My daughter called a little while ago to check on me, knowing that I had had a hard weekend. I really thought it would lift by today but it hasn’t. It is a bad one.

It is like trying to walk through a river of molasses, tears keep falling, and I am paralyzed. I am pushing hard to write this blog post but what I know is that when I can make myself it seems to help others as well and that is an impetus.

This time it is so bad I haven’t been able to go out and get the trash barrels in that I put out Thursday night. I haven’t been able to go out and get the mail since Friday. It is at the other side of the street from my house and I just can’t see other people now. I feel afraid.

I said to my daughter today that something very odd and hard happens to me. I know that I have 5 mental health diagnoses and 5 medications for same, but I get this divided sort of feeling that while I know all of that is true, really I am “normal,” and as such (the make-believe “normal”) I am a lazy loser for not being able to do so many things, for the house being a mess, for not being able to get ANY work done, for feeling like I will never get anything done, and hence perceiving that I am “normal” my shame and despair rise to an acute level. I have only been having to take half doses of 2 of my meds. Today I had to take the whole things.

Breathing is hard, feeling so heavy it is hard to lift my feet to walk, they are like leaden weights. I feel fat and ugly and though no one will ever love me. How could they? I feel very afraid about money since I have now been turned down for disability for the 3rd time. I feel like nothing will ever be okay.

Of course many of these things are distortions but some of them are very real and that knowledge is blown up 10x their size and weight when walking across the floor is so hard.

But still… I try not to let go of the knowledge that somewhere there is light as well as the darkness, and soon it will once again be revealed. I am writing a book called “As Solitary As An Oyster” and it is a non-fiction book about trying to find the pearl inside of the oyster, inside of this life of mine where darkness descends and engulfs me all too often. And the thing is I know that the pearl, as well as the light, are present somewhere, just out of my reach. That’s how the meds help me, that’s why I am no longer suicidal, but it is still heartbreakingly hard. And right now I can’t even work on the book. It is too hard when somehow the lights got turned off inside of me.

So I hold on, I do. Over the weekend which was really hard — weekends are always worse for me — I made myself journal a few times, painted a little, did a few things here at my desk, but I couldn’t get up and do things that required walking around, like cleaning. There was, in otherwords, some forward momentum, but I couldn’t seem to focus on that but on all of the things I couldn’t do.

Deep breath. It will pass Maitri, it will pass. Hold on, hold on, I am holding on.

I will do the best that I can and try to be gentler with myself. No, I am not “normal” but nor am I a bad person. If you are feeling like this or something akin to it hold on dearheart, we can do this, we really can.

Take a breath. Gather up the pugs and give them kisses. I have an appointment with a new therapist on Wednesday and this will hopefully be the beginning of a new path toward better days. I always hope that this will be true. For over 40 years I have hoped that this would be true, through countless therapists and numerous medications, I always hope, and sometimes it is, for awhile.

I am holding on. I will continue to hold on.