Felicity Banks

Falling

October 30, 2009 at 11:32 am (Mental illness)

I’m beginning to think having a breakdown is an annual event for me. As the weeks and days and hours pass, I can feel myself getting crazier. I’m less coordinated, more frightened, more angry, less rational – and I don’t know how long I’ll keep getting worse. More importantly, I don’t know where my personal rock bottom is. Or who I’ll take with me. I do know that I snap fast and violently when I snap.

I’ve just started taking my happy pills again, and I’m changing my contraceptive pill. Who knows? Maybe something will make things better.

My bedroom window, by a quirk of architecture, faces our nearest neighbour’s driveway. A young family lives there, and I see the mum a lot during the day, though I’ve never actually spoken to any of them. The other day I was lying down with the curtains and the window open. I clearly heard one of the children telling a visitor, “That lady lies down a lot.”

It’s true. I sleep a lot during the day (a classic mentally ill thing to do, but in my case I am fortunate to also sleep at night), and when I get overwhelmed – too overwhelmed to read, or listen to music, or watch TV – I lie in bed and look at the sky. Sometimes for hours.

The up side of my current mental breakdown is that not only can I see it coming (and prepare for it to a certain extent), but I know exactly what is causing it: waiting for a publisher to reply to a book (I already know they really like it – but that’s never yet been enough).

I watched “The Shawshank Redemption” last night. I disagree with the main character (and theme). In my opinion, hope is bad. It’s deadly poison to the powerless, and it’s killing me now.

It’s not the publisher’s fault – nor is it mine. I just hope I get a reply soon.