How do we cope with the most heartbreaking loss of a lifetime? The most terrible mistake? Something born of an illness so deep and so terrible and unknown to us until it was too late?
At 45 I made a rash decision that altered the whole course of my life. It was the beginning of a time that, after a lifetime of suffering with depression, anxiety and PTSD from longterm sexual abuse I would be diagnosed as bipolar. But the diagnosis came too late, the damage had been done, my life had been shattered, there was no making things right again.
And the thing is there was such a fog of unknowingness due to mental illness that I didn’t even realize, for years, what terrible damage I had done, to myself, and to others. The others survived and went on with their lives but my own life was shattered and I cannot get it back.
I have tried, oh my word how I have tried. When I bought this house, in 2010, with some money left to me after my mother died in 2009, I thought perhaps that I could turn a corner and build a new life, and I tried, and things looked good for awhile, but I was still not well — I didn’t realize how unwell I was — and then there was the fire in 2014 — and mired in so much loss I was not able to regain my footing.
Endless ongoing years of therapy to this day and going forward help me cope. I am off medication and really, at this point, medication wouldn’t make a difference. You can’t medicate away bad choices, you have to live with them. But what if the loss is so great your broken heart will never heal? What then?
And the astonishing thing, to me, in this moment, as I write this, is that it took going off medication, which I did the beginning of this year, to fully wake up enough to realize how deep and profound the loss was. That is the thing about medication. It can be life-saving, and I will tell you right now that if I had to go back on medication at some point I would. I know, without a shadow of a doubt, that it saved my life. I also know that for many years I was overmedicated and that wasn’t a good thing either. What is happening now, I realize, is that off medication I am waking up to the truth of my life and the sense of loss cuts so deep I am not sure how I will get past it.
In this post I cannot be more specific about what the bad choice was because it involves other people. I am open and honest on my blog, always, wherein it only affects me but I fiercely guard the privacy of those I love. Suffice it to say that this blog post is a question of sorts, something I am asking myself now. How do we ever get past the bad choices we made in the throes of mental illness? How do we cope with these things and move on? And what if the choice was so monumentally bad that it means that we will be lost and alone for the rest our lives? What if we can’t handle the piercing loneliness and at the same time have no choice? What if the consequences of our actions mean that we will never know any kind of security for the rest of our lives and, unable to cope with the knowledge of that we find it hard to move forward at all? What then?
This is what I am trying to figure out. Because in the worst of the throes of the fear that I feel I know that surely I have to go on, that I have to move forward, that there is no turning back, that what was done was done, and that my ability, I will even go so far as to say my willingness, to try to go on affects the people that I love. I am having a hard time trying to figure out how to do this just for me but if I don’t find a way to move forward in a constructive fashion it will affect my children. I won’t have that. I can and will do what I have to do for them.
But just now I don’t know how, and tonight my heart hurts.
Perhaps the rest of this 365 Day Experiment needs to be about facing the choices we have made, and making the best of the life that we have left to us. If I can find happiness in my life, given all of this, I will surely have achieved something. Tonight I don’t know how I will achieve this but I know it has to be possible. If I didn’t believe that I could not go on. And I will go on because I have no other choice. But tonight, no, tonight, in this blog post, I am simply drawing a line in the sand. On one side of the line is devastating loss, too hard to bear, unbearable, no way to go on. On the other side of the line is me going on anyway, moving forward, healing, figuring it out. I don’t know how to do this at all but tonight I have stepped over the line and that is enough.
The Experiment ~A 365 Day Search For Truth, Beauty &
Happiness: Day 1 ~ Introduction To The Project
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
Yoda
I love you.
Thank you for sharing your vulnerability.
It sets all of us free.
Thank you so much dear Beverley, you are so dear to me, I look so forward to having you in our Sunday night group, you will be a gift to us all.
Until then I am sending you a hug and so much love…
Maitri
I understand where you are right now. Charlie has gone through it also.
What I tell him or told him you are bipolar it is a mental illness. one part of the body.
in the past you made some awful choices. face it, accept it and let it go. do better, be the man i know you can be and when you have a hard time reach out to me to dave to someone.
Understand the triggers cause they will always be there and how to handle them.
I told him you have a right to be happy .. you have the right to be the husband I know you can be.. so move through the walls talk it out pray it out .. put the blackness in a rock and throw it in the lake.
I guess what I am trying to say is you will figure it out Maitri cause you have opened the door and for you there is no going back … brave on you have a wonderful support system behind you.
