Paralysis

With knees and knuckles rasped raw,
I stood paralysed in front of the door that had eluded me for years.



I had knocked with all the strength I had in me,
Pleaded with all the courage I could muster,
Tried.
Fallen.
Tried.
And fallen once more.


I have turned away from this door and ran back at the sound of an opening creek,
Only to arrive and feel the thud of its rejection, each time harder than the last.
until all that was left, was paralysis.
And a flood of tears I had no idea how to control.

I'd felt defeat arrive with the rage of an ocean,
How does my naive heart even begin to contain such a tumultuous task.
I had ticked all the boxes.
I had done everything the list said to do.
I had done everything the rules had lined out,
And yet here I was...
at the door that the journey had promised would inevitably open...
with a burning in my chest,
tears gushing from my eyes,
a knot in my stomach,
fear in my knees,
standing paralysed.



I watched the doors on the same corridors fling open on command for those who had asked them to.
I watched traffic through these same corridors move swiftly along,
Where are all of these people going?
Reaching flights on flights,
Ploughing through their doors.
I was happy for them, bless their triumphant souls,
And wanted all of these thing for them.
And I knew with all of my heart they deserved these things.
I was genuinely excited for them.

But on a personal level, despite all my attempts,
my door was stuck,
and that was a storm that rose a river of fire from the floor of my stomach
and burnt its way through everything on its way to my chest
and nestled its fury into a sizzling lump in my throat.



What was I doing wrong?
Why wasn't my door opening.
What was I missing?
What wasn't I learning?
What about me, does not command triumph?
What about me does not speak the language of breakthrough?
What about my best?
What.
About.
Me.



"If it doesn't open, it's not your door."
Well I guess I better go then.
"The urge to quit will be strongest before the breakthrough."
Well damn.



Standing in paralysis, my darkness crept in to cover me with exhaustion.
"you are going to be that girl who had all the talent, all the potential and all the fire...
who just disappeared into the big world and became nothing.
So you see,
With your beautiful heart,
And your infectious laugh,
And your warmth,
And your "do-good-and-good-will-come-to-you" attitude,
Life has nothing for you.
No dream, no reward, no plan, no purpose.
LIFE HAS NOTHING FOR YOU.
There was never anything special about you.
Shame, and you had such high hopes for yourself, you poor thing.
Go and eat something for that pain and crawl into bed.
The rewards of which will be the reminder of your defeat anytime anyone points out that you have put on weight.
The poking and the commenting and the snide remarks will wait for you every time you leave your house, and they will remind you of your existential crisis.
All that flab, all that jiggle, that is your war mapped out for the world to see all the times your wonder has failed.
Actually, stay here, inside, where no one can see you.
Be out of reach.
Curl into your shell.
Disconnect.
Feel nothing.
Make a home of this cold indifference, and remember all the times that you had sat across the table from the devil's weapons and recognised them as friends because your kind heart looks for the good, always.
This defeat is your new home."



This was the voice of my depression.
A debilitating sense of hopelessness.
Under my darker than grey cloud, I reflected on all the points that had come together to reach this place.
Every encounter, every conversation, every flash of Superwoman cloak I had hastily worn.
The Tries.
The fails.
The tries.
And the failures once more.
Had broken me and sent me crashing in a hyperventilating spiral into a darkness I still have no words for.


I wore my heart outside of my chest, because my exhaustion had broken my ribs open and left me vulnerable and exposed.



I knew there was a God.
I believed there was a God.
That He had plans...
But for a minute, I didn't think those plans included me.
Because if they did,
where was He?
At this door,
in this pain,
during this frustration,
at the hands of disappointment,
in all my collapse and breaking and tearing and burning and acid tears.
In all my fear,
Why wasn't He coming to get me.
Why was He letting me do this dance,
Of enthusiastic forward steps, and a knock of two steps back.
Why was I alone?


How come, on this list of people who had posed as angels, and capitalised on my naivety,
and formed weapons against my attempts...
How come He wasn't coming to get me.



