By Cecile Weigle
Note: I shared this from my journal in hopes that my ability to articulate what’s happening in my head and my world in the recent past can help YOU uncover and navigate your experiences with mental health.
Drowning
Despair and desperation create a killer cocktail of self-medicating avoidance. Hopeless and anxious, fear pulses through my veins. I drown my sorrows with food, drugs, alcohol, shopping, and “friends”.The whole time thinking, “Is this it? Is this all there is to life?”
I numb to avoid the ping pong ball of thoughts inside my head that endlessly bounces from one topic to the next. The place where my brain does the unwelcome dance with darkness. And it lies to me with sweet whispers of ways to make it easier, because I’m just so damn tired of it being hard. It seduces me with the dangerous, yet far to easy, path to ease.
But I fear feeling the nakedness beneath the pain and craziness inside my head. The pain is too intense. It’s like a hose spraying water in my face, unable to turn my head or make the water stop. Drowning, yet still alive.
I fear facing the fear itself for it will break me, I am sure of it. I’m not strong enough to survive the pain I’ll face when I turn toward that which I’m running from. Surely, it will kill me.
This place is hell on earth.
Desires
I want to be present, for I know in the depths of my soul that I will find the peace I desperately desire in the present moment. I want freedom from the pain that pulls me into living a life numbed-out. Freedom from drowning and heartache. Freedom from feeling like I’ve lost my mind.
I want to follow what’s happening on the other side; to the side of understanding and clarity.
But really, deep down inside my soul, I just want to feel at peace. And the road to peace is through the gateway of self love and presence. A land of silence and stillness.