Writing about poor mental health without oversharing, apologising, triggering or diminishing

How does someone do that? When Nietzsche said "And if you gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into you," he was talking about fighting monsters. I don’t see it that way. To me, the abyss is the black hole inside us that holds sadness and loss and difficult feelings. The things we never processed. I didn’t mean to look into it, but once I did, I couldn’t look away.

It soon got to a point where any small suffering became too much for me, even when it was not mine. I worried about ants. I felt sorry for the soles of my shoes. The world felt too anguished. I was in a crowd of people all going very confidently the opposite way. I was hunched over, weighed down. I was wrong.

I didn’t see the point of anything. I didn’t know why we were here, why we had to be here, faffing about, disappointing others and being disappointed. I wanted to go to sleep for a very long time. "Stop the world," as the Stone Roses sang. "I’m getting off."

Telling myself to count my blessings made it worse. Comparing my woes to the those of other people wasn't helpful. I’m already medicated to the max. There was no pill, no button. All I could do was feel isolated, detached, angry and lost. My therapist was worried about my mental state. This made me incredibly worried about it. I wanted to be told I was fine. Instead, the doctor called me each day to ask if I’d had suicidal thoughts. The Wellbeing Centre called. There was an enquiry from social workers. I felt seconds away from being sectioned. I was mentally scrabbling in the dirt to try and find the bottom. Something solid, somewhere safe. I thought I was going to unspool, messily.

I’ve always believed in hard work. If all it takes to go where I want or need to be is physical labour, bring it on. I am a donkey, and I will follow carrots. I like boring repetitive tasks. But this wasn’t like that. This work involved sitting with horrible feelings and trying to be curious about them, when all I wanted to do was tell them to fuck the fuck off. I wanted to run away from myself. I have a persecutory voice in my head and it was winning the thumb war that we've been playing these long years. It was putting hotels on Monopoly Park Lane. I was stuck in jail, penniless.

All I wanted was to feel like myself again. To be able to read a book, to sleep without having nightmares, to feel like I was in the room with my family, not watching them from very far away. All I wanted was for the fog to lift. 

I don’t know how to feel. How about that?  I thought I did, but I don’t. I like to keep my mind and body very busy and never stop to acknowledge anything, be it joy or misery. I didn’t know I did this until I couldn’t do it anymore. Oh, bring back my cape of power; let me be a hamster on a wheel firmly believing it is getting somewhere. Persecutory Ericka is a killjoy, a bore, the breaker of crockery (and the very expensive bits that sit over gas rings, sorry again about that).

Getting better is a dance. One step forward, two steps back. Sometimes, happiness is possible. It's the hot cup of Earl Grey in my hands. I notice the birds and the apple tree budding and the sound of the cat purring. I do a little dance as the kettle boils, laugh at the dogs being dogs. I have written a first chapter of something. I have eaten ice cream dough balls covered in sprinkles and felt nothing but delight.

Other times, the cloud descends, and I lie under my weighted blanket holding my own hand, just trying to breathe it through. I worry I'll open the car door when I'm driving. I worry that I'll lose the thread again. I don't want to go back to the doctor and spill my guts all over the blue carpet tiles.

Today is a good day. Today I feel well enough to share this with you.

Here’s a short story. The very first day I dropped my eldest daughter to our local preschool, I had newborn Daisy in my arms. Tired (and deluded), I turned to the woman next to me and said, "it’s hard, isn’t it? When they don’t sleep..." I was looking for a connection. Maybe even forgiveness that right then, at that second, I wasn’t enjoying myself.

"Oh, I have to wake my baby up in the morning, she sleeps so well," the woman next to me replied. It was almost 15 years ago but I still think about it.

I don’t ever want to make anyone feel the way I have felt. The way I have allowed other people to make me feel. Comparing ourselves to everyone else is a waste of time, but I’m guilty of it. For those of you whose mental health is a car with a slow puncture, a missing brake light and no wiper fluid, I see you. I feel you. I hit the speed bumps a bit too hard as well. Me too, me too, me too. I feel exposed in writing this (like Enzo with his haircut) but until we talk about this stuff, it will always be coated in shame.