Monday 15 June 2015

Revival

It's been more than a month since I last wrote. I couldn't lift the silence as I didn't know what to say or how to say that I didn't know what to say. I had typed out one paragraph about how things were going, but that wasn't really a substantial amount for a blog post. I feel I am now ready to express myself once more. Since the last time I posted, things have progressed positively. I am now undertaking Low Intensity Exposure Therapy and I am glad to report that it is finally helping. We started off with me taking walks at night, as this was the time I felt less anxious to be outside, and today I have been told I am ready to undertake the walks gradually towards the daytime. Though I am still full of anxiety and feeling depressed, I am beginning to have moments of 'clarity'. And it is in these moments that I am beginning to build up my strength and determination to begin my assignments. And it is also in these moments that I feel inspiration to write a little bit of my novel. I still have little gaps in my memory and for a while keeping up with the world news became a chore, though I think a lot of it was because the news the world had to give was rather grim.

Life is still a chore. It's not so much a suffering as it is a struggle to keep up and keep going. I think for me the worst thing is the self-doubt and the voice in my head that keeps putting me down. It doesn't say 'You are...', in fact it says 'I am...' which I believe is even worse because it feels like I am those horrible things. For the last 8 weeks I kept thinking back to when my father told me I wasn't academically inclined, and an overwhelming part of me believed him. He also used to say, as an insult, that I would end up working in a Fish and Chips shop. For the last 8 weeks I felt I couldn't even do that. I was even lower than that.

Slowly though this has begun to change. The amount of work I have to hand in had turned into peaks that I could never reach, today they feel like hurdles that I will overcome. This level of certainty and determination is something I felt when I began my degree, it's a feeling so old, yet such a familiar part of me. It feels like it was hidden away under the many layers of such self doubt that cleared away enough for it to rise once more. I think this change in myself also has a lot to do with an event that took place last week, when I saw my brother face to face for the first time in 10 years. It became clear that my father has not changed, in fact it is now my brother who has taken my place. After I saw him I realised that I had spent far too long on worrying about meeting my father's expectations, and while trying to run away from his shadow I had inevitably let it envelope my own soul. Even though I had left home, I did not leave him behind. I realised that just like I was never good enough for him, no one would ever be good enough for me until I shed away his thoughts about me. It is not an easy admission to make, especially as I always excused that part of me with ambition but all along it was his expectations of me that I also reflected onto others.

I feel like I am going through a spiritual rebirth. I want to use the knowledge I have today and wake up tomorrow not feeling as crap as I did yesterday. I am hopeful, no- I am certain that I will become my own person one day, unhinged by a man who has no bearing in my life any more.

Until next time,
Sen x