breeze will be chilling us from the west. The Eastern Osprey dips and weaves as smaller birds like the Noisy Miner and Magpie chase the Osprey like warplanes in a dogfight. They are protecting their threatened territory from the cunning and clever predators.

The bird's eye view of land and sea seems familiar to me and I don’t mean because I now have a drone. But, because I often feel like I recreate an out-of-body experience where I seem like I am viewing the world from above. I am not searching for sustenance for survival like the Osprey, I am instead escaping for survival from the often harsh realities of life.

I haven’t written much about my brush with Depression of late because I have been labouring under the false pretence that I have staved off the wolves from knocking at my door since my diagnosis morphed from Depression to PTSD. I always knew Anxiety was a “lifer”, but with hard work, persistence and self-care, I thought I had beaten the mighty “black dog” finally into submission.

Now, I’m not saying it has made a triumphant return, but I guess in a way I feel like I had my hopes dashed when talking to my doctor the other day about weaning myself off my antidepressant and her advising me otherwise because of the chronicity of my illness.

Having the “chronic “ word thrown at you is a blatant reminder that my struggle with the illness is and will be lifelong. So, counting on my fingers, I now have 4 chronic conditions plus a diagnosis of a heart condition which was recently thrown into the mix and it all makes me feel like I am falling apart.

On the upside, it did spur me on to lose a significant amount of weight and since then my episodes of arrhythmia have decreased. Good news here at least.

It is currently not hard to forget I am growing old, but at least I have had that privilege gifted to me...by me. Yes, I am standing up and taking the credit for my “up till now” survival.

For too long now, I have been handing out “credit” for my survival like lollies to ravenous children at Halloween, to those who love me. Yes, believing my family and friends (oh and my dedicated therapist) want me to live, has kept me alive for them...not for me.

Well, not anymore...they have always been the recipient of my love and admiration but I have loved them far more than I have ever been able to love myself.

In conversation with my therapist the other day I was frustrated and I said to her that sometimes I really “hate” myself and I then said I feel “weak” because I need to take medication. Her smart-alecky comment back was... “do you think any of your friends are weak?” I, of course, answered with a resounding “no”...so she then said, “well, why do you think that about yourself?”

I dropped my head, taking her point, wondering what it is about me that thinks it’s okay to badmouth myself and not others. What went wrong?

Did depression kick the stuffing out of me? Did butting heads with narcissistic people do it? Or were they just digging the knife into scars that were already present?

I actually have discovered all the answers to these questions and it has taken a lot of dedication and hard work to be able to say, that apart from the obvious hiccup every now and again, I am becoming far more self-aware and accepting of faults, warts and all, of the person I now am.

So, getting back to who gets the credit for my survival to this point...I have to say that the winner is...ME!

I have spent countless hours, doggedly persistent seeking a greater understanding of why I am who I am. Of why I became so ill, of why I have had a lifelong struggle with anxiety, of why I had such a poor outcome after falling ill with Epstein-Barr virus. And I know, why are you thinking do you really care about this? Well, you should!

Because it really doesn’t matter who you have in your life supporting you through the ups and downs of mental illness. Because the decision to survive is always YOUR OWN!

You can challenge it every day with the choices you make...you might decide to “act out”, to push the boundaries of what is safe, to participate in self-harming behaviour, to live an unhealthy lifestyle...or you might decide to embark on a path of self-improvement, to get fitter, healthier, to volunteer your time for the greater good. Or you just may decide that living is NOT for you, and that is heartbreaking. ..but in the end...the choice is YOURS.

You and you alone are ultimately responsible for the choices you make...and as for the credit? Yep, I owe all the credit of my survival to this point in my life to me...because I am still here, fighting the fight of my life, every minute of every day of every week, and every year...so, I guess I can say... hats off to me.