Feeling Low

Trigger warning – I talk about feelings which come close to depression

When you feel like everything you touch gets broken.

When you worry that every word you speak comes out confused and wrong.

When all you feel you’re leaving behind is dust.

When you want to just close your eyes and hope to fade away for a moment or two.

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I guess it’s obvious that today’s not my best day. As usual I’ve made some mistakes, some bigger than I wanted and I was lucky no harm came from them. Many days I wake to wonder if I can get through or if I’ll make some huge mistake. Some feel so big that I just want to curl back under the covers and hide til they go.

The thing is it’s not like I’m hugely important in the world – I’m not a surgeon or leader who’s every action could make or break the world – but I know that who I am and what I do impacts on others, however small an impact it may be.
I don’t like to admit these feelings are real and worth talking about because., well because there are others facing worse, fighting real demons, trying to change and heal real problems. I just feel like I’m whining about nothing.

Perhaps I am, but for me it’s a big nothing made up of all the little ones that have come before and which have lodged in the back of my mind, building up day by day.

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So why post this. Why share my personal shame/blame/failure/weakness/pain?
Because it’s not just mine. I may not know or understand the world but I think I’m not alone with this weight of my own creation. I can carry my weight, no matter how heavy, because I wont let others down by giving up, but that doesn’t help others who are hurting.

I could pretend so no one knows that I might share the same fears/hurts they do but all they end up is alone.
I only go on some days because I’ve learnt that the same inward guilt that cuts at me can be a stick to take my weight. The guilt of letting others down gives me the strength to carry the guilt of fearing I’ll let them down.

It’s a shadow that’s always going to be near, I guess, but that doesn’t mean it has to own me. I know I’m lucky to have had the support and have found the strength to stand but at least I can say, if any who haven’t had such luck read this, that this is real, it can be overcome ( even though sometimes it feels like you’ve failed- sometimes those are the days you’ve been strongest because you’ve carried that weight and are still there at the end ) day by day and you are important and worthy even when you can’t see it.

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I’d love to get used to the idea that life isn’t like the movies – there’s no instant knowledge of the right things to say in a conversation, there’s room to make mistakes at every turn because there’s no rehearsal, there are a hundred and one real things that have to be done that never get shown ( as a classic thought, where on the Enterprise are the toilets and who has to clean them? ). It can be hard to remember that life’s really a mess that we try to keep together every day, when everything we read, hear and see says it should be perfect.

So the biggest thing I want to say to those still reading is –

You’re ok to love your mistakes. They’re what make up this world and sometimes they can create the best of it