And why were none of the people that had always been drawn to me by radiating nurture,
who had trusted me with the most sensitive parts of their lives,
who had confided in me the most painful parts of their hearts,
who had found in me the luxury of vulnerability,
enough to invite me into their own mental breakdowns,
the ones who's tears I had consoled and whose sobs I comforted...
how was I smiling with them every day and not a single one of them had noticed that I was dying.
Why wasn't anybody finding me.
Why wasn't anyone coming to save me.
Where was rescue party.



Day in and day out, of sporadic absenteeism,
I sat at the desk that served as a constant reminder that my vision hadn't quite materialised,
And I resented it's structured.
The box I had been neatly packed into had bread an unbearable claustrophobia.
I could no longer recognise time.
-"you're always late"
How I had wanted to respond to this was "I was at war with myself this morning and the difference between victory and defeat was 10 mins. Please leave me alone".
I responded instead with "life happens".
Which it had.
And so launched my "rebellious attitude".
I wasn't really rebelling, maybe a little.
I was at war with a space I could no longer occupy.
Life was coming at me fast, and again, I couldn't move.
I knew all the practical actions to take,
But I couldn't move.
And I began to resent anyone who spoke of my "rebellion".



No one found me.
No one heard me.
She's young, she's beautiful, she's always smiling, everyone loves her,
there is absolutely no reason to suspect that she might be falling apart.
If only she could stop getting so fat.



"the problem with being strong is that no one ever thinks to ask if you are ok."

But sometimes the hero, needs a hero. "Often the people with the strongest hearts, carry the heaviest ones."



One morning, at my desk a feeling had arrived:
"So do not be afraid for I am with you,
not be dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you and help you;
I will uphold you with my righteous right hand"



Isaiah 41:10.
HE HADN'T LEFT.


I understood why this was my verse, why always gravitated to this verse.
It was for me because fear had held me captive for such a long time.



This was the day I walked into the Dr's room with my trembling hands balled into a fist,
Knowing that something wasn't right, that I need help, but with no idea what to say was wrong.

"How can I help you"
And the words came "I'm overwhelmed"
To which the Dr replied: "It's good that you recognise that. Most people who are, don't recognise it."
One of the items on my prescription was Valium... oh Valium... Valium my Valium.
And for what felt like the first time in ages...I slept.
Like real sleep.
Uninterrupted, rejuvenating sleep.
An incident I remember is when a lady who was my consultant (manager) at the time had called my supervisor and I into her office to yell at us.
This wasn't an unusual event.
For the first minute or so I could hear everything she was saying,
But then something wonderful happened,
It was almost as if my brain had paused after the "re:" and calmly asked my soul "do you want to be bothered by this today?"
To which my soul responded: "Not in the least",
And in turn... my brain zoned out. almost completely.
It was as though I was hearing her speak from underwater.
-a chuckle-
That was what my medication did for me,
It slowed down my thoughts just enough to give me time to decided how I wanted to feel about them.
Before this, I was always buzzing, packing my thoughts onto each other and processing nothing.
Not giving me time to react, to feel... to deal.
Not leaving space for my mind to file anything.
So naturally, something had to give.
How could it not through all that chaos.



I cannot stress enough how getting help has saved my sanity.

And in the process of clearing out the fog, I found a very beautiful assurance:
I was never really alone.



Hi I'm Theri,
And I know what it is to wear your emotions underneath my skin.
There are still days where the hopelessness plagues me,
And sometimes I cuddle into it,
But I have found my own system (that no longer includes medication, and hasn't for more than a year) to ensure I don't setup camp and stay.
In a strange way, I have become friends with my storm.
I lost a bit of time (two and half years to be if we're being technical),
but in a weird way, I think I needed the downtime.
I find I articulate my feelings a lot better now, something I didn't know how to do before.

I still have fights with God and wonder where and why He goes, then I remember "Isaiah 41:10".


I am still unfolding.
Unparalysed.

:)



This is for a friend who's fingers I have watched tremble and who's tears live close to the surface.
I recognise you, because I have been you. I hope you find some light in all these words that have been scary to write.
And in the event that anyone else finds a reflection of their face in any of this unstructured verse, and for all the superheroes who need a hero,
I hope you find the peace you crave. I will write to you more, until the next text... trust in tomorrow.



All my love.