It is to feel what you are feeling 🙂
Even with all the dark time behind you .. each one lead you here to this point .. also all the light and love has lead you to this point!
so snuggle with the pugs and sleep and know I am that pink fuzzy around you.. that is my love for you.
Oh dear Julia, what a gift you are… to your dear Charlie, to me, to us all…
I am just so incredibly sad. So lost and so lonely. But I know what you went through in your first marriage that wasn’t right for your soul. And I see, despite problems and hardships, the incredible love you feel for your Charlie. And I so long to find a love like that in my life.
I am so happy that you have found that. And I am so happy that you are in my life and in our Sunday group. What dear special women are there. Thank you. I feel so loved and supported by you and I am more deeply grateful than you will ever know.
Thank you dear Julia, I love you. Stay close. You help me more than you could possibly know…
Dear sweet soul. You start by crying out which you have done so beautifully, so eloquently. Then you breathe and take one step at a time.
You lean on those of us who love you for everything you are today. You, the magical Maitri, were born of the choices you made and I am so glad to know you in this moment.
You forgive yourself for being human, for being the host of an illness of which you had little control.
You go gently because you are important to me and so many others. You breathe in and breathe out. You have something special inside you, Maitri – a gift. A gift which you have given freely and lovingly. But you do not always need to be the giver. Let us give to you.
Above all else, you remember you are not alone. We are here to hold you up and see you through. I am sorry you are hurting on this night. I hold you deep in my prayers tonight, wrapped in softness.
Oh Dear Beautiful Maggie you have no idea how much your kind words mean to me tonight. And how much it means to me that you are in our precious Sunday group, and how it was you, yes you, who woke me up to realizing that the intimacy we share in that group was far too precious to risk by allowing more people in just now. This group is so precious to me, YOU are so precious to me. You all are.
When I read your words I feel less alone, thank you honey, it eases the pain. And isn’t that what we need, most of all, to know? To be alive, to be human, is to suffer, there’s no way to avoid it, but we do not have to be alone. There is incredible magic happening in our Sunday night group. Thank you so much for being part of it honey. I wish I could hug you in person but know that I am sending you a warm gentle hug. And now I am ready to get offline. I finally showered and ate a little. Tomorrow is another day.
Thank you honey, I love you…
Maitri,
Sending love. It’s hard to think back about choices made, that may not have been good ones, but you were doing your best at the time.
You have 3 wonderful children, plus grandchildren— that’s the blessing.
Hugs, Lisa
Thank you Lisa, I appreciate your kind thoughts, the love and the hugs, I needed those, they really mean a lot. And yes, my children and my grandchildren, my sweet pugs, so many blessings. And all of you, you all mean more to me than I can say.
Today is another day. I have coffee, my sweet baby pugs are here, I’ve fed my tiny beautiful Beta fish Vincent, there are birds singing outside, life goes on…
L et it go
O pen to now
S oon your
S oul will know serenity
may it be so xo ka
Thank you dear Ka, that is beautiful, may it be so indeed…
M. xoxox
I have no words.
I HEAR you.
I SEE you.
You MATTER.
Holding you in my heart, with love.
Thank you so much dear Trece, for being here. You did have words and they were enough. Bless you honey…
Maitri,
The wonderful words from those who have posted say it all.
We make decisions with what we know. Unfortunately what we perceive to be true and real aren’t always so. We do the best we can. We struggle, we fall, we pick ourselves up and try again to do the best we can with what we know and have learned.
You are so loved by so many. You do so much for so many. Your heart is so giving.
Thank you for being you.
Gentle hugs,
Lauren
Oh dear Lauren thank you so much for your gentle kindness, for your support, and for being part of this special group on Sundays and in the FB group. It means so much to have you there, and I am hugging you right back and holding on for just a moment. Thank you honey…
Maitri
The first thing that came into my head was Compassion. Give yourself the same Compassion that you would give anyone else in this situation. You are just as worthy, if not more so. Then tell your inner Judge to take a long walk off a short pier. You can’t do anything that your Higher Power won’t forgive you for, IMO.
Then delete “always” and “never” from your vocabulary. Polarized Thinking keeps us stuck. Look for the Both/And possibilities.
The future is unknown to us; we can’t see it in its totality. We might get glimpses of possibilities if we’re lucky. Why not start searching for positive possibilities? There is much power in a strong intention, spoken from your core…that’s how Jonathan and I found each other. 🙂