I’m not ok. I’m not ok in the slightest. I’m drowning in confusion and loss and grief.
Something happened at the end of August that has shaken what I thought I understood about myself and the world more than anything else has in a very long time.
I go to bed every night hoping that tomorrow will be the day I turn a corner. That my stomach isn’t churning on waking. That my dreams aren’t prickly and dark. But that day hasn’t happened yet. So I cry and I cry some more.
I cry for the deep sense of distrust that has been awakened in me that I thought I had put to bed. I cry for the work I must now do before being ready to trust again..I cry for what I thought I understood about how the world works. I cry for the self-hatred that has risen in me.
But I can’t cry all the time, so I keep busy. Constantly. Because as long as I’m having to perform for others, I can hold back the tears.
I meet my responsibilities and commitments. Because they don’t just go away. I go to work and I shower and I go to medical appointments and I reply to messages and I pay my bills. I repeat the following matra on a loop ‘Do it while drowning because in future you will be grateful*. So I do it but not with heart.
I can’t tell what people have noticed and haven’t. I feel like I’m seeping noxious gas everywhere I go, bringing down the moods and energy of those around me. The more emotionally in tune, people have noticed something, they look over me with curiosity when I go quiet. Because that’s not what Moomin does. Moomin’s personality is as loud as their look.
But it’s all an act. I’m laughing harder and making worse jokes than ever because no one wants to be around someone miserable and distrusting. And I’m hoping that one day soon, my laugh and the jokes will be said with a lightness not as a facade and shield.
So I’ll keep going, doing it whilst drowning because I’ve survived far, far worse things than this in the hopes that soon I can drift instead of drown. But I don’t know when that’ll be.