Flippin heck I'm getting better!

Well wouldn't you know, after 4 weeks the medication has kicked in and as if by magic, the horrors in my mind subside, I feel less like I'm walking through treacle and I actually laugh with feeling. Its an improvement for sure, but its not perfect just yet. I can breathe without forcing  myself to take a breath, the light doesn't appear too bright to see and food tastes better. I begin to realise that I've been living like a television, switched on to standby and waiting for someone to press the "on"  button on the remote control. I am popping and fizzing a bit, the picture is still fuzzy but its there, and its in colour.

Its a novelty to be able to wake up in the morning and actually feel like you have have slept, instead of waking up with your stomach falling through the bed, and the dread and fear of the coming day penetrating your every fibre. I dare to hope that I may actually continue to improve and one day, be able to rejoin the human race. I  become fully aware, for the first time, how ill I have actually been. Its a frightening truth to comprehend and I fear a relapse into the well of despair.

Depression makes you feel that you have been away somewhere and in recovery you are experiencing a homecoming and a new reconnection with the world around you. Sylvia Plath wrote, "I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, 'This is what it is to be happy.'" ( Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar, Chapter 8) The doorway of your chest opens up and you feel cleansed of the blackness.A weightlessness forces itself amongst the tangled ropes holding you down and you feel truly free.

I want to celebrate and rush into my life with eagerness and excitement, but I am told to have patience and prudence as my illness is unpredictable and mercurial. I must hold it in check with the correct balance of respect and disdain. I must try to take back some control of the beast, face it head on and not let it chase me back in to insanity. The work begins now.