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Phew. that's a relief!
I thought I ought to let you know, should you all be fretting about my mental health, that things are not as bad as they could be. I had to run to Asda to get a few bits and pieces and I did not go in my T shirt with dinner on it, I also put a bra and shoes on. The day I feel hopeless enough to go as I am, in slippers, no bra and dribbly T shirt you won't know about it because I shall have asked someone heartless to shoot me.
I'm plodding, which is good enough for now, I keep having moments of glorious hope filled excitement followed by the slumping of slumps, bringing to mind the twee song we sang in a Panto one year, " Look at the bright side, feeling good is the right way to go, so keep your chin up and brighten your soul, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole!" Isn't that lovely?
I ate the doughnut and got stuck in the hole so bugger that for a game of soldiers.
Actually, I'm almost afraid to say in case I jinx it, I used to sing, all the time. Anywhere and everywhere I sang. In church and at weddings, in plays and in concerts, I sang and I was good at it ( though I say so myself, Blogs are not the place for humility, one ought to be able to blow your own trumpet and say it as it is on your own blog) So imagine my dismay when 5 years ago, right about the time my dad died, I lost the ability to sing. I would try and I could neither hear what was coming out from my mouth or control it. If I put my fingers in my ears I could hear but good grief, that noise was nothing to do with me, surely?
I tried not to worry and I would forget I couldn't sing anymore until I opened my mouth to sing along to some lovely tune or other and .....nothing, nothing but the odd completely out of tune warble. As time passed I became more and more sad about it and more and more puzzled because I have never heard of anyone who could sing becoming totally tone deaf before. Have you? What was happening to me. I mentioned it one day, after about a year, when I was sure I didn't have some painless throat malady or other and my doctor told me that it was almost certainly psychosomatic. I have spend so long not speaking about all the things that have made me so sad that my throat has quite literally shut itself down and now will not allow me to release even happy things.
How sad is that? It's terribly sad and also it makes me angry.
So here we are, 5 years on and I find that sometimes, I can sing. Oh it's such a splendid thing when it happens. The last 2 weeks I have even been able to sing in church which was, I'll be honest, the very worst place for me to try and sing, church has me all knotted up and dead inside, it is so dear to me, so important, so spiritual and EMOTIONAL that I find the only way I can get through it is to not listen, not think and wait until I can stand up and leave, breathing a sigh of relief that I managed another week of not letting go of all this emotion I have scrunched up and locked inside me.
I wonder, when this latest phase of twitch inducing stress if over, if I shall sit in a corner of my new home and stare at the lovely walls and rock for a week or 3. I can imagine I will blubber and stumble over my words and perhaps become a gardener and talk to my plants and tell them how crazy I used to be, back in the day and they won't believe me because I shall be so kind to them.
When you read or hear about depression it is so often described as being locked in a dark and miserable place and that's so true, except it isn't all of you that is locked in, only the inside. The outside can fool people and can appear completely normal and functioning and all the time you are smiling and telling people how fine you are, thank you. The inside is screaming " I'M NOT FINE! Can't you see? Why can't you SEE?" And you can watch other people being happy and having fun, all the time wondering how that feels. It gets old quite quickly.
So, the song is coming back and that is a very, very good thing indeed. I like to concentrate on the good things.
Singing and still wearing a bra when I go shopping, nothing to worry about here at all, Carry on.
I'm plodding, which is good enough for now, I keep having moments of glorious hope filled excitement followed by the slumping of slumps, bringing to mind the twee song we sang in a Panto one year, " Look at the bright side, feeling good is the right way to go, so keep your chin up and brighten your soul, keep your eye upon the doughnut and not upon the hole!" Isn't that lovely?
I ate the doughnut and got stuck in the hole so bugger that for a game of soldiers.
Actually, I'm almost afraid to say in case I jinx it, I used to sing, all the time. Anywhere and everywhere I sang. In church and at weddings, in plays and in concerts, I sang and I was good at it ( though I say so myself, Blogs are not the place for humility, one ought to be able to blow your own trumpet and say it as it is on your own blog) So imagine my dismay when 5 years ago, right about the time my dad died, I lost the ability to sing. I would try and I could neither hear what was coming out from my mouth or control it. If I put my fingers in my ears I could hear but good grief, that noise was nothing to do with me, surely?
I tried not to worry and I would forget I couldn't sing anymore until I opened my mouth to sing along to some lovely tune or other and .....nothing, nothing but the odd completely out of tune warble. As time passed I became more and more sad about it and more and more puzzled because I have never heard of anyone who could sing becoming totally tone deaf before. Have you? What was happening to me. I mentioned it one day, after about a year, when I was sure I didn't have some painless throat malady or other and my doctor told me that it was almost certainly psychosomatic. I have spend so long not speaking about all the things that have made me so sad that my throat has quite literally shut itself down and now will not allow me to release even happy things.
How sad is that? It's terribly sad and also it makes me angry.
So here we are, 5 years on and I find that sometimes, I can sing. Oh it's such a splendid thing when it happens. The last 2 weeks I have even been able to sing in church which was, I'll be honest, the very worst place for me to try and sing, church has me all knotted up and dead inside, it is so dear to me, so important, so spiritual and EMOTIONAL that I find the only way I can get through it is to not listen, not think and wait until I can stand up and leave, breathing a sigh of relief that I managed another week of not letting go of all this emotion I have scrunched up and locked inside me.
I wonder, when this latest phase of twitch inducing stress if over, if I shall sit in a corner of my new home and stare at the lovely walls and rock for a week or 3. I can imagine I will blubber and stumble over my words and perhaps become a gardener and talk to my plants and tell them how crazy I used to be, back in the day and they won't believe me because I shall be so kind to them.
When you read or hear about depression it is so often described as being locked in a dark and miserable place and that's so true, except it isn't all of you that is locked in, only the inside. The outside can fool people and can appear completely normal and functioning and all the time you are smiling and telling people how fine you are, thank you. The inside is screaming " I'M NOT FINE! Can't you see? Why can't you SEE?" And you can watch other people being happy and having fun, all the time wondering how that feels. It gets old quite quickly.
So, the song is coming back and that is a very, very good thing indeed. I like to concentrate on the good things.
Singing and still wearing a bra when I go shopping, nothing to worry about here at all, Carry on.
Labels: depression
posted by The other me | 6:40 pm
3 Comments:
I am so happy to hear that your undoubtably beautiful voice is coming back you you. Love you!
I <3 that your regaining your voice. I also love that you're able to truly try to hear what He is telling you at church. He sure digs in deep when you're there and it can be disconcerting and daunting even for those who aren't going through a difficult time so it is a near impossible experience to go through when you're not in a good place. I love you with all my heart Helen (and would happily come and kick the ass of anyone who would try to shoot you whether you're hanging in the breeze or not!). I pray those moments of being able to sing and those moments of happiness peer through the clouds even more with each passing day.
Your last paragraph describes my past three years or so. I was fine on the outside, dying on the inside. It's a dark place and it feels so good to get out of it.